She looks back at the fire. “So, you ask me what being a lawyer is like? It’s realizing that you’re the only one playing by the rules while everyone else is screwing you over.”
I’m speechless. I look at this woman—this fierce, angry, controlling woman—and I see the cracks clearly now. The control isn’t just her shield, it’s who she has had to be for a very long time. It’s a way of protecting herself.
I want to protect her too.
“Can I?” I ask, opening my arms.
She looks at me, her eyes red-rimmed and vulnerable. She hesitates for only a second before she nods.
I shift closer and pull her against my side. She rests her head on my shoulder, her body melting into mine. She’s still shivering, but the panic is subsiding, replaced by a heavy, exhausted sadness.
I hold her, my chin resting on top of her wet head.
“I’m embarrassed,” she whispers into my shirt. “I shouldn’t have told you that. I don’t know why I did.”
“I’m glad you did,” I say honestly. “It explains why you hate us so much.”
She lets out a wet laugh. “I don’t hate you. I just... I don’t trust anyone.”
“Smart,” I say.
I look at the fire, thinking about her story. Thinking about the betrayal. It makes my own past rise up, unbidden.
“I get it,” I say after a while. “More than you know.”
She shifts, looking up at me. “You do?”
I nod. I stare into the flames, seeing a different time. A different house.
“I had a pack once,” I say. The words feel foreign in my mouth. I haven’t spoken about this in years. “Back in Texas. Before I came here.”
“You were part of a pack?” she asks, surprised.
“Yeah,” I say. “I thought it was everything. I was the Prime. The Alpha. We had a house, a business, an Omega named Elara. She was sweet. Or so I thought.”
I feel Saramaria tense against me, but she doesn’t pull away.
“It started small,” I continue. “Little comments. ‘Someone said this,’ or ‘the other Alpha doesn’t respect me.’ She would pit us against each other. Twist our words. Make us compete for her attention.”
I shake my head, remembering the toxicity. “I lost my taste for it. I realized that the bond, the pack dynamics... it can be beautiful. But it can also be a weapon. She turned us into enemies. We tore each other apart. By the time I realized what she was doing, the pack was broken. The business was gone. And I was gone.”
I look down at Saramaria. Her green eyes are wide, fixed on my face.
“So I came here,” I say. “I decided I was done. No more packs. No more Omegas. Just me. Just the land. Things that make sense. Things that don’t lie.”
She absorbs this, processing the weight of my confession. It explains the distance I keep. It explains why I’m the one who handles the books and the fences and stays out of the emotional fray.
“Until now,” she says quietly.
“Until what?”
“Until me,” she says. “You said you were done. But you’re here. With Knox and Boone. And... with me.”
I let out a breath. “Yeah.”
“Why?” she asks. “Why stay? Why help me? Why give me the papers?”
I look at her. Really look at her. At the smudge of soot on her nose. At the stubborn set of her chin. At the vulnerability she tries so hard to hide.
