Kastiel had been in his office when the message came through.
An alert, urgent and blinking on the secure screen built into his desk.
Incident: Central Park Gardens.
Fire.
Multiple civilian reports.
The central garden park was more than a park.
It was the heart of the territory for so many.
Children played there every day after school.
Adults walked the trails to clear their heads.
It was supposed to be safe.
It was supposed to be a place of peace.
He didn’t know what he was expecting when his car pulled up to the scene, but it was definitely not a fire this big.
From the street, he could see the smoke.
It was a thick, ugly column of grey and black, rising high into the cold afternoon sky.
It didn’t look real.
It looked like a picture of a disaster.
The smell hit him even before he opened the car door, the sharp, acidic stink of burning wood and plastic, cutting through the crisp autumn air.
Kastiel’s mind raced.
What had caused this?
A campfire gone wrong?
They were strictly controlled.
A wildfire?
But it wasn’t the blistering heat of summer.
It was the damp, cold edge of late fall.
In fact, the air had that heavy, quiet feeling that comes right before snow.
Any day now, the first flakes would fall.
This fire made no sense.
The wrongness of it settled in his gut like a stone.
He stepped out of the car.
The crowd of people packed behind the safety barriers, hundreds of them, their faces pale and streaked with tears, parted for him instantly.
A path opened up without a word being spoken.
“The Alpha is here,” someone whispered.
The words spread through the crowd like a ripple.
He saw it in their eyes as he passed.
The blind panic didn’t leave, but it was joined by something else: a desperate, clinging hope.
He’s here.
He’ll fix it.
The weight of that trust was a physical thing on his shoulders.
He gave one short, sharp nod to the crowd, and moved toward the command post.
Then he heard the shouting.
“Sir, stop! You can’t go in there!”
His head snapped toward the park entrance.
A man with a flash of blonde hair was shoving past a female enforcer.
He moved with a frantic, reckless speed, ducking under the safety tape and sprinting into the wall of smoke before anyone could grab him.
Two enforcers broke ranks to chase him, but the man was already disappearing into the grey haze.
“What is going on?” Kastiel’s voice was low, but it cut through the noise.
He was suddenly beside Sophie, the leader of the rescue team.
Her face was smudged with ash, her expression tight with stress and now, pure frustration.
“Him” she said, jerking her thumb toward where the man had vanished.
“He was just standing here. Asked if this was everyone we’d gotten out. I told him we lost access to the north side. He said ‘the pups,’ and then… he just bolted. Ran straight into it.” She shook her head.
“It’s a suicide run. The north sector is fully involved. The wind is pushing the fire that way.”
The pups.
The words locked into place in Kastiel’s mind.
Maybe his pups were in there.
“I’ll go after him,” Kastiel said.
His tone left no room for argument.
He was already shrugging off his heavy coat, handing it to a stunned aide.
“You remain here and control the crowd. They need to see you in command.”
“Alpha, with respect, the structural integrity is failing, the heat—” Sophie started, her professional concern warring with her duty to obey.
“That is an order, Sophie.” His red eyes held hers for less than a second.
The protest died.
“That man is a pack member in immediate danger. And he believes there are children in there. I will retrieve them.”
He didn’t wait.
He turned and ran.
The park was a nightmare.
The beautiful trees were towering torches.
The cheerful, painted playground equipment was melted and black.
The air roared with the sound of the fire eating everything in its path.
The smell was worse inside—thick, choking smoke and the sickly-sweet scent of burning sap.
He slowed, his enhanced senses slicing through the chaos.
He listened past the roar.
For a cough.
A cry.
A heartbeat.
And then he saw them.
The dead.
People caught by the fire before they could run.
Bodies charred and still among the ashes.
His jaw tightened.
He looked away and continued searching for others. The source of this chapter is g.com.
He followed the scent.
The unique, faint trace of the blonde man led him north, deeper into the worst of it.
He found them in a small, rocky hollow near the old creek bed.
A natural depression that had offered a sliver of protection from the worst of the flames.
There were more people than he expected.
Maybe twenty, thirty.
Mostly children, huddled together with a few terrified adults.
They had seen the fire early and run here, trapped by the ring of fire that now surrounded the high ground.
The blonde man was at the center of the group.
He had a little girl with ginger hair clutched in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder.
He was using his body as a shield between the kids and the radiating heat.
His voice, though rough with smoke, was calm.
“Shh, it’s okay,” he was saying to a crying boy.
“I’m here now. We’re going to be okay. Just stay low.”
“The Alpha is here!”
A man’s voice from the back of the group was filled with stunned relief.
Every head turned.
Every pair of soot-streaked, tear-filled eyes fixed on him as he stepped into the hollow.
A wave of palpable relief washed over the huddled group.
Whimpers turned to soft cries of hope.
People began to stand, as if his presence alone had broken the spell of their terror.
But Kastiel’s gaze went past all of them.
It landed on the blonde man.
The man looked up, his amber eyes meeting Kastiel’s across the smoky space.
Recognition was instant and electric.
Kastiel knew him immediately.
The man from the gates months ago, covered in blood and collapsing at his feet.
The man in the hospital bed, fighting the IVs with wild, terrified eyes.
Holland.
And now here he was, in the middle of a firestorm, covered in ash, with a child in his arms and a circle of other pups looking to him for safety.
Their eyes held for a heartbeat that contained the past five months of distance and mystery.
Then, Kastiel’s Alpha instincts took over.
The assessment was swift.
The group was trapped.
The fire was closing in.
They needed to find a way out.
He didn’t speak to the crowd.
He spoke directly to Holland, his voice a low, commanding rumble that carried absolute authority.
“Can you walk?” Kastiel asked.