After being in the water for what felt like hours, we finally got to land.
Somewhere far from the fire and all the smoke and the screaming.
The air here was clean, cold, and still.
It felt like a different planet.
Paramedics and pack enforcers swarmed the bank, wrapping people in foil blankets, checking for injuries.
The kids’ parents found them, and the sounds of tearful reunions filled the night, sobbing, laughter, tight hugs and murmured prayers of thanks.
They hugged the children, then they hugged me, their faces wet with tears as they thanked me for risking my life to save their pups.
I just nodded, my throat too tight to speak.
I hadn’t done anything special.
I’d just followed them into the water.
Now, wrapped in a thin, scratchy towel from the rescue supplies, I sat quietly on the open tailgate of an emergency vehicle, watching.
The scene had a strange, slow-motion quality to it.
The adrenaline was gone, leaving a hollow, shivering exhaustion in its place.
My phone was a ruined block of plastic and circuitry in my soaked pocket.
Destroyed by the water.
I bet Soren and Jamie were worried as hell.
I’d missed our meet-up entirely.
I imagined them at Jamie’s shop, waiting, then calling.
Oh, they were going to be so annoyed with me.
I watched the Alpha move through the scattered groups of survivors.
He moved from family to family, stopping to speak with each one.
He’d crouch down to a child’s level or place a steadying hand on a shaken adult’s shoulder.
His voice was too low to hear from where I sat, but the effect was visible.
Postures straightened.
Tears were wiped away with new determination.
You could definitely see that the people of Novaterra loved their leader.
They didn’t just respect him out of fear; they looked at him with a kind of fierce, grateful devotion.
They thanked him with genuine smiles, and some of the older pack members even hugged him, and he accepted it, a brief.
It was something that would never have happened in the Forest Pack.
There, thanking the Alpha was a formal, kneeling ceremony.
Touching him without permission was a death wish.
Watching these casual, heartfelt interactions was… lovely.
And the Alpha himself… he was also very handsome.
Now that we weren’t running for our lives, I could actually look at him.
Those striking red eyes of his looked so good on him, a stark, otherworldly contrast to his sharp features and his hair, which was so black it seemed to absorb the flashing emergency lights.
It was a pure, deep black, like a raven’s wing or a moonless night sky.
Novaterra was filled with a lot of handsome men but he could easily top them all.
Alphas had never been that attractive to me.
Most of them were all about power us.
But he looked so good, damn it.
It was unfair.
He had his long-sleeved shirt rolled up to his elbows, exposing his forearms as he helped a medic lift a stretcher.
His hands… they looked capable.
Strong, with long fingers and clean lines.
I had a stupid thought.
It was childish and I don’t even know why I even had it.
I wnted him to use those hands on me.
I wanted to feel the strength of it.
I didn’t want him to hurt me, I just wanted to feel how his hands would feel on me.
To feel it slid into me.
As if he’d heard the thought, the Alpha turned, his gaze cutting across the distance like a laser.
He looked directly at me.
Like he could feel my eyes on him.
I looked away quickly, my face heating, and busied myself with rearranging my towel, trying to shove every dirty, inappropriate thought out of my head.
He was the Alpha.
I was the weird, scarred omega who showed up covered in blood. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
This was insane.
Footsteps approached, steady and quiet on the wet grass.
I kept my eyes down until a pair of black boots stopped in front of me.
I looked up.
“You okay?” he asked.
His voice was quiet.
“Yeah,” I replied, pulling my towel tighter around my shoulders.
The rescue team had given all of us who’d been in the water a towel and a foil blanket.
I had the blanket draped over my legs, but the chill was deep in my bones.
“Good,” he said.
And then he just… stood there.
He wasn’t looking around at his people anymore.
He was looking at the ground near my feet.
“You okay?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He blinked, his red eyes lifting to mine.
“What?”
“I asked if you were okay?” I repeated, my voice small.
It felt incredibly bold and incredibly stupid.
“Uhm—yes,” he replied, sounding genuinely taken aback.
As if no one had asked him that in a very, very long time.
“You sure?” I pressed, watching him more closely now.
Everyone had gotten a towel and attention from the medics.
Everyone except him.
The moment we’d reached land, he’d become a machine, contacting the rescue teams, coordinating with his enforcers, identifying the survivors, going from person to person to offer consolation and reassurance.
He hadn’t stopped.
He hadn’t checked himself for injuries.
He was standing there soaked to the skin, his dark hair plastered to his forehead, water dripping from the hem of his trousers.
“Yes,” he said again, but it was automatic.
“You don’t need a towel?” I asked.
He looked from the towel to my face, his brow furrowing slightly.
“A towel?” He sounded confused, as if trying to recall what purpose such a thing served.
“Yeah, a towel,” I said, the words starting to tumble out in a nervous rush.
“We were just in the water, and it was freaking cold, and it’s night time already, and it’s also cold out here. I just thought… maybe you would need one.” I gestured vaguely with the corner of my own towel.
He just stared at me, completely stunned into silence.
My courage crumbled.
Idiot.
Alphas don’t need your help.
They hate being perceived as needing anything, especially from an omega.
I was overstepping in a major way.
“I’m so sorr—”
“I need one,” he said, cutting off my apology.
“What?”
“The towel,” he said, his voice low.
“I need one.”
“Oh! Here you go,” I said, a ridiculous burst of happiness flooding me as I held out a towel.
“Thank you,” he said.
He took it and rubbed it roughly over his face and arm.
“Do you need help wiping your hair?” I asked, reaching for a smaller, dry towel from a nearby supply box.
The question was out before my brain could engage.
Oh, this mouth of mine.
He didn’t need help.
He was an Alpha.
He could do it himself.
He paused, the towel held against his chest, and looked at me.
His expression was impossible to decipher.
“Yes, please,” he replied.
I stood up on the tailgate, which put me closer to his height, and reached up with the cloth.
He was so tall.
I wasn’t short for an omega.
I was 5’8″, which was practically giant for an omega,but he towered over me.
Maybe 6’2″ or 6’3″.
He saw me straining and immediately lowered his head, bending at the knees just a little to make it easier.
The gesture was so unexpectedly considerate it stole my breath.
I started gently dabbing the towel at his wet hair.
It was so black.
And it felt… good.
Soft and thick, not coarse like I’d imagined.
I’d never seen hair this black.
“It’s so black,” I whispered, the thought escaping.
“Does it scare you?” he asked, his voice muffled slightly as he kept his head bowed.
“What? No,” I said, my fingers carding through the damp strands more confidently.
“It looks so good.”
“It does?” He sounded genuinely curious.
“Yes,” I replied, my voice dropping to a shy murmur.
I continued my task, mesmerized by the texture.
“It’s so soft and shiny.”
A low, rumbling sound came from him.
It took me a second to realize it was a laugh.
A real, quiet laugh that made his whole body vibrate under my hands.
I pulled back, my face flooding with heat.
He raised his head, and because I’d been so focused on his hair, I hadn’t taken note of how close our faces were now.
Just inches apart.
His red eyes were luminous up close, flecked with darker shades of garnet and wine.
They looked so beautiful.
And he looked… younger when he laughed.
Softer and Pretty.
“That’s a first,” he said, a faint, bemused smile touching his lips.
“Holland.”
He said my name again.
Holland.
And damn, it felt so good hearing my name in his mouth.
I liked the rough, deep way he said it.
I think I wanted him to say it again and again.
“What’s your name?” I asked, the question slipping out in the intimate space between us.
“My name?” he asked, standing up to his full height again, putting a little more distance between us.
The moment stretched.
“I mean… you know my name. And I don’t know yours. It’s also okay if you don’t want to tell me.” I quickly looked down at my toes, suddenly feeling foolish and presumptuous.
What was I doing?
“Kastiel,” he said.
“My name is Kastiel.”
“Kastiel,” I repeated, testing the shape of it on my tongue.
It was a strong name.
A king’s name.
“Kastiel.”
“Yeah,” he replied, watching me.
“Kastiel,” I said once more, committing it to memory.
“If you keep saying it—” he began, his voice taking on a low, warning note that wasn’t entirely serious, but held a promise of something I couldn’t name.
“HOLLAND!”
The frantic scream ripped through the night, shattering the fragile bubble around us.
I jerked back.
Running toward us, their faces pale with terror and streaked with tears, were Soren and Jamie.