Page 23 of His Reward
I felt sick. I’d never wanted to vomit at the sight of a conflagration so badly. I was usually all business. But I knew. Somehow, I knew Lucien was inside that building.
“Take me through what’s already being done,” I told Isaac as we hurried to meet the chief of a third company that was just arriving on the scene.
Isaac had already done everything that could be done. Everyone who had made it out of the building was off to one side, the trucks that had arrived first and hooked up started dousing the flames, and the parts of the building that were untouched by the fire had been sealed off as best as possible. The rink area was mostly okay, it was the adjacent facilities, like the gym I wasquickly told about on one side of the building, that was most affected.
I was almost okay with things, almost on top of my emotions, when a middle-aged alpha with greying hair and a thick moustache raced up to our group of chiefs and shouted, “My son! My son is still in the building! You have to get to him!”
“Sir, I’m gonna need you to remain calm,” Isaac said, which was a pretty stupid thing to say to a man whose kid was still in the building.
But then the man shouted, “My son! Lucien Monteverdi. He’s a champion skater favored to win gold at the Winter Games. He’s still in there!”
The unnecessary bit about the Winter Games sailed right past me. Everything within me tipped upside down, like the world was ending, at the revelation that Lucien, my omega, was trapped in the fire. Somehow, I’d known.
“Where is he?” I asked, leaving the others and walking toward the side of the arena.
“Boston, where are you going?” Isaac called after me.
I ignored him, striding toward the building like I could put the fire out by sheer alpha will.
“He was headed for the showers or the sauna or something,” another alpha, younger but resembling the older one, rushed up to join us. “He’s in that part of the building right there.” He pointed into the heart of the blaze.
Every word of every training session about how dangerous it was to run into a burning building rushed to the front of my mind. Blazes like the one I was staring at were dangerous and unpredictable. Structures tended to collapse when heat buckled beams and burned through walls. But I’d be damned if I just stood by and watched my omega be crushed or burned when I was one of the few people who could actually do something about it.
“I’m going in there,” I shouted at Roscoe as I reached the truck and started pulling out rescue gear.
“You’re what?” Roscoe asked, gearing up as well. “You’re the chief.”
“And I’m the most highly trained in rescue operations,” I called back before fitting the mask and shield in place over my usual equipment. “And Isaac is the senior chief on scene. It’s his ballgame to organize.”
Roscoe knew better than to argue with me. I knew enough to trust Roscoe with my life and, as I was terrified might be the case, with the life of my omega.
“You’re going in there?” Isaac asked as he caught up with us by the shattered entrance to the fitness center part of the arena.
“At least one person is trapped in there,” I said through the heavy equipment. “I know how to get them out. Do I have your go-ahead to enter the building?”
Isaac knew better than to argue with me. He knew there wasn’t time. “You do,” he said, giving me the formal permission I needed.
Unlike the way they portrayed things in the movies, you couldn’t just run into a burning building without a plan. I moved as fast as I could, yes, but every step, every second, was careful and taken with a full, ever-changing assessment of the situation around me. I had an axe ready in case I needed to move debris, but most of what I saw as Roscoe and I pushed through the dense smoke of the gym was heat damage and a structure that could buckle at any second.
Thank God for the signs pointing toward a hallway where the sauna and showers were. As soon as I was confident the roof wouldn’t fall down on us, yet, I picked up speed and hurried to that side of the room.
Unfortunately, part of the roof had already caved in right near the door, and the entire section of wall beside it was angrywith flames. I threw open the door anyhow to find a scene out of my worst nightmares. The top of one side of the wall roared with flames. Smoke billowed up into the melted ceiling. Debris had fallen onto the other side of the corridor, and a white-clad figure was lying curled up and still underneath a collapsed piece of wall.
I knew without a doubt it was Lucien.
I didn’t think. My brain did all its usual calculations subconsciously. I had layers of fire-resistant clothing covering me, but from the look of things, Lucien only wore a robe, and part of that was singed away. I surged forward, reaching him with lightning speed, my heart pounding in my throat. The section of wall that had fallen had probably saved his life, as it provided a barrier to block the flames, but that barrier wouldn’t last another five minutes.
I crouched and covered as much of Lucien’s body with my own as I could, forming another barrier to protect him, then carefully closed my arms around him and lifted him away from the burning debris. My omega was unconscious, but he was still alive. His strawberry ice cream scent was mingled with the far more sickening scent of burned flesh, but I couldn’t think about that.
“Got him?” Roscoe called out, though I barely heard him above the roar of the fire and the screech of metal that was twisting and about to give out.
My answer was to rock back, folding Lucien in my arms, and to turn and head out of there as fast as I could.
It was the right move. I’d been in enough burning buildings to be able to sense when things were at the breaking point. I knew we had hardly any time at all to push our way through the smoke and heat of the gym part of the fitness center and on to the door. I shielded Lucien as best I could, but I already knewhe’d been burned pretty badly. He started to cough when we were near the door which was bad, but it meant he was still alive.
All hell broke loose once we made it out of the building. Lucien’s coughing got worse, even though I didn’t think he was particularly conscious. I ran him straight to the ambulance that was waiting nearby. Behind me, the metal girders holding the arena together groaned as they began to fold, sending flames and sparks shooting into the sky.
“We’ve got him,” one of the paramedics said as three of them converged around me to take Lucien out of my arms.
