Page 50 of Shattered Salvation
Morrison arrives while the scene's still being secured. She comes in with two other officers from the station and stands near the entrance with her arms crossed. The exhaustion I saw at her house is still there beneath the surface, but she's pulled the armor back on. I walk over to her once the last of the containers has been checked. She looks at me without surprise.
"You're going down for him," I say quietly enough that only she can hear me over the noise. "You chose your son over the department. Over the victims. Over everything. Now the federal team has the proof that he worked with the people who kept Hex moving. You're going to answer for every choice you made to protect him."
Morrison doesn't argue. She doesn't deny it. She simply stands there while the weight of the night settles around both of us. She nods once, a small tight movement, and turns to speak with oneof the federal agents who approaches her. I watch her go and feel the last of the old anger settle into something colder and final.
Caldwell finds me near the edge of the scene a few minutes later. He's already holstered his weapon and is watching the team process the containers. He glances at me and then at the body still lying where Hex fell.
"Go home to your mates," he says. "There's nothing left here that requires you to stay."
I look at him for a moment. The man who watched me drift through pack after pack without ever settling now stands in the middle of the operation that defined both of our lives for years. I shake my head once.
"You should say the same to yourself," I answer. "You've been running this longer than I have."
Caldwell's mouth curves in a small tired smile. "You're closer to this than I am. And if you don't think my Beta's keeping my Omega occupied right now, you'd be wrong. Go home, Skylar. The case is finished. The rest of it can wait until morning."
I nod and step back from the scene. Morrison will answer for what she chose to protect. And I'm no longer the man whose entire reason for existing was wrapped inside a single investigation.
It’s not enough. I know there will be many more late nights, trying to grab every last piece of what the Cardinal Network touched, but for now, I can sleep a little easier.
Kade
I've been awake since midnight, moving through the apartment in the slow, useless way a body moves when it has nowhere to put itself and nothing to fix. I checked the locks twice. I made tea I didn't drink. I sat with Emrys until he finally went under in the nest, his hand fisted in my shirt, and then I eased free and came back out to the dark living room to wait, because waiting is the only thing left when the person you'd put yourself between and the whole world is somewhere you can't reach.
Skylar told me what tonight was before he left. Not all of it. Enough. A warehouse, a federal team, the man who broke Hex out. He said it like a status update, calm and clipped, the way he says everything when he's already decided he's going alone. I let him go because stopping him wasn't mine to do. That didn't make the hours any shorter.
So when the door opens just after two and his scent reaches me before he does, I'm off the couch before I've decided to move.
He stumbles in, still pulling at his coat, and I'm on him before he gets it halfway off. The relief that he's home safe hits me so hard it comes out sideways, sharp and loud.
"Why the fuck didn't you say anything about a serial killer being in that warehouse?" I demand, my voice low but rough. My hands are already on his shoulders, checking him over even as the words come out. "You walked into that with no backup from us. You could've been hurt. You could've been killed."
Skylar lets me push him back against the wall. He doesn't fight it. His scent is layered with exhaustion, gunpowder, and something sharper underneath, the adrenaline still fading from his system. He smells like the warehouse, like the night, like everything I couldn't protect him from while he was out there.
"I didn't want to worry you," he says quietly. The honesty in it disarms me more than any excuse would have. “Besides, I’m a detective. It’s part of my job.” He lets out a heavy sigh, his earlier confessions about the packs he left coming back to me.
I press my forehead to his and just breathe him in for a moment, because my hands need something to do that isn't shaking. Cedar and whiskey against his amber and sandalwood.
"What happened?"
I feel him decide whether to give me the status-update version. I keep my forehead against his and wait, and maybe that's what does it, the not-letting-go, because when he answers it isn't clipped.
"Hex pulled a gun on Caldwell," he says. "Caldwell shot him. I was ten feet away. He went down before he got it raised." A breath. "I've spent years of my life chasing that man. I thought when it ended I'd feel something. I watched him die in a warehouse and I felt ... nothing. I just wanted to come home."
His voice doesn't break. That's worse. He says it flat and even, the way a man talks about something he hasn't let himself look at yet, and I understand the flatness because I've worn it.
"You came home," I say.
"It’s the only thing I wanted."
My hands slide down his arms and back up, checking for anything out of place. There's nothing. He's whole. He's here. The fear I've been carrying since he left doesn't leave so much as change shape, going fromwhat if he doesn't come backtohe came back and he's standing here saying he felt nothing, and I don't have a clean way to hold either one.
"I always thought my work was the dangerous one," I say, quieter now. "Private security. High-risk clients. I never expected the job that was supposed to be safe to be the one that put you in a room with a killer."
Skylar's hands come up to rest on my chest. He's still in his vest, the weight of the night still clinging to him. "It's over," he says. "Most of it anyway. We still have to figure out what Declan knows so we can shut down the Cardinal Network for good. Following the money is going to come in handy."
I hate hearing that there’s still something to this investigation but I’m hoping the worst of it is over.
Slowly, I dip my nose to his cheek, scenting my Beta, letting my nose drag lower along the side of his throat where his pulse still beats too fast. The relief tips into something else. Something warmer. Something that's been building since the moment he walked out the door earlier tonight. My hands settle on his hips and I pull him closer, pressing him fully against me. Skylarmakes a soft sound and tilts his head, giving me better access. The tension in his body shifts from exhaustion into something more alive.
