Page 67 of Knotting the Firefighters

The sleeping arrangements alone present a logistical nightmare—I'm the only Omega in a station designed for Alpha crews, in a dormitory setup that doesn't account for designation privacy or the need for separate spaces when hormones inevitably complicate everything.

And there's the question of employment, of whether I'm temporarily working at Station Fahrenheit or just residing there like a well-supervised house guest. Can I handle paperwork? Manage administrative tasks? Contribute something useful while banned from field operations?

Emphasis on "hopefully."

A month might feel like a decade if I'm trapped with nothing productive to occupy my mind.

The silence in the recovery room has stretched beyond comfortable, all four Alphas apparently content to brood quietly while I process my new circumstances.

Time to break the ice before the tension crystallizes into something permanent.

"Guess you can't get rid of me after all," I announce, injecting false cheer into my tone. "What a shame. Stuck with a temperamental Omega who runs into burning buildings and faints at inconvenient moments."

Aidric's response is immediate, storm-gray eyes fixing on me with intensity that makes my pulse quicken.

"If you'd stay out of burning buildings, the fainting wouldn't be an issue.

Oh, we're doing this?

Captain Brooding wants to trade barbs?

"If you'd properly staffed your station with a competent chief, I wouldn't have needed to intervene when emergency callsrequired actual leadership," I counter sweetly, watching his jaw clench with satisfaction.

His eyes narrow dangerously.

"My station was functioning adequately before you decided to commandeer operations without authorization or consultation."

"Your station was a chaotic disaster," I correct, letting each word land with precision. "Twelve Alphas stumbling over each other, arguing about equipment, chasing kittens instead of responding to an active emergency. That's not 'functioning adequately', that's organizational failure waiting for catastrophe."

Aidric surges forward, hands bracing on my bed's railing, bringing us close enough that his cedar-amber scent floods my senses.

"Listen here, Chief Murphy?—"

"No, you listen,CaptainHawthorne." I lean forward despite protesting burns, meeting his intensity with my own. "You want respect for your authority? Earn it by actually maintaining operational standards instead of letting your crew devolve into amateur hour."

Silas's pained sigh cuts through our escalating confrontation, his hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose in a gesture of universal exasperation.

"We're supposed to be reducing her stress levels, not engaging in territorial pissing contests," he reminds Aidric with the patience of someone long-accustomed to mediating Alpha conflicts.

Aidric whirls toward him, argument clearly prepared about how I started it, how he's perfectly justified in defending his professional competence, how stress reduction doesn't mean tolerating insubordination?—

I don't let him finish whatever childish rebuttal he's constructing.

"Territorial pissing contests require actual territory worth defending. What you have is an undisciplined crew operating without consistent leadership in a station that only functions when someone with actual command experience takes charge."

Boom.

Direct hit.

Aidric's face flushes red—genuine anger mixing with embarrassment at having his inadequacies highlighted so bluntly. His mouth opens, closes, opens again like a fish gasping for oxygen, clearly struggling to formulate a response that doesn't prove my point.

This is extremely satisfying.

Probably shouldn't enjoy provoking him this much.

But I absolutely do.

Bear's laughter erupts across the room—genuine, warm, completely unbothered by the conflict brewing.