Page 81 of Knotting the Firefighters

Between professional validation and personal happiness?

The questions cycle without resolution, each angle revealing new complications, every consideration leading back to the fundamental truth:

There's no good choice.

Only varying degrees of loss.

Accepting the LA position means losing Wendolyn—maybe not immediately, but inevitably.Distance erodes connection, absence creates space for new bonds, and time transforms passionate love into a fond memory.

She'll move on.

Find happiness with her pack.

Build a life that doesn't include me.

Staying in Sweetwater Falls means losing the captain position—potentially forever, because opportunities like this don't arise frequently. Departments remember rejection, interpret declining advancement as a lack of ambition, and question the commitment of firefighters who choose small-town existence over career progression.

Professional suicide.

Branding myself as unserious, unmotivated, and content with mediocrity.

Destroying credibility I've spent years building.

And staying doesn't guarantee keeping Wendolyn either. She's joining Aidric's pack regardless—three months minimum, potentially permanent if compatibility proves what everyone suspects. My proximity won't change pack dynamics, won't prevent bonds from forming, won't make me a suddenly acceptable addition to their established structure.

Lose-lose scenario.

Perfectly constructed trap with no escape route.

Every path leads to devastation.

Wendolyn shifts in her sleep, a soft sound escaping that might be distress or simply an unconscious adjustment. Her hand clutches my shirt with surprising strength, like even sleeping, she's afraid I'll disappear.

She knows.

On some level, she understands what I'm contemplating.

Understands that I'm considering leaving despite how it'll hurt us both.

The tears she'd shed earlier replay through my memory—hot, desperate, completely uncharacteristic of the strong Omega who rarely shows vulnerability. She'd broken down so completely, sobbed against my chest like her heart was shattering, apologized for emotions she couldn't control.

All because I mentioned LA.

Because the possibility of my leaving destroyed her composure.

Because…she loves me too.

The recognition should be triumph, should validate everything I've felt but couldn't articulate. Instead, it just makes everything harder, adds weight to a decision that already feels impossible.

She loves me.

And I'm going to leave anyway.

Because career advancement matters more than?—

No.

The thought stops incomplete, rejected by every instinct I possess. Because it's not true, will never be true, fundamentally misrepresents what I actually value.