I sit up and pull her gently into my lap; she comes willingly, soft and warm and trusting in a way that hurts more than any wound I’ve ever taken.
I cup her jaw with a hand built for breaking things, and it terrifies me how easily she leans into it.
“Tonight I’m yours,” I say, voice low, honest, cracking open pieces of me I’ve never let anyone touch. “And I swear to God, butterfly, I’m trying not to fall.”
She presses her forehead to mine, her breath warm and trembling. “You already have.”
And when I kiss her again — slow, aching, raw — it’s not with hunger or urgency, not with desperation or greed, but with the terrifying realisation that for the first time in years, I have something to lose.
And for the first time, it isn’t the war I fear.
It’s her.
It’s the way she looks at me like I’m worth saving.
It’s what I’d do to keep her.
What I’d become if I lost her.
And somewhere deep in the hollowed-out places inside me, a truth settles like a warning:
Butterflies don’t survive men like me —
but God help me, I’d burn the whole world down just to keep her flying.
Chapter
Thirteen
Cassandra
Iwake up to the smell of him before my eyes even bother to open — salt and skin and something darker, something that clings to him like a memory he can’t wash off, the ghost of gunpowder threaded through the warmth of sweat. His arm is draped over my waist like a brand, heavy and possessive, as though even in sleep he’s warning the world that I am his to hold and his to lose.
Except he’s not asleep.
I can feel it — that charged stillness, not peaceful but taut, a quiet that vibrates with whatever storm he’s holding behind his ribs.
When I finally open my eyes, the morning bleeds in slow and soft. We’re still outside, still under the fading stars, the blanket knotted around us, my hoodie rucked high on my thigh, and Dax watching me like he hasn’t allowed himself to blink.
Like if he does, I’ll be gone.
“Hey,” I whisper, my voice rough with sleep.
He doesn’t answer.
He just lifts his hand and brushes his thumb along my cheekbone, slow and reverent, as though he’s mapping me for the last time.
“You’ve got a serious staring problem, soldier.”
It earns me the ghost of a smirk — barely there — and then it’s gone, swallowed by something quieter, sadder, too raw to hide. His face folds inward, not into a smile, not into anything I can name. Just quiet grief. Quiet knowing. Something that tastes like a countdown.
“Trying to remember you,” he murmurs.
My throat tightens. “I’m right here.”
“Yeah,” he says softly. “Right now.”
Time doesn’t care how good it feels.
