Special Operator. Warrior. SEAL.
Bolt whistled softly. “Damn, man. That…works.”
Fly nodded. “Feels like you.”
Than smiled, small and sincere. “It looks like truth.”
Shamrock touched his skin lightly, feeling the heat of the fresh ink, and for once, he didn’t deflect with a joke. Didn’t wink. Didn’t hide.
He just nodded, breath catching somewhere deep in his chest. “Yeah,” he murmured. “It does.” Then he couldn’t help it, the grin came back, slow and wicked. “Guess this makes me officially lucky now, boys.”
Bolt groaned. “Christ, he’s back.” But the look his swim buddy sent him was laced with a knowing shared understanding, a fellowship that settled into Shamrock’s bones.
Shamrock slung an arm around Fly’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, Gallagher. I’ll share some with you.”
Fly shoved him off. Than laughed. Bolt muttered something about divine punishment. Shamrock felt something warm stay beneath his ribs, something steady, something like pride, something like belonging.
The clover wasn’t luck.
It was all him.
Than waited until the others had finished, Bolt limping gingerly and Shamrock preening like he’d won a medal for Most Strategically Placed Luck, and when the artist finally turned to him with an exhausted, vaguely haunted look, Than stepped forward with the same steady calm he carried into every part of his life.
“This one’s different,” he said quietly, reaching into the pocket of his jeans. His fingers curled around the small, folded drawing he’d made days ago, the lines careful and deliberate, as if precision were the only thing holding the emotion steady. He laid it on the counter. Four bear prints, each one a different size, arranged in a descending line like steps along a trail.
The artist studied it for a long moment. “Where?”
Than lifted his shirt and touched the long line of his ribs, over the left side, close to his heart. “Here.”
The older man nodded, something softening in his expression. “All right.”
“Just a minute,” Than murmured. He crossed to the flash books, thumbed through them, and returned with a familiar design. “Can you bracket the top and bottom with this band?”
Fly stiffened. He stepped forward, staring down at the very same tribal band now etched into his own arm. He took a hard breath, looked away, then back at Than with something raw in his eyes.
“Mate…fuck.”
Than’s voice remained quiet, steady. “Brothers in everything that matters.”
Fly squeezed his shoulder, the gesture gentle and fiercely meaningful. “I’m honored.”
Than lay on his side, tucking one arm beneath his head. The hum of the machine began, low and rhythmic, like distant thunder rolling out across the plains. The first touch of the needle stung sharply along tender skin, his breath hitching before settling into a controlled, even cadence. Pain didn’t frighten him. He had lived with far worse kinds of it—abuse, neglect, the kind of loneliness that came from growing up between worlds, and the ache of leaving the only home he’d ever known for one he still wasn’t sure he deserved.
This pain, at least, had purpose.
As the needle worked, he let his eyes drift closed. The sting was steady, insistent, and memory rose with it. The largest prints were for his oldest brother, Thatcher—lost in Iraq but never truly gone. Thatcher’s low voice telling stories by firelight, the cadence of Lakota words worn smooth by love and repetition as he cradled his baby brother in his arms.
The next robust prints belonged to Dakota, the man who had stepped into the role their father had never earned. Dakota teaching him how to hold an axe, how to track prints through snow and mud, how to breathe through fear instead of letting it root inside him.
The smaller prints were for his lost sister returned. Ayla’s bright laughter the night before she vanished, the echo of it trapped somewhere inside him all these years. She had been gone so long he had nearly stopped believing he’d ever see her again, but her place in him had never dimmed. Her strength had always been part of his path. Her return felt like a star falling back into the Locklear sky.
The needle carved another print, another mark, another name he refused to forget.
Thatcher.
Bear.
Ayla.
