We sit in the dirt, surrounded by wreckage, the wind howling colder through the ravine.
"Do you hear that?"
"My heart?"
"Rotors."
The sound builds—low, rhythmicthud-thud-thud, vibrating in my sternum. Lights crest the ridge. Bright blinding searchlights cutting through the dark.
A helicopter. Blacked out. Fast-ropes dropping from the skids.
Figures hit the ground moving—tactical gear, night vision, the unmistakable posture of operators with a purpose.
"Theirs?" Wren shrinks against me.
I squint into the glare. A familiar hulking shape touches down and immediately scans the perimeter.
"Ours."
A voice booms through the rotor wash.
"Bishop. We have the perimeter."
Flint.
I let my head fall onto Wren's shoulder.
"We made it."
She wraps her arms around me, holding me up, holding me together. "Yeah. We made it."
Operators swarm the ravine. Hawk takes the high ground. Frost is moving toward us with a medic bag, face grim and focused.
For a moment the noise and lights fall away. Just me and Wren in the dirt.
She turns her face to mine and kisses me. Desperate and salty with tears. It tastes like survival.
"I love you," she says. Fierce. Absolute.
"I love you too." The words weigh more than any weapon I've ever held.
Frost shouts orders. The world rushes back.
All I can look at is her.
Standing in the rotor wash.
Battered.
Bloodied.
Beautiful.
My little bird.
My wolf.
My partner.
