“Copy.”
He moved north along the tree line. The moment his back turned, I exhaled and dropped from the blind.
The eastern tree line was still. No movement, no sound. But the bond pulsed with the steady rhythm of a man standing thirty meters away, camouflaged in forest and patience.
Again, I was going to kill Solomon.
I’d told him two days. A clear instruction, delivered in person.
That was just last night and this was the morning after. And the man who could plan a war operation apparently couldn’t count to forty-eight hours.
I walked to the eastern water runoff. Crouched by the pipe, pretending to refill my canteen.
“I know you’re there.”
Silence.
“Sol. You just growled. Twice. In front of a hunter. If he’d taken three more steps into those trees, what exactly was your plan?”
The forest held its breath.
Then his voice. Low, close enough that he’d been within ten meters this entire time and I hadn’t pinpointed him until now. The man was infuriating in his invisibility.
“Your symptoms have improved.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Your hands aren’t trembling. Heart rate is steadier than yesterday.” A pause. “I needed to confirm the improvement held through the night.”
“You needed to confirm it by stalking me and growling at my colleague?”
“The risk was calculated.”
“Right. Because growling near the compound is a smart plan.”
A beat of silence. “The growling was involuntary.”
“Well, it was stupid. I told you two days which meanstwo days.”
Another pause. When he spoke again, the clinical tone had cracked.
“I couldn’t leave.”
Three words. Stripped bare of the act he wore on everything else. My hands tightened on the canteen.
“Last night, after, I went to the ridge. Standard overwatch position.” His voice dropped lower. “I told myself it was protocol. That confirming your safety post-contact was standard procedure. But I sat on that ridge and listened to your heartbeat through the bond until dawn, and at no point was the word protocol anywhere in my thinking.”
The canteen trembled against my palm.
“I understand, Mira. Two days. I’m not asking you to adjust it. I’m not asking for forgiveness or access or anything you haven’t already decided to give.” A breath. “I am asking you to know that I couldn’t physically make myself walk away from you this morning. And I am aware of how insufficient that is.”
I pressed my tongue against the roof of my mouth to keep the burning behind my eyes from winning.
“Insufficient is one word for it.”
“Name a better one.”
“Selfish. Reckless. Disobedient.”
