“I had therapy for a while,” she murmurs. “There’s a name for it—thanatophobia. But I don’t really care aboutmedying.” A small, self-aware huff leaves her. “Which is when I realised… if I didn’t have anyone like that in my life, then I wouldn’t experience what my mum and dads went through.”
She shifts slightly, the top of her head brushing my chin.
“I couldn’t stop caring about people, but I could stop something from becoming a relationship. Anything too real.” Her face turns, eyes flashing green as they meet mine. “Then I met these stubborn alphas.”
A faint laugh leaves me. Her lips twitch.
“And I think, a heat? Yeah. That’ll be fine,” she says, then slowly turns until she’s straddling me, fingers slipping behind the back of my neck.
“But it hasn’t even been my heat yet...” Her fingers drift lower, brushing over the hard lines of scar tissue between my shoulder blades. “These scars that you all have… whenever I see them, it reminds me…”Her jaw tightens. “I remember how close you came to not being here. All four of you. It reminds me that people don’t always come home.”
For a second, I’m back there. Hissing heat and sound ripped from the air. Dirt and metal weighing down on me. The smell of burnt skin. Thinking,This is it.
And then I’m in a hospital bed. My packmates standing over me. My mother on the phone, sobbing that she couldn’t bury another child.
“I had a brother,” I say. “He was younger, shy.” My thumb traces slow circles over her hip. “He died in a car accident. Wrong place, wrong time. We all survived except him.” Her fingers never stop grazing my scars. “My parents drowned in that grief for a long time. And so did I.”
I drop my gaze to her shoulder, focusing on the steady rise and fall of her breathing.
“I enlisted as soon as I could. Mum begged me not to, but my dads encouraged it. I liked the structure and routine. All my older siblings had already joined. And anything was better than sitting with my feelings.”
She pulls back a little to study me. Even now, she has to tilt her head to meet my eyes.
I reach out, cupping her jaw in my hand.
“That’s where I met Sylvan.” I smile. “He didn’t quite fit. Didn’t do small talk, missed cues, a stickler for the rules. People avoided him because they didn’t understand him.” I shake my head softly. “At first, I thought he was just shy. But I understood him. We worked well together, because he’d always say things exactly as they were. Everything was easy with him.”
I trace my thumb over her lower lip.
“I didn’t mean for him to matter, but he did. He does.”
She smiles.
“Then I met the twins. God, they were annoying.” I groan, making her laugh. “Always bickering, but good soldiers. Good men. I couldn’t remember ever laughing like I did with them. I almost hated them for it… Like I didn’t deserve it.”
I slide my hand down to her throat, feeling her pulse beneath my thumb.
“But we got to know each other, the four of us. We worked together, and the IED happened.” She swallowsbeneath my fingers. “When I woke up and saw the three of them, my first thought was how I’d underappreciated them. How grateful I was that they were still here. That I was.
“After that, I lost my love for the job. I wanted to enjoy my life with them, not risk dying every day.” I lean in closer. “If the four of us had never met, if our bond hadn’t formed… I don’t think I ever would’ve left. I’d have stayed in the army until it killed me.”
Her soft exhale brushes my mouth.
“So I get it, Revea. Letting people in is always a risk.” I graze my nose with hers. “But maybe take a page from your dad’s book. Listen to your instincts. Because mine are screaming that we’re yours.”
I wait, hoping she’ll respond, with words or by kissing me until we’re both breathless.
But she shifts instead.
Her gaze drops to my shoulder, where the scar tissue crests over the bone. My hand falls from her throat as she leans forward and presses her lips to the raised edge of it. Again and again. Until she lingers there, sinking against me completely.
We don’t say another word, but Revea has no idea what she’s just awakened in me.
There was a time I would’ve let her walk away. For her sake. For ours.
That time has passed.
Luciano
