He shrugs. “Depends on how well the omega cuts my hair.”
I bark out an unexpected laugh, heart falling back into a more regular rhythm as I trim his ends in quick, sharp snaps. “Please, I never give a bad haircut.”
“Looks like I’ll have you in my bed then.”
My mouth drops open in a breathless laugh as my gaze meets his. “Wow,” I gasp.
Then he winks at me, and I decide I need to study each individual strand currently between my fingers.
We soon slip into a natural silence as I work. I haven’t cut a man’s hair for a while, but I fall back into it easily. Sometimes, I’ll style my brothers’, but that’s normally with clippers.
When I section the back of Kaiden’s hair, I notice thick scarring peeping out beneath his shirt and still.
The tip of it reaches the edge of his hairline, and I carefully brush my finger over it.
“What happened here?” I murmur.
“An IED.”
When I look up, his gaze is distant, his jaw tight.
I pull away. “Does it hurt?”
“No.” He nudges his head back, into my fingers. “Keep going.”
I’m not sure I fully believe him, so I’m careful, deciding I won’t use a razor for this part. I take my time with my fingers and shears instead, worried the teeth of the plastic comb might catch him.
“It was a hostage situation,” he begins out of nowhere.
I keep cutting.
“The first operation the four of us took together, everything went to plan, but as we left the site, a hostage ran the opposite way.” The tendon in his neck pulls taut. “Not their fault, they’d been held captive for days, they were afraid, and fear tends to make you run.”
He shifts in the chair, and my fingers skim over the scar. I wait for him to relax before continuing to cut.
“All I remember is a deafening bang, a bright light, and turning to cover my men. That’s it.” My hand freezes as I picture it, how scared he must have been, yet still choosing to protect his future packmates.
“Next thing I know,” he continues, “I’m in the medic ward, and the three of them are arguing over me.”
He chuckles while rubbing the stubble on his jaw, and I find myself smiling at the rumbling sound.
“I have a lot of scars from that mission. We all do. But I gained a pack from it,” he says, gaze meeting mine in the mirror again. “Life’s funny like that sometimes. Things you never expect, never plan for, often turn out better than anything you planned.”
I know he’s trying to make some type of point, so I purposely ignore it.
“So you never wanted a pack?” I ask.
“Neverplannedfor it,” he corrects with a small smile. “I was surrounded by alphas every day, that felt like enough. Then I met Sylvan.” His voice softens, like he’s remembering it. “He’s been my closest friend since we trained together as young cadets. We always worked well together, so I thoughtmaybe we’d form a pack of two, but neither of us grew up wanting one.”
“What did you want?”
He’s quiet for a moment while I comb and cut. And when I do look up, he’s staring off to the side.
“I never really knew. I went into the military because I needed to. Because that’s what the alphas in my family did.” His teeth run over his bottom lip. “I worked hard, got promoted, learnt I liked being a leader. I didn’t plan anything, not until that mission.”
“And you all left after that?”
“Not straight away. But it’s hard, when you’re a pack, to treat the other men the same after our bond formed. I found myself always too preoccupied with them, needing to know they were safe.” He shifts forward, his compression top tugging down at the neck, exposing more of his scars. “And I couldn’t wear the gear for too long. It hurt my back.”
