With his body pressing against hers, he shifted. The movement was slight, but it was enough. The skin of his ribs, where his chakana blazed with a soft, internal light, brushed against the matching mark on her side.
This time, instead of an explosion, the world fractured.
A gasp tore from her throat, but the sound wasn't hers. It was his. She was standing in a steam-filled bathroom, the scent of soap and his skin filling her lungs, watching in horror as she plunged a blade into his side. She felt the shock of it, the cold, invasive pain, the bewildered betrayal as he looked down at blood that wasn't there. She felt his mind recoil, the primal fear of a vision that felt like a memory, and she understood with chilling clarity. The enemy was already inside his head, using her face, her love, as a weapon to break him.
The vision shattered, replaced by another. This one was his. He was standing on a tower, the desert wind a cold lash against his skin, looking through her eyes. He felt the crushing weight of her loneliness, the ache of wanting him that was a physical pain in her chest. He felt her whisper his name against the glass, a desperate, ragged prayer to a god she barely believed in, begging him to stay away, to be safe, even as every cell in her body screamed for him to come closer. He felt her terror, not for herself, but for him, the all-consuming fear that he would be destroyed simply for being hers.
They ripped apart from each other, both stumbling back, chests heaving, their eyes wide and wild. The connection snapped, leaving them gasping in the quiet room. The shared echoes of his pain and her loneliness hung between them, a devastating, intimate knowledge.
He stared at her, his face pale, his expression shattered. "They're using you," he breathed, the horror of it dawning in his eyes. "They're using you to get to me."
She just shook her head, unable to speak, raising a trembling hand to her own ribs, as if she could feel the phantom wound that wasn't hers. The air between them was thick with the things they hadn't said, the fears they hadn't voiced, now laid bare in a single, brutal exchange of souls. Intimacy was no longer just desire. It was a shared wound, a shared burden, a shared, desperate need to heal the parts of each other that no one else could even see.
* * *
The pounding came again,harder this time, the knock of a brother who'd heard something he couldn't explain and wasn't going to wait politely for an answer. Flash cursed.
"Flash. Open the door."
Twister.
Flash crossed the room with his jeans pulled up and the button still undone, and he caught the doorknob a half-second before Twister could pound a third time. He glanced back at Lechuza. She'd cinched her robe at the waist and tied the belt tight enough to bruise. Her gorgeous dark hair cascaded like loose silk around her shoulders. He could see her chakana through the fabric, the geometric lines still faintly luminous against her ribs in a way that shouldn’t have been possible.
She wouldn't look at him.
He felt that as a body blow. He'd just seen her tower-window prayer through her own eyes. He'd felt the cellular ache of her wanting him for a year, andshe wouldn't look at him.
He opened the door just as his cell phone rang, a burner he picked up before they all left for their separate missions.
“What the fuck is going on?” Tex shouted, his breath heavy.
“We had an incident.”
“No shit.” Shark’s voice was clear.
“It felt like a sledgehammer to the chest. Are you all right, Lechuza, the team?” Tex said, his voice was filled with gravel. He knew what they felt. It had apparently gone through the Shadowguard.
“We are, LT.”
“Sitrep, then. Now.”
“We…ah…don’t have all the intel yet. I’ll call you in thirty.” Tex growled and hung up.
Twister waited in the hallway in his sleep pants and a faded Navy T-shirt, his hair still flattened from the pillow. Behind him stood Easy, fully dressed and armed, his sidearm low along his thigh. Fly was at Easy's shoulder, his eyes wide and clear. North stood a half step behind Fly, the anchor's quiet position, nothing but strong, grounding vibes from him.
Four faces. Four reads.
"What happened," Twister said. Not a question.
"She's safe."
"I felt it, brother. Down to my fucking ribs. We all did.”
Flash held the doorframe. He felt his pulse in his palm where his hand had closed on the wood. He looked back at Lechuza again. She'd moved to the foot of her bed and sat down, her hands in her lap, the chakana fading. He could give her this minute.
"Give us the room a second," Flash said. "She'll come down. We'll talk."
Twister's jaw worked. He read Flash's face and looked past him at Lechuza, and his expression softened the way it did when he was in medic mode.
