Page 20 of Ranger's Honor
He catches himself on the frame, panting—sharp, shallow breaths like he’s just sprinted through hell and barely made it out. The scent that follows him is blood and iron, salt and fury, thick enough to choke on. My pulse skitters. For a second, I can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t do anything but feel the sheer weight of relief crash into me like a wave I didn’t see coming. His eyes flick to mine. They’re wild—amber-shot, glowing faintly even in the dark.
“Don’t shift,” he growls, voice rough and feral. “I’m okay.”
I don't listen. I run.
My arms go around his waist and he stiffens like he’s ready to fight me off, but then my hands slide up his back and he sags, just a little.
“You’re bleeding,” I whisper, my voice cracking under the pressure of a thousand fears I hadn't dared to name. The sight of blood—his blood—unleashes something inside me. Not panic, exactly. More like a fury wrapped in terror. My knees go weak and my fists clench with the need to do something, anything, to make it stop. My wolf snarls, a guttural sound only I can hear, demanding retribution against whatever did this to him. I push it down, barely. But the shake in my hands betrays me as I reach for him. “What happened?”
“Ambush. I handled it.”
I don’t ask how. I already know.
“Sit,” I order, dragging him toward the kitchen. “You’re getting cleaned up or I swear to God I’ll call Gideon and tell him you’ve been an idiot.”
That gets a grunt that might be a laugh. Or pain. I don’t care which.
He drops into a chair, and I get to work—clean cloth, warm water, antiseptic that’ll sting like hell. The rag soaks through my fingers as I wring it out, steam curling upward like breath. I press it to his side, and blood blooms anew, stark red against white cotton. The antiseptic burns my nose, sharp and clinical, clashing with the acrid tang of his wounds—metallic and primal, the kind of scent that could drag him straight back to Kandahar and the sting of combat.
His skin is fever-warm under my touch, the muscles beneath twitching with restrained power and pain. I move carefully, trying not to hurt him, but also desperate to feel that steady pulse beneath his skin—to reassure myself he’s still here. Still solid. Still mine to hold together. His breath hisses out when I dab at the gash along his ribs.
“Didn’t realize romance writers had a trauma response kit under the sink,” he mutters.
“I write about dramatic proposals and emotionally constipated billionaires. You think I don’t know how to patch a hero back together?”
His lip quirks, just barely. But the tension stays coiled in his shoulders.
“You okay?” I ask, softer this time. “Really?”
He doesn’t answer.
I keep cleaning in silence until I reach the deep scratch near his collarbone. The one still weeping blood. I press the cloth there gently.
Dalton flinches.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s not that.”
“What, then?”
He doesn’t look at me. His jaw tenses, shoulders rigid, like he’s bracing for something. Just stares at the floor like it’s safer than meeting my eyes—like facing me might make it real.
“I almost lost control,” he says, and a dozen images flash through my mind—each one worse than the last. A blood-slicked alley. His body crumpled in shadow. A scream I never got to make. My stomach twists, and I have to fight the urge to hold him tighter, as if I could anchor us both to this moment, to this reality where he made it home. “I was close to not coming back at all.”
The words hit harder than they should. My chest tightens.
I drop the cloth, step between his knees, and press my palm to his chest—skin to skin, over the wild beat of his heart.
“You came back.”
His hand covers mine. Big. Warm. The heat of his skin bleeds into my palm, and for a moment, I forget how to breathe. A tremor shudders through him—not from pain, but from whatever he's still carrying inside. The contact grounds us both, but it also splinters something fragile in me, because I can feel the war still raging behind his eyes, the part of him that’s still out there fighting. His palm dwarfs mine, rough and steady and grounding, and for a second, all I can think is how that touch is the only thing keeping me from falling apart. I press a little harder, not to reassure him—but to anchor myself too.
Then my gaze drops—to the hard line of his thigh, the curve of muscle dusted with dirt and dried blood, the subtle tension in the way he holds himself.
And suddenly, I can’t look away.
Dalton Calhoun is naked from the waist up, every inch of him lean, hard, and covered in scrapes and bruises that somehow only make him look more dangerous—and more real. And he’s absolutely, gloriously, naked from the waist down, too.
