Page 14 of Sentinel of Talon Mountain
And now his little sister is standing inches from me, all fire and fury and fuck-you resilience, and my instincts—the ones trained to shield, protect, endure—are grinding against the heat curling low in my gut.
I shouldn’t want this. Not here. Not now. Not with her. But wanting her is as natural as breath, as real as the weight of the rifle on my back or the snow outside clawing at the roof. The problem isn’t the want—it’s how fast it’s threading into bone-deep need. It’s what I’ll do if I stop pretending I don’t feel it humming under my skin every time she looks at me like she’s deciding whether I’m a weapon or a risk.
Because right now, I’m both.
The edge of her jacket skims my arm, barely a whisper of contact, but it might as well be a live wire. There’s nothing deliberate about it, nothing she meant, but my body tightens all the same. A surge of heat arcs across my skin, visceral and immediate, intense enough to register beneath the layers. I clock the spike in my pulse, the way my breath drags just a beat longer than it should. My restraint clamps down hard, iron-tight, because even accidental touches from her feel like a dare. Like a promise I shouldn’t want to keep.
Too close? Not even close enough. Her nearness scrapes discipline raw, heat thrumming between us like a fuse waiting on flame. If I reached out, I could grip the edge of that fire. Let it burn. Let it brand. But I don’t. Not yet. Because if I touch her now, it won’t stop at heat, it’ll be a storm. And right now, we’re already surrounded by one.
"What? Are you saying I stay at your place instead of mine? What do you think? I’m stupid? But understand me, I’m not agreeing to you being the one between me and a bullet?"
"Better it hits me than buries in you. Logs splinter. Stone holds."
That hits her. Not just the words, but the weight behind them, the vow in my tone, the promise I didn’t mean to say out loud. Her eyes catch, like something inside her stumbles. She sways, just enough for me to notice, like impact doesn’t always come from velocity. Sometimes it’s a look. A truth too bare to dodge. And I know in that moment, she feels it, the gravity pulling between us. Not weakness. Not fear. Just connection, sudden and piercing, aimed at the soft place neither of us admits to having.
I lower my voice. "I’m not asking you to hide. I’m asking you to let me help. Because whether we like it or not, you’ve got atarget on your back, and I’ve got the skills to keep it from turning into a grave marker."
Wren doesn’t speak for a long time. Then: "You really think it’s them again? The organ ring?"
"I think it’s a different branch with the same root. And I think you’re not just collateral—you’re the objective."
Outside, the storm eases just enough for the tree limbs to creak under the weight of the snow instead of snapping like bones. The wind’s fury dims, trading lethal claws for cold breath.
Inside, the tension sharpens. Not in volume. In gravity. The line between reluctant allies and something else—something riskier, hungrier—pulls taut. She’s not just a survivor with intel anymore. She’s a wildcard I’d bleed to protect. The way she’s looking at me now, it's like she sees that truth whether I say it or not. We’re not in safe territory. Not with the storm, not with each other.
She sinks into the chair with a kind of controlled grace that’s meant to look casual but isn’t. Her movements are slower now—not from hesitation, but precision. Deliberate, yes, but layered with something else. She’s not backing down. She’s bracing. Recalculating. The way someone does when they realize they’re not alone in the fight—and maybe, just maybe, that changes the entire battlefield.
"Then we hit back," she says. "We use your gear. My terrain knowledge. We burn every fucking trail they think they’ve mapped."
I nod once. Agreement. Partnership. And a rush of something that lands deeper than strategy—pride. Not just in her skills or her grit, but in the way she doesn’t blink when the path turns risky.
She’s choosing the fight, not the flight. Choosing to stand with me instead of pulling away. And maybe it shouldn’t matter, but it does. The relief that she’s not going to bolt—at least not yet—settles in my chest like a new kind of armor. I don’t let it show. But I feel it, bone-deep.
Her voice is steady when she adds, "But I’m not sleeping in the loft."
"I figured."
Her eyebrow arches. "You figured?"
"I was going to take the loft."
She doesn’t smile, but her stance alters, almost imperceptibly, like a tension she’s been carrying for hours finally lets go of one small thread. Not surrender. Not softness. Just the first exhale of knowing she doesn’t have to fight me, too. And yeah, I see it for what it is. A tiny flicker of trust. Hard-won. Unspoken. And maybe the sexiest goddamn thing I’ve seen all night.
I drag the map case across the table and unfurl the topographic sheet between us, smoothing out the creases with both hands. The paper’s worn from use, ink smudged from field notes and glove grease. Wren leans in without needing to be asked, eyes already tracking the ridgelines like they’re old friends. I can feel the heat of her.
I mark not just where they were—but where they’ll expect us to go. Places with line-of-sight vulnerabilities, fallback routes they could intercept, corridors that could be trapped. It’s not about where they’ve been. It’s about how they think. And how we can break that pattern before they break us.
For the first time since the shot, I feel forward motion. And then the motion stops.
A beep—not the sensor. The sat-link. I rise fast, move to the panel, and punch the key. One line of text blinks on the screen—clear, clinical, impossible:
MISSING RANGER. GRID 43B. VISUAL MATCH: HARPER, MASON.
I freeze. My hand curls around the frame of the console.
Behind me, Wren’s voice is a whisper. "Mason is dead."
I turn slowly, the weight of the message pressing between my shoulder blades like a physical force. Her eyes lock on mine, wide, shocked, a glint of disbelief shadowed by something deeper. The pain of ghosts never laid to rest. I meet her gaze and hold it, steady and grounding, even as the air between us tightens with a tension that has nothing to do with the storm outside. This isn't just news. It's a wound torn open. And she’s waiting to see if I flinch first.
