Page 79 of Dagger

Crouching just beyond the foliage, she watched Ryu drag a hand over his face, muttering, “She’s going to get herself killed.”

Bagh’s mouth curved faintly. “Maybe.” He paused, something flickering in his eyes. That shared warrior spirit. The kind of silent understanding only those forged in battle could recognize. He slung his rifle over his shoulder and disappeared into the underbrush after her.

That stubborn Ryu hesitated.

She saw it, that hitch in his breath. What their sacred oath did to him. He was born in shadow, forged in silence, loyal to the end. There was no give in any of them when it came to the vow.

She smiled and turned away as his curse floated after her, low and rough and resigned.

She didn’t have to hear it.

She knew what he’d said.

As one.

They moved in her shadow now, dark ghosts, silent and sure. One of a kind. Forged through smoke and adversity. Each of them could stand alone. Each could fight alone.

But together…

They were Shadowguard.

Quinn stoodwith her back braced against the cool bathroom tile, the heated spray now only a memory. The water was off, but she still felt droplets slither down her skin, and Dagger’s searing touch seemed to burn through every inch of her body. She kept her eyes shut, willing her heart to slow. The air felt thick with steam and with something heavy, weighty.

She’d made love to him, not just with her body, but with everything aching and unresolved inside her. It hadn’t just been physical. God, it hadn’t even been close. He was in her blood now, tangled in every thought, etched into the quiet spaces of her heart where no one else had ever dared to go.

Dagger had held steady through every broken piece, every push and pull, every jagged edge of grief she tried to keep between them. He hadn’t quit. Not once. Now, standing in the wreckage of her own defenses, she couldn’t ignore the truth. She didn’t want to quit on him either. Not now… maybe not ever. Her limbs still trembled from the shattering release he’d drawn from her, but the ache inside her chest had nothing to do with pleasure. It was something deeper, an aftershock not just of desire, but of longing, of love, of terrifying hope. Beneath it all, a storm brewed, wild, unpredictable, and entirely his.

God, she was drowning in them all.

A soft rasp of cloth caught her attention. Slowly, she peeled her eyes open to see Kade, not the SEAL, but the man, holding out a towel, his expression caught between concern and something darker. She didn’t know what to call that look. Anguish? Fury? Longing? Probably a combination of all three, etched so deep it made her chest tighten. It shook her more than she wanted to admit. Seeing him like that, unguarded, raw. It scraped something open inside her. He wasn’t supposed to look at her like that. Not with that kind of ache, that kind of desperation. Not like she was something he could lose. Yet… it stirred something dangerous in her. Something real. Because part of her didn’t want to look away. Part of her needed to know she could still be seen like that. Needed to know that someone, he, felt that deeply.

She was hyperaware of the shift in his breathing when she took the towel from his hands. The room was silent except for the drip of water from the showerhead. Her pulse thundered inher ears. She clutched the towel around her body, grateful for even that thin barrier.

His voice came low, rough. “You okay?”

A shuddering breath left her. “I…don’t know,” she admitted, eyes flicking anywhere but his. She felt his gaze linger on her face as she tucked a stray, wet curl behind her ear. Every nerve in her body was still alive with the memory of his mouth on her, but now the weight of reality pressed in.

They’d crossed a line she’d sworn she’d never cross. Not just the physical one, they’d done that already, again and again, each time chipping away at the fragile boundaries she’d tried to keep between them. But this… this was something else. This was the line that mattered. The one drawn not on skin, but somewhere deeper, in the places she’d promised herself no one would ever reach again.

Her heart beat too fast, uneven and unsettled, as if it already knew what she refused to say aloud. She could still feel the imprint of him on her body, the heat of his touch lingering like a brand. But it wasn’t just her skin that trembled anymore. It was her guard. Her resolve. Her certainty that she could keep this thing with Dagger contained.

She didn’t know how to breathe through the way he looked at her, didn’t know how to brace against the way he made her feel.

That terrified her more than anything else.

Because she knew what came next. She could feel it rising between them like a tide, inevitable, unstoppable. A reckoning, something that could break them. God, it was coming, and she didn’t know how to stop it.

The earthquake had already hit. The wave was already crashing. There was no outrunning it now, no shelter, no high ground, no escape from the force bearing down on her. He was going to say it. He was going to talk about Brian. When he did,everything she’d buried, everything she’d fought so hard to keep contained, was going to come surging to the surface.

She wasn’t ready.

But it didn’t matter anymore. The tide was already swallowing her whole, and Dagger was the one dragging her into the deep.

“I’m going to grab some clothes,” he said finally, as though that were a normal, casual statement. As though everything between them wasn’t as charged as lightning.

Quinn nodded jerkily, not trusting her voice. She slid along the wall until she reached the small stool near the sink, unable to stand on her own two feet much longer. Her mind was a blur of images. Brian’s face, Dagger’s hands, her own reflection in the mirror, eyes full of ashes for what she needed to leave behind and that spark, that whisper of flame, reigniting into a second chance… with Dagger. Did she have the courage to burn?

She heard the rustle of fabric as Dagger tugged on the pants she’d stripped from his body. Part of her wanted to command him to leave, escape from the onslaught of feelings. Another part of her begged him to stay, to help her piece together the woman she thought she was from the woman she was becoming.

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