Page 94 of Dagger

Both men smiled, one Asian, the other Nepali, feral, coiled. “Let’s blade dance, sister,” the Nepalese man said. “The jungle calls for it.”

Dagger got chills. There was something otherworldly about these three, then there was no more time for fancy notions.

Dagger turned just in time to catch a flash of motion, A lithe figure flanked left, a blur of motion and moonlight, moving like smoke, burning like silence. His eyes didn’t glow, theysmoldered, as if the fire inside him hadn’t yet decided who to spare.

The air behind him shimmered, thick with the heat of the blast, twisting in waves that didn’t move like air should. For one impossible second, the smoke curled in a serpentine shimmer, coiling through the flames in a shape too fluid, tooprecise. A suggestion of scales. A ripple of somethingancient.Mythical. Gone before he could blink. He shook his head. Hallucination, maybe. But something about the way the fire bent around that man…It didn’t feel human.

His blade whispered, no, sang, across the first guard’s throat, severing windpipe and artery in a single, fluid draw. He fought with judgment. Like a dragon deciding which souls were worth the breath. Then he was gone. Moving. A sword dancer of another age, each strike a note in some forgotten hymn of war. Insurgents fell before they even knew death was near. Daggerhad never seen him before, but he didn’t need an introduction. He couldn’t mistake a Shadowguard. Not when they moved like they remembered the first war ever fought.

On the opposite flank, another operator emerged, not charging, not running.

Stalking.A wall of muscle and silence, his movement both primal and precise, like the jungle itself had sculpted him from its darkest instincts. His kukri gleamed red and holy in his grip, whispering of centuries of warrior grit andblood-bound purpose. Then it sank deep into a man’s ribs, the curved blade twisting with brutal finality, pulling the life clean from his lungs. He didn’t grunt. Didn’t speak. He just kept moving, fluid, unstoppable, all power and predator, a living echo of something older than war. His eyes had flashed orange, then black in the firelight, just long enough to glimpse the roar beneath the man, contained, waiting to unleash.

Dagger’s vision swam, disoriented by pain, dehydration, the weight of everything they’d survived. For a second,just a breath,he thought he saw a tiger streak across the floor where the man had passed. Not in body. Inmotion. Huge. A phantom blur, low and lethal. He blinked hard, but the operator was already gone into the shadows, into the myth. A force of nature born not to dodge bullets but to dare them. Gunfire roared. He answered like thunder with a heartbeat.

Quinn’s assailant turned, momentarily stunned. Dagger threw off his lethargy. He moved, his hands slamming into the bastard’s throat, and he drove him backward with the force of a battering ram, slamming him into the wall. The man’s head cracked against the concrete with a sickening thud, and he dropped like a stone.

Flash was already up, favoring his left side, blood in his eyes.

Lechuza reached him first, slashing his cuffs in a single swipe. She didn’t speak, didn’t pause, but her eyes metFlash’s through the smoke. Just one heartbeat. Recognition. Connection.

The Gurkha blade was at Dagger’s side next, cutting through his restraints with a swift slash. Quinn sagged against the wall, still half-bound, eyes dazed, but the moment she saw Dagger, she pushed herself upright, rage flickering behind the bruises.

Herrera… was finally realizing he had underestimated every single one of them.

The smoke hadn’t even cleared, and Dagger was already looking for the one person in all this carnage. He spied Langford stumbling his way to the shattered wall.

He took off after him, Quinn right on his heels. He had half a mind to tell her to seek cover, but this was her fight too. She deserved to be part of Langford’s takedown. Dagger caught him, his fists flying, the fury inside him finally releasing in a brutal beating. Langford fought back, then bolted again. Bleeding, bruised, gasping, half-limping, half-dragging his carcass like a cockroach that refused to die.

But Dagger wasn’t done.

He grabbed him from behind. “You’re not going anywhere,” Dagger growled. His fist met Langford’s face, again. And again. Bone cracked under impact. Blood sprayed across the debris-littered floor. Langford’s lip split wide.

This was for Brian.

Another strike, his knuckles split open. Hot pain, barely felt.

For Quinn.

A brutal elbow into Langford’s gut. He doubled over, coughing blood onto the tile.

For the boys. For every goddamn lie.

Langford laughed through broken teeth, spitting red. “You hit like a man who can’t think,” he sneered. “You’ll die like one too.”

Dagger lunged again, the fury in him far from slaked, overwhelming form, too wild, too raw, and Langford twisted, slamming an elbow into his ribs. The impact knocked the breath from his lungs, sent pain flaring through his side.

Quinn moved. She was a blur of motion, slamming into Langford’s side with everything she had. No hesitation. No more waiting for someone else to save her.

Dagger saw it all in flashes, the twist of her body, the wild swing of her fist. It wasn’t trained, wasn’t perfect, but it wasreal. Fierce. His SEAL babe in full court press. Langford staggered, stunned. She drove her knee up into his groin, full force. He doubled over with an agonized cry. Langford looked up, dazed and bleeding and his face changed. He grabbed a fallen sidearm, rose to his knees and aimed, not at him, his heart lurching, but at Quinn.

“Quinn,” his shout full of anguish, “No!” Then it happened. Asnapin the air. A shimmer of movement. A whisper of cloth. A blade punched through Langford’s chest from behind, angled clean through his heart. He froze. Stared down at the gleaming edge protruding from his sternum. One choked breath. One gurgle of disbelief. Then he crumpled.

Dagger stood over him, stunned. Not by the kill, but by thestillnessthat followed. The Asian Shadowguard stepped into the light, blade sliding free without a sound. He wiped the blood on Langford’s shirt, slow, deliberate. Then looked up. Gave Dagger a single nod. His eyes said it plainly:Traitor.No words. No glory. Just the clean, final work of someone who had ended monsters before.

Dagger’s pulse thundered in his ears. He looked at Quinn. Her eyes were wide, adrenaline-lit, chest rising fast. He reached for her. “You okay?” She nodded wrapped her arms around him, and his heart could beat again. “Yeah.” Then she looked down at Langford’s corpse, then back at Dagger. “But I’m really gladour hands are clean.” He didn’t say anything. Just squeezed her. Some things didn’t need blood to be righteous. Some justice came with a blade through the heart.

The Shadowguard stepped back into the dark, leaving only silence in his wake.

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