Page 37 of Ghost of Talon Mountain
We collapse together, trembling with aftershocks. My arm wraps around his back, holding him to me as the pleasure slowly ebbs. His weight presses me into the sleeping bag and I've never felt safer, more whole, more utterly wrecked in the best possible way.
Sweat cools on our skin. The propane heater chugs steadily in the corner, but it's his body heat that keeps me warm—this man who's been alone so long that touch must feel foreign. Yet he holds me like he's afraid to let go.
Neither of us speaks. There's nothing to say. We needed this. Needed each other. The world outside can wait.
Eventually he shifts, rolls to his side and pulls me with him so we're facing each other in the narrow sleeping bag. His arm stays locked around my waist, keeping me close. Our legs tangle together, skin still damp with sweat.
I rest my head against his chest, his heartbeat steady under my ear—strong, rhythmic, alive. My shoulder throbs but it's distant now, muted by endorphins and satisfaction that runs marrow-deep.
Chris's hand moves in slow circles on my back, tracing patterns I can't decipher. His breathing has evened out but he's not sleeping—too alert, too aware of every sound beyond the shelter walls.
"You okay?" he murmurs into my hair.
"Better than okay." I press a kiss to his collarbone, taste salt on his skin. "You?"
His chest rises and falls beneath my cheek. "Haven't felt this alive in a long, long time."
The admission settles between us, heavy with meaning. This man who's been surviving alone on this mountain, isolated and hunted, treating every day like it might be his last. And now he's here, holding me like I'm something precious instead of a complication that could get him killed.
My fingers find the scar on his ribs—old bullet wound, judging by the size. I trace the puckered edges. "Tell me about this one."
"Helmand Province. Sniper round. Missed my lung by an inch." His hand covers mine, stilling the movement. "That was a good day."
"A good day?"
"Everyone on my team made it out alive." His voice goes distant, haunted. "Can’t say that about the last mission."
Joel Martinez and Tate Bishop. The names from the file. His team members who died when the operation went sideways.
"That wasn't your fault," I say quietly.
"Wasn't it?" He shifts, pulls back enough to meet my eyes. "I was team leader. I approved the op plan. I trusted the intel that Shepherd fed us. And when the ambush came, I survived while they didn't."
His jaw is tight, every word laced with self-recrimination. Survivor's guilt mixed with the weight of command. I've seen it before in cops who lost their partners, in soldiers who came home when their friends didn't.
"Shepherd set you up," I say. "That's on them, not you."
"Doesn't change the fact that Joel and Tate are dead." His jaw tightens. "Or that I've been hiding on this mountain for almost a year while the person responsible walks free."
"Not for much longer." I shift closer, press my forehead to his. "Shepherd made a mistake. Left a trail. And I'm going to follow it straight to them."
Chris's arm tightens around me, his hand splaying across my lower back. "We will."
Not just me. We. Together.
The word wraps around me like a promise. For the first time since Chicago, since the warehouse and the blown cover and the bullet that should've killed me, I don't feel alone.
Outside, an owl calls—low and haunting in the darkness. The sound echoes off the mountain, mournful and ancient. Then another answers, closer to the shelter.
But the second one sounds wrong. Too short. Too sharp. The cadence is off, like someone trying to imitate a sound they've only heard on a recording.
Chris tenses beneath me, every muscle going rigid in the space of a heartbeat. His arm leaves my waist, hand shooting out to find the rifle propped against the wall. He moves so fast I barely register the motion—one second holding me, the next dressed, armed and alert.
"That's not an owl," he breathes, voice barely audible.
The forest goes silent. No wind in the trees. No small animals rustling through underbrush. Even the normal creaks and settling sounds of the mountain seem to hold their breath.
And in that silence, I hear it—something moving through the trees. Not the random pattern of wildlife. Deliberate. Measured. The kind of movement that comes from training, from knowing how to stalk prey without alerting it.
