Page 17 of Undercover Shadow
“Watch it, kid. That beam doesn’t look stable.”
Kid.I clenched my fists and jaw, and my brow furrowed. After the kiss that had shattered both of us, after spending the night clinging to opposite sides of the bed like our lives depended on it, after the way he’d held me after I was stuck in the tunnel—he still called me that.
Something inside me snapped. Years of frustration, of being diminished, of being seen as less than what I was—all boiled over in an instant.
I whirled on him, my torch beam catching his surprised expression. “Stop calling me that.”
He blinked at my vehemence. “I didn’t mean?—”
“Stop treating me like I’m fragile. Like I’m something to protect and pat on the head.” The words poured out, a flood I couldn’t stop even if I’d wanted to. “You do it every single day. Every. Single. Fucking. Day. I’ve killed people, Tag. I’ve run ops that would make seasoned agents think twice. I survived alone for months in Syria, extracted assets from Tehran when everyone said it was impossible and decoded intelligence that saved dozens of lives. I’ve earned my place at Unit 23 ten times over. But you call me ‘kid’ like I’m someone who needs to be managed rather than trusted.”
“That’s not fair,” he spat at me.
“Isn’t it?” I stepped closer, fury overriding every instinct that told me not to. “You told me yesterday it wasn’t about me being Idris’ sister. That it was about you, about your past. Fine. I get that. But that doesn’t change the fact that you treat me like I’m nineteen, like I’m that girl at her brother’s funeral. I’m twenty-two years old. I speak five languages fluently, and I can kill a man sixteen different ways with my bare hands. I’ve infiltrated organizations that would execute me without hesitation if they knew who I really was. I’m not a child, Tag. I haven’t been one for a very long time.”
“I know that.” His tone was low, seething.
“Do you? Because from where I’m standing, you see the teenager you and Typhon approached at the cemetery. The girl you promised to protect. Well, I don’t need protecting, Tag. Not from missions, not from danger, and certainly not from you.”
The hush that followed was deafening. Even the constant drip of water somewhere in the tunnels seemed to pause. Tag’s eyes had gone almost black in the torchlight, and when he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.
“I don’t see you as a kid.” Each word dragged from him against his will, like he was confessing under torture. “That’s the problem.”
My breath caught, and the hair on my arms stood up. Understanding crashed through me—the walls weren’t about dismissal. It was defense. He was trying to convince himself as much as me.
“Tag—”
“We should return to the main level.” He stalked off, leaving me standing alone with my heart hammering.
I eventually followed, and when I emerged from the undercroft, the warmth I’d anticipated was nonexistent.
As if it were the proverbial straw breaking the camel’s back, the generator wheezed, then died completely. The lights flickered off, leaving us in the gray twilight.
“The heat’s given out,” he said, checking the cooling radiators. “We’ll have to rely on other ways to stay warm.”
We built up the fire in the bedroom since it was the most contained space, but even with the flames roaring, the chilled air was bitter, seeping through the exterior and finding every gap in the windows where frost had formed on the inside of the glass.
Night fell early, the bad weather turning daylight to dusk by sixteen hundred hours. We ate dinner sitting as close as we could to the hearth—bread and cheese accompanied by a bottle of whiskey Tag had discovered in a cupboard. It was aged and smoky, and the burn of each sip spread warmth through my chest and limbs.
“We’re going to freeze,” I said as my breath clouded in the air despite sitting close to the fire.
Tag had been staring into the flames, but at my words, he glanced up. The light caught his features, casting shadows that emphasized the exhaustion on his face and the tension in his jaw. “We’ll manage.”
“No, we won’t.” I stood, decision made. “We need to share body heat, or we’ll both be hypothermic by morning.”
I saw him tense, saw the automatic rejection forming, but I cut him off.
“This isn’t aboutus. It’s about survival.”
He was quiet for several seconds, then nodded once. “You’re right.”
We sat with our spines against the sofa, sharing the blankets we’d gathered from around the castle. At first, we maintained space between us, but the cold was relentless. Within minutes, we’d shifted closer, our bodies naturally seeking warmth.
His arm was behind me on the sofa, not quite touching but close enough for me to sense its presence. Heat radiated from him through our clothes.
“Better?” His tone was low and rough.
“Yes.”
