Page 25 of Damian
Not the words, not exactly — but the cadence, the way her voice shifted when she stopped talking to us and started talking to herself. It was raw. Unfiltered. More truth than most soldiers gave their shrinks.
And it slipped under my skin in a way bullets and knives never had.
Bloody hell. She was beautiful.
I’d noticed before — the hair catching the light, the stubborn tilt of her chin, the fire in her eyes, even when herhands shook. But now… now I couldn’t look at her without my body reacting, heat coiling low in my chest, tightening. It was instinct, primal, the kind I’d trained a lifetime to suppress.
And failing.
River caught me watching and smirked again. Bastard. I looked away, jaw clenched, but the damage was done. I wasn’t fooling anyone. Least of all myself.
I told myself it was natural. Protecting her, being close, fighting side by side — anyone would feel the pull. But that was a lie. I’d dragged civilians out of fire before, seen courage and loyalty burn bright in people who shouldn’t have survived. None of them had burrowed into me like this.
Morgan Tate wasn’t just a civilian. She was a bloody hurricane dressed in soft words and nervous smiles, and I was standing right in the path of it.
And if I wasn’t careful, she’d tear down every wall I’d spent my life building.
I tightened the strap on my rifle, forcing my mind back to the mission. Hemsley. Caldwell. Luthor. That was the battlefield. That was the fight.
But when Morgan’s laugh — small, startled, real — drifted across the room as River muttered something to her, it hit me harder than gunfire.
And for the first time in years, I realized I was in more danger sitting in this bloody farmhouse than I’d ever been in the field.
29
Morgan
The farmhouse hummed with quiet — the kind of quiet that wasn’t empty, but heavy with presence. River cleaned his pistol at the table, Cyclone typed steadily at his laptop, and Damian…
Damian sat near the window, rifle propped against the wall, posture carved from stone. Watching. Always watching.
I tried to keep my eyes on the files in front of me, but they kept drifting back to him. The hard line of his shoulders beneath his shirt. The faint scar running along his jaw. The way his hand flexed against his thigh, steady even at rest.
He wasn’t just still. He was contained, like a storm held under glass.
And for reasons I couldn’t explain, that steadiness made something inside me loosen.
I told myself it was only because I felt safe around him. That was true, wasn’t it? After everything — the warehouse, the men in the suits, the headlights sweeping across the farmhouse — he was the one thing that hadn’t faltered.
But then his eyes lifted and caught mine across the room. Gray, sharp, unflinching.
My breath stuttered.
For a heartbeat, it felt like he saw everything — my fear, my guilt, my hope — and didn’t flinch away. No one had ever looked at me like that. Not even Ruby, who loved me most.
Heat crept up my neck, and I ducked my gaze, fumbling with the recorder as if that had been my focus all along.
“Keep working,” I whispered to myself. “Keep moving.”
But my pulse didn’t listen. My thoughts didn’t listen. Because now, when I thought of Ruby’s rescue, I saw Damian there too — rifle in hand, eyes sharp, his voice steady as he told me we’d get her back.
And the thought of him not coming back with her… that scared me almost as much as losing her.
30
Damian
Ifelt her eyes before I saw them.
