Page 25 of My Forbidden Commander

No time to aim.

I dive onto him, and we go over the edge of the shelf together, his rifle going off once and firing into nothing as we drop. The floor comes up fast and hits us both like a truck. I grunt as white-hot pain announces itself from my side. He’s under me, then he’s not—he’s strong, hands scrabbling for the knife on his vest, and I get my forearm across his throat and my knee on his weapon arm and my sidearm out of its holster, and I don’t hear the shot. I feel it, twice, through my own wrist, and he stops.

I stay there, kneeling on a dead man in a riverbed with a firefight still going on around me, my chest heaving and my ears ringing.

The shooting stutters out as the Dravosians break the other way—they’ve lost their point man and both flankers, and I don’t think they wanted this fight any more than we did. Gravel crunches, boots heading my way, and my pistol is up before my brain even processes the shape.

Gabriel.

He knocks the muzzle aside with the back of his hand, grabs the front of my vest with both fists, and hauls me off the body and against the rock wall hard enough to rattle my teeth. Under the goggles I can’t read his eyes, but his fists are shaking, and Gabriel Wolfe’s hands do not shake.

“What,” he asks, so quiet it’s worse than shouting, “was that?”

“Flankers.” My voice sounds like my throat’s been sandpapered. “Shelf. He had you dead to rights, sir. No angle from my position.”

“You crossed sixty meters of open ground under effective fire.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alone. Off the drill. Away from your pair.”

“Yes, sir.”

His grip tightens on my vest. For one insane second, pressed against a rock wall in the dark with his fists at my collar and his breath rolling hot across my face, I honestly can’t tell whether he’s going to court-martial me or kiss me. God help me, I know what my body is voting for. My veins feel like they’re on fire with anticipation.

Okafor’s voice through the radio puts a stop to that. “Colonel. Consolidating at the bend. Petrillo’s asking for a casualty count.”

Gabriel lets go and steps back. He’s the colonel again in the space of one breath.

“Two enemy bodies, this position. Reyes—” He turns his head to me again and gives me a once-over. Then his hand presses flat against my ribs and comes back dark. “You’re hit.”

I look down. My side is wet. And now that he’s pointed it out, it decides to hurt.

“Petrillo,” Gabriel says into the radio, voice clipped. “Rear position. Now.”

Petrillo materializes out of the dark, shoves my vest up, and shines a light at my side. His fingers are quick and impersonal, and after a moment he exhales.

“Round skipped off a rock or something, took a bite out of him. Through the meat, no keepers.” He packs it, tapes it, pats my shoulder once. “You’ll want a shower before I stitch it. You smell like a grave.”

I laugh, but it comes out like a wheeze. “That’s just the adrenaline.”

We stagger back to the rally point. Hayes has a cut on his cheek, and I can see the story about it already loading. Delgado and Spencer are untouched, and Okafor’s doing a headcount and gets us moving. Like nothing happened, like there aren’t bodies cooling behind us.

I walk at number two all the way back to base, feeling him behind me. Thinking about how close his face was to mine, those gray eyes silver with anger.

We break apart at the wire, the patrol splitting off toward chow or bunks or showers. The debrief will come at a more civilized hour. I’m three steps toward the med hut when his voice stops me.

“Reyes.”

I turn and face Gabriel. He’s standing illuminated by the gate light, his rifle on his shoulder. He’s not angry anymore. The emotion on his face is so much worse. Or better. I can’t fucking decide.

“That was the single most reckless thing I have seen a soldier do in twenty-two years,” he says.

I fight to keep my face straight and my voice level.

“Yes, sir.”

A muscle works in his jaw. His eyes drop to my side, to the blood dried black on my shirt, and come back up.