Her gaze moved to the torn shoulder of his coat.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It is not mine.”
“I know.”
She set the cup beside her and stood.
Rhen allowed her to approach because she was Leena and because preventing her would require touching her more forcefully than he permitted himself.
Her fingers moved the damaged edge of his coat aside, revealing a shallow cut beneath his collarbone.
“You are injured.”
“It will close.”
“That does not mean it does not hurt.”
“Pain is irrelevant.”
Leena looked up at him.
“You say that about everything you cannot control.”
Rhen’s jaw tightened.
She did not retreat.
“I know you inspect the guards’ routes yourself,” she continued. “You reorganized the armory because Dax kept leaving ammunition in the wrong place, and you changed Malakai’s training schedule after the last mission.”
“Incompetence creates casualties.”
“Exactly.”
“That is not compassion.”
“I did not call it compassion.”
“Then stop trying to find virtue in basic threat management.”
Leena’s expression softened in the way he hated most, because it suggested she believed she understood him.
“You care whether they live.”
“They are clan.”
“You say that as though loyalty is not a form of caring.”
“It is obligation.”
“To you, perhaps those are the same thing.”
Rhen looked away.
Leena touched two fingers lightly against the center of his chest.
“You are not as empty as you want everyone to believe.”
