Leena narrowed her eyes.
“That hurt? Good. Perhaps next time you will listen.”
“Next time I’ll die and spare us both the lecture.”
Her laugh moved softly through the infirmary.
“You will not die. You would never leave me alone with this circus.”
Rhen looked at her.
Leena met the weight of his silence without hesitation, then leaned closer and began stitching the wound along his ribs.
“You’re doing it incorrectly,” he said.
“Be quiet.”
“The stitches are uneven.”
“So is your attitude.”
Cole laughed into the shirt he held against his bleeding brow. Malakai shifted faintly beneath the medication but did not wake.
Leena shook her head.
“All of you are insufferable.”
She finished every stitch regardless.
Afterward, she inspected Cole’s injury again, checked Malakai’s bandage, and pressed a brief kiss to each brother’s forehead before they could object. Rhen went rigid when her lips touched his skin, but he did not move away.
“You are my boys,” she said when they finally prepared to leave. “I will always patch you back together.”
The memory held him there, caught inside the certainty with which she had spoken.
Leena had believed there would always be another wound, another mission, and another night when the brothers returned bloodied but alive.
She had never imagined she would be the one none of them could save.
Movement entered Rhen’s vision.
The infirmary dissolved, replaced by the map room and the glow of tactical displays spread across the central table.
Malakai stepped directly into Rhen’s line of sight.
Are you with us?
Rhen’s expression hardened.
“What?”
Cole stood on the opposite side of the table, studying the routes marked across the compound and the surrounding city.
“We seal the stronghold once the strike team leaves. The civilians remain inside, and the guards rotate only where absolutely necessary.”
Malakai pointed toward the rear sector of the projected map.
We can create a diversion here and pull part of their defense outward while the strike team enters through the weaker sector.
