Page 10 of Duty Preserved

“You okay with that?” Ethan asked.

Andrew glanced in my direction. We both knew Ethan was talking to me. I stared at the phone.

“Fine.”

“Donovan.” His voice dropped into a tone that meant he wasn’t accepting short answers. “I know what I’m asking you to do out there. Training people. Being responsible for whether they’re ready. I know that’s not easy for you.”

“I said fine.”

“And I heard you. But I also know you. Cole Braddock is the mission commander. He’s running it. You and Andrew are support. You don’t have to carry this one alone.”

I didn’t say anything.

He let the silence hold for a beat. “Get some sleep. Both of you. You’ve got a week to reset before Kenya.”

The line went dead.

Andrew pocketed his phone. “Hell of a night.”

“Yeah.”

“Good work out there, Chippendales. Get some sleep.”

We went inside. Andrew gave me a two-finger wave at the stairwell and headed up to his floor. I found my room, locked the door behind me, and sat on the edge of the bed. The adrenaline was gone. What was left were sore ribs, the scraped forearm, and a quiet room.

I sat there longer than I should have. Then I got up, went to the bathroom, showered, and brushed my teeth.

The mirror showed a man who’d done fine tonight but definitely shouldn’t be in charge of making sure anybody else was ready for danger.

Ever.

I’d made that clear to Ethan before ever accepting the job he’d offered at Citadel.

But Cole Braddock was the lead. I was support. I just had to show up and do what Cole told me to do.

No problem.

Chapter 3

Sarah

My boots were by the door where I’d left them, laces still caked with red clay. I pulled them on in the dark, and they were shaped well to my feet after a year of wearing them every day. The leather was cracked and the soles were thinning, and I loved them more than anything I’d packed in the suitcase for Paris.

I sat on the edge of my bed for a second and listened.

I could hear a bird somewhere close. Followed by a dozen more answering it, then the whole reserve opening up at once, and there it was: the wildlife of Kenya reminding me why I’d come here in the first place. The Laikipia Plateau waking up sounded nothing like anywhere else on earth, and after four days back, I still caught myself holding still just to hear it.

My cabin was small with a shower that barely worked, and the camp generator had opinions about when it wanted to run. I didn’t care. This place was home. I’d tacked photos above my desk and let a stack of veterinary journals take over the chair I never sat in and kept alive—barely—the little plant Alyson had given me when I’d first arrived.

This was the first place that had ever felt like mine. Not my parents’ farm, not the dorm at Iowa State where I’d shown up at sixteen on a full ride and a roommate who’d decided I was a snob before I’d finished unpacking, not even my apartment in vet school.

But this place was mine.

I’d built this life one red-clay morning at a time, and coming back to it after a week of busy streets and hotel sheets that were somebody else’s idea of comfortable was like exhaling for the first time in days.

I crossed the compound in the half dark, past the other cabins still shut up tight, past the dining tent where the cooks were already moving around inside. The vet facility sat at the far end of the cluster, the largest structure in camp, with concrete block walls and a tin roof. It was the only building that felt permanent.

I let myself in through the side door and went straight to the recovery pen.