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Herrera faded from Lechuza’s vision. There was only one man she needed to see. She turned away, and that’s when she saw him.

Flash slumped against the stone wall, half-hidden in the hacienda’s shifting shadow, one hand slack. Blood slicked the other, thick and dark, seeping through his fingers and soaking into the earth beneath him like a sacrifice offered to the gods. The jungle called out to her, urging her toward something just as primal.

Her breath caught sharp and jagged.

The jungle fell away. The rustling leaves, the scent of wet stone, the distant echo of its hushed breath, all of it dulled into a deafening silence as her gaze locked on the man bleeding before her.

He was ghost-pale beneath the grime and sweat, the sharp angles of his face made harsher by the shadow of pain etched into every line. But even wounded, bleeding, he was striking.

Dangerous. Beautiful.

That unruly dark hair, soaked and matted to his temples. The defined cut of his jaw, smeared with dirt and blood. His mouth, God, that mouth, split in that familiar, crooked grin that made her pulse skip for reasons she still didn’t dare name.

But it was his eyes that undid her.

Those big, expressive eyes, gunmetal gray, fierce and unflinching, cut through the chaos like they’d been born to find her. Eyes that belonged to a man trained for war, sharpened by pain, and built to protect with brutal precision. When they landed on her? Only her. They were lethal, metallic, loaded. Alive, storm-wracked, magnificent, and burning with a thousand unspoken promises. Somehow… he made her believe they weren’t empty after all. She shivered, a breath catching in her throat, that deep, uncontrollable pull twisting through her. Safety is an illusion, she’d told him once. Promises are empty until fulfilled. But his eyes said otherwise. His eyes said stay . His eyes said mine . She wanted to heal him with her hands.

Wanted to move into the jungle and take what had always been hers.

He was a man carved by war. Hardened, haunted. But in this moment, even broken and bleeding, he looked like something eternal . A warrior eagle god, cast in flesh and sky. He didn’t move. He didn’t need to. The air bowed around him. She… she shook with the need to touch him.

Her heart surged when he smiled. That same crooked, cocky grin, defiant and reckless and him . And again, that freaking, gorgeous mouth.

“What, worried about me, little owl?” he rasped, voice a cracked whisper that somehow still held its usual teasing lilt. The sound of it scraped down her spine, hit every frayed nerve. Not because he was mocking death, but because he still had the audacity to flirt with it.

Her legs moved on instinct, unzipping her catsuit as she rushed toward him, shrugging out of it. Ryū and Bagh eyed the guy on the ground. Speculation flickering between them as Bagh frowned. Ryū murmured, “She was never yours, my friend.” Bagh sighed, turning away.

I’m going to check the perimeter,” he said, regret shadowing his eyes, rivalry etched into each breath, his body rigid with a loss she didn’t understand. She couldn’t worry about that.

She ripped off her T-shirt beneath her catsuit armor, wadded it up, and dropped to her knees beside him, pressing it to his wound hard enough to make him grunt. Applying pressure with calm, trained movements, her body trembled beneath the surface, panic flaring.

“At least the shirt I gave you wasn’t blood soaked,” he said, his fine eyes going glassy.

His blood was hot against her skin. Too hot.

Yet it grounded her. That heat, that proof of life, was all she could focus on.

Because even as she fought to stop the bleeding, she couldn’t stop watching him.

The thick lashes that framed his eyes. The way his breath hitched when her fingers brushed too close to the injury. The faint twitch of his lips as he tried to be brave, even now.

She was furious.

Furious at the blood, the fragility of his skin, the jungle, the violence, the timing. Furious at how much he mattered.

“No,” she murmured, voice lower now, intimate. “Jae.” His first name was like a kiss on her lips. His smile faltered, just a flicker, but it hit her like a punch. A flicker of softness. Of something unspoken. “Even wounded predators never quit the battle.”

“That’s right. We’re never out of the fucking fight,” he muttered, his humor thinning with pain.

She pressed the bandage tighter, her hands shaking now, not from fear, not from adrenaline, but from the truth threading itself into her marrow.

She felt him in her chest. His heartbeat in her palms. His presence soaking into her blood like wildfire. Every inch of him called to something ancient and aching inside her.

His fingers brushed her wrist, barely a touch, but it shattered something inside her.

A silent thank you. A silent don’t leave . She didn’t want to. Not now. Not ever.

“I need to know,” he whispered, voice raw and fading. “You drove me crazy with your enigmatic tease… moonfire… and stone . Tell me before I bleed out because it’s not the damn knife killing me, it’s the not knowing. The wanting. The goddamn pull of you .”

She exhaled, a soft smile trembling at the edges of her lips. Something broke free in her chest.

“Killa Saqra Rumi.”

“Slower,” he rasped, eyes locked on hers, the only thing still burning in his fading world. “So, I can hold it in my breath.”

“Kee-yah… Sahk-rah… Roo-mee.”

He repeated it under his breath, reverent.

“Even your name cuts.” Then softer, hoarse, the words slipped out, “ Sonqoyta apachunki .”

Her breath hitched. “Where did you learn that?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured, his breathing labored. “I think the jungle told me.”

She trembled, the words translated to: You have taken my heart.

His lifeblood pulsed in her chest.

The jungle pressed closer, oppressive and humid, thick with the scent of earth and copper and fear. But beneath it, there was something deeper, something ancient, electric. As if the land itself felt the thread now humming between them.

This man… this maddening, gorgeous warrior… she wasn’t ready to lose him.

Her grandmother’s voice echoed unbidden from memory, words once spoken by firelight, wrapped in tradition: “If the gods allow, you will always find your soul again, somewhere in another life, another path.”

Maybe it was a story. Maybe it was fate.

She looked down at Flash, wounded, fading away from her like she was already gone. But she looked at him, bloodied, reckless, brilliant, and something inside her knew. She’d found him before. She would find him again. Even if this life tried to take him from her.

A wind stirred the trees, low and shivering. The scent of ceiba blossoms curled around her. And for a heartbeat, she swore she heard her abuela’s voice whisper her name… Lechuza… soft and calling, like the jungle itself had opened its mouth.

She was powerless to refuse, even if whatever was out there swallowed her whole. Its voice had weight. Purpose. Desperation. The fine hairs on the back of her neck lifted, something inside her stirred answering that call.

Like it knew that voice.

Hell, Brawler hated missing the action.

He swept in with the team, boots thudding, rifle up, adrenaline primed, too late .

He expected something brutal. Messy. War. Nothing inside explained the two men who had come tearing out of the compound, crashing through brush and foliage like demons were at their heels. Right into them. Not a mark on them. Wild-eyed. Gibbering. One of them screamed and tried to bolt, ran straight into Shark, who took him down with a curse and a flexcuff. The other didn’t even resist. He dropped to his knees and begged for something no one understood. It took two SEALs each to lock them down. Even then, they shook . From whatever they’d seen. The place was a goddamn graveyard. Bodies everywhere, scattered like shattered armor, blood pooling on cracked stone, the air choked with smoke and gunpowder.

In the center of it all. Herrera.

Dead.

His throat a shredded mess, body splayed open like a warning . A kill made clean. Purposeful. Lechuza’s mark carved into his shirt like a signature. Brawler stared. “Damn.” Efficient as hell. He’d bet she didn’t even flinch.

Tex's rifle lowered first, eyes scanning, jaw flexing. “Well, shit.”

Brawler blew out a low whistle, stepping over a body still twitching, noting Dagger was bare chested, and Quinn was wearing his blood-flecked, torn filthy T-shirt.

“What the hell, Dagger, Flash? You couldn’t save us a few?” he asked as his blood boiled. Knowing what Herrera had done to Lechuza, he only wished he could kill the bastard again. He reached into his pack and pulled out two bottles of water and walked over to the couple, offering them.

Dagger leaned against a table, face bloodied and unreadable, but Brawler could feel the burn of leftover adrenaline rolling off him. Still keyed up, still dangerous.

“Should’ve moved faster,” Dagger said, voice low, accepting the water, opening one for Quinn, then chugging his own.

“We restrained two guys, pale as hell, mentally broken, running for their lives,” Brawler muttered. “What the hell happened in there?”

Dagger closed his eyes, scrubbed a hand over his face, and shrugged. “Something I can’t define without sounding fucking crazy. It had to be adrenaline. Dehydration. Mind playing tricks.”

Brawler hovered nearby, still picturing those two guys, shaking, wild-eyed, like they'd seen something worse than death. Hmm. Dagger wasn’t crazy. That much he knew.

She smiled and nodded. “I am now, and I’m not the only sweetheart here.”

Brawler rubbed the back of his neck, hating the warm flutter in his chest. Shit, he was getting soft

Shark snorted at her words, a grin from ear to ear, then nudged a corpse with his boot. “Remind me never to get on Lechuza’s bad side.”

Brawler’s eyes landed on her. Damn. Cold steel and quiet rage wrapped in grace. She didn’t even spare him a glance. Those golden eyes hooked onto Twister like talons. Her hands were on a makeshift bandage…her T-shirt. She was stripped to the waist, her catsuit unzipped, nothing but her sports bra doing little to hide a figure that made Brawler’s brain short-circuit for half a second before he shoved the thought aside and got back to the bleeding idiot on the ground

Flash, of course, the bleeding idiot that he was couldn’t be serious for one damn second. “Can we save the post-game commentary until after I stop bleeding out?”

“Hurry,” she said, her face composed, but something frantic shone in her eyes.

Twister was already on the move. “There’s my cue.” he said. “Hey, sweetheart , help me roll him.”

Tex snapped into motion, barking orders. “Bondo, clear the doorway. Easy and Shark, set a perimeter. Watch for the chopper.” He hit his comm. “Where the fuck is exfil? We’ve got wounded.”

Brawler groaned at the endearment. “I’ll drop you if you call me that again,” he groused.

“Later, after I save Flash’s life,” Twister said. “Get your big-shouldered backside over here.”

Brawler rushed over and went to one knee, hands already moving. “Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on, Doc.” He gentled Flash down with surprising care, shoulder to shoulder with Twister like they'd done this a thousand times before because they had.

But his gaze flicked up and stuck.

Lechuza hadn’t moved.

Her hand was still on Flash’s chest, light but firm, like she could will the guy to stay conscious with just her touch.

Hell. That was… something.

Twister gave her an admiring look. “You did a good job stemming the flow of the blood. This plasma should fix him up. Now, let's see to that wound.”

There was an undeniable charge between them. A current sparking in the blood-soaked silence, something primal and fierce. Not lust. Not just attraction. No, this was that soul-deep kind of tether Brawler didn’t even pretend to understand.

His chest tightened. Shit. Maybe he didn’t want to understand it.

Because when he looked across the room and caught Quinn and Dagger, just sitting there, not even touching, just looking at each other like the rest of the damn world had ceased to exist, it hit him harder than it should’ve.

That was love. Not just sex. Not just tension.

Real. Raw. Ground-shaking love.

Fuck if it didn’t make something inside him ache in ways he didn’t like to examine.

He shook it off, grumbling under his breath. “All this goddamn romance in the air, I’m gonna be buying flowers and chocolates and not know the fucking reason why.”

Flash chuckled. “Don’t make me laugh, you idiot.”

Twister crouched beside Flash, checking vitals, said, “Now you know the blood loss fun I went through,” he muttered. “Twice.”

Flash gave a weak grin. “I don’t intend to make a habit out of it like you, brother.”

Brawler chuckled, but it hit hollow.

Tex approached Dagger. “All clear?”

Dagger nodded, but his voice was rough. “Langford’s down. Herrera too. It’s over.”

Not really. Not for Dagger. Not for any of them.

Tex’s eyes drifted to Quinn, arms wrapped tight around herself, staring at Dagger like he was the only solid thing left holding her up. Tex nodded once, firm and final. “Then let’s bring everyone home.”

Brawler rose, scanning the room again. Yeah. Home sounded damn good. But for the first time in a long time, he wondered what that even meant anymore.

Quinn didn’t know how they made it back to the compound. Didn’t remember if she walked or floated.

Her body was bruised, sore, covered in dust and sweat and dried blood, but none of it compared to what she felt inside.

She should have collapsed. Should have curled into a ball and shut out the world after the chaos, the betrayal, the gunfire, the fear.

But instead, she stood in the quiet room, her skin still buzzing, her breath shallow, and felt the fire inside her rise.

Dagger stood just across from her, stripped to his waist, his chest heaving with exhaustion and fury and something deeper, something she saw now with stunning clarity.

Not just desire.

Devotion.

He didn’t move. Just looked at her like she was something sacred and scorched and impossible to look away from.

“Say something,” he whispered.

Her voice was rough. “I’m afraid I’ll break you.”

“You can’t break a SEAL, babe. We were born of water, fluidity is in our DNA, and I’ll never back down from a challenge. I don’t want to break you. I can’t…handle that anymore, Quinn.”

She took a step forward. Her body ached, deep, bone-level pain, but all her cuts and bruises, all of Dagger’s, had been treated by Twister. His hands had been so gentle. After what she and Dagger had gone through in Herrera’s compound… Things she couldn’t explain. Not even to herself. She didn’t want to try. She just wanted to wrap herself in him, his arms, his breath, his steadiness, and put all the madness behind them. Even though her ribs screamed with every step, every breath, she just wanted him to hold her. Just for a moment. Just to remind herself that whatever judgment…verdict…moved through that place…they survived it. Together.

“You won’t,” she said softly. “I already broke. I burned. I bled. I made you bleed.”

The room was quiet, hushed, the moment of her reckoning, the moment of her stark truth.

Outside, the compound was a flurry of movement—SEALs, medics, reports being filed, wounds being stitched. But here, in the stillness, the real damage remained.

Quinn stood in the center of the room like she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Her arms wrapped around herself, shoulders hunched, eyes glassy and distant. Dagger didn’t speak. He just watched her, watched the cracks in her armor finally start to split open.

“I didn’t grieve for him,” she said suddenly, her voice thin, aching. “I thought I did… but I didn’t. I drank. I ran. I buried everything so deep I convinced myself I was okay. But I wasn’t. I was just a coward… and too ashamed to admit it.” She laughed, hollow and broken. “I thought I was strong. I thought my anger made me righteous. But it didn’t. It just made me blind. I couldn’t see the damage I was doing to myself, to you, to the boys.”

Her knees buckled, and she sank to the floor, curling in on herself. “You were right,” she whispered. “I didn’t grieve for him. I grieved who I thought I was supposed to be. I let that lie destroy everything.”

Dagger dropped to his knees beside her, arms slowly wrapping around her as she shook, the sob finally breaking loose from her chest. She didn’t fight it this time, welcomed the pain in her ribs, in her heart. Didn’t hold back. She cried for Brian, for her treatment of Kade, for her children, for herself, for everything she’d lost and never dared admit.

Then he broke too.

“I let him haunt me,” he said quietly, forehead pressed to hers. “I carried him like a weight I couldn’t put down. I told myself I was honoring him, but I was punishing myself too. I kept thinking I could’ve done something different. Saved him. Saved you.”

Their foreheads touched, tears slipping down both their faces.

“But he’s gone,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re still here.”

They held each other in the silence that followed, not out of passion, but out of shared grief, shared release, shared healing. The storm had passed. The wreckage remained. But so did they.

Their foreheads pressed together, Quinn's sobs softening into breathy trembles. Dagger’s arms stayed wrapped around her, steady, unshakable, even as his own shoulders began to tremble.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. The words came from some hollow place in her chest, cracked and shaking. “I should’ve said it a long time ago. For blaming you. For making you carry all of it. For punishing you when you were the only one who stood by me.”

Dagger didn’t speak, but she felt it in the way his breath hitched, the way his fingers curled tighter at her back.

“You never quit on me,” she said, voice thick. “You never pulled away, never made me feel like I wasn’t worth the fight. I didn’t understand what it meant to really love someone… not until you.”

She leaned back just enough to see him, her hand brushing his cheek, thumb catching a tear he didn’t try to hide.

“I was so afraid,” she said. “Afraid that if I let go of my anger, it meant I was betraying Brian. That if I stopped hurting, it meant he didn’t matter. But it’s not true. I see that now. Grief isn’t proof of love. Living is.” Her voice caught on a breath, she clasped his beautiful face between her palms. “I want to live, Kade. With you. With our children. Your sons.”

His face contorted, and she kissed him softly. “God, I love you so damn much.” For a moment she stared into his eyes. “You have no idea what kind of man you are, do you?”

His eyes welled. “I only want to be the kind of man you need, Quinn.”

“I was such a fool,” she whispered, her heart breaking, filled so full of her love for him, for his team, for their beautiful sons. “I held onto the ashes, thinking they were all I had left. But I wasn’t honoring him. I was only continuing to destroy myself.”

She hesitated, her gaze dropping briefly before lifting again, fierce and wet with clarity.

“But I’m done hiding from the fire. I’m done pretending I’m still who I used to be. That version of me burned.” A pause. “Maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s what had to happen.” Her hand pressed to her chest, her voice barely a whisper. “To be reborn, I had to be willing to burn.”

She didn’t fear the fire anymore. It had carved her into something stronger. He made her stronger.

Dagger’s eyes shone with grief and reverence, but also something else, pride . Quiet, aching pride.

“Do you think Brian could forgive us?” he asked softly.

Her heart swelled. Kade. God, this man. This amazing, lucky-to-have, even luckier-to-hold man filled her to bursting. They had loved silently for so long, they mistook that silence for sin. She cupped his face, voice barely a whisper. “You weren’t unforgivable. You were just too good to ever ask to be forgiven.” She paused, breath catching, heart wide open. “I think I knew you were mine before I ever let myself say it. That’s what I couldn’t forgive in myself.” Her eyes shimmered. “But now… I do.” Her voice dropped, trembling. “And you? You deserve it more. Because you knew long before I ever accepted it that I was yours.”

She pressed her forehead to his. “Every day since you met me, you’ve proven it. In silence. In stillness. With your gorgeous body, your honorable heart, and an unselfish soul that mates with mine so seamlessly… I will never love another man the way I love you.” A tear slipped down her cheek as she smiled, soft and sure. “It’s simply impossible.” She kissed him, slow, deep, infinite. Then breathed the words into his mouth like a promise. “Do you understand me, you beautiful man? My heart’s desire. My everlasting love.”

Then he broke again. His face crumpled, and he buried it in her neck, and for the first time, Kade Hollis cried for his brother. Cried out of relief that she wanted him, loved him, and couldn’t live without him, for the reality of Ezra and Elijah, his sons in both blood and heart.

She held him, her turn to be strong for him, arms tightening, letting him grieve now that she finally understood what it meant.

After that outpouring of so much emotion, she was thoroughly exhausted. They both were. “Let’s get cleaned up,” she murmured, brushing her hand gently across his tear-damp cheek. She loved his tears, his red-rimmed eyes, another part of Dagger that was so beautiful, allowing her to see him like this, vulnerable, open, his love for her in his eyes. They rose and entered the bathroom.

His mouth found hers with no hesitation this time, hot, reverent, claiming. He pulled her into him like the tide claiming the shore. The kiss wasn’t soft. It was a surge. A storm. A surrender.

She gave it all back.

She undressed slowly, aching with every movement, baring her bruised skin without shame. Because this wasn’t about perfection. It was about presence. Survival. Healing. Love.

He kissed every mark. Every place that hurt, his hands trembling slightly as they traced over her body. She felt it again, the dream coming to life.

Only now, it wasn’t imagined.

Now, it was real.

Water cascaded over them in waves, catching in the curves of their bodies, sliding down every inch of skin. It mingled with the heat of their flesh, mixing with the steam until everything around them felt suspended in a hazy veil of elemental passion, fire, water, breath, and skin, all tangled into one.

She burned for him, and he watched her just let go of her resistance, her fear.

He moved with her, slow and deep, each thrust carving something new between them, something permanent. Quinn clung to him, to the feel of his body, to the way his lips traced fire along her throat, the way his fingers gripped her hips with a possessiveness that stole the breath from her lungs.

He was the ocean, vast and relentless, pulling her under, drowning her in pleasure.

She was the flame, searing through him, consuming him in return.

The water streamed down their bodies, intensifying every sensation, each kiss a flicker of heat, each thrust a surge of current, every gasp and moan echoing in the steam-thick air like sacred sound.

Her breath caught, pleasure coiling fast, fierce, uncontrollable.

He whispered her name like a prayer. She cried out his like a rising scream in the dark.

He moved inside her like waves, slow, powerful, relentless. Every thrust pushed her higher, every kiss steadied her flight.

She wasn’t falling anymore.

She was flying.

Her release tore through her like lightning through flame, and she clung to him as he followed, his body shuddering with release, his breath breaking against her skin.

Afterward, when he wrapped her tight against his chest, her head against his heart, she didn’t cry.

“I dreamed of this,” she murmured.

His brows drew together.

“The morning after I kissed you. I dreamed of fire and water. You touched me and I turned to steam. You held me and I didn’t burn. I rose.”

His breath hitched. His hands came up, hesitant, until she curled her fingers into his wrists and pulled him to her.

“I need you,” she said, voice cracking. “Not to hold me together. Just…to hold me.”

He pulled her into his arms, no more ashes…they were whole.