My first instinct: complete the mission. Two seconds to position hands. Minimal pressure required for cervical displacement. Clean. Efficient. Final.
But I didn’t move.
Instead, I performed inventory. My weapons lie arranged on the floor—close enough to grab in an emergency but deliberately out of immediate reach. Tactical assessment: someone with close-quarters combat knowledge positioned them. The blanket covering us wasn’t here before. Neither was the water bottle positioned nearby. The mattress felt unchanged, but someone—Maeve—had placed what felt like a jacket beneath my head.
The arrangement suggested medical attention, not restraint. Unexpected.
A vibration against my thigh broke my assessment. My phone. With gentle movements that wouldn’t disturb the sleeping woman, I extracted it from my pocket.
Brock’s message illuminated the screen:Status update required.
Standard protocol demanded an immediate response. Any delay flagged me for extraction or termination, depending on assessed risk of intelligence compromise. In fourteen years, I had never failed to report status.
My thumb hovered over the screen. I could fabricate another report, claim surveillance requiring communication silence. Buy time.
Instead, I silenced the phone and returned it to my pocket.
The action should feel insignificant. A minor deviation. Yet my pulse accelerated, and the throb behind my eyes intensified as if my brain physically rebelled against this violation of protocol. First time. First deviation. First failure to comply.
Extraction protocols would activate within twenty-four hours. Possibly less.
Time was now a weapon aimed at my head.
My attention returned to the woman draped across me. Maeve’s weight should feel restrictive. Instead, I registered something entirely different: warmth. The press of her breast against my ribs with each breath. The tickle of her hair against my neck. The curve of her hip under my inadvertently placed hand.
With detached surprise, I realized my body responded to her proximity. Heat pooled low in my abdomen, a tightening awareness both foreign and strangely familiar. My hand, operating on some buried instinct, moved slightly against the fabric covering her hip.
The sensation confused me. Physical desire had never factored into my operational awareness. During past missionsrequiring intimate contact, my body performed as directed without genuine arousal—mechanical execution of necessary steps toward an objective.
This was different. Uncontrolled. Unbidden.
Yet it felt… correct. As if some buried circuit has reactivated after long dormancy.
With clinical detachment, I cataloged the unfamiliar response: arousal without mission parameters requiring it. Desire without tactical function.
I studied her face in the dimness. The stubborn set of her jaw, softened in sleep. Dark lashes against her cheeks. Lips slightly parted as she breathed. Her skin showed fatigue—dark circles under her eyes, strain at the corners of her mouth—evidence of extended stress. Protecting me after I collapsed must have drained her remaining reserves.
She shouldn’t have bothered. The asset didn’t require protection.
The asset.
The thought hit like ice water. Was that what I was? An asset? Property?
Your name is Reaper. You exist to complete the mission. Nothing more. You are mine.
My fingertips, obeying impulses I didn’t understand, brushed a strand of hair from her face. The gesture felt both transgressive and essential, crossing a boundary while returning to something fundamental.
The nightmare flashed again—Start again. Wipe everything—and a troubling thought surfaced. What if Maeve was right? What if everything I believed about myself wasfabricated? What if the person I was before Reaper still existed somewhere beneath the programming?
The questions themselves felt dangerous, triggering another stab of pain. But as Maeve shifted against me, her hand unconsciously clutching my shirt, one certainty crystallized: I needed answers more than I needed to complete this mission. And the woman whose warmth seeped into my normally cold existence seemed to be the key to finding them.
Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks as awareness returned. Her face remained soft, unguarded for a few seconds. Then recognition hit. Her body tensed against mine as memory clarified who and what I was.
Yet she didn’t pull away.
“You’re awake,” she murmured, voice rough from sleep. She pushed herself up slightly. The movement created friction between our bodies that sent intense heat through my core. “How bad is the headache?”
I didn’t answer, unsure how she knew about the persistent throb behind my eyes. Instead, I watched as she leaned across me to retrieve the water bottle she’d positioned nearby.
