Page 38 of Specter Bred

No... Dangerous and tempting.

I blamed the bottle. A sober man would've stepped back after making the correction.

Instead, I stayed where I was, close enough to feel the tension coiled through her frame. Near enough to discern the slight shift in her breathing and realize Archer wasn't nearly as unaffected by my proximity as she pretended to be.

Neither was I.

I told myself it was the whiskey.

Told myself it was curiosity.

Told myself a lot of things.

None of them felt convincing.

"Again," I breathed.

Archer inhaled.

Exhaled.

The tension slowly left her shoulders.

"That's it." My voice came out rougher than intended.

A second later, steel rang dead center through the darkness.

Neither of us spoke.

I wasn't looking at the target anymore. All I could focus on was her. And that was a huge fucking problem.

"Good." The word slipped out before I could stop it.

Archer froze.

The reaction was immediate. Her shoulders squared. Her chin lifted slightly. A surge of pride flashed across her face before she could hide it, as though earning a single word of approval from me meant more than she'd ever admit.

Archer spent every waking hour trying to prove herself. Whether it was to me, to the other recruits, to Arca, or to anyone who had ever looked at her and seen a woman before they saw a soldier.

And I'd just fed that part of her.

I immediately stepped back, putting distance between us. The last thing I needed was Archer thinking I'd gone soft. So I did what I always did. I twisted the knife.

"Oh, by the way, Hayes."

The kid looked up.

"Sir?"

"Alvarez texted me earlier. Said you turned down a room reassignment to the squad bay."

Hayes immediately went red. Not just a little red. A crimson shade that told me I'd hit something important. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Archer's head snap toward him. Confusion hit first, then surprise, and finally the slow realization that everyone in the room knew something she didn't.

Hayes rubbed the back of his neck.

"Uh... yeah."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked casually.