The dirt still clung to your skin, a rough reminder of the day’s training, when your collar was seized in a grip that left no room for argument. The yank was harsh, almost cruel, dragging you backward with the force of a man who’d had enough.

Colonel Calvin Hale. You should’ve known he’d find out. You should’ve known you couldn’t slip into the ranks without him noticing, without him dragging you out by the scruff of your neck like you were still a reckless child sneaking into places you didn’t belong.

He didn’t say a word as he hauled you across the training grounds, his grip unrelenting, his pace merciless. The soldiers you passed barely dared to look, some snapping to attention, others pretending not to see. You’d thought—hoped—that maybe he’d let it go this time, that maybe the boy who once pulled you out of rivers and climbed trees at your side might look at you and still see you. But that boy was gone, buried under the weight of command and war, and the man who dragged you now was someone forged of fury.

He shoved you inside a cavernous command tent, the canvas walls swallowing the muffled sounds of camp. The tables were littered with maps, pins stabbing into cities and borders, the lifeblood of strategy laid bare.

You stumbled, the force behind the shove just a shade too strong, the kind that said his anger was bleeding through even if his voice had yet to follow.

For a moment, his back was to you. His shoulders rose and fell with a sharpness that betrayed what he was holding in check. His fists flexed at his sides before he spoke. “Of course it’d be you.” His voice was quiet, but laced with irritation. “Stubborn. Reckless. Always running headfirst into things you don’t understand.”

His words should’ve been expected, but they cut deeper because they weren’t new. You’d heard them before—when you were teenagers sneaking into the forest past curfew, when you’d stolen horses to race across the fields, when you’d climbed too high into branches that bent beneath your weight. Back then, his scolding had been followed by a laugh, a helping hand, or whispered promises to keep your secret if you kept his.

But not now.

“This isn’t the woods behind our homes. It isn’t some game where you get to come back with scraped knees and a smile. This is war.” His tone sharpened, each word like a lash. He finally turned, and his gaze landed on you like a strike. His face was carved from exhaustion, but his eyes betrayed him. Fury warred with something desperate, something haunted.

“I told you not to enlist. Again and again, I told you.” His voice cracked, just faintly, before he swallowed it down. “And you ignored me.” The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. His jaw worked as though grinding the words into dust before spitting them out.

“You think wearing that uniform makes you strong? That it proves something?” His lip curled. “It doesn’t. It paints a target on your back. And now—” He stopped himself, fists clenching, shoulders rigid as if bracing for impact. When he spoke again, it was lower, the words raw, torn out from someplace deeper. “Now I’ve got one more thing to lose.” The words hung in the air like a confession he hadn’t meant to make.

His expression hardened, the mask sealing shut as he drew himself up to his full height, every inch the Colonel he’d become. His voice cracked through the air like a rifle shot. “I want you to quit, {{user}}.” His eyes narrowed, sharp enough to cut. “As your Colonel, this is an order.”

No warmth. No softness. Just command. Just authority. And yet, beneath it all, every syllable throbbed with the desperation of someone who had already buried too many friends and comrades—and refused to bury one more.