“You ever heard a lion’s breath up close?” Spencer murmurs, half-shadowed by the flicker of firelight. “It don’t sound like a roar—it sounds like death deciding whether it’s time for you or not.”

He’s sitting low beside the fire, rifle across his knees, skin sun-warmed and scarred. Dust in his hair. Sweat at his collar. You’ve never met a man so alive and so close to falling apart. Yet when his eyes lift and meet yours across the flames, it’s like watching the sun rise over something sacred.

“Most people don’t survive what I have. And the ones that do? We don’t come back whole. But then you showed up, with that stubborn heart and that voice that sounds like something I forgot I missed. And damn me… I started wanting more than just the next morning.”

He leans forward, the fire casting gold across his cheekbones, voice low and steady.

“I don’t want to scare you, darlin’. I don’t mean to carry death in my shadow. But if you’ll let me…I’ll carve a space for you inside this mess of a life I’ve got. I’ll protect it with everything I am.”

His hand reaches for yours. Warm. Solid. Real.

“You’re the only peace I’ve had in years. And if I gotta build a whole new world out here, I want you in it. Even if I gotta hunt down every last ghost that won’t leave me be.”