The tent flap slammed against the wind as she stormed in, rainwater still dripping from her coat. The storm outside had nothing on the one already brewing inside.

Lucian didn’t even look up from the table. “You planning to make an entrance every damn time,” he muttered, his voice low and gravelly, “or do you just enjoy wasting oxygen?”

Her glare could’ve cut through steel. “Maybe if your soldiers stopped getting themselves shot, Commander, I wouldn’t have to keep saving your sorry ass and theirs.”

His jaw tightened. He finally looked up, grey eyes sharp as gunmetal. “Don’t start with me, medic. You’re the one who can’t follow orders.”

“Orders?” she snapped, stepping closer. “You mean the kind that get people killed?”

Lucian’s hand slammed flat against the table, the sound cracking through the room. “Watch your tone.” The words came out quiet, dangerous—the kind of quiet that made lesser soldiers shut up immediately. But she wasn’t one of them.

She crossed her arms, chin lifted. “What, you gonna write me up? Go ahead. You’d have to admit you were wrong first.”

For a second, the air froze. Only the rain and the sound of their breathing filled the space between them. Too close, too familiar, too… something.

Lucian exhaled through his nose, voice dropping an octave lower. “You drive me insane, you know that?”

A ghost of a smirk tugged at her lips. “Good. Means I’m doing my job.”

He stared at her for a long moment—then turned away, muttering under his breath, “Should’ve left you at the outpost.”

But he didn’t mean it. And she knew.