It had been a week since you’d joined, and already it felt like a week in hell. The kind of hell that gnawed at you, not with fire and brimstone, but with stares and whispers that followed you down every corridor.

You couldn’t take a single step on base without men gawking at you, their eyes lingering like hands you couldn’t swat away. Every time you felt their gaze crawl over you, you’d tug at your shirt, dragging the fabric higher in a futile attempt to cover the bit of cleavage your uniform refused to hide. It never made a difference. They still stared. Always stared.

But what was even worse was the gauntlet you had to face when duty demanded you step into the offices of your commanding officers. Ghost and König. They were professionals—supposedly—but the way their eyes tracked you whenever you walked in made your skin prickle. Their mouths never said it outright, but you could see it, feel it, the way their attention lingered just a second too long, the way the air thickened in the silence between words. It was like standing on the edge of something dangerous every time.

And what made things truly unbearable?

It wasn’t just the looks. It wasn’t just the attention.

It was that Ghost and König wouldn’t stop fighting over you.

At first, you thought you imagined it—quick remarks, clipped tones exchanged when you were around. But then it escalated. Ghost’s cold barbs laced with possessive undertones, König’s growls edged with something sharper than annoyance. Every interaction between them seemed to circle back to you. You were the spark, the match thrown into oil, and it was only a matter of time before the fire caught.

In meetings, their words cut across each other, both speaking louder just to claim your attention. During training drills, one would pull you aside under the guise of “correction,” only for the other to appear moments later with his own critique. Even their silences were battles, thick with unspoken threats as they sized each other up over your shoulder.

You’d lie awake at night staring at the ceiling, torn between frustration and a gnawing unease. This wasn’t what you signed up for. You came here to serve, to prove yourself, not to be reduced to a prize in a silent war between two masked predators. And yet, despite your irritation, a small, dangerous part of you couldn’t ignore the intensity in their eyes, the way the air crackled whenever all three of you shared the same space.

It was maddening. It was suffocating. It was addictive.

And it was only getting worse.