Ten years ago, I followed Kaelan to the lawless state of Veridia to become a soldier of fortune. Together, we faced desert sun and gunfire, learning to fight and survive. For a decade, I trusted him with my life—he’d never betray me, but he’d also never share my bed. Not even once. Even under the influence of a strong aphrodisiac, he chose to cut himself rather than touch me. I believed he simply felt no desire. I had accepted that. But on the eve of my last mission, he came to me, drunk, and pulled me into a breathless, heated night. My uniform, the sheets—everything ended up tangled and torn. Lost in the haze, he whispered, "Luna, come back alive. At the victory feast, I’ll marry you." I fought harder than ever in that battle. When I returned, wounded and dirty, just in time for the celebration, he wasn’t there. Instead, I overheard a drunken teammate: "No more wild nights for the Commander now that Luna’s back. Him and that apprentice wrecked eighteen beds in half a month. I wonder if Luna will cry when she hears." I gave him one last chance to show up. He never came. And I knew—I was done. 1 Grit and icy wind scraped against my face. With every breath, the wound in my side screamed in protest, a tearing, white-hot agony. From the mess tent, a roar of laughter erupted again, punctuated by the clinking of bottles. "Who does Commander Kaelan really love? Is that even a question? It's Ava, obviously!" My feet froze to the spot. I’d wanted to dismiss it as drunken nonsense. After ten years of shared battlefields, my faith in Kaelan had been absolute. But the name Ava sent a chill through my entire body, a cold that had nothing to do with the wind. He had broken so many of his own rules for her. "He nearly got himself killed saving that clumsy girl! That was the first time I ever saw the Commander lose his cool!" "He kept it under wraps while Luna was around. But the second she left? Man, the hot springs, his bed… they never stopped!" "They only took a break yesterday. Heard it was because Ava's back was too sore, couldn't even get out of bed. Kaelan spent the whole day rubbing it for her." "And when the urgent dispatch came in saying Luna's unit needed backup, you know what he said?" The voice mimicked Kaelan’s usual cold, detached tone perfectly. "What's the rush? Luna can handle herself." The words that followed were a meaningless buzz in my ears. A violent spasm shot through the wound in my side, and I stumbled, catching myself against the rough concrete wall of a bunker. The gut-wrenching pain confirmed it. This was no nightmare. The laughter continued, the men now guessing "how the eighteenth bed finally collapsed." Slowly, I straightened up, my hand finding the spare magazine he'd given me. "In a pinch," he'd said, "trust this less than you trust me." I placed the magazine gently on an empty oil drum. The sharp clang echoed, and the tent fell instantly silent. One by one, faces flushed with booze turned bone-white. "L-Luna? Commander?" a soldier nicknamed Monkey stammered. "They're just talking shit! Kaelan would never..." "Go get Kaelan," I cut him off, my voice dangerously calm. Monkey scrambled out of the tent as if fleeing a fire. I added, just loud enough for him to hear, "Tell him I'm wounded." Blood was seeping from my injury, a warm, sticky dampness spreading against my skin. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to the shards of ice grinding away inside my chest. I waited in the dead silence for two hours. My answer came not from Kaelan, but from the light, innocent giggle of Ava over his phone. "Luna? Oh, hi. My mentor… he's exhausted. He's already asleep." "If you're hurt, you should see a medic, or patch yourself up! Why call him? He has his own life, you know. He can't just revolve around you all the time." I gripped the edge of a table to stand, my vision swimming with black spots from the pain. Then, I raised my pistol to the tent's ceiling and pulled the trigger. Three shots. My final word on our ten years. And my final chance for him. For us. Even with the evidence laid bare, the whispers echoing in my ears, the cold cruelty of that phone call… a tiny, pathetic flicker of hope still sputtered in the deepest part of my heart. I needed an answer. From his own lips. I knew he would understand the signal. Just like the countless times over the past decade we’d used specific shots, whistles, even glances to pass messages only we could decipher. He was Kaelan. The man who could identify an engine type from two miles away in his sleep. This time, I didn't have to wait long. He appeared moments later, cloaked in a chilling aura. He was in his casual uniform, but the top button of his collar was misplaced. His sharp eyes scanned the tent, sweeping over the terrified men, confirming there was no immediate threat before finally landing on me. His brow furrowed in a deep scowl. "Luna!" His voice was laced with its usual hardness and an undeniable reprimand. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You're a ranking officer. You don't discharge your weapon inside the compound! Even for a victory celebration, there are no such rules!" "All of you, out! Get back to your bunks! Anyone breathes a word of what happened here tonight, you'll answer to me under military code!" He barked the order, and the men, who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else on Earth, scrambled out of the tent. In an instant, it was just the two of us. I felt a bitter smile twist my lips. "Kaelan," I said, my voice hollow. "Don't you have anything to say to me?" His scowl deepened, but his expression remained a mask of calm, as if nothing had happened. He took a step forward, as if to check my injuries, but then stopped. "You're wounded," he stated, his tone cold and instructional. "You should have gone to the medical tent immediately. Firing your weapon in here… what kind of example is that?" "Stop being childish. Get your wound treated. We'll talk tomorrow." 2 A laugh, brittle and broken, escaped my lips. The pain was making my vision blur. I pulled at the corner of my mouth, the taste of blood filling it. "Kaelan. You slept with Ava. Didn't you?" He was still frowning. He gave a single, sharp nod. He didn't say a word. No denial. No explanation. Not even a flicker of guilt. Cough! A hot, metallic rush surged up my throat, and a spray of blood splattered on the dusty floor. I swayed, my knuckles turning white as I gripped the table for support. Through the haze of pain, I saw a flash of alarm in his eyes. "Luna!" He rushed forward, and for the first time, I saw a hint of panic, of genuine worry, on his famously stoic face. "How bad is it?" But just as he reached for me, a soft sob came from behind him. "Mentor..." Kaelan’s head snapped around. When he saw Ava standing there in the sand, barefoot in nothing but a thin nightgown, tears streaming down her face, the look of raw, protective tenderness that filled his eyes ripped my heart to shreds all over again. "Ava? Why did you run out here barefoot? Don't be silly. What are you crying for?" He immediately spun away from me, all thought of my injury erased from his mind. His voice, though sharp with concern, was laced with a gentleness I had never heard. It made my chest ache with a suffocating sourness. "I… I woke up and you were gone… I heard gunshots, and I was so scared…" Ava choked out, her crying escalating into a theatrical, heart-wrenching display. She threw herself into his arms, clinging to him. "Mentor, please stay with me… I can't sleep alone, I don't feel safe…" For the first time, I truly understood the saying about the squeaky wheel getting the grease. Kaelan, the man I’d always seen as immune to feminine wiles, instantly scooped her up into his arms. He, who loathed physical contact, simply accepted her dependent embrace, his arms closing around her protectively. "Mentor, can we go back? It's cold out here…" Ava murmured. Then, she peeked over his shoulder, giving me a look of pure, triumphant ownership before pressing a kiss to his cheek, her voice thick with a coy nasality. "Okay," Kaelan replied without a second of hesitation. "We'll go back." He held her and strode toward the tent flap, his figure about to be swallowed by the night. "Kaelan." I used the last of my strength to rasp out his name. He paused for a fraction of a second. But he never looked back. As he walked away, his silhouette shrinking into the distance, my world went dark with him. Three days later, I walked out of the command office, my signed discharge papers in hand. The first thing I saw was Kaelan, in the distance, patiently teaching Ava how to handle a firearm, his hands covering hers. He'd been very busy these past three days. Busy coaxing Ava out of her room, telling her not to be ashamed to face the others. Busy escorting her to the infirmary to get time off and a prescription. Busy appearing in her social media feed, his calloused, warrior’s hands gently massaging her "sore" ones. Busy personally applying ointment to the places where their passion had left her torn. Most ironically, for the first time in the fifteen years I’d known him, I saw him in a kitchen, brewing some special restorative broth. But he hadn't found a single minute to ask about my mission. Or my injuries. It was as if I were a complete stranger. Fifteen years I'd known him. I'd seen him face down a hail of bullets without flinching. Now, for someone else, he wore a tenderness I'd never seen. The wound in my side still throbbed, but I forced myself to walk away, stride firm. Even so, tears blurred my vision. Perhaps his heart had belonged to someone else for a long time. I had just been too blind to see it. He hated complications, couldn't stand it when women cried. But Ava’s tears always seemed to make his brow furrow with frustration before he gave in with a sigh of helpless surrender. Everyone in our unit knew about Kaelan and me. But this girl, the one he’d "saved out of kindness," had her eyes glued to him from the very beginning. Offering him water, a towel, shyly confessing her admiration. At first, Kaelan was just as cold and dismissive to her as he was to any other nuisance. When did it change? Was it that rainy day, when Ava stood at his door, clutching a deliberately soaked blanket with red-rimmed eyes, and he broke his own rule by letting her in? Or was it during that field exercise, when she twisted her ankle? There was a medic with the team, but Kaelan carried her himself for three miles over rugged terrain, his entire back soaked with sweat. He had never carried me. Even when I was shot and collapsing, he would only prop me up, his voice grim. "Luna, on your feet. Keep moving." Looking back, the signs were everywhere. A hundred small betrayals I had refused to see. I turned my back, trying to shove the image away along with ten years of foolishness. "Mentor! Catch me!" Ava’s playful shriek came from behind me. I instinctively moved to step aside, but she crashed into me from behind, hitting my wounded side with pinpoint accuracy. An explosion of pain detonated in my torso. My vision went black, and I crumpled to the ground. Gravel bit into my skin, and the coppery tang of blood filled my mouth, trickling from the corner of my lips. "Ava!" Kaelan was there in a flash, pulling her into his arms, his voice frantic as he checked her over. "Where did you get hit? Are you hurt?" Ava burrowed into his chest, looking at me with wide, innocent eyes. "Oh, Luna, I'm so sorry… Did I scare you? I barely touched you, how did you fall?" 3 Only then did Kaelan look at me. His eyes fell on the blood at my lips and my ghost-white face. He scowled, his voice thick with irritation. "Luna, get up. Don't lie there looking like a damsel in distress. It's not you, and it's pathetic to watch." Every word was a razor blade dragging across my heart. I didn't have the strength to argue. I pushed myself up, reaching for the papers scattered on the ground. He got to them first. His eyes scanned the words "Discharge Application." His face changed instantly. He crushed the paper in his fist, his knuckles turning white. "What is this? You're leaving?" For a moment, his voice was tight with an unfamiliar tension, a flicker of panic that sounded utterly ironic to my ears. I took advantage of his shock, snatching the papers back. "None of your business," I sneered. "You..." He started to press, but was cut off by Ava's innocent-sounding question. "Sister Luna... did you pretend to fall just so my mentor would see these papers?" She tilted her head, her expression one of pure, harmless confusion. "But your acting is really terrible, Sister Luna! Everyone in this entire sector knows how you are. You love a good fight. You're strong. You've climbed over mountains of bodies to get to where you are. Why would you ever be willing to leave? Isn't this place… everything you care about?" Her words were like a bucket of ice water, instantly extinguishing that small spark of panic in Kaelan's eyes. His gaze turned cold, filled with nothing but disappointment and contempt. "Luna," he said, his voice dripping with scorn, "since when did you stoop to these kinds of tricks?" A suffocating mix of absurdity and despair choked me. I pushed through the searing pain, staggered to my feet, and turned away, clutching the papers. "Stop! Explain yourself!" he roared, his footsteps closing in behind me. "Mentor..." Ava tugged on his sleeve at just the right moment, her voice trembling. "I'm hungry, and my feet are cold. Can we go back now?" He froze. "Okay," his voice softened immediately. "We'll go back." Without another glance at me, he turned, wrapping his arm securely around her. Their footsteps faded into the distance. The wind whipped sand against my face. It stung, but I didn't look back. I just kept walking in the opposite direction. Overnight, the news of my resignation spread like wildfire through the base. That evening, Kaelan kicked my door open, his face a thundercloud. "Luna, are you serious about this? This isn't like you!" I laughed coldly. "Running away with you ten years ago and throwing my family away wasn't like me either." "But that was me being crazy for love. This is me paying the price for being blind." "Enough!" he snapped. "I see what this is. You're jealous! You can't mix personal feelings with your career. What happened with Ava that day… she was drugged. There were circumstances. I couldn't just leave a young girl like that to fend for herself!" "How many times do I have to tell you? I only see her as a little sister!" "A sister?" My lips twisted into a smirk, the wound in my side pulsing with a dull ache. "Is that what you call sleeping together now?" "And what about me, Kaelan? What am I to you?" "Remember when I was drugged? You threw me into a frozen pond. I’ve had health problems from the cold ever since. But when it's Ava, it's 'I couldn't just leave her alone,' so you played hero in her bed?" "Shut up!" A vein throbbed in his temple. He waved a hand dismissively, his patience gone. "Stop digging up the past! Just tell me. What will it take for you to stop this nonsense?" I stood up, my spine ramrod straight, and my voice dripped with sarcasm. "In this compound, it's either her, or me." Without a single moment of hesitation, he exploded. "Luna, you're being completely irrational." Kaelan stared at me, his expression shifting from shock to profound disappointment and ridicule. Then he slammed the door and was gone. I slowly sat back down. I picked up the bullet-casing pendant he'd once made for me, looked at it for two seconds, and then let it drop from my fingers. It clattered into the trash can. Some parts of the past are better off thrown away. 4 The day I left, the sky was a blanket of gray. I took one last look at the place I had called home for a decade, then turned toward the jeep waiting for me outside the gates. "Leaving so soon, Luna?" Ava's voice, sickly sweet as always, called out from behind me. I didn't break my stride. She hurried to block my path, her cheeks flushed an unnatural red, her breathing shallow. "Are you trying to play hard to get? Threatening to leave so the Commander will finally realize how much he needs you?" she taunted, a cruel, cold light in her eyes. "Well, let the best woman win. We'll see if he cares more about you, or if he'd rather 'love' me." "Oh, and by the way," she added with a smirk. "The Commander told me he likes his women sweet and gentle. You stopped being his type a long time ago." "This time, you're going to lose." I frowned, noticing something was off about her. Her state was unnatural. But before I could react, she pulled a small vial from her pocket and downed the contents in one go. "What are you..." A piercing scream cut me off. "Commander! Help me! Luna drugged me! She's trying to ruin me!" She violently tore the collar of her own shirt, exposing a wide swath of skin, and shoved the empty vial into my hand. The sound of pounding boots grew closer. Kaelan charged in with his men, only to find Ava, clothes in disarray, sobbing hysterically as she threw herself into his arms. "Commander! Save me! Luna hates me, she... she was going to throw me to those filthy scavengers outside the walls! She said I seduced you and she was going to make me wish I was dead!" Ava trembled, clinging to Kaelan for dear life. "I was wrong, I'll never go near you again, I'll leave, I'll go far away... just make her let me go!" Kaelan's head snapped up. His eyes, blazing crimson, locked onto me. The look in them could have flayed me alive. "Luna! How dare you..." "I didn't. You can check the surveil—" "She's lying!" Ava shrieked, pointing a trembling finger at the vial I was now holding by reflex. "That's a filthy aphrodisiac! She wanted me to be passed around by a dozen men! Commander, she wants to destroy me, she's trying to drive me to my death!" "I didn't drug her! She drank it herself! It was a setup! Someone, check the security footage!" I yelled, a wave of fury and panic rising in my chest. The wound in my side tore open again, and the taste of blood flooded my mouth. Kaelan laughed, a sound devoid of any humor. He advanced on me, step by deliberate step. "Enough, Luna. The evidence is in your hand, and look at the state Ava is in! Are you still going to deny it? I never knew you were this venomous!" "I told you, it wasn't me!" I screamed, despair washing over me like a tidal wave. "Enough!" he roared, cutting me off. The last trace of our shared history vanished from his eyes, replaced by pure, unadulterated loathing and rage. "Restrain her!" Four large soldiers instantly seized me, binding my arms and legs. I struggled wildly. "Kaelan! Watch the footage! It was her—" "It seems you won't give up until you're completely broken," he said, his eyes dark and menacing. He personally took another, unopened vial from Ava's pocket, wrenched my jaw open, and forced the liquid down my throat. The fluid burned like acid. "You love playing games, don't you? You wanted to leave so badly?" he sneered, letting go of me and wiping his fingers with a handkerchief as if he'd touched something foul. "Fine. I'll help you." The drug hit my system like a firestorm. A wave of heat and debilitating weakness swept through my limbs. "Throw her," he commanded, his voice flat and cold, "into the eastern combat zone. She's such a great fighter, isn't she? She wanted to walk away? Let's see how far she can 'walk' now." "Luna, this is just you getting a taste of your own medicine. You brought this on yourself." I was hauled up and thrown into the back of a vehicle like a sack of garbage. As my vision blurred, the last thing I saw was Ava, nestled in his arms, being carried away. The sight consumed the last of my hope. It took Kaelan four hours to help Ava work the drug out of her system. When it was over, the first thing he did was ask his most trusted subordinate. "Luna? Is she back yet?" The man hesitated. "Commander… she… she was drugged and her hands and feet were bound. According to our scouts… they think… she was taken by an enemy patrol…"
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