Warning: NSFW.

Chapter 8

Jacob Seed would never get tired of this.

There was nothing in this miserable world that would ever compare to the sight of his soulmate perched on top of his thighs, riding his cock so fiercely it was like she needed it to live. His pilfered dog tag bounced between her tits on a mismatched chain, her breaths like the puff of wind through a craggy ravine. His hands gripped her hips with a gentle kind of strength, just enough that she'd have the outline of his fingers on her for a few hours but not enough to hurt, pushing her back down on him with every withdrawal. He'd long since figured out that letting her be on top the way she liked was just as much fun as bending her over—more, maybe, since this way he got to watch her firelit hair bounce in golden shimmers over her back, take note of every way she skimmed and pinched and plucked at herself to get herself off, see every subtle change in expression that gave away how close she was or whether or not she was ramping up to start teasing him. The latter was the truth in this case, the telltale sign of a brow quirking up and a little smile playing on her lips.

"Don't tease, wildcat," he warned thickly, his approaching orgasm lingering in his gut.

She blinked at him all innocent-like—as if anything about her was innocent, Bliss-addled moments be damned—and lifted herself up off his cock without warning. He groaned in disappointment at the feeling of cool cabin air on his erection, letting his head fall back into the furs. Jacob shot her an upset look, almost prepared to wrap his own hand around his shaft and finish himself off all over her in pure defiance, but he was unbelievably glad he didn't when Rook's next move was to flip herself around facing away from him and sink back down onto his dick with a slow and careful movement. She used her knees to fuck herself onto him, and all Jacob could do was seize her hips again and watch with a ferocious grin as her strong thighs easily carried their rhythm.

"I take it back," Jacob muttered, and he heard her sultry laugh between rapid-fire, breathy moans, a fucking lovely combination.

The soul mark stamped across her back mocked him—stupid, impulsive words from when he was an ignorant idiot—so he wrapped her hair around his hand and pressed it between her shoulder blades to cover it up, under the guise of steadying her precarious position on him. Her hands started wandering again, one reaching up to play with her nipple while the other lowered itself to begin circling her clit. Not to be outdone (and getting dangerously close to coming) Jacob removed his hand from her hip and swatted hers away, fumbling to find her clit unseen. She clenched around his cock so tightly from his blind swipes it felt like she might crush him, and he had to scramble to drop her hair and still her with a hand on her hip again before he went off right there.

"No," Rook whined, shoving away his hand and absolutely fucking slamming herself down on him, so hard it almost knocked the breath out of him.

"Jesus Christ, Rook, slow the fuck down before I—"

"Jacob!" was her answering cry, hips jerking over his so wildly his fingers slid with no direction over her clit, her orgasm intense and so entirely sudden that Jacob barreled right over the edge without any more warning than her, coming hard and deep into her until his vision blackened at the sides for a moment.

When he came back down, he found Rook curling herself around him in a mess of trembling limbs, her battered breaths puffing over his arm. He welcomed her embrace as always, wrapping his own arm around her and tugging her up so she could tuck her pretty head into his shoulder, a huffed-out chuckle making her hair flutter. He couldn't recall a time when an orgasm almost made him pass out, but if anyone could knock him out in such a way, it'd be her. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her so, but before he could get the words out she uttered a breathless request herself.

"Let Staci Pratt go."

It took a while for the words to make it past the pleasant buzz of orgasm and soul bond combined, but when it did he froze like a deer in headlights. Wordlessly, he lifted his head off of hers to stare, trying to find some trace of explanation in her face, but instead she met him with one of those hard-as-stone looks of pure determination that Jacob always suspected could talk Joseph out of his own holy war, if she tried…

… Except it was for Staci fucking Pratt, mere moments after she came on his dick.

"That better not've fuckin' been what you'd been thinking about just now, kitten," he snarled, his skin flushing with rage from the mere idea.

Her expression dropped right off at the suggestion, replaced with a fury almost matching his own. "Are you fucking serious?"

"The fuck else am I supposed to think when that's the first thing outta your mouth?"

"The first thing outta my mouth was your goddamn name while I was coming, asshole," Rook snapped, shoving his arm off her with enough force that it actually tweaked a muscle.

He huffed as amusement replaced righteous jealousy—that was true enough—and reeled her back in, pressing an apologetic kiss to her hair. His mind cleared of plans to corner the other man and leave him in pieces somewhere in the woods, he could recognize that this was a request he'd been expecting. Pratt had been a colleague of hers, maybe even a friend—Rook had already expended plenty of effort getting the other one out of John's clutches, even managed to snatch back the Marshal from Faith. He was only surprised it had taken so long… and was definitely put out by the sheer awfulness of her timing.

"That's not gonna happen," he replied swiftly.

Her ire returned in the form of a stony gaze, her body tense under his grip. "You don't need him."

"He's a high value target," Jacob countered. And he'd have to allocate all of his duties to other people, a headache he didn't want to bother with—not that he'd ever vocalize that to Rook.

"No he isn't," she argued. "Not to you. You just kept him and knocked him around so you could show us you could do whatever you wanted with one of our own."

Jacob scoffed—Peaches would never be 'one of their own'. Not one of the Resistance in any case. Not anymore.

"This isn't a dick measuring contest, Rook, this is war. Joseph wants him in the Project, so he's fucking staying."

"Right, I forgot you were Joseph's lapdog," she said nastily, and he had barely the time to stare at her for the sheer meanness of her words before she was pushing herself out of his hold again, this time successfully.

He sat up as well, blinking as he watched her rocket across the room, gathering her clothes and yanking them on so violently he heard threads snap. "Rook, what in the fucking Christ is—?"

"Answer something for me, Jacob," she interrupted, bomber jacket hanging off of one arm. "Do you keep Staci around because you get off on hurting him?"

Jacob reeled in shock and offense, the question so entirely unexpected and foreign that he wondered if her little escapade in the Bliss messed with her head more than he'd thought. "Where the hell did that come from?"

"I saw what your psychopath of a brother did to Joey down in that bunker," she exclaimed, pointing a finger at him. "Was just wondering if John wasn't the only one of you who gets hard from torturing my colleagues."

What in the ever-loving fuck did he do to earn such an accusation? Did John do something? Did someone say something? Incensed, Jacob shoved the furs away from him to stand. He felt slightly ridiculous facing his clothed soulmate while he was fully nude and she was hurling accusations of sadism in his direction, but he pushed it aside in favor of showing her his displeasure.

"Whatever my brother does has nothing to do with me," he growled, pointing a finger in her direction. "I don't know what the fuck you're trying to accomplish here, kitten, but Staci Pratt is staying where he's supposed to be whether you like it or not."

He didn't know what reaction he was expecting from his definitive statement, but he was just as annoyed and just as flummoxed when his brat of a soulmate chose to snatch up her weapons and storm out of the cabin, slamming the door behind her. He let out a breath at the absurdity (what the fuck was even happening?) before he strode over and yanked open the door to watch her go—only he couldn't, because his wild thing had already disappeared into the night like a ghost, footsteps lost in the rustling wind. He scowled and shut the door again, ignoring the chill on his bare skin as he stomped over to his jeans. He was halfway to wrestling the radio out of his pocket to order her to return, to talk this out like fucking adults, but a wave of all-encompassing rage halted him in tracks.

After all he'd done for her, after every ridiculous request he'd acquiesced to despite everything about him telling him otherwise, this was his thanks? An unprecedented accusation and a tantrum?

In a fit of fury not unlike her own, he instead seized the radio and hurled it across the room, ignoring the shattering of ceramic as it collided with a row of coffee mugs. When that proved unproductive, he began gathering his clothes and pulling them on, jaw clenched until his teeth hurt.

He would not chase after her. She didn't deserve it. He had no idea what she expected to accomplish with that scene, but she'd have to come crawling back on hands and knees before he'd even entertain the idea of forgiveness. He especially had no idea what she was thinking by asking him to give up a valuable prisoner for the sake of her feelings. All she ever did was come in and entrance him with her beauty and her laughter, distract him from his duties for the promise of the pleasure of her, charm him with silver-tongued words into chipping away at his operation until it was a shell of its former glory. She'd taken enough from him, but demanded more still. What the fuck else did he have to give?

He paused in his dressing as an infuriating thought occurred—had she waited specifically until after sex to catch him off guard with her request, on the off chance the high of orgasm and her company would make him more receptive? Was this her plan the entire time, only continuing to meet him because she might sway him into ruining his end of the Project bit by bit? The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. It felt like coming out of shock, finally waking up to see reality, only this time it'd taken months instead of a few hours. He felt like a fucking idiot.

No more.

With one final yank on the lapels of his army jacket, Jacob ignored the busted radio lying in a pile of shards at the base of the window, grabbed his bow off the shelf and set a course for home—the real one, where he could fulfill his purpose and be with his family without questioning the truth behind any of it.

0500.

Jacob rose from his bed, stiff and awkward from the utilitarian position that had once been familiar, his rest poor and altogether nonexistent. He blinked away the burn in his eyes as he made up the bed—sheets straightened, blanket folded at the head, pillow on top, no furs here to be left rumpled—and slunk into the bathroom to splash cold water over his face. The small crack in his bedroom ceiling had grown since the last time he'd been here. He wondered if the ceiling might collapse on him, but couldn't find the willpower to bother getting it fixed—God would decide whether or not Jacob Seed would meet his end under a pile of concrete and rebar. Joseph would be fucking proud.

0530.

Dawn had grown later since the last time he'd been out here, and the autumn wind bit uncomfortably at his skin. But Jacob was a stubborn son of a bitch, so he ran his laps around the Center under the LED spotlights and ignored the single curious glance his on-duty patrollers chanced sending at him. The ambiance was too quiet for his liking—no prisoners left in the cages, no Judges left to train after the wolf beacons fell. He could hear the wheeze in his breath from the cold air hitting the scar tissue on the inside of his lungs. He sounded weak, old, frail. He hated it.

0600.

He'd given notice that he'd be remaining at the Center from now on, so he found Peaches waiting for him with a towel as though nothing had changed. The man shrank as Jacob ignored the towel, glaring with genuine hatred—all his fault, fucking weakling, useless—and pushed past him into the Center to dress himself in his uniform. They'd left it on his bed again, laundered and straight. His clothes smelled like the cheap detergent they used. Once they had smelled like her. He'd draped that jacket over her shoulders once, when he couldn't get that stupid window in the cabin to close.

Stop.

There were no new recruits for him to oversee, not anymore. Waste of resources, he'd said—what the hell had he been thinking? He was almost tempted to send the armada of Chosen waiting in formation in the courtyard out into the field to snatch up more recruits, just to spite her, but that would leave him with his morning free and nothing to distract him. Instead, he ran drills with his Chosen, who performed them flawlessly and hardly needed him to shout them across the obstacle course. He felt useless.

0900.

Jacob cut his breakfast early in favor of dealing with the reports that had piled up over the weeks he'd spent away. The bunker prep was all but completed. Several inquiries about rebuilding the wolf beacons had been made, though more as a formality—the Judge population had just about reached capacity, hence why Jacob had never bothered addressing Rook's little rampage (beyond that one time in the cabin where she let him… He wasn't going to finish that thought). The Whitetails were remaining in their burrows, still no skirmishes to be found. He almost wanted to hunt them down himself, just so he'd have something to do.

His siblings had plenty to offer, from Faith's reports of Bliss operations being halfway to collapsing and John's infuriated statements that his 'YES' sign had been torched by guess-who in Nick Rye's plane, to several unaddressed invitations from Joseph asking him to come to the island for a family dinner. Jacob sighed in his office at the crossness in the latest one—why the fuck had nobody told him about a direct request from the Father? Now he'd have to sit down and endure Joseph's golden stare, a punishment in its own right, until he explained himself like a chastised child caught stealing cookies before dinner… as if Joseph didn't already know the reason why. He just wanted Jacob to say it.

1200.

What had once been his favorite time of day was left empty of anything to do. There was nothing left in the Center to inspect besides the Chosen, who had already earned his complete faith, and the Judges, who had been fully trained for weeks. Conditioning trials had halted with the lack of new blood to send through, and the plan to create a double agent had dissipated with the Deputy. The Grand View was nothing more than another outpost now, one that she wasn't bothering to even try to take out, now that it'd lost all meaning and all importance. It was so pitiful that Jacob actually took John up on his offer one day, one he'd made months ago at the start of the Reaping, to take on his brother's prisoners and send them through the trials—he'd hardly entertained it before, considering John's vetting system wasn't one of strength but whether or not the so-called sinners accepted getting dunked in a fucking river. But with nothing else to turn to, why not?

He also refused to think of Johnny doing anything with the weaklings trapped down there but the Project's work, let alone whatever perverted bullshit Rook had accused him of. Jacob knew his baby brother—she knew nothing, nothing.

1400.

He oversaw the shipments to the Grand View himself, taking extra precautions to disguise it as a shipment of food rations in case it riled up his angry soulmate and her Whitetail friends into a rampage. It was wasted effort—the trials went horribly, most dead before sundown, the rest being picked off as the days passed. He had to wonder if John was mocking him by sending such a clear pack of useless weaklings, or if they all tended to flock to his region like sheep to a pasture for some reason.

1900.

He returned in the sourest of moods to St. Francis. Dinner and evening office work used to be a combination activity for Jacob, but now he spent time playing around with his plate and taking the time to choke down the tasteless food rations before sifting through his paperwork, just to waste time until lights out.

This was his schedule more or less, for five days. Five straight days of life without her, life pretending she didn't exist. He grew increasingly tense with every passing day that his old routine failed him, with every time he found his mind wandering back to his soulmate, trying not to wonder if she felt at all saddened by his absence, whether she'd kept to their unspoken nightly agreement and was disappointed to find the cabin empty. He'd gotten a new radio after leaving the other one in pieces back at the cabin. She didn't call, and neither did he. He didn't need to. He didn't.

He'd utterly taken for granted how easy sleep was when he had her next to him. He didn't know why his nightmares were kept at bay by her mere presence—something to do about soul bonds or some other godly bullshit, probably—but it was near torturous going from weeks of blissful rest back to adrenaline-spiked nights bereft of his other half. Once or twice he sacrificed his dignity and tried curling up around his blanket in a cheap facsimile of her, instead of keeping himself stubbornly straight and combat ready as he once had, but it helped nothing. His nightmares returned in full force, where they'd only woken him up in a start twice before when he had the privilege of wrapping himself around his sleeping soulmate for comfort. His old thigh injury even began aching again (and how the fuck did that even work?). It was like he'd reverted back to his old, broken down self, before the Project had given him purpose, before he figured out how to let his family love him.

All of it was made infinitely worse by the continued presence of Staci fucking Pratt.

The stupid shit was relentlessly in his field of vision, receding into himself with every glare Jacob sent his way yet so infuriatingly conformed to his duties that he never left Jacob the fuck alone. Every morning he waited outside with a towel for Jacob to finish his run and was ignored; every afternoon he'd hover with his goddamn clipboard and try to shrink into the wall wherever they were stationed at the time, aware he'd earned Jacob's ire without knowing at all why or how. Jacob had no idea how he tolerated it beforehand—the man was barely better than a dog. He entertained the idea of replacing him with a Judge and throwing him out into the wilderness to fend for himself, but he dismissed the idea at first, knowing full well all of this was just born out of wanting to end his suffering by fulfilling Rook's stupid request. But Peaches kept fucking up, whether it was dropping his pen one too many times due to shaking hands or being unable to get out a sentence without tripping over his own tongue or just fucking breathing too loudly. Jacob dreamed of putting a bullet in his head. Wouldn't that fucking show her?

It was the last straw when on the sixth day, the man tripped over nothing on their way to the Judges' cages, the bowl of meat in his hands careening to the ground and splattering raw bits all over Jacob's boots.

"I'm sorry," Peaches wheezed out, and Jacob just stared as the other man actually supplicated himself before him, forehead and palms to the bloodied dirt, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm—"

Every sniveling apology turned his world the slightest bit redder, seared through his eardrums like a bomb dropping from the sky. Almost unconsciously, Jacob's hand shot out to fist itself in the man's collar, yanking him upright onto his knees.

"Get out."

"I'm sorry sir, I didn't—"

"I said get out," Jacob hissed through his teeth, shutting him up with another vicious pull of his collar, the fabric digging into his throat. "Get the fuck out of here, you worthless shit. I've fucking had enough of you. Leave, and don't ever come back here again, do you understand?"

His blood only boiled hotter as the stupid man just sat there, hands clasped like Jacob was his god and he was begging for a blessing, eyes blown wide in fear and confusion. How the fuck had he ever thought of Pratt as anything but fucking useless, unable to understand even this simple order? Huffing out an angry sort of laugh, Jacob pulled his pistol out of its holster and pressed the barrel right against the man's forehead.

"You'll leave now," he said lowly, taking unbelievable satisfaction in the way the man's hands jumped up in surrender, eyes crossing to stare down the gun, "or I will kill you. Got it?"

No hesitation now, he thought, watching Peaches scramble off the ground and sprint like a fleeing deer towards the open gates… though he spoke too soon, swearing aloud as the stupid thing froze in the doorway and turned, something like hope in his eyes, waiting for Jacob to change his mind. Instead, Jacob took aim and fired a shot right next to his left foot, smirking with the first bit of satisfaction he'd felt since returning to the Center as it sent Peaches flying again, taking off down the dirt road as though expecting one of the guards to shoot him in the back if he wasn't fast enough. They probably would have once, if Jacob cared enough to give the order, but instead he waved down the guards twitching to do just that and turned back to the Center, his brief amusement already waning as the implications of his little rage fit properly hit him.

He'd caved.

He did exactly what she fucking wanted, same as he always did, only this time he didn't even have an excuse. Snarling at himself, Jacob stormed into the building and into one of the visitor's bathrooms to wipe the bits of raw meat off his boots, trying to ignore the feeling of dozens of confused eyes on him whether they were real or not. The sweat from his fury cooled uncomfortably on his skin, making him feel sticky enough to consider a shower, but it felt too much like hiding so he refrained, returning to his duties once he wasn't covered in meat.

He knew what was going to happen, his chin resting on his clasped hands as he sat alone in the observation room at the Grand View and watched his conditioning trials unravel like torn threads. Peaches would know of nowhere else to go than to her. He didn't know where the safe haven of the Wolf's Den was—none of them did. There was almost no chance they'd let him in anyway, the suspicious bastards… unless she vouched for him. He wondered if Peaches was even smart enough to find her, or if he'd get reports of the man's corpse being torn apart by wildlife and insects somewhere in the woods. She'd find a way to blame that on him too, he thought, already hearing the ring of her disappointed voice like shards in his soul.

It wasn't until the sun had sunk well past the trees and Jacob was lifting himself out of his desk chair to prepare for another night of restless tossing and turning that he heard her true thoughts, instead of the vicious ones conjured up by his imagination. He was so keyed up that he actually jumped when the radio crackled, and then tensed up for a whole different reason when she spoke.

"You let him go," Rook's quiet, low, painfully beautiful voice whispered to him. "You really did it."

All the air in his lungs escaped him at the way she said it, like his petty outburst was the most amazing thing she'd ever heard of, like he'd raised mountains with his bare hands instead of threatening and shooting at her friend just for tripping over his own feet. Almost on pure instinct, Jacob stumbled out of his chair over towards the radio resting on a file cabinet, hands outstretched to grab the relief that was Rook; his soul screamed for it, he needed it, he needed her—

His hand froze over the radio before he could grab it.

Another irrational bout of rage overtook him, so fierce he shook in place from the strength of it. Jacob Seed needed nothing. That had changed the moment she barged her way into his perfectly structured world, knocked down all the pillars that supported him until he was a crumbling mess—she took his routine from him, she took the Project, she took the time he once spent with his family, the only people that really cared. What the fuck else did she want from him? He felt like a junkie with his greatest vice being dangled in front of his eyes; he felt like John's quiet descriptions of detox, so unbearably hooked on anything that would bring him happiness that it physically destroyed him to let go of it. His fingers twitched in anticipation of closing around the plastic. His legs itched to dart out into the night and go to her.

A sound so angry it sounded almost inhuman escaped him, and he tore himself away from the radio to instead yank his Swiss army knife (never did manage to reclaim his hunting knife, just one more piece of him she'd stolen) out of its holster and plunge it into his thigh, as deep as he could without hitting bone. No noise of pain escaped him beyond a puff of breath when he pulled it out, jean fibers and blood stuck to the blade, crimson spreading slowly over his denim-encased thigh like a blossoming flower.

Exhaling another breath, Jacob reached out with a bloody hand back towards the radio and offered her nothing more than a rough and abrupt, "Little shit was weak."

That was all she'd get from him. He wouldn't give her anything else.

Not wanting to hear whatever she had left to say lest it push him back towards ruin again, Jacob fumbled to turn it over and yanked the batteries out of the thing, letting the ensemble clatter to the floor as he rose stiffly from the chair. He drifted out of his office and up the stairs like a ghost, ignoring the uncomfortable drip of warm liquid down his leg and into his boots, hoping against hope that he'd exhausted himself enough into passing out altogether tonight.

Sun-dried earth crunched under his boots as he let the cracks in the ground guide him, like the winding interlocked lines on a map, just have to know how to follow them. His skin burned from the sun, not from the boiling ammonia this time, hurt just as bad that time. He was choking on his own tongue, throat too dry to swallow. Had to look out for scavengers and enemy soldiers, on the ground, in the sky. Faked his age to even get here, with those papers his fourth foster brother's cousin made, saved up all his pocket money to get them, people always said he looked older than he was, why, why did he think this would be any better?

Miller had begged for death under his arm, for half the week they'd spent in the desert. Not gonna make it, he'd said, before he started calling Jacob 'Sammy' and asking when Dad would be back from work. He carried him the last two klicks, a kid carrying a man only barely older than him. Should have left him when those wolves took a chunk out of his leg, not enough water left in him to even bleed anymore. He came in and out of whatever fever dream he was lucky to be having, leaving Jacob alone to try to use the sun to find his way. If he lived past sunset, he might be able to use the stars, but until then…

"Let go'me Sammy," Miller slurred for the tenth time, "gotta help Mom with th'roast."

His stomach cramped at the mention of food like a sucker punch to the gut. Didn't have the strength to hunt, not that there was anything out here, oh God he was gonna die. He dropped Miller to the ground, the other man crumpling into a pile of bones in the dirt. He had a knife still in his pocket, it was still covered in wolf fur, but he could use it. He was stronger than Miller, he could make it out of here, and Miller would scream through a sandpaper throat as he plunged it into him over and over for lack of strength to finish it quickly but if he could just—

Gloved hands pulled him out of the searing heat and the echo of the other soldier's shattering screams into a gentle warmth, like trading a wildfire for a seat by the fireplace, and suddenly he was surrounded by golden-streaked curls and a certainty in his soul and he melted into it, sinking into her until they became irrevocably merged—

He startled awake at the unusually nice turn the dream took, eyes flying open to a familiar cracked ceiling and an unfamiliar feeling of warmth surrounding him, at least in this environment. The only thing that kept him from seizing whatever took hold of him and slamming them to the ground was the thrum of rightness pulsing from her skin into his, a balm to his tortured soul, telling him all was safe and all was right because it was her.

Then sanity returned and he let out an angry noise, seizing the arm she had snaked around his waist under his t-shirt. He didn't push it away, freezing when he realized she had one bare hand cradling the back of his head, fingers combing through his hair. His soulmate not only risked sneaking into the Veterans Center again, with heightened security from the last time, but risked an unconscious attack by slipping into his bed to pet his fucking hair?

"Are you outta your goddamn mind, sneakin' in here?" he hissed, wanting desperately to shout but entirely unable to from the slightly overwhelming pulse of pleasure with every stroke of her fingers over his scalp. "The fuck were you thinkin'?"

He felt her shrug and looked down at the source, finding her with her lightly freckled cheek mushed up against his shoulder, bambi eyes staring up at him with a neutral kind of fondness, if that was even possible, goddamn it why was she so lovely?

"You ignored my calls," she said with an undertone of crossness entirely offset by her ministrations.

He ignored that too, huffing out a frustrated breath even as he sank gladly into the embrace she offered. He gave her nothing more in return than a possessive arm slung over her hip, hand unashamedly grabbing a generous handful of her ass, causing her to snort out a laugh that played over his bare arm right where his mangled soul mark used to be. Jacob had been too exhausted to miss her in any kind of way other than emotional, but the way she responded by throwing a leg over his hip (oh she'd better not be trying to make him her little spoon again) caused a reminder to jolt right down to his groin. Even as interest stirred in his gut, he halfheartedly hoped that wasn't what she really came for—call him an old man, but he wasn't sure he had the energy left to move.

"What were you dreaming about?"

The question cooled his ardor like a bucket of ice water. His mind raced—what did he say, what did she hear, was he screaming again, why did she come here, how could he have let her get this close—but he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the ceiling so he wouldn't have to drown in her inquisitive eyes.

"Soldiers have nightmares, kitten," he said blankly.

"I was in the army long enough to figure that out, Jacob." Rook replied, and he had no idea how she managed that perfect balance of sarcasm and warmth in her voice. "I wanna know what you were dreaming about, not what soldiers dream about."

This was it, he thought miserably, this was where she took whatever scraps of him that were left, whatever she hadn't managed to get her hands on yet. She'd take his darkest memories, the most deeply-rooted core of himself, and he'd have nothing. How was he supposed to protect his family—how was he supposed to protect her—if he was nothing?

"No," he hissed—begged, really—through a closing throat.

Her hand never paused with its sweeping strokes, never flinched at his rough tone.

"Okay."

He deflated in relief, tilting his head to rest on top of hers in silent thanks. But the relief was short-lived, when his sleep deprived brain temporarily set aside the irrational anxiety for a bit of clarity.

She wanted to get to know him.

In all of the wonderful chaos that had been the last few months with her, they'd never once spoken about each other's lives, about their pasts before the war. He thought he knew everything—he knew what it took to make her laugh, how deeply fond she was of her friends (human or otherwise), how ungodly and undeniably strong she was in body and mind, where he had to touch and kiss and bite to get her to shake and mewl—but he didn't know how this beautiful creature was made. His soul clenched desperately at the realization. He needed to know everything about her.

"Tell you what, wildcat," he murmured into her hair, sounding far calmer than he felt, "I'll trade you somethin' about me for somethin' about you."

Rook made a contemplative noise, the sound vibrating under his skin and sending pleasant shockwaves through his blood. "Okay. But not tonight."

He hummed in agreement, moving to tuck himself just the slightest bit tighter around her; she wriggled closer to return the favor, her thigh accidentally grazing the knife wound that had been entirely forgotten from the rush of adrenaline at finding her in his bed. He snarled and grabbed at the offending thigh, feeling her tense up like stone underneath his hold.

"What is that?" she asked, her voice low and dark as she leaned over to look at it. "Is this—Jesus Christ, Jacob, you're covered in blood!"

"S'nothin'," he muttered dismissively, shame coloring his face. He was grateful for the darkness.

"No-no-no," Rook mumbled to herself, and he made an upset noise when she scooted right out of his hold and stomped off somewhere out of view. He made a snatching gesture in a futile attempt to keep her near, but she soothed, "I'm not gonna… I'm just getting something for that from my pack, all right?"

Too tired to chase after her, Jacob wallowed like the pathetic mess he was as she rummaged for things in a flurry of rustling canvas and zippers, trying and failing to keep his eyes open in the dark. He made another angry sound when the bed dipped by his feet, decidedly not where he wanted her to be, but she shushed him with an impatient smack to his calf. The gesture prompted an involuntary quirk of his lips—only she would be this audacious with him. Only she would be this gentle with him too, he thought, as she slowly and carefully peeled his ruined sweats off his stinging wound.

"You didn't even—why isn't this cleaned?" Rook scolded.

Her tone wasn't all that harsh, but he was so exhausted and particularly fragile that night that it made an actual lump rise up in his throat, and he threw his arm up to drape over his eyes so she wouldn't have to look at him. She made another exasperated sound but started cleaning his thigh with something—water from a flask, from the sound of water jingling inside metal, and some kind of cloth—and then closing up the wound with what felt like suture tape, using her knee to prop up his thigh. Her hands were small and kind, like she was cradling something she held dear, nothing like the usual rough handlings he gave himself or the desperate movements of medics prioritizing saving his life over preserving his comfort.

"You need stitches," she grumbled, but he concentrated on nothing except the little kiss she sneaked onto the inside of his knee.

Jacob Seed hadn't cried since the day Joseph and John found him in that shitty shelter in Rome, but goddamn it if Rook wasn't about to make him bawl like a baby with her light touches. He had to talk, had to do something, before he completely fell apart.

"I was," he started, but his voice was gravelly like he'd just swallowed nails, so he cleared his throat and tried again, "I was in Iraq, during the first Gulf War."

Rook paused for the briefest moment as she bound his leg with gauze, almost imperceptible if all his senses weren't so finely honed on her. She resumed her care like nothing happened, and he was grateful for it.

"One night, there was an ambush. Me and this guy named Miller got separated from the unit—no food, no radio. Nearest base was two hundred klicks to the south. So we just started walking."

She molded herself back against his side when she was done, and he once again had to choke back tears at the way she tucked her pretty head under his chin, her hand searching in the dark to entwine her fingers with his.

"By the third day, I knew we were lost. Day six, we ran outta water. On the seventh day, Miller's legs started-started going all wonky, couldn't keep himself upright. Had to carry him. We were starving, the wolves were closing in."

He froze upon his next breath, the air rattling out of him with an eerie sound—oh God, what was he thinking, telling her this story? She'd think him a monster. He was a monster. She just hadn't figured that out yet, but Jacob wouldn't be Jacob if he didn't bungle up whatever good was in his life by showing it to her. Miller's sacrifice was necessary—he knew that, still believed it, for without it he would never have met Rook—but would she see it that way?

"How'd you two get out?" she encouraged on a murmur, sliding her warm hand under his t-shirt to rest on his ribs. Right over his heart, he noticed.

"We didn't," Jacob muttered. "I did." After a long pause, he rushed out before he could lose the nerve, "He begged for death, so I gave it to him. I took what I could from his sacrifice. The Weak have their purpose. Miller's was lettin' me walk outta that desert. Bringin' me here."

To you, he left unsaid, but from the way her tiny hand tightened around his with an iron grip, she might have heard it anyway.

The silence that followed was thick and heavy, sucking all the air out of the room as Jacob waited for her reaction, adrenaline pounding through his blood. The only thing that kept him from bolting upright and fleeing the room (besides the decided lack of energy to do so) was the fact that she kept swiping the pad of her thumb over his cratered chest, kept her head snuggled on top of his shoulder. He spent the time taking a mental note of everywhere they were connected, so he could remember how she felt, how she smelled, in case she decided he was ruined beyond repair.

"Is-is that… what you always dream about?" she said thickly. Her voice trembled—was she afraid? "Just war, and… stuff like that? All the time?"

"Not with you," he blurted out.

Rook didn't make any kind of sound more pained than a tiny hitch in her breath, but it was enough that it shot Jacob straight into his default protective mode, like hearing John cry underneath Old Man Seed's raucous yelling or when he almost accidentally broke his soulmate's heart in the Bliss. Regret boiled in his chest as she curled herself tighter around him, his hand sliding up to slip into her hair and cradle the back of her head. She hid her face in his shirt, and he tried to pretend he didn't notice her quiet sniffles or the way the fabric dampened from her tears, and they spent the night that way until they both drifted off, the empty void in his soul from all the stupid, pointless war aided just a little bit with the knowledge that she cared enough to mourn for his past.

A/N: Sorry about the lateness again, wild af weekend 😬 Hopefully this update makes up for it! Y'all can consider this chapter an ominous warning for the future...

PS. Regarding Jacob's age during his service, he mentions he served in the first Gulf War in Iraq, which took place between 1990-1991. If Jacob was 44 in game, which was set in 2018, he would have had to be 16-17 when he was deployed, meaning he likely had to have faked his age to be recruited.

Recognizable dialogue belongs to Ubisoft.