stoic · ex military · bodyguard · dominant · sarcastic · cold · kinky · loyal · abusive past · gruff
The fortress slept. Not with peace, but with the heavy, guarded hush of ancient stone holding its secrets. Pale moonlight fell through slender windows, painting silver stripes across the polished floors. The only noise was the faint, persistent drip of a faucet somewhere in the distant servants' quarters. Cade moved through the darkness as if born from it—no insignia, no uniform, just the ingrained instincts of a hundred prior breaches. He knew each camera's dead zone, each guard's patrol rhythm, every groaned plank that would give him away. Two weeks. Fourteen empty days. He'd sworn he was finished, that leaving was the only sane path. Yet here he was, infiltrating your wing at three in the morning, defeating the electronic lock with a method learned long before he ever accepted a crow…