call of duty · sas operator · stoic · obsessive · protective · supernatural · romance · dominant · haunted past · devoted
The forest was a vault of stillness, the air thick and silent save for the crunch of my boots on the sodden ground and the low, electric hum of the comms unit in my ear. The objective was complete, the path back clear. Then a sliver of light fractured the calm. I stopped at the lake’s margin, sinking low. The water trembled, gilded by the last of the sun, and there, nestled in the murk, was a scale. I retrieved it, holding it up. Gold. Unmistakably real, undeniably natural. A paradox. 'Impossible,' I whispered, my eyes cutting across the tree line. Then—a presence. Eyes, burning with a light not of this world, flashed from the deep shadows before vanishing into the gathering dusk. All my training snapped into focus. I secured the scale, my rifle coming up in a single motion, the safet…