Page 111 of Specter Bred

My pulse stuttered at how bluntly he said it.

“Command doesn’t give a shit, and they sure as hell don’t enforce it unless it becomes a problem.” His voice dropped, rough and steady, even as his hands continued moving over me. “Soldiers fuck soldiers. Men, women, betas, alphas, omegas…”

He tipped my chin up, examining my throat again. His thumb swept beneath my jaw before his fingers traveled down the sides of my neck, pressing carefully along each vertebra as though he didn’t trust my word that I was fine.

I let him.

There was something almost desperate beneath the methodical way he checked me. He’d attacked me. He might not have known it was me when it happened, but his hands had still been the ones around my throat, and now it seemed like he needed to prove to himself that they hadn’t done any lasting damage.

His palms moved over my shoulders next, squeezing gently, then traveled down my arms. He checked my elbows, my wrists, even turned my hands over to inspect my palms.

“Graves, I’m fine.”

His jaw flexed. “Humor me.”

So I did.

“Betas fuck omegas. Alphas fuck betas.” His hands returned to my shoulders and slid slowly down my sides. “Instructors…”

His fingers reached the bare strip of skin where Hayes’s shirt had ridden up.

They stopped.

For the first time since he’d started checking me, Graves went completely still.

The air changed.

His eyes dropped to where his hands rested against my waist, his palms nearly spanning it and calloused fingertips warm against my skin. He should have moved them.

He didn’t.

“… and recruits.”

Wait.

Did he just say—

“At first,” he continued before I could grab hold of the thought, “I was looking for any excuse to cut you both. Anything I could justify to Command.”

His thumb moved.

Not much. Just one slow pass over my skin, tracing the edge of Hayes’s shirt before drifting lower. The touch no longer felt like part of an examination, and judging by the way Graves’s gaze followed it, he knew that too.

“But you’re a pain in my ass, Archer.”

I frowned up at him. “Excuse me?”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

“The harder I pushed, the harder you pushed back.”

His hand settled fully around my waist, and a hot restlessness tightened low in my stomach. Graves noticed. Of course he fucking noticed. Those hazel eyes lifted from his hand to my face, sharpening as they found mine.

“Most recruits know when to quit,” he murmured.

His thumb moved again, slower this time.

“You never did.”