Page 120 of Specter Bred

Graves huffed out a laugh, but when he looked at me again, the amusement faded. “You’re not third-wheeling in anything, Farm Boy.”

Something about the certainty in his voice shut me up.

“The only reason I’m even considering the three of us for a unit is because I’ve watched what happens when you two are together.”

I frowned. “Sir?”

“Phase one already told me what I needed to know about your individual capabilities. You passed. Archer passed. You adapted when other candidates couldn’t, and you’re both still standing after the cuts.” He turned his attention fully on me. “But skill isn’t the only reason you’re here, Hayes.”

I waited for whatever came next, trying to figure out where the hell he was going with this.

“You make her better.”

For once, my brain failed to supply a smart-ass response.

Beside me, Maeve went quiet.

Graves nodded toward her. “Archer’s instinct is always forward. Push harder. Move faster. You don’t stop that. You give it direction. You keep her from running herself straight into the fucking ground.”

Maeve looked like she wanted to argue, which probably proved his point better than anything he could’ve said.

“And she makes you stronger,” Graves continued. “You’re steady, Hayes. Sometimes too fucking steady. You’ll hang back and make sure everyone else gets through before you ever think about yourself. Archer doesn’t let you do that. She pushes you to take up space.”

That shut me up even more effectively than the elbow had.

Because he wasn’t wrong.

Maeve had never treated me like the beta who needed to keep up with her. If anything, she seemed personally offended whenever I acted like I was anything less than her equal. She dragged me into every challenge, every argument, every spectacularly bad idea, and somehow expected me to stand beside her like there was nowhere else I belonged.

Apparently, somewhere along the way, I’d started believing her. What I hadn’t realized was that Graves had noticed too.

I’d spent months assuming he saw Maeve as the obvious choice between us. She was an alpha. Strong, aggressive, impossible to intimidate, and exactly the kind of soldier ASOG seemed built to produce. I was the farm boy beta who had shown up beside her and stubbornly refused to leave.

But Graves wasn’t talking about letting me come along because Maeve wanted me there.

He was talking about choosing me.

“There’s a place for you in my unit, Hayes,” Graves said. “Not because Archer comes with you. Because you’ve earned the chance to prove you belong there.”

I glanced at Maeve. She was already looking at me, and the quiet pride on her face made the whole thing dangerously close to becoming an emotional moment.

I cleared my throat. “Well, sir, if you keep saying nice things about me, people are going to start thinking you like me.”

Graves’s expression went flat. “Don’t ruin it.”

“There he is.”

Maeve snorted.

Graves let me have exactly half a second before his attention sharpened again. “Now I need to know whether what works between the two of you still works when you add me to the equation. Last night, we decided the three of us would make each other stronger.” His eyes moved between us. “Today, we start proving it.”

He jerked his chin toward the forest. “Walk.”

Maeve started forward, and I fell into step beside her with Graves behind us.

I still couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

There’s a place for you in my unit, Hayes.