Chapter 17
The drums began before the light. Slow, hollow, steady as a heartbeat, they rolled through the dark and pulled her up from the depths.
At first she thought it was the sound of surf against the hulls of the Navy boats, that measured percussion of oars on water.
Then she saw them. Men in dress blues, lined in silence, their faces shadowed beneath the visors of their caps.
The sky above them was a bruised gray, trembling at the edge of dawn.
The casket stood in the sand, flag folded crisp and perfect. The sea was too calm for what it held.
Bear’s Trident gleamed gold on the lid. The first one. Then another. The strikes came one by one, metal into wood, the dull, final sound of brothers marking a grave.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Each impact shuddered through her bones.
She tried to move toward them, to tell them they were wrong, that he wasn’t dead, that he couldn’t be. Her mouth opened but no sound came. Her throat was full of saltwater and prayer.
Wind lifted the flag’s corner, and she saw the body beneath, broad shoulders, dark hair falling loose over his brow. His face was peaceful, the way she had seen it only in sleep. The calm after everything he’d carried.
“No,” she whispered. The word went nowhere. The sound died against the drumbeat.
The tridents kept falling.
The rhythm changed, deepening, turning to hand drums now, rawhide and heartbeat, the sound of the old ways.
The men in uniform blurred and became figures in feathers and paint, faces she half knew from stories whispered around firelight.
The ocean darkened to river water. Smoke rolled in from sage fires, stinging her eyes.
Someone was chanting her name. Not Bailee.
Thunderhawk.
The voice was her grandmother’s, layered with others older still, the sound vast and hollow. “You were called to heal, and you turned away.”
She looked down and her hands were covered in blood. Bear’s. Hers. She lifted them toward the smoke, but the blood only spread, slick and endless, down her arms.
“You weren’t chosen,” the voices said. “You walked away from the gift.”
She tried to speak, to say I wasn’t called. You wouldn’t speak to me, but her tongue was heavy, full of ash. The elders’ silhouettes surrounded her, forming a circle in the sand. Between them, Bear’s casket waited, half-buried now, the waves dragging at its edge.
One of the ancestors, she couldn’t tell if it was man or woman, reached out, pressed a hand of ash against her chest.
“You couldn’t save him, child. You can’t save what you won’t touch.”
The world tilted.
The drums merged again with the sound of boots striking sand, tridents falling, the waves swallowing the last edge of the coffin as the sea claimed him.
“No!” She stumbled forward, falling to her knees, digging her hands into the wet sand until her fingers bled. “Please. I’ll learn. I’ll listen. I’ll—”
The water rushed up, black and cold. It took her words, her breath, everything.
Bailee woke gasping, drenched in sweat, the echo of drums still pulsing in her ears.
Her heart pounded so hard it hurt. Moonlight fractured across the hotel ceiling, the sound of real rain whispering against the glass.
For a moment, she didn’t know where she was…
Rio or the spirit world, Bear’s grave or his bed.
No. It was Rio.
This was where the trail of her cousin had gone cold.
The thought landed like a blow, scattering the last remnants of sleep.
She pushed upright, the sheet sliding away, rain-light washing her bare shoulders in silver.
The drums from the dream still echoed faintly in her skull, tridents striking wood, elders chanting her name, and for a heartbeat she couldn’t tell which was more real: the ghosts calling her back to the path she’d abandoned, or the living who needed her now.
Either way, the message was the same. It was time to act.
Breath whispered across her skin, and she turned her head and saw him beside her, alive, breathing, the slow rise and fall of his chest anchoring her to the now.
Bear lay on his back, face turned toward the window.
Moonlight pooled across the dark planes of his chest, the sheet slipped low around his hips, one strong thigh bare against white linen.
The contrast made her breath hitch—dark skin, pale fabric, moonlight threading through his hair like silvered silk.
The sight of him was a benediction and a temptation in one breath.
She dragged a trembling hand through her hair. He’s alive. The nightmare still clung to her like smoke.
For a moment she only watched him breathe, slow and even, the steady rhythm that always calmed her. Damn, he was beautiful. Not for the sculpted lines or the power coiled beneath his skin, but because every inch of that strength had once been between her and death.
The memories of the last month flooded in, his patience, his quiet humor, the way he listened without judgment when she told him about the path that had never chosen her. She had expected distance, maybe disappointment. Instead, he’d offered understanding. Comfort. A stillness that made her ache.
Yet she’d kept him at arm’s length.
She pressed her palms to her face. Why? She’d faced insurgents, interrogations, ambushes, yet one dinner invitation from him had sent her running. She’d taken his strength, his care, his body, and lost her heart. It made no sense.
Why was she jeopardizing her relationship with him?
Certainly, the nightmares were a product of her overactive imagination.
His job was dangerous, but so was hers. There was no guarantee either of them would survive.
To be honest, she’d rather have him in her life than out of it.
That was even more unbearable to know that he was in this world, and she’d chosen not to have him.
She closed her eyes. Ancestors, help me. Help me see a way to speak without shame. Let me look at him and know he will never judge me.
The plea felt like prayer. She imagined the faint scent of sage, the ghost beat of a drum far away, the rhythm her grandmother used to hum when she spoke to the spirits. The sound steadied her.
Her mind slipped back to the first Rio, flashes of smoke and shattered glass, the Atlantic Coalition summit gone to hell.
Bear crashing through the chaos, Flint a black streak at his side, taking down Alvorada Negra one by one until the hallway was clear.
She remembered the moment she texted him, the single word trapped, and how he’d answered with action, not reply.
He’d saved her, and they covered each other, retreating to the roof, heroically saving Zorro’s family together and her countless times.
She had told him during that conversation in the lobby that she was in Rio for an assignment.
Lie.
She’d volunteered for that summit job knowing he would be there. Ancestors help her, she had wanted to see him, to prove to herself that the thread between them was real. When he’d asked her to dinner, she’d fled like a coward.
She turned now, studying his face in the moonlight, and the realization struck with quiet certainty.
Love.
Not the fragile kind that trembled. The kind that burned through fear and found what was true beneath it.
Oh, Great Spirit. It was love. It had been all along. Every nightmare, every breathless moment, every tremor when his hand brushed hers. It was the body’s way of recognizing what the mind refused to name.
She now knew why she’d held back, why she hadn’t given him everything like she wanted to. She’d always measured everything by achievements, not relationships, and deep down, buried in a desperate attempt to avoid thinking about it, was the simple fact.
She didn’t feel worthy of Bear’s love. He was everything she was running from.
She leaned over him, heart hammering, and pressed her mouth softly to his. A whisper of contact. His lips were warm, familiar, grounding. When she pulled back, his lashes fluttered. Dark eyes opened, focusing on her through the silver light. A faint smile touched his mouth.
Then he saw her expression, and the smile faltered. “Bailee,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep. “What’s wrong?”
Her throat closed. She touched his face, fingertips trembling. “I love you, Dakota.” The words came out raw, unguarded, a confession ripped from somewhere deeper than thought. “I didn’t see it until now, but I felt it every day. I love you.”
For a heartbeat he didn’t move, only stared at her as if memorizing the shape of what she’d said. His hand came up, covering hers against his cheek. The warmth of him spread through her palm.
He exhaled slowly, eyes steady on hers. “Then don’t be afraid of it.”
The simplicity of it broke something open inside her.
The tears came silent and hot, and he caught her, drawing her against his chest. She listened to his heartbeat until the last echo of the nightmare faded, replaced by that single, living rhythm, proof that he was here, that love was still possible in a world built on danger.
Outside, the rain began again, soft against the glass, like the world whispering yes.
The storm had passed between them, but the quiet that followed wasn’t empty.
It was sacred.
Bear lay still beneath her, chest rising slow and heavy, eyes half-lidded as he tried to catch his breath.
She could feel the weight of what he’d given her, the truth he’d finally spoken, the wound he’d never shared with anyone.
It wasn’t just sex. It was his breaking. She’d been the one to hold it.
She wanted to give something back. Not comfort. Not sweetness.
Honor.
She shifted slowly, reverently, sliding down the bed until she knelt between his thighs. He blinked at her, confusion flickering in those steady brown eyes, but he didn’t stop her. Didn’t ask. Didn’t speak.
Bailee placed her hands on his hips, her touch firm, grounding. Then she bowed her head. Not to worship, to witness, to offer.