Chapter 15
Reagan couldn't stop moving.
The assault had ended hours ago. The bodies were gone, the wounded tended, the compound settling into exhausted quiet. But the energy still buzzed under her skin like electricity with nowhere to ground.
She checked on every family in the lodge. Twice. Made sure the kids were sleeping, the mothers had water, the doors were secured. She reorganized the medical supplies Carmen had scattered during the chaos. She swept glass from a broken window.
Busy work. Displacement activity. Anything to keep from thinking about how close they'd all come to dying.
"Reagan." Maggie's hand on her arm, gentle but firm. "Go."
"I should stay. In case—"
"We've got it handled." Maggie's eyes were knowing. "Go find your man. You both need it."
Reagan didn't argue. She was too tired to argue, too wired to think of a reason why she shouldn't.
She walked across the compound in the dark. Past the scorch marks on the gravel. Past the bullet holes in the garage siding. Past all the evidence of the war that had rolled through their home and been beaten back.
Channel's cabin light was on.
She knocked once and pushed the door open without waiting for an answer.
He was sitting on the floor with his back against the bed, his weapon disassembled on a cloth in front of him.
His hands moved through the cleaning routine with steady precision—barrel, slide, spring, frame—but his eyes were wrong.
Too bright. Too sharp. Still wired from the fight even though his body had gone still.
She knew that look. She'd seen it in her own mirror after nights when sleep wouldn't come.
"Hey," she said.
His hands paused. His eyes tracked up her body, checking for injury, cataloging damage that wasn't there. "Hey."
"Everyone's okay. Families are settled. Proof's arm is bandaged."
"I know. Cottonmouth reported."
"I know you know." She crossed the room and sat down next to him on the floor, close enough that their shoulders touched. "I'm not here to report."
Channel set down the barrel he'd been cleaning. His jaw was tight, the muscles in his arms still corded with tension that had nowhere to go.
"You should be sleeping," he said.
"So should you."
"Can't."
"Neither can I."
They sat in silence. His shoulder was warm against hers, his breathing too fast for someone who was supposed to be calm. The energy coming off him was almost visible—combat readiness with no combat left to channel it into.
Reagan understood that too.
"I watched you from the lodge window," she said quietly. "Saw you moving through the dark, taking them down. You looked..."
"Like what?"
"Like something that shouldn't be stopped." She turned her head to look at him. "Like you belonged there."
His eyes met hers. Dark, intense, still burning with whatever fire the battle had lit in him. "I almost came for you. In the middle of it. Had to force myself to stay in my sector because I knew—I knew you could handle yourself, but—"
"But what?"
"But I needed to see you." His voice cracked. "Every second I wasn't looking at you, I was thinking about what could be happening at the lodge."
"Nothing happened at the lodge."
"Because you held it." His hand found hers, grip too tight, fingers interlacing like he couldn't stand the distance anymore. "You kept everyone calm while the world was falling apart outside. The old ladies told me. Said you were giving orders like you'd been doing it your whole life."
"Someone had to."
"No." He pulled her closer, turned her to face him. "You didn't have to do anything. You could have hidden. Could have let someone else take charge. But you didn't."
"I don't hide."
"I know." His other hand came up to cup her face, tilting it toward his. "God, Reagan, I know."
The kiss wasn't gentle.
It hit her like the assault had hit the compound—sudden, overwhelming, no time to prepare. His mouth was hot and demanding, his hands in her hair, pulling her into his lap before she could process that she was moving.
Reagan didn't want gentle. She wanted this—the raw hunger, the desperate need, the adrenaline that had been screaming through her blood finally finding somewhere to go.
She grabbed his shirt and yanked it over his head, her nails scraping his ribs, her mouth finding his again before he could catch his breath. He groaned into the kiss and his hands went to her hips, fingers digging in hard enough to leave marks.
Good. She wanted marks. Wanted proof that this was real, that they were both alive, that the bullets had missed and the blood wasn't theirs.
"Reagan—" He pulled back half an inch, breathing ragged. "We should—"
"Shut up." She bit his lower lip, felt him shudder. "Don't think. Don't plan. Just—"
She rolled her hips against him and whatever control he'd been trying to maintain shattered.
He flipped her onto her back so fast the floor knocked the breath out of her. She didn't care. His weight pressed her down, his mouth attacking her neck, her collarbone, the spot below her ear that made her gasp. She arched into him and grabbed his shoulders, pulling him closer, demanding more.
Nothing careful about this. Nothing tender. Just two people running on survival instinct and combat adrenaline, needing to prove they were still breathing.
"Mine." He growled the word against her throat. "You're mine. Tell me."
"Yours." She pulled his head up, met his burning gaze. "And you're mine. Don't forget that part."
Something flared in his eyes. Surprise, maybe. Pleasure. The realization that she wasn't content to be claimed without claiming back.
"Yeah?" His grin was sharp, dangerous, nothing like the nervous boy from their first time. "Prove it."
She surged up and twisted, using leverage he wasn't expecting, and suddenly he was the one on his back with her straddling him. His eyes went wide, then dark with want, and his hands found her thighs like they belonged there.
"Proof enough?" she asked.
"Not even close."
She leaned down and kissed him, slower this time but no less intense. Showing him what she wanted, how she wanted it, refusing to be handled even when handling was what they both needed.
His hands stripped away her clothes with none of the reverence from before.
This was practical, urgent, getting fabric out of the way so they could have what they needed.
She returned the favor, and when they finally came together on the floor of his cabin—too impatient for the bed, too desperate for anything that required moving—Reagan felt something click into place that went beyond physical.
This was what surviving together looked like. This was what the aftermath demanded.
She moved above him, setting the pace, taking what she wanted while giving him everything. He watched her with those dark eyes, his hands on her hips steadying but not controlling, letting her lead.
"Reagan." Her name came out broken. "I can't—I'm not going to—"
"Then don't." She leaned down, pressed her forehead to his. "I've got you."
She felt him break underneath her. Felt herself follow seconds later, the release crashing through her like a wave, washing away everything except him—his hands on her skin, his breath in her ear, his voice saying her name like a prayer.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
Then Reagan laughed.
It bubbled up from somewhere deep, exhausted and exhilarated and so relieved she couldn't contain it. She collapsed against his chest, still shaking, and felt his arms come around her.
"What's funny?" His voice was hoarse, wrecked.
"We just survived a fourteen-man assault on the compound."
"Yeah?"
"And this is how we celebrate."
His chest shook beneath her. Laughter, she realized. Real laughter, the tension finally bleeding out of him. "Would you rather have a beer and a debriefing?"
"God, no." She lifted her head to look at him. "This was better."
"Better than beer?"
"Better than anything."
His expression softened, some of the combat edge fading into something warmer. He brushed hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear the way he'd done a hundred times since that first night in the safehouse.
"You scared me tonight," he said quietly. "Knowing you were in the lodge while I was at the dock. Knowing I couldn't get to you if something went wrong."
"But you trusted me to handle it."
"I did." He kissed her forehead. "Doesn't mean it wasn't terrifying."
Reagan settled against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow. The floor was hard beneath them, the night air cool on her bare skin, but she didn't want to move. Didn't want to break the fragile peace they'd built from chaos and adrenaline.
"I've never had anyone stand between me and a threat before," she said. "Not once in my life. When things got bad, I handled them alone or I didn't handle them at all."
"That's different now."
"I know." She traced patterns on his chest. "That's what scares me."
"Scares you?"
"Relying on someone. Trusting someone to be there." She looked up at him. "I've spent nine years making sure I never needed anyone. And now..."
"Now?"
"Now I'm lying on the floor of your cabin after we just fought off an army together, and I can't imagine handling any of this without you."
Channel was quiet for a moment. Then he pulled her closer, his arms tight around her, his chin resting on top of her head.
"That's what units do," he said. "We cover each other. Watch each other's backs. Handle things together that we couldn't handle alone." His voice dropped. "You're my unit now, Reagan. My family. The only one that matters."
Her eyes burned. She blinked the tears back, refusing to cry, even if these were the kind that came from being given something instead of losing it.
"Tyler," she whispered, using his name like the gift it was. "I think I might be falling in love with you."
His arms tightened. She felt him press a kiss to her hair, felt the tremble in his breath.
"Might be?"
"Okay, definitely." She laughed again, watery this time. "Definitely falling in love with you. Happy?"
"Yeah." His voice cracked on the word. "Yeah, Reagan. I'm happy."
They lay there on the floor of his cabin while the compound quieted around them. Tomorrow there would be planning, strategy, another assault to prepare for. Farris was still out there, and he'd lost two of his key people in less than two weeks. He would come back harder.
But tonight, they'd survived. Together.
And that was enough.