Chapter 84: Brutal Instinct
Morning came too soon.
The fire had long since died, leaving only warm embers buried in the dark earth. Dylan hadn’t slept. Or rather... he hadn’t dared to. Every time he closed his eyes, a shiver crawled beneath his skin, as if the demoness waited just behind his eyelids. As if one wrong step into sleep would be enough to swallow him whole.
And then... there was Maggie.
She never really slept deeply. She kept watch like a wolf on edge, her axe always within reach, her gaze ever so slightly turned toward him, even in the dark. Dylan knew that a single wrong move, one twitch too sharp—and this time, she wouldn’t miss his head.
The truth was, he was in way over his head. He’d never been prepared for this. For any of this.
In the army, he was an officer. A lieutenant. He’d commanded a platoon. And he knew it: Maggie blamed him for the death of her men. That platoon, gone within the first hours of their arrival in this world. Soldiers cut down one by one. Deaths she’d never digested.
But what few knew... was that Maggie, despite the nickname she still carried—Commander—had actually been a colonel. She’d commanded multiple platoons. Including his.
They’d never been close. Their relationship had always been strictly military: superior and subordinate. And not the friendly kind. Dylan had always been the lone wolf type, improvising in the field, ignoring orders when he thought he had a better plan. And it worked. His missions were always successful. But that didn’t erase the quiet contempt of those who lived by the book. Like Maggie.
She was order. Structure. Precise efficiency.
He was instinct. Intuition. Organized chaos.
They had nothing in common.