Us, Always

Plastic Shovels and Border Patrols

The border fence between the Northern Territory and the Central Heart was rusted, seven feet high, and completely useless against a determined rogue.
Joie adjusted the weight of the rifle strapped across her back, rolled her shoulders, and leaned against the wooden post. Sunlight filtered through the dense pine canopy, glinting off the silver alloy of her sidearm. She took a slow sip from her canteen, her eyes sweeping the line of scrub brush thirty yards out.
"If you stare at the bushes any harder, Joie, they're going to start crying," a deep, gravelly voice echoed from the treeline behind her.
Joie didn't flinch. She didn't even turn around. "If the bushes were smart, Adonis, they'd realize I'm the least of their problems. Your face is coming into view, and that usually terrifies local wildlife."
Adonis stepped out of the shadow of a massive cedar, broad shoulders cutting through the afternoon light. Black hair cropped neat, a sharp, trimmed beard frame-lining a jawline that looked carved from granite, and dark brown eyes full of familiar, simmering irritation. Tattoos snaked out from the collar of his tactical shirt, sprawling across his neck and down over his knuckles-a living map of ink covering every inch of his massive frame.
"I bring joy wherever I go," Adonis said, dropping a heavy supply crate onto the dirt with a thud.
"You bit me when we were four," she pointed out, slinging her rifle over one shoulder as she walked over to inspect the pack. "Right on the forearm. I still have the mark."
"You stole my primary yellow crayon."
"It was gold, you uncultured swine. And I hit you with a plastic shovel."
"Broke it over my collarbone," Adonis muttered, though the ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of his dark lips. "My father thought I got attacked by a bobcat."
"A bobcat with a sharp right hook," Joie corrected smoothly. She knelt, unbuckling the leather straps of the crate with quick, practiced fingers. "Is the rest of the council coming, or did the three Alpha heirs decide border security was beneath their royal pay grade?"
"We're behind you, little human," a dry, quiet voice murmured from the high branch directly above her.
Joie looked up without moving her head, meeting a pair of steady, cool gray eyes. Onyx swung down from the pine branch with terrifying silence, landing light on the balls of his feet. Buzzed brown hair, silver studs glinting in his ears, and a calculating, unreadable expression that rarely cracked. He wore dark gray field gear, a few dark tattoos visible at his wrists-the quietest of the four, and by far the most methodical.
"I'm not little, Onyx," Joie said, rising to her full height. "I'm compact for aerodynamic efficiency. It makes it easier to shoot you in the kneecaps when you drop out of trees like a overgrown bat."
"Statistically, you hit what you shoot at ninety-four percent of the time," Onyx replied, his voice barely above a whisper, though his gaze tracked her every movement with sharp precision. "The kneecaps are a small target. I'm willing to test the six percent."
"Don't encourage her," Maverick boomed, striding out from the western path with a loping, relaxed stride that completely belied his lethality. Sun-bleached brown hair fell in unruly waves around his face, bright hazel eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned. His tactical vest was unbuttoned at the chest, revealing a glimpse of the dense ink sleeve running down his arm. "She's been doing three hundred push-ups a morning just to prove she can bench-press Ronan."
"Three hundred and fifty," Joie chimed in, slinging a pouch of ammunition over her hip. "And I don't need to bench-press him. I just need to trip him. The momentum does the rest."
A deep chuckle rumbled from the path behind Maverick. Ronan cleared the tree line, his presence immediately filling the clearing. Standing taller than the rest, his massive frame was wrapped in dark tactical gear, broad chest and thick forearms covered in intricate Samoan tribal patterns that wove together the lineage of the Southern territory. Dark brown hair pulled back, a thick beard framing a wide, easy smile, he carried a heavy iron border marker on one shoulder like it weighed no more than a bag of grain.
"You're welcome to try, Joie," Ronan said, setting the iron stake down with a deep thud that vibrated through the earth. His voice was warm, like sun-baked stone. "Though last time you tried to tackle me, you bounced off my hip and landed in a blackberry bush."
"That was a tactical retreat," Joie said without missing a beat. "I was checking the bush for hidden rogues. It was clean."
The four of them stood in a loose circle around her in the clearing-the heirs to the North, East, West, and South. They had bled together through years of shared heir training, pushed to absolute physical collapse in the brutal neutral grounds of the Heart until their ranks as future rulers were cemented. They were lethal, commanding, and heavily armed.
And Joie was the glue that kept their tempers from tearing the four kingdoms apart. She wasn't born to a bloodline throne. She had no shift, no hidden magical gift, no sudden supernatural inheritance waiting to wake up in her blood. Everything she possessed-the sharp, lethal precision with a firearm, the brutal efficiency in hand-to-hand combat, the tactical mind that predicted terrain movements three steps ahead of veteran generals-she had earned through sheer, unyielding work. While they trained with claw and fang, she ran miles with iron plates strapped to her chest until her lungs burned like fire.
"Border reports from the East," Onyx said, breaking the quiet as he pulled a folded map from his vest. "Three sightings of rogue packs along the Heart's edge this week. They're probing the perimeter."
"They're getting bolder," Adonis growled, his jaw tightening as his eyes swept the northern ridge. "They know the treaty renewal is in three months."
"They think because the central Heart is no man's land, it's an easy staging ground," Joie said, walking over to the map Onyx laid out on a flat rock. She pointed a clean, steady finger at a narrow ravine cutting through the central valley. "They won't come through the open ridge. They'll use the Creekbed Ravine. High walls, heavy brush, hides their scent from downwind."
Maverick leaned in, his hazel eyes locking onto her face with a sudden, intense focus. "You want to bottleneck them?"
"I want to build a fortified watchpost right here," she said, tapping the granite rock. "Manual traps, silver tripwires, and two sniper perches. If we control the ravine, we control the Heart's northern entrance."
Ronan folded his massive arms over his chest, studying her with quiet pride. "And who's going to command the build?"
"Me," Joie said, looking up, her dark eyes flashing with absolute authority. "Because if I let any of you four do it, you'll turn it into a dick-measuring contest and end up knocking down half the forest."
A beat of silence hung over the clearing before Maverick burst out laughing, a rich, open sound. Onyx merely shook his head, a faint smirk touching his lips. Adonis scoffed, leaning his hip against a pine tree, his gaze dark and unreadable as it lingered on the curve of her throat.
"She's right," Ronan said softly, his voice dropping an octave, heavy with a warmth that went far deeper than friendship. "She's always right."