He Can't Reject Me: My Mate Doesn't Know I'm a Woman

The Unit

kagiso pov

I brought Storm to the training grounds the next morning and introduced him to the unit the way I introduced most things I didn't want to overthink, bluntly, without ceremony, like tearing off a bandage was somehow kinder than easing into it.

A hundred wolves under my command, give or take, and every single one of them stopped mid drill the second I said the word mate.

"This is Storm," I said, loud enough to carry across the whole yard. "My mate. Yes, he's a man. No, I don't want to discuss it. Cooper, Torres, you already know him. Everyone else, get back to work before I find something unpleasant for all of you to do instead."

Nobody got back to work. I hadn't actually expected them to.

"You're serious," Deakins called out from somewhere near the weapons rack, hair sticking up like he'd lost an argument with his own pillow that morning. "General's actually got a mate."

"Deadly serious."

"And he's a—"

"Yes, Deakins. Finish that sentence at your own risk."

A wave of low murmuring rolled through the yard, and somewhere in the middle of it, one of the older soldiers, a scarred veteran named Halden who'd served under me for six years and rarely bothered speaking above a mutter, said something that carried further than he probably intended.

"Makes sense, though, doesn't it. No woman in her right mind would put up with him long enough to stick around. Goddess probably figured a man was the only creature stubborn enough to survive it."

The yard erupted. Actual laughter this time, loud and unguarded, spreading fast enough that even Cooper had to press a fist to his mouth to keep from joining in outright.

I laughed along with them, because the alternative was standing there looking wounded in front of a hundred men I commanded, and I refused to give anyone that satisfaction.

It landed somewhere it shouldn't have, though. Somewhere quieter, underneath the performance of finding it funny. I'd spent five years imagining what finding my mate would feel like, and not once, in any version of that daydream, had I pictured being the punchline of my own unit's joke about how unbearable I apparently was to actually love.

*It's just a joke,* Ren said, gentle in the way he only ever got when he'd caught something in me before I'd fully admitted it to myself. *Halden doesn't mean anything cruel by it.*

*I know.*

*You don't sound like you know.*

I didn't answer that, mostly because he was right and I wasn't in the mood to concede it out loud, even silently, even to the one part of me that never actually judged me for anything.

*You are not unbearable,* Ren added, quieter still. *Difficult, certainly. Demanding of yourself in ways that make you demanding of everyone around you. That's not the same thing as unlovable, whatever that joke implied.*

*Feels the same some days.*

*I know it does. That doesn't make it true.*

I glanced over at Storm in the middle of all that noise, half expecting to find him uncomfortable, caught in the crossfire of a joke about a bond he hadn't asked for either. Instead he was laughing, genuinely, unguarded in a way I hadn't seen from him since I'd found him half drowned at the border, and something about that eased the sting of Halden's comment more effectively than Ren's steady reassurance had managed.

"He's not wrong," Storm called back to Halden, still grinning. "I am unusually stubborn. Comes with the territory."

"See," Halden said, delighted. "Match made by the goddess herself. Truly a blessing."

"Alright," I said, "that's enough. Everyone back to your drills before I assign extra laps to the entire unit out of spite."

They scattered, laughing still, and I caught myself watching Storm a beat longer than the moment required, the way his whole face had opened up mid laugh, easy and bright in a way that made something in my chest twist uncomfortably.

*****

Training itself put an end to the laughter fast.

I hadn't expected him to hold back, not after two weeks of watching him move, but I also hadn't expected quite this. He put Deakins on his back inside of ten seconds. Ducked under Torres's guard before Torres had finished his first swing. Left Cooper blinking up at the sky like the ground had personally betrayed him.

*He's good,* Ren said, something sharpening in his tone that hadn't been there a moment ago. *Better than good. Watch how he moves. He's not fighting like someone who trained for sport.*

I'd noticed that too, somewhere underneath the simple pride of watching my mate put six of my best soldiers on the ground one after another. Every movement was economical, nothing wasted, nothing showy, the specific efficiency of someone who'd learned early that a fight that lasted too long was a fight you might not survive. He fought like every single bout mattered, because for most of his life, I understood suddenly, it probably had.

Something cold settled in my chest, watching him duck and strike and move again before anyone could get a proper read on him. He hadn't learned to fight like that in a training yard with a patient instructor correcting his form. He'd learned it clawing his way through however many years of a life I still only had fragments of, every lesson paid for in a way I didn't want to think too hard about.

He was too thin. I'd noticed that the first night, obviously, impossible not to notice, but watching him move now, fast and precise and clearly capable of far more than his current frame should have allowed, the thought crystallized into something sharper. Whatever he'd eaten in that camp once day, it had defiently not been enough. Not nearly enough, for years, probably his whole life, and some old, stubborn instinct in me wanted, badly, to fix that. Feed him properly. Watch him fill out the way a person should, muscle instead of just wire and desperation, cheeks that weren't quite so hollow.

The thought that followed arrived before I could stop it, unbidden and mortifying in its specificity. Freckles scattered across cheeks with a little more softness to them. I imagined it clearly enough that my whole face went hot, and I had to look away fast toward the fence, pretending intense interest in absolutely nothing at all.

*That's a very specific thought,* Ren observed.

*Shut up.*

*I'm only noting it.*

*Note it quietly.*

He didn't, not really, just settled into a low, satisfied hum that I chose to ignore entirely for the rest of the session.

"Where did you learn to fight like that," Cooper asked, still sitting in the mud, sounding almost offended by his own question.

"Nobody taught me anything I didn't earn the hard way," Storm said, and left it there, and I watched something shift across the whole unit's faces, teasing curiosity settling into something quieter, more respectful, the kind of regard soldiers only extended to people who'd clearly bled for what they knew.

I found I liked watching that happen almost as much as I'd liked watching him laugh.