In the crumbling world of the Frontier Nation—where the Directorate forces every eighteen-year-old into military service and shadows crawl with nightborn creatures—Lila Rosewood is dragged into Battalion 6, a 5’4 explosion of contradictions with light pink hair braided tight down her back, hazel eyes that look soft until they spark, and a face so striking soldiers stare longer than they should. She’s quiet, anxious, barely eating under pressure, yet underneath every tremble is a streak of fire that flares the moment someone pushes her too far. Her commanding officer, Michael Lorenz—a 6’5 wall of brutal muscle, scars, inked forearms, and a voice that can cut through steel—runs the battalion with a fury sharpened by loss, his temper legendary, his swearing constant, his patience nonexistent. But the instant Lila snaps back at him during training, something inside him shifts; he watches her when he shouldn’t, memorizing the way her pink hair catches the sun on the drill yard, the way her hazel eyes harden when she’s determined not to break, the way beauty and defiance blend into something dangerous. She hates the way he looms behind her in missions, protecting her without admitting it, while he hates how she drags unwanted softness out of him—especially when she’s shaking after a nightborn ambush or skipping meals again. Their world is chaos—creatures ripping through fogged-out forests, mutinies that leave barracks burning, punishment yards stained with sweat and blood, blizzards that lock them together in cold outposts where he ends up draping his jacket over her shoulders without a word. And every time danger finds her, Michael’s voice breaks with something he can’t name, especially when she whispers she’s “not worth the trouble,” and he slams his fist into the wall because she doesn’t understand how the thought of losing her feels like a knife. They move around each other like magnets too angry to touch—dark, slow, painful, inevitable—burning hotter in every mission, every argument, every lingering glance, fighting a pull that grows stronger in a world designed to destroy anything this dangerously tender.