Callsign: Yours by Nina Soelian
Callsign: Yours
Description
Jace Harper is twenty-five, openly gay, and the son of a dead general the military blamed for a failed mission. He does not believe the official story. His mother told him the truth before she died: the officer responsible works at Fort Null, the elite academy Jace has just entered as a cadet. Fort Null erases identities. No real names, no histories, no relationships between ranks. Jace's callsign is Stray. His commanding officer is Hound - dominant, eighteen years older, and ruthless in ways that feel personal. He pushes Jace harder. Punishes him longer. Keeps him closer than any cadet should be kept. Jace came to Fort Null for the truth. He did not come here to want the man keeping it from him.
Chapter 1
Aug 6, 2026
Stray's POV
"You are nobody here."
Hound lets the words drop into the dirt in front of my face. He is the officer who runs our unit, and, unfairly, the most handsome man on the field.
I'm somewhere past one hundred and forty push-ups and my arms are almost finished. I keep counting anyway. Quitting in front of this man is not an option.
"Whatever you were before you came through that gate. Somebody's son. Somebody's golden boy. Somebody's disappointment."
He walks the line of us, forty men shaking in the mud.
"You left it in the parking lot. In here you are a callsign and a number. You do not have a name. You do not speak each other's names. Say one out loud — your own, or the man's next to you — and you're on a bus home by sundown."
Forty voices grind out something that's supposed to be agreement.
I drop lower. My chin almost kisses the ground
"Real inspiring. Somebody stitch it on a pillow."
I say it just for me, just loud enough to taste. His boots reverse and stop.
Fuck, I should have known better.
Something heavy slams between my shoulder blades and folds me flat into the muck — the big duffel bag Hound packed this morning with every passport, every phone, every personal item we surrendered at the gate.
He's dropped the whole weight of forty men's entire identities onto my spine.
"You've got breath to spare, Stray." His voice never climbs. That's the trick of this man. "So spend it. Push. Don't spill a single one."
I push. Hard corners dig into my back. I flatten out and press up with all of it riding me. My elbows start screaming on the first rep.
"Louder!" His boots turn in the mud slowly and stop a hand's width from my fingers. Still polished under all that filth.
What an arrogant fucker…
"One," I bite off. Down. Up. "Two."
Down the line a guy laughs. Nobody supports him, so he shuts up quickly. Every one of these men is quietly grateful it landed on me and not them.
Fine. I've been the scapegoat my whole life. At least this place hands you the rules on day one.
The weight settles into my spine and for one stupid second it's not the bag.
It's a wooden box with a folded flag inside. That's what the Army sends you when your father dies on a mission and there's no body to bury.
I held it on my lap the whole drive home because there was nobody else in the car to take it.
Not now. Push.
Hound crouches. Forearms on his knees, close enough now that I can see the gray starting at his temples, the brown of his eyes, dark and unbothered.
He's older than the other officers by a decade at least.
"Nine," I say, before he can ask.
"You too think this is funny."
"No, sir." Ten. "I think it's cardio."
"Keep talking, Stray. You'll be my favorite."
"Is that an order, sir?" Eleven. My whole back is on fire, and I smile into the dirt anyway. I keep my voice pitched lower, meant to stay between us. "Or are you just enjoying the sound of my voice?"
Something almost shifts at the corner of his mouth. He straightens, and the duffel lifts off my spine so fast the cold rushes in like being peeled.
"On your feet," he commands. "Back in line."
I get up wearing half the field down my front. He doesn't offer a hand. I wouldn't take it anyway.
When I fall back into the row, he stops in front of me instead of walking on, and for one full second he just… looks at me.
"Why are you here, Stray?"
Because one of the entitled brats in this hell of academy took something from me. And I intend to collect.
But that's not something you tell an officer who can expel you for a single wrong word. For half a breath I've got nothing, and he watches the gap open before I slam it shut.
"Career advancement," I tell him. "I hear the officers here are very… hands-on."
I meet his gaze. His jaw works once. Then he moves down the line.
And here's the genuinely unhelpful part I'd never say aloud in a place like this: my new officer is the best-looking man I've seen in years.
Broad through the shoulders in a way the uniform can't hide. That steady low voice.
I want to be the reason that steady voice cracks, the one who gets this untouchable bastard down on his knees and liking it. God help me, I already know I'd be good at it.
Excellent instinct, Stray. Fantasize about the man holding your leash in hell.
They march us off the field and into the mess an hour later, and the food is exactly as gray as Hound's speech.
I take a tray to a table in the corner, alone, which is where I do my best work.
The mess hall is loud with forty strangers already sorting themselves into packs. Guys who met three hours ago are laughing like old friends.
The seat across from me is empty the way it's been empty for a while now. The last person who sat across from me at a table every day was my mother, and she's been…
I pick up the spoon. Not doing this here.
I'm two bites into something the sign generously calls stew when a shadow drops into the seat across from me like we're old friends.
"Snake," he says, tapping his own chest. Sandy hair, an easy grin. His eyes stay flat while his mouth works overtime. "You're Stray. Everybody's already talking about you. Hound never picks a favorite this fast."
"He buried me in the mud in front of everyone. That's favorite?"
"It's a start, nah?" He leans in, lowering his voice. "Look, this place eats guys who go it alone. You want to last, you need people. I've already got a few smart ones. We watch each other's backs."
He slides his tray an inch closer to mine.
"Sit with us. I make sure the right officers notice you, you make sure I look good. Everybody climbs."
I set my spoon down to study him. I've met a hundred "snakes" who offer you a hand and never mention the string tied to your wrist until they pull it.
"Let me guess how it works," I say. "I owe you for a while. Then I owe you forever."
His eyes do a quick pass over my boots, my tray, the empty bench either side of me. "That's a cynical way to hear a favor."
"It's the only way I've ever heard one." I pick the spoon back up. "Thanks. I'm good on my own."
The grin holds, but the warmth behind it shuts off like a light on a timer.
For a second I'm looking at the man who just moved me out of the column marked useful and into the one marked problem. He stands slowly.
"Guys who are good on their own," he says, "are just guys nobody's dropped yet."
He's gone before I can decide if that was advice or a promise. It felt like a promise.
I finish eating alone. But some knuckle-sized thing sits under my sternum for the rest of the meal, and I know exactly what it is. I just made an enemy, and I did it on purpose.
And I'd do it again.
On the way out I have to pass the officers' table. Hound is there, hat off now, sleeves shoved up to the elbow, ignoring me on principle. I could walk by clean.
I have never once in my life walked by clean.
I slow just enough as I pass his shoulder. Drop my voice to the same private register I used in the dirt, pitched for one man only.
"For the record, sir." I let it sit. "I take orders a lot better on my knees."
I don't look back. My chest is still buzzing from the field, from the mud, from those steady dark eyes on me.
And underneath all of it sits the quiet little truth I keep in the bottom drawer: if I get expelled tomorrow, there's nobody to call.
So I'll keep pushing. Keep talking. Keep making this man look at me.
Because being seen, even as a problem, beats the hell out of the alternative.
Callsign: Yours
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