Moore Than Blood

Gabrielle Moore has been fighting her whole life—she just didn't know it until now. The only daughter of a retired Army commander and the youngest of four brothers, Gabrielle was raised in a house where family meant learning to kill a man with your bare hands before you learned to drive. Each brother taught her something different: hand-to-hand combat, tactical shooting, reconnaissance, and the cold precision of a sniper's mindset. By eighteen, she could clear a room faster than most soldiers. But she walked away. Built a normal life. Normal friends who didn't know what she was capable of. Then she burned it all down. At twenty-five, Gabrielle quit her job, cut everyone except family out of her life, and enlisted in the U.S. Army—because she finally understood she was meant for something bigger. Basic training is a joke. Advanced training barely a warm-up. Gabrielle breezes through every challenge, catching the attention of her superiors. Then she joins BUD/S—Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training. Twenty-four weeks of hell designed to strip away everyone who doesn't belong. Cold water. Long nights. Instructors who want nothing more than to watch her quit. If she resists every urge to break, she'll be one of four soldiers hand-picked for Team A.L.P.H.A.—an elite group carrying out high-risk terrorism missions. Sergeant First Class Marcus "Hatch" Hatcher doesn't believe in prodigies. A decorated operator with a reputation for breaking recruits, he's been hand-selected to identify soldiers worthy of the most elite teams. He's hard. Unreadable. Measures worth in push-ups and character in how a soldier looks him in the eye after failing. From the moment Gabrielle steps into his sight, he can't look away. He rides her harder than anyone. Sharper criticism. Never a word of praise—but his eyes follow her everywhere. The attraction is immediate, electric, and absolutely forbidden. He's her superior. Anything more would end his career and destroy hers. There's a rumor he's a diagnosed psychopath. Gabrielle does everything to stay out of his way. But the Army has other plans. BUD/S is a reckoning. Everything her brothers taught her. Every punch she ever threw. Every time she got back up. It all leads to this. But the toll is starting to feel overwhelming. Hatch is always watching. As weeks wear on and the attrition rate climbs toward eighty percent, the line between commander and something more blurs. A stolen look. A moment of weakness. A single touch that shouldn't happen—and can never happen again. Gabrielle isn't just fighting for a spot anymore. She's fighting for respect. For belonging. For the man who can never be hers but might be the only person who truly sees her. For the man she's told is incapable of anything but taking a life with impeccable skill. An action-romance about legacy, grit, and the most dangerous mission of all: letting someone close enough to matter.