Page 146 of Hunters and Prey

“Wasteful,” he’d say.

I lifted the cigar to my nose and inhaled for a moment, letting myself enjoy the familiar scent. It reminded me of happier times, when I had been his little firebug and he’d been my world. Mom had died shortly after I was born, so it’d been him and me for as long as I could remember. It devastated us both when we had our falling out.

“As you know, Director Ashwood would never have left a cigar lit and unfinished if he had left on his own.” Alec gestured his head toward me without a mention of my strange behavior.

I frowned and set the cigar back down. Shuffling through his papers on the table, I asked, “Was he working on anything particularly dangerous? Anybody he could have pissed off?”

Alec chuckled. “He’s the head of the Phoenix Hunter Guild. Of course, he’s pissed people off. If he isn’t, then he isn’t…”

“… doing his job right,” I finished the quote with him. “Yeah, dad sure does love to poke the nest just to see if they will bite.”

We stood in companionable silence for a moment before I moved away from his papers and to the bouquet. “What’s up with these? Did dad start dating or something?”

Shaking his head, Alec approached the desk and stopped beside me. “No, the flowers aren’t for him.” He plucked the card from its stand and held it out to me. “They are for you.”

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