Page 10 of Ashes of Honor

I leaped from the tree and landed in a crouch. She crossed her arms as I straightened up, towering over her with a smirk. “Ready, Princess?”

Her doe brown eyes traced over me with annoyance. Without saying a word, she turned and took off in the direction she’d come from. Evidently, she was going for the 26.2 today. I kept her pace, not saying a word. One mile after the next, her speed increased.

“Stop staring at me.” She huffed out, the sound of violent waves crashed against the rocks along the coast.

It was safe to say I hadn’t taken my eyes off her since Tomoe revealed that Seth and Ronan had a front row seat to my fun with their soldier. Seth’s betrayal had already scarred deep, but this,spyingon them in such an intrusive way, they’d thought it beneath him. I found it to be no surprise. Without the same memories, my sentiments were closer to ‘scum of the fucking Earth’ and less ‘the brother who drank the Kool-Aid.’

“Are you going to keep playing dumb, or can we talk about it?”

There was a slight fumble in her steps. Nearly indistinguishable if I hadn’t memorized her gait for every pace. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Seth mind-fucking that guy’s head while I tortured him isn’t what I’d call ‘nothing’.” A sharp scoff caught in my throat. “But all right, if you say so.”

Amaia relented in her pace, coming to a steady jog. “I do say so. I wanted an answer to what Ronan alluded to taking place. There isn’t anything we can do about the past.”

“Amaia … it’s more than that. You can’t think it’s that simple. Come on now. Think about it, Ronan knew what happened in that cell sure. But there’s more than one link. Gotta be.”

In sync, we scanned our surroundings, then came to a complete stop. It was flat in a total 360° for the next mile each way. If something was headed for us, we’d see them long before they posed a threat to our safety. Pros and cons to the position. As easy as it let us see someone, they could see us, too.

For years, I had no fear of exploring the world without walls. But now, with the enemy closing in from every direction, that sense of invulnerability was fading fast. Hell, there wasn’t even safety within the walls of Monterey anymore. Not with the ‘emissaries’ crawling around.

Amaia’s dark curls sprang free from her bun, a byproduct of the salty coastal breeze. She glanced down, her lips pursing to the side, skin pinched between her brows. “There’s nothing that indicates that. Reina is confident that Jessa was the other link. Jessa said Ronan would send more, but Riley locked The Compound down immediately. Can’t be anyone else.”

I didn’t want her to think I doubted her or questioned her judgment. That wasn’t the case by any means. But in a world that survival requires trusting your gut, I’d be doing her a disservice by shutting up. “And you had Moe take a look at her?”

“Checked all our bases. Nothing she can see at the moment. Jessa’s solid.”

I ground my jaw. A shadow fell over Amaia’s face as I shifted my stance, now blocking out the harsh sun. She kept her patience for approximately half a second.

“What? Say it already.”

“You gonna tell me to bark next?” I arched a brow, laughing to the wind at my girl. Always straight to the point. “No judgment, got it? My pastBloodhoundshit is out there in the open at this point.”

I didn’t expect her to judge me for it. If anything, it was my own shame. Pointless shame at that. Amaia understood—the world either changes you or you change the world. There is no in between. No teetering over that thin, nonexistent line to your morality.

Lion or sheep. Killers and those that are killed. Predators or prey. Everyone fell into a category, especially in the middle of a fucking apocalypse. She nodded, inching closer to place her hand within mine.

“How does one say this tactfully …” I said, rubbing my thumb against the outside of her hand. “Bad people … Men with Ronan’s mindset don’t waste opportunity and they damn sure don’t waste effort. Using Seth to communicate with some random ass guy being tortured is more or less pointless?—”

Amaia dropped my hand as she finally processed what had been damn near obvious this entire time. A fact that we all blissfully ignored out of the pure exhaustion that came from losing everything. The fucking desperation and dread of losing that one last part of you that had the desire to continue on. “A test run. Making sure we didn’t have anything in place to prevent him from jumping in. Like the shit he has set up over Covert. He has eyes on us and it may not be anyone inside—not willingly, at least.”

“Right. Seth didn’t know anything new about Monterey. He only had info from when he was last here. But Ronan … He’s never doubted you. He knew things had changed around here. If Seth got into his head, there was only one shot. And that shot had to count. He wasn’t going to waste it on just anyone—there had to be information to gain.”

“Information on how we operate.” Amaia hissed a curse. A vein pulsed against her temple as I reached out to push a curl back behind her ear. There was this desperation to always touch these days. “To see how far we’re willing to go in the name of war.”

We’d have to be careful with our thoughts, our plans, until we were ready to strike. It wasn’t possible to keep him out forever, not without wards that rivaled Coverts.

Amaia paced with her hand on her forehead. I kept my position though every part of me wanted to close the gap between us. Right now, I wasn’t here as a boyfriend, I was here as her … whatever the fuck I was. Soldier, I guess—in the way that Riley was a soldier before the promotion to lieutenant. The color drained from her sienna cheeks. I clenched my fists, nails digging into my palms to substitute for the urge to reach for her. To comfort her. The silence was deafening.

“That means they know about Operation Midnight Veil and …” she finally spoke.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding my head in agreement. “Soulfire, and everything else we thought was a surprise.”

“We have no more advantages. Secrets.” Amaia nibbled on her bottom lip, shaking her head in resistance. I could only imagine where her mind was going. How it didn’t make sense but made all the pieces fall into place all the same.

I couldn’t find the words—hell, I wasn’t even sure there were any that would help. All I knew was watching things crumble around heragainwas tearing me apart. Despite wanting to help,there was nothing I could do to take away her pain. Only avenge it.

Finding outwhoelsewould be the easy part once we all work-shopped it. It had to be someone he connected with mentally before, which meant it had to be someone he’d established trust with.

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