Page 126 of Ashes of Honor

He was the first to break this time. Sniffing, he straightened up and took a deep breath. When he found the courage, he wandered back to hold my eye. “Tomoe,” he said, his voice quieter now. “I don’t blame you for what happened to Seth.”

There was a careful, hesitant honesty in his words. They caught me off guard because I didn’t deserve them. In the end, I had to make a choice, me or Seth—and I’d only trusted one of us to do what it took to look out for our family.

Seth’s name passing through the lips of a twin who sounded nearly identical to him, made my heart twist into a painful ball. A hand squeezing the life out of my ill-beating heart. I’d expected anger or complete silence from Hunter when he’d arrived at The Compound—once Reina had time to explain everything that hadhappened from the time the two of them had passed through Monterey’s gates.

Instead, he’d shown me nothing but quiet acceptance in front of the others. I’d not been brave enough to be alone with him. And now, that luck would have it, I was. Hunter’s face fell, a shadow of his own pain passing through.

“I do miss my brother. Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “But I miss ten-year-old Seth who’d swing from ropes with me and jump down the stairs. Sixteen-year-old Seth who raced me out in the fields with nothin’ but the moonlight as our guide. The brother I had right before the ranch fell … From what I hear, that was no longer the brother that existed. You didn’t have a choice.”

My throat tightened. No. This was too much. I did not find myself deserving of his mercy. I wanted there to be accusations. Bitterness. The weight of what I’d done was fucking crushing my soul. It pressed on my chest in a way that made breathing every day a chore.

I had expected them all to hold it against me forever—but they hadn’t.Hehadn’t. So why did that hurt?

“I didn’t want to …” I trailed off. “I didn’t want to be the one … the one who ended it.” My voice cracked before I could stop it, and I clenched my fists, grounding myself in the sting of my nails digging into my palms.

“I know,” he said softly.

The understanding in his voice—no judgment. Just the quiet acceptance I didn’t think I deserved.

“He trusted me, Hunter.” My voice cracked, and I hated myself for it. “Seth trusted me, and I?—”

“No. He underestimated you, and you saved them,” Hunter interrupted. “Not just you or Reina. You saved a lot of people that day doing what you did. And you paid the price for it. I won’t lie to you or pretend it doesn’t hurt. Shit, it clearly haunts you.But you did something some of us wouldn’t have the balls to if it had been us. What had to be done.”

“I could’ve found another way,” I whispered. I knew it wasn’t true. I’d run the possible outcomes through my mind a thousand times.

“You could’ve,” Hunter said, eyes on the fire. “Doesn’t really matter—the end of the road is the same, no matter which way you’re coming from.”

I didn’t respond. What was there to say to that? I watched the fire stretch upward in bursts, sparks vanishing into the night. More soldiers had headed to bed. The camp had finally settled into something resembling peace.

“Fascinating,” I muttered after a while.

Hunter glanced at me, his tone carrying that effortless curiosity I could never quite match. “What is?”

“How decent you and Reina turned out,” I said, regretting the words the second they left my mouth. Small talk wasn’t my thing, and I knew better than to tread here. Still, I forced myself to keep going. “I’d think this was a simple case of the apple not falling far from the tree if you two weren’t right in front of me.”

“Dropped on the head, or kicked in it,” Hunters laughed, radiating through the hollow pathways that crossed every which way. A city of tents. “Turns out you lose a brother either way.”

I blinked, then laughed—a real laugh. It startled me more than it should have. “Did you just?—”

“Make a dead brother joke?” His smirk wasn’t sharp, it was … sad. “Yeah. You get to do that when you have two of them. And since you were there …” He bumped my shoulder lightly, and I let it happen. “I guess that means you’re allowed too. Plus, I heard you appreciate a well-placed morbid joke. Been awhile since I came across someone who could find a little humor in all this dark.”

“You must spend very little time with theBloodhound.”

“As little as possible. Yes, that’s correct. Something is … not right inside that mind,” he said, grinning.

I shook my head, but my mouth betrayed me again, another laugh slipping out. The fire popped, the kind of sound that filled the space between words, and I let it.

“You’re a strange one, Hunter,” I said bluntly.

He turned to face me, lips quivering as he did his best to bite back a laugh—he failed. Miserably, as he laughed in my face. “Strange? What an odd statement to come from such a source.”

I rolled my eyes but didn’t argue. “Fair point.”

Hunter tilted his head, studying me in a way that made the space between us uncomfortably small. “You know, I didn’t think I’d ever laugh like that again.”

Something in his voice made my chest tighten. I didn’t like it. Didn’t know what to do with it. So I deflected.

“Well, don’t get used to it,” I said, standing and brushing off my hands. “I’m not exactly known for my sparkling sense of humor. Besides, I didn’t even say anything funny.”

---