Page 15 of Ashes of Honor

Itook a deep breath before turning the knob of my home.Home. How fucking bizarre coming from my mouth. Over my nearly thirty years on this earth, there weren’t many places I’d refer to as ‘home.’Matter of fact, there was no place I considered home. No place but here. With her.

But instead of being happy about the change in my life, I found myself consumed by the sorrow of how we’d come to be here. Evander and Tiago’s belongings now lined the shelves next to Prescott’s clutter of trinkets and other shit he’d collected over the years.

“Drakos.” Bietoletti, one of Ronan’s ‘emissaries’, brushed past me with a stiff shoulder.

Stopping a step out of the door frame, I glanced over my shoulder, watching him take the two steps down and out into The Compound. I gathered myself, clenching my fingers to keep from drawing my knife and flinging it at him.

“Gonna tell me what that was about?”

“I threw a tantrum,” she said casually, tossing a hand in front of her face. “He didn’t understand that my request to meet with Ronan was nonnegotiable.”

The fireplace was on despite the heat of the day. Heat radiated off it, smoldering the room to a damn near suffocating temperature. It gave her comfort. I knew that. The familiarity of it all with her slice of berry pie and cup of coffee seated on the wooden coffee table. A mancala board sat at the center in between the brown leather couches. All of it untouched. As it had been every night since we moved in.

“So?” Amaia questioned from the corner of the room she used as a study.

I closed the door, locking it behind me. “What?”

“Are you going to tell me why Lola is here or should I beg?”

“Begging works.” I strode over to her, taking my time to observe her and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. The softness of Amaia’s skin under my lips and her offer to beg made me want more, but I pulled back. Spreading my legs, I leaned back into the chair across from her. There was a hunger in my gaze and from the flushing of her face and the nibble on her lip, she couldn’t hide her own. “Ialwaysenjoy seeing you beg.”

Amaia’s foot climbed up my leg from under the desk. My dick went hard at the sensation. Her heavy ass Doc Marten stopped directly over it, pushing slightly on my balls. It hurt like shit and not in the way that turned me on. “Talk,Bloodhound.”

“As you wish, Princess,” I said as I adjusted myself in my seat. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know …” Amaia arched a brow of disbelief accompanied with a slow nod.

She was no fool. Maybe she overestimated the weight I held with Lola, with our relationship. Or she read it right. I could press the issue, though something told me I shouldn’t. At least not yet.

“Correct. Those were the words that came out of my mouth.”

“Alexiares,” she asserted, wiping the smirk right off my face.

“As much as I wish I had a better answer for you, I got nothing. She only asked what your plan was now that Ronan’s running shit.”

“He is not.” Amaia grumbled, turning her attention back to the paperwork at her desk. “And you told her what?”

“The conversation was mostly compliments on your adeptness, her refusal to believe you’d roll over and play nice, coupled with a not-so-subtle inference for an invitation. Other than that, I told her nothing.”

“You told her nothing?” Amaia’s head shot back up. She inhaled and held it in, eyes narrowing.

“There’s nothing to tell as far as I’m aware. You dropped a bomb a month ago about some plan to find Ronan’s most wanted and then continued on business as usual. I feel like I can’t take my eye off you for more than a few minutes without worrying if you’ve taken off. What happened? What made you change your mind?”

“Grief.” Her raspy voice was a muted whisper. “If you sit with it long enough, it makes you reflect on what’s important.”

“And what conclusion did you come to?”

“That keeping this place running the way Prescott and Jax envisioned it is going to take a lot more than anger. I need to bide my time, calculate my next move and that’s notgoing to happen overnight. I want revenge more than anything Alexiares.” Her soft, doe eyes lined with tears. Amaia shook her head, tucking a wild curl behind her ear. “The timing has to be right, and it’s not now.”

“Then cancel the meeting with Ronan.” There was no good that would come of it. I’d seen plenty of Ronan’s in my day. Playing nice, playingthe part, was exactly what they wanted you to do. You needed to strike fast and hard. But it wasn’t my call to make. I respected Amaia, worshipped her as a goddess, and whatever she desired,Idesired. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t voice my opinion. I would never stop that.

“No.”

“Of course not,” I said, the words leaving my mouth before she’d finished speaking.

Amaia sat up straight, her head held high and the tears receding. “Waiting for the timing to be right doesn’t mean I want Ronan to think we are completely complacent.”

“Art of War.” I grinned, licking my lips in admiration.

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