Page 50 of Ashes of Honor

Are you all right?I mouthed, making note of Abel and Caleb’s approach.

She nodded, bit her lip, then shook her head no.

“Hunter,” I called, my voice cutting through the low murmur of the group. His gaze lifted to meet mine, steady butunreadable. Blank in a different way than Reina’s. I held it for a moment, forcing myself to see only him—not Seth. Just Hunter. “Our watch. Let’s chat.”

We walked in silence as darkness took over the beach. The great thing about minimal light pollution was that we were used to it by this point. Our eyes had adjusted, evolved to a more primitive state. The waves calmed as Hunter passed by. A quiet display of the mighty power he evidently possessed. I watched him out the side of my eye, his towering figure lethal yet off-kilter in his gait.

My fingers slipped into the pockets of my pants and curled around my little pot of gold. I brought the tip of my pointer to the end and sucked in the smooth, earthly sweet smoke.

“You smoke?” I asked, extending it out to Hunter with a coughed exhale.

“Can’t say that I ever have.”

I snickered at that. Reina always did claim him the golden boy. “Nothing like the present.”

He took it with awkward fingers, falling victim to a first-timer’s pull. I bit back a childish laugh as I watched him fight for a good pull of fresh, clean air. One and done, Hunter jammed it back in front of my face.

“So your compound is about to fall apart. My guess is y’all are near starving, but you got the time to grow marijuana in your backyard?”

“Always time for a bit of debauchery,” I said. The cloudless sky offered a decent view of the empty beach. The perimeter was too quiet—the kind of silence that prickled under the skin and refused to sit still. “Soothes my mind, helps fight off the worser demon.”

I glanced at him, a teasing edge in my voice. But the look didn’t last. My tone dipped. “It’s from a stash from before we left for Duluth. Shared it with your brother.”

Hunter’s head moved with disbelief in an extended shadow. “With Seth? Doesn’t sound like him.”

“Yeah, he did a lot of shit that didn’t sound like him in the end. But you never really know someone, do you?”

“I knew my brother,” he said, the words clipped but steady. “Knew him inside out. Can’t say I’m shocked about how things ended. He’s no better than my father when it comes to restraint. When life gets too peaceful, he finds a reason to make a mess and then clean it up. Reina said it was all for family, but … don’t tell her I’m saying this.”

I held his eye for a beat, then raised my hand and passed the blunt back. “I don’t keep secrets. I secure future collateral to hurt you with.”

He snorted, shaking his head. “I don’t buy his bullshit. Seth has always tended to act first, then patch together a justification later. Sure, maybe he wanted to find me at the start, but somewhere along the way, it stopped being about reuniting our family.”

I found his ability to rationalize the situation fascinating. How someone processed grief—what they chose to hold on to, what they let go of—was a complicated mess.

But Hunter’s resolve felt layered, to say the least.

“You say that as if you knew what he was thinking,” I said.

Hunter’s gaze swept the area as he pulled a small toke, then pushed the rolled herb back my way. “Don’t need to read his mind to know what was in it.” The words passed through gritted teeth.

I cocked my head, skepticism creeping into my expression. “Except your brothercouldread minds.”

“Since when?”

“Since day one,” I shot back without missing a beat, eyes narrowing at the smallness of his voice. The remnants of curiosity in Hunter’s tone.

“I didn’t know.” His presence shifted, the air around us thickening. The waves crashed harder against the shore. Seth had kept him in the dark about something.

I wasn’t interested in comforting him. I was testing him. Reina had mentioned years ago that Seth hadn’t even realized his gift until after they’d left the ranch. The waves slammed louder, the ocean rising with anger. I took a step closer, my voice colder as I stomped out the butt of the blunt. “So tell me something youdoknow. Something about your father that makes not killing you worth whatever retaliation follows.”

“What if I told you I had people placed everywhere that matters?”

I stared ahead, the dark horizon in my sights, without acknowledging him. The salty sea air cut through the night, his emotions rocking with the tide. “What if I told you if any of them are behind my walls without my permission, they’re dead?”

“Relax. I was speaking within my father’s ranks.”

I finally glanced at him, an eyebrow arched. “Consider me curious.”

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