Page 53 of Ashes of Honor

I needed to get my bearings, figure out where Amaia was. She was my priority. Then the others. My heart pounded against my will—too fast, too loud. I focused on the sounds around me:the shuffling of bodies with each pothole, the steady rhythmic breaths filling the hot, stuffy air. Five …no, six. Six other people were here. All a bit too close for my comfort.

“You can stop pretending to be asleep now.” The words succeeded by a sharp, deliberate stomp to my stomach.

I fell flat, eyes widening as I gasped for air. White stars filtered my vision. Amaia’s beaten, roughed up face fought to center me. Her eyes strained by the tugging of her curls the man clamped on to in order to keep her upright. He held a knife to her throat, a threat that dangled before me at every rough patch in the road. She remained stoic, her eyes darting over to the side. Reina sat next to her. Deep bruising stained under her eyes, blood clumped around Reina’s nose, her cheeks flushed and wet with tears and spit from the cloth stuffed into her mouth. She was still and stiff though she was alert and searching in her gaze.

Abel had received the worst of it. He was slumped over, still unconscious.

“Hell of a bounty out on your heads, and lucky, lucky sonofabitch that I am, I found ya,” the man said, his free hand forming a pointed finger back at himself. The tease of his tongue shined against the sunlight pouring in from the window at the back of what I now knew to be a van. I couldn’t wait to cut it off.

Amaia’s glare was sharp enough to cut steel. We were both tied up, but her message was crystal clear: keep him distracted.

I leaned back as much as the ropes allowed and forced a laugh. “Let me guess,” I said, the words dripping with disdain. “Ronan.”

The guy’s brow twitched, face contorted in strained anger. “Malachai. He really wants you dead.”

Figured. Malachai had gone behind Ronan’s back. I studied the guy, some low-level bounty hunter eager for an easy payday. He wasn’t important—what mattered was that Malachai had put a price on our heads without Ronan knowing. That meant oneof two things: either Ronan was losing control, or Malachai had decided we weren’t Ronan’s problem anymore. Both were bad. We weren’t just looking over our shoulders for Ronan anymore. Malachai wanted us gone, and he wasn’t waiting for permission.

That was going to be a problem.

“Tell us something we don’t fucking know,” Amaia growled. Her eyes dropped to my wrists then over to the flammable items in the back. Two guards laughed in front of them, their guns strapped around their shoulders and dropped into their laps at the ready.

“Oh that,” The man tsked twice in Amaia’s ear, the sound too smug for my personal taste. “A little safety measure since we don’t have a way to limit your magic.”

“I’m going to kill you.” The words uttered from my mouth but I found myself completely detached. All I could focus on was picturing slicing him up, piece by piece, limb by limb. Watching as he screamed in agony. Spitting in his face with each cry for mercy. The vision I imagined sent a ripple of cold satisfaction through me. His screams?Music.

That was the only thing to get me through having to watch him snatch Amaia’s head back with such force I swore it would snap. “Maybe one day, but not today,” he teased, the spit flying from his mouth and landing on her ear. “Today, my group earns passage back into Transient Nation. Free rein.”

Of all times, my girl, my princess, decided to poke the bear. “Oh please, if Ronan isn’t aware, don’t think for a second he’ll respect it. What deal do you think we made?”

“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care. You lot were the big price, the others are assurance he won’t need any of us once we turn you over.”

Amaia and I exchanged a glance, both of us frozen on the same question:What others?

“Not too bright, are we?” she taunted as her ropes fell to the ground with simmered edges. Amaia didn’t move. She never moved too soon.

She was waiting for the right moment—waiting for me.

If my restraints hit the metal bottom of this van, he would see them. I caught the look in her eyes. I needed a distraction and that would cost her. Painfully. I couldn’t refuse her. Not without giving away our plan. So I took myself back to my happy place, the one filled withhispain. We had to get out. I had no other choice.

“Slick mouth for a dead girl,” he sneered.

“Dead girl has a name.”

“Dead girls don’t talk.”

“Sure, but this one bites.” Amaia’s words were low, savage. Her teeth sank into his leg and he howled. The distraction was enough. She slammed his head into the side of the van with a brutal crunch, the motion swift. Powerful.

I was already in motion. The ropes tight around my wrists simmered with a familiar, blissful heat. They burned away into ash. A stream of my water magic disarmed the guard without gracing him a moment to catch up to what was happening. The second guard panicked. Untrained for the situation unleashing around him. His hand wavered toward his gun, primed to raise it and pull the trigger.

My fist collided with his throat, collapsing his trachea. His last breath didn’t reach the air before I tossed him on the floor. I glanced back with a smile. Amaia straddled the man who had initiated this all. He leaned against the wall as she withheld any oxygen from him with a sinister grin. In one swift movement, she pulled her confiscated knives from his holster and jammed them into his temples.

With a sigh of relief, she pulled them free, wiping them against the side of her pants. “I’m getting extremely fuckingtired of the misogynistic bullshit running rampant these days. Haven’t they ever heard that a womanisking?”

She handed them toward me without turning back. Her focus was on something else. Something she’d never expect to have taken. Jax’s twin swords. Amaia placed them back into the back harness as the van came to an abrupt stop. Quick on my feet, I holstered the pistols taken from us at the house. I tucked the last one into my waistband and brown, doe eyes met mine, smile lines crinkling the sides of them.

“Ready?” she asked as she moved toward the doors.

“After you, Princess.”

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