Page 93 of Ashes of Honor

Alexiares stepped closer to me, peering down at me with lowered lids. “Got you something for the journey.”

It was a drawing—a sketch of the two of us. He was so cynical I expected there to be some semblance of a joke within the gesture. Caught in the pose or funny faces, but no, we looked almost … normal. Alexiares and I stood hand in hand, our gazes caught in each other, the gentle tug of his lips lifelike. I ran my finger along the raised lines, then held it over my heart, meeting his eyes. He watched me for a moment, then leaned forward to grab the book I’d easily discarded upon seeing his gift. Alexiares flipped open the front cover and motioned for me to place the drawing inside.

I shook my head, a quiet ache pressed against my chest.Hold your composure. I smoothed my expression before he had a chance to notice the shift. With the toss of my head, I lured him into our bedroom and walked toward the nightstand. It took courage to look at the faces that sat there every night. Carefully, I laid the drawing against a row of photos—faded, worn, but always cherished. Back from when our group had been whole. Back when there had still been film to capture moments, before things had begun to fall apart a year ago in three days.

I traced the edge of the drawing with my thumb. We wouldn’t be here to mourn the losses properly, to sit with the grief orreflect on what had been. There wasn’t time for that anymore. Which made the drawing all the more precious.

“I want to leave it here,” I said quietly. “Have something to come home to.”

I turned to face him fully, letting myself look at him.Reallylook at him. God, he was ethereally beautiful. The sharp lines of his face, those piercing eyes, the harsh bridge of his nose. Having forever to stare at him would not nearly be enough.

It always made him squirm when I did this—when I let the silence stretch and refused to fill it with meaningless words. He wasn’t used to being seen for more than the stone-cold persona he always tried to be.

“What?” he asked, shifting under the weight of my gaze.

“I never would have guessed you a romantic,” I mocked, hanging my jaw in faux shock, covering it with the tips of my fingers and showing off my ring. “It’s alarming … yet, oddly endearing.”

“Shut up,” Alexiares muttered, the faint twitch in his jaw letting me know I’d hit a nerve.

“You like,love melove me,” I pressed, stepping closer. He instinctively took a step back, which only fed the smirk spreading across my face.

He crossed his arms, unamused. “So.”

“You cleaned guts out of my curls last night,” I reminded him, shaking my curls out.

“Two hours I got to watch you in the bath. If you’re trying to make a point, get there faster.”

I backed him into the wall, feeding off the slight flare of his nostrils. “Already did.”

He grabbed me by the waist before I could get another word out, flipping us in one fluid motion. My back hit the wall with a soft thud. Alexiares braced an arm over my head, his eyes pinned me, sending a jolt of intensity through me.

“Tell me something,” he said, his voice low, head tilted enough to meet my eye.

“Something,” I shot back and bit the inside of my cheek in a poor attempt to keep the smug grin slipping into place in check.

A flicker of a smile danced across his lips but it didn’t stick. I frowned at the softening in his expression, my hand falling to the base of his neck.

“If we met in The Before,” he murmured, only but a breath away. “Would you still find me?”

The Before.

The two words hit harder than a punch to the gut. Before the bombs, before death, before we became who we are now. Before the fucking world demanded everything we had and then pulled, threatened for us to give more. But under all the wreckage, all the pain, all the never-ending loss, I knew who we were at our core—who he was, who I was. And we were the same. Soulmates.

But it was hard to answer his question. Because in this lifetime, there had been love before him—and they were as real as he was, even though the love was not the same.

I held his gaze and stared into his eyes, in a world that wouldn’t stop spinning. “I think there is a part of me that would love you in every lifetime.”

Of that I was sure.

His lips brushed mine as he whispered, “All of me would love you in every lifetime—but damn, this one’s my favorite.”

Love. Fucking love. A word that had been poisonous to me for years and now … all I wanted to do was shout it over and over again. To spend every second I had left with him, every breath until my last. Hate had been strong in my heart when we’d first met and slowly but surely myBloodhoundhad melted it away. Torn down the wall and destroyed the idea of being satisfied of just surviving until my time ran out. I’d lost so much, but fuck, did I gain a once and a lifetime type of love.

A Sunday kind of love.

His lips found mine, and the world narrowed to the two of us. I opened my mouth, letting him in with a moan. He groaned, nibbling on my bottom lip with a whimper of desperation. I smiled, the power I held over him more than a turn on. The knowledge that I was the only one who could unravel him both here and out there in front of the world was a thrill I didn’t bother hiding.

His rough, calloused hands skimmed my lower back, digging beneath the thin fabric of my shirt and ripping it over my head. Alexiares gave me no time to process the movement. Fingers thread through my curls, finding root at my crown as he lowered his mouth back to my lips, the intensity leaving us both gasping for air. For more.

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