Page 18 of Ashes of Honor
“You were already incredibly powerful, but you were scared, so you held back.Thiswas there all along, but you’re in control now.”
Alexiares scoffed. The distance he placed between us was unintentional. I inched past him and back to the computer. With the prick up my finger, the screen offered me two options. An upgrade from before our time in Duluth. A new limitation of two allowed it to read both of our DNA at once. His jaw tightened as he watched me make my way back toward him.
“I mean it,” I said, rejoining our hands. “I mean yeah, the earth magic is new but the rest. That was untouched and unaffected until we dothis.”
“You don’t want to test your air first?” he asked, and a line appeared between his brows. His tan skin pinched out of concern.
“If I’m honest, I don’t think I want to know. What I did scared me, controlling the life of that many people at once. I want to control it and I know doing that means I have to face the cold, hard facts. That’s what a general would do. A responsible leader should want as much information as possible regarding a dangerous weapon. Because that’s what we are, you know? Weapons. But thepersonin me,Amaia, I don’t think knowing how lethal she is will do her any good. No offense.”
“None taken though, duly noted.” His chin rested atop my head, and his posture relaxed as he pulled me close.
I pressed my head to his chest, trying to find some peace. There it was. All out there for the world to know that I was afraid of my power. Me. The general.Again. Prescott would be so damn disappointed. “I know how to maintain control, knowing the number isn’t going to help me at this point. Just remind me how much damage I can cause.”
“Do you feel guilt?” he asked, pulling back and his hands crawled up my sides, landing on my shoulders. The intensity of his narrowed eyes was uncomfortable. “For killing all those people?”
“No.” The word slipped out on reflex. It was the truth, however. “But I can’t say I enjoyed the experience.”
Commanding armies didn’t make me immune to the weight of war. Sure, when my anger took over, it was easier to make a kill. But at night when I laid in bed listening to Alexiares’s soft snores … all I could think about was how they were someone’s family. Someone’s husband, their father or their son or their brother. Maybe all the above. They had people who cared for them and would never see them again.
Jax had been a casualty of war. So had Prescott. We mourned them. Felt the stomach clenching, heart hurting, headache bringing pain of never getting to say that final goodbye. To know the last words we spoke to each other would be the end. In a different chapter of this story, those men that died in the field for Covert, they were the hero of their family. As Jax and Prescott were mine.
“While I can’t relate to your … level of empathy, it makes sense. And I’m sure the people around here would prefer that you have those emotions. I’d imagine they sleep more peacefully because of it.”
I took a moment to center myself, locking away the emotions. “All right, show me how much you got,Bloodhound.”
A tingling sensation crawled to the tips of my fingers as our magic teased each other. Threatening to join in a force meant to destroy the world. I turned to face the wall and held out my free hand. Alexiares mirrored my motions, dark gray. Our magic joining was orgasmic.
An ethereal hue of blue danced against our skin, flickering as ghostly shadows in the dim light. The mist-fueled flames of ourSteamfireroared to life andslammed against the wall. The heat of it in this room was lethal to anyone but the wielders. It was thick and heavy. A second skin. Each wave of warmth left the wall glowing, yet not a single ember burned us. Only we could command it, and only we could endure its lethal embrace.
Tomoe was a damn genius. She had allowed us to harness power that no one else could rival, and in our hands, it made us unstoppable.
“That can’t be good.” Alexiares’s laugh was one of pure chaos.
The white film coating the Elemental Room’s wall had completely melted away. Raw, reinforced concrete was exposed from beneath. It glared back at us. Jagged and scorched, it posed a surreal reminder thatSteamfire’sheat index far exceeded anything we had anticipated. The wall wasn’t damaged—it was obliterated. Charred beyond recognition.
Steamfirehad turned it to ash.
“Eh, it’s replaceable … I think.”
That wasn’t going to spare me from Reina’s rage. Alexiares followed me over to the computer. I wasn’t sure if I expected the data to populate or not after the destruction we caused.
Warning: Unregistered magical entity detected. Unable to process magic signatures. No prior records found in database. Error code 404: Magic Not Found. Please contact systemadministrator or initiate manual override for further diagnostics.
“Dammit.”
He stayed silent as I typed into the computer. I couldn’t remember the last time I had to reboot this thing, and I knew nothing about coding it, but Reina had the same password for literally all of her shit so it had to work. I tried a few times, but no dice. Made sense, considering it was Seth’s birthday.
I glanced up at Alexiares and found him watching me. His gaze lingered, unwavering, even as the data on the screen flashed with errors. “Unregistered,” the computer droned, but his eyes stayed locked on mine, more focused on me than our problems. It made me want to fucking melt into his arms. Forget all the shit we were dealing with and spend the day together—nothing else. We’d never had that luxury. I mean, we had but never a peaceful one.
Our ‘dates,’ besides what he’d planned for my birthday, had consisted of hiding out in an abandoned house during our travels. If we found one with a mattress, we could cuddle up on, it was damn near a vacation. Those little moments that most couples got to have never happened for us. Instead, we stole them in moments like this.
“What?” I asked after a few seconds passed, my voice steady despite the way my pulse pounded.
Strong hands gripped my arms—not rough, not demanding, justthere, and I didn’t fight them off. I barely had time to react before he pushed me back against the wall near the door. His body hovered close, heat radiating off him, an arm pressing against the wall above my head, the other tilting my chin up. A soft grip. Too soft for the way his eyes burned into mine. “Can’t keep looking at me like that if you expect me to keep my hands to myself.”
“We’re on duty,” I said, my hands trailing up his torso and stopped on his solid chest.
I swallowed hard, my hands dragging up the solid plane of his torso, fingertips trailing over muscle before stopping at his chest. I gave him a slow, deliberate push. He didn’t budge. If anyone walked in here right now, it could be a problem. I mean, I kind of owned the whole damn place, technically, but still, it didn’t feel right. Not when there was shit to do. In the same breath, I found myself not caring. I deserved a pocket of peace in my days. How else was I supposed to do my job without going completely fucking nuts?
