Page 94 of Ashes of Honor
We stumbled back toward the bed and he trailed lingering kisses down my neck. His breath was hot against my skin as he drifted lower. Intoxicating electricity slithered through my body at the warm tracing of his tongue. I let out a low sigh the moment he reached the curve of my hip.
His name was there—carved into me. He paused. The tips of his fingers traced the scar then he pressed a kiss to the mark. Our eyes met, communicating the rest. Our decision to mark each other wasn’t about pain or what came before. It was about us, the only language either of us had left to sayI’m still here.
That gave me pause. Because wewerestill here. But for how long?
The weight of everything rushed back in, drowning out the warmth of the moment. Two days until the simulations. Two days until I had to lead us all into the unknown. And I couldn’t stop thinking about what Lola said. Her words had been circling me like vultures, ready to pick apart my resolve.
“What’s wrong?” Alexiares asked, picking up on the subtle change of energy.
I pressed against his chest to create the slightest amount of space in order to organize the storm inside me. “Lola was right.”
His brow furrowed, and he pushed himself up right moving back to lean against the wall. “Say that three times and you might summon her.”
“I’m serious,” I said, pulling my shirt back on and tucking it into the waistband of my training cargos. “We need a plan.”
He knewexactlywhat I meant, and he wasn’t happy about it. His face reddened, eyes darkening in his quiet rage that always burned hotter than him shouting ever could. “That’s not our responsibility. We are only obligated to care for the people of Monterey once this is done.”
I took a step closer, lifting my chin to meet his gaze head-on, warring with being a general or his … his future wife. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t think about washing my hands of all of this and focusing on the people I love? Focusing on what IknowI can control? But that’s not who I am, Alexiares. I won’t look the other way and pretend it’s not my problem to solve when I know I can make a difference.”
“They do not deserve you,” he said with weighted conviction.
“I don’t care,” my voice broke at the premature visage of loss staring back at me. “What we’re doing here—four territories filled with settlements—it’s not sustainable. Like, fuck, it hasn’t even been a decade and these people, they can’t just sit still and relax. Humans are such stupid creatures.”
“We are,” he agreed, his voice quieter now. “And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
“But ithasto.” I couldn’t hide the crack in my demeanor any longer. Tears of hopeless rage welled, threatening to pour down my face to show how weak my resolve had become. The laugh I released was harsh and humorless,and you can’t even have a drink to silence the thoughts.“God, it’s the same story every fucking time. People settle and they get bored and thenthey fight. We are constantly clawing for something to make ourselves feel bigger, better, more important than the next person, and it’s all justbullshit.”
I strode across the room toward our dresser and picked up a book off the top, waving it in the air then letting it drop to the floor with a hollow thud. “All of it is right here! Documented. Thousands of years of warnings, lessons, obvious fucking patterns—wasting trees, ink, people’s time. And for what? For us to keep repeating the same goddamn mistakes.”
The silence in the room was broken only by the harsh rhythm of my breathing. I pulled at my curls, twisting them in large chunks, willing myself to keep it together. “This has to be it. No more. It ends here, with this war. Because if it doesn’t, we’re going to destroy ourselves all over again. And next time, I can’t guarantee there will be anything left worth saving.”
“Your desire is to fix something that’s broken on purpose.”
I nodded, swallowing down a lump in my throat. “When this is over, we need something bigger. A system that doesn’t fall apart at the first sign of greed or flat our delusion. If we don’t build something better, then we’re leaving the fight for the next guy. And I can’t—I won’t—force someone else to spend the rest of their life cleaning up another person’s mess.”
Alexiares leaned back against the wall, the lean muscle of his arms folded taut, veins popping as he studied me, his expression unreadable. “Okay.”
“That’s it?” I asked incredulously, admittedly looking for a bigger fight. “I tell you I’m planning on tossing a treaty we just signed in the trash and betraying the very people we swore we were there to help?”
“Youswore you were there to help.” His tone was dry. Unbothered. “I made no such promise.”
“Maybe Moore is right,” I muttered, suddenly hit with the urge to second guess myself. “Maybe we have more in common than I thought.”
“You are nothing like that man,” Alexiares’s voice sharpened to a dangerous edge.
“No, I’m worse. Judge, jury, and executioner. That’s what I’ve become.”
I paced the room, tripping over a pair of sweatpants and kicking them out the way in frustration and borderline embarrassment. Alexiares stuck his hand out, stopping me from making my third lap.
“Decisions were made that were necessary to push this movement forward. To keep Monterey Compound on its feet. And more will come,” he said, as though it were simple as that. It pissed me off that it was, truly that fucking simple. It was inevitable. “You cannot let the consequences of other people’s lack of critical thinking fill you with guilt. Actions have consequences, Amaia. They chose wrong.”
“Did they actually choose wrong?” I snapped. “Or did they just choose their own path that didn’t align with our goals?”
His jaw clenched. I knew he didn’t like when people questioned me, I hadn’t realized that included myself. “Don’t go there. You’re a volatile little thing,” he added, smirking as he reached out and pinched my hip. “But you aren’t evil. We are goingto put that motherfucker in the ground and anyone like him if that’s what it takes. I told you I’d burn this world for you—so let’s burn it. Then I’ll watch as you help what remains rise from the ashes.”
“Like Monterey.”
“Like Monterey,” he agreed with zero hesitation.
