Page 31

Tomoe

“ A bout time.” I settled into an oddly comfortable couch in Amaia’s quarters.

She closed the front door with a groan, her head slamming against it two times. Ever dramatic, she turned her back to me, hand pressed to her forehead as if she contemplated walking back out the door. Her bag fell off her arm, and she removed the personal armory from around her body. Amaia wasn’t going anywhere. “Next time I’ll just let another Moore brother walk through our front door without scoping him out first. We see how great that worked last time. What happened to you? You look like Reina’s worst nightmare.”

“A little low on magic right now. Thanks for noticing.” I jolted upright, and the world tilted—stars pricked at the edges of my vision. “Also, what? Run that back for me one more time.”

“Bet you didn’t see that one coming. I need a drink.” Amaia walked over and tossed my feet off the couch.

She sat down next to me before reaching for the box everyone knew she kept under the couch. It wasn’t a secret. More so for Amaia, a challenge, a reminder to be a stronger, better version of herself every day. She wouldn’t dare disrespect Prescott’s space that way. Not with him gone.

I kicked her hand away with a glint of threatening promise. “If you take a drink, I’ll make sure you choke on it.”

“Seriously.”

“Not sorry,” I muttered and slid back onto the couch. “Where’s the Bloodhound ?”

Amaia relaxed against the armrest on the other side and brought her knees to her chest. “Off to meet Tomás.”

I hated myself. Had to because, for whatever reason, heat flushed from my neck to my cheeks against my will. Glancing in the other direction, I muttered a curse. Amaia and her ability to read body language was a skill set I appreciated, as long as it wasn’t me on the other end of her scrutinizing.

“What was that?” Amaia said. Stray curls fell from her messy bun as she crossed through the boundaries of my personal bubble.

I busied myself, pushing to my feet and wandered near her bookshelves. “What was what?”

“Cute.” Amaia’s laugh was full of mockery, her face lined with accusations.

A gossip. No matter the rank she achieved or the status she and Reina gained, the two of them would always find time to chat shit.

I kept my back to her. There were more important things to discuss right now, and time was of the essence for at least half of them. “Back to the Moore brother.”

“Hunter Moore is alive and well. Raising a rebellion, actually. The rebellion. Oh, and Caleb too. Remember him? Go me for not fucking killing him, I guess. So yeah, all of this—everything—has been for, you guessed it, absolutely nothing.” Amaia threw her arms wide, the sharp movement pulling my focus even from the corner of my eye.

The word hit harder than a punch to the gut. “Fuck me.” My balance wavered, as though the ground itself had betrayed me.

“Don’t beg,” Amaia said, and I turned back toward her. She sat on the couch, staring off into the distance. “The world already fights to flick our beans every day.”

“Tell me that’s not who’s headed here in a van.”

That caught her attention. Her gaze widened, full of questions. “That’s not who’s headed here in a van.”

“This conversation is giving me whiplash.”

“And me a headache,” she said dismissively. “How do you know about the van?”

I paced the room, trying to wrap my head around what I saw and what I know now. “I had a vision. How do you plan on harboring another Moore without Ronan’s idiots calling you out on your shit?”

“I’m figuring it out as we speak.” Her voice was muffled as her face fell into her hands. Amaia’s elbows rested on her knees. She sounded deflated. Like she had lost control yet maintained clarity at the same time.

It was hard to imagine the decisions I would have to make if I were in her shoes and, to be honest, I didn’t want to. There was no envy in my heart for the choices Amaia was confronted with every day. The consequences of them inevitably followed, and they always came with them, a solid decision or not.

“And the van?” I was afraid to ask. At least if it was a Moore, we’d have some sort of insight. Background knowledge to make sense of it.

“Full of people Reina insisted on taking in.”

“That tracks,” I said. With a sigh, I took my seat back next to her, wanting to offer a way to relieve her from at least one of her burdens—because damn, did she have many. “I’ll tell her no dice. Covert has sleepers in the back. You bring them here and you’d have a binder full of problems on your hands. I’ll spare you the details since I’ve seen an out.”

She shook her head absentmindedly, brows bunching together. “I already kicked those two out. If they show up, they’ll have to come right to the gates.”

“It stings a bit that you don’t trust I didn’t see that far ahead,” I messed with the chess pieces on the board of her coffee table. “Obviously, I knew. You didn’t realize the whole damn van was crawling with them—not just the two you tossed out the back.”

“Awesome,” she said, sounding as though she couldn’t be any less thrilled. Her tongue rolled across her teeth, pupils dilating. “I’ll send Alexiares out after dinner.”

I sighed and stood, reaching down to pull her up. She didn’t resist. “Time to go break Reina’s heart.” I steadied her. “Up you go. I need you to tell Riley to shut down our gates, anyway.”

She snatched her hand free, shaking her head and clasping her hands behind her back as she paced in front of the stone fireplace. “We can’t, not for a few more days.”

“Any room for me to argue here?”

There was none. I knew that. Once her mind was made up, whatever followed was inevitable. That meant nothing. Not at this moment. Whoever these people were—the threat they posed—was imminent. I’d spent time trying to discern exactly what I was seeing and when, but in the end, all I gathered from context clues was a few days, at best.

“Depends. Was your vision about why I shouldn’t?” Amaia said, reading the fear in my eyes.

“Yes,” I mumbled, holding her stare. “Another Moore inside the gates. History repeats.”

“Hunter’s not with them. He’s not a threat, but I won’t force you to stand his presence if you’re not ready. He … How do I say this with as much respect for the Seth we’d come to love. Hunter is more like Reina than he is Seth. He has a conscience—that much is obvious. Now, we have to see if the weight of it will make a difference.”

“What business does he have here, anyway?” I shot back. My heart sped up.

Seth and Hunter were twins. I’d seen the one picture that Reina managed to save before fleeing the ranch. I knew the brothers didn’t resemble each other. But what if it was in his laugh? His smile. The way he spoke. “We don’t have the means or the privacy to hide an army full of rebels.”

“I already told Reina he could stay while we work all that shit out. He has the resources and intel I need. If he’s here, and we close our gates, that means he’s with us and not his father. Ronan wants him dead, which means we want him alive. Got that?”

I tossed my hands up gently, then dropped them in defeat with a sigh. “I can give you twenty-four hours to figure your shit out before we’re screwed.”

“Let’s make it count.” She bent down, pulling the box from under the couch and giving it a playful shake, though the longing in her eyes betrayed her. Amaia forced a laugh, set the box back in place, and took my hand, guiding me toward the door.

“We need Riley,” she thought out loud as we moved toward the door, her eyes sharp with focus. “And a few of his associates.”

“Allow me to catch up on the visions you missed on the way,” I said with a grin, but there was no real humor in it—just urgency.