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Always

When the door slid open at her back, she glanced over, expecting the hts It wasn’t She set up here?” Security was airtight

Ashwini swung her feet “I sweet-talked Illium”

“I didn’t know you knew him”

“I didn’t Now I do” Dark brown eyes full of liquid intensity settled on Honor “He said you needed a friend I knew that already, but I pretended it was news What’s wrong?”

Honor turned her face to the wind, letting it push back her unbound hair, tangle it into as wild a mess as D silence before Ashwini said, “Remember the first time we met?”

The memory was crystal clear It had been in a raucous bar filled with hunters and hed over drinks, eaten deep-fried everything, sowed the seeds of a deep, abiding friendship And then, as they alking out the door—“You called me an old soul,” she whispered “A lost soul”

“Still so old you make my chest hurt”—Ash leaned in so their shoulders touched for a , she braced her palh surface on which they sat There would be no one—there was no longer any need, the barrier between past and present wiped out in the storm of her tears until she saw the woman she’d been as clearly as the one she was now

The reawakenedCaterina and Mishashe couldn’t bear it But she’d re far ht, reht this ht never be able to say it, the lethal blade her husband had become, but she knew

What she didn’t knohether her beautiful, wounded Dmitri was ready to hear what she had to tell hi out on the balcony and checked for the third ti beloere on alert to catch if necessary “I should go out there and drag theel walked in to stand beside hiht”

Del a dark look “Your consort is a bad influence”

“My consort is now joining your wo, D on the balcony She pu-legged hunter with the dark eyes as Honor’s best friend—and, according to the reports they had on her, an extreifted individual when it came to those senses that weren’t accepted byto diss as fancy And so they kept watch on Ashwini “Janvier courts her”

“I think it’s tih period to ensure a smooth transfer