It feels like dying, like losing him all over again.

  He sees it.

  I know he does, because he feels it too.

  I see it in the raw pain playing across those eyes I know by heart. Surprise and shock morph into a blip of relief, then turn into a sadness that slices straight through every defense I’ve put in place over these past four years. Longing forms in those hazel depths, but it doesn’t last.

  It could never last with what I did to him.

  Heartbreak and pain take its place, only to be vanquished by anger that turns the warmth cold and harsh.

  His face smooths into a mask, a hiding place somewhere safe from the danger outside.

  Me.

  He hides from me.

  My legs buckle beneath the weight of the realization and I waver. Instinct or reflex, he reaches for me like he just can’t help it, but his arm drops limp when I regain my footing. Neither of us blinks, and I’m suffocating under his scrutiny. My breath quivers as I push it out, forcing myself to break the choking silence.

  “Hey, Bash,” I whisper.

  Bash

  The world tilts beneath my feet until there’s nothing solid to keep me anchored. Denial surges loud in my ears and insists this can’t be him, could never be him, because the Xeni I loved is gone. Dead, or as good as dead, for all these years.

  But here he stands, close enough that I can see the faint tremor in his lower lip.

  My heart is already broken. It’s nothing better than a map of old breaks held together by stubborn will, but somehow, as I take him in, it finds new fault lines to split along.

  Xeni stands there, unchanged in all the ways that matter and utterly transformed in the ones that hurt the most. The sight of him pierces fresh wounds into places I thought had long gone numb.

  He was always lean, but now his cheeks are carved too deep, and the warmth has been drained from his pale skin. My gaze stutters as it traces the leather patch covering his left eye.

  It’s jarring across a face so perfectly beautiful.

  A million unspoken questions race through my mind, each with an answer I’m not sure I’m ready to hear.

  He shivers, and his hair shifts under the lights. It falls almost to his waist now, a waterfall of long, wild strands that once curtained us in our own private world when he moved above me. It would tickle my face in the mornings, and I would thread my fingers through it while he slept curled against me. He was always the little spoon… always seeking the shelter of my arms.

  He wanted to feel safe.

  In the end, I was the one who needed safety.

  The memory stiffens my spine like a blade driven between my vertebrae. My gaze drops to Xeni’s arm, where Cato’s fingers dent the flesh, digging in hard enough to leave marks. An animalistic urge to shove Cato back rises so fiercely I have to look away before I act on it.

  Sakane’s mouth hangs open in stunned silence, and Ego leans against the table with her arms crossed, blue hair catching the light as casual interest sharpens with intrigue.

  “This is Dom.” Sakane breaks the silence, dragging the words out like he’s uncertain.

  Xeni’s visible eye flicks to him and scans his thin frame, then locks back onto mine with an intensity that steals my breath.

  “Dom?” he asks.

  The name is soft on his lips, but it lands like a punch to the gut.

  Wrong, so fucking wrong.

  A syllable that no longer belongs to me when spoken by him.

  “Well, technically Domino,” Sakane continues, oblivious to the tension as he gestures toward my hip, “but we all call him Dom, ya know? Got his name from that white dot—”

  “That’s enough,” I cut in, the words carrying a bite that stops Sakane’s rambling mid-sentence.

  “Do you two know each other, boss?” Ego asks. She blows a small pink bubble, the pop loud in the sudden quiet. The question is rhetorical, because she not only sees straight through me, she recognizes his pale complexion as the twin to the mark on my hip.

  She knows who he is.

  “Everyone out,” I say, but the command comes out far too soft to carry the weight I need. I have never had the voice for leading, and they only stare, waiting for clarification.

  “Out!” I bellow, pouring everything into it.

  Sakane scrambles for the door first, and Ego follows at an unhurried saunter. After a moment's hesitation, Cato releases Xeni and turns, but I reach out in a blind panic.

  My fingers close around his wrist. “Not you.”

  I can’t be alone with Xeni.

  Can’t leave myself exposed to the most dangerous person I’ve ever met. He stripped away every layer of armor I had ever built and left me bare.

  Flayed wide open.

  Vulnerable.

  I had loved it then—the way I could fall apart in his arms. He handled every jagged part of me with care and without judgement, and took those scattered pieces and turned them into something whole. He had filled those hollow places inside me, the ones I’d carried like open wounds, and I had let him.

  Gladly.

  Greedily, even.

  Ours was the kind of love you read about in sonnets and old books. It was the all-consuming sort that poets chase and cynics dismiss. The impossible type you don’t believe exists until it crashes into you and rewrites your entire world.

  It was possible, and it was mine.

  Until the morning he broke my heart and scattered those pieces once more. He left them sharper than ever.

  It was a strike against an unguarded heart.

  An easy target for a betrayal I never saw coming.

  Gods, I want to hate him.

  Need to hate him.

  But even now, some traitorous part of me is dying to cross the space between us, to touch him and prove he’s real. Feel something again after years of feeling nothing.

  Xeni’s face twists as his eye tracks down my arm to where my fingers dig into Cato’s wrist. His fury gives me a cruel thrill, and I despise myself for the satisfaction I take from his jealousy.

  I have always been the person to turn the other cheek. Not passive, but guided by fairness and a heart too soft for my own good.

  Not today.

  Today I want him to hurt the way I have hurt every single day since he left.

  My grip on Cato’s forearm tightens as Xeni’s nostrils flare. Anger swirls inside that pale eye. Where I have learned to leash my emotions, Xeni was always their captive. He’s ruled by whatever burns hottest inside him.

  “Not you,” I repeat, voice calmer, and Cato relaxes beside me.

  My fingertips linger over his skin a moment longer than necessary before I let go, but I never look away from Xeni.

  “Heard a rumor you were dead,” I say at last.

  His tongue flicks out to wet his lips, and his gaze abandons Cato’s wrist to find mine again. “That’s… not entirely true…”

  “Obviously not,” I snap as I shake my head. I turn away, unable to bear the sight of him another second. “You think I wouldn’t know if you were?” I muse quietly.

  “Bash,” he whispers.

  The plea is the first tremor of an earthquake, rattling the foundation I’ve fought so hard to rebuild. My eyes close against the sound and my throat seizes, airways narrowing until every breath feels borrowed.

  Both Xeni’s and Cato’s gazes bore into me as I drag in slow breaths, but calm is unreachable.

  “Don’t call me that,” I finally manage to say.

  “Bash, please,” he tries again.

  The last thread of my restraint snaps.

  I spin and close the distance in two strides, hands slamming into his shoulders. His back hits the wall, and I crowd in until we're nose to nose, with every inch of space between us crackling with heat.

  My body screams for contact.

  It aches to let him feed the fire he started all those years ago, even as it threatens to consume me. His scent floods my lungs, sweet amber and achingly familiar, and the flames roar higher.

  “I said don’t call me that,” I growl through bared teeth, hating the sadness pooling in his eye.

  He has no right to it.

  No right to stand here and unravel everything I rebuilt from the ashes he left behind.

  But he doesn’t fight back.

  Doesn’t push, doesn’t move, just waits beneath me, docile.

  I shove harder, pinning him with my weight. “It’s not my name. Not anymore.”

  “Why not?” he whispers, voice trembling. The frantic drum of his heart matches mine, always perfectly in sync.

  For a treacherous second, I close my eyes and let myself fall into the illusion.

  The planes of his body.

  The warmth.

  The silk of his hair tangled in my fingers again.

  It’s all so fucking familiar.

  My eyes snap open. He watches me warily, his chin tilting as my fist tightens in his hair to hold him exactly where I need him. I tug harder, and his lips part on a soft, involuntary gasp that shoots straight through me.

  I should let go.

  Instead, I drag the moment out, savoring the contact like poison I know will kill me.

  “It’s not my name,” I finally say, voice raw, “because you’re the one who gave it to me.”

  His face collapses into a masterpiece of ruin.

  I release him and force a step back, the distance feeling like tearing flesh. “That’s not who I am anymore.”

  “Bash—” he starts, voice breaking.

  The sound of it guts me. My stomach plummets, pain echoing his so perfectly that I want to fold in half just to make it stop.

  None of this should still belong to me.

  Not the hurting, not the longing, not the love I buried under four years of grief and rage.

  None of it.

  “No,” I interrupt. “You don’t get to call me that. You don’t get to show up here after all these years and break me all over again. It isn’t fair. That’s not fucking fair, Xeni!”

  “Please,” he whispers, his insistence turning to pleading. “Please just listen.”

  My throat swells as I close my eyes and force my logical brain to take over. If I give the reins to my heart, it’ll cave, because despite everything he did, it still yearns for its other half.

  I take a half step back, then fight my impulses and do it again. When I speak, my voice shakes with pain I’ve held onto for years.

  “It’s your turn to listen. You’re going to answer my questions. Got it?”

  His lip tightens and quivers slightly. He looks ready to argue, but he nods instead, small and defeated.

  “Why are you in the city?” I demand.

  His throat works in a swallow, then he wets his lips as he glances at Cato, then back to me.

  “Can we talk in private?” he asks.

  The fear of being alone with him has only been amplified after being so close. His scent still burns in my nostrils, and I can’t be trusted.

  I force my head to shake. “Anything you need to say can be said in front of him.”

  Unmistakable jealousy flares across his face. It stirs a bitter satisfaction inside me, but it’s hollow, more ache than triumph.

  He stays quiet for a long moment, the fight draining out of him until his shoulders sag and he stares at his lap.

  “I guess you’ve heard about Ljómur,” he says.

  I close my eyes, reliving the day the report came. Seeing the pictures of the destruction and reading the casualty list… staring at his name listed in bold, the word ‘deceased’ so casually scrawled beside it.

  The emptiness, despite knowing it wasn’t true.

  “Yeah,” I rasp, opening my eyes to find him watching me too carefully. “I heard. How’d you weasel your way out?”

  He glances at Cato again, but Cato only crosses his arms, shoulders thrown back.

  Xeni releases a shaky exhale and gestures towards the chairs. “It’s a long story. Can we sit?”

  I study him, searching for the cunning he loves to use to his advantage. There’s none of it now, only weariness.

  Against every instinct, I nod.

  We move to the table, and Xeni sinks into the chair. He rests his face in his palms, then speaks without looking up.

  “Ljómur was destroyed because of me.”

  “What?” I demand.

  He lifts his face and meets my eyes for a second, then looks away. “I met two people… two good people, then discovered they were mates. They were smart enough to hide it, and I tried to help them. I kept their secret. Eventually, they ran off together, but the new commander had a personal vendetta against one of them.”

  He glances up, and I keep my face impassive as I wave for him to continue.

  “He was furious they escaped from under his nose, and he started questioning everyone who knew them. If you didn’t have information, you were executed on the spot. And, well… I had information.” He scoffs quietly, shaking his head. “They were gone. I didn’t think it would matter.”

  “You never learned that actions matter,” I say with more venom than I intend. “They always matter.”

  “I know,” he whispers as he ducks his head, his cheeks flushing. “I never expected to see them again. They weren’t supposed to show up at Ljómur, but they did, and if I hadn’t spoken up…”

  He pauses, swallowing again as he glances up at me. “My actions almost cost them everything. If I had just kept my mouth shut, they wouldn’t have known. But I didn’t, and it was my fault they were in those cages.”

  The urge to comfort him crashes over me.

  I know him too well.

  The careless grin he wears like armor.

  The jokes that deflect everything sharp.

  Underneath them, Xeni feels too deeply, and carries every wound in silence until it festers. Knowing he was the reason those two people were caged would have torn him apart from the inside.

  “The commander didn’t stop there, either,” he continues, fingers fidgeting on the table. “He made me take part in their torture.”

  “So, what happened?” I ask, voice softer than he deserves. “How did their capture lead to the place going down in flames?”

  Xeni is quiet for a long moment before he shakes his head. “I couldn’t live with what I’d done.”

  Jealous anger surges through me, sitting heavy like acid in my stomach and eating away at everything rational.

  He couldn’t live with betraying them—these strangers, and whatever fragile trust they’d built—but when it came to me, to us, he’d done it with no hesitation, and without a backward glance.

  What does that say?

  That I wasn’t worth the same conscience?

  That the love he claimed was so all-consuming wasn’t enough to stop him from abandoning me?

  That I was expendable in a way they never were?

  The questions claw at me as the silence thickens. I stare at him, searching for something—regret, understanding, anything—but his face is a mask of quiet resolve, and it only fuels the burn.

  He couldn’t live with betraying them.

  But he lived just fine after betraying me.

  “Go on,” I say, hating the waver in my voice.

  Xeni hesitates, but eventually he continues. “I came up with a plan to get them out of their cells, return to my barracks, and pretend it never happened. At least they’d be free, even if I couldn’t be.”

  Another punch of grief hits me square in the chest, and I shove away from the table and turn my back to him to keep him from seeing how much I’m affected.

  “And?” I ask when he doesn’t speak.

  “Things… didn’t go as planned.”

  A bitter scoff pushes from my nose. “Funny how that happens.”

  “Bash,” he whispers.

  I shake my head. “Finish your story.”

  Another long beat of silence stretches between us, but I don’t give in, and eventually, he talks.

  “I got them out, but they refused to leave the other prisoners behind. We opened their cages, but the alarms triggered and everything turned into chaos. We got most of the mates loose and outside, but the building came down. Anyone left inside was killed.”

  “That doesn’t explain how you escaped,” I say.

  “They brought me with them.”

  “Even after you betrayed them?” I demand as I glance over my shoulder at him.

  His fingers trace the strap of his eyepatch with a faraway look on his face. “Yeah. Even then. They’re good people, but my actions had a cost.”

  “They usually do,” I mutter, scorn bleeding through my words.

  Xeni is quiet again as he takes a deep breath, and he’s pleading as he looks up at me. “Will you please sit back down, Bash? Talk to me. Give me a few minutes alone.”

  The request lands like a spark on dry tinder. I snarl and spin to face him, slamming my hands onto the table hard enough to rattle it.

  “Give you a few minutes alone? I already gave you too much, and you threw it away. Don’t you dare ask me for more.”

  “But—”

  “Why are you here?” I demand, cutting off his protest. “You’ve told me why you were there, but not why you’re in Atlanta.”

  His gaze darts to Cato again, and my temper flares hotter.

  “He’s not leaving, Xenesis, so answer my question. You walked away clean. No real consequences—like always. So why come back now? What are you doing here, and why were soldiers chasing you?”

  “I was trying to get information,” he says. “I took the job so I had something to trade.”

  “Trade for what?”

  “You,” he whispers. “I was looking for you.”

  The room goes dead silent as his confession hangs there, and I straighten, fury and something worse churning together.

  “You had years,” I say, my voice trembling with the anger that’s been poisoning me since that day. “Years to look for me. Years to give me some sort of explanation for what happened, to offer even a scrap of truth.”

  Xeni’s single eye glistens with tears, and I’m hit with a fresh surge of rage.

  “Stop that,” I snap. “You don’t get to cry, Xeni! Do you have any fucking idea what you did to me? Any at all?”