Chapter 22 Bash #2
“Uhhhh...” Ego drags out the sound as her eyes bounce between me and Xeni.
“Absolutely not,” I interrupt. “That’s not an option.”
Xeni doesn’t even look at me as he stares at Ego. “How many?” he asks again.
Ego closes her slack mouth and references her notes.
I shake my head with a flare of temper. “Ego, don’t you—”
“Two,” she says, raising her voice to speak over me. “They gather outside the distribution center and drive in. Different workers every time.”
“Two is manageable,” Xeni says with a nod. “If I catch one before they make it to the truck and… convince them to go somewhere else, it wouldn’t be hard to take their place.”
Sakane opens his mouth, but Ego turns to him with a glare. “If you even mention mind worms, I’m going to hide fish bones in your curtain rods so your room smells like death.”
“Rude,” he mutters, crossing his arms and reclining in his seat.
Xeni glances at him in mild amusement before focusing on Ego once more, refusing to look in my direction. “He’s not wrong, though. There’s a chance I’d have to use my powers to make it work.”
“Does it hurt them?” Ego asks.
Cato snorts and shakes his head.
“No,” Xeni says, glancing at Cato. “It can give someone a headache if it’s too intense, but there’s no lasting damage.”
“Unless you tell them to gouge their own eye out,” Cato mutters.
Xeni stares at the floor as everyone else looks between them. “Yeah, there is that,” he agrees quietly.
“Why are we still talking about this?” I ask. “This isn’t a valid plan. You don’t exactly blend in, and they’re already looking for you.”
Xeni finally meets my eyes. “I’ll be fine,” he insists.
I climb from my chair and slam my palms onto the table. Everyone else in the room jumps, but Xeni just stares at me with that cautious wariness.
“You aren’t going,” I snarl, my voice rising to a near shout.
“It makes the most sense,” he says, keeping his face neutral. “No one here can get inside the prison as easily as I can, and you said—”
“I said we wouldn’t risk our people to save him,” I remind him.
“And you won’t,” Xeni says quietly as his gaze falls to the ground again. “Your people won’t be at risk. They’ll be safe here.”
“Stop that,” I grit as everyone in the room shifts uncomfortably.
His eye moves up to mine with a hint of his usual rebellious fire shimmering inside it, but I’m too mad to appreciate the spark.
“Why are you doing this?” I demand.
Xeni holds my gaze for a stretch before nodding towards Cato. “I probably owe Big Red over there for threatening to send him out the window.”
Cato snorts a laugh, but I only shake my head.
“This isn’t some sort of joke, Xen! You could get captured or killed, and then what the fuck would I do?”
He stares at me for a moment longer before he sets his jaw in that stubborn jut. “My mind is made up. Lock me back in that room if you want, but you know I could’ve gotten free any time I wanted. I’m here, so let me help.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to remember I’m not the bad guy.”
Xeni’s words—my words from that night on the roof—are whisper-quiet, but they hit me like he shouted.
His mask finally slips, and he pushes his fingers into his hair and tugs. My chest aches as I recognize the way he’s hurting himself to regain some control.
I charge over and drag him into the hallway. “That’s not why you’re doing this,” I say as I turn to face him, “and I didn’t mean that.”
“It is, and you did mean it,” he responds softly.
“Ever since Ljómur was destroyed, I have been trying to figure out what the Fates were doing with me. What was the point of everything? Ronan and Cameron needed to find each other at that moment because they were the catalysts. They started all of this. Elas found August because that led Reyes to Nyx. All of that makes sense… it has purpose.”
He shifts, crossing his arms like he’s holding himself back. “But this? Me and you? I can’t figure out why the Fates gave me the best three years of my life just to take it away.”
My anger falters as he lets his shoulders fall against the wall, staring down at the hidden mark on his hip.
“Was it punishment for everything I did when I was younger? Atonement for the mates I sent to that place?”
“So you run into danger, and for what?” I demand. “What does that prove? That you’re reckless? Self-destructing? That you don’t care about your own fucking life? Because I do, Xen.”
Xeni is quiet as he shrugs and picks at the sleeve of his shirt, fingers worrying a worn thread.
“For so long, everything about us has been angry or sad,” he says, “but it wasn’t always that way, Bash.
We were good together. Being with you at Zaya’s reminded me of how happy we used to be… how happy we could be again.”
He bites at his lip for a moment, then meets my eyes. “You still love me,” he whispers, the words fragile, almost afraid to exist. “You can’t help it, and a piece of you hates it.”
My heart stutters, caught between the truth of it and the terror of admitting it. The undeniable fact hangs heavy between us, impossible to ignore.
Xeni’s lips curve into a sad smile. It’s not surrender, but recognition.
It’s the acknowledgment of every crack we’ve carved into each other.
He draws in another slow breath as he takes my hand and urges me closer.
“These past few days haven’t changed the truth.
Part of you still wants to drag me to those gates, shove me out, and tell me to leave for good…
and that part? It’ll never be mine. Even if you came back to me, slid that ring on my finger again and swore I was yours, that little piece would never really belong to me. ”
He hooks my neck and draws me in close. “I need you to belong to me again.”
I close the distance between us, and the kiss is slow, deliberate, and achingly tender.
Not frantic or desperate.
No race to some fleeting escape, but the kind that savors every breath and brush of lips.
When he finally pulls away, his hand slides to cradle my face, thumb tracing my bottom lip with reverence that cracks something deep inside my chest.
“I won’t settle for a love that’s less,” he whispers. “Not from you. Not after what we were.”
“I can try,” I plead, hating how the corners of his mouth soften into that quiet acceptance.
He sees the truth in me… the one I haven’t even admitted to myself yet.
“We’re talking instead of fighting now,” I continue, “and we had fun that night. We can give this time… we have time, Xen. You just found me.”
“You and I both know how well you hold a grudge.”
My half-smile wobbles as I lay my head on his shoulder. He pulls me into a hug, his palms stroking up and down my back.
“I would wait forever for you, Sebastian. Be angry. You’re allowed. Scream at me, fight me, tell me you hate me. I’ll take it, darling. Whatever you need to do, do it. I deserve it.”
“Don’t say that,” I murmur as he presses a soft kiss to my temple.
“The truth is a hard mirror to look into sometimes,” he responds as he pulls back. “I can’t keep hiding from it.”
He doesn’t look away from me, and doesn’t flinch at the reflection staring back at him in my eyes.
There’s no armor left in his gaze.
No practiced mask.
For the first time since he’s been back, he’s stripped bare.
He’s Xeni, without trying to be anything more.
My throat dips in a swallow as he presses another kiss to my cheek, then drags his lips to the corner of my mouth. I twist my face to meet him, and he’s so tender as he kisses me like we have all the time in the world. Patient lips and soft breaths, and the gentlest swipe of his tongue over mine.
I want to convince him we’ll find another way, and that he should stay behind and try to make this work, but as hard as it is to admit, he’s right.
A part of me is locked up tight, and it refuses to move on from the hurt. It’s caged—stuck—and I don’t know how to free it so it can belong to him again.
So I can belong to him again.
“I won’t beg you to stay,” I say once we separate.
“I wish you would,” he admits in a murmur, “but I understand why you won’t.” We hold each other’s gaze for another long moment before he leans in and kisses me one last time.
“Those nosy little shits are eavesdropping,” he says louder, and a frantic shuffling brings a tiny, sad smile to both our faces.
Xeni swipes his thumb over my lip once more. “We’re going to go back in there and come up with a plan now, alright?”
“Yeah… alright,” I whisper. As I move to pull away, he holds me there. The intensity in his stare steals my breath, but he doesn’t say anything else. He only releases his hold on me and walks into the room as I stand here, completely and utterly defeated.