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A growl ripped from Andrues as he whirled toward Dukovich, a blast of green and black power shooting from his palm. Dukovich ducked just in time, barely missing the death that was meant for him as it blasted through the wall.

“Andrues!” I hissed, my voice slicing through the air like a blade. “What the fuck are you doing?” I took a step toward him, so many emotions warring underneath my breasts as my palms connected with his chest and shoved him back. “You have no right. We are friends, remember?Friends.You’ve made that extremely clear.”

“Ataliia . . .” he breathed, my name falling from his lips like a prayer and a curse all at once.

“What?” I snapped, my eyes narrowing on him.

It all came pouring out then, everything we’d never said to each other. All the things we kept hidden behind the fear of letting someone in. Every wall he had erected to keep me at a distance went up in flames.

“I do not want to be your fucking friend, Ataliia.” His words were a growl as the room narrowed down to just us, everything else fading into the background as the weight of his words settled over me, seeping into my skin and branding themselves onto my very bones.

All I could see was him.

All I could hear was the desperation in his voice, the fear plaguing his words.

The sound was fucking beautiful.

His chest heaved. “You are tangled into every corner of my soul. You are weaved so deeply in my being that I would not survive being ripped from you, not again.”

I stared at Andrues, his words hanging between us like a live wire, crackling with an intensity that threatened to ignite the very air we breathed. His gaze consumed me, puncturing every defense I had ever built around my heart—my soul.

He took a step closer, his hand reaching out as if to touch me, but hesitating just a hair’s breadth away from my skin. I could feel the heat radiating off him, the energy that pulsed between us whenever we were near each other.

“Ataliia.” Again, he said my name, but this time with a reverence that could have brought me to my knees.

My pulse thundered in my ears, my lips parting to respond but no sound came out. Like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head, the awareness of the others in the room came crashing back.

I sucked in a sharp breath and stepped back, putting distance between us even as every cell in my body screamed in protest. My gaze flickered to Dukovich involuntarily, taking in the hard set of his jaw, the storm brewing in his eyes.

Suddenly, the air was too thick, the room too small.

I couldn’t breathe,I couldn’t fucking think.

It was too much.

I was caught in a web I didn’t know I was weaving. Torn between two halves of my heart—two paths stretching out before me. And beneath it all was the suffocating grief, the gaping bloody hole where Wren used to be.

I couldn’t do this.

Not now, not here. I needed to get out. I needed air and space and time.

Without a word, I turned on my heel and ran.

Chapter forty-nine

HYACINTH

Silencewrappeditstalonsthrough the room as Andrues and Dukovich stared at the door Ata had just fled from. My eyes slid to the hole in the wall where Andrues’s magic had ripped through. The splinters of wood slowly floated back into place at my silent command, mending itself.

I pulled my eyes toward Andrues as I exhaled a sharp breath. “I expect this kind of behavior from Dukovich,” I started as both their eyes fell on me. “But not you.” Andrues blanched at my words, my gaze dancing between them. “Both of you, fix this. I don’t care how, but fix it.”

They nodded, neither of their eyes meeting mine as they tethered from the room. A weighted sigh fell from my lips, and as Landers’s hand slid up the back of my neck, a sob ricocheted out of my throat.

He was home.

He was home and he was whole.

My body snapped toward him as his hands found the back of my thighs and lifted me against his chest. My legs and arms wrapped around him, clutching his body against me, pressing my nose into the crook of his neck. His fingers tangled into my hair, cradling the back of my head as another sob echoed from my lungs.