“Do you remember anything else?” he asks. Basuin cannot give her much, so he needs to give her this. She’d been waiting for him, all this time. While he was off slaughtering men and planned how best to lie to her, Ren was waiting to share this memory with him.
She hums. “It bounced, when my spoon hit it.”
Basuin could cry. “Gwapyeon.”
Ren’s eyes go wide, bright and beautiful as she looks down at him in shock. “Yes,” she whispers. “Gwapyeon. It was my favorite.” Once again, her eyes become distant, but a fond smile curls her lips. “I begged for my mother to make it for me every year. We picked the fruits fresh. How could I forget that? Gwapyeon.”
She looks at ease now, leaned against the tree smiling, eyes cast toward the sky. Radiant, she’s radiant. He reaches for her again, out of want. Then, he remembers where they are again. Who they are.
A woman posed in godhood. A soldier dressed in the fur of a deity.
“Won’t you come down now?” he asks. Ren nods.
Bass moves to climb up the tree, to carry her down somehow. But then the tree’s branches begin to unfurl, moving like a sway in the breeze. The spirit bends, bark and spines cracking as it lowers Ren to the ground, letting her slide off the branch she was sitting on and into Bass’ grasp. He winds an arm beneath her, around the backs of her thighs, almost seating her on his bicep for a moment before helping her feet touch the ground.
She’s still pale, and he suffers a breath at the sight of blood smeared on her skin.
Ren’s fingers curl in the material of his shirt. “Would you take me to the lake? It’s not far from here.”
Bass, of course, nods. He turns his back to her, crouching low to the ground and gesturing for her.
“C’mon.” He looks over his shoulder at her, grinning. “Hop on.”
The press of Ren’s thighs around his hips is almost as damning as her thin arms wrapped around his neck. Perhaps worse is the silk of her bare skin where he holds her legs, carrying her through the woods and toward the lake. Gods damn him, really.
The wolf-man aches for Ren’s touch, where her fingers brush over his throat every now and again. On purpose or by accident, he’s not sure. But what he’s more sure of is that it isn’t just the wolf-man preening at the feeling of Ren, smooth and plush on his back. It’s him who aches for it, too. Aches more than death.
Bass squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them wide. He doesn’t need to think about this. He doesn’t need to consider it. She’s wounded, for fuck’s sake. She’s vulnerable and hurt.
“You drove them away?” Ren asks him. “They hurt something, I know.”
That kills the flare of light that was rising in him. He swallows. “Yes. They shot a pack of bears. Only two.”
“Neither made it.”
“No.”
His hands feel tacky with blood. No matter how furiously he washed his skin, it sticks to him. Red the color of cherries—of Ren’s gwapyeon. Bass adjusts her in his grip, careful not to jostle her too much. It makes her tighten her arms looped around his neck.
Then, a soft puff of her breath ghosts over his cheek as she lays her head against his. Softly, she says, “But you drove them off.”
Drove them, scared them, killed them. Destroyed them in a war he promised not to bring. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the softness of her skin against his right now. He likes Ren like this—pliant and tender, as if all the weight has sloughed off her shoulders. When her fingers feel petal-soft as they glance over the muscles of his arms.
He likes her when she’s sharp too. When she tries too hard to stay composed, poised. Limbs stiff and stubborn, but not her face. Not her eyes, graced with the futility of hiding the emotions she always tries to bite back.
Basuin likes Ren in every facet of the light. The feeling is so light he could laugh. Instead, he hangs his head and swallows hard as he trudges through the forest, onward to the lake.
Chapter 27
Behind the thick woods, a break in the gnarled trunks and stretching branches of the trees, the lake glitters bright under the dying light of day, waters still. Nothing disturbs it, but ghosts of a gale break the mirror-glazed surface into ripples. Mossy rocks form a barrier between the lake and the forest. A glowing blue oasis. A pool of healing.
Ren inhales hard when her feet touch the ground, and Bass snakes an arm around her waist to help her find her balance. When she’s steady, she pushes a small hand against his chest and evades his grasp. She moves toward the water like it calls her—like there’s magic tugging her forward.
But then, at the edge of it, she pauses. Ren’s foot is raised, but she’s frozen in time. The smallest hesitation. He approaches in two steps, a hand outstretched to catch her if she falls. Ren looks back at him, a wrinkle in her brow, until it softens and her lips bloom in a smile. It shatters whatever held her captive.
As soon as her toes dip into the lake, she unties her robe’s sash from her waist. The rest of the white fabric falls from her shoulders in a flutter, which she tosses away to the shore. Her back is a flaxen field of bone and beauty. Ridges of spine and sprouted shoulder blades and blood. Dried blood is smeared across her perfect skin.
There’s a curve to her waist that Bass has only felt in touch, but deep bruises are creased in her skin following the line of the ribcage he can’t see from this angle. His stomach rolls. His nonexistent heart is beating so fast. He’s losing air. He can smell the blood from here—no, no, he can’t. He’s imagining it.
