His thumb swipes over the seam of her, a dribble of her honey collecting on his skin. Ren rolls her hips, the smallest, faintest gasp leaving her at his simple touch. It heats him, makes him crazy, makes his eyes flick up to hers as he tastes her.
And it isn’t enough, this hint of her. It isn’t enough. Without another thought, Basuin shoulders between her legs until her thighs surround him, locking his arms around her hips. His breath ghosts along her core, a last prayer for salvation after this is over, and then his mouth is upon Ren—enveloping her, tongue parting the valley of her lips and delving into her slick center, hot with need.
Ren makes a keening sound that calls for him, breathless as she falls back upon the rock. Strands of her wet hair make a halo around the crown of her skull and Basuin tightens his grip on her thighs to bring her closer. His tongue flattens on her point of pleasure, licking a path through her until it’s well-traveled. Ren’s fingers tighten in his hair, twisting, only driving him forward for more as he groans into her skin.
“Bass!” Ren chants his name in gasps and moans that make him want to grind his hips into something just to relieve the pressure. He aches, and he’ll do anything to rid Ren of her ache and make her say his name like that again and again. Ren grinds her core against his mouth. She trembles under his hold. She clenches around nothing as her hand seizes his hair because he doesn’t stop. His mouth does not stop and will not stop—the taste of her is addicting, and Ren makes such pretty sounds.
He is wicked. He’s a sinner. There is no wolf-man here. It’s just Basuin, worshipping his god until she will pray his name instead. And she does.
“Bass—Bass, please—” she pants, so pretty. So beautiful.
He wants to keep her here, riding this line, so she’ll keep saying his name like this. But he wants to push her off that edge, to catch her as she falls, to hear how else she’ll say his name. He wants to say, Please what? Please what? until she unravels beneath him.
Her thighs squeeze around him, nails turning to talons in his skin as she winds her hips over his mouth and on his tongue. He doesn’t want it to end, the taste of her. He’ll lick his fingers of her essence every single moment from now. But he wants to break her. See what Ren looks like as she shatters.
And so he does.
Basuin curls his fingers in the soft flesh of her hips as his lips envelop her pleasure point. A noise so stricken, so wanton, so lovely, tears itself from Ren’s mouth like a howl that makes his blood run hot and his pulse quicken.
He pulls every bit from her that he can. Drinks her like the wine of the gods. Molten lava, eternal youth, blood of Sa-cha. He licks the magic from her skin, paints the apex of her thighs with her own makings. As quickly as she begins, she ends.
When Basuin pulls away from her core, Ren is slick to the rock, chest heaving from exertion. He loves it. He loves the sheen of sweat covering her skin, the glow of his red magic left behind. The way her eyes are soft amber, clouded by pleasure. He loves the brokenness of her, the beauty in her undoing.
He loves it—Ren, like this.
Chapter 28
For the first time in his life, it wasn’t a decision—kissing Ren was a compulsion, something he was meant to do. But his next decisions are easy. Familiar and what he’s best at.
After watching Ren bleed again at the hands of the army, Basuin takes no risks. His anger is unbridled. The wolf-man hungers for death and Basuin hunts for it. At the next legion camp he and Haaman find in the night, men die. And at the camp they track after that, more men die. He trails their blood from one end of the forest to the other in hopes it will be an omen. This forest isn’t for taking—they’ll all die before he lets them take it. He’ll kill anyone who tries.
More men fall, but Ren carries less wounds. And that’s all Bass cares about. He promised Ren he wouldn’t bring a war, that he wouldn’t kill, but this war is already on their doorstep. This isn’t the Xalkhan military marching into Grimmalia, bringing heavy guns and new technology and trained soldiers—trained Basuins. This is the forest, standing tall under the Xalkhan Legion’s boot. He’s doing what Grimmalia did. Fighting back.
It isn’t even war. They don’t have much to fight with. But every soldier he kills under the cover of night, a rank tied around their bicep the way he used to knot his, means one less bruise marring Ren’s arm. He’ll do anything if it means leaving her skin unblemished.
When he faces forward, he sees the red magic thread pulling him through the forest and toward the Winter River. But when he looks back, he sees the legion camps he’s destroyed—and the ones he hasn’t gotten to, yet. He needs to beat Kensy, to secure a future for this forest. But he needs to protect Ren, too. And killing is so much easier.
Killing comes naturally to him. Those soldiers, they’re easy prey, and he’s a predator with a violent magic he can’t rid himself of.
Bass buckles his harness across his back and around his waist, tightening the straps in the dark of the night. The moon hides behind the clouds, blending into the velvet of the black sky that owns it. He moves by memory alone. Yaelic is at the small creek a few paces over, filling their waterskins as they ready for battle. Bass turns to follow after him when he hears hushed whispers bleeding from Haaman’s tent.
“I wish you wouldn’t.” Ko, he recognizes. Then, a long pause.
“This is my home, too.” Haaman—voice less cutting now. Soft in a way Bass has never heard.
“I am scared for you. They’ll kill you.”
“But my life, or yours?” A rustle of clothing. “They’ll destroy us. I’d rather go down fighting than let them win.”
“I cannot fault you for that.” Ko sighs, loud enough for him to hear outside. “Then, be safe, little bird.”
Bass leaves them to their silence, trailing after Yaelic. When the boy runs to him, arms full of water bladders, Bass ruffles a hand through his golden hair. Where once Yaelic would have laughed aloud, tonight the boy is eerily silent. He doesn’t meet Bass’ eyes, and a pang of hurt rattles through him. Guilt. Yaelic’s bound himself to a god who doesn’t know how to be a god. Basuin is still just a soldier.
Yaelic’s caught in a war that never belonged to him, that he has no blame for. An inherited fault.
The pup doesn’t speak even as Bass belts his waterskin to his hip, and it makes Bass linger. Then, Yaelic finally asks, “Can I come, too?”
His answer is swift and immediate. “No.” His voice cuts through the night. “You’ll stay here and protect the camp.”
