21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ISEOL
Pem smiles at me like I hung the moon, and even though we’re far from fixed, the ache in my heart subsides.
“I have an idea—what if we pretend we just met?”
The suggestion sounds silly now that I’ve said it out loud, but Pem cocks his head, contemplating my words before he nods.
“I like it.” Then he shoves his large hand at me. “Hi, my name’s Pem, but all my friends call me Cromlech. I’m the center for the Goodfellows, and our team just won the WMHL championships. We’re in the finals playing against the Ice Giants. In the off season, I live in Wales and eat too much marmalade.”
A giggle erupts past my lips at the thought of Pem dipping his claws into a jar of preserve before gobbling it off.
“Hi, Pem. I’m Iseol. I teach monsters how to skate and coach recreational hockey in the Taebaek Mountains. My cousin coaches the Ice Giants, who just won the EMHL championships, but because his wife just gave birth and there were complications, he asked me to help. I’m…not much a fan of all the attention it accords me.”
“Nor I, but I’ve learned how to live in the spotlight. Nice to meet you, Iseol. Wanna be my mate?”
This time, my laughter is loud and free, echoing off the walls of the gem-encrusted room that Pem’s sister brought me to.
“Just like that, huh?”
“Just like that—there’s no one else in the world for me.”
“You know, in Korea, the first snowfall is special. We’re taught to make a wish when it happens. That first day I was on the lake, it began to snow, and while it wasn’t my first snowfall of the year, it was my first here in Iceland. So I made a wish…for someone to love me—and then you showed up.”
Pem’s eyelids stutter close. “You wished for me ?”
“Well, someone ,” I tease, “but I’m happy it was you.”
“Me, too.”
“So what are we going to do with this misunderstanding of the century?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“I mean our teams. It’s a conflict of interest that we’re mates and playing against one another. I should step back from coaching—”
“No! You can’t, not when you said that your cousin needs you. I think we should talk to everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“Both our teams.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea—your coach looked pretty angry.”
“At me. Completely at me, but again, that’s more due to our misunderstanding. No one is mad that we’re mated, or that you went into heat.”
Despite myself, I blush. “Right, I forgot about that .”
Pem arches a brow. “Already? I’ll have to remedy that.”
He steps forward to grip my waist, tugging me closer until our torsos touch. The lingering warmth from earlier sweeps through me, not quite an inferno, but still just as hot.
“Behave,” I chide, slapping playfully at his chest.
“Never.”
And then he dips his head and kisses me.
It’s soft and sweet…until it isn’t. The gentle exploration of his tongue and tusks quickly becomes rough and demanding.
“Mine,” Pem snarls, just like when I was in heat, and my core clenches.
“Yours.” I lace the word with promise.
“I love you, Iseol.”
Although he’s said it to me before, the sentence still hits me like a freight train and emotions swamp me.
“I…I lo—”
He cuts me off with another searing kiss, and my stomach flips. I’m not sure if it’s from his touch, though.
“Pem, I lo—”
Again, he cuts me. “You don’t have to say it just because I did.”
His voice is gentle, but there’s a current of emotion threading it that I pick up on, and I know he’s afraid that I don’t mean it.
But I do.
“Pem! Please let me finish—I love you. I do. Not because you said it to me, but because when I say it, peace washes over me. I know it’s the truth. Our truth.”
He stares for a beat, his golden gaze clouding with tears. Then he cups my chin and pulls me in for another kiss.
My yeowoo guseul pops into my mouth at the intensity of emotions coursing through me, and I’m suddenly hit with an idea.
I push my fox marble past Pem’s lips, our tongues curling around it and each other until he pulls back. He takes it out to give me, but I shake my head.
“Swallow it.”
Pem’s eyes widen. “Iseol, no! You told me—”
“I know what I said, Pem. This is my way of saying that I trust you.”
His head drops, still holding the onyx sphere. “I’m sorry my guys were using your moves. It’s my fault, but I didn’t intentionally betray you.”
“I know. I realized that when I was running from you. You wouldn’t stop chasing me, and someone who used me wouldn’t go to such lengths just to talk to me.”
“Playing fair is the most important thing to me not just because it’s the IMH rules, but because cheating doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t show me if we won on our merit.
And as someone whose sister has the Sight, I could easily learn everyone’s secrets—not that Ramani would tell me—but that takes the fun out of the game.
She also refused to tell me anything about you. Ramani insisted that we—I—talk and learn about one another through listening. I swear I had the best intentions to do just that, but…”
“Lust got in the way,” I finish.
“Something like that. Regardless, I can’t swallow your fox marble, Iseol. You said it was important to your culture.”
“Very important. My father always warned me to guard my yeowoo guseul from anyone who might want to steal it, but you’re not taking it, Pem—I’m giving it to you.”
My mate stares at the fox marble in his palm like with reverence, knowing what it means to me and my kind.
“Iseol, I don’t want to take something you can’t get back and might regret later.”
I reach out and close my hand over his. “My father never wanted me to give this away because he believed it made Gumiho weaker—vulnerable—but I don’t think that’s the case when it comes to us.
I think it’ll make us stronger. It’s about choosing to trust, to give, to love after everything that’s happened.”
A shuddering breath leaves Pem’s lips. Then he lifts my yeowoo guseul to his mouth. I watch, heart hammering, as my Puca parts his lips, his tongue curling around the sphere.
His throat bobs as Pem swallows, and just like that, it’s gone. I wait for a ripple, a shudder—anything—to indicate the loss.
Nothing.
How strange.
Perhaps my father exaggerated the importance of our fox marble, or the stories surrounding it became more fearful and mythical with every generation.
In return, Gumiho guarded their yeowoo guseul like our very lives depended upon it when its value was more intrinsic than that.
Pem staggers back from me, drawing me out of my thoughts, his amber eyes so wide that he looks like he’s seen a Gwisin.
I reach out to take his hand, but he snatches it back. His brow furrows, and panic lances through me as he groans.
“What’s wrong, Pem?”
He doubles over and falls to his knees. My throat constricts until I can’t breathe, but I force myself to remain calm.
Just as I’m about to sprint from the room and call for Pem’s sister, my mate coughs. He grips his stomach and curls up into a ball.
Then Pem goes limp.
I dash back over, pushing him onto his back while running my hands all over his face and fur. Pem doesn’t move, but when I touch his horns, he moans.
His eyes snap open, his gaze locking with mine as Pem yanks me on top of him. I gasp as my body melts into his, and I remind myself he might be hurt.
Or worse.
But when he curls his claws around one of my tails and strokes it to the tip, I can’t help but whimper. My eyelids flutter closed at the contact, and my hips shift to slot right over Pem’s pelvis.
“S-stop! We need to get you help.”
“I don’t need help. I’m fine.”
Pem all but snarls the last word when I squirm in his grasp, rubbing myself against his hard body.
“Not fine! You were just moaning in pain!”
“Actually, you were stroking my horns—that’s why I moaned.”
“Oh…sorry. I wasn’t trying to, erm, provoke you.”
“It’s ok,” he kinda slurs. “Your fox marble was assimilating into my mind, and I think I blacked out for a moment. Then you were touching me, and I lost my horns.”
“Oops. You went limp, and I panicked. What do you mean ‘assimilated’?”
Pem lifts his shoulders. “Like it joined my mind—I have access to thousands of years of Gumiho knowledge, and…and I think I know why Gumiho pregnancies are failing.”
This gets my attention. “What? What could my yeowoo guseul impart to you that I already didn’t know?!”
My mate hugs me closer and nuzzles his chin over my head before answering. “Perspective.”
“…ok, but what perspective?”
“By trusting me to swallow your fox marble, it—your yeowoo guseul specifically—allowed me to understand what a selfless and important gift you gave me.
If two Gumiho mate together, they must swallow one another’s fox marble to strengthen their bond and ensure the pregnancy will take.
Then, the infant will be born with a new yeowoo guseul that combines their parents’ lifeforce and ensures its health.”
I blink, shocked at what Pem just divulged. While I always suspected a Gumiho’s yeowoo guseul is semi-sentient, I didn’t realize how aware they are.
“Pem, that’s amazing it told you that! I have to call my father—he’s the head of the NTFR, er, the Nine-Tailed Fox Republic.
It’s for Gumiho, Jiuweihu, and Kitsunes. He travels between the two Koreas, China, and Japan, but only Gumiho have yeowoo guseul, though.
He’ll want to know about this new development as well as pass the information along to the two doctors helping my cousin and his wife.”
Abeoji is going to be so excited…
Right after he yells at me for doing exactly what he told me never to do.