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.
“Will you help me?” Ren asks, and he chokes. The delicate slope of her shoulders makes him tighten his fists.
“With what?” he struggles to speak. Even as Ren takes another step into the lake, Bass doesn’t move. His feet are stuck to the ground.
“Bathing,” she says. His mouth is dry. “Why else would I ask you to come here?”
If he squeezes his fists any more, his nails will tear holes into his palm.
“I want the blood off.”
He does, too. But not—not like this. Bass can’t touch her like this. It’ll—
Ren unties the knot of her cotton shorts. Then, she bends and pulls the fabric down her legs, stepping out of them as the hem drags in the water only to be tossed aside with her top.
This is the end of him. This is where the gods will banish him to the Blacksalt Sea—how he looks at her like this. He squeezes his eyes shut and glances away because he can’t trust himself to look at her. Bass doesn’t trust himself to look at Ren without the thick heat rising in his body.
But even with his eyes shut, the image of her smooth, olive skin is burned into his brain. Not the flash of her shoulder he glances beneath her sleeve or the tendon on the back of her thigh running under the hem of her shorts—but barren flesh, the scales of her spine and the curve of her glutes.
“Haven’t you seen a naked woman before?” Ren calls to him, but he doesn’t dare open his eyes.
“Of course,” he grits between his teeth, huffing. None like her. What would it feel like to let his fingers wander over the bones of her?
“And men?” she asks.
He exhales shakily. “Yes.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
Because when he opens his eyes, Ren’s shoulder turned to reveal the dewdrop curve of her breast, his lips part and his mouth dries and a want courses through him in a way that it shouldn’t. Shameful. And even more shameful, the fact that he can’t turn away anymore.
Even as naked as she is, the leather tie of his godstone is knotted around her neck, the jade sitting in the rest of her collarbone and dragging his eyes to the valley of flesh he shouldn’t be looking at. A thrill of desperation runs through him.
Bass’ eyes flick up to meet hers, pools of obsidian hiding her thoughts from him. He doesn’t want to read her now anyway. Fear of her judgment makes him stutter. Fear that she knows he looks at her so unabashedly.
“I am,” he croaks out, throat stuffed with cotton.
Ren holds out her hand to him, the beautiful line of her arm stretched out as her fingers beckon him.
“Then help me into the water,” she says.
How could he ever say no? Basuin toes his boots off at the same time he strips off his shirt, tossing both aside in a movement that feels too long. In three big strides, Bass meets her, slipping his hand under hers until their palms meet.
He wades into the cool water with her, breeches drenched and heavy. But a huff of relief leaves him without permission as Ren sinks further into the water, her olive skin disappearing into the lake and out of his hellish sight.
The sigh that Ren lets out as the water wraps her in its embrace is devastating in and of itself.
It makes him think—for the first time since they’ve met—what other noises she could make and what they might sound like.
Bass is careful not to squeeze Ren’s hand out of the thought, but his jaw tightens into something painful.
Ren dips under the water, hair slicked back and bangs sticking to her forehead when she turns to him. Her lips split into a smile, almost in pride of something, and then she disappears beneath the surface again.
This time, the waters surrounding her illuminate into a glowing blue that matches the color of her forest magic, and when Ren rises, her skin is flecked with it. A feral thought tears through him—her skin freckled in god red, instead. Not of blood, but of his magic.
It makes him move closer; closer for the first time.
As he wades into the ring of blue waters surrounding Ren, he feels the soothe of magic upon his skin.
She’s healing herself. Trying to. It’s weaker than he’s ever felt, and it wrecks the haze of want in his mind long enough for Bass to recognize the dip in their connection.
Ren has nothing left to give, and his own magic races through their god-thread trying to offer his own energy up.
Bass takes Ren’s soft arms in his hands, gentle but drawing her near. Careful to keep space between them. He would die if he felt her body right now. He would drop straight into the Blacksalt Sea and drown.
“Quit it,” he scolds her, watching as her head tips back to meet his gaze. “Let me.”
Ren opens her mouth, but before she can speak, Bass pours his magic into her. It feeds her through his palms, streams into the water around them. And all he can do is look into her twilight eyes, unmoving. He doesn’t have to conjure any images in his mind because she is right in front of him.
He wants the blood off. He’ll replace it with his own, color her with all he has.
Slowly, the water around them turns to a deep red, as if they bathe in wine.
Ren’s eyes flutter closed, fragile lashes pressed to her cheeks.
She relaxes in his grip and he nearly bites his tongue in half to keep from pulling her into his embrace.
But then she sinks, as if the weight of this forest comes down across the wings of her shoulders, and Basuin winds an arm around her waist.
The movement presses her into him, her breasts against his chest, and he swallows hard.
Then, Ren brings her hands up, tracing the line of his shoulders, to wind around his neck.
An ache pulses through him like the heaviness of guilt pitting in the bottom of his stomach.
It’s been so long—so gods forsaken long—since he’s felt this, the heat is almost welcome in the way of a reminder that this is real.
His touch, and her touch, and their closeness, is real.
“Thank you,” Ren says, her voice quiet despite their privacy. “Thank you, Bass.”
He doesn’t trust himself to say anything. Not when her eyes open and reveal such beautiful colors. The rarest onyx, faceted with gold in the glint of the light. Warmth from the red of his magic a glaze over her irises.
Basuin’s gaze traces down the length of her flat nose to the curve of her perfect lips—parted and wet by her tongue.
He doesn’t trust himself, so he hangs his head until his forehead presses against hers, her skin damp but warm. Basuin closes his eyes, and still, all he can think about is how it might feel to kiss her.
Ren’s hand curls around his neck. The other draws to his jaw, cupping his cheek as her thumb paints over a scar embedded in his beard. He shudders a breath he can no longer hold in.
“Can I try something?” He keeps his voice low, quieter than ever.
“Yes,” Ren answers, no hesitation. Basuin’s heart thunders in his chest like it might stop at any moment.
Then, Basuin dips his head and presses his mouth to Ren’s.
Soft—softly, taking her lip between his, plush and beautiful.
And Ren tips her chin up, meeting his movement, clinging to him in a way that angles them somehow closer than they were before.
It feels like sin, her lips against his, but it tastes like magic.
Electricity on his tongue when he swipes it across her mouth but doesn’t dare seek entry. Just to feel her.
In the haze of Ren, his hand has slipped into her wet hair to cradle her head. The other grasps at the flesh of her hip as gently as possible. When he finally pulls away, forces himself away, he’s left panting in want for more.
Ren, gorgeous Ren, is staring up at him in the most dangerous way he’s seen. Forget her sharp eyes and her stinging words. Her drawn shoulders and defensive stance. Here, eyes half-lidded and hazy, mouth pink and open as if asking for more, she’s more insidious than anything.
Temptation beckons for him and Basuin is caught by it, leaning down until his nose bumps against hers.
And this time, Ren tightens her grip around his neck and pulls him down until her lips cover his. In shock, he folds, grasping at her waist for purchase, ridding them of any space between their bodies. He wants to feel everything of her.