how devastated Hazel would be. “And you should be with your wife.”
She glanced up at him. Bastian kicked the tree, and then stalked away ten paces. “Why do you do that?”
Tressa thought to say, “Do what?” but she knew he would see right through her. He always did. Instead she said, “Because it’s the way things are.”
“Nothing is as it was. We’ve escaped. Connor’s dead.” Bastian motioned her toward him.
Tressa took a few tentative steps, not sure what he wanted. His eyes softened, standing in stark contrast to the blood on his vest. Connor’s blood. It was all they had left of him. The only item they could offer to Hazel in consolation.
She closed the distance between them. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons on Bastian’s vest, setting free the three wooden orbs from the looped fabric. She touched Bastian’s shoulders. The vest pushed backward. Her hands slid down his arms, until the vest was at his wrists.
“Take it off.” Tressa drowned in Bastian’s blue eyes. Her fingertips grazed his wrists.
“If I take this off, I’m shedding the last of my ties to Hutton’s Bridge. That includes Vinya.”
“You have a daughter.”
“I grew up without a father. So did you.”
His breath lingered on Tressa’s forehead, stirring that longing she’d spent so many years suppressing. She tore her gaze away from his. “I don’t want to be the one responsible for your daughter growing up without her father.”
“No one is responsible for anyone else’s choices. Despite what your guilt may tell you, my desperate desire to have you in my arms again isn’t forced. It isn’t a game. It isn’t nostalgia. Whether we’re here, facing an uncertain future, or back in the village, the only consistent want I’ve ever had is you.”
Tressa read the truth in his face. It was the only truth she’d ever known outside of her love for Granna. Bastian was hers and she was his. She may have tried to fill that void with Connor’s friendship. Connor had become the wall between them.
The wall had fallen. So had her resolve.
Tressa ripped the vest off of Bastian, tossing it onto the ground. She tugged on the string at Bastian’s neck. His shirt opened. Tressa’s hands reached under his shirt, her fingernails scratching at his muscled stomach.
A groan slipped from Bastian’s lips. Tressa lifted his shirt up and over his head. He took it off the rest of the way and tossed it.
Bastian grabbed her forearms, forcing her hands from his body. “Are you done fighting me, Tressa?”
“I’ll never stop fighting, Bastian. We have to get rid of the fog, lead our people out, and figure out how to kill that bitch who killed Connor. But I swear right now, on the life of my sweet Granna, I will never deny you again.”
Bastian lifted Tressa into his arms. Her toes dangled just above the ground as he kissed her for the first time in years. To her, it felt like they’d never stopped being together. In her mind they hadn’t. This is where they were supposed to be.
“There’s no bed. No cover,” Bastian growled into her ear as they sank into the soft grass.
Tressa nibbled on his ear. “That never stopped us before.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tressa woke in Bastian’s arms. Nothing but Bastian’s cloak shielded them from the waning night. A faint thumping in the distance grew louder with each passing moment. It sounded like an animal, a big one, coming toward them.
“Bastian!” She smacked his chest.
“More? Aren’t you tired yet?” He groaned, rolling over and out from under the cloak.
Moonlight bounced off of his thighs, exposing every part of him. Not that she hadn’t seen it all before.
“Something’s coming!” She sat up, but pulled the cloak over her chest.
Bastian grabbed his breeches and shimmied into them. Tressa wished they’d had the whole night to themselves. The sun wasn’t even cresting before trouble decided to search for them. She grabbed her dress, pulling it over her head. The linen felt too heavy compared to the lightness she’d experienced in Bastian’s arms. At least this time she knew there would be more later. The last time they’d been together, she’d cried the whole time, knowing she’d never feel him in that way again. Their final goodbye, stolen in the meadow next to the fog where no one would search for them, closed a door neither of them dared open again, even though both left a hand on the latch in their hearts.
A great beast, hooves as solid as a tree, and hair hanging