"The salt," Cilian murmured, his voice stripped of its armor. "It feels like glass in the muscle. It stings a lot, Ren."

Ren didn’t answer. He focused on the task, his fingers working carefully in a way that masked the fact that his heart was ringing in his ears.

Even when he took the bullet for me, he didn’t look ’this’ tired. Ren thought and bit his lip.

He could smell the frost on Cilian’s skin, mixing with the scent of the sea, and beneath it all, he felt the heavy, hungry weight of Cilian’s gaze.

Cilian wasn’t looking at the wound, or how Ren was taking care of it, of course, he was looking at Ren, his pupils blown wide as he drank in the scent of Ren’s own pheromones, which were beginning to leak out in a confused, sweet mess.

"You should have let me go," Ren whispered, his voice cracking as he wiped a smear of blood from Cilian’s chest. "On the plane. You had the only parachute. You could have lived. You could have had everything you wanted without me dragging you down. That way, your wound wouldn’t have been this messed up."

He was right. Cilian wouldn’t have had to exert himself to the point of agony if he had simply taken the parachute and jumped alone.

But as the thought left his lips, Ren realized he was forgetting. He was forgetting that the wound on that shoulder existed because Cilian had stepped in front of a bullet for him without a second of hesitation. If the man was willing to take a gunshot to the bone, why would an exploding plane be any different?

Cilian let out a dry, hollow laugh that turned into a wince, the sound vibrating against Ren’s chest. He reached out with his left hand, his fingers curling around Ren’s wrist, pinning the cloth—and Ren’s hand—directly over his heart.

"And what would I do with all that ’everything,’ Ren?" Cilian murmured, his voice a dark, intimate rasp. He looked up, his gold-brown eyes searching Ren’s face with a raw intensity that the steam couldn’t hide. "A kingdom of ghosts is a very lonely place to rule. Besides, I told you... We’re on our honeymoon. It would be quite rude of me to leave my bride behind in the sky."

Ren’s heart gave a violent, agonizing thud against his ribs.

He wanted to pull his hand away, to scream at the absurdity of the man’s words, but Cilian’s grip was firm, and the scent of frost was overwhelming, mixing with the salt and the heat until Ren felt dizzy. He looked down at his hand, pinned against Cilian’s skin, feeling the steady, insistent beat of a life that had nearly been snuffed out twice because of him.

This man...

"You’re insane," Ren choked out, his eyes stinging as he narrowed them.

"Maybe," Cilian whispered, his thumb tracing a slow, possessive line over the blue veins in Ren’s wrist. "But I’m alive. And so are you. That’s the only truth that matters in this water."

Ren didn’t pull back his hand now that he had lost the chance. He stayed there, kneeling in the mist, trapped between the man who had destroyed his world and the man who refused to let him leave it.

Just what...? Why?

"Cilian," Ren called softly. He lowered his head, his damp hair shielding his face because he simply could not understand the gravity of the man’s focus.

But Cilian didn’t lean in to mock him or demand an answer. Instead, he leaned his head back against the stone rim and looked up at the vast, indigo sky. The steam curled around his throat as he began to talk about the stars.

"That one resembles you a lot, Ren," he said, his voice drifting like the smoke from a dying fire. "It sparkles, it flickers, and it probably doesn’t know what it wants, fufu."

Ren still didn’t look up. He took the words as nonsense, a typical Cilian riddle designed to keep him off-balance.

"But do you see that one next to it? That big and shining star?" Cilian’s voice dropped into a little nice hum as he said, "Even if the small flickering star next to it does not know what it wants or what it has to do, it’ll always be there to help and support it."

Ren bites the inside of his mouth and finally raises his head to see those stars, but he feels Cilian is mocking him.

He felt a sharp, jagged surge of irritation as he felt Cilian was mocking him. He was telling him to his face that he was lost, that he was directionless, and that Cilian was the only thing keeping him anchored to the sky. The only thing supporting him.

He should have been angry. He should have lashed out, pushed Cilian’s shoulder, and let the Alpha feel the sting of the salt water burying into his wound. But tonight, the strength just wasn’t there, like it had drowned in the sea they had fallen into.

The plane crash must’ve drained me, Ren lied to himself.

He leaned into the lie so heavily it felt hypnotic, a shield against the truth that was currently pounding against his ribs. His heart was racing, a frantic drumming that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the scent of frost and the proximity of the man who had jump-started his pulse.

Ren turned his head slowly, his gaze moving from the stars to the man in front of him. Cilian was still looking up, his jawline sharp and his throat exposed, the silver moonlight making him look like something carved from marble rather than flesh and bone.

Then, Cilian shifted his gaze down. The gold-brown depths of his eyes weren’t mocking now; they were waiting. He reached out with his left hand, his fingers—cool and steady—brushing a wet strand of hair away from Ren’s forehead.

"You’re especially beautiful under the moonlight, Ren," Cilian whispered, his voice a low vibration that seemed to ripple through the water. "Like a star that refuses to fade, no matter how much the dark tries to swallow it."