The Extra's Regressor Wives

Catrina’s eyes flew wide. Her body locked in an instant.

Lathel did not stop. He tilted his head and tore at her mouth the way a drowning man seizes air. His teeth caught her lower lip hard enough that a thin taste of iron spread between them. She felt the thin skin tear. She felt her own blood smear across his mouth. The arm braced on the rim of the tub did not push him away.

Instead, Catrina bent a little lower and yielded to the pull.

She wanted it. Wanted it enough that even while reason still shouted that Lathel did not know what he was doing, her body opened to him and took every clumsy bite. When his teeth came seeking again, Catrina offered her tongue of her own accord, set it exactly where he was biting, as if she wanted him to take more—wanted him not to look anywhere else.

Lathel bit.

A small, wet sound. Blood welled again. Catrina trembled, not from pain, but because her entire awareness had been dragged into the place where their mouths were locked. The silver mask kept striking his shoulder and her wrist. The strap behind her head slipped when she bent too low, then came free entirely in one of Lathel’s jerks.

The mask hit the water with a short knock and half-sank.

Catrina did not have time to catch it.

He was still kissing her, still biting, his breath breaking against her cheek in hot bursts. Water from the tub splashed up her collar and soaked the silver hair she had brushed that morning. Catrina slid one arm behind his nape—not to keep him at a distance, but to keep him from slamming his head into the stone. She let him take. Let him bite. Let her tongue bear the rest of that chaos.

Pandora was silent in his soul. Even she did not tease.

The heat in Lathel’s body was still fierce, but it was no longer as chaotic as at first. His breathing eased, little by little. The jaw that had clamped Catrina’s lip began to loosen. His tongue touched the bleeding wound once more, then stopped, as if he had only just realized what he was doing.

Lathel let go.

Catrina exhaled hard, her chest rising and falling sharply. Her mouth was swollen. A thin line of blood ran from the bite down her chin and dripped onto her soaked collar. She was about to say something, about to call his name, when she realized that Lathel’s newly cleared eyes were looking straight at her face.

The mask was gone.

From the bridge of her nose upward, the upper half of Catrina’s face was exposed under the steam. The skin there was uneven—in places puckered into dark patches, in others pulled so that one eye socket sat deeper than the other. The temple looked as if it had been dented. Across her forehead were old hollows, scarred so badly that even the bathhouse light could not soften them. These were not new wounds. This was a face that had been ruined a very long time ago—enough that any stranger would have turned away.

Catrina realized it a beat later than he did.

She snatched her hands up to cover herself, five fingers clamped so tight the knuckles stood out. "Don’t look." Her voice broke behind the blood still on her lips. "Lathel, don’t look."

Lathel did not turn away.

He looked at those ruined patches of skin for a long time—long enough that Catrina thought he would flinch, would draw back, would remember he was standing in front of something frightening. But there was no fear on his face. Only a familiar stillness, the same stillness as when he had once stood in front of children no one wanted to claim.

In the orphanage years ago, Lathel had seen worse. Children whose faces were a wreck of burst blisters and scabs. Children who could not grow hair on half their scalp because of some strange skin disease. Children born with eyes rolled white, left at the gate by parents who vanished. Those children cried, or bit, or only lay still. The adults pinched their noses, turned away, said that looking too long brought bad luck. Lathel did not turn away. He had grown used to sitting beside them, wiping drool, laying on salve, then using his hands to tell them they were not something to fear.

Compared with those faces, the upper half of Catrina’s only made him ache for a moment. Then it passed.

Lathel caught her wrists and gently drew the covering hands down. Catrina resisted for a beat—not with much force, only enough to say that she was afraid. He did not use strength. He only held. Then he lifted his thumb and wiped the line of blood running from her mouth. The blood was thin, warm, clinging to his knuckle. He wiped again, slower, as if he were doing something that had long since become habit.

Catrina trembled.

Lathel released her hands, lifted both of his before his chest, and signed, unhurried. The movements were not fast. He wanted her to see every sign clearly.

’It’s all right.’

’Appearance is not everything.’

’Your heart is what matters.’

Catrina lifted her head. Tears came too fast to stop, running in long lines over the ruined skin, falling to her throat, to her wet sleeves, like a string of beads whose thread had snapped. She opened her mouth to speak and only managed a choked sound. Blood and tears mixed at the swollen corner of her lips.

"Lathel..."

He watched her and waited. Catrina bent down. Her forehead touched his still-wet bare shoulder. Both arms went around his back, holding the person growing weaker in the tub. Her arms ached from how hard he had gripped her earlier. She did not loosen them.

"I’m here." Her voice was small, shaking, spoken against his hair. "You don’t need to look for anything else. Just hold on to me."

Lathel’s arms locked around Catrina at once. The strength was still greater than usual. Catrina only frowned a little, then went on stroking his wet hair.

"If you want to hold me, then hold me. I’m not leaving."

She let him bury his face in her shoulder and kept his head from striking the rim of the tub. The mask still floated near the stone edge, silver face down, throwing a warped streak of light onto the wall.

Catrina closed her eyes. The pain from where Lathel was gripping her arm came through very clearly. What hurt her chest more was the thought that had just appeared. If she were a little more selfish, Lathel would not know. He might not even remember clearly. She had let him bite her until she bled, and she had offered her tongue to meet him. That part she could not pretend had only been saving him.

But she still did not want to take anything more from someone who was not fully lucid. She wanted Lathel to reach for her on a day when he knew exactly who stood in front of him. She wanted the look just now not to be because of the Original Sin Core, but because he had seen Catrina and still had not turned away.

"I can wait." Catrina whispered. Lathel did not understand. She did not need him to understand now. "You can hate me. You can be slow." The arms around him tightened gently. "I will not take what you did not give me while you were clear-headed."

Deep in his soul, Pandora stayed silent longer than usual.

Catrina bent lower, the ugly half of her face pressed to his wet hair. "But if you need someone here... I will always be here."

The heat in Lathel’s body gradually steadied. The fingers locked around Catrina began to loosen.

Only then did Pandora speak.

"The fusion process is stabilizing."

Catrina could not hear it. She only felt that the body in her arms was no longer shaking as hard. That was enough.

A little later, Lathel had almost no strength left. His whole body went slack in her hold. Catrina caught him at once.

"Lathel?"

He was still conscious. His eyelids were only so heavy he could barely open them.

Catrina stroked his hair gently, then looked down at the red marks on her wrists from how hard he had gripped her, and at the blood already drying at the corner of her mouth. She was not angry. The other corner of her mouth, the side that had not been bitten, curved very slightly.

’How greedy.’

Catrina knew what she was thinking. Even though she had just forced herself not to take advantage of Lathel, the simple fact that, lost and unmoored, he had sought ’her’ warmth was a joy she could hardly hide. She hated that weakness in herself. She also loved it.

Catrina held Lathel a little tighter, then immediately eased off when she remembered his condition.

"All right." Her voice was quiet. "I’ll take you back to bed."

Before she stood, she reached out and scooped the mask from the water, but she did not put it back on at once. She only cupped it in her palm, as if this time she did not yet want to hide too quickly.

Lathel had almost no strength left to protest.

Inside his soul, Pandora suddenly giggled. He immediately had a bad feeling.

’...What else?’

"Nothing."

Lathel did not believe her.

Pandora said slowly, "I was only thinking that the Original Sin Core fused very successfully."

He frowned.

"Your constitution has been enhanced, recovery is higher, life force is stronger as well."

Only then did Lathel relax a little. But Pandora immediately added, "Of course, that’s only the basic part."

Lathel went rigid.

’...What do you mean?’

Pandora burst out laughing. "You’ve fused with the Original Sin of Lust." Her voice was cheerfully hateful. "Did you really think it would only make you healthier?"

Lathel: "..."

An unease even greater than when he had first seen the Original Sin Core appeared at once. Pandora only laughed. She offered no further explanation.

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