“Oh! So... she’s...” Aiko’s ears twitched as she clearly sought the right word for the situation.

“A prisoner.”

Aiko and Shoshen both inhaled sharply. The Sionnachans were peaceful and cooperative. They had no dungeons, no real crime to speak of. The word “prisoner” only existed in their language to use in a metaphorical sense. Prisoner of the mind. Prisoner of the heart.

Shoshen darted a look at his older sister, but she merely raised her downy orange arms in front of her, clenching her hands into fists and then opening them flat in a quick movement that meant “yes,” or “acknowledged.”

Though I knew she did not understand what I’d said, the human chose that moment to wrench herself from my loosened grip, as if in revolt against the idea of being a prisoner. With an annoyed sigh, I let her go, remaining in my place as she darted away from us. She ran to the base of the stairs, seeming to consider ascending, but no doubt realized that would trap her further. She hurried to the back of the hall.

“Oh! Oh!” Aiko said, her tail puffing up in panic. “Bring her back, Shoshen!”

Shoshen advanced slowly, his arms out to the side. The scene was an absurd one. Aiko and Shoshen were acting like a wild burrowbird had flown into the house. It made me laugh for the second time.

“She’s slow. She won’t get far.”

“My lord?” Shoshen said, turning back to me with a questioning look, waiting for explicit instructions.

The human used that moment of distraction to clumsily wrench open the door. She ran into the kitchen and out of sight.

My laughter died, giving way to cold impatience.

She’s slow. But wily, this one.

“Ready rooms for us upon our return. I want her in the highest chamber of the Dawn Tower. I will stay in the chamber directly below hers.” I strode across the hall. It was only when my feet slipped slightly on the smooth tree tile that I looked down. Melting snow had mixed with my blood, leaving wet silvery streaks along the floor. “I will require bandages.”

Aiko gasped.

“My lord! The blood! In all the commotion, I hadn’t noticed!”

“Apologies for the mess,” I said, frowning at the streaks on an otherwise spotless floor. “I can tell you’ve worked hard to keep things clean.”

“Do not apologize for that, Lord Wylfrael!” Aiko sputtered. “Please, rest now, and let Shoshen retrieve the prisoner!”

A mirthless smirk played about my lips. Shoshen looked like a strong enough Sionnachan lad. But he was young even by a mortal’s standards. A dewy, unsure innocence in his wide eyes made me think my escaped human, weak though she was, might be able to evade him.

“Prepare the rooms,” I reiterated as I resumed walking across the hall. My voice hardened when I reached the kitchen and saw the far door flung open, tiny footsteps leading out into the snow. “I will bring her back.”

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TEN Torrance

I staggered out into the snow without a plan, simply needing to get as far away from those people, those aliens, as I could. Some dull, distant part of me recognized I wasn’t thinking straight. That shock and trauma and adrenaline had reduced the rational part of my mind to a blubbering mess, allowing panicky instinct to take over. I just need to get away. If I can only be on my own for a bit to fucking think...

I trudged through shin-deep snow, knowing I wasn’t fast enough but not having any clue as to what to do about it. Any minute they’re going to come out that door and follow me...

I didn’t allow myself to look back. Just kept ploughing forward towards the treeline, grown dark and ominous. The sun had nearly entirely set, a bloodied streak of crimson glowing behind the mountains under an otherwise dark and starry sky. This planet had no moon, and I found the absence of it disorienting in the extreme.

How the fuck did we not know there were alien people so close by?

I’d seen the towering structure shimmer into existence, as if out of thin air, myself. Whatever shielded it must have also hidden it from our ship’s scanners. No way would the military have just let that go without investigating it if they knew how close it was to our base. They probably would have taken the aliens prisoner to study them...

Which is exactly what was happening to me, wasn’t it? I was the alien here. I was the one out of place. The one they wanted to trap. Maybe to study. Maybe to punish.

Why else would the winged one have saved me? I knew I couldn’t have gotten out of that snow alone. When I’d come to, he was there. He was the one holding me upright.

Saved me...

The phrase didn’t feel quite right. I doubted his actions were benevolent. He had to have hurt, probably even killed, some of the other humans to have forced them into such a quick retreat. An obscene amount of money had gone into this mission, and only a threat of terrible, existential proportions would have made the crew abandon it.

He didn’t save me. He just didn’t want death to take me out of his control.

The thought made my movements flighty and frantic. My lungs were cold fire, my throat agony, my legs on the brink of collapse.

I’m not going to make it much further.

I cried out in horrified shock when the snow directly in front of me rose up, like a tidal wave, freezing into a two-metre-tall barrier that blocked my path.

How is this even real? Even the snow doesn’t want me to leave!

Not knowing what else to do, in a defeated gesture of anguish, I kicked at the newly-formed wall. It accomplished nothing, which infuriated me, making me want to kick it again and again and again.

A sound from behind me, a single growled word, stopped me. The voice was gruff yet somehow smooth, like tearing silk, and I knew who’d called to me before I even turned around.

I turned around anyway.

Light spilling out from the open door behind him made him into a brutal silhouette. A winged shadow of carved stone and leather, velvet and ice, all black apart from the pinpricks of blue on his skin and the arresting flames of his gaze. One of his arms was raised. He flicked his hand in an almost leisurely gesture, and I heard the snow wall topple into a useless heap behind me.

It was him. He made the wall...

The snow wall had fallen, but I knew that I was more cornered than ever before. He didn’t need to speak for me to understand what his hand and his eyes and the looming archangel shadow of his body told me.

The night air was still but heavy with meaning, the truth loud in the snow-drenched silence.

He said nothing.

You cannot run from me, is what I heard.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER ELEVEN Torrance

I returned inside with my winged captor. There was no other choice. He clearly wasn’t going to let me run off into the forest, and even if he had allowed me that, it would have meant certain death for me out there without the shelter and resources of the ship.

I can’t believe the ship is gone...

We walked through a large room that appeared to be a rustic kitchen – something I hadn’t noticed on my mad dash outside. Once past that, we were back in the grand entrance hall with its emerald green walls and the intricately-laid tile floor. The other two aliens who’d been here before were gone. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. They hadn’t seemed especially menacing in and of themselves, but I’d gleaned from their interactions that they held the winged man up as some sort of authority figure and would no doubt take his side over mine if things came down to it.