“As far as I could tell when I spoke to him, he is not weakened. He just cannot open sky doors and travel.”

“Hmm. When is it?” I asked. It might be good to go to a gathering, even if it meant venturing into Sceadulyr’s shifting lair. I’d been asleep so long. I needed to continue getting caught up on the news from the other stone sky gods. Find out more information about the goings-on of the council, and the spreading star-darkness.

“It is... blast, this always does my head in. I hate converting time between worlds.” Maerwynne’s red and black eyes closed, and he rubbed his forehead. “It is... yes, it’s seventeen Sionnachan days from now.”

His eyes opened once more.

“I told Sceadulyr I’d inform the other gods as he cannot travel to invite them himself.”

“And that is why you’ve come here, then?”

“Yes. Although,” Maerwynne paused, turning towards the door and then back to me. “I wanted to see for myself how you’d made out with the human invaders. I didn’t see any sign of them while I searched for your castle out there.”

“All but one are gone,” I replied. “Dead, or fled. Just as weak as you said they’d be.”

“All but one?” he pressed, and I cursed myself inwardly, suddenly wishing I’d kept the information about my prisoner to myself.

“Yes. One remains. She is my prisoner.”

Maerwynne’s gaze rose above my head, as if trying to see her through the crystal floors above. This annoyed me, and I wanted to bark at him that she wasn’t even in this tower, but I held my tongue.

“She’s female? Let me see her.”

“What?” I asked, my voice falling low in warning. It was one thing to visit me and be welcomed here. It was another thing entirely to command me in my own castle.

“I cannot risk not seeing her, Wylfrael,” Maerwynne explained. “My mate could be anywhere. I must meet this human female and see if I starburn for her, or if my star map returns.”

His darkened hand curled into a fist, and I knew instantly that he’d fight me, to the death, if necessary, to find my prisoner and potentially save his star map.

“She’s not your mate,” I snapped.

His eyes narrowed.

“And you know this, how?

“Because she’s my prisoner, and prisoners do not get nice things like mates or conjugal visits.”

Maerwynne’s wings flickered, a tiny pulse of warning.

“If she is my mate, she will not be your prisoner for long.”

I stared at him in silence, weighing my options. On the one hand, I owed Maerwynne for trying to help me with Skalla, and for opening the sky door here when I couldn’t. On the other...

I simply did not want him to go up there and see her.

“Fine,” I said after a long moment. “But I have to go give her the web first. Otherwise, she won’t understand a word you say if you start starburning and waving your knot at her.”

I rather liked that image, actually. Maerwynne besotted, my human confused and wanting nothing to do with him, rejecting him. Our mates starburned, too, a heated mating fever that allowed them to take our knots, but two mates did not always starburn at the same time. Sometimes, both felt the mating bond snap into place at once. Sometimes, it took a long time for both of them. Sometimes, it was just one, but not the other until much later.

“Will you even be able to understand her?” I asked, stopping just as I’d begun ascending the stairs. “Her people’s language seems quite young.”

Maerwynne’s tail flicked.

“Yes. I got fresh webbing when I last saw Rúnwebbe.”

“Alright. Stay here. In the meantime, you can talk to my Mistress of Affairs, Aiko. She’s just as likely to be your mate as anyone else.

With that, I left him, carrying the satchel with the final scrap of webbing up the stairs and through the tunnel. As I went, I wondered why I’d had such a visceral reaction to Maerwynne wanting to see my prisoner. Perhaps, after what I’d learned today, I did not want him to find his own mate so easily when I could never find mine.

That sort of jealousy was not a fair or noble thing, but I felt no shame in it. I was too angry to be ashamed. Too much in grief for something I’d never had but always thought I would.

But then again, I hadn’t cared about him seeing Aiko...

It was something specific to the human, then. Well, then, it was as I’d told him. She was my prisoner. It would be far too easy for her to be spirited away by another stone sky god without answering for her people’s crimes. She had yet to explain herself, but now that I had the webbing, she would.

I’d make sure of it.

I held the satchel tight and opened her door.

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Torrance

When the door opened again, I assumed it would be Aiko. She’d been with me the entire day so far, but a few minutes ago Shoshen had come, speaking quickly, and they’d gone away together. I’d taken that moment alone to finally change back into my still-damp clothing. My bra was still pretty wet, though, so I just wore trousers, panties, and my T-shirt. When the door opened once again I turned to face it, smiling, expecting to find the tall fox woman I’d actually grown to like despite the circumstances.

But it wasn’t Aiko.

It was Asha Wylfrael.

He entered the room like a storm in the shape of a man. Crashing dark clouds and searing lightning. Something’s different, I realized, panicking, stumbling backwards and away from him. He was a brutal male at the best of times, but this... this was different. Something had happened while he was gone, I was sure of it. Something that had infuriated him even more than my presence had.

“What’s wrong? What is it?” I asked shakily as he crossed the room to me in lunging, ground-swallowing strides. “Don’t come near me!”

He didn’t answer, but his grim mouth tightened, his eyes on mine, almost as if he’d understood what I’d said. But if somehow that was true, he certainly didn’t listen to me, because he just kept on advancing, relentless. Heart in my throat, I moved until my back hit the wall. Fuck! Trapped. I plastered my palms to the crystal, as if I could feel my way along to some escape. My eyes sought the door on the other side of the room, but my view of it was immediately blocked by Asha Wylfrael’s bulk.

“Don’t-” A gasp strangled my words as he seized me. He caged me in, one hand at my jaw, and in a rush of fear that he would strangle me, I shouted and struggled. He responded to that with a grunt and a shift of his position, one of his hard thighs pressing between my legs. The sudden grind of his leather-clad muscles against my clit made me jerk.

For some reason, he was only using one hand to hold me. A quick glance down told me he held something – a bag of some sort I hadn’t noticed before – in his other. Though he certainly could strangle me with only one massive hand, it now seemed that wasn’t his goal. Instead, he turned my head roughly to the side. His grip was like iron, and I forced myself to be still, scared my jaw – or my neck – might snap if I tried to wrench away from his hand. He muttered quietly, sounding immensely irritated, then did something that shocked me to my very core and made the place his thigh pressed between my legs pulse shamefully.

He fucking blew on me.

His breath cascaded along the side of my face, rustling strands of hair away from my left ear. It was like an electric shock. The hot whisper of sensation twanged through my nerve endings like licking fire, making me tremble and twitch.

“What are you doing?” I whispered. He replied instantly, mimicking the flow of a normal conversation, once again giving me the jarring sensation that he’d understood what I’d said.