I shouldn’t have tried to leave the room. I should have known he’d use some fucking alien power to know I’d done it. But even if I’d known he would find me, catch me, cage me in against the door, I still wasn’t sure I could have stopped myself. The room had begun closing in on me, the reality that, even if he did believe me eventually about not coming here on purpose, I still wouldn’t have a way out, a way home. Going all the way home to Earth would never be an option, anyway. The mission I’d been on was so secret I was drugged and put on the ship before I was ever even told about it. I knew too much now. If I somehow showed back up at my old job, my old life, I would run into some major problems.

I’d been thinking about all of that when I’d suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out.

Well, seems like I’m going out now.

Out. All the way out.

For a grim moment, I wondered if Wylfrael meant to take me out and leave me there.

But I grabbed my boots, and my snowsuit, and went back to him anyway.

He was standing with his back to me, staring into the fireplace, when I walked into the room I’d been pulled into a minute before. This room was a lot like my chamber, only larger, and by the food on the table and the rumpled bedding, I could tell that Wylfrael had been staying here, something I hadn’t been aware of before now. No wonder there’s no lock on my door if he’s right here below me.

In a confusing, heated rush, his voice came back to me, like a physical caress against my ear. Do I need to put a lock on that door? There hadn’t been the fury I’d expected. There had been a note of something else – challenge, maybe. Daring me to make him do it.

I watched Wylfrael become aware of my presence with his back turned. His wings tucked in tighter, his spine straightening. He turned around to face me, his expression smooth and controlled, a stark contrast to the Wylfrael who’d snatched me from the landing outside.

“I brought my boots,” I said, breaking the suddenly oppressive silence. “You’re not planning on leaving me out there to teach me a lesson or something, are you?”

I wasn’t sure I liked the flicker of tension in his tail and wings at my question.

But his answer was precise and certain.

“No. Now put your boots on.”

I dropped my snowsuit then took the bundled socks out of the boots, sliding them on. I didn’t need to look up to know that Wylfrael watched me relentlessly. I could feel it.

I pulled on the white and grey winter boots and then reached for my parka.

“That’s filthy.”

Wylfrael wasn’t looking at me now, but rather the dried, cracked patches of silver marring the white fabric.

“That’s hardly my fault,” I said, frowning down at the parka. “You’re the one who bled all over me.”

I glanced at his bare torso, gobsmacked to see he only had one main bandage remaining, wrapping around his lower abdomen. The rest of him – his chest, his wings – were completely healed. Bullet wounds vanished in mere days.

He wasn’t lying. He really is immortal.

The realization left me awe-stricken. I stared at him, wondering how long he’d lived, how much he’d seen. I wondered about his biology, his genetics, his family tree, his makeup at the atomic level.

My next realization was perhaps even more shocking than that – I was no longer afraid of him.

I could feel it in the way I openly stared at him, in the way I’d just spoken to him, complaining about how he’d bled on my jacket. Even when he’d yanked me out of the hall a few moments ago, I hadn’t been afraid of him or his presence or his hold on me specifically, but more the idea of a lock on my door, of being even more trapped than I already was. My heart had pounded, my breath had been fast under his hands, but that was more due to adrenaline at being caught than actual fear.

When did that happen?

Was it when he told me he hadn’t killed my friends and I’d actually begun to believe it, something instantaneous, a light switched off in my brain? Or had it been slowly ebbing away this entire time?

“Leave it behind,” Wylfrael said, and for a strange moment, I thought he was talking about my fear. But then I understood – he meant the snowsuit.

“I won’t be able to stay out there more than a minute or two without a snowsuit,” I told him.

“What’s a minute?”

“Oh. It’s sixty seconds.”

He gave me a dry look, and I realized that “sixty seconds” probably meant as little to him as the word “minute” had.

“One... two... three. That was about three seconds. I’m saying I can only be out there 120 seconds without protection.”

“I know. Leave it.”

I hesitated, feeling like if I left behind my snowsuit I’d be abandoning some essential mode of protection, and not protection just from the cold. But Wylfrael was watching me, waiting for me, and with a motion that was more like an instinctive reflex than something I’d specifically meant to do, I dropped the parka on top of the snowpants on the floor.

I hope I don’t regret this, I thought as we left the room. But I still wasn’t afraid. If anything, I felt relief. Relief that I’d be outside, even for just one single freezing moment. Even if it had to be with him.

Nervous anticipation quickened my steps. Wylfrael kept pace easily beside me, his long, leather-clad legs propelling him with controlled grace down the carpeted stairs like a wolf padding through snow.

We made our way through the empty entrance hall. I could picture Maerwynne’s lithe, red-winged form by the door so easily, even though it felt like it had been ages since he’d been here.

“Come.” Wylfrael drew my attention away from the front door. “We are not going that way.”

Instead, he led me into the kitchen, towards the same door I’d once sprinted out of. Before opening the door, though, Wylfrael began what appeared to be a search of the clean, quiet kitchen. He moved cauldrons, scoured shelves, muttering something that sounded a lot like, “Where did Aiko put it?” Having no idea what he was looking for, and not really interested in helping him with whatever it was, I allowed myself to gaze around the kitchen in a way I hadn’t gotten the chance to do before.

In some ways, it was what I’d imagined a medieval castle’s kitchen to look like, but with its own alien, or Sionnachan, I supposed, twist. There was no power source that I could see besides the fiery rocks that seemed capable of burning for days. A huge one was in a massive crystal hearth, casting a warm, hearty glow over the space. Smaller fire rocks were placed on high shelves for yet more lighting, illuminating crystal jars, bottles, and stone bowls, as well as what looked like bunches of small stems – maybe herbs – dried out and bound together with what appeared to be leather twine.

There was another doorway in here – one I hadn’t noticed before. I realized, from the sounds I heard, that Wylfrael had gone through it, descending into what was probably a cellar.

I’m alone.

I was alone, somewhere other than my room.

A thoughtless instinct told me to make a run for it. Fuck the fact I had no snowsuit, I just needed to get out of here. Heart slamming, I quickly put that ridiculous notion aside. I’d already tried that once and Wylfrael had stopped me with a mere sweep of his hand through the air.

I examined the kitchen with new eyes, searching for something I could use to my benefit. What that would be, I had no idea.

Until I saw the knives.

I didn’t even think, just ran to the counter where they glimmered, sharp blades of dark crystal and various types of stone. Doubting I had much time, I made my selection quickly, grabbing the first one that looked small enough for me to grip easily and hide but large enough to hurt.

What I would do with it, I had no fucking clue. Wylfrael had healed from bullet wounds as if they’d only been paper cuts, so I doubted I could do any real damage to him if it ever came to that. But even so, I wanted desperately to have it. To know that it was with me, sharper and steadier than any part of my human body could be, and at least more effective than the butter knife I’d kept.