A weakness of the body, then. Just like mine. Disobeying all common sense in the face of nonsensical, animal attraction.

I would have to retain tighter control. Not let her goad me into any more ridiculous challenges that would leave me panting and needy as a virgin seeing his first naked female.

She wasn’t even naked, for the sky’s sake!

Luckily, Aiko and Shoshen’s arguing helped dampen the fires burning in my loins. Their words filtered down the stairs as we ascended to my bedroom.

“No, put it over there, Shoshen! We’ll need to make room for the rest!” Aiko said, rather sensibly, I thought, considering the amount of fabric and clothing I’d bought. Lots of clothing will be good. Many layers to cover up my bride, make her shapeless. Maybe then I won’t be plagued by the memory of sucking her skin like an idiot.

“Oh, my lord! Torrance! Hello!” Aiko flattened her ears when we entered. Shoshen did the same as he straightened and turned towards us from where he’d been bent over the large crystal chest of new clothing and fabric. I’d carried two chests back with me on my flight, and Hoshta had promised to send the rest of the order through the mountains by sled, so we’d receive it in a few days.

“We’ve only brought the one up so far, my lord. We’re about to go back for the other,” Shoshen said.

“Very good then. We’ll be here.”

Aiko and Shoshen walked by us to leave. On the way by, under her breath, Aiko whispered excitedly, “Torrance, you’ll never believe how lovely the fabrics are. Silk and fur in nearly every colour! Be sure to tell me which you’d like for your wedding clothes!”

Aiko wouldn’t have noticed, but I felt the jerk of Torrance’s hand in mine at the mention of wedding clothes.

“Yes, of course. Thank you,” Torrance said weakly.

“They don’t call you Lady Torrance?” I asked with a raised brow as the siblings left and disappeared down the stairs.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Torrance said simply, offering no other explanation.

“Fair enough,” I muttered. I didn’t particularly care what the Sionnachans called me. Whether they used a title like “lord” or not was immaterial to me. But such things obviously bothered my bride. She didn’t want authority here, or power. Well, she didn’t want power over anyone but me, I supposed. Her little stunt back in the library proved that well enough.

I realized I was still holding her hand. I released her and stepped away brusquely.

“Go stand over there,” I said striding to the chest and wrenching it open. Unlike last time at Hoshta’s, I had not limited myself to plain fabrics. Piles of silk slipped over each other, luscious pink, deep-lake blue, rich cream, and sublime silver-black – the colour of sky between stars.

I pulled the pink from the chest. I turned to find Torrance not standing like I’d asked, but sitting in a crystal-backed chair by the hearth, watching me with a tight expression.

“What is all this?”

“I thought it would be obvious by now,” I said dryly, holding up the pink silk. “Now that you’re to be my wife, you’ll need a new wardrobe.”

She didn’t look pleased by this. Rather stupidly, I wondered if perhaps she did not favour pink and I should get her something else before I remembered that the colours she liked did not matter. What mattered was that the insolent woman listened to me.

“I don’t need all that. Send it back.”

“No.”

Her mouth fell open, a wet little circle that made dark urges lance through me. I wanted to trace that pink circle with my fingers, dip my thumb inside. I wanted to stuff it full of the silk in my hands, to watch her moan around the fabric.

I wanted to put one hand on the top of her head, the other beneath her chin, and shut her mouth for her like snapping closed a box.

I didn’t do any of those things. I just stared down at the silk. But the deep pink colour only reminded me of the inside of her mouth.

Fine! Not the pink, then. For Sionnach’s sake...

I tossed it down, instead going for the pearlescent black. It slid over my skin like water, impossibly smooth and deliciously cool. I gathered it all up, then stormed over to my betrothed who watched me haughtily from her place in the chair.

“Stand up,” I said gruffly, fisting the silk.

“No.”

Her word was a sharp declaration, and I could not help but notice the way it had echoed mine from a moment ago.

“No?”

“No,” she said again. “I was raised to believe that a woman doesn’t have to obey her husband.”

“Believe it or not,” I said tightly, “I was raised the same way.”

With scorching relief, I was glad my parents, whom I’d loved dearly, were dead. It was a terrible thought, one that never would have entered my mind before now.

“Fine,” I bit out when she didn’t respond. “Sit there like a petulant child if you must.”

“I’m not a petulant child! I was walking up and down stairs all day and I’m exhausted!” Torrance snapped as I knelt in front of the chair.

“I was also raised to believe that if something is physically difficult, it means you need to do it more,” I said. “You need to exercise. Strengthen your limbs. Your kind is weak.”

Weak, terrifyingly weak. Like I could break you with a glance.

“Excuse me,” she hissed. “I’m a scientist, not an athlete. Forgive me for getting fatigued by climbing about eighty million stairs in one day.”

“Eighty million? Really? Is that your best, most scientific estimate?”

Fury flashed in her eyes, and I could tell she was about to send some scathing retort my way. I ignored her, draping the black silk around her shoulders, seeing how the colour suited her oddly ever-changing human complexion.

The touch of the silk on her skin had a de-escalating effect I wouldn’t have believed considering how angry she’d looked a moment ago. But rage was now replaced with confusion, as she looked down at my hands, and the fabric, like she hadn’t noticed me bring it over here in the first place.

I watched her face carefully as her expression softened.

“You like it,” I murmured, feeling, absurdly, like I’d been victorious somehow. There was a hateful sort of satisfaction in the fact that I’d chosen something to her taste. That I’d brought her something she wanted, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Grudgingly, I had to say that she was not the only one who liked it. The dull grey tunic she had on was now hidden, her narrow shoulders awash in slippery, shimmering black. It made her skin glow, made her eyes deeper, her hair colour richer. Like this, in my crystal chair, drenched in the colour of deepest night, she did not look like some frail human prisoner. She looked like a captured queen. Trapped, but radiant all the same.

“Doesn’t matter if I like it. I don’t need it,” she said, hardening her features as she turned her visage up to me. “I don’t need any of this. A few extra outfits would be useful, but entire chests of fabric for one person? With more on the way? It’s too much.”

I held myself in check with icy will, not willing to acknowledge how much the rejection of the silk was bothering me.

“You still do not understand,” I said, keeping my tone cold and detached. “This is merely one of many things you will be expected to accept in your role. You will be outfitted as befits your new station as the wife to a stone sky god.”

“Do all stone sky brides have to deal with this?” she asked tartly, like she’d sucked on something sour.

“I do not care what other stone sky brides do,” I hissed, control over my impatience cracking. “I only care about mine.”

Mine. The word had come out vicious. It startled Torrance, her defiance shifting to wariness.

“And sleeping in this room with you?” she said slowly. I stared at her mouth as she spoke. “That’s just one more thing I’ll have to accept, I suppose, considering you didn’t even bother to tell me.”