Tempted! To have sex with Wylfrael!

It was ridiculous. And it made me feel like I’d gone off the deep fucking end. But when I remembered the hot suck of his mouth on my wrist, I-

“I am not impotent,” Wylfrael said. There was no blustering ego, no defensiveness in the declaration. It was just a simple statement of fact. “A stone sky god is perfectly capable of copulation with someone who is not his fated one. He just does not starburn, and does not have the knot that can make that person pregnant.”

“Oh.” My relief, my sense of safety – not from him, but from my own stupid self – deflated instantly.

“Anyway, this is why there are not many of us. It takes much time to find one’s fated mate, and children do not always come quickly even after that. Sometimes, the female starburns much later than the stone sky god, which means she cannot easily take his knot before then.”

“Hold on, she starburns too?”

He confirmed it.

That was fascinating. That this mating bond could result in a biological or hormonal change in a whole different species, someone from an entirely different planet. I still didn’t know what the hell a knot was, but based on the way my skin was heating, my nipples hard and not from the cold, I decided not to ask further questions on the topic, afraid of my own bizarre reactions.

I was still holding Wylfrael’s hand. I was kind of surprised that he was letting me, that he hadn’t pulled it away with a berating word by now. I let it go and turned around so my back was to him once more.

“Alright. Show me this starfinder, please.”

Wylfrael raised a hand over both our heads, moving it in an arc under the domed top of the upright tube. There was no click of a button, no whirring of power like in a machine, but something was happening. The sky visible through the clear top of the tube looked like it crashed around us, stars falling everywhere, expanding and swirling down the dome and walls of the tube.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, entranced by the shower of stars falling over us, like drops of shimmering rain, and the top of the tube was a clear umbrella.

“I suppose I am now,” Wylfrael murmured beside my ear. “Though such proclamations seem a little excessive, even from a devoted wife. I’d tone it down a little in front of the others.”

“Oh, my...” I almost said, Oh, my God again, out of annoyance this time, not awe for the starfinder. “I wasn’t talking about you.”

“You have another god, then?” he asked, and I could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Well, if you must know, humans have many gods,” I huffed. “And let me tell you, you are not the most impressive among them.”

His smirk turned into a throaty, dark chuckle that made something deep inside me tighten.

“As long as you don’t run off and marry any of them. As long as I’m the only one who’s yours.”

He paused, then, asking it casually, like he didn’t really care about the answer one way or the other, he said, “Do you already have a mate?”

It incensed me that this arrogant alien had never even thought about this before now. That it had never even crossed his mind, that I could be spoken for. Not that I had anyone back home – it seemed to be a condition of the women who were abducted for this mission, no living relations or spouses – but still.

“What would you do if I said yes?”

I wasn’t sure if he actually moved or if it was just my awareness of his hot bulk behind me growing keener. But he seemed to get closer and larger in the space, muscles and wings and stars closing in on me.

“It would change nothing,” he said, a new edge of ice coming into his voice, freezing the smirking laughter that had been there a moment before. “You are marrying me, and for the rest of your mortal life, you are mine.”

“Hold on. I thought that once you got on this council, I’d be free to do whatever I wanted. I know I can’t go back to Earth, but does that mean I’d have to be alone? Forever?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly know that when I made this bargain with you!” I said, jaw tight. Not that I was planning on dating a Sionnachan or something, but it still would have been good to know about that piece of things before I agreed to all this.

“If word gets out that you’re taking lovers, it would put everything we’ve worked for into jeopardy. A starburning bond is sacred. A stone sky god’s fated bride would never stray, even if they are physically separated.”

“Wow, you guys really are arrogant,” I snapped. To think that just because they got married, their wife would never, ever deign to even want to be with anyone else was ridiculous. I’d never cheated on anyone and never planned to, but it irked me that Wylfrael was so sure in his claim, like any woman married to a stone sky god was spellbound by him, with no more mind of her own.

“It is not arrogance to speak the truth.”

“The truth,” I scoffed. “You didn’t tell me this little bit of the truth before. That I’d have no one for the rest of my life.”

“You won’t have no one,” he snarled in return. “You’ll have me.”

His words rang like a gong in my head.

“I’ll have you,” I echoed dully. “Ah, yes. My fake husband. No real life with him. No children.”

“You want children?” He sounded startled.

“Yes! You would know that if you’d asked,” I said. Being single back home, it wasn’t exactly something on my near horizon, but it was always something I’d wanted eventually. I was twenty-nine now, and I’d started thinking about the subject more and more with the approach of my thirtieth birthday.

“Well,” he said, a new gruffness catching in his throat, “I’ll get you a pet.”

“A pet!” I exclaimed, my eyes wide, my mouth opening in offended shock. As if a pet would replace an entire future with a man I loved. A family of my own.

“Yes. A pet. And, like I said, you won’t have no one, you’ll have me. I cannot make you pregnant, but if you should require anything else, I will provide it as your husband.”

“Anything else?” I seethed, having a feeling I knew where he was going with this and just daring him to say it.

“If you should ever require... companionship. Relations, as you call it, I will be the one to provide it to you.”

Provide it to me. As if it was some service I needed, like an oil change, instead of a real connection with someone.

“You’re saying if I want to fuck someone, it has to be you, then? For the rest of my life?” I asked, my voice rising higher and higher with every word until it reached a pitchy, furious warble.

“Yes,” he snapped. “It goes both ways, you know. I will take no other lovers, either.”

“Oh, poor you,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. It felt hot in the tube now, but I couldn’t tell if it was from his body heat or my anger. “You’ve had hundreds of years to fuck your way across the universe and now you’re stuck with only me.”

Oh, no. No, no, no. Was that jealousy?

“I can’t keep talking about this,” I said, tossing my hands in the air. I stormed out of the beautiful starfinder and didn’t stop until I’d reached one of the spread-out petals of this room’s walls, perpendicular to the ground far below. Too furious to be afraid, I kept walking until I neared the pointed edge.

I didn’t need to turn around to know that Wylfrael had followed me out. I felt his presence, even though the cold night air sucked away the warmth of him that had cradled me. He loomed behind me, a shadow I couldn’t shake.

“What?” I called brittlely without turning back to him. “Come out here to tell me what to do again? To tell me to be careful?”

“No,” he said softly. “Even if you slipped, even if you jumped, you’d never hit the ground.”

I finally did turn around to look at him. His wings flared open behind him, a silent, starry promise of protection and possession all wrapped up in one.