“How did you not know? How come you had to get Aeshyr to explain all this stuff to you?”

“The madness took from both my memory and my mind. My mind is largely restored. But my memory...” He heaved out a scraping sigh. “My memory is rather in pieces at the moment. Though I do suspect that when we mate, and the mate madness is permanently cured, my memory will probably come back.”

“Oh, great. So, not only does your sanity and the protection of countless innocent people across the universe depend on me being with you, but your own memory does, too?” I rubbed my pounding temples. “And I still think you’d rip me open, by the way, no matter how much you say you’d never hurt me.”

“When you starburn... I believe... That is, I have the vaguest sense of memory telling me that... Or maybe it’s instinct...” He threw his clawed hands up in an apparently universal gesture of frustration. “I believe the starburn will physically change you. So that you can take my knot and not be injured.”

I blinked at him and said nothing.

So. I was going to go into heat like an animal. I would apparently want to fuck Skallagrim’s brains out. All so that Skallagrim didn’t go back into an alien rage and kill a bunch more people?

This is fucked.

I eyed Skallagrim, and something suddenly occurred to me.

“How do you feel about all this?” I asked.

So far, I’d been stewing in my own reactions to this situation. But in a way, Skallagrim was even more trapped and powerless than I was. He, too, would go into some involuntary mating frenzy. And if we didn’t do what was needed, his mind and memory would pay the price. He would lose himself again, maybe forever this time.

And he was immortal, at least for now, based on what he’d said.

So forever really would be forever.

Not to mention the danger he would pose. He might kill people he liked without even wanting to. He might kill Jolakaia.

He might kill me.

And just like fucking that, I knew I’d do it. At least once, at least enough to fix him. I’d mate him or whatever the hell it was that he needed if it meant saving him and everyone else.

“Why do you ask?” was his only reply. He seemed almost suspicious, like he needed to know my reasons before he came up with an answer.

“Because this is a lot! You’re trapped in this situation, just like me. Neither of us chose this and that’s only really sinking in for me now. So I wanted to know how you felt.”

He jolted, spine going very straight. When he spoke, it was with a brutal, damning clarity.

“How do I feel? Grateful. Blessed. Hopeful for the first time in too long to remember. I feel alive. I feel like Skallagrim!”

He returned to the side of the bed, and I thought he’d touch me, but he didn’t.

“I feel like I would crush the universe between my claws just to keep you safe. I’d kill for you. Die for you. End a thousand and one worlds for you. I feel... Obsessed. Half-bewildered by my own longing.” He paused. Then, his voice going husky, added, “Aroused.”

“Aroused?” Oh, why was my voice so squeaky? I cast my eyes up and down his robed figure, looking for signs of the heat he’d mentioned. “Are you already...”

“The starburn has not touched me yet,” he responded tensely. “But that does not mean wanting hasn’t. Even before I knew who you truly were to me, I’d vowed to keep you.”

He wants you.

He wanted you even before all this mate stuff.

My stomach flipped and I couldn’t come up with a reply to that. Apparently, I didn’t need one, because he kept speaking.

“If I am trapped, as you say I am, then it is a trap I walk into willingly. Bind me, Suvi. Corner me. Keep me.” He got down on his knees and then tipped back his snout. “I offer my throat to your blunt human teeth and bid you bite down as hard as you can.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

Suvi

Awkward didn’t even begin to cover how the next couple days felt after Skallagrim’s announcement. The loose sort of friendship that had grown between us was gone, replaced by something hot and weird and heavy that clung to me even more than my robe did. Skallagrim, who until now had often been quick to grin and laugh, was subdued, quieter, more intense. Strangely, he also started refraining from things he’d done without thought and hesitation before.

Before, he’d had no issue grabbing me to help me out of bed or supporting me on the way to the bathroom. He’d force food into my hands when he thought I needed to eat and he’d pluck me off the floor and deposit me into the bed when he thought I needed rest.

He did none of that now.

He didn’t touch me. Didn’t speak to me much, either.

Kind of ironic. We both had the webbing. We had more language between us than ever before.

But the words had all dried up.

It occurred to me, more than once, that he was hurt and trying to hide it. He hadn’t exactly given me a love confession, but he certainly felt differently than I did about this whole situation. He was extremely attached to me. He’d wanted me for a while. He was aroused by me, dear God.

He said he’d end a thousand and one worlds for me.

And all I’d done was... well, reject him. Not in so many words, and I already knew I’d sleep with him just to stave off the disaster that refusing him would apparently cause, but he had to know I wasn’t happy about how this was all unfolding.

But could you blame me? Finding out I had to fuck an alien, even one I’d grown to like, was kind of a lot, even without the whole I’ll go insane and probably destroy entire galaxies without you bit.

So, he kept his distance. I kept mine. And I tried not to notice how strange it felt, how bizarrely lonely it was, not to be touched by him.

I also tried not to freak out about the thought of going into heat. Every bit of sweat, every uncomfortably warm moment when I tossed blankets off in the night, created a writhing anxiety. I stopped doing my hockey drills, paranoid that the heat of the physical exertion would somehow bring it on before I was ready.

As if I’d ever be ready at all.

By the third day, I couldn’t stand being in this room with Skallagrim any more. I needed space. To breathe air not shared in a closed chamber with him. If endless proximity in a small space was going to bring the starburn on faster, then I had to get out.

I didn’t ask him when I came to my decision, didn’t speak to him at all. I just hopped off the bed, opened the door, and walked out. Two Bohnebregg guards outside jerked their heads towards me. They looked like they might be about to try to stop me...

Until their eyes went, in fearful unison, to something above and behind my head.

“Let my mate pass.”

The guards moved aside, but suddenly I couldn’t take another step. Skallagrim’s words had completely halted me. Frozen my feet to the floor. He’d told me I was his mate a few days ago. It was all I’d been able to think about since then.

But he’d never called me his mate to someone else before.

My breath shook as I felt the ghost of his bulk behind me. He wasn’t touching me. Still never touching me. But he was there. I could feel him without actually physically feeling him. My skin tingled. So did my nipples. His very presence was a whisper of touch along the sensitive line of my spine.

And suddenly it wasn’t enough. I almost tipped backwards. Just to feel him all the way.

I gasped, then stumbled into the hall and away from him.

Of course, he followed. I should have known he would.

“I should have made it clearer,” I said as I walked down the hallway. “I want to be alone.”