Skallagrim seized my wrist, halting my harried progress. He whirled me back around to face him, and for a moment he almost looked shocked that he’d done it. He stared blankly at my wrist held in his claws, like it was someone else who’d grabbed me.

And then his face hardened, darkening as if with some sudden decision. It was as if, since he was already touching me, he might as well keep going. The physical distance that had grown between us over the past little while collapsed like the last log turning to ash in a fire. His grip tightened, and he backed me up against the wall, his other hand going to my jaw, holding my chin firmly.

“Do not tell me what is real and what is not,” he murmured. “How I am with you, how I care for you... Do not tell me those things are of little consequence. Do not tell me that the most vivid and important moments of my life are false.”

“How can you say that when you don’t even remember most of your own life?”

“I remember or have relearned enough. I was not raised to follow the way of cotton, Suvi. My father was a powerful stone sky god. My mother was a battle-hardened berserker princess. Once, I was a warlord prince of this land. And even now, my instincts make me want to fight and take and hoard. The need for bloody victory has been bred into my very bones.”

His wings pulsed in and out, rhythmic as a heartbeat, punctuating each sentence. “I am proud. I am possessive. I am violent. I will not hide these things from you.”

The way he caged me in and leaned down to me cast his face in shadow. But his eye was bright.

“I know myself well enough to say with clarity and conviction that no one would accuse me of being a soft male.” His thumb stroked at the inside of my wrist, caressing tenderly, drawing sparks beneath my skin. “But I am soft with you, little star. For you. And it is truth. The greatest and most guiding truth I have ever known.” Something buckled in the furrowed set of his brow. “Is that not enough?”

Something that felt a whole lot like loneliness ached in my chest until all I wanted to do was touch him back. I missed Skallagrim even though he was right in front of me.

I caught myself just before I nuzzled into the hand cupping my jaw, horrified by my own lack of control.

Was I that touch-starved?

Or was it because it was him that held me?

“I don’t know.”

It was my response to my own questions and to his. His eye searched my face for a long moment, his snout so close to my mouth we could have kissed. I almost thought we were about to. And disturbingly, I had no idea if I’d push him away, or...

But in the end, Skallagrim was the one who pulled away. Not too far. Just enough for me to push off the wall and stand properly. He released my wrist and jaw, and the absence of him felt suddenly wrong. Cold and strange. I rubbed at my own arms and started to walk, trying to shake off the feeling.

Skallagrim fell into silent step beside me.

But inside my head, there was no silence. Because someone – maybe the ghost of Elvi’s voice, or maybe my own subconscious – was nagging at me.

He only broke Nakib’s leg and hurt the others for your sake, you know.

Skallagrim watched me from the side. I could feel it.

That just makes it even worse! I shot back internally at the voice. It’s not like I asked him to do that!

You couldn’t ask him anything because you were unconscious, the voice pointed out blithely. And then, suddenly louder, pounding, gong-like and accusatory, Would you rather have died than have somebody fight for you?

This time, the answer wasn’t “I don’t know.” The answer was as instant as instinct. I couldn’t hide from it, couldn’t shy away.

No.

I wanted to live.

I may not have liked his methods, but Skallagrim had fought for me, for my life. It was terrible, bloody over-kill (and thank goodness no one was actually killed) but it had saved me, he had saved me, and...

And he was afraid.

That voice sounded more like Skallagrim’s than anything, which was very odd.

I supposed it didn’t matter because I knew the voice was right.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Skallagrim

It was with relief that I realized things were not as dire between Suvi and me as I’d thought when she halted a few steps inside the medical room and said, “I don’t want to stay here anymore.”

Tension between my wings suddenly eased, and my first real smile in days stretched at my snout.

“Of course, Suvi,” I said quickly, warmth blooming in my chest at the thought of creating a real home with her. “I will take you away from here. I will build you a house. A glorious palace on the river and we will-”

“No.”

We had just walked into the room and she was ahead of me, looking towards the far wall. Now she turned to me, and her expression showed none of the hope and anticipation I felt. It was just as closed-off and weary as it had been before.

“I don’t want to leave Callabarra,” she clarified. “I just... I can’t stay in this room anymore. I need windows. Sunlight. Space.”

There was a lingering emphasis on that last word, and I knew exactly what she meant. Blast.

“You mean space from me.”

Her words did not confirm it. But her eyes did.

She will starburn soon. She will starburn and the bond will be sealed. I tried to soothe myself, to fight the mounting panic that told me she would never need me as I needed her, and, even worse than that, that she would never truly want me, either.

You’re just as trapped as I am. That’s what she had said.

I’d argued with her then, but by the stars in that moment I truly felt it. Trapped by fate, by circumstance, by my own inadequacy in the eyes of the only female who mattered.

I was losing her. Losing her and I’d barely even had her to begin with.

That made me very afraid. And being afraid made me very, very stupid, as evidenced by my next thoughtless words.

“Don’t you think I’d want somebody willing?” I hissed, claws flexing. The hole of my right eye ached. “It is not as if I chose this. It is not as if I chose you.”

The irony was that at that point, you could have lined up every female in the known universe, paraded them before me in a smiling, enthusiastic row, and I wouldn’t have spared a single one of them a glance. They could all be naked, on their knees, writhing with pleasure and begging for me, telling me they loved me, telling me they’d mate me, ease my burdens and my madness and my mind, and it wouldn’t even matter. Not one infinitesimal bit.

Because none of them were Suvi. My grey-eyed, luscious, kind, clever, gentle, generous, stubborn little Suvi.

My Suvi.

My little star.

How dark the night feels without you.

Suvi looked as if I’d slapped her. Her voice was very hard, but it was small, and it made me hate myself.

“I want to go back to my people. To the other humans.”

“That is not an option.”

The sooner she understood that, the better. Maybe once she stopped longing for something that could never be, she’d turn just a little of that longing onto me. Her mate, for the skies’ sake!

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because I do not even know how to find them!” I retorted. “Maybe you did not notice, but they left the planet in their craft nearly the same moment we did. I have no way to discover where they are now.” Something tugged at me as I said the words, made me think they might not be entirely true. There was something locked up in memory I could not access. Perhaps would never be able to access, even after Suvi starburned and we mated. But there was something...