“I’m sorry,” I said again. I wondered how many times we were going to apologize to each other tonight.

“Oh, Suvi, don’t be,” he murmured against my hair. “You have already brought me back to myself in a way I did not think possible. And soon-”

His words cut off, and I knew exactly why. He had been about to say something about how more of his memory might come back after we fully mated under the sway of the starburn.

I appreciated that he didn’t want to put pressure on me right now, but for the very first time, I looked ahead at what was to come without guilt or fear or resignation. I thought about what a gift I would be giving Skallagrim. If mating did restore some of his memory, in a way I’d be giving him his life back. Giving him his parents back. It might not work, of course. But if there was even a chance...

I suddenly faced the impending heat, and our joining, not with dread, but a little bit of... hope? Maybe even excitement.

At the end of the day and against all odds, I cared about Skallagrim. I cared about his mind, his memory, his pain. If I could pull him up from the bottom of that river, then I knew that I would do it. And I’d actually be glad to.

“Do you remember anyone else from your past?” I asked. “Or has Jolakaia told you about anyone?”

“No. I do not believe I ever had a brother. Although...”

He grew quiet for so long I found myself wiggling in his grip to look up at him. He shook himself as if from sleep.

“There is a male that I remember more vividly than any other. A stone sky god, like my father and me. With black wings and white hair. I feel that I was close to him, somehow...”

His words died off as my brows drew together. White hair and black wings...

It sounded like the one I’d seen before. The one who’d killed half our ship’s crew, and my good friend Torrance, on the first snowy planet we’d landed on.

Maybe he was mate mad, too...

The winged being had come to that planet in an all-consuming rage just like Skalla.

I tried not to dwell on it, tried not to think of Torrance buried under that alien’s avalanche of fury back on the frozen planet. Maybe it wasn’t the same stone sky god at all. Skallagrim couldn’t even remember who the person he’d mentioned was, or what their relationship had been like, so there would be no way to confirm. Plus, Aeshyr also had what looked like white hair, though it was shorn right down to the scalp, and bony black lines of wings. Maybe white hair with black wings was a common combination for stone sky gods, and Skallagrim was the outlier with his dark hair and green and gold body.

But even so...

It didn’t feel right not to mention it.

“I saw someone like that, once.”

Skallagrim went very still.

“The planet where you found me wasn’t the first world we visited in our ship. We were conducting research on another world when someone – a stone sky alien, I assume – came through the sky. He went on a rampage. He killed half the soldiers from our ship. And... and my friend.”

I never saw it happen. Torrance had been out in the woods on her own when we’d been shoved back onto the ship in the chaos. I saw soldiers felled by literal tidal waves of snow, wrenched up from the ground by the white-haired, black-winged alien. But I never actually saw her die.

I shivered and hoped, as I’d done many times before, that whatever had befallen Torrance had been quick and as painless as possible.

Skallagrim looked troubled, then brushed his fingers over the hollow scarring of his lost eye before returning his hand to my back.

“Perhaps that male was mate mad as well. It is impossible to say if he is the one whom I remember.”

“Yeah, I figured. I just felt weird about not mentioning it.”

He grunted and then said, “I did not know one of my kind had killed your friend.”

I didn’t say anything else because I was worried that talking about Torrance more would have me sobbing on Skallagrim’s scales all over again. I didn’t want to cry any more tonight.

He seemed to sense it, so he didn’t say anything else on the matter. We remained quiet, lost in our own thoughts while wrapped gently in each other’s limbs.

Soon, even thought drifted away from me. The inside of my head, just like my swollen eyelids, felt heavy. I nuzzled closer to Skallagrim without meaning to, and he responded with a rumbling sound and the protective drape of his wing over my body, which made me feel impossibly cozy.

I wasn’t supposed to feel cozy. Mere hours ago I’d been dreading climbing into this bed with him. But now...

Now, I couldn’t imagine us sleeping any other way in this room. It was both disconcerting and oddly comforting, to be so at ease nestled against his bulk.

His naked bulk.

But even that didn’t seem to matter right now. The awkwardness and embarrassment I’d felt had been completely stripped away, worn down to only what was raw and real. Talking about your dead sister and bawling your eyes out all over a man had a way of getting to the heart of what mattered, I supposed.

Skallagrim’s claws played idly in my hair. He was warm. So much warmer than you’d expect someone covered in scales to be. There was no heating source in the room, but I didn’t need one with him in the bed. And he was so solid. His body felt like sunshine made into stone, and I sighed against that enveloping warmth. His breath rocked against me until I wasn’t even aware of my own anymore, only his.

Or maybe we were just breathing completely in time with each other, two bodies, one rhythm.

I didn’t know.

Because I was already asleep.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Skallagrim

It was gratifying in the extreme that Suvi fell asleep so quickly while tucked against me. I’d wondered if, even though we’d agreed to share the bed, I’d have to grab her little body and drag her into it. Or if, once there, she’d remain stubbornly clinging to the far edge, putting as much space between us as possible.

But here she was. Against my chest. Under my wing. Her tear-stained face smoothed of pain.

This was already going much better than I’d expected it would.

And wasn’t that thought just a happy little hum under my scales?

I did not need to rush. Already, slowly as a spooked but curious animal, she was coming towards me now. Giving me sacred little tastes of her body. And sharing more about her past.

Sighing, I brushed a silvery strand away from her sleeping face. A stone sky god had killed not just one of her kind, but one of her friends. I had not known that, but that helped me understand her just a little more. Understand her fear when I took her. She wasn’t just afraid because I’d ripped her away from that ship.

She was afraid because she’d watched someone like me kill someone like her. Someone she cared about.

I ruminated on this, wondering if the male she’d seen could possibly be the one I remembered. I had no other memories of him, at least not yet. I did not know which world he hailed from. I did not know his name.

He’d been important to me, once. Of that much I was certain.

But beyond that...

Nothing but the black depths of the river.

I put it out of my mind. Maybe I’d remember more once Suvi and I fully bonded.

Maybe I wouldn’t.

I decided that, ultimately, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was here, now. Her.

I wanted to build a life with the bricks I had before me even if it was far from the foundations of my past.

I gazed down at Suvi’s sleeping face, desperate to touch her, draw my snout against her neck, feel the fluttery pulse of her heart. But not wanting to wake her, I didn’t. I remained still, watching, wing covering her like half a blanket, half a shield. And though I could have remained like that forever, soon I, too, was asleep.