Which made the tall Bohnebregg figure watching us from the doorway all the more jarring when I turned around.

“Honoured Eye,” Jolakaia said with quiet respect.

Much louder, and with none of the respect, Skalla growled, “What do you want?”

“Skalla!” I scolded him, shooting him a sharp look. Koltar had never done anything to earn our ire. He’d watched Skalla hurt his temple’s guards and then he’d helped us anyway. He’d allowed us in, gave us his resources so I could be healed, and all of it under the threat of Skalla’s rage.

“It was a perfectly legitimate question. I am simply inquiring what he wants,” Skalla grumbled. “Surely you cannot find fault in me for that.”

“Sometimes it’s not what a person says but how they say it,” I countered crisply, rolling my eyes. I turned back to the male in his saffron-yellow robes. “Hello, Koltar.”

When it became very clear that Skalla had no interest in facilitating the conversation and I’d get none of his translating skills, I switched, with the stiffness of an unused muscle, to Bohnebregg. The webbing in my ear has made it too easy to talk to Skalla in human languages.... I need to practise more...

“Is there a thing we can make with you?” I said stiltedly. Crap. That wasn’t right. I tried again. “Is there a thing we can help with you... You with?”

Close enough. Koltar smiled, obviously understanding the question, or at least the sincerity of it.

Skalla hissed out a dramatic sigh, as if it physically pained him that I was paying any mind to one of the most important people in the entire fucking city. He rubbed viciously at his snout, glaring at the Mother’s Eye.

“I am come merely to see how you fare, Suvi, and to congratulate you. I did not get a chance before you left for your new accommodations.”

“Congratulate...” I pursed my lips in confusion. “Why?”

“Why, for your bonding, of course!”

“My... what?”

Koltar’s gaze went to Skalla.

“I have heard the good news. That you and Skallagrim are mated. I confess I am not well-versed in the matter. I am going on legends around the ancient princess Jolakaia and her mate – Skallagrim’s parents – and the bits I’ve picked up from Aeshyr. But from what I’ve gathered, the bond between a stone sky god and his mate is powerful indeed.”

He was staring intently at me now, as if trying to see right inside my brain, and all at once it hit me.

He’s congratulating me on sealing the mate bond by taking Skallagrim’s knot.

My cheeks flamed, and Skalla made a rough noise before stepping in front of me, blocking me from view.

“You have bonded,” Koltar said to the wall of Skalla’s body, “have you not?”

Skalla’s wings flexed with restrained fury, and I was glad it wasn’t just me who found that question to be extremely invasive. Even Jolakaia looked awkward about the whole thing, turning to fiddle with the knob on a nearby machine.

“How about I bond my fist to the inside of your skull?” Skalla seethed, knuckles cracking with tension at his sides.

“Skalla,” I said, scolding him yet again but much more quietly this time. I placed a calming hand on his back, and watched the muscles of his wings and shoulders jump in response to my touch. As strange as I found Koltar’s question, I wasn’t about to let Skalla actually hurt him because of it. To Koltar, I was an alien, and so was Skalla to an extent. It wasn’t surprising for Koltar to be curious about these things, even if it did make me immensely uncomfortable.

Skalla exhaled roughly and forced his posture to relax.

Koltar said nothing for a moment, as if still expecting one of us to actually answer. I supposed he was used to people jumping to obey him and giving him whatever information he wanted whenever he asked for it. But there was absolutely no way I was going to answer him, and it was obvious that Skalla wouldn’t either. I cringed at what Skalla would even say. Yes, she is my fated mate, but alas, I have not yet been fortunate enough to get a single one of my cocks into her!

Jesus Christ.

“Best wishes to you both,” Koltar said at length. Jolakaia mumbled a respectful goodbye at his back as he walked out of the lab.

“I do not like that male,” Skalla hissed vehemently at the now-empty doorway.

“Do you like any male?” I prodded.

“If I did, it would have been in my past,” he said testily. “All the males among my current acquaintance are decidedly obnoxious and it would not grieve me to see their spines ripped out.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sure they feel the same way about you,” I replied with a chuckle and a pat on his tense back.

Skalla was possibly the most dramatic male, alien or human, in the entire span of the universe. But I was slowly learning how to deal with him. I trusted more and more each day that he’d listen to me when it really counted. He wouldn’t hurt someone if I didn’t want him to. At least... I was pretty sure he wouldn’t. As long as I was conscious and able to tell him not to, that is, previous bone-breaking incidents aside.

“Come on,” I said, patting him once more. “Let’s go eat.”

I almost said let’s go home.

CHAPTER FORTY

Suvi

Iconfigured myself into a new position on the two-wheel that was less comfortable but also far less prone to edging me into a near-painful state. I probably looked a bit silly – I was essentially sitting side saddle with my legs pressed together and thrown across Skalla’s lap – but it worked. And this time, I could actually relax a little bit and enjoy the ride.

I wasn’t much one for speed, and that was alright, because the Callabarra streets had just as many pedestrians and slow-rolling wagons as it did two-wheel vehicles. The drive was relaxed, the sun warming me gently as it dipped behind the tall wood-framed buildings at the city’s centre. The further we got from the temple, the more the houses were spaced out, with gardens and small fields and even ponds dotting the properties. One house was even built on stilts above one such pond, and a group of about a dozen Bohnebregg children were playing a game there that involved a flat-looking rock and sticks. Hockey sticks.

“Skalla! Can we stop?” I said, twisting to keep the kids in my sight as we passed them. Skalla yanked back on the steering pole, the rod of it mercifully bumping against my hip instead of my clit this time, and brought us to a stop at the side of the wide, dirt road.

“What is it?” he asked with some tension as I hopped off of his lap.

“I just want to see what those kids are doing. It almost looks like they’re playing hockey!”

Skalla turned his eye back towards the children we’d passed with renewed interest. I’d mentioned hockey to him before, I didn’t think I’d done a great job explaining it.

“Come on,” I said excitedly, grabbing his hand and tugging. “Let’s go see.”

It wasn’t hockey, of course, but there were elements that made it similar enough to slap a sky-wide grin on my face.

There appeared to be two teams, each with six squealing Bohnebregg children. One team stood on one side of the pond, the other opposite them. There were three large hoops on each side of the pond, for a total of six, flat circles on the ground about a metre in diameter each and moving progressively further from the water’s edge. The children took turns, one from the first team, then one from the other, on and on, each of them slapping the flat rock with their long-handled sticks as hard as possible. The goal, it appeared, was to make the rock skip across the pond’s surface and land in one of the hoops on the other side. There must have been some kind of points system, because when one child got the rock into the hoop furthest away on that other side of the pond, their team erupted into cheers and the opposing side howled.