The door I clung to suddenly began to move on its own, pushing itself back towards a closed position. And like a crumb being swept along by the bristles of a broom, I was pushed with it. Instinct didn’t serve me very well in that moment, because my body’s instant reaction was to push back against the door. I wasted precious seconds with that futile motion, not having the presence of mind to realize that if I’d just let go of the door and taken a quick step to the side, I could have remained in the room. But that didn’t occur to me until the door had shoved me all the way back out of the room and had closed itself firmly in my face.

“What’s wrong with him?” It was a broken sort of question, one of pain and not aimed at anyone in particular, but Jolakaia answered.

“He’s in heat.”

I jolted, spinning around to find her no longer at the bathroom door, but at the foot of the bed. She gazed at the place on the mattress I’d repaired, then took note of the soiled bedding heaped on the floor. I was too worried about Skalla to feel embarrassed now.

“I believe this is the stone sky mating heat. I do not know much about it... But surely he warned you of it?”

“He did, but...”

But I didn’t expect it to be like this. I thought it would just be some extra arousal thrown into the mix. But he looked like he was suffering. Badly. And there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it. I’d kind of assumed the starburn would happen to me first, for some reason. But I felt the same as before, while Skalla was falling apart.

I didn’t have enough Bohnebregg words to say any of that in a coherent way. Plus, Jolakaia had already admitted she didn’t know very much about this part of things. This wasn’t a Bohnebregg phenomenon she could advise me on. I was going in blind, completely alone.

“What do I do?” I whispered. My voice sounded pathetic and weak. I straightened up and steeled myself. Skalla wasn’t doing well and I could put my big girl panties on and deal with it. He’d taken care of me up until now.

It was time to return the favour.

“I do not know,” Jolakaia said honestly. “I assume you will enter your own heat soon enough, but for now...” She wiggled her snout in a Bohnebregg shrug. “I say, just let him be. He’s hardly a relaxed, easy-going male at the best of times, and it is clear he is not in the mood to be trifled with.”

That comment kind of made me want to cry. If she only knew, if they all only knew, what he could really be like. What he was like when it was just the two of us. How he smiled. How he made me smile.

I am soft for you, little star, and it is truth.

But then again, even I wasn’t seeing his soft side today. He hadn’t even looked at me when he’d told me to get out of the bathroom.

“Alright,” I replied. I had precisely zero intention of actually following Jolakaia’s advice and leaving him to stew in that bath all day, but I knew if I said so now I’d only be met with opposition.

“I will leave this.” Jolakaia held up the key and put it on the narrow table in the cooking area. “I highly doubt it will be of any use to you, since he can keep the door closed with his mind. But just in case you want to open it, perhaps to put some food in there later.”

“And I will leave this,” Zev said, leaning her sledgehammer against a wall. “Also just in case.”

I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d accomplish with the hammer because it was designed for brawny Bohnebregg arms and I didn’t think I could even lift it above my head. But I thanked her anyway.

“I am due at the temple today,” said Jolakaia. “If you’d like to come-”

“No,” I said instantly, shaking my head. “No. I won’t leave him.”

Jolakaia gave me a kind, knowing look.

“I thought as much.”

“Well, I’ll be here all day,” Zev said. “I cannot promise that my cooking is anything near as good as Queen Kaia’s, but come down whenever you get hungry. And do not hesitate to fetch me if you decide you want to bash that door in after all. He can hardly hold it closed against you if it is in splinters.”

I thanked them again, and smiled faintly as their words drifted to me from the stairs outside.

“That’s a fine door,” Jolakaia was saying. “We do not need to break it apart unless this becomes a true emergency.”

“But I haven’t gotten to smash anything to bits in ages!”

Soon, the sounds of their voices and footsteps had receded entirely. The balcony and wall of windows looked out over the side of the house, and not long afterwards I watched Jolakaia drive away on her two-wheel, heading for the temple.

Zev was still somewhere below, but for all intents and purposes, I was on my own now.

But I wasn’t truly alone. Because Skalla was there, just on the other side of the door.

I went back to the door, drawn by an inexplicable and inescapable force. At the last second, I decided to grab the hammer and drag it over, too, laying it at my feet as I put my fingers on the door handle.

I fully expected it to be locked again. But it wasn’t. And there was no resistance when I pushed it inwards. Skalla hadn’t moved, apart from maybe slouching down a little further into the water. I didn’t know if he’d fallen asleep, or if he knew I was there but was just too exhausted to maintain his hold on the door.

“Skalla,” I whisper-shouted into the humid room.

His breathing hitched slightly.

Not asleep.

And then, that dragged-boulder voice again, working its way up from the depths of his body.

“Not one. More. Step.”

He didn’t use the door to push me out this time, but he did give the wood a warning rattle. I snatched my hand off the handle but refused to move away.

“You’ve always taken care of me. Now, I’m going to take care of you,” I said, much more sternly than the bleating of my heart would have had me believing myself capable of. “Just tell me what to do.”

“What to...” His voice broke off in a splintery laugh. With what looked like monumental effort, he raised his head from where it was tipped back, looking at me for the first time since last night.

Skalla had looked at me with intensity before. He’d looked at me with affection, with longing, with lust. He’d even looked at me in the crazed clutches of his madness when we’d first met.

But none of those looks were anything to this one.

His gaze had become a living, breathing, throbbing thing. As if his eye had its own heartbeat. His stare pulsed through the air to me, tasted my body the way a tongue might. Clawed over my skin, licked downwards with a near-physical touch – and a demanding touch at that – to the place between my legs. And there it remained, fixed and starving.

Not hungry. Not ravenous.

Starving. As if to death.

“I will tell you what to do,” he rasped. “Leave. Now.”

“There has to be something!”

His eye alighted on the hammer at my feet. A mirthless smirk touched his snout.

“You could smash me over the head with that. Might provide a little relief.”

“Skalla!”

“Suvi!” he thundered back at me, his fingers crunching the edges of the tub until the metal there was even more twisted than before. “There is nothing to be done until you starburn!”

He breathed out hard, steadied his voice, then added more quietly, “When the heat hits, I will come to you. Crawl to you if I have to. But not until then. Only then.” He tipped his head back once more. He spoke up to the ceiling instead of me. “Do you understand?”

“I... I guess so. But I don’t like this! I wish I could do something for you.”

“You can leave,” he muttered.

Hurt bloomed, an ugly flower.

“I-”

“Please, Suvi. It is very, very difficult to sit here smelling you.” He exhaled roughly, and it was like his whole magnificent body sagged, collapsing into itself. “Do not make me beg.”