But it looked like Wylfrael was just fucking fine. He’d survived Skalla only to go on and kill my friend. I dug my fingers hard against the wood of the beam and listened.

“It’s me, cousin,” Wylfrael was saying, like he thought Skalla might not recognize him. “It’s me.”

Skalla got off of Wylfrael and stood, pulling the other man up with him. They both turned towards the house, but they didn’t appear to see me behind the beam.

“I’m sorry I scared her,” Wylfrael said. “It was not my intention.”

I scoffed bitterly at that. He’d killed Torrance without a thought but now he didn’t want to scare me? I glared, hating the look of this man. Where Skalla was warm and raw and vital, this alien male seemed... Cold. His eyes roiled like blue fire, and he held himself upright with a certain alert stiffness, like a fucking duke from a novel.

“What is your intention, Wylfrael?” Skalla asked slowly, staring hard at his cousin. “Why are you here?”

“I am here because my own human mate demands that I make sure her friend is alive,” Wylfrael replied.

I blinked in shock. He had a human mate, too? Obviously someone who knew me if they’d sent him specifically to check on me. Which meant...

It was someone from the ship.

I waited with bated breath, but he didn’t say anything more about who his mate was. Instead he narrowed his shockingly blue gaze.

“You are one to speak of my intentions,” he hissed, “when you yourself crashed into Sionnach and almost destroyed everything. You almost killed me twice.”

Skalla’s thick, scaly tail swept over the stone, his snout tightening with what I could tell was regret.

“I barely remember that,” my mate said with a harsh sigh. “I remember when the madness started, and with my last bits of reason, I went to Sionnach, because I trusted that you would do whatever it took to keep others safe from me.”

“I tried,” Wylfrael replied. “We fought over many worlds. I nearly died, and spent eons recuperating in some foreign desert, under red mountains. Then, you crashed into that world, too. I took you to Heofonraed, but they would not help me.”

“They would not help you either?” Skalla asked, sounding surprised. “Not long after I found Suvi and rationality returned to me, I went to them. Suvi wanted to find out what happened to the other women. But they would not open their gates or hear my petition for information.”

“There is much that I must tell you,” Wylfrael said darkly. I shivered in the heat as he began to unfold the strangest tale. He spoke of a fake marriage bargain with a human he’d captured. Apparently, only mated males could be a part of the council, so he needed to present a false bride at Heofonraed so they’d accept him. And when he gave the name of the woman who’d agreed to this bizarre bargain, I nearly lost my grip on the beam and toppled right over.

Because it was Torrance.

She’s alive!

At least, she had been at one point. But that hope began to dwindle as Wylfrael kept on talking.

“We, neither of us, had starburned,” Wylfrael said, his hands folded tightly together behind a tense back, as if even just telling this story disturbed him. “I had no reason to think she was my true mate, even though by that time I had married her, and the marriage had become one of love, not falsehoods. So I took her to Heofonraed. Skalla, it was chaos.”

He paused, staring furiously at the cracked fountain, before continuing.

“They did not hold the customary vote but instead put me through a trial. They used some sort of deception, made me fight a great, foul creature. But when my blade pierced its heart, the illusion faded and my sword was buried in Torrance’s chest.”

He kept his tone icily neutral except for a sudden break of emotion on Torrance’s name. I smacked my hand to my mouth to keep from sobbing.

“But we had not starburned. We had not bonded. She died in my arms. And I remained.”

I’d assumed Torrance was dead this entire time, but somehow, this was far worse than the grief I’d already gone through. Because she’d been there, dangled in front of me, so close I could practically reach out and grab her. Save her. But now she was well and truly fucking gone.

“Wylfrael,” Skalla said, his eye burning with pain for his cousin. “I-”

Wylfrael cut him off with an impatient twitch of his fluffy, fox-like tail.

“I require no sympathy. She yet lives.”

OK. Sorry. What?

Surely, I had heard that wrong.

But Wylfrael went on as if what he was saying actually made sense instead of sounding completely impossible.

“I took her to Sceadulyr. He got his shadows inside her and they did their work. He brought her back, though afterwards he dragged me half across the known universe in service to my debt to him.”

Skalla angled his head my way, searching the house, and I could tell he was wanting to confirm I was there and that I was alright. Clearly, hearing about Wylfrael almost losing his mate had rattled him. Meanwhile, I was still over here fucking flabbergasted that my friend had actually died, just not the way I’d thought, and now she’d apparently been brought back to life.

“Ill tidings,” Skalla muttered, turning back to Wylfrael. “Clearly, the council thought you’d die. It’s an easy way to kill a stone sky god, to target his mortal mate that way. Cowardly.” His voice hardened, fangs flashing, and I knew he was thinking of Koltar. “Pathetic. What is their purpose?”

“I don’t know,” Wylfrael replied. “But I’ve warned every stone sky god Sceadulyr and I have come across in our travels about what happened; told them not to take their mates there or try to join.”

Skalla ran his hand down his braid and hissed a sigh.

“This can mean nothing good. This is something we will have to address, and soon.” His gaze softened, and my insides softened right along with it. “Right now, I have little room in my head or heart for anything but Suvi and the babe.”

“I understand,” Wylfrael said, and it really sounded like he meant it. Like he, too, couldn’t do anything but love Torrance, and for the first time I thought that maybe he might just be the tiniest bit alright in my books. “Congratulations, by the way. I couldn’t help but notice.”

I frowned in confusion, then it hit me. Couldn’t help but notice my belly.

Skalla grunted.

“I am going to ignore the fact that you saw so much of my mate’s body just now. Otherwise I’d have to kill you.”

“You already almost did. Twice.”

“I am sorry for that, Wylfrael,” my mate said, and I knew how painfully sincere he was. I knew how what he’d done in his madness still gnawed at him with venom that went just a little deeper every day.

“I am endlessly thankful that I was not successful,” Skalla added. “I would have come to Sionnach, to see what became of you, but I have not been able to tear myself away from Suvi, especially now that she carries my babe in her belly.”

“I am just glad you and I are both alive,” Wylfrael replied. “And Suvi, too. I admit, I feared I’d find something very different here today.”

There was taut silence, both males likely imagining the same horror that I was – the horror of what would have happened to me if my touch hadn’t soothed Skalla’s madness right away.

If he’d accidentally killed me.

“Torrance will be glad to hear the news,” Wylfrael said, breaking that ugly silence. “All the women will be. They are together, safe on Sionnach.”

Skalla grinned, and I smiled so widely that my cheeks pinched. They were alright! Wylfrael had obviously somehow managed to do what Skalla couldn’t. He’d freed them from the ship. We knew where they were!

“And that news will make Suvi happy,” Skalla said.

Ha! That was putting it mildly. I was fucking thrilled!

“I would take her for a visit to Sionnach,” he continued, “but I find myself concerned about bringing her through a sky door while pregnant.”