Page 52 of Alien God

“All but one are gone,” I replied. “Dead, or fled. Just as weak as you said they’d be.”

“All but one?” he pressed, and I cursed myself inwardly, suddenly wishing I’d kept the information about my prisoner to myself.

“Yes. One remains. She is my prisoner.”

Maerwynne’s gaze rose above my head, as if trying to see her through the crystal floors above. This annoyed me, and I wanted to bark at him that she wasn’t even in this tower, but I held my tongue.

“She’s female? Let me see her.”

“What?” I asked, my voice falling low in warning. It was one thing to visit me and be welcomed here. It was another thing entirely to command me in my own castle.

“I cannot risk not seeing her, Wylfrael,” Maerwynne explained. “My mate could be anywhere. I must meet this human female and see if I starburn for her, or if my star map returns.”

His darkened hand curled into a fist, and I knew instantly that he’d fight me, to the death, if necessary, to find my prisoner and potentially save his star map.

“She’s not your mate,” I snapped.

His eyes narrowed.

“And you know this, how?

“Because she’s my prisoner, and prisoners do not get nice things like mates or conjugal visits.”

Maerwynne’s wings flickered, a tiny pulse of warning.

“If she is my mate, she will not be your prisoner for long.”

I stared at him in silence, weighing my options. On the one hand, I owed Maerwynne for trying to help me with Skalla, and for opening the sky door here when I couldn’t. On the other...

I simply did not want him to go up there and see her.

“Fine,” I said after a long moment. “But I have to go give her the web first. Otherwise, she won’t understand a word you say if you start starburning and waving your knot at her.”

I rather liked that image, actually. Maerwynne besotted, my human confused and wanting nothing to do with him, rejecting him. Our mates starburned, too, a heated mating fever that allowed them to take our knots, but two mates did not always starburn at the same time. Sometimes, both felt the mating bond snap into place at once. Sometimes, it took a long time for both of them. Sometimes, it was just one, but not the other until much later.

“Will you even be able to understand her?” I asked, stopping just as I’d begun ascending the stairs. “Her people’s language seems quite young.”

Maerwynne’s tail flicked.

“Yes. I got fresh webbing when I last saw Rúnwebbe.”

“Alright. Stay here. In the meantime, you can talk to my Mistress of Affairs, Aiko. She’s just as likely to be your mate as anyone else.

With that, I left him, carrying the satchel with the final scrap of webbing up the stairs and through the tunnel. As I went, I wondered why I’d had such a visceral reaction to Maerwynne wanting to see my prisoner. Perhaps, after what I’d learned today, I did not want him to find his own mate so easily when I could never find mine.

That sort of jealousy was not a fair or noble thing, but I felt no shame in it. I was too angry to be ashamed. Too much in grief for something I’d never had but always thought I would.

But then again, I hadn’t cared about him seeing Aiko...

It was something specific to the human, then. Well, then, it was as I’d told him. She was my prisoner. It would be far too easy for her to be spirited away by another stone sky god without answering for her people’s crimes. She had yet to explain herself, but now that I had the webbing, she would.

I’d make sure of it.

I held the satchel tight and opened her door.

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