Page 58 of Alien God

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Wylfrael

I was acting unreasonably. I knew it, and so did Maerwynne. The tilt of his head as he regarded me told me he was trying to work out why. Why I was limiting his contact with a mere prisoner. No doubt he wondered if, like Skallagrim, I’d started going mate-mad.

Perhaps I was going mate-mad. I certainly did not feel as steady as I once had. But there was nothing for it now, even if that was the case. I’d never be able to seek out my mate and stave off the madness now that I knew what would happen to her.

I had no control over my future.

But I could control this situation. At least, I could try. And right now, retaining control meant keeping Torrance within my grasp, no matter how unhinged it made me look to Maerwynne.

The half-Vizhiri god seemed to come to some conclusion. Whether that conclusion was in favour of my sanity or not, I could not say for sure.

“Alright, Wylfrael. I will leave you now. I plan to visit the Sionnachan villages in case my mate is somewhere else in your world.” His red brows drew together. “I presume you will not hinder me in this, the way you have hindered me with Torrance.”

“Correct,” I grunted. It bothered me how little it bothered me – the idea of Maerwynne speaking to Sionnachan females – when the thought of him alone with Torrance made me want to smash something. It wasn’t as if I thought Torrance needed to be kept safe from him, either. Maerwynne, like the Vizhiri males of his mother’s culture, adhered strictly to stringent codes of honour. He’d trained his body and his mind endlessly, as males in his mother’s world had to, to hold back the Vizhiri urge to drain a female of her blood. He was a master of control and paragon of near-puritanical nobleness. Unlike most stone sky gods who took lovers before they found their fated mates, he, as part of his Vizhiri training, was celibate. I knew he wouldn’t harm Torrance in any way.

I realized with a lurch of loathing that I’d likely already hurt Torrance far more than Maerwynne ever could. I was not sure, though, whether that loathing was for myself, or her, for making me care. I remembered her panting in pain after I’d put the webbing in her ear. The arching agony of her body, writhing beneath mine, while something very close to terror seized upon me. Terror at her frailty, the tortured twisting of her form, the way she’d hurt when I had not meant for her to hurt. I had not anticipated, had not intended –

“I bid you farewell then, Wylfrael. After I visit the villages, I will depart Sionnach.” Maerwynne’s voice cut into the whirl of my thoughts. “As you so rightly pointed out,” he added archly, “my disappearing star map limits my time here. I will see you at the gathering.”

He pulled open the door and launched into the air, disappearing into the storm.

I stepped forward and closed the door once more, snow scattering across the floor and my boots, before turning around to face Torrance.

Her left ear was mostly hidden by her long hair, but the soft curl of flesh at the bottom was slightly visible. The skin there was bright red, a human sign of inflammation, perhaps. A corporeal reminder of the torment, brief but terrible, I’d inflicted.

Am I the weak one?

Disoriented by her reaction to the webbing, and trying to beat back my shame, I’d cut any sense of mercy for my prisoner to the quick. I’d sneered at her when she’d called me a monster, and I’d mocked the very frailty that had made me so afraid. I’d tried to turn her agonized response into a symptom of her own human weakness, rather than a consequence of what I’d done.

Part of me wanted merely to say that she deserved it and be finished. To use her own guilt to absolve myself. But it seemed that what she did or did not deserve mattered less and less every passing moment. I’d seen her suffer, made her suffer. Been the cause of it, and condemned by it, all at once.

Those eyes of hers condemned me, too. Looked at me like I’d somehow betrayed her even though I owed her nothing.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I ordered her before I could stop myself.

“Like what?”

Like I’ve somehow failed you, I said inside my own head.

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