Page 61 of Alien God

“Loud enough to be heard through the crystal door,” Wylfrael replied, looking unconvinced. “Weeping... Why do humans weep?”

For a moment, I wanted to scream, to say that it was all because of him. But instead, I just looked down, down and away from eyes that both demanded and beseeched.

“We weep for what we’ve lost.”

Though I watched his boots, I could feel his gaze raking over my head and face, like a physical drag. One of his black boots twitched forward, like he was going to take a step and collapse the final distance between us.

I wondered if he’d touch me. Hold me the way he’d held me upstairs when I’d been hurting.

In a vague and distant way, as if this were all happening to someone else, I wondered if I’d let him.

His foot stilled. He didn’t move except to say, “I have lost things too, little human. More than a mortal like you could ever even hope to fathom.”

He’d called me a mortal... Did that mean he wasn’t?

I am not a monster, but a god...

“The length of someone’s life doesn’t tell you anything about how much is in it – how much there is to lose,” I retorted, ripping my gaze up from his boots to his eyes. “I’ve lost my family, my friends. Everything!” I gestured wildly about the space. “This is all yours, isn’t it? Your castle, your servants. Your world.”

His face darkened, and for a moment I thought it was with animosity. But I realized with a small, startled cry that it wasn’t. It was agony.

“What I lost today was worth more than any world.”

Seeing this side of him – something other than moody arrogance and icy control – shocked me to my core. It cracked my defences, and left me with the absurd desire to take his hand and say, “I’m sorry.”

But I filled in those cracks, refusing to feel for the man who’d trapped me.

“Maybe you deserve it,” I spat.

That was a mistake. Maybe he really will want to kill me now.

But he showed no anger. The twisting grief in his expression deepened for a split-second, then suddenly vanished, replaced by wintery distance.

His gaze fell to his hands, which he looked at oddly, as if he didn’t recognize them.

“Perhaps I do.”

A hushed beat passed. Weariness flooded my limbs. I absolutely hated it, but all I wanted now was to crawl right back into my beautiful jail cell of a room and sleep.

Without another word, Wylfrael led me there.

Without another choice, I let him.

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