Page 71 of Alien God

“I won’t try to run,” I snapped, pushing ineffectually at his forearm. “Just let me down!”

My body shook with anxious fury, and right now what I really wanted was to hit something, or maybe a certain winged someone, rather than run. But ultimately, I needed to have some distance from him. I couldn’t keep sitting here, in the solid embrace of his body, unable to see his face.

Wylfrael urged the sontanna to stop with a word. He dismounted easily, using the strength of his wings to lift himself down with savage grace. Then he turned and reached for me.

I resisted. I swung my leg around the sontanna’s other side so that my back was to Wylfrael. My stomach sank when I saw just how high up I was, but the bank of snow beside the sontanna created by Wylfrael’s telekinetic ploughing would provide a soft enough landing. I used to jump into snow piles all the time as a kid. It’s fine.

It turned out it was very much not fine. I didn’t hurt myself, but I did get fucking stuck. The sontanna was even taller than I’d realized from up here, and the snow much deeper than anticipated. I sank into it with the full force of my weight, completely stuck from ribcage to boots.

Thoughts of Wylfrael, and the absurd thing he’d just said, vanished. So did my childhood love for the snow, replaced with something urgent and animal and hunted. My heart pounded erratically as I tried to free myself. My vision narrowed into an unseeing tunnel of darkness, nausea rising at the memory I tried so hard not to think of. The memory of being trapped and terrified and –

The snow around me peeled away in thick sheets, like wool sheered from a sheep. The sudden lack of support made my watery knees buckle, but two hands caught me, hauling me upright. Wylfrael’s chest was at my back, warm and solid. I wanted to scratch him, pull away from him, but my body had other ideas. He was so warm, so much warmer than the snow. I trembled violently and slumped backwards against him.

“I could have let you fall just now, you know,” he murmured, deadly quiet, beside my ear. “Let you see just what would become of you without me.”

The only sound I made in response was the clattering of my teeth.

Wylfrael turned me in his arms, sliding his hands up to cup my face.

“You’re shaking,” he said. “Why?”

“C-c-cold,” I stuttered. It was at least partly true. My cloak was caked in snow from my jump into the bank, and it seemed like winter had entered my very bones. But I wouldn’t tell him that most of the shaking was from fear at the feeling of being trapped, suffocating in all that white.

Wylfrael observed me with grim silence. His thumbs brushed upwards on my cheeks, a roughly calloused but gentle heated stripe along my cold skin. Out here, the blue dots along his chest, arms, and wings glowed brighter, as did his eyes. There was an azure cast over everything. His hair was no longer white but the colour of cloud-washed Earth sky, his wings not simple black but charcoal and cobalt and ash. The shimmering blue glow dusted over his face just as the starlight spilled down, illuminating the harshly elegant lines of his bone structure, regal cheekbones and rugged jaw, all sterling and sapphire.

I tried to think of more violent words to describe him – gunmetal and the colour of drowning seas – but with something close to despair I realized that no matter what words I used, no matter what I thought of him, I could not escape the fact that he was beautiful. Beautiful and alien, powerful and cruel – the kind of male who would let me fall to my knees just to see what would become of me without him.

But he didn’t let you fall.

Even now, he held my face like he was worried he might break it.

One weak and reedy word crawled out of my throat.

“Why?”

There were many questions inside that single word. Why am I here with you? Why do you want to marry me? Why is your touch on my face nearly tender when this would all be so much easier if it hurt?

“I’ll get you warm,” he finally said, his hands withdrawing from the skimming exploration of my cheeks and jaw, “and then I’ll explain.”

I was too rattled and exhausted to protest when he scooped me up into his arms. I did manage a squeak when he launched into the air, though, holding me cradled against his chest as he soared through the sky. Beneath us, the sontanna ambled along the path back to its enclosure, looking like a toy on a white blanket. I squeezed my eyes shut, stomach rolling at the unexpected flight.

It was an efficient mode of transportation, I had to give Wylfrael that. Before I knew it, he’d landed. He didn’t lower me down to the ground, though, instead striding back into the kitchen with me in his arms.

“I can walk,” I said, forcing some strength into my limbs to push against him. He merely quirked a white brow at me in response and dryly replied that I was just as likely to crack my skull on the crystal as I was to take a proper step.

Instead, he used his unseen power to slide what looked like a leather-cushioned stool to a spot in front of the crackling fire. Once it was in place, he walked to it and deposited me without ceremony onto the cushion. I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, head spinning. The ghostly feeling of fingers at my throat made me stiffen, but before I could react, my wet cloak had been whipped away, replaced by some sort of woolly brown fabric. I clutched it around myself, watching Wylfrael as he moved through the kitchen. I realized he was cooking – pouring something into a small pot that he then placed on a spot above the fire. It was a starkly unnatural sight. Like some magnificent predator had stalked in out of the woods and started performing domestic chores. Something strange, from a fairy tale. Bears with porridge and beds. A wolf in its prey’s house, wearing human clothing.

And yet, despite that, every move he made was also somehow natural. Like he knew this kitchen by heart, like he’d cooked in here before even though he clearly had staff to do it for him. He wiped up a small spill on the counter, and I stared, dumbstruck at the fact that this alien god would ever deign to clean up a mess he’d made.

But he did. And then, frowning as if he’d just thought of something, he levitated the knives from the counter up to a high, high shelf. One I wouldn’t be able to reach even if I stood on this stool.

“As my wife, you will have free range of the castle,” he said, returning to my side and grabbing the pot. “But I’d still prefer you didn’t stab anyone.”

“Your wife,” I said woodenly. I looked down at my hands. When he passed a stone cup into them, I took it on instinct, my fingers closing over the curve. Delicious warmth heated my palms, but I found I couldn’t lift the drink. I just peered downwards at the steaming, milky surface, as if it could give me some magic answer, like something spelled out in tea leaves.

“Do I have to make you drink it?” Wylfrael asked bluntly.

“No,” I said, already picturing the mess it would make if he grabbed my hair and brought the cup to my lips the way he had the first night when he’d shoved that spoon in my mouth.

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