Page 86 of Alien God

“I’m not a petulant child! I was walking up and down stairs all day and I’m exhausted!” Torrance snapped as I knelt in front of the chair.

“I was also raised to believe that if something is physically difficult, it means you need to do it more,” I said. “You need to exercise. Strengthen your limbs. Your kind is weak.”

Weak, terrifyingly weak. Like I could break you with a glance.

“Excuse me,” she hissed. “I’m a scientist, not an athlete. Forgive me for getting fatigued by climbing about eighty million stairs in one day.”

“Eighty million? Really? Is that your best, most scientific estimate?”

Fury flashed in her eyes, and I could tell she was about to send some scathing retort my way. I ignored her, draping the black silk around her shoulders, seeing how the colour suited her oddly ever-changing human complexion.

The touch of the silk on her skin had a de-escalating effect I wouldn’t have believed considering how angry she’d looked a moment ago. But rage was now replaced with confusion, as she looked down at my hands, and the fabric, like she hadn’t noticed me bring it over here in the first place.

I watched her face carefully as her expression softened.

“You like it,” I murmured, feeling, absurdly, like I’d been victorious somehow. There was a hateful sort of satisfaction in the fact that I’d chosen something to her taste. That I’d brought her something she wanted, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

Grudgingly, I had to say that she was not the only one who liked it. The dull grey tunic she had on was now hidden, her narrow shoulders awash in slippery, shimmering black. It made her skin glow, made her eyes deeper, her hair colour richer. Like this, in my crystal chair, drenched in the colour of deepest night, she did not look like some frail human prisoner. She looked like a captured queen. Trapped, but radiant all the same.

“Doesn’t matter if I like it. I don’t need it,” she said, hardening her features as she turned her visage up to me. “I don’t need any of this. A few extra outfits would be useful, but entire chests of fabric for one person? With more on the way? It’s too much.”

I held myself in check with icy will, not willing to acknowledge how much the rejection of the silk was bothering me.

“You still do not understand,” I said, keeping my tone cold and detached. “This is merely one of many things you will be expected to accept in your role. You will be outfitted as befits your new station as the wife to a stone sky god.”

“Do all stone sky brides have to deal with this?” she asked tartly, like she’d sucked on something sour.

“I do not care what other stone sky brides do,” I hissed, control over my impatience cracking. “I only care about mine.”

Mine. The word had come out vicious. It startled Torrance, her defiance shifting to wariness.

“And sleeping in this room with you?” she said slowly. I stared at her mouth as she spoke. “That’s just one more thing I’ll have to accept, I suppose, considering you didn’t even bother to tell me.”

“Of course, you’ll sleep in this room,” I snapped. The silk was beginning to slide downwards. I let it go until it pooled around Torrance’s hips. “No newly mated stone sky god would sleep away from his bride. I’m surprised you would have expected otherwise. Is it different among humans?”

“Well, no, it’s not, but-”

“But what? I feel I have been very clear on the terms of this arrangement, Torrance. You must convince everyone, everyone, that you are my true mate. If you can’t even do that here among the Sionnachans, you will never make it past the keener eyes of other stone sky gods.”

Ah, there it was. That flare of pride I was growing to recognize in her.

“I can do it.”

“Good,” I said. “Now stand up so Aiko can drape you properly and get your measurements when she comes back. They won’t be much longer.”

It looked like I’d put acid under her tongue, but she did it all the same.

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