Page 156 of Alien God

“Of course, Wylfrael,” he said. “I am loath to cause any further strife between you and your lovely little bride. The shadows know you’ve already done enough to hurt her.”

Fury and shame crystallized, then shattered inside me, sending cutting shards throughout my body. I did not have time to fully react to Sceadulyr’s taunt, because more warriors were spilling from the machine, blasting their weapons at us. Between Sceadulyr’s power and mine, taking care of them was short work. But a familiar sound was starting up. The same whirring sound that had indicated the humans’ departure from Sionnach.

“Don’t let them leave!” I snarled. I couldn’t use too much power subduing the machine, because I’d need to open two more sky doors very soon. One, for Sceadulyr. And another, that I would have to keep open for much, much longer, to bring the human women through one by one. Hoping Sceadulyr would listen and assist me in this, instead of using my own power to crush or disable the machine, I stormed inside it, through the opening the warriors had come out of.

Every warrior who met me on the way had his skull crushed and his weapon pulverized. The whirring sound sputtered, then stopped, and with some relief, I realized Sceadulyr must have used his shadows to get inside some necessary component of the machine. I found yet more warriors in a room with a glittering array of buttons and screens and killed them all.

Where are they?

Where were the women? Torrance’s friends? I could not leave without them.

I closed my eyes and stilled, listening and sniffing the air until faint human voices bled through the shining silver walls. I followed the sound, and the thickening scent of human women, until I found them, huddled together in a cowering group in a large open room with many tables and chairs.

Some of them screamed at my entrance. Others closed their eyes and scrunched smaller. Some of them prayed to human gods. A few others, trembling, as angry as they were terrified, lifted their chins and stared, as if daring me to kill them.

“I will not harm you,” I said softly, advancing slowly on the group. My approach alarmed them, and the entire mass of bodies and limbs pressed harder against the wall. They had no webbing and had no idea of what I said. So, I settled on the one word I knew they’d understand, the one word I hoped would make a difference.

“Torrance.”

The shouting and crying died down, like I’d uttered a spell of silence.

“Torrance,” I said again, gruffly this time, just the simple sound of her name wrapping tightly around me, making me ache.

One woman near the front of the group, one of those who’d held my gaze and not cried and screamed, straightened. Black hair with stripes of yellowish pink rustled around her shoulders as she spoke.

“Torrance? What about Torrance?”

What about her...

How could I possibly explain it all? Explain that she was my wife, my mate. My sole reason for living and also the reason I would someday walk happily into death’s darkness?

“Torrance,” I said again. I gestured back the way I’d come through the ship. “I’ll take you to her. I know where she is. Torrance. Torrance.”

I tried to keep my voice calm and steady. I knew enough about humans, having imprisoned my own, that they could be flighty in their fear. I couldn’t afford to lose one of them in the ship, or to have one hurt herself.

“Do you think he has Torrance?” another woman asked. She had brown skin and black hair that fell in tightly-wound, kinky curls to her shoulders. “Are we supposed to go with him?”

“Fuck this!” said another woman. “He’s just like the one who took Suvi!”

“The one who took Suvi?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question, even though I knew they wouldn’t understand. Suvi was likely another human female, and someone had taken her.

I had a feeling I knew exactly who it was.

Cursed skies, Skalla, you better not have harmed her.

I would have to deal with that later. Right now, I needed to convince these women to come with me. That, or essentially abduct them myself and hope my wife forgave me.

“Torrance,” I said again, once again gesturing out of the ship.

“He’s not like the one who took Suvi,” someone in the middle said. “That guy was crazy. He didn’t try to talk to us. Just snatched her and disappeared. He’s trying to talk to us, trying to lead us somewhere.”

“Trying to lead us right into a trap?” the first woman with the stripey hair asked.

“Do we have another choice?” asked the woman with black curls. “It seems pretty obvious he just killed all the soldiers and crew. We can’t fight him.”

I held my hands up in what I had meant to be a placating gesture, but it made several of the women scream, so I quickly lowered them.

I stepped backwards slowly, showing that I was not trying to get closer. Not trying to force them to go with me. It was a bit of a deception – if they did not come easily, I would take them anyway, for their own good – but it seemed to be working. Some of the women started to, ever so slightly, relax.

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