Page 66 of Alien God

“Call me crazy, but reminders like that are helpful when you’re trapped in an alien’s tower,” I retorted.

“Reminders of how I could destroy you in an instant?”

“Reminders that you’re not going to kill me.”

He didn’t respond to that, instead thrusting the garment towards me.

“Put this on.”

“What is it?” I asked. It was too long and floppy to figure out what it even was. It just looked like a blanket to me.

Wylfrael fiddled with something I couldn’t see, then swept the fur behind me, settling it around my shoulders. His knuckles brushed my neck, making me swallow dryly, muscles contracting. The roiling columns of his irises shifted from his fingers to my throat, and a distinct tension entered the area around his mouth and jaw. He withdrew his hands and straightened, having had to bend over quite deeply to make up for the massive height difference between us.

“It’s a cloak,” I said, feeling rather stupid for saying something so obvious out loud. I reached up, feeling the silken ribbon that Wylfrael had tied in a bow at the hollow between my collarbones. The tied ribbon held the cloak closed at my shoulders, the garment flowing downward to pool around my boots in a soft circle of fur. I stroked the bow, slightly amazed that someone with claws and fingers as large as his had managed such a delicate task. The skin of my neck tingled where he’d grazed me, and without thinking, I traced the places he’d touched me. My fingertips ignited the echo of that skimming contact.

Wylfrael observed me silently, then, as if deciding rather suddenly to do it, he bent to me once more, his fingers returning to the area of my neck. My breath snagged, and my palm flattened to my throat in a protective instinct.

But he didn’t touch my skin again. Instead, he felt along the fur gathered around my shoulders, then pulled it upward. A hood framed my face, exceptionally soft fur tickling my temples and cheeks.

And then, silent as the very substances that made up his domain – snow, rock crystal – he stepped away and opened the door.

Clad in the clothing of his world, I went through it.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Wylfrael

The storm had deposited a significant amount of snow around the castle. The huge pile left behind by my snow wall no longer looked out of place. Other huge drifts, like swells of a frozen sea, or dunes of a far-off desert, undulated over the land.

I raised my hand, beginning to clear a path forward. If it had just been me alone, I probably would have ploughed my way through it, thankful for the cold effort of the task. But the thought of Torrance trying to walk through, or climb over, drifts that came up past her shoulders, made my wings tense in irritation. She’d probably snap her ankle, or that ridiculous little neck of hers.

I refused to look back at her, at her neck. So pathetically skinny and breakable. So smooth-skinned and supple and warm, throbbing with her human heartbeat, constricting under my touch as if unsure whether to swallow, speak, or scream.

I did not need to look back to know she followed. Her footsteps made softly muffled sounds, and her human scent was close behind me, distinct in the crisp air, easily detectable even under the Sionnachan cloak. Her breathing, at first quick and shallow, grew deeper, more rhythmic.

She likes it out here.

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