Текст книги "Alien god"

Автор книги: Ursa Dox

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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.

That both pleased and greatly annoyed me. Or perhaps the annoyance was more from the fact that I was pleased at all. That I should feel any sort of satisfaction that this human, this prisoner, approved of the world she’d invaded.

“Do you have snow where you come from?” I asked.

I’m just gathering information about her people and planet as part of the interrogation, I told myself, pushing back against the possibility that I was curious specifically about her – her experiences, her life, and what she’d left behind.

She breathed in deeply, then out, before answering.

“Yes.”

I tried to strangle the instant feeling of kinship that single word had created.

“Do you like the snow?” I asked.

So much for strangulation.

I focused on swishing snow out of the way, on moving forward, so that I could not confront the idiocy of the question I’d just asked.

“Yes,” she said again. Something melancholic, maybe wistful, quieted her voice. “I love it.”

Blast it all into the stone sky.

Something in me was nearing desperation. Desperation to remind myself just how different we were. That not a single thing in her should be admired or shared or respected. That we had nothing, nothing in common.

Except she liked the snow. Loved it.

Just as I did.

I had no plan as we walked. I just kept moving forward, towards the treeline, concentrating on carving out the path. I wondered if I’d ever stop, or if I’d just keep going until dawn, Torrance trailing quietly behind me. It was only her sudden intake of breath, and some softly murmured word of surprise, that caused me to halt.

“What is that?” she asked. I followed her gaze to the open structure beside the barn. There was a single sontanna there, the same one I’d seen before. I wondered if we had more of them, taking shelter in the barn with the sotasha, or if this was the only one. I’d been so busy with Torrance and Skalla and Maerwynne that I had very little clue as to what was happening on my own estate.

But I could at least answer her question.

“It’s a sontanna,” I said.

“Can... can we go closer?”

There was something in her voice, some hushed wanting that made my skin feel hot and itchy despite the fact I had no vest or cloak. I regarded her closely, noticing she’d once again changed colour on me. Her cheeks were very, very pink, as was the tip of her nose. But there were no signs of discomfort that I could discern. Her eyes were luminous beneath the starlight, peering out from below the hood I’d put on her, fixed entirely on the sontanna.

I should deny her this.

I knew it. I knew that I should not continue to give way to her, to lose my grip. I’d already let her out of her room for this walk, and I knew I should not give her yet more things she wanted. I knew it, even as I turned my body and started carving a path towards the sontanna.

Torrance hurried behind me, her steps quicker than before, her body close to mine. Her fogging breath and body heat skimmed over my bare back and wings, a ferociously pleasant sensation that I simultaneously despised and ached for.

We reached the sontanna’s enclosure. I murmured steadying words to it, testing its training. It remained calm, and upon closer inspection of the size of its antlers, I concluded she was female. I’ll have to ask Shoshen her name as soon as I get the chance.

I patted her pink and silver neck, and she tossed her head contentedly.

“Any friends in there, girl?” I asked her. “A mate?”

I leaned over, glancing through an opening into the barn. All I saw in there were sotasha and a sleeping hunting hound. No mate, no foal. We’ll have to remedy that soon. Though she was large and strong, I could tell she was young. We’d need to find a mate for her soon. Though sontanna did not naturally live in packs, they were social animals, and they mated for life.

I went back to patting her neck, becoming once again aware of Torrance beside me when she spoke.

“Will he bite me?”

“She’s female,” I corrected.

“Oh. I assumed because of the antlers that... Well, obviously she’d be different than something from Earth. Although, I think female reindeer have antlers, now that I think about it.”

“You have creatures like this where you come from? Earth?”

A shimmering smile touched her lips. With a tightening of my jaw, I realized this was the first time I’d seen Torrance smile without a touch of malice or defiance in the expression. Her countenance was tender, touched with something akin to reverence.

“No. Not like this,” she answered. Her voice was softer than usual, too. No anger in it, no fear or notes of complaint, just something that was far too close to awe-struck affection for my comfort. “We have horses and deer but she’s more like a unicorn, just with antlers.” Her cheeks grew pinker, her voice even sweeter. “She’s like something from a dream.”

So, the human could dream. And she dreamed of beautiful things, things like sontanna with pearlescent coats and manes like morning sky.

I could not remember the last time I’d dreamed.

“What’s her name?”

I did not know, and I was ashamed to admit it to her. Which was absurd, that I would feel shame for anything in front of her, an interloper, a prisoner. But I was. And it only added to my shame that I wanted to lie about it. To come up with a name on the spot, just so that I would not appear to be the sort of man who did not deign to know a name.

But I could not think of an appropriate name, or even a word to act as one. I stared at Torrance, and the only words pounding through my head were ones like soft skin and honey, tiny and willful, bruised and beautiful. No! Stone of the sky, not beautiful, something else, something –

“Will she bite me?” Torrance asked again. Apparently, she’d given up on me answering the name question, and I found myself abhorrently relieved by that. Her small hands had emerged from her cloak and were clasped together in front of her chest, as if she was barely holding herself back from reaching for the creature.

“Yes,” I grunted, knowing it wasn’t true. “Sontanna are notorious for biting insolent females.”

Torrance dropped her hands. The tremulous smile disappeared, her mouth flattening into an expression of shielded disappointment that made something in the vicinity of my chest twang painfully.

“Although,” I said, ignoring the voice inside me that told me to stop, stop now, to let her be disappointed, let her be sad, blast if I cared, “if I held her, she likely wouldn’t.”

Wariness crept into Torrance’s gaze, warring against something that looked like hopeful desire. It was a desire I recognized easily, something almost child-like, pure and innocent, born out of love and loneliness. The tender-hearted need to stroke a beautiful animal, to befriend it, to protect it and be protected.

Once again, a sense of kinship rose inside me. And once again, I struggled to beat it back. I did not want to think of her as tender-hearted, as someone who loved animals and snow like I did. I wanted her simple. One-note. An unrepentant, belligerent, evil little thief. I wanted her to be someone who deserved everything I could throw at her.

Make me hate you, I hissed inside my own head.

But, as she was wont to do, she disobeyed.

Instead, the tight wariness faded from her face, and the aching hope grew stronger, brighter, until I could no longer deny it.

I fisted the sontanna’s mane – gently, barely even holding the pink strands, a mere illusion of mastery – and uttered a quietly stern command meant to make it look like I was in control of the calm creature when such control was not at all required.

“You’re sure?” Torrance asked, one final brush of hesitation even as her hand rose in the air.

I have been sure of nothing since I found you.

“Yes,” was all I said.

Her hand floated upwards, trembling slightly. Her slender fingers made tentative contact with the sontanna’s mane. The sound of her gasp shot through me, like starlight spearing through water.

“Oh,” she whispered thickly, her other hand rising to stroke the sontanna. “Oh, you’re lovely, aren’t you?” The sontanna snuffled happily, as if in agreement. Her pink tail swished, and she lowered her nose, bumping it to Torrance’s cheek, knocking the hood back and nuzzling inward.

Torrance’s eyes went so wide I worried she’d been injured by the contact. My fist tightened, ready to wrench the sontanna back, but my fingers slackened instantly when Torrance began to laugh. It started as a shaky huffing sound that expanded into something louder, more melodic. Her eyes shone, glimmering with moisture as I’d seen them do before when she was unhappy, and I could not help but wonder what had made her sad even while she laughed.

I want you simple.

Sorrow and laughter. Innocence and treachery. A stolen crystal knife in a soft little hand. A hand that was stroking and petting with such gentleness now, reaching to hug the sontanna’s bent neck.

“Do you want to ride her?” The question was out before I could stop it. Torrance’s laughter ceased.

“I... I don’t know how. I’ve never ridden a horse on Earth.”

“You don’t need to know how. I do.”

“You mean I’d be riding with you?”

She looked at me aslant, rolling her lips between her teeth, clearly weighing whether riding the sontanna would be worth sitting that close to me.

I was about to snatch the offer back, to order her back up to her room, to shove her into her place, the place of a prisoner I could at least try to control and understand.

I opened my mouth to do it, but it was her voice that echoed on the air.

“Fine.”

We watched each other, as if both testing the other’s nerve. I released the sontanna’s mane and grasped Torrance’s waist. Ignoring her cries of, “Just get me a stool! Or stirrups!” I hoisted her upward and set her on the sontanna’s back.

With a beat of my wings, I lifted to join her. I straddled the sontanna, and when I got into position behind Torrance, feeling her narrow hips pressed between my splayed thighs, I knew I’d made a grave error of judgment.

Perhaps she also wondered about my judgment.

“Why are you doing this? Why did you even let me out here?”

The answer was something I would not even attempt to untangle for her. Instead, like my false show with the sontanna a moment ago, I lied.

“I merely thought you’d respond to my interrogation better somewhere other than your room,” I said. I decided that I could make that into something other than a lie and that I would use this time to question her.

“Oh,” she said, the word flat and unreadable. I fought the urge to grab her by the shoulders and twist her so that I could see her face. Her hood was still lowered, her hair warm as a breeze stirred the strands against my chest and neck.

With a Sionnachan command and a tightening of my legs, I urged the sontanna into motion. The jostle of movement made Torrance slide sideways, and my right arm looped around her waist, steadying her. I found I did not know what to do with my other hand, so I curled it into a fist against my thigh.

She was tense as twine pulled too tight in my hold.

But she did not tell me to let go.

I did not need reigns, or even gestures or words to direct the sontanna. I merely had to use my power to clear the snow, like I’d done while we were walking, and the sontanna followed the path. As it walked, I made good on my promise of interrogation and asked Torrance questions of her people, her world, and why they’d ever dared to come here.

“We need resources,” she told me. “Cleaner power sources to fuel our planet to help preserve our environment. At least, that’s what our mission was about. We were studying your trees.”

“Stealing them, you mean,” I butted in, remembering what I’d seen when I’d first returned. Tools and trees all carved up.

She breathed out heavily.

“Yes. I fully admit that. What we were doing was wrong. We came here uninvited and started taking things from your land. I completely understand why you’re angry. I would be, too. I am, in fact.” Her voice turned brittle. “I didn’t want this. None of us did. We were abducted by our own government for the mission. No one on Earth even knows what’s happening. It’s all secret, what they’re doing.” She paused, then quietly said, “I wish I knew what happened to them.”

“To whom?”

“To the other women like me. The women the military brought here. We’re all scientists; we all have different skills that were useful on the mission. But we were too low-ranking on Earth to have the clearance to know the details of the program before we were taken. None of us would have agreed to go anyway, knowing we were essentially invading other worlds. So, instead of asking us to volunteer, or training us, they took us against our will.”

“Why only women?”

Stone sky gods produced only male offspring, which necessitated us finding our mates on other worlds, among other peoples. But I did not believe the humans were this way – I’d thought many of the ones I’d killed were male.

“We have our theories,” she said darkly. She hesitated, then added, “We heard about one mission. To a different planet. The crew was killed and all the women were taken hostage by male aliens. We think that us all being female was on purpose. To maybe use us as leverage, somehow, if needed. To bargain with our bodies.”

My lip curled in disgust at that. If that was true, then I was doubly glad I’d killed so many of the ones with weapons, and only wished I had killed more.

Whether it was true, though, remained to be seen. I still could not tell if she was telling the truth about being a victim or trying to curry some sort of favour with me.

“I wish I could find them,” she sighed, sagging, tension ebbing from her body. “I don’t want to go back to being stuck on the ship against my will, but I just want to make sure my friends are OK.”

Even if I’d wanted to help her in that, I wouldn’t have been able to. I could open doors to other worlds but had to know which world to go to first, and I had no idea where her people’s machine had ended up. It was why I needed the council’s help to find out where Skalla was now, especially since Rúnwebbe would not tell me. They could use one of the relics of Heofonraed to locate people in the sprawling map of the cosmos. They could find Skalla. And her people’s ship.

But that didn’t matter now. The council wouldn’t let me anywhere near them while unmated, and Rúnwebbe’s prophecy forbade me from ever finding my fated bride.

But...

I straightened, the air feeling suddenly colder and sharper as an idea began to take shape inside me. I could not track down my true mate for fear of triggering her death, but the only way to access the Council of the Gods was as a mated male. But what if I married someone who wasn’t my true mate? There was no way to know for sure a male was mated. Not unless you caught him rutting his woman with his knot swollen for her and only her. Although, there was the lingering threat of mate-madness and star-darkness... But neither of those things had touched me yet. If I acted quickly enough, they might hold off long enough for me to join the council. I’d be able to learn what was going on in there and find out where Skalla was.

I didn’t have a bride, of course. But I did have one human female in my grasp who was just desperate enough to strike a bargain with me.

“There is one way we might find your friends,” I said, my words fast and tight. I lowered my head to speak directly against her hair. “I will require something of you first. But if you do it, and we succeed, I will not only assist you in finding them but also give you your freedom.”

Her spine went hard and straight against me. Her hands, which had been in her lap until now, curled around my forearm, her short blunt claws pressing into my skin.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked, her breath quickening, and once again I detected that battling mixture of wariness and hope.

I expected that the wariness would win out this time, but I answered her without hesitation anyway, my words at once a question and a statement and a vow.

A question with only one answer.

A statement of fact.

And a vow that I would not be denied.

“Marry me.”

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CHAPTER THIRTY Torrance

“Marry me.”

Everything went still. Even though the sontanna kept plodding along, and Wylfrael continued creating a path ahead for her, all movement seemed to cease. Even my own breathing stopped for a moment, which brought an irritated question of, “What is wrong with you now?” from behind me.

“What’s wrong...” I stammered, staring at the snow ahead. “What’s wrong is that you just... you just...”

“Told you to marry me. Yes.”

“Told me to!” Anger at his arrogance helped burn away the numbing shock. “Where I come from, you’re supposed to ask. You get down on one knee with a ring and you ask. You don’t tell someone to! God, why am I even trying to explain this? Let me off this horse – shit – sontanna right now!”

“The snow is deep here,” Wylfrael said, a deep rumble from his chest penetrating the thick fur of the cloak. “You cannot run.”

“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.

I managed to do it by simultaneously lowering my head and raising my hands. I took a small sip, shuddered, then sighed. Luscious heat bloomed down my throat, warming me from the inside out. It was the sweetened milk drink that accompanied so many of the meals here, but there was something distinctive about it. It seemed that Wylfrael had a different recipe than the Sionnachans who I assumed normally prepared my meals. It still had that honey-like sweetness, but there was a biting spice, too. Not quite like ginger, but close. I took another sip, already feeling better than before.

Wylfrael watched me drink, leaning back against the crystal counter, his arms crossed, his eyes focused slits. As I worked my way through the drink, he began to speak.

“The only ones who can locate your friends are the stone sky gods at Heofonraed. They are called the Council of the Gods. I also require their assistance in another matter. But they will not hear petitions. In order for either of us to gain access to them and their resources, I will have to join the council and put forth both our cases.”

I lowered my cup, needing all my focus to follow the influx of information.

“In order to join the council,” he continued, speaking with a mundane, matter-of-fact style that made everything all the more surreal, “I require a bride.”

“Why?” I asked.

Wylfrael sighed tightly, as if already trying to determine how much effort to spend on explaining what was likely a long and convoluted story.

“Every stone sky god has one true mate. The one he starburns for and binds his life to. The one he’s meant to marry.”

“And... I’m yours?”

Wylfrael’s mouth flattened harshly, his response cold and cutting.

“No.”

“Then... What? Why? Go find your soulmate or whatever and marry her! Just let me go! I want nothing to do with this!” My head ached, and I took another sip of the fortifying drink.

“I cannot claim my true mate for my own reasons,” he said icily. “But as long as you play your part correctly, no one will know that you are not her.”

“So... it would be a sham marriage?”

Wylfrael’s wings twitched. He rose from where he’d been leaning against the counter and went to the door that led into the entrance hall, as if making sure no one was near. Apparently satisfied, he came back and crouched so that his face was at my eye level.

“Yes.”

The firelight played over the left side of his face while shadow painted the other. In that moment, he had two faces, one warm and distinct, one dark and lit only by the cold blue glow that came from within him. I wondered, sitting across from him, if I had two faces, too.

“So, I’ll pretend to be your wife so you can get into this council, and then you’ll help me track down the other women on the ship? And I’ll be free?”

The two split sides of Wylfrael’s face answered in unison.

“Precisely.”

The effect of the light was strange, making him slide in and out of my reality. I wanted to ask him to turn one way or the other, to either be fully in the shadow or fully in the light.

But instead, I asked him something I hadn’t even realized I’d been thinking about until it was out of my mouth.

“And you won’t require anything else of me? The things one would expect in a marriage. You won’t-”

“Love you?” He gave a mirthless, scraping laugh. But there was a discordant note in the sound. Like something in my question had unnerved him.

“I’m not asking about love,” I said archly. “That’s obviously not even part of the equation. I’m asking about physical relations.”

His nostrils flared slightly, but otherwise he went very still.

“I require only that you behave in such a way as to convince anyone around us that the bond is true between us. No one, not even the Sionnachans who are loyal to me, must know that this is false. This will mean some displays of affection, some touching, but likely nothing close to what you would deem relations.”

I tried to imagine it. Wylfrael touching me to imitate affection instead of power or control. What disturbed me was that I didn’t have to try very hard to picture it. I only had to call back to some of the odd, still moments we’d shared, when he’d stroked me tenderly, as if searching for something, sliding his thumb along my cheek or down my bruised arm.

Well, if more of that sort of touching was required, I supposed that wouldn’t be too terrible. He was already doing that. And it beat getting ordered around and grabbed.

A smile unfurled on my face as I realized just how much control a bargain like this could give me.

“You won’t be able to tell me what to do anymore,” I said. “You won’t be able to bark orders at me or confine me to my room. You can’t do anything that would make the Sionnachans think something is wrong between us. You’re supposed to – what is it? Starburn? So, you have to act like you’re in love with me.”