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.”
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.