“Here! Here it is!”
He grunted.
“It’s on my star map, then. Good. Not every world is. I suppose you’ll want me to take you back there when this is all through. You and your friends.”
“No,” I said, my excitement fading. “I don’t think Earth will ever be safe for us now. We’ll have to figure that out, as a condition of our arrangement. Think about where the other women and I can live to be safe.”
His fingers twitched against mine. He said, in a monotone voice, as if he were controlling every word, every syllable, “I suppose I could grant you and the others safe haven here.”
I stilled, the stars turning into a meaningless blue blur.
“Stay with you?” I asked.
“Well, no, not really,” he said. “I’d be at Heofonraed as part of the council. But there’s room enough for you all in the castle, and then even without me, you’d all be protected by the Riverdark spell.”
“You care if we’re protected? All us humans whom not long ago you were so mad about invading your world?” I asked, confused enough to finally look up from his hand.
“I care about making sure you go through with our deal,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “If that means housing a bunch of human women as insolent as you, I suppose I’ll do it. I won’t be here to be annoyed by you all. I’ll be too busy on the council.”
“I’ll... I’ll think about it,” I said. In some ways, it was an ideal solution. Human forces would be loath to come back here ever again after Wylfrael’s rampage. We could breathe the atmosphere, the native Sionnachans were kind and generous, and our home base in Wylfrael’s castle would always be protected. It would be a lot easier than trying to find another world that would be safe.
“Hey,” I said, something suddenly occurring to me. “Do you think other stone sky gods have ever visited Earth?”
I thought of stories. Legends of angels and demons and gods. Sublime, winged beings from the sky. I wondered if that was all based in something alien rather than celestial.
“It is possible. I had not heard of your kind before now, but that doesn’t mean another stone sky god has not travelled to your world at some point. Perhaps to claim his mate.”
“Hmm. How many stone sky gods are there?”
“When I was last awake, dozens.”
“That few?” I said, surprised. I assumed they’d be like humans – billions of them out there.
Wylfrael’s wings twitched, like they wanted to expand in the tube.
“We can only reproduce with our fated mates. When we starburn, we grow the knot that can bring forth children, but not before then.”
“What the hell is a knot?”
He gave me a flat look.
“Something you do not need to concern yourself with. I do not have one, because I have not starburned.”
It was obviously some weird alien bit of anatomy related to sex and fertility. Starburning almost sounded like some kind of second puberty.
I relaxed a little bit.
“So, you’re impotent, then? Without this knot?” There was relief in the statement, but the nature of the relief surprised me, made me ashamed. It wasn’t relief that he’d make good on his word not to require sex of me. It was relief that I wouldn’t ever be tempted.
Tempted! To have sex with Wylfrael!
It was ridiculous. And it made me feel like I’d gone off the deep fucking end. But when I remembered the hot suck of his mouth on my wrist, I-
“I am not impotent,” Wylfrael said. There was no blustering ego, no defensiveness in the declaration. It was just a simple statement of fact. “A stone sky god is perfectly capable of copulation with someone who is not his fated one. He just does not starburn, and does not have the knot that can make that person pregnant.”
“Oh.” My relief, my sense of safety – not from him, but from my own stupid self – deflated instantly.
“Anyway, this is why there are not many of us. It takes much time to find one’s fated mate, and children do not always come quickly even after that. Sometimes, the female starburns much later than the stone sky god, which means she cannot easily take his knot before then.”
“Hold on, she starburns too?”
He confirmed it.
That was fascinating. That this mating bond could result in a biological or hormonal change in a whole different species, someone from an entirely different planet. I still didn’t know what the hell a knot was, but based on the way my skin was heating, my nipples hard and not from the cold, I decided not to ask further questions on the topic, afraid of my own bizarre reactions.
I was still holding Wylfrael’s hand. I was kind of surprised that he was letting me, that he hadn’t pulled it away with a berating word by now. I let it go and turned around so my back was to him once more.
“Alright. Show me this starfinder, please.”
Wylfrael raised a hand over both our heads, moving it in an arc under the domed top of the upright tube. There was no click of a button, no whirring of power like in a machine, but something was happening. The sky visible through the clear top of the tube looked like it crashed around us, stars falling everywhere, expanding and swirling down the dome and walls of the tube.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered, entranced by the shower of stars falling over us, like drops of shimmering rain, and the top of the tube was a clear umbrella.
“I suppose I am now,” Wylfrael murmured beside my ear. “Though such proclamations seem a little excessive, even from a devoted wife. I’d tone it down a little in front of the others.”
“Oh, my...” I almost said, Oh, my God again, out of annoyance this time, not awe for the starfinder. “I wasn’t talking about you.”
“You have another god, then?” he asked, and I could hear the smirk in his voice.
“Well, if you must know, humans have many gods,” I huffed. “And let me tell you, you are not the most impressive among them.”
His smirk turned into a throaty, dark chuckle that made something deep inside me tighten.
“As long as you don’t run off and marry any of them. As long as I’m the only one who’s yours.”
He paused, then, asking it casually, like he didn’t really care about the answer one way or the other, he said, “Do you already have a mate?”
It incensed me that this arrogant alien had never even thought about this before now. That it had never even crossed his mind, that I could be spoken for. Not that I had anyone back home – it seemed to be a condition of the women who were abducted for this mission, no living relations or spouses – but still.
“What would you do if I said yes?”
I wasn’t sure if he actually moved or if it was just my awareness of his hot bulk behind me growing keener. But he seemed to get closer and larger in the space, muscles and wings and stars closing in on me.
“It would change nothing,” he said, a new edge of ice coming into his voice, freezing the smirking laughter that had been there a moment before. “You are marrying me, and for the rest of your mortal life, you are mine.”
“Hold on. I thought that once you got on this council, I’d be free to do whatever I wanted. I know I can’t go back to Earth, but does that mean I’d have to be alone? Forever?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly know that when I made this bargain with you!” I said, jaw tight. Not that I was planning on dating a Sionnachan or something, but it still would have been good to know about that piece of things before I agreed to all this.
“If word gets out that you’re taking lovers, it would put everything we’ve worked for into jeopardy. A starburning bond is sacred. A stone sky god’s fated bride would never stray, even if they are physically separated.”