Skallagrim’s claws played idly in my hair. He was warm. So much warmer than you’d expect someone covered in scales to be. There was no heating source in the room, but I didn’t need one with him in the bed. And he was so solid. His body felt like sunshine made into stone, and I sighed against that enveloping warmth. His breath rocked against me until I wasn’t even aware of my own anymore, only his.
Or maybe we were just breathing completely in time with each other, two bodies, one rhythm.
I didn’t know.
Because I was already asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Skallagrim
It was gratifying in the extreme that Suvi fell asleep so quickly while tucked against me. I’d wondered if, even though we’d agreed to share the bed, I’d have to grab her little body and drag her into it. Or if, once there, she’d remain stubbornly clinging to the far edge, putting as much space between us as possible.
But here she was. Against my chest. Under my wing. Her tear-stained face smoothed of pain.
This was already going much better than I’d expected it would.
And wasn’t that thought just a happy little hum under my scales?
I did not need to rush. Already, slowly as a spooked but curious animal, she was coming towards me now. Giving me sacred little tastes of her body. And sharing more about her past.
Sighing, I brushed a silvery strand away from her sleeping face. A stone sky god had killed not just one of her kind, but one of her friends. I had not known that, but that helped me understand her just a little more. Understand her fear when I took her. She wasn’t just afraid because I’d ripped her away from that ship.
She was afraid because she’d watched someone like me kill someone like her. Someone she cared about.
I ruminated on this, wondering if the male she’d seen could possibly be the one I remembered. I had no other memories of him, at least not yet. I did not know which world he hailed from. I did not know his name.
He’d been important to me, once. Of that much I was certain.
But beyond that...
Nothing but the black depths of the river.
I put it out of my mind. Maybe I’d remember more once Suvi and I fully bonded.
Maybe I wouldn’t.
I decided that, ultimately, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was here, now. Her.
I wanted to build a life with the bricks I had before me even if it was far from the foundations of my past.
I gazed down at Suvi’s sleeping face, desperate to touch her, draw my snout against her neck, feel the fluttery pulse of her heart. But not wanting to wake her, I didn’t. I remained still, watching, wing covering her like half a blanket, half a shield. And though I could have remained like that forever, soon I, too, was asleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Suvi
When I woke up, I was warm.
A little too warm, actually. I groaned, wondering how the hell I’d fallen asleep against the metal wall of a furnace.
But that furnace apparently had an arm. And when I struggled, it locked hard around my waist, tugging my back tighter against it.
“Too hot,” I moaned, slapping sweat-dampened hair away from my forehead and opening my eyes. Although opening them didn’t allow me to see much. Disoriented, I blinked at a vast, leathery sky of dark green dotted with gold stars. It was such a beautiful sight that I almost didn’t mind the confusion. So I just stared blankly at that weirdly opaque sky until I realized in the hazy way of just waking up that it was Skallagrim’s wing tossed over me.
No wonder it’s so hot. Not only was his wing producing heat, it was trapping it, creating a starry tarp of insulation over top of me.
“Skallagrimmmmm,” I moaned. But the arm at my waist held fast. Scowling, I started poking at the wing, which thankfully withdrew even though the bulky arm didn’t. Sunshine flooded in. I gave another wiggly attempt at escape, then froze when the unmistakable ridge of a bulge behind Skallagrim’s slit nudged at my ass.
“Skallagrim!” I hissed. “Are you...”
I had been about to say, Are you getting hard? but at the last second I faltered. “Are you asleep?”
He gave a smoky-sounding grunt that could have been an answer either way.
“I have to pee!”
He grunted again, this time more awake-sounding and more growly, but ultimately snaked his arm out from around my waist. I scooted forward, worried he’d change his mind, then got clumsily out of the bed and headed for the bathroom. After getting all sweaty in sleep, I decided to fill the tub with some water, washing first my body and then the clothes before hanging them, wet, along the edge of the tub. My robe was in here, clean from last night, and I put it on before heading back out into the main room.
Though I was the one who’d taken the time to get ready in the bathroom, Skallagrim was somehow the one who actually looked more put-together. Last night his hair had come loose, and one look at him as I’d fled the bed this morning had shown me a sleep-tangled dark mane surrounding the body of a half-asleep alien behemoth.
But he was no longer half-asleep, nor was he in the bed at all. He was standing, his hair tied back in a lustrous braid. And he was wearing clothes! He wasn’t naked, or wearing the temple robe. He was wearing honest-to-goodness trousers, something I’d never seen on him before.
I... I kind of liked it.
His chest was bare, his posture excellent, his wings in a relaxed tuck behind him. My eyes scraped down the muscled planes of his torso, tracing the hard V shape that I now knew led down to the place in his scales that split open to let out his two cocks.
But I couldn’t see that area now, because he was wearing trousers. And he looked damn good in them.
They were obviously a Bohnebregg garment, though Skallagrim was bigger than any other Bohnebregg male I’d seen so far. This resulted in the fabric being rather snug across his trunk-like thighs, and the pant-legs looked a couple of centimetres shorter than I would have expected, but on the whole, the look suited him.
“You look nice,” I said, feeling heat tickle at my cheeks.
His posture got even better if that was possible, spine straightening and shoulders pulling back.
“You should know,” he said, “that I intend to woo you.” He said it casually, breezily. Like he’d just announced that he planned to take a walk this morning instead of lobbing some life-altering declaration at me.
“You... What?!”
“Woo you,” he repeated. He cocked his head a little. “Perhaps you have no word for that in your language. I plan to court you.” His eye darkened to deep amber. “Seduce you.”
He was moving, now. Moving on those long, strong, trouser-clad legs towards me.
“Uh, is that really necessary?” I said, stumbling backwards.
“It is,” he purred, advancing.
My back hit a very poorly-placed wall, trapping me.
“But you already... we already...”
We already came all over each other and fell asleep wrapped around one another last night.
Oh God.
“You do not yet want me as I want you.” His tone was light. Too light. Like it was masking something, trying not to fracture under the weight of hidden hurt. “I have decided to change that.”