Let them see. Let them wonder. Let them gossip about how their Alpha King had emerged from his chambers with the scent of Frosted Tears clinging to his fur and murder in his eyes.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered except returning to her as quickly as duty allowed.
Already, he was counting the minutes.
14
Elsa
Elsa had been in this room for hours.
The light through the narrow windows had shifted from morning gold to afternoon gray to the amber of approaching evening, tracking the passage of time she had no other way to measure. No clocks on these walls. No data pads or terminals or any of the technology she’d taken for granted on theStardancer. Just stone and fur and the slow crawl of alien sunlight across an alien floor.
Hours.
She’d counted them by the angle of the light, the way shadows crept across the stone, the gradual dimming that meant another day on this frozen world was drawing toward its close. The navigator in her couldn’t help but track such things, even when tracking them served no purpose except to quantify exactly how long she’d been trapped.
She’d explored every inch of the space she was allowed to access—which, given the locked door, meant every inch of the chamber itself. Had traced the carvings on the walls withher fingertips, strange symbols and images she couldn’t parse. Hunting scenes, maybe, showing massiveYzefrxylwarriors bringing down prey that looked disturbingly like the Fallen she’d seen in the storm-woods. Or religious iconography depicting their Great Snow Beast in various poses of divine majesty. Or a history of theYzefrxylempire written in a language she’d never learn to read.
The carvings were beautiful, in their alien way. Precise. Detailed. Clearly the work of artists who’d devoted lifetimes to their craft. She’d followed them around the entire chamber, trying to construct a narrative from images alone, and had succeeded only in giving herself a headache.
She’d examined his weapons collection from a safe distance, cataloguing the variety without touching. Blades of different lengths and curvatures, some designed for slashing and others for piercing, their edges still sharp enough to catch the light. Axes with heads that could split a human in half with a single swing. A war hammer that probably weighed more than she did, its surface etched with the same incomprehensible symbols that decorated the walls.
The weapons of a king. The weapons of a monster. The weapons of someone who’d killed to claim his throne and would kill again to keep it.
She’d wondered, looking at them, if any had been used in the Great Challenge he’d mentioned. If the blood of his rivals had once stained those blades. If he cleaned them himself or had servants do it, and what it meant that he kept them displayed so prominently in his private space.
She’d reorganized the cushions near the fire pit three times. First by size, smallest to largest. Then by color, darkest to lightest. Then back to their original configuration when she realized she had no idea what the original configuration had been and he might notice she’d touched his things.
Might notice and be pleased, because she’d been caring for his space.
Might notice and be displeased, because she’d been tampering with what was his.
She’d ended up staring at the cushions for ten minutes, paralyzed by indecision, before finally giving up and walking away.
Now she stood at the window, watching the inner fortress sprawl beneath her like a fever dream rendered in stone and ice. The view stretched for miles—courtyards and towers and walls that had probably withstood centuries of siege. Beautiful, in a brutal way. Designed for defense rather than comfort, function rather than form, yet somehow achieving both.
She was bored.
The realization should have been absurd. She was trapped on an alien planet, held captive by a species that shouldn’t exist, marked as property by a king who looked at her like she was the most valuable thing in his entire kingdom. Boredom seemed laughably inadequate as an emotional response to her circumstances.
But there it was. The restless itch beneath her skin. The way her fingers kept twitching toward tasks that didn’t exist. The desperate need to do something—anything—that engaged the part of her brain that had been running calculations and plotting courses and solving problems since before she could walk.
The luxury of safety had an unexpected cost.
She’d spent months in survival mode. Calculating trajectories through debris fields. Navigating crises that could kill everyone aboard if she made a single wrong decision. Fighting to keep herself and her crew alive through the chaos of theStardancer’sdestruction and everything that came after.
Now she was trapped in a gilded cage with nothing to do but think.
The thinking was worse than any active threat.
Her mind kept circling back to things she didn’t want to examine. The way she’d felt waking up in his arms this morning—safe instead of terrified. The heat that had pooled in her belly when he’d pressed against her, unmistakable evidence of his desire. The word he’d used, the one that had hit her like a physical blow.
Mate.
Not pet. Not possession. Mate.
The word echoed through her skull, refusing to settle into any configuration that made sense. She was human. He was…not. The biological impossibility alone should have made the concept laughable.