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Aurora stretched beneath her covers. She kept her eyes closed, that glorious feeling of coziness and comfort earned after a good night’s sleep a welcome and familiar friend. She worked back through the events of the night before with mild confusion. She remembered talking with Rhaego. Sitting and eating and asking questions that were probably too personal, and then he’d…

He played with my hair. Her whole body compressed as she held in a squeal.

After that, all she could recall was a heavy drowsiness and the gentle scratch of claws along her scalp. She must have dozed off. Her lids slid open. Shouldn’t she be more concerned about not remembering her night? Shouldn’t she feel even a twinge of anxiety, wondering how she got into bed?

No such feeling arose. Instead, a glowing warmth pulsed inside her, realizing he must have carried her to her room and tucked her into bed. A little whistle of a squeal escaped then.

She inhaled a deep breath, stretching her legs and flexing her feet until she felt a cramp building in her low belly. She replayed the last few days—her poor sleep, irritability, and general feeling of grossness—and rolled her eyes. The signs seemed so obvious now, yet she’d totally missed them. With everything going on, the onset of her period felt like one step too far for whichever gods or goddesses were challenging her.

A smell, warm and delicious, caught her attention and invaded her senses. With furrowed brows, Aurora lifted a handful of her hair to her nose and sniffed. Burrowing into her covers with a secretive goofy smile, she buried her face underneath piles of hair and breathed in the lingering smell of Rhaego.

Whatever cologne he used must’ve been strong enough to transfer from his hands because her hair had held on to his scent through the night. She lay there for a long time, hair swamping her face like Cousin It from The Addams Family .

What time was it? How long had she been sleeping? Considering no rays of sunshine were pelting her in the face, she assumed it was still night. But how could that be? She couldn’t have slept for more than four hours, yet she felt incredibly well rested. Aurora stared at the window, trying to gauge where the moons were to help guess the time.

Sitting up, she squinted. No moons. But not only that. No nothing . No mountains. No stars. No clouds. No sky.

The windows looked black, like someone had poured paint over them. Aurora rose, yawning and scratching her softer-than-ever hair. When she approached the window, she nearly put her nose against the glass trying to see out, but couldn’t. It was like they’d turned solid.

Crossing to the latch and unlocking it, she swung the window open and inhaled an icy breath when cool morning air rushed in. Her pores closed, skin tightening and nipples hardening in the morning chill. Still gathering her bearings from sleep, she stared uncomprehendingly at the lightening sky. The sun hadn’t risen yet, but if she judged the steely misty color of the world correctly, it was about to. It looked like that hour just before dawn, the time when frost was most likely to turn the world into a shade cooler than it normally was. She looked at either side of the window, realizing that the glass itself was dark instead of clear. How in the world was that possible? Rhaego must have done something to it last night.

A spike of mild annoyance flared through her at the realization that she’d had the alien equivalent of curtains this whole time and hadn’t known. “Fucking Phirdo,” she cursed under her breath.

Crunching leaves drew her attention to the line of trees that bordered the steep cliff edges on the sides of the den. She hung out of her window frame, peering at them with bated breath, wondering if she was about to catch sight of an alien creature doing some early morning grazing.

A moment later, Rhaego appeared, eyes burning with fever. Her mouth fell open.

He wore soft pants knotted at his hip, but that was all. His wide, heavily muscled chest glowed like a red ember in the frosty morning. Dark chest hair spread across his pecks and ran down his sturdy torso until it vanished in a line beneath the band of his pants.

His body was a work of art, every inch sending molten throbbing through her core. She licked her lips, her breath growing heavy as she took in the sight of his burly muscles bunching as he stalked out from between the trees. Every inch of him exuded strength, but he didn’t look sharp or hard the way a bodybuilder might. A layer of flesh covered his mountains of muscle. She stared at his meaty pecs and suddenly understood the appeal of burying your face in an attractive chest.

Aurora bit her nails, mind running rampant with imaginings of how warm that valley between his pecs would be. His chest hair would tickle her face, and his cologne would be really strong in that spot, heated and intoxicating.

A sharp cramp caught her by surprise, as though her uterus were punishing her for not currently being pregnant with this demon god’s child.

She couldn’t blame her hormones. Rhaego was a divine creature. The hair on his head was more untidy than she’d ever seen. The thick waves were no longer neatly tucked between his horns, but flowing around them. Wild.

Her eyes narrowed on his horns. The base of them and the ridges that ran up the front were nearly purple, as if they were bruised or scratched. Curiosity took hold.

What was he doing out here half-naked and fever-stricken? Her eyes dropped to study him with a more critical eye. He wasn’t even wearing shoes.

Just then he stopped in place and dipped his head toward his pocket. He dug out a communicator, a device she’d learned was a kind of cross between an electronic computer screen that folded and a phone. He looked at something as if he’d just received a message or was getting a call. His brows furrowed as he read whatever was on the screen, then to her horror his gaze lifted, landing directly on her.

In line with her recent smattering of embarrassing worst-case-scenario choices, she squeaked and dropped to the floor out of sight. She shut her eyes, burning with mortification while huddled on the floor beneath the window. He’d obviously seen her, and he’d obviously seen her dash out of sight, and he would obviously now think that she’d been spying on him.

Why didn’t you just nod at him or wave or do any of the normal things people do when they see each other?

But what could she do now? Compound her humiliation by standing up and facing him again? No. Instead she reached up until she felt the frame of the window and, as awkwardly as humanly possible, shut it.

***

Aurora had assumed the morning would be filled with uncomfortable silence and or blurted excuses, but instead it was filled with avoidance. Or perhaps that was just in her mind. She’d seen Rhaego for all of five minutes before he’d disappeared, claiming he needed to hide all of his equipment away before Phirdo arrived to escort them to Tuva’s city center.

That was perfectly reasonable. That made sense. And it definitely didn’t mean that he was avoiding her after catching her being a Peeping Tom. She wanted to bury her face in her bowl every time she recalled it.

Choosing some mixings that would hopefully boost her confidence and success today, she stirred her brew and silently poured her intention into her spell before consuming it.

Her mind kept creeping toward embarrassment, so for good measure she nibbled on the salty fisquat seeds, closed her eyes, and breathed in, acknowledging the negative feeling, then breathed out, releasing it, as it was not useful.

By the time she stood up from breakfast, she felt better. When she saw him, she’d apologize and explain, then move on. There were more important tasks she had to focus on today.

She walked through the house, ears pricked for any sound of him. Finally she wandered down a hallway on the upper floor of the house and heard his deep rumbling voice emanating through a doorway.

“Has he grown worse?”

She didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but his voice was resonant even when he was being quiet. She could hear the tension in Rhaego’s voice, the stiffness in his vocal cords as though his body were rigid and bracing itself.

He must’ve been asking about Marsol.

Aurora didn’t hear a response and Rhaego didn’t repeat it, but his next words rang with determination and intensity.

“She’ll talk to Diana today. With any luck, we’ll be gone next week.”

Aurora backed away down the hall and closed off her ears. There was a lot riding on her, and she’d never been the best under pressure. She was not a performer. The spotlight made her nervous—it always had.

Her gran had even said her parents used to fly into her nursery every morning in a panic when the monitor had been dead silent, only to find Aurora waiting patiently as though she hadn’t wanted to make a fuss. She was just naturally a more passive person in most things—unless they mattered, unless they were important, and then she could be daring.

This mattered. This was important. Not only to ensure Marsol remained alive and healthy, but to ensure Rhaego remained free and to show him that he hadn’t made a mistake in helping her. She wanted to be a good teammate. She wanted him to see her as valuable and not just some burden he needed to coddle—no matter how much she’d enjoyed it.

So she set her mind to the task at hand, muting all feelings of self-doubt. Not only could she do this, she would do this. There was no other option.

Rhaego emerged from his room, looking as handsome as ever in a navy vest with gold detailing. He wore fabric around his middle, an accessory that fell somewhere between a belt and a sash. It was embroidered with natural elements and cinched across his sturdy waist, enhancing the delicious slant from his wide shoulders to his hips.

Aurora’s gaze lifted to his horns, but all signs of injury that she’d seen before were gone. Either he’d healed himself or she’d dreamed the whole thing. He wore no jewelry on his horns like he had before. Because they were sensitive?

Heat crept through her belly. It was oddly exciting to ponder exactly how sensitive they were…and how exposed.

A chime rang through the home, the ceiling flashing a gentle blue light.

Rhaego straightened his hair between his horns, finally catching her eye. “Ready?” The question was full of significance, but she didn’t feel undermined by it the way she might’ve if someone else were asking. It didn’t sound like Ready? You’d better be . It sounded like Ready? If not, I’ve got you. We’ll figure it out. I’ll see you through .

There was something reassuring and safe about Rhaego, and she wanted him to feel the same sense of security with her, so she tipped up her chin, gathered her confidence, and nodded. “Ready.”