Page 59 of Stone Cold Alien

She wanted me alive. She wanted me free. I understood that.

It was everything she had not said that continued to trouble me.

She wanted my body. She enjoyed my company. She cared whether I lived or returned to stone. None of that meant she wanted me as her mate.

I flew harder until the cold air burned in my lungs.

The first warning came from the smallest finger of my left hand. It stiffened around nothing, refusing to bend when I tried to make a fist.

I should have turned back immediately.

Instead, I kept flying. I had tasted Robyn’s blood the previous day. It had healed my wing and protected me through the night. I thought I had more time.

The stiffness spread across my hand.

I turned back towards Robyn. I couldn’t see the lodge, but I could still feel where she was.

My left wing became heavier with every beat, the membrane losing its flexibility as stone crept through it.

The ground below was covered in trees and rock. There were no human dwellings, roads or open fields where I could land safely. I continued until I saw a bare ridge ahead.

My left wing stopped responding.

I dropped towards the hillside and struck the ground hard enough to drive the breath from my lungs. At least I did not hit another castle.

I managed to fold both wings before they became completely rigid. My legs were already stiffening. I lowered myself onto one knee and braced my hand against a flat rock so that I would not fall once the petrification reached my body.

The last thing I felt was the pull towards Robyn.

My heartbeat slowed until the long pauses between each beat felt endless.

I did not know how long I remained like that. There was no movement of the sun that I could follow with frozen eyes. No shadows passing across the ground. Only the wind and the occasional bird calling from the trees below.

I had escaped centuries of imprisonment and returned to it within two days.

And it was all my fault. My arrogance. My thoughtlessness.

Cloch.

Cairn would find me eventually. Robyn knew my direction, and he could search the hills from the air. If she had already left for the city, he might need hours to locate me.

Perhaps that was for the best.

Robyn would no longer have to choose between her life and mine. Cairn could bring her to me when I needed to wake, then search for the protective technology we should have worn when we first crashed onto this planet.

It was not much of a life, but it would not be her burden.

The pull towards her changed.

She was moving.

Fast.

I concentrated on it. She was coming closer, following the same path I had taken over the hills.

The sound of wings reached me through stone ears. Cairn was carrying her.

They passed overhead, then circled back. A shadow moved across my vision before Cairn landed several paces away.