Page 53 of Stone Cold Alien

“It projects an image around you,” Pam explained. “The Vikingar and Albyans use them all the time.”

“I am neither.”

“No. You are considerably more difficult.”

I laughed. Sten shot me a glare.

Georgie and Cairn came into the room. The other gharrgoil laughed when he saw the suit. “You will hate it.”

“You have mentioned that before. How do I put this on?”

Georgie took the suit from Pam and opened it out. “Feet first. It stretches more than you’d think.”

Sten looked from her to Cairn. “You have both done this before?”

“Several times,” Georgie said. “Although Cairn complains every single time.”

“Because it is uncomfortable.”

“And itchy,” she added. “Or so I get told several times an hour.”

Sten stepped into the suit. Cairn showed him how to wrap his tail twice around his waist before folding both wings flat against his back. Georgie checked that none of the fabric had caught against the wing joints, then pulled it higher.

I held the lower edge in place while she worked it over his tail.

“Behave,” I muttered when the tip curled around my wrist.

“I am standing perfectly still.”

“Your tail isn’t.”

“It likes you.”

“So you keep claiming. But I think you have more control over it than you pretend.”

He didn’t answer that. And I was pretty sure he was avoiding my gaze. Busted.

Once the suit covered his wings, Sten tested the fabric by trying to move them. His jaw clenched when they remained trapped against his back.

“Does that hurt?” I asked.

“No. But I cannot move my wings.”

“You won’t need them in Glasgow. You can’t fly there anyway.”

“That does not mean I want them bound.”

He turned his head towards me. For a moment, I remembered how it had felt to wake trapped beneath his wing. For me, it had lasted a few seconds. Sten had spent centuries unable to move any part of himself.

“We’ll take it off as soon as we’re somewhere private,” I promised. “This is just for when we’re out and about.”

The hood stretched over his horns. Once it covered his face, the fabric shimmered.

Grey skin became a human shade of brown. His horns disappeared beneath short black hair, and his golden eyes turned dark. The suit projected a shirt, jeans and boots over his body. His wings and tail vanished completely.

A human man stood in front of me.

He was tall, broad and handsome. He also looked entirely wrong.