I pulled up a chair and sat directly across from him.Major, the traitor, jumped up into Axxel’s lap and immediately curled up to sleep with one paw tucked under his chin.Part of me wanted to remove Major for his safety, just in case.Part of me wanted to leave him there for mine.
“Let me ask you something, and I’ll know very soon if you’re lying or not.”I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and gave Axxel the darkest look I could muster.“Are you a Faid too?”
“No.”He didn’t even flinch.
“I need to know everything.”
A hint of uncertainty hardened his expression.“Captain—”
“Everything,” I bit out.
“He didn’t tell you?”
“No,” I said bitterly.“I found out the hard way.”
The impossible way, with my beating heart torn from my chest and stomped on, and yet somehow, I was still alive to feel fuckingallof it.
He smoothed his thumb between Major’s ears, silent for a moment.“These Xenoxx assassination attempts are nothing new, only sometimes they’re not attempts.They’re successful.His dad, his brother who was also my best friend, Maxx’s wife.”A tortured look crossed Axxel’s scaled features when he looked up at me.“All dead.”
The emptiness in my chest grew teeth at Axxel’s clear suffering from all that loss.It was too much, and for it to keep happening was unfathomable.
“Maxx knew it was only a matter of time before someone decided he was next,” he continued.“He made a plan.He cloned himself, but the clone is just a useless pile of scales without something to power it.It’s like wood without a spark, a ship without an engine, a being without—”
“A soul.I get it.”I waved for him to go on.
He bounced one shoulder.“Faid technology worked.I flipped a switch, plugged it into his clone, and there was Maxx—”
He broke off with a sharp sigh and then went quiet for a moment, skimming his thumb over Major’s head again.“The real Maxx lay nearby, wrapped around his wife, both dead from the embassy explosion.”
My heart twisted violently, and I shoved the image Axxel had painted far, far away.
“Where did he get the Faid tech?”I asked, my voice much too raw and loud.
He flicked his eyes up, and I knew the answer before he said a single word.“From Rain.”
I bolted to my feet and shot toward the door, my knuckles cracking at how tightly I clenched them into fists.
“Captain, he loves you,” Axxel called after me.
I whirled.“And what does that matter, huh?I’ve fought the Faid for the last ten years of my life.”
“So has he,” he said gently.“The Xenoxx are on the humans’ side.They always have been.”
“Even when their king is the enemy?”I demanded.
“Nobody knows what he is except for me.”
“And Rain,” I hissed.“A Faid.How stupid do you have to be to trusther?”
“Not stupid, Nera.Desperate.It’s a fine line for sure, but what else was he going to do?The Xenoxx are barely existing as it is because of our war with the Killians and what they did to stall our reproduction of females.”
“He could slaughter all of you.That’s what all Faid do.”By that point, I was yelling, my voice ringing between the metal walls.
Major glared.
Axxel shook his head.“Not all Faid.Just Rain.”
“Don’t tell me she got inside your head with her ‘not all Faid kill’ bullshit.Why would you ever believe her?Why would Maxx believeher?”
