“I do not know what you speak of,” he said, sticking to his guns.
“Oh, really?” she asked, crossing her arms across her breasts.Her side gave a stinging pinch, but she ignored it.“So you were never going to tell me about the uprisings that have been happening in the outpostsbecause of me?Because I’m human and they don’t want Luxirians breeding with other species?Were you ever going to tell me aboutthat?Or were you just hoping to keep me in the dark and tucked away?Is that why you wanted me to stop working as well?You think that just because you’re the Prime Leader that you can ordermearound too?”
At least he had the decency to look a little ashamed.But then his anger grew.“I did what I thought was best,” he rasped.“Do not question me about my decisions as Prime Leader.You know nothing!I chose not to tell you because political matters do not concern you.They aremyburdens.”
Thatstung a little.
Her eyes narrowed and her throat burned.“You’re not just the Prime Leader.You’re mymate.And right now?You’ve just shown me how little you value my thoughts and opinions.”
Kate turned her face away, shielding her breasts with her arms, shivering in the warm water.She’d hoped that by telling him about what had happened in the market, it would help mend the distance she felt growing between them.All it had done was make it worse.Much, much worse.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him hesitate.The water rippled as he took a step towards her.
“Luxiva…” he said softly.
Kate gasped when her stomach gave another painful cramp, but this one she couldn’t ignore.She reached out blindly as the pain radiated up her spine, buckling her knees, even as she tried to keep her head above the water.
Vaxa lunged for her, holding her up.His voice sounded panicked as she felt his palms smooth down the sides of her face.“Kat!Kat, what is wrong?”
“I—I don’t know…”
She trailed off when she saw red in the water.For a moment, she didn’t know what it was, but then it hit her.Her blood.It clouded the water around them, expanding, growing.
Vaxa knew what it was the same time she did and the color leeched out of his face.
“Vaxa, the baby,” she whispered, fear widening her eyes even as another cramp made her cry out.
Vaxa encircled her in his arms and gently, but quickly, lifted her from the bath.He fetched the cloth she’d used to wipe off his blood and pressed it between her legs.
“Hold it here,” he ordered before, completely nude, he carried them out of their house at a near run, loading her onto the hovercraft.She was scared to look between her legs, afraid at what she might find, and fear froze her heart as she felt more blood, making the cloth sticky and warm.
Vaxa hurtled them towards the labs, calling Privanax on the way there, speaking with him in Luxirian.
When he was finished, she whispered, “Vaxa, I’m scared.”
His jaw clenched and he looked deathly pale under the blue light of the Luxirian moon.
“You will be fine,luxiva,” he said quietly, as if needing to hear the words himself.“You will be fine.”
He said nothing of the baby.
SEVEN
Vaxa’an had faced down hordes of enemy species lusting for battle.He’d been engaged in space skirmishes, where his vessel had almost been blown to pieces.He’d been beaten and stabbed and gored.He’d been outnumbered, where the odds for his life were stacked against him.
And yet, seeing hisluxiva, his beloved mate, lying in a small pool of her own red blood on Privanax’s lab table, seeing how white her skin turned, seeing the fear and pain in her eyes and reading it in the lines of her body…he had never been more terrified in his entire life span.
The doctor was examining the space between her thighs, working with his equipment.Another stomach cramp made Kat’s body bow and Vaxa’an wanted to roar in frustration, wanted to take every remnant of her pain so that she would not need to feel it.
The knowledge that he was helpless did not sit well with him.He had been raised and trained to solve problems, to eliminate them with efficiency and quickness.
“You remember our conversation, Privanax?” Vaxa’an asked in Luxirian.He was in a borrowed robe that belonged to one of the researchers at the lab, since he’d taken them both straight out of the bathing pool.It was tight on his shoulders and stretched uncomfortably when he smoothed a shaking hand over one horn.
Privanax didn’t look up from between his mate’s thighs.“Yes, Prime Leader.I remember it well.”
Kat cried out as Privanax inserted a tool inside her and Vaxa’an growled in frustration.
Sweat dotted the doctor’s forehead.“I must mend inside you,lavrix’an.”
