He regretted that stark reality once more entered her gaze, but he wanted to be honest.
“What do you get in return?” she asked softly.“For doing these tasks for him.”
“Nothing and everything,” he murmured, rubbing a hand over his horn.He found the words fell surprisingly easily from his tongue, though he’d never spoken them out loud before, “He found me, six rotations ago, on Petrika.I was fighting in the underground then.For Brew mostly.I do not remember much of it.He bought my passage off the colony because he wanted my strength, wanted the fear I could evoke as a Luxirian warrior.He gave me this vessel, gave me the freedom to choose where I went, but with it came my service for six rotations.You are my last charge and then I am free.”
Devix heard her swallow and when he looked over at her, needing to see her, she was looking straight at him.Straightinsidehim.He could feel her, in his chest, and he wondered how she could stand to sit there, next to him.
“You’re really taking this honesty thing to a whole new level, aren’t you?” she asked softly.She blew out a long breath.“Sometimes I wonder if I’d prefer lies.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, expression serious.
“No,” she whispered, before clearing her throat.“No, I’d rather have the truth.Always.”She studied him.“A Luxirian?Is that what your people are called?”
“Tev,” he said, throat tight.Not his people.Not anymore.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, flickering over his horns, his face.“I’ve seen one of your kind before.I just remembered.”
Devix straightened.“Where?”
“At the Pit.”
Devix tossed his head.“Impossible.”
“Why?”
He spoke softly as he said, “No honorable Luxirian would fight to claim a pleasure mate, especially if she was unwilling.It goes against everything our species reveres.”
“Well, then maybe he wasn’t so honorable,” Cara argued.“But he looked like you, with long, dark hair.Golden skin, I remember, because the sun was bright that day.And…he wore golden bands around his arms.”
Devix inhaled a sharp breath.“Impossible,” he repeated.“Only the Prime Leader of Luxiria wears those bands.”
“Then it was the Prime Leader of Luxiria.Whatever that means,” she said, waving her hand.The Brew had worked to relax her, but Devix couldn’t believe what was coming from her mouth.“He won, by the way.I’d never seen anything quite like it.It was…indescribable, the way he fought.He only had eyes for this brunette, who was standing next to me.He tossed her over his shoulder like some caveman and left.And she never came back to the cages.”
What she said disturbed him.Had Vaxa’an, the Prime Leader, his blood brother’s friend, the male who had sentenced him to exile instead of death, truly been at the Pit?
There could only be one reason why and Devix sobered.The only reason a Luxirian would fight at the Pit was to claim an eligible Breeding partner.Humans were rumored to be compatible with many species.Had Vaxa’an heard the same?
It meant many things.It meant that the researchers and healers had not found a cure for the Plague’s effects on their surviving females.The females that the Plague had not killed outright had been left completely infertile, threatening the extinction of Luxirians.If Vaxa’an had sought a compatible Breeder, it meant that he was doing the only thing he could to ensure the survival of their race.
“How long ago was this?” Devix questioned.
“I don’t know,” she murmured, voice hesitant.When he looked at her, she looked sad.“I try to remember how long I was there and…I can’t.It just blurs together.”
He wished to comfort her.He wanted to soothe her.
“I wish…” he started, but then his throat closed.Cara was looking at him though, so he continued, “I wish things had been different for you, female.”
She let out a soft laugh, but even Devix knew it wasn’t a happy one.
Many questions haunted him, but only one mattered.
What was he going to do?
“Me too,” she said softly, returning her gaze to the darkness in front of them.“Me too.”
NINE
Cara woke up in her bed, groggy, painfully sore.For a moment, she didn’t remember how she’d gotten there, but then it came back to her.
