Crystal’s breathing went tight and she automatically took a step away from Cruxan when she sensed his anger.
Her gaze flitted to the ground, though she watched him carefully from the corner of her eye. Crystal could see anger like words on a page in a book. Clearly. Black against white.
Cruxan’s gaze cut to her. She felt her shoulder come up, just slightly. She hated it. Hated that it was her automatic reaction, as if her shoulder could shield her entire body.
What she hated more was that years after she’d left Leo, she still did it. Just another souvenir he’d left forever imprinted on her mind. An instinct, a reaction, formed only by that dark period in her life.
“What is wrong, female?” he asked, that deep, husky voice caressing her skin. She didn’t want to think his voice was nice. She didn’t want to react to it the way she did. But it couldn’t be helped. He had a nice voice. Then again, so had Leo.
Crystal had to force herself to face him, had to force herself to look him in the eye. She didn’t want to backslide. She’d been doing so well…at least until her abduction.
She wasn’t the same person she’d been then. She’d been a girl. She was a woman now, who’d built up a life in a new city, who’d made friends, who’d made plans for her future, for a career. She wasn’t that young naive, foolish girl anymore, scared and frightened all the time.
“Nothing,” she said, though her voice sounded strained. She deliberately relaxed her tensed muscles and asked, “What do you see?”
“Come,” was all he said, still studying her in a way that made her feel exposed.
It didn’t take them long to reach the black sand of the desert. Crystal eyed it with distaste, remembering the gritty sensation in her mouth when she’d fallen in it yesterday, trying to escape from that male. Looking at the scene in front of her now, she could see nothingbutsand. The forest was the only landmark in that desert, though she spied a mountain range just behind it.
“Bastard,” Cruxan growled, eyeing the sandcraft that they approached.
Wait.
“That’s his,” Crystal said, brows furrowing as she whirled to look back at the forest. “But that means they’re still here! Erin must be close.”
“Nix, female,” Cruxan said, his tone gentling. She looked over at him. “I brought a hovercraft when I tracked you. I had it here. He took it and left his.”
Dread and disbelief churned in her belly. Her eyes went back to the horizon, as if she could see them in the distance.
Erin.
“But…but we have to find her,” she whispered. She met Cruxan’s gaze. “Wehaveto.”
Erin, alone with that male…it made panic rise in her veins. Erin was strong, but there was no telling what he’d do, especially considering he’d been about to sell them off to theseMevirax.
Was that where Erin was now? With them?
Cruxan approached her, his footsteps crunching in the black grit covering the ground. “They are long gone, Crystal.” She jerked, hearing her name on his lips. “Possibly even last night.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head, not wanting to believe what he was saying. “No, they must be around here.”
“Female…”
Crystal’s shoulders sagged. She looked out into the desert of Luxiria. If that male had taken a hovercraft then there was no telling which way they’d gone. But then she remembered.
“You can track them, can’t you?” she asked, suddenly hopeful, her widened eyes looking at Cruxan. “You tracked us here.”
“Tev, but there weretracks, female,” he said gently. “And you.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “Your scent. You left the strips of your tunic for me to find. They led me to you.”
“Oh,” she said softly. “And you can’t…you can’t smell Erin the same way? Maybe she left signs like I did.”
“She is not my female,” he said and Crystal’s pulse pounded in her throat. “Your scent will always be stronger, more potent to me.”
He said it so easily. She didn’t want to linger on those words, on the meaning behind them.
