Crystal shivered, even underneath Cruxan’s shirt. It was getting colder and goosebumps broke out over her exposed legs. She wondered about Erin, about how she was feeling, hoping that the male was treating her well.
While she stared at the flames, she thought back to her earlier suspicions about that male. Jaxor’an. How his attention had been a little too drawn on Erin, how he’d seemedpulledby her. Unwillingly so.
Was it possible he thought Erin was his mate? Erin had shown no signs of recognition, no awareness.
Not like I do, her treacherous mind whispered.
She straightened, pushing that thought away.
A crunch to her right made her whip her head and she found Cruxan reentering their small clearing, his arms laden with so many things.
He’d been studying her, she realized, when she’d been lost in thought.
“What do you think of, female?” he asked softly, crouching by the fire, next to her, depositing all his new supplies next to their pile of bark.
She licked her dry lips, aware of how close he was to her. She didn’t want to tell him she’d been thinking about him, about what she felt around him.
Instead, she asked, “Do you think that male—Jaxor’an—would hurt Erin?”
“Nix,” Cruxan replied immediately, which surprised her.
“How would you know that? Do you know him?”
When Cruxan had first entered the clearing last night, where Jaxor’an had kept them, they’d spoken. Though it had been in Luxirian, there was a strained familiarity there, as if they’d been well-acquainted in the past.
“Tev,” Cruxan said, placing strange-looking rounded bulbs close to the fire, like he had the chiseled piece of stone from the mountain. “We were friends once.”
Thatmade her start. “You were?”
“Jaxor’an is Vaxa’an’s only blood brother.”
“What?” she whispered, shocked at the news. “But—but Vaxa’an is thePrime Leader.”
“And Jaxor’an is theoretically next in line, if something ever happened to Vaxa’an, if he never had offspring.”
“I don’t understand,” she said quietly. “Why would he kidnap us then?”
“Shortly after the Plague hit Luxiria, after Vaxa’an and Jaxor’an lost their mother and sire, Jaxor’an left the Golden City. Perhaps he was driven by grief or anger or both…but he left. It was rumored he went to seek out theMevirax,though why, we do not know. That was the last time any of us had seen him.”
“Until yesterday,” Crystal finished for him, looking over at him, her lips parting in realization.
He inclined his head, those blue eyes rapt on her. “Tev.”
“People can change,” Crystal whispered softly. From what she’d pieced together through conversations she’d heard about the Plague, it had happened over ten years ago. “Ten years can change someone. How can you say for certain he won’t hurt her? You might not know the person he’s become.”
Something shifted in Cruxan’s gaze, making her wonder what he was thinking. “He will not, female.”
“But he’d been about to hand us off to theMevirax,” she argued.
“He would not have,” Cruxan said simply.
“Howcan you know that?”
“Because Jaxor’an’s Instinct awakened for Erin. She is his mate.”
Crystal let out a small breath, her suspicions forming into a truth. Her shoulders sagged, though truthfully, a part of her was relieved. From what she’d heard, Luxirian males doted on their females. Hell, from what she’dseenin her own friends and their males, she knew it was true.
Perhaps Erin was in no danger fromhim.
