“I have been pardoned,” he told her. “Fully.”
Hearing it didn’t seem real.
“What?” she asked, reaching up to clasp his face.
The way he said the words made her think a part of him didn’t believe it himself. It was everything she’d hoped for. Even if it had been exile, she would have been happy…because at least it meant she could still be with her mate.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, her tears finally spilling over. “Really? It’s over? You’ll…you’ll be okay?”
He inclined his head. “Tev. It is over.”
The stress and worry lifted off her shoulders like they had weighed a hundred pounds. She grinned through her tears, her breath coming out quick and fast. And when she smiled, his lips quirked, as if her reaction to the news was finally making it real for him.
But then she watched his small smile slowly fade.
And she was reminded of her testimony. She was reminded of what she’d done, or rather, what she hadn’t done…which was be honest with him.
And that was what had gotten them into this mess in the first place, wasn’t it? The lies? The half-truths?
So, she said the one thing that she’d been thinking repeatedly the last few days.
“I love you,” she told him, her hands still clasped to his cheeks so that he wouldn’t look away when she said those words. “I promised myself that I’d tell you the next time I saw you,” she continued, watching his brow furrow, mirroring words he’d said to her when he’d confessed his feelings, “only, I made a mess of the trial and I didn’t get the chance to. So I’ll tell you now and hope that you can forgive me for not telling you sooner.”
“Rixella—”
“Wait, please,” she said hurriedly, needing to get it all out. “And I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you about the baby.”
Air whistled through his nostrils and his gaze burned bright into her.
“I’m so sorry, Jaxor. I meant to tell you, I really did,” she whispered, her voice anguished. “And there’s no excuse for it. Absolutely none.”
“Why didn’t you?” he rumbled, his hand curling around the back of her neck, the movement so familiar. In a strange way, it was comforting. It made her feel safe.
“I was still so confused. About us. About what happened,” she confessed and he stiffened ever so slightly, but his gaze was steady. Those bright blue eyes that she wanted to look into forever. “And a part of me couldn’t think past the trial. That wasallthat mattered…that you would be safe.”
She breathed in his scent—that musky, delicious, warm scent all his own—and felt her heart thud with longing and memory. What she wouldn’t give to go back in time, to start over, to start fresh.
But Jaxor was safe, he wasfree. He washere.
And Erin realized that she wouldn’t trade this moment for anything in the world. Because this moment was important. For both of them. She needed to make amends, to make sure that he would never doubt her again.
“When Privanax confirmed that I was pregnant…no, even before then,” she corrected. “When I was in the dungeons and I began to suspect that I was, I knew that I couldn’t go back to Earth.”
Jaxor swallowed.
“So, I already knew that I would be staying on Luxiria when you first came to see me when I was healing in the labs. It was overwhelming. Everything that was happening. The Jetutians, theMevirax. Knowing I would never see my family again, my home planet again. All while being in awe and, to be honest, in disbelief about the baby,” she whispered, watching as his eyes flickered with realization. “And then us. And your trial.”
“Vrax,” he cursed softly.
“It’s no excuse,” she finished, “but when I came to see you in your room that day, I had every intention of telling you about the baby. Everything else just seemed so much more…pressing.”
“I understand,” he murmured, his voice low.
But Erin still remembered the hurt in his eyes when her pregnancy had been revealed at the trial.
“I know what you thought,” Erin said, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “But Jaxor, I didn’t keep it from you because I was ashamed of you. Because I didn’t think you’d make a good father.” She gave him a small smile. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
Jaxor’s eyes closed and Erin’s chest ached, knowing that her assumptions had been true. That was exactly what he’d feared.
