He shifted against the stone wall, bringing his knee up. A sharp twinge in his side made his jaw tick, but he’d had worse injuries. Much worse. Luxirians healed fast regardless. He would snip the stitches in the morning and, with the healing salve, the skin would be mended the day after that. Like the attack never happened. The only evidence of it would be a faint scar.
But damn thatkekevir. He should have built a gate a long time ago. If Erin had been down there and been caught unaware, she would be…
He growled, which made the female stop talking. She frowned and then said, “No, no, don’t get all huffy on me again. You get all growly when you get angry.”
“I am not angry,” he rasped, making an effort to stop.At you, he added silently. He was angry at himself. At that reckless part of him that enjoyed living so close to such dangerous things. Maybe he was tempting the Fates. Maybe he hadn’t built a gate because secretly he wished thekekevirwould finally end him. Once and for all.
She turned over on her stomach until she faced him, propping her head up in the palms of her hands. Her small feet waved in the air behind her and Jaxor’s gaze caught on one of them, seeing the cut he’d bandaged the day before. She’d taken the cloth off sometime that morning, probably since it got soaked in the storm.
“You’re always angry,” she murmured softly, a small, almost conspiratorial smile darting over her features. “Just like me. Maybethat’swhy your Fates clumped us together. Because we can be angry together.”
Jaxor blinked. He’d had enough of the Otalian Brew to relax his limbs and dull the pain in his side, but not enough that he would let her strange comment float from his mind.
“You are always angry, female?” he asked quietly. “Because you were taken away from your planet? Because I stole you from the Golden City?”
She was shaking her head, waving her hand in the air flippantly before it settled back underneath her chin. “No. No. I was angry a long time before this.” A speculative look came next. “I don’t think I’ve ever admitted that though. Before here, at least.”
Jaxor wondered if ‘here’ meant Luxiria, or if ‘here’ meant in that cave, right at that moment, with him.
“Tell me why,” he commanded, his voice thick. Unconsciously, he leaned forward, towards her, ever so slightly. His Instinct thrummed with the knowledge that she was close, that he could reach out and touch her. Despite the blood loss and the pain from earlier, his body still recognized Erin ashis. And he needed her. Desperately.
“What will you give me if I tell you?” she asked, giving him a small, unabashed, buzzed smile he felt straight in his cock.
Jaxor could think of a few things…
Erotic, dark thoughts swarmed his mind. He imagined biting her neck the way he did in the forest. He imagined leaving an even bigger mark and imagined that she wouldcravethat. He imagined—
Jaxor’s claws bit into his thigh when he curled them and he rasped, “What do you want?”
“Bargaining with me?” she asked, tilting her head to the side, her eyes glued to his. Thisintriguedher, he realized, his heartbeat quickening. And seeing her this way intriguedhim. “I want you to tell me why you left the Golden City.”
Jaxor’s lips pressed together. He brought the bottle to his lips and took another healthy swallow. The fermented drink burned down his throat but he welcomed it.
“I left because…” he started.
Jaxor had left for a variety of reasons. The Plague. His mother’s murder by the Jetutians, followed shortly by his sire’s willing death to join her in the blackworld. His older blood brother’s ascension to the throne as Prime Leader.
Then came the anger. The grief. The knowledge that his sire had never thought Jaxor capable of ruling, that he’d simply been the spare heir, if anything had ever happened to Vaxa’an.
Because Vaxa’an had always beenmore. More than Jaxor could ever be. He’d been born first. He’d been the better warrior. He’d been level-headed and calm, where Jaxor had been impulsive and mischievous.
Then came the longing for revenge for his mother’s death. And Vaxa’an had brushed aside this need, wanting instead to not pursue war with the Jetutians, their oldest enemy. The enemy that had threatened their entire race, that had caused the countless murders of their females and of the males that loved them.
And his brother had chosen to do nothing.
Jaxor had been young then. He’d been impulsive and emotional. And like always, though he’d suffered the same loss Jaxor had, Vaxa’an had been logical. To invite a war with a shockingly powerful enemy—more powerful than the Luxirians had given them credit for—when a large portion of their race had been wiped out, when their planet still grieved and most were still in shock, when the throne was changing hands…that war would not have ended well.
Jaxor realized that now. But he’d been blinded in his youth, fresh from warrior training, with bloodlust and sorrow as his only companions.
“I left because the Golden City seemed haunted after the Plague,” he finally settled on. “By my mother, by my sire, by the countless we lost. The terraces were quiet. Unbearably so. And I could not take it.”
He’d left to seek out theMevirax. Jaxor’s nostrils flared and he took another swig of the Otalian Brew.
Erin was studying him to the point that it made him shift. Jaxor wasn’t used to being looked at. Not so closely. All his lifespan, his brother had been the one to claim most of the attention. At every Lunar Celebration, at every dinner, in the streets of the Golden City, even during mock battles in warrior training, Vaxa’an was the future Prime Leader. Jaxor loved him, just like every other being on Luxiria.
But later in life, Jaxor could never look his blood brother in the eye, knowing that a part of him hated Vaxa’an. Knowing that a part of him wanted everything he had, wanted everything hewouldhave. Jaxor wished he could be happy and proud to have such an accomplished brother, but all Jaxor could feel was loathing mingled with his love and adoration.
He’d hated himself for it.
