“I see,” she murmured.
“I do not think you do,” he returned, just as quietly. She had no idea of the power she held over him.
Erin looked into the fire again. She was dressed in one of his tunics, her skin flushed from the heat.
“Can I ask you something?” she murmured.
Jaxor grunted, but he flicked his gaze to her, half in wariness, half in intrigue.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asked softly, her head tilting in curiosity.
“Love?” he repeated, the word whistling from his lips in a deep exhale.
“Yes.”
Jaxor tossed more fuel into the fire, though it was burning hot and bright already.
“I thought so. Once,” he replied.
Her brows rose. “Really?”
“You seem surprised,” he commented wryly and he raked a hand through his hair.
“No, it’s not that,” she said. “I guess I just…I can’t really imagine you away from this place.”
With people, she meant.Amongpeople.
“I told you I was born and raised in the Golden City,” he said. “Most who knew me would actually have called me…mischievous. I was always getting into trouble. I was never still.”
“ThatI can imagine,” she teased softly. His lips quirked again. “So, what was her name?”
He sobered slightly. “Sarcalla.”
“How’d you meet her?”
“She was the daughter of my mother’s friend. I was in warrior training then, but would come home to the Golden City when we were on break. I had just come of age. Though technically, warriors in training are not allowed to have relations with females, I broke those rules for her.”
“Was she your first?” Erin asked.
Jaxor swallowed. “Tev.”
Sarcalla had been his first everything. Everything had seemed so new, so exciting. Because Jaxor had been due back toOtalafor warrior training the following lunar cycle, they hadn’t had much time together. Every moment with her had seemed perfect, yet bitter because he knew their time would end.
“What happened?” Erin asked next.
Jaxor blew out a sharp breath and met her eyes. “Before I returned to warrior training, I caught her trying to slip underneath my brother’s furs.”
Her lips pressed together, understanding dawning in her gaze.
“Once I confronted her, she tried to say she’d gotten confused, that she thought his sleeping platform had been mine. But I knew better. She’d wanted him all along. I had been the means to get her closer to him,” Jaxor finished, remembering that night. Remembering Vaxa’an, angry at Sarcalla on Jaxor’s behalf. Sarcalla had believed that Vaxa’an wouldn’t have turned her away, but Jaxor knew his brother would never betray him in that way, especially knowing his feelings for her.
But Sarcalla had wanted to bed the future Prime Leader…not the future Prime Leader’s brother.
“I’m sorry,” Erin said, her melodic voice floating over the fire. “That must’ve been awful, to be betrayed like that by someone you loved.”
Jaxor shook his head. “Looking back, I do not know what I felt for her, if it was just lust or the excitement of being young and foolish. Maybe it was not even love.”
Erin regarded him, her expression serious yet calm. She looked at him almost…gently.
