The Alien’s Claim by Zoey Draven

Chapter Ten

Jaxor had been gone a long time.

Erin sat in front of the fire, facing the main tunnel. He’d gone down it without a word after picking up a long blade from where he stored his weapons—a sword, really, though it’d been curved.

Her tunic and her hair had long dried. The fire Jaxor made that morning still burned bright and it burned hot. Even the fires back in the Golden City hadn’t been this hot and she wondered if it was because of the type of fuel he used.

She rubbed her hands down her legs, a little uneasy. She wished that he would stop doing that…going off on his own without an explanation. Especially since the kekevir seemed to be going crazy. Every second, she heard echoing hisses and shrieks.

Is he in there with them?she wondered, shuddering at the thought, wondering what would have possessed him to do such a thing if he was.

The air felt sticky that night. Cold, yet sticky. Glancing above her, at the brief sliver in the fog bank, she saw the sky had changed to a deep indigo. Then the wind shifted and covered the gap. When she looked around the base, the darkness combined with the intense firelight cast deep, menacing shadows.

A part of her was tempted to hide in the little sleeping cave again, but there was no door to protect her now and she didn’t want to get trapped if one of those creatures managed to find her there. She’d even plucked a knife from Jaxor’s weapon stores, though she knew he’d probably be angry once he found out. Still, having it at her side made her feel slightly protected, even though she hadn’t the faintest clue how to use it to protect herself.

Another eerie cry emerged from the tunnel, though it sounded closer than the others. Erin straightened, peering at the entrance, her heart picking up in her chest. Her hand closed around the handle of the knife at her side.

Then she heard other sounds. Different ones. Scraping. Metal. Something wet dragging across stone.

She saw his eyes glowing from the darkness before he fully came into view. And when he did, she almost gasped. Streaks of dark blue blood painted the tunic he wore. His pants were in a similar state. He even had some on his cheeks and arms. Blood dripped off the sword dangling in one hand at his side. In his other, dragging behind him, was one of them. The kekevir. Or at least she thought it was. Then she realized Jaxor had already butchered it. Were they eating it? Was this what he meant when he said the kekevir were a good resource to have?

Erin stood hesitantly, favoring her right foot, eyeing the creature.

“Are you hurt, Jaxor?” she asked, furrowing her brow, inspecting him.

“Nix,” he grunted, depositing the kekevir close to the fire. Its shiny meat gleamed in the firelight. His eyes were on her when she looked up at him. There was something different in the way he looked at her and Erin’s arms prickled with goosebumps, her pulse throbbing.

She swallowed thickly. It reminded her of…

The first time he’d looked at her. Possession. Want. Those things were in his gaze.

The sight of him should make her afraid. Deeply afraid. He was covered in blood. He had a dead creature at his feet. His lethal blade was covered in blood and other things she didn’t want to identify. He looked unhinged. Insane.

So why did her body respond to that look? Why did her breath quicken, knowing that she had his attention so fully?

Erin licked her lips, remembering that Luxirians could scent when their mates were aroused. She squeezed her thighs together and asked, though her voice came out huskier than intended, “Are there more?”

“Nix,” he grunted. “We only need this one tonight. The rest I disposed of. Off the facev, to keep predators away.”

How many had he killed? she wondered, looking at him.

Many, she decided, a moment later.

“Predators?” she repeated.

His brows lowered. “There are worse things than the kekevir, rixella.”

She wondered what rixella meant and why he called her that.

Erin nodded and took a step around the fire towards him. Only when his nostrils flared dramatically did she realize that she’d forgotten his heightened senses and her inconvenient arousal. As small as it was, it was there. Some primal part of her reacting to him, something that couldn’t be helped.

His eyes flooded with blackness, his pupils dilated dramatically. Erin froze when his growl started and then he made a deep sound in his throat and it was gone.

With a rough curse, he walked around the fire, past her, towards the waterfall. Erin stood staring at the place he’d occupied, feeling her face flame slightly before she pushed her embarrassment away.

It can’t be helped, she reminded herself again. Despite everything, Jaxor was a physically attractive male. He was strong, obviously in his prime. There were bound to be slip-ups on her end, every now and again. There was no reason to be embarrassed about it.

She heard rustling. When she looked over her shoulder, her breath hitched. Jaxor was tugging his blood-covered pants down his legs. He’d already disposed of his tunic. The firelight was unobstructed in that part of the base and she saw everything.

Briefly, she’d seen his cock before. In a loincloth, which he’d worn up until that day, it was difficult not to have wardrobe malfunctions, after all. But she’d never seen it in its full glory until now.

The tip of his cock bobbed against his abdomen as he straightened. The thick shaft was curved and on the underside were hardened knobs running the length of it. Thick and long and hard.

Sweet mother of…

Erin licked her dry lips and looked away, trying to calm her breathing. It had obviously been way too long since she’d last had sex. Jaxor might be attractive and he might have been blessed with a cock straight from the Luxirian gods themselves, but his personality kind of sucked. He’d stolen her and her friend away from the Golden City, had been intent on trading them away to who knew who, for who knew what. She needed to remember that the next time she lusted over him.

He couldn’t be trusted. He was dangerous. The fact that he was apparently her mate only highlighted that, only served to remind her to tread carefully.

Erin’s treacherous eyes rose, despite her thoughts, when she heard a splash. The pool was deep, deep enough for him to dive into, and when he resurfaced, his dark hair was inky and his blue eyes were on hers.

Magnets, she thought, her gut sinking. Their eyes were like magnets, despite their obvious mistrust for one another. Erin’s shoulders sagged. She wondered if it was like this for the others, for Kate, Beks, Cecelia, Taylor, and Lainey. Especially Lainey. That girl didn’t go down without a fight. It had taken a lot for Kirov to win her over.

Except Kirov wanted to win her over, Erin thought.

Jaxor?

He didn’t want ‘to win her over.’ He wasn’t courting her, or wooing her, by any means. The idea was almost…laughable.

That was enough for Erin to break their gaze. She sat back down at her place by the fire, ignoring Jaxor, and trying to ignore the kekevir a few yards away.

After another few moments, she heard Jaxor pull himself from the pool, heard him shuffle through a row of chests near his weapons. When he came into her view once again, he went over to the kekevir.

He wore the loincloth again, leaving his chest and legs bare. Isn’t he cold? she wondered, frowning. The wind was picking up. It was howling up the shaft Jaxor had disappeared into earlier.

He brought the kekevir closer to the fire, kneeling surprisingly close to her as he drove the spit through it with force, from one end to the other. Erin pressed her lips together, but she knew that if she wanted meat that night, this was how it was done.

Jaxor set the spit over the fire and turned the crank at the side briefly. He had a mechanism set up so that it turned automatically and for the first time, Erin wondered how he’d done that. He was intelligent, that much was clear.

He settled a short distance away from her. Luckily, her arousal was gone so she didn’t have to worry he’d scent it. Still, even he seemed wary and Erin didn’t know how she felt about that.

It was the first time she’d seen him rest all day. When she looked up and saw a peek of black sky through the clouds, she knew he’d had a long day. He’d been up long before her. Compared to him, Erin felt lazy. All she’d managed to do was learn two buttons of the hovercraft and cut her foot.

Then again, what was she expected to do? She didn’t even know what she was doing there and Jaxor refused to answer her whenever she asked what he intended to do with her.

It was not knowing that frustrated her most.

Magnets, she thought again, jolting a bit when she saw his gaze on her. They regarded one another silently. His knees were bent, his arms locked around them in an almost casual, relaxed position. Erin had been around her Luxirian guards back in the Golden City long enough to not be surprised when his skin took on a golden hue next to the fire. All Luxirians’ skin color shifted with the light, an alien feature to her, certainly, but one she was used to now.

Beautiful. It shimmered, reflecting back shadows and highlights. Erin wondered if Jaxor thought her skin was strange since it didn’t shift with the light.

“Have you ever seen humans before Crystal and me?” she asked softly, curiosity winning over their silent little stare-down.

The question might’ve surprised him. He didn’t respond immediately, long enough for Erin to think he wouldn’t, but finally he murmured, “Tev.”

“Where?” she asked, her lips turning down briefly.

“At the Lallarix,” he said, as if she knew what that meant.

“Is…is that in the Golden City?” she asked, confused.

“Nix. It is in the wild lands.”

Did he see one of the others with their mates? He must’ve.

Erin was about to speak again, but he added, “It was the Prime Leader’s mate.”

“Kate?” Erin asked, cocking her head. “You saw Kate with Vaxa’an?”

Jaxor seemed to start at the name. He didn’t reply, but she figured it was a yes regardless. There was only one Prime Leader on Luxiria, as far as Erin knew.

“Do I…do I look very strange to you, then?” she asked, wanting to know, curious again. “Since you’ve only seen one other human before?”

Jaxor exhaled a sharp breath. “Humans compared with Luxirians are not so different. There are many species spread throughout the universe. Some that look very different.”

A flash, a memory from the Pit, a place she would rather never remember, returned to her. The darkness of the cages. Seemingly thousands of beings, all congregated in one place. Hot, burning sand. The feel of hot wind across her naked flesh as thousands of eyes were on the line of women. Inhuman howls and grunts and roars. The fear, the uncertainty. The scent of blood, of—

Erin squeezed her eyes shut, locking those memories away.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “I know.”

There were many species at the Pit that day. Thanks to the Luxirians, they were freed of that place. And until Jaxor, she’d been very close to returning home, back to Earth. Back to California, back to Jake and Ellora, back to her students, her old life.

Now what?

A drop of fat fell from the meat and sizzled in the fire. A shriek from the tunnel came echoing down. The kekevir seemed more active that night and she spared the darkness behind Jaxor a nervous glance.

“Are they…” she trailed off, not quite sure how to phrase her question.

“I will work on a gate in the morning,” was all he told her.

His response gave her pause and she tilted her head as she looked at him. A gate?

“Why haven’t you built one before?” she questioned.

“Because I can handle a kekevir if it makes it into my base,” was what he said in reply. His unspoken implication was that she could not.

Erin’s brows furrowed, not certain whether to feel thankful or insulted. Even still, him building a gate…that was a big undertaking, wasn’t it? Did that mean he expected to keep her around? That she would remain here? And for how long? Did that mean he’d decided not to trade her off to the Mevirax?

She processed this quietly, trying to decipher what this meant.

Erin decided to change the subject. If she questioned him about it, he would close off. He was finally speaking with her and she couldn’t waste the opportunity.

“Where did you go today?” she asked instead, pulling the fur he’d draped over her shoulders earlier closer as the wind howled louder. She didn’t know how long he’d been gone, just that she’d slept and then awoken to him tearing the door off the cave’s entrance. At least a few hours, she decided, especially since it got dark not long after he returned.

Jaxor watched as she draped the fur over her body, huddling into its warmth. She still wore the tunic she’d gone to sleep in the night before he’d abducted them. Her legs were bare, the material was thin. If she was going to be there for a little while—at least until she saw her crazy plan through to the end—she would have to try to procure more suitable clothes. These were beginning to smell.

“To check traps and get more fuel,” he replied, sliding his arms away from his knees, planting his hands behind him and leaning back. The muscles in his chest shifted with the almost lazy movement, but Erin darted her gaze away.

“And now is when you finally rest for the day?” she asked, seeing a heavy trail of blood leading from the tunnel entrance. She wondered if it would seep into the stone of the crater floor. She’d found the droplets of her own blood she’d left behind and had scrubbed at them with a spare rag she’d found until they were clean. She didn’t need Jaxor inspecting them close enough to see she didn’t cut her foot near the fire pit, but rather in the tunnel.

“For tonight. There is a storm coming. It will hit soon.”

Erin tipped her head back, exposing the column of her throat. The air felt humid but cold, a strange combination. Was that how he could tell? There was still a heavy cloud covering, no different than it’d been that morning.

“Where are we, exactly?” she questioned. She thought it was innocent enough, until he exhaled a rough breath.

“Nix, rixella,” he rasped.

Erin returned her eyes to him, pressing her lips together. “I just meant are we north? I heard it’s colder in the north on your planet.”

“Tev,” he finally said. “We are north of the Golden City.”

It told her nothing, just as he knew it would…which was why he told her in the first place. Anywhere was north of the Golden City, it seemed, based on the locations of the outposts she’d gleaned over time.

He was watching her, as if waiting for her to make a biting comment back or rise to the argument. Perhaps he liked fighting. Maybe he got off on it.

Erin wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, though the need to make a retort burned in her blood. Instead, she forced a small smile and said, almost sweetly, “That was all I wanted to know.”

He mumbled something under his breath, in Luxirian, rubbing a hand over his right horn. His horns were dark, lifted off the crown of his head, the points curled. Erin suddenly had the strongest urge to touch them, to stroke them, to feel them, but she squeezed her fists tight.

And since she truly couldn’t help herself, she found herself asking, “Are you always this surly? Or is it just because you haven’t really slept much?”

“Maybe because my sleep was interrupted last night,” he bit back, his voice edging on a growl though his eyes shone with the firelight when he looked at her.

He definitely gets off on arguing, she thought, her breath hitching. She paused. And maybe I do too. But only with him.

“It won’t happen again,” she said, remembering her shame that morning. Her eyes narrowed, however, and she added quietly, “You took all the weapons out of the cave, after all.”

Even as the words left her mouth, Erin wondered why she said them. What was it about Jaxor that just made her want to test him?

Erin swore she saw his lips twitch. Ever so slightly. And her heart raced at the sight. Something in her bloomed. Delight? Amusement? Whatever it was, it was ridiculous to feel, especially in that place, with him sitting so close, with a frightening creature roasting on a spit in front of her, and her future so uncertain.

Regardless, her shoulders relaxed a fraction. His lips had twitched and so an odd truce stemmed between them, though it was precarious at best. It could break at any moment, especially given both of their mercurial tempers around one another, but it was still a reprieve.

The sudden memory of him biting her neck rose, as if in reminder of who she was dealing with. Her fingers floated up to the soft bruise, remembering it was there for the first time in a couple days.

Jaxor made a sound in his throat. A purr? A growl? She couldn’t be certain. Erin’s lips parted at that sound, at the tender pain that sizzled to her belly when she pressed the bruise ever so slightly.

When she removed her hand, it was trembling. Jaxor’s eyes were glued to her, that sound in his chest never letting up. He didn’t even seem to realize he was making it.

She remembered the sharp prick of his teeth. The dull throb of shock. She remembered her sex clenching in response.

A sudden dizziness made her head swirl.

I’m not like this, she thought. But even in her mind, her voice sounded small and quiet, as if she already knew it was a lie.

Erin looked into the fire. And then she squeezed her thighs together so Jaxor wouldn’t know how disturbingly aroused she was, thinking about that bite.

I’m not like this, she thought again. The words sounded firmer, louder in her mind.

But then another voice whispered back.

Yes, you are. And what’s more…you like it.