The Alien’s Claim by Zoey Draven
Chapter Seventeen
“Stay here,” Jaxor commanded, walking down the long tunnel towards the hovercraft, Erin following behind him. The contented ease he’d felt with her only a moment before had vanished, another threat taking its place. Jaxor mourned the loss of it. “The kekevir are gated in. You will be safe.”
“Where are you going? What did the smoke mean?” she asked, stubborn determination coloring her tone.
“I have something to take care of,” he said. “Trespassers. I do not want them finding the base.”
A partial lie. The Mevirax were trespassers in a sense—expected ones—but he did indeed not want them to find his base. He’d taken great care to hide it from them, using valuable shield links over the top of the crater so that if any passed over in a hovercraft, it would look like the mountains surrounding it.
“Other Luxirians?” she asked, her eyes narrowing. He turned towards her, sensing the interest in her voice.
He took her chin in his hand, tilting her face upwards. Her lips parted and Jaxor remembered the way she tasted, the breathy little sounds she made when he suckled on her tongue and ground the head of his cock against her sex. He remembered her husky laugh, her face lit by firelight just a few moments ago.
“They are dangerous, rixella,” he rasped. Even the prospect of seeing the Mevirax did nothing to lessen his need for her. The clawed tip of his thumb stroked over her cheek as she quieted. His tone was gentle as he said, “Stay here.”
She blew out a long breath.
“I will be back soon,” he assured her, releasing her, turning towards the hovercraft. With a quick look at the gate, he saw the kekevir were nowhere in sight. Erin watched him climb on board, watched as his fingers flitted over the controls.
“And what if you don’t come back?” she challenged.
“Nothing will stop me from coming back,” he rasped, starting up the hovercraft. He didn’t want the Mevirax to know he had one in his possession. He would have to be careful about his approach.
Without another word, he shot from the tunnel, hurtling straight up through the single opening. It was the only entrance into his base that wasn’t covered in shield links—he hadn’t been able to find enough—but it wouldn’t look like anything from above. Just a darkened hole in the mountain.
Once he rose, he couldn’t see his base from above. The shield links covered even light. All he saw was dark, rocky terrain below. Though if one studied it very closely, every now and again, the shield links wavered, making the surface shimmer. He gritted his jaw, knowing that he would have to make repairs soon—only he didn’t have the parts he needed.
Looking northeast, to where he’d seen the Mevirax’s signal, he approached, though he kept the hovercraft low to the ground once he cleared the Pass of the Kokillix. They always met him near the shore of the vast Lopitax Sea and there was an outcropping of dunes where he could hide the hovercraft.
He navigated to one, landed, and then exited. He made the rest of the distance on foot, plunging through thick, soft sand, snagging a few obiraxi fruits from the spindly bushes he passed. His female might enjoy them, hopefully better than the kekevir meat.
Only three Mevirax had come. Jaxor’s lips pressed together when he saw Tavar among them. The leader of the Mevirax, the one whom he made the original agreement with. For him to journey all this way did not bode well for the trust he’d placed in Jaxor, trust that had taken him a long time to build up.
The other two Mevirax were Laccara and Kilan. Laccara was one of their females, the next one slated for the Jetutians to heal. She was mated to Kilan, Tavar’s warrior general, of sorts.
Jaxor knew why Tavar had brought Laccara. As if to remind him what was at stake.
They were sitting around a small fire, waiting. They’d burned tillia leaf to make the large plumes of smoke and the air seemed grey around them. Grey and thin. The first thing that Jaxor did when he stepped towards them was go to the fire and crush the burning leaf with his foot.
Tavar stood, gazing at him. Observing. Jaxor hated it. It made his skin crawl.
“Where are the females?” Tavar asked, straight to the point. He spoke in the old dialect, one that had taken Jaxor time to pick up. The Mevirax were not an ancient line of people. Tavar was the youngest—and last—son of the male who led the original rebellion against Jaxor’s own sire, Kirax’an. And yet, they adhered to the old customs of the Luxirians, to the old language, passed down among very few.
Jaxor had to tread carefully. Tavar was intelligent, not easily fooled, though the older brother he’d taken power from had been.
“Cruxan, one of Vaxa’an’s Ambassadors, has them. He ambushed me in the forest before our meeting.” Tavar’s gaze flickered down his bare chest, at the kekevir wounds adorning his flesh. They could pass for blade marks and Jaxor wouldn’t correct his assumptions. “I am tracking them south.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I needed to refuel,” he said.
“They could already be back to the Golden City by now,” Kilan commented, frustration coloring the male’s tone. His hair was plaited, wixa beads threaded throughout. Jaxor’s stomach jolted when he realized his own hair was now shorn. Surely that would seem suspicious to Tavar, who had only seen him a handful of spans ago. His eyes cut through Jaxor, narrowing. “You failed. You failed Laccara. Now the possibility of our child is lost.”
Jaxor’s eyes went to Laccara, standing next to her mate. Her hands were clasped in front of her, looking every bit the docile Luxirian female, but Jaxor was not fooled. He’d learned long ago that most Mevirax females were just as cunning and vicious as their males, if not more so.
“I have not failed,” Jaxor told them. “Our plan is only delayed. Cruxan is on foot with the females. His hovercraft was damaged. He will try for one of the outposts before risking the Black Desert back to the Golden City.”
Jaxor could feel Tavar’s unflinching gaze. When the Jetutians had first approached the Mevirax, it had been to Tavar’s older brother. The previous leader. His brother had almost run through the Jetutian messenger with his blade. Jetutians and Luxirians had a long, ugly history. The most recent attack on their females was still fresh in the Luxirians’ minds—and always would be.
But Tavar saw opportunity where his older brother had seen only hate. Tavar had pushed his brother out as leader within the rotation, sowing doubt and rumors among the Mevirax. After Tavar had taken control, his brother was never seen again.
Jaxor held no doubt in his mind that Tavar had killed him. His own brother. That was why Jaxor would never trust him. To his people, he seemed a just, fair leader who was restoring hope and life. Jaxor believed that Tavar wanted the females cured of the virus that had left them unable to conceive—but Jaxor knew it was power that the Mevirax leader craved most of all, and that he would give anything for it.
And what was more powerful than Mevirax females giving life, once more, while the females in the Golden City and the outposts could not? It would shake the very core of their society. There would be uprisings, more rebellions, probably bloody. The Mevirax would grow more powerful, drawing in new factions from all over Luxiria, with the promise of restored health, a restored future. Already, there had been whisperings through the outposts.
Tavar wanted to be Prime Leader of Luxiria. Tavar wanted Vaxa’an dead and the Golden City under his rule. He believed he could get it, if he played the Jetutians just right. If he could steal away the vaccine that would heal Luxirian females and use it as a bargaining chip for the throne.
That was why Jaxor could not allow Tavar to claim the cure for himself and himself alone.
Tavar believed that Jaxor only wanted revenge on Po’grak, the Jetutian who had ordered the attack on Luxirian females, the war commander of their race. And that was true. Jaxor wanted to run him through with his blade, one he’d crafted with his sorrow and grief. Only then would he feel like he had avenged his mother. Only then would he feel like he could breathe again.
Only then would he feel like he could look his blood brother in the eye again.
But there was more at stake. The future of their race, one that hopefully wouldn’t be under Tavar’s rule.
It was a roundabout, twisted plan.
But his plan hinged on Tavar’s trust in him, while Jaxor wondered if the Mevirax leader was even capable of it.
“I will get the human females back,” Jaxor said, looking him in the eye, if only to buy him more time.
“Vow it to Oxandri,” Laccara finally said, her voice hard and unyielding. “Give blood to Oxandri and if you go back on your word then she will strike you down.”
Jaxor saw the flash of impatience on Tavar’s features, though he hid it quickly. Most of the Mevirax revered and prayed to Oxandri, the Fate of Sacrifice, and her alone.
Jaxor’s jaw clenched, but he looked at the dagger that Kilan pulled from the sheath attached to his leg.
“How much would she require?” Jaxor asked, his eyes cutting to Laccara.
The female’s lips pressed together. She snagged the blade from her mate’s grip and stepped forward.
Jaxor didn’t even flinch when she pressed it deep into his right pectoral, carving Oxandri’s mark into his skin. Blood dripped from the fresh wound and Laccara’s eyes flickered to him. He’d mated her once, long ago, long before Kilan began courting her.
He’d lusted for her once and she’d always seemed to hate him for never wanting her again. Now her nearness, her scent, only made him think of the rixella in his base.
“I make the vow to Oxandri,” Jaxor rasped, his blood hot and slow as it dribbled down his flesh, “that I will uphold our agreement.”
Jaxor had never given much weight to Oxandri. His mother had favored Kollasor, the Fate of Rebirth, and when Jaxor had prayed, it had been to her.
Laccara seemed satisfied with his vow. Even Kilan gave him a nod. Tavar, as always, was watching him.
“One more chance,” the Mevirax leader finally said, his eyes flickering to Oxandri’s mark, the kekevir wounds on his chest, and his shorn hair. Jaxor kept his expression neutral. “You leave tonight. I will give you five spans to track them down and bring them to me. If you fail, then you will never get close to Po’grak and you will never step foot in the Caves of the Pevrallix again.”
