The Alien’s Claim by Zoey Draven

Chapter Thirty-Nine

“My luxiva gave birth to our son shortly after you took the females from the Golden City,” Vaxa’an told him quietly.

A sharp breath whistled through Jaxor’s nostrils and he stopped his pacing of the command center’s quarters he’d been living in.

“We went to the Lallarix,” Vaxa’an murmured, “where our own mother brought us into this world. There, my Kat brought our son into the world. Your blood too.”

It had been seven spans since Jaxor had arrived at the command center. Seven spans since meeting Vaxa’an again, face to face, for the first time in ten rotations. Seven frustrating, agonizing spans of planning, of distrustful looks and comments from the council and the Ambassadors when they finally arrived from the outposts. Seven spans of dread and worry for Erin, of feeling powerless to protect her, to help her.

Yet, in those seven spans, this was the first mention that Vaxa’an had a son.

“Rebax?” Jaxor asked quietly, looking across the room at his brother.

“I would like you to give Kollasor’s blessing to my son,” Vaxa’an said. “I have spoken with Kat about it—”

“Nix,” Jaxor rasped, his hands suddenly trembling. Grief and anger and every emotion that he’d felt over the course of the last lunar cycle washed over him—even elation and joy. They mingled together until Jaxor couldn’t breathe. “Nix. You know I cannot.”

Vaxa’an frowned. He pushed away from the wall where he was standing, grasped Jaxor’s forearm to feel their sibling blood bond more fully. Vaxa’an stiffened at what he found in Jaxor’s mind and released him.

It was just the two of them. They were on a meal break from the war room, from their planning and re-planning, but Jaxor hadn’t any appetite the last week. Every time he went into the war room, he saw a map of the Mevirax base at the Caves of Pevrallix. He’d given Kirov every detail, to the last hidden tunnel and passageway winding through it, and it reflected back at him, a floating map, outlined perfectly by crisp streams of blue light. It looked so real that Jaxor could almost envision walking the stone corridors.

And whenever he looked at the lower quadrant of the map, he could almost feel the way the darkness of the dungeon pressed against his chest. He’d always forced himself to look away, but he knew that was where Tavar kept Erin. Remembering every moment spent there, knowing that Erin experienced that darkness too, made him feel enraged and helpless.

“You are my blood,” Vaxa’an said, catching his gaze. “I want you to bless my son.”

“After everything that I have done,” Jaxor said, his voice ragged, torn, “you still want me to give the blessing? You should not want me close to your son!”

Vaxa’an growled, taking him by the shoulders. They were the same height now, but Jaxor sometimes still felt like the little brother, craning his neck back to lock eyes with him, like he’d done when he’d been young.

“Enough,” Vaxa’an hissed. “I have forgiven you and you know this.”

“Nix.”

“You do not want my forgiveness?” Vaxa’an asked, his voice hard. He shook Jaxor’s shoulders. “Is that what it is?”

Jaxor had hated himself for so long, hated the decisions he’d made, hated the lives he’d affected.

“You want my hatred too?” Vaxa’an asked, feeling the emotions coursing through his body. “You wish I hated you instead of loved you?”

“Tev,” Jaxor admitted softly. “I wish that.”

“Do you hate me then, brother?” Vaxa’an asked, still, his claws gripping Jaxor’s shoulders tight.

“Rebax?” Jaxor rasped, brow furrowing. “Nix. Of course not.”

“Have you ever hated me?”

Jaxor paused. He could see himself in Vaxa’an’s eyes.

“It was not hate,” he finally said. “It was envy. It was grief for our parents. It was feeling so powerless, when all our lives we were raised to be strong. I do not know what to call that, but it was not hate.”

And as he said the words, Jaxor realized they were true. When he’d left the Golden City, he’d blamed his brother for his inaction against the Jetutians, an impulsive, immature decision on Jaxor’s part. He’d been young then, the angry son of the late Prime Leader.

And in Jaxor’s own mind, killing Po’grak, eliminating the threat that hung over their heads, that had taken the lives of so many Luxirians, their parents included, and bringing the vaccine that could heal their females back to the Golden City…Jaxor had seen it as his apology. He’d been too ashamed to face his brother, his home, his people, not unless he had something to offer them as atonement.

Then he’d seen Erin in the washroom in the Golden City and his entire world had tilted. And nothing had been the same since.

“You have always been too severe on yourself, Jaxor’an,” his brother said. “Even as a child.”

Jaxor frowned.

“I remember you once broke our mother’s favorite trinket box. The one she’d received from her mother.” Jaxor remembered that incident well. “You were so ashamed and upset that you scoured the marketplace for another like it. For hours on end, in the height of the hot season. And when you could not find one, you went from dwelling to dwelling, asking to buy one similar, though you were not even seven rotations old at the time. When you finally returned home, you expected the worst. You walked through the doorway with your head hung, empty-handed, ravenous since you had not eaten all span, and do you remember what our mother said?”

Jaxor swallowed hard. He replied, “She said that she didn’t need to forgive me because it had been an accident. She said that instead, I needed to forgive myself because it was I that was doing the punishing.”

“Tev,” Vaxa’an said. “You feel so deeply, Jaxor’an. Mother knew that. She knew that your emotions were pure, but sometimes cutting. That you could love deeply, but also react too strongly.”

“Erin believed I was cold and detached when I first took her away,” Jaxor told him.

Vaxa’an inclined his head in agreement. “Perhaps because it was the only way. You had to dampen your emotions to go through with the task you had set before yourself. But once she unlocked those repressed emotions, it was too late. There was no going back.”

His ears were buzzing with his brother’s words.

“You need to forgive yourself, Jaxor’an,” Vaxa’an said, his tone unyielding. “You have made bad decisions, decisions you regret. We all have. You have hurt those closest to you. We all have, one way or another. But I am standing in front of you now, saying that I forgive you. Now, I am asking you to forgive yourself because living with this guilt, with this shame…it’s not a life I would wish for you.”

Jaxor felt his heart thudding in his chest. Could he forgive himself? He didn’t know. But he understood what Vaxa’an was saying…that Jaxor was his own enemy in all this.

“It will take time,” Vaxa’an said. Time I may not have, Jaxor thought. “But there is hope and possibility ahead. I want you to focus on that.”

“I want to be a better male,” he finally admitted. “I want to be a better male for her. And for myself.”

“Once this is all over,” Vaxa’an said, “once we return from the Mevirax, once we get back your mate, I want you to meet mine—properly this time.”

Jaxor blew out a short breath, remembering that he’d spied on them both at the Lallarix, long before he’d even known of Erin’s existence.

“Tev,” Jaxor said, his voice low and quiet.

“And I want you to bless Kollix’an, my son,” he continued. “Will you do this for me? For us?”

Kollix’an.

The given name of their sire’s sire. A great leader of their time.

“Kat calls him Ollie,” Vaxa’an told him, his lips quirking at the corners. Jaxor saw the deep, deep happiness and pride on his brother’s face. “A human name, I think.”

Jaxor’s throat felt tight. He reached out to squeeze his brother’s shoulder.

“Tev,” he said, the word guttural, filled with the overwhelming emotion he saw on his Vaxa’an’s face. He felt it thread through his own blood. “Tev, I will. Once this is done, I will meet your mate and your son. And I will bless him in the words of Kollasor, the favored words of our mother. She would have liked that.”

They stood there for a long time in quiet, hearing and seeing all the memories between them, memories only they had.

And for the first time, Jaxor felt hope. For the first time, Jaxor saw the future that he wanted.

* * *

The next morning,the plan was set into motion. In exchange for exile, not execution, the warrior male responsible for shielding the Jetutians’ entry into Luxiria’s atmosphere three times in the past five rotations—Jaxor didn’t care to remember the warrior’s name—told them when the planned meeting would take place on the surface. The male was placed under careful guard, so he could not alert the Mevirax to their plans, and his final act as a warrior of Luxiria would be allowing their most reviled enemy entry, as planned.

During one of the multiple and endless meetings with the council, they’d realized that their only opportunity for accessing the vaccine was to ensure the Jetutians landed on Luxirian soil. The elders on the council had been fiercely against it, but Vaxa’an had eventually made them see reason. Erin’s rescue was obviously pressing…but the vaccine was an opportunity they could not squander.

The exchange would take place near the Caves of the Pevrallix, a half-span journey by hovercraft. Early in the morning, Vaxa’an, Jaxor, three of the Ambassadors—Lihvan, Cruxan, and Rixavox—and nearly a hundred of the Golden City’s best warriors took to their hovercrafts and then the sky. Kirov and Vikan, the remaining two Ambassadors, would remain behind in the Golden City as a precaution. Another hundred warriors were prepared to leave at a moment’s notice and would travel to the Caves of the Pevrallix as the night drew near in case their swords were needed.

As the hovercrafts passed the shining terraces of the Golden City, cheers raised into the sky, but Vaxa’an’s face remained grim. When Jaxor looked at the place he’d once called home, he saw crowds had gathered to see them off, lining the terraces, the courtyards, the marketplaces. Many were relieved that Vaxa’an was finally taking action against the Mevirax. But not many knew that the Jetutians were also involved in this plot. Only the warriors did. Only the warriors knew what was at stake if they failed.

The Mevirax numbers had grown considerably since their defection from the Golden City. And while a hundred of the best-trained Luxirian warriors should be enough to subdue them, Jaxor didn’t know how many Jetutians Po’grak would bring with him, an unknown variable. One of many.

He flew in one hovercraft with Vaxa’an and two warrior guards. He assumed the council had placed them there because they still didn’t trust Jaxor’s intentions, as if he was leading all of them into a trap. The guards eyed him warily whenever Vaxa’an’s back was turned, but Jaxor paid them no mind. He knew—Vaxa’an knew—that he was not lying.

He would have to come to terms with the fact that it was a possibility no one would fully trust him again. Especially Erin.

His fists clenched at his sides. They still had a long journey to the Caves of the Pevrallix, but he knew that every moment brought him closer to her.