The Alien’s Claim by Zoey Draven
Chapter Forty-Three
His rixella was watching him as Vaxa’an led him into the room. She was small and observant and beautiful.
And though his wrists were chained, it didn’t stop him from crossing the short distance to her, his heartbeat thrumming in his chest wildly, and dropping his forehead to hers.
Her skin was warm. For spans, he’d been haunted by the memory of her lying on the forest floor, Po’grak on top of her, a blade jutting from her chest. He hadn’t been able to sleep, knowing she was a short distance away, knowing that he could not see her, be near her after so long apart.
“Rixella,” he murmured, peering into her eyes, seeing his own reflected in her dark orbs. “I have been so worried.”
But his words conveyed nothing of what he’d felt since she was taken from his base. Not even close to the fear, the guilt, the horror, the rage.
Her own gaze shuttered closed and Jaxor retreated slowly, unease curling in his belly. With a glance at Vaxa’an, standing with his arms crossed over his chest in the corner of the room, he asked him, in Luxirian, “Can we have a moment in private?”
Vaxa’an blew out a sharp breath, but Jaxor was relieved when he inclined his head in a nod. “I will be outside the door.”
Then he left, leaving Jaxor alone with his mate. His mate, who would not quite meet his eyes.
“Erin,” he said. “Look at me.”
Dread was roiling in his belly like waves against a cliff, violent and cutting. But she did look at him, though it felt like she was far away.
“What is it?” he asked softly, pulling a chair up beside her bed so that their eyes were level. His chains clinked together as he did, drawing her attention to them.
“Did you ever care for me?” she asked, looking at the chains. “Or was it all a ploy to get me to trust you? I need to know and I need you to tell me the truth. For once.”
A ringing started up in his ears and Jaxor sat, frozen in place, staring at her in disbelief.
“Rebax?” he asked quietly, not entirely sure he’d heard her right.
Finally, her eyes connected with his and he held them fast, afraid she’d retreat again. “Am I really your mate?
Jaxor jerked, as if struck. “Of course you are. How can you even ask that?”
“I don’t have an Instinct. Not like you,” she murmured. “Maybe what I felt was just strong attraction. Nothing more. How could I be certain?”
He stood from the chair, his unease doubling. “What is going on, rixella?” he asked. “Why are you even saying these things?”
Her chin quivered. The first show of emotion from her. Whispering, she said, “Because you lied about everything else, didn’t you?”
Pain struck him in the chest, a desperate ache that spread and spread. He took her hands, gripping them tight, though the icy coolness of his chains made her flinch. At least, that was what he believed. Perhaps it was his touch that made her react.
Tavar.
“What did he tell you?” he rasped.
“Everything you wouldn’t,” she snapped, anger finally rising within her. Jaxor gave a helpless look at the monitors lining the walls, not wanting her to get upset. She was still recovering.
He cupped her cheek but she turned her face away.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “Just—just tell me. Once and for all.”
The truth.
Jaxor sank into the chair again. She wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her jaw was set, though her lips trembled slightly. He didn’t want to see her cry. He didn’t want to be the reason she cried.
“Ask me anything,” he finally said, his shoulders sagging. “Ask me anything and I will tell you the truth, however ugly it might be.”
He’d clearly lost her trust. She could barely look at him, so he guessed whatever Tavar had told her had cut her deeply.
She inhaled a long breath and then asked, “Am I your fated mate?”
“Tev. Of course,” he hissed out—the thought that she doubted that was physically painful. To think that he’d lied about something like that told him how little she thought of him now. What had happened at the Mevirax base?
She nodded, bringing him some semblance of relief. “And even though I was your mate, you were still thinking of handing me over to the Mevirax? Knowing what Tavar’s plan was? Knowing that in giving me to them, the Jetutians would come for me?”
A sharp inhale filled his lungs. His voice came out ragged when he replied, “At first, tev.” A sound escaped her and he raked a hand through his hair, needing her to understand everything that went through his mind. “But I would have never allowed you to leave with the Jetutians. That was never part of the plan.”
“So, what was I then?” she asked, her eyes shining with angry tears when she turned her face to regard him. “Bait? Bait, so that you could finally get your revenge after all these years?”
“It was more than revenge, luxiva.”
“Don’t,” she hissed, “call me that.”
Jaxor ran a shaking hand down his face.
“You were always going to give me to them, weren’t you?” she whispered.
“Nix,” he said.
“Then when did that change?” she cried.
“The night I met with them near the base,” he said. She remembered that night, when he’d come back with the mark of Oxandri on his flesh. “Maybe even before.”
“Why then?”
“I was always conflicted about it, Erin,” he burst out, standing from the chair as his voice rose. “From the moment I saw you in the Golden City, I was never the same. I need you to understand that!”
Erin’s lips parted. For the first time, he saw doubt in her features where there’d only been hurt and anger before. She was eyeing him as he paced the room, but there wasn’t enough room to take more than a few strides, just like in his own quarters in the command center. His cell.
“I told you I left the Mevirax to live on my own when I realized that Tavar intended to supply the Jetutians with Luxirian crystals,” he started, trying to calm the thundering in his chest. “But Tavar sought me out when he learned that Vaxa’an had taken a human female as his queen and that there were rumors of other human females living in the Golden City. He told me that Po’grak wanted them back, so much so that the Jetutians would heal a select number of the Mevirax females in exchange. They’d had the means to cure our females all along.
“Tavar knew I was familiar with the Golden City,” Jaxor continued, “because I grew up here. He tasked me with finding and taking the human females that remained. And then we came up with a plan. To renege on the agreement with Po’grak and to secure the vaccine for ourselves. Tavar planned to use it to secure what he’d always wanted: the position of Prime Leader, to return the Mevirax to their rightful home, the Golden City. But I planned something different. I knew Tavar was dangerous, that he could never be the Prime Leader that Luxiria needs—the leader that Luxiria already has. Tavar would never get close to the Golden City with the vaccine because I planned to give it to Vaxa’an myself.”
Erin watched him, staying silent as these things poured from him. He wondered how much of this she already knew, what Tavar had told her.
“And then,” he continued, swallowing hard, “I saw you. My Instinct awakened and I was suddenly faced with the possibility that in continuing with my plans, your safety could not be guaranteed because sometimes even the best laid plans do not unfold as expected.
“So, tev, when I first brought you to my base, in those first few spans, I was struggling with the decision. I tried to keep you at a distance, thinking that it would make my decision easier.”
“Because it wasn’t just me,” Erin said finally, softly. “It was the vaccine too.”
“Tev. The vaccine,” he said, his voice twisting the word bitterly. “I thought I was being selfish, turning my back on my people, if I chose you. But how could I give you up, knowing what might happen? The very thought of handing you over to the Jetutians filled with me with such disgust and rage, yet I thought of my own people too. That this was our only chance to help our females. And then you…how could I trade your freedom for that? What right did I have to make that choice for you, when you’d already had so many choices ripped away from you?”
Erin looked down into her lap and he hoped that she was beginning to understand why he’d done what he’d done.
“So, tev, I lied to you when you asked of the Mevirax, but when I told you those things, I had already decided to keep you safe from them,” he said softly. The torment of feeling intense relief and shame from that decision still burned in his chest. Erin met his eyes, something like surprise in her expression. “I thought that you did not need to know about the previous plan because it was never going to happen.”
Jaxor couldn’t have won either way. The moment he’d chosen his female, he’d turned his back on his people. But now, his female didn’t trust him because he’d lied about it. He’d lied about so much.
“When you ask me if I ever cared for you,” he said, his voice so ragged that he heard the pain in it, “maybe now you will understand.”
“Because you chose me over the vaccine,” she whispered, stunned, her eyes shining and wet.
“I am not a good male,” he said softly. “I have lied. I have betrayed those that were once close to me. I turned my back on my brother when he needed me most. I have grown angry and callous with time and there is no possible way that I will ever be the male that deserves a female like you, but I hope that you never need to question what I feel for you again. No matter what happens.”
Erin stared at him for a long time, processing his words. He could see how they exhausted her, how they took a toll on her.
Finally, she asked, “And what of your brother?”
“What about him?”
“Why did you lie about that too?” she asked, though her voice didn’t hold the venom it held earlier. “Maybe you didn’t exactly lie, but you certainly didn’t tell me.”
“It did not…” he trailed off, unsure how to put it into words. “It no longer seemed important who my brother was.”
“You don’t think it’s important that your brother is the Prime Leader?” she asked.
“In my mind,” he started, “that life was no longer mine to claim. I used to be a prince of Luxiria. But I stopped being one the moment I left to seek out the Mevirax. It was like a death. I would not sully my brother’s name in returning to the Golden City as Jaxor’an.”
“So you became Jaxor,” she finished. “It was why you were so angry when I called you by the name Cruxan had given you. I heard him call you Vaxa’an. I thought…”
She trailed off.
“In our language, only the royal bloodline can add on the clarifier to our chosen names. It is a sign of high respect.”
“And you didn’t think yourself worthy of it,” she whispered, finishing the thought for him.
Jaxor’s gaze went down to his chains.
“I could not offer you that life,” he said softly. “The life you would have had as my mate, if I were still Jaxor’an. It embarrassed me, just the mere thought of telling you about who I was. Because you would see how far I’d fallen.”
“You thought I would reject you because you were no longer a prince of Luxiria?” she asked.
He blew out a breath. “I should have told you regardless, rixella. I know that. There is much that I would change if we started again.”
“I don’t think that’s possible for us, Jaxor,” Erin said softly. “To start again.”
The words hurt more than Jaxor expected. They felt…final. And though he would rather eat shards of glass than ask the question, he still asked it. “Will you return to Earth now that the crystal has been recovered?”
He hadn’t thought much beyond seeing Erin again. But now, he knew that his trial loomed. He knew that he would either be exiled or sentenced to death for his crimes against the Golden City, for his crimes against Erin and Crystal. There was very little chance he’d be pardoned.
“Is that what you want?” she whispered.
Maybe it would be better if she left before the trial, so she doesn’t see the verdict, he thought. But Jaxor was trying to take his brother’s advice. He was trying to forgive himself for his actions, to make peace with them. He’d told his brother he wanted to be a better male for Erin’s sake, to be worthy of her, to be proud of the male he was.
“I want you to be safe,” he rasped, his gaze connecting with her own. “I want you to be happy, no matter where you might be.”
She was crying again, soft tears tracking down her face.
And because he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t ask it, he asked, “Is there no hope for us, rixella? Have I ruined this beyond repair?”
He didn’t know if they’d even have time to repair it, but he needed to know regardless. She’d once asked him, would you ask me to stay if you could?
Right then, Jaxor had nothing to lose.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, wiping at her damp cheeks. “Hearing the things that Tavar told me…it broke my heart thinking that I never really knew you at all.”
Anguish burst in his chest at her words.
“And then I saw you in the forest after Po’grak attacked me,” she said, looking at him with glittering eyes, “and I felt all these things come back to me. And even then, even when I believed that you had betrayed me, I was still so relieved to see you, so happy even though I felt it tear me in half. I just don’t know. I’m so confused.”
A sob tore from her throat and Jaxor went to her, pressing his forehead against her, trying to calm her. And though she might not want him near, she still seemed to settle down at his touch.
Erin cried softly for long moments as Jaxor stroked her hair. He remembered the sight of her that night. She’d looked haunted. She’d lost weight. She’d been so weak, her skin as thin as parchment. And all Jaxor had wanted was to protect her at all cost. All he’d wanted was to tear the throat out of anyone who had brought her harm—even himself.
He’d realized in that moment that he loved her. He loved her as her blood was pooling around her in that dark forest. He would never forget the terror he’d felt right then, thinking that she would be lost to him forever.
It marked him like a physical scar.
And right then, holding her as she cried…Jaxor felt like he was losing her all over again.
