The Alien’s Seduction by Zoey Draven
Chapter Fifteen
By some small miracle, they got a fire started in the cave. Or rather, Cruxan did. She was relieved to see it, especially considering that the materials they’d gathered after the water gourds had been damp from the drizzle and endless rains from the night before. But Cruxan had managed to scrape enough bark from the inside of a pillerva tree and he’d expertly extracted some sap from one of the swaying blue stalks, which he told her was a good starter.
Just like last night, he’d hunted effortlessly. The rains had brought out more of the black spindly-legged creatures, which collected the rotting pods from the pillerva trees off the ground. Cruxan had dispatched not one, but three, and shortly after he got the fire roaring, he was working on skinning and cutting the meat.
Crystal watched him work as they waited for the water gourds to heat.
She was surprised when Cruxan murmured softly, “A crackling fire, a good meal,” he laid one of the fillets down on the hot rock and looked up at her, gesturing to their cave for the night, “a little home in the wild lands.”
Her lips parted and she couldn’t hide the little smile she gave him when she realized what he was saying. They’d hardly spoken since their strange conversation when they’d collected water gourds. Cruxan had seemed to be lost in thought and Crystal had felt a little emotionally drained from her admissions to him.
Cruxan was charming. That was a truth, not an opinion. She could see why he had many females at his beck and call.
“It is everything you wanted,” he murmured, though she could tell from his light tone that he was both teasing and serious.
“You’re forgetting my art studio,” she commented, playing along, “with my morning light so I can draw.”
“I cannot make it morning, but is this not enough light for your drawings?” he asked, tilting his head towards the fire.
She didn’t know who was more surprise when a small chuckle escaped her, her or Cruxan. It filled the small cave, which she saw didn’t extend that far back now that they had the fire’s light.
His eyes were soft as he rumbled, “I like your laugh, female.”
Her cheeks heated, not knowing how to take his compliment.
“And my animals?” she asked next, hurriedly, brushing his compliment aside.
He looked down at the creatures that would become their dinner. “Tomorrow, I will catch one for you to keep.”
She couldn’t help her smile. She hoped he was joking.
“You are persistent, Cruxan,” she commented. “I’ll give you that.”
That earned her a smile from him. She was, truthfully, a little relieved to see it. He’d been in a strange mood since they’d been gathering.
Once he laid out all the fillets onto the large stone slab, he looked down at his tunic she still wore. “We should dry that out while we have large flames.”
She nodded, reaching for the hem, before hesitating. It didn’t matter, considering she was wearing her own tunic underneath it, but she still hesitated.
Cruxan noticed and he jerked his head away, which made her both relieved and a little embarrassed. She felt like he had to tiptoe around her because of how she was around males.
She took off his tunic, peeling it from her body with some struggle since it was still heavy from the dampness. She was glad that he’d looked away because at one point her own tunic had slid up with it, exposing her completely.
With her cheeks slightly flushed from the effort, she finally had it off and she smoothed her own tunic down. It was even wetter than Cruxan’s shirt, considering its thin material, and to her dismay, it clung closely to her curves, her breasts. When she looked down, her nipples poked almost obscenely through.
Swallowing, she knew it couldn’t be helped and she shuffled closer, laying Cruxan’s tunic across the cave floor, which the fire had already heated.
“I’m done,” she said softly, watching as the steam from the clothing rose. Cruxan’s gaze came to her immediately. As if his eyes had their own will, they dropped down to her breasts, at her peaked hard nipples through the fabric.
His nostrils flared. He made a gruff sound in the back of his throat and her lips parted when she saw his claws curl inwards…as if he wanted, needed to touch her.
Crystal froze but then he blinked, his gaze sliding away, and he made a grab for a water gourd, hacking a small notch open with the dagger before handing the hard bulb to her. Not meeting her eyes. Not looking at her at all.
“Thank you,” she said quietly, their light mood from before gone completely, snuffed out by heady, thick tension. Crystal found she was desperate to break it, so she scrambled for something to say and settled for something she’d been wondering since that morning. “Is Otala a place?”
His surprised gaze cut to her before it flashed away. It struck her as wrong. Now she understood why Cruxan didn’t like it when she looked away from him.
“You said you were the Ambassador of Otala. I’m assuming its a place,” she continued.
“Tev,” he murmured. “My home.”
Just like the other Ambassadors, Cruxan didn’t reside permanently in the Golden City and she wondered about his home.
“What’s it like there?”
“Harsh,” he murmured immediately. “Stark. Beautiful.”
“Where is it?”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “A long journey from here. It is one of the farthest outposts from the Golden City. It resides in the black mountains of the Otylia.”
“You live in a mountain?” she asked. Like the Golden City? Or actually in a mountain, much like the two little goblins from her imagination?
She couldn’t help but be amused at the picture that made. Of Cruxan living in a mountain like a goblin. Somehow she couldn’t imagine it.
“Some parts of the outpost are underneath the facev, tev. Like the training pits for the warriors and the barracks.”
“So Otala is the base for the military training?” she questioned, bringing her knees up to her chest, watching him from across the fire.
“Every outpost has a section dedicated for military training,” he informed her, “but Otala is where the best warriors train. The ones with the most potential, who wish to dedicate their lives to protecting Luxiria.”
“Is that where you trained?” she asked softly, her eyes briefly flickering to the piercings through his nipples, knowing what they meant.
“Tev. It is where all of the Ambassadors trained—Lihvan, Rixavox, Vikan, Kirov—where Vaxa’an trained. It is how we all met, pulled from different outposts all across Luxiria but united under our shared goal.”
“And what was that?” she asked, rapt. Even though he didn’t look at her, she found she couldn’t take her eyes off him. His voice was deep and husky and she knew that she could listen to it forever, if only he kept talking.
Her heartbeat was racing in her chest and she wondered if he was putting her under some kind of spell as she watched him. That was how she felt at least.
“To be better,” he said simply, finally lifting his gaze from the flames to look at her. She almost gasped, his blue eyes alight, his skin gleaming gold. “To be more.”
He looked like a warrior right then, all gleaming muscles and hardened eyes.
Crystal licked her dry lips and then realized the water gourd was still dangling from her grip. She hurriedly took a steady drink before swallowing the sweet liquid down.
He was watching her still, though eyes still on fire. Why was it suddenly so hot? Why did she suddenly feel like she couldn’t get enough air?
“Is—is that where you grew up?” she asked, trying to distract herself from the strange otherness that was consuming her body. “Or somewhere else?
He inclined his head and she saw his eyes rest on her now-moistened lips. “Tev,” he said, his voice gruff, his shoulders rising at the word that seemed to boom from deep in his chest. “I was born in Otala. I was raised there.”
She wondered about his parents. “Does that mean your family is there?”
The question made him jolt, but his eyes never left hers as he said, “Nix. Not for a long time.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. She wanted to ask, but thought it might be too pressing.
His lips quirked as he watched her nibble on her lip. “You may ask me anything you wish, luxiva.”
How was it that he could read her so well? They’d only just met, had only known each for two days.
“Where are they? Your family?” she finally plucked up the courage to ask at his urging.
“My mother and two sisters died during the Plague,” he answered. Her breath left her, her chest pinching at the knowledge.
“I’m sorry, Cruxan,” she whispered, swallowing. That must’ve been awful. She knew the bitterness of death, but to lose that many family members at once…she simply couldn’t imagine it.
“As for my sire,” he continued, his jaw clenching, “I do not know what became of him. He went off planet shortly after the attack. He never returned.”
Something about his hardened tone made Crystal think that it was a sore subject, that Cruxan did know what became of him but preferred not to think about it…or talk about.
“Is he…do you know if he’s still alive?”
“Probably,” Cruxan replied. “But he has long been absent from my life and I do not spend my energy giving him much thought. He is a deserter. He left Luxiria when we—when I—needed him most.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Crystal’s gaze dropped down to the flames. So, there was bad blood there. Did that have something to do with what he mentioned earlier…about past mistakes and not coming from a noble line?
The fire crackled and she found herself saying quietly, “My mother died too. It was sudden and unexpected.”
Cruxan’s gaze locked onto her, his lips pulling down into an even deeper frown.
“Luxiva…”
“My father left us too, like yours. I still have my sister though. Her name is Lauren,” she continued. “You lost a lot of family at once, Cruxan. I can only imagine a little of how that must’ve been, how you must’ve felt.”
Cruxan asked, “How did your mother die?”
“A brain aneurysm,” she said. At his confused expression, she said, “A blood vessel ruptured in her brain. She died on the way to the hospital.”
It had, undoubtedly, been the darkest, worst moment of her life. Growing up, her mother had been Crystal’s everything. But then she’d met Leo. She’d ignored the warning comments from her mother and eventually, the strong relationship they once shared had slowly fractured, little by little. Every time Crystal went to Leo, after everything he’d done, it broke another piece of her mother.
She’d talked to her mother on the phone the day before she’d died. Her mother had been crying hysterically, pleading with Crystal to leave Leo once and for all.
Crystal had been too frightened, too weak to. And she would always live with that knowledge, that her mother died, heartbroken over something that Crystal had had the ability to change.
The day after her mother died, she’d left Leo.
She blinked away the tears that had formed in the corners of the eyes. That was perhaps the worst thing that had come from her toxic relationship with him: the lost time with her mother. It wasn’t the abuse, the physical or sexual or mental abuse…it was the loss.
“Luxiva.”
Her gaze snapped to Cruxan and she straightened, locking those thoughts away. She had to do that, or else they would overwhelm her sometimes.
“Sorry, did you say something?” she asked.
He was studying her, but then shook his head. “Nothing,” he murmured. “I am just sorry for the loss of your mother.”
She gave him a strained smile, lifting a shoulder slightly. “It was a long time ago,” she murmured.
“Even still, sometimes loss can feel like a fresh wound.”
He would understand that better than most, she realized. She nodded at him across the fire, holding his gaze, a shared understanding passing between them.
The fire crackled loudly, suddenly, making her jump, the water gourd falling from her fingertips. Her cheeks heated, a little embarrassed, as she reached for it.
Cruxan broke the charged silence with, “Now, come. Eat. The meat is ready, female.”
