by Zoey Draven
Once she was satisfied that most of the blood was washed off, she wrung the cloth out one more time and then undressed herself. Kate was surprised that she felt a little self-conscious in doing so—she’d noticed this morning that her belly was larger and her breasts fuller than they’d been just last week—but then she told herself that this was Vaxa. He’d seen her naked more than he’d seen her clothed.
Ignoring his impressive erection, she took his hands and led him into their bath.
“Rissatorax,” he murmured under his breath.
Kate furrowed her brows as the water lapped as her thighs. She wasn’t familiar with the word. “What does that mean?”
Vaxa lurched forward into the water and then he righted himself. He’d seemed a little unsteady on his feet but Kate just figured it was due to his injuries.
“It is an old creature,” he said. “It lives in the red waters of the Vrixtat’or. It is rumored to be impossibly beautiful and it lures males into the water…where it consumes their soul and pulls them down into the blackworld, where they live as equals. Until the creatures becomes hungry once more.”
Her lips twitched, unsure if she should be offended or flattered. “We have something like that as well. But we call them sirens. Or kelpies.”
“I would follow you into the blackworld with great happiness, female,” he told her. “I would let you gorge on my soul until you are sated.”
“You’re so romantic, Vaxa,” she teased softly, halting in the water once her shoulders were completely submerged. The little blood that remained on his body washed off, tinging the water a light blue, forming a ring around him.
“I do not believe I have ever been called a romantic, luxiva. As you can well imagine.”
Kate’s lip curled and some of the tension that had been accumulating since yesterday began to melt away. No, Vaxa was not a very romantic male. But he made up for it in other ways.
“I know not to expect flowers and chocolate from you,” she told him truthfully.
Steam from the hot spring rose between them as he frowned. “What are flowers? And chocolate?”
She hadn’t seen anything that resembled flowers on Luxiria and the sweetest thing she’d had on the planet was that odd fruit with the blue seeds. Kate racked her brain and then it hit her. “You know those vines that run along the side of the meal hall?”
He frowned. “These are…flowers?”
“Sort of. Flowers on Earth are a little prettier than those vines. They have colorful petals and certain flowers smell wonderful.”
“What is their purpose? For humans to scent them?”
“People gives flowers for all kinds of reasons. They give them to lovers, or friends, or family. They are a nice gesture.” She sighed. “Chocolate, on the other hand, I can’t explain. You just have to try it, but you don’t have it here.”
It felt nice to be talking about such small, little things. She’d missed her mate this past week. He’d been so busy with work that she felt like she’d hardly seen him.
A little hesitantly, she reached out her hand to smooth it over his chest. He answered her with a rumbling purr that made her breath hitch.
“Won’t you tell me what’s wrong, Vaxa?” she whispered. “Does it have something to do with me? Or—”
“Nix,” he interrupted, frowning.
“But…last night. I—you were…you pushed me away. And I didn’t like it. It hurt me.”
Vaxa burst out with a Luxirian curse and his expression morphed into one of such anguish that she was almost sorry she’d said anything.
No, it needed to be said, she reminded herself.
Vaxa clasped her cheeks between his palms, touching her once more and she melted into him. She felt starved for his touch. She’d become so addicted to it that she feared he could make her beg…and she would, without shame.
He said the words slowly, like he’d carefully measured them out. “I have not been a good mate to you, luxiva.”
“I don’t believe that,” she said softly, her heart aching at the sincerity she heard in his tone. He wasn’t one to show his emotions very often, but when he did…it was almost too much to handle. “You have protected me, given me anything that I’ve wanted, cared for me. You have tried to make my transition into your world as smooth as possible. How can you say that you haven’t been a good mate to me?”
“I hurt you yesterday,” he pointed out. “I physically harmed you. I was…am ashamed that I can hardly face you now, luxiva. How can you say that I am a good mate?”
Her heart softened. She knew that Luxirians—or at least most Luxirians, thinking about the male at the marketplace yesterday—thought that harming females was the worst possible crime a male could commit. Was this the root of it all? Was he so disgusted with himself last night that he’d pushed her away?
She huffed out a breath and then debated on what to say. Kate didn’t want to tell him about what happened yesterday in the market. It would only pile on more stress than what he was already dealing with and she knew that it would infuriate him. He would somehow blame himself for what happened, which would be ridiculous.
But he’s already blaming himself, she reasoned. And her very astute mate wouldn’t believe that she’d hurt her wrist at work. The bruise wrapped all the way around; it wasn’t just isolated to one spot.
The water trickled as she lifted her left wrist from the water and displayed it for him to see. His eyes never left hers, but he gave her wrist a side-glance…before he did a double take.
“Kat…” he breathed, his body stiffening so abruptly that a water ripple stretched outwards in the bath.
“You didn’t do this,” she told him, emphasizing her words, before he could say anything else. “When you reached for my wrist yesterday…I reacted that way because I was already hurt. It wasn’t your doing, Vaxa. I know that you would never hurt me. Not in this way.”
Vaxa shook his head. He glanced at the bruise and winced, as if it was the worst thing he’d ever seen, as if his own body wasn’t completely covered in cuts and claw marks. “I do not understand.”
Kate took a deep breath, hoping that she could control his reaction. “Yesterday…in the marketplace…”
“What is it, luxiva?” he asked when she stopped.
“There was this male. And he came up to me in the crowd when I was following behind Keriva,” she started. “He…he grabbed me, Vaxa. Pretty hard, enough for me to bruise like this. He called me a—a human whore.”
Vaxa was staring at her and she could tell that he was trying to process what she was telling him. And when he finally did, the fury flowed from him in waves, but she knew it wasn’t directed at her. At least, not all of it.
“Who?” he asked, his tone deceptively quiet.
“Vaxa,” she murmured, “Please, I—”
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “It happened so fast and there were so many people. He…it was possible he was a warrior. He had the build and I—I think he had some scars.”
“What else?”
His tone was scaring her. She’d seen her mate kill another alien when he’d first ‘won’ her, she’d seen him train in the fighting pits on Luxiria, so she knew what he was capable of. But she’d never seen him this singularly focused on one thing with so much rage.
“I don’t remember much else,” she whispered. He’d had dark hair and black, curled horns, but so did virtually every Luxirian on the planet. If she saw him again, she thought she might recognize him.
Through the water, she could see the way Vaxa’s hands fisted. He brought them up, raking them through his hair, accidentally scratching his wrists on his horns. He didn’t seem to notice.
When he spoke, his voice was just on the cusp of being a full-on growl. “A male dared to touch my luxiva. A warrior!” He gave an anguished roar to the ceiling of the washroom and he stumbled back in the bath, putting space between them.
Kate’s heartbeat throbbed in her throat. “Va
xa, please…calm down.”
His eyes fastened on her and then held. His shoulder muscles rippled and he seemed to grow in size. “Why did you keep this from me?”
The pain in his voice grated at her, shredding her from the inside out. Her stomach cramped.
“Because I knew you’d react like this,” she said softly, reaching her hand out to touch him. He jerked away from her, pressing his palms to his eyes.
“You lied to me,” he finally said, his voice even. His face was like stone when he looked up at her.
“I didn’t lie to you,” she said, frowning, feeling a sharp rise of anger and frustration in her breast. It didn’t help that the two of them had tempers, especially when they were in the middle of a fight. “I just didn’t tell you.”
“It is the same!”
She sucked in a breath. “You want to talk to me about lying? Way to call the kettle black!”
He scowled. “What is this?”
“If I lied to you, then you’ve been lying to me. Possibly for weeks. So don’t you dare try and turn this around on me!”
“I do not know what you speak of,” he said, sticking to his guns.
“Oh, really?” she asked, crossing her arms across her breasts. Her side gave a stinging pinch, but she ignored it. “So you were never going to tell me about the uprisings that have been happening in the outposts because of me? Because I’m human and they don’t want Luxirians breeding with other species? Were you ever going to tell me about that? Or were you just hoping to keep me in the dark and tucked away? Is that why you wanted me to stop working as well? You think that just because you’re the Prime Leader that you can order me around too?”
At least he had the decency to look a little ashamed. But then his anger grew. “I did what I thought was best,” he rasped. “Do not question me about my decisions as Prime Leader. You know nothing! I chose not to tell you because political matters do not concern you. They are my burdens.”
That stung a little.
Her eyes narrowed and her throat burned. “You’re not just the Prime Leader. You’re my mate. And right now? You’ve just shown me how little you value my thoughts and opinions.”
Kate turned her face away, shielding her breasts with her arms, shivering in the warm water. She’d hoped that by telling him about what had happened in the market, it would help mend the distance she felt growing between them. All it had done was make it worse. Much, much worse.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him hesitate. The water rippled as he took a step towards her.
“Luxiva…” he said softly.
Kate gasped when her stomach gave another painful cramp, but this one she couldn’t ignore. She reached out blindly as the pain radiated up her spine, buckling her knees, even as she tried to keep her head above the water.
Vaxa lunged for her, holding her up. His voice sounded panicked as she felt his palms smooth down the sides of her face. “Kat! Kat, what is wrong?”
“I—I don’t know…”
She trailed off when she saw red in the water. For a moment, she didn’t know what it was, but then it hit her. Her blood. It clouded the water around them, expanding, growing.
Vaxa knew what it was the same time she did and the color leeched out of his face.
“Vaxa, the baby,” she whispered, fear widening her eyes even as another cramp made her cry out.
Vaxa encircled her in his arms and gently, but quickly, lifted her from the bath. He fetched the cloth she’d used to wipe off his blood and pressed it between her legs.
“Hold it here,” he ordered before, completely nude, he carried them out of their house at a near run, loading her onto the hovercraft. She was scared to look between her legs, afraid at what she might find, and fear froze her heart as she felt more blood, making the cloth sticky and warm.
Vaxa hurtled them towards the labs, calling Privanax on the way there, speaking with him in Luxirian.
When he was finished, she whispered, “Vaxa, I’m scared.”
His jaw clenched and he looked deathly pale under the blue light of the Luxirian moon.
“You will be fine, luxiva,” he said quietly, as if needing to hear the words himself. “You will be fine.”
He said nothing of the baby.
SEVEN
Vaxa’an had faced down hordes of enemy species lusting for battle. He’d been engaged in space skirmishes, where his vessel had almost been blown to pieces. He’d been beaten and stabbed and gored. He’d been outnumbered, where the odds for his life were stacked against him.
And yet, seeing his luxiva, his beloved mate, lying in a small pool of her own red blood on Privanax’s lab table, seeing how white her skin turned, seeing the fear and pain in her eyes and reading it in the lines of her body…he had never been more terrified in his entire life span.
The doctor was examining the space between her thighs, working with his equipment. Another stomach cramp made Kat’s body bow and Vaxa’an wanted to roar in frustration, wanted to take every remnant of her pain so that she would not need to feel it.
The knowledge that he was helpless did not sit well with him. He had been raised and trained to solve problems, to eliminate them with efficiency and quickness.
“You remember our conversation, Privanax?” Vaxa’an asked in Luxirian. He was in a borrowed robe that belonged to one of the researchers at the lab, since he’d taken them both straight out of the bathing pool. It was tight on his shoulders and stretched uncomfortably when he smoothed a shaking hand over one horn.
Privanax didn’t look up from between his mate’s thighs. “Yes, Prime Leader. I remember it well.”
Kat cried out as Privanax inserted a tool inside her and Vaxa’an growled in frustration.
Sweat dotted the doctor’s forehead. “I must mend inside you, lavrix’an.”
“W-what about the baby?” she managed, her breath coming in short rough pants.
Vaxa’an’s chest squeezed as he spied the rivers of tears running down her cheeks.
Privanax’s expression didn’t change. He was stoic, his face morphed into one of complete concentration. Vaxa’an would trust no other with his mate’s health.
“I am trying, lavrix’an,” was all he said in reply.
Guilt swarmed Vaxa’an’s body and he smoothed a hand down Kat’s cheek. “You will be fine, luxiva.” His voice was scratchy and so rough that he hardly recognized it.
He’d done this to her. Not only had he endangered her life by implanting his seed within her, he’d caused her stress and pain. They’d fought just before the blood had left her body. He’d known that his mate’s health was fragile, as she gestated his child…and yet, he’d driven her to this. This was his fault. He would remember her look of terror, and the cloud of blood in the water, for as long as he breathed in this world. He would never forget, could never forget.
“I am sorry, Kat,” he whispered to her, leaning over her small, pale body. “This is my doing.”
She shook her head. Vaxa’an could see the way her jaw clenched.
Before she could say anything, Privanax found his eyes. “You need to give her blood. She is losing too much. Perhaps it will help strengthen her body.”
Privanax abandoned his place briefly, collecting a steel object with a thin needle. He thrust it at Vaxa’an. “Fill this up.”
Vaxa’an didn’t hesitate. He plunged the needle into his arm and Privanax activated the object until it was pumping his blood from his veins, filling the small steel container at the end. He would gladly give his mate every last drop he had if it meant she lived.
Privanax took it from him once it was filled and then injected it into his mate.
Blood. There was blood everywhere. It drenched the table and Privanax’s hands and arms. It ran down Vaxa’an’s chest and thighs from when he’d carried his mate out of their dwelling. As a warrior, blood had never bothered him before. It was an essential part of war, of life. But his luxiva’s blood…it made his head swim.
Priv
anax worked quickly and tirelessly. He constantly checked his scanner and the probe between Kat’s thighs. He mended her insides and stanched the bleeding. Vaxa’an didn’t know how long it took. It seemed as if they’d been in that room for rotations, each moment stretching into an eternity.
His Kat had exhausted herself. The medicine that Privanax had given her when they first arrived, to help with the cramping and pain, had finally kicked in and her back no longer arched at regular intervals. She was calm, quiet. The medicine was also a sedative since she nodded in and out of sleep.
Vaxa’an called on every ounce of patience and discipline he possessed as he waited. Finally, Privanax looked up at him, withdrawing from his mate’s body.
“Rebax?” Vaxa’an asked.
“She will heal,” the doctor answered.
“The child?”
Privanax nodded, his eyes straying to his monitor. “The heart still beats.”
Vaxa’an reached out a hand to steady himself, gripping the lab table where his mate slept. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply.
“What happened?” he finally asked, his voice guttural.
“You know why. The human body gestates young for a much longer time than Luxirian females, almost three times as long. The child is simply growing too quickly for her body to handle. She is tired, her body is stressed trying to keep up with the growth. I am sure her environment plays a role as well,” the doctor said, eyeing Vaxa’an.
He bristled at the accusation in Privanax’s voice but then shame filled him.
“We argued this night,” Vaxa’an admitted, his shoulders dropping. “The fault is mine.”
The doctor said nothing more about it. Instead, he said, “I would like to keep her here for the next span. I need to monitor her and the offspring.”
“I will stay with her.”
Privanax knew better than to argue. He simply nodded. “I will bring in a sleeping platform so you both may rest comfortably. I believe that she will be stable through the night. Her body just needs time to rest and to heal itself.”
Privanax washed himself then, double-checking his monitors once more, before wiping up his mate’s blood from the table.