by Zoey Draven
A cry escaped Erin’s lips when the kekevir slammed into Jaxor, attaching the front of its clawed legs into the side of his chest and raking down.
“Jaxor!”
Through the heavy curtain of rain, she saw blood bloom across Jaxor’s skin.
The kekevir’s head snapped to her after it detached from Jaxor. Erin didn’t even have time to process those eerie white eyes until it was racing towards her.
Erin gasped, stumbling back, going down hard when the furs she’d dropped tangled around her feet. The kekevir was fast. It was already at the fire pit. Another long leap and it would be at the base of the cave’s entrance—
The creature shrieked and jerked back with the undeniable sound of cracking bone. Erin heard it even over the roar of the storm.
Jaxor had lunged for the creature. He had a grip around one of its hind legs, had broken it with his strength as he pulled it back from the cave, away from her.
The kekevir hissed, lashing out at Jaxor with its claws, struggling as the Luxirian male brought it down, pinning its front to the ground. It thrashed in the flood, water spraying up in chaotic, frenzied arcs.
With a rough bellow, Jaxor jammed the knife into the back of the kekevir’s head. It went deep. In a single moment, the creature slumped, quiet.
It had all happened so fast that Erin was still frozen on the floor of the cave, her hand still stretched out towards the furs around her ankles.
There was a ringing sound in her ears as she stared down at Jaxor and the dead kekevir. A swirl of dark blood moved in the water beneath the both of them. She didn’t know whose blood it was.
That thought jolted her into motion and she tore the furs away from her ankles quickly, climbing to her feet, ignoring the dull ache in her backside from falling hard on her ass.
The moment she stepped from the protection of the cave, she was soaked to the bone. The rain was that thick and heavy.
“Jaxor!” she called out, carefully navigating her way down the staircase that led up to the cave’s entrance. Erin ignored the way her foot throbbed, putting her full weight on it. She needed to reach him and fast. “Are you okay?”
The Luxirian male was still hunched over the kekevir, his hand still on the handle of the knife wedged into the creature’s skull. When he heard her, he finally pushed to his feet. At first glance, Erin thought she’d been mistaken that the kekevir had slashed him at all. His skin was clean. But she’d seen the blood, hadn’t she?
Then she realized the rain was washing everything away. When she jumped down to the base floor, she trudged through the heavy water until she reached him. His hair was inky black, tendrils plastered to his features.
Erin’s eyes scanned the front of his bare chest, trying to swallow the panic that was rising. Up close, she saw the two deep gashes, raking from the middle of his left pectoral all the way down to his hip bone.
“Vrax,” he cursed.
“Jaxor,” she breathed, blinking away the rain in her eyes. It was deep. Too deep. She watched dark blue blood push up between the gashes before it disappeared into the rising water at their feet. “That needs stitches. I—I can do that.”
Erin knew it was bad when Jaxor nodded his head without a single argument. He jerked his head up to the cave’s entrance and Erin remembered that he had medical supplies in one of the chests.
He staggered forward, seemingly dizzy, and Erin, acting on instinct, wrapped her arm around his hips, minding the deep wound. She wondered how much blood he’d lost already…and how much it would take until he passed out from the loss. If he’d been human, he would have already, surely.
Leaving the kekevir, Erin helped lead him up to the cave, though it wasn’t easy. The stone was slick and she had a seven-foot-tall alien male leaning on her.
Jaxor groaned when they made the final push up the last stone and then they both stumbled inside.
He dropped on the furs towards the back of the cave—where Erin had slept last night—leaning against the wall.
Out of the rain, Erin watched with dread and dismay as the blood began to pool.
Chapter Twelve
Okay, that’s a lot of blood, Erin thought, pushing back the tangle of wet hair that hung in front of her eyes. But she didn’t hesitate to kneel before the chest, grabbing everything that looked useful. A silvery, metallic thread. A hefty-looking needle. There were no more clean cloths, though—she remembered that Jaxor had used the rest of it bandaging her foot yesterday.
Quite the pair we are, she thought shakily, bringing her haul over to where Jaxor was sitting. He looked relaxed. His limbs were loose, his eyes were studying hers. Though he had to be in pain, he didn’t show it.
“You’ll be okay,” she said softly. She had to believe that.
Oh God, she thought, her eyes flickering down to the wound. Erin had never considered herself squeamish. Jake, when he was five, had cut open the palm of his hand on a sharp can lid. She’d stitched a cut on her mother’s forehead after John had thrown a bottle at her, after her mother had begged her not to take her to the hospital. One of the children in her class a couple years back had broken his arm on the playground, falling off the monkey bars, and though it had hung at a grotesque angle, Erin hadn’t even blinked as she’d rushed towards him.
But nothing had truly prepared her for all the blood.
She inhaled a long, even breath, kept her voice steady, as she asked Jaxor, “What should I do?”
The end of the silver thread was pinched between her thumb and her index finger. The needle was in her other hand.
“I will do it,” was what he said.
Erin gaped at him and held the needle away from him when he reached for it.
“Stop,” she said, pushing him gently back. He inhaled a sharp breath when his torso twisted slightly, the only sign that he was in a lot of pain. “Just…just sit still.”
There was so much blood, but it wouldn’t lessen until she stitched some of the wound closed. So Erin immediately set out to work.
The first stitch made her stomach churn. Jaxor’s skin was…thick. Much thicker than her own. Now she knew why the larger needle had been necessary.
Erin leaned over him, kneeling at his side. He lifted his left arm up so she could get better access and Erin refused to be distracted by the heady, delicious musk that floated off him. She’d almost forgotten his scent in the past couple days.
The second stitch was easier, and the one after that. Erin worked quickly and methodically, starting at the bottom of one of the gashes and stitching upwards until she ended near his nipple. At times, she lost her grip on the needle since her fingers were slippery with his dark blue blood, but soon enough, the first gash was closed and she hurriedly moved on to the next one.
Jaxor hadn’t said a word when Erin closed the first gash. When Erin finally caught her breath and managed a peek up at him soon after she began on the second, she saw, with relief, that he hadn’t passed out.
Those blue eyes glowed in the low light. The look he was giving her flustered her, which wasn’t ideal given the current situation. There was no malice in his gaze, only a gentle curiosity, a contented perusal.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” she whispered. She didn’t know why she bothered to whisper, but speaking seemed too…jarring.
In the distance, she heard another kekevir’s roaring hiss, but it was faint, mercifully far away. It was the first time that she realized if another one made it past the protection of the fire sconces, Jaxor was in no condition to fight it off. However, something told her that he still would.
“You wish that it hurts, do you not?” he replied.
Erin almost laughed. In the chaos of that morning, her hysteria had transformed into a frantic kind of amusement. Maybe because she was so desperate for him to be okay. Maybe it was because of her concern for him that laughing would make everything seem…normal.
That thought made her pause. Nothing about this was normal. And why was she so concerned for her alien captor? The sam
e male that had kidnapped her, that had dragged her all the way up here, that had been surly and cold at almost every turn, that picked a fight at every opportunity?
Including this one, she thought.
Erin wondered if it was because of the bond between them. The other women—the ones that had already gone through this whole fated mates business—had called it an ‘undeniable connection.’ Was she concerned for Jaxor’s well-being because of it? Because some primal, invisible part of herself recognized him for what he was and cared for him, regardless of their strange circumstance?
“You like fighting,” she pointed out, swallowing the thick lump in her throat, piercing his skin with the needle and pulling it through.
When a still-soaked tendril of her hair escaped from behind her ear, it was Jaxor who reached out and tucked it away, his clawed finger brushing the sensitive flesh. Erin was so surprised that she looked up at him, the needle frozen. Before the kekevir had made it into the base, he’d reached out to touch her cheek, the movement gentle and…wonderful.
“Maybe you like fighting too,” he commented.
“I don’t,” she denied without missing a beat, her brow furrowed in concentration.
“Maybe you think you don’t.”
Erin sighed, but inside, his words struck something in her.
“Why do you live all the way out here?” she asked, thinking he wouldn’t answer. “So close to those things…”
His skin was still drenched in blood. She was halfway up the second gash.
“I already told you. Because I was exiled.”
Something in his voice seemed off to her. And when he’d ‘told her’ yesterday morning that he’d been exiled, she’d gotten the impression he’d just been mocking her, playing into her assumptions about him.
“I don’t know if I believe that,” she said honestly.
Jaxor went quiet, as she knew he would.
“You know, you’re going to have to tell me more about yourself eventually,” she noted softly.
He grunted, but she didn’t know if it was from the needle piercing into his skin or because he disagreed. “Why is that?”
Erin chanced a glance back up at him, her hand stilling. But she didn’t reply.
His nostrils flared and he shook his head. “Because you believe you can tame me? Because you believe that, as my fated mate, you can make me do anything you wish? Because you think we can be like the others?”
Her brow furrowed, her lips pulling into a frown. His voice was gentle, but his words held bite.
The others? He knew about Kate, but did that mean he knew about Beks, Cecelia, Taylor, and Lainey too?
“No,” she said softly, swallowing. For some reason, his words hurt. Even though she knew none of those things were a possibility. She didn’t even want those things with him. “I know better. I know you don’t want me. I know you don’t want this.”
Jaxor blinked at her, slowly. He made that growling sound in his throat again and Erin dropped her gaze, hunching her shoulders over him, so she could finish up the last of the stitches.
But he cupped the back of her neck and made her look at him.
“We,” he rasped, “cannot have those things, rixella.”
“Who are you trying to convince?” she whispered back, looking him straight in the eyes, glaring. “Me or you?”
His pupils widened, darkened.
“In case it’s not clear, Jaxor,” she said, keeping her voice steady even as her heartbeat raced in her throat, “I don’t want this either. All I want is to go back to my planet. My home. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for you. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“Female, you—”
“All I meant was that we don’t have to be at each other’s throats all the time. We can talk and it doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Erin’s cheeks were burning when she was done. He’d embarrassed and hurt her with his words. All she wanted to do was turn her face away and pretend that he hadn’t.
Jaxor was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t decipher.
Inhaling a slow, even breath to try to combat her racing heart, she softened her tone and said, “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to finish stitching you up before you flood this whole cave with your blood.”
He held her gaze for a moment longer, his eyes darting back and forth between her own. Back and forth. Back and forth.
Erin didn’t know what he was looking for. She told herself she didn’t care. She told herself it didn’t matter that she had this strange connection with him. He would always be cold to her. She would always be wary of him.
Jaxor released the back of her neck and she immediately looked down at the gash. She felt his gaze on the top of her head. She imagined he was glaring at her.
A few moments later, he spoke, his voice quiet.
“I was raised in the Golden City. I was not exiled. I left willingly shortly after I completed warrior training.”
Erin’s hand stilled for a fraction of a moment. She swallowed and then made another stitch into his skin.
“It was after the Plague,” he added.
Erin didn’t look up at him. She had the odd sense that if she did, it would make him cold again.
“What made you leave?” she asked softly, leaning closer to his side.
“Too many things. Things I have no wish to speak of now.”
Erin recognized his words for what they were: an apology. An olive branch, even. It was probably the closest she’d ever come to an ‘I’m sorry’ from him.
“And you settled here,” she commented. “In the north.”
“Eventually,” he said.
“You lived somewhere else before here?”
He was hesitant now. “Tev.”
But he didn’t say where and Erin wouldn’t press him.
Baby steps, she thought.
“You must understand something, rixella,” he said, just as she reached the last stitch. She made it quickly, relieved that the wound was finally—mostly—closed, that the stitches were tight and clean.
Erin looked back up at Jaxor, despite her better judgment.
“I have lived here on my own for a long time. I have become accustomed to the silence of it and to my own way of life. I have my routines because they keep me sane. Most importantly, I do not trust anyone,” he said, those blues eyes burrowing into her. Even you, was what he implied. “What I am trying to say is that it has been a long time since I have simply talked for the sake of talking. I am not certain I know how anymore.”
Whatever Erin thought he was going to say…well, it hadn’t been that. It was a strangely vulnerable, somewhat heartbreaking confession.
Jaxor himself seemed surprised by the omission. He didn’t quite flush, but he made a deep sound in the back of his throat and looked down at the wound, at her handiwork.
Changing the subject, he noted, “You did well, female.” Then he added, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” she said quietly, tucking an invisible strand behind her ear, only to realize, belatedly, that her fingers were covered in blood and it now smeared her cheek. “Um…can you stand? You should probably rinse the blood off in the rain before I put that salve on it.”
Her eyes sought out the clear pot. He’d used it yesterday on her foot, so she figured it couldn’t hurt.
Jaxor nodded and pushed off the cave wall, using it to keep himself steady as he rose. Erin dropped the needle and thread on the ground and followed him the short distance to the entrance. They both stepped out into the downpour together.
Erin tipped her face back to the rain, refusing to look at the kekevir below. Then she scrubbed at her hands, rinsing and rubbing off the last reminders of his blood. It had even gotten underneath her fingernails.
When she glanced over at Jaxor, his chest was clean of blood, though she knew it wouldn’t remain like that.
“Do you have any spare bandages?” she asked, raising her voice so he could hear her over
the rain. “There’s no more in the chest.”
He shook his head, leaning heavily against the rock wall. Erin worried about the amount of blood he’d already lost from the attack.
“I have clean tunics, but not in the cave,” he replied.
“Where are they?” she asked, her eyes already surveying the base below.
He shook his head. “I will get them.”
“Jaxor, no,” she said. “I’ll get them. Where are they?”
He was already walking towards the edge, obviously intent on doing it himself. Why? Because he was embarrassed he needed help?
Or because he’d always needed to do everything himself? she wondered, the thought appearing suddenly. Perhaps he’d never had anyone that could take care of him, at least not since he’d left the Golden City.
“Stop, just let me help you,” she ordered, her voice firm, catching him around the wrist and tugging him to a stop. “I’ll be quick. Where are they?”
His expression was grim, his lips pulled down into a frown. Then his shoulders sagged slightly, resigned, probably from the determination he heard in her voice.
His chin jerked. He raised his clawed finger—the same one he’d used to brush back her hair—towards the wall of chests near the crops. “The first one.”
Erin nodded and moved down the stone. It didn’t take her long to reach the base’s floor and, with a single glance at the main tunnel entrance, she quickly strode to the chests, trudging through heavy water with effort. She found the tunics, fresh and dry. She was tempted to bring the whole chest, but it had to have been over fifty pounds of solid metal, not to mention the weight of the material inside. Instead, she grabbed bundles, wrapping them, hunching her body over them so they wouldn’t get soaked from the rain, and then shoved them underneath her own tunic.
Then she turned and jogged back towards the cave, splashing water in her wake. She probably looked ridiculous and the cut on her foot ached as she went. In no time at all, she ascended the cave’s entrance and saw Jaxor there, frowning, hovering on the very edge, as if worried for her.