by Zoey Draven
The stress and worry lifted off her shoulders like they had weighed a hundred pounds. She grinned through her tears, her breath coming out quick and fast. And when she smiled, his lips quirked, as if her reaction to the news was finally making it real for him.
But then she watched his small smile slowly fade.
And she was reminded of her testimony. She was reminded of what she’d done, or rather, what she hadn’t done…which was be honest with him.
And that was what had gotten them into this mess in the first place, wasn’t it? The lies? The half-truths?
So, she said the one thing that she’d been thinking repeatedly the last few days.
“I love you,” she told him, her hands still clasped to his cheeks so that he wouldn’t look away when she said those words. “I promised myself that I’d tell you the next time I saw you,” she continued, watching his brow furrow, mirroring words he’d said to her when he’d confessed his feelings, “only, I made a mess of the trial and I didn’t get the chance to. So I’ll tell you now and hope that you can forgive me for not telling you sooner.”
“Rixella—”
“Wait, please,” she said hurriedly, needing to get it all out. “And I’m so sorry that I didn’t tell you about the baby.”
Air whistled through his nostrils and his gaze burned bright into her.
“I’m so sorry, Jaxor. I meant to tell you, I really did,” she whispered, her voice anguished. “And there’s no excuse for it. Absolutely none.”
“Why didn’t you?” he rumbled, his hand curling around the back of her neck, the movement so familiar. In a strange way, it was comforting. It made her feel safe.
“I was still so confused. About us. About what happened,” she confessed and he stiffened ever so slightly, but his gaze was steady. Those bright blue eyes that she wanted to look into forever. “And a part of me couldn’t think past the trial. That was all that mattered…that you would be safe.”
She breathed in his scent—that musky, delicious, warm scent all his own—and felt her heart thud with longing and memory. What she wouldn’t give to go back in time, to start over, to start fresh.
But Jaxor was safe, he was free. He was here.
And Erin realized that she wouldn’t trade this moment for anything in the world. Because this moment was important. For both of them. She needed to make amends, to make sure that he would never doubt her again.
“When Privanax confirmed that I was pregnant…no, even before then,” she corrected. “When I was in the dungeons and I began to suspect that I was, I knew that I couldn’t go back to Earth.”
Jaxor swallowed.
“So, I already knew that I would be staying on Luxiria when you first came to see me when I was healing in the labs. It was overwhelming. Everything that was happening. The Jetutians, the Mevirax. Knowing I would never see my family again, my home planet again. All while being in awe and, to be honest, in disbelief about the baby,” she whispered, watching as his eyes flickered with realization. “And then us. And your trial.”
“Vrax,” he cursed softly.
“It’s no excuse,” she finished, “but when I came to see you in your room that day, I had every intention of telling you about the baby. Everything else just seemed so much more…pressing.”
“I understand,” he murmured, his voice low.
But Erin still remembered the hurt in his eyes when her pregnancy had been revealed at the trial.
“I know what you thought,” Erin said, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. “But Jaxor, I didn’t keep it from you because I was ashamed of you. Because I didn’t think you’d make a good father.” She gave him a small smile. “Quite the opposite, actually.”
Jaxor’s eyes closed and Erin’s chest ached, knowing that her assumptions had been true. That was exactly what he’d feared.
And for the first time, Erin sensed her mate’s exhaustion. Her brows pulled and she bit her lip, reaching up to stroke his hair. He’d been locked away since he’d arrived in the Golden City, seeking his brother’s help to rescue her from the Mevirax. That was what the other women had told her, who’d learned it from their mates.
Even knowing that he’d be put on trial for returning, he still did because she’d been in danger.
There had always been the threat of death lingering over him. Erin couldn’t imagine the strain it must’ve put on him, especially considering that he believed their relationship was over. She remembered the way he’d asked her not to reveal their matehood, telling her it would make life difficult for her.
Always, he’d had her well-being in mind, and that knowledge cut her deeply. He’d been caring for her all along, though she’d perhaps not realized it…and now she only wanted to care for him.
“Come,” she whispered. “You need rest.”
His grip loosened as she pulled him towards the bed she’d been sleeping on. She hadn’t had much sleep either. Most nights, she’d tossed restlessly without him beside her.
She drew him down beside her and he looked up at her, his eyes flickering over her features, as if he needed to memorize her all over again.
They lay side by side, the late afternoon sun gently drifting down the walls of the room as they stared at one another.
“Did you mean it?” he murmured finally.
She knew exactly what he was talking about.
“That I love you?” she whispered. She ran her hand through his hair. It didn’t look like it had grown at all since she’d cut it. That moment seemed so long ago now. “Yes. I love you, Jaxor.”
That intensity she loved in his gaze flared to life as she pressed closer, bringing their foreheads together because she knew it brought him comfort. Winding her arms around him, she felt his thigh come down over hers, tucking her in place.
Though their position was relaxed, her heartbeat was thumping wildly in her chest. She knew that Jaxor could feel it, that he could possibly even hear it.
“Even if you’d been exiled,” she whispered, “I would have gone with you.”
His brows drew lower as his lips parted. “Tev?”
Leaning forward, she hesitantly pressed a small kiss to those lips, watching him as she did. He made a rough, startled sound in the back of his throat.
“I would have followed you anywhere, Jaxor,” she murmured. She took his large palm, trailed it up her pale blue dress—hearing his breath quicken as she did—and rested it on the flesh of her growing belly. “We would have. And we would have been happy anywhere, as long as it was with you. I know that.”
“Luxiva,” he rasped.
But she didn’t let him finish. She leaned forward to give him a proper kiss, a long overdue one, one that hopefully conveyed everything that went unspoken between them: her regret, her apology, her love, her hope for their future, her relief…her happiness.
Need was growing between them. Desperate, aching need. They’d been without one another for too long. That time was stretched between them and Erin wanted to make it disappear.
When Jaxor’s hands grew bold on her flesh, she slipped off her dress quickly as golden beams of sunlight slid across the bed. Jaxor groaned, moving over her between her spread thighs, undoing the laces on his pants, his cock springing forward from the confines.
And then Erin gasped when he drove inside. It was sublime pleasure, but it also felt like relief, to feel him this way again. This moment was more about reconnecting than it was about sex.
“Yes,” she breathed, spreading her hands across his back. He still had a long-sleeved tunic on and all she wanted was to feel his skin, so she pulled it off, revealing scarred golden skin, every inch of which she’d already memorized.
He wasn’t close enough. Even plastered against her body and deep inside her, he wasn’t close enough.
Jaxor tilted her head back and claimed her lips. His kiss, just like always, made her head spin, made the whole world seem to disappear. And Erin clung to him. Even now, even after he told her he’d been pardoned, t
hat it was over, she still felt anxious that she might lose him. But she figured that it would take time for that feeling to disappear. This time had marked both of them, but Erin was looking forward to their future, one they would fill with memories not related to the Mevirax, the Jetutians, the trial—but rather memories of their family, their friends, their new life together.
Their mating was quick and filled with need. When Erin felt her body tighten around him, when she cried out softly—trying to hold back a scream—as her orgasm washed over her, she felt Jaxor jerk. His groan and ragged breaths followed as heat exploded inside her and when she looked up, her flushed lips parted, their eyes locked.
Like magnets, she remembered.
Jaxor collapsed, though he’d managed to roll before he crushed her with his bulk. His breath rustled her hair when Erin wedged her face into the space between his neck and his shoulder, one of her favorite places. Her hands were still gripped tightly around him, as if he would pull away.
“I love you too, rixella,” he whispered. “Always.”
And Erin knew they still had so much to discuss, so much more to talk through. But that afternoon, she fell asleep in his arms completely happy for the first time since…ever.
Chapter Fifty-One
Erin woke to midnight blue darkness and an empty bed.
“Jaxor?” she called softly, but silence met her.
She was still naked and she slipped from bed to pull on her dress from earlier. Walking quietly out of the room, she looked to see if Jaxor was in the washroom or the common room, but she grew nervous when she realized the domed house was empty—though Kirov and Lainey’s door was closed, so she figured they were sleeping.
Then she saw the front door was cracked open slightly and when she peeked outside, relief made her shoulders sag as she saw Jaxor standing at the balustrade of the terrace, looking down at the Golden City from above and the Black Desert that stretched before them.
He turned when he heard her bare footsteps padding towards him on the stone and Erin’s heart thudded when his expression softened.
“There you are. For a moment, I thought I lost you again,” she whispered. “You know I don’t like waking up without you.”
He pulled her forward, reaching out to hold her hand as she stepped up next to him. Erin liked holding his hand. She remembered the first time she’d done it, back at his base in the north, and he’d seemed so confused by the simple action…but then he’d begun to reach for hers as if on instinct.
“How could I forget?” he murmured.
Erin smiled, suddenly shy, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as her eyes went to the familiar view. It was beautiful that night. A clear sky with sparkling stars.
“I have not seen this view in over ten rotations,” he told her. “I would always come out after dark when I was younger to look at it. Though I lived up there,” he said, gesturing behind them at Vaxa’an and Kate’s home on the highest terrace of the city, “at the time.”
“Now you can look at it all you want,” she said quietly, feeling her chest warm at the thought.
He went quiet at her words, his gaze going back out to the scene before them. Golden lights glowed from below, tall lanterns carving out the pathways and winding roads of the terraces. Erin itched to explore the Golden City, but she figured she had time now. It was hard to wrap her mind around. They had time.
“Is this where you want to settle?” he asked her.
Erin’s brow furrowed and she turned to face him fully, her hip pressing into the stone balustrade.
“I haven’t thought about it much,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I guess I just assumed you’d want to be here since this is where your brother lives. I just…”
“Tev?” he asked, turning to face her as well.
“I’ll go wherever you want, as long as you’re there,” she said, giving him a small smile.
Jaxor made a sound in the back of his throat and his voice came out ragged when he said, “Sometimes, you still feel like a dream. Sometimes, it is hard for me to tell if you are real. Sometimes, I think I will wake up in the command center, only to realize that the trial never happened at all. Or worse, that you are still in the hands of the Mevirax.”
He still felt the fear too then.
Understanding went through her and she stepped closer, winding her arms around his neck, pressing a kiss to his lips. Was that why he hadn’t slept? Because those thoughts still plagued him, even when she’d been lying in his arms?
“I’m real,” she told him, clutching him close. “The council pardoned you and we have an entire future ahead, Jaxor.”
He shook his head, dropping his forehead down to hers. “Even that does not seem real.”
“Do we need a word?” she whispered. “A word that I can say, so that if you ever feel this way, I’ll say it and you’ll know it’s real?”
“Tev, I think so,” he murmured, amusement coloring his tone, even though she knew he was serious.
“How about…” she thought about it and then gave him a small grin only he would understand, “kekevir?”
A surprised laugh burst from him and the sound filled her with good memories. “Tev. Kekevir it is.”
“I’ll pinch you too when I say it,” she teased and then she leaned forward, kissing him softly. When she pulled back, her heart was fluttering and she whispered, “I love you.”
His brows drew down deep and she almost gasped at the raw emotion she saw in his eyes.
“Real?” he asked, his voice ragged.
She smiled. “Kekevir.”
“Will you ever forgive me, rixella?” he rasped, bringing his hands up to cup her cheeks. “For the lies, for the way I treated you when I first brought you to my base, for the Mevirax? And for everything else in between?”
“I already have, Jaxor,” she said softly, truthfully.
He stilled.
“And will you forgive me?” she asked quietly.
“For what?” he rasped.
“For believing Tavar,” she said, her lips pressed into a solemn line. “For doubting you, for thinking the worst.”
“Luxiva—”
“For not telling you about the baby. For making you think that…that I was giving up on you, on us. And for almost completely messing up your trial. There’s a lot I’m sorry for.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked softly. “You are the reason I got pardoned in the first place. Do you not realize that?”
Erin inhaled a slow, ragged breath. “Can you forgive me?”
“Tev,” he rasped. “Tev, rixella. Of course I forgive you.”
She let out a shuddering, relieved sigh, another weight lifting off her shoulders. Forgiveness was the only way they could move forward. Move on. Together.
“Thank you,” she whispered. He tilted her face up and she gave him a wobbly smile.
“I do not even know how to start making the past lunar cycle up to you,” he confessed to her. “I think about it constantly.”
She tightened her arms around his shoulders. “Then how about we make a deal?”
“Rebax?” he questioned, interest shining in his gaze.
“No more trying to make it up to one another. I propose that we start fresh. Everything wiped clean. All of it.”
Jaxor’s swallow was audible. “You…you would do that?”
“Absolutely,” she whispered. “Of course, we can remember all the good bits still. Like getting drunk on Otalian Brew during that storm—”
“You got drunk, rixella,” he murmured, his lips quirking.
“Or kissing you for the first time,” she continued, making him growl. “Or spending that night in the hot springs. Or those nights we spent around the fire just talking. You taking me to see the Lopitax Sea…and that temple where all the orgies took place.”
He chuckled and Erin was glad to see that playful warmth in his eyes, especially when he murmured, “We still need to act out that sacrifice scene at the altar.”
Jaxor dropped his forehead down to hers again and he rasped, “What did I do to deserve you, rixella?”
Erin smiled, her belly fluttering. “I was wondering the same thing. What did I do to deserve such a handsome, strong, protective, caring mate? One who makes the whole world disappear when he kisses me? One who loves me?”
His voice was ragged when he asked, “Real?”
They still had so much to figure out together. Like where they’d settle down, when they’d perform their mating ceremony, how they would prepare for the child, what their lives would look like after that moment.
But Erin wasn’t afraid. How could she be when she had Jaxor by her side? How could she be when she had faith that everything would fall into place, just as it was meant to?
Erin grinned and then she kissed him. Against his lips, she whispered, “Kekevir.”
When she pinched him for good measure, his soft laugh made that night shine even brighter.
Chapter Fifty-Two
One week later…
Erin had never known the docking bay existed, but it was accessible only by hovercraft and was hidden within the mountain to the right of the command center.
There was a small group gathered to see Bianca off. The Luxirian spaceship was fueled by one of the most powerful Luxirian crystals in existence and there was an armed escort, not to mention at least twenty warriors that would be accompanying her on her journey. They were already onboard, but Bianca was lingering as they said their goodbyes.
The males hung back. Jaxor, Vaxa’an, Lihvan, Rixavox, Vikan, Kirov, and Cruxan were all on the outskirts of the docking bay, giving the women time to say goodbye.
Bianca’s eyes were glimmering in the bright morning sun. She was nervous, but excited, sad but joyful. This was the moment she’d been waiting for all these long months: to return home.