And as he said the words, Jaxor realized they were true. When he’d left the Golden City, he’d blamed his brother for his inaction against the Jetutians, an impulsive, immature decision on Jaxor’s part. He’d been young then, the angry son of the late Prime Leader.
And in Jaxor’s own mind, killing Po’grak, eliminating the threat that hung over their heads, that had taken the lives of so many Luxirians, their parents included, and bringing the vaccine that could heal their females back to the Golden City…Jaxor had seen it as his apology. He’d been too ashamed to face his brother, his home, his people, not unless he had something to offer them as atonement.
Then he’d seen Erin in the washroom in the Golden City and his entire world had tilted. And nothing had been the same since.
“You have always been too severe on yourself, Jaxor’an,” his brother said. “Even as a child.”
Jaxor frowned.
“I remember you once broke our mother’s favorite trinket box. The one she’d received from her mother.” Jaxor remembered that incident well. “You were so ashamed and upset that you scoured the marketplace for another like it. For hours on end, in the height of the hot season. And when you could not find one, you went from dwelling to dwelling, asking to buy one similar, though you were not even seven rotations old at the time. When you finally returned home, you expected the worst. You walked through the doorway with your head hung, empty-handed, ravenous since you had not eaten all span, and do you remember what our mother said?”
Jaxor swallowed hard. He replied, “She said that she didn’t need to forgive me because it had been an accident. She said that instead, I needed to forgive myself because it was I that was doing the punishing.”
“Tev,” Vaxa’an said. “You feel so deeply, Jaxor’an. Mother knew that. She knew that your emotions were pure, but sometimes cutting. That you could love deeply, but also react too strongly.”
“Erin believed I was cold and detached when I first took her away,” Jaxor told him.
Vaxa’an inclined his head in agreement. “Perhaps because it was the only way. You had to dampen your emotions to go through with the task you had set before yourself. But once she unlocked those repressed emotions, it was too late. There was no going back.”
His ears were buzzing with his brother’s words.
“You need to forgive yourself, Jaxor’an,” Vaxa’an said, his tone unyielding. “You have made bad decisions, decisions you regret. We all have. You have hurt those closest to you. We all have, one way or another. But I am standing in front of you now, saying that I forgive you. Now, I am asking you to forgive yourself because living with this guilt, with this shame…it’s not a life I would wish for you.”
Jaxor felt his heart thudding in his chest. Could he forgive himself? He didn’t know. But he understood what Vaxa’an was saying…that Jaxor was his own enemy in all this.
“It will take time,” Vaxa’an said. Time I may not have, Jaxor thought. “But there is hope and possibility ahead. I want you to focus on that.”
“I want to be a better male,” he finally admitted. “I want to be a better male for her. And for myself.”
“Once this is all over,” Vaxa’an said, “once we return from the Mevirax, once we get back your mate, I want you to meet mine—properly this time.”
Jaxor blew out a short breath, remembering that he’d spied on them both at the Lallarix, long before he’d even known of Erin’s existence.
“Tev,” Jaxor said, his voice low and quiet.
“And I want you to bless Kollix’an, my son,” he continued. “Will you do this for me? For us?”
Kollix’an.
The given name of their sire’s sire. A great leader of their time.
“Kat calls him Ollie,” Vaxa’an told him, his lips quirking at the corners. Jaxor saw the deep, deep happiness and pride on his brother’s face. “A human name, I think.”
Jaxor’s throat felt tight. He reached out to squeeze his brother’s shoulder.
“Tev,” he said, the word guttural, filled with the overwhelming emotion he saw on his Vaxa’an’s face. He felt it thread through his own blood. “Tev, I will. Once this is done, I will meet your mate and your son. And I will bless him in the words of Kollasor, the favored words of our mother. She would have liked that.”
They stood there for a long time in quiet, hearing and seeing all the