when I believed that you had betrayed me, I was still so relieved to see you, so happy even though I felt it tear me in half. I just don’t know. I’m so confused.”
A sob tore from her throat and Jaxor went to her, pressing his forehead against her, trying to calm her. And though she might not want him near, she still seemed to settle down at his touch.
Erin cried softly for long moments as Jaxor stroked her hair. He remembered the sight of her that night. She’d looked haunted. She’d lost weight. She’d been so weak, her skin as thin as parchment. And all Jaxor had wanted was to protect her at all cost. All he’d wanted was to tear the throat out of anyone who had brought her harm—even himself.
He’d realized in that moment that he loved her. He loved her as her blood was pooling around her in that dark forest. He would never forget the terror he’d felt right then, thinking that she would be lost to him forever.
It marked him like a physical scar.
And right then, holding her as she cried…Jaxor felt like he was losing her all over again.
Chapter Forty-Four
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Crystal asked softly, gently.
It was two days later and she hadn’t seen Jaxor since he’d come to her room. Hadn’t seen him since Privanax came inside and told him to leave, that he was upsetting her too much in the state she was in.
The torment on Jaxor’s face as he left, as if there were a million things he still needed to say, stayed with her. She saw his expression every time she closed her eyes. She saw him when she dreamed.
“Why I didn’t tell him that I’m pregnant?” Erin asked. “I don’t know. It wasn’t…it wasn’t the right time.”
And didn’t that make a hypocrite out of her? Keeping something that important from him, when she’d been angry that he hadn’t told her about his brother?
“Everything is just…so wrong right now,” she added.
Lainey was also in her room. She and Crystal had come earlier with food and to keep her company. After her conversation with Jaxor, Erin had been asleep for a long time—no doubt because Privanax had pumped her with a sedative because she’d been so upset. He’d told her to keep her stress levels down, that the baby had already been put under a lot of it.
All the women were present in the Golden City apparently. Vaxa’an had called his Ambassadors to the Golden City, in preparation for their attack on the Jetutians and the Mevirax, and they had stayed for the week, considering there was much to be done. Considering they still didn’t know what to do with the remaining Mevirax or how they would handle the distribution of the treatment once Privanax ran his tests on it.
But she had learned that Kossira was present in the Golden City too. She had learned that Tavar had died on the Jetutian spaceship and Erin wanted to speak with her, wanted to make sure that she was okay. Laccara had also survived, and though she was apparently also in the medical bay in Privanax’s labs, Erin hadn’t seen her. All she remembered of Laccara were her screams and the determined gleam in her eyes when the needle slipped into her flesh.
Erin swallowed, bringing the cup of hot tea to her lips for a sip. It tasted bitter, but apparently it was Privanax-approved.
Lainey had been uncharacteristically quiet during their visit. Erin had already noticed the change in her since she’d joined with Kirov. A positive one. And while Lainey would always be Lainey, there was a calmness to her now, whereas before, she’d been a little confrontational, a little angry.
“Do you love him?” Crystal asked.
“Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know him,” Erin confessed instead of answering the question since it made her feel restless and achy.
Erin had told Lainey and Crystal everything since their capture from the Golden City. About Jaxor, about his base, about their time together, even about the sex. Then she’d told them about the Mevirax. About the dungeon, about Kossira, about that night on the Jetutian ship. She hadn’t even told Jaxor what she’d experienced.
Crystal had been crying as she told her story and Lainey had sat very still with pressed lips and clenched fists, as if she wanted to punish the Mevirax and the Jetutians herself.
She was grateful to have friends like them. Friends that cared for her, that loved her, just