another. Erin’s shoulders sagged. She wondered if it was like this for the others, for Kate, Beks, Cecelia, Taylor, and Lainey. Especially Lainey. That girl didn’t go down without a fight. It had taken a lot for Kirov to win her over.
Except Kirov wanted to win her over, Erin thought.
Jaxor?
He didn’t want ‘to win her over.’ He wasn’t courting her, or wooing her, by any means. The idea was almost…laughable.
That was enough for Erin to break their gaze. She sat back down at her place by the fire, ignoring Jaxor, and trying to ignore the kekevir a few yards away.
After another few moments, she heard Jaxor pull himself from the pool, heard him shuffle through a row of chests near his weapons. When he came into her view once again, he went over to the kekevir.
He wore the loincloth again, leaving his chest and legs bare. Isn’t he cold? she wondered, frowning. The wind was picking up. It was howling up the shaft Jaxor had disappeared into earlier.
He brought the kekevir closer to the fire, kneeling surprisingly close to her as he drove the spit through it with force, from one end to the other. Erin pressed her lips together, but she knew that if she wanted meat that night, this was how it was done.
Jaxor set the spit over the fire and turned the crank at the side briefly. He had a mechanism set up so that it turned automatically and for the first time, Erin wondered how he’d done that. He was intelligent, that much was clear.
He settled a short distance away from her. Luckily, her arousal was gone so she didn’t have to worry he’d scent it. Still, even he seemed wary and Erin didn’t know how she felt about that.
It was the first time she’d seen him rest all day. When she looked up and saw a peek of black sky through the clouds, she knew he’d had a long day. He’d been up long before her. Compared to him, Erin felt lazy. All she’d managed to do was learn two buttons of the hovercraft and cut her foot.
Then again, what was she expected to do? She didn’t even know what she was doing there and Jaxor refused to answer her whenever she asked what he intended to do with her.
It was not knowing that frustrated her most.
Magnets, she thought again, jolting a bit when she saw his gaze on her. They regarded one another silently. His knees were bent, his arms locked around them in an almost casual, relaxed position. Erin had been around her Luxirian guards back in the Golden City long enough to not be surprised when his skin took on a golden hue next to the fire. All Luxirians’ skin color shifted with the light, an alien feature to her, certainly, but one she was used to now.
Beautiful. It shimmered, reflecting back shadows and highlights. Erin wondered if Jaxor thought her skin was strange since it didn’t shift with the light.
“Have you ever seen humans before Crystal and me?” she asked softly, curiosity winning over their silent little stare-down.
The question might’ve surprised him. He didn’t respond immediately, long enough for Erin to think he wouldn’t, but finally he murmured, “Tev.”
“Where?” she asked, her lips turning down briefly.
“At the Lallarix,” he said, as if she knew what that meant.
“Is…is that in the Golden City?” she asked, confused.
“Nix. It is in the wild lands.”
Did he see one of the others with their mates? He must’ve.
Erin was about to speak again, but he added, “It was the Prime Leader’s mate.”
“Kate?” Erin asked, cocking her head. “You saw Kate with Vaxa’an?”
Jaxor seemed to start at the name. He didn’t reply, but she figured it was a yes regardless. There was only one Prime Leader on Luxiria, as far as Erin knew.
“Do I…do I look very strange to you, then?” she asked, wanting to know, curious again. “Since you’ve only seen one other human before?”
Jaxor exhaled a sharp breath. “Humans compared with Luxirians are not so different. There are many species spread throughout the universe. Some that look very different.”
A flash, a memory from the Pit, a place she would rather never remember, returned to her. The darkness of the cages. Seemingly thousands of beings, all congregated in one place. Hot, burning sand. The feel of hot wind across her naked flesh as thousands of eyes were on the line of women. Inhuman howls and grunts and roars. The fear, the uncertainty. The scent of blood, of—
Erin