He inclined his head. “Then tev, I will take you.”
He handed her another section of the cut fruit and after she devoured the whole thing, he watched patiently as she cut the next one for herself, piercing the hard, shell-like skin, revealing the contents beneath.
After they both finished the last of the obiraxi, they started for the hovercraft. Erin found herself still studying the way his fingers traced over the silver pad, starting up the quiet hum of whatever powered it, though she had already memorized the gesture. Though she was standing near him at the console, keeping the furs he’d given her around her shoulders, she still watched and studied. Though they had been intimate, though they had shared things with one another last night in the quiet of the hot springs, Erin still catalogued every movement he made as he piloted the hovercraft.
“What is wrong?” he asked over the gentle whistling of the wind. They weren’t flying fast through the fog bank over his base. It was a slow, gentle pace.
She stepped closer to him, further away from the side of the hovercraft. She hoped he hadn’t noticed her interest in the controls. Instead, she said, “I’m afraid of heights, remember?”
“Ah,” he murmured, tucking her close to his side, his arm bracketing around her, and Erin’s eyes slid away from the controls, a feeling of warmth taking the place of guilt. “I had been wondering.”
“About what?”
“The first night I brought you here,” he mentioned. “You were angry with me when I descended into the tunnel. Now I know that it frightened you. I descended too quickly and you thought we were falling.”
Erin tilted her head back to look at him. Their position was similar to the one they’d had in the sandcraft after he’d taken them from the Golden City. After her and Crystal’s first escape attempt, he’d forced her to stay in front of him so she wouldn’t make trouble, so she couldn’t escape. It just now occurred to her that he’d let Crystal stay at the back of the sandcraft. He’d only wanted her close.
“Yes,” she said, a little embarrassed thinking about her overreaction that night. Truthfully, her overreaction stemmed from an outpouring of frustration, of the events leading up to that moment, but she kept those quiet. “I wasn’t prepared.”
“I am sorry, rixella,” he said, his tone sounding a bit unsure, awkward even. As if he wasn’t used to apologizing. And Erin realized that he wasn’t. He’d lived alone all these years. “You should know I am sorry.”
His tone implied he was sorry about a hell of a lot more.
Erin believed that. She swallowed, looking forward. The fog bank was beginning to clear, though it was difficult to make out the landscape beyond that. “I know, Jaxor.”
She thought of him being alone out here, thinking how restless and sad that made her, especially now that she knew he had a blood brother in the Golden City, one he wanted to make amends with.
Before, when she believed him cold and detached and mean, she could see him living this life of isolation. But now, she wasn’t so sure. He was a healthy male in his prime. Didn’t he want companionship? A family of his own? Children?
Because Erin wanted those things. She’d always known that she wanted a family. She wanted a career, true, she wanted to be self-reliant and independent, given her past. But she’d also aspired to be a wife, a mother. But did Jaxor want those things too? Even then, if there were children, what kind of life could this be, living so alone in the wild lands of Luxiria?
Erin was stunned by the direction of her own thoughts. Children? With Jaxor?
Shaking her head, she ignored it, knowing it was dangerous territory. Territory that was impossible to reach, frankly.
The landscape was just now coming into view and the engine flared to life. Wind rushed through her hair as Jaxor picked up speed now that they were clear of the fog bank. Her head swiveled, but all she saw was empty land, stretches of mountains, and beyond them, to the north, a hint of glittering water. But she saw nothing else. No outposts, no signs of life. Just them.
“Don’t you ever get lonely here?”
His arms tightened slightly around her. But then, because something had changed between them, he said, “Tev, often.” Her heartbeat fluttered pathetically at that. “When it becomes too much, I go to the outposts for a