Jaxor’an took the cup dangling from its edge, scooped it into the barrel, and dug out something that resembled wax, yellow in color and shimmering with iridescent oil. He fed it to the flames in both sconces before he dropped the waxy cup back into the barrel.
Then he turned to her, leaving the twin fires burning, though he snuffed out the torch against the tunnel wall. Her tears were dried streaks on her face and he pulled her—surprisingly gently—from the hovercraft, grabbing her around the waist as he lowered her down onto the stone floor.
“Kekevir,” he replied. “The fires should always be lit after nightfall.”
That was all he said about the terrifying beasts. Erin didn’t take her eyes away from the brightly lit tunnel entrance. When she looked deep enough into the darkened places the light didn’t reach, she thought she saw the flash of their white, eerie eyes. She shuddered and forced herself to look away.
“Where are we?” she asked next, keeping her voice at a whisper. As if, were she to speak too loudly, those beasts would burst from the tunnel and consume them both.
Jaxor’an was studying her. Those blue eyes glowed.
“My home.”
Erin inhaled sharply. “You live here? So close to those things?”
“Kekevir are a good resource to have, if you are not overrun with them.” Resource? she thought, incredulous. He turned his head away and began walking. “Come.”
What choice did she have?
She followed, clumsily navigating the rocky floor with her hands still bound. Jaxor’an walked ahead of her and the back of her neck prickled, thinking about those creatures in the tunnel behind her. She almost would have preferred to be in front, if only to have Jaxor’an at her back as protection.
There was a wide cave mouth in front of them, not another tunnel. It wasn’t far from where he’d landed the hovercraft and there was a dull light spilling in from whatever lay beyond it. His ‘home,’ she assumed.
But when they stepped from the cave mouth, she couldn’t see much of anything, given the darkness. She heard rushing water somewhere to her left and saw shadows of structures.
What she did notice, however, was that they were in some sort of wide crater. The walls of the mountain encircled them and Erin could make out the very tops of them if she craned her neck back far enough. Above, the night sky reflected back, cast in clouds and shadows, but Erin felt a gentle breeze brush her cheeks and she heard it whistle through the crater. They were protected on all sides, except for the cave mouth and the darkened tunnel with the kekevir that lay just beyond it.
But Erin didn’t feel safe. She didn’t feel protected.
She felt trapped. She felt tired and emotionally drained. All she wanted to do was sleep. All she wanted was to see Jake and Ellora. All she wanted was to feel normal again.
Staring at the broad back of Jaxor’an and thinking over everything that had happened in the last couple days…Erin wondered if she would ever feel ‘normal’ again.
Chapter Five
“I…I think we need to come to some sort of understanding.”
Her voice was quiet yet unyielding.
Jaxor stilled, his gaze flickering over his home base, looking for stray kekevir. He had a shield in place over their tunnel entrance, invisible to the eye, one repurposed from an old, unusable hovercraft he’d come across a couple rotations ago. Sometimes, however, the power on it failed and a brave kekevir slipped past. He’d been meaning to install a metal gate as a failsafe, but had yet to get around to it.
Seeing none, sensing none, his shoulders relaxed ever so slightly, relief coiling in his belly. He was safe. She was here. The Mevirax hadn’t caught onto his trail. The kekevir were assuredly held back for the night with the help of the fire if the shield malfunctioned, as it often did.
In the walls of his home, he finally felt stable. As stable as he could possibly feel.
“I need sleep, rixella,” he growled. He hadn’t slept in…three—nix, four spans.
“And I want these off,” she said. When he turned to her, she held her bound hands for his inspection. Something tightened in his gut when he saw red marks around her wrists. He’d tied the scraps of her tunic tight and they were chaffing her delicate skin.
He ignored whatever displeasure he felt. He needed to sleep so he could think clearly—about her, about the Mevirax, about what he would do next. He needed to eat. He