been killed. No wonder you wanted to come here and hide." He snorted. “Your instinct when it comes to whether or not the women are alive is questionable at best. Odds are they’re dead and you know—”
Paine’s words were cut off by Axis holding him by the neck of his tunic. His jaw was locked tight as he tried to calm himself. Grinding his teeth together, he barely held himself back. The urge to squeeze the neck he had his hands around multiplied when Paine smiled.
“You’re not going to help me?” Paine croaked the question to Rowe where he stood watching them with a bored look on his face.
“Nope,” Rowe answered with a shrug. “You knew what you were doing. Now you deal with him.”
“Forget it,” Axis said, letting the other Phaeton go so suddenly he stumbled back.
“I didn’t realize that was such a sore subject—”
“Don’t push me, Paine,” he growled, the tension rolling through his body visible as his fists shook at his sides. “I’ve more than paid for the error in judgment I made with Claudia. The moment I looked into her eyes, I knew what I had been told was a lie, and I dealt with the situation from there. The instincts that you doubt now were the same instincts that convinced me of Claudia’s innocence. I may have been briefly blinded by my allegiance to the Phaeton brothers I thought I could trust, but once I knew the truth, I made things right. I’ve never said I’m not to blame, and every single day I regret the decision I made that put her safety at risk, but I need you to trust me now. I know the female I saw is still alive. She has to be…” Axis paused, his chest tight. “I can feel it.”
He waited for what seemed like eons, the pair in front of him exchanging a look he wasn’t able to decipher, before Paine shot him a smirk and punched him in the shoulder.
Axis was too stunned by the action to do anything more than give him a puzzled look.
“We’ve trusted you this entire time, Axis,” he said with an obnoxious grin. “The problem was that you didn’t trust yourself.”
“What?” he asked, shaking his head to see if that would help clear up the confusion.
“We never doubted your skills.” Rowe bumped him on the shoulder as he walked past him to head up the steps to the house they’d stopped at.
“Wait.” Axis held out his hands, halting the progress of the other two. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean exactly what I said,” Rowe repeated while Paine stood, looking smug beside him. “We never doubted your abilities. We still don’t. You made one mistake—”
“Do you know how many I make?” Paine interrupted with a snort. “A lot more, Axis. You made one mistake. Get over yourself and recognize that you’re not perfect. None of us are. All you can do is try not to fuck up again. You even said it yourself, you made things right. Recognize that and move on, man. You’re one of the best warriors we have on our side when you trust your instincts. You knew—before any of us—that the marshal was slimy. You even tried to tell Kaine and the council that before all of this happened.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, surprise keeping his mouth closed as he processed what his friends were saying. He wanted to argue, even though everything they’d said was true. The guilt wouldn’t let him forgive himself—at least not yet.
“Axis.” Paine paused what he was saying to let a set of guards by, one of them pulling a small hunting ruuna on a leash. The muzzled animal fought the restraint, growling and jerking against its chain. “They use ruunas to track the slaves here?”
Axis nodded, knowing exactly what the other Phaeton was thinking, since it was the same concern that he’d had himself once he’d learned of the practice. “They’re bred here specifically for the hunt,” he explained with a nod to the group of guards passing around a tattered bloody tunic near the snouts of the drooling beasts.
“I’m surprised the council allows it,” Paine said with surprise. “A handful of them could wipe out this entire planet if they were to be set loose.”
“Believe me,” Axis replied with a grim smile, “I’ve brought that exact concern up to Kaine myself.”
“What did he say?”
“The council only has the power to govern the import and export. Not breeding,” he repeated, his mouth