SIXTEEN
When they finally managed to pull away from each other, Devix led her outside into the forest. Her legs and limbs were still trembling from that kiss. She’d never felt such crazy attraction and chemistry with another being, not even back on Earth. It was a consuming thing and instinctively, she knew she would never feel it with anyone else, ever again.
Just Devix.
Only Devix.
“Where are we going?” she asked, her voice coming out a little breathless. She needed to distract herself or else she’d tried to convince him to do all the naughty things he’d fantasized about, but against one of the creaking trees.
His nostrils flared. No doubt he could smell her arousal. And he was aroused himself, judging from his straightened horns and darkened eyes.
“To the edge of the valley,” he replied, keeping his arm around her waist, running his claws up and down her sides, which didn’t help her efforts to control her own body.
“And what’s there?”
The soil beneath them was soft with the blue moss, but up close to the trees, she saw that the trunks had white moss spread around their girth.
“It is where the gellrav gather at night,” he replied. When he saw her confused expression, he elaborated with, “They are small, flying creatures that give off light.”
Like lightening bugs? she wondered to herself, knowing Devix wouldn’t know what they were if she asked. She’d just have to wait and see.
“They dance in the sky. I come to watch them often,” he said further and Cara smiled. “However, at this particular location, I have also built a shelter for protection.” Cara sobered when she realized what he was implying. “I want you to know where it is…as a precaution.”
“A safe house, you mean?” she questioned quietly. The threat against them must still be very real if Devix needed to show her where it was.
“Tev,” he said, squeezing her waist. He glanced down at her, easily navigating his way through the thick forest. Cara would need to practice to learn her way, but she had no doubt that she’d find it eventually on her own. “If I tell you to go there, you must, Cara. If you sense any danger, trust that instinct and run there. Tev?”
“Okay,” she said quietly. “I will. I promise.”
Devix seemed to relax at that and they weaved through a tunnel of branches. Some hung so low that even Cara had to duck.
Eventually, she perceived the trees clearing, the space growing larger and larger between each trunk.
“We are almost there,” he told her, leading her to the edge of the forest. There, he walked them over to one of the last trees that guarded the entrance.
Cara watched in confusion as he crouched down, clearing away a tuft of the moss to reveal a small silver latch. When he twisted and pulled it, a door swung up from the soil, camouflaged with moss. When it was closed, no one would know it was there.
When Cara peered down into the darkness that door revealed, she saw that there were rungs attached to the sides…a ladder leading down.
“It opens into a small set of quarters at the bottom,” Devix told her. “It has rations, water, furs, and a small sleeping platform.”
Cara swallowed, feeling panic rise in her breast from the dark tunnel leading down. To try to lighten the mood, she teased, “I thought you never ran away from a fight.”
Devix looked at her, crouched low, and touched a strand of hair that blew across her face.
“I do not,” he stated simply. Then he was more hesitant to add, “I had hoped that one span, I would need this shelter to protect a being I cared for.”
Affection made her throat tighten, but sympathy did as well. Perhaps he’d never wanted to live out here, all alone, in peace, after all. He wanted someone, a companion, a lover, perhaps even a family, to share it with.
Devix replaced the hinged door, covered the latch with moss, and stood. And when he did, Cara took his hand and kissed his palm. His eyes flared and they didn’t need to speak anymore words as he led her past the hidden shelter.
They didn’t walk far. Because just beyond the edge of the trees, the land that they were on began sloping downwards into a valley.
And when Devix brought her to the cusp of the edge, Cara gasped, her eyes widening as she saw the view down below.
The valley was massive, bracketed on both sides by blue, moss-covered hills that tumbled down into a shimmering, silver lake at the very base.
The lake stretched for miles and miles in both directions and Cara couldn’t see where it ended. The swirling colors of the sky reflected in the still water, giving the illusion that the lake was rippling.
And just above the lake’s surface, thousands of little turquoise lights danced and dipped.
“Just like lightening bugs,” she breathed, watching their movements with a raptness. It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen…that place.
“Do you like it?” he asked, his voice rumbling next to her.
“It’s…wonderful. How can you ever stand to leave it? Even the stars aren’t this pretty.”
“I leave it because I must,” he answered and his words made Cara turn to look at him.
“But not anymore,” she said slowly. “You said I was your last job.”
“Tev,” he said, his shoulders relaxing. “You are.”
Cara took his hand. “Can we get further down?”
Devix jerked his head in a nod. “There is a flatter ledge. There,” he said, gesturing down the hill and a little to the left.
He led her there in short fashion, easily navigating the somewhat steep hill, until he guided her to the section he’d pointed out. It wasn’t quite flat, but the moss evened out into a gentle slope, which overlooked the lake.
Devix sank down onto the moss, impossibly graceful for someone so massive. With a purr, he settled her next to him, tucking her close, the heavy warmth of his arm curved around her back. Suddenly, she wished she’d thought to wear one of the pretty dresses he’d bought for her at the market. Being there with him, with a beautiful view, a cool, refreshing breeze sweeping back her hair, cuddling close…it felt like a date. A date with her alien lover.
Well, not quite lover, she reminded herself, casting him a look. Not yet. But soon, perhaps, if everything felt right, she wanted to take it to the next level with him.
Cara leaned her cheek against the side of his chest and they were quiet for a little while, watching the gellrav dip and weave across the surface of the lake.
“And no one lives around here?” she murmured, almost afraid to break the quiet peace of the moment. “Do they not know this is here?”
“Much of Rozun is uncharted. There are legends of monsters and beasts that live in this territory,” he told her. “They frighten most away, though I have never seen one. Fuel to power the transport crafts is costly too. That is why so many beings choose to remain near the center of the colony.”
“Have yourself a little nest egg, hmm?” she teased.
“A nest egg?” he repeated, confusion evident in his slow tone.
“Savings,” she explained. “Money…or whatever currency you use here.”
He made a sound in the back of his throat and then said quietly, “Rozians pay well for the pillerva pods. I haul many batches to the markets and leave with none.”
“Those are the trees around your house, right?” she asked. “Do you like farming?”
“Tev. I like growing things,” he replied, tilting his head to look down at her. “I have been so comfortable around destruction. I was trained in destruction and violence from the time of my youth. I wanted something that was…opposite.”
He’d spoken so little of his life on his home planet. He’d mentioned his brother briefly, that he’d been the one to give him the scar that ran down the side of his cheek. And Cara ached to know as much as she could about Devix.
That was why she asked, “What was Luxiria like? You said you were a warrior of some kind.” Whatever that meant.
Cara felt his arm tighten around her back and she wondered if she’d asked a taboo question.
Finally, after a brief lapse of silence, he said, “Luxiria was my life. You did not know any of us existed on Earth you say. But to be a Luxirian warrior…it is the highest honor. We are known across the Quadrants as the strongest fighters. We helped our allies in the Uranian Federation, to bring rogue races back under control. We fought many battles and waged wars on planets that are not our own, but for a better cause. A better universe.” He blew out a sharp, whistling breath and his arm relaxed against her again. “It was a hard way of life. Prospective warriors are taken from their family unit at a young age and learn from blood and scars and merciless generals who train us. By the time we complete our training, we are changed, physically and mentally. Then we serve Luxiria, our home, traveling from planet to planet, from war to war, protecting not only our peace, but our allies’ as well.”
“It sounds very intense,” Cara whispered, her throat tight at the thought of a Spartan lifestyle, at the thought that he’d been taken to training at a young age.
“I would not have given it up for anything,” he confessed, surprising her.
Cara’s brow furrowed and she licked her bottom lip before saying softly, “But you did, didn’t you? That’s why you’re here.”
His eyes connected with hers, his expression unreadable. “Not willingly. I was exiled.”
She drew in a sharp breath, lifting her cheek from his chest so she could see him better. He watched her carefully, probably wondering how she’d react to his confession.
“Why were you exiled?” she asked softly.
Devix ran a hand over his horn, his nervous habit. “I should have told you earlier, luxiva. Perhaps I did not want you to see me differently.”
“Just tell me, Devix,” she urged.
He blew out another sharp huff. Unclasping his hold from around her back, he draped both arms over his knees, his gaze straying out to the lake.
And then he said, “Promise you will hear what I say to the end until you pass your judgment on me.”
“Okay,” Cara whispered, her heart stuttering in her chest. “I promise. Now tell me.”
He swallowed so loudly Cara could hear it. Then said, “I was exiled because I was accused of forcing a mating between a female and myself.”
It felt like a bucket of cold water got dumped over her head. Impossible, she thought immediately.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “And did you?”
He looked at her then, tearing his gaze from the lake. “Nix. Never.”
The answer and the disgust of the accusation was in his eyes and Cara felt herself relax.
“But you got exiled regardless?”
“The worst possible crime on Luxiria is violence against a female. Nothing is worse. Luxirian males have been executed for it. I should have been, had my blood brother not urged the Prime Leader to reconsider. So instead of death, I chose exile, never to see my home planet again.” Softly, he confessed, “There was a time when I wondered if I’d chosen wrong, if I should’ve chosen death instead.”
“Don’t say that,” she whispered, her throat tight.
“Rest assured, female,” he said gruffly, “I only thought that when I was living on Petrika.”
Just thinking of that colony made a shudder run through her, but she didn’t want to distract the line of conversation.
“Tell me what happened,” she ordered, placing a hand on his forearm.
“Her name was Arvalla,” he replied. “Her blood brother and I were in the same training unit for many rotations, but we did not like each other.” Cara got a sick feeling in her gut. “We were more like rivals than friends. Pidixa was ambitious. He wanted to be the best in our unit.”
“But you were?” she questioned.
“My ranking was higher,” he said, too humble to answer her question outright. “We barely spoke, but I could sense his frustration. Shortly after we completed training, once I returned home after my first battle in the Third Quadrant, I met Arvalla. I knew that she was Pidixa’s blood sister and I knew even then that I should stay away. Yet, I couldn’t.”
Cara swallowed, blowing out a slow breath, wondering if she wanted to hear this part. But she knew that she needed to.
Hesitantly, Devix reached out with his opposite hand to touch her fingers, still resting on his forearm. “I freely admit that like any young Luxirian warrior, I was…lustful.”
Which roughly translated to…
“Let me guess, you were hooking up with any female that looked at you twice?” Cara asked, her brow inching a little high, wondering why jealousy was beating at her chest so hard.
That would be a whole lot of females, Cara thought, considering that he looked the way he did. Even she could see he was brutally handsome and they were from two completely different parts of the universe.
Devix’s chest rumbled and even he knew he should tread carefully in these waters. “Before Arvalla, tev.”
“Did you…” Cara could hardly get the words out, “love her?”
“I thought I did,” he confessed softly. “I learned later that whatever was felt was not love. It was the farthest thing from it.”
“So you and Arvalla began having sex,” Cara said, her voice a little strained. “Did her brother know?”
“Nix, he did not. I knew his feelings for me, so we kept it a secret. We would meet whenever I returned to Luxiria. It went on for almost a full rotation.”
“And then what happened?”
His voice darkened when he said, “I was off planet when I heard that our females on Luxiria were dying.”
Cara’s eyes widened. “From the virus?”
Devix jerked his head. “We raced home, fearing what we would find. Arvalla survived. But my mother had already journeyed to the blackworld,” he said softly. “My sire voluntarily joined her shortly after.”
“What?” Cara whispered. His father had…killed himself to join his partner in death?
Devix cast her another unreadable look, but it was intense. “As fated mates do. One cannot live without the other.”
Fated mates? she questioned, feeling her head begin to spin, something squeezing in her chest. She shook her head. Another time, she’d ask him about that.
“I’m so sorry, Devix,” she whispered. “To lose one parent is hard enough, but to lose both at the same time, I cannot imagine that.”
Devix was quiet before he said, “Suddenly, Rixavox was my only family left. I decided to take a hiatus from my duties as a warrior, to grieve with him and our species. It also allowed for more time with Arvalla, who lost her own mother. We…comforted each other.
“Then we were discovered,” he continued, “by Pidixa one night. As we were mating. I can only imagine the rage he felt. He had just lost his mother, had come close to losing his blood sister. Then he discovers a warrior he has considered an enemy for many rotations is fucking her…had been fucking her in secret. We fought. It became violent. Arvalla’s screams finally broke us apart, but the council had already been alerted by then.”
Cara squeezed his arm, silently urging him to continue.
“The council comes to find a hysterical female and two bloody warriors. Pidixa told them he had found me raping Arvalla and fought me to protect her and defend her honor.”
“Devix…”
“Arvalla said nothing,” he said, his jaw gritted so hard that Cara saw the muscles tense and jump. “She said nothing. At all. Even when they took me prisoner that night. Even when I was locked away for multiple lunar cycles. Even when I was waiting for a tribunal. Even during the tribunal and my sentencing. She said nothing.”
Cara’s heart twisted in her chest and her throat burned. “She failed you. And you thought you’d loved her.”
“Tev,” he gritted out. “I cannot even blame her. Her loyalties were to Pidixa, her family. I made her no promises and she chose the security of her blood brother’s protection. If she’d spoken out and denied Pidixa’s accusation, he would have been punished in my stead.”
Even after everything that he’d been through…Devix was saying that he understood why Arvalla hadn’t said anything. If Cara had been in his shoes, she didn’t know if she could be as forgiving.
But it just showed that she’d been right about him. All along. He was good. Even if he didn’t believe it himself.
“You said your brother saved you from being,” it was hard to say the word and it fell like a stone from her lips, “executed.”
“Rixavox is a war general, an even better warrior than I am, than most males.” Cara could hear the pride in his voice when he spoke of him. “The Prime Leader of Luxiria, Vaxa’an, is his close friend and Rixavox is a member of Vaxa’an’s own council. He swayed Vaxa’an’s decision. That and there was an account from an elder male during the tribunal, who lived close to Pidixa and Arvalla. He said that he had seen us together often, that we had been pleasure mates for a long time. It cast enough doubt.”
“A witness said that you two had been in a relationship,” Cara began slowly, feeling disbelief rise in her breast, “and yet, you were still exiled?”
“It is up to the female involved to clear the male of charges,” Devix said quietly. “Without her clear account, it did not matter.”
Cara blew out a breath, trying to lessen her anger that rose inside her like a black wave. It left a sour taste on her tongue.
She drew the conversation away from Arvalla when her eyes caught on his scar. She traced it lightly with her fingertip and Devix’s eyes shut for a brief moment, leaning his cheek against her touch.
“I thought you said your brother gave you this,” she said. “For some reason, I had thought it meant you two didn’t get along.”
“He did give me this scar,” Devix replied, his eyes finding her own. “But I was proud when he did. Rixavox is my younger brother. He was one rotation behind me in training, but we always sparred against one another during warrior training, not only to hone our skills, but to spend whatever time we could with one another. I love him. And he risked much when he swayed Vaxa’an, given his high rank. He could’ve been stripped of his own, just by relation to me.”
Cara’s heart softened towards his brother. “He sounds like a good male,” she said softly.
“He is,” he said. “I have not seen him for many rotations. I fear we would be strangers to each other now, if our fates ever crossed again.”
“I don’t think that. You’ll never lose that bond you had with him,” Cara said softly, hating the way his voice roughened when he spoke those words. “Have you seen him since your exile?”
“Once,” Devix said, drawing in a deep breath. “Six or seven rotations ago. On Petrika. He tracked me there. I was not welcoming,” he confessed, raising his eyes, letting her see his every vulnerability. “I was angry. Drunk on Brew, with fresh wounds from the underground fights. I was broken, so far from the proud warrior I had been. I did not want Rixavox to see me that way.”
“What happened?” she murmured, tears stinging her eyes at that pain in his voice.
“I pushed him away,” Devix said. “I was ashamed, am ashamed of how I treated him. He only wanted to help me. He said he had connections, to get me off Petrika, to settle me on a better colony in the First Quadrant. I would not hear it. I had convinced myself that I was the villain Pidixa had accused me of, the villain Arvalla had accused me of with her silence. I began to question everything that had happened.”
Cara understood now why he’d reacted in anger when she’d accused him of being good. It was obvious to her that he continued to struggle with what had happened all those years ago.
“Oh, Devix…” she whispered, heart thumping in her chest. It all made sense now.
“Eventually, he left. I knew he’d be back. Seeing him…it woke me. I asked myself what I was doing. My fate at that moment would be to die on Petrika. After Rixavox left, I realized I did not want that.”
“And then Sarkon found you and gave you a different life, one away from Petrika, your freedom from that place,” Cara whispered in ending, the final piece of the puzzle. “And eventually, you found Rozun.”
His head bowed slightly, confirming her words. “I did not mind working for Sarkon. The jobs were an outlet for my anger. They kept me numb. They kept my skills honed.” He paused and then said, “Until you, Cara. Until I began to realize that I was becoming the being I feared, by keeping a female imprisoned against her will, by harming her with my direct involvement. I woke up once more. I realized I needed a different path.”
“And here I am,” Cara said softly, a shuddering sigh falling from her lips. She took a moment to process everything he’d told her, but it was a lot. She stared out at the lake, but she didn’t see it.
Softly, Devix asked, “Do you feel differently for me now?”
Cara turned to look at him, knowing what he was asking. Whether she was frightened of him now, whether she was regretting her decision to be there with him, whether she regretted letting him touch her and kiss her and hold her.
“Yes, I feel differently,” she whispered, rising to her knees at his side so she could face him. Something like despair flashed across his features and she added, “I feel that you are even more honorable, even more good than I originally thought.”
His brow furrowed and he stilled. “Rebax?”
“What will it take for you to realize that you were wronged so badly that it made even you, with all your strength, doubt who you truly are?” Cara asked him, feeling her heart beat so intensely for him in her chest. “You were a victim of a vindictive bastard and a female who couldn’t stand up for you when it mattered. You did nothing wrong, Devix. Why would I feel the same way about you, knowing all this now? I feel more for you. I admire you more. And I am so thankful that you told me all this so I could see you clearly for the first time. And I’m so thankful that it was you who Sarkon sent, because you are honorable and just and kind, even though others have not acted that way towards you.”
“Luxiva,” he rasped. “You are…”
“Amazingly beautiful, I know,” she teased, smiling. “And I can make a mean steak too.”
“I do not know what a ‘mean steak’ is,” he told her, but his shoulders finally began to relax, which Cara took as a good sign.
“You will tomorrow,” she promised, since she already had plans for their grocery purchases from earlier that day. She leaned in, hovering close to his lips. She brushed a soft kiss over them and the responding growl low in his throat lit her up. “But for tonight…I want you to take me back to your home and back to your bed,” she murmured, leaning closer. “Because I have some plans for you. And I don’t want to wait a single moment longer.”
He purred in his chest. “While you remain with me, female, it is our home and our bed.”
Cara sucked in a breath and she felt those words burrow sweetly in her chest where they wanted to stay…forever.
“Then lead the way,” she whispered, smiling.