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My mouth had gone dry. It was difficult to swallow. “And?”
Marex’s smile made my breath catch. “Crux chose well. Humans are like us, but they are... so much more.”
I blinked. That didn’t mean much to me, but it didn’t surprise me in the slightest. Wesley was everything.
“Their brains,” he explained, when I only stared dumbly at him. “So much potential. So efficient. It seems, when whatever is in you awakened what is in him, that potential expanded.”
“Are you saying... are you saying he’ll be safe?”
Marex laughed, the sound breathy with lingering surprise. “I am saying I am glad that I am no longer your people’s enemy. Hybrid Thorzi and humans are compatible, but human mages? They’re not like the Thorzi mages were. Their power is...” He struggled over the words for a moment, crossing his arms. Uncrossing them. “I believe it is near infinite, Jax. You don’t need to fear losing him the way your father lost his mage. You are in much more danger of getting stabbed or gutted than he is of—Jax!”
Already, I had left him behind. All that mattered was that I would not lose my Wesley. I never needed to doubt him, never needed to fear for his safety.
Because he was infinite, and I would always, always be there to protect him.
Wesley was in the lab, speaking to another Zathki with a tablet between them, smiling too beautifully for words.
I crossed the wide space to him in a few long bounds, and dragged him into my arms. He pushed up onto his toes without hesitation, threw his arms around my neck, and when I kissed him, he opened beautifully, his lips soft and sweet under mine.
I plunged my tongue into his mouth and stole his breath until he fell back on his heels with a gasp, his eyes dazed and lashes fluttering.
“What was that for?” Wesley whispered, but already, I gripped the back of his hand and dragged his palm over my skin.
“Marex says humans are greater, even, than Thorzi mages were.”
“Oh.” Wesley went the bright red shade of the deadly aleri flower. He stared at the hollow of my throat, and I couldn’t restrain the grin that bloomed on my face. Surging forward, I pressed my lips to his smooth forehead.
“So I want to see what you can do,” I whispered against his skin, placing his hand flat against my tactician’s mark. “I am yours, if you will have me. And I want every warrior on Thorzan to know it.”
I felt the rush of pleasure and satisfaction from Wesley through the mark’s power, and through the warmth that sparked against my skin under his touch. I did not have to see his smile to feel his joy in my chest, beating in time with my own.
“So tell them,” I urged. “Use the mark and let them all know. Show me your power, my Wesley.”
When he stared at me through his funny glasses, their previously scratched surface repaired by Marex, his eyes glittered mirthfully. His fingers flexed on my skin, and he beamed.
“No problem,” he swore, and that was the first time the might of my mage took me, and I rode the waves of his strength without fear of ever losing him.
SUBMITTED
STAR MARKED WARRIORS BOOK THREE
CHAPTER1
BEAU
“You doin’ all right, Beau?”
Petey was sitting by a burn barrel, his hands extended toward the top, warming his bare fingers sticking out of ratty black knit fingerless gloves.
“Doing just fine, sir. It’s a pretty night, huh?”
He nodded, the twitch of his dry lips hidden by a thick white beard and mustache.
Thing was, itwaspretty out here. The trees had lost a bunch of their leaves, and it was starting to get cold down by the river, but the sky was clear and the stars were twinkling.
After a year living on my own, I’d had a good long time to think about the effect of the changing seasons. In the summer, it was hot and humid, the air almost pulsing with sticky wet. But now that it was a bit cooler, it was like the sky opened up, cold and sharp and bright, laid out like a blanket all above us. It was beautiful, and while I wasn’t exactly glad to be outside, I’d spent too much of my life hiding from beautiful things, afraid to see them and hope for something more.
I was getting better at that. Things were hard, but they’d been harder in my dad’s house, with his iron fist and little mind. Out here, I might not have much, but I was free to see the beauty outside that little old house.
