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“I would like you to stay with me. You will tell me of Earth, and I will tell you of Thorzan. We trade.”
With a heavy scowl, Crux marched my way. He reached for my wrist, no doubt to rip it from my hold on the human I had claimed for myself.
The mark on my right shoulder zinged, and Crux’s hand came up short, the forcefield around me keeping him from grabbing my arm. He pulled away with a hiss.
With a level stare, I turned his way. “I saved you from the Zathki. Without my assistance, you would have died. Your crew would have died, frozen and gasping for air. It is my right to claim a prize from your ‘cargo.’”
Crux’s face hardened, his jaw flexing as his teeth ground together. He could deny me, but it would be an insult to his crew. That all their lives weren’t worth one solitary human was unthinkable. I was owed, and if the matter came before the court, they would side with me.
Vorian stood at his father’s back, ready to push past and defend his father’s property if it came to it. But Crux held up a hand.
“Fine. Keep your prize, little pink prince. Enjoy the distraction while it lasts.”
He turned on his heel, walking across the landing where he would find a large terrapad to whisk him, his remaining crew, and the humans to his laboratory at the edge of our capital.
Under my hand, Lucas shivered.
Even here, on our planet where the air was humid enough to grow lush jungles, he trembled. I pulled him toward me, edging closer. “Are you cold?”
He turned his wide, worried eyes up at me. His pupils were enormous black discs at the center, the gray rings only small slivers around that depthless black. “I—Are they... Am I—”
Frowning, I cocked my head. “They are going to the laboratory. Crux tends unmated humans on Thorzan. He is wise. Understands your... pieces.”
Beside me, Jax huffed. “Wise as a rock.”
True, Crux could be crass, but he had saved our kind. Further, I did not want Jax’s disdain to make Lucas worry unduly. “He will see them fed and cared for,” I corrected.
“And Genevieve?” Lucas asked. “You said she could go home.”
“Mates have a sacred bond,” I said. “She will not be kept from hers.”
For a time, at least, that seemed to satisfy Lucas, though his shoulder still felt tense and rigid under my touch. This was a new world. I would have to give him time. That was, at least, what Mother would say. She had been terrified, when first her feet touched the soil of Thorzan.
Though she had more reason than any human to fear the Thorzi, Lucas would need a moment to recover and find peace and easy breathing.
I turned, instead, to Jax. “I must report to my father.”
“And I will inform the Proeliator that the Zathki have made an attack on a Thorzi ship. Finally, this war will begin in earnest.” He was grinning broadly, feeling none of the nervousness I felt, responsible for the continuation of our people. Jax’s first concern was to fight and protect Thorzan. Mine was... complex.
Jax left first, and I led Lucas by the shoulder to a terrapad that zipped straight down from our landing place high above the treetops. It rushed down, air stinging our cheeks, until it came to a stop in the entrance courtyard of the palace. Even that was built into a cliff, the palace on top of the sheer rock face and the homes of other Thorzi built into pods in the stone beneath.
While the terrapad moved, I kept my arm around Lucas to keep him steady. He still squeaked when we took off, and at once, his arms wrapped around my middle, as if I might ever let him fall.
“This is my home, palace of Xyren the Imperator, king of Thorzan and my father.”
“So, uh, that whole ‘prince’ thing was literal?”
I did not know if the red in his cheeks was from the swift movement of the pad or something else, but I grinned at him while his little arms clung to me so tightly.
“I am important to the Thorzi people. You are lucky to be mine.”
“Uh huh...”
He fell silent as his sight drifted across our palace, lingering on the gardens surrounding the courtyard and the grand structures we had built to protect our people from the beasts of Thorzan.
“Come, I will show you our beauties.”
With a steady hand, I helped Lucas down from the terrapad. It was a large step for his shorter legs, and he leaned heavily on my strength.
