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Except whywouldn’the jump to that conclusion? What did Jax and I have that the Zathki could possibly want? They could take the ship by force, and easily, since there were two of us, and Jax had implied that there were alotof Zathki.
The only other things involved us working with them willingly, which wasn’t super likely on Jax’s part. I knew, instinctively, that if they asked him for information on Thorzan’s defenses, Jax would tell them to go to hell.
Besides, Marex and Jax had both implied that the Zathki were more technologically advanced. So how had this ship defeated them? For a moment, I had visions of some kind of immensely advanced race letting the bigger, bluer, bully race think they had the upper hand, then something occurred to me: we were on a moon. They’d said the Zathki lived under the crust of the planet. If this planet was a ball of ice, it stood to reason that the Zathki, no matter their immense technology, had very little in the way of resources. So maybe they couldn’t build bigger ships with better weapons, even if they knew how.
“We do not want Wesley.” Marex said it, then winced and looked to me. “Not that he cannot stay with us if he so wishes,” he said, tone a promise, at which Jax growled.
Swear to god, he seriously just... growled. Like a tiger, long and low and deep.
Again, Marex held out his hands. “It is not my intention to remove him from you forcibly, Thorzi. Our races take mating equally seriously, however much time separates us”—Mating? What the hell?—“but it would be remiss of me not to offer him a safe place, since my people did wrong him, and we owe him any safety that we took away.”
That seemed to calm Jax a little, so I interrupted. “Okay, let’s eat. Not that Jax is giving you something, but your people will provide food we can eat, and in exchange, Jax will hear you out. Listen to what it is you really want. Sound good?”
“More than fair,” Marex agreed. He looked up and met Jax’s eye, his face softer than it had been before, when they’d clearly been half a minute from an actual pissing contest. “I would be honored, Jax of Thorzan and Wesley of Earth, if you would join me for dinner, that I might explain what my people need. It will perhaps not be the warmest welcome you have ever had, because my people are suspicious of Thorzi, but I would be willing to show you where our people live.”
And that, well... I wasn’t sure if showing us their home was a good sign, or a sign that they didn’t intend to let us leave. But really, what choice did we have? I turned and looked at Jax, whose face was pinched, probably with the same question that had crossed my mind. Well, and his ongoing concern that the Zathki wanted to “steal” me, given the way his arms tightened around my waist.
Finally, though, he nodded. “Very well, Zathki. We will go. But if you attempt to ambush us, I will leave a mountain of you dead before you fell me.”
Marex’s eyes brightened in something that looked like challenge, but instead of volleying back with a snipe, he bowed his head and simply said, “As you say.”
CHAPTER18
JAX
Marex wished to downplay the war between the Zathki and the Thorzi, and because there were some similarities between our peoples, Wesley was drawn into the farce. My jealousy colored every word spoken between them, making Marex all the more insidious, convincing me that Wesley was already slipping away from me, no matter how he wrapped his blanket around us both.
Which was acceptable, obviously. No matter what Marex thought, this bold little human was not my mate. Wesley had choices of his own to make, and without leave from the king, from my prince, I would have no mate of my own. Even if I could, my people expected me to take a large blue true-born warrior, to be his kept thing.
Still acceptable.Obviously.
It was simply upsetting, because every bit of trust that Wesley gave to Marex took him further from safety. That was what I cared about—protecting this human, seeing him back to Thorzan where—where we each had a role to fill.
But I would not be so easily fooled. We had been at war with the Zathki for more cycles than I had seen, and I would not soon forget the losses my people, my family, had borne.
I would suffer no more for the sake of Zathki worms.
Only... to reduce the suffering of Wesley, I had agreed to follow Marex into Zathki tunnels, where his people had every advantage. My arm remained wrapped around his shoulders, keeping him close against my side. But it was not a long walk through the cold. The tunnels were closer than I had imagined, hidden beneath a crag of ice, the sun glinting off the surface to hide the entrance from view.
Once we were inside the tunnel, beyond the strange, frigid gust of snow at the entrance’s edge, I no longer had to keep Wesley close. I watched him from the corner of my eye as he shivered and shifted the blankets around him.
He seemed to sense me watching, then looked up and smiled, nervousness tightening the edges of his lips. “You okay, big guy?”
I wished to tell him that no, I was not. I was in a maze built by my enemies, unable to assure his protection. But that would only frighten him, or worse, make him think I was too weak to protect him.
I had to trust that Marex did not mean Wesley harm, that there was genuinely something I had that was valuable enough to get us off Zathkar, whole and healthy.
“I am well,” I assured him, taking in our surroundings as the doors—my last chance of escape—hissed shut behind us.
The tunnels were lit with tubes overhead, some sort of luminescent liquid flowing through them, casting shadows on the scowling faces waiting for us inside.
The Zathki stepped back to make room for Marex, but their eyes followed me down the corridors. They may have glanced curiously at Wesley, as he was the only one here who stood so short, whose skin had not a trace of blue.
But I was the threat, and they watched me carefully until Marex had brought us the long way to his private room and called for dinner.
He allowed us to wander the space while we waited, but there was not much to look at here. Though he clearly had authority, his room was small, insulated so well that when the door slid shut, I would have thought we were alone underground for all the silence.
He did not have shelves, or furs, or many blankets. What he did have seemed to be repurposed. The Zathki were stuck recycling what little they had been able to salvage from the homeworld.
