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The specifics did not matter. What did was that Crux had lied. He was not the Progenitor, not our savior. So long, he had used that to justify his crimes.
But worse, the knowledge that sat heaviest on me, that caused my ears to ring and my lungs to clench against the fresh rush of air, was that if Crux had not created me through his own ingenuity, I owed my life to my enemy.
I was Zathki born.
CHAPTER19
WES
It was easy to pinpoint the moment Jax started believing Marex’s words. I didn’t know what convinced him, but Jax was an expressive person, and the way his mood plummeted was written all over his face. Gone was his trademark grin, replaced by that blank Thorzi warrior grimness I was all too familiar with.
On Jax, it was entirely wrong. It set my teeth on edge and the food turned to sawdust in my mouth, no longer the feast of moments before. I didn’t know why the distress of a man I’d known for such a short time was so important, but it damn well was.
Hell, he became more important to me with every moment, with every sweet attempt to protect me or shelter me for no reason other than that I was there, and he thought I needed it.
I was getting in too deep, too fast, with someone I hardly knew, but at every turn, he kept showing me that I could trust him. It was more than anyone other than my parents had ever given me. Maybe that meant the bar was on the floor, but it didn’t change the fact that he was the only one who cared to step over it.
Instead of pushing at dinner, and bringing attention to Jax’s discomfiture, I reached under the table and squeezed his knee, then turned back to Marex. “So why did your people come up with the technology to make babies in a lab? You don’t seem to have the same problem as the Thorzi.”
He leaned his head to one side in another very human gesture, but ruined it by making one of those vibrating sounds in his chest, this one different from any of the previous ones I’d heard. “It is a complex problem, but at the heart of it, sometimes those who wish to procreate are unable to. We cannot offer our people many comforts, but what we can give them, we do. And what we are good at, as a society, is progress.”
They were still scientists, apparently. Huh.
“I take it, from your surprise, that Crux did not inform your people of the deal we struck?” Marex asked. He didn’t meet Jax’s eye when he asked, though the question was clearly aimed at him. I mean, why would he have asked me?
Jax’s jaw clenched, and he stared straight ahead at his plate, but after a moment, he nodded. “He did not.”
The look on Marex’s face, all soft eyes and pursed lips, made me think he was sympathetic, but that wasn’t what Jax needed from him right then, so it was time for me to intervene.
“Well, this was delicious, Marex. We really appreciate the food. I think maybe it would be good for us to go back to the ship now, and you know, digest. Talk.” I stared at him, and when he glanced over to me, I tried to give him a meaningful look.
Of course, it was a human expression, that any of us might have recognized as “please don’t make this worse right now,” but it could have meant anything to aliens. Maybe it was a sex face for them, for all I knew.
Marex seemed to understand. He dipped his head and gave me a small smile. “Of course. I shall have someone guide you back to your ship—not that we don’t trust you, but the tunnels can be a maze, even for those of us who live in them. The engineers say the Thorzi ship is quite fine, and saw no reason it could not continue to support the two of you during repairs... if you decide that repairs are what you want.”
Jax’s head snapped up, and he turned to Marex, opening his mouth to say something I suspected we would all regret.
I squeezed his knee hard. “That’s great. The Thorzi do make a great ship. And Jax and I have a lot to talk about.” I turned to look at him, giving him almost the same look I’d given Marex a moment earlier. “Can we please go home now?”
Yeah, I know. Calling a ship I’d spent like a week living on “home” was rank manipulation, but give me a break. The last thing we needed was for Jax to pick a fight with people he described as a horde. It didn’t matter how good a warrior he was—no one man, or Thorzi warrior, could handle that on their own.
Jax didn’t unclench, exactly, but the fire in his eyes dimmed ever so slightly, and he gave me a nod. “Yes, of course.”
A few more minutes, silent but for Marex giving orders for someone to accompany us through the “city,” and we were back in the ship.
Now, I was willing to forego staying in the relatively warm tunnels for Jax’s comfort. That was fine. Sensible, even. But I was not foregoing the heater. I motioned to it as we got back into the ship. “Can we move that up to the place where we’ve been sleeping?”
Jax glared at it for a second, like it was a snake that was going to bite him, but finally, he sighed and nodded. “Yes.” Then he proceeded to sit down and look it over again, pulling it apart and putting it back together, like he was looking for bugs or a bomb or something.
And fair enough. Their people had been killing each other for generations. Trust wasn’t going to come easy, even if they were our likeliest way off the planet.
So when he was satisfied, and put the heater back together, I grabbed the blankets over an arm, took his hand in my free one, and dragged him back to the spot where we’d been nesting.
I laid the new blankets out, not adding them to the nest, but packing them around the edges, to try to hold in more warmth. He set the heater up to blow across us, and in a moment, it was as snug as sitting in front of a fireplace in the middle of winter. Not too shabby.
I shucked my clothes and slid between the blankets, then reached my hands out like a toddler demanding to be picked up. “I require cuddling. I’m weak and human and it’s necessary.”
And there was a hint of that Jax smile. “A requirement for all humans, is it? Medically necessary?”
