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With a snarl, I crawled out of our nest and kicked it across the room. Marex’s mild voice filled the space a second later.
“I thought you would appreciate an alarm more than us bursting unwelcome onto your vessel, Warrior Jax. And it came with a significantly lessened likelihood of injury to us.”
I growled, but looking around, I did not see an easy way to communicate with him to tell him where he could stick his blasted heater. Wesley had gotten up, was sticking his bare legs into one pant leg, then the other. He stared at me, and when I caught his eye, his brows shot up. He shrugged his shoulders.
Marex announced, “We are here with the necessary tools to begin to repair your ship, as well as warm breakfast for you and Wesley of Earth. I hope you have given our proposition some thought. When you are ready to discuss it, please come open the door.”
The sound went out. I sighed, raking a hand through my hair, watching Wesley dress while I stood there balancing my weight on the uneven floor, entirely naked.
I had hoped for a slow morning, time to show Wesley exactly what I could do, that he did not need to fear the size of my cock once I set my full intention to caring for him. But sleep and Marex had taken the chance from me.
I sighed.
“What are you thinking?” Wesley asked, finally reaching for his glasses. He’d wanted to see me ride him, surely, but some time in the night he had taken them off, folded their arms, set them aside.
“I am thinking about your soft, warm body, and how much I would like to make the Zathki wait,” I admitted, gratified to see that warm rush of color under his pink skin.
After a moment, Wesley swallowed. “I mean about their proposal. They want what Crux promised them.”
If there was indeed a deal between our peoples, if that deal had, in fact, saved the Thorzi from annihilation, we were honor bound to see it through. And sacred Lyr, it was tempting to think about Crux being incapable of saving our race. Was it not every bit as grating to have my existence in the hands of that arrogant blowhard as it would have been to accept the Zathki’s part in my birth?
I huffed. “I am in no position to fulfill the entirety of Crux’s promise. I am a warrior, not—” Not a king, or a gatherer, or a hunter. Not my father. There was another Proeliator now, and only when Kaelum took the throne would my time come.IfKaelum took the throne. And if, when he did, he still wanted a warrior who wanted peace with the Zathki at his right hand.
Wesley gave me a deeply unimpressed look. He would not be so easily convinced. “You could help though. You have the prince’s ear. You said your father was important?”
My shoulders were beginning to tense, hard as the stone we’d carved our city from. “I could try.”
“And? Will you?”
My breath escaped in another hard rush of air, and I reached for my trousers and boots to dress. “I suppose I will.” That was the best I could offer the Zathki—the promise that, when I got back to Thorzan, I would put their claim to the king. Or at least to Kaelum.
Once I had my trousers laced, I glanced up at Wesley with a smirk. “I’d rather have you in a real bed and off this forsaken rock, anyway. Let us discuss the repairs with Marex, since he is so eager to start.”
CHAPTER23
WES
Marex was indeed eager to start. I mean, he didn’t act eager, but most of the Zathki were an understated bunch. They didn’t move more than absolutely necessary, spoke in calm, quiet tones, and wore neutral expressions. Well, except when they looked at Jax.
Most of them were clearly suspicious of Jax, if the narrow-eyed looks and the wide berth they gave him were any indication. I incited less concern, with maybe a hint of curiosity, but it was obvious enough that the enmity between their people ran deep, every time they started looking at each other.
It was odd, since they were so clearly members of the same race.
Humans do exactly the same thing, my brain pointed out. Drawing imaginary lines in order to make an us and a them was standard the universe over, it seemed.
Hate was always easier than compromise.
Well screw that. Maybe Crux hadn’t intended to make peace at all, but he’d started the process, and now the Thorzi and Zathki had things in common that they hadn’t had in generations. They had Jax, who was in some ways, as he’d said, a child of both races.
I still didn’t think he owed his life to anyone, but I didn’t think a person owed their life for the gift of existence. Making children wasn’t an inherently unselfish act, and the compensation for it washaving a child.
I suspected that Jax’s Thorzi father would have agreed with that. He sounded like he’d been an exceptional person, and I was sorry I hadn’t gotten to meet him. It was easy to see the shadow of him in Jax, though. All that warrior knowledge, but also, the ability to see things from a different angle. To see things how no one else did.
The greatest generals in history had been like that, hadn’t they? No surprise that trait also transcended planetary boundaries.
And there was Jax now, breaking new ground. Working with the Zathki despite his clear hesitance, because he knew it was the right thing to do.
The Zathki engineer, a smaller, slighter person than the one the day before, was showing Jax around the ship, pointing things out and explaining them. I wandered over to where Marex was sitting nearby, working on something that looked like a tiny white tablet, slim stylus and all.
