Page 44 of Jewel of the Alien Bandit
“Your title isn’t who you are. King, warrior, hunter… slave,” my mouth went dry and it was difficult to continue. I couldn’t begin to imagine the kind of life he’s had to push through being the last of his species, his homeland destroyed, traded through slavery, and forced to work for an outlaw. Then he just had to meet me, only to throw him in the middle of war all because I was selfish. He had answers about a scientist that could help my planet, and if I was honest with myself none of that mattered as much as my need to be near the male that triggered my mating loh.
I chuckled to myself in uncomfortable clarity at my disgusting disregard for what was truly best for my planet. Someone capable of such actions was not worthy of ascending to Almder, and I was undeserving of even the shol male before me. Tears prickled at the edge of my eyes, and I turned away incapable of facing my truths reflecting in his eyes any longer.
He pulled me back, preventing me from escaping the ugliness of my decisions.
It wasn’t just my planet that I was failing. I was failing him.
He was the last known shol male, and if there was even a chance there was another female that survived his planet’s destruction he would have the weight of his species on his shoulders. I would be violating system law to prevent his species from continuing undiluted. His kind mated only once.
The tears I should have been shedding for my selfish decisions and how they affected those around me were not dripping down my cheeks for any other reason than the hurt inside my gut at letting go of someone I wanted.
Even now, I was only thinking of myself.
Vareo wiped away a tear with his thumb, and lifted my chin.
“Nor is it who you are,” he threw my own words back at me, and it felt like a blow to my throat. He was right, I was not defined by being a future Almder. My actions were far from what was to be expected of a leader.
I couldn’t do this to him.
I had to let him go.
His forehead gently tapped against mine, and I stilled, holding my breath.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Vareo
THE STRONG, FEISTYqueen was crumbling before my eyes. Luan’s shoulders were shaking, and a viscous clear liquid slid down her cheeks that smelled like flowers. As I wiped a tear away, my thumb heated at the contact. Everything in me wanted to protect her even from pain I couldn’t reach. My mating runes glowed, and as my forehead touched hers, I wished to take all of that pain through osmosis if I could.
She was more than a title of Almder of the Estreldez, she was the future of this star system, even King Sylve knew what her future held before her. Her planet holds the rarest of minerals that every star-faring vessel will fight for, and she’s the only estreld in history to survive this long away from her moon’s radiation. But what’s more is she is the rare kind of jewel that is willing to sacrifice herself to protect her clan.
It was a suicide mission to leave King Sylve, but as long as he had her as leverage, her planet was in danger. However, neither of us had known she would generate her own radiation and heal her damaged loh before we even got close to returning to Estreldez.
I was less than a slave, I was scum from the bottom of the waste dispensers for thinking I was saving her by removing herfrom the med bay in the off chance I could get her home before her light faded from this world. I had had no assurances.
“This life is all I’ve ever known.” I frowned at her tears as they kept on flowing, and so I did the only thing I knew how to do in such situations. I shared what Zorn used to tell me when we were younger every time I mentioned my family, my planet, and my fate as nothing but a tool for those with power. “It is useless to think on what might have been, or a life that isn’t mine.
“Those who seek to control us will give us the illusion of limited choices, but there is always a path untold. A path that may not solve all our woes, but gives us options that weren’t there before. Eventually even the impossible can be probable once more. War may loom in your future, your clan may be facing a threat that can not be overcome by force alone, and you are one estreld against an army.” I sighed realizing I had stuck my fist in my mouth as her tears only intensified.
“I mean to say,” I tried to remedy my misstep quickly, “You may feel trapped by the choices you are confronted with, but there is always a path not readily given. You will find that path, because a light like yours could outshine the vacuum of space itself.”
“It’s not light,” she corrected me with a trembling smile. “Our loh don’t ‘produce’ light, we stabilize and store energy. The glowing is the act of stabilizing a decaying atom. Without radiation, our bodies try to stabilize the energy inside our cells that aren’t meant to be used in such a way. Our metabolic loh system that protects us from our planet’s radiation is the very reason why we can’t sustain ourselves outside of the moon’s rays.”
The tone in her explanation sounded less like she was telling me for the sake of why it was remarkable that she recovered, butmore to convince me that she was less than radiant in her own right.
Her body attacks itself to re-energize, but without the radiation, the only energy for it to consume and stabilize is her own cells. That’s why the estreld can’t heal themselves without radiation. There is no energy to use to rebuild her cells, and in order to rebuild decaying or damaged cells, more radiation is needed. but none of that depreciated the fact that she put herself in harm’s way to protect me. She almost died so that I would be saved from even the smallest of pains.
Luan didn’t know enough about the shol to know that my body would have sustained the damage of being tossed against the metal of the ship’s interior haul with much more resilience than an estreld.
“Not light,” I agreed, but it didn’t change the sentiment for me. She was still bright enough to blind the darkest of black holes in space. “Luan, even the stars do not light every particle of their surface, it does not make them any less capable of incinerating a ship.”
She had to remember the fiery sun within her was capable of defending her planet, and finding a way to stop King Sylve, and I would remind her of that as many times as she needed to hear it.
My heart stilled at the thought.
I had meant every word.
But, it confirmed I had no intention of allowing her to take the easy way out of this war. I couldn’t let my mate choose another for their… hive of warriors, and fleet of ships. If that Krelis Prince touched her I would start a war of my own.
