Rebel Pax (Shifters of the Primus Book 2) Read Online Free Page B

compels me to do, but I already feel the call to make her mine and protect her reaching out to just as strongly.
    She twists her fingers in her lap, looking down. “What if I ask you to take me to your clan instead?”
    “My clan. . . It is too dangerous. In the years since I left there has been endless fighting.”
    “Well. Look, I’m going to be completely honest with you. All those people who died back there by the shuttle. Those were the important ones. I’m just a pilot in training. But this could be my chance. If you take me to the Toltek where we were headed, I could prove that I’m capable of doing what the Kolari ambassador was sent to do. I’ll meet with the Toltek leaders and establish contact. I just, well, need you to take me.”
    I try not to smirk. The small female is fierce and dedicated to her mission, to preserving her honor—traits I have never seen in females of other species. For the first time in years, I feel as though the Primus I was before my exile is resurfacing. It is as if I had slowly buried myself beneath the leaves, one at a time, so slowly that I did not know it was happening. This female may be able to dig me out, but would I deserve such good fortune?
    Maybe not. But whether I deserve her in my life or not, the thought of any harm coming to Mira is unacceptable. And ever since I sucked the poison from her body, something has drawn me even closer to her. I have heard the oracles speak of bonds forming when a male and female fated to be together exchange blood, but I always thought it was superstitious nonsense. It might still be, yet I almost feel as if I know where she is even if I cannot see her, as if I can sense her.
    “No,” I say finally. “The Toltek are too fragmented. There can be no peace. You will only find death there. Or worse.”
    She swallows hard, then shakes her head. “You can take me or I’ll go myself.”
    Now I do not bother to hide the smirk. “Is that so?” I ask, folding my arms. “Then I wish you the best of luck. Toltek territory is that way,” I say, pointing to a barbed patch of hanging vines that would tear her soft flesh to ribbons if she tried it on her own.
    She frowns at me, but stands, turns, and walks toward the vines . Shit. Stubborn—I run to grab her before she reaches the thorns, pulling her back. “What are you thinking?” I growl.
    She shrugs. “I’m going whether you help me or not.”
    “Through this?” I ask, lifting one of the sharply spiked thorns she was about to wade through.
    “A couple scratches never killed anybody.”
    I pause for a moment, trying to decide if she is serious. Finally, a barking laughter escapes me. It feels good to laugh after so long, to really laugh. At first I laugh because of her foolish but endearing stubbornness and then I laugh simply for the joy of it. When I look at Mira, her large eyes glimmer up at me, sparkling with humor and something else.
    Mira laughs a little nervously and then snorts. She claps a hand to her mouth, eyes wide. She looks like she’s about to cry of embarrassment for a second and then she bursts out laughing. The sound is infectious and when she snorts again, I laugh as well.
    As our laughter dies out, I can’t help marveling at this small, star-skinned female who has already managed to move the immovable by steering me from my path of self-destruction. When I thought I was like a boulder rolling downhill and gaining speed, she is showing me that it does not have to be so. But it must be so. It does not matter if I would like to follow this path my life has offered to see where it may lead. My past demons still haunt me, reminding me that I do not deserve this happiness. Mira is just a painful reminder of how much I could have had.

7
    Mira
    W e leave shortly after I finish embarrassing myself with my nerdy laugh. He has agreed to take me to the Toltek clan, but I can barely bring myself to look at Pax after all the compromising situations I’ve put myself in around