No.
No. No. No.
He had to be wrong. He had to be lying to my face. My veins went as cold as ice as I looked back over at him, hoping that I’d be able to sense the bullshit from a mile away. But when I looked into Wexxon’s eyes, all I could see was an honest expression as his lips quietly parted and closed, as if there was something on his mind that he wanted to say.
“Oh God. Oh my God…” I slid my hands down toward my abdomen, pressing my fingers against my skin. “I don’t…Wexxon, I thought that I couldn’t get pregnant.”
“I never said that you could not get pregnant by me, my little warrior,” Wexxon replied. “I said that we would find out about the possibility together, and it looks like we now know the answer.”
“How can you tell for sure?” I shook my head in disbelief. “There’s no way you can just look over at me and know, Wexxon. We have to go to a doctor or something, don’t we? Just to be on the safe side?”
“Be one with your body, little warrior,” Wexxon murmured. “And you will know the truth, just like I know it, too.”
I whimpered as I closed my eyes, my hands still resting against my stomach.
Please. Don’t be true. This can’t be fucking true.
But soon enough, I felt an unfamiliar warmth crawling through my veins, something I’d never felt before. It was like I was able to sense a change inside me, at a molecular level, an ability I never would’ve been able to develop back on Earth. But on Xelxar, I was more in tune with my body than I’d ever been before, even if I didn’t always want to listen to its wants or needs in the moment.
“…Fuck.” My mouth fell open with the revelation, my eyes going wide at the same time, too. “I’m really fucking pregnant.”
I was sitting at the counter in what looked like an empty kitchen, with Wexxon strolling back and forth across the room. He’d promised to cook me something special for dinner, to celebrate the successful pregnancy, to mark the occasion of me committing to bringing our child into the world. I silently watched him move about the space, just as confident as ever, his hands grabbing for what resembled pots and pans, except instead of muted colors they were just as bright and purple as the Xelxar sea.
As I watched him move around, I started to wonder about my husband, a nagging feeling of wanting to know everything about him suddenly overtaking my mind. And when Wexxon was close enough to the counter, his body hunched over what resembled a stove, its burners producing small, open flames, I decided to ask him all the questions that’d been swimming around in my head.
“Who is Reddin?” I asked as Wexxon’s attention remained on the burner. “I mean, I know that he’s your brother, but you never mentioned him to me. Not once.”
“That’s because he and I do not speak,” he answered. “Or rather, because he does not wish to speak to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because I wouldn’t kill him when we faced each other in the arena, a very long time ago.”
“…Wait. What?” I scrunched up my nose in confusion. “Your brother won’t talk to you because you didn’t kill him in a fight to the death?”
“If I was stronger, I would’ve done it.” Wexxon sighed as he spoke. “It was weak of me not to take his life when I had the chance. And now, because I betrayed my oath to the arena and let him live…there is very little recourse for a warrior who is shown mercy on Xelxar, my little Rachel. I know that my brother wishes to be a warrior again, to once again fight in the arena…but he will not be allowed to regain his honor so easily. And it seems that he hates me for it.”
“Seriously? All of that just because you wouldn’t kill your brother?” I frowned. “That seems so fucked up.”
“My heart has always been my biggest weakness.” Wexxon shrugged. “For other warriors, it’s their arms or their shoulders or their knees. For me? It’s been an internal enemy, for as far back as I can remember.”
Wexxon then paused for a moment as he looked up at me, something serious clearly on his mind. “Could you have done it?”
“Could I have done what?”
“Killed your brother for the sake of his own honor,” he clarified. “Do you think that I…made the right choice?”
“Who cares what I think about it, Wexxon?”
“I deeply care what you think about everything, my little warrior,” he replied. “I never want to be seen as weak in your eyes.”
“You’re not weak for loving your brother and wanting him to live.” I answered the question before I let out a loud sigh. “And no. I don’t think I could’ve done it. I never had any brothers or sisters, but the thought of having to kill someone I loved, like my mom or my dad—”
“Someone you loved?” Wexxon pressed, his eyes still resting on my expression. “Did something happen with your parents to change your affections?”
“They died,” I murmured as my eyes broke away from his gaze.
“How?”
“In an apartment fire,” I continued, trying my best to keep myself from sobbing at the memory. “I…wasn’t home that night. I was studying for this big test when I was in high school, so I asked the librarian if I could sleep in one of the library’s study rooms. And she let me have the key for the night. So…that was that.”
Wexxon reached a hand across the table, covering my palm with his own. “I am certain your parents were grateful that you were not home when they perished, that your life was preserved.”
Yeah, right.
Some life.
I’d managed to get kidnapped and then impregnated by an alien, all within a matter of days.
I kept my inner thoughts to myself as I turned the question back around on Wexxon. “What about you? Where are your parents now?”
“Where your parents are, too.” He offered me a somber smile. “They died when I was very young.”
“What happened to them?”
“They perished on an exploration,” Wexxon explained. “They were space travelers, the both of them. They desired so much more than Xelxar, so much more than our traditions and our ways. And one day, while they were scanning the galaxy…their ship was besieged by meteors.”
“Oh my God, Wexxon.” My face fell, as a lump formed in my throat. “I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. You did not cause their deaths,” he replied before he went on. “Although their deaths did leave my brother and me orphaned on Xelxar. And without anywhere else to go, we were forced to join in on the arena. Training was the only way we could eat. It was the only way we could make a name for ourselves, too.”
“…Is there a way out?” I whispered the question as I watched Wexxon bring both his hands back down toward the stove, using a cooking utensil to move a piece of meat around the pan. “Is there some future where you don’t have to fight in the arena anymore?”
“Are you asking if I’m ready to retire?” He smirked. “Is that what you want from me already, my little warrior? Are you truly that unsatisfied with your housing?”