Chapter Three
It feels like it takes an eternity for the tea, which unfortunately is a period relief blend, to brew. I decide to not tell Bahtam that he's about to drink "cubby wubby womb tea."
The egg timer finally dings.
“Thank Christ.”
I grab both mugs and carefully carry them toward the fire.
Bahtam sits half-curled beside the hearth, broad shoulders lit gold by the lantern glow. The cabin feels absurdly cramped with him inside it. His tail loops beneath the coffee table and curls back toward the stove, scales gleaming dark green whenever the fire cracks.
I set the cups to the side and grab my supplies.
The first aid kit I found under the sink looked ancient, full of rusted scissors and gauze yellowed with age. It wouldn't look out of place in a World War Two museum exhibit. Thankfully, the antibiotic ointment came from my hiking pack instead of the cabin supplies.
Still, it's what we've got, and despite how awful he looked when I first saw him, he seems to be doing better next to the fire.
The memory flashes through my head the second I look at him. Blood slick against scales. His hand presses hard over the wound in his side while rainwater drips from his hair onto the floorboards.
He seems so different now.
“You need stitches,” I say immediately.
Bahtam glances down at the gash like it barely registers.
“I need rest, I need warmth,” he mutters, trying his best to brush me off.
“You’re bleeding all over the floor.”
That earns the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth. Bahtam shifts closer to the firelight and lifts his arm, exposing the long tear across his ribs.
“Clean it then, if you must,” he sighs.
Simple, but direct.
Meanwhile, I was trying very hard not to notice I was kneeling between the coils of a half-dressed naga with a voice deep enough to vibrate through my chest. First aid shouldn't make you weak in the knees. Right?
I soak a rag in warm water and press it carefully to the wound. The second my fingers touch him, his muscles tighten beneath my hand.
His skin is warmer than before. And I swear his smooth scales that frame the torn flesh along his ribs are already mending, dark and glossy in the firelight. Every breath expands slowly beneath my palm.
“You’re lucky this isn’t infected,” I mutter while wiping blood away.
I wrap him with gauze, and the bandages around his ribs are rough at best, but it feels better than nothing.
I look up at him as my hand is pressed to his side.
Big mistake.
The fire paints his eyes molten gold as he watches me crouch between his coils, hands against his body, cleaning blood from his skin with embarrassing concentration.
Heat creeps up my neck instantly.
“So,” I say, reaching for the ointment a little too fast, “who exactly did this to you?”
Something colder settles over his expression.
“Poachers.”
I frown, confused. “Poachers?”
“They harvest naga venom.” His jaw flexes faintly. “Scales. Fangs. Skin. Every part of me can be sold for a pretty penny to the right client.”
A sick feeling twisted in my stomach.
“Oh—that's fucking horrible. I'm so sorry.”
“They won’t trouble anyone again.”
The quiet certainty in his voice makes me pause.
Then he smiles slightly, just enough for the edge of one fang to catch the light.
Every survival instinct I possess should have been screaming at me to run out the front door. To risk the rain, the mountain trails, and get back to civilization.
Instead, warmth curls low in my stomach so fast it almost makes me angry.
What in the actual fuck is wrong with me? Seriously?
A dangerous, gigantic naga casually implying he murdered people, and my brain decided that was attractive?
Maybe I really had hit my head crawling around under the cabin earlier.
I push any attempt my brain has at preserving my safety to the side.
The mugs in my hands are white with faded harvest-gold stripes around the rim, probably bought sometime in the seventies when my uncle first built this place.
For a second, the sight of them tugs me backward—summer afternoons smelling like sawdust, my uncle laughing while terrible coffee burned on the stove, his rough hands guiding mine over freshly sanded wood.
Then the floor creaks softly.
I look up.
Bahtam is watching me across the firelight, gold eyes fixed entirely on me.
And just like that, the warmth in my chest changes shape.
"You are different, you know," Bahtam says, snapping me from my memory.
I huff a less than quiet laugh, handing him his retro mug of tea.
"Uh, you're half snake, Bahtam. I think you've beaten me on the whole different front."
His lips part slightly at that statement, just enough for that flicker of his tongue, quick and curious.
"I mean," he corrects, his voice lower, "you are warm in a way I've never felt."
I know that I couldn't possibly be warmer than the fire he sits in front of, that he's implying something else entirely.
"Well, you really crawled under the best cabin then, didn't you? Premium heating, comes with tea." I tell him sarcastically as I plop down next to him on the floor.
For a second there's silence, and I half expect that maybe he'll drink his tea and be on his way. But I'm less than surprised when his huge body shifts, and he lifts me onto his scaled lap, wrapping his arms around me, chin resting on top of my head.
"Oh, okay…sure." I stumble over my words. Somehow, despite the strangeness of this whole situation, it doesn't feel bad. In fact, there's something about the way he's holding me now that has me wishing he'd do more.
But I can't say it out loud, that's weird…right?
"Are you sure you’re not too injured to be my easy chair?" I laugh awkwardly.
"I am fine now, the cold exacerbated the wound. I will heal before morning.” He waves off any attempt I have at getting up. "You are warmest"—his hand slides from my belly down to my jorts-covered crotch—"here."
"Uh-huh," I say in a weird falsetto. "You know, you really shouldn't touch me there…it's—uh—like the tip of your tail."
I could squirm out of his grip, but the primal part of my brain has me frozen, waiting to see what will happen… hoping for an outcome I dare not speak.
"But I liked it when you touched me there, I like how you feel." He cups my pussy through my jeans shorts, and I can't help it when I arch against him.
It's been a long time since anyone has paid me this kind of attention, and my betrayer of a pussy weeps at the thought of him.
"You…you should ask, you ask to touch people there," I stammer out.
He lifts his hand off me immediately.
"Can I touch you, can I feel your warmth…" He pauses, letting his tongue dance across my earlobe. "Sloane."
The way he says my name has what's left of my common sense weakening.
"Maybe I shouldn't let the strange snake man touch my pussy," I say aloud, likely delirious.
"But do you want the snake man to stop touching you?" He undulates his hips, and I can feel something swelling just under me.
"I…" A thousand responses run through my head.
That he's a stranger, that this is such a bad idea, but finally I land on the simplest response, the one that's what I truly want, even if I'm scared to admit that I want it.
"No, I don't want you to stop touching me, Bahtam…and I don't care if that sounds crazy. Do you think I'm crazy?"
"I think you’re warm…and willing," he growls before spinning me to face him, quickly straddling his massive tail. "Naga women only become warm when they're ready to breed. For my kind, it is the most erotic of sensations."
Is he calling me breedable?
I drag my hand down his textured, expansive chest.
"Fuck it." I throw caution to the wind and grab his face, pulling him into a ferocious kiss. His forked tongue tastes my human one. I navigate carefully over his sharp fangs, a little thrill going through me at the feeling.
I break the kiss first and grab his hand, pushing it over my mound.
"Touch me, Bahtam."
As if my request was the only thing holding him back, he uses his sharp claws to slice up the side seams of shorts, pulling them away like a cheap pair of tearaway pants.
His eyes are glowing—or maybe that's just the reflection of the fire behind—as a slow smile spreads over his lips.
"Your folds," he murmurs, "look at how prettily they glisten in this light, blooming right before me like some rare jungle flower, slick with dew, inviting me to take a drink of your delicious nectar."
Holy shit, we've got a dirty talker on our hands.
I can't help but clench at the baritone of his voice and the filthy words sliding out from his pretty little lips.
"Oh, I think that's the most I've heard you speak," I blush.
"You've restored me, little human." He chuffs.
Bahtam takes his long green finger, curls the sharp nail into his palm, and traces my quickly swelling lips with his knuckle.
"You're soaking, dripping for me, aren't you?" he asks as he plays me like a fiddle.
"Uh, huh," I manage in slack-jawed awe.
He stops stroking me, only to slide me backward. I suck in a breath as the scales where I was just sitting part and his engorged cock pops free.
No, not cock. Cocks.
"Two?" I squeak, admiring how just one would be more than enough for me.
His knuckle drops lower, tapping slightly at my rear entrance before slipping between the cleft of my pussy.
"You have two wells, do you not?" He cocks his head, as if of course I'd be down to take him in both my holes.
"I, uh, I mean yeah, I guess that's technically right—"
He pushes his lower blushed cock, veins throbbing, against me. He doesn't slide into my vagina or my ass, just rests his length—the tip nearly touching my belly button—between my folds, holding it there with a flat palm.
Even though he's warmed up since the crawlspace, his cock is still noticeably cooler than my own skin. The feeling of his chilled member against my clit is a like putting the tip of your tongue into a cone of ice cream—a little jarring but delicious.
But almost as if he's sucking the warmth straight from me, he warms to match my temperature quickly.
Bahtam starts slowly, his hips undulating as he strokes up and down between my lips. With each upswing, he hits my clit.
"Fuck, that feels good," I moan, moving my arms back and bracing myself against his tail behind my ass.
"You're not just warm," he pants as his other hand finds its way to his neglected shaft. "I expected heat, but this, this is different."
His lower cock moves, sliding through my labia with little resistance, pushing up against the sensitive nub of my clit. Each thrust has something deep inside me tightening. The length of him slides against my entrance, and it leaves sparks in its wake.
"It gathers," he growls, picking up the pace, his hips and his hand trying to match the speed of our need. "It sinks into me, like stepping into sunlight after an eternity of darkness… it shouldn't feel this good."
Bahtam's admission lingers as I'm unsure if I'll be able to make it much longer under his ministrations. I close my eyes and subconsciously scoot back, like my body is afraid to break in front of him.
But with a snap, the tip of his tail wraps around my torso, constricting me just enough not to move.
"Open your eyes, Sloane," he commands.
I obey, a slave to the pleasure.
"I want to feel your burning heat underneath me when you come, do you understand?"
"Yes," I pant, not needing to hold myself still because his tail is doing the job all on its own, the tip of which has started to snake its way around my neck.
His movements grow increasingly frantic—unpredictable, almost unraveling—yet his gaze remains unchanged. It cuts through me, cold and unyielding, like a shard of ice.
It's so fucking hot…
My whole clit throbs, and my inner walls bundle—readying themselves for that blissful contraction that my body is begging for. His shaft slides, sandwiched between my slick folds, hitting the overstimulated bud, and everything zeros in on the thunderclap that is my release.
My vision narrows as Bahtam continues. I grip onto the cool scales of his tail and ride out my wave of pleasure. I've ascended to some other plane when I feel the hot splash of his cum against my stomach. A well of his seed where my navel once was.
"Sloane," he grits as his lower cock throbs and sputters against me.
When I float back down to my body, I expect him to be still, lazy in the haze of his own orgasm. But he's not, his arm pumps his upper cock as hard as he did before.
I blink slowly, catching myself up to the reality of his situation. Just because he came with one doesn't mean the other one is finished with me yet.
"Batham, do you want to fuck me?"