Chapter 1
Naomi
I was about to die for the third freaking time.
I was so angry about it that I was growling back at the monstrous creatures that surrounded me.
Maybe facing death multiple times had broken my ability to be scared.
A girl could start to think she was invincible if this kept happening.
Just a glance at my useless legs dissuaded me of that notion, a mocking laugh escaping which I followed up by baring my teeth at the nearest monster.
Less than thirty minutes ago I’d woken up from my second ‘death’ to discover that I’d ended up stranded on a strange alien planet. What should have been my sacrifice to my family, taking the place of my brother, had turned bizarre in a flash.
For me it seemed like only just today, I’d been thrown into a small room to face an execution I hadn’t deserved.
One moment I was panicking and berating myself for making this rash choice, then consoling myself that at least Josh got to live.
The next, Vera Clayborne was standing over me, waking me from a stasis pod.
My first brush with this alien planet had been crazy and terrifying but it had been tempered by seeing familiar human faces.
Like the rich heiress, Vera, who had supposedly been executed for committing fraud.
There had also been Kalani, a beautiful African American woman with a take-charge attitude that had made me feel safe and protected.
If not for their presence I didn’t know how I would have responded to the sight of some barely humanoid creatures.
Three of them, in several shades of blue, their scales shimmering in the strange purple sunlight.
Naga, Kalani called them, mythical creatures that shouldn’t be possible but somehow existed on this planet.
One of them had lugged me out of the crashed shuttle our stasis pods had been in, hauling me carelessly around like I was a sack of potatoes.
At that point, fear had existed, and my system was flooded with adrenaline.
Instincts for survival battling with the rational knowledge that this brutish creature was just rescuing me.
It didn’t feel like a rescue when his dark blue face was set into a perpetual scowl.
Kalani hadn’t been scared of him though.
She’d squared off with him and yelled in his face as if she was scolding a wayward teenager.
That’s what had instantly made me respect the woman.
She was of average height, with sleek muscles defining her slender, athletic body.
Killer cheekbones and that whole exotic beauty thing made her look badass and feminine.
The type of woman I had once aspired to be.
It was her size compared to that brute of a male that had made their face-off seem so unlikely.
Then the hordes had attacked, and I really mean hordes.
Naga with shimmering red scales had raced up the mountain toward us and the crashed ship.
A ship that had vanished into a subterranean lake with a giant splash, making any kind of attempt to repair it just a vague dream.
Now I was surrounded by those hordes while lying on the bank of a rapidly flowing river of ice-cold glacier water.
Kalani and the brute of a Naga had disappeared into its depths with a scream and a whole barrage of flying spears and arrows.
Her stricken face was engraved on my mind and I knew without a doubt that that woman would try to come to my rescue if she survived.
But that was an if with a big question mark.
I didn’t think she or the blue Naga male had survived all those spears raining down on them.
The rest of the humans, including Vera and the two other blue Naga that had pulled us from the wreck, had disappeared into the mountain.
They had been cut off from Kalani and me by an avalanche of rocks.
There was no rescue coming, hence my third round with death.
I was surrounded by spears and growling Naga with blackened, needle-sharp teeth, and glowing red eyes.
From what little I could gather since I woke up, these were the hostile ones who hated technology and anything foreign. I was completely screwed.
Guess that execution had just been delayed a little, I thought fatalistically.
I’d managed to drag myself a little up the river bank when Kalani’s grip on me had slipped and she and the blue Naga had gone into the water.
My feet were soaked but I couldn’t feel that and it was the least of my worries right now.
“Come on! Get on with it!” I yelled at them, their circle was closing in on me, but they hadn’t made any stabby motions yet.
It was going to hurt, those black shimmering spear blades looked really sharp but also made of stone.
Hadn’t I read once that flint blades broke very easily?
I was no stranger to pain, so I hoped they’d break all their freaking blades on me.
I hoped it was a huge pain in the ass to remake them.
One of them bared his sharp, black teeth and snapped them like he was some kind of snapping turtle.
I snapped my own teeth back at him, “Fuck you too!” He growled, raising his weapon and I thought, finally here it comes!
Only the Naga next to him grabbed his spear and hissed something.
Furious arguing broke out among them, one after the other pitching in and gesturing with their spear at me or some towering mountain rising into the sky nearby.
Suddenly, I thought they might not be set on killing me just yet.
I wasn’t sure if that was an improvement on my situation or not.
Did they think that I could tell them how to find the others?
They had to be pretty pissed that the rest had escaped, even if I did think that Kalani and that big blue Naga had bitten it in that hail of spears and arrows a short while ago.
It looked to me like they were arguing over who was going to carry me and I really hoped it wasn’t going to be Mr. Snapping Turtle.
He looked murderous over being denied killing me.
Eventually, one of the others groaned in defeat and leaned down to scoop me up.
I could have tried to fight at that point, the option briefly flashed through my mind.
But what would I achieve with it? Death most likely.
I might have faced death a few times before, we were old buddies at this point I reckoned, I still didn’t actually want to die.
So I held still as he hauled me over his shoulder and I didn’t fight when another one came forward and tightly bound my wrist with rough, purple rope.
I had to stifle an entirely out-of-place giggle at how silly purple rope was.
It made sense given all the purple plants out here, but it was still so strange.
Then they were finally moving, my prone form dangling over an uncomfortable, scaly shoulder.
At least the sinuous movements of their snake-like bodies meant there were no jarring motions as they moved.
I counted that as a blessing, my pelvis still felt plenty of sensation, and my upper legs had some too.
I could feel the rough scales press into my skin, bordering on the edge of pain.
I imagined that the jarring stride of a two-legged creature carrying me would make that even worse.
I held my eyes wide open, tracing the route we took and making myself seek out any recognizable landmarks.
If they didn’t kill me now, I was resolved to figure out a way to make it out of here.
I might not be able to walk, but I was resourceful and I was stronger than I looked.
They were going to underestimate me and when they did, I’d seize my chance. Just wait.
***
Krashe
Crossing my arms over my chest I stared down at the crew of Bitter Storm warriors that was working on the trebuchet I’d designed.
I felt a strange mixture of excited delight at seeing my creation built at the scale it was meant to be, and niggling worry that building this machine was crossing a line that shouldn’t be crossed.
It was the only way to get the upper hand over the Thunder Rock Clan and their walled village.
If we wanted to take their territory to help accommodate our growing numbers, this was the only option.
That’s why I’d designed and built the thing, but it felt a little too much like breaking a taboo.
Wasn’t this a device, technology? Wasn’t this a machine we were forbidden to use considering our teachings?
I rubbed my fist over my sternum at a familiar ache behind the bone when I thought of my mother.
When she was alive, she was the lorekeeper, the one that made our Clan toe that line.
But she was the one who crossed it all the time, and I had always felt that the Queen had directed our Clan better in her stead after she died.
When I’d proposed the giant catapult during a strategy meeting I had fully expected looks of shock and horror.
I had expected the Queen to shoot it down and warn me never to speak of such things again.
I had only proposed it because the Clan’s need for space was so dire.
Our hunting grounds were running on empty, stomachs were rumbling, and younglings were starving.
There had certainly been some looks of shock, but the Queen’s eyes had lit up with eagerness and she’d leaped on the idea.
Now the last one was almost finished and our first set was already stealthily being moved toward enemy territory for the planned assault.
My mind was in turmoil with all the conflicting thoughts and feelings running through me.