Chapter 5
Krashe
We were followed all the way to my home, warriors and curious younglings tracing along my path or taking parallel roads.
I glared or hissed out warnings if anyone dared to come too close and my reputation did the rest. Let them think I was warning them away from a grave danger as I’d blustered inside the palace.
Let them think Nomy was a threat, I knew better.
Once I shouldered open the door to my home, I ducked inside and with a sigh of relief I closed the portal between all those prying eyes and my mate.
It was dark inside my dwelling but enough light came from the banked embers in my hearth to let me see her face.
Such a pale circle of round curves and soft, defenseless skin.
She was so very different from a Naga female and after my research this afternoon, I was also convinced that she was as harmless as a babe.
Well, maybe not quite that harmless I conceded.
She was lethal to my senses, but I was also certain that was the mate bond talking.
Her brows were these soft slashes of short little hairs and that intrigued me.
When she made expressions they moved so much it was baffling.
I wanted to keep her soft, slight form curled in my arms; so I did, even though that made lighting the lanterns a little more difficult.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asked softly, her voice pitched low so it didn’t carry, but there was a hesitancy to that hadn’t been there before.
She sounded worried and scared, not full of fire like when she’d attacked me in that holding cell.
I didn’t like that but I also understood it, if I was small and weak like her, I would probably be scared too…
I just couldn’t really picture it, I had always been stronger than my peers.
“I don’t know,” I told her truthfully while I settled down on the edge of my nest, the strange female from the sky-ship cradled in my lap.
My arms were absolutely refusing to let go of her and she wasn’t trying to get away this time.
She was a conundrum and a huge problem. I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do now.
“You don’t know?” she said incredulously. “What is that supposed to mean? You’re the one holding me captive… You’re the one with all the choices here!” Ah, there was that fire. Her blue eyes were sparkling at me, sharp as chips of ice. Her soft, full lips pressed into this thin line as she glared.
I rolled a shoulder and looked away, casting my eyes about my small home.
It was a mess in here, my desk covered in several of my projects.
Wood chips and shavings cluttered the floor beneath the desk and the rack against the wall was lopsided, most of my scrolls and books stacked haphazardly or just piled on the floor and desk.
The only things I’d kept neat were my armor stand and the weapons hanging from my walls.
Then I snorted in frustration, why was I even worried about that?
And though it felt like I was pulling stone chips from a wound, I still pried my arms apart and pushed my mate off my lap and into my nest. She went with a yelp as she tumbled backward, the long pale strands of her hair fanning out across my furs.
My cock instantly stirred in my pouch, the tips writhing against the slit as they swelled.
I spun away from the far too tempting sight of all that softness in my own nest, mingling with my scent.
She was talking to my back, her tone angry and accusatory but without touching her, all I heard was melodic tones drawn together into endless singsong strings I couldn’t decipher.
The temptation to curl the tip of my tail around her wrist or ankle was great but I refrained.
The chest I’d dug up earlier beneath the loose flagstone in front of the hearth was where I’d left it. I approached slowly, raising myself higher on my tail to peer inside it as though I expected a Rakworm to leap from it at any moment.
I’d already picked up the lorebook that had been at the top and read through the entries about the sky-ships.
A lot of it didn’t make any sense to me; I was no lorekeeper, trained to interpret these texts.
I’d read enough to discover that our ancestors had been the ones that built sky-ships at one point.
What they’d encountered among the stars had taken them captive, but the descriptions of the creatures that had done that… they didn’t match with my mate.
I glanced from the small chest back to my mate and discovered that she’d quieted down and was just staring at me.
She had her arms curled around her chest, clutching herself.
Her curiously soft and pale skin was pebbled with many little bumps.
Was she cold? I didn’t even think about it, just picked up the fire poker with my tail and stirred up the coals in the hearth.
In seconds I had fed several peat blocks to the fire and a good blaze started heating up the room.
“Oh…” she sighed, leaning over the edge of my nest, arms crossed on the edge while she peered around my coils into the chest with my mother’s things.
“Whatsthat?” she singsonged at me. I ignored her question, which I understood from context even if her words made no sense right now.
Untying the sash on my robe, I yanked it from my shoulders with a huff, already getting too warm in front of the blaze I’d created.
“Come on, tell me what that is?” Nomy demanded, her words suddenly filtering through my mind with total clarity.
Her dainty little hand had reached out and daringly, she’d grasped the tip of my tail, clenching it in her tiny fist with a determined frown aimed my way.
My whole body reacted to that little touch, sending heat coursing through my veins, sensation arrowing directly for my far too eager cock.
The mating sigils that covered my chest and shoulders started to glow, lighting up my scales with lines of light.
“My mother’s lorekeeper tools,” I growled at her, flicking the tip of my tail gently to see if that would make her let go.
She squeezed harder, pinching my scales.
I was impressed. That tiny fist had a surprising amount of power.
She leaned even further over the edge of the nest, her belly now curling over the raised lip.
If she leaned out any further she’d topple out of my nest. I coiled the end of my tail up, supporting her shoulder, this time making sure her grip didn’t dislodge.
“That looks like a datapad… And that… is that a holographic picture frame?”
Though my mind was now deciphering her words correctly, they still did not make any sense.
It looked like she was pointing at the crystal square lying on top of more of the lorebooks.
Picking it up I held it out to her, offering her the strange stone with a tight feeling in my chest. My rational mind warned me that I should not be giving her a relic I didn’t understand.
What if it was a weapon? But I was handing it over anyway.
Her small fingers brushed along my scales when she picked the square stone from my palm, her blue eyes avid and curious as she turned it this way and that for a better look.
Then she gave me a triumphant little grin that made my chest grow warm.
It was like we were sharing a little secret, sharing something only the two of us knew about.
With a flick of her thumb along one side of the square, light shimmered into a shape above it.
Startled, I reared back, my hand going for the knife strapped to my hip.
Then I realized that the light had resolved itself into an image.
Two Naga, one from Thunder Rock and one from Copper Tooth.
They had their arms slung around each other’s shoulders and were grinning happily at us.
Impossible. While Thunder Rock and Copper Tooth traded with each other, two hunters would never share such close comradery together. The Clans all functioned separately, there were uneasy truces and trade relationships but that was all.
“It’s just a picture. Look there’s a space shuttle in the background.
Where did you get this?” my mate said curiously.
She dropped her grip on my tail to point at the shape of a sky-ship floating above the heads of the males in the image.
My belly churned. This was an old image, an image of the past.
I wanted to slap the magical square from her fingers and crush it between my coils.
Such images shouldn’t exist, this was a memory from the past, warning us that sky-ships were bad news.
I started to reach for it when she rubbed her fingers along the sides of the square stone and the image changed.
A view of a vast sprawling city of the ancestors, buildings pointing like accusing fingers into the sky.
Then it changed again, one after the other showing snapshots of the past.
“No!” I growled. “Enough!” I snarled, curling my tail up her arm so she heard my words.
Her startled eyes raised to my face, a hint of fear making the deep blue of her eyes seem liquid.
I didn’t think she meant to do it, but her fist squeezed around the crystal square in reflex and the image changed again.
This was no image of the past and a shocked whimper slipped from my throat before I could rein it in—my mother, laughing at me, her shimmering red scales tipped with gold, her hair in intricate braids piled on her head.
She had her arms curled around a youngling who was displaying his tiny fangs in a wide grin.
The image made it look like Vaishe was looking right at me, her dark red eyes piercing me straight to the soul.