Chapter 17 #2
I had found a strength on that river bank that I had been proud to discover.
A courage to live life in a meaningful way ever since.
This moment was no different, each second counted, each moment could be the last. “I love you, Krashe. I’m so glad I ended up on your planet, and that I ended up your captive. ”
He didn’t look back at me to acknowledge my words but his tail curled up to tap against my thigh, just high enough that I could feel it.
His hands were tight fists at his sides, his body big and fierce, and to me, the most beautiful out of all those present.
He domineered in size and width, his scales gleamed with health and vitality.
The wild ponytail of dark hair, braids, and stone feather decorations made him look savage and wild. A warlord through and through.
The Naga the Queen had surrounded herself with were of the type that had blackened their teeth and filed the blunter ones to needle-sharp points like their fangs.
Most had painted blackened stripes along their body, and when Krashe unsheathed his sword, they started clattering spears against the hard black leather they wore as armor around their underarms. In the rattling noise, Krashe’s voice could barely be heard. “And I love you, Naomi.”
Silence fell across the forest next, Krashe’s scales twitching with a soft whisper along his back. I kept my hands on the controls of the hover seat, my eyes darting to the slowly fading blinking light. Almost out of battery, how fitting.
The Queen and her carriers had finally reached us, she was lowered to the ground slowly, her thick, pregnant body already curling up to rise.
Her eyes were bright orange starbursts, glowing from beneath the cowl she wore.
Jewels rattled along her arms and glimmered in bands along her fat tail.
She was helped up by one of the carriers, a Naga female I realized, though she was dressed like the other warriors.
This one wore nothing but bone and obsidian necklaces around her neck, her teeth sharpened and blackened, and swords dangling from a belt at her hips.
She had no breasts to speak of, her chest flat and as bare as her male counterparts.
The revolting part though, was the shriveling, drying head that hung from her belt.
I knew those features from anywhere, that was a human head.
“You are an idiot, or are you here to throw yourself at my mercy, and surrender the abomination to its fate?” The Queen spoke in those same, deep, rich tones I remembered from before.
That one had a true gift for speech, it was hard not to want to listen to her voice and not wish for her to just keep on talking, the voice was just that seductive.
“As you can see, I have found a replacement for you. One who is capable of ending it.” The Queen offered the female at her side a smile from the darkness of her hood, and the Naga female seemed to preen beneath that gaze. She had the same orange starburst eyes, I realized, so a daughter.
Krashe was still with his back to me, his body half in front of mine so I was partially shielded from the Queen’s gaze.
Since we were surrounded, and the net had slowly been tightening while the Queen talked, I still felt the eyes of many others.
Krashe didn’t seem to care about that, or about the threat from behind us, his focus was solely on the two female Naga at our front.
My Warlord raised his arms slowly, his huge blade dangling casually from the fingers of his left hand.
Like he wasn’t at all worried about fighting, like he was just standing here, shooting the breeze with an old friend.
His words, however, were anything but casual.
He spoke with a deep bass, his voice rough and edged with a menacing growl.
“Abomination? Call my mate that again and I will split you open from the tip of your fat tail to your even fatter gut.”
Scales rattled along his back on the final word and his hand twitched.
Suddenly, he wasn’t holding that sword so casually, he was pointing the long, shimmering black blade out toward the Queen with the point aimed right at her fat belly.
The words were made all the more threatening and horrible considering the Naga female was heavy with child.
Around us the circle of warriors seemed to lean forward in one synchronized move, hissing, growling.
Red eyes flashed with hate and fear, with shock that one formerly their own, one of their leaders, could say such things.
I should have been scared by the way that wave of warriors seemed to press in on us, but I didn’t.
I guess my fear response was broken again.
I felt excitement course through me instead, wonderment.
Krashe had just declared me his, loud and clear if a little gruesomely, but that was just fitting for a Warlord anyway.
What girl wouldn’t get a little swoony over such declarations?
He wasn’t just running away with me in the dark of night, or hiding me in his house where no one could see me.
He was telling his former Queen exactly where his loyalty was at, and that was me.
Me, the crippled abomination that they were secretly all terrified of.
The warrior female with her gruesome trophy flung her body in front of the Queen, baring her teeth and pulling her own blades.
“You dare? Traitor!” she hissed, rotating her wrists to make the blades spin.
Her body was covered in scars, most of those were slash marks across her front, her upper body, her arms, and even her breasts.
She pinned me over Krashe’s wide shoulder with her eerie orange-red eyes, tongue flicking out to draw scent into her mouth the way the Naga liked to do.
The Queen seemed less ruffled by the threat as if she’d been expecting it.
Maybe she’d already learned of us being mates through Joxra and the warriors that had survived the revenant with him.
“You’re a fool just like your mother. Vaishe was a traitor, I should have known that you would go the same way as your useless parents.
” Her resonant voice sounded nearly pleasant as she spouted her vitriol.
My heart went out to my mate. Over the past week, he’d slowly told me things about his parents, about his family, and how he’d been raised.
It had to be an extremely sore spot, especially since it had sounded to me like they were both loving, and very enlightened people.
A bigoted, selfish woman like the Queen wouldn’t be able to understand that though, she didn’t want enlightened followers, because those might wise up and depose her.
Krashe was no hot head though, despite being a Warlord, or maybe because of it.
He was always smart and like a chess player, thinking two steps ahead.
I should have realized that he had a plan here too.
The challenge, he’d mentioned it to me when this encounter started, and that’s what he threw down now.
“Insult my lineage, insult my mate. There is only one answer to this. You know that, don’t you, Lasra?
” His words caused another ripple through the crowd, warriors hissing.
The warrior female bared her teeth and swung her swords eagerly, she was swaying back and forth on her tail in front of Krashe, reminding me of that sort of hypnotizing dance some snakes did.
I held my breath as I waited for what the Queen was about to do.
My fingers slid slowly along my leg so as not to draw attention.
I wanted to get my hand on one of the knives, ready to strike in case Krashe needed a little backup.
I was pretty sure that calling her by her name was like the gravest of insults in their Clan.
“A challenge,” the Queen drawled. “But that wouldn’t be fair now would it, Krashe?
” She twirled her hand and indicated the circle of warriors that surrounded us.
At first, I thought she meant it wouldn’t be fair to us, since we were so severely outnumbered.
But when she continued talking, I realized that wasn’t what she meant at all, and pride for my mate surged through me.
“You are the undisputed, undefeated champion. Just because you are a vile, perverted traitor, does not mean your battle skills are any less.” Warriors growled, the female one smacked her tail on the ground and spat in the dirt.
They didn’t like hearing any of that, but it was the truth.
Krashe had everything to lose in a fight too, he wouldn’t hold anything back.
My mate had drifted a little closer to me, his tail tip still curled against my thigh.
He rolled his shoulder as if he didn’t give a damn, “How many would make it fair? Three? Five?” he grinned, baring his own sharp but pearly white fangs at the warriors, seizing them up with his eyes like they were his next meal.
The Queen shrugged off her cowl, revealing her face to the violet Serant sun. A beatific smile spread across her face and I felt like we’d walked right into her trap.