Chapter 1
Cosima
Excitement thrummed through me as I watched the silvery blue Naga fiddle with one of the handful of cat-sized machines he’d unearthed. Since we’d moved into this underground town, I’d worked myself to exhaustion each day to clean room after room and inventory all the things that were stored here.
Corin and I did not speak the same language but we’d worked side by side every day.
I could read his facial expressions better than those of most of the other Naga males around here and I knew he would be bouncing on his feet if he had them.
Instead, he was poised on the base of his long, serpentine tail, coiled like a spring.
“I think he’s got it,” Min-Ji said confidently.
The former UAR pilot was my other close companion Usually, it was the two of us scrubbing walls and floors together while Corin rummaged about nearby.
I had been using the labor as an excuse not to leave the caves and work myself into exhaustion so I didn’t dream at night.
Min-Ji kept me company because she was utterly fascinated with the tech-savvy Naga.
“I think you’re right,” I agreed when the first one of the small machines hummed to life. I touched the thick braid of red hair hanging over my shoulder and stroked the palm of my hand over the shapeless leather dress I’d sewn for myself. A nervous fidget I couldn’t control.
My excitement was starting to dim a little now that I realized what this might mean for me.
Old me would have been over the moon at the prospect of cleaning bots that made cleaning by hand unnecessary.
But what the heck was I going to do with myself if I couldn’t clean?
Working with the leather to sew clothing was tough on my hands, I couldn’t manage that for more than an hour at a time. It wasn’t enough to occupy my mind.
The second bot hummed to life, and then all six of them followed.
They buzzed away in a grid formation, leaving shiny, polished streaks along the stone in their wake.
Moving in synchronized fashion they started buffing the hallway and then each split off into a room to work there.
I stared in awe, despite making me obsolete, I was still impressed.
When Corin whooped and turned a fang-filled grin on us I fist-bumped Min-Ji and cheered right along with them.
My stomach tied itself in knots as I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do now, but their excitement was well-earned.
It really was pretty damn cool. Then I smothered my own grin when Min-Ji raised her fist to Corin, clearly hoping for the male to bump it like I had.
Corin stared with his silvery eyes, his expression shuttering.
He hissed something we couldn’t understand and then he hurriedly slithered after his bots without a backward glance.
“Good try,” I teased Min-Ji but her expression had turned into a frown.
Her arms crossed. I was pretty sure she had the hots for Corin, ever since he’d nursed her back to health when we’d arrived here.
Unlike the other girls and me, Min-Ji hadn’t been in stasis when we crashed, she’d been piloting the shuttle and gotten badly injured.
Unfortunately, Corin absolutely refused to touch her and confirm whether or not they were mates. I didn’t want to dash her hopes, but when she’d been unconscious he’d carried her around a lot, and his mating sigils had never lit up.
I watched her walk away with a dejected slump to her shoulders, though she was usually the most energetic and upbeat out of all of us.
She ducked into her apartment without a word, which left me alone in the hallway that circled in a spiral down to the bottom floor of this town.
The entire path was lined with doors that led to apartments, storage, or communal rooms. There was even a fully kitted-out med bay which was a huge relief.
Now what? I had no job any longer, and no excuse to hide inside this cave.
Much had changed since the three months that we’d been on Serant.
I’d kept careful track of the days by carving a notch into a stick for every day that had passed.
I had three sticks lined up on a shelf in my apartment by now; three sticks of thirty notches each.
There was now a wooden wall that crossed the hillside from one cliff wall to the other.
Our cave entrance sitting at the top of that hill, flanked by the stone walls in a wide kind of funnel.
Outside that wooden wall was a whole camp of tents full of single Naga males, each more eager than the next to catch a glimpse of me or one of the other girls.
I didn’t understand how Vera or Kalani could deal with that without having their skin crawl.
Since the first Outcast had arrived to join us, I hadn’t really left the caves, going no further than the fire just outside for my meals. In the beginning, I’d tried to force myself to make one outside excursion a day, but not since the dragon.
I shuffled to the carved entrance to the cave town, Outcast Haven as it was now called.
But the Naga still referred to the mountain the town was in as Ahoshaga most of the time.
Naomi was outside at the campfire, sitting on a nearby log while making food.
Most of the others were down by the palisade, working on the new gate or on various tasks to bring in food and furs to supply us with.
Was I ready to go out there and ask for work?
I didn’t want to sit on my butt all day and do nothing, that left far too much room for my thoughts to spin and dwell on the bad memories.
Caleb… My fiance who’d died to protect me.
Each time I closed my eyes, I saw that moment again like it was just yesterday.
Peeking again, my eyes darted to the hulking golden shape of the dragon. He was on top of one of the cliff walls, curled up like a humongous cat, sunning himself in the bright violet-tinted light of the Serant sun. An actual dragon with a mouth so big he could swallow me whole in a single gulp.
This planet had dragons. Everyone said that this dragon was safe to be around but I didn’t buy it.
That was a wild animal, and that Naga that had flown him here could assure everyone all he wanted that it was his friend, he was wrong.
Even if that dragon was like the big brother to Kiwi, Naomi’s cute little pet.
“Hiding out, huh?” Min-Ji said and I jumped, startled to discover that the pretty Asian woman had snuck up on me.
I flushed, shame washing over me and coloring my pale, freckled cheeks bright red in an instant.
Caught red-handed, I still tried to pretend she was wrong.
I hated how much of a scaredy cat I was compared to everyone else here, and I hated how everyone seemed to look at me with pity.
At least Min-Ji seemed cheerful once more, so I counted that as a win.
“No, I was just admiring this part of the carving. Look? See how well it survived the weathering? Amazing craftmanship…” I trailed off at the expression on Min-Ji’s face.
She didn’t believe a single thing that just came out of my mouth and she was totally right.
It was just so damn embarrassing to admit that since the arrival of the outcasts and that dragon, I’d been terrified to step outside.
Lowering my shoulders I sighed, “Fine. I don’t want to go outside.
Did you want something?” If she just moved on, stopped with the curious questions, then I could at least pretend this hadn’t happened.
I felt the desperate urge to scuttle back to my apartment and just hide out in there for the rest of the day.
Shameful, and I hated myself for wanting to do that, but I just wasn’t like the other girls here.
It wasn’t even like it was totally safe inside the apartment cave anymore either.
Recently, a handful of the outcasts aspiring to be part of our group had been voted in.
By the others, not me, I’d ducked out of those meetings.
Now that at least three new Naga males had been assigned an apartment inside the caves.
It felt like I had nowhere to hide anymore, I was lucky that they spent most of their time outside.
I was no warrior like Kalani, no leader like Vera, or brave and fierce like Naomi, Charlie, and Min-Ji were.
I was just Cosima, the shy girl, the homebody.
At least, that’s what I’d become after my fiance was murdered right in front of me and I’d spent close to a year stuck in a cell with only the notches on my wall to tell me the passage of time.
Min-Ji tilted her head at an angle, appraising me with her pretty brown eyes like I was a bug under a microscope.
“I figured you’d enjoy a walk outside with me, get some fresh air.
Come, this way.” She hooked her arm through mine and started pulling me outside and unless I wanted to physically struggle with her, I had no choice.
“Min-Ji…” I started to say, trying frantically to come up with an excuse and coming up blank.
My heels dug in, trying to pull myself out of her firm grasp.
Then my eyes fell on the Naga male outside.
Not one of the males mated to a girl here, one of the newcomers.
I knew that male at a glance because he was the only one with golden scales.
He was the one who had come here with the dragon.
It looked like he was just moving across the clearing inside the fenced area, heading toward where Reid, our lone human man, was sparring with Corin.
He must have put his bots to sleep or decided to trust them to run on their own when he came out here to train.
While Min-Ji’s eyes went to the silvery blue Naga male, my eyes locked with the gold one closer to the cave entrance.
The golden orbs pierced me, his face foreign but somehow appealing.