Chapter 4
Zsekhet
“Let me go!” I roared, fighting in the grip of the ones holding me back.
In front of me the bastard that had tried to claim my mate sat slumped next to another Naga, his eyes a little hazy but he was still breathing and that was not good enough.
I needed to get my hands back on him and wring his fucking neck, gut him with my claws, rip his fucking cock off so he could never again touch my Cosima.
The males holding me down were bigger, one red, one so dark a blue that he might as well be black. I bucked in their grips, my coils writhing; if I could just get a little leverage. There! I slipped free and threw myself forward, at the smug bastard.
“Whomp!” With a snarl, Sesethul brought down his mighty front paw on top of me, pinning me to the ground mere feet from my target.
I roared and fought but a dragon was immovable if he didn’t want to move, and Ses had decided that I was done fighting.
He lowered his golden head in front of me, putting one huge golden eye right in my face, and then he blinked.
The rage that had me in its grip slithered out of me, my body going slack in his grip.
“Ah, seriously Ses? Can’t I just scratch him up a little?
He doesn’t need both eyes, does he?” I said.
Whether the dragon understood my words or just my body language I didn’t know.
Sesethul gave me another warning glare before he finally lifted his paw and let me rise.
I wasn’t entirely free of the blood lust that had gripped me earlier, but it no longer controlled me and I could force myself to act accordingly.
I glanced around at all the grim faces, taking note of Zathar who was pinning the sleazy bastard who’d touched my mate by the shoulder. Krashe and Iave hovered nearby, hands at the ready, their bodies coiled and tense. They were focused on me, clearly worried that I’d lose it again.
Corin was the only male present who did not look angry, rather the male was studying me with a suspicious expression that didn’t bode well. That one was smart, he was easy to joke with, but he didn’t trust nearly so quickly.
Dusting off my scales with some casual hand movements, I shrugged a shoulder.
“He held Cosima against her will, trapped in his coils as he tried to force the mate bond. I had to stop him.” I shot the bastard another glare while imprinting the former Thunder Rock male’s features onto my brain, I was never going to forget his face and what he’d done to my female.
I’d find a way to make him pay, a knife in the back during a hunt, a visit to his tent late at night, whatever it took, I’d remove this threat.
“That is a lie!” the male snarled furiously.
He started to rise beneath Zathar’s hand but the former prince easily held him down.
“I did no such thing! I was just greeting the female when he attacked me out of nowhere! I was not touching her.” The scales along my back rattled at the blatant lie, a snarl forming on my lips that I could not hold back.
The sound rippled through the camp, low and threatening.
Zathar held up his free hand, a gesture that told me to shut the fuck up.
It was a fight to control my protective instincts, still enhanced by my blood lust. “Cosima herself testified differently. She said she was held against her will by an aspirant. Zsekhet’s and Cosima’s testimonies align.
” The aspirant male’s blue features paled in stripes along his cheeks as he realized what trouble he was in and I grinned in satisfaction.
“Zathar, please. You know me! We grew up together. You can’t possibly take the words of an upset female and a stranger over mine?” he pleaded now and I growled, not willing to let the insult to Cosima’s character slide. How dare he call her character in question, how dare he imply she had lied!
“Scar’at!” Zathar barked, “You have proven untrustworthy and unwilling to respect the boundaries of our females!” The prince raised higher on his tail, scanning over the crowd of aspirant outcasts that had gathered around us to watch the spectacle.
I could tell from their scents that some had played some kind of part in terrorizing my mate, but in this crowd, I couldn’t pick them out.
Zathar’s voice rang out clearly and firmly as he decreed that any male found unable to abide by giving the females space and protection was unwelcome.
Then he ordered Scar’at, his own former clansmale to get his things and leave, never to show his face again.
He was an example, a warning to the others to watch their behavior if they wanted to be part of Outcast Haven.
This was exactly the kind of thing they had to prove if they wanted to be welcomed into the caves.
I wasn’t happy that the bastard was getting away with his life, but I was satisfied that justice at least had prevailed.
While the others all started talking among themselves, whispering anxiously about what had just happened, I watched like a dragon as Scar’at was escorted out of the camp by Krashe and Iave.
The urge to climb on Sesethul’s back and fly after the disappearing male was strong.
A few wing beats and we’d have caught up to him, I could still end the bastard.
I glanced at Ses standing next to me, his head raised as he stared in the same direction, eyes slitted and focused.
I knew my faithful companion was on the same page with me.
He’d stopped my blood lust because that’s what I’d trained him to do, but he wouldn’t stop me from killing this Scar’at in cold blood later.
The hand landing on my shoulder made me change my plans in an instant.
Nightfall then, I’d track the male under the cover of darkness, nobody would be the wiser.
I tilted my head, angling my face toward Zathar at my side.
“Don’t even think about it, Zsekhet. Just because you were voted in, doesn’t mean we can’t kick you out.
” The threat made me want to bare my teeth at him but I offered a friendly smile instead.
“No need to threaten me, I was just protecting Cosima. I would never touch an unwilling female,” my voice turned a little raw on the last words, surprising me with the emotions welling up inside me.
Finding Cosima in the kind of danger I had, had hit a little too close to home, stirring up old wounds, old memories.
No wonder that blood lust had hit me as hard as it had, I normally had much more control of that dangerous call.
Zathar studied me with his bright blue eyes, a thoughtful expression on his face.
He stroked the horn on his chin, a proud tilt to the white ivory, very different from my own black horns.
“I don’t doubt that, but Cosima is fragile, she scares easily.
It is probably best if you steer clear of her for a bit. ”
I wanted to bare my teeth at the advice. Damn, I was so riled up I was ready to forsake everything and come to blows with the Outcast leader, just because he was trying to advise me on how to approach my mate. I knew it was true now, like I’d known in my bones from the moment I’d laid eyes on her.
When I freed Cosima from her assailant’s grip, my sigils had flared across my entire front for just a moment as our flesh collided.
I was certain she hadn’t seen it, but that bastard had, and he wasn’t talking.
I was glad for that, because if there was one thing I knew to be true, it was that Cosima was not ready to acknowledge me yet.
I needed to find out why first. I needed to help her heal before she could move on, straight into my coils.
“I’m not sure,” I dared to say to Zathar, “I don’t think any of us know what will help Cosima to find her place here.
Don’t you?” Then my eyes narrowed on the crumpled leather bag a little further away in the dirt, right in the location where I’d fought with Scar’at.
I headed over without waiting for Zathar’s reply and picked it up, my fingers instantly staining purple from the sap of the Exar berries that had been crushed inside it.
I knew instantly that Cosima had dropped these.
I’d watched her every night during dinner, she picked at the good, healthy pieces of meat but ate all her cereals and fruit.
Especially the Exar berries, they were her favorite.
She was already tiny, but I worried about how little she ate.
Why did she not like the meat we hunted?
I knew exactly who I had to ask to get this information.
With a nod at Ses over my shoulder, I made my careful, leisurely way back through the palisade.
My dragon lost his guarding posture and threw himself in a tight spiral into the air above our heads, then winged away toward the wetlands to gorge himself on some Arazal or Vakarsa.
I located the humans just beyond the wall, clustered together while they peered through the gate to see what was going on.
Naomi was at their center, sitting on her strange floating chair.
A vehicle that Corin and Krashe had repaired for her to use on days her legs wouldn’t quite obey her the way she liked, or when her mate felt she needed to rest. That one didn’t slow down unless you told her to, always active, always making up new dishes.
No complaints from me though, her food was absolutely delicious, which was why it confused me that Cosima didn’t seem to like it.
When I reached the women, I hesitated. There was one major flaw to this plan of mine, Naomi was mated, she could understand what I said, but I couldn’t understand anything she said back.
I needed a translator. Damn, that sucked.
I had hoped to keep the mated males out of this, they didn’t need to know about my obsession with my flame-haired beauty.