Chapter 3
Farah
I really, really hated how cold I was. I couldn’t recall a single day in Phoenix that it had gotten to temperatures such as these.
Though I had a recollection of freezing my butt off once at a pool party when some douche had thrown a pitcher of ice over my head.
This was worse and I was thoroughly getting sick of it, and also of the weirdly disjointed passing of time.
Everything was out of order; my memories, my life.
Couldn’t I just start over? Or skip back to that day before that stupid meeting and decide to call in sick instead?
I fought to open my eyes and do exactly that.
Just wish myself back in my little Earth apartment.
I would never complain again about how I had to share it with three other women just so we could afford the steep rent in a nice neighborhood.
It felt like I managed to open my eyes, but everything was still dark around me.
I felt panic rise again, this endless darkness was so terrifying.
Where was I? What was happening? And why couldn’t I move?
My hands twitched against my thighs, and a faint light started to reach me. Finally! I could move!
I lifted my hands and they promptly thumped against a hard surface above me.
I didn’t know what it was, but the more I moved, the more I felt awareness of my body return.
I was trapped in a small box, and when I brushed my fingers over my chest, small electrodes fluttered from my bare skin.
That was the clue that solved the giant mystery I’d become trapped in. A stasis pod.
I had no recollection of getting into one, but I could immediately guess who had put me there.
I hadn’t been executed, I’d been knocked out and then transported.
My heart started racing at the thought of that ultimate betrayal.
First, I was accused of a crime I would never commit, then subjected to a media circus aiming to make an example of me, and now this?
My fists curled and I thudded them roughly against the surface above me.
Why was I awake, yet this thing hadn’t opened?
I had never traveled into space before, so I’d never had reason to be in one of these things.
I still knew enough from the media feeds to know that this wasn’t how it was supposed to work.
“Let me out!” I shouted, thumping again with my fist. It was so freaking cold in here, my fingers and toes ached, and my arms felt weak and sluggish. Just a few thumps and I was exhausted, slumping back against the padded surface below me.
I fought against the welling of tears, the burn in my throat.
There was no point to any of that, it wouldn’t solve anything.
I needed to figure out a way out of here, but I was so tired and so cold.
Taking a deep breath, I forced myself to lay still and rest for a beat.
If I was this weak, I needed to be smart about it.
My tired mind struggled to figure out a plan.
Was there a release button somewhere? Or a way to get leverage against the lid above me?
If only I had some light to see by, but there was nothing but blackness that surrounded me.
No, that wasn’t true, there was the faintest of light coming from my left.
Little lights that indicated the status of the pod most likely, they were all a faint, faded red.
I was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign.
Then there it was, a flare of something over my head.
I thought that maybe I was seeing a face above mine.
Green and scaly, with bright emerald eyes.
It was a beautiful face, masculine and alien, but handsome all the same.
Long strands floated like seaweeds around his head in the water. Wait, water? Why was he in the water?
My lungs ached; too late I realized that maybe I was running out of air inside this tiny box.
My lungs ached for more reasons than just withheld tears.
I heaved in a last deep breath just as the barrier above me slipped away.
Ice cold water flooded my pod and the light winked out.
I was submerged in darkness while my body seized against the sudden shock; pain radiating through me as everything cramped.
I felt nothing but that pain for long, terrible seconds, and then my brain spun away into confused thoughts.
The lack of air was cutting off my ability to stay awake.
I felt arms around me, warmth against my side.
I felt all that icy water against my skin, dragging me down, or was it up?
I was definitely drowning this time, I wasn’t just dreaming it.
Water filled my lungs, my nose, my mouth.
It was ice cold, so cold it burned and there was nothing I could do but fight to hold on, to stay conscious.
It was terrifying, and then it wasn’t; a strange, unnatural calm settling over me.
Then light, hazy and purple. A face again, green with shimmering glimmers of purple, hovered over mine and then came down.
A mouth on my own, and air filling my lungs, lungs that didn’t want to be filled.
I coughed, pain burning fiercely in my chest, and I was rolled as water rose up my throat.
I threw up weakly, but once I was done, blessed air filled my lungs. I was alive.
There was warmth against my wet skin, surrounding me; I soaked it up. An emerald glow formed a counterpoint against the purple light, it was soothing. I sank into exhausted sleep, convinced I was safe now.
***
Zeidon
My heart raced inside my chest. A wild, fervent thumping that had nothing to do with my dive to the bottom of the icy mountain lake and everything with the tiny female I cradled in my arms. She was not a Naga, I had seen that immediately, even in the dark water.
She had legs to start with, and scaleless dusky skin.
She did not even have a protective pelt for warmth, or quills and claws.
Just a mane of soft hair and blunt little nails.
Her lips were a dark purple, her lashes even darker wet curls against her round cheeks, and gold glinted at her earlobes and in a ring against one delicate nostril.
She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, utterly precious.
I didn’t think those were sentiments incited purely by the glow of my mating marks either.
She was just so delicate and feminine, so different and exotic.
This was why I had been driven with an urgency I had never felt before in my life.
I had been looking for my mate, the ultimate gift a Naga male could ever receive.
Most Water Weaver males went their entire lives without finding theirs, living simply off the incidental meetings with willing females in the village and, with luck, fathering offspring to continue their line.
I had found mine at the bottom of a lake, surrounded by the wreckage of a skyship.
It was luck that had seen her wreck sunk, unreachable for the Bitter Storm Naga.
Had they seen her, they would have killed her without hesitation, but here she was, safely in my arms. Alive, but shivering violently from the cold.
Cradling her tightly against my chest, I rose on my tail and looked around me to make sure we had no witnesses yet.
Then I raced away into the woods, my destination firmly set for one of my favorite caves.
I would be able to take good care of her there, it was a good home.
Warm, safe, dry, with plenty of supplies.
Srazz found me a couple of feet into the nearest treeline, scuttling out of the underbrush with an urgent cry.
I did not pause for him to catch up, he didn’t need that kind of help.
I felt his claws as he grabbed hold of my tail, and then he was climbing up my back toward his favorite perch.
Only, today he didn’t settle on my shoulder like he normally would.
He made a shocked chirping kind of sound as he discovered the wet female in my arms, and then, without hesitation, he threw himself onto her chest.
I did not like how this obscured my view of the thin fabric clinging to the roundness of her abundant breasts.
I did appreciate his willingness to get some wet fur to help warm my mate.
Srazz ran warm, with him against her chest to heat her core, she would soon feel better.
My animal buddy wasn’t usually this helpful, and when I quietly thanked him, he just shot me a narrow-eyed, cantankerous glare. Business as usual.
My mate’s lips were slowly turning a dark pink instead of the deep purple from before.
A tempting color that reminded me of the Exar berries that Srazz loved so much.
Would they taste sweet? I flicked out my tongue to draw her scent into me, seeking out the notes that flavored her.
Yes, sweet, but why did I think about tasting her lips?
That seemed like a strange thought, one that should be abhorrent maybe even, and yet… It really wasn’t.
The entryway to Vangor Pass had completely collapsed, a rock slide blocking the way.
There were signs of a struggle here, old blood on the dirt that disturbed the earth.
I gave that area a wide berth and went for a narrow crevice that led into a rocky tunnel a little higher up the mountain.
It was not the most direct route but it would get us where we needed to go.
When night fell, I made a quick camp and fed my still-sleeping female water from my waterskin in tiny mouthfuls.
Then I stoked a fire higher than I normally would and curled her in my coils for warmth.
I hoped that by morning she would open her eyes and regale me with her gaze, show me her bright mind.
I could not wait to find out what she was like, what she thought like.
Srazz disappeared in the dark for some foraging under the cover of darkness, but he returned not long after to find a sleeping spot in one of my coils of his own.
It was oddly quiet everywhere tonight, like even the woodland creatures had gone into hiding.
It made me feel a sliver of unease, a worry that something big was happening out in the world that I should know about.
Far off in the distance down the mountain, where I knew the Thunder Rock village lay, I imagined I could see the pinpricks of many fires.
Far more than there should be for the small Naga town.
I had to be mistaken, there was no reason for them to light that many fires.
Putting that firmly out of my mind, I tried to grab some light sleep myself.
I wanted to be at my best when my mate woke for me.
The glow on my scales had been a constant presence, my entire front covered in emerald sigils.
They lit up the night around us, bathing my mate’s pretty face in a soft glow where she lay nestled against my chest. I listened to her deep, even breathing and watched as her pale face slowly regained some color.
The sleep wasn’t coming, and by the time the violet Serant sun started climbing the skies again, my mate still didn’t wake.
A deep unease filled me with that knowledge.
She wasn’t that tired, was she? Had she been injured in some way I did not know?
She’d looked at me in the water, she had air before I broke the seal on her strange shell.
I started to think that I should have never pulled her from the water in the manner that I had, I should have hauled that entire egg out of there and approached far more carefully.
I’d been rash and impulsive, acting on my instincts rather than thinking things through.
My father would be ashamed of me if he were still alive to hear about this.
She drank the water when I pressed the waterskin to her lips, which was the only reason I did not turn around and head for the Shaman.
She just needed more rest. She had been through something traumatic; sinking into the darkness of that subterranean lake.
I just had to be patient, and patience I had in spades.
Picking her up in my arms once again, I resumed my journey to the cave I wanted to make our home for the foreseeable future. It never even crossed my mind to take her to the Water Weaver village. That was not home, and for a female as small and delicate as my mate, it would not be safe either.
Once I had her safely in my nest, she would quickly revive and we could start the rest of our lives, together. Much like the rare, coveted couples in the village did. I didn’t think it would take days, or weeks. I didn’t think I’d find myself despairing that she’d ever open her eyes for me.
When it did, I kept telling myself: Tomorrow. She’d wake up tomorrow.