Chapter 10
Zeidon
Anxiety struck me two hours into the grand tour of what these outcasts had made of Ahoshaga.
Ekkire had remained at my side the entire time, though he had not contributed much to the conversation.
It was Joxra, the Bitter Storm male with the small female baby that did most of the talking.
It sounded like the sales pitches the Serqethos traders could spin for our females when they came to sell their jewels.
“I have to go,” I said abruptly while we stood in the middle of a newly erected smoking hut to preserve meat for the winter.
Joxra snapped his mouth shut and his lips tilted into this amused and rather smug smile that I wanted to slap off his face.
He acted like he knew why I wanted to go, was this why he’d purposely talked at length about all the domestic things they did here?
Even I could see that it was making Ekkire a little flustered and uncomfortable, but not me.
I wanted to leave because I feared that something was happening at my own den; an instinctive call to return to my mate.
She needed me. I did not know why and I didn’t know how I could possibly know such a thing.
That did not matter, I knew she needed me so I had to go.
“Not your style, the village life?” Joxra said with a hint of laughter. I bared my teeth at him in response and spun around to exit the wooden building; that question did not require an answer. He did not expect one, and I did not feel like explaining myself.
I understood what he was doing too. The unmated males had been far too eager to explain the situation.
I knew exactly how many of these human sky beings they had, and it wasn’t a lot.
Only one female remained unmated, the other unmated one was a male.
This Joxra did not want more competition for her affections, he was trying to scare me off.
I was sad that it seemed to be working on Ekkire, but that couldn’t be helped.
We were inside the palisade, though the tour had not included the inside of Ahoshaga’s tunnels itself.
This was as close as the males that lived just outside the gate were allowed to come, they did not implicitly trust them to act well around the fragile humans.
Ekkire’s only addition to the tour had been to mention that they shared the evening meal all together around the campfire in front of the tunnel entrance.
Ignoring Joxra’s question about where I was going so quickly, I darted downhill to reach the gate.
There was another Bitter Storm male there, hammering with a giant hammer to secure a heavy pole into the ground.
He was by far the biggest Naga I had ever laid eyes on, and then he was joined by a dark blue Thunder Rock male of even bigger size.
Not about to let their impressive stature daunt me, I raced past them and into what they called the Aspirant’s camp—a place where males, or females (though that hadn’t happened yet), could live when they aspired to join Outcast Haven.
Only once they had proven themselves to the leadership, they could move into an apartment inside Ahoshaga.
It was later in the day and more males had gathered, dozens of them.
I had rarely seen so many males gathered together at one time and froze at the edge of the camp to stare.
They were laughing and talking as they butchered what they had caught on a hunt.
A group was sitting together as they serviced their weapons, while in front of the wooden house, several were weaving ropes.
My hesitation allowed Joxra and Ekkire to catch up with me.
“It is a lot to take in,” the red male said, “Why don’t you spend some time to think about it?
You can come back whenever you want to contribute to the Clan.
” He sounded friendlier now, a bit more genuine, but that was only because he thought he had won.
It was my clansmale that knew there was something else bothering me. Ekkire might be quiet, but he was observant and clever, as behooved an experienced hunter such as him. “You couldn’t hunt, I will give you food,” he said. He slithered past me and started talking rapidly with the returned hunters.
I debated if I should wait for even that, the feeling of urgency was getting stronger.
Something was definitely happening, I should be on the move, racing back for my home and my female.
I glanced around to locate Srazz, but my pet had wandered off mid-tour to graze on a lush patch of grass.
I hoped he hadn’t been mistaken for a fat and easy hunting target.
The Naga had hunted Vakarsa, like I had intended, they would not be interested in an Ayala, no matter how fat he was.
As though my thoughts had summoned him, Srazz trundled into the camp as casually as if he owned the place.
Several males spotted him and pointed, laughing with surprise at the sight of an Ayala so fearlessly approaching.
I ducked around Joxra and picked Srazz up with my tail so I could sling him onto my shoulder. “That is my pet,” I warned the males eyeing him with a hint of avarice. Baring my teeth I growled, “Anyone that eats him, I will gut like a fish.”
“Easy there,” Ekkire said, from amid the hunters.
“No one wants to eat Srazz. Here, take this. You will come back?” He approached to hand me a wrapped package, from the scent of it, there was fresh meat inside.
A prime cut even. It surprised me that they were willing to give that away.
Ekkire must have been better at making friends here than he was back at the Water Weaver village.
“Thank you.” I was not sure if I wanted to come back when there were so many males salivating over the possibility of a human mate.
But I’d seen how happy the females were that lived in the caves, even if they had not shared a word with me.
I could not understand them without touching Farah.
My mate would want to be here if she knew about it, I had to tell her.
Nodding, I shot Joxra a glare and the male had the good grace to smother a smug grin.
“I will be back, soon.” Without a backward glance, I raced into the woods.
My purpose was single-minded, I had to reach the den as quickly as possible.
Farah was in danger. Self-recrimination filled me because of the choice I had made that morning; I should not have left her alone.
It had seemed safe, but a human was vulnerable to far more dangers than a Naga.
On top of that, my mate was not healthy, not yet.
My journey back was uphill and I took the most direct route this time, cutting through more rugged terrain against the side of the mountain.
I had to go around the sharply rising peak to reach the entrance to the tunnel on the other side.
My heart raced as my worry increased, my breathing coming in rapid bursts from the quick pace, and my scales lifted along my back to help cool my straining muscles.
It would take me at least two more hours to reach her. I was going to be too late. The fear that filled me was intense, followed by a sense of absolute failure. This was why the females at the Water Weaver village had shunned me for a mate, I had squandered it by not protecting her like I should.
I knew, even before I reached the den, that she would be gone.
***
Farah
His face reminded me of the freaking Terminator.
One eye was red, the other a pristine, beautiful gold.
Half of his face was a wrecked, shredded mess that revealed a metal structure beneath, the red light glowing eerily as an eye.
The other half was sheathed in fine white scales.
The creature’s scalp was just a shiny silver dome, devoid of any semblance of flesh at all, and hinting at the robotic structures beneath.
It was the same for his chest and the long, coiled tail.
Shaped like a Naga, even covered with fake scales to make him look real.
Only that facade had seen so much damage that half his chest was a metal rib cage with visible moving parts, cogs, pistons, pipes, and metal frames.
His tail was rough in patches too, showing me the metal that made up each of his vertebrae.
He was monstrous and horrible to look at, like something from a nightmare or a creepy old movie.
It was wrong and it shouldn’t exist; it made all my senses rebel in fear.
The bat nearly slipped from my numb hands as I shuffled back and bumped into the shelf behind me.
I needed to flee. I should have never gone back here to take a look.
Wasn’t that what got the silly blondes in horror movies killed?
I thought Buzz had abandoned me, but he suddenly dove down from above, screeching.
Claws outstretched, he gauged the robot thing’s face.
It jolted me into action, and my grip around the bat tightened as I raised it for a swing.
The robot emitted a sharp metallic whining noise, his arm shooting up as he batted Buzz away.
The little dragon went cartwheeling through the air from the blow, then clattered against a nearby shelf.
Things tumbled to the ground, and while that robot’s red glare was focused on the noise, I struck.
My bat hit him square in his damaged chest. The blow reverberated up my arms, my fingers went numb, and I fumbled as the bat nearly wrenched from my hands.
In contrast, it didn’t even seem like the robot noticed; it still kept its gaze on Buzz, who was hidden somewhere in the clutter that remained on the shelf.
My poor little friend, I hoped he was alright.
He had only just recovered from a broken wing and now this?
Why was this thing even here? What did it want from me?
My arms felt like lead as I forced myself to raise the bat for a second hit, but the adrenaline wasn’t enough to make my exhausted, still-recovering body obey.