Chapter 17
Zeidon
Farah was sleeping peacefully in my arms at last. She had seemed inexhaustible as we mated in a frenzy, over and over again.
It had been better than I could have ever imagined, to be with my mate in that way was nothing like the rutting I’d experienced before.
This was deeper, this was like I was making her a part of me and she was making me a part of her.
I would never feel alone again, I’d see my mate’s belly swell with our younglings; we’d have a family.
I let my eyes linger on her face and on the strange new addition of fine scales that streaked across her cheekbones.
They were beautiful, a dusting of opalescent glimmers that accentuated her already gorgeous features.
On her naked body, more such streaks were visible and I’d explored them all during our lovemaking.
They dusted over her collarbones, along her flanks, and freckled the outsides of her arms. I’d seen similar streaks on her back but they still reminded me most of all of the mating marks that glowed on my own body.
They were not on her legs, and I could only assume that meant I’d interrupted the revenant before he could reach her there.
I still vividly recalled the sight of the medical machine as it singed the seams on her leg coverings.
The fear that had filled me when I realized that that monster wanted to shape her beautiful legs into a tail like a Naga.
The revenant was utterly deranged and I would need to defeat it before it could try again.
I knew its tricks now, and it had stupidly healed me completely.
Back at full strength, I was certain I was able to destroy it, I just needed to make sure it could not disorient me again with that screeching sound.
All I needed were some earplugs, it would disable one sense, but I would not lose my equilibrium.
Srazz and Buzz were sleeping at the bottom of the nest. The two had managed to become friends and lay curled together.
Buzz had draped his wings over Srazz’s belly, one of Srazz’s paws hugging the small Sleara close.
They must have settled on that sleeping arrangement when they realized they could not claim my mate as a pillow for once.
I smiled smugly at that realization. No, Farah was all mine now, and this was how it was going to be each night. She was where she belonged, in my arms.
She stirred slowly, her breathing pattern changed, and then she turned her head and her lashes fluttered.
When our eyes met, I felt another wave of relief shudder through me.
My mate was alright, she was more than alright, she was healthy and strong again.
“Oh,” she sighed, “Zeidon. I thought I’d dreamed you… ”
I curled my arms more tightly around her, my tail coiled around her legs to keep her warm and as close to me as I could.
“No, we are together. It was no dream,” I assured her as much as myself.
We needed to talk, and then we needed to make a plan so we could make our escape from this room and defeat the revenant.
She derailed my thoughts when she leaned up and pressed her mouth to mine.
Instantly, my thoughts spun in carnal directions.
She still smelled of sex and desire, it would be so simple to take her again but we shouldn’t.
We had to get out of here first as the revenant would not leave us alone for much longer.
“Farah,” I said firmly when I pulled back with regret.
“We need to leave first.” She nibbled on her soft, pink bottom lip; tempting me greatly.
Then she nodded and her expression turned firm and serious, I loved how that looked, so ready to do battle.
I had not forgotten how bravely she’d tried to help me open that door so we could escape, how fearless she’d been at that moment.
“Okay, what’s the plan?” she asked and, to my regret, wiggled until I let her up.
Sitting she cast her eyes over my body and I rolled to my back and flexed my muscles just a little so I could watch the glint of appreciation shimmer in her sapphire eyes.
She checked the spots on my body that had previously been wounded, her eyes lingering on my eye where a blade had slashed deep enough for me to nearly lose it.
There was no hint of that damage now, I could see clearly, without any issues.
The revenant had healed that too, which still baffled me.
I had never met a revenant before that wasn’t keen on anything but utter destruction.
“I need a way to plug my ears so the revenant can not disorient me, and then I will defeat it,” I said to her and she laughed.
It was a very simple plan, but those were often the best ones.
It did not need to be any more complicated than that.
The revenant had stolen my mate from me, I was going to end it for that crime.
She nodded and picked up her shirt from the edge of the nest, “I think we can make something work.” Then her expression sobered, it turned a little introspective even.
“Do you think we can have babies together?” She sounded a little forlorn; worried.
I did not like how this thought was making her sad, I did not understand it either.
“Of course we can!” I assured her. “That is what those mating marks mean, we will make strong, healthy younglings.” The memory struck me that I’d seen at least one human sky being at Outcast Haven that first time I’d visited with a very round belly.
And when Vera visited me with her mate, it had been very obvious that she too was carrying his young.
“Really? But we’re completely different species.
It shouldn’t be possible at all, not without some kind of gene therapy or something…
” We were very different from each other, I had not considered that such a thing might prove an obstacle, but I knew I was right.
I’d not only seen the evidence, but I knew that our mating bond would not exist if we could not have young together. Our mating was very real.
Now that I had seeded her, things had changed just like Zathar had told me they would.
I could now control the glow of my marks, they flared only when I was aroused for her, and I felt stronger than before.
That was a myth that hunters whispered of, that a true mating made a male stronger so he could better protect his female.
I was certain it was true now, and I was going to use that to my advantage when I took down the revenant.
“I saw others,” I said, and then with more excitement when her mobile little eyebrows shot up, I started explaining about Haven.
About the discovery I’d made that day when she got stolen, a place with other humans, her own kind, and many Naga to protect and provide.
The females I’d seen that were already pregnant, and the safety that having a healer so nearby offered.
First, she stared at me with an open mouth, then she clasped one hand over it, and I saw how her eyes flooded with moisture.
I had never seen them do that before and shocked, I surged up to clasp her face and peer closely at the drops seeping from them.
“You are hurt, did something get in your eye? How do I help?” I demanded of her.
She had just been sitting there, listening to my news; how could she have damaged her eyes doing that?
She laughed against my hands, her chest shaking, her eyes sparkling even brighter through all that wetness.
“Those are tears, Zeidon. It’s fine. That’s a thing we humans do.
Usually out of sadness, but sometimes because we’re happy too.
I’m very happy right now.” She was happy?
This was caused by being happy? Baffled, I stared at the moisture leaking from her and shook my head.
That was the strangest behavior I had ever heard of.
Flicking out my tongue, I lapped some of the wetness from her cheek.
It was salty and savory, it tasted of her and of the sea at the same time.
She giggled at the touch and pushed against my shoulder to get me to back away.
“I swear I’m fine. I can’t believe you found more humans and they are fine!
Happy even. There must have been a lot more stasis pods than just mine.
The question remains, how did we get here? Why?”
I had no answers to those questions for her.
I didn’t really care, she was here, with me, and that was all that mattered.
She had spoken of this government that had tried to harm her, she was safer here.
Ruefully, I had to amend that thought, she hadn’t been safe, she’d been stolen by a revenant.
But I was going to make damn sure that she was safe from here on out, even if that meant tying her to my side for the rest of our lives.
We got out of the nest after that, though I kept my tail curled around her ankle.
It was no longer necessary if we wanted to understand each other, but I needed that touch.
There was a source of water against one wall that worked, a basin with a protruding metal thing that Farah flicked.
Water poured from it in a steady, delicate stream.
We drank from it, and then my mate used the water to wash herself before she pulled on her clothing.
I helped her tie her strange foot coverings on her feet, and then we had nothing left to do but improvise something to block the revenant’s noise.
She sacrificed a piece of her new pants for that.
She said they were already ruined because of the singe marks the revenant had caused on her thighs but I was still very careful to cut only a little from the bottom with my knife.