Chapter 18 #2
“Not sure. Just something… We need to move fast.” He swept me into his arms and picked up the pace.
Buzz kept up with his wings, coasting just above our heads through the narrow tunnel.
Srazz did not like this fast pace, but he was quick to scale Zeidon’s shoulder to hitch a ride.
When he discovered me there, he happily curled up on my chest. I noticed that neither animal seemed concerned, and their senses were definitely better than mine.
So, what was it that had my Zeidon so worried?
We raced through a dark tunnel that just like I remembered, turned and twisted.
Sometimes I’d hear that rushing water sound and I was certain we were near an underground river, then the tunnel would change direction.
Whatever this place was, it soon turned into a maze when we started coming across crossings with other passages.
I worried we would never find our way out, but Zeidon seemed very confident with each direction he chose.
“How do you know where to go?” I asked him, my voice pitched in a whisper because of his still tense expression.
“I just know, I’m very good at finding my way.
Almost there,” he said the last just as we reached another closed doorway.
It opened at our approach and the sound of racing water became louder, it filled the tunnel around us with its noise.
I fully expected to discover a waterfall or raging river beyond that door.
I wasn’t disappointed, but I was surprised when I got a good look at what was inside the room.
It was a room, but more like the giant industrial hall kind of room than a room like in a house.
The river was there too, racing through a massive channel so straight and precise that it could only be man-made.
Machines bisected that racing water with spinning blades and though I didn’t actually recognize the design, I understood instantly that this was some kind of hydro energy plant.
This was the source that powered the crystal lights and machines inside the lab.
This was not an exit though, there was no doorway out of here.
When Zeidon set me down on my feet and moved to the edge of the water channel, a bad feeling rose in the pit of my stomach.
I really hoped he didn’t intend for us to swim out of here because my last experience with being in water had not been the greatest. I eyed the spinning blades of the submerged turbines with even more apprehension, those looked absolutely deadly.
“We can do it,” Zeidon said, and he pointed at where the water raced below the rock wall and out of sight.
There was a bit of clearance, in theory, we could still keep our heads above water, but there was no way to know how long that would last. I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest, no way.
There had to be another way out of here.
What if there were more of those turbines further down? We’d be chopped to bits.
“Zeidon, you do remember last time, don’t you?” I asked him, fear already rising in my chest and making my throat close up. I really didn’t want to have another panic attack like that, and just thinking about that possibility was making me scared.
Which was, honestly, completely counterproductive; it didn’t help to be scared of being scared, at all!
But even though I tried to sternly tell myself that was pointless and that it was just water, that didn’t make me feel any better.
I just wanted to turn around and run, but Zeidon looked even tenser than before, he wouldn’t want to go back the way we came.
Whatever had him worried was what had driven him to go in this direction, unless he was just bad at admitting that he didn’t know the way.
Somehow, that just didn’t seem like him though.
He lifted his head from his contemplation of the rushing water with a sudden rapid move, his eyes zeroing in on me.
I felt that stare down to the bone. Those emerald eyes saw me at that moment in a very vulnerable place and I just knew that he understood that immediately.
He curled his body around the nearest machine to reach me and then he gripped the back of my neck firmly with his hand.
“Listen to me,” he demanded, his eyes glittering.
“You are bigger than your fear. You can master it.” His piercing stare made me feel like I owed it to him to do exactly as he said.
He didn’t look at me with pity—worry, sure, but not pity.
I don’t know how he did it, but he made me feel stronger inside, and that stare somehow even managed to convey his understanding.
He was no wordsmith, but he got his message across.
I gave him a nod, then glanced around him at the rushing water.
It made so much noise too; a roaring as it raced through the waterway and made the blades of the turbines spin.
I focused on the differences; that didn’t make me feel safer but thankfully less inclined to panic.
I had nearly drowned in that stasis pod beneath the surface of a placid, but ice cold lake.
A lake much like the one Zeidon had taken me to for bathing.
This was a roaring river of violence, it was completely different, but also far more dangerous.
The green Naga in front of me let out a growl that rivaled the noise of the river.
The fingers he had clasped around the back of my neck tightened against my skin and I felt the prick of his claws, a not-quite pain that drew my attention firmly to him.
I didn’t realize that it had become hard to meet his eyes until I tried, then I became trapped in that intense gaze and the budding panic really did fall away.
“I will explore, and then we will leave together. Through the water,” Zeidon declared, and I would have gotten pissy at the way he decreed it except he leaned in and covered my mouth with his.
It was far simpler to just let him distract me than to pick a fight.
He didn’t linger long, and that alone suggested his mind was preoccupied.
Something he deemed a danger even if Srazz and Buzz didn’t seem to notice—something more dangerous than the rushing water in front of us.
His tail had looped twice around my legs and he was slow to uncoil it.
I appreciated that he kept looking at me as if to reassure himself that I was on board before he left.
When his gaze dipped to the knife he’d strapped to my thigh, a different kind of fear settled over me.
He looked at it like he thought I might need to use it, he looked almost torn about it when he started to move toward the edge of the water.
“You’re coming back soon, right?” I asked him.
I didn’t like the idea of being separated, no matter how long or short it was going to be.
He had come to mean so much to me already, and I didn’t care if a week was short to catch those kinds of feelings…
It felt much longer, and it meant more too, if I were to believe his mating marks.
Zeidon’s mouth lifted into a cocky smile, eyes glittering at me with a hint of amusement.
“Always, my sweet, precious mate. I will always come back to you.” I believed him, I thought he’d died and he’d still come for me, I didn’t know how, but he had.
I had believed he’d come for me then too, this unshakable sense that we were connected, bound by more than I could see.
He went into the water right where the river slipped beneath the wall and disappeared into the mountain.
I hoped that meant he was beyond the turbines now, safe from their spinning blades.
He seemed sleek and perfectly resistant to the wild currents.
His hair floated around his shoulders on the frothy surface, his eyes lingered on me for one last time, and then he swam beneath the rock and disappeared.
I glanced at the doorway into this large room but saw nothing and heard even less over the roaring of the water.
Then I challenged myself to get closer to the edge.
That was hard, but I was more concerned about Zeidon.
With my toes on the edge of the rock, I gazed into the rapid swirling currents and tried to see if I could catch a hint of him, my mate.
That’s what he called me, mate. The word that the Dragnell and several other alien species back on Earth called their spouse.
Only, now that I was being called mate by a guy, I knew it went far deeper than girlfriend or boyfriend, it went deeper than wife or husband.
It felt like forever. My heart skipped a beat in my chest as I thought that, forever with Zeidon.
Why not? I had to start over on this planet anyway, what better way to do that than to grasp hold of the things I’d always wanted?
My fingers touched the new scales that dotted my flesh and for the first time, I could reach the feelings those evoked.
I’d been pushing it aside as a worry for later, as unimportant considering the bigger dangers, but they were there, and they were probably there to stay.
If some of my genes had been altered to have scales…
Would that make it more or less likely for Zeidon and me to have kids at some point?
The yearning for a baby was bigger than any worries.
Then an image filled my mind that I just could not shake, a baby with green hints of scales dotting his flesh like mine.
A tuft of sea blue hair crowning his head, and bright green eyes laughing up at me.
Zeidon’s baby. What a fantasy, he’d be so darn cute.
Srazz made a chortling sound from near my ankle and I yanked my attention back to the moment.
Okay, I was ready to have this guy’s kids, I was definitely thinking forever with him.
That was good, now I knew that, and we could talk about it when we were safe again.
I had to deal with the water first, though I was starting to think that Zeidon was sensing a threat that wasn’t real.
“What do you think? We defeated the robot, are we in the clear or is there more danger lurking?” I didn’t expect Srazz or my cute little miniature dragon to respond but they both made a sound in their own way.
Buzz was clinging to my shoulder and eagerly let me scratch him beneath his chin.
Then Srazz suddenly spun and started snarling, and chills broke out all over my skin.
Something, or someone, was watching us; I knew it.