11. Abduction
ELEVEN
ABDUCTION
Elena
Because he wants me?
“How do you know my name?” I ask with a hitch, my heart pounding, rooted to where I am under the rickety table. It gives me some shelter from him but not nearly enough. He’s big—long. He’s…
“I have been watching you since your arrival.”
Since the beginning? I think of the times Levy and Greg visited and swallow thickly. Oh god. Was he watching then? Has he been watching all this time…? My stomach goes taut with unease as my anxiety climbs.
The trees rustling…
I can’t believe this is happening. I press my back against the hide-covered wall and bring my limbs tighter around me, peering up at the frightening…
naga. Because it’s human, but not quite.
Aching from being wrenched over his shoulder, I ignore the pain as I stare at him, ready to fight him off if he tries to grab me again.
In the deep, nearly pitch black shadows of the cave, the lighter he holds doesn’t give off much light.
But it’s enough to see his outline against the deeper shadows at his back, and it’s enough to set his face faintly aglow.
His jaw is sharp, his lips arrow-tipped and parted.
The whites of his eyes flicker around dark gray orbs.
His hair is short, tousled around his ears and brow, midway down the back of his neck.
It’s ebony like the shadows. The tips of his ears are pointed, sticking out of his hair.
He twists his hand and the shadows shift around him as the flames move.
There’s a sweet, odorous scent that reminds me of Ilubriam chocolate—a favorite treat of mine since childhood. I inhale, taking some comfort in it. Why I smell it right now I have no idea, but I’m not questioning it.
I saw his tail when we were outside. I know he’s not a man.
My mind runs away with the idea of being in a naga’s grasp, refusing to solidify it as I quickly glance around the room only to land on his long, winding tail anyway.
Following its outline, I discover it’s impossibly thick.
It leads into his legs where he appears to be wearing a form-fitting skirt. No, not a skirt…
He doesn’t have legs.
As my panic resurges and flows, I try to recall everything that woman Shelby said about nagas over the radio, wishing I hadn’t been drunk at the time.
Thank god I’m not drunk right now. Wait…
He turns away from me and disappears into the passage behind him, taking the light with him and leaving me alone in the cold darkness once again.
Unable to see anything anymore, I remain frozen where I am, deciding I’m safer here under the table than attempting to follow him and his light source.
He can be reasoned with.
He knows the common tongue.
But he also said he wanted me and that I landed in his territory. I trespassed. Nagas are territorial. Recalling more of Shelby’s advice, I decide I’m going to try convincing him to let me go. If I can speak to him, I can convince him.
I hear him before I see him when he returns, bringing with him more light.
He appears around a jagged bend and stops at the threshold of the larger cavern I’m in.
Holding a lantern that brightens the space with white light, his gray eyes find me under the table.
I’m immediately confused by their juxtaposition.
Him, an alien, a humanoid male with a tail—because he’s definitely male—carrying a humanmade electric lantern in his hand.
He stares at me before setting the lantern on a bigger, wider wooden table on the opposite side of the room.
While his back is turned, I take in the massive pile of pelts and hides bunched up in a large circular mound to my right.
In velvety arrays of deep browns and blacks, the hides are a mess of rich colors.
A bed, perhaps? The curved wall behind it is also covered in hides, their large shapes draping down from metal hooks screwed into the rock.
Above those metal hooks and anchored by string are antlers.
Dozens of alien Earth animal antlers of different sizes.
Every wall is covered in both hides and antlers, making a space nearly as large as the front area of my ship seem smaller, more clustered and more intimate.
Even the floor is covered in thick hides.
Besides the bed to my right, there are two other tables, the one I’m under and the one the lantern is on.
The table opposite me has a bunch of stuff on top I can’t immediately name, except for the few books stacked in the back, but it’s noticeably bigger and wider than the table I’m under and it makes me wish I’d gone right instead of left along the wall.
“You can come out from under there.”
My eyes flick back to him staring at me. He’s still beside the table, across the cavern—at least his top half is. His incredibly long tail is draped in coils in the wide space between us.
He’s not colorful or intricately patterned like I imagined a naga would be.
Instead, he’s the color of coal and iron, of the interior walls of The Dreadnaut.
He transitions from the lightest of grays to a pale black.
Gleaming scales cover his tail from the tip all the way up the sides of his hips and waist. As the white light halos him, bringing more definition to the details of his body, I realize he has some patterning along the sides of his body and arms. There are dark splotches over his shoulders and around the back of his neck, disappearing into his hair.
He’s not wearing a shirt. He’s got a lot of muscles… His abdominals are toned beyond belief.
My eyes drop to where his genitalia would be if he were a human and immediately regret it. There’s a distinct bulge at the front of his tail, a little below his hips.
He shifts toward me.
“Don’t come any closer!” I press my back harder against the wall.
He stops and slides his tail behind and under him. My eyes hover between his curious but desperate expression and his bulge. I swallow thickly.
“You—you can obviously understand me,” I stutter when he remains silent.
“I mean, we can understand each other…” I lean forward and force my gaze back to his face, disliking his attractive features, his long, straight nose, and his thick brows.
“I don’t know what I did—except land in your territory, and I am truly sorry for that—but I think this is a big misunderstanding.
I want to go back to my ship,” I blurt out.
“Let me go and I’ll leave and land somewhere else.
” I’d use the last of my ship’s fuel if it means I’ll be free and safe inside my ship again. How do I convince a creature like him?
“I do not want you to leave.”
“Kidnapping is against the law!” Fuck, what is he going to know about laws?
His brow twitches, morphing his expression to a thoughtful one.
“You should let me go. You want to let me go,” I quickly continue, hoping maybe he’s easily convinced.
Fuck. I knew I was taking a risk searching for the water. I’d considered having Greg or Levy take me with them but chose against it. I wish I had just waited until they came around again.
Now they’re going to find my ship hatch open without a sign of me anywhere.
The naga leans forward, nostrils flaring as he sucks in a deep breath like he’s smelling me. I pull back into the wall.
“Like I said, I do not want to let you go.”
I frown, feeling my chances of talking my way out of this dwindling. “Please,” I whisper. “Please, don’t do this.” I’m so sorry, Jenna.
His hand rises then drops and I wince at his claws. “You should come out from there, little female. It doessss not look comfortable. I will not hurt you. I am sorry… I had to handle you so roughly. If you had not fought…”
I shake my head, grabbing my knees to my chest. “No thanks.”
He cants his head. “What can I do to convince you to move?” His accent is unique and his voice is low. “To join me out in the open and take a look around your new home?”
New home? My eyes jump over the antlers high up on the walls.
“Tell me you’ll let me go and then release me.
I’ll move from here if I can leave.” Otherwise I’m not moving an inch, preferring to take the little coverage the table offers than no coverage at all.
My eyes drop to his middle again and heat rushes my cheeks with anxiety. Nope. I’m not moving an inch.
He rises higher and pulls away. “I will not release you. Where would you go but back to your spaceship and its dwindling suppliessss? There is nothing for you there in the long term, only shelter from the elements. You are not from Earth. I would know if you were… You do not know the dangers of procuring resources like I do. I can teach you.”
He’s not wrong, but I have fuel, enough fuel to take off and—hopefully—land again. As well as enough fuel to keep my ship running for months, if not years if I don’t take off. And I have enough supplies to last me weeks, if not months, and that’s with the water I have left.
But it might take years for help to arrive.
I try not to let my mind go there. “That’s not a reason to just up and take me!
” I whisper-shout, my mind going to dark places anyways.
I would’ve been better off if I’d just continued drinking.
I almost want to laugh but I’m too panicked to do it. “I had what I needed.”
“You need water,” he accuses.
Assuming he’s heard all of my conversations with Levy and Greg, I don’t lie to him. “I’ll need water—eventually.”
“So you were just searching for it?” He cocks a brow. The very human gesture throws me off. “Issss that why you decided to leave your ship?”
“I was just searching for it,” I agree, though I can’t help but drop my forehead to my knees and squeeze my eyes shut. “Please, just let me go.” Please. “If you want payment for me being on your land, I have money…”
“No. You are here now, and I have… claimed you. It would not make sense to release you back onto my land to live as you please when you are a small, frail female. I will collect what you would like from your ship, but supplying it with water is no longer an option for you. Your remaining food resources can be added to mine. Whereas yours will run out, mine will not. Because of that, you will remain here and I will provide for you from now on. You will have all your needs met and in return, you will submit to being mine.”
His words leave me breathless and feeling incredibly lost. I try to picture it, being possessed by an alien—by him—an alien-serpentine-humanoid, with a nest in a cave and everything, but instead, all I think of is Jenna.
I won’t be able to find her if I’m inside this cave.
“I will not submit to you.” I didn’t even submit to my parents during fights. “Keep fucking dreaming.”
He releases a low hiss and draws back, tucking his chin. “As I said, you will ssssee in time that this is the best option for you. Until then, I will convince you.” He changes course and leans forward, reaching under the table.
I jerk away, pressing into the thick hide at my back as his fingers take hold of my hair and rub it between them.
Tears threaten, and I squeeze my eyes closed as his hand pulls away.
Blinking my eyes open, I watch as he abruptly rises and turns. “I will retrieve your belongings. Stay here, get used to your new home, but do not try to leave. I will know. I will not be gone long.”
With that he slips into the passageway, leaving me alone with the lantern.
Waiting until I no longer hear him, I scurry out from under the table and dash to the light source, almost tripping on a hide as I go. Grabbing the lantern to me, I hug it possessively, shivering against the damp cold.
Five more minutes. I start a countdown in my head. I’ll wait five minutes. Then… I run.