Chapter 5
Zathar
The city of the ancients was forbidden for all but the Shamans to visit.
It was a long-standing decree made by a Queen that long predated my mother, and it was a decree upheld by all the Naga Clans.
As outcasts, it wasn’t like they could punish us further for being here.
It had been Corin’s idea to take refuge inside the city, always curious about any of the ancient technologies or the sky-ships.
We needed shelter from the many predators of this planet, shelter from the sweltering sun at midday.
Corin and I had hoped that delving deeper into the city could yield us things that could win my mother back over, things that were useful for the Clan.
Just like we’d hoped to find something like that on the sky-ship I’d pulled my mate from.
I eyed her slight form, her curves pressed up against my chest, so soft and fragile.
She was not what my mother would consider useful, but she was my mate.
And no longer without a mate, I might be welcome back at the village anyway.
I missed it, missed my status as the firstborn son of the Queen, the respect I received for my skills as a hunter.
The safety at night of the walls we’d built around our homes.
The certainty that my Clan members were there to have my back, because we were Thunder Rock, and we stuck together.
Letting the air escape from between my fangs, I shook myself from my thoughts.
Vera, my soft, vulnerable mate wouldn’t be safe in the village, she would be a threat to all the Naga females.
Fights between females were frequent, and they wouldn’t hesitate to challenge her.
As my mate, she could be an heir to the Queen, and that was the last thing any female would tolerate.
My scales itched along my back as I realized that several of my sisters would be first in line to fight her. No, I couldn’t let that happen, no matter how badly I missed home. It was time to accept that I was never going back.
When I glanced at the small orange-furred female I huffed, that one was even more fragile.
She had no mate to protect her either, she wouldn’t survive a single day in the Thunder Rock village.
We’d just have to make our home here, in the halls of the ancestors, and hope that they forgave us for taking shelter in their territory.
Just beyond the gate, there were chambers branching off on either side of the long tunnel winding deeper into the mountain.
In some portions of the ancestor caves, crystals still glowed with light.
But the gate tunnel was dark, and so were the chambers that flanked it.
It didn’t matter for Corin or me, we had good sight in the near dark, but it was obvious from the tense way that Vera held herself, that it wasn’t the case for her.
“Your eyes, they glow. Like a cat’s!” she exclaimed, one small hand reaching up to pat my cheek with soft, clawless fingers.
I had no clue what a ‘cats’ was, but she had to be referring to the reflective properties of my eyes, making them appear to glow with what little light they did manage to catch.
Shrugging, I unhooked the small lantern I carried from my belt. With a flick of the small switch, it started to shine with a soft yellow glow that didn’t blind me but provided just the right amount of light to aid my low-light vision.
Ducking into the chambers on the left of the gate, I headed for the pile of furs that was mine and gently put my mate down in them.
There were baskets lining the walls with our supplies and a drying rack with strips of smoked meat that we still had to package.
There were no rodents or insects inside the ancestor caves, a phenomenon that always served to make me just a little uneasy.
But it did mean that leaving our food out was perfectly safe.
“Grab your healing device,” I said to Corin.
“We’ve got to heal my mate and that female,” I added the last with a dawning realization that the female was more injured than my mate, she’d need care first. It went against my instincts, but I held my tongue when Corin pulled the device from a basket near his nest and started working on her, not my mate.
Vera hadn’t stayed in place, she was sitting up and scooting to the edge of my nest while curiously staring at everything inside the room.
Her eyes lingered on the supplies and then on the wall with the strange table attached to it and the mirrors embedded in the stone.
I didn’t want to let go of her when I wasn’t sure if she was going to do something foolhardy like try to get up.
But I needed to get a few things done to make us all comfortable, Corin had more important work to do.
It was an effort to uncoil my tail from around her luscious body, but once I had, I hurried away.
Lighting the lamps around the room and setting up the small heat source that Corin had gotten to work last week.
The refugees, even the male, looked like they were getting cold in the coolness of the caves.
I offered the weepy one a fur from the stockpile, and then I gave one to the male.
My mate had already appropriated one from my nest, which I found extremely satisfying.
She was covering herself with my scent, good.
Let there be no mistake who she belonged to.
Once I had water heating over the heat source for tea, I started piling plates with ration cakes we’d made the day before, and some of the dried meat for extra flavor.
Once everyone had food and was sitting down, I returned to Vera and coiled my tail around her, cupping her back.
“The food is fresh, it will fill you right up. You’ll feel better soon. ”
She eyed me with a frown, then poked the ration cake; testing the white fatty surface which we’d mixed with grains, dried fruit, and nuts.
Very nutritious and filling, it always helped me recover faster from an injury.
It would help her too. I liked very much the way it looked when she started to gently nibble on the edge of the thing.
It looked sexy, and her blunt, straight teeth were so harmless looking that I was imagining all kinds of things I wanted her to nibble on.
Adjusting my position, I made sure my flushed cock couldn’t extrude.
That would be highly inappropriate and unwelcome.
I was no untried youth, I wouldn’t shame my mate in such a manner.
I just needed to keep myself distracted and looking at the injured female that Corin was working on was just the thing.
The female was as pale as all the others, but her hair was a deep black, matted at the top of her skull from a nasty head wound.
I was fairly certain that at least one of her limbs had broken, her leg at an odd angle that made me extremely glad I had a tail.
She hadn’t roused at all, which couldn’t be a good sign.
“She’s a pilot,” Vera quietly said, “For the UAR, which is the name for the coalition of three races that run our part of space. Uh, our territory.” UAR was a strange name for a Clan and I wasn’t certain what she meant by races.
Was that to indicate that it was made up of three different Clans of her people?
I tried to imagine working together with some of the Clans I knew in a tight-knit fashion and just couldn’t.
Thunder Rock Clan, my own Clan, was proud and driven to work with as much technology as it could safely find without entering any of the ancestor caves.
Then there were the Copper Tooth Naga, fierce and independent hunters.
The others that came to mind were even worse fits for such a coalition, the water Naga were barely even a Clan, they were scattered all over the lakes and rivers to the west. Bitter Storm was out of the question for very obvious reasons.
“Anyway, the UAR and I aren’t on speaking terms. They, and my family, tried to have me executed for a crime I didn’t commit, and then they had the gall to actually put me in stasis and ship me off to God knows where.
All of us went through something like that, except her.
” She pointed at the injured woman Corin was treating while my head was still reeling with all the information she just shared.
Executed? For a crime? That was barbaric, as far as I knew, only Bitter Storm did such a thing.
The worst punishment that existed for all the other Clans was banishment.
My skin chilled just thinking about it. My friends and I were banished but we lived, and I’d even found a mate.
Vera had faced death, truly faced it in a way I couldn’t even begin to fathom.
Then there were the words I didn’t understand, like pilot, and ship off?
I figured she meant the sky-ship? And stasis?
What was that? I felt like an idiot, sitting next to my mate and not being able to understand half the things she was saying.
But it was nice to have her melodic voice in my ears, her eyes on my face as she spoke, and to watch her graceful hands dance through the air to emphasize her words.
“What is stasis?” I dared to ask, hissing on the s sounds in the word, which had no translation in my language.
“Or pilot?” I needed to understand why that woman being a pilot made my mate so hesitant about her.
Was it something bad? Like an executioner?
Had that woman tried to kill my mate? I felt my body swell with protective instincts.
Rising a little on my tail I glared at the injured female, placing myself between her and my mate.