Chapter 5
Kalani
I watched from a slight distance as the Shaman worked on Iave’s shoulder.
My mind was still struggling to adjust to the sudden haven of functioning technology inside this place.
From the completely functioning, and filled to overflowing greenhouse, down to the crystal lights that lit the inside of the tunnel in soft yellow light similar to that of Earth’s sun.
We were inside what was very clearly a medical bay, though instead of human-sized cots, there were half a dozen round, nest-like beds.
Everything inside this room was white, and screens blinked beside each bed with a foreign, scrawling script I couldn’t read.
This place was as high-tech-looking as any medical bay I’d been in, and I’d seen plenty during my years as a space marine.
It was only when I took a closer look that I could see the signs of time’s passage like the scratches in one wall panel that had been painted over.
The dimness of some of the screens that glowed inside this med bay and in cabinets against one wall.
Rows upon rows of dried herbs and herbal remedies were displayed.
This was a doctor who was making do with a slowly degrading setup; replacing factory-made medicine with homemade herbal ones.
Iave had been made to lay down in one of the nests on his belly while a medical arm had risen from the wall under the Shaman’s careful control.
I had taken a single look at the huge gaping hole in his shoulder and nearly upchucked my already nearly empty stomach.
I could see bone, tendons, and oozing flesh that looked like it was already inflamed.
How the fuck had my Naga buddy even managed to stay upright with that?
He should have been out cold, delirious from a fever, not to mention the pain.
He was still talking to the Shaman too, but he’d withdrawn his tail from my grip the moment we’d caught sight of the new Naga.
Message received, he didn’t want me to understand what the two of them were saying.
I tried not to feel hurt about it, so I channeled my feelings into being suspicious of what the two of them were discussing.
Each time the Shaman turned his golden gaze on me, Iave would growl and that sound was extremely impressive even when he was injured and prone. I could tell it made the Shaman uncomfortable too, so after only a few sideways glances, he’d completely focused on his patient.
That gave me the opportunity to study this stranger.
He looked so very different from Iave that it took me a minute to get used to him.
For one, his scales were white but each time the light hit them, each time he moved a coil of his long body, color shivered over the surface.
He was like an opal, shimmering with pale blues and pinks or pretty gold highlights.
When I gazed into his face, he was different there too.
At least compared to Iave, which was pretty much my only reference point right now.
Iave’s jaw was strongly angled, his features broad and masculine.
The Shaman was a bit more androgynous, beautiful, and ethereal with delicate, refined features.
Then there was the fact that he wore a colorful blue robe draped around his shoulders; it was silky and wispy.
A sash was tied around his middle in a darker blue, hiding the groin area, and gold bangles and chains clung to his lower arms, and his biceps, and draped down his chest. The long white-gold hair was held back by a blue scarf and gold dangled from his ears and capped the horn jutting from his chin.
This male looked like he was ready to step out for a party, nothing like Iave, whose idea of a party clearly involved at least one massive brawl.
A growl shivering through the air made me raise my eyes to the Shaman but he was focused on Iave, not me.
When I glanced at the brute of a Naga lying prone on the nest, I realized that this growl had been directed at me.
Oh, he didn’t like it when I stared at the Shaman, did he?
Was that it? Something warm unfurled in my chest at the realization and I tried to make sense of that feeling.
Did I actually like it when this Naga got growly and possessive?
I wasn’t really opposed to a match between a human and a creature like him, he was a little out there with how different he was, but I’d seen weirder matches in the outer reaches of the Alpha Quadrant.
But I was Kalani the Tough, I didn’t really do relationships because I was just too independent, and too closed off.
I had never met a man before that could actually make me feel like he might be able to protect me as well as I could protect myself.
It was hard to have a relationship when I couldn’t see a partner as my equal.
I was usually a little too intimidating and intense, but Iave?
I suppose he was the same in that way, he had already proven just how strong he was, and I definitely liked that.
Dropping my eyes from the intense look on his face, they landed on the wound and I was greeted briefly with the horrific sight of his flesh being restored by the machine the Shaman was controlling.
It looked like it was literally 3D printing the flesh back onto his bones, filling out the missing piece that had gotten yanked out with the spear.
It made my stomach turn to look at it, even if it was a little fascinating in a very morbid kind of way.
A machine that could do this kind of work was extremely advanced and the UAR would pay good money for something like this.
I knew there were tissue regenerators that helped restore flesh and heal many injuries without scarring, but this was on an entirely different level.
To find it in a place that at first glance had appeared to be stuck in the Stone Age?
Bizarre. What had happened to this planet? To Iave’s ancestors?
I wanted to ask the Shaman a million questions, starting with how he knew how to use this machine. Why did he know, but not the others? What had happened? How was it possible for this place to exist? Where was he getting the power to even run any of these devices?
My spinning thoughts were interrupted when a basket was suddenly proffered to me by the curled tip of a white tail.
In it were several plump and juicy-looking pieces of fruit, and a piece of flatbread.
I took the basket carefully, and the Shaman’s tail withdrew rapidly, not giving me a chance to touch any of his scales.
He wasn’t looking at me either, but Iave was, and I had the feeling he’d asked the Shaman to hand me the food.
There was just something about the way he was staring at me that made me feel that way.
Taking a few steps back, I sat down on the edge of the nearest nest to eat.
My stomach had been rumbling on and off for the past hour so I was extremely happy to stuff my face.
It all tasted good too. I had a feeling most of this fruit had come directly out of the greenhouse the Shaman maintained.
This also gave me something to focus on other than Iave’s gruesome injury.
I was just grateful that my days as a marine had made me able to eat even when just a glance over was something that could spoil anyone’s appetite.
By the time I finished the food, it appeared that Iave’s wound was nearly completely healed.
Scales were regenerating over the flesh now, a lustrous deep blue like the rest of him.
This wound wasn’t even going to leave a mark, which made the many scars that crisscrossed his arms and chest even more impressive.
Had those been deemed too minor for a visit to the Shaman?
The Shaman left the room without a backward glance and I grabbed the opportunity to demand answers from Iave.
Still stuck beneath the arm of the machine that was repairing the last of his scales, he couldn’t evade me.
He tried to coil his tail away from my grabbing hands, the bastard, but he couldn’t go far.
As soon as my fingers touched his scales, the feral slashes invisible unless I touched him, lit up along his front.
“The fuck is going on? Why are you excluding me from what you and that Shaman are discussing? Are you hiding something? I don’t like being lied to, Iave.
” He was clearly in much better shape now that his wound was almost gone, so I poked his tail for emphasis.
He twisted his head to glare at me, opening his mouth to display his sharp fangs.
“I am not hiding anything!” he hissed. “I am simply making sure the Shaman can’t bother you with his excessive curiosity.
” Then his gray eyes darted away from me in the direction of the colorful curtains that separated the medical bay from the rest of the caves.
If he hadn’t done that, I might have believed him, but that one furtive glance told me everything. He was hiding something.
Fine, fuck him then. Whatever it was, big or small, I couldn’t stand not knowing. If he was going to be like that, I wasn’t going to be all chummy with him either. And he could shove it with the possessive growling whenever the Shaman so much as glanced at me.
Spinning on my heels, I stalked away from him with a frustrated huff, ignoring his growled shouts behind me.
I couldn’t understand a thing he said now that I wasn’t touching him.
Of course, that was the moment he tried to keep talking, his tail sliding from the nest, slithering after me as he tried to grab for my ankle.