Chapter 7
Iave
My Goddess didn’t have eyesight adapted to darkness in these subterranean tunnels but I couldn’t risk a lantern.
That suited me just fine I realized only a few minutes into our below-ground walk.
Without her sight to guide her, she had tucked herself beneath my arm and up against my side where she fit perfectly.
I liked how casually she’d initiated that contact and I had to keep telling myself that she was just being practical, not seeking out my nearness for any other reason.
For me, the dark tunnels held just enough light from the softly glowing tracks of some kind of mineral that traced along these walls.
Without it, my eyes too would have been out of luck and I’d need a light source.
But Orshala Peak was home to some very interesting stone formations that helped guide me.
In the dark, she’d managed to get me talking too and it helped to know that she couldn’t see my face and read my expressions when I spoke.
Soon I found myself not just telling her about my outcast status with the Thunder Rock Clan.
About my deep and abiding loyalty to my friend Zathar, the firstborn son of the Clan’s Queen.
I talked about Corin and his penchant for tinkering with any ancient technology he could get his hands on, and then I confided in her that my friends hoped to get back in with the Clan with what we discovered at her sky-ship.
“But not you?” she asked astutely, reading me like the palm of her hand when she couldn’t even see me.
I was surprised she’d picked up on that, but I shouldn’t have been.
She was my other half, my better half, it was no wonder she would see straight to the heart of me.
It made me a little uneasy, to put my trust in another that way.
I had a bond like that with Zathar, but that was different too.
My Prince was a warrior and a hunter, someone who often knew what I was thinking, or even feeling but didn’t pry and didn’t ask me to talk about my feelings.
Kalani expected much more than that, and she deserved to know.
“Not me, they cast me out, so I’m done with them,” I grunted.
I meant that, the decision even superseded my loyalty to Zathar.
I wasn’t going to grovel to be let back in.
They didn’t think I was worth keeping around if I couldn’t mate with any of the females and provide offspring, so screw them; they could all get lost. It wasn’t like the Clan had ever done much for me.
I was considering how much to admit to my mate about all of that, about my past, and the loss of my family.
My throat closed up just thinking of the words so I knew I sounded angry when I spoke next, alarm prickling over my skin when I sensed a presence.
“Someone is coming, hide.” I had her around the waist, dragging her softness against my body as I ducked us both into a small nearby alcove.
It was cowardly to be relieved the conversation was now over, but there it was.
I was fucking happy at the interruption.
Kalani had frozen in my arms, her breathing turning quiet and shallow as she tilted her head against my chest. One soft ear shell brushed along the scales on my pectoral muscles, the other she’d angled directly at the source of the scuffling noise I’d heard.
Someone was in this hallway with us, a long tail slithering along the sandy rock surfaces that made up the tunnel floor.
My tail coiled, wrapping around my mate’s legs to tuck her more protectively against me.
It wasn’t just one presence in the dark with us, it was several and then they started speaking.
“Anything?” a male voice said, his tone bored and tired.
He had to be a sentinel that guarded the tunnels around the Bitter Storm main caves.
I wondered how many there were and how tight their system was.
How quickly would they notice if one or more of their sentinels went missing?
If it came down to it, I was sure I’d be able to take this small group down, but then what?
“Nothing, all is quiet. Hey, did you hear? They brought a captive back to the main cave.” The other voice was slightly higher pitched though definitely male as well.
A younger Naga, possibly just out of hunter training and on his first assignment.
A gossip too; from his eager tone it was obvious he wanted to share his news with the older sentinel.
“Oh yeah? What kind of prisoner? Did they capture a Thunder Rock scout? Isn’t that risky considering the plans we have in place?” The older male still sounded bored, but now he was indulging the youngling in his desire for gossip and the younger male didn’t disappoint.
Kalani breathed out softly, her breath ghosting along my chest at his next words. “Oh no, this is a female who came from a sky-ship! Weak creature can’t even walk but the Warlord… He’s completely fixated on her, it’s crazy!”
They were talking of Naomi’s capture, and I really didn’t like the sound of those words.
If the Warlord of the Bitter Storm Clan himself had taken an interest in her, I could only imagine the worst. Torture, death.
Naomi wasn’t going to last long against a male such as him.
Not that I’d ever personally met the Bitter Storm Warlord, I didn’t even know his name, but I’d heard the rumors.
It was said he was as big as me and as vicious as a Rakworm.
“What?” the other Naga exclaimed, “That is crazy. He has far more important things to do right now than worry about some abomination from the skies. It should have been killed on sight.” The horrible words were spoken followed by a furious hissing noise.
Then I heard the sound of scales sliding along rock as one or both started moving.
I pulled Kalani further into the alcove with me, fearing the worst. They were getting closer to us, not moving away, just a few more feet and they’d reach our hiding spot.
Kalani had frozen against me, her eyes huge in her elegant face, her nostrils flared with fear.
She knew just like I did that we were about to get discovered.
Shifting my hand from around her middle, I reached for the war-ax at my shoulder.
A third voice spoke up, low and gritty so possibly an elder Naga. “The worm is speaking nonsense. The abomination was executed. I saw the Warlord carry off its body himself to dispose of it. Now get back to work, you’re not some toothless hunters gabbing around a campfire, are you?”
Kalani’s pained gasp was audible in the silence that followed and my heart went out to her.
We were too late, Noami had been killed by Bitter Storm.
Which meant, sad as it was, now my only purpose was to get Kalani out of here, alive.
Something that had just become much harder now that she’d made a sound.
“What was that?” One of the three demanded, having picked up on her slight noise.
She had frozen against me, not even breathing and I gently eased us further back into the alcove, not much more than a crevice in the rock wall.
We had nowhere to go when they moved in, I had to be ready to fight.
My fingers tightened around the familiar grip of my ax; the leather grooves molded to my fingers from the hours I’d had the handle in my fist.
Something shifted beneath my tail and the two of us started to slide with a rattling noise. Pebbles dislodged and clattered. “Someone’s here, who are you?” the Bitter Storm youngling demanded, his voice holding a little tremble to indicate how spooked he was.
The ground beneath me caved in and Kalani and I went sliding and tumbling down a narrow hole. A scream ripped from her throat, her hands scrabbling over my scales to grab for any kind of purchase while I fought to coil my body in such a way that I could slow our descent and break her fall.
My newly healed shoulder was still missing a few scales and I felt that as my back scraped along the rock, only partially protected by the backpack strapped to my back.
We were going at an angle, and finally, I managed to wedge my coils in the narrow crevice in such a way that our rapid descent came to an abrupt stop.
My breath huffed out of me from the sudden jarring motion, but then I tilted my head up, listening intently if we were being followed.
“Shit, that was scary. Do you think they saw us?” Kalani whispered.
She had curled her arms around my neck and was speaking with her mouth right up against my throat.
Doing so meant she braved the jagged, broken tip of my chin horn with the soft, vulnerable skin of her cheek.
She didn’t even seem to notice, but maybe she couldn’t tell how close she was in the complete dark.
Even I had trouble seeing here, there was virtually no ambient light down here to help me.
No softly shimmering minerals that cast just a hint of light.
“Hush,” I said, perking my ears as I tried to figure out the answer to her question.
I didn’t hear any sliding noise but if I tried really hard, I thought I could hear low voices talking.
The Naga sentinels discussing the hole and what they saw.
I didn’t think they’d try to follow because this was a very steep slide and Kalani and I still weren’t at the bottom, they wouldn’t risk it.
We’d gone down so far that they were almost beyond my range of hearing.
Possibly, this fall had knocked us right out of the commonly used Bitter Storm tunnels and straight into uncharted territory.
Or maybe, if we were lucky, it was a shortcut.