Chapter 3
Reid
Whatever Erish had said to my angel, it had worked.
There she was, sitting at my side, and I hadn’t felt this good in ages.
My body felt easier, lighter, and some of the constant burning had faded.
When I wriggled my toes beneath the furs, it didn’t cause agony to spike up my spine.
Progress: good. Pretty soon, I’d be out of this bed and back in fighting shape.
Thoughts and obligations filtered in now that I felt better.
How were the others doing at Haven? Had I imagined Corin and Min-Ji at my side throughout some of my illness?
And had everyone safely escaped the chamber we’d been locked up in for over a week?
Damn, I was behind on everything. I had no clue what was going on, but those worries faded to the back of my mind when I focused on my angel’s blue gaze.
“God, you’re so fucking pretty. How’d you get to be so beautiful?
I can’t believe you’re real.” Those words might have been embarrassing as they tumbled from my mouth, but then I recalled that she probably didn’t speak my language.
I’d quickly gotten used to the mated males understanding everything back at Haven, thanks to the mate bond.
Then we’d gotten the translator updates.
Chen and Erish had gone through that procedure, but I couldn’t expect everyone here to have done the same. They had no reason to...did they?
“Can you understand me? Do you have translator implants?” I asked her, but though her gaze never wavered from my face, she did not reply.
Her blue eyes were a mystery to me, and I wasn’t used to being unable to read an expression.
Still, I was pretty sure she had not understood a word I said.
That only deterred me for a moment; my desire to speak to her, to learn about her, was too great to contain.
“I’m Reid,” I said, and I carefully raised my right hand to tap it against my chest. I did not move my left hand, where her fingers rested gently against my wrist. There wasn’t a chance in hell I’d break that contact voluntarily.
The soft brush of her scales set my blood on fire, her hand warm and proof that she was really here.
She would not slip from my grasp this time. “What’s your name, angel?”
She did not answer, but her blue eyes grew wider in her face, her mouth dropping open in a lovely O.
The expression made my thoughts spin straight into the gutter, but I wrangled my wayward feelings back under control with a little effort.
Everything she did turned me on, and I was grateful the thick furs that covered my lap hid the evidence.
The last thing I wanted was to scare her away again.
“Okay, angel it is. It suits you. I felt like you were watching over me before, calling me back to the land of the living. The transition has never been this…smooth.”
My mind flicked to the previous times I’d escaped the clutches of death.
The labs had been horrible; they had wrenched my body from the jaws of death and forced it back into their molds, reshaping me until I became the ultimate weapon—a weapon that had been matched against many different aliens who should have been too strong for a normal human to face.
That included the Naga here, all their warriors big, powerful.
They would joke when we faced each other on the training field, but they always slithered away humbled.
The nanobots coursing through my veins made it so.
I touched my chest again, rubbing against the triangles and squares that lay just beneath the surface.
I could feel them, and they felt… they felt as if I were supposed to control them, but I couldn’t.
It was like something blocked me from accessing their power.
The foreign Naga nanobots—they’d done too much damage.
I feared that these weird shapes beneath my skin would be the only evidence that remained of the strength the UAR had once bestowed on me.
No, not bestowed—cursed, maybe. I hadn’t asked for it, and it hadn’t been a blessing so far—not until I’d gotten to Serant.
Even then, it was debatable. I wouldn’t be in this med bay if not for the experiments the UAR had performed on me.
I hadn’t meant for my thoughts to slip like that, to get caught in the memories again.
When my angel shifted her small fingers against my wrist, it pulled me back to the present with a rough shock.
Right—med bay, Shamans, my angel, and fire in my veins—not all of it related to my sickness.
There was a soft tilt to her mouth, almost a smile but not quite.
It occurred to me that she looked sad, and that made my chest ache in new ways.
She shouldn’t look so sad; she should be smiling fully, with a cute baby in her arms or one of those pets the girls back at Haven went all gaga over.
I couldn’t help but think that maybe she looked sad because of me, because I was still hooked up to electrodes and an IV right now while these two competing types of nanobots duked it out inside me.
“I’m going to be okay,” I said to her, my voice rasping roughly in my throat.
“Last week, I was comatose; today, I’m here, talking to you, gorgeous.
I couldn’t be better.” When I smiled, she smiled back slowly, just the barest tilt of her lips.
There was a scar across her face, bisecting the ridge of her eyebrow, crossing her eye, and digging into the upper curve of her cheek with a little divot—a claw mark.
There was no mistaking it for anything else.
My brain grew hot thinking about that, but the mark looked old and well-healed.
Naga females fought, that’s what all the males at Haven said—which was why they liked the human girls so much.
Earth girls enjoyed their protection, being coddled, hugged, loved, and all that.
Naga females weren’t supposed to do any of those things, but I was certain my angel was different.
Call me stubborn. Heck, that was my middle name.
Still, I was certain that she needed me as much as I needed her right now.
“That’s better,” I agreed with her smile.
“Fucking beautiful.” A million stupid, lame pickup jokes suddenly tumbled through my mind, one after the other.
The kind of stuff I used to hear Harrington spout when we were on leave.
Somehow, it always worked too. I doubted it would work on my angel.
Besides, she deserved much better than a “Hey, did you fall from heaven?”
It should have been awkward: me lying there in bed, her sitting quietly at my side while I blabbed on.
But it was nice to compliment her, to say the things I felt, because she couldn’t understand.
She was so sweet, letting me talk while she listened, keeping me company.
Earlier, Erish had exhausted me, but sitting with her had the opposite effect. I felt stronger by the minute.
A sound interrupted the quiet in the med bay: noises from outside—voices talking loudly.
They sounded male, but I could not hear what they said.
I tried to focus my attention, canting my head for a better angle.
The voices went from low, distant murmurs to shouts so fast that my head spun and my ears rang.
It was as if I’d turned the volume dial from one to a hundred.
“Ouch, fuck! What the hell was that?” I clutched my hands over my ears, but the sound had already faded back to a barely discernible mumble.
My angel hadn’t experienced the same thing; she was sitting next to me, one arm raised as if she intended to touch my shoulder but had changed her mind.
There was no discomfort in her face, no hint that sound had just blown up for her like it had for me.
Great, so now my ears were fucked up, too.
“I’m okay. It’s better now,” I assured her when she kept looking worried.
I reached up, caught her floating hand, and boldly pressed it to the steady beat of my heart.
“See? Strong as an ox. I’ll be in fighting shape in no time.
” I really hoped so; I hated lying in bed all day.
The company of my angel helped, but I wanted to be outside again soon.
I needed some sun, a good fight, and, most of all, I really wanted to seduce my angel.
I couldn’t do that as an invalid—not when I knew she needed my protection.
“I wish you could tell me what’s going on with you.
Are you a Shaman? Why are you here? Why don’t you talk to me?
And why do you look scared?” She hid it well, but I could sense her unease anyway—not with me, but with something else.
When she tilted her head and glanced at the door, I knew it was to check for danger.
She did that often, but in a casual, practiced way.
I would say like a warrior, but there was something harried about the way she did it.
I knew I’d lost her when my doctor arrived.
Erish slithered into the med bay with precision, his yellow-and-orange scales gleaming under the crystals embedded in the ceiling.
Though blind, he pretended not to notice my angel as she fled the room.
“Your readings look much better, boy,” he said, pressing his leathery, wrinkled hands to the viewscreen.
His claws were gnarled and bent, yet still powerful.
He seemed to use his hands to read the data, though it wasn’t like braille—there had to be implants or technology involved.
I was impressed. But if they could do that, why couldn’t they fix his eyes?