Chapter 4 #2
“Shame on all of you!” I said, raising myself a little taller.
I opened my arms out at my sides. “None of you are wearing mourning sashes or colors. None of you shed your adornments in respect for the Queen’s passing!
Are you all so hungry for the throne that you forgot how to pay your respects?
” A hush settled over the females; even the pair fighting slowed down to stare at me.
That silence was only interrupted by a flock of birds taking off behind me, cawing loudly as they fluttered into the sky in a panicked disarray that quickly fell into formation.
One female in the back raised her hands to her neck as if she were going to shed her strands of gold on the spot; the others were frozen in place.
Evarah curled her lip first, but it was Astrexa—always my biggest opponent—who actually hissed in anger.
She did not speak up, though; she knew her place in the recently determined pecking order, and it wasn’t at the top.
I took at least a little satisfaction from that, but it could not outweigh the dread that filled me.
This was going to be a fight no matter what I said. I hated it.
“I am not done mourning,” I said, and I swept my hand over my bare chest, covered only by a plain leather bandeau.
I’d shed all the shiny gold things I’d worn as much as armor as because I liked them.
Doing so had made me feel lighter, more myself than I had in years.
It had nothing to do with mourning the death of the mother I hated and had killed myself.
But it was the custom to forgo adornments for at least a week after the death of a Queen; none of them had done so.
“And I will not be ascending the throne. You lot can fight for the title. I am done, and I am leaving Thunder Rock.” My declaration seemed to evoke silence—not just from the eager, fight-ready females, but from the woods around me.
A silence that felt deadly, ominous. Turning my back on Evarah was a dangerous risk, but it was the only move I could make to drive home my point: dismiss them, leave, and never look back.
It was hard to suppress the instinct to twitch my scales with unease, and harder still to keep moving when I had exposed myself so thoroughly to the most dangerous challenger of them all.
With a shriek of outrage, Evarah charged after me.
She was younger than some of the others: hot-tempered and very strong.
She was only a handful of summers younger than I and very eager to prove herself.
As she flung herself into my path, she had enough grace not to attack my exposed back, but she had her claws out, and her fangs gleamed with a hint of venom.
“No! We must defeat you for our claims to be legitimate! You cannot escape this, coward!”
It was a dizzying reminder of the past, of a fight I’d tried to avoid long ago.
It hadn’t worked then, and, like I’d already known, it wouldn’t work now.
“Coward?” I said, hissing through my teeth in what was supposed to be mockery but really masked my fear.
They were going to kill me; Evarah was going to kill me for this.
She was insulted that I refused her challenge.
“No, just disinterested. Go on, fight Astrexa or Scraikee; they want it. Not me, I’m not the Queen, I will never be the Queen.
Now get out of my way!” I slashed my claws at her belly, catching her by surprise, and the scent of her blood curled into the air.
Her attempt to dodge had come too late, but she followed through on the motion anyway, coiling aside.
I took full advantage, rushing past her to escape, my heart pounding in my chest and fear coating my tongue with a bitter taste.
Evarah was not the only one who roared with anger, and, as I passed Khawla, I could see his expression shift from confusion to worry.
So he cared, at least a little. And now he was going to be the witness to my demise.
I felt the brush of air against my back as Evarah came after me, and then the world turned on its head.
Something struck me on the shoulder with enough force to send me tumbling to the ground and rolling across the moss.
I came up ready for a fight, my claws out in front of my chest, but then floundered at the sight that met my eyes.
Evarah was on her back, pinned to the ground, and a figure towered over her.
It took me a long moment to figure out what I was seeing, because I had never seen him standing upright before: Reid, with the heel of his bare foot pinning Evarah’s sharp chin horn against her vulnerable neck.
He stood over her, arms out at his sides, muscles straining along his back, chest heaving, and his black hair a wild, tumbled mess.
“Stayawayfromher!” he roared, his words slurring together, undecipherable but crystal-clear nonetheless.
I knew their meaning without touching him.
He looked like the brightest, strongest, most wonderful being I’d ever seen.
So strong, so wild, and here to protect me.
ME. Tears welled up, which I fought to squash, but my chest felt tight and warm, struggling to come to terms with what I was seeing.
Then horror followed. No, Reid was sick; he couldn’t be here!
Once Evarah twisted from that chokehold, she was going to kill him!
He was a big male for a human, his arms roped with muscle, his abdomen ridged, his pectorals thick slabs.
But how could he possibly stand against half a dozen enraged Naga females?
Evarah howled in outrage beneath his foot, her claws curling around his ankle and digging into his skin.
I saw how blood welled at several points, running in rivulets down his tanned skin.
She was bucking and straining, her arms bulging as she tried to wrest him off her, but he wasn’t moving.
It didn’t even look like he’d noticed the bite of her claws or the way she tried to twist his leg.
Was there power in those appendages I did not know about? Was it that different from a tail?
Reid planted his fists on his hips, accentuating the narrowness of his waist compared to his massive shoulders.
He spoke, but nobody could understand what he was saying.
His words resounded in a dark, booming voice that sent a tingle through my body in all the right places.
That was power—the way he spoke—and it was intimidating.
The handful of Naga females gathered in the clearing stared at him, motionless, and I realized they were uncertain how to proceed.
Khawla had been joined by two more Thunder Rock males, who watched the scene unfold from beneath the trees but did not interfere.
Rising, I smoothed my hands over my hips and straightened my belt of pouches.
I didn’t want to approach the pinned Evarah, certain that, if I got too close, she’d try to strike at me rather than Reid, which was surprisingly ineffective.
The temptation to slip the tip of my tail against Reid’s skin so I could understand what he said was too great.
Staying out of Evarah’s range was impossible; her tail was as long as mine, but her claws were the real danger.
She did not pay me any attention when I stayed far behind Reid and only used my tail to make contact with the edge of his foot, the one planted solidly on the moss next to Evarah’s shoulder.
“There are going to be no challenges,” Reid said loudly, his head swiveling around the clearing so he could pin each of the other Naga females with a dark-eyed glare.
“Not unless you want to go through me first,” he warned.
“I’d like that very much. I’ve been itching for a good fight.
Try me; I fucking dare you.” He was crazy.
That was the only explanation. He might have caught Evarah by surprise, but the others weren’t going to be as easy to defeat.
“What does that mongrel want?” one of the remaining females snarled, daring to be bolder when Reid didn’t seem to make any further moves.
We were all familiar with posturing and loudly talking to intimidate, so they might have felt like they were getting back on somewhat familiar ground.
In any case, they were all looking at me as if I had the answers, and I wasn’t sure if I should reveal that I knew what he’d said.
It was Khawla’s mate, and she flicked her long, dark blue hair over her shoulder and shimmied a little closer, disdain on her face.
“Well? You’re touching him, so I assume you understand him.
That’s how it works, right? Mates understand each other.
Figures you’d get matched with a filthy mongrel like this.
” To underscore her words, she flicked out her clawed fingers and indicated Reid.
Reid proved to have understood everything Kusha had said, courtesy of the technology that he and the Elder Shamans had implanted in their brains.
It could just as easily mean nothing, but the others wouldn’t understand that—and they were right.
Kusha’s disgust over such a match made fury simmer in my belly and it made me reckless.
When Reid shifted his eyes from Kusha to me in a quick glance, I knew he was trying to see in my eyes whether what she’d said was true.
Then, he jabbed a finger at the female and growled, “Sure, call me mongrel, call me names—I don’t care.
But you do not talk to Sazzie with that tone.
Try again, and I’ll wipe that smirk right off your damn face. Got it?”
The way his fists curled, the way his chest seemed to swell with power, the geometrical markings beneath his skin shifting and warping—I knew he spoke the truth.
He was ready to give Kusha the fight of her life if she didn’t change her tune.
Ah, stars, why did that make me feel so good inside?
Why did that make me feel like I was worthy and like I was safe?
I moved a little closer to Reid—not quite at his side, but slightly behind him and still out of reach of Evarah’s claws.
“There are not going to be any challenges,” I said carefully, my tone as calm and neutral as I could make it.
If I could, I wanted to keep Reid in the dark about my ability to understand him.
If he knew, I had a feeling he would be relentless in pursuing the mate bond, and I couldn’t shackle him to a female like me: a killer, a brawler without a single soft edge, tainted by the past. I was not his pretty ‘angel,’ and I was not tender or beautiful.
The thought that he’d be disappointed when he discovered those truths was killing me.
“I am standing down. I do not wish for the throne. You will leave right this instant.” When that made Kusha and Astrexa hiss with displeasure, I gestured at Reid. “Do you want to test him?” On cue, he leaned forward and snapped a hand toward Kusha, and, in reflex, she startled back.
“Hide behind your mate, coward!” Astrexa snarled as she pushed past the female she’d been fighting when I arrived.
The action made Scraikee hiss and snap her teeth, but she must have been the loser of the fight, for she did not attack Astrexa over the slight.
“Nothing has changed, has it? Are you hiding an injured Ayala in the bushes somewhere? Is your brother going to come to your aid? Zathar is banished; he can’t help you now.
” She tapped a claw against her pouty bottom lip when I did not rise to any of her bait.
The others did not silence her, so she grew bolder.
“You might have fooled some of us over the past few years, but I’ve always seen the true you!
You did not deserve the title of princess, and you do not deserve to be Queen! ”
With a final, furious snarl, she leaped forward, hands outstretched.
It was clear she meant to come around Reid and straight for me.
As fast as she was, she should have made it.
Reid was faster. He collided with her with a furious shout, curse words spilling from his lips, though I could no longer understand them.
They tangled as they fought, Astrexa coiling around him and clawing at his back.
Khawla and his males lowered their spears, hissing, but they did not know what to do.
Then Evarah rose in furious humiliation at my side, and I was too late to see that threat, my eyes locked with the supposedly sick, fragile human male who was somehow standing his ground—and more than that, he was gaining, winning.