Chapter 6
Jasmine
I cradled little Dove to my chest and pretended I wasn’t all flustered to discover he was still here.
What did you say to a naga stranger in the morning?
Especially after I’d stripped for him and he’d left me all confused and mad.
Had he watched or not? I still didn’t know, and it was disturbing to discover I was mildly disappointed at the thought that he hadn’t watched at all.
He was certainly watching me now, his emerald eyes locked on my face like I held all the answers in the universe.
It was intense. I’d never been looked at like that before.
“Well, uh, morning, I guess?” I said, and I slid the furs off my legs to inspect the damage now that I had more light.
It was much later than I’d planned to wake; the violet Serant sun had already risen well above the trees.
The fire was also still blazing, and there was only one answer to why that was: he’d fed it through the night.
I knew very well he didn’t need those flames to stay warm himself; he’d done that for me.
He huffed, a deep, throaty sort of noise in response to my greeting.
Then he shifted back on his coils so rapidly I thought he’d burned himself.
I shifted to my knees, my hand reaching for a knife on a belt I wasn’t wearing.
There was nothing around us that could have alarmed him, I concluded, as I quickly scanned the forest. His eyes were huge, his expression furious as he turned away. Had I… offended him?
I glanced back down, finally getting a look at my bare legs.
There were bruises and scrapes everywhere; I was a mess, but I wasn’t indecent with the fur tunic hanging down to my knees.
I was pretty sure most naga females wore less.
I only had one example to base that on, however.
Sazzie only wore a midriff-baring top, and sometimes a cloak when it was snowing.
What was his problem? Was this what had happened last night too?
Clearly, I’d completely misunderstood his intentions when he insisted I wash and undress.
Now I felt bad for judging him so harshly.
“It’s okay,” I said to him, waving my hand in what I hoped was a calming manner.
Those bright eyes had narrowed and were definitely locked on my legs, his serpentine body coiled tight and upraised, like he was poised to strike.
My skin broke out in goosebumps as I considered that.
This was the gaze of a predator, but I’d never been easy prey.
Damned if I’d let him make me feel that way after all I’d been through.
I opted for the “he’s a skittish horse, not a dangerous lion about to strike” approach, shifting the fur back over my lap and placing Dove safely behind me.
“It’s okay, thanks for the furs and the tunic, by the way…
” I made my voice soft and gentle, and my expression non-confrontational.
Eyes on his chest, not his face; his very massive, muscular green chest. He swayed on his tail, ever so slowly, as if he were torn between moving closer and moving away.
“I washed your clothes,” he snarled, and that really was a snarl, so furious and grumpy that the words flung through the air like projectiles.
It was a good thing I’d grown thick skin over the years; you had to when dealing with the jerks I had.
The statement made me flick my eyes down to the campfire and the supplies scattered around it.
My clothes… He was right. They lay drying on the grass by the fire, from socks to coat, to panties and boots.
He’d cleaned all of it. Even my self-made quiver and arrows had been freed of any mud and carefully placed next to the furs I was sitting in.
Part of me wanted to bristle with annoyance that he’d taken care of me, as if that were a slight against my own abilities.
The bigger part of me was incredibly grateful.
It would have been horrible to have to put muddy clothes back on today.
I’d have had no choice, it was spring, but spring didn’t mean warm.
I’d need pants and boots, very badly. Silent, I pulled the nearby pants toward me and fingered the dry fabric.
I’d rescued the cotton leggings from my execution as an extra layer, but I’d crafted crude leggings from leather to go over them.
Leather, I knew, got very stiff when it had been wet and allowed to dry without proper care, especially when near a heat source.
It also lost its shape when drying. Though it was tempting to think it was different with alien leather, I knew better.
I’d already worked with the stuff for months at this point, and that had included teaching Cosima to rectify her mistakes. No, this had taken him a lot of effort.
“What did you do? How?” I asked as I stroked my hand over the smooth leather of my leggings.
Soft as ever, perhaps even softer than before my mud bath yesterday, and that shouldn’t be possible.
The only noticeable change was a shift in color.
They’d gone from a dark grayish lavender to this beautiful deep red-tan, and I had no idea Serant leather could get that hue.
He couldn’t understand me, but he must have deduced what I’d said from the way my attention had gone to the clothes.
He lowered himself on his tail and moved a little closer, the tip flicking through the air and briefly yanking my eyes toward it.
Had we touched yet? I didn’t recall, but probably not.
I should do that soon and exclude him as my mate, but I was oddly hesitant to do so.
He seemed to hold himself so distant, like he didn’t want to risk touching me at all.
“I wiped the mud off with absorbent moss,” he said, pointing at the thick gray covering of alien plants on the side of a nearby tree.
“Then I worked it to stay supple and oiled it to restore its texture. It has stained the leather, but that is better than wearing leather stiff as bark, yes?” His face held stern lines, the brows ridged and sharp over his eyes, but his expression briefly softened into something very earnest.
“Thank you,” I said to him, meaning it. He must have invested hours in the task, and he’d done a marvelous job.
Even the fur on my coat was still silky and warm.
It was a small miracle, and it would make my journey back down to the crashed ship so much easier today.
Even if it was a little awkward to realize he’d washed my panties and sports bra, too.
They were lying prominently displayed on a rock by the fire, right between the two of us.
“Sssank yousss?” he said. “This means you are pleased?” My belly twisted, warmth spreading through me.
He looked immensely satisfied as he asked the question, and somehow I found that cute.
Cute that he’d asked me that, and made the attempt to speak human words when his strange naga mouth and split tongue weren’t designed to do so.
I nodded, ignoring the empty rumbling of my belly, and began gathering my clean clothes so I could shimmy into them beneath the furs.
Dove briefly tried to chew on the sleeve of my coat, then attacked the laces on my boots, but she was distracted the moment I tossed one of her twigs for her to fetch.
It was probably my imagination, but my naga companion appeared relieved that I wasn’t stripping naked in front of him again.
Noted, I’d learned my lesson not to assume it was the same here as it had been on Earth.
Once dressed, he offered me more gifts I hadn’t been expecting: warm meat he’d kept wrapped in some leaves to the side, as well as another ration bar to go with it, and some fresh dark purple leaves I didn’t recognize.
He told me to eat them, so I did, and was surprised by the flavor, similar to arugula.
Okay, so he’d cooked me breakfast, and that included a salad.
I thought these guys were strictly carnivores?
Dove certainly wasn’t interested in anything but the juicy meat, though she had to content herself with licking the grease from my fingers.
No, that wasn’t true either; the naga produced a small rodent no bigger than his thumb for her. He’d thought of everyone.
I couldn’t keep calling him the naga in my head now; he was being too nice.
“I’m Jasmine,” I said to him, tapping my chest, pleasantly warm and toasty in my dry clothes.
“What’s your name?” I pointed at his chest, tapped my own again, and repeated my name before pointing at Dove and saying her name.
“You wish to know my name, female?” he drawled.
His hands were busy, always busy, I’d begun to learn.
He’d been carving something with an obsidian stone knife—arrow shafts maybe—and he lowered those agile hands to briefly pause what he was doing.
His stare was unreadable, but then his shockingly lush mouth slowly began to tilt into something very close to a smile.
He had called me female, and normally that definitely rubbed me the wrong way, except this was Serant and all the guys called each other male and the women female.
“I am Ekkire of the Water Weavers,” he said, and he tapped his chest with his fist, the knife gleaming darkly between his fingers.
Ekkire. That name sounded vaguely familiar; maybe I’d heard it spoken by some of the hunters at Haven.
He knew them; it was not strange to think they’d talked of him.
I tried to recall if I knew anything else about him, but nothing came to mind.
He was still a stranger—just a surprisingly kind one—even if he seemed to have only one type of expression: grumpy.
Even when introducing himself, he looked angry about doing so.
Yet that smile, that almost-smile… I hadn’t imagined that.