Chapter 20 #2
“My mate,” Ekkire continued, as the sigils along his body began to glow with a bright golden hue.
“Who risked her life trying to free you from what would otherwise have been your tomb? My mate, who risked her life to come here and aid your people? You dare accuse her of foul play when it is you who acted without honor!?”
The silence that fell over the area was so profound I could hear the pounding of my own heart.
Feel the rapid flutter of the small sleara I held in my hands.
They stared, because Ekkire was glowing and he wasn’t even touching me.
He curled his tail through the air, drawing all eyes to the agile tip as it coiled my way.
Nudging my chin, it hooked around the back of my neck, and with a sudden pull, I lost my balance and fell. Straight into his arms.
“Jasmine is mine. To protect, to cherish, and to avenge if any harm befalls her,” he declared.
Gathering me closer, he aimed a glare first at the female, then at Ilesekh.
When he lowered his mouth and kissed me, there was no mistaking the move for anything but a claim.
It didn’t matter that naga did not kiss, or that females of their own kind would never allow such a thing. They all understood it.
Several males hissed; others made fluttering, whispering noises with their scales.
The female, the one who’d started all of this, sank down in her sandy prison.
Then she even lowered her eyes. I saw it happen just as Ekkire lifted his mouth from mine, his emerald eyes blazing.
I knew then that whatever unspoken things were still between us, worry about this matebond wasn’t one of them.
He wanted me, I wanted him, and that was good enough. We would figure out the rest.
He pulled me closer, and when he locked gazes, it was with Ilesekh, who still had not lowered his bow.
“Lower it,” the female said. “We do not need to incur the wrath of our Water Weaver trade partner, do we?” When she flicked her gaze from Ilesekh to the other females who’d gathered behind her, I saw why she’d reacted as she had.
They looked mad, but not at me. They were glaring at her.
“What just happened?” I whispered as the males began to disperse. Others began digging out the female. Most returned to the task of freeing the father and younglings, or to searching for more survivors. There were still several missing from the list.
Ekkire did not answer until he’d carried me—and, by extension, Dove and Hunter—a good distance away.
He looked furious, but I didn’t let that daunt me.
His lowered brow was a sight I was well used to seeing by now.
“What happened? You nearly died, again! You have damn fast reflexes for a human.” He’d seen that, had he?
I shifted Dove to my shoulder, nudged Hunter up onto Ekkire’s, and then grinned.
“Well, I did call for help, but nobody responded. Can’t help it if she woke up grumpy, now can I?
Hey, you really plan to keep me? I thought you didn’t want a mate…
” His mouth tightened, but I felt weirdly light, extremely happy, bubbling over with the urge to tell him everything.
He’d said so many lovely things, things I never thought I’d ever allow a man to say about me. Yet here we were.
“I’ve always wanted a mate; I just didn’t think the right one existed for me.
Now I know better.” He crushed me closer, his body winding around me in looping coils.
A hug, naga-style, and it made me feel surrounded, sheltered.
Perhaps others might say trapped, but I knew Ekkire would never trap me.
Even while making his declaration, he’d emphasized my abilities, my strength.
“Same, Ekkire,” I sighed, curling my arms around his neck to hug him back.
“I want to travel the world with you. Is that crazy?” His mouth quirked, and the scowl was replaced with something very close to a smile.
We kissed, a longer, lingering moment that wasn’t a claim but an affirmation.
With touch, we both said to the other: I want you, I see you.
I got it now, that mate bond, and the joyous look on Jolene’s face when she’d come to Haven with her mate in tow.
He nuzzled my cheek when the kiss ended naturally, the texture of his scales a delightful contrast against my softer skin.
“You are lucky the fabrics my clan males and I bring for trade are so incredibly coveted. It is what made Semirash stand down. She does not want to invoke the fury of the other females if I decide to take away their chance at trade.” Oh, so that’s why she’d called off Ilesekh?
Why she’d bowed her head in what had been a clear admission of wrongdoing, at least in my eyes.
I’d seen a few swatches of intriguing fabric in Ekkire’s backpack, but not many.
I’d never considered that Ekkire’s word could convince other Water Weaver males to take this place off their list of places to travel to.
This must have been why Ilesekh had apologized the day before, too.
This was the power Ekkire wielded, implicitly.
“You’d do that for me?” I asked, already knowing the answer, but desperate to hear him say it anyway.
“In a heartbeat, Jasmine. I know neither of us planned this, but I could not have chosen better. All I want now is to share my life with you—to travel with you at my side and show you all the wonderful places I’ve seen. We’ll do that together, if you’ll have me?”
“Of course I’ll have you!” I said, and then I pulled him back to me and kissed the living daylights out of him.
I knew people were watching as we did. I didn’t care.
Let them stare; let them know what it was like when a human accepted a naga male as her mate.
This was not a love declaration in the traditional sense, but I did recall Vera’s explanation that naga didn’t use the word love that way.
I’d teach him, when I found the courage to say it first.