Chapter 21 #2
“Ilesekh!” I called out, tilting my head up to look at the ridge where the Sun Fang hunter still paced.
“He’s all right—your son. Jasmine saved him.
” I wasn’t sure how she’d done it; everything had gone so fast, it had been impossible to see.
She must have caught the small boy just as he began falling, and somehow managed to direct their tumble over the ledge into this overhang.
The only place they would have been safe from all the falling rock and dirt.
The expression on Ilesekh’s dramatically marked face must have looked identical to the one on mine when I heard Jasmine’s voice.
The relief I saw there was so profound that my heart went out to the male, and I didn’t even like him.
“Mess?” he asked, so breathlessly that it was clear he could scarcely believe the news.
“He’s uninjured but very weak, at least, I think so.
I don’t see any obvious wounds.” Jasmine supplied more details, but I only had eyes for the way she held the small naga boy, and the way he clung to her, huge eyes in his tiny face.
Was that what it would look like when she held our son in her arms?
Why did that make my heart ache with a longing I’d never felt before?
“Ish there?” she asked, calmer than I was, it seemed.
I still couldn’t get myself to do anything but stare, clinging to that rope, unable to find solid ground to stand on.
She directed me on what to do, calm as can be.
“Ask him if I can give him small sips of water and offer him the ration bar in my pocket, okay? Then you need to toss me a spare rope so I can make a bridge to you.”
“What is she saying? Is he breathing?” Ilesekh was waking from his daze and began making demands. As much as I wanted to linger in my own relief—and the strange discovery I’d just made about wanting children—only one thing mattered: get my mate and the youngling to safety.
It was a flurry of activity, much of it guided by Jasmine’s calm voice as she relayed orders to me.
Hunter did not get it when Jasmine called for them to fetch, but Dove was quick to retrieve the rope from my hand.
The weight was too much for her to carry alone, but even if Hunter did not understand “fetch,” he understood “help Dove.” Just as helping Jasmine was my reason for being, so helping the white sleara was for Hunter.
She cradled the boy with one arm, then tied her end of the rope around a solid root beneath the ledge.
Her “bridge” allowed her to shuffle along it so she could reach me.
Once she came in sight of those atop the ridge, shouts went up.
The boy she held did not stir, but he had his small arms clutched around her neck so tightly she was at risk of choking.
Not only had most of the able-bodied Sun Fang hunters gathered to watch, and to hold back Ilesekh, who might otherwise have hurled himself over the edge without a rope to get to his son.
So had most of the female survivors and younglings, and any of the wounded capable of moving.
“Go, bring him up,” she told me when she reached me.
Her hand patted my side, then curled around the rope I hung from.
“I can make the climb alone. Bring him to Ish.” No, I wanted to tell her.
No, I was not climbing up without her. I was not leaving her on this tricky slope alone.
She was so determined to save a boy who was not her own, from a species so different from her, and from a clan determined to hate her.
Hanging with only one hand from the rope I clung to, she held the boy cradled against her with the other.
He’d even coiled his short tail around her waist, squeezing tightly.
“Let go, sweetie,” she crooned, the way she also crooned at the sleara.
It always made them melt for her, stars, it made me want to melt at her feet.
The boy did the same, relaxing in her grip, trusting her when she spoke with such human sweetness.
The way no naga female could ever sound, not even to her still-nursing baby.
“She’ll be right behind us, Mess,” I told him, a lump in my throat I could not swallow.
“Come to me, and I’ll take you to your father.
” The promise of his dad made the lethargic child release his grip slowly.
He was so light I barely felt his small weight as I lifted him against my chest. Only when I had him safely cradled in my left arm did I realize a far bigger problem.
I needed both hands to climb back up, but the boy was too weak to cling to me unassisted like he normally might.
“Tell them to pull you up. I’ll be secure on this rope,” Jasmine said, reading my thoughts.
Her confident gaze met mine, telling me without words that she fully believed she was secure.
No fear, just plain confidence in her abilities.
I could believe in that; I’d seen her climb a rope before, after all.
Not just climb it, but perform a rescue midway.
My eyes flicked to Dove, who circled us on outstretched wings with encouraging little chirps.
“Pull us up,” I called out. “I am bringing the boy up.” Several uneasy glances were shared above us, not because they worried about pulling my weight with that rope.
There were many of them; it wouldn’t be an issue.
No, I knew what they were thinking: leave the female behind?
Any naga female would have demanded her right to be rescued first. Whether this was practical or not, the males were used to accommodating those demands.
They had probably already considered options and dispatched someone to get more rope.
“Do it!” Jasmine shouted, flinging one hand briefly up to point.
“Go!” Even though they could not understand what she said, the command in her tone was obvious.
The males leaped into action, Ilesekh the first to reach for the rope and start hauling.
My mate brushed her free hand over my hip, then along my tail as I was pulled higher.
“I’ll see you shortly, Ekkire. Don’t worry.
” It was odd, but I didn’t, though I knew I was leaving her in a situation most would consider precarious.
Once they hauled the boy and me over the edge, many hands dragged us to safety.
The child was quickly reunited with his father, but I only spared a short look at their relieved smiles.
Ilesekh had come across as a stubborn, hard-edged male, but he was a doting, worried father.
He rushed his son to Ishmakah to be checked, his hands petting and stroking as if he could not stop assuring himself the boy was safe.
They were waiting for me with the rope, fully expecting me to go back down to retrieve Jasmine.
I’d never forget the utter confusion on Scai’s face when I took the offered rope and lowered it back down to Jasmine without comment.
The confusion mounted among the males when I peered over the edge and called to her that it was secure.
“Are you not…” Srayhi began to ask, but then they discovered Jasmine was already moving.
Last time, I had only gotten a very short glance at how she did it; this time, I had the full view.
Her speed in daylight was also nothing short of astonishing.
A fifty-foot-long climb took her barely a handful of seconds, the rope twisting in a quick, sinuous line through her feet.
Her body bent and expanded as she alternated between a secure grip with her feet and her hands, hauling herself rapidly higher.
She reached the top, barely winded, and allowed me to pick her up with my tail, plucking her from the rope to set her back on her feet on solid ground.
“Uh, is everything okay?” she asked. “Why are they staring?” I did not answer, but pulled her into my arms, bent her back, and claimed her mouth.
A feeling mastered me I had no words for.
It encompassed many things: how much I cared for her, how much she owned me, heart and soul.
Pride for her and her strength, the size of her tender heart.
Then a thought struck me, a thing I had heard males and females alike say to one another in Haven. Words that had puzzled me then, but I understood now. “By all the sacred streams and the stars, I love you, Jasmine.”
Her startled eyes met mine, her head pulling back though I did not let her get far.
My heart felt so large inside my chest; I could not stand the thought of letting her go, even a little.
I had only ever seen my Jasmine tough and fierce, or full of passion and pleasure.
I had seen her weak with illness and pain, and recognized the strength it took to keep going the way she did.
She had exposed something very tender about her past, and cried the way humans cried, but that too took strength.
Today, in this moment, I saw her tears, and they came from a soft place. These were different.
Alarm flashed through me but was quickly silenced. Her mouth tilted in a smile as she sighed. “You said it first! You beat me to it—wow, Ekkire. I love you too, you know that? You’ve convinced me these mate bonds are real, and they pick right. So very right…”