Chapter 8 Pet
EIGHT
PET
Darolus
The human struggles against me, nearly knocking the tube of ointment from my hand. “Do not move,” I order, trying to turn her over. But the more I try, the more she yells and fights to sit upright and scurry away. “I have something for your flesh,” I growl. “Be still and let me untie your arms.”
As much as I want to help her—as much as I do not like the sight of her bleeding wrists or the sallow pallor of her eyes, or the sound of her belly yawning in hunger—she is not making it simple. Not in this, nor in what came before. I cannot forget what she said.
She thinks I might be afraid of being… taken.
Taken? By whom? By humans? For what reason I cannot fathom. Are they searching for someone or something like me in particular… or are they searching for…
It only proves what I already know to be true. I cannot let her leave and tell others about my whereabouts. I do not need her kind or mine coming after me and discovering my treasure.
So she is to stay here… as my captive…
Catching up with the direction of my thoughts, I choose to dispel them from my mind completely rather than let them play out.
“Let me go! Get off me!” she shouts.
Frustrated with her fighting, I pick her up entirely, flip her over, and rip off her binds, then spin her to face me again right after.
I pin her hands above her head with one of my own, and she kicks her armored feet at my tail, but they bounce off, the sharp edges barely nicking my scales.
“You are going to get yourself further hurt, female. Stop moving.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” she screeches and kicks harder, the chains around her neck jangling with her twisting struggles.
Some get caught in her tangled hair, and as I’m about to chastise her again, she abruptly sighs and stops, her body melting into the ground.
“It’s no use,” she grumbles. “I’m not going anywhere. ”
“No. You are not,” I agree.
Huffing, her pale green eyes flick to mine and I am disturbed both by how alluring they are and how quickly she went from violent to submissive.
But her eyes… They are unlike any eyes I have ever seen.
Framed in thick black smudge, the dark color emphasizes the lighter green irises.
They are bright and disarming, expressive yet hard to read.
Just like her struggle against me, her emotions seem erratic.
I think I liked her better unconscious.
But it has been a long time since I last looked into the eyes of another. Too long.
“You say you have something for my skin?” She tilts her chin at the hand gripping the tube to her side.
Shifting off of her, I release her hands and give her the ointment. “It is from a… hosssspital,” the word tastes strange saying aloud, “deep in the city.” I indicate the orb on the ground, which has rolled closer to the wall. “It tells me things I ask.”
“A hospital. Like where people go to get better?” She sits up and looks down at the tube in her hand, turning it over and reading the side.
The short hair in the front of her face falls forward, hiding her eyes from me.
Wondering why she cuts her hair so short in the front but leaves the rest of it long, I do not realize I am hovering over her until she is asking me to move back.
“I can’t breathe with you so close to me… You smell terrible.”
I rear back, affronted by her words, lifting my hands and sniffing them.
Discovering nothing untoward, I smell other parts of me and only discover a hint of musk and sweat.
There’s no rotting meat, no diseased flesh, no filth.
Scenting the air next distracts me, and I do not realize she is slinking closer to the tunnel exit until she is already halfway to it.
I drop my tail between her and it with a thump, grunting with annoyance.
She lifts her hands and walks back over to her spot on the hide.
Sitting down, she settles with a small flourish, curling her legs under her and bringing in her thick footwear under her bottom.
More disheveled than yesterday—probably due to my dunking her own smelly hair in the water—she is still nice to look at.
Like a pet…
I sniff my hands one more time, then drop them, content with watching her squeeze out the contents of the tube and gingerly rub it over the chapped red skin of her wrists.
It’s so soft and vulnerable, bleeding just from rope.
I had no idea tying up a human could hurt them.
A knot gets stuck in my throat when she winces, and I lean in to pet her hair, hoping to offer her comfort.
She freezes and looks up at me, her eyes landing on my hand and going wide. I pause and draw back at her alarmed expression.
Scooting back warily, she leans away and continues applying the cream, glancing up at me every couple of seconds.
“I’d rather you not touch me,” she mutters after putting the cap back on the tube. “I’m not good with unwanted touch, whether you mean to help me or not. I also don’t like being kept in places against my will. I will fight this.” She twirls her finger, indicating the space around us.
“Yes, the place was called a hospital where I found it,” I respond, answering her earlier question, ignoring her warning. Whether or not she fights is unimportant. She will not win. “Do your wrists feel better?”
She lifts her wrists and frowns at them. “Not really, but they don’t feel worse. We have hospitals on our ships, and they also carry lifesaving supplies. I’m glad some things haven’t changed. If this stuff has nanos in it, it’ll work. We’ll see.”
“Hmm,” I hum in understanding, aware that my offering may not help. I am not good at keeping a pet. I never thought I would be. And recent events prove I do not have the supplies to do so on hand.
But it is the medicine that has failed, not me. I will procure whatever she needs. I can always return to the hospital and scavenge for something else that might help tomorrow. It may take me most of the day… “Some things have not changed,” I repeat her words.
She looks at me sharply, then away again.
Coiling my tail around and under me, I lounge forward onto it, refusing to relinquish the satisfaction of merely watching her.
She is interesting, and unlike anything else—not even the females—I have known.
“I will not touch you unless necessary, human, but I will do what I must to keep you from leaving. Any rebellion on your part will result in my skin upon yours and your potential harm.”
“I understand,” she grumbles. “Can I get some privacy? I need a few minutes to myself.”
My eyes narrow. “Privacy?”
“Some place I can be alone for a bit. For bodily reasons?”
I scan her form, wondering what reasons she means, but then recall there are functions of my own body I do not want others to see…
“I will leave and give you this privacy. But first you must answer my question.”
She squints at me. “What?”
“What did you mean by taken? Who was taken, and why should I be afraid?”
Her brow furrows then relaxes as she takes in my question.
“First, that’s two questions. Second, and as for being taken, I’m not entirely sure…
” Her eyes dart around the room before returning to me.
“I saw one of you on the ship I was on… They said it escaped and was attacking people… At least there were a lot of rumors going around. But I don’t think you should be afraid. ”
“Why?” I eye her suspiciously.
She waves her hand at me. “I mean, look at you. No one’s going to try and take you anywhere, not unless they’re stupid. Well…” She laughs. “Not that most humans aren’t. Stupid.”
“They would be sssstupid,” I repeat her unfamiliar word, “if they tried. I will not be taken anywhere. Why was the other naga on your ship?”
Why would a naga possibly need or want to be on a human skycraft? They are nothing like the open land, or even the forest, rather metal clusters in the sky.
“I don’t know. I saw him, nothing else. He was smaller than you.”
“They all are.”
“All of them?” she asks, her gaze roaming over my tail.
Flexing the muscles in my tail, I show off my strength. “Yes.”
She seems to sigh to herself. “I guess I got lucky running into the biggest guy. Like usual, Sabrina.”
“What happened to the naga who was taken?” I ask, returning to the subject, needing to know more.
She shakes her head, her brow furrowing again when she looks back at my face. “I don’t know. We were both running to the port and… I lost sight of him. I’m sorry.”
I hiss and wave her off. “Do you know what they wanted with him?”
She shakes her head a second time. “No. I don’t know anything except that he was gray, and his tail had a unique pattern to it.”
Gray? With patterns? The naga could be from any number of clans.
“And you are sure it was a he?”
“Yes… Why?”
“I am merely curious,” I lie.
What a naga was doing among humans up and up in the sky, I may never know, but if I stay out of sight or range of the skycrafts, I should be safe. The female is right. It would be unfortunate to try and take me… Or anything that I guard.
“So, about that privacy, do you have a place to, umm… use the toilet? Bathroom?”
I tilt my head, noticing her bouncing feet for the first time. “There is nothing like that here.”
“I’m just going to go back in the farthest tunnel by the rocks and water then, if that’s all right?”
Go? “Do what you will.”
“I…” Her voice lowers. “Ugh, okay… Hey, do you have a name?”
It has been a long time since I thought about my moniker. Once, it was known across the forest, now it is only a memory of mine. “Darolussss,” I hiss.
“Darolus,” she echoes, then points to her chest. “Mine’s Sabrina.”
“Ssssabrina,” I test her name out, my hiss prolonging it.
She chuckles. “Yeah, close enough. You can leave now.”
Uncoiling, I head for the tunnel. I do not know the functions of this female, but I am learning. If I am to keep her here, I will need to know everything there is to know about her. That means I will have to listen to her, even if she might be lying, though I must be extra cautious because of that.
Because I do not trust her, nor will I ever.
Knowing her eyes are on my back as I slide into the tunnel, I move to the end quickly, rising and lifting my upper body out of the hole in the ceiling. Climbing out and pulling my tail through, I locate a nearby large stone on the floor and block the hole.
Peering through the crumbling cracks of the building, I hear the distant, thunderous sounds of skycrafts, far out of sight.
There are more than ever before…
And now I know what’s on them and what they might be after.
I do not know what this means for me and what I protect, but I know I will die to protect it, even from small human females like Sabrina. My new pet. A feisty, erratic one I must learn to take care of.
Curing my tail under me once more, I lie down and wait.