Chapter 13 Pheromones
THIRTEEN
PHEROMONES
Darolus
I cannot find the naga. Try as I might, as far afield as I search, there is no trace of a trespasser other than those from Sabrina’s ship. And as of yesterday, they too have gone.
I have combed the streets, the collapsed buildings, the piles of broken trash, and the underground tunnels, hoping for a scent or a trail—only to find nothing unusual except ship exhaust in the wind and…
Clouds in the sky…
I can barely remember the last time there were clouds in the sky.
What I do recall are the sheets of water that eventually fell from them, flooding much of the forest and killing many.
It was a dark time where much was lost and territories were shifted.
The orbs that once flew through the skies flew no longer.
After the rain stopped and the clouds vanished, a period of brutality followed.
The land-dwelling clans that once ruled were taken out by those who thrived in the water.
I do not know what these new clouds will bring. But they worry me.
As for the naga who hurt Sabrina, I have even searched outside the city and into the plain, seeking the smallest clue, hint, trace, anything that would lead me to him, to no avail.
There are only pig and rodent prints, and the occasional tracks from a pack of wolves.
If another naga has been near my territory, he is long gone now, and has hidden his path well.
Or… something or someone else attacked her.
Pausing outside the main tunnel into my nest, I touch my fingers to my lips. I have not returned since giving Sabrina the paper and bag, though I fear I am not yet ready to go back down and face her. I do not know what is going on with her, but whatever it is, it is affecting me as well.
I have yet to figure out why she placed her mouth on mine yesterday. Or why she has started giving off a delicious smell. I am not used to this newfound awareness of another, and…
I scrape my claw over my lips, replacing the soft pad of my fingers with sharp sensation.
I do not understand why I am suddenly driven to close the distance between us and return to her. Before, I came back to make sure she was alive and had not escaped, and now…
I rub my hand over my mouth, running it over in my head. This new urge…
I want to see her. To… watch her.
Feeling my tail coil and strain with tension, I look down at my body. Rigid with stress—stress from a failed hunt, from what is happening in the skies, from what is going on with the female in my nest—my muscles ache. I need rest; I need to ensure she is safe.
I scratch my fingers over my lips once more, then head down into the tunnel despite my misgivings.
As I near my nest, a hint of her wafts up at me: a subtle, barely-there trace of her smell.
Not the heady one from yesterday but her smell all the same, sweet and strange.
Hesitating again, I groan and drop my hand to my front, where the tension is the worst. My slit parts as my fingers slip over the taut tendons that usually hold it shut.
It has been like this since yesterday, threatening to split open every time I think of her.
Pressing my hand against the bulge forming, I push it back inside me until my slit closes around it once more.
I groan again and it transforms into a frustrated hiss.
Needing to see her, I climb quickly through the rest of the tunnel until I am at the boulders and shoving them away, unwilling to waste another second. I make noise on purpose, so I do not startle her when I arrive. I scare enough things as it is, I do not need to scare her as well.
Sabrina is standing in front of her smaller nest, already waiting for me, by the time I slide into the room.
Her feet are bare again today, rarely hidden within her armor anymore.
Her long black hair is brushed out and swept to the sides, framing her face—which is open like her feet, devoid of black and red coloring.
Having never seen her without her painted mask, at least not in the light, I can’t help but linger over her features.
I slip to her, beckoned by her green eyes for a closer look.
They widen at my approach. “Darolus?”
Her skin is pale except for a heightened pink hue that has spread across her cheeks, beneath eyes hooded at half-mast. She is lovelier than anything I have ever seen. And her scent… her… delicious… scent…
A groan escapes me as I breathe more of it in. Thick and heavy, her heady smell fills my nose—my body.
Her eyes flick to my lips, then down my chest and lower, hesitating on the unrelenting bulge barely kept in check behind my slit. Her lips part and her tongue slips out to dampen them.
“Darolus…” she whispers. “What’s happening? I can’t… I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Part of me knows, though I have kept the suspicions at bay thus far, deep beneath a wall of denial. It is not possible. She is not my kind.
Unable to tear my eyes away, I clench my hands lest I reach for her. This is madness. Do I know anything at all? Until the ships and her appearance, I thought humans were forever gone. Yet now… Perhaps Sabrina is for me as a female naga might have been.
I never thought such a thing could come to be.
“We are…” I let the words die, fearful of what they mean. Fearful of the shortness of my breath, the pressure inside.
“No, I mean, what’s happening there?” she breathes, staring at my slit so intensely I am taken aback.
Unwilling to explain, I shake my head. Briefly her gaze shifts up to mine, then drops back down as if pulled by some invisible force, her own breathing growing more labored as she waits for me to muster an answer.
“What is inside is hardening. It is heavy,” I manage to say roughly. “And getting heavier, pushing out.”
Once more her eyes leap to mine, and I am struck by how beautiful they are without the black outlining them.
They were pretty before, but now it is like I can see inside her, right down to her essence.
Glimmering green depths, marbled by soft shadows cast from the faint rays of the sun. I am mesmerized.
“You mean your… your…” she trails off, swallowing.
After a moment, she closes her eyes and inhales.
Leaning in slightly, she shudders all over with her next exhalation.
I groan as I lose the battle against touching her and curl my hands over her slim shoulders.
I tell myself it is to stop her from coming any closer. She is so fragile. We cannot…
“I need… I need…” she murmurs, her voice fading again as she opens her eyes. She shuffles nearer—I am too weak to resist—until her brow almost rests upon my sternum, her attention unmoving from the aching slit at my middle.
Of their own accord, my hips thrust outward, toward her, and my hands squeeze her shoulders, liking the feel of her under them, the warmth of her proximity.
She reaches for me. “Darolus, may I?”
I barely have time to answer before her hands land on my stomach.
“Yessss,” I hiss as she places them there softly, spreading her fingers wide over my skin and scales.
My body goes rigid in response to her touch, my tail coiling up in readiness for a fight.
This is the first time someone has set their hands on me without intending harm…
Unless that has been her plan all along, to lull me with her charm and use her knife on me.
I glance at her hips and find the sheaths empty. A thrill shoots through me and, with a tremulous breath, I gently place one of my hands over hers, keeping the other firm on her shoulder.
Her fingers whisper over me, sending shivers across my flesh like ripples on the surface of water, igniting something I have never felt before. Many things. Need. Want. Regret? Envy. Envy toward everyone who has felt this before when I was cursed to be alone.
A deep, unbidden imperative to touch, have, and possess Sabrina in every way possible hits me all at once. It requires all of my willpower to slowly lift my hand off hers and move it back to her shoulder. “We cannot do this.”
She gazes up at me through the screen of her lashes. “I’m only touching you, feeling you. Maybe I can help? It—this looks painful. Am I turning you on?” She tilts her head and considers me. “Is that why it smells good? Why you smell good?”
“Yes, female. And it is dangeroussss.”
The side of her lips tease upward. “Is it because I’m too big for you?”
I squint down at her. “You are too small.”
“I know, big guy. That’s the joke.”
She takes a half-step closer to me, and I slide my grip down to her arms, intending to hold her off.
Only I fail to do so—if anything, my traitorous hands help ease her across the distance between us.
“You smell good,” she says, fully resting her brow on my chest. “I hated your scent before, and now…” Her body quivers anew, making mine follow suit.
Craning her neck, she looks up at me. “I can’t get enough of it. It’s like I need it to breathe.”
I force myself to lean back and catch her eyes.
“It does not matter how we smell to each other. We are different beings—it cannot happen. And even if it could, I would hurt you for trying. I am large even for my kind, so large I was once hunted because of it. I am… much bigger than yours. What if I lose control?”
Watching her flesh pinken further, the color sweeping down her neck and bare arms, does no good for the pressure in my middle. An annoyed growl rips from my throat as I continue to fight a battle I don’t even know if I want to win: every instinct and desires are at war with my common sense.
Sabrina taps her fingers against my stomach. “Darolus, I’m not saying we should have sex… I’m saying we should make each other feel better with some heavy petting.”
Petting? “You want to be… petted?”
I have thought of her as a pet; it has sometimes felt like I’m keeping one. But I never considered if she wanted that too. Does she?