My Naga companion took one look at me as we stepped into the cold, faintly violet-hued world of snow and ice. Heswore, and then he was tossing down his pack and shrugging out of his tunic. It was over my head before I could so much as begin to form a coherent sentence. He also tied a scrap of fur over my head in an improvised cap and sternly warned me, twice, to tell him if I was getting ‘dangerously cold’ again. Only then did we set out on our journey to a distant mountain range where the Shaman supposedly lived.
I tried to keep up with his sinuous grace—I really did—but without his clothing on, he wasn’t just faster than I was; he was hard to see. It was like his odd, matte scales took on whatever was next to them and justblended. Perhaps that was because everything outside was painted by a violet sun, now watery and thin, veiled by pale clouds. Be it soft gray, purple, or vaguely blue, his scales matched it all, and everything outside matched him.
The snow came up to my knees, but the leather and fur around my feet repelled the water. I slogged through, trying to pick out any trace Khawla had left, but there wasn’t one. I’d follow his voice or get startled when he suddenly appeared next to me, urging me on. I kept my eyes mostly on the distant mountains for direction, because I was certain my Naga protector kept slipping away to scout ahead.
It was obvious I wasn’t moving fast enough for him, even though sweat was beginning to slick down my spine from the workout. My thighs burned, too, not used to this much resistance when walking. We were going uphill, then downhill, through bare woods—sometimes thick and dense, and sometimes open and exposed. The mountains did not appear to be getting any closer, and each time I looked over my shoulder, the tracks I’d made seemed like a great scar in the snow, a deep furrow drawn by a clumsy, left-footed idiot.
When Khawla abruptly appeared next to me just as I’d circled a big boulder in my path, I nearly fell over from surprise. I wobbled, and would have gone face-first into the freezing snow if not for his hand reaching out to catch me by the arm. Immediately, a golden glow began to spill from thesavage slashes across his chest and down the front of his tail. The warm light was tempting and pretty, enticing me to stumble closer and curl into his heat.
“We must go faster,” he said, and that was all the warning I got. Lifting me into his arms before I’d even had a chance to parse what he’d said, I collided with that pretty, glowing chest I’d just fantasized about. Through my layers, I didn’t feel his warmth right away, but the cold, cutting wind vanished, and that made all the difference.
“Okay,” I told him, too tired to protest. I was used to being on my feet all day long, but this was different. I could not deny that my body was taxed far beyond its normal limits, thanks to the sex, sure, but especially the stress and the cold from yesterday. So I threw my arms around his neck and clung to him, letting him carry me over the thick snow and watching as his tail left not so much as a hint of our passing.
“I’d be faster if I had snowshoes, you know,” I added, even though the thought of slogging through the snow some more was daunting. I’d never tried to use snowshoes either, and I doubted it was as easy as it looked.
“Shoes of snow?” Khawla asked, utterly baffled. His amethyst gaze swept down to the snow, then along my fur-wrapped legs to the improvised leather shoes he’d tied around my feet. “How would you make shoes out of snow?” he added, tail flicking in the air before curling around some of the powdery stuff in an attempt to shape it. I giggled, realizing what the word sounded like, and muffled the sound by clasping my hand over my mouth.
“Not shoes made of snow, but shoes to help walk in the snow. Like big circles you tie underneath, with netting that helps redistribute the weight. It would let me walk more on top of it, the way you do, rather than sink deep.” I flapped my hands about as I tried to explain, but I doubted I’d done a good job. The truth was, I’d probably not even explained it right. What the hell did I know about snow anyway? I camefrom Arizona—seeing snow on Serant was the first time I’d ever seen it for real at all. Jasmine would have known, but she wasn’t here.
“Hmm,” Khawla responded, his one eye flicking dubiously toward my feet again. “And this would make you faster?” His entire tone dripped with disbelief, and I couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t even sure if it would, just that I knew snowshoes were a thing, and vaguely what they looked like.
“Why do we need to travel fast, anyway?” The humans on the sleep ship are in stasis, they’re not going anywhere…” I’d thought about that yesterday, when I’d given in to Khawla and his seductive body and the heat that had filled me for him. To them, a few days or a few weeks would not make a difference, they were asleep, unaware of the passage of time. I needed to find Nala and figure out what happened to Jasmine, but whether that was tomorrow or in a few days, it didn’t matter.
“I need to get home,” Khawla responded, and I mulled that over while he hurried us through a thick thicket of evergreens, or was that everpurples, in this case? The whole world seemed muted while we were between the feathery branches. They were partially covered in snow, but I could still see the purple needles that made up their coverage. Home? What was home for my guy? Where was home?
“Why?” I found myself saying eventually. “Why did you come to the shipwreck, anyway? Why did you rescue me?” It couldn’t be a coincidence that he’d been aboard the wreck; had Nala sent him to check on us? I hoped so, but I had a feeling he was going to tell me a very different story.
His expression shuttered, going from focused to almost grim. I watched it happen but held my breath and waited, hoping he’d answer eventually. If he was going to make me drag it out of him, I would. At this point, I deserved to know what was going on, didn’t I? Even if it was just so I’d understand why he was abandoning me to the Shaman and Nala. Not that it was fair to call it abandoning, but it keptfeeling that way, like I should expect better from him, more. And that made me feel like an ass. I had no claim on him, did I? As he had been quick to tell me, I wasn’t his mate.
“It’s a gut feeling, based on warnings whispered to me by hunters from my village,” Khawla eventually conceded. His one eye flicked my way, then back again to focus on the mountains in the distance. They already looked closer, but maybe that was just a trick of the mind, because he was moving so much faster. “I need to check my younglings to make sure they are not in danger.”
Wait, what? Younglings? Was he telling me he had kids? I struggled to wrap my head around that, because somehow I had seen Khawla as an island, a loner. Someone with no ties to anything, because he hadn’t mentioned any. Not that we’d shared lots of conversation, we’d been focused on other things last night. Still… this was a big bomb to drop on me just like that. And then, I leaped to the next logical conclusion: kids had a mom. Did that mean he had a wife?
“You have children?” I asked, just to make sure I hadn’t misinterpreted the word ‘youngling,’ but his quick nod dashed that hope. Okay. Whew. My tone was much sharper when I asked, “And a wife you forgot to mention last night?” Maybe this was why he kept telling me I wasn’t his mate, because he had one, and he thought he was making that clear. I struggled to believe that right away. No, Khawla was a straight shooter; I was certain of that, and he proved me right when he answered.
“Their mother is dead,” he hissed, and though his tone was sharp, it wasn’t anger directed at me. I could see right away that he was carrying a heavy amount of guilt on his wide shoulders when it came to this. A lot was said with those words, too: “Their mother,” not “my mate” or “my wife.” He’d made that part impersonal, as if this dead mystery woman had no part of him. She was the mother of his children, and that was the only role she’d played. Thenasty stirrings of jealousy slipped away, just like that, and I drew in a deep, icy breath and focused on what mattered.
“If your kids might be in danger, we should go to them first. Are you crazy? No delays, they’re the priority. Like I said, my humans are in stasis; they’ll hold.” As long as the Krektar didn’t wake any of them, they were perfectly safe. I might not be a mother, but I’d worked the pediatric ward for fifteen years. I loved kids. Even if caring for sick children had been tough some days, it had been equally rewarding on others. They’d always come first to me.
Khawla halted in the snow, his chest expanding as he inhaled and his eye burning a hole in my face. “You mean that?” he asked, sounding so genuinely surprised—confused, even—that it confusedmein turn. He flicked that purple eye from my eyes to my mouth, then back, as if he’d briefly contemplated kissing me. He shook his head, tongue flicking out, pointed and split at the tip. “You can’t; they’ll kill you on sight.”
Kill me on sight? That didn’t sound good, and it didn’t sound anything like what Nala had told me about the locals. She’d tried to assure all of us that her guy would rescue us. In fact, she’d made it seem as if the locals would all welcome us with open arms. My experience with Khawla, so far, had only cemented that idea.
At least this time, he didn’t take long to explain. He set off again, rushing through the forest while he outlined the dynamics of the Naga to me. “There are many Clans,” he said, “all of them divided by the color of our scales. My Clan, Thunder Rock, are the blue Naga.” My eyes traced his handsome face, the scales on his sharp cheekbones not exactly shouting blue at first glance. He definitely had hints of blue, but just as much was gray or purple.
“There are many others, like Copper Tooth, who are purple, and Bitter Storm, the red. And pretty much all Clans hate the humans who recently crashed on our planet. Our previous Queen had a treaty with Haven, where humans livewith their Naga mates, among them, the Queen’s son, Zathar. But she died, and our new Queen wants nothing to do with outsiders; she wants to keep our Clan untouched, pure.”
He said all that through a clenched jaw, so much tension radiating through his neck muscles that I felt it even through the thick fur tunic that swamped me. He did not need to explain the part wherehewas probably not exactly pure either. It was no coincidence that he’d mentioned the purple Copper Tooth; he could just as easily have belonged to them. So that’s why his younglings were in danger, was it? I wasn’t even surprised that such things were an issue on a different planet in a different quadrant of the galaxy. They seemed inescapable anywhere you went, and no matter what part of history you looked at, it was depressing.
“That’s why you need to go to Artek. The Shaman is not bothered by such things, and he and Nala can get you to Haven, where you will be safe. You’ll be surrounded by your own kind.” Things wouldn’t change, and it wouldn’t be where he was. I didn’t like that part, but I put it aside. I’d always been good at prioritizing and compartmentalizing. This was no different.
“Later,” I told him. “But first, we go to your village and you check in on your kids. I’ll hide in the woods or something. No way are you taking a detour when you think little ones are at risk.” I meant it, but he still looked at me dubiously, as if he struggled to wrap his head around it. Boldly, I reached up to cup the side of his jaw with slightly stiff fingers, and then I pulled him down just enough so I could brush my lips against his. “Go on, then. They need you.”
Chapter 9
Khawla
To say my head was a mess would be an understatement. It was utter chaos, my thoughts all over the place, my feelings even worse. We had mated, but I had not told Jolene of its significance. Things had gone a little crazy last night in that bathing pool, and while I relished every sweet memory, every sigh, moan, and gasp… it did not sit well with me that I had not told her the truth. A lie of omission was still a lie.
