“Reshar is pretty, is he?” I demanded. My tail was around her before I could curb the instinct. Maybe I was done playing nice, done holding back my instincts. Perhaps I needed to show her exactly how much Ididthink she was my mate. She was in my lap before she could blink, her wooden bowl clattering to the floor, and her blunt nails digging into my coils ineffectively in protest.
“Yeah, pretty!” she declared boldly, right in my face, with a daring glint in her eyes. I thought perhaps she’d drive the wedge in further, but her blue eyes filled with moisture, glittering in the firelight. “Why did you lie, Khawla? Why did you tell me I wasn’t your mate when you knew I was?” She sounded sad rather than angry, and it was like a knife to my chest. I rubbed my sternum, hissing in displeasure.
“I should have explained when you repeated it. I should have come clean. But…” I paused, sighing, because truly, no amount of explaining could make this right. “I’m sorry. It was wrong of me.” She nodded, pale-faced, which I had learned meant she was tired or struck with heavy emotions. Considering the situation we were in, both were appropriate. At least her pretty eyes were warming up, growing soft and less wet.
Picking her up, I carried her sideways in my arms to the nest at the back of my home. It had never been a place I’d shared with Kusha; she had always maintained her own home, lived separately. When she wanted company, when she wanted younglings, it was her nest I’d visited. Even then—when she still mostly resembled my childhood friend who’d come up with the crazy idea to lie about mating—she had never considered my nest worthy of her.
Jolene just sighed, snuggling into the furs and my coils like she was already used to it, welcomed it. Her expression was growing softer still, warm with the first stirrings of heat. Even angry after I’d lied, she had cared selflessly for my young and welcomed me into her arms. I could not believe it could be like that, but with her, with a human, it could. No wonder my brothers at Haven had happily accepted being cast out. For this, I would accept the same fate.
“Kusha and I grew up together. Our mothers were close friends—at least, as close as Naga females can be. They would leave us in the care of my father, and we’d sneak out to play in the forest. Sometimes, we’d sneak onto skyship wrecks and explore, even though we knew we shouldn’t.”When I began talking, she settled against my chest with her hand over my heart and listened. It was easier when I didn’t look at her face, but I found myself doing so anyway. I wanted to know what she was thinking, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask. All I could do to find the answers was read the expressions on her face.
“Naga males are expected to contribute to the Clan, to not be a burden in anyway. Once we’ve reached a certain age but haven’t found our mate, we are often cast from the Clan and left on our own.” I heard the way I said it—sayingwe, when I had never been cast out myself—but the old fear of finding myself without a clan came quickly. As a youngling, my mother had cautioned me against that every day, hanging it as a threat over my head if I misbehaved. Given my so very different appearance, I’d had very few friends and knew she was right. Any wrong move, and I’d see myself cast from the Clan and left all alone, without help, without friends. A male alone was hard-pressed to survive for long. It was tough, especially if you got injured on the hunt.
“That’s… unfair,” Jolene murmured. “What happens to your women if they don’t mate? Are they cast out too?” I shook my head immediately and found myself frowning, mirroring the deep furrow that bisected her forehead. “That’s nuts. What do they contribute?” I opened my mouth to say that they did plenty, but then faltered, knowing it wasn’t true. It was our way of life, and those who objected would find themselves cast out even faster than I had once been at risk of. The females got to stay simply because they were in charge, and we all knew it wasn’t right. At least most hunters, especially those at risk of being cast out, rumbled in discontent about the inequality of it all.
“I know, but that is how it is. Given my… differences, Kusha knew it was only a matter of time. So one day, she decided we’d tell a lie.” I let my words hang there for a moment as I contemplated that fateful afternoon. We’d found ourselves a very broken section of a skyship, partially buried in the ground. Surrounded by broken metal and dangling wires, in darkness absolute, it was as if we’d been hidden from the world. Kusha had already been ambitious then—fighting often—and she had known I’d had her back, always: her lookout, her informant, the one who told her about strengths and weaknesses. She’d decided on the plan in a hushed whisper, blue eyes gleaming with excitement.
I recalled not wanting to lie, but wanting to be safe with the Clan too. Being her mate, even when we were barely adults, would have given me the ultimate protection. Given how close we had always been, it had seemed like a lie we could get away with. So I had accepted, and we’d stayed in that wreck for a week without telling anyone. She had insisted on tailplay, on ensuring a youngling soon, to make everyone less suspicious too.
“When we told the village we had mated, they did not believe us. We could not show mating marks, and Kusha fought a lot to make the females forget the rumors. The next summer, Rasho was born; everyone stopped talking then.” Holding my oldest in my arms had made that lie seem worthwhile—like it was okay then, because this was the reward: a beautiful son who looked so much like his mother that he’d never have issues fitting in. Then his scales had lost their luster, and Kusha had insisted on a new youngling to replace the disgraced one. Daois’s eyes had not turned amethyst until he came out of his third molting, and Kusha had wanted another child again.
“So it worked,” Jolene said, jerking me from my spiraling memories. The hot anger and helplessness I’d felt as Kusha rejected one youngling after the next because they were not good enough surged back. It had worked—I’d never been cast out—and the one thing I’d always ensured was that Kusha did not threaten our young with it the same way my mother had. “That’s good, isn’t it?” she asked, but now she looked dubious. Her gaze drifted around the room, taking in the belongings of my younglings and me—the wornfurniture, the soft furs, and the loft above our heads where the little ones slept.
“I guess. Kusha was ambitious, though, and she expected my full loyalty to maintain that lie. After Nisha… she changed. As if seeing a third youngling tainted by my appearance—a female at that—was the final straw. She did not nurse Nisha long, did not give her any affection at all. And after the previous queen died, she decided she would be queen next.”
I remembered that conversation well; it had been a heated argument, but in the end, I’d been forced to escort her and any other contenders as close to the Sacred Shaman Training Grounds as I could, so they could have their succession fights. I wish I’d never done that. Then again, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be free to have Jolene, to make the choice I’d had that morning when I came here.
“Oh no, she’s the Queen? I thought you said she was dead,” Jolene asked as she lifted herself onto her elbow to glance at the door. It was as if she thought she could see through the walls straight into the heart of town and discover for herself whether this was true.
“No, she is dead, killed by Bitter Storm.” I did not want to explain that moment, it was still too fresh, too raw. I’d been in such shock at losing my one anchor to the Clan, so confused about how to tell my younglings their mother was gone. Then I’d been gravely injured and lost my eye. I reached up to touch it, focusing on the details as I explained to Jolene the extent of my injuries, and how it had taken Artek, the shaman, weeks to patch me back up.
“And this was just before winter? Around the time that Nala and Artek came to the shipwreck and rescued some of us?” She did say the name of her friend this time, but I could see it dancing in her eyes. Jolene was loyal to a fault; she wanted very badly to be certain that her Jasmine had survived. I wished my scouts had paid better attention to those kinds of details. I would have, but I had not left townsince returning from Artek’s home. I had not wanted to leave my younglings.
“Yes,” I said quietly. “It’s been four months since Kusha’s death. It was still very raw to me when I found you, and I did not believe I would ever find my true mate. I couldn’t believe it was real; I thought I was imagining it, and I didn’t want to hope and be wrong.” A mate—a human mate—would mean leaving the Clan, being cast out, and I would not abandon my younglings. It would condemn them to being outcasts too. Now… after Jolene had so baldly pointed out that it might not be in their best interest to stay… I believed itwasthe better fate.
“When I left you in that hollow this morning, I planned to be back with my younglings. I thought we’d all leave, the Clan, the lowlands, the past. That I could take you to Haven, and that we could make a life there together. That’s what I had made up my mind to do.” She laughed, and briefly, I thought she was about to throw my earnest words back in my face, but the warmth in her eyes was too real to be part of any mockery.
“Of course, also without consulting me on the plan,” she said, and I winced. I’d never have done that if she were Kusha, never made decisions for her; it had just seemed natural with Jolene. She was soft, fragile, sweet, even if she had a sharp tongue. It felt right to be in charge, the way I always was with my hunters and scouts, the way I was with my younglings. I started to open my mouth to apologize, but she beat me to it. “It’s fine, Khawla. I happen to like this plan. It’s a good thing I’m a very reasonable, understanding woman. I forgive you. I get it, you know.”
Truly, she really was the most reasonable female there was, and my vehement agreement made her giggle in the most adorable fashion. It was too much, then. She was in my arms; she was not unhappy about being my mate, and she forgave me for not telling her. I pulled her closer, found her smiling mouth, and kissed her in the way of her people. Shesighed, her fingers finding my braid and pulling me eagerly closer. “I was mad,” she whispered against my lips, followed by another kiss. “But I was more worried that you were hurt.” I didn’t think anyone had ever said that to me before.
We still had no plan, but we had each other—for now. I hoped that was enough. She was a temptation to curl around, to touch and stroke. I fanned the flames until she was writhing and moaning beneath me, eagerly curling into my touch with each gasp and sigh. It was tempting to tear her pants, too, but I forced myself to temper my urges and simply stroke her through the thin fabric. She was close to the edge, then spiraling over it with my name on her tongue. That was a fantasy I had never entertained, to be the focus of her pleasure that way. It was a gift I wanted to draw out, to repeat. My cock ached, ready to extrude so I could fill her body—and, of course, that was when Nisha cried out in her sleep. I froze, staring with wide eyes at my mate, sigils all aglow. She laughed softly, patting my cheek.“Duty calls, Khawla. When you go up, perhaps you should pack toys and spare clothes for them, so we’re ready to go at a moment’s notice?”
I would do as she told me, and then I’d return to the furs to find pleasure in her soft, silky body. She deserved every bit of pleasure for wanting to care for my younglings the same way I did—for thinking of their needs first. My blood simmered with lust, but I pushed it aside as I disentangled myself from the furs and my mate’s body. Nisha was calmed quickly, easily rocked back to sleep, and the bag with spare things was also sorted quickly. We did not own much, or need much, after all.
When I came down from the loft, fate had other plans in store, unfortunately. I found Jolene curled in the furs, fast asleep, exhaustion written on her pretty face. I did not have it in me to wake her for my pleasure then, not even for hers. So I sat down on the edge of the nest and worked to make life a little better for her in other ways—with sewn pants and better-fitting shoes, maybe even snowshoes like the ones she’d tried to describe.
Chapter 15
Jolene
The night had been quiet, but I knew the day wasn’t going to be. Khawla’s kids were quiet as they clambered down from the loft and sat at the table to eat their breakfast. I wasn’t sure if that was just because they were well-behaved or because they knew just how uncertain the day was going to be. Rasho checked over the bag his father had left by the door twice, asking Nisha repeatedly to make sure Vod was in it. I thought that was sweet; less sweet was the part where the two boys went over the knife options with their dad.
I couldn’t listen to them muttering about protecting Nisha and me, with their heads stuck close together, so I sat down with the girl to braid her hair—a task I’d done for many a little girl at the hospital. Khawla kept glancing at us with a soft smile on his rugged, handsome face, and it kept making my chest grow tight. What if we didn’t make it out of this? Who was going to look after these three, then? Wehad to survive, and I was determined to somehow convince Reshar—or maybe another sympathetic hunter—to let us out. I was pretty sure Khawla had the same idea, but I wasn’t going to sit on my ass and wait around.
I had my sling, and when I indicated to Nisha that I wanted rocks for it, she was quickly game. It distracted her from her sore bruises and cuts, and she got Daois in on the game. They pulled pebbles out of the dirt floor and piled them on the table. When they fiddled with the back wall, literally prying rocks out of the clay and branch wall panels, their dad didn’t stop them. He watched my sling curiously instead, as I gave it some practice swings and tossed a few rocks at the wooden bowls. When one hit with a thud, his younglings cheered, and Nisha even laughed.
“Not very effective against Naga scales,” Khawla concluded, “but if your aim is good, try for faces. It’ll probably stun and confuse.” Then he held out a fur-and-leather bundle to me, something he’d been fiddling with while we entertained ourselves with the rocks. “Put this on. It won’t be long now. I tried to make snowshoes, but those aren’t finished yet, and I don’t know if they’ll work.” He pointed to something by the door—two rounds with netting that could probably be lashed to my feet. One was done, but the other had only half its netting. It wouldn’t work unless I had two, but it was a good start.
