“Poison,” I answer.
She stares at me before nodding. “What bit you? Do you know? Or where?” She scans my body.
I tense, wanting her to like what she sees.
Am I pleasing?I know horns and tails are not human traits, nor are scales and claws—my dark jewel—but could she overlook them?
If she recoils from me…
She bites down on her lip and turns away. My chest constricts.She finds me repugnant.I close my eyes in embarrassment.
Something thuds, and I hear a rip of cloth. I reopen my eyes to discover what she is doing and find the scraps of her bag hanging in her hands. She drops it over my jutting shaft with a squeak and threads it under my hips. Confused, I try to lift them to help her. Her warm skin is on me again and my embarrassment fades long enough to enjoy the pleasure of having her near. Then her hands find the base of my tails.
I moan.
She stops what she is doing but her hands and the bunched cloth remains.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly, shaking her head. Her cheeks have gone red.
I do not respond. Her hands move to tie the cloth into place. I peer down.
She has covered my root, I realize. And not in the way I would have preferred.
She shifts, and our eyes meet. “I should have covered you sooner,” she says.
I part my mouth to argue—
“I’ll look for that bite now,” she mutters, beginning to circle back down me, wandering out of my line of sight.
“No bite.” I stop her. “Wounds healed long ago.” My voice is clipped.
“No bite?”
“No.”
She returns. Her dark eyes capture mine again.Skies, is she lovely.I may not be to her liking but she is to mine.
“Is it something you ate?” she asks.
“No.”
“Something that touched you, something you absorbed?”
“No.”
She sits back. “How can I help you then? What can I do?”
Stay here with me. Do not leave my side. Make sure I can see you at all times so I do not worry.But I do not tell her this. “Rest,” I respond. Though this is not what I need, it is what sheneeds.
Knowing there is a naga lurking somewhere in the dark unnerves me.She needs to rest, to regain her strength, and I… I need to get the skies up!
“Rest… Okay, rest it is.” She nods.
She goes quiet as we stare at each other. Her mouth opens and closes several times as if she has more she wants to say, but she remains silent. Her hand lifts to the back of her head, and she winces. It comes away with blood.
Her wound.My face tightens.
“Rest,” I order.
