“Tell me why you are here, why I found you in my territory. What were you doing if not searching for something?”
“What? As in right here, here? You brought me downhere after you knocked me unconscious! If you mean here as in the city, our colony ship imploded! The people and ship I’m—was—with needed something, anything useful we could’ve used to buy fuel or spots on other ships off this planet and back home. Trust me, we wouldn’t be here otherwise, we—I—don’t want to be here.” She looks around. “I’m a bowels of the ship kind of girl.”
I pause at her words, realizing there has been a profound misunderstanding between us. “I did not knock you unconscious.”
Her expression shifts as my statement sinks in. “You didn’t hit me in the back of the head?”
“No. I heard the arrival of your ship, and when I came through the tunnels to investigate, I found you lying on the ground.”
She lifts her hand to the back of her head and rubs it. “A rock maybe…? That doesn’t make sense. I heard hissing.”
Stiffening, I look away and back in the direction of the tunnel.
Unaware how tense I have gone, she finishes shaking out the hide, then grabs the next. “If it wasn’t you, then who?” she asks.
I do not know. I glance at the water, thinking of the tunnel beneath its surface, and shake my head.
But I am going to find out.
Whoever is above, hiding their tracks, trespassing in my territory without my knowledge and hurting a female that is under my protection… Anger has me clamping my fists into balls. Only another naga would have hissed before their attack.
I twist for the exit. “This, female, is why I do not let you leave. This,” I snarl, winding my tail around a boulder andbringing it to me as, for the first time, it occurs to me that I did not block the tunnel on my return.
“Wait!” She chases me across the room and to the threshold of the tunnel. “Where are you going now?”
“To find who hurt you and kill them.”
“It was over seven days ago! They’re long gone by now. Stay with me instead. It’s been a long, boring day. I hate begging but I could use a little company. Please?”
Her plea makes me hesitate, though not for long. I shift the boulder into place, blocking part of the path and grabbing another. “Not tonight. Not when there could be another naga in my domain.” How could I have missed them?
“Is it really that serious? They left me alive.”
“It does not matter. My territory has been breached.”
“Please stay. Truthfully, if it wasn’t you, it was probably a rock that fell…” I look at Sabrina, momentarily getting lost in her beautiful eyes. Her brows are drawn together above and the excitement from before is gone. But this time the worry shining in them instead is… for me. Just for me. My chest tightens. I wish I could stay.
“I made a vow long ago to guard this place from my enemies with my life,” I explain. “This place is not for them, nor will it ever be. Now one is here and it has gotten past me. I will not sit quietly when you or what I protect could be in danger.”
She does not say anything more as I roll the final boulder into place and close her in. Without her gaze on me any longer, the pressure in my chest only grows, my desire to give her what she wants as strong as my need to track down the trespasser. I place my hand on the last rock and close my eyes, gritting my teeth.
I wait a moment, but the pressure fails to alleviate.Confused and bothered—by both Sabrina and the existence of a violent intruder in my territory—I let out a raw hiss and spin around to begin my hunt. Hopefully I will come up fruitful and my hands will be covered in naga blood very shortly.
I am tired of the chaos. Now that I have Sabrina settled, all I want is a return to my peace—with her.
Luckily, no one gets past me for long.
TWELVE
HIS AND HERS
Sabrina
As the days go by,Darolus gets angrier and angrier, and I go back to hoping he’s gone all day rather than around to distract me, no matter how nice he is to look at. He’s had no success finding the other naga he thinks is out there, and it’s increasingly upsetting him, making him restless. Yesterday he came back covered in blood, offering me a long slab of stringy meat and a pile of unusable plastic trash to use as kindling for a fire, then left again soon after and was gone until this morning.
If he didn’t knock me out, who did?He can’t seem to figure it out and it’s driving him crazy.
It makes me wonder if I remember what happened right, because if a naga who knows how to track down his prey can’t, then maybe I’m the one who made a mistake. Staring up at the ceiling while sprawling out on my now thick pile of hides, I fall into a lull, trailing my eyes over the cracks and grooves and following the shafts of sunlight. Allday, every day, I have nothing to do except cook, clean, and straighten out rocks and Darolus’s belongings, which are few and hardly used. There is some lichen on the walls near the water, and I play with it with my fingers, in awe of the little plants.
