“Are you two mated?” she asks, her voice sharp with a rasp.
“We’ve had sex,” I admit.
She looks me up and down. “You are small for a male of his strength and size. Are you not hurt? You said he has not hurt you.”
“I’m fine. Just cold, wet, and now shoeless. What does this have to do with saving him?” I argue, frustrated watching the blood continually gush from his wound.
She nods down at him. “If he is mated with you then he is safe to ussss. It is important. Answer me.”
“He’s mated to me,” I announce quickly, uncaring if it’s true or not. “Now help him!”
The females glance at each other until the black and gray one and the second speckled yellow one decides to leave. The others follow a moment later, leaving me alone with Melsya and Darolus.
“What’s going on?” I ask, refacing her. “Why is everyone leaving?”
Melsya lowers her spear. “They have things to discuss. As for you, human,” she says as she tilts her head, “we have yet to figure out what to do with you.”
I straighten. “Forget me, you can squash me like a bug! For fuck’s sake, just help him! I’ve answered your questions, and if you want me to answer more, save him!”
I’m scared he’s going to die and I’ll never get to speak to him again. I’m afraid of never hearing his hissing again, or feeling his warm body around mine while sleeping in his nest. The female nagas are not reacting fast enough.
I lean down and press my brow to his, begging, “Please. Please don’t die.”
Hearing Melsya leave the room behind me, I almost surge back to my feet to scream when the black female returns, holding a long strip of bloody meat.
She flicks her gaze from me to Darolus and stops at his other side, holding the meat above him.
“If you want him to survive, you do as I ssssay,” she hisses. “Open his mouth with your fingers.”
I quickly listen and pry his lips apart. Bringing the meat to his mouth, she squeezes the blood out of it to drip between his lips. As the liquid pools in his mouth, I try not to gag.
Darolus slowly swallows it down, and my stomach curls.
Melsya returns with a long hide-like strip of cloth next and a bundle of plastic under her arm.
Over the next few hours, I remain by Darolus’s side, holding his hand. I lean my body against his to share in his warmth while offering what little I have of my own. The female nagas come in and out, and as they go about feeding him and staunching his wound, another brings in a large bucket of water that I use to clean his skin and scales with some extra cloth given to me.
Time passes and I fall in and out of sleep, dozing off as the hours stretch. Speaking to Darolus in whispers when no one else is around, I tell him that it’s all going to be okay.
The hours bleed together until it feels like days. One minute becomes another, and eventually I’m forced out of the room to relieve myself and search for food. When I’m offered beetles, I eat them. Even when I have to kill them first.
The female nagas watch me. Whatever I’m doing, one of them is always watching me.
Darolus rouses more as the hours pass, and though I tell him to take it easy, I’m shocked by how quickly his wound heals with continued blood.
I further lose track of time, only aware that it’s passing by the lights dying around me and the nagas leaving to take them somewhere else to recharge. Stuck in the dark with just my flashlight and Melsya, who has chosen to remain behind to guard me, I beam my light across the floor between us as she offers me something more to eat.
“No thank you,” I groan.
She hisses and slurps down the strip of meat herself. “Meat helps us. You should eat more.”
I shake my head at her and turn away.
In the time since I’ve been here, the females have all but left me alone after our initial confrontation, choosing to keep their distance from Darolus and I as much as possible despite watching us the whole time.
But when Melsya starts to leave the room, I stop her. “Darolus told me what happened to you—why you guys left…”
She looks back at me, the lines in her face creasing, giving away her age. “Then you know we did the right thing.” Thumping the end of her tail on the floor, she sends dust motes scattering into the air.
