I frown at Zaku’s aggressive searching, thinking he is being just as noisy as a human in his anger. “I have not asked you yet… What was it you sent an orb after me for? Is it to help you hunt down the Boa?” I had not considered his urgent orb since last night, when I was confronted by the dozen males gathered, males that weremostlynot trying to kill one another. I had forgotten Zaku’s summons completely when I spotted Julia on the other side of them, her eyes taking in each male with consideration. I had forgotten again when Zaku charged into the forest when I told him there were nagas gathered outside.
My tail coils.
It is because of her, as well as the other soldiers like her, that my own home and nest, as well as the nests of all the other Copperhead’s have been obliterated. I was not there when it happened. When the first ship touched down, when the machines cleared out the area, and all I had ever known vanished overnight. I was not there.
My brothers, cousins, uncles were. They have been gone since. After the facility was abandoned by the first human unit, I searched it tirelessly for my clan only to find a shallow grave ofbones. The orb I had with me at the time could not identify what was left.
“No. That is not why I have summoned you.” The flare eases from Zaku’s nostrils. “Though I wish it wassss. Nagas are not the only creatures trespassing lately.” He hisses long and slow. “The night before last I came upon Syasku, a Cottonmouth male whom you might remember, another who had been at the hunt, and one I had thought I had killed. With him were two humans, a male and a female, as well as a halfbreed newborn between them.”
I pause to take in his words. “He hassss returned and has found a bride too?” Before everyone went their separate ways, Azsote had warned us that humans were now capturing nagas and taking them into the sky, having seen it happen to Syasku. “Does the Boomslang know he issss back?”
“Yessss and I have sent Syasku and his humans on towards him and the others with a forewarning of what they might expect. They should be there now, if they kept a good pace.”
“Did he say anything about the missing Copperheads? Did you ask?”
“I did not think of it nor did he mention seeing them.”
My face hardens. I had thought, perhaps, my kin had been taken captive like the Cottonmouth. Now, I am not so sure. Gemma, Daisy, and Shelby do not believe so, none of them aware of nagas being any part of their initial mission to Earth. Back then they did not even know we nagas existed.
Gemma believes if my clan had been at the facility prior to the robots clearing it for them, the drones would have assumed they were animals and would have killed them.
“Thank you for letting me know. If this is why I have been brought here, a simple message on the orb would have sufficed.” I could be with Azsote instead right now and have asked Syasku himself if I had not had to come here first.
Zaku growls. “That is also not why I have called you here, either, Krellix. What matters issss the news they shared with me. News I would not share over the orb.” He pauses his search for tracks to face me.
I arch a brow. “Tell me.”
“There is fighting onThe Dreadnaut, the human’s main ship. The majority of the humans Syasku encountered there are unhappy.”
Interesting.“Do you think that is why the ships have lessened of late?”
We both glance at the dark sky.
“Perhaps. He told me they arrived a week ago on a ship, one that landed at the northernmost part of the forest. There were hundreds of humans on the ship with him.”
“Soldierssss?” I hiss.
“The human male, a male named Kyle, who was with Syasku called them refugeessss, not soldiers. They are not like the ships that have come before, he said. They want nothing to do with the soldiers already here, the people on them only seek a better life, a life outside their ship.The Dreadnaut, because of this, because of Syasku, and because of ussss, has fallen into chaos.”
Kyle? Celeste’s Kyle?I recall the human male almost fondly. “Good. With their home in trouble, maybe the soldiers and their machines will finally leave.”
Zaku’s brow lifts. “There are unmated females on that ship, if you are curious.”
“I do not want a mate.” I wave him off. “You know thissss.”
He eyes me curiously. Branches snap and grass rustles as he shifts his tail around. “You wanted one once. You told me. Opinionssss change.”
“I have seen enough to know it would be difficult to keep a female and young safe without a fortified territory or clan. I nolonger have the former, and have no interest in settling where the others are. And I am not done searching.”
…And I have been searching. It is why I was near where Daisy’s ship crashed when it happened, and nearby again when Celeste and her team arrived. I have been searching, hoping for more than bones. Before the humans retook the ruins and built new structures over them for a second time, I had been scouting the area daily, refortifying it to reclaim it as my own.
Zaku snorts and continues on, turning west. “It is almost sunrise, it is time to return to my mate.” He pushes through the bushes ahead with slightly more force. “If you have not found them by now, you will not find them at all. They are gone and you are wasting your time.”
I probably am but I shrug him off anyway. “You may be right but I will decide when I am done, not you or some humans.”
His harsh words do not bother me. The truth is often harsh and unforgiving. Much in the days of late has been harsh and unforgiving.
“There issss no going back to the way things were before,” Zaku grumbles over his shoulder at me. “You, of all males, should know this. If the humans are fighting among themselves, and they bring their fight here, we will either be forced to join in their battle or turn a blind eye. And there are too many malessss still seeking brides… There is not enough land between us all not to be forced into each other’s territories now and then, even with so much new growth. It will be like the old days.”
