“No!” I snap.
She flinches, then purses her lips in irritation.
“—I will make sure the rest of them are dead. It is my duty. Tell the others to wait as I root out and kill them.”
Her frown deepens as she scrutinizes mine. “Duty?”
I lift my fingers to trail them over her cheek. “To my female…” I tell her.
Her expression slowly clears as she takes in my meaning. She. Is.Mine.
She nods, understanding,accepting, and takes a step back. As she does so, she pulls the weapon strapped to her shoulder forward. “Okay. But I’m going with you. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you… Not after finally seeing you—” she glances around and waves her hand “—after all of this.”
I jerk my chin towards the others. “No. We will talk after.”
She ignores me, starting to walk away with her weapon up. And as she takes another step and I sweep my eyes over her curvy form, I shake my head. I have forgotten how tenacious she can be.
Hearing the naga move closer, I pivot to my right, giving in. In combat, Julia will do as I say and she also has Kodyx watching her back. Between that and her own skills, she will be safe enough. “Stay with Kodyx and do not engage unlesssss necessary.”
“Understood.” She pauses long enough for me to take the lead.
With Kodyx at my side and slightly behind, Julia takes the same position on the opposite side of my tail.
The growing hiss is coming from the other side of a partially-collapsed building in front of me. I duck around it and head straight for the noise. The other naga appears around the second corner just as I lunge forward to ambush him head-on.
He startles as I pummel into him, giving me enough time to wrap my tail around his middle and drag him to the ground.Instantly, the sound of three more nagas erupts, coming from the camp path to my left. One drops to the ground dead as Julia’s rifle goes off. She is shifting to shoot another when the naga under me hits me in the side with his tail, drawing my full attention. I quickly end his life before the last naga reaches me.
And just as he does, Julia drops him with her weapon.
After a moment of making certain the nagas remain lifeless on the ground, we look at each other.
“I can be useful,” Julia huffs, and smiles. “I just need a clear shot.”
I nod my head sharply and drag my eyes off her before I get distracted by her charming bravado.
We eradicate the remaining nagas in the camp in short order, finding the last few feasting from the bodies of those killed earlier. And as I send Kodyx back to the forest to wait for me, and Julia heads to the tunnel to tell everyone that it is safe to return above, I clench my hands and fight the same urge I have been fighting with little reprieve from the beginning. The urge and instinctual need to grab my female and carry her back to my nest. To leave everyone and everything behind so I can focus on nothing except her.
“I’m glad you’re here. I’ll be back soon,” she says, staring at me hard before she turns away.
Repressing the need to go after her, I head to the entrance, where I begin dragging the corpses of the nagas away from the camp. But as I get closer to the forest, the memories of our times within rise… and the pressure to mate alongside them. A desperate frustration fills me—so intense I flee, flee from the encampment, flee fromher.
Because if Julia returns to me right now, I will take her, regardless of her wishes.
I want and need her so badly, it hurts.
FORTY
FINALLY HOME
Julia
I watch from the lookout,waiting for Krellix to return.
If I had known when I left him that he would leave again, I would have stopped him. In fact, I would have never walked away. Instead, I’m confused and angry all over again. Could he not have waited the few minutes it would’ve taken me to return to him?
But I know he’s out there. I sometimes see him at the treeline, hauling the bodies of nagas he’s killed to the cindering bonfire out in the field, always gone before I can run out and chase him down.
The bonfire was set ablaze two days ago. There were twenty-two naga corpses in the camp that needed to be destroyed by the end of… everything. Krellix has since been bringing more from out in the woods. I try not to keep count; I don’t want to know.
