Page 28 of The Naga Outcast’s Unwanted Mate

Zathar tilted his head down to me, a smile on his face that temporarily erased the worry from before. “That’s because I seeded you my mate, our spirit connection is complete. We no longer require touch to understand.” The tip of his tail lifted into the air, gently brushing along my cheek. “Although, I’d gladly do so anyway.”

Trying not to openly swoon I cupped his tail against my cheek and rubbed the smooth scales along my skin. “Alright. I got it. What’s the plan for today? Is Corin going to get the water to work?” I was dying to see if we could restore the bathrooms and have actual indoor plumbing. Right now we had a designated spot behind some rocks and trees a small distance from the entrance. I wasn’t looking forward to having to squat in the woods for the rest of my life.

“Iave,” Zathar said, and that one name was enough to put my eager plans for this place on hold. It also yanked Corin out of his reverie, he lifted his head to pierce Zathar with his silvery blue gaze and gave my mate a sharp nod, nearly jabbing himself with the horn on his chin. “We need to find out what happened to our friend and the two humans with him.”

He was right, Iave, Kalani, and Naomi had gotten separated from us on that first day. Zathar’s friend and the two humans were very likely dead considering the overwhelming force of Bitter Storm Clan warriors they’d been up against. That didn’t mean we shouldn’t try to find out what their fate had been.

I tried to picture what Zathar’s other friend had looked like, recalling mostly the midnight blue of his scales and his overwhelming size. Iave had wielded a giant battle ax, with scars crisscrossing his chest. Honestly, if anyone could make it, it was a warrior like him, he looked indomitable. Maybe that’s why Zathar hadn’t given up hope yet; he knew how strong his friend was. I just hoped that Naomi and Kalani had made it too, but Naomi’s legs were paralyzed, it wasn’t as if she could run when cornered.

Corin slid off his rock, approaching us silently through the soft purple grass. “I think we need to revisit the place where we were separated, maybe we can find tracks, or discover what happened.” His eyes went to Zathar and then to me as if he was considering what to say next. “I suggest I go alone. You can understand the humans, and you should stay here to protect your mate.”

My heart sped up at the thought that Zathar might insist on going with his friend. I didn’t want to be clingy but I really didn’t think it was a good idea to be without at least one of our Naga friends here. What if hunters from Thunder Rock showed up? What if Astrexa tried again?

But I shouldn’t have worried, Zathar simply nodded, “Alright. Be careful Corin, don’t take any unnecessary risks.” He leaned forward to clasp his friend by the shoulder and briefly pressed his forehead against that of his friend. When the two let up, Corin hooked a small backpack from the ground near the entrance and swung it over his shoulder. He’d already prepared as if he’d set his mind to this plan before it had even been uttered.

He darted away at a quick pace, his long body curling through the grass, silver blue and bright against the darker purple ground. Over his shoulder, he called out, “I’ll do whatever Iave would do for one of us. We owe it to him.” The words made Zathar growl and laugh at the same time, which could only mean that Iave was a risk-taker but at least my mate was losing some of the worried tension now that a rescue for his friend was underway.

“Where is he going?” Min-Ji asked with a gasp, rising to her feet in a rush to stare after Corin. She swayed a little, still unsteady, but shook off Cosima’s help while she frowned, nibbling at her bottom lip. I was surprised by her response, she looked almost scared that Corin had left.

When I explained Corin’s mission to her, Reid was nodding, looking relieved. He seemed disgruntled that he hadn’t been asked to help out, but that was it. Min-Ji, however, shook her black hair from her eyes and exclaimed, “But he’s our doctor! We can’t risk him.” Ah, so she was worried about her health, worried she might still need his aid while she was healing.

Zathar lowered himself on his tail until he was only a little taller than me and swung an arm around my shoulders, pulling me close to his chest. I was pretty sure that he was trying to make himself look a little less threatening to the human who was clearly in distress while at the same time using the opportunity to touch me. “Corin only knows the basics, if we need medical aid, I will retrieve the Shaman. Artek will gladly help us.”

When I explained that to the pilot she didn’t seem to feel any more at ease, staring anxiously in the direction Corin had disappeared in. In an effort to distract everyone, I gestured at the cave entrance at my back. “Come on, while Corin is off on his mission, we have our own work cut out for us. We need to make this place habitable.”

“And defensible,” Zathar added, “Weapon lessons first. Translate for me, mate.” Soon I found myself target practicing with a sling for my rocks while Zathar was instructing Reid on how to use one of his swords. The two were sparring at a slow pace, just going through the motions and I only occasionally had to call out something to clarify for Reid. He was a natural at picking it all up, or possibly he had prior training that he could lean on.

Cosima had nearly fainted at the suggestion that she learn to fight, and Min-Ji had bowed out, saying she was still recuperating. The two women had gone inside and I could hear them talk as they worked on cleaning up more of the spaces on the upper walkway. There was a water well all the way down below and they’d gone to fetch water so they could give everything a proper scrub.

I was contemplating the next big issue, food, when a scream issued from inside the caves. I clutched my sling tightly in my hand and sprinted inside. I was closer to the entrance so I beat Zathar and Reid by a couple of feet. Rushing through the opening, a stone at the ready for whatever threat the girls had uncovered.

I didn’t expect the hologram projected just inside the entrance of a life-sized Naga male. At first, it looked to me like the pale figure was real and I let my stone fly before I could check the impulse. It went right through the shape, briefly making the apparition flicker. It looked so much like a computer glitching out that I sagged in relief and started to laugh. Especially when I saw that Cosima had sprawled on the floor and crawled backward with a hand over her mouth in shock. And the cherry on top was Zathar hissing and growling while he slashed his sword through the hologram.

“Easy,” I said, still chuckling while I grabbed onto his arm to stop him. “It’s not real. A picture, not a ghost. Don’t worry Zathar, Cosima must have triggered something when cleaning. Can you hear what he’s saying? Breathe and listen.” He calmed down at my touch, lowering his weapon and staring intently as the holographic image reshaped back into the shimmering, nearly white shape of a Naga.

Like the ones inside the underground city, he wore a robe and a sash beneath it that covered his hips, but his chest was bare. He was nearly white, with a hint of gold glimmering in his eyes and the long hair swirling around his shoulders. His face was narrow and elegant, a bit more refined than Zathar’s savage but beautiful features.

“Welcome brothers and sisters, if you found this place you are welcome to take shelter here. I am recording this in hopes of passing on the history of our people. I hope you will learn from their mistakes while taking the resources I have gathered here to restore the Naga race back to its previous glory.”

The gold eyes of the hologram seemed to look right through us as the male spoke, aimed at a camera we couldn’t see. Zathar was no longer scared but transfixed instead. Head cocked to the side he listened to every spoken word as the male expounded about his duty as a Shaman to care not just for the current generation but all the ones that came after.

Everyone else had settled down now that it was clear there was no threat. Since they couldn’t understand what the hologram was saying, they were quietly talking to each other. Reid was trying to figure out what Cosima had done that had triggered this apparition.

“Two hundred years ago,” the Shaman in the recording said, “A great catastrophe befell our planet, but the worst of it was the fear of technology that came from it and the distrust of our government. Don’t let that happen again, technology can be your friend, and you’ll need it to restore our grand species. We fought among ourselves, we lost the ability to create, and now we are devolving into the savages we were before. We can’t let that happen, we need to fight this, and bring life again to our beautiful cities. And above all, we shouldn’t let this stop us from exploring the great universe beyond our planet once more.”

The hologram winked out on that final declaration in an unnatural fashion as if the recording was cut off before the Shaman was done saying his piece. What he said was stunning anyway. It sounded like Zathar’s people had once been space-faring, or at the very least, on the cusp of it. How was it possible for an entire race to devolve back to a tribal time of hunters and gatherers after such a high?

Reid quietly asked me what I’d just learned and as I started to explain it to him, I kept my eyes on Zathar’s rather thunderstruck expression. He’d known his kind was capable of building giant cities before but maybe he hadn’t realized they could make sky-ships or the technology his Clan scavenged from them.

Turning to him so I could ask him how he felt about it, I was startled when he suddenly moved, dodging around Cosima near the door to the room that Corin had declared off-limits. I didn’t hesitate to follow him inside it, and Reid did too; stunned to discover a room decked out in screens and a metal desk. Lots of lights were blinking all over the place, with diagrams being displayed on several of the screens.

One screen showed a frozen image of the Shaman Naga from the hologram in the hallway and Zathar was hovering in front of that one. With a clawed finger, he traced a series of symbols below the image, his mouth moving as he tried to decipher it. “I think it says this picture was made about a hundred years ago… But Corin can read this better, he’ll have to confirm it.” His eyes were huge as he lifted them to my face. “How can my kind change from building cities to the life I know in only a dozen or so generations?”

“It doesn’t,” I said. The ruins were much older than that, especially that big city Zathar and I had spent a night in. Thousands of years maybe. He must have read the numbers wrong but I didn’t say that, Corin could check it when he returned.

Zathar’s nubbed brows lowered as he frowned, eyes returning to the frozen image of the Shaman on the screen. “This male does not even look like any Naga I know. Look, he has no horn on his chin, see that?” He was right, the Shaman had a bare chin, which looked strange and nude to me. That was either because he’d removed his horn, or was born without. Now I wondered if the Naga in the hologram in the city had been hornless as well, we hadn’t been close enough to really see that.

“Zathar! We’ve got a problem,” Corin’s voice yelled out from behind us, jolting us away from the bank of screens. He darted into the control room with a big frown on his face, “Why are you in here? I told you not to come here.”