Page 31 of The Naga Warlord’s Virgin Mate

Artek didn’t bat an eye at being asked to treat a creature that Krashe told me was considered a pest by his people; a rodent like a rat. Something they ate because they were so damn hungry at Bitter Storm, not something they made friends with. “Did you know that the Sleara was domesticated once? Our ancestors kept these in their homes all the time. Very clever creatures, very loyal too.” Well, that explained why Artek wasn’t bothered. It explained a lot about Kiwi’s behavior too, actually.

Krashe didn’t seem nearly as surprised about that news as I was, nodding thoughtfully. “My mother had a… picture cube?” He paused to turn his head and look at me and I realized he was asking me silently if he was using the right words. I mouthed the answer he was looking for and he resumed, “Holographic picture frame. Naomi discovered many pictures on it from the past. I saw Sleara in some.”

I did not recall that at all, but clearly Krashe had been paying much better attention to the images than I had. I was suddenly very eager to dig that thing out of our remaining pile of things so we could have another look at it.

“I see that you’ve come to a better understanding of the past and the present. Have you, my friend?” Artek said. His glowing hand device winked out, and Kiwi gave a happy little twitch and shrug before he threw himself off Krashe’s hand and with a few flaps of his wings up into the air for a victory lap. I held my breath as I waited to see what Krashe had to say to that.

He rolled his shoulder, just narrowing his ruby red eyes at the Shaman as the male pointed his hand healing device to the smaller spear wound on his chest. “Nah-omi has had a way of shifting my perspective. We were on our way to you actually. I hoped that you could use one of these to help her walk again?”

From the brief impression the Shaman had given me so far, he didn’t seem like much ruffled his feathers. He was very calm and practically immune to the protective posturing my mate or my pet did when he so much as breathed my way. When his golden eyes fell on the boxes Krashe carefully revealed, they went huge in his face. If his scales hadn’t already been white, I was sure he would have grown pale.

“Blasting suns, Krashe! Where did you find these?” His fingers flew toward the boxes but Krashe coiled back, out of his reach with a hiss. A rush of affection washed through me, always so protective, but a strange sense of dread overpowered everything. I’d told Krashe I wouldn’t care if it worked or not but standing in front of what passed for the medical expert… I felt like it might hurt so bad if he told me it was impossible after all.

“Come, let’s go to my home so that I can study them. Naomi, you said, yes?” Artek was already ducking down to grab Krashe’s heavy bag of books, his back turned to start going down the mountain. Krashe grunted an affirmative, placed the precious boxes with my possible cure in my lap, and picked me up.

“Naomi, can you tell me where your break is located? Is it a complete or incomplete injury? Tell me everything.” Artek’s voice carried melodically up the mountain behind him, the excitement in his voice palpable. I found that soothing, and promising. With Krashe translating my words as best as he could, I tried to explain my incomplete L2 injury and the vehicle crash that had caused it when I was fifteen. I told him about the treatments I remembered receiving, and the ones I’d missed out on back on Earth because of finances. If my parents had been rich or at least middle class, I’d have been walking within weeks of the accident.

I only paused in answering the many questions the Shaman had when we reached his home not even ten minutes later. A domed greenhouse that rose lush and verdant like a gem against the side of the low mountain flank, a clearing surrounded it that was filled with flowers. This greenhouse had functioning climate control when we entered a door that slid open silently when Artek approached it.

Humid and warm, the inside of the greenhouse was filled with purple foliage and even more exotic-looking plants and flowers. Meandering paths going through the space, but we only went along the main thoroughfare, to a door right across. Then we were in smooth tunnels lit up with crystals in the ceiling that brightened everything to daylight. When we were led directly to a room that was clearly a medical bay, all my worries faded away.

“Put them over here, and her on the bed so I can get my own scans, please? Is that okay with you, Naomi?” Artek had no problem at all pronouncing my name, his voice cultured and his accent almost posh. This was a very, very different kind of Naga and if my quick look at the tunnels we passed was any indication, he lived alone.

It didn’t take Artek very long to look at his scans and the data he’d pulled up from the boxes we’d brought. The little chips were probably incompatible with my physiology, or my injury, I didn’t dare to hope that they might actually work. I reached for Krashe’s hand and hung on tightly, focusing on the soft glow of his sigils along his shoulders, that was real and comforting. I needed to remind myself that my bond with him was more integral to being happy than being able to walk again. I’d had so many good moments mixed in with all the scary adventure. And honestly, the scary adventurous parts? Surviving those and doing the things I’d done to get through them, that made me happy too.

Then Artek’s golden eyes lifted from the data he’d been perusing, piercing first me, and then Krashe with a look. A slow grin spread over his face, revealing a set of dainty fangs in his mouth. “Oh yes, I think I can get this to work for you, Naomi.”

Epilogue

Naomi

“Are you nervous?” I asked Krashe as he carried me up the mountain flank. It had been three days since we’d left the Shaman’s home on the triple border of Bitter Storm, Copper Tooth, and Thunder Rock. Three Clans that made use of his services, and now we’d learned that a fourth little Clan was starting to settle nearby too. A Clan of Humans and Naga.

We’d spent quite some time with the Shaman, and he’d told us all about the various humans he’d met in the weeks before we’d arrived. Hearing that he’d run into Kalani and Iave felt good, he said they’d tried to rescue me from Bitter Storm. Since he’d later run into them again on the battlefield by Thunder Rock Village, he could assure me they’d survived their adventure just like I had. I was tickled pink by the idea that just like me, Kalani had fallen for a Naga warrior.

There had been others Artek had met too, like a Copper Tooth hunter named Mox who’d found a human girl in the wetlands. He and the girl, Charlie, had been his first contact with humans. Artek had sent them to Vera and her mate, who were building a safe haven for them in a set of ancestral caves beneath the very mountain we were now climbing.

As soon as Krashe had heard about it, he’d been completely set on taking me there. I wasn’t sure if Krashe would be happy or even welcome in a place that was essentially run by a former prince of Thunder Rock though. But he was dead set that I’d be safer—and happier—if I could live with other humans. I had to admit that I liked the idea of seeing some familiar faces. I wanted to at least talk with Vera, and especially Kalani. I wanted to know that they were happy like I was.

If Krashe wasn’t going to be welcome, the choice was easy though; I was staying with my mate. A mate he’d given up everything to be with, and moved Heaven and Earth to see walk again. We still didn’t know for sure if Artek’s insertion of that small chip had gone right. It was active and visible on the scans, in exactly the location it should be according to the Shaman. But I hadn’t been able yet to so much as wriggle a toe.

Krashe tried to hide it, but he was worried and sad that it hadn’t worked yet. Me, I was on pins and needles too, but I’d already had to accept once that I’d never walk again, I could do that again. I was a much stronger, more confident person now than I’d been eight years ago when I had my accident. I had the things that truly mattered anyway, a loving mate, a safe haven.

“Me? Nervous? Nah,” Krashe said, his deep voice rumbling against my shoulder where he had me pressed to his chest. Because my hover chair had been too damaged to get back to work, he was back to carrying me. Artek and Krashe had hauled it into his home though, and Krashe had sworn that if the chip didn’t work, he’d find a way to make the chair work.

“Are you sure?” I asked with a grin. My presence would hopefully diffuse any tensions with the blue Naga, the Thunder Rock outcasts. Still, Krashe was the one who’d decided to go to war with their former Clan, he hadn’t been there for the actual fight, but they probably wouldn’t take kindly to that news.

He huffed as if I’d offended him which just made me smile even more. Looking at his handsome face, with his wild ponytail of braids and black feathers, I instantly knew he was enjoying my teasing. “Sure, you heard Artek. They are welcoming all outcasts to join them. Am I not an outcast now?”

I bit my lip as I thought about that. I knew that Krashe was definitely an outcast like the other males the human girls were with. But there was one really big difference. Krashe was from the one Clan that was universally disliked by all the others. And he’d tried to start a war, a war that his former Queen had continued without him, badly. On top of that, we’d learned from Artek that she’d then cast out literally every male that was present at that battle they lost. So there were plenty of former Bitter Storm outcasts now roaming these mountains.

That bit of news had infuriated Krashe, and it had explained why the force we’d faced had been comprised primarily of sentinels that guarded the Hearth Caves and subpar warriors that hadn’t been included in the war forces. Of course, casting out what remained of your fighting and hunting force might temporarily solve the hunger issues. But without hunters to bring in food, what were they going to do?

“Just let me do the talking, okay?” I warned and ignored the amused smirk that curled my Warlord’s mouth. My eyes grew large when I realized that the trees were thinning out. For the last hour, we’d been flanked by a cliff wall on our right and larger boulders scattered on our left. Those rock blocks had grown more frequent and bigger, and now we were in what amounted to a wide funnel.

When the trees thinned out I could see our destination ahead and it was not at all what I expected it to be. A carved gate framed the entrance to these cave tunnels, and two Naga-shaped statues on pedestals held up lanterns on either side of it. A domed ruin lay to the left of the entrance, the metal bones of the structure clearly a copy of the greenhouse that guarded the entrance of Artek’s home.

A handful of people were outside on the grassy and semi-flat area in front of the entrance. Eagerly I skipped over the three blue and one purple-scaled Naga males to search the faces of the humans with them. I instantly recognized Vera, but it was the sight of Kalani’s face that made me truly happy.