Page 11 of The Naga Maverick’s Determined Mate

Krashe shot me a sharp but pleased look that said it all. See, this is how you do it, he was implying with just that glance. That was all the advice he was willing to offer, turning to his mate to grab her up in his arms and receive many ‘kisses’ these humans liked to give. Presses of their lips against their mate’s flesh or mouth. I was dying to find out what that felt like, but just a glance at Cosima’s angry, set face, told me I’d be waiting for a long time.

“Hello friends!” a male suddenly called out cheerfully. Krashe and I spun around, my hands going to the knives strapped in holsters along my chest. The former Warlord relaxed at the sight of the male exiting the bizarre, domed building, but I wasn’t so easily put at ease. This was an unfamiliar male to me, on top of that, he lacked any color at all, which was shocking to see. The Shaman at Serqethos had black scales, which made him stand out, but this male was white. It was strange, stranger than the sky-beings looked to me.

“Artek!” Naomi called out, enthusiastically waving her flowers at this Shaman. His long pale body wasn’t entirely colorless I realized, in the Serant sunlight, his scales picked up a whole kaleidoscope of rainbows, like the opals we dug up in the desert. He was dressed in a blue robe that hung open around his chest, but a sash covered his waist. Dozens of golden jewels clung to his neck, his arms, and tail. Jewels I instantly recognized as the artistic work of some of my Clan members.

“Welcome. Corin told me to expect you. Right this way,” the male said, gesturing to the doorway into his plant-filled home. He had no weapons on him as far as I could see, but I still made sure I was between him and my mate at all times as we followed him into his strange and oddly humid and warm building. As I was about to duck inside, I glanced over my shoulder and gave Ses a nod. The dragon winked at me with one golden eye before he settled in the meadow for a good, long nap.

I braced myself as I stepped inside, finding the strange humidity, and the overabundance of plant life a baffling sight. Then I spotted Cosima’s radiant expression as she tilted her head left and right to take everything in. My heart felt full and warm at the sight, she was in her element, and she was awed by what she was seeing.

The next hour I spent in a mixture of awe and confusion as I was lead through the Shaman’s home on a tour. Levant was a private male, his patients at Serqethos or the other nearby Clans only ever saw his medical room right behind his entrance. We saw nothing of his private rooms, but this Shaman, Artek, he was happy to let us wander around and Krashe and Naomi clearly knew their way in his place.

Soon, Krashe had informed Artek of what we wanted and the male had kitted out Naomi and my mate with this little shiny thing attached to the top of their shirts. A ‘recording’ relic I’d been told. He was going to have to gather as much of the ‘English’ they spoke so that he could fashion a translation ‘algorithm’. All the words made my head spin but I didn’t care how it worked anyway, as long as I was the first to get it so that I could finally understand my mate.

For hours, the two females sat down inside the plant building while Cosima sketched. They talked endlessly to fill these ‘recordings’ for the Shaman and I couldn’t help but just sit there, a little distance away, and watch. Letting their melodic tones filter to me and desperately wishing I could understand.

“If you just touched her, you’d be able to,” the Shaman said from my left, having approached so silently that it startled even me, a seasoned warrior and hunter. I scowled his way, if it were that simple, I would already have done that. I wasn’t an idiot, as long as she was an unclaimed female, all the aspirant males thought they might have a chance with her. Then I saddened, realizing what kind of sadness they must have felt to be cast out because their mate was not among their Clan. To discover these sky-beings only to find out there were so few of them.

With only Min-Ji and Cosima without a mate but nearly forty aspirants at the camp by now… Although those of the Water Weaver Clan, the green Naga, only dropped by. Most never stuck around long enough to really settle in, struck with wanderlust that simply could not keep them in one place for long. I understood that, without Ses to take me to the skies, I’d feel confined inside Ahoshaga’s caves too, even if they were as brightly lit by crystals as the Shaman’s home.

“You must try this relic on me as soon as possible. I will be your test subject, I don’t care.” I tapped my ear, “I can’t court her if I can’t understand her story.” The Shaman tilted his head to glance at the two humans sitting on the flagstones at the center of his luscious plant room. Naomi had leaned in and was whispering urgently in Cosima’s ear and my mate’s frown was growing fiercer by the second.

“Are you sure about that?” Artek asked me, “Courting is done with more than words…” I curled my lips, I knew that! Holding out the bit of clay I’d been fiddling with, I gave him a look. Why did he think I was doing this? I was no seasoned goldsmith like those back home, but every Serqethos male worth his salt knew the basics of the craft.

When the gold eyes from the Shaman darted from my face to a spot over my shoulder, I turned and froze. Cosima was standing right next to me, her hands on her hips and a fierce glare sharpening her gray eyes. She raised a hand to wag a finger in my face, words spilling from her tongue like a waterfall. I had eyes only for the way each word made her soft lips move, the way the leather clung to the full curve of her breasts.

“Seems like she’s very angry to hear you offer yourself up as a test subject. You must be doing something right courting her.” Krashe’s wry voice came from beyond Cosima, he’d entered the humid growing room just in time to offer his translations. It was obvious that he thought I had been making a hash of things with Cosima, but I couldn’t care less. I was elated. She did care, at least a little, she had to feel the pull of the mate bond between us just as I could.

“Now she’s upset that you’re grinning like a fool. Maybe you should go out for a hunt or something,” Krashe said with amusement. I caught the hint of a quickly disappearing smirk on his face and shot him a rude gesture. Like he was the expert on mates just because he had one. Naomi’s scars had been physical, but Cosima’s were of the soul. That was very different!

I rose, glaring at him, but then I focused again on my mate, because how could I not? Her hair haloed around her face like flames, several small braids decorating them courtesy of Naomi. Her cheeks were so red that the color obscured all of her cute little spots. I smiled, I just couldn’t help myself. She was beautiful, and I was happy to take her anger. Because since I’d first gotten her mad, she’d also had moments of happiness. To bear the brunt of those flames was a very fair price to pay if you asked me, and soon she’d know that too.

Nodding at the Shaman, I dipped into a bow for Cosima, and then I departed. Not to hunt, but to locate more Exar berries for my mate, and maybe some of those flowers too.

Chapter 7

Cosima

We had been at the Shaman’s home for three whole days, and Naomi and I had nearly talked ourselves ragged on as many subjects as we could think of to help create the language database for Artek. It felt extremely weird to be helping to create something when I knew I wouldn’t be able to use it. I still hadn’t told anyone about it either.

I had currently secluded myself in a small office-like room in Artek’s home. There was a desk and books on a shelf along one wall. The chair was a little too big for me, shaped to better fit the larger Naga bodies. But there was plenty of space to spread out all my papers so I could perfect my drawings and calculations. I had everything I needed to finish this up, it just took time to write out my plans and instructions so they’d make sense to me later.

The Shaman even had access to quills and ink, so I could use fine charcoal to sketch, and the ink to finalize my details. It was… rejuvenating and healing to work on blueprints again. It brought me in contact with the old me, from before the abduction and stint in captivity with the Scrakoids. I was in my element again, capable, and doing something that was going to provide food to Outcast Haven and the humans there.

The only snag in feeling better was Zsekhet. He kept intruding on my thoughts, making me lose my focus so I’d end up doing calculations several times over just to be sure I wasn’t making any mistakes. I was pretty sure he was the ‘secret’ but not-so-secret admirer that Naomi had been giggling about before. For one, because he made sure to bring me those berries I liked for every meal and flowers at least twice a day. My room was filled with little clay pots with them, I even had a bunch on my desk right there.

I was shocked with how not-upset I was with this discovery. No wonder he’d been looking at me so intensely when he was so easy going with everyone else. But I still hadn’t really changed my mind about a mate, I had my chance with Caleb, how could I replace him with someone new? That felt like betrayal, even though rationally I knew that everyone would tell me I deserved to move on, to find new happiness. How did I know if I was even ready for such a thing?

My eyes lingered on a particular black line of ink I’d made with the help of a ruler that I’d carved the notches on myself. It reminded me a little too much of the black lines of Zsekhet’s horns and now I felt myself grow mad. Why did he want to get the first translator so badly? He shouldn’t be the one taking that kind of a risk, let it be one of the others, the aspirants.

I rubbed frantically at the back of my ear, over the scar tissue there. Just thinking about any kind of surgery there made me super squeamish. I hated it. I didn’t want anyone to do that to Zsekhet, even if rationally I knew that the Shaman would take every precaution. This was a planet that was, for the most part, stuck in some kind of hybrid between the Stone Age and as I’d learned, Bronze Age. How skilled was this healer?

My thoughts were a complete mess about this guy but one thing I knew I had to admit, he was sexy. I was attracted, and now that I knew he was into me too… It was like some kind of barrier had been breached. I tried to tell myself he was only interested because I was his one chance at a mate, but he’d settled on me, not Min-Ji. It was no use, it was making me all hot and warm inside to be found attractive by a potent man like him.

As if my thoughts had summoned him, Zsekhet sailed whistling into my little office space, his arms full of some silky, soft-looking furs. He grinned at me, displaying his sharp fangs, and started talking rapidly in his strange language. What, did he expect me to just get what he was saying now? This guy kept giving me the runaround, making me think up was down, and it was… good for me in some ways? I had stepped way out of my comfort zone because of him in the past week. I was finally starting to feel sort of whole again.

He dropped the furs carelessly on the ground, still talking, his golden eyes shimmering with excitement. The long black hair he normally wore loose around his head, had been tightly braided, and when he started to gesture at his ears I knew why. He’d gone and done the procedure! He had allowed the Shaman to cut into his head to install ancient implants that the Shaman had dug up from his store room.

I flew to my feet, “Oh no! You didn’t! Zsekhet… What if it goes wrong? What if it doesn’t work? No! You should have let someone else go first!” I flapped my hands at his ears, not wanting to touch him but mad, and worried enough to approach and get right in his face. “Don’t you know how dangerous that is? So many things could go wrong!” Compulsively I reached up and touched the scar behind my left ear.