Page 17 of The Naga Maverick’s Determined Mate

“Okay, this way,” she said just as the skin on my back prickled. She pointed a slender hand down one tunnel but I caught it and yanked her close, pressing her against the wall behind my back. My heart was racing, my hands already reaching for a pair of daggers strapped to my chest. “What the fuck! Zsekhet!” Cosima muttered but she froze when she saw the shimmer of a knife. “Someone coming?” she whispered.

I nodded, willing the jubilant glow of my sigils to die down so we could better hide. They just would not, lighting the tunnel with each pulse of my heart. Shouting for anyone to see that I was protecting my tiny mate behind my back. We were in Thunder Rock territory—barely—according to the map, but I had a feeling that those I heard approaching were not going to be from the blue Clan.

“Bitter Storm,” I said quietly to my mate. They were coming from several directions, we could not outrun them, not in here, where I was completely out of my element. Not long after the words left my mouth the first warrior rounded the corner, his red scales glowing with a faint hint of yellow and black in the light of my scales.

“Yessss,” the warrior hissed in response, “Bitter Storm. You are intruders, you will be punished!” He leveled his spear my way, baring a set of fangs, the row of upper teeth between filed to sharp points. All of his ivory was painted black, a shocking, disgusting sight to see that made my scales itch. What kind of darkness had this Clan succumbed to?

“Wait, Sentinel Sra,” a second intruded. A younger Naga but still a full-fledged warrior in his own right, this newcomer came out of another tunnel and was followed by several more. “You know we have new orders. We’re to take intruders captive and bring them to the King.”

That sounded better than having to fight half a dozen warriors in these tight quarters. My daggers were much more suited to that kind of close combat than their spears, but it meant Cosima would be far too exposed. Not a risk I wanted to take. But the word ‘King’ gave me pause, since when did a Clan have a king? Such a thing was unheard of. Usually, it was Queen consort. At the most, a male could be a prince, whose mate could assent the throne.

The older male hissed but he lowered his spear just a tad. I sighed. Okay, now what? With the element of surprise on my side, I could take them. As soon as that first warrior turned his back, I’d jump him. I braced my muscles, my tail curling protectively around my mate. But the sound of more warriors approaching held me back. Damn it, their numbers swelled to nearly twenty, they crowded around us and started urging us to move with angry threats, barely held in check by the more reasonable male out of the lot. The one who insisted we needed to be brought to the King.

I guess we’d be visiting this King. I wondered who it was, but Krashe was not the most forthcoming male, he rarely talked about people from his old Clan. The most I knew came from Naomi, who’d let slip after my implants had been inserted, that the Queen of that Clan had had some serious problems with her and Krashe’s mating. If anyone dared to call my mate an abomination, they would not live to tell the tale.

“Don’t be scared,” I murmured to my mate, “It will all work out. I promise.” If Ses was here, I’d take my chances with their numbers. This was why I really hated being underground, you got used to always having the power of a dragon at your fingertips. If there was one thing I was sure of, Ses would protect my mate with his life, without question.

Cosima tilted her head to lean it against my bicep, her whisper even softer than my words had been. “Oh I’m not scared, I think I’m stinking mad. It’s not like we wanted to intrude on their territory.” I smirked, curling my arm around her shoulders and tugging her even closer. That was my girl, fiery like the flames she carried in her hair. I knew she’d been keeping all that fire banked inside the moment I’d laid eyes on her, and now she was finally letting it out. She was perfect, and adorable.

It felt like we walked for hours without a break, one endless tunnel after another. With no handy marks of charcoal to leave behind, we were never going to find our way out on our own. The Shaman’s map had only included a portion of the tunnels in Bitter Storm territory. We’d have to take some local hostage to be our guide. Not my idea of a good time, but very doable, I reasoned.

My mate was getting tired, her pace slowing the further we traveled. She’d already been through a lot, with her abduction, with the passion and the mate bond between us. I swung her into my arms without a word, ignoring the spears being leveled at me and the angry growls and hisses. Cosima snuggled against my chest, her eyes large in her pale, freckled face. She was tired but not sleepy, all her senses on high alert. Good, we’d need that.

The huge cavern we entered not much later took me by surprise. I hadn’t realized caves could be this large, and it boggled my mind that you could be indoors and Sesethul might even fit with room to spare. A whole village lay inside it, hundreds of houses packed together in a labyrinthine maze. The wooden roofs and thick clay walls spread a lightly herbal scent from the trees that had been used to make them.

The hubbub of voices had sounded like the murmur of a river before, but now that I saw the source I was a little awed. Serqethos was only a small Clan so I had never before seen this many people crowded together in one place, it was mind-boggling to see. So many red Naga darting along the pathways, a whole crowd of younglings chasing after a ball.

As soon as they saw us, voices started going up, people staring and pointing. Mouths pulled into angry snarls or glares. Many of the bared sets of teeth I saw were blackened in the same way as the warrior that had found us first. Wood smoke curled through the air, carrying with it the scents of cooking meat. I wondered how much risk there was of a fire outbreak, these wooden buildings were all built so close together they leaned crookedly into one another.

“This place is a firetrap,” Cosima hissed, echoing my thoughts. “We need to get out of here. I don’t fancy going up in flames because someone forgot to turn off the stove.” I grinned, finding humor in the situation, what were the chances that right as we arrived, everything burned to the ground? Many of these homes were old and crooked, they looked like they’d been here a long time. But stove was a strange word that I struggled to attach a meaning to, did she mean a cooking fire?

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.” I spotted a tunnel in the far distance, the edge of it just visible above the roofs. It was lighter there, a way out. I wondered how high up on the mountain we’d find ourselves if we left that way. Would Ses be able to find us and fly us home? To Haven?

Knowing my companion he would start scouring the mountain flank in search of us when he thought I took too long to return. But it would be sheer luck if he happened to be close to us when we left. He had an uncanny knack for finding me, but I was sure that ended when I had traversed underground. There was no scent to follow.

“In here!” directed the male with a hint of orange on his scales; so far the single voice of reason among the crowd. He swung open the door to a small wooden home, sturdily built but with a low ceiling. “You’ll have to wait until the King returns and he can see you.” His eyes were orange starbursts. A startling sight, considering how bright they were. They edged toward gold like my own. The male dared to glance down from my face to Cosima in my arms.

“I can’t believe there’s another one. And this one can, you know… walk?” he asked in a much quieter tone. He even leaned in and plunked a lantern down just inside the door. I spotted a nest with a sparse few furs on one side, a bucket in a corner and that was it. Not the worst kind of prison I’d found myself locked up in, and this time I had my mate with me. My mate, and a bed, those were pretty good conditions.

“What’s it to you?” I asked. I did not want to scare him off when he held an interest in Cosima that wasn’t homicidal, like what I’d witnessed in the others. Now that I was not filled with the blood lust that had raged through me when I hunted Scar’at, I could draw on my other skills. The skills that had gotten me chosen for the spying mission at Outcast Haven by Serqethos’ Queen.

The red and orange male rolled a shoulder in a casual shrug, glancing uneasily over his shoulder at the warriors still crowded on the narrow path with him. They were listening to every word we said; this male wasn’t going to talk unless we had privacy. Interesting. What did he want to know, and why was he feeling less hostile than the others?

The door shut before I had any answers, but that would come. They had not killed us on sight, we had time. I carried Cosima to the nest which I carefully inspected with my tail. I did not put her down on the furs until I was satisfied that they were clean and fresh, and the bedding beneath them was dry and clean. When I put her down, I relished the fact that I could now openly fling my tail around her hips to keep holding her. She didn’t object but clutched her fingers into my scales to press me to her body, the leather of her dress the only thing separating us.

“What now?” she asked, “Do you know how we can get out of here?” I glanced around the small hut, forced to stay lowered on my tail so my horns did not brush the ceiling. I didn’t like how small and cramped it was, and it made my scales rattle along my back when I considered the weight of the mountain suspended above our heads. What if those rock walls broke and crumbled? We’d be crushed beneath all that stone.

“Now we wait until this ‘King’ can see us. What do you know of the Bitter Storm Clan? Did Krashe and Naomi tell you about them?” Mentioning Naomi’s name out loud made me realize why this orange-hued male had asked me the question he had. He had met Naomi, and he was surprised to discover that Cosima walked, and then confused because I’d carried her for the last portion of our journey.

I wanted to pace across the small space, restless despite my calm assurance that all we could do was wait. I’d been underground for so long already, I hated it. My scales itched to feel the thrum of the wind, I longed to sail through the open skies on Ses’ back. Now that Cosima and I were talking, I couldn’t wait to show her all the wonders of Serant.

Forcing myself to sit still was only hard until I realized that it was the perfect excuse to curl up with my mate in the nest. I settled at her side, flinging my arm around her shoulder, and I was filled with elation when she sighed and cuddled into me. What a change from two weeks ago, what a change even compared to this morning.

“I know they hate technology and anything different than them. Krashe told us of the revenants that roam beyond their mountain range, which they have kept from entering the lands of the other Clans.” Cosima spoke quietly though she didn’t need to, I was the only one who could understand what she said around here. I liked how it made the atmosphere inside more intimate, and it distracted me further from my dislike of being underground.

I’d heard the stories of the revenants too, and I’d even seen them when I’d flown with Ses far and wide in other directions. They had been walking monstrosities that roamed lands abandoned by any living being, but the revenants here threatened to encroach on Bitter Storm land every cold season.

“What else,” I murmured, trying to tally what information we had on this Clan. Any knowledge could work to our advantage. There should have been a Queen, but evidently this Clan had done the unthinkable and gotten themselves a King in the time that Krashe had left.