Page 23 of The Naga Maverick’s Determined Mate

“Now it is your turn to pass judgment.” The words were pronounced with smug satisfaction and they were followed by the crowd erupting in jeering, shouting, and even growling. I cast my eyes around, desperately hoping for an exit that wasn’t there. There were a dozen guards with spears at our back, and a whole crowd of murderous Naga in front of us. Even the females in the cages seemed eager for our death despite their own predicament.

“Do you have any ideas?” I said to Zsekhet, and I was surprised by how much I trusted him to come up with something. Where had that kind of faith come from? Fighting a force of over five hundred Naga with just the two of us was impossible. We were with our backs against the wall, and it was a wall of spears at that.

He tilted his head, his eyes narrowed in a glare as he stared the crowd down with his piercing golden eyes. A grin started to pull on the edges of his mouth but I wasn’t sure if that was just a weird response to our dire situation or if he was actually somehow amused. “Now we hope,” he said, and then he stuck his fingers in his mouth and whistled. It was an ear-piercing, obnoxious kind of whistle that only a rare few people seemed to be able to pull off.

The sound seemed to enrage the crowd, which really was the last thing we wanted. They started to advance on us, shouting and growling, rattling their spears against armor or the ground. It was intimidating and I was pretty sure we were not going to make it out of this. I’d heard Naomi’s account of how she’d faced her own horde of these warriors, I didn’t think I’d be as badass as her, urging them on.

But faced with a similar situation, on steroids, I realized again that there weren’t many options for the mind to go. Fight, flight, freeze. I’d attempted flight and freeze already when I’d been abducted and when I’d found myself on Serant. That wasn’t what I was feeling now. Fight was rushing through me, adrenaline soaring. If they wanted to kill us, I wanted to take some of them with me.

“There he comes,” Zsekhet murmured, “Looks like hope is working for us, my flame-haired mate.” He lifted a hand and pointed at the sky and my heart soared with it. Sesethul, how could I have forgotten about the giant beast? Where once I’d been scared just to see his silhouette in the sky, now that giant winged shape represented freedom and hope.

He was still just a small dot on the horizon, so far away that he seemed small as a bird. How long did we have to delay that salivating crowd? I didn’t even have a weapon on me. I glanced around, noticing the flash and glimmer of the many black speartips aimed at us. The guards at our backs were approaching, trying to urge us forward.

Beyond them, I saw another Naga dart out of the caves. His scales caught the violet sunlight and shimmered dark orange and umber. A bundle was cradled against his chest, our satchel with things bouncing on his hip, and behind him trailed two small Naga children. Why was he taking children out here?

I was certain that this Naga was Joxra, and he hadn’t disposed of our things like he’d been told to. The King, Aser, had noticed him at the same time I had, and he’d raised his arm and started to shout, going unheard over the noise of the crowd. When Joxra threw back his head and did some kind of loud, ululating cry, everyone could hear that.

Chapter 14

Zsekhet

When in a hostile situation, you needed to be able to assess very quickly where your allies were, and how best to leverage them. I knew exactly where Sesethul was, winging his way toward me, and from years of experience I also knew exactly how long it would take him to get here. That was the time that Cosima and I had to stall until Ses could crash this freaking party in the biggest way. The Bitter Storm Naga hadn’t even seen him yet, and I wondered if they even knew that his kind existed.

That left me with my daggers, my wits, and my very tiny, very fragile mate. Without her at my side, I would have felt confident that I could make it. I was a very agile fighter, not constrained by long spears or a heavy sword. I liked dodging and weaving through the mass and surprising them with my attacks. Cosima’s presence made that kind of tactic impossible.

The spears at our backs started pressing in, and the crowd at our front was approaching. I spun Cosima into my arms and then urged her up on my shoulders. Ducking beneath the spear blades aimed toward me, I curled my dagger through the belly of the nearest guard. The opening volley; the thick, rich scent of blood filled the air and the first hints of battle rage stirred in my veins.

Then more opponents fell and I realized I was not the only one hacking his way through Bitter Storm Naga. The slightly orange-tinted male, Joxra had charged his own warriors from behind, and at least a handful of other warriors had joined him. This was a civil war, Bitter Storm fighting Bitter Storm.

I could work with that, enemy of my enemy and all that. We quickly found each other, my gold scales functioning as a rallying point for Joxra and his friends. I lowered Cosima behind me as we formed a tight-knit ring of warriors protecting our vulnerable. “Are you crazy?” I asked of Joxra when the two of us ended up side by side, fighting off one spear blade after the next. We were slowly backing up, edging toward a rock wall just left of the large cave tunnel.

“No, desperate,” Joxra responded. A motion near his chest made me glance and I drew in a shocked gasp at the sight of the tiny baby Naga he cradled against his body. Very desperate indeed, if he’d thrown his lot in with us while being the protector of such a small, innocent life. The crazy bastard had to know that fighting on this ledge with me and a handful of warriors against his entire clan was a fool’s errand. Unless he knew about Ses just like I did.

“Take us with you?” Joxra pleaded of me without shame. Then he ducked, deflected a spear, and hissed into the face of his opponent. “You know this is wrong!” he snarled, “This male is not our King! He has made you slay our females! Our Clan has been doomed by his hands!” He spoke to the attacking warriors but it did not seem to make any difference to the rest of his Clan. Whatever this Aser had done to whip them into this frenzy, he had full control of the mass.

I battled off some more of my own fighters, while always remaining aware of Cosima pressed to my back. She tried to be a warrior, I’d seen her practice with Kalani back at Haven. But I knew that while fierce, she was no fighter, and that was fine, I could protect us both. My determined little mate was clever in other ways and I’d make sure she’d get to see her greenhouse built.

Bleeding from several nicks and cuts, I was growing fatigued from the constant fighting but I knew it wouldn’t be much longer now. I didn’t even need to glance up to know where Ses’ position would be in the sky, and right as I expected it, his shadow blocked out the sun and cast the rock plateau we were on into darkness. That did make the horde of warriors pause, glancing up to see what had happened.

Then Sesethul roared and flame burst from his maw in a large, billowing cone that coasted just above the heads of the horde. A warning shot. Chaos followed in an instant as Bitter Storm warriors all around us started to flee. The fact that Joxra and his handful of allies stayed clustered to my side meant they had known about the dragon somehow but I could tell that even the brave male holding that tiny baby was a little scared.

“Ses!” Cosima called out from behind my back, her arm shooting up to wave at the dragon. He turned his big head, one golden eye centering on us, and then without care for who he might crush in the process, he came in for a landing just in front of us. As soon as his body was between us and most of the warriors, I urged Cosima forward. She came willingly, unlike her hesitance from her previous flight on my trusted beast. Using my tail, I flung her up on his neck, right where my preferred seat was.

I turned to asses the ragtag group that had gathered with us. Only four adult males, including Joxra, and two younglings who had huddled behind their tails and stared at Ses with huge, fearful eyes. Ses could carry us all, but I did not want to make this a long flight, he had to be tired.

“I am flying us directly to Haven, to Krashe, you understand?” I said to Joxra. He looked relieved, nodding his head at the other males but none of them started approaching Ses. The dragon had turned his head toward the horde of Bitter Storm out on the mountain flank, we were now between them and their home. Ses was laying down flames of fire every so often to make sure they kept their distance but I could already hear Aser’s voice as he tried to rally his forces.

Ses had angled one wing out above our heads, exposing the flying membranes to a possible hail of arrows or spears but putting our little group beneath its protective shelter. “Go, I have no straps to secure you, you must hold on tight.” I reached for the first warrior’s arm and pushed him towards Ses’ side, instructing him how to get up. Joxra followed our lead, and then they were tucking the kids between them and one warrior undid his weapon belts and started tying them to Ses’ back-spines with those.

They were almost all on there when I heard a sound from behind me. “Zsekhet! Watch out! They went around…” Cosima’s warning was just in time. I ducked by instinct and a spear sliced through my bicep instead of my chest. I flung my tail around, grappling my opponent, and dagger slashing, I soon got the best of him. Then there was another, and another.

Each cut to my flesh enraged me, each threat to my mate made my blood simmer more. I was losing myself to this, I shouldn’t be fighting, I should be retreating but it was hard to wrest myself free of the combat when all I wanted to do was punish those who thought to harm my female.

“Zsekhet!” Cosima’s voice was much closer to me than it should be. And then Ses swiped his tail around, I ducked because I recognized that whistling noise but my opponents did not, flinging through the air like they were rag dolls. Then I felt a soft hand press against the scales of my tail and I twirled around and caught Cosima in my arms.

“Damn it! It’s not safe!” I growled at her, she needed to get back up on Ses; we needed to fly out of here as soon as we could. The blood lust had gotten to me, delaying us when we had no time for such mistakes. “Go Ses!” I waved my hand at the dragon and he flapped his wings, gusts of air hitting us hard. More warriors were racing from the cave and readying their spears for a throw.

There was no time to mount Sesethul properly but my beast knew what to do. His huge paw shot for us and picked Cosima and me right off the ground as he leaped into the air. There were screams from his passengers, at least one child and the baby started crying. But Cosima didn’t so much as wince, she just clung to me and the nearest tip of Ses’s claw. She had a determined look on her face as she scanned the horde that was rapidly diminishing below us.