Page 3 of The Naga Maverick’s Determined Mate

“Min-Ji…” I started to say, trying frantically to come up with an excuse and coming up blank. My heels dug in, trying to pull myself out of her firm grasp. Then my eyes fell on the Naga male outside. Not one of the males mated to a girl here, one of the newcomers. I knew that male at a glance because he was the only one with golden scales. He was the one who had come here with the dragon.

It looked like he was just moving across the clearing inside the fenced area, heading toward where Reid, our lone human man, was sparring with Corin. He must have put his bots to sleep or decided to trust them to run on their own when he came out here to train. While Min-Ji’s eyes went to the silvery blue Naga male, my eyes locked with the gold one closer to the cave entrance. The golden orbs pierced me, his face foreign but somehow appealing.

He had long black hair and wore leather bands around his arms and chest like a strange kind of armor. More of those bands were around his tail and they had rivets and loops on them. It was his riding harness, which he used to attach himself to a similar harness on the dragon.

That look made my mouth go dry and my heart rate speed up. I was pretty sure that that guy didn’t like me much because he was all smiles and warmth to the others, but for me, his expression always turned serious and frowny. It made me uncomfortable and worried. I was a people pleaser, and it made me worry when that didn’t seem to be working. He was looking right at me having a stupid nervous breakdown about going outside. Gah, I hated this!

Giving up, I let Min-Ji pull me out into the sunshine, and lo and behold, of course there was no dragon swooping down to snatch me up. Gold dude’s dragon was the only one around in this area of Serant, and he was sunning himself on the cliff. It was a stupid, irrational fear. I knew that dragon hadn’t eaten anyone, his golden rider took him out over the wetlands whenever he was hungry to chase some six-legged bison there.

Stumbling on the threshold, I let Min-Ji drag me all the way up the hill to where Corin and Reid were sparring. My stomach was in knots the entire time, not so much for fear of dragons, but because that golden Naga was taking a parallel path in the same direction. “What are we doing here?” I asked Min-Ji under my breath but my companion’s focus was entirely on Corin’s agile body as he sparred with Reid.

My belly churned some more when I noticed her fixation. As always Min-Ji only had eyes for the one Naga male who was still single from the original three that rescued us. And Corin, as was usual, pretended she wasn’t there at all. I didn’t know what was up with them, but it made me the only girl around not interested in any of these guys.

I had good reason for that, but that just made me hurt inside so I didn’t want to think about it. If there was one thing I was good at, it was avoidance, so like Corin pretending Min-Ji wasn’t there, I pretended there were no Naga around. Even when the gold guy started hissing in sibilant tones at Corin and Corin hissed back. They weren’t angry or arguing, that was just what their language sounded like, but it still made me feel like they were upset at each other.

Growing up with parents who should have divorced years before they eventually did, anyone arguing around me just made that people-pleasing trait pant with worry. Were they mad at me? What could I do to fix it? How did I smooth over this argument and restore the peace?

Reid, the human man just watched the interaction with his arms crossed and then he gestured some which was all they needed. Reid and Min-Ji, like me, couldn’t understand a word the Naga said, while the mated ladies all seemed to get an instant language update as soon as they did the deed. Reid however, seemed perfectly at ease around the aliens and even more capable of making his wishes known, even with the language barrier.

Now the three were sparring together, laughing and taunting each other while they were at it. I couldn’t help but stare, just like my friend, at how beautifully each man moved. The golden Naga especially seemed to do everything with such zest for life, laughing or grinning, even when he got hit, he seemed to be enjoying himself. I really, really wished I could be more like that, but I couldn’t remember the last time I enjoyed doing anything.

***

Zsekhet

My body was alive, my muscles burning, and my heart pounding. I wanted to put on a show for the flame-haired one, the urge to preen and show off was too powerful to overcome. I knew her name was Cosima because I had made it my business to find out as soon as possible. But learning anything else about the sky female was proving difficult when she never left Haven. I hoped that now that I had my own apartment inside the mountain where she lived, those things would change.

Catching a blow from the human male with my tail, and deflecting it so I could duck under his guard, I laughed when he cursed and then struck his elbow down into my shoulder. I couldn’t speak his language, or hers, but I knew those swear words anyway. I liked this male, he was strong and fast, and he worked hard to help this growing little group of outcasts.

But while I liked the males that lived in the caves, and enjoyed speaking with the females that had mated. I still had far more questions than answers. Three months was a long time to be away from my Clan, but they’d flown by, my focus more on the intriguing, always sad Cosima. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know where her kind had come from, or if there were more. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t determined yet whether the outcast clan forming here would be a threat to our existence.

The only thing that mattered to me right now was Cosima and my worry for her. Why didn’t the others see how unhappy she was? How scared? And that that came from trauma? I could tell some were a little impatient with her. At meetings, I’d always ask why she wasn’t present and they’d just shrug and say she didn’t care. I knew that was a lie.

Now here she was, standing arm in arm with the black-haired one; Min-Ji. Finally outside to get some much-needed sunshine on her pale skin, finally outside to see me. My brain was fully focused on figuring out how to convince her to do it again, and again. Once she got used to it, to my presence, she would know she didn’t need to be afraid.

Seeing how Min-Ji had basically manhandled her out of the cave gave me an idea. Someone really needed to shake her out of her comfort zone, and I was just the male for the job.

Chapter 2

Cosima

Sitting at the edge of the fire I poked the ground in front of my feet with a stick, twirling it through the sand and making random shapes. Around me, people were talking and laughing, but it wasn’t easy to be part of a conversation when you only understood half of it. Min-Ji and Reid had been talking about getting their translators updated somehow so they could understand everyone, but so far, they hadn’t figured out how yet.

I dreaded the moment when they did and they’d ask me if I wanted a language update too. What then? I reached up a hand to touch the crude scar just behind my ear shell, an identical mark marring me on the other side. Yeah, what then? Unless I found myself a mate, and that thought made me want to throw up, I would never be able to understand the Naga.

Kalani sat on my left, half curled up against her huge brutish mate, Iave. He’d slung a coil of his tail over her seat as a pillow, so she wasn’t touching the cold wood but his warm tail, such a sweet, romantic gesture. She was talking animatedly with her hands, her eyes glowing, and laughing whenever he growled something at her. So cozy and in love, just like I’d been once. Then my eyes flicked up from my wayward melancholic thoughts and directly into a golden gaze.

Zsekhet. I’d caved yesterday and asked Min-Ji if she knew his name. Then I’d tried to cover my interest in him by asking if she knew what the names of the other two new ‘Clan’ members were. I’d already forgotten again, my brain struggling to hold on to such foreign sounds. Zsekhet rose from where he sat across the fire, slithering around the circle of eating people to steadily approach my position.

Now what? I wanted to get up and leave but that would draw everyone’s attention to me. I didn’t need people to figure out just how threatening and big I still found most of the Naga. I was used to Corin the most, but the others, they still freaked me out a little. Especially when they blinked with their weird second eyelids.

Frozen in place, I just watched as he got closer and closer. Was he really coming toward me? Or was he just going to slither right on past? I found that I was holding my breath as I waited to see what he’d do. When he flung some of his coils over the log I was sitting on, I wanted to scoot away, I wanted to run. But all he did was sit down next to me, his gaze dropping from mine to glance around the circle of talking and eating people.

I sighed, that wasn’t so bad. He was just sitting, he wasn’t touching. He probably just wanted to get downwind of the smoke curling up from the fire. Then I made the mistake of glancing at him through my lashes and I realized he was looking right at me. As soon as I did, he lifted the tip of his tail and pointed it my way, kind of like he expected me to shake it. A grin was curling the corner of his mouth up and exposed one sharp fang; heat shot through me that I quickly squashed.

Did he expect me to grab his tail? I glanced around the circle and even looked at Kalani but she was engrossed in regaling her mate with stories of her time as a marine. Nobody paid any attention to me, or the way Zsekhet was daring me to touch his scales. I knew what he was doing and it made me feel all cold and knotted up inside. He was daring me to touch him and find out if I was his mate.

I rose, and of course, nobody noticed that. I’d been worried for nothing. Only Zsekhet saw me as I scrambled over the log and ran into the caves with my stick still clutched between my fingers. Cowardly Cosima, making another run for it, so normal by now that nobody even noticed. I fought the tears that started to prick at my eyes, and I fought even more against the urge to remember my fiance. My childhood sweetheart, Caleb with the soft brown eyes and the big bear hugs. I missed him so much.