Page 6 of The Naga Maverick’s Determined Mate

The other males that had dared to touch me were slinking away, fearful of the furious wrath of the golden male. I was shocked by what I witnessed, even as I felt this hint of relief. Zsekhet was the most easygoing male in this place, always smiling, always laughing and joking. To see him fight was like seeing an entirely different man, a raging barbarian caught in the throes of blood lust.

See, you couldn’t trust rescue. Zsekhet would kill me if I got too close. This wasn’t safety, this was just another kind of danger and I wasn’t going to stick around for it. It wouldn’t come as a shock either when he’d turn around later and demand I pay him for that ‘rescue.’ Bitterness filled me as I turned away from the fighting mass and stalked back to the gate.

Why was it Zsekhet who interfered anyway? Why hadn’t it been Krashe? He had been right there, able to see what was going on! I had my answer as soon as I stepped through the large gap in the wooden wall and discovered that Krashe wasn’t there. I spotted a flash of red to my left further along the wood wall, and could make out a pale arm slung around his neck but nothing else. Of course, he was off canoodling with Naomi, that’s why.

Zathar and Corin, followed by the enormous Iave were racing down the lush purple slope toward me, spears drawn. With satisfaction I realized that the sight of them like that didn’t make me scared, I was just pissed that they were only showing up now. Too late.

The leader of our supposed little Clan paused at my side, hissing something at me with an intense look in his eyes. “What happened?” or “Are you alright?” or something along those lines. I shrugged, and from the pit in my stomach came this clenching, hard knot of emotions. I shoved it away, no more crying. I’d cried for three fucking months and it wasn’t working, it wasn’t making me feel better.

It was still a fight to suppress that urge but I bit my lip hard and pretended I didn’t see the flash of impatience on his azure face. I couldn’t understand a word he said, but since he was mated, he could understand me. So I forced myself to explain what happened in short, succinct sentences. “I went to take a walk but this one aspirant blocked me when I went back. He touched me to see if I was his mate and then wouldn’t let go when I wasn’t. Zsekhet is fighting him now.” I pointed down the hill to the gate where the sound of combat, mostly snarls and growls, could loudly be heard.

Iave and Corin had continued on without Zathar and met up with Krashe at the gate, I could see them rush outside to break up the fight. Then Zsekhet’s dragon circled back overhead and I saw the creature open its maw, I winced. Was it about to breathe fire on the whole lot down there? I wanted to pretend that I didn’t care if it did, but I couldn’t.

It was time to be completely honest here. While the others had all experienced crash-landing on Serant as a second lease on life, to me it had been the actual death sentence. I wasn’t convicted of a crime, I wasn’t executed. I had been rescued. Arriving on Serant meant discovering that not only had I witnessed my fiance’s murder and been horribly tortured, but also that the people who rescued me had betrayed me. They had silenced me for what I knew and had gone through.

I’d been grieving, I’d been traumatized, and then I’d had to deal with this betrayal and living with monsters on a barbaric planet. I had been promised my home and my family, and I had woken up to this bizarre and terrifying place. That was really, really shitty, and I deserved to feel sad about that, to be upset. But Zathar and Vera, along with all the others, had been really good to me too. It could have been far worse.

The Naga, especially Zathar and his friends, were nothing like the rebel Scrakoids, even if they both had scales. They didn’t deserve my mistrust, but I could still distrust the aspirants, especially that asshole. And what about Zsekhet? A small voice in the back of my mind wanted to point out how dangerous he’d appeared when he fought my assailant. Could I trust him? The others did...

I didn’t know, but I was going to find out. I would be damned if I ever let him ride to my rescue again, no way. A plan formed in my head and with it, it felt like more weight slipped from my shoulders. I was smiling, feeling lighter than I had in months when I resumed trekking uphill to the Outcast Haven caves. I wasn’t ready yet to call that place home, but I was going to try my best to get there too.

Chapter 4

Zsekhet

“Let me go!” I roared, fighting in the grip of the ones holding me back. In front of me the bastard that had tried to claim my mate sat slumped next to another Naga, his eyes a little hazy but he was still breathing and that was not good enough. I needed to get my hands back on him and wring his fucking neck, gut him with my claws, rip his fucking cock off so he could never again touch my Cosima.

The males holding me down were bigger, one red, one so dark a blue that he might as well be black. I bucked in their grips, my coils writhing; if I could just get a little leverage. There! I slipped free and threw myself forward, at the smug bastard.

“Whomp!” With a snarl, Sesethul brought down his mighty front paw on top of me, pinning me to the ground mere feet from my target. I roared and fought but a dragon was immovable if he didn’t want to move, and Ses had decided that I was done fighting. He lowered his golden head in front of me, putting one huge golden eye right in my face, and then he blinked. The rage that had me in its grip slithered out of me, my body going slack in his grip.

“Ah, seriously Ses? Can’t I just scratch him up a little? He doesn’t need both eyes, does he?” I said. Whether the dragon understood my words or just my body language I didn’t know. Sesethul gave me another warning glare before he finally lifted his paw and let me rise. I wasn’t entirely free of the blood lust that had gripped me earlier, but it no longer controlled me and I could force myself to act accordingly.

I glanced around at all the grim faces, taking note of Zathar who was pinning the sleazy bastard who’d touched my mate by the shoulder. Krashe and Iave hovered nearby, hands at the ready, their bodies coiled and tense. They were focused on me, clearly worried that I’d lose it again.

Corin was the only male present who did not look angry, rather the male was studying me with a suspicious expression that didn’t bode well. That one was smart, he was easy to joke with, but he didn’t trust nearly so quickly.

Dusting off my scales with some casual hand movements, I shrugged a shoulder. “He held Cosima against her will, trapped in his coils as he tried to force the mate bond. I had to stop him.” I shot the bastard another glare while imprinting the former Thunder Rock male’s features onto my brain, I was never going to forget his face and what he’d done to my female. I’d find a way to make him pay, a knife in the back during a hunt, a visit to his tent late at night, whatever it took, I’d remove this threat.

“That is a lie!” the male snarled furiously. He started to rise beneath Zathar’s hand but the former prince easily held him down. “I did no such thing! I was just greeting the female when he attacked me out of nowhere! I was not touching her.” The scales along my back rattled at the blatant lie, a snarl forming on my lips that I could not hold back. The sound rippled through the camp, low and threatening.

Zathar held up his free hand, a gesture that told me to shut the fuck up. It was a fight to control my protective instincts, still enhanced by my blood lust. “Cosima herself testified differently. She said she was held against her will by an aspirant. Zsekhet’s and Cosima’s testimonies align.” The aspirant male’s blue features paled in stripes along his cheeks as he realized what trouble he was in and I grinned in satisfaction.

“Zathar, please. You know me! We grew up together. You can’t possibly take the words of an upset female and a stranger over mine?” he pleaded now and I growled, not willing to let the insult to Cosima’s character slide. How dare he call her character in question, how dare he imply she had lied!

“Scar’at!” Zathar barked, “You have proven untrustworthy and unwilling to respect the boundaries of our females!” The prince raised higher on his tail, scanning over the crowd of aspirant outcasts that had gathered around us to watch the spectacle. I could tell from their scents that some had played some kind of part in terrorizing my mate, but in this crowd, I couldn’t pick them out.

Zathar’s voice rang out clearly and firmly as he decreed that any male found unable to abide by giving the females space and protection was unwelcome. Then he ordered Scar’at, his own former clansmale to get his things and leave, never to show his face again. He was an example, a warning to the others to watch their behavior if they wanted to be part of Outcast Haven. This was exactly the kind of thing they had to prove if they wanted to be welcomed into the caves.

I wasn’t happy that the bastard was getting away with his life, but I was satisfied that justice at least had prevailed. While the others all started talking among themselves, whispering anxiously about what had just happened, I watched like a dragon as Scar’at was escorted out of the camp by Krashe and Iave.

The urge to climb on Sesethul’s back and fly after the disappearing male was strong. A few wing beats and we’d have caught up to him, I could still end the bastard. I glanced at Ses standing next to me, his head raised as he stared in the same direction, eyes slitted and focused. I knew my faithful companion was on the same page with me. He’d stopped my blood lust because that’s what I’d trained him to do, but he wouldn’t stop me from killing this Scar’at in cold blood later.

The hand landing on my shoulder made me change my plans in an instant. Nightfall then, I’d track the male under the cover of darkness, nobody would be the wiser. I tilted my head, angling my face toward Zathar at my side. “Don’t even think about it, Zsekhet. Just because you were voted in, doesn’t mean we can’t kick you out.” The threat made me want to bare my teeth at him but I offered a friendly smile instead.

“No need to threaten me, I was just protecting Cosima. I would never touch an unwilling female,” my voice turned a little raw on the last words, surprising me with the emotions welling up inside me. Finding Cosima in the kind of danger I had, had hit a little too close to home, stirring up old wounds, old memories. No wonder that blood lust had hit me as hard as it had, I normally had much more control of that dangerous call.

Zathar studied me with his bright blue eyes, a thoughtful expression on his face. He stroked the horn on his chin, a proud tilt to the white ivory, very different from my own black horns. “I don’t doubt that, but Cosima is fragile, she scares easily. It is probably best if you steer clear of her for a bit.”