Page 17 of The Naga Scavenger’s Precious Mate

When the Naga robot laid me down on a metal table I balked. I fought against his iron grip so hard the skin tore on my wrists and my nails broke on his metal frame. I screamed in his deranged, terminator face, and I cursed him so loudly the air turned blue. To no avail, my flailing body was no match for his manacle-like grip. I was a sick, exhausted heap, still recovering from a bad trip in stasis, but I tried my hardest anyway.

Soon, he had me pinned to the surface, strapped down by bands around my arms and legs. He was talking to me, but all I could focus on was that glowing red eye in the metal half of his face. All kinds of terrifying options flitted through my mind about what he was going to do to me. The injector-like thing he pressed to the side of my neck fit right in with those.

A warmth spread through my limbs as the chemicals he’d dosed me with spread through my system. They became weak to the point of paralysis, so heavy that I could not move them no matter how hard I tried. My mind remained frighteningly clear during all of that, which only sent my terror skyrocketing.

The robot took Buzz’s prone and barely moving form, lifting his slight shape from where he’d remained on my chest. I could only watch from the corners of my eyes as the monstrosity slithered to another table to lay my little buddy down. He moved precisely as he spread Buzz’s wing, pulling out the membrane and thin bones to inspect them.

Then he returned to my side and started interfacing with the glowing screen of a machine next to my table. I could not see what was on it, just saw the flickering of light against the robot’s damaged chest. I traced each piston, cog, and cable inside the visible half of his metal rib cage. Anything to keep myself distracted from what might happen next. I was down to counting all the gashes in the scale-covered side of him when something finally did change.

A machine hummed and buzzed beyond my left shoulder, I couldn’t see it until a white robotic arm suddenly extended above me. It did not calm my frayed nerves to note how much it looked like a medical healing device. One of those surgical robot arms they used to heal the badly injured. That was what Zeidon needed, not me, I was just a little weak from the faulty stasis pod. I didn’t need surgery!

The machine hummed and buzzed as it angled over my torso and started doing things. I could not see any of it, and I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to know. Now I was starting to think it was a blessing that he’d at least put me under some kind of anesthetic. I was going to have nightmares about this, anyway, if I even made it out of here alive.

Oh, poor Zeidon. His image filled my mind now, the furious look as he attacked, the pain and desperation as he tried to crawl after me despite his injuries. All the blood, everywhere. The floor had been covered with it, his body had torn to shreds, and I’d seen the splatter on the robot’s tail, a vivid reminder of what had happened to my friend.

Friend? Who was I kidding, I had never been more into a guy than I had been into Zeidon. He was scaley, and a hoarder, but he loved animals and he was so sweet in his own slightly gruff and growly way. I felt like I could just be myself around him and he liked it because he was so unapologetically himself too. He did what he wanted, said what he wanted, and kissed me like there was no tomorrow.

My breathing hitched in my chest. There really might not be a tomorrow—not for either of us, and not for Buzz. I didn’t think the day of my sham of a trial and subsequent execution could be topped, but here I was. This was definitely far worse. Tears stung the corners of my eyes, my throat burned, and my heart ached for all the things I was losing. New things, precious things that I didn’t think I’d ever have.

Then the robot leaned over me, his one red eye and one gold eye locking with mine. The still somewhat Naga half of his face looked almost pretty and comforting next to the demonic, metal half. He smiled in a grotesque way—I had not thought of him as anything but a ‘he’, though I wasn’t quite sure why. It had to be something in the way they’d built his robotic shape, wide shoulders, square jaw, though he did not have a horn on the chin like Zeidon had.

He said something, his hisses and growls more enunciated than what it sounded like when Zeidon spoke without touching me. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted from me, but it was obvious he was trying to communicate. Well screw him, he had me strapped to a cold metal table while doing medical experiments on me. That was no way to start a conversation, and I was never going to forgive him for what he’d done to Zeidon and Buzz.

It wasn’t like I could respond either, my mouth refused to obey. I could barely move my eyes to focus on the creepy, intense expression in his ravaged, metal face. That red eye looked to me like the reflection of pure evil, even though it was simply a red light inside a metal socket.

The robot gave up with a furious hiss, he spun away and moved out of sight. I felt a hint of relief spread through me, but the machine was still humming over my chest, doing God knows what to me. It was still better than looking at his creepy face. I told myself I just needed to hang in there, if Zeidon had survived, he would come for me.

If he had survived… Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, I could not feel them as they ran down the sides of my face but I knew it anyway. Zeidon had to be alive, I could not accept any other outcome. I knew it in my heart; he lived, because he would not allow himself to perish when I needed him. So I needed to do the same, I needed to hang on so I could be there for him when he came.

***

Zeidon

I woke in a rush, my body surging with the urge to fight. My eyes opened to the soft glow of crystals, common to any ancestral cave though they only worked on rare occasions. Only one of my eyes seemed to see with perfect clarity, the other felt blurry, and it ached. That was a big improvement over not working at all and I drew in a relieved breath. A hunter with only one eye would struggle to adjust, and I needed all my senses when I went after that revenant.

I did not recognize where I was, but I recognized the type of room: a medical chamber like any good Shaman had. Had they brought me to Artek? I did not think so, this room was smaller than I recalled. Touching my chest, I discovered that I had been covered with bandages, they were wrapped around many parts of my tail too. They hid the damage the revenant had done, but it still ached. I was not back to full strength, but I had survived and that was good enough for me. If I could get up and move, I only needed my trident and I was ready to go after that monster who stole my precious female.

Rising was much harder than I thought was possible, it made my head spin, and the room danced around me. Srazz’s familiar chortle came from my left, and then I felt the warmth from his head as he nudged my elbow. I pulled him into my arms and held him, soaking in his familiar presence, and taking comfort from that. “Thank you, my friend. I would not have made it without your help,” I told him, and I was rewarded for my affection with a nip on my scales.

The room was white, as any healing room I’d visited had been. This one had three nests lined up against a wall with medical devices around them. I was occupying one such nest, but there was no one else present. Through transparent panels, another room was visible, set up with more ancient machines that blinked with lights. Still functioning after all this time. There was no sign of the Shaman that ran this room, but this definitely looked like the place of such a learned Naga.

Getting over the edge of the nest took effort, my scales rattled along my spine as I forced my aching body to move. I felt heavy and exhausted, but I had no time for rest when my mate was in danger.

“Hey, stop that!” a voice warned as a stranger rushed into the room with his arms outstretched. He caught me by the shoulders and started pushing me back into the nest with embarrassing ease. He was a Thunder Rock male, recognizable by his blue scales, though his were a particularly pale shade of silvery blue.

“I have to go,” I warned him. “My mate needs me.” He growled low with exasperation and continued pushing me back against the soft pillows in the nest. I did not want to be comfortable and cared for when Farah was in danger. I could not sit here and do nothing.

“You mated males are all the same,” the Naga huffed, his eyes narrowing in warning when he started to lift his hands from my shoulders. “But I did not just spend eight hours working on putting you back together just so you can undo it all.” He shifted slightly when I remained lying down, struggling to get my body to muster another surge of strength to get up. “Tell him, Zathar.”

“I will, Corin,” another male said with a hint of amusement tinging his voice. The paler of the two former Thunder Rock males moved aside with a warning glare, and now I could see who else had joined us. Zathar, the azure leader of this place, Outcast Haven, but more interestingly, next to him stood his human mate.

She was about the same size as my Farah, but she had pale hair and pale eyes. Even her skin was much paler than my mate’s was. Her eyes were kind and sympathetic when she approached the foot of the nest and placed her small hands on the edge. Her belly was big and round, clearly showing she was carrying a youngling. When she spoke, the same melodic waterfall of words came from her that I was used to hearing from Farah when she and I did not touch.

A frown furrowed her forehead when I did not respond to whatever she had just said, and she twisted her head to look at her mate. “You cannot understand my Vera?” Zathar asked immediately, a hint of curiosity and suspicion coloring his voice.

I shrugged, then masked a wince when sharp pain shot through my chest at several of the places I’d been lacerated by that nasty weapon the revenant had used. “Should I? Farah and I can only understand one another when we touch…” I knew that was supposed to happen for mates, but I could not recall if there was anything else about that touch and the mating bond between us. Zathar and Vera seemed to think so, and it made a pit open in my belly. Had I messed that up too?

“Once you’ve seeded your mate,” Zathar confirmed. “If she is human. We assumed so, but you were out cold so we could not ask…” He frowned as if the idea of a Naga female as my mate troubled him. Would he not have sent aid if that was the case? They had sent males to rescue her, hadn’t they?