Page 19 of The Naga Scavenger’s Precious Mate

I flexed against the bindings that held me in place, but even though I felt much stronger now than I had in a long while, I still couldn’t budge them. A skittering of claws against a hard surface jerked my attention from the ties that held me. Frantically, I started searching the darkened room from my still fairly limited point of view. My imagination supplied me with giant mutant rats coming out of the dark to nibble on my toes.

“Chirp-kee-kee?” came from my right and relief flooded my system. Buzz fluttered fully healed and functioning wings to land with a thud on the metal table at my hip. His tiny body nestled against my palm, rubbing and purring. I could feel the soft suede-like texture that covered his fine purple scales, feel the steady but rapid beat of his little heart.

“You’re alright! Buzz!” He chirped in response and then climbed over my arm, up my chest, to reach my chin. I could see the lavender of his eyes, and when he spread his wings, it was obvious that he was fully healed. I could think of only one way he could have gotten that way, the robot had done it, but why? It made no sense to me, but I was grateful. Now, I wasn’t alone and that made me feel better.

As Buzz nuzzled my chin and licked me with his tiny forked tongue, I soaked up the affection and the comfort his presence offered. Okay, so I had scales on my hand, and possibly on other places on my body that I couldn’t see. No big deal, it wasn’t fatal, and it didn’t hurt. I might have become some kind of mutant science experiment, but I was not dead.

I just had to believe that somewhere out there, Zeidon was surviving just like I was. That he was on his way to recovery, and soon, on his way to me. The faith that he’d find me was unshakable, I didn’t know why I knew it with such certainty, but I did. Zeidon would not give up until he’d found me, and I was going to do the same for him.

That meant getting out of these darn bindings. “Hey, Buzz? Do you think you could nibble on that restraint?” I asked my tiny pet dragon. I didn’t think he would understand, but he proved to be far more clever—and loyal—than I could have asked for. He raised his head, his snout right in front of my face as he tilted his head left and right. Then he clambered down my body and started nudging my hand, and soon, the restraint around my wrist. I couldn’t quite see what he was doing, but I felt the jerks and tugs as he worked, he was definitely doing something. I just hoped it worked, and fast enough that I could get out of here before the robot returned.

“You’re smarter than a dog, aren’t you?” I whispered in encouragement. “Good boy, get it off. You can do it.” I could hang on too. Now that I felt stronger, it didn’t feel quite so impossible. I’d get out of these bindings, and then I’d sneak out of this freaky lab and find Zeidon myself.

***

Zeidon

“You must,” I said to Corin, but the Shaman just glared at me from across the room and shook his head. I’d been trying to convince him to give me more extensive treatment to speed up my healing process, but he was refusing. I wondered if he just didn’t like me, Srazz, or if he was refusing because he thought I’d leave if he healed me any further. I didn’t see the problem, why would he want to keep me here if I didn’t want to stay?

There had to be something that would convince him, because I definitely needed his help if I wanted to be fit enough to fight that revenant. Not only did I have to destroy or at least defeat the monstrosity, I had a lot of ground to cover first if I wanted to catch up to the rescue party. I’d concluded that I’d been out cold for over eight hours, and by now, another three or four had passed as they forced me to stay put and heal up.

I’d had a visit from the single Serqethos male who had joined their ragtag Clan since then. He had only dropped by to assure me that the best males were out there looking for my Farah. He was my complete opposite, friendly, outgoing, and at ease in any company. I appreciated his attempt to ease my worries, but nothing short of Farah’s return could help lay them to rest. I could tell he knew it too, from the way his eyes turned dark when I asked him to help me get out of here. His warning still rang clear in my head. He and his dragon were here to ward off possible Bitter Storm attacks on the camp, but he would not hesitate to turn that power on me if I tried to sneak away on a suicide mission.

So, with a dragon guarding my exit, I needed to convince this healer to patch me up further so they’d let me go. There was no chance that I’d lay in this nest all day while others rescued my female. Farah needed me, and I’d find a way to locate her, to save her. I swore to myself that I would never fail her again, I would tie her to my side, and hold her in my coils forever once I had her back. This Vera had given me strange advice, but I was going to follow it to the letter and make sure that Farah knew I was her male. Hers and hers alone, just like she was mine.

A growl rattled from my aching chest as I pictured snapping the neck of that revenant. Its days were numbered and so were this Corin’s if he wasn’t going to give in to my demands soon. I would sic Srazz on him first, maybe pulling some quills from his ass would be what it took to patch me up. Or it allowed me to spy on what he did as he patched himself up, that could work too.

“I can see the murderous glint in your eyes, you know,” Corin said, a laugh replacing the earlier chagrin. He rolled his shoulder, “I can’t allow you to get yourself killed, how would your mate feel about that?” I wanted to snap that I didn’t care, but that was not true. Farah would be devastated, and she must already be scared out of her mind. She had seen me get injured, did she already believe I was dead?

Changing tack, I slipped into the negotiator role that I played whenever I brought fabrics to sell to the eager Clans that wanted them. “I can pay you,” I said, “I have endless rolls of strong cable wires, copper, gold, ancient steel. You can have your pick of any of the parts I scavenged from the recent sky wreck I visited. Some are very interesting, some of the devices still work!”

Corin barked out a laugh and shook his head, but he approached the nest they had confined me to. The Shaman had rigged some kind of force field over it, invisible but strong, which kept me from leaving it. I needed him to turn it off or I could not get out of there. Warily, he glanced at where Srazz lay snoring on his side against my hip, his plump belly exposed. My pet had made an impression on this male, that much was certain.

“I am listening,” he said, his hands moving over a panel with many buttons that stuck out just beneath a working view screen. It was displaying a wave that moved rhythmically, and other numbers and statistics that made little sense to me. “What kind of devices are we talking about?” he added, his mouth tilting up in a grin. I was not fooled, he did not want me to pay him to help me heal, he had just decided it was time for more treatment now. This male was as stubborn and unbendable as an Arazal’s behind.

The healing arm whirred as it came to life and slung out of its slot in the wall to hover over my chest. Heat washed through me as it got to work, gliding along the worst gashes on my torso, the ones I knew had cut deep. They had been stitched together while I’d slept, but the damage needed far more hours of the machine’s work to fully heal.

I did not see why that could not be done all at once, but I recalled Artek, the nearest Shaman I knew, once telling me that it would tax a body too much. It would deplete my reserves as it healed at a rapid pace, and the body needed time to replenish those. With that in mind, I tilted my chin toward Corin and met his silvery stare, “Give me whatever nutrients you can supply. I know you can do that. Artek has them.”

His gaze turned flinty, becoming dark and stormy as if my words had infuriated him. Then the look smoothed away and he tilted his head, a friendly smile spreading across his features. “What kind of devices do you have, Water Weaver?” He turned away, the scales on his back shivering as he crossed the room to a cabinet against the far wall. My heart started pumping when I realized he might actually be doing exactly as I wanted.

When he came back to my side, I was so focused on the two packets he held in one hand that I didn’t catch his ruse. Something snapped around my wrist and then he yanked and snapped the other end of the silvery restraint around the metal rail that surrounded the nest. He had cuffed me, tying me down more firmly than the forcefield was keeping my lower body in place.

Snarling, I pulled, then lunged up as far as these restraints let me and tried to get my free hand around him. He slithered out of the way, then had to dodge again when Srazz scuttled out of the nest and launched himself at the traitorous male. “It’s for your own good,” he said, dodging Srazz’s prickly rump. He coiled himself up on the next nest to avoid my pet, hissing silently. “I can’t let you do more damage to your body, what good would that do your mate? She would not want you to kill yourself!”

A laugh rumbled from my chest at the sight of him balancing on an empty nest to avoid my furious pet; he looked ridiculous. He glared my way and I met that stare with my own intense look. “I am not an idiot,” I warned him. “I am asking you to heal me enough so I can track my female. Do you honestly believe you could lie in your nest all day if it was your mate in danger?”

His face went cold, his eyes growing dark and stormy. His entire body switched into a kind of extreme tension that indicated he was on the verge of an attack. He wasn’t about to attack me, or Srazz, he was vividly picturing a female in danger, his female.

The door to the room opened silently, but whoever stepped inside was anything but quiet. Another human sky being, another female. This one was smaller than Farah or Vera, a tiny thing with slender legs and pale skin, though her head was crowned with sleek black hair. Her expression was radiant and cheerful, her posture eager as she pranced inside on her two graceful legs. When Farah was back to full health, she would walk just as gracefully, I knew it.

Corin threw himself off the nest on the opposite side of Srazz and straightened in a hurry, an odd, somewhat guilty expression crossing his face. The female spouted a torrent of words, one after the other tumbling from her pink mouth in an endless, upbeat stream. “Min-Ji, shut up!” Corin exclaimed, cutting her off. Her expression grew flinty, her lips thinning, and she crossed her arms over her chest.

Then she darted her eyes my way and offered me a sunny smile, and she was back to talking. With a whistle, I called Srazz back to me. He had a tiny bit of trouble leaping onto the nest, his back legs scrabbling to get him over the metal rail, but then he was in and cuddling up against my side. The female’s sounds had changed to soft sounds, her hands fluttering against her chest. I was not sure what that meant, I did not think I had ever seen a female do such a thing, except Farah when she looked at Buzz or Srazz. It must be a human response to seeing animals, very strange.

Judging it safe, Corin came around the nest and started fussing with the machine at my side. He hooked those packets up and then pulled out a needle and line of tubing. “Hold still,” he warned me, “Don’t get any closer, Min-Ji.” The female had indeed approached, coming around the side of the nest to stand almost on top of Corin’s coils, which he was hastily moving out of her way.

“This will replenish you, some. But it won’t be enough to fully heal you, you understand?” he said. Then he offered me a smile, one that narrowed and grew a little wary when Srazz lifted his snout and bared his yellow teeth at him.