Page 20 of The Naga Scavenger’s Precious Mate

“Yes, I’ll take anything,” I said, to which the new female, Min-Ji, started talking again and nodding her head. She sounded sympathetic, she even reached out to stick her fingers through the forcefield restraining my tail to pet my scales. What a bizarre human, she was fearless and so… cheerful.

The tube was hooked up to my restrained arm and then whatever fluids were in those packets started flowing into my veins. A way to replenish those nutrients that he had mentioned I required, the strength I needed to recover and handle more from the healing machine.

The female smelled very different from my Farah, a bit more metallic, a bit more like the Shaman, actually. Although, I was starting to think that maybe this Corin was no real shaman, just a male who knew more than most. Maybe he had received training, but he’d received warrior training too. Thinking about scents and what they could mean made me feel like I was going insane, Farah’s scent teased across my mind.

I flicked out my tongue and tasted the air, certain I was imagining it, but there it was, teasing across my taste buds. “Do you smell that? I smell my mate, is she here?” I shouldn’t move with the machine still buzzing over the worst wounds on my chest, but I couldn’t stop myself from lifting as much as I could once more to crane my head and look around the room.

Corin shared a look with the sky being, this Min-Ji looked even more sympathetic now, almost pitying. I bared my teeth her way and that made her grin, she was not responding at all like she should. “No,” Corin said firmly. “You must be imagining it, Zeidon. She is not here, I would bring her to you if she were. I promise you that. Now, about those machines you said you had? What kind?”

He was trying to distract me, but he was also genuinely curious. I hated it, and I knew they were wrong. I could smell Farah, she was nearby somehow. I needed the machine to finish, and then I needed them to leave so I could get out of there and find her.

A smaller panel in the door opened silently and with a gentle humming noise a green disk with a sphere on top scooted into the room. It started across the floor in a very precise pattern, as if it intended to cover every inch of the stone with its path. “One like that,” I said, I had dozens of them actually, though I had never seen them move.

“Ah, a cleaning bot. Well, we can always use more of those. Ahoshaga is very big,” Corin said, sounding a little disappointed. “Come Min-Ji, we will let our patient rest now.” With a final glance at the still-working healing machine, he warned me to stay in place and sleep. Then the two of them left the room, leaving me alone with the humming machine as it polished the floor.

Alone with my thoughts, the scent of my mate, and my brewing plans. When the robotic healing arm curled itself back into the wall, my chest felt much better. It had even worked on some of the less deep lacerations lower on my tail, and with the last drops of the nutrient packs sliding into my veins, I felt stronger.

They thought they had me locked up safely in here, that the force field and that silver restraint would keep me. They were wrong, because nothing could keep a male from his mate when she was in danger, and they were about to find out just how handy a Water Weaver male was with technology. I might not know how to turn things on, but off? No problem.

Chapter 14

Farah

I smothered an elated whoop when Buzz gnawed through the binding around my right wrist. I pulled my arm free and rushed to scratch the little fellow on his head. “Good job, boy! Good job! You did it!” He chirped in response and climbed over my hip onto my belly to regale me with the proudest look in his lavender eyes, his chest all puffed up.

With one hand free, I could undo the clasps on my other restraints and climb off the table without any issues. My legs felt strong now, none of the wobbly stuff from the past week. I felt like myself again, the Farah from before my fake execution. Only, the strange glitter of pearly scales that covered the backs of my hands belied that feeling. Something had changed about me, something huge.

I had no time to worry about any of those things, I was alone in this room right now. Buzz and I weren’t supervised, we were no longer captives. This was the perfect moment to escape. I had to find Zeidon; he was injured and he needed my help. It was my turn to take care of things.

The room I was in was far bigger than I first assumed. When we got here, I had been too scared to take note of much more than the bubbling vats, pipes, and that metal table. A table that reminded me a little too much of one of those coroner tables from the crime shows I’d liked to watch.

With Buzz on my shoulder, I inspected the room and tried the one door I could see right now. I was fairly certain that was the door we’d arrived through, but it would not open for me, no matter what I tried. I had pushed, pulled, tried the glowing pad of light at the side, but nothing worked. It was a solid metal panel too, there was no way I could break it.

That left me no other option than to search for another way out, and I started to slink around the vats that lined one wall, following them deeper into the chamber. Maybe there was another exit on the other side of the room, but a fear struck me that I could just as easily stumble over whatever place the robot Naga had slunk off to. That would be just my luck—to find him docked in some kind of charging station rather than finding an exit.

I bit my lip as I fought those fears, I still had to try, there was no other option. “Which way do you think the exit is?” I asked Buzz, who was perched on my shoulder, his claws digging gently into the fabric of my sweater. He chirped softly in my ear, as impressed by the need to remain quiet as I was. Though I felt stronger, I was still no match to fight that robot thing, I needed to avoid it.

“Is that another door?” I whispered, excitement thrummed through me at the sight of what was definitely some kind of doorway. On the tips of my toes, I headed toward it, ducking under a bunch of fast-flowing pipes filled with something green, then around another pair of those metal tables to get there. There wasn’t just one door, there were three.

I tried the first one, which had a glowing square pad at doorbell height right next to it; that had to be where you opened them. Maybe that other door was not keyed to me, but when I touched this pad, it flared green, and the door slid open. So, not a restricted door. Darkness stretched beyond it, but with light from the room behind me, I could still make out some of the details. A square room, empty save for a round, bed-like thing and more medical-looking machines, like that robotic arm that had worked on me. Not an exit.

I tried the next door with my heart pounding in my throat, certain that the chance of discovery was going up with every passing minute. It helped to picture myself as a warrior, riding to Zeidon’s rescue. I only had to remember the sight of him bloody and injured to flood myself with more determination. There was no way I could abandon him after all that he’d done for me.

My mind fluttered to memories of us at that lake, not to the moment I’d had a panic attack, but to the sensual bathing and the pleasure that had followed after. Zeidon needed me, and I needed more memories like that with him, I wanted it all. For the first time, I dared to stroke my fingers over the strange pale scales that doted the back of my hand like gemstone freckles. If this hadn’t messed me up, I wanted to start that family I’d always dreamed about, with him.

“I would like that,” I whispered to myself, holding those dreams out in front of me to help me keep going when fear wanted to paralyze me. “Babies with Zeidon, and lots of steamy sex.” Buzz hummed in agreement on my shoulder and I snapped my mouth shut and forced myself to focus. I couldn’t deal with all those dreams and the spiraling thoughts that followed them. Thoughts on how that was all too soon, too intense, too much. I didn’t want to consider why I felt so strongly about him right now, I just wanted him to be safe, and for that, I needed to help myself first.

The next door didn’t open for me, but the one after was just another of those bedrooms. Maybe this had once been a hospital, or maybe those rooms were just there to keep their medical experiments. I shivered and moved on, deeper into the lab. And then it happened, just like I’d pictured earlier. I found the robot.

He was submerged in one of those bubbling vats, and cables had hooked up to his anatomy in various places. Even as I hastily backed away, my brain took in as many details as it could. A dozen plugs along its chest, and a handful of crab-like machines that scuttled over the fleshy parts of him, stitching his scales back together.

“Don’t wake up. Please stay turned off like a good little robot,” I breathed while I rounded a vat, glanced back at the three doors, and contemplated my options. Either I had to pass the robot to explore the rest of the lab, or I had to try one of the two locked doors again. The first one that we’d arrived through had to be my best bet, but I had no clue how to even try to open it without any kind of tool.

“Okay, forward it is,” I mouthed while I scratched Buzz beneath his soft suede-covered chin. He didn’t lean into the touch but kept his lavender gaze laser-focused in the direction of the robot. I needed a weapon in case that thing did wake, something that would work against a machine. Looking around me, I took note of several containers with fluids that were small enough for me to pick up. Except he was in some kind of fluid right now, water probably wouldn’t bother him.

Nothing looked all that promising but I had to move, I could not dawdle. Sneaking past that thing was terrifying, I felt like at any moment it could blink open its red and gold eyes and lock onto me. It reminded me far too much of some of the half-robot, half-flesh bad guys I recalled from some of the ancient sci-fis my dad loved to watch when I was a kid. What were they called again? Something short and snappy with a B.

I shuffled on silent feet around his tank and breathed a deep sigh of relief when I could hide behind the next vat. Okay, that was much easier than it had looked. He hadn’t moved at all. It was almost like he was completely turned off. Was he doing maintenance on himself? Repairing damage? Was he just on a set cycle and did I have more time? Or was he still aware of his surroundings while doing that? I had no clue, and I wasn’t sticking around to find out.