Page 26 of The Naga Scavenger’s Precious Mate

We would have stayed locked in that embrace, our tongues tangling, my body singing with pleasure, if not for the sound Srazz made. He chortled suddenly, and that sound morphed into a growl. We broke apart to look and were just in time to see his quills ruffle up as he pounced on something. I recognized it when Zeidon managed to pull it from the Ayala’s stubborn mouth. One of those little crab-like robots that I’d seen crawling all over the robot when he was in one of those vats. They had been fixing him.

“Oh, no,” I said, and I rushed to explain what it might be doing. “We have to get back to that head and destroy it even more. I think this thing is just one of many and it’s going to fix him, or at least try!” Zeidon’s answer was a growl and then he snatched me around my middle and threw me over his shoulder. Buzz screeched when that displaced him but I had no chance to calm my buddy, we were racing back through the lab at breakneck speeds. It made me dizzy to see all the vats and machines rush by, so I closed my eyes and waited for Zeidon to come to a stop.

The door to that recovery room, our former prison cell, was open. That was not how we’d left it. Zeidon left me outside, his trident raised as he dashed inside. Dozens of those little machines were scuttling across the floor but they scattered as he passed them, some were crushed beneath his heavy coils when they were too slow. Others, Buzz and Srazz chased around the vats or beneath the medical tables.

I pressed my back to the wall next to the door and then leaned around it to peer inside. Zeidon was in the center of the small room, his hair wildly hanging around his shoulders, a beautiful dark blue-green against his emerald scales. His trident was raised and on the three spikes the robot head was stuck, several of the crab-like machines clung from it with their spindly legs. The red glow from its robotic eye had gone out, its mouth hanging open and motionless.

Our eyes met and with a sharp twist of Zeidon’s arm, his muscles bunching along his chest and abdomen, he slammed his trident down on the floor like it was a baseball bat. The head crashed against the stone and broke into pieces that scattered in every direction. The crabs scattered with it, racing past me out the door and back into the lab, only to be chased by a chortling Srazz and chirping Buzz. They weren’t actually catching them now; they were just having fun herding the tiny machines away from us.

“That should do it,” I said with a nod, I didn’t think those crab things could piece that back together. Just to be sure though, I picked up a blue glowing piece and tucked it into the one pocket I’d managed to sew, for safekeeping. That part looked important and had to be a small compact power source or maybe a memory storage device. The grin that Zeidon shot me was devastating; cute, a little cheeky, and a whole lot smug.

“Water Weaver Naga are expert scavengers,” he said, offering me conversation for once. He tucked me under his arm as we left that room and turned for the other end of the lab. “We are the best at taking relics apart.” He hooked a thumb back toward the room, “And I very much enjoyed taking that one apart.” Yeah, I had enjoyed seeing him do it. I was very glad to see the last of that machine.

The other exit, the one I’d initially arrived through with the robot, was still a locked door. I hadn’t been able to find a way to open it, but I hadn’t had a knife then yet. I started to pull it from the sheath on my thigh but Zeidon was very confident as he moved for the panel and used his claws to dislodge it. When he fidgeted with the wires inside, it was obvious he knew exactly what he was doing. It took only a minute and the panel slid open to reveal a dark hallway beyond it.

I leaned out and looked in either direction while I racked my brain to recall from where we’d come. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember. Zeidon contemplated the dark along with me and when I shrugged he inhaled deeply and flicked out his tongue. He was sifting through scents, but I wasn’t sure if that was what ultimately made him decide to lead us to the left.

“Something is happening,” he said while he pulled a small light source from a pouch on his belt. It was a tiny flashlight that flicked on with a press of his thumb, another piece of technology that he was casual about using in contrast with his stone knives. My eyes went to the trident he held in his hand, that one was definitely made of metal and it looked old, with scratches that marred the surface.

“What?” I asked him, unsure what he meant. He was urging me to go at a greater speed with the palm of his hand pressed to the small of my back. His expression had gone tense and dark, and I could hear a soft whispering noise; the scales along his flesh rattling with his unease. He was freaking me out, what was it he sensed that I couldn’t?

“Not sure. Just something… We need to move fast.” He swept me into his arms and picked up the pace. Buzz kept up with his wings, coasting just above our heads through the narrow tunnel. Srazz did not like this fast pace, but he was quick to scale Zeidon’s shoulder to hitch a ride. When he discovered me there, he happily curled up on my chest. I noticed that neither animal seemed concerned, and their senses were definitely better than mine. So, what was it that had my Zeidon so worried?

We raced through a dark tunnel that just like I remembered, turned and twisted. Sometimes I’d hear that rushing water sound and I was certain we were near an underground river, then the tunnel would change direction. Whatever this place was, it soon turned into a maze when we started coming across crossings with other passages. I worried we would never find our way out, but Zeidon seemed very confident with each direction he chose. “How do you know where to go?” I asked him, my voice pitched in a whisper because of his still tense expression.

“I just know, I’m very good at finding my way. Almost there,” he said the last just as we reached another closed doorway. It opened at our approach and the sound of racing water became louder, it filled the tunnel around us with its noise. I fully expected to discover a waterfall or raging river beyond that door.

I wasn’t disappointed, but I was surprised when I got a good look at what was inside the room. It was a room, but more like the giant industrial hall kind of room than a room like in a house. The river was there too, racing through a massive channel so straight and precise that it could only be man-made. Machines bisected that racing water with spinning blades and though I didn’t actually recognize the design, I understood instantly that this was some kind of hydro energy plant. This was the source that powered the crystal lights and machines inside the lab.

This was not an exit though, there was no doorway out of here. When Zeidon set me down on my feet and moved to the edge of the water channel, a bad feeling rose in the pit of my stomach. I really hoped he didn’t intend for us to swim out of here because my last experience with being in water had not been the greatest. I eyed the spinning blades of the submerged turbines with even more apprehension, those looked absolutely deadly.

“We can do it,” Zeidon said, and he pointed at where the water raced below the rock wall and out of sight. There was a bit of clearance, in theory, we could still keep our heads above water, but there was no way to know how long that would last. I shook my head and crossed my arms over my chest, no way. There had to be another way out of here. What if there were more of those turbines further down? We’d be chopped to bits.

“Zeidon, you do remember last time, don’t you?” I asked him, fear already rising in my chest and making my throat close up. I really didn’t want to have another panic attack like that, and just thinking about that possibility was making me scared.

Which was, honestly, completely counterproductive; it didn’t help to be scared of being scared, at all! But even though I tried to sternly tell myself that was pointless and that it was just water, that didn’t make me feel any better. I just wanted to turn around and run, but Zeidon looked even tenser than before, he wouldn’t want to go back the way we came. Whatever had him worried was what had driven him to go in this direction, unless he was just bad at admitting that he didn’t know the way. Somehow, that just didn’t seem like him though.

He lifted his head from his contemplation of the rushing water with a sudden rapid move, his eyes zeroing in on me. I felt that stare down to the bone. Those emerald eyes saw me at that moment in a very vulnerable place and I just knew that he understood that immediately. He curled his body around the nearest machine to reach me and then he gripped the back of my neck firmly with his hand.

“Listen to me,” he demanded, his eyes glittering. “You are bigger than your fear. You can master it.” His piercing stare made me feel like I owed it to him to do exactly as he said. He didn’t look at me with pity—worry, sure, but not pity. I don’t know how he did it, but he made me feel stronger inside, and that stare somehow even managed to convey his understanding. He was no wordsmith, but he got his message across.

I gave him a nod, then glanced around him at the rushing water. It made so much noise too; a roaring as it raced through the waterway and made the blades of the turbines spin. I focused on the differences; that didn’t make me feel safer but thankfully less inclined to panic. I had nearly drowned in that stasis pod beneath the surface of a placid, but ice cold lake. A lake much like the one Zeidon had taken me to for bathing. This was a roaring river of violence, it was completely different, but also far more dangerous.

The green Naga in front of me let out a growl that rivaled the noise of the river. The fingers he had clasped around the back of my neck tightened against my skin and I felt the prick of his claws, a not-quite pain that drew my attention firmly to him. I didn’t realize that it had become hard to meet his eyes until I tried, then I became trapped in that intense gaze and the budding panic really did fall away.

“I will explore, and then we will leave together. Through the water,” Zeidon declared, and I would have gotten pissy at the way he decreed it except he leaned in and covered my mouth with his. It was far simpler to just let him distract me than to pick a fight. He didn’t linger long, and that alone suggested his mind was preoccupied. Something he deemed a danger even if Srazz and Buzz didn’t seem to notice—something more dangerous than the rushing water in front of us.

His tail had looped twice around my legs and he was slow to uncoil it. I appreciated that he kept looking at me as if to reassure himself that I was on board before he left. When his gaze dipped to the knife he’d strapped to my thigh, a different kind of fear settled over me. He looked at it like he thought I might need to use it, he looked almost torn about it when he started to move toward the edge of the water.

“You’re coming back soon, right?” I asked him. I didn’t like the idea of being separated, no matter how long or short it was going to be. He had come to mean so much to me already, and I didn’t care if a week was short to catch those kinds of feelings… It felt much longer, and it meant more too, if I were to believe his mating marks.

Zeidon’s mouth lifted into a cocky smile, eyes glittering at me with a hint of amusement. “Always, my sweet, precious mate. I will always come back to you.” I believed him, I thought he’d died and he’d still come for me, I didn’t know how, but he had. I had believed he’d come for me then too, this unshakable sense that we were connected, bound by more than I could see.

He went into the water right where the river slipped beneath the wall and disappeared into the mountain. I hoped that meant he was beyond the turbines now, safe from their spinning blades. He seemed sleek and perfectly resistant to the wild currents. His hair floated around his shoulders on the frothy surface, his eyes lingered on me for one last time, and then he swam beneath the rock and disappeared.

I glanced at the doorway into this large room but saw nothing and heard even less over the roaring of the water. Then I challenged myself to get closer to the edge. That was hard, but I was more concerned about Zeidon. With my toes on the edge of the rock, I gazed into the rapid swirling currents and tried to see if I could catch a hint of him, my mate.

That’s what he called me, mate. The word that the Dragnell and several other alien species back on Earth called their spouse. Only, now that I was being called mate by a guy, I knew it went far deeper than girlfriend or boyfriend, it went deeper than wife or husband. It felt like forever. My heart skipped a beat in my chest as I thought that, forever with Zeidon. Why not? I had to start over on this planet anyway, what better way to do that than to grasp hold of the things I’d always wanted?