Page 9 of The Naga Scavenger’s Precious Mate

It was peaceful to adjust to days like that with him. He was clearly unused to company, a bit antisocial when it came to making conversation but I never had any doubt that I had all his attention. His feral green glances and stares made my nipples perk, my body grow languid, and desire pool in my belly. There was zero doubt that he desired me. If I invited him, he would pin me to the furs, which he called a nest. And I wanted to, I realized with growing certainty each day, if only I felt strong enough to do so.

Instead, I talked, and tried to find as many distractions as I could while I regained my strength. Far too slowly for my taste, with the walls of this cave seeming to grow tighter and more restraining each day. Cabin fever.

At least my busywork meant I’d gotten handy with that swatch of soft orange fabric he’d given me and I now had a simple shift dress to alternate with my sweater and leggings. He took those somewhere for washing when I asked him, and it was about time I found out where so I could take a proper bath myself. My hair was dirty beyond belief and I feared I stank to high heaven; not that Zeidon complained.

Standing up, my legs still felt a little weak and unsteady, but I forged on. I placed the last, now fed, baby back into the warm little nest that Zeidon had made for them. Then I stepped closer to the purple stag beast and held out my open palm, so he could sniff at my hand. Once he’d done that, he let me scratch his neck and shoulder. Though he had no mane and the proud head of something that mostly resembled a gazelle, I kept comparing him to a horse in my head as well as a stag. He was the right size, but Zeidon had somehow managed to heal his broken leg, which I knew even with the advanced science on Earth, was still a big hurdle for a horse.

“You don’t mind, do you?” my Naga friend asked, that’s what he called his species though he was oddly unforthcoming about much else. He really didn’t know how to make proper conversation, most of his sentences were no longer than four words, and if he could get away with it, a grunt for an answer was his preferred response. I’d draw him out at some point, I hoped. He reached over my shoulder to rub the nose of the large animal. His fingers turned yellow towards the fingertips, a bright contrast against the dark purple fur of the beast.

“The animals? No. I like them. You have a penchant for picking up strays, don’t you?” He’d gone out yesterday with two bird-like creatures and not returned with them. Healed enough to return back into the wild. I’d also seen him run some kind of glowing light over Buzz’s wing, and now the miniature dragon no longer needed a splint for it. I had this feeling that it was a device much like a tissue regenerator, but how could he have one of those when he cooked our dinner over an open flame?

Then again, this entire room was filled to the brim with shelves full of wires and metal things. Not everything was as it seemed. The room was man-made but he called it a cavern. I had this niggling feeling that I’d crash-landed on a planet stuck in the dark ages after a giant catastrophe had struck it. Like his species had regressed dramatically and this room, and those things, were the leftovers of a long-gone civilization.

“He’s ready to go too. Then it’s just the baby Ayala but I think I found a mom who lost her nest, she might adopt.” That was the most Zeidon had said in a while. He tended to communicate more with things, like bringing me several waterskins of the juice I liked so much. I felt a little sad at the idea of seeing all these animals go, but that’s how it should be, he was just patching them up so they could make it in the wild.

“Okay, how about a bath before we take care of that?” I tried, I’d already made several attempts to convince him to let me go over the past few days but to no avail. I just knew he was about to flick out his tongue to ‘taste’ my scent, and then declare that I smelled delicious to him. There it was, the split tip sliding from his dark green lips, but he tilted his head today, dark blue-green hair sliding along his shoulders.

He shrugged slowly, “We can go. You are stronger.” Then he started opening the pen that the stag was in and ducked to check on the animal’s leg. I was still standing there, stumped that he’d acquiesced by the time he finished his inspection. “Come, I will carry you.”

I found myself in his arms, pressed intimately against his muscled chest with only the silky fabric of my shift dress as a barrier between us. Zeidon didn’t wear clothing, just belts to strap things to when he needed it. He snatched up a satchel by the doorway, along with his trident, and then we left the room.

For the first time since I woke up, I was going to see something other than the endless shelves, the fire pit, and the pens with animals. I held my breath as he casually slithered through the doorway and kept my arms tight around his neck where I’d instinctively gripped him. What was this alien planet like? Would it look the same as Earth or very different?

I didn’t expect to find myself in a dark tunnel, narrow and barely tall enough for Zeidon to fit. Purple light came through an entrance I could see at an angle above me. This tunnel went up with a steep slope toward the exit; a slope my still weak legs could never have traversed. Everything else was just darkness, but Zeidon had no issue with it, so I was just going to hang on for the ride.

Behind us, I could hear the gentle clip-clopping noise of the stag following us, and I wondered how on earth Zeidon had even gotten it down there with a broken leg. It couldn’t have walked. Had he carried that massive animal? Alone?

Then my thoughts stalled when we reached the tunnel exit. A purple sky, bright and cloudless, stretched above us, with a hazy small sun glowing a darker purple to my right above equally purple trees. No wonder the stag had a purple pelt, everywhere I looked I saw pinks and purples and dark purple grays.

The animal stepped outside with us and did exactly what I would have liked to do if I were five years old and not feeling like my limbs weighed twice as much as they should. He made a little bucking jump, pranced over purple and gray grass with dainty, excited steps, and then bolted into the woods without so much as a backward glance.

The lake was beautiful, and much further away from the cave than I could have possibly walked. It was small, with crystal clear water and a pebble-strewn sandy bottom visible even from a distance. A stream arrived from higher up the mountain, spreading into the lake which had formed behind several large rocks, a natural dam.

It didn’t look very deep, or very warm, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to wash for real, instead of using cloths over a pot of lukewarm water next to the fire. It just wasn’t the same as getting fully submerged. A shiver shot down my spine as I pictured the water closing over my head, and my breath stalled. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Zeidon sat me down on a nearby rock on the edge of the lake’s sandy shore. Then he stuck his trident in the sand so it stood upright and started rummaging through the satchel of things he’d brought with him. Srazz immediately trundled over and stuck his snout in to nose around too. They were cute together, and a bit comical. Srazz was clearly in the way, but Zeidon didn’t push him aside.

“What do you think, Buzz?” I asked the tiny dragon perched on my shoulder. Buzz’s wing wasn’t strong enough yet for proper flying, but he’d caught up and landed on me as soon as he discovered we were going somewhere. He was sniffing the air with his snout, lavender eyes scanning the lake’s surface. I hoped he wasn’t after fish in there or something, I didn’t really fancy a bath with fish in it. This was the wild though, on an alien planet, I probably had no other option.

Then there was the other problem. There wasn’t any privacy here, so what did I do? Demand he turn around while I splashed around in there? Somehow, I had the feeling that he wasn’t going to agree. He’d be worried about my legs giving out halfway through and that I’d drown myself. The depressing part was that he was probably right.

The little dragon chirped, a loud kee-kee noise following and then he gave me a smug little grin. He fluttered away to nose around in the sand next, so I made myself stand up and assess my options. “I’ll stay in the shallows,” I said, quickly glancing down to make sure Zeidon still had the tip of his tail curled around my bare ankle. “But you must promise to turn your back to me, so I can have some privacy.”

His head shot up from whatever he was searching for inside his bag, his green eyes narrowing in a glare. He was always so solicitous and willing to do whatever I wanted that I was surprised to see that kind of glare directed my way. “No,” he growled, his voice rough as he snapped out the word. He shook his head next, the violet sunlight glinting off his bone-white chin horn. “I will watch.”

Now why did that declaration make my nipples perk and my panties grow wet? He was talking about watching me bathe, not watching me masturbate. They felt like equally naughty concepts when he’d declared his intentions to ‘court’ me. I still didn’t entirely understand if he meant that for real or if he was just interested because I was the only girl around, I hadn’t dared to ask about that, yet. When he looked at me the way he was now though… There was only one interpretation possible.

My stomach swooped in my belly at that look, heated, full of a possessive kind of desire, that I felt claimed. Maybe that was because of the grip of his tail around my ankle; it had grown a little tighter, and it had definitely slid up my calf and was still inching higher. “No,” he said again firmly but no longer quite so growly. “I will watch, or we will go back.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, hiding my perked nipples from his sight while I attempted my own fierce look. I didn’t like to be given an ultimatum like that and if I was feeling less faint, I would have fought this decree. I just wasn’t quite sure how well I’d do once I actually got in there, I really might faint and that would be much worse than giving this guy a bit of a show.

What show? That was the negative voice of my mind speaking to me. I’d just been sick for God knows how long, I had two sets of clothing and that was it, and probably at least ten pounds too many on my hips. Zeidon wouldn’t look interested as soon as I whipped my dress over my head. Which was exactly why I should just do it, rip off the band-aid and get this over with. He’d lose interest, we’d be friends living in a weird, creepy cave and that was it. Maybe at some point, he’d introduce me to his people, the Clan he had vaguely hinted at once, and I’d end up living in a hut on the edge of town, the charity case. I sounded like a really whiny idiot, but I couldn’t help the insecure thoughts; I felt vulnerable.

“Come,” Zeidon said. He interrupted my spiraling thoughts just in time before they got really depressing and mean. “The water is warmest here, where the sun last heated it,” he had me in his arms and was carrying me to the spot he wanted before I could protest. His gaze was still warm, his green eyes sparkling like gemstones.

My feet hit the water when he lowered me, my dress riding up my thighs against his scales. The water wasn’t warm at all, heated by the sun he said, no way. I squealed without meaning to and the bastard had the nerve to laugh. From the bank of the lake, Srazz made a rumbling noise that echoed that laugh and I caught the large rodent grinning. “It’s not funny, that water is icy!”

“That is the way it is,” Zeidon agreed, “It is melting water from a glacier.” If I’d known that, I would have stuck to water at the campfire. No, I wouldn’t have, I wanted to be clean very badly. Breathing in deeply, I lowered my toes and found my footing in the shallow water. Zeidon kept his arms around me, keeping me pressed close to his chest. “Here, soap.” The tip of his tail produced a milky-white, crude block of something. I would have guessed the alien equivalent of goat cheese if not for the faintly floral scent wafting up from it.