Page 2 of The Naga Inventor's Clever Mate

“Stay close, both of you. We’ll exit the ancestral caves here. They shouldn’t be able to find us,” that dark voice said. I was picturing sinful eyes, bedroom talk, even secrets shared between lovers from hearing his voice. It made me forget about the pain pounding in my skull, or the way I couldn’t move or see a damn thing.

The woman made a squeaking noise of consent, but a new, male voice replied in crisp tones that sounded familiar. He spoke English just like the woman, UAR tinted, and doused with a heavy dose of that military directness that had been stamped into my bones. “On your six. Zathar and Vera should prove a distraction. Can you loop back once we’re in a secure spot to offer backup? I can guard the women.”

Women, as in plural. Was he talking about this female stranger and me, or were there more? He was definitely a soldier; he spoke the lingo, and he seemed unafraid when talking of protecting and rescuing. So maybe even a soldier who’d seen action or worked on the front lines. Not like me, just a simple pilot for cargo ships and shuttles.

“Blazing suns, you know I can’t understand either of you. Just stay close!” the dark voice said, the voice that was definitely not speaking English but that I understood anyway. My translator implants had to be doing the good work, but I couldn’t shake this gut feeling that it wasn’t that. Then it came to me, I’d crashed a ship, a shuttle with humans in stasis. I’d crashed the fucking ship onto a supposedly uninhabited planet. Had I survived? Had they survived? And was it inhabited, after all?

All those thoughts made my head spin, and I struggled to stay awake, to stay coherent. My eyes felt like they were open, but all I saw was darkness, and it felt like the world was seesawing around me. I tried to focus on my breathing, on feeling my body rather than running away from the pain. Not my head, but my limbs, my belly. I wasn’t cold; I was cradled against something warm, and a scent filled my nose that was delicious. Spicy and musky, a little sweet. Like some of my favorite dishes from back home, before my mother died.

I thought I saw the faintest glow of something silver from the corner of my eye, and I focused on that. A vibrant slash of glowing silver peeking from beneath the edge of a leather band. I saw more details now, felt more things too. The scale-covered skin in a beautiful light blue shade, the arms that carried me.

A man was carrying me, an alien man with silvery-blue scales and strong arms. I tilted back my head and looked up at his face. A handsome alien of a kind I’d never seen before, and then he glanced down at me and I saw his quicksilver eyes, eyes that held the coldest, harshest look I’d ever received. I wanted to wilt under that gaze, and then I wanted to stick out my tongue and make him laugh. I didn’t know where that urge came from, it was bizarre. It was too much for my poor head.

Chapter 1

Corin

My scales rattled along my spine in frustration. Zeidon was the worst patient I had ever had the misfortune of treating, and after he went missing, everyone looked at me like it was my fault. No, that wasn’t fair—I had to admit that. They hadn’t blamed me, but I still felt guilty. I should have paid better attention.

I dug my claws into my hair and pulled; the sharp bite of pain helped me focus. Zeidon the Water Weaver was a pain in my ass, but I understood his desire to rescue his mate. If this were happening to... No, I couldn’t even finish that thought. I had no business thinking about her. Talk about a pain in the ass. How was a male supposed to avoid someone when they made it their business to be everywhere you went?

I was trying to do the right thing! I was always doing the right thing; that’s why I’d aspired to be a Shaman all my life. That’s why I was here, in Outcast Haven, and not back in the Thunder Rock village. That’s why I wasn’t the Thunder Rock queen’s consort, even though she’d tried to seduce me for as long as I could remember. I didn’t want power, I just wanted to help.

The med bay in Ahoshaga was quiet right now, with no patients for me to take care of since Zeidon had recovered, for the second time. I was glad to see the last of him and his cantankerous pet, but now I had nowhere to focus my worry but on the missing. The missing, and the way one certain female kept running into me while giving me looks with her big, dark, and ever-so-exotic eyes.

I needed to get out of here. What we needed to do was mount another search for the warriors who were trapped—the group of warriors sent to find a female who had already been found. That group included one of my best friends and his mate, not to mention the former Warlord, whose female was anxiously cooking by the fire, pretending to hold it together.

Zathar couldn’t leave, and Zsekhet and his dragon couldn’t enter the tunnels to help them. So who did that leave? Me. I was their best bet because I was the only one who understood the relics in the caves beneath our mountains. I could make them work, I could read them, use them. It had to be me, and I was done waiting for Zathar to make up his mind.

My home was the apartment directly next to the med bay, what the humans called the doctors' quarters. Especially Min-Ji and she’d smile all sexily and wink when she did so. I didn’t know what a doctor was, but it was tangling my insides into all kinds of knots when she looked at me that way.

I’d decorated sparsely: just my nest, my shelves with my projects, and a desk. I had at least half a dozen cleaning bots spread out along one wall in various stages of repair, and several more interesting bots in a nearby basket. One particular bot I gave an extra suspicious look. It appeared to be turned off, but with that one, I never knew what to expect.

I bypassed all the interesting technology and packed my supplies and weapons. I couldn’t resist the lure of the jars of solutions I had gathered. I might need a good, strong explosion to free the warriors—it was the perfect excuse to test out my latest mixture.

Zathar wouldn’t want me to go alone, but we didn’t have many warriors to spare with most of them trapped. Those that remained, like Xorare and Aks, needed to stay here to handle hunting and protect Haven. They had to stay to protect the females, many of whom were now pregnant.

I ducked out of my quarters and into the med bay, or the Shaman’s rooms, as Vrash’s figment called it in his grand explanation of the village beneath the mountain that he’d built. That was who I’d be up against if I believed the report from the Water Weaver male and his female: a strange replica of the very man who had once aspired to create a safe haven at Ahoshaga to weather the calamities of the past.

The medical supplies stored there were plentiful, but I only took what I thought I might absolutely need. That included the healing device I could slide over my hand, a device I’d carried with me since the moment I’d found it as a youngling, just after my seventh molting. I wouldn’t be leaving the pregnant females and warriors without a healer when I left. The Shaman Artek had arrived a week ago to see this place with his own eyes. Zathar would convince him to stay until I returned.

My frustration and anxious energy had left me now that I’d set my course, but as I slithered deeper into Ahoshaga’s mountain village, a different worry took hold. Who would watch over the last single female without me there? I didn’t like the idea that another male might take an interest in my absence, even if I couldn’t permit myself to take her as my mate.

She was a willful female, stubborn and fearless. Her smile was radiant, lighting up a room, and she wielded it like a weapon. Any of the unmated males would be fools not to notice her appeal, and if I wasn’t around, they might make a move. I growled in frustration, back to feeling anxious for these new reasons. My scales rattled along my spine as I forced myself to keep moving.

That’s what I wanted—for her to move on and forget about me. I couldn’t be selfish and stand in the way of her happiness when she found another male, a safer male. If it happened while I wasn’t around, all the better. I wouldn’t have to fight my instincts to lay my claim, instincts that would certainly urge me to kill the contender. No, not a contender—because I had made my choice.

The panel I needed controlled the water flow of the fountain at the bottom of Ahoshaga’s village. It sat in a small village square, and around it, apartments and balconies rose in a spiral. It took a sharp twist of my knife to slide the hatch free and expose the pipes and machinery beneath. It was going to be a tight squeeze, but my agile body could handle it. With the access door into the bowels of the mountain sealed from the other side, this was the only way in.

I glanced over my shoulder, then tilted my head to gaze at the balustrades above me. No one was watching, but I couldn’t shake the sudden feeling of eyes on the back of my neck. When a second search for watchers didn’t yield results, I shrugged and started to move, twisting myself between the pipes and pulling the hatch shut behind me. No one would know how I’d left, but Zathar would find the message I’d left in the med bay. He’d understand.

I was certain there was one particular female who would not understand my decision to mount a rescue by myself. But Min-Ji would have no choice but to remain in Haven and wait; she’d be safe. This was the last time I would allow myself to think of her. From here on out, it was the mission and nothing else. I didn’t believe that resolution would hold, not even for a minute.

Determined to stick to that plan, I started sliding through the cramped space, following the pipes deeper into the mountain. I needed to find the missing warriors, and I needed to find this Vrash Revenant if it had somehow survived. Someone had to deal with it once and for all, so it couldn’t threaten Haven.

***

Min-Ji

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