Page 20 of The Naga Inventor's Clever Mate

“There are Rakworms in the area,” the male said, as he lifted a hand in the direction we needed to go. “At least three. You can’t leave your female unprotected, Corin. And she wouldn’t be safe at our camp, or I’d offer that.” Corin hissed in response, and I had a feeling he wasn’t really hearing Khawla; rather, he was sizing up the male as if he intended to attack.

“Corin,” Khawla said calmly, and I had to give the guy points for remaining so unfazed while getting measured for a coffin by my mate. The kill vibes were off the charts. If Corin weren’t holding me, he would have already attacked. “I will leave now, and I will forget we met. Do you understand? Now listen to your female. She's got the right of it.” He backed up slowly, his hands held out at his sides with the palms facing toward us.

When he’d disappeared out of sight, it still didn’t feel like we were alone, but it was the best it was going to get. That male had the most camouflaged scales I’d ever seen. If he wanted to spy on us, he could. I had to trust that he’d keep his word, though I didn’t understand what would motivate him to do so. There was nothing in it for him except kindness. We had a truce with Thunder Rock, but we weren’t friends…

Corin still hadn’t moved, and he hadn’t let me go. Actually, his tail had wound tighter around me, holding me closer and closer to him. “Honey, you understand what that guy said, right?” I asked him. Maybe, if I touched him more, he’d snap out of this weirdly protective mode he’d gone into. “Come back to me.” My fingers trailed along his chest, then back up his neck and into the silky strands of dark blue hair.

It was very tempting to kiss him again, and I bit my lip as I gathered my courage to try. Sadly, his eyes suddenly snapped from the woods to my face, and I knew he’d managed to find his way back. “Min-Ji… I can’t. We can’t. If I lost you, it would kill me! Ihaveto keep you safe.”

He leaned into my hand, his eyes intense as he watched me shake my head. I knew he was going to protest, so I beat him to the punch. “No,” I said firmly. “We can’t avoid this forever. We can’t even avoid her. I know I’m safer with you, and I know that leaving me out here with Rakworms is not an option. We have to confront this.” It made my heart pound in my throat to think about it, but I was very tired of hearing about a threat without having anything tangible to face. Not that I reallywantedto face an actual Naga Queen. Vera had done it, and it hadn’t sounded fun.

The way he groaned and lowered his shoulders made it clear I’d won this round. We were going to the Sacred Training Grounds together. That meant I was about to see my first Naga Queen, and this one was supposed to want me dead if she knew I was Corin’s mate. Which meant we were going to have to hide it until we could find a way to make her give up. Secretly, I also wondered if she even cared or if fear had blown this problem out of proportion.

Corin had been so young when she tampered with his chance to be a Shaman and tried to convince him to be her consort. But he wasn’t a youngling anymore. Now, he was a fully trained hunter, with as much knowledge as he could gather on ancient relics. It might be different when he confronted her, and faced his demons. A girl could hope.

He tilted his head to search the surrounding woods, maybe for Khawla, or perhaps for the Rakworms. I’d never seen one in person, but Charlie had, and she’d described her experience in vivid detail. I wasn’t keen on meeting one of the giant snakes with fangs as long as my arm.

“She can’t find out,” he said eventually, but he still didn’t let go of me. He kept me tight against his chest, his tail pushing against my rear to raise me higher. This kiss was different when he bent his head to mine, slower, tender. He didn’t rush it the way every kiss before this one had, exploding into passion as if it were the only moment we were going to have. No, this felt more like a promise for more, but I didn’t dare hope for that.

When he set me back on my feet, the tip of his tail remained coiled around my wrist. That’s how we continued our trek downhill and deeper into the strange, boggy woods. Reid was quiet now, barely moving and no longer moaning in pain. If you ignored the fine sheen of sweat on his forehead, you could almost pretend that he was sleeping peacefully.

The area started to change as the day progressed, no longer quite so wet in the valleys between the hills. That made traveling quicker, as we could now stay lower on the hillsides, avoiding all the steep climbs. We only took one brief pause mid-afternoon for food and water. Corin took out his healing device, the gold bands and odd gems fitting around his clawed hand like a glove.

He gave Reid a thorough check, and I loved watching him as he worked. I didn’t think he realized it, but his tongue kept peeking out as he concentrated. It was cute, which was a funny word to associate with a Naga like Corin. He wasn’t soft anywhere, and since he was built along slender lines compared to guys like Krashe and Iave, he looked even sharper. Lean and muscular, but refined—if that made any sense—but definitely not cute. Unless he was focused and did that unconscious gesture: pursed lips, the tip of his tongue sticking out. I loved it.

“He has stabilized a little. I didn’t think he would,” Corin said as he tucked the device away again. “His chances might actually be improving.” That was hopeful, but it didn’t look like he was going to get better soon; there was a gray hue to his face. He was breathing normally, but I would have preferred the rambling and muttering from before over this quietness.

The glow of Corin’s mating marks suddenly dimmed when he jerked upright on the base of his tail and whipped the tip around. The loss of his touch had me focusing on the wrong thing at first, but then I caught the way he was tensely staring into the woods. “I think it’s a Rakworm,” he murmured. “I need to check it out. Stay with Reid. Shout if you see anything moving.” Then he pulled his knives and hurried down the hill without a backward glance.

Chapter 16

Min-Ji

The silence that hung in the woods was unnerving. I thought I would hear it if Corin found a Rakworm and fought with it, and I tried hard not to picture what that might look like: a giant, hungry snake with a maw big enough to swallow even Corin versus my silvery-blue Naga. I already thought the Naga were really big, but the Rakworm were supposed to be bigger.

I didn’t hear the sounds of the usual woodland critters of this planet; it was that quiet. All I could pick up was the sound of the wind as it ruffled the purple and gray leaves of the trees. When Reid made an awful grunting noise, it sounded as loud as a gunshot to my nerves. I nearly jumped out of my skin before I managed to get my pounding heart under control.

It was instinct to reach out to the sick man with a hand to try to calm him. I pressed my fingers to his shoulder and spoke soothingly. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re going to get better. We’ll take care of you.” It didn’t look like he heard me; his head twisted against the furs, and his jaw grew tight. So tight that I started to worry he might break his teeth—I could hear a grinding noise.

Worry filled me. First for Corin and his confrontation with a beast that seemed bigger and bigger in my mind the more I thought about it, and second for Reid, who was trembling and twisting, his entire body growing tight. I feared he was about to have a heart attack, and I couldn’t help him. Nobody could help him except those Shamans, but we were still a few hours out. Help wasn’t going to come to us.

I reached for Corin's backpack and located the healing device, but it was too big for my hand, and there were no buttons. I knew that Cosima had used one and had described how it had shrunk around her hand to fit, but it didn’t do that. If there was some secret switch I had to flick, I couldn’t find it.

As suddenly as Reid had started to twist and turn, moving like he was under immense strain, it eased up. He blinked open his eyes, and I was staring into a pair of bloodshot, brown orbs. He blinked furiously, then went slack against the furs. “Min-Ji?” he murmured as he tilted his head to look around. “Where the fuck are we?”

He sounded completely lucid, and he looked out of his eyes in a way that made me think he was rapidly assessing his situation—from the way he’d been restrained against the furs tied to the weird pole sled thing, to the unfamiliar woods he was in. “Not in the caves beneath Ahoshaga,” I said carefully. I didn’t like how loud our voices seemed in the unnatural quiet that filled the woods. “You got really sick. We’re taking you to see a Shaman, or maybe several.”

“We?” Reid asked. “How bad is it?” Yeah, he was definitely more himself again. That was the Reid I knew, always frank and blunt, but usually kind. Now wasn’t any different. He took one look at the healing device I was still holding and nodded. “Corin, huh? Are you okay?” I felt heat steal up my cheeks at the question. Did everyone at Haven know about my crush on him?

“Reid, I just told you that you’re sick. And that’s what you ask me?” I deflected with a headshake. “I’m fine. Corin’s checking on some Rakworms, but he should be back soon. We’ll be at the Sacred Training Grounds in no time at all.” At least, that’s what I hoped. Corin was taking a long time, and I still hadn’t heard anything that sounded like fighting. It was hard not to picture him in trouble when I’d made the Rakworm out to be a really big, creepy monster in my mind.

“Nothing I can do about that, can I?” Reid said, sounding shockingly casual about his health, his possible impending demise. Maybe I hadn’t been clear enough to him, but he was a smart man. He wouldn’t assume we were going somewhere special for a case of the flu. No, the way he shrugged a shoulder and didn’t even comment about how he was tied down told me he knew it was serious, but he didn’t care.

“Corin’s got a tender heart,” Reid said next, confirming my suspicions. “Promise me you’ll take good care of him. He deserves a mate like the others. Once he stops running away, he’ll see you. He’ll need you.” On the heels of that statement, he started to cough, a sound I hadn’t heard him make before. Flecks of blood flew from his mouth, but he didn’t seem to notice, his eyes focusing on something far away.

I hurried to dab it from his lips; that wasn’t good, that wasn’t good at all. Where was Corin? I turned to look around, searching for the telltale glitter of his silver scales, a hint of blue among the lavender leaves. A fist suddenly closed around my wrist, tight as a vise and growing tighter. Reid had slipped his hand from beneath the furs at his hip and managed to grab me, but it wasn’t the lucid, coherent man I was dealing with now.

Something dark and feverish glittered in his brown eyes, and his mouth pulled into an angry snarl. “You’re UAR,” he growled, squeezing my wrist so tightly that it felt like the bones might snap beneath the stress. “What did you do? Why did you do this?” he demanded. He was delirious, the fever and the pain clouding his mind, even his understanding of where he was. But he recognized me; he knew who I was—that much was obvious.

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