Page 4 of The Naga Inventor's Clever Mate

There was too much data stored here—strings of symbols and numbers that had no function. They certainly weren’t related to the vents. I struggled to transform the gut feeling I had into words that made sense. For now, I settled for locating maps of the tunnels, information I didn’t have access to from Ahoshaga’s central hub. If I could locate the hydro plant chambers, I could find the warriors. I also needed to check the chamber where Zeidon and Farah had escaped. I had to make sure the piece of the Revenant that Farah had thrown onto the floor was still there.

The map was confusing, with several layers, but after a few minutes of puzzling, I was certain I’d located the spots I needed to check. On a thin, finely cured piece of pale lavender leather, I drew the path I needed to follow in charcoal. It was rudimentary, but it would ensure I didn’t get lost. I couldn’t estimate the distances on the map, and I needed to hurry; the warriors wouldn’t have much food left.

“Come on, bot,” I said when I finished my map. I eyed the only door to the room with a hint of suspicion. Farah and Zeidon had a lot of trouble with opening doors down here, would this door be similar? I was confident I could get around it, but if every door became an obstacle, it would slow me down significantly.

The little bot made an annoyed beeping noise, a sharp tone that almost hurt my ears. I wanted to think it was irritated because I moved my tail, but a bot couldn’t nap, and it couldn’t feel "comfortable" on my coil, so why would it be? “Stay close,” I warned as I headed for the door.

The bot whirred as it cleaned the floor, leaving a shiny streak along the dust-strewn ground as it followed me. The door opened without issue, which eased one concern but left me with another. The hallway was dimly lit by dirty crystals in the ceiling, and a massive crack ran along it, suggesting this place was not quite stable.

Once I had freed the warriors, I would have to do a complete survey to make sure our home was secure. I added the task to my already long mental list of things I had to fix. The females wanted their ‘plumbing’ to keep working, and Naomi wanted the ‘mess hall’ restored so we wouldn’t be forced to eat outside in the winter. This would have to take precedence. I did not have enough hands, and I definitely did not have enough hours in the day to take care of all our budding Clan’s needs. Not if they kept getting injured.

“Beep,” the bot announced, and he bumped against my tail as if urging me to get going. Ah, now I was even thinking of the bot ashe. I was losing my damn mind—first over the female, and now over this faulty machine. If Iave knew about this, he wouldn’t recover from laughing so hard. I wouldn’t survive the ribbing that would surely follow.He?No, it was a bot. It didn’t have a gender, and it didn’t have a personality. It couldn’t.

The next sound I heard made me want to snap at the machine, tell it to back off, and let me focus. Only, it wasn’t the bot making a noise this time. It came from behind me,again. I spun, hand flying to my knife, and I flashed it through the air, held in a defensive grip in front of my body. What now?

The viewscreen flashed on the vent control hub, displaying the diagram of all the pipes and warnings. A red light on the vent I’d used blinked rapidly, flashing alerts about blockages and system failures if not resolved. Then, a foot slipped through the open grate, followed by a delicate ankle, a gently curved calf, and then a thigh.

I gaped in shock, but that shock was quickly replaced by a wild rush of heat. My tongue flicked out, drawing scent particles into my mouth, pressing them against the scent receptors at the roof of my mouth. Her individual notes teased my senses and gripped my mind, igniting the primal instincts of my body. Min-Ji. It was her.

She unfurled from the vent without making a sound, agile as a Sleara. She was much smaller than I was—much smaller—but even so, it couldn’t have been an easy journey for her through those pipes. Human limbs didn’t bend and move the way a Naga body could, and, begrudgingly, I was very impressed she’d made it.

I didn’t know how to respond or what to feel at the sight of her. Elation that she was with me? Absolute terror for the very same reason? I needed her to stay safe—I needed her as far from me as possible. But if she was here, with me, no other male could encroach on what should be mine. That kind of thinking was going to get me in trouble, but the sense of satisfaction, the feeling of victory, was starting to win out.

Her sleek black hair had grown longer over the past few months, tumbling around her shoulders in a messy cascade. Her skin looked as temptingly inviting as ever, and her soft pink lips made me desperately curious to experience the mouth-to-mouth greetings humans seemed to favor with their mates. I wasnother mate; I had not staked my claim, but that mouth made me want to, badly.

She rose to her full height, which brought her just below my midriff in my current position. Min-Ji was a tiny human, about the same size as frail Cosima, who had been dubbed the smallest among Haven’s members. Min-Ji only had an inch on the flame-haired woman, but her cheerful personality made her seem larger. When she planted her hands on her hips, my cock surged in its pouch, pressing against the slit as it threatened to escape my iron control.

“Hi,” she said with a beatific smile. That smile said everything. She knew she wasn’t welcome, and that I would try to send her back. I also knew that she wouldn’t go, that was in the smile too. Nothing I’d say or do would convince her to crawl back into that vent and up to Haven, so she’d be safe. Min-Ji made it an art form to be the thorn in my side. No, not really, that honor went to the faulty cleaning bot.

I leveled a glare at the small, round machine, but it just blinked its lights back at me. When I turned that glare on Min-Ji, her smile grew a tad wider, but her relaxed posture didn’t change. Neither of them was intimidated by me. I was losing my touch.

With a deep sigh, I rolled my shoulders and sheathed the blade I’d grabbed at the first sound. “Fine, you can come too, but the same rules apply.” I held up a finger and pointed first at the bot, then at the wayward female. “Stay close.” I raised a second finger. “And don’t touch anything.”

I turned away without looking at what she did, but I was hyper-aware of her position the entire time. I couldn’t risk a stray touch revealing the secret I’d been holding. That kind of confirmation of what she already sensed would only embolden her more. For her safety, nobody could know, not even her. Definitely not the otherher.

Min-Ji made a squeaking noise, and I knew that sound was accompanied by her hands pressed to her chest as if she could not contain her excitement. She always did things like that, and I could not bear to see them, they were too cute. It tore at my heart. “You’re not even going to try to send me back? Really, Corin?”

The grunt that left my throat was half-smothered laugh, half-pained groan. If I had been distracted by her before, it was going to be agony to stay on task now. “What’s the point?” I muttered under my breath. “You wouldn’t listen anyway.”

Chapter 3

Min-Ji

I would never tell Corin, but my back ached, and I’d scraped both my elbows and knees coming through that narrow crawlspace. It was lucky that I wasn’t particularly tall, but it was a tight fit, which made it all the more miraculous that Corin had managed to squeeze his huge Naga body through. I guess he could wind and flatten himself to fit through spaces in ways I couldn’t. He was mostly made up of vertebrae.

If not for the open vent panel, I wouldn’t have been able to find him either. I thought he’d been sloppy, leaving it open like that, but now that I spotted the scrappy little cleaning bot at his side, I had a feeling I wasn’t the only one who had followed him down here against his wishes.

I was pretty sure this bot came from a pile of things that Zsekhet and his dragon had recovered from Zeidon’s cave. Ever since Corin had gotten his hands on it, it had followed him like a lost puppy. Kind of like I was… Nope, not going there. Sure, it was a little sad to be carrying a torch for a guy who wanted to run from the room as soon as you showed up. But I had good reason.

Did I, though? I wondered, not for the first time, if my memories of our first meeting were clouded by the traumatic brain injury I’d been recovering from. What if I hadn’t been able to understand him at all? What if my brain had filled in the blanks afterward? Those were thoughts that usually only plagued me in the dead of night, but today, I couldn’t shake them.

Everyone knew what it meant if a female could understand a Naga male by touching him. The silver glow of his scales was even more telling. But what if I’d dreamed all that? Cosima and Reid hadn’t recalled seeing a silver glow on Corin when he carried me right after the crash.

With nobody there except Corin, I didn’t feel the need to maintain my facade of cheerfulness and helpfulness. He didn’t care what I said or did; heck, he’d probably prefer it if I stayed quiet. I should focus on other things, like the mission I was certain he was here to execute: rescuing the trapped warriors.

My heart skipped a beat when I thought about achieving that. Naomi would be so relieved when Krashe came back, and Haven would be much safer with all its warriors returned to the fold. I knew we all missed Kalani and her brutish, often silent male, Iave. A little voice at the back of my brain helpfully pointed out that rescuing them would cement my position as a good guy.

We were traveling in gloomy darkness, lit only by dirty crystals embedded in the ceiling. Some of them were broken, courtesy of the massive crack that ran along the side of the tunnel wall. When the crack disappeared, the crystals seemed a little brighter, but it still felt like we were traversing a maze. Crossroads and tunnels split off and diverged, but Corin confidently led the way. If I lost sight of him, I’d be as trapped down here as the warriors we came to save.

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