Page 2 of The Naga Princess's Soldier Mate

My mind was hazy, filled with fire and smoke. Each thought raced but never fully formed, adding to the confusion and the nausea that rocked me. Everything was wrong—my thoughts, my body, the fire that raced through my veins, and my memories. Especially my memories. They warped and stretched, yawning wide like a dark abyss.

I was on the sands of Scrak-4, fighting the Scrakoids to the sound of a buzzing in my head. Crush the rebels, destroy them, wipe them out. The sand tasted green, like the woods that remained in Oregon, where I’d grown up. The wind scoured like sandpaper, abrading my flesh, and I wished I had scales like the Scrakoids. Blood in my mouth: coppery and stale.

Blood on my lips as I coughed, and the sound of voices in my ears. A UAR accent like my own, crisp with the military precision that had been drilled into me from the day I’d joined their ranks. A fellow soldier, a fellow human. My thoughts tumbled as the past and the present collided. There were no humans on Scrak-4, none that survived from my unit. They were all dead; I was dead.

Wires in my flesh, water in my lungs. Everything tasted like saltwater and brine, and it stung my eyes when I opened them. The lab was gray and white, bobbing around me, distorted by the thick glass of the water tank. I was submerged, and parts of me were… gone. I wanted to scream in horror, but my mouth was sealed shut, a tube down my throat. A lifeline stuck tomy chest. Every nerve ending in my legs was on fire—aching, burning, exposed.

There was a face swimming in front of me: a pale oval with white hair. Black-framed glasses surrounded dark eyes—a fashion choice, vanity. Everyone could get their eyes fixed, especially a labrat like this one. He spoke, a hand waving in a calming gesture. “Go back to sleep, Soldier. Stand down.” So I did.

My skin was clammy with cold sweats, and my legs ached as I remembered the traumas from the past. Everything was all wrong; why was the sky purple? Why did the voices around me hiss and sigh, growl and lisp? This wasn’t Scrak-4, this wasn’t the lab or a UAR med bay, and yet… I swore it looked just like any ship I’d been on as we moved from a bright outside into a darker inside. Gray metal surrounded me, flashing by above my head.

I could not move, but I saw a flash of yellow and orange. The Scrakoid were yellow, their flesh covered in tough scales capable of resisting laser pistol fire—even something as punishing as my trusty rifle. Battle readiness surged through me: my muscles grew tense, and my hands balled into fists. There were furs on top of me, soft and warm, stifling me with the heat pumping from my flesh. I fought to tilt my head, to face my enemy, to kill the bastard that had laid waste to my platoon.

“Why is he reacting like that, Elder Erish?” a voice said. Light struck me, piercing the veil that clung to my brain. Clarity filtered through at the sound of those gentle, feminine notes; that was the voice of an angel. I was not on Scrak-4, where I’d died the first time. And I was not in the lab where I had beenreborn into the UAR’s Shadow Unit of secret soldiers. This was Serant.

“His mind is stuck in the past, forcing him to relive previous battles. Don’t worry, it’ll ease.” That voice was kind but male, speaking in the slow, precise cadence of a man who had seen many years. Patient in a way I never could be. He had to be a doctor—no, a Shaman. If this was Serant, that’s what they called their healers. I racked my brain for more pertinent information, but clarity was already fleeing once again, pushed aside as the surge of adrenaline started to fade.

“I see. Does it hurt him?” the beautiful, dulcet tones of the angel asked. They pushed against my mind, that voice luring me like a siren. For that voice, I wanted to stay, to bask in her warmth and beauty, in the gentleness that emanated from it. She sounded so worried, and I wanted to tell her that I was fine, that I was tough—a soldier to the bone, able to withstand any torture to keep someone as pure as her safe.

“Hurt? I do not believe so. I have him sedated, and my hope for his recovery grows with each passing hour, though I fear the road will be long, my dear.” That was the doctor speaking, and his words brought me back to another memory, another time. It was too much for my brain, but I fought with all my might to stay with what had to be the present—to stay with the angel, my pretty light.

“He’s going to make it,” my commanding officer said, his arms crossed over his wide chest, which was covered by the silver sheen of his nano armor. Captain James Barrett was a stern but fair man, his hair going as silver at the temples as his armor. We were standing side by side in front of a glass wall,peering into the high-tech med bay aboard one of the medical ships that orbited Desert Planet Seven. Beyond the glass, medical professionals were working on one of our teammates, who had been damaged so badly that his nanobots had been unable to compensate.

“Are you sure?” I asked the Captain, and our eyes clashed—his gray, mine brown. The Captain frowned deeply as he considered my question, glancing back at the view beyond the plex glass at the badly burned and broken shape of Harrington. “The locals are not offering any resistance, so how did Harrington get hurt? You were there—what happened?”

I was not supposed to question my superior officer; I was supposed to follow orders, obey. The ultimate weapon of the UAR, the blade in the dark, the shadow in the night. We did not exist, so we could not be questioned, and we could not be denied. But this… this wasn’t right. All my instincts rebelled at what I was seeing. Desert Planet Seven did not resist UAR occupation; its inhabitants were bird-like, small, and completely pacifistic. They did not fight, and they would not have harmed Harrington even if he started killing their young—which I knew the man would never do.

Captain Barrett’s eyes narrowed, the gray of his gaze turning flinty with displeasure. “Are you questioning my command, Caldwell?” I shook my head, my hands going up defensively as I tried to figure out what the best course of action was. Question harder, and I’d be disciplined, but I couldn’t escape the feeling that something was very wrong. Why were we on Desert Planet Seven, locally known as Exrata? There was nothing to fight here—at least, there shouldn’t be—but Harrington’s injured form belied that.

“No, sir, not at all. I just want justice for Harrington—don’t you?” That placated my officer, and he gave me a short nod before returning his attention to our injured teammate. Then, the telltale drawn-out beep sounded, and we held our breath and waited. Would he pull through, or would that flatline be the end?

“We’ve got him, he’s back!” the doctor announced, his kind, old voice tinted with heavy relief and a hint of triumph. “Let’s make sure this is the last time, shall we, friends?” That question was met with several hums of agreement, more male voices blending together. I sought the one voice I wanted to hear again, but their rumbles were louder, and they blended together as they talked rapidly. Medical words—big, long, confusing. That wasn’t my world; all those terms were beyond me. I heard words like stable, balance, damage, and things about recovery time, but it meant very little. Were they talking about me? Or was this about Harrington?

No, not my fellow shadow soldier. Harrington was dead and gone. He’d died on the operating table while I watched, and it was so long ago that it might as well have been a century. That’s how old I felt when I thought of all the things I’d seen and paid attention to the pain and heaviness in my body. Harrington was dead, and he might as well have been murdered at the hands of my captain. It was Barrett who had pulled the trigger, Barrett who had destroyed the life of a good, honorable man.

Barret had destroyed my life too, pulling the trigger that ended it just the same as he’d done to Harrington—all to protect the secrets of the UAR. The endless might that was the United Alliance of Races: good and kind only if you blindly obeyed, and only if you were one of the three: Praxidar, Dragnell, or human.The Extratians? They were nothing but a slate to be wiped clean—bugs on a windshield.

Everything ached, but I was clearer this time than the previous times I’d surfaced. I still could not follow much of what was being said, not until a female voice cut through the clutter. “He looks better today. Will he wake soon?” she asked, unaware of the chaos that had reigned around me not that long ago. I had flatlined—I knew it—just like Harrington had flatlined in my memories. If not for that voice, that angel, I might have chosen to stop fighting what seemed inevitable. How many times could a male die and come back? There had to be a limit.

“We hope so,” a voice said, not as familiar to me as that of the doctor. “He went through a rough patch, but his vitals seem much more stable now.” Ah, that was good news; I certainly felt more stable. There was no pull on the back of my mind, no fog rolling in from the edges to cover my brain and push away my thoughts. No shroud of memory to hide the present. If I was not dead—and I knew I wasn’t—the female voice was no angel, but I could not think of her any other way.

Twisting my head, I fought to open my eyes so I could gaze at her, searching for more of her words and her kindness. My life had been one long battle for a cause I had come to hate and for leaders who had lied and cheated. That voice was hope—hope of something true and good. I didn’t know how I knew it, but it felt like that voice belonged to my new cause, and I wanted to surface from this pain so I could tell her she had my loyalty and my fealty.

“Good, that’s good,” she murmured, and she sounded so much closer, right at my side. With a Herculean effort, my eyesopened, and I locked my gaze on the purest of blue. Eyes like sapphires, a narrow pupil, and the softest, gentlest smile. She was mesmerizing in her beauty; she was exactly what I expected my angel to look like. She took my breath away. “Hello, are you awake, male?” she said, her mouth tilting deeper into that welcoming smile until dimples popped in her cheeks.

Yeah, I was, but answering the call of that siren was beyond me. Exhaustion claimed me after that battle of wills, all simply to open my eyes and gaze upon her. I slipped away again, cursing furiously in my mind as I went.

***

Sazzie

Sitting next to the medical nest, I rested my hands in my lap, but it was hard not to fidget as I waited. Erish thought he might wake at any moment now, and I wanted to be there when he opened his eyes. I couldn’t explain it, but meeting this human male was different; it was pulling on parts inside of me I had buried long ago.

It brought me back to a fight I’d lost, fights I’d won, and scars I’d earned. My hand fluttered to my face, my finger running over the line that bisected my left eye and dug cruelly into my cheekbone. That one was courtesy of Astrexa, like many of the scars I wore. She had always remained my rival and, for a long time, was favored by my mother—until Zathar’s brave mate had put her in her place. I grinned, my finger stroking the scar as I recalled the tiny human female digging her blunt teeth into Astrexa’s scales. Oh, that had been so glorious, and it had finally put an end to the endless fights between her and me.

I shivered, more of my scars tingling along my flesh. Most of those scars covered my front, as Naga females only fought openly, face-to-face. I thought of my rival females as backstabbers—conniving and manipulative—but there was no literal backstabbing. No, that was very frowned upon. We fought to prove our strength and declare our status in the Clan, not to end each other, though thatwassometimes the result.

After what had happened with the Queen and Corin last week… I had vowed never to go back to that kind of life—Astrexa and any of the other contenders for the throne be damned. They could fight it out among themselves, but I was done. Shaman Elder Chen had granted me permission to live in the Sacred Shaman Training Grounds for as long as I wanted to remain. I hoped that was enough to deter any of Thunder Rock’s females from coming after me and declaring their challenges. The Training Grounds were hidden, and they were sacred.

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