Page 8 of The Naga Princess's Soldier Mate

Obviously, that’s where I needed to take my angel, but that place felt like a trap—one I could not escape. It was a fanciful, stupid thought. A trap? Why would I think that when Erish and his healing hands had been the only things saving me from death this time around? The medical ship and its abilities had been my salvation, and the cure had made me stronger—more powerful than I’d ever been: the super soldier that the UAR had only been able to dream of.

“Bitter Storm warriors,” I said to Chen as I made myself walk up the gangplank behind him. The metal had heated in the sunlight and warmed the soles of my feet, which had gotten wet and cold from the trek through the marshy woods. The warmth soaking into me made all the muscles in my legs feel heavy, and suddenly, they started trembling with fatigue. Oh no, that wasn’t good. “A dozen of them in the woods.”

Sazzie had been quiet so far, and her voice sounded thready and thin when she spoke up now. Her head was lying limply against my chest; she was fading and in pain. “They must have followed the Thunder Rock challengers. I’m so sorry, Elder Chen. This is all my fault.” I rumbled a shushing noise at her. She was not responsible for the choices others made; she had not asked to be challenged. I still did not know what exactly those Naga females were challenging her for, but Sazzie had made her choice, and I was going to make sure they respected that.

Chen said nothing, but from his expression, I gathered that he did not disagree with my angel’s statement. Screw him; he was wrong, wise man or not. Sazzie didn’t want to bring danger to anyone. She was kind and sweet. She was not to blame for seeking sanctuary where she could find it. Serant was harsh and cruel, especially their women. Sazzie was too tender-hearted for all of that. But I was here now, and I was going to fix this. I was going to protect her—right after I took a nice, long nap.

It was an effort to take the final steps into the primary med bay on the ship, and by the time I started to gently lower my angel onto her belly on a cot, she no longer felt as light as a feather. Not that I’d ever dare to call her heavy, but… my arms didn’t want to obey; they couldn’t carry on much longer. The trembling in my legs had spread, and as soon as Sazzie was safely in the nest, they gave out. “Erish,” I said, and my words sounded oddly fuzzy, slurred. “Take good care of my angel, will you?” This felt like I was drunk, in the not-so-fun passing-out stage of drinking. My vision was as blurry as my voice was fuzzy, the world spinning.

The deck was approaching awfully fast. I hit it hard and then didn’t recall how I’d gotten there. No pain—just sheer exhaustion as it dragged me down. A void came up, darkness wrapped around my mind, and I was out like a light.

Chapter 6

Sazzie

“Let me up! Damn it, Erish!” I shouted, my fists balled beneath me as I strained to get up from beneath the magical force that kept me confined to the nest. Face down, I couldn’t see what was going on, but I could hear them, and I’d heard my Reid go down. I didn’t know what had happened, just that he’d suddenly collapsed. Frantic with fear for him, I couldn’t stay still to have my own wounds tended to; I had to help him.

The past events had seen my supposedly famous battle instincts all but fade into the background, but they were here now. Zathar was right, as always. When I knew what I was fighting for, I could do it; all the fear went away. I didn’t care about my wounds, or dying, or pain—all I wanted was to know that Reid was fine. He hadn’t appeared to be injured when he’d carried me through the woods; I hadn’t even seen a sign of the claw marks Evarah had made on his ankle. He’d healed in the blink of an eye. But what if he’d been injured somewhere I hadn’t seen? What if Evarah had poisoned him?

The underhanded tactic of dipping claws in poison to win a challenge was low; it was frowned upon, but it was not unheard of. I wouldn’t put it past Evarah or Astrexa to do something like that. “Reid! What’s happening?” I begged when the magical field that trapped me against the healing nest refused to budge. I could hear Erish’s machine buzz as it worked on the large gashes on my back, but I could not feel any of it. Nor could I see any of the Shamans that were in the healing chambers with me. Not Erish, not Chen, and not any of their apprentices, but I couldhear their voices as they talked rapidly, hear them groan as they worked to lift my brave brown-eyed human onto a cot so they could work on him.

“Heart rate is dropping,” Erish said, and that sounded ominous, even if I didn’t fully understand what it meant. Dropping? Out of his chest? “How’s his blood pressure, Codish?” There was a garble of noise, voices layered one over the other, and I could not quite follow what was said next. Something about no wounds (good), no poison (also good), then something about organ failure, which sounded really bad. What I definitely didn’t hear was Reid himself, and I knew him, he was not a graceful patient.

When the force pinning me to the bed finally released me, I rose with a furious hiss. Silence had settled over the healing chamber by then, save for the steady beep of a relic. The chaos that had ruled when Reid first collapsed abated, but I did not trust it, and nobody had told me if he was okay. Only Erish remained, his unseeing gaze aimed slightly above my head while his hands roamed the relic beside the nest Reid lay in. Reid himself appeared to be sleeping, his chest rising and falling in a steady pattern, his expression serene.

A breath shuddered out of me at the sight, and a sudden wave of powerful feelings rose inside my chest. It grew tight and painful, and I rubbed my knuckles against my breastbone in vain. Stars, what was this? I wanted to cry again. I was a mess today. Sliding from the nest, I stretched my muscles and tested my range of motion; all my wounds were gone. Only a slight itch remained where scales had regrown.

I was a little light-headed when I crossed the room to reach Reid’s side, but I wasn’t going to tell the healer about that. Irefused to lie back down, not when my human might need me, and I owed him. Without him, I never would have made it out of that clearing, and if I had, I would have blundered straight into the arms of the Bitter Storm warriors. I’d always dreamed of having a protector, of not having to be so strong and hard on myself, but not at the cost of his health.

“Is he going to be all right?” I asked, my voice small now that my worst fear and anger had abated. He looked okay, like he was just taking a little nap and would leap into bright, powerful motion as soon as he woke up. I wanted that. I wanted him to wake up and look at me again, tell me those sweet things that nobody ever said to me. Call me beautiful, tell me I was safe with him.

“Why don’t you lie down, Princess Sazzie?” Erish said kindly. He was pretending that I hadn’t been angry throughout my entire treatment. Fine with me. I gave him a glare I knew he couldn’t see, and then I gripped the edge of Reid’s nest and hauled myself into it. The nest was made to fit all the long, thick coils of a Naga male, and while Reid was larger than life, he did not fill the nest the same way; there was plenty of room for me. I rested my head on his bare chest and fingered the delicate metal chain he wore around his neck, from which dangled two small metal plates.

Erish huffed; something that sounded almost like a laugh. “That’s not what I meant, Your Highness,” he said, his hands still on the ancient machines beside the nest, but his cloudy white eyes had lowered to settle on Reid’s face. “But it will do. To answer your question: Yes, he will be fine. Whatever he did when he chased after you finally activated his nanobots. They are doing exactly what they were designed to do—and then some. They had depleted his system of all nutrients, which causedthe crash. I am devising the appropriate stabilizer for him right now.”

More fancy, difficult words and intricate explanations filled the air, but I caught the most vital message: Reid was going to be fine. He would survive—not merely from this crash, but he was also freed from the affliction that had plagued him from the very beginning. With Erish’s ingenious final treatment in place, Reid would soon be strong enough to return home, to Haven. To Zathar and his mate...

With a sigh, I huddled closer against his chest, my fist curled around his odd necklace. His arm had rolled closer, pressing against my back as if he were hugging me. I felt safe, but I also felt sad. What was I going to do when Reid left? Where would I go? Would Zathar welcome me at Haven? It would be nice to see my brother again, but I wouldn’t blame any of the males there if they considered me too much of a threat to their females. They might expect me to want to start fights, claim a position of power, and seek status. Going with Reid would also bring my problems along, and I couldn’t do that to the fragile little Clan of humans and outcasts—not if Bitter Storm was now involved.

Reid had described the odd appearance of one of the Bitter Storm males, and I knew exactly who he had been talking about. Skinny, with missing front teeth? That could only mean Aser, the only male in living memory to ever claim the title of King. The sniveling bastard who had killed the Bitter Storm Queen after her failed attack on Thunder Rock Village and sent the once-numerous Clan into civil war. Now, Bitter Storm was but a remnant of itself, scrambling to hold on, gather enough food, and maintain its massive mountain home.

My thoughts were still spinning, stuck on what Aser’s presence could mean, when I sank into sleep, lulled into a sense of calm by the steady beat of Reid’s heart beneath my head, his scent filling my nose, and his warmth soaking into my scales.

When I woke, I was groggy and disoriented. Everything was dark around me, though some tiny lights glowed like stars here and there around the room. It took me a long minute to recall where I was, but when I did, it all came back to me in a rush: Reid charging to my defense, his mighty warrior pose over a pinned Evarah, and the way he had declared that he was going to protect me. My mind flashed to the recollection of those Bitter Storm warriors—the true threat—but then it all faded to the background.

I was lying inside a soft nest, and I was not alone. When had I gotten so bold as to lie down with a male—a human male at that? He didn’t just have his arm lying against my back; no, he’d actually curled it around my waist and was holding me close. His fingers feathered up and down my ribs with soft strokes, and, from the sound of his breathing, I knew he wasn’t asleep.

Jerking back, I began to raise myself so I could leave the nest. What was I thinking? What washethinking? What if he didn’t like that I’d gotten this close? My thoughts spiraled quickly with my uncertainty, wondering how he could possibly want me near after the chaos and pain I’d caused. After he’d seen that I was no angel. “Hush, angel,” he said, right on the heels of that last thought, echoing the words reverberating through my head. “It’s okay. We’re okay. And I know you can understand me. Don’t try to hide it, little minx.”

He did not let me get away either, his strength far greater than mine as he pulled me back against his chest. This time, it wasn’t a one-armed hug, but both his arms wrapped around my waist as he hauled me close—practically on top of him. I could feel the geometrical shapes beneath his skin; there were more of them now than before. I could also feel a hot, thick bar pressing against my hip, and I didn’t know what to make of that. If it was what I thought it was, it shouldn’t have made me feel all weak-limbed—it should have made me feel angry. He was shaming himself, and me, by showing such a lack of restraint. But the only things I was feeling were relief and happiness. He wanted me close, he was holding me, and he wasn’t hurt.

“No hiding,” I murmured against his skin, my fingers returning to his odd necklace to grip the two small rectangles dangling from it. That was a better option than giving into the desire to pet every inch of his skin. My eyes had easily adjusted to the near-dark, and I was picking out far too many tempting details—like the odd markings that painted the skin on his arms and shoulders. They depicted the shapes of bizarre, mythical predators: living artwork on his skin, lovingly following the bulge of his biceps and accentuating the thick veins that corded his forearms.

He chuckled, the sound low and husky. It sounded so intimate in the dark when I was too afraid to look up and see his expression. “Good, angel. That’s good. Do you know what happened? Last I remembered, I was tuckingyouinto bed. And I wake up and find you in mine. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.” His arms grew a little tighter around my middle, ensuring that not so much as a hair separated our bodies. I could feel the heat of that rigid bar press against me, and it made parts of me tingle that I didn’t know could feel that way.

“You collapsed,” I said, vividly recalling the moment and how helpless I’d felt when I couldn’t see if he was okay. “Shaman Erish says you were missing nutrients, but your nanobots are working.” My tongue felt odd as I twisted it around the foreign word. It was a Naga word—all syllabic and guttural, nothing like the language that Reid spoke. I could not wrap my head around the thought that there was a Naga word for such a thing, but there was, and Erish knew it. He’d taught it to me by speaking of it often as he worked to heal Reid over the past week.

“Ah, that makes sense. I must have been burning massive amounts of energy to sustain that speed and strength, not to mention the rapid healing. My nanobots were performing far beyond their normal parameters.” More complex words, but I was starting to understand them a little. Reid was saying that he had been stronger and faster than normal, and that his healing rate was vastly improved by these nanobots. Such a thing seemed like magic to me, but I was grateful for it. It had made Reid so powerful, so capable, and he’d gotten me out of the encounter with Kusha, Evarah, not to mention Astrexa. Though I had a feeling we hadn’t seen the last of Astrexa yet, she was the least favorite; she had much to prove.

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