Page 37

When silence returned, I was the one victorious on the battlefield, with only a few scuffs along my scales to show, and a spray of blood that decorated my chest. I tilted my head slowly to glance over my shoulder at my mate, then realized she could not see me—not in this dark—because we weren’t touching and my sigils were not glowing.

I slid my tail slowly around her ankle, and the light flared.

Her eyes were wide, but as soon as she could see, she was all business.

Hurrying to my side, she bent down and, with distaste written across her face, began to rifle through the pockets of the dead.

She held up a ration bar triumphantly and found us water to share.

She was also quite pleased with the pair of shiny silver knives she confiscated.

I told her to keep one, but was grateful to have the other.

My claws were a fine weapon, but the knife would give me an extra edge, especially against thick skin.

We stepped over the bodies, then resumed our path, and soon, light began to guide us.

The airlock stood open, and the scents of cooking meat, smoke, and the herbal freshness of the silver moss quickly reached us.

I was tense as a wire, inventorying our options as we approached the hatch.

What tools did I still have? I’d only stowed the healing device and the firestarter in the lined pouch.

I hadn’t brought any more technology. But I had a ring with a sleeping agent, and when I tapped one of the bracelets around my wrists, I was assured that the spikes could still eject.

Only one way but forward, but I paused just before we reached the exit to draw Nala into my arms. “My mate,” I said to her, “you must promise me to stay close and stay out of the fight. At your first opportunity to escape, you run for it. Promise me that?” She gained a very stubborn, almost mutinous expression, but I silenced her protest with a stern look.

“You must, for her,” I said, and I touched my hand to the soft swell of her pregnant belly.

I knew that was a dirty trick, but I did not care as long as she would do her best to escape.

Her shoulders lowered, and her lips twitched into a lush pout before she nodded.

Poking my shoulder, she rose on tiptoe. “And you promise you’ll do your fucking best to be right there with me.

Got it? I am not losing you, Artek. I’ve had enough of being alone.

It’s you and me now, together, and that’s a promise too. ”

My sigils burned even brighter, if that was even possible.

Their glow shimmered over her face, reflecting in her warm brown eyes.

“I’ve heard this said,” I began, my mind spinning as I sought to find the words humans spoke so easily to their mates.

“I love you, Nala,” I said as I found them.

My tongue twisted around the foreign words.

Though there was a kind of translation for it in the Naga tongue, that word was usually only applied to younglings and brothers, not one’s mate.

I didn’t expect that to make her cry, but suddenly her eyes were shiny, and a tear began to track down her cheek.

Alarmed, I wiped it away with the pad of my thumb.

“No, hush, don’t cry, my Shavire. That’s not what I meant!

Did I say it wrong? That’s what humans say, yes?

To their mate?” She was still crying— another tear followed the first—but her mouth was smiling.

I had never seen an expression like that before, and I had no more sash to sacrifice to wipe the salty drops away.

“I love you too, Artek. You said it right. And you did mean it, right?” I nodded vehemently, my chest feeling too small to encompass all the things I felt for my sweet, curious mate.

She was my Shavire, a beautiful, sweet-smelling flower.

How brave she’d been confronting that strange, gray-skinned alien, or dealing with the cunning Kertinal.

She kissed me then, tugging on my hair to get me to bend down toward her.

I eagerly devoured that upturned mouth, tasted the salt of her tears, but I was not making the mistake of losing myself in the passionate greeting again.

My ears were focused on all the sounds around us; nobody was going to sneak up on me this time.

When we parted, I had to ask, the taste of those tears still on my lips: “Why cry?”

She patted my chest as if to console me.

“Get used to that. Pregnancy hormones—maybe just plain hormones—I don’t know.

It’s a girl thing.” Naga females never cried, not once they grew older.

But my Nala was no youngling; she wasn’t making sense again.

Now was not the time for questions. I’d already told my mate that earlier.

“Keep your promise,” I warned her once more, and then I turned toward the open airlock and led the way.

I was counting on Levant, and if we were lucky, the Krektar had divided their forces to hunt down the humans who had escaped yesterday.

It was all we had going for us when we slipped to the edge of the airlock and got our first look at the camp. What we saw was not what we expected.