by Naomi Lucas
Morning brightens the forest before they finally leave.
Exhausted and numb, I wait before I risk moving. After checking that they’re gone, I crawl back out of my shelter, fear twisting my gut, and I can’t tell if I’m hungry or nauseous, or both. Turning back, the shelter is broken, punctured, and has shifted a couple of feet.
I can’t stay here.
I was waiting for Vruksha… but he hasn’t come. I have to believe he’s still alive. I don’t think I can live with the guilt if I caused his death. My heart aches, and I reach up to rub the feeling from my chest.
First Daisy, and now Vruksha.
Carefully, I rise on my wounded feet.
The pigs stamped out much of the overgrowth during the night, and I can’t immediately figure out which direction they went. My trail to the lake is gone, and though I desperately want to go and fill up with water, I also know the pigs likely moved toward it for the same reason.
I wish Vruksha was here.
Shaking my head, I banish the thought. I can’t rely on him anymore, it’s up to me now. How things change so quickly.
Turning full circle, I wish for something—anything—to guide me, to lead me to Vruksha’s bunker or the facility. I eye the trees, hoping one will be easy to climb, but they’re tall and the branches are higher up. There is nothing.
Picking up a nearby stick to use for a crutch, I decide to follow the direction of the sun. It’s as good a direction as any. I don’t take more than a couple of steps when my foot rams into something hard.
Flinching, I sink my teeth into my lips.
My eyes land on the orb.
I pick it up.
“Orb, initiate,” I whisper.
Under the streaming sunlight above, it comes to life, rising from my hand to hover in the air.
“What can I help you with today?” it says.
My eyes widen.
I remember how to smile.
Sixteen
Consequences
Vruksha
Sunlight streams through the pines of the forest to greet me. I groan, staring at it.
“You’re awake.”
My gaze cuts to Zhallaix sharpening a knife across from me. I struggle to strike him with my tail, but I find I can’t move. I’m bound. Ropes have been tied around my wrists, pulling them apart and anchoring me to the tree at my back.
“Gemma,” I hiss. “Where’s Gemma?”
Zhallaix puts his weapon away, hooking it with the bones he wears on his bicep. “Don’t try and move.”
“What have you done to my female?” I struggle against my bonds, searching the forest for Gemma.
“Ssshe ran.”
I wheeze out a breath. Relief and horror hit me hard. “She’s not in your clutches,” I rasp. But she’s also not here, which means she’s alone, in the forest, completely at the mercy of the wilds and beasts that roam it.
Zhallaix hums, unconcerned.
“Let me go,” I urge, nearly shaking.
Zhallaix cocks his head. His one eye hoods as he watches me.
“I need to go after her.”
“She did not have a tail,” Zhallaix responds.
“Of course she didn’t!” I hiss. “Releassse me!”
“Where did she come from?”
I snarl. “I don’t have time for this. She’s not safe alone in the forest. She does not have claws, fangs, or venom to protect herself.” She does not have me!
“Humans are extinct, and a naga female hasn’t roamed these lands in over a hundred years. How is it possible you have one at all? What is she? A robot?”
I stop fighting my bonds when it occurs to me that Zhallaix does not know about the humans at the facility or the ship that descended from the sky.
How humans came out of it took over the old ruins—that there were females amongst those who landed.
He has no idea about Zaku’s deal to trade technology for their females. He doesn’t know.
Zhallaix destroys all tech he comes across.
I stop struggling as an idea forms. “I’ll tell you if you let me go.”
“Or I can leave you tied up and find her myself.”
“You could… or you could have one for your own, one who isn’t already claimed and filled with spill,” I growl.
Zhallaix crosses his arms, and I know I had him. The threaded muscles of his arms bulge, stretching white and red scars. Some of those are scars I’ve given him. There’s a gouge on his side, half-strung up with plant fibers to keep it closed. Blood gushes from it. I did that.
I have a few open wounds too, but Zhallaix didn’t string mine up.
Why would he? He’d prefer me dead.
So why am I not?
“Where did she come from?” he asks again.
“She may be the only one,” I lie. “Or not.”
Zhallaix glares at me and reaches behind him. He brings my spear forward.
I release venom at the sight of it. Zhallaix is not only putting Gemma’s life in danger but also has my spear? Anger floods me seeing his hand wrapped around the shaft.
I hiss as he nears, bracing for whatever is to come. He stabs down on my tail.
I shout in pain as it pierces deep into my muscle. He digs it in before sliding the sharp tip out. I thrash to free my arms but make no progress. I slump with a grimace when my bonds hold. My blood pools around me as he lifts my spear to stab my tail again.
“Tell me,” he rumbles.
“Release me.”
Zhallaix stabs and twists.
I grit my teeth, holding in an agonized groan when the tip hits my tail’s spine. Sweat pools down my face, agony radiates up my tail and runs straight through my whole body.
He yanks the spear back out. “Should we keep going?”
I scowl, spit.
“I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Vruksha,” he says, calm as ever, as if he isn’t torturing me for information. “But what you did was unforgivable…”
“What I did? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I sneer.
Zhallaix lowers until he’s level with me. Hatred burns for him and the situation he’s put my female in. Hatred that he still roams these lands despite the numerous attempts to take his life.
But it’s the same situation I put my female in for taking her out at night. For falling asleep…
Zhallaix continues, “Mating a female kills them. They do not survive gestation. Only a wretch would satisfy his cravings knowing the outcome. Tell me where you found her.”
“Humans are not nagas.”
“Have you mated a human female before?”
My nostrils flare. “Of course not. None of us have.”
“Then how could you know?”
“And you do? I know what you’ve done, what you are. I know what your father did, raping female nagasss for his pleasure. I’m nothing like him. None of us are—only you.”
His hand goes white where it’s clutching my weapon.
“He taught you everything he knew,” I continue, “didn’t he? He brought you along as he single-handedly—”
“Enough!”
“—bred unwilling females across the region, even those not Death Adders, killing them—”
“Enough!” Zhallaix raises my spear and surges forward, aiming the tip at my groin. “I am not my father!” He slashes down.
I twist to the side, narrowly missing the spear’s edge. Zhallaix jerks from the impact, and I’m finally given my opportunity. I spit venom into his eye.
He roars, rearing backward, dropping my weapon. He clutches his eye. He slithers away, shrieking as he hits a tree, sending branches flailing. I shimmy the wound on my tail toward my bound hands, drenching them with blood.
With the ties wet, I fight my way out of them.
One of the ties snaps, releasing my arm. I claw through the rest of the binds, tearing them off. When I free my limbs, I grab my spear and use it to help me rise.
Zhallaix thrusts his tail out to keep me back, una
ble to see me.
“I ssshould kill you,” I growl, leaning over him.
One black and red eye peers wetly at me through strained fingers. “Do it!” he says.
I lift my spear over him.
“Do it!” he screams.
I stab him in the gut and twist. Blood gushes, as I yank it out.
Zhallaix drops his hand from his eye, hisses, and slumps. He doesn’t move again but continues to watch me through his ruined eye. Slowly, the color fades from his scales, and his eye closes.
I stare at him for a short time, making sure he stays down. I take no pleasure killing one of my own, even though I have before and know I will again.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” I say, lowering my spear.
I flick my spear clean of blood and take to the trees, not giving Zhallaix another thought.
The creek is nearby. I hear it rather than see it, and from my viewpoint, I notice nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that will help me find Gemma. I need to find her. I don’t know how long I’ve been out, only that it’s dusk now, which means many hours have passed since Zhallaix’s attack. If not days.
I rush to the water, hoping there’ll be a trail, wincing from the pain of my wounds.
I follow the creek north until I’m at the place I was last with Gemma. I see her boots. Grabbing them, bringing them to my face, I inhale her scent.
She’s out in the forest alone, without me, the male who vowed to protect her. She doesn’t know how to defend herself; she knows little about my world. There’s so much more than animals and monsters…
I battle against the pain in my tail that threatens to slow me, slipping it in the water to wash the blood off as I frantically search for her trail.
Sticks are broken, leaves crushed on the ground. Someone hit the overgrowth hard, head-on.
It had to be Gemma. Imagining her fear as she fled infuriates me. She took to the dangerous forest in the darkness without a plan. My claws dig into the material of her boots, leaving the creek behind.
As I track her, I fear I’m going to stumble upon her broken form and a madness takes hold of my mind. But as the hours go by and the moon rises, I never do. She ran for hours…
Was she running from me as well? My tail coils, shooting spikes of pain up my spine at the thought. I refuse to believe it.
The moon ascends and deep shadows blanket the forest so thickly I lose the tracks.
My anger and helplessness coalesce into a roar. “Gemma!” I roar her name.
I’m answered with silence.
I stab my spear into the ground and gather wood to make a fire. If she’s nearby, she’ll see the light and will come. It gives me something to do while I wait for the sun to return, and the flames keep my mania at bay.
The night lasts an agonizing eternity. I do not sleep. Not with my female out of my reach and not knowing where she is.
Dawn has not yet risen when I take back to her trail. I lose it several more times throughout the morning because her tracks have begun fading. Backtracking and finding where it picks up, makes me lose precious time. The sun is past its zenith, the heat sweltering, when I’m plowing forward again.
I shout her name.
And again, rage takes hold at her loss. For losing her, and worse, for not being prepared to take on a human female like I thought I had been. I should have known better.
Why did I take her out at night when I could have taken her to my nest?
I could have her coiled up in my tail right now if I had.
Something blue appears in the distance, and I move toward it. Her jacket. I grip the material tightly to my chest. It’s torn and dirty but still in good shape.
A sign.
My hope returns.
The landscape changes, sloping downward, and her trail picks back up for a while. She slowed here. I have to lower to the forest floor to find her passage. Moving from tree to tree, I see dried blood upon the leaves. But as I do, I see something else, something far worse…
Pig tracks.
Dozens of them. Hoofprints everywhere, pig shit amongst them. The smell of their passage makes the forest reek.
My heart plummets knowing they caught her scent and that I will lose Gemma’s trail completely amongst the pigs’.
My fingers clench. She has to be close. Tearing my eyes off the forest floor, I look up to see where I am. I know this area, I realize. I’ve traveled through here countless times. Pig tracks or no, if she’s here, I’ll be able to find her.
Unless the pigs have gotten to her first… If they had, there’ll be nothing but blood where they caught her. They eat everything.
I’ll kill every last pig in the land if she’s met such a fate.
The sun hits the horizon far too soon, and the diminishing strength of my tail begins to impede me. Blood still gushes from my wounds, making me sluggish. I keep going.
When I hear the pigs, I slip up into the trees and find a mid-size pack of swine in the distance.
One raises his head and sniffs loudly. He smells fresher blood now that I’ve arrived.
I streak my short claws over the wounds of my tail and give them more of it. Pain soars through my nerves, and I grit my teeth. If the pigs come after me, I can lead them away and kill them off one by one. Within minutes, there’s a pack of swine beneath my branch, swarming over each other to reach me.
Lying flat on the branch, I position my spear and, gripping the handle tight, stab at the one nearest me. My speartip sinks deep into fatty flesh. The pig squeals, startling the others to do the same. I wrench my arm back and stab again. I hit another pig.
The pigs flail and scream, blocking out all other sounds. They frenzy, and some run off, the smart ones. But most remain because there’s a meal to be had. I brace and stab again.
Soon, they’re no longer after my blood, but their own. Snorting and snuffing, they turn on each other, too dumb to move away from the spear poking them from above. Blood fills the air.
Something catches my spear and yanks it from my grip. I recatch it moments later as one of the pigs jumps after me instead of his brethren. Glimpsing down, I find two large, intelligent eyes gazing up at me with hatred. I spit venom at the leader, and he shakes it off.
The others around him begin to notice that I’m still above; they see me now that their bellies are full of their friends.
It’s time to go.
I coil and lift off the branch, slipping to the next tree over. The large pig follows me, while several others follow him. If I don’t lose them, they’ll chase after me until either I’m dead or they are. And from the look the big one is giving me, he wants my hide.
As long as it’s me and not Gemma.
I lead the pack out of the area, killing as I go, stabbing through the night until morning breaks through the trees.
I need to find Gemma, and soon.
I push off the truck of the tree I’m in and silently move back to the place I was when I found the pigs the night before. The place where I last had Gemma’s trail.
In the dawn’s light, I see nothing but half-eaten corpses and blood. The bushes, branches, and plants were decimated in the feeding frenzy. If there was a trail before, it’s gone now.
I bite out a curse.
Something swishes past my head. I catch sight of it just before it vanishes into the forest. It’s rusted, dirty, and broken, but I know what it is.
A drone.
Excitement rips through me.
My exhaustion disappears as I take off after it. Someone initiated drones…
Gemma.
Seventeen
Danger on Every Ledge
Gemma
I run my arm over my brow, wiping the sweat gathered there, and push forward. I’ve been running for hours, trying to get away from the sounds of the pigs behind me.
Soon after I found the orb, I heard them again.
They’re getting closer. My pulse quickens as the sun crests.
They never lef
t.
I catch hold of a branch, curling my bleeding toes into the dried leaves. I stumble to the next tree.
Ahead of me is a ledge, and I make a faltering sprint for it. Through the trees, I see the slope of the mountain I’m heading toward.
The landscape has become increasingly rockier and hillier. I didn’t get lucky, I failed to pick the direction toward Vruksha’s bunker. I curse continuously. I don’t know how I ever thought I was going to find alien tech and run it back to my people.
I didn’t know what I was truly in for. I was stupid to think it was a good plan, even with Vruksha’s spear for protection.
God, I’m an idiot.
I reach the ledge as a snort sounds behind me and pull my body up, barely managing to get off the ground when something snaps at my foot. Jerking my limbs into my body, I twist back.
Behind me is the largest, angriest-looking hog I’ve ever seen. Three times my size, the hog could eat me whole. I hold in a scream as it claws and tries to climb the ledge, snapping and snorting in a frenzy.
I take my stick and jab its head.
My stick breaks.
“Fuck,” I gasp, pulling my half toward me. I stare at the broken tip. Movement catches my eye. Two more pigs run out of the trees joining the first. They barrel into the ledge.
I recoil, turning around to find an escape. The slope is steep but rocky, and I can climb the boulders leading up the mountainside. That’ll lose the pigs. I hope. I shiver and massage my aching hands, examining the jagged edges, deciding on the best route.
I try not to think about how tired I am, nor how I’ll probably fall to my death. My gut cramps. I can’t do much climbing, I won’t be able to lift my body in the state I’m in.
I wish I was facing several horny naga males over this. Anything over this. The pigs I know are nothing like the mindless, brutal animals clawing at the ledge.
“Fuck,” I whisper, breathing the word out between my teeth, tossing my broken stick to the side.
There are now five pigs at the ledge when I glance back. One’s climbing on the back of another. I struggle to my feet and take to the slope.