by Naomi Lucas
I had to be physically fit to work on the bridge of The Dreadnaut, but apparently I’m not as fit as I thought I am. Even after all the time I’ve spent on Earth, I’m pushing my limits every day. My injuries don’t help.
It’s getting easier though.
“I hope this is a shortcut,” I groan. “I need a bath, even if it means risking running into Zhallaix. I have a knife now.”
Come at me Zhallaix, I am not in the mood. I narrow my eyes.
“We won’t make it to the bunker tonight.”
“I knew it!” I throw up my hands. “I knew we weren’t heading there when we kept climbing.” I don’t know if I want to cry or collapse. The past month has been hard, and it needs to stop. The hardness, that is. “Where are you taking me?” I ask, wheezing a little.
Vruksha turns to me, throws his muscled limbs around my body, and hauls me into the cradle of his arms. I slump like a damsel in distress.
“We’re almossst there,” he says.
He continues the climb with me holding onto him, only using the strength of his tail. Sometimes I forget how powerful it is, as he easily lifts us both up on it, coiling and shifting its weight for his needs. I’ve taken that power between my legs… Perhaps I’m powerful too.
It’s been too long since our last time together, and I need him. But climbing all day? It really takes the oomph out of having sex. This is why I want a nice, cold bath, and some rest, because the next time it happens…
My eyes widen. I’m going to ride him. I’ll show him that human females can be full of tension too.
I even miss the dangerous graze of his fangs sliding across my flesh. Especially now that I saw what his venom did to Azsote—I know the risk.
I wish I had venom of my own. Maybe then I could’ve bitten Peter and thrown him over a mountain too. I run my tongue across my blunt teeth.
Now that I know we’re not going to make it to the bunker tonight, I continue studying our surroundings, looking across the land below, trying to figure out where we are and where we’ve been. My messy mental map suspects the bunker is far from here.
“This better be worth it,” I mumble.
“It is.”
For the next bit, I play with the scales on his chest. It’s not until the steep ledges flatten out entirely and the trees are pushed back that I realize we’re on a road, or what might have been a road. Now it’s just weeds, grass, and cracked cement stones, with the occasional stubborn tree growing through it.
Vruksha follows it until it ends, stopping at a cave-in deep in the side of the mountain we’ve been climbing all day.
He sets me down.
“What is this place?” I ask, shielding my eyes from the sun.
“You’ll see.”
He slides to the rocks and shifts a few aside. Before long, I notice the rocks he’s moving have been moved before. They’re placed differently than those that fell naturally. A door slowly emerges.
Vruksha pushes the last of the stones away and turns back to me. “It’s a hole.”
I wipe my palms on my pants. “Like your bunker?”
“Deeper, darker. Bigger.”
I suck in, staring at the door. “Is this…” I hesitate. Could it be?
“Yes.”
“The tech?”
“Yesss, female.”
I take a step forward. “You’re showing it to me?”
“You said last night that mates don’t keep secrets from each other. You have a right to know. And we made a deal once, not that long ago, a deal you have delivered on,” he says as he swipes the tip of his tail between my legs. I startle but shudder with pleasure at the same time. “Now it’s my turn.”
“Vruksha,” I gasp, glaring at him until his tailtip retreats, shuddering again. I’ve been inhaling his scent all day. “I didn’t mean…” I shake my head, trying to focus on what he just said. “I didn’t mean it like that. You don’t have to show me this. Mates don’t keep secrets from each other, but this—this is something else.” He snaps his tailtip back between my legs and swirls it, and I stumble away. He catches me before I drop to my knees.
It’s dangerous, the tech. I know that now, and part of me doesn’t want anything to do with it. I don’t think I want this responsibility.
He lifts me and turns my body to face him. “I know,” he says with a throaty rasp.
“Then why?”
“Because what you said was true—mates shouldn’t keep secrets from each other. Are you ready, Gemma?”
I swallow, look at the scuffed door, the forest behind us, and even the sky. I look to the wispy clouds and the faraway twinkle of stars beginning to emerge behind them.
To the bright moon ascending and the giant warship I know is hiding behind it.
I recall the way the Lurkers looked in the video, their leathery, scaled flesh. Their reptilian features. Their black, emotionless eyes.
“I’m ready,” I say.
Vruksha pushes the door open, and darkness greets us.
Epilogue
Vruksha
Two weeks later.
“I choose you today, Vruksha,” Gemma yawns, stretching in our nest. Her breasts rise as she takes in a deep breath, teasing me to play with them. I do, often. The marks around her nipples are proof enough for that. They’re pink and swollen, perking up to meet the tips of my claws and my rough fingertips.
I show her my love with caresses and sweet kisses. I make her take my love with daily vicious rutting, and my unending need to spill my soul inside her.
“And you, female,” I groan, tickling my tailtip between her legs where she’s wet. She’s always wet. I think my scent makes her that way but I’m not sure… If I want her, and she’s not in the mood, I pull her close to breathe me in, and she melts—always. She opens up like a flower. But if my seed isn’t trickling from between her legs from our last rutting, she’s wet from my saliva, if not arousal. I am a lucky male.
A hungry one as well.
I rise over her as she opens her bleary eyes. She spreads her legs with another yawn, and I push my tailtip into her relaxed sheath. I reach down and pull out my shaft, curling my fingers around the bulge in the middle. It never gets large anymore. It never has a chance to, not with my Gemma.
But she is much smaller than me, and we are different species. No matter how much, or how rough we get, I have to coax her body to accept me. She’s tight, cursedly so. I do not want to bring her discomfort when all I feel is sweet agony when her brow furrows and accepts me.
I ready her now, pumping my tailtip in and out. She grips me, quivering around it.
“Vruksha,” she moans, lifting her arms above her head, threading her fingers into her messy hair.
It’s enough to make me spill. It’s enough to make any male insane. My seed shoots out all over her breasts and stomach and I hiss, annoyed. I wipe the clear, watery seed off her stomach.
Gemma smiles lazily at me and spreads her legs further. Her little hole constricts.
“Female,” I rasp. “You tease.”
I slip out my tail and sink my fingers deep inside her to rub the spot that makes her squirm and balk. When she does, when she writhes, I replace my fingers with my prick, thrusting hard.
She gasps, tensing, and I snarl. I spill again, and her legs hook around me, keeping us locked.
It’s the last straw. I drop my weight, trapping her, thrusting violently. I take my mate the way I need to. I take her until there’s nothing left in her entire world but me, and only me. I thrust until she’s screaming, until any trace of sleep is banished from her body. And when she clenches around me, making me roar, I flood her full of seed.
She’s kept her promise.
She’s stayed.
And every day her laughter gets louder, her smiles more forthcoming, and I find that laughter and smiles have returned to me as well. I want them always.
I also want her screams.
She’s a well-loved mess by the time I rise off her.
�
��Now I’m not going to be able to walk again today,” she moans, bringing a pelt up to her chin, throwing her leg over the side of it. “I have so much work to do, dammit!”
“Tell me what you want done, and I will do it.” I turn on the burner to heat the bunker. It’s closer to our nest now. Gemma has rearranged everything in the weeks we have been home.
Gone are the stacks of crates, the makeshift spaces between, and the items I collected over the years. Everything worth keeping, we moved into the tunnels, cleaning out the space. Now, the bunker is segmented with different ‘spaces’ down the long length, with a straight path to the back where our nest lies.
Gone are the baubles that don’t work and the flashlights that no longer have batteries. Now there’s only stuff we need—or stuff Gemma wants to fix. The walls are covered in pelts she didn’t want to use as blankets, and even the flickering lights have been taken down.
There are only dim lights now, and we know we will have to find a better source of light at some point when those die too.
But that’s for another day.
“I wanted to start going through the crates we removed and empty them. It’ll be good to have empty boxes at our disposal,” she says this lying back and yawning again, loudly.
“Easy enough.”
“I need another bath now too.”
“Yes. You do.” She is covered with my spill. It glistens her skin.
She needs a bath every day, apparently, and taking her to the creek has gotten easier. I rarely bathed before she entered my life, but now I swim with her each day. Water is foreign to my scales, but I’ve come to enjoy the leisure time. I’ve never been a naga who prefers water over the forest, like Vagan. The Blue Coral rules the lake near here, and so I stick to the creeks, brooks, and streams when I need water.
But perhaps that will change.
“I want to talk about checking in on Daisy too, if that’s okay?” she asks, sitting up. She goes to stand, and I give her my tail to help.
“Too soon.”
“It’s been two weeks… ish. Not soon at all. We don’t have to stay long, just enough to make sure she’s still recovering, and that Zaku isn’t—”
“The Cobra won’t hurt her.”
“I can’t help but worry.”
I pull Gemma close. “We will discuss it tomorrow. Today, we bathe and empty the crates.”
She sighs and nods while I wrap her up in my limbs. I don’t want to share her with anyone, not Daisy, the other humans, and especially not Zaku or the other nagas. I need all of her attention, all of her affection. I am a greedy male.
My member strains to be released from my tail again. To show her that she should think of me and only me. And it.
Gemma is still gloriously naked, pressed up against me, and I can’t resist. I lift her in my arms, wrap my tailtip around my member, and sink it back inside her. She tenses and squirms, her sex trying to keep me out, but then she sighs, moaning as I work her up and down my length, mating her again. She throws her arms around my neck and rests her cheek on my chest while I use her.
I am the luckiest male.
Ropes of fresh spill jettison inside her.
I use her three more times before we even make it to the creek for her bath. My body demands I swell her with my litter and until she is, I will remain crazed to do so.
And she? Gemma doesn’t wear undergarments anymore. I keep destroying them.
Later that day, we’re in the tunnels, separating empty crates from those that remain full. We’ve been at it for hours, deciding what should be kept, what needs to go, and where to drop what we don’t want. Gemma doesn’t like clutter and neither wants to keep the cast-offs in the tunnels nor outside our bunker.
I agree with her in keeping the entrance to the bunker clear. The way it is right now, it’s hard for anyone who isn’t looking for it to find it. It keeps trespassers away. And any naga male who may want to risk his life.
None have come so far, not even Zhallaix, and I hope it stays that way.
My female’s gone quiet, and I look up from what I’m doing. She’s staring into the darkened corridor that leads to the deeper tunnels.
We only have enough solar lanterns and torches to light up the part we’re working in.
“Gemma,” I rumble in warning.
She startles and turns to me. “I just want to watch them once more. Just a couple of hours?”
“No.”
“Even if I promise?”
When we first returned to the bunker, she convinced me to take her back to the screen room—a room I once spent many months in during my youth—to watch the end of her world again and again. She became obsessed, wanting to go back every day until I pointed it out, and she stopped. But there’s more than what I showed her that first day. The screens have… everything.
Videos of things I didn’t understand at first. Plays and drawings and music. All things archived from the past. When she found out there was more, it was hard to get her to leave.
Music is a treat. The reenactments are enjoyable. They don’t belong in this world, but they’re here anyway, and I hope nothing ever happens to them.
Gemma particularly likes the idea of museums and the artwork within them. I told her some still exist and promised to take her to their ruined buildings.
That made her excited.
“Please?” she begs prettily.
I relent. “A couple of hours.” We’ve gotten a lot done today anyway. What she wanted to get done.
It’s been a change. Before her, I spent my days out in the forests hunting, scouting.
“Thank you!”
I take a lantern off one of the crates and pull her close.
She can’t find the room without me—and I won’t let her enter this space alone. The tunnels curve, break off and go on for miles in every direction. The lights haven’t ever worked, and it’s easy to get lost if you don’t know the way. Some rooms splinter off on the sides as well. Most are empty or lead to the surface. Some are filled with crates like the ones I have, while others hold old human machines and items.
I don’t know why they’re here or what they were originally used for, but it’s a dangerous place if you get lost. I searched them long ago, as have other nagas who have found their way here, and vaguely know my way through them.
If Gemma ever takes a wrong turn…
She can’t see in the dark as well as I can. I shake the thought away.
We make it to the room with the screens, and I flip the switchboard on the desk overseeing them. Gemma tugs a pelt over her shoulders, left from the last time we were here, and I curl my tail under me, settling, pulling her close so she can rest upon it.
“What did you want tonight?” I mumble. “Not the final hours,” I add.
“Can we watch something… fun? With music? I love the music.” She leans back with a sigh of contentment. I wrap my arm across her middle.
I know just the thing. A human male appears, large on the screens, with an umbrella. We fall into a peaceful silence as he sings about the rain.
Such a simple thing to make a song about, such an easy thing.
Two weeks ago, I led Gemma into the dark mountain where a cache of Lurker secrets is hidden. We haven’t talked about it since. She hasn’t brought it up. It’s something that’s always been there for me, a secret revealed long ago, found by the nagas of my father’s generation. Hidden by them, and for most, forgotten about.
Only a few of us remember the cache exists. And if anyone has found more, I’m not aware of it.
I never told Gemma, but I fear the tech as much as I admire it. I wouldn’t use my spear if it hadn’t been given to me by my father. Overwhelming power radiates from these alien contraptions, and the way these things scramble my mind when I hold them… it is not always easy to endure.
It can be frightening.
But she… She seemed to know exactly what she was looking at.
Guns, bombs, and arsenal ware, she called them. Tho
usands, lined up on racks as far as the eye could see, vanishing in the distance. She picked them up, held them, even loaded a gun, but put it back when it wouldn’t charge for her. I saw what the stuff did to her kind, and it has no place in the forests. No place in this world. I thought about leaving my spear behind.
I couldn’t do it in the end, my spear is a fourth limb I do not know how to live without.
She said the guns weren’t alien, but I’m not sure I believe her. I picked up the same gun she put down, and it immediately charged for me, scrambled my mind. And when she took it back? It died in her grasp.
That was when we realized she can’t light the fire at the tip of my spear. Only I can.
Her kind wouldn’t make weapons they couldn’t use, right?
It wasn’t the guns and weapons that scared her though, like I thought they would. Like how they make me and the rest of the nagas uneasy. It was the pods, much like the one Zaku had in his den. They were filled with liquid, with tubes and wires connected to a singular central orb in the middle.
Eggs, she called them, barely speaking above a whisper.
She wanted to leave after that.
We fled the cache, leaving the weapons and pods behind, putting the rocks back into place, and adding more when she demanded it. Since that day, I sometimes notice her looking at me differently, at least at first, but the looks didn’t last.
Once I got her back into my nest and made sure she had nothing else to think about but us, her quiet contemplation fell from her mind.
I would not have brought her to the tunnels again so soon if I hadn’t seen the underlying fear in her eyes. I promised her protection forever, and I plan on keeping that promise. I’ll keep all my promises.
And if I was born from one of those eggs? Or my father was, my mother?
I rest my chin on Gemma’s head.
I’m not interested in finding out.
I have what I wanted, and I’m going to keep it. Whoever may come, whatever might happen, they’ll have to go through me if they come here and try and take it away.