Just as she regained her equilibrium, Reggie felt the pillows behind her shift and peered back at Vadal blinking down at her groggily, an infatuated smile pulling at his perfect lips. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against his too, her tongue slipping into his mouth drawing his forth in a slow dance of caresses.
Releasing his mouth, she lay back and groaned. “We should probably get up,” she proclaimed reluctantly.
Shaagra laughed down at her, scars bunching as the corners of eyes crinkling with amusement. She looked up at him and ran a hand across his jaw up into his crown coils, which clung to her wrist and fingers with every stroke.
“You are so beautiful,” she murmured.
Shaagra flushed with pleasure, his smile broadening to show off his impressive fangs. Fangs that had bitten down into her and pumped her full of venom. Not just once, but every time they mated through the night, as if they were desperate in their joining with their need for her.
She should have abhorred it. What sensible person wants to get bitten?
A person who finds out that the venom released brings on the biggest orgasm ever, that’s who.
Reggie ran her fingers along the sides of her neck and felt nothing more than raised scars. The unexpected bonus of their venom was that it quickly sealed the wounds after the male’s fangs were retracted.
The eyes of her mates lingered on her the entire time they prepared to leave the nest. Their focus changed once they stepped out of the nest. In the space of a breath, the look of adoration turned into careful vigilance. Reggie didn’t take it personally.
She was the first to admit she wasn’t a badass. It had been pathetically easy to kidnap her, and on Vora she was easily one of the lowest links in the food chain. Of course, her mates were going to watch her like a hawk whenever she set foot out of their nest. The only saving grace was that they were in their family territory now. Hopefully that meant the guys would relax at least a little.
Of all the possibilities she could have imagined when they left their nest, being greeted by the entire clan didn’t even make the list. Yet there they were. Dozens of happy faces greeted them as they emerged. All of Vadal’s extended family members had apparently been camped out just outside their nest waiting for them to emerge. Among them, his mother moved to the front, holding her hands up for silence.
Esfalee grinned broadly as she addressed the clan.
“My son and his bonded nest brother have been accepted by their mate. May the Mother of Nests bless their union. I am happy to present to our clan the family es’EtaliAgor. May they ever be secure under the blessings of the Mother.”
Eyuul crept forward from one side with a lopsided grin, ignoring the irritated grumblings from her mates. “You realize you’ve made Mother very happy. She’s been waiting for one of her brood to find a mate. Been looking forward to this moment for years. Come on, then. Mother arranged for a banquet for the morning meal to celebrate.”
She eyed the crowd with worry. “This isn’t going to be a regular thing, is it?”
Eyuul laughed, remarkably latching on to her concern. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to face our entire clan every morning you emerge from your nest. They waited only to celebrate your mating now that it is complete.”
Reggie allowed her mates to lead her to the banquet clearing, where larger platters of eggs, sweetbreads, fried meats, and fruit were laid out. Reggie took her customary seat between her mates and ate with gusto all the familiar things that recognized from breakfasts Shaagra had made in their nest since she’d arrived.
She almost choked on something that resembled a sausage when, during casual conversation, Vadal announced his intention to head to Norveth for supplies for their nest and to check for any sightings of Kampis in the nearby territories.
Reggie whispered to Shaagra, “I thought we were already at Norveth.”
Shaagra’s lips curved with humor and he whispered back, “We are in Norveth territory, which belongs to the Etale Clan. Further into the valley is the city of Norveth.”
Reggie’s eyes widened. A city! She never did get to see Evath and had suspected she wouldn’t have another opportunity to see a Vori city. Yet here one presented itself to her. Surely now that they were mated, her guys wouldn’t kick up a fuss about her going alone.
“Oh, I want to go!” She practically shot off her seat in excitement. She was revved to get out and see something that wasn’t a jungle or the cavernous walls of a nest.
Vadal sighed deeply, but Esfalee looked pleased.
“That is a great idea,” Esfalee said, thunking her cup down on the table as she beamed at their little family. Reggie could have gotten up and danced at that moment. “It would do Reggie good to be exposed to more of Vora and get a feel for her new home.” She narrowed her eyes at Reggie’s mates. “I doubt she has been out to see much of anything outside of your nest.”
“Mother, we were out of our nest for three days. We have only just arrived. Reggie needs to rest and get settled. It is not like she didn’t see anything of Vora traveling here from Evath territory,” Vadal argued.
Reggie felt her jaw drop. “There’s no way that counts! All I did was sleep in trees, walk for hours on end, swat at bugs, and hide from predators who wanted to eat us.”
Eyuul coughed a laugh that had his brother glaring daggers at him.
“Perhaps you should cede the battle to your female, Vadal. This is one you will not win. What harm is there in Reggie accompanying you Norveth?”
“I will thank you to not infer in matters that concern my mate,” Vadal hissed coldly at his sibling. Shaagra sat in silence, but Reggie did not miss the narrowing of his eyes. Which brother that look was directed toward, Reggie couldn’t tell. Eyuul’s expression tightened and she did not mistake the audible snapping sound of a tail whip.
Apparently, Esfalee didn’t miss it either, judging by the scowl creasing her dark face. “Enough of this nonsense. You are both too old for this bickering,” she hissed. She turned the weight of her displeased focus on Vadal. “Take your mate with you to Norveth.”
Vadal grit his teeth. “I am not going to Norveth as a pleasure trip, Mother. It could be dangerous.”
Esfalee raised an ironic brow. “Danger from gossiping Prixli?”
“What the heck are Prixli?” Reggie whispered to Shaagra, but he shushed her with a small gesture. Her hackles raised but she chose to take the high road and ignore it.
Vadal looked like he might argue but thought better of it. Instead, he nodded his head and with a pinched expression said, “Very well, but I will take Shaagra with us if someone can oversee our nest while we are gone. I will not compromise her safety.”
Esfalee smiled graciously. “Of course.”
The rest of the meal was a bit awkward, but it still passed pleasantly enough. With the tension of between mother and son over, Shaagra went back to trying to coax her to eat bits of unfamiliar foods from his plate, but Reggie wasn’t feeling adventurous after the shoyla incident. It was going to take a few days to get over that ordeal.
Vadal was still disgruntled when they left.
“Reggie, you don’t understand how dangerous this is,” he hissed irritably. “Your choice to come is reckless. You have no comprehension of what could possibly happen to you.”
Reggie scowled. “All I know is that if I’m supposed to live on Vora as your mate, I can’t be wrapped in wool all the time and buried in our nest. Your safety is important to me too, so I’m coming.”
“If you get hurt, if anything happens at all—”
“It won’t. I’ll have both you and Shaagra with me, and I won’t be leaving your side. The safest place in the universe for me is wherever you are at,” she insisted.
Vadal grunted and pushed forward, trailing off to the side of Shaagra. The latter was carrying Reggie after the fifth time she tripped over branches that she swore were sentient and out to get her. Looking at her miffed mate, she huffed an impatient sigh and toyed with one of Shaagra�
��s coils between her fingers.
“Okay, what’s going on with Vadal?” asked Reggie in a low voice.
Shaagra’s eyes darted to his nest brother. “Vadal’s mother is the head of the clan,” he said quietly. “Because females wield authority on Vora, that means that Vadal has to submit to her not only as the head of the clan, but also as a female elder. As his mother, he would have shamed her if he argued with her in front of the clan. It is a sensitive issue for Vadal. It is one of the reasons he was driven as a youth to study in Evath.”
Reggie winced. Ouch. Poor Vadal. Both her guys had some major issues. Not that she didn’t have her own skeletons dancing in her closet, but still, she couldn’t help the twinge of sympathy she felt for them. Shaagra’s eagerness to dominate was taboo. Vadal’s desire to for autonomy was trumped by the power and authority of his mother. Now Reggie felt guilty for her mental jig when Esfalee more or less ordered him to take her with him against he wishes. But she’d really wanted to go.
Reggie sighed again as they made the short trip to Norveth. She’d have to find a way to make it up to him somehow. After all, he just wanted to protect her as he’d done from the moment they met.
Great, now she felt guilty and ungrateful.
Lost at her own little private pity party, she hadn’t noticed that they’d arrived in Norveth until Shaagra set her feet on a charming cobbled street. Reggie peered around and almost bubbled over with enthusiasm. It was almost like being downtown in a quaint, old-fashioned city center. There was a central square with what appeared to be a few street performers, and numerous stone buildings resembled classical Greek and Roman architecture rather than the typical Vori substructures were erected along the long streetways.
Vori of all shades and hues wandered the streets, and to Reggie’s concern, about eighty percent of them were male. Her mates drew up, surrounding her, and for the first time Reggie felt like she wanted to sink back and disappear into them. It dawned on her why neither of her mates had been happy about her going to Norveth.
Good gods, why didn’t someone warn her?
“Where are we supposed to collect this information you are seeking?” Shaagra hissed impatiently.
“I have a contact around here still who tends to spend their days at the Scale and Nail,” Vadal murmured, his eyes scanning the streets in search of their destination. Shaagra made a disgusted noise, but Reggie’s curiosity got the better of her.
“Scale and Nail? What’s that?” she asked.
Vadal nodded to a building from which numerous flowerpots hung.
Shaagra groaned. “Tell me that is in jest.”
“What? What is it?” Reggie asked, perplexed. It didn’t look like anything bad.
Reggie could have squealed with delight when they entered. It was her fantasy over the last several days come true. Scale and Nail was a beauty parlor. Ethereal androgynous beings flitted around the shop, serving and ringing up clients. Reggie itched to jump in and have a long overdue manicure and a deep conditioning treatment.
“Vadal, do you think we could…”
Her mate looked thoughtful. “Well, we do need to wait for my contact to arrive, and it has been some time since I had my scales deep conditioned and my claws treated…”
She looked at him curiously. “You actually do regularly go to places like this, don’t you?”
Vadal smiled for the first time since they’d left their nest that morning. “Of course. Proper claw care is essential to keep them from succumbing to claw rot, and unhealthy scales are subject to mites and disease. It has been a while, but my normal routine included a monthly visit.”
Reggie looked over at her other mate. “What about you?”
Shaagra scoffed. “I do not need all this. I use recipes passed down through my clan to treat my scales and claws. They have worked for generations and are good enough for me,” he stated, lips twisting into a sneer “I will be happy enough waiting outside for you.”
A pale green Prixli flitted over and looked at Vadal with a critical eye. “Thank the gods you have come.” Reggie’s eyes widened with excitement. Did they just find his contact that easily? Her bubble was burst at the next words out of its mouth.
“You look absolutely dreadful,” the Prixli insisted, dragging Vadal to a large heated pool. “Sit, sit. I have some special oil I use to treat extreme cases. You look like you have been sleeping in a swamp. How are you going to get a mate like this?” Reggie felt mildly offended. She happened to like the way Vadal looked.
“Um, hello. His mate is standing right here,” Reggie said, trying to hold back her frown.
The Prixli’s eyes widened. “Oh no, sweetling. This can’t be right. Is there something wrong with your eyes that you picked a male who let his scales and claws go like this? Although you look like you need some help too. Oh, and is this your other mate?” the green Prixli asked, eyes locked on Shaagra trying to slide away unnoticed. An extra pair of Prixlies seemed to come out of nowhere, one making a beeline straight for her orange mate.
The male froze under its scornful scrutiny. “Look at you? You are even worse than he is! What have you been doing to your scales—and your claws! Do you like walking around looking like you crawled out of a warzone? If you will just allow me—” the Prixli moved forward to grasp a handful of crown coils when Shaagra darted out of its grasp and fled like someone had tied a burning branch to his tail.
“Well—” the Prixli huffed, offended.
Reggie didn’t stare after her mate for long before another Prixli grabbed her by her hand, tugging her over to the pool to be seated across from Vadal. Grabbing a handful of her unruly curls, the new one muttered to themselves.
“We do not usually allow females into our salon. Too disruptive. We get a lot of unmated males who need to be able to come freely without worrying about being snatched by one of those maniacs. They have their own salon on the other side of town, but you look like a tiny harmless thing, so we won’t tell. Now, what to do with this mess? The ends are in terrible shape. What, do you not take any pride in your appearance? You go out in public like this?”
Reggie blinked, wide-eyed, but strangely felt instantly at home. These beings were no different than some of the snide beauticians on Earth. Reggie grinned as it demanded she lean back to get her hair washed with its “special wash.” This trip to Norveth was exactly what she needed.
***
Vadal enjoyed watching his mate luxuriate in the pampering of the sharp-tongued Prixlies. They took some getting used to for most visitors, but the Prixlies were hard workers and skilled in everything they took upon themselves to learn to do.
His eyes locked on to brilliant red Vori settling next to him. Vadal relaxed into the nimble fingers massaging oils into his crown coils and met the eyes of the other male. The Vori froze and then smiled hesitantly.
“Vadal? It is good to see you again. You have returned to Norveth?” he asked, his voice soft.
Vadal inclined his head toward Reggie. “Yes, I have returned home with my mate. I was hoping to find you here.”
The male leaned forward, his claw grazing Vadal’s wrist. “Is that so? Are you looking perhaps to replace Shaagra, or perhaps are looking to add another male for your female?” He looked at Reggie with clear interest.
Vadal frowned. He didn’t want to give the male the wrong idea. He valued Walooth as a friend and informant but had never desired to bond with him, as he knew he’d wanted it to be Shaagra the moment he met him. Walooth had taken it… badly. He didn’t wish to hurt him again.
“I am sorry, Walooth, not for that reason. I need help,” he said gently.
Walooth’s face fell but then he dredged up a small smile. “I knew it was unlikely, but it never hurts to ask.” He briskly brushed back his coils, all business. “What do you require, Vadal?”
Vadal leaned forward, keeping his tone low. “I need information. Have you heard anything about the Kampi?”
Walooth’s lips parted. “You are involved in that
mess?” His brow creased with worry. “Vadal, there is a very large group that landed just this morning some distance south of Norveth. They are slowly making their way north, looking for something.” His eyes shifted to Reggie. “Is that ‘something’ her?”
Vadal hissed lowly. “Yes, they are a threat to my mate. We have returned to Norveth to reclaim the ancestral nest and hide her here among my clan.”
Walooth clicked angrily in his throat. “You need to get your mate far from here and hide her deep in your territory. It is not safe for your mate to be in this city. I will try to misdirect them if anyone comes into the city asking about you.”
Vadal whispered his thanks and quickly rinsed himself off to fetch Reggie. They were leaving immediately.
Chapter 14
Reggie meandered along the path of the river that cut through the jungle right behind their nest. Days had passed since their trip to Norveth, and while the clan was busy preparing for assault, it was otherwise eerily quiet. Scouts came in and went with news of the Kampi. As far as anyone could tell, they were milling around the basin of Norveth territory, but no word yet that they were aggressively on the move.
One thing was for certain: Reggie was getting tired of waiting for something to happen.
It was like a continuous hum of anticipation on the air that started to get under her skin. It bothered her all day, until the point when her mates were able to distract her and hold her close throughout the night. But then, as soon as the sun rose, it gnawed at her again. Reggie had never been particularly patient, and this just ate at her.
Mostly because she knew that until it was resolved, she wouldn’t get to enjoy any kind of real life with her mates. Ever since they returned from Norveth, Shaagra and Vadal had been twice as vigilant, and yet they allowed her this small concession of walking around in the middle of their territory—as long as one of them was with her. That was a noticeable improvement from their previous arrangement, so she wasn’t going to complain too much. For now, this would be as much freedom as she would enjoy.
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