Viper
Naga Brides #1
Naomi Lucas
Contents
Blurb
Naga Names
1. The Pact
2. Thrown to the Snakes
3. Serpent Men
4. Soft Flesh
5. Miscommunication
6. A Gamble of Want
7. The Airfield
8. A Deep, Dark Hole
9. To Trust a Human
10. Past the Point of No Return
11. No Place Left to Hide
12. Stretched and
13. A Bath
14. Death in the Shadows
15. Survive
16. Consequences
17. Danger on Every Ledge
18. A Naga’s Plea
19. Reflections and Bloody Kisses
20. Beautiful Screams
21. Questioning the Past
22. Origins
23. Mate
24. The Hunt for Daisy
25. Daisy
26. Betrayal From Above
27. The Only Choice
28. Once a Secret
Epilogue
Author’s Note
King Cobra Blurb
King Cobra
Also by Naomi Lucas
Copyright © 2021 by Naomi Lucas
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without permission in writing from the author.
Any references to names, places, locales, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Cover Art by Naomi Lucas and Cameron Kamenicky
Edited by Mandy B., and LY
Created with Vellum
To LY, Tiffany Freund, and Mandy. My three fabulous editors. I couldn’t do this job without you.
Blurb
Long have we been alone.
Without brides, without females to warm us during the long nights. Without sweet mates.
But we see them, from afar, brides that could be ours. Kept away from us by walls and weapons. Females we long for greatly.
Obsessively.
Human females.
And the one with red hair? I want her. I saw her first. I will fight for the death for her.
She is MINE.
So, we’ll come together and make an exchange with their men that will benefit us all.
After that?
To the winner goes the spoils…
Let the hunt begin.
But the red-headed female is mine.
—-
One day I’m a confidant for our leader, and the next I’m escorted out of the settlement by armed guards. Before me now lies the vast and dangerous wilderness of Earth, ravaged by aliens that long ago vanished.
They left their devastation—and their technology—behind.
My leader wants that technology. He’ll do anything to get it, even trading me to those who have it.
Serpent men. Nagas. Half-men, half-snake beast aliens rule these lands—misbegotten monsters warped by something we don’t yet understand.
They want me.
Especially the ruby red demon that stares at me with such an intensity my soul quakes.
But I refuse to be any man’s broodmare, especially an alien’s.
If he wants me so badly, he’ll have to catch me first.
Unfortunately, that was the whole point after all…
Names:
Vruksha— Viper
Azsote— Boomslang
Zhallaix— Death Adder
Syasku— Cottonmouth
Jyarka— Diamondback
Zaku— King Cobra
Vagan— Blue Coral
Krellix— Copperhead
Lukys— Black Mamba
Xenos— Sidewinder
Naga Names
Vruksha— Viper
Azsote— Boomslang
Zhallaix— Death Adder
Syasku— Cottonmouth
Jyarka— Diamondback
Zaku— King Cobra
Vagan— Blue Coral
Krellix— Copperhead
Lukys— Black Mamba
Xenos— Sidewinder
One
The Pact
Vruksha
“Our truce ends after they release the females,” I growl, peering at the males around me. The King Cobra’s mane flutters, the Boomslang nods. Others react; some don’t respond at all. I take their silence as agreement.
We’re the strongest of our kind. The oldest. The deadliest. We saw the humans’ ship breach our sky and land within our forest.
We’re also competitors. The fact that we’ve all come together for this—for them—is a miracle. It shows how much we want them, how desperate we are to have them, and that we would risk our lives to make a deal with their keepers.
Their puny males.
Males who do not deserve the warmth of a female. They don’t realize how lucky they are to have females, so we will take their females and covet them, mate them, make them queens to the lands we rule. As is how it should be.
There are many wrongs that need to be righted, and many mistakes in our past that need to be fixed.
My fingers tighten around my spear as I scrutinize the nagas gathered today, sizing them up. Some of us won’t survive.
Humans are different from us, at least from what I’ve seen, and it’s more than the way they look.
We thought them long gone. A species that had been eradicated when we were born on this Earth. Neither I nor the other naga males around me have ever seen a living one, not once, until recently.
They flew down from the sky in a large metal machine. Machines like the ones here, but not overgrown with weeds, roots, and vines. Not ruined the way Earth was ruined.
No, this machine—this ship of theirs—came to us clean of the forest and landed outside the old ruins of a civilization long gone, deep in the mountains. Other smaller machines came out with weapons and cleared the ruins. They erected a barrier and cut down the trees.
The humans restored the ruins into what it once was: a military facility.
Meanwhile, I watched the robots from afar, from the shadows of the trees, and soon found other nagas watching them too. We didn’t know why they were here, or what they wanted, but we are determined to keep our secrets…secret.
At first, there were only machines. We didn’t realize there were humans on the ship. The robots poured from their vessel in droves, destroying the terrain we once knew. A growl tears from my throat at the thought. The robots left us alone, though, having one singular purpose, a purpose we nagas did not know until several weeks after their landing.
They were making the facility ready for human inhabitants.
Thinking back on that day quickens my heart.
Her red hair. My fingers twitch. I can imagine the softness of it running between my fingers. I’ve never seen such a shade of red as my tail...
Zaku, the King Cobra, went to the humans when we realized they had females among them. He made our presence known. He wanted to meet them, court them, mate with one… We were stronger, larger than their males, and thought that because of it, they should be ours.
I did too.
Perhaps we could offer our help in return? Who knows?
Zaku came back enraged. The humans turned their weapons on him, refusing his request. They told him this land was theirs,
