Instinctively, I jerked away and stumbled backward, falling onto the bed. Confused, I crawled over to my nearest Ulax nestmate and shook him.
“Hey! Wake up!” Tears fell from my face from the terror that burned through me. “There is someone in our nestbed,” I shrieked. “Why won’t you wake up?”
Confusion struck me as I tried to reach for my mental threads. They were so faint I would have missed them if I didn’t know what I was looking for.
How had I forgotten to check my precious nestqueen threads all this time?
A bit of relief flooded me when I confirmed that I hadn’t lost my connections; the mental threads were still attached to my mental shield.
Xylo’s teal, Odelm’s pale green, V’dim’s turquoise, and Z’fir’s emerald—they were all accounted for.
Yet why was our clan’s network suddenly so fragile? If I pulled on the mental threads, could I accidentally sever my permanent bonds?
Nothing in this universe seemed to follow the familiar pattern, so I wasn’t going to test a theory in this fragile state. Not when I didn’t know where I was or who was with me.
Pushing away from the scaled body that wasn’t my nestmate, I stood and faced the male stranger. Slowly, I stepped backward, my legs wobbly from my long sleep. The soft mattress under my feet made my retreat unstable.
I banged my head and my back hit a lumpy wall.
“Wookezza eka,” commanded the male. His voice was too close for comfort. He must have stalked me as I tried to back away but failed to create any distance between us.
Instantly, the room’s darkness evaporated, burning my vision with brightness. Shielding my eyes, I shrieked, startled by the sudden change in lighting. Blinking hard, I tried to make sense of my surroundings, hoping my panic was all some aftereffect of the drug in my system.
The male had long, black hair framing curved, golden horns and pointy ears. His eeriest feature was his fiery, slitted eyes, which reminded me too much of Kaede. Face pleading, he raised his hands in surrender, perhaps hoping that I wouldn’t attempt to run away.
Nothing but his eyes resembled the faithful security guard I trusted. Below his chiseled chest was the beginning of an elongated, crimson-and-gold, legless body similar to Earth’s snakes or the seafolk I had seen in travel tanks on the CEG space station. Following the length of his body, I realized exactly who I had snuggled against when I had awoken.
Spinning around, I gasped when I saw he had wrapped himself around me in a nest-like pile, using his coiled tail to trap me. The top of his long, crimson-scaled body was dotted with black diamonds framing a golden center that matched his underbelly.
Everything about him screamed danger, though he had done nothing threatening since I’d woken up.
I couldn’t remember seeing him while I had been drugged. My torturers had been Trr’kiki males, and I thought I’d caught glimpses of Q and perhaps Kaede.
Staring at his fanged mouth, I touched mine as I recalled the phantom feeling of someone kissing me. Eyeing the scaled male’s hair and horns, I tried to determine if it was him I had seen before I floated amongst the stars.
Was he my savior?
“Who are you?” I demanded, my voice cracking as I met his gaze. Even though he was much larger than me, I wouldn’t let this male think I was some pathetic prisoner whom he could treat however he wanted.
Never again.
It was obvious he hadn’t reported his findings to the Aldawi or attempted to return me to where I belonged. Everyone in the CEG knew who I was ever since I had won my rights as a citizen. If he was the reason I had been taken away from my clan in the first place, then I would make sure he regretted his actions. “What do you want from me?”
“Ixxaka zzisk tssu.” Slowly, he tilted his head to the side and pointed to his ear. “Eskt fwa qwatsstesstu.”
Confused, I stepped away, my back hitting his coiled tail once again.
Why wasn’t my translator working? It was a newer model.
Eyeing him carefully, I reached behind my ear and winced in pain when my fingertips graced a raw wound where my translator should’ve been. “What did you do to me?”
He shook his head. “Ixxaka zzisk tssu.” He sounded apologetic. His amber slitted eyes softened in a way I had never seen Kaede’s neon ones do.
Instead of continuing to stand here and attempt to make something out of a failed conversation with this scaled male, I needed to figure out where I was and how I could return home. There had to be a reason he was trapping me here within his wall of scales, preventing me from leaving the confines of this room.
I would do whatever was necessary to escape. My sudden lack of a communicator and weakened state wasn’t ideal, but I couldn’t stay here. Not when my clanmates’ lives were on the line.
My life was no longer just mine, and I couldn’t allow anyone to control me any longer.
“Look, it’s been nice. Thank you for”—I glanced around his coil wall once more, trying to find the best way to exit this scaled prison—“allowing me to sleep here, but it’s time for me to go.” Frantically, I traced the layers and discovered the easiest path to climb. “And find someone who can understand me.”
Turning around, I gripped the middle layer and climbed. My muscles burned from the unexpected exertion as I forced them to pull me off the ground. Hissing in pain, I reached for the top, arms shaking. Digging one foot into the wall, I used the boost to push up and swing my leg over the top of the coil wall.
I sat on the crimson scales with one leg hanging on either side and scanned the room for a way out.
I cursed myself for mistaking this body for my nestmates. How could I be
