“And the males who drove them away?”
“Hunted down and killed.”
She exhales. “Have you or anyone else ever tried finding them?”
“Some have. Most who make the pilgrimage return alone, and the rest never return at all. I never wanted to find them.”
“Why?”
“After growing up with a father who missed his mate every single day, I did not want the burden of a female.”
Her face falls but then it’s gone, still there’s a wrinkle in her brow left behind.
“Where is he now?” she asks quietly.
“He left. My sisters were gone. My mother, gone. I like to think he found my remaining sisters and is with them now, wherever they are.”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
Gemma sits back. “Vruksha…”
I trap her in a circle of my limbs. “Female,” I say gravely. “Do not get any ideas. I will not let anyone else leave me.” I know what I’m saying to her, I know what she intends to do, but I need to make it clear that I cannot accept it.
Her face shutters. She turns from me.
“So, you were born here,” she says.
“Yes.”
“And your parents?”
“What about them?”
“They were born here too?” Her curiosity has already returned.
“Where else would they be born, if not here?”
“Your grandparents?”
I stare at her, confused. Grandparents? “I don’t have any.”
“Your father never spoke of his parents? Ever?”
Now that I think of it, no. “Those questions angered him.”
Gemma’s brow wrinkles. “Hmm.”
“Do not worry about my past. It is the past. It is unchangeable.”
I see thoughts running through her head and the confusion in her eyes, and it bothers me. She asks questions I haven’t thought of since I was a young naga trying to understand my world. With Gemma here, there’s something not entirely right about it.
I’ve always known something was off but never dwelled on it. Where was I going to find answers anyway? The screens never helped. The orbs never understood. My father and other nagas only ever gave vague answers, if they answered at all. Did they even know? Did they wonder too?
Someone must know… right?
An idea forms.
“Let me show you something,” I rasp, changing the subject, moving my mind from where it wanders. I want to hear her laugh again. I pull my tail to me and rise, scooping her into my arms.
Though what I want to show her might not make her laugh, it might do the opposite. Still, it is something I think she needs to see.
“Where are you taking me? I can try walking there if it isn’t far.”
“You’ll see,” I tell her, heading for another door. It’s hidden behind several large crates that I push away.
She wiggles in my arms. “We’re leaving the bunker?” There’s excitement in her voice.
I open the door with my tail. “Yes, but we are not going above.”
Darkness meets us on the other side, and I carry her into it.
Twenty-Two
Origins
Gemma
Vruksha carries me into a dark hallway, through a door I didn’t even know was there because it was blocked by crates. There are so many crates, so many old things. I’ve learned Vruksha is a collector. Of random odds and ends.
Old human kitchenware, furniture, and even little knickknacks that have no meaning. Things that have survived the last fifteen hundred years and a planetary apocalypse. Some things he doesn’t even have a name for, and when we asked the orb, it didn’t know either.
I’m coming to understand how Vruksha knows the common tongue, finding my answers on my own. The orbs speak it. And some of the ‘better maintained’ orbs can even project a screen.
The longer I’m in it, the more his world makes more sense to me. There’s so much more potential here than I think the rest of humanity realizes. I’m a little surprised it’s taken humans so long to coordinate an official expedition, but then I remember the pictures and stories of the previous times humans returned to Earth. Extra limbs, growths…
Tails?
I chew on my lip and push the thought away.
Even if Vruksha might be a descendant of humans who may have broken space law and returned to Earth long ago, I don’t think I’ll ever know for sure. I don’t see records lying around. And it’s obvious a history like that wasn’t handed down or talked about with Vruksha.
The way he speaks of me going to the stars, though...
The darkness closes in as he takes me deeper. This isn’t just another side room like the one with the generator. It’s a tunnel, and as a chill breezes my skin, I snuggle into Vruksha for warmth.
I can walk later, I decide. I’m getting better every day. The pain in my body has dulled to a throbbing ache.
And now that I ache between my legs as well, I spend less time thinking about my torn-up feet. The tea he gives me helps too. He’s taught me how to make it—with something called Willow Bark—that he collects and brings back from above.
A blush rises to my cheeks as my mind wanders to the near-rabid way he gets when he knows I’ll accept him. His eyes darken and glint with hunger. When he pushes his cock’s bulge into me, forcing me each time to take it, he loses his mind.
I woke this morning to his tailtip pushing inside me, his fangs grazing my backside. He said he wanted me to wake up to pleasure rather than pain.
It’s why I ache between my legs right now. I’ve accepted this thing between us. Curiously, maybe eagerly.
At first, I thought it was animal magnetism and my own lack of connection for so long. Only for me to be thrust into Vruksha’s arms—literally—at my worst moment. I could explain away these feelings as a result of being vulnerable and afraid, but now… I don’t feel so vulnerable anymore, and I still want him.
I like how he makes me feel. Safe, cared for, cherished… All things my job on The Dreadnaut used to make me feel. Although, I know now it was all an illusion.
I
