“If I wasn’t so upset with you, that might have made me happy, but as it is, there was another woman, and we need to save her.”
I grit my teeth. I know females are rare, but this other one isn’t my problem—or Gemma’s. “Another naga will save her.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes, I can. If she hasn’t been caught, she soon will be, and I assure you there are many malesss right now—”
“That makes it so much worse. She doesn’t want to be caught by a male, Vruksha. I didn’t want to be caught. If she’s running, she won’t stop, and if she’s been out there all alone for nearly two weeks… I can’t imagine the state she’s in.”
“We’re not going after her. Nagas will fight to the death for a mate. She will come to no harm.”
“But you’ve said so yourself… there are evil naga males. What if she’s been caught by one and is running from them?”
Tension streaks down my spine, and I slip my tailtip from Gemma’s leg to coil around her back, closing her into a circle of my making. I understand she may care for those in her past life, but she should forget them and move on. She never will, not if she sees them and they remain near.
I tear my eyes from her pleading ones and snarl at my spear. “We destroyed the evil ones long ago.” Thoughts of my father rise to my mind, and the way he’d stare off into the forest for hours as if he was waiting for my mother to come slipping out of it. I remember the sadness that always followed when she never did.
My mother was never a victim to a Death Adder or a Black Mamba or a Boa, but so many others were. I lost my sisters because they feared for their lives and chose to flee instead of becoming victims.
“Can you be sure of that?” Gemma whispers.
I snap my eyes back to her. “Yes. We were thorough.”
“Thorough enough? What about Zhallaix?”
I bare my fangs, hearing the Death Adder’s name. “He is dead.”
“If you do this for me…” Gemma sinks her teeth into her lower lip, stealing my attention briefly, but it’s the lost expression that remains etched on her face that has me questioning… “If you do this for me, if you help me save her, I’ll stay.”
“You never had a choice,” I remind her.
Her face scrunches. “I could make your life a living hell by fighting you.”
“I’ll bind you.”
“And I’ll scream, kick, and battle you and us every single day until you have no choice but to relent. You’d become what you destroyed.”
I hiss, frustration and anger pouring out of me. “You are not being fair.”
“Neither are you.”
Fury to match my rising rage meets me in Gemma’s fierceness. I believe her threats, knowing she could deny me the life I want so badly with her. The affection, the company, the warmth, and the love of having a mate to coil up with in a shared nest. She could take that all away, and though I’d fight back, reminding her constantly why it would be easier to give in, I know she’d only come to hate me.
Because the humans are still out there. The other nagas are as well.
And there would be no peace inside my den or outside it until that changes.
“I am nothing like those rabid males,” I grate.
“Help her,” she begs. Gemma reaches up, and I go stiff, bracing for her to try and squirm out of my circle, but she cups my face instead, pulling me down. “Please do this for me, as your mate.”
She seeks to call me mate now? Anger swells up inside me. “You ask much of me.” I can’t help but lock her in, gripping the crate on either side of her. I press into her, my anger growing.
She leans up and places a kiss on my lips. “I know.”
It’s gentle, soft, a whisper of a touch, and a tendril of her warmth. It’s everything. I know she’s manipulating me but her lips move, and I’m now the one who’s lost, deepening it, uncaring. Because if I don’t, I’m afraid she’ll slip through my circle of limbs and vanish.
And I will become my father.
If I can’t make her happy, then what kind of mate am I?
I cup my hand behind her head and capture her completely, sinking my tongue into her. Gemma’s taste floods my mouth, reminding me of everything I have to lose. How fragile what I have really is.
Her hands fall from my face to grab my shoulders. She presses her nails gently into my scales there.
Something in me snaps.
I grab hold of her dress and tear it down her arms, freeing her breasts. She startles as I fill my hands with them and squeeze, pinching her nipples between the sides of my fingers as I do. “Female,” I say, desperate and furious, “you will be the death of me.” I don’t give her the chance to respond, recapturing her mouth. I slide my hands down her body and grasp her butt, lifting her onto the crate.
I push my hips between her legs, and she opens up for me. Reaching under her dress, I tug off her undergarment. The weak ties holding it in place snap and fall away. I throw the annoying scrap across the bunker.
Holding her open, I line up my tip to her hole and thrust my member into her to my pulsing knot, groaning as I push against her tight flesh keeping me out.
“Vruksha,” she cries, digging her nails into my arms.
“You ask too much of me, female. You seek to manipulate me,” I snarl, pulling out and thrusting back into her. Her lips part, but I don’t allow her to speak, furious.
“You want to risk your life, again, and you haven’t even recovered!” My hips snap. My tail curls around her hair and pulls it back until she’s forced to lie
