Viper (Naga Brides Book 1) Read online

  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, as it has always been, and as long as he abided by that, they would not kill us.

  Hah. I would like to see them try.

  I’d wipe the humans from these lands but they have females...and for that reason, they remain alive.

  I want my red-headed b
eauty.

  I’ll have to fight for her, kill for her. And I’m willing to do more than that, but I do not want her hurt. And fighting? I’ve seen enough death to know accidents happen. They have machines, and not all machines can be trusted.

  It wasn’t that long ago. Days, maybe? Seems like an eternity. The other nagas came together after word spread of what happened to Zaku. It wasn’t hard to win me over. I would do anything for her.

  When I first saw her, everything changed.

  Gone was the bloodlust, the anger. Real lust took its place. Red hot desire, with a wild mane of red hair to match. Transfixed, I stared that first day as she descended from the ramp, realizing something more miraculous than machines had fallen from the heavens. She looked around with wonder and curiosity.

  She had gazed at the sky and the clouds above. She had touched the grass at her feet. Her tongue poked out to swipe at her lips.

  Her eyes had found mine, even as I hid beyond her barrier, in the shadows of the forest. From that moment, she was mine.

  A human female, wondrous in her rarity, who with one look ruined me.

  My female.

  The way her eyes widened. The way her lips parted…

  The fear on her face hadn’t bothered me at all.

  She was mine. I expected her to face her fear and come to me then, but instead, she turned away and rushed into the shadows of the facility, leaving me bereft, lusty, and angry.

  But she had looked at me, had met my gaze. She saw me, and that was all that mattered. Now I know I am in her head. She will always remember the first time she saw me. For I am a strong male, a vicious one, and refused to be forgotten.

  It would be dangerous to forget me.

  My anger returned after I lost sight of her, and my agitation at these human interlopers built. My need for this female stole my mind. Reclaiming the facility and this land meant nothing if I couldn’t have her. I wanted both but only cared about the latter.

  I saw her first.

  She saw me first.

  She was in my head. No other naga’s head mattered unless they were hanging from a rope off my belt or lobbed off and impaled on my spear, decorating the entrance to my den.

  But as whispers of human females spread through the forest—the mountains—the other nagas had similar thoughts. My female wasn’t the only one, and nagas from far afield, males I have not seen in years, returned to see them, to steal them, to mate with them, and hoard them away in our respective nests.

  The heat overcame us all like a storm. To conquer. These females came from the skies to be ours. We became very aware of our diminishing numbers, and with the threat of invaders from the skies on our minds…our biology altered against us, clouding our minds.

  I started giving off a strange scent.

  I wasn’t the only one who changed, nor the only one desperate to nest. A piece within us unlocked, and it can’t be undone. Some nagas feared the change and fled, hoping the change would reverse.

  Less to die by my hands. I hiss out a breath of air.

  Azsote, a Boomslang, snaps his tail. “And if they don’t release them?”

  “We invade with our weapons and strike them down. They need to know this land is not theirs, not without a price,” Zaku snarls. Some of the other males snarl with him. The King Cobra is out for blood, one way or another. A king, even though Zaku wasn’t one, doesn’t like being told what to do.

  Zaku’s only king in name, and he holds no more sway or dominion than the rest of us.

  “They will pay for it with females,” I say.

  Azsote snaps his tail again. “Yesss.”

  “They want our technology, our land… We will give them a little for a lot more,” Zaku agrees.

  I eye the facility far, far in the distance, through the trees and across the shattered landscape, hoping to see her. A splash of red among the green. But she’s nowhere to be found from our vantage point way up on the cliffs.

  I haven’t seen her in many days. Venom leaks from my fangs. I need to see her soon or I may do something crazed, like storm the humans’ barrier and take on their robots for just a glimpse.

  She is the same color as me. I never thought such a female existed besides my sisters. One with Viper in her blood.

  My hands tremble with the need to comb my fingers through her hair. My nose itches to burrow into her neck and languish in its warmth.

  “We give them nothing, and they won’t be the wiser,” I hiss, “while they give usss everything in return.”

  The other males beat their chests and hoot in agreement. The coming hunt excites us. I feel it in my veins, the way my blood pumps heavy. I slam my fist against my chest and hoot with them.

  “How many females are there?” Vagan asks when we settle. “Not enough, last I checked.” His blue scales and long, slender body are like mine, except he is blue where I am red. Vagan is of the Blue Coral clan, a ruler of the dangerous waterways. He may be brightly colored like me, but to face him near water was certain death.

  Of all the nagas gathered, Vagan is the one I watch the most. Him and the Death Adder.

  But Zhallaix, the Death Adder, is not here. He would rather kill us than work with us. An enemy to us all. He has no honor, nor allegiance. Ruthless and wild, he is probably fucking a mossy rock and spitting venom somewhere off in the hills. I have not seen Zhallaix since the ship first appeared.

  “I have only seen three,” Zaku answers. The King Cobra is fearsome, but I do not watch him like Vagan and some of the others. One bite and the Cobra could take out any one of us, but he has some honor in his cold veins.

  Honor I do not know if I have. But Zaku isn’t just honorable, he’s pompous and hard-headed. He’s rash. Everything is beneath him, and it shows in his inability to help anyone but himself, even in this. If Zaku could steal a female human for himself, he wouldn’t have gathered us. Sometimes I think he’s not honorable at all, just overzealous.

  I keep an eye on him anyway. If Zaku doesn’t win one of the females today, he’s going to destroy the world. Or die trying.

  As for everyone else? They watch me.

  I tighten my grip on my spear, meeting their eyes.

  “Three? Three is not enough!” Vagan shouts. “There are at least seven of us here, and more yet in these woods. How will three brides appease us all?”

  “They won’t,” I say. “We will fight for them when they are handed over.”

  Some growl, some hiss in agreement. We size each other up, considering who we could off now before the humans arrive.

  The Boomslang with the shimmery green scales slips to the ledge, his voice lowering. “Why not fight now? Until there are only three of us left?” Azsote suggests, waving his hand.

  “Why not let the females choose who they want to mate with?” another offers. I look at the naga and bare my fangs. It’s the Copperhead. He is a quiet one. I’m surprised to hear him speak at all.

  “No,” I snap.

  “That won’t work,” Zaku says at the same time.

  “We will not honor their choices,” I add. If my female chooses another over me, I would kill him and take her.

  I am not honorable, after all.

  The Copperhead nods. He knows what I say is true. The females can’t have the luxury to choose, not now that their very presence has created a strange fervor.

  Our members have filled up with unspent spill, causing pressure, bringing us pain. When I first saw my human, my shaft flooded with seed, seed that has been dormant for years, and I have had to milk my shaft nightly to relieve the pressure.

  If I’m suffering, the other nagas are too.

  “Three females is a problem,” says Zaku. “But I have an idea. If we fight for mating rights to them, there is a chance they will run while we battle. It is paramount that the females do not come to any harm. Especially by us or our ways. They may be all there is, and we can’t lose them. We must keep them safe.”

  We mumble in agreement. I love the red of my female’s ha
ir, but it is the only red I wish to see upon her. I do not want to witness her blood outside her moon cycle.

  Zaku continues, “If they run, the animals could kill them, the pigsss. They could get hurt—”

  “So what’s your suggestion?” Vagan interrupts.

  “I suggest we spread out when the human males hand them over. So we do not fight. I suggest they run, we follow, and we hunt them down. Whoever catches the females first wins nesting rights to them.”

  Silence hangs over us as we ponder Zaku’s words. It is a good suggestion but not the greatest. My redhead is already mine. But the other male nagas will want proof, and a hunt—because I know I will catch her—is a good way to prove it.

  “I like this idea,” Boomslang speaks up first.

  “Of course you do,” Vagan snaps. “You are a hunter of the forest.”

  Azsote shrugs. “I am. That does not change that this is a good suggestion.”

  “And what about me? What about Syasku? We fare best in the water. A hunt over land cripples us.”

  Nobody cares about Vagan or Syasku, but I don’t say that aloud. “There is water nearby, a lot of water. If the females head for it, then you have an advantage.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  I turn back to the facility, not caring enough to answer.

  “I will accept a hunt,” says Syasku of the Cottonmouth clan. Good. If the other water naga accepts a hunt, then Vagan has no grounds to argue it.

  Vagan scowls.

  “It is settled then,” Zaku declares. “We will hunt for nesting rights to the females.”