Blue Coral (Naga Brides Book 3) Page 2

  “Collins!” I scream and dive forward as he plummets out of sight.

  The tarp slides off me. Racing to where Collins had just been, the atrium walls of the facility crumble. I struggle to a boulder and shield my head as pits form on every side of me. “Help!” I scream. Seeing a sentinel above me, I reach for it, praying it’ll hold my weight. “Help me!” I scream louder. “Somebody help me!”

  Then I hear it, through the crashing, cracking, and violent shaking. My name, deep and hurried, hissed through rough vocal cords.

  “Ssshelby.”

  A flash of brilliant blue streaks across my vision, coming toward me through the dust. The ground gives way under my knees just as thick arms clamp around my body.

  Together we fall.

  Two

  Falling For You

  Vagan

  Leaning forward, I shift my position upon the branch. Before me lies the facility, and I can see most of the ruins where I’m perched.

  The leaves rustle, and a breeze slips through my scales. Pressing my hand to my stomach, I close my eyes. I’ve been here too long. I need to go back to the water and rest.

  I’ve tested my limits and forced my body to go even further. I’ve never spent so much time out of the water, and it’s weakening me. My mind spins as I think this. I should be dead. Zaku’s mate stabbed me repeatedly in the stomach.

  I woke anyway, dragged through shattered glass by a robot as a fire pit raged nearby.

  Pulling my hand away from my wounds, I open my eyes and glare at the facility.

  She is not going to emerge.

  She has not emerged once in the weeks after the hunt.

  Shelby. Her name slithers through my head like a beacon in the darkness. Peering at the last place I saw her weeks ago, I hiss, demanding she reappear. But as time passes and the breeze picks up, she doesn’t. Just like yesterday and the day before that. It was like she never existed at all.

  The tightness in my loins and the pain from my wounds assure me otherwise. Swallowing shallowly, thirst constricts my throat. I can’t stay much longer, not in this state.

  I’m going to have to leave again… A scowl twists my lips.

  Thoughts of treacherous Zaku and his female, cozy in their castle nest, sting my thoughts. I wouldn’t have to leave if he had any honor. My fangs ache viciously from his betrayal. Still, I should not have attacked his home and threatened his mate. I was not thinking straight, being crazed with lust and denial.

  What is straight anymore? Eestys would be ashamed of me. I haven’t had a clear thought in weeks, months. Has it been months? Or days?

  Hours?

  Glancing at the forest around me, it’s still the summer season. I’ve thought of little else since her. Even time is eluding me.

  The sight of a giant robotic structure descending from the skies drove me from my nest. I thought the monsters had returned to the forest. I knew other nagas would be gathering to destroy them and tear apart the strange, flying structure and I was eager to join in. But as I stalked toward my prey, braving the deepest parts of the forest, it wasn’t a monster I came upon. It was a ship.

  My orb verified it was a ship.

  A swarm of robots appeared from it, entering the ruins of the facility it landed next to. They erected a barrier around it, closing the facility off from the forest and everything that dwelled within it. Like me.

  Like the other nagas and their clans.

  We had not fought each other or the ship, instead scouting the forest around the barrier and keeping watch. If there was knowledge to be had, power to be taken, I did not want to head back to my den without it. If these new robots had something I could use to give me an advantage on land, I was going to take it for myself.

  Now I’m reduced to staring at the shadows of the facility, ordering Shelby to show herself. To face me. To come to me and ease my troubled mind. Like I have replayed it in my head a thousand times.

  She doesn’t appear.

  She never does.

  My hissing deepens furiously.

  Those first weeks after the ship landed, there had only been robots that had left the ship. Robots that could fly, robots that could dig, robots that could lift, drag, and reach. They tore down acres of forest for their barrier, ravaging the land I once knew, and yet no one stopped them. I didn’t.

  I was curious. What did the robots want with the ruins of an old, empty building? A building that had been picked clean many, many years prior. I had almost lost interest—feeling the need to drench my scales in water—when the first human appeared.

  A hush fell amongst the nagas that day. Not a hiss was breathed or heard. Those like me, who had stayed, gazed in awe as a human male walked from the ship and onto the new field the robots had created. Other humans had accompanied him shortly after, a female with red hair, more men, and then… she walked out…

  Shelby.

  I did not know her name then. Only that she was a spark. A mesmerizing beacon. She had been what I was waiting for, what I was born for. I had no idea why, only that she was beautiful and that I wanted her on a primal level.

  I denied it at first, having accepted that I was never going to have a nestmate. My father abandoned me after his mate died upon giving birth to me and my siblings. My first memory is of him dragging her corpse away as I wailed. They went into the water, and I never saw either one again.

  My siblings died next to me, perishing from hunger, from the elements, until I was the last one left. We were babes, our muscles unformed, our minds a blur of sensation. It took a while for my siblings to die… such is the curse of being able to heal rapidly...

  If Eestys hadn’t found me, I would have died with them on that bank. She saved my life, raised me by the water where I could thrive, and when the other naga females joined together to flee west, she stayed.

  For a time.

  Until I grew into the brutal male that I am today and pledged my life to hers. I owed her my life. But that very night, she vanished. I have not seen her since, and I know now she did it to save both our lives. That was many years ago, and I am glad she is gone because I would have taken her to my nest. Or tried to, at least. Now I barely remember what she looks like. She was not a naga like me, not a snake of the waters.

  She had the patterning and mannerisms of a Boomslang.

  Still, I owe her my life and vowed I would never take a nestmate on her behalf. That I would never become an evil naga like the rapists who forced her and the other females to leave.

  My hands clench.

  I’m going to break that vow. At least one of them. I have already tried breaking it and have nearly died twice because of it. Eestys would be ashamed.

  Where are you, Shelby?

  I hiss, frustrated when the two same males I see daily come and go from the ship to the facility. My hands clench harder.

  Watching them, my vows to Eestys wilt in my mind.

  Tension radiates through me as the male, the one who denied me Shelby on the plateau, walks into the ruins. I lick the air, wanting his blood pouring into my mouth.

  He is the one who claims her, saying it is his litter she is gestating.

  I will bathe in his blood and fill his body with my venom for his lies. I will watch his life drain from his eyes as I take her away from him. She does not know that I exist, but will soon, once I come up with a new plan.

  Once I capture her.

  Once I steal her away to my den.

  Once I make her see that she has always belonged to me and only me. She is the spark in my eye. A growl tears from my throat. Whether she is gestating or not. I will take everything of hers and make it mine.

  Even if it’s a piece of him.

  A deep hiss joins my growls. My body is not mine anymore because of this human female, and it curses her as much as it wants her. I tried denying it, tried to return to my nest. I couldn’t, hoping for one more glimpse.

  One glimpse. That’s all I want… A glimpse.

  Pleading to the for
ces of nature for such a gift, my eyes drift to the skies.

  So, I stayed. I studied her, learned her habits, and found she goes into the ruins each day and heads back to the ship in the evenings. I found I wanted to know what she was doing within the old stone walls and why. At one point in my denial, I realized she was the only thing in my head.

  It was windy the day when I caught a whiff of her scent.

  My body hasn’t been the same since.

  Already enraptured, adrenaline raced through my veins when I first breathed her in. Blood surged to every part of me. My body tensed up, ready to pounce, and I fell into a jealous rage when she disappeared into the ruins for the day, leaving me in my miserable state of desperation. All day long, my member remained engorged. A bulge formed in the middle of it.

  A knot that had never been there before.

  I broke out into a terrible fever, barely able to see straight.

  When she walked out of the ruins that evening, it expanded painfully, and I was forced to spill with thoughts of her long black hair—and braids like snake tails—and her dusky skin.

  That was days before the hunt. It’s why I’m almost certain she’s not gestating the human male’s litter.

  Pressing my hand to the wounds on my stomach, I drop down from my perch.

  She will not show this evening.

  Rising on my tail, I grit my teeth, desperate for water. Turning for the river, I slip into the deepening shadows beneath the trees. If one of the other nagas finds me right now, I will be easy to kill. I have not cared about anything else but Shelby for far too long. Baring my fangs to the trees, she makes me weak.

  Leaving the facility proves to be difficult. Questions puncture my thoughts. What if another male steals her while I’m gone? What if this is the evening she emerges and I miss my chance at seeing her? Doubts rip through me as I slip farther away. I will eat, cool off, and come right back.

  I will be right back.

  A scream tears through the forest. Halting, I twist to look at the trees behind me. It sounded like a male’s scream.

  I cock my head.

  Thunderous noises boom, and the ground trembles. Grabbing hold of a branch, the tremors quickly worsen, and my gaze drops to the forest floor. It shudders, branches shake. I coil my tail toward my body.

  It has been a long time since the ground shuddered.

  Only monsters make the ground shake…

  The monsters are dead. They have been for years.

  Hearing another scream, I slice back toward the facility, discovering the barrier falling apart and crashing to the ground. Dust clouds and smoke rise into the air from the impacts. Beyond it, the facility’s walls are collapsing. My throat constricts at the abrupt change.

  Shelby could be inside.

  I break through the debris and into the chaos.

  “Get to the ship!” someone screams, sprinting across the field. They see me and startle.

  Not Shelby.

  “The facility is coming down!” another human yells. “Everyone get to safety!”

  “Nagas are invading!” the first human cries.

  Where is she? I look around frantically, searching for her, finding nothing but swarming robots and a few human males sprinting for the ship. Hearing a loud groan, my gaze tears to the ruins.

  “Help me!”

  A female’s scream comes from deep within.

  Dread seizes me.

  Crashing through the collapsing building, I follow Shelby’s cries.

  “Somebody help me!”

  Halting at the edge of a large hole, I see her. The ground is caving in all around her. There’s no way out. She’s going to fall.

  “Ssshelby,” I hiss, diving forward.

  The ground opens up and swallows us both.

  Three

  Darkness and Longing

  Shelby

  Crushing agony bursts through my head and I whimper, flailing my arms. Except my arms don’t move and the sounds of shifting rocks fill my ears instead. I try to lift my hand to feel out the source, but it hits a hard surface before I can even raise it a couple of inches. Something is pinning my lower body to the ground.

  My heart jumps into my throat.

  Releasing a gasp, stifled air and dust particles coat my tongue. I cough, jerking my arms upward again, trying to roll onto my side, unable to do either. Covered in dirt and with sweat beading my brow, I blink open my eyelids with another fearful hitch. Darkness greets me. Complete and impenetrable, all I see is black.

  “Help,” I croak softly, trying to bring my hands to my face again. “Help,” I rasp a little louder. My hands come upon a warm, straining… body? Whatever is directly above me is fleshy and alive.

  I don’t understand.

  I hear a deep groan as I slide my hands up my chest, pressing my elbows into my sides.

  I fell.

  I’m alive?

  “Collins,” I murmur, “is that you?”

  I blink rapidly, clearing the dust from my eyes, feeling a budding wave of terror form in my stomach. If I’m alive… I’m… underground.

  I hear another groan. “Collins?” I say a little quicker, pressing my hand to my brow. I turn on my eyes. Blue light banishes the stifling darkness. Moaning from the pain in my head, jagged shapes and crevasses blur my vision. Sweat, dirt, and an unusual spicy scent accompanies it, giving me sensory overload.

  The first thing that comes into focus isn’t the rocks or the dirt, or any of my surroundings, but the large brightly colored male above me. Going still, I inhale, sucking in my stomach. An alien face, one strained with pain, is inches above my face.

  Not… Collins…

  My breaths quicken. A scaled brow, rigid with taut, deep wrinkles, and eyes wrenched shut steals my mind, making everything else come to a screeching halt. I wait for something to happen, for my mind to work again, but as the moments lengthen and fear streaks my subconscious, I dare to move, to shove the alien away. A groan emanates from him when I press my hands to his shoulders and push.

  He doesn’t move.

  Turning my head, my breaths turn into full-on pants, and I dart my eyes right and left.

  There’s nothing but rocks and stones closed in tightly around me. I jerk my legs, finding them cushioned under the male above.

  This isn’t real. This is just a nightmare.

  My panic escalates anyway.

  Wailing in terror, I thrash out and cry. Adrenaline and instinct take hold of me. I’m trapped! Deep underground, surrounded by rocks, with no escape. I forget all about the male above me and scream. Every untrapped limb strikes out, hitting barriers on every side, desperately seeking freedom. There’s no give, nothing but rock and stone.

  I hear shifting dirt and tumbling rocks, and I arch my back with a loud wail. “Help!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

  Buried alive. Buried alive.

  I’m buried alive!

  “Ssssshhh.”

  Buried alive.

  “Help!” I scream again.

  I’m buried alive!

  Shaking uncontrollably, I press my arms to the male above me, pushing at him again. When he doesn’t budge, tears sting my eyes and I gasp. I try curling into a fetal position again, completely unable to.

  “Ssssshhh, female.”

  A soft hiss breaks through my terrified whimpers, and I let out another sob.

  This is a nightmare. Just a nightmare. You’ll wake up any moment now, Shelby. You’re having the evening meal with that scumbag.

  Peter can’t see you crying. Don’t let him win.

  “Female…” a pained voice says, breaking through my panic, my cascading thoughts.

  The soft shushing continues.

  Slowly, my thoughts grow less erratic and I calm down. I put my mind elsewhere, waiting for the horror to end. Minutes, maybe hours go by, and my gasps ease. My racing heart slows. I test my limbs to see if I’m hurt anywhere besides the back of my head. Only feeling some aches and mild pain, relief fills me that
nothing is broken. My lower legs are stuck and the pressure is extremely uncomfortable, but there’s no pain.

  Not yet, at least.

  Taking another faltering breath, I dare to reopen my eyes. The male appears above me, same as before, face wrought with strain. I notice his arms on either side of my head, bent at the elbow, and the quivering of his muscles. There are scales on them, on his face, and they’re covered in dirt.

  He’s keeping the rocks from crushing me. Closing my eyes once more, I let that terrible thought pulse through my mind.

  I’m going to die. Blinking out tears, I face the male again.

  “Why?” I whisper, tasting dust on my lips.

  He doesn’t respond. Searching his face, sadness clogs my throat. For me and for him, whoever he is. He must be in so much pain.

  He twitches and the rocks all around us groan. I flinch and brace for death.

  But the male catches himself and holds them up.

  “Why?” I wheeze again.

  We’re going to die, yet, I still need to know.

  His brow twitches, and his lips part. His teeth are gritted closed, his jaw locked. There are two sharp fangs. Liquid drips from the end of one of them and lands on my cheek. His face is… orange, though his arms and upper chest are a brilliant blue. He’s covered in scales of many sizes, and they’re not just on the sides of his face and arms. They’re everywhere I can see. Mid-length hair, sodden with sweat, sticks to his brow. He takes a shuddering breath, and a forked tongue peeks out. His eyes remain closed.

  I scan his face, unconsciously adding him and these facts to the cloud in my mechanical eyes.

  “D-Don’t answer if it’s too much,” I whisper to him as my lashes brim with tears.

  “You…” he utters and stops. I try not to jump at his voice. It’s rough and deep. His bicep jerks to my right, and I hitch. “You…” he wheezes. He grits his teeth again and groans.

  “Don’t, please,” I cry. “Don’t speak if it hurts.”

  I don’t want to see him struggle. I don’t want to distract him anymore than I have. Calming further, I try and ease my body, finding it incredibly difficult knowing that at any moment the male’s strength will give way and we’ll be crushed. I’ll be crushed, under him.