Serpents of the Abyss (The Darvel Exploratory Systems #2)

by S. J. Sanders

  She started to reach for him, spurred by curiosity. What human wasn’t curious as to what an alien felt like? She could almost forgive Kris for his fascination now that she was experiencing it firsthand. Almost, but not quite. She didn’t have anyone waiting for her to get home while she indulged her curiosities. Nor was she going to fuck the alien. Doing so was very illegal. Kris’s hasty apology when he left her had been as he was preparing to board a ship for his “mate’s” homeworld on a tourist visa.

  His curiosity meant that he would never return to Earth or anywhere within the United Earth-controlled systems. He would be a criminal the moment he failed to return to Earth when his visa expired.

  Biting her lip, Lori dropped her hand before it made it contact with his jaw. Her conscience, a prickly bitch even on the best of occasions, wouldn’t allow her to just start touching him without invitation even if she could manage to overlook all of the personal ramifications. Worse, she knew for a fact that there were plenty of humans who had earned a bad reputation with some of the more pleasure-loving species like the Aturians. She wasn’t going to start acting like them and touch a sleeping alien. Especially not when it might make him even more determined to keep her if he misconstrued it as an overture on her part.

  He already thought that their mating was a done deal. He didn’t need further encouragement. Her curiosity could hang itself.

  Scooting back from the alien, Lori slowly stood and made her way to one of the adjoining rooms that he had shown her the night before. The rock there smelled strong of some kind of astringent mineral. It wasn’t unpleasant, just noticeable. Because of it, the room had a nice citrus-mango scent that made it a lot less uncomfortable to do her business over the deep crevice that ran through the back of the room. When finished, she drew some water from a large clay-made vessel that stood chest-high to her and rinsed the area where she had relieved herself thoroughly. As it had before, the smell in the room sweetened in reaction to the water, and Lori returned to Slengral’s nest before dropping down once more at a safe distance from him.

  Drawing her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her legs and waited for him to wake. Her stomach was twisting with hunger. The basket in one corner that had been filled with the fruits they had eaten the night before was now empty, and Lori hadn’t seen anything else in the cave that looked edible.

  She rubbed a hand over her face. She missed the colony dome with its sanitation units, showers, and readymade food. She would even eat the damned gruel that was served every morning without complaint.

  On the other side of the bed, the long coils of Slengral’s tail stirred, twisting over the spot she had vacated as if searching. The end of the tail curled in on itself and tightened. Ruby eyes snapped open, the thin pupils focusing in on her. Slowly, he raised himself on one arm as he regarded her.

  Lori cleared her throat. “Good morning,” she murmured. She scratched the back of her neck. “If it is morning, that is.”

  Slengral regarded her for a moment, eyes focused on her face, which just made her all the more embarrassed for how disoriented she felt beneath the ground. Then he drew in a deep breath, his chest expanding as something else expanded, a hard white ridge pushing out from the center of his clavicle.

  “It is early yet to rise. The sun on the surface is within its midpoint position.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. Not only because her translator seemed to have fully kicked on now, translating smoothly without any irritating hiccups, but his words were beyond comprehension. “How can you possibly know that down here?”

  “The water in the air, I draw it into my ethin.” He tapped the protrusion. “During the hot period of the day when few living creatures would dare to be out, the moisture thins as the heat draws it upward and at night it drops and replenishes. Listening to my ethin, I can determine whether or not it is safe to be out.”

  Her mouth rounded and then thinned, her memory dredging up the thing that had moved outside of her quarters, whipping around in the faint light like—dare she even imagine—an enormous tail. She swallowed, her eyes falling on Slengral’s tail, her stomach souring.

  “You go on the surface?” she whispered, her voice cracking with strain.

  His mouth wasn’t as expressive as hers with its hard angles, but he considered her with what she thought might be a frown by the way his brow seemed to lower. The horn plating hadn’t risen, so she wasn’t being met with hostility. Yet she couldn’t dismiss that he was definitely unhappy with her observation.

  “This is our world,” he hissed. “We must go to the surface to survive. We only go once the suns are sinking below a certain point in the horizon and it is safe to do so, but we will not be driven from it. We go to the surface to hunt.”

  She swallowed as she regarded him, uncomfortably aware of the fact that the conversation was drifting into dangerous territory. Slengral had said himself that his people would not have recognized her immediately as anything other than prey. She hated to think what that meant for the colony, especially if the aliens put two and two together and decided that they were the source of what they considered a threat to their world.

  “Would that hunt include hunting near the human colony?” she asked. At his apparent confusion at the word she used, she grunted and tried again. “The round dome where my people live.”

  His eyelids slid down slightly as he returned her regard. Lori wished that she could read him, but outside of body language roused when he was angry or hunting, she couldn’t decipher anything from his expression.

  “Perhaps,” he said at last. “My people hunt. We do not consider others who have to share our world. This has always been the place of the Seshanamitesh. If your people drew attention to themselves and behaved like prey, it is possible that a hunter would strike to defend themselves and then consume so not to waste. Such hunters might consider such prey an easy gain,” he added.

  Lori dropped her head down onto her knees, her stomach rolling with the threat of heaving. “Oh, gods,” she moaned.

  “You are distressed,” he observed quietly, the soft sound of his scales shifting as he slid toward her. His wings expanded but she shrank away.

  “You think?” she sputtered, her eyes snapping up to him fearfully. “Have you eaten humans too? We are just meat to you, aren’t we?”

  He watched her with that strange alien quiet for a long moment, the webbing of his fanned ears flicking slightly. “I have not. Although I’ve heard of two-legged prey from the sky, I never desired to hunt it until I scented you. And your scent appealed to a hunger more than a desire to just gorge.”

  “Nice to know that my scent managed to save me,” she muttered.

  “And your words,” he replied. “If you had not spoken to me, I would not have realized that you were a thinking thing and not just a mindless laborer sent to my world.”

  “Fantastic,” she shot back. “And would my ability to think have swayed the rest of your species from eating my people?”

  Again, his ears flicked. Was it a tell? It seemed ambivalent in action, almost like a casual shrug. His wings expanded slightly as he drew in a breath… frustration perhaps. Or uncertainty. It was an emotional response she was sure of it. As a spa attendant, she had quite a bit of practice discerning what her clients needed from their body language. She was sure she would catch on with Slengral in time.

  “I would like to say no, but our males can be brutal in their need to feed. Our world is harsh and unforgiving, and your people have not sought an alliance with our shinara, the great cities of the Seshanamitesh.”

  “We didn’t even know you were here!” Lori snapped in exasperation as she shot to her feet.

  “Would you consider that an excuse if another being came to your world and acted with great violence toward it?” he asked quietly, the angle of his head adjusting as he watched her as she began to pace in front of him. “That they brought great rock falls that killed your people. You would accept that they did not know you were there?
”

  The question caught her off-guard, so much so that she stopped in place, but she knew the answer immediately.

  “No,” she sighed, running a hand through her bob. “We would consider it a hostile invasion and probably try to kill them. I would like to say that we would try to negotiate and reason with them first, but I don’t have much faith in altruism if I’m being honest.” She licked her lips. “Would you take me above to speak to my people? They need to know so that they can work out the best route to go with your people from here.”

  He gave her an inscrutable look but didn’t contradict her. Instead, he angled his head upward and exhaled slowly.

  “Not yet,” he grumbled.

  She stared at him in surprise. “You’ll really make my people wait while they are probably being hunted down?” she demanded, her voice rising to a fever pitch. “Do you even realize that we’ve already lost several two nights ago, and who knows how many more since then!?”

  “I said not yet” he hissed, his fangs flashing. “Foolish, impatient human! The damage to the main cavern shaft has been observed and relayed through sonic pulses all throughout our cavern systems. The females have been singing to the rocks to stabilize them, but I will not take you above until I am certain that the risk of leaving the caves is minimal. I won’t risk you being crushed or being caught out in the midday sun without resources.”

  “But my people…” she replied.

  “May not accept us into your ‘dome,’” he snapped. “I will observe the best time to take you there, when it is the safest, only after I am certain that the way through the shaft is safe and clear.”

  “And what of my people then?” she asked. “Are they going to be safe from being killed and eaten by yours?”

  He let out a low hiss, his wings snapping. “I will communicate with the males I have an alliance with to leave them alone. I cannot guarantee if every male will listen. A determined male might consider the risk of leaving the caves worth hunting such prey if he has already developed a taste for it.”

  “What about your females?” she asked, wary of unseen threats coming from potentially even more corners.

  His nostrils expanded.

  “They would not have tasted human flesh,” he rasped. “The females rarely emerge to hunt. They concern themselves with the young and preserving our homes. They also tend the richest sources of the fruiting vines in some of the higher caverns deep within the rock where sunlight can filter down through cuts in the stone. It is mostly the males who hunt and bring game back to them, but I do not think even a male would bring something so unfamiliar.”

  Lori blew out a breath. That was at least one thing in the humans’ favor. If the females didn’t see them as prey, then they might have a shot at establishing some form of peace despite the males eating Corp employees. She twisted her fingers nervously. Maybe no more would be picked off before she could get up there. It had only happened once, after all.

  “Okay,” she said, sighing again. She eyed him suspiciously. “But you will tell the others you know, right? To leave the people above ground alone.”

  “Yes, it will be as I said,” he replied, clearly unhappy with the setback to the mating business.

  Slengral turned away from her and made his way over to the closest wall. Tilting his head back, he scanned it until he found what he wanted. Fanning his wings wide for balance, he lifted himself high on his coils to a crevice above that was roughly as wide as he was broad. Slipping both of his hands inside, he grabbed ahold of whatever was inside and pulled out a basket laden with fruit.

  Lori’s eyes widened appreciatively, watching the basket hungrily as her stomach loudly made its demands known.

  Hot damn! Slippery snake-alien has stashes. I wonder what else he has hidden around here.

  Her eyes turned casually around the room, noting the placement of several more of the high crevices, and she wondered if they held fruit too. She tore her eyes from them, however, when Slengral’s wings beat as he lowered himself in front of her once more, holding the basket out.

  “I know that you hunger, Lori. Eat,” he insisted.

  She didn’t need to be told twice. She plucked a round fruit from the top of the pile and immediately bit into it. She moaned softly as the sweet nectar exploded over her tongue like a smoothie of melons and strawberries thrown together into a blender. It wasn’t quite as satisfying as a hamburger, but she couldn’t complain. It sure as hell beat gruel.

  Slengral smiled at her enthusiasm. It was little more than a partial curve of his mouth, but it was definitely a familiar expression. Lori grinned back at him as she plucked another fruit from the basket and proceeded to devour that as well.

  He sat back on his coils, looping the end of his tail lightly around her legs as he continued to lavish attention on her, and perhaps watch her more carefully than a trusting nature would warrant. She knew that he suspected she might attempt to leave. Good news for him—she wasn’t so stupid to try and climb up that damned shaft by herself. Not only did she lack the strength, but how easily she could be plucked from the walls by his brethren who might not recognize the fact that she wasn’t just meat was closer to suicidal than she cared to get.

  Every now and then, he paused, testing the air. When at last, he tilted his head back, and his clavicle ridge expanded and the plate ridges along the back of his head and spine began to raise, she knew that it was time.

  Dropping his head, he focused on her, his hand extending to touch the edge of her hair. The gesture was a small one, but it was one that seemed to have some weight behind it for him because he hummed low in his throat.

  His head jerked as if aware that he was showing her more of himself than he was comfortable with, and he dropped his hand away as he slid back.

  “I will return. Do not under any circumstances leave this cave while I am gone or go anywhere near the main shaft where the males might see you. I will be testing the entrance and seeing if I can manage to get out to hunt fresh prey. You will remain here where it is safe.”

  “And you won’t forget about my people?” she whispered.

  “Yes. I will spread the message among the males I know should I encounter them.”

  She guessed that was the best she could hope for. Lori nodded, her arms wrapping around herself. She didn’t like the thought of being left alone there, but she understood the reason and hoped that staying behind meant that he would be able to find enough males to speak to.

  Unable to shake the sudden case of nerves gripping her, she watched as he grabbed a double-ended spear boasting two wickedly sharp, curved blades. Slengral gave her one last glance, betraying his own discomfort, before he slid out of their cave into the tunnel beyond. She bit her lip, resisting the urge to call him back as she glanced around nervously.

  She only hoped that he wouldn’t be gone long.

  Chapter 12

  Slengral slid through the tunnels, his thoughts uneasy as he made his way to the main shaft. Even though she still had not accepted his claim, he did not like leaving his mate alone and unprotected. He had never had problems with unknown males entering his caves, but he could not shake the sense that he was leaving his mate vulnerable. That many newly mated males agreed to give up their nests to accompany their female back to her nest in the shinara was a decision he now understood.

  He had scorned that choice in his youth, the idea of giving up independence to live among the females, deep in the shinara under their rule. But now, finally with a mate of his own, it seemed the smart decision. The shinara meant safety for his female and future brood. His nest was perfectly comfortable and close enough to the surface that it made hunting convenient. For a hunter, it was an ideal location and provided him with everything he needed. He wasn’t so foolish and reckless to believe that it was what his mate needed.

  Even female Seshanamitesh generally didn’t enjoy the sort of isolation that their male counterparts preferred. Not only was his cave highly secluded, but he knew it was not so well p
rotected that it would stall a determined male from entering. His scent spoors streaked across the rocks of his tunnels served as an adequate warning, but there was always the risk that a male who scented a female would be emboldened enough to enter another’s nest.

  The tip of his tail balled up with tension, and he felt his gavo lift from his back and along his skull with the tremor of aggression running down his spine. He wanted to return to his female’s side and carry her deep into the caves until they reached the shinara of the Aglatha, the name his people gave to this particular cave system. The only thing that prevented him from doing it was his promise to his mate, and the fact that he was uncertain if the females would accept an outsider among them. Especially not one who did not smell of a Seshanamitesh.

  He could not so much as plead for rites as a mated pair when his female did not accept his mating claim. To get that far, he would have to abide by her rules. It was fortunate that her scent had not yet grown thick enough in his cavern to be scented outside of it.

  That, at least, granted them some time.

  Air expelled from his lungs in an irritated hiss as he craned his head back, his eyes traveling along the dark tunnel. Filling his throat with air, he barked, his ears shifting forward as he listened for the return of the sonic waves he released. Although he was able to see well enough in the dark, making his call to tell rival males to steer clear from his territory and determine if anyone was nearby within the tunnel. If there were, he would have no choice but to either challenge or wait until they left. He wouldn’t leave his mate unprotected if a male lingered nearby.

  The coils of his tail relaxed when his calls bounced back reflecting nothing but the rock wall. Turning his head to the wall above him, he barked again, and then repeated the process in the spaces below him along the main shaft. Each time, it came back clear. On the last echo, he spread his wings wide and propelled himself off the side with his tail. With the initial flap of his wings, he felt his body release the chemical compounds into his system, filling the air sacks through his tail so that it became buoyant, whipping behind him as he flew up through the shaft.