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

by S. J. Sanders

  Kehtal’s tongue clicked uneasily against the roof of his mouth and drew air into his ethin. Sunrise was nearing. He was correct; Slengral should have arrived some time ago. The male usually beat Kehtal back to the nest, and only occasionally had been a little later in his arrival. Never this late, however. Wings rattling with rapid flicks, he exchanged a worried look with Daskh.

  “Remain here,” he said quietly, sliding over to the entrance, his wings slowly unfolding from his back. “He cannot be far. I will find him.”

  “I will remain on guard,” Daskh replied, his tail sweeping around the female.

  Lori looked between them, bewildered.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice whipping through the cave by the force of the tension coiled tight around every word. “Where’s Slengral?”

  “It is probably nothing,” Daskh soothed in a low voice. “Kehtal is just going out to locate Slengral. There might have been another small cave-in in the upper levels, delaying his arrival. If there is, Kehtal will help him break it up quickly so that he can return.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, her shoulders stiffening bravely. The words were said so quietly that Kehtal’s heart went out to her. She gave him a wobbly smile. “Hurry back.”

  He dipped his head in the manner he had seen her do many times and slipped out the entrance. The tunnel itself was filled with strange scents, the spoors of the stranger taunting them. Growling, he hastened forward. Drawing air into the air sacks in his body, Kehtal rose into the air and, with a snap of his wings, glided through the tunnel. With two beats of his wings, he emerged and soared upward, restlessly scanning the space around him.

  Despite his confidence, he felt a pinch of unease, the pressure of which increased the higher he flew with no sign of the male. As much as he secretly coveted the female with every desperate breath he took of her sweet scent, he worried for his friend. He was her mate by right and an honorable male. He had to find him.

  Chapter 27

  An angry shriek bounced off the cavern walls. Crouching low, Slengral hissed, his tail coiling tighter beneath him. His wings spread wide as he prepared to defend himself if necessary. He was cut off from the main shaft, the rich, earthy scent of the breeding female filling the tunnel around him. He had not expected there to be another Seshanamitesh, much less a female, lurking so close to the mouth of the Aglatha.

  The moment he dove inside the cave he had scented her, and a perusal of his surroundings revealed her glistening body coiled in the main vent leading down into the shaft. He had recognized her right away and groaned. He had known this was coming. Kehtal had warned him.

  Vekatha had finally come for him.

  There was plenty of reasons to be concerned about this. Although, she wasn’t the largest or even the strongest of the females, she had possessed a vicious cunning that had made him cautiously avoid her for seasons. She had a habit of using males, restraining them with her in her nest until she was through with them. Still, he had not been worried when he descended, sailing through the mouth, because never in their known history had a female attacked a male they could not lure or coerce.

  That he had been arrogantly unconcerned was his mistake. He had assumed that the only threat he had to worry about from the shinara was that which could harm his female. Males never had anything to fear from the females as long as they did not try to enter their abode. It was for that reason that he, in a rush to return to his mate, had flown by the female, indifferent to her presence there.

  He had underestimated her anger and her determination. She had attacked him, her tail snapping around his in attempt to engage a mating lock. It was only by luck that their collision sent them spiraling toward a stalagmite. The impact as they hit forced them apart just enough that Slengral had been able to claw his way free and duck into one of the nearby tunnels. He realized too late that the tunnel had been a poor choice. Although his hiding place possessed many interconnected offshoots, not one vein connected to the rest of the system. He was thoroughly cut off by the female hunting him.

  “Come out!” Vekatha shrieked, the sound rattling loose stone from the walls.

  Her tail thwacked against the ground, emphasizing her demand. With a furious whip of her tail, she slid further, her pink eyes gleaming in the half light of the mouth. She breathed in, scenting the air, a pleased hiss rattling from her. When she spoke again, she hummed, her voice soft and entreating.

  “Come to me, I know you are here. I can scent you. It has been long since I have tasted you on the air. You no longer come to the shinara. Why?” she hissed as she swept into view, her gavo standing out aggressively. Her tail cracked again when he ducked around a rock, keeping himself hidden. He just needed to get around her.

  “Why?” she shrieked again. “Why do you have the filthy scent of the violators clinging to you? A female at that. It is light, but it is there. You are unclaimed as of yet, your scent has not changed, but her touch on you… it is maddening. You are mine! Now come out! You will not hide from me any longer, male!”

  That scent was exactly why he had not made an appearance at the shinara, certain that someone would notice it.

  Slengral slunk low, his wings quivering around him. Peering out from his hiding place, his vision narrowed to the gap of space just behind Vekatha. There was enough space to slide through, but not without chancing capture.

  He eased forward, sizing up the space when his tail brushed against a weak part of the wall beside him. The clatter of pebbles breaking free and falling to the cave floor echoed loudly, drawing the attention of the female. Her head whipped around to his position, her body following the motion as she snapped around, her tail sliding behind her to propel her forward.

  “There you are,” she hummed.

  The sound of her song vibrated into his ears, seducing him and encouraging his obedience. His body quivered, and disgust surged through him at his reaction. He had to chance it, even if he had to defend himself aggressively. He would not allow himself to be capture-mated by the female. It was a special sort of irony that he even had to worry about such a thing—and that was not lost upon him. Injuring a female was potentially tantamount to a death sentence, but he drove the thought from his mind. It did not matter.

  All that mattered was returning to Lori, safely ensconced in his nest.

  His tail coiling even tighter beneath him, Slengral sprung forward, filling his air sacks as rapidly as he could, his wings beating the air. Vekatha shrieked in triumph, shooting up on her coils and turning into him, her claws outstretched to snare him. Slengral bellowed as her arms closed around him, her tail ensnaring him as her hum grew louder, twisting through him even as her breeding pheromones overwhelmed his scent receptors. He beat his wings furiously, hissing and twisting in her grasp.

  A flicker of movement just behind her was all the warning provided before a large stone crashed down on Vekatha’s head, driving her hard against Slengral. Her eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed, dragging him to the floor. Kehtal, eyes widened in horror, stared down at them, the rock still gripped tightly in hands.

  “Kehtal?” he rasped, clawing his way from beneath the female. “What have you done?”

  The male’s eyes dropped to the rock in his hands, and his color dulled as if all the blood drained from beneath his scales. He flung it away from him as if there were a danger of it biting him.

  “You were gone so long, and Lori was becoming more and more anxious. I did not know that I would find you… find her. When I saw it, I had to,” Kehtal replied, dazed, his wings quivering anxiously. “She was… I saw…” He met Slengral’s eyes, his eyes slightly glazed with a shock that Slengral could also feel in his stomach. “I saw her grab you and attempt to force mating. Never has this been done,” he whispered sickly. “Mate capture is one thing, but this…” He fell silent, staring down at the unconscious female.

  Drawing up to his friend’s side, Slengral clasped his arm in a comforting gesture and turned just enough to look
down dispassionately at Vekatha. He knew that what happened would have ever wider impact on the events to come. She was alive—he could tell from the stirring of her breath in her chest—but she would not hesitate to retaliate.

  “You defended me,” he assured his friend. “What you did was honorable. I am indebted to you.”

  The male chuffed a miserable, humorless laugh. “The shinara will not see it that way. If she discovers it was me, I will be at their mercy for attacking them.”

  “They will never know. Vekatha will be unconscious for spans. By the time she wakes, our scent trail will have dissipated. All she will know is that I somehow escaped her.”

  As he stared down at her, a dark thought awoke within him. It was tempting to just end her now and not give her the opportunity. It would, in fact, be the wisest thing to do. Despite the wild desperation of the female’s attack against him, he could not stomach the idea of killing her as she lay helpless on the ground. She would not stop coming after him, and as long as he remained unmated, the shinara would view her pursuit as legal. There were no laws that truly protected the males, mostly because what happened was unfathomable.

  Males were the aggressors. They were the ones who females needed protection against. All their laws said so. A female’s aggression during mating was considered powerful and erotic, something that males should enjoy. She was only prohibited when her interests extended toward mated males. If he accused her before the shinara council, he would have no legal protection.

  He drew in a long breath, his resolve hardening. There was only way that he could be sure that there would not be a repeat performance.

  Growling, he spread his wings wide, filling his air sacks as he snapped forward through the air. He could feel Kehtal following close behind him as they emerged together from the tunnel and dove into the shaft. On a normal occasion, he might have folded his wings and allowed himself to drop or glide down, but his heart pounded against his chest, his wings flapping with every bit of strength and speed he possessed.

  He needed his mate. He needed Lori, now more than ever before. He hoped that she was ready for him because there was no turning back now.

  Chapter 28

  In the tight confines of Daskh’s tail, Lori lay against his warm scales, her brow furrowed as she glanced at the male holding her captive against him. Although pacing had helped relieve her of some of her anxious energy, she didn’t understand how she was so comfortable being literally tied down by the big alien’s tail. Slengral enjoyed curling his tail around her body as they slept, but even he didn’t wrap his tail around her as if he were terrified of letting loose of her for even a moment.

  That she found it sweet was almost insane. She wasn’t supposed to get attached, nor was she supposed to worry about them or snuggle with them. She should be keeping her mind on the prize and preferably ten feet between their bodies. She hated that she wasn’t the badass heroine of her favorite vintage vids, crawling her ass out of the shaft—while she was strong enough for giving regular massages to clients, she also knew that she lacked that sort of upper body strength. She could barely manage the vibration of her heavy mining equipment.

  Lori wondered yet again, for what had to be the hundredth time, what the hell the recruiter had been thinking. Nothing about her appearance screamed manual labor. In an emergency situation like this, she had nothing to go on. She lacked the raw strength to beat back hostile aliens as she dragged herself from the damn pit of the mine. She possessed a strong sense of self-preservation instead, and that was what kept her at Slengral’s side. Or so she insisted to herself. She even denied her attraction even when it burned restlessly through her all because of that damn clause in her contract. A contract that was starting to get more and more difficult to care about the longer she spent with him.

  Waking up next to him was a special kind of hell too. Every day, when she woke to his arms and tail wrapped lovingly around her, it made her heart melt a little more, triggering the need shot through her like a live wire at the intimate contact. She knew that he could smell it, and the fact that he kept to his promise and did not try to seduce her again just made her want him more.

  It was sick and twisted that she desired him. He was an alien! So why was it that when she looked at him, she found something more beautiful about him to admire? The graceful way he held himself, his calm caring nature around her… even his dominant assertiveness drew her more firmly to him. A life being surrounded by a dating pool of humans and her every interaction being scrutinized by Darvel Exploratory left a bad taste in her mouth.

  Even if she never followed her desires, she knew that she would spend the rest of her employment with them, regardless of where she was stationed, carefully monitored.

  According to United Earth psychiatrist’s union, she knew she shouldn’t feel this way. She was told all her life—drummed into her even in the public education system—that humans who felt romantic or sexual impulses toward aliens were mentally unhealthy. It was a perversion at best. So why did she want to lay in Slengral’s arms and feel his tail wrapping around her? Why did she want to explore his lower body to feel for the vent that would reveal his sex? Why did she want to beg him to sing to her and let her forget everything she had been told and all the worries she had over the repercussions? It was insane to want it with the feverish need that she felt. It was her dirty little secret that she wanted to be his mate.

  Even the fact that she enjoyed the warmth and affection from Daskh would be considered unnatural. It was hard for her to keep that in mind when he was such a big teddy bear. He made her feel safe and warm, and cared for. She craved his touch, and being surrounded by him. If she felt a small spark of something more when he was pressed against her just right or when he smiled at her when he offered her a small treat brought down from his cave, she pretended that she didn’t. Her feelings about Daskh confused her, muddying her understanding of how she felt toward Slengral even more.

  Perhaps she was simply getting too familiar and too comfortable with the aliens. The medics would likely say that she was suffering from some sort of syndrome after being locked away for so many days with the aliens. There was some sense in that, she supposed, because she didn’t feel like her cool, rational self from just weeks earlier. Where was the woman who did only what she had to in order to accomplish her goal? That woman—the old Lori—wouldn’t be infatuated with forbidden fruit. It wouldn’t have even mattered to her which of the aliens was around her as long as she was safe and working toward getting back to the colony.

  Instead, she was actually stressing out for no other reason than because Slengral had been gone longer than usual. Far too long. She couldn’t pretend to be unconcerned, and Kehtal was far too observant. His eyes were always watching her, and it gave her a secret, shameful thrill knowing that his eyes heated with interest whenever no one was watching him. But she saw… she knew. She also suspected that the observant male knew that she wasn’t stressing over her colony, despite the fact that he had spoken of it with Daskh in a low voice, preserving her little illusions she had built for herself.

  Her breath expelled in a miserable sigh as she studied the fine, closely meshed scales of Daskh’s skin. The truth was shameful to admit, that while she often voiced concerns over the colony, it was not the fate of her fellow humans that had her pacing anxiously through the main room of the cavern, cold sweat slickening her skin. That worry was only compounded by the strange sounds coming from outside the nest. She had tried to pretend not to hear it, especially when the males made no mention of it, but her skin prickled with the awareness that something was wrong.

  She leaned her cheek against the dark scales, enjoying the slight texture to their warm, silky surface. She had touched a snake at a zoo once as a child, and it felt much like this but cool to the touch. Like Slengral, Daskh actually felt warmer than any human, and so hugging his tail felt like she was snuggling with a large electric heater. It only just barely made the wait bearable.

  “Do you
think Kehtal will find him soon?” she whispered, unable to stand not asking for a moment longer.

  Bright green eyes turned down toward her and warmed to a deeper hue of forest green.

  “It will not be much longer,” he assured her soft, his deep voice pitched just right to rumble through her pleasantly. “Kehtal is quick and strong, he will find him quickly.”

  Gods, she could listen to him talk for hours. It was a shame that he was so big and broody, preferring to listen to her babble instead.

  “Yeah, well, he’s been gone for a while,” she pointed out.

  “The Aglatha is large, and it takes time to fly into the mouth when one is being cautious, but of any male I know, Kehtal can get around obstacles and locate missing and injured Seshanamitesh better than anyone else.”

  “I hope you are right.” She hesitated for a moment before admitting, “Those sounds out there gave me the creeps. It makes me worry about him more if there’s something sneaking around in the shaft.”

  Daskh’s ridged brows rose, his ear ridges fanning forward. “You heard it?”

  Lori rubbed her palms against her upper arms and frowned. “Yeah, hard not to. It was very quiet but not like the natural sounds of the cave system that scared me before.”

  Daskh turned toward her, palming her cheek in his giant hand. “Do not worry. Seshanamitesh are formidable. Slengral will be well and will return soon with Kehtal, and I will protect you here in the nest in the meantime.”

  She didn’t share his certainty about that, but the tension within her loosened slightly at his assurance. She knew that their hide was a lot tougher and more flexible than human skin. Whether or not they guaranteed any degree of overall safety in this world she wasn’t able to judge or trust.

  “At least the sounds have stopped,” she observed quietly.

  She only hoped they didn’t start up again. Despite how tiny and harmless they sounded, they frightened her more than anything. They were too insidious, as if they were trying to seek out something within the cave and invade it.