by Naomi Lucas
The robots that maintain this place have always repaired it. They go into their walls and come back out with magic and lasers and materials from the storage hidden high in the mountain. Seeing them angers me. They can keep this place perfect, they can abide by my wishes, but I have never been able to fully master them either.
Like I can’t master Daisy… my female.
The robots never stop. I have wrecked them, and they don’t stop. New ones arrive and repair the ruined ones. I gave up long ago. I shove open the brand new red door.
The foyer, the kitchen, everything is back to normal. There are a half-dozen robots still working and I fall upon them, tearing them to pieces, scattering their parts across the room. Roaring, I turn my attention to the real source of my misery. My throbbing, swollen shaft.
My knot is enormous.
How had I not noticed? It’s bigger than it’s ever been, bigger now that I’m full of sustenance. Curling my fingers into my palm, I stop from tearing the whole appendage off and being done with it.
Wiping the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand, I calm, trembling, and cup my knot instead. I squeeze it until I grit my teeth from pain, and then I squeeze it harder, forcing the spill out. I take no pleasure; I feel no pleasure. My hand is not Daisy, and now that I’ve felt what it’s like being inside her, I’ll never find pleasure from my hand again.
I work my bulge, hissing like the base savage I am, spilling seed upon the clean floor of my home, wanting to ruin the robots’ work.
I reclaim the space, taking back control, jetting out spill all over the broken robots, the furniture, and even the glass windows, trying to empty my bulge of all it has stored. It makes no difference. I curse my misery, thrashing my tail. And when my shaft is red and aching from violent fingers, when everything is marked and claimed by me, I take to the wilds outside. I leave Daisy and my den behind.
Tonight, I will be what I’ve always known I am.
Not a king.
Not an honorable naga.
But a primitive animal. A reptile. The one I’ve buried deep within. The one that needs to be far, far away from its mate. Because if it’s not?
I shudder, not letting the thought of what would happen come to my mind.
Twenty-Three
Alone
Daisy
Dropping to sit on the shower floor, I stare after Zaku, waiting for him to return. I press my hand between my legs and thrum my clit, clenching around nothing. The loss of his cock has me reeling. Zaku’s scent vanishes. I was so close to the edge that now I’m consumed by the fall from it, but as the seconds turn into minutes, and Zaku doesn’t reappear, I pull my hand away with frustration.
I stand and figure out how to turn off the showers, my nerves twitchy and pent-up. I’m tired, annoyed, and desperately pushing the last few days out of my mind. The blood and the cage—the Lurker—are invading my thoughts again.
I dry off and step into Zaku’s room, wrapped in a towel. I expect to see him, but the room is empty. I avoid looking at the cage and the robot within, who’s lasering the inside, and head for the closet.
And I pause, staring at the island of baubles, my gaze going to the picture. Feeling my blood pumping, I slowly go to it and pick it up. Hands shaking, I crush it between my fingers and rip it in half. Stupid ghost. You’re not even mine. I tear it into tiny little pieces and cup them in my palms. Heading back to the bathroom, I flush them down the toilet.
A fitting end.
Returning to the closest, emboldened but still angry and confused, I put on some loose black slacks and a long-sleeved shirt. When I leave, I’m still alone.
My gaze falls on the open door across the way.
I still. Is it a trap? Is Zaku testing me? It has to be a trap, right?
Or is there really a ghost haunting me?
I walk to the door. Zaku isn’t devious enough to try and trick me. He’s practically an open book. Peering into the room beyond, my eyes go to the stairs. I hear the buzzing of a robot out of my sight.
“Zaku?” I call out. I get nothing except the robot’s whirr in response.
Heading up the stairs, I frown, coming across the robot repairing the wall.
The blood trail is gone.
I slip past the robot and enter the hallway of the upper level of the house. Everything is gone from the fight. It’s like Vagan was never here, that I never stabbed him, that none of that happened at all. There’s no corpse to greet me, no rubble and plaster. There are only the sleek edges of a sparsely decorated home.
The red door opens when I turn the handle.
On the other side, everything is exactly the same as it was the first day Zaku brought me to this place. Almost.
Instead of seeing broken furniture, a shattered window, and the markings of a fight. There are broken robot pieces scattered across the floor. Some twitch and spark. Amongst them are several robots gathering the pieces and taking them into the walls of the house.
I recall Zaku mentioning the robots repairing it, but I never imagined they’d be able to do so to this degree...
When I step out, Zaku’s smell floods my nose.
My skin heats furiously and my eyes contract. A whistle of air escapes through my lips as his smell falls upon me thickly. I bring my hands to my chest and drop to my knees, sucking in, needing more of it, all of it, right now. The world tilts, and my swollen sex quivers erratically.
My knees slide apart, slipping on the stone, and I press my hands to my sex. I moan loudly, practically salivating.
Zaku’s scent has always warmed me, though it’s never been like this, never been this overwhelming. I can’t get my hands under the waistband of my slacks fast enough. My fingers slip through wetness, seeking my opening and my clit at the same time. Thrumming hard, shoving my fingers into my body, it’s not enough. I paw at my sex, thrusting my hips helplessly. My arousal gushes.
“Zaku,” I moan weakly, scared. My sex constricts around my fingers, and I lean forward until my cheek is pressed to the floor. It’s wet and sticky, but down here, his scent is even more potent. “Zaku,” I say again, calling out for him.
I push my palm to my clit, rubbing hard.
It’s not enough. I lick the floor, knowing it’s his seed beneath my lips.
He tastes as good as he smells.
Writhing like an animal, I inhale him. His smell is changing me. I don’t know what’s happening to me, and my fear builds. I need him badly. So badly it hurts.
Where is he? I whimper.
I clean the floor with my tongue. I tug my hand from between my legs with a cry and wipe my fingers through his seed, returning them to my sex and pushing it inside me. I don’t know why I do it—it’s just right.
And after I do, my body cramps. Pain tightens my stomach. I curl into a fetal position until it goes away.
My lust returns furiously, my sex crying out for more of his seed. For hours, I crawl from one puddle to the next, fighting the robots who come near me for it. A wild thing, inhuman, desperate for more. I beg for Zaku, but he never comes to me, never relieves my torment, and as the day falls to evening, the robots finally win out.
His scent slowly vanishes from the air.
I don’t know how long I lie there, staring at the ceiling, touching myself. No matter how many times I come, it’s not enough. It’s not what I need. The robots clean me up like I’m part of the room, like they cleaned Zaku when he was unconscious. I’m too tired to stop them.
When it gets dark, I crawl up onto the sofa and pass out.
I wake with a start, forgetting where I am.
Snapping upright, my eyes darting around wildly. I yank my hand out from my pants where it must have wandered in my sleep and suck in fresh air, realizing where I am and how I got there. Heat and shame colors my cheeks.
Zaku would never let me sleep here. He always made me sleep in his nest.
He’s gone.
The thought jolts me, and I push my legs over the side. It’s day again, a
nd the robots are gone. I look around the room absently. There’s a plate of meat and fruit, and I grab the apple as I stand.
“Zaku?” I call for him again.
My eyes slice to the window—the completely fixed window—but he’s not there. Instead, there’s a pile of rotting corpses that weren’t there before.
Squinting, I see pig corpses. Lots and lots of pig corpses.
What I don’t see is Vagan’s corpse.
“House,” I call out. “Why are there pig corpses outside?”
A speaker answers from one of the walls. “The pigs entered the house, and as a source of meat that needed replenishment in the icebox, the house accepted the resource.”
My fingers go to my mouth as nausea threatens. “What about Vagan?”
“I don’t understand. What is a Vagan?” the house responds.
I walk down the length of the window, trying to see around the pile for a shimmer of blue. “The other creature that attacked the house,” I say a little nervously. “I killed him.”
“Except you, all beings who entered the house have either left or have been used to replenish the house’s resources.”
“And Zaku?”
“What is a Zaku?”
I sigh. “The house’s master,” I correct. “Where is he?”
“The current master left yesterday at 11:18 a.m. He has not returned.”
11:18? I tilt my head. I don’t know the ancient time system. But that was yesterday, and he still hasn’t returned. It confirms that he did leave and isn’t just hiding in one of the numerous rooms in the house.
Why would he leave? And in the middle of a shower? In the middle of… My confusion builds. Had I done something wrong? Had I said something?
Did he… did he not want me, once he had me? I couldn’t take him, but...
I lift my hand to my nose. His smell did something to me, made me delirious, mindless, and lusty. As the memories resurface, I drop my hand. I would have done anything to take the heat between my legs away. I would’ve begged.
I licked the fucking floor. I scrub my face with my hands and run back to the kitchen. Grabbing a cup from the cabinet, I fill it with water, gulping it down and pouring another until my mouth feels clean again.
“Where did he go?” I ask the house, not expecting an answer.
“Relay Two’s current master went west.”
“West? Relay Two?”
A robot comes out of one of the walls and takes my empty cup away. It also lifts one of its long arms, and points in the direction of the gorge. “West is that way. Relay Two is one of three relays in this area,” it answers.
Turning, I can just see over the cliffside outside the house’s grounds. Searching the lawn, I realize the same rocky pathway Zaku climbed to bring me here the first day is in that direction. The same path I would need to take to go back to the facility.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You are welcome.” The robot drops his arm and leaves.
I check for Vagan’s corpse again. I still don’t see it.
Could he be alive?
My fingers twist, remembering the feel of stabbing him in the stomach, the way his muscle fought me. The pressure it took to sink the blade in. Zaku regenerated from a stab wound to the chest, a deep wound that bled for hours. He hadn’t died. Instead, he went unconscious until the wound closed, only rousing when it had.
The Python’s head… My eyes dart to the skulls on the lawn. There are some other bones among them, but they’re mostly skulls.
Vagan could’ve regenerated like Zaku.
Impossible.
The blade nicked Zaku’s heart...
My fingers twitch.
I swear I stabbed the Python in the neck and through his jugular. Both Vagan’s and the Python’s wounds should’ve killed them. Zaku’s wounds too. Yet none of them had died.
Realization sinks in.
I only know for certain the Python is dead because his rotting head is on a stake. Swallowing thickly, I bring my hands to my mouth.
Shelby’s in trouble.
A shudder zips through my body. Vagan’s after her. He wants her badly enough to break into Zaku’s home, nearly killing me, nearly killing him for her. Zaku owes him a debt for the tech. And Zaku’s gone. They both are. My chest constricts.
Shelby’s pregnant. She can’t fight without risking her child. She shouldn’t take the risks I’ve been able to. She can’t risk the child.
Vagan doesn’t care if she’s with child… I saw it in his madness. The faces of the children I saved on Colony 4, their frightened eyes, their tears, their hopelessness hits me like a punch to the face. I see the Ketts approaching in the distance, the fleet unable to stop them.
I run to the door, praying it’ll open, and when it does, I don’t question it. I race to the ledge and look out.
I have to warn Shelby before it’s too late.
I have no idea what happened or why Zaku left. If he is with Vagan… I shake my head.
I will protect Shelby’s baby, even if it’s from him.
Twenty-Four
Gone
Zaku
I go to the human’s facility in my torment. Intending to tear it down, to locate all the males across the land, human and naga, and rip their heads off. They deserve pain and my fury. For coming to my land and trying to steal it from me.
Hunger claws my gut.
But by the time I see the lights of the humans’ ship and their strange robots guarding the once dusty ruins, my frustration wanes. All I want is to be back in my den with Daisy and coiled around her body. I worked the enormous knot out of my shaft during the journey, and my seed hasn’t fully refilled it. The pressure, the tension in my groin has eased and with it some of my anger.
Except each time I glimpse my shaft, I snarl viciously, hating it. I am the biggest naga in all the land and for once, I hate it. Not even my father was as large as me. I used to revel in this knowledge, but I’m beginning to think I am cursed. If I were a smaller male...
Daisy is a small, human female. I don’t want to bring her pain. If I bring her pain, she may not submit to me. She may refuse to let me touch her again.
She will see me as she saw the Python. I spit venom.
And I gave her freedom… I had done so as I left, unsure if I would ever come back, if it would even be possible with the tension wrecking my thoughts. At least behind the barrier of my home she would be safe, especially if I were to guard it and her from afar.
She could be the home’s new master, keeping me and all else who might hurt her away from her. That way, I could ensure she is mine without fully giving her up.
I was an idiot.
If she locks me out, I will break the glass like Vagan had.
Until him, no other has ever been able to. But if Vagan can, so can I. Looking around at the shadowy forest on all sides, I clench my fists.
What if another male comes while I’ve been away? Or animals? Or creatures of the forest? What if she accidentally lets one in and I’m here at the facility where I know she is not? What if she leaves and gets attacked?
What if she comes looking for me?
I turn for home, leaving the humans and their creations alive, cursing my recent choices. Cursing many of the choices I have made.
It was idiotic of me to leave Daisy and my den. My body is weak and strained beyond its limit, from my mating heat and my wound. My head is a torrent of riotous thoughts. I dig my claws into my palms, seeking the blood under my skin. I had her on my stem. I had her spread open upon my tail.
And I left.
It’s only proven to me that I am nothing more than a lowly, despicable reptile.
I wish I had never found that book.
She’s the only thing that can cure me of these horrible thoughts and feelings. If I can’t be a king for her, then how can I ever be a king again among my kind?
Slicing through the forest, across the gorge, I don’t stop, needing to be back home, needing to see Dai
sy. I need to know that she is safe. The sun sets too soon, and it’s dark before I reach the base of my mountain. Exhausted, I’m forced to stop. I can’t risk ascending the cliff pass in the dark.
I can guard the path, though. Ensure no naga finds it, and protect Daisy from here. Pressing my hand to my chest, I lower to the ground, hiding within a pile of dead leaves. I’ve reopened my wound and fresh blood leaks through my fingers. Sleep finds me swiftly, despite not wanting it to.
I wake once, hearing movement but when the noises fade soon after, indicating it is not a large creature passing by, I fall back asleep.
The sun is high above me when I wake once more. I release a frustrated hiss. My knot is full to bursting again, but I find the pain in my chest gone. The wound has reclosed. I take to the mountain with renewed strength. What feels like an eternity passes before I see the glint of my den’s windows.
I enter my home and dart my eyes around the space, finding everything the way it has always been, quiet and perfect, and…empty. Usually, I can feel Daisy’s presence all around me. She’s brought life into my world and into my home. Right now, my den feels lifeless.
A low hiss climbs my throat as my nostrils flare to take in the scent of the place.
There’s no scent at all. I make my way to the lower rooms.
She is waiting for me there. She is always waiting for me.
I smile.
The door to my nest is open and I head straight for it, eagerness vibrating my nerves.
It’s empty and perfectly made. The pillows, the bedding I once detested, all crisp and organized as it had been every day since the first day I’d come to this place. Slipping to the bathroom, it’s also empty. I go to the closet next, and halt, seeing the collar I gave her, the diamond strings reattached to it lying where the sapphire necklace usually is.
Blood rushes through my veins.
It’s the only thing in this wretched place that has changed—has ever changed. Floored, I stare at the diamond chains. Only noticing afterward that the picture of human males is also gone.
