by Naomi Lucas
He says it’s because I’m weak. I don’t believe him. I need him. I need him so badly it hurts.
I miss him.
I can feel around him and not have to be ashamed of it.
I want my Zaku back.
Does he still want me?
I rub my face, wanting to rub it all away. Stinging my skin, I drop my hands. I hear the scuff of his scales sliding across the floor, and when I look up, I see Zaku entering the room. He catches my gaze as he closes the red door behind him but looks away.
He approaches me with something in his hand. Reaching out, he offers it to me. “Fresh clothes,” he says, his voice a rumble.
I take them and hold them to my chest. “Thank you.”
He makes his way over to the door. “I am going to harvest berries.”
“Why won’t you look at me?”
He stops. I step away from the counter, and toward him.
“Why won’t you touch me?” I try to keep my voice from cracking. “It’s been nearly two weeks,” my voice cracks anyway. “Why?”
He tilts his head in my direction. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
I take another step. “You’ve never hurt me before. Why would you now? Tell me the truth.” My voice gains steam. “Is it because of the way I look? Is it because I… I look this way?”
He pivots in my direction and hisses furiously, forcing me to lean back. His cowl expands, shuttering my view of everything else. The gold flecks in his dark eyes spark with anger. “Never say such a thing! You are the most beautiful creature in the world.”
“But I’m not. I never was,” I whisper, unable to hold his eyes. “I’m this,” I run my hand down my chest and clutch the loose shirt I’m wearing. “I’m scarred.”
His tail coils around where I stand. Zaku’s fingers clasp my chin, and I squeeze my eye shut. He lifts my face. “Look at me.”
I crack my eye open unwillingly. “I hate when you say that.”
“No one is more beautiful than you. No one can be.”
“Your lies are pretty.”
“They are not liesss. I do not lie.”
I swat his hand off me and turn away. I never cared about the way I looked, but now, it’s a ball of pain in my chest. It’s building, and each day it gets worse. If he hadn’t regaled my looks so much… “Why won’t you touch me then? Do you not want me anymore? There’s something wrong and it’s been wrong since the shower..”
Zaku’s hissing deepens. “Daisssy—”
“Go. Leave,” I snap, suddenly needing space before I become the weak creature I’m feeling right now, the weak creature he says I am. I don’t want Zaku to see me vulnerable anymore.
He grabs my hand and spins me back to face him. “You do not get to tell me what to do,” he growls.
I growl back. “The same goes for you.”
His brow cocks, and I try tugging my hand from his grasp. His hold on me tightens. “I will not have you think you are not beautiful. You are healing, little one, and I am…”
“You’re what?” I ask when he trails off.
His eyes shift away, and he shakes his head.
“You’re what, Zaku? What’s wrong? What happened during the shower? Why did you really leave?”
He hisses, releases my hand. “Don’t.”
“Don’t? After all you’ve done? After bartering for me? Stealing me? Keeping me trapped and then caging me? You ask me to… don’t?” Anger fills me, replacing my doubt. “I will not ‘don’t.’”
Zaku’s lips twist.
“Tell me!” I shout. “You wanted a mate so bad—you should know that mates talk! Contracted couples communicate! How am I supposed to feel if I don’t know what’s going on with you?” I lower my voice. “How can I believe your words if I don’t know if there’s any truth behind them? Let me trust you again. I want to trust you!”
When he stares at me, saying nothing, the numbness I had thought long gone returns hard and fast. I refuse to be deluded any longer. I refuse to live in a world where I’m unwanted any longer. I might not be the prodigy my father hoped I would be, but I survived without him.
I can survive without Zaku too. My soul splinters. I can make it here on Earth. There are entire cities, towns, buildings scattered across the land, and technology that I’m growing more comfortable with every day. I’ll scavenge, stay low, and make my own way.
Perhaps I’ll head west and seek out the missing naga females.
Yes. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll join them.
Sanctuary. The word fills my head.
“Fine,” I say, heading for the door.
My throat closes as I approach it. I haven’t tried to leave and I don’t know if it’ll open for me. A hand slams on the glass before I can try. Zaku’s claws streak across the door before curling into a fist in front of my face.
I swallow thickly, and then I smell it.
It. His scent.
“You are going nowhere,” he growls.
Thirty
The Last King Cobra
Zaku
How dare she try to leave?
I push away from the door, seeking to calm my rage. Calm! It’s not something I’ve felt since Daisy. There’s no calm anymore, only her. Her and my failures and the hard truth of my existence.
“You want to know the truth? Is that it?” I snap.
She slowly turns to face me and I lower to face her.
“Yes,” she says. “More than anything.”
“I’m going to hurt you.” I slip my tongue out to taste her cheek. I can’t help it. Not with the emotion etched on her face. I’ve been needing to taste her, desperate for it. I was tormented before I ran, and before her pain. I am in anguish now. The need, the endless throbbing, it will not stop.
It was easy to ignore for a time. Not anymore, not with her mending.
“Hurt me?”
“I am trying not to.” My words come out through a tightened throat. “Because I will. I will hurt you, and you will hate me. You will leave me, and I will have no choice but to let you go. That’s the truth. I want you so much that I don’t trust my strength, or my mind anymore. I am not…” I trail off, staring at the streak of saliva on her cheek from my tongue, wanting to lick it again.
It glistens like a beacon.
She pulls her arms to her chest. It means she’s nervous. She’s done it often, shielding herself from me, and only recently have I begun to realize why. I hiss deeply and thrust away from her before I do more than lick her face.
Daisy jerks forward. “Wait—don’t!” She throws her arms around me.
I go rigid. My soul stills. If I move… I will feel her and I will fall.
“Don’t go. Don’t stop talking. Please, Zaku, I want to know what’s wrong. I do.” She pushes her face to my chest.
Should I tell her that I know nothing about who I am? Shaking, I inhale and embrace her to me, risking everything. “I do not know how to live with another. I do not know how to take care of you. Since I’ve had you, I have only brought you further into danger.”
She lifts her head and looks at me. Her hair is beginning to grow back, her scars are fading, her self-assurance returning, helped by the stimulants from the pod. I have read everything I have on the machine—everything. The meds it administers, the sprays it covers her body with. But I don’t have all the information or the skill to help in her recovery. I am ill-equipped.
I always have been.
“You have. You’ve put me in danger. But you’ve also done more for me than you could know.”
“Yet you said so yourself. I have done nothing but hurt you.”
“The cage? Yeah, that wasn’t good. Bartering for females against their will? That’s even worse.”
I close my eyes.
“You’ve also saved me,” she continues.
“It wasn’t me who pulled you from the wreckage. It was Azsote.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about, Zaku.” She reaches up and cups my cheek, and I tremb
le from her touch. “You’ve helped me realize I can be strong too. That there’s more to life than war and death and laws and codes. That… life is more important than all of that. You realize that, right?”
“You cannot have a life with me.”
Her brow furrows, and I hate seeing the softness from her gaze diminish. The hurt that crosses her face. She snatches her hand back and brings it to her chest like she’s been burned. “I don’t understand,” she says.
Groaning, I put distance between us, moving back into the room. “I will hurt you. There will come a time where I can’t hold back, or I will make another mistake, and I will betray you. I have almost done it already. It… will happen again.”
“I don’t—”
“The shower!” I roar, spinning on her and baring my fangs.
She flinches but doesn’t recoil.
She should be running!
“You told me we weren’t compatible, and I refused to believe it. I tried to mate with you anyway, even after the deal we made. I used your wish for freedom against you. My mind is not what it once was. My body is not the same. It hasn’t been, not since I saw you. Look,” I growl, swiping my claws across my tail. “Look at me! I am an animal!”
My member bursts forth, barely contained by the scales that hide it. Red, thick, and swollen, my knot beyond recognition. I grab my shaft and squeeze, and even without touching my bulge, spill pours out of me. “Look at it, at us, and tell me I won’t hurt you!” Tearing my eyes away from my misery, I force them to Daisy, needing to see the horror return to her. “I will destroy you,” I say, my voice lowering as my torment builds.
Except it’s not horror that crosses her features. It’s not disgust, or fear, or even the sadness that has been plaguing her. It’s… something else. Something unexpected. She’s staring at my shaft, and her chest rises and falls. Her nose twitches. Her cheeks pinken and then redden, and when they do, her lips part.
She takes a step toward me.
My arm snaps out to stop her. “If you come any closer, I don’t know what will happen,” I warn.
“Zaku,” she says my name absently and then her eye rips from me to look at the floor, her brow furrowing, and if I didn’t think her skin could heat any further, it does. She shakes once all over and grasps her shirt with straining fingers.
Her reaction confuses me.
“This is why I avoid you,” I rasp. “I have felt what it’s like to have you, to have you kill for me! And I have been cursed ever since. It is the least I deserve.” Sweat beads her brow, and I fist my hands to stop from diving forward and licking it off. “I am not a king. I am not anything. I am becoming something I never wanted to be, a primal, nasty naga, one who deserves to have his spine removed from his body and wrapped around a tree. That is why I left. We’re not compatible, nor should we ever be. You are a rare creature, a human female, and I am nothing but a beast living in someone else’s home, pretending to be something I am not.”
She licks her lips and I nearly throw her to the ground and mount her. Pivoting to the door, I need to get away and now, or my worst fear will come true.
I grab the handle. “The place is yours. You will be safe here—I will make certain of it. I will keep these lands clear of any who might harm you and provide for you, but to ask me to stay? I can’t. I would like to keep you, and I have tried, but I can’t at the expense of your life. Do not ask such a thing of me. I am losing my mind.”
I push the door open, shaking all over.
Daisy throws her arms around me. I crush the handle.
“Stupid, stupid, thick-headed male,” she says against my back, her breath teasing my scales. I don’t move, I don’t dare, wrenching the metal between my fingers and closing my eyes. “You are so stupid.”
“Is that…what thick-headed means?” I grit, remembering her calling me this. She climbs over my tail and pushes her body flush to my back.
It’s too much. It’s torture.
“Yes. That’s what thick-headed means. I am not the weak creature you want to so badly believe I am. You are not leaving me. I am not asking.”
I growl.
She continues like she has no idea that I am about to tear her clothes off and rut her across the floor. That I am about to add her bones to the ones outside. Agony floods me at the thought.
“I want to mate. I want to.”
My claws crack, pushing into the metal. “I… It will not… work…”
“Then let me prove it to you. After everything, can you give me that?”
“A gift?” I wheeze, slicing my tongue with my fangs, swallowing blood and venom.
“Yes. A gift. One more gift.”
How can I refuse?
“I will hurt you.”
She laughs—laughs!—while pressing her soft lips to my spine. “No, Zaku, you won’t.”
My mind scrambles. I drop the metal shards and clasp her hand on my chest, feeling hope niggle its way into me. Horrible, damnable hope. She pulls away but takes my hand, coming to my side. I peer down at her.
Daisy gifts me a smile, and I am undone.
Thirty-One
Taming the King
Daisy
I lead Zaku back into his home. He’s nervous, perhaps afraid? It’s flattering and is giving me confidence. Confidence I have been in sore need of. I thought he didn’t want me anymore. I’d been wrong.
“Wait,” he rumbles, pulling his hand from mine. Before I can ask him why, he’s slipping into the kitchen. When he returns, it’s with a kitchen knife. He hands it to me and I eye it curiously.
“There are knives in the kitchen?” I’ve gone through every drawer several times over. I never found a knife. I assumed the robots had utensils attached to them, and Zaku used his claws for cutting the meat.
“They are kept locked and hidden.”
“Why are you giving me this?” I ask, turning it over.
“So you have protection.”
“I’m not going—”
Zaku stops me, lifting my chin with his fingers. “I vowed I would never give you a reason to stab me like you had Vagan and the Python, but…” His eyes glint dark and gold. “I need you to know you will use it.”
“I can’t possibly—”
“Daisssy,” he says, hissing my name unusually long.
Stunned by the anguish in his voice, I can’t help but nod. “Okay,” I whisper.
He closes his eyes and when he opens them, there’s only hunger. Feverish hunger. The anguish is gone. I curl my fingers around the knife’s handle, anxiety swirling through me. He really is afraid he’s going to hurt me. Glimpsing his cock, I know why.
It’s gone from a smooth shaft with a knot in the middle to a swollen battering ram. Veins pulse up and down its length, pushed out by the seed flooding it. It leaks, milky and wet from his tip, blooming the air with its scent. I’m addicted to it. I don’t know why I’m not flopping on the floor, but I’m glad I’m not.
I want to be. I feel my body changing because of his scent. The sensation is exciting and pleasant. Some alien species change during certain cycles… I should’ve gotten my period by now, but I haven’t.
And ovulating? I take shots to stop that from happening. All women do unless they plan to get pregnant with a contracted partner.
I haven’t had a shot in several months though... Shaking the thought from my mind, I’ve missed many monthlies due to stress in my old line of work, and the shots last a while.
Zaku shifts and I jerk, realizing I’ve been staring at his cock again. Forcing my gaze to his face, blood trickles from the corner of his mouth.
My palms dampen with sweat. I retake his hand with my free one and finish the descent. I’m going to claim him as Gemma has with her male.
With my confidence building, I approach the Zaku’s nest. I haven’t been in the lower parts of the house since the crash. First, because the stairs were too much for me, and then it was because of Zaku’s indifference. I was afraid to crawl into it, only to lie
amongst the soft bedding without him.
I stop at the edge, suddenly nervous again. I turn to face him.
“Remember the knife,” he growls.
I look down at it in my hand and place it by the pillows. “I will. Lie back.”
“Lie… back?”
“Yes,” I respond quickly before I lose my nerve.
His eyes hood and my chest tightens. His tail thumps, but he listens to me, running the length of it against my leg as he moves past me. When he’s positioned, leaning on the pillows with his arms folded behind his head, I gaze at him, unable to do anything else. He’s certain he’s going to hurt me.
He could. He’s huge. I hear the door to the bedroom click close behind me, and I know it’s his tailtip that has shut it.
It wraps around my ankle a moment later.
I pull off my loose clothes, avoiding looking at his cock. If I do… I’ll just stare at it, and nothing will happen. The tension between my legs wants something to happen. It wants it badly.
His eyes shift over my naked body, and my spine straightens. He’s seen me naked many times as the pod worked its magic on me. I’m not what I once was and he knows that. This is different though...
His tail tightens around my ankle. “Come here,” he growls. “Or I will force it.”
Heat rises to my cheeks. Crawling over his tail, I straddle him. His scent floods me, and my eye waters. Wetness leaks from me, and feeling his scales all along my sex, I push down into him. Male musk, sweet starsugar, and every smell I have ever loved enters me. I stare at his bulge and saliva gushes.
“Daisss—”
I grasp his knot with both hands and moan. Spill shoots out.
Zaku thrashes, sending me bouncing, he hisses and grasps the bedding, shredding it. I hold onto his cock, my sex slipping over his scales. He roars.
My mouth falls open and I dive forward, so hungry it hurts.
Zaku grabs hold of me as I squeeze his cock, forcing his seed out. Pressing my lips to his tip, I drink it down. Starving, I wrap my mouth on him and suck, becoming an uncivilized creature like him. A primitive creature who needs to devour or die. His body shakes as I suck him hard, tensing my jaw, swaying my face side to side, lashing my tongue. Grasping his knot, I knead it, needing more. Cum flows into my mouth like a river, and I take it all greedily.
