Chapter 5—Revelation
(Sena)
Low growls forced me awake. Disoriented, it took me a second to realize I was in La’el’s nest—alone. I stayed still, while my heart pounded in my chest. The sounds came again, making me vibrate with motion. I searched the low light for La’el, praying it was him I was hearing. I couldn’t see him and I felt a shiver rake over my body when another low growl penetrated the cavern.
I needed a weapon.
My hand snaked out quickly, dropping to the cavern floor where I’d stashed the large sharp rock. Fingers grappled across the darkness until I felt the familiar edges of the long, hard rock under the soft moss. Relief and determination flooded over me as I clutched the shrapnel closer to my bare chest, keeping as still as possible. Where was La’el?
In the low light from the corner of our moss bed, I could see a zanzi moving into the large cavern. Its scales were definitely not the blue of La’el’s—more of a smoky grey. Instead of a soft mane, spikes ran up its back and horns protruded from his head. This is what I’d imagined a dragon would look like—fierce, deadly, and nothing soft about it. Slightly bigger than La’el, it had a broader chest and a little more height. My heart slammed into overdrive, forcing me to hold my breath to quiet my breathing. Why had La’el left me alone?
The snarls had grown to something more vicious and deeper. Biting my lip, I held in any noise that could give me away. I was terrified of the zanzi, but I wouldn’t let it kill me without a fight. The piece of rock dug into my palm as I clutched it harder. I was naked and vulnerable, my only option to catch the creature off guard.
“Su nepta eske os rihtka. Mekt fol, mekt fol,” the zanzi spoke into the cavern just at its entrance. Its voice sent a chill down my spine even if its words were unrecognizable. Without La’el, nothing translated, but I recognized the sounds of hunter with prey. I stayed buried in the moss bed still slightly out of view, only a few more feet and the creature would see me. Quickly, I looked around the area and took in my advantages. My options were sparse. With the zanzi being so big, my only chance was to get out of the narrow cavern and into the open; otherwise, he’d easily pin me down in here. Rolling onto my belly, I crawled to the end of the moss bed, keeping as close to the wall as possible.
The zanzi came fully into the cavern, its head swiveling around to catch sight of me in the nest. A furious hiss emitted from it as it lunged toward me, teeth flashing. With a quick roll, I dumped off the side of the moss and onto the cavern floor, the zanzi’s head now where I had been previously. Raising the jagged rock, I sliced down over the creature’s left eye, feeling the soft orb give under the sharp stone.
Its head jerked back quickly, a roar of pain deafening the cavern. I ground my teeth as I rushed past the squirming beast. I stopped short when I came to the ledge that dropped off to the fire pit below. My heart pounded and the zanzi’s roar ripped through the mountain. I looked for any way to escape. To my left, I saw more jagged rocks sticking out from the side of the wall. I ran toward them not, looking down as I stepped down toward the first one. I was a good two hundred feet from the ground and if I fell, I would die, no doubt. The zanzi’s enraged roars had quieted, but I could hear it rushing out of the cavern toward me. Breathing hard, I latched onto the first grip and started my descent one step at a time. I’d never rock climbed before, but at that moment, I’d wished I done it a shit ton. Reminder to self: Learn how to rock climb when I get out of this hellhole.
Keeping my focus on my hold, I made sure not to look up at the zanzi. The next cavern opening was right below me, maybe a five-foot drop. Looking at the distance, I sought more places to put my feet and found my options lacking. Fuck, you get yourself into some really fucked-up situations, Sena. My hand began to cramp on the rock hold and my feet slipped from underneath me. I didn’t have much time to make my decision: jump or fall.
Panting, I looked up and saw the smoke-colored zanzi peering over the ledge, waiting for me to drop to my demise. Its eye was oozing, the destroyed orb a broken mess on its face. I snarled up at the creature, wishing I’d plucked out its other eye. Where the fuck was La’el?
My hand cramped again and my tentative grip was slipping, the nails on my fingers ripping in my attempt to hold on tighter. It was time to choose: jump or fall; either way, I was going to meet rock, hard. Looking down, I saw my landing spot; it was only five feet below me, and if I was lucky, I wouldn’t break my ankle. With that thought in mind, I let go. The ground hit me harder than I thought it would. For a second, my breath was knocked out and I was gasping but also trying to move as close to the cavern entrance as possible.
The sound of wings bracing above made me gaze up through my rough gasps. Smoky scales hovered, descending and closing in fast. Instinctively, I raised my arm to prepare for the onslaught. Ivory teeth bared before me as I felt the heat of flames building from the zanzi’s maw.
Two enraged roars followed a loud smack of flesh. I lowered my arm and saw smoky scales and blue tumble through the air in a fast summersault of teeth and claws—La’el! A whoosh of air escaped me as I fell back against the cavern floor. Fuck, La’el! I jumped up quickly, racing to the ledge and watched as the two zanzis collided with the ground two-hundred feet below, still locked in a rage-filled embrace.
La’el’s teeth sank into the grey zanzi’s flanks while his hind legs clawed at the beast’s underbelly. Although the blue zanzi was smaller, his size allowed him much more mobility than the bigger zanzi. They rolled in a massive heap of flesh, biting and clawing. Other zanzi gathered around them, loud coos and roars vibrating through the cavern.
I could only pray La’el won this battle.
(La’el)
Te’ki’s fangs sank into my shoulder as we rolled, ripping into my blue scales until my blue blood spilled over our bodies. We struggled, each of us trying to gain a position of power. Roaring in rage, I raked my back claws down his soft belly. My talons sank into his sensitive flesh with no resistance, his warm blood coating my legs in rivulets. He’d tried to kill my Tao! I had every intention to rip the scales from his cooling corpse.
Te’ki’s large claws lashed out toward my head. I quickly released his flank and leaned away, dodging the blow. With his foreleg outstretched, I buried my fangs into the appendage and locked my jaw, determined to rip it from his body. A sound of rage rippled through me and I pulled back on his leg. Te’ki screamed, noticing his mistake, too late to take it back. I heard the bone crack under my teeth, even tasted some of the crushed marrow leak onto my tongue. It fed my bloodlust and gave me a great satisfaction to hear his pain. I barely felt the sharp tug on my mane or the teeth gripping at the base of my neck.
“La’el, release him!” my Nan’s voice broke through the haze, making me release instantly. The mangled flesh of the other zanzi fell from my mouth in a disgusting blend of crushed bone and blood. I could feel the biting pain of my Aza’s teeth buried into my neck holding me still. They would only stop the fight if I had been about to kill the other zanzi. At that moment, I resented them for not letting me kill him.
“La’el, what happened?” Nan shoved his face into mine, breaking my trance completely. I shook my head, trying to clear out all of the fog so I could respond.
“He tried to kill my Tao,” I panted out. It dawned on me then. My head snapped up as I looked over the rock face for my mate. I spotted him peering over a ledge not far from our nest. His face contorted into hard lines. Relief washed over my body in intense waves, making my scales ripple with aftershocks.
He was okay. I shivered but otherwise kept myself in check as I looked past Nan to Te’ki. The other zanzi was on his side, his foreleg crushed right above his digits. Grim satisfaction swept into me; having his leg mangled would make it difficult for him to come after my mate again. I had defended my mate. Te’ki’s left eye was also completely gouged out, a nasty mutilated hole all that remained. I knew I hadn’t been the one to cause that particular injury. My gaze swept back up to Senana, who still leaned over the ledge watching us.
“Let me go, Aza,” I told my sire whose teeth were still holding me in place. He released me and I shook myself, getting the loose dirt and blood off my scales. I splayed my wings, preparing to fly up to my Tao and take him back to our nest when Te’ki spoke. I paused.
“His kind has killed ours. Taken them and gutted them just to see how we look on the inside. You would exchange with something that sees you as nothing but a monster?” His harsh words sank in, leaving me cold. I looked to my Aza, wanting him to confirm what the other zanzi had just said. My sire’s red eyes were dark and that same scowl tight across his face as he looked away from me. I sighed and stared back at the mangled zanzi, my expression blank. “He is my Tao. I cannot change that.” My gaze shifted back to where Sena stood, looking down at all of us.
(Sena)
La’el came for me and brought me back to our nest without a word. His expression was blank as we walked into the cavern together. I could tell something wasn’t right, I just didn’t know how it was going to affect me. I moved away from the blue zanzi and over the moss bed. The soft spongy material was a relief against my sore body. Falling five feet hadn’t seemed like it would hurt this much, but my body would say otherwise.
La’el stayed away near the far wall, watching me with guarded, blue eyes. Something was definitely not right. The emotions rolling off of him were…distorted and hard to understand. A part of me didn’t want to know. Self-preservation told me I needed to know.
“Are you hurt?” He had searched me briefly when he’d gotten me off the ledge, but not to the extent he had done since he’d brought me here. It felt more removed than his normal self. I looked at my bloody fingertips and bruised, scratched body and shrugged. “I’ll be fine. Sleep, food, and water is all I need.” That and getting out of this fucking mountain, but I kept that part to myself. “What the hell was that about?”
“I should not have left you. Some do not think you belong. They have said things.”
“I don’t belong here, that’s obvious,” I retorted.
“Do humans kill zanzi?” he asked, making me look up in surprise. I sighed and looked away, unable to answer the question without feeling awkward. He didn’t say anything else, just waited for me to respond, his eyes unblinking as they watched me. La’el must have already known I had less patience than him; it didn’t take much to figure out.
“To be honest, La’el, they probably do. People are notorious for destroying shit they don’t understand.” I ran a shaking hand through my dirty hair. “You can’t judge millions for one person’s fuck-ups.”
The blue zanzi made no movement, his cerulean eyes continuing to bore into me. “You’re right; I can’t judge you because of what your people have done. Just like you can’t judge all of my kind because of what one has done to you.”
I nodded. “I’m not perfect, La’el, but I don’t want to hurt you.” I stopped. “Or your kind,” I added. “I just don’t want to die.”
A deep rumble filled the cave as La’el came toward me, his tail waving lazily behind him. His muzzle dipped to collide with my chest in a gentle prod, the warmth of his nostrils welcome against my cold skin. “I will not let you die.” He continued to rumble while his body lay down in the bed, tail coming forward to brush across my cheek. The kiss of soft hair down my face had me swallowing past the rising emotions forming in my belly.
“Where were you earlier?” I asked while settling my sore frame into a better position on the moss.
“I had to speak to my Nan.”
“What happened to the zanzi that attacked me?” I lay back, sprawled out on the moss, my mind becoming slower with each pass of his tail over my shoulders and sides. The rhythmic sweep lulled me down from the adrenaline rush that had saved me only half an hour ago.
“He won’t walk right for a while. Although I think the damage to his eyes was much worse than what I did,” he rumbled, tail swooping down the side of my throat.
I bared the area more, eyes closed and content. It felt good. It wasn’t supposed to but it did. “Well, it will make the others think twice before they try to kill me,” I hummed as his tail trailed down my side, chasing away the sore feelings and replacing them with soothing tingles. I relaxed and shifted closer to the gentle caresses. It felt good, more than good, my body was paralyzed with—what was happening to me?
“They will know my Tao is strong.” La’el started licking at my collarbone. His tongue was rough and gentle at the same time, causing a delicious sensation to form in my gut. I shifted again when his tail trailed across my belly. Unconsciously, I lifted my hands and gripped his mane, feeling deep rumbles ease out of his form. It felt so damn good. My hips jerked up when I felt the tip of his tail tease over my arousal. Arousal?
“Holy fuck!” I scrambled away, falling out of the moss and onto the hard cavern floor. Panting, I looked up at the reclining zanzi, his face bright with emotion. I had just gotten hard…while he stroked me. I ran a shaky hand through my hair again, tugging hard at the strands.
“Sena… It felt good while you were touching me.” La’el paused, his tail waving back and forth. “You felt good too. Right?” There was an unblemished hope to his inflections that made me shiver. How could he affect me this way? He wasn’t even humanoid! I drew in an uneasy gulp of air.
“I’m not a zanzi, La’el. I cannot exchange with you,” I reinforced, trying to convince my body and him at the same time. I leaned against the cavern wall, taking in deep breaths to cool my panic and my arousal. “I don’t want to exchange with you.”
“You don’t feel the same?” he asked again, not letting up.
“No, I fucking don’t. I don’t want any of this!” I shouted.
“You are my mate.”
“I refuse.”
I avoided La’el as much as possible. My clothes had dried, giving me some added protection and put me in an all-around better mood. Being naked and attacked by a zanzi hadn’t been the highlight of my prison sentence. With only so much I could do to pass the time, and La’el afraid to leave me alone for too long, he would go out in half-hour increments to fly or bask in the sun. I figured after the beat down the last zanzi had received earlier, I was safe for today at least.
Really, I was avoiding La’el after what had happened earlier. I kept trying to convince myself that I hadn’t been aroused when he’d touched me, but that denial didn’t last long. I was still hard. Every time I thought about his tail tracking over my dick… I hissed and shifted my hard cock in my pants for the hundredth time today.
There was no explanation for it. I shouldn’t feel this way about a creature with scales and four-inch-long fangs. This had to be because of the surge in the leeri field; that was the only thing I could come up with to explain what was happening to me. Regardless, I needed to control myself before night. There was no way I could sleep without him, I needed the warmth, but how was I going to explain my erection? I sighed and sat on the moss and leaned back against the cavern wall, the stone biting into my tender back. La’el would be back in a few minutes and the final sun would be sinking. What was I going to do?
My hand tracked over my arousal, the pants feeling tight and uncomfortable. Scooting down the moss bedding, I released the clasp and shoved my hand down into the fabric. Once my fingers wrapped around the warm skin of my cock, I groaned, arching into the relieving touch. I was so hard it hurt. What had the zanzi done to me?
Shoving my pants over my hips, my cock sprang free, the tip already covered in precum. I groaned and started moving my hand up and down, letting my precum slick my shaft, the feeling of relief already so close. Quick pumping strokes were followed by a few jerks of my hips. I could feel the burning in my balls as they drew up, but I couldn’t find my satisfaction. Panting, I felt my stomach muscles clench and a light sweat drench my skin. Taking my thumb, I fingered my slit, moving the fluids around the head. It felt so good my legs shook from the pleasure. Why couldn’t I come? I whined against the pain and pleasure of it. I’d never felt so desperate for an orgasm as I did in that moment.
“You are beautiful, Tao.”
La’el’s voice jerked me out of my haze and I scrambled into a sitting position, my cock knocking against my lower abdomen. Silver eyes watched me closely as he approached. His tail waved behind him in wide arcs.
“La’el…” I growled. The zanzi took no heed and came onto the moss with me. This shouldn’t be happening. I needed to fight like I had the other zanzi I needed to—his head came down to press into the crook of my neck, tongue darting out to lick the salty flesh. A moan passed through my lips and my cock jerked wildly, closer to releasing now than when I had been fucking my hand. I needed relief, and I couldn’t fucking think past the pleasure and need clouding my thoughts. I threaded my hands through his thick mane, pulling him close as I lay back down, letting him lick my stubbled throat. It was wrong, and a part of my fogged brain realized that, but it felt too good to stop.
He shifted closer, his tail tracing over my exposed belly. I trembled, my head falling back and eyes squeezing shut. It all made my body vibrate with so much need that I growled and thrashed under him. I wanted him to fuck me, to get me to the orgasm I’d been chasing since this morning. All I wanted was sex, release—I needed those things. A quick swipe of his tongue over my nipple made me forget my inner turmoil. It didn’t matter…nothing mattered. “La’el, fuck, keep doing that.”
A purr escaped him as hot puffs of air tracked down to my belly, making my muscles clench in anticipation. My hands still gripped La’el’s mane tightly, holding him in place. His tongue dipped into my navel at the sensitive point between groin and belly button. Rough laps of his forked tongue against my sensitive, sweat-covered skin had me humming through the euphoric experience.
“La’el, fuck, more,” I panted, pushing my hips up in an open invitation, my eyes firmly shut. Another louder purr passed through his large form before his tongue took a tentative swipe across the length of my cock. “Like that!” I shouted, all the air escaping from my lungs in a low pant as I jerked toward that wonderful tongue. His was rougher than anyone I’d had lick my cock before, and so much better.
“You taste so good, Senana,” La’el purred against my cock, his tongue becoming bolder. He dragged it across my tip and down the side until I could see stars behind my eyelids. God, this was so fucking wrong, but so fucking good. My legs trembled as his tongue wrapped around my length and began milking it with tight, warm tugs. My balls pulled up, but I still couldn’t catch my orgasm. Moaning, I transferred my hold onto La’el’s horns and thrust into the warm tongue wrapped around my cock. “I need more, please.”
“Tao, taste good. I can smell more, it’s stronger,” he spoke as incoherently as I was feeling, a jumbled mess of words that didn’t make any sense. When he took his tongue off my dick, I cried out in protest, my hips still thrusting up to meet the empty air. “I need to taste more, Tao.” His tongue flicked out to lap over my balls, pulling a desperate whine out of my tortured body.
There was no way I would survive it; my body was drawn so tight it would snap if I didn’t find release. It was the final drag across my hole that made me scream, coming in long ropes across my chest, shouting through the exploding release. My hands clutched at his horns in a death grip, my back bowed off the moss as pulse after pulse of seed painted my body.
I crashed back into the bed, my body a used mess of loose muscles and ragged breaths. I could feel La’el’s tongue lapping at my belly, cleaning the seed off me. I moaned, loving the sensation even after my orgasm.
“Taste good? Heard it’s bitter,” I muttered, feeling myself starting to drift, not even taking the time to open my eyes. If I did, I was sure I would freak out. I didn’t want the realization to settle in. La’el chuffed, finishing his cleaning, not leaving a drop on my worn-out body. I sighed contentedly and fell asleep, not even taking the time to pull up my pants.
I moved closer to the solid, warm body beside me. Smooth, supple flesh spooned perfectly against my chest, and a round ass pushed against my dick. I ran my hand up and down the tight abdomen and taut nipples. A soft gasp of surprise made me smile. My hand dipped lower over angular strong hips that moved into the navel. Another shuddered breath escaped him. It felt so good to touch him again. I’d missed him so much. My lips brush against the back of his head, his long hair tickling my nose. I let my hand travel toward the lush ass pressing against my dick. I traced down the spine all the way to the base to his…a knot that kept going into another appendage? “A tail?”
A petrified scream pulled me from my sleep. In an ungraceful heap, I tumbled off the moss and onto the cavern floor, my pants tangling around my legs. The screams of stress were human and male, coming from the bed. Where was La’el? I struggled to get up, looking for the blue zanzi. When I couldn’t find La’el, panic started to spread in my gut. What was going on? Who the fuck was screaming?
“Senana!” a terrified male voice called out from the moss bed. I stood as quickly as I could and stopped dead when I saw him for the first time.
Sprawled across the moss bedding was a man equal in size to me, muscles cording his body, down arms and legs and over his chest and abdomen. Blue hair pooled around his frame in different shades, complementing the blue shade of his lips and light blue tint to his overall skin tone. He was the second most beautiful man I’d ever seen. Frightened blue eyes looked into my own and it finally registered who he was.
“Oh fuck, La’el…?”