Chapter 6
Nahash didn’t have a plan. Instinct told him to get his mate to a safe place, to go to ground to protect her, to build her a nest he could defend. He cursed instinct. The affliction made him behave irrationally.
The Iriduans would use his mate as a way to control him, but they would never harm her as long as Nahash continued to do their bidding, nor would they keep them apart, since he needed to be exposed to her pheromones frequently so he didn’t begin to deteriorate. He’d already been willing to do his duty to his people, so they didn’t require strong-arm tactics to force him into compliance. The Iriduans would treat her as a precious commodity, carefully and protectively—as long as he cooperated.
Yet, that was part of his problem with remaining behind. When his team leader relayed the fact that Nahash had been afflicted to Captain Irisek, the response had been far less displeased than Nahash had expected.
It hadn’t taken long for the message to come back from Command. They wanted the female safe as soon as possible. They also wanted the entire team to be exposed to her, as well as any other unmated males on the ship. Because of her value to Nahash—and his to the empire—they wanted her to have a very large harem of males to protect her.
The other soldiers would hate deliberately exposing themselves to the affliction, particularly with an alien female, but they would do their duty, and Nahash didn’t doubt at least some of them would have their mating instinct triggered by her odor print.
He knew it would be best if she had a large harem and was surrounded by the most protection and comfort the empire could provide, but he didn’t want to share. He also knew it was selfish and wrong to take off with her into the unknown wild that had been slowly reclaiming the pirate colony. He risked her life and her health.
Of course, he wanted to keep her from being used against him, but he also just wanted to keep her to himself. She would never choose him over the others she would afflict into her harem. Those males would look more similar to her—not twisted and deformed by genetic experiments into the monstrosity that Nahash had become.
Conflicted by his sudden rush of emotions where she was concerned, he ran with her, abandoning everything he’d ever known and all the honor he’d once had, for his mate. He left behind the empire, knowing he would be branded a traitor and considered far too dangerous because of his abilities.
The Iriduans would never let him go. They’d hunt him to the very edge of the galaxy, and when they captured him and his mate, they would truly threaten her until he did their bidding.
Yet, he couldn’t return to his team, knowing that at least some of them would soon be mated to her. He couldn’t stand the thought of taking her back to their ship, knowing she would be surrounded by those who wanted to use her to get to him—including whoever had betrayed him to the Akrellians.
He needed to have her hidden and safe, isolated from everyone who might pose a threat to her, as well as those who offered a promise of pleasure she would never want from him.
The imprinting might have destroyed his logic and his sense of honor, but it didn’t affect his cunning. When his team lead reported that the females were on their way back to the shuttle, but Kiari had not been found, Nahash used that opportunity to tell him that he’d left his position to follow her and had picked up her trail.
Nahash had disobeyed a direct order to stay put, and had taken his mate with him to chase down a dangerous criminal, angering the team lead, but the unique position Nahash held didn’t actually put him under the other male’s command. In fact, his place in the hierarchy of command remained murky. Because of his power and his proven loyalty to the empire, he had more freedom to act autonomously, which gave him the opportunity to betray the Iriduans by stealing his own mate away from them.
Still, they would discover his ruse quickly enough, and it galled him that Kiari really had escaped. Such a creature should be captured to face the extremely harsh punishment due to her, or killed so she could no longer cause trouble. If he hadn’t been so desperate to escape himself, he might’ve given in to the temptation to hunt her through the streets of the colony.
Except that he had his mate wrapped up in his coils, still struggling in vain to escape them. At least she had the sense not to scream or cry out, which would bring the deadly residents of the colony to investigate.
Despite her sensible silence, he still felt a great deal of relief when he found the tunnel entrance and slipped inside, drawing the coils holding her close against his back, so she lay practically on top of him. It felt good to have here there, like she’d been made to fit him perfectly, despite his body being so different from hers. He didn’t allow that feeling to distract him as he progressed through the dank, dark tunnel that looked like it had been built for storm runoff, given the heavy rain seasons that pummeled this hemisphere of the planet.
According to their knowledge of the colony, the runoff tunnels drained outside the city, down fifty-foot waterfalls that poured past the high, gray stone walls that kept the worst of the vegetation from the surrounding jungle at bay.
Nahash sped along the tunnel to the exit drain and then dislodged the rusting metal grate that covered the drain without much effort. He cast it outwards so he could pull himself out of the drain. Fortunately, the runoff flowed sluggishly at the moment, so the pressure from the shallow stream of water didn’t force him and his mate over the edge. The runoff only streamed gently under his belly scales as he stretched to grasp the nearest tree branch brushing against the wall. It was as thick as his waist.
His mate whimpered when he pulled his upper body onto the branch and then brought his coiled tail slowly out of the drain, suspending the most precious person in the galaxy over a deadly plunge to the river below.
His heart didn’t start beating again until he set her feet on the branch beside him, keeping her wrapped in his tail while he clung to the branch.
He paused for a moment to assess her condition, feeling her pounding heart against his scales. Her earlier struggles had ceased, but he still felt each inhalation of breath she took as her chest expanded and contracted inside his coils. She’d squeezed her eyes shut, and she muttered under her breath in a repetitious way that suggested chanting.
Guilt assailed him at the sight of her terror. He felt paralyzed with the sudden realization that he risked everything on a mad desire to escape with her. He did have valid, logical reasons not to trust even his own people with his mate, but selfish reasons also drove him. His primitive mind knew others would come for her, either to do her harm, or to steal her away from him. He wouldn’t allow any of that to happen.
Up until that point, he hadn’t dared to consider what she’d want to do, because she had no idea what had happened to him, so her preferences would be in ignorance of her actual situation. She didn’t understand what she now meant to the Iriduan Empire.
He didn’t know much about her people, though he could recognize enough in her appearance to guess that she was human, and therefore a relatively rare and forbidden commodity in the galaxy—yet another strike against Kiari, which put her in trouble on a syndicate level.
He could ask his mate what she wanted later, once he’d had time to explain everything. He might even listen to her answer and give it some consideration, though he wasn’t familiar with catering to the whims of women. That was something only those preparing to deliberately afflict themselves bothered to study. Nahash had never intended to go down that path. He’d spent his entire life steering clear of females—even avoiding those who were considered “nulls,” unable to produce the pheromones that gave their odor print the power to afflict males. Those females had the same power and positions in society that males held, awarded a certain degree of trust because they lacked the most critical power over males, but Nahash had still viewed them with suspicion.
First, he had to find a place to stop and set up camp where he could hide out from any pursuers. He had no doubt there’d be a pursuit.
Reassured that Cass still breathed and remained well secured, he continued his careful path along the tree branch towards the tree that towered above them, spreading its canopy to a sullen sky, heavy with rain clouds. Along the way, he heard her occasional whimpers and felt her desperate clutch as her fingers dug into his scales, her weak little nails barely making a dent.
He worried about her mental state, wondering if he’d overestimated her courage. He had little experience with the fragility of women, having spent his entire adult life amongst other males who’d trained to face any threat without any sign of fear. A warrior never showed fear, no matter how much he might feel it. Fear was for juveniles who hadn’t gone through meta, and apparently for women who didn’t trust their males to protect them.
If his tail had been free, moving through the tree branches would’ve been easy for him, but he didn’t dare release his burden. In her panic, his mate might walk right off a branch and plummet to her death. Instead, he made much slower progress than he would have liked as he searched for a place to hole up. He didn’t know what he was searching for, until he found it.
A tangle of branches had grown into a roughly spherical knot, leaving dead branches on the inside that Nahash was able to tear out and cast out of the tree. It took some effort, but he’d soon cleared all the dead branches away, leaving behind a shelter of entwined branches about the size of an escape pod. It would be a good place to keep Cass secure while he scouted the area to find a better nest to hide from his people.
Now he just had to convince her not to move from it. Judging by the look in her eyes as she watched him clear the space from her position in his coiled tail, she wanted to run away, and might try to do so the moment he released her.