Page 3 of The Naga Outcast’s Unwanted Mate

When I stopped screaming, he leaned back in a little, tilting his head this way and that while he looked at me. Bright blue hair clung in strands around his face, the rest secured in a knot on top of his head. His mouth opened to display sharp fangs and a split tongue that flicked out and tasted the air. I shivered, my body heating with a sharp burst of arousal that had no time or place for this situation. Definitely not related to that agile tongue.

I was unsure exactly what had happened, except for the fact that I’d been put in stasis. A quick look around showed me several more stasis pods and the mangled remains of a small spaceship. A UAR vessel from the looks of it, its acronym stamped on several hatches and bulkheads. Son of a bitch, they’d executed me, only to transport me somewhere else, and for God knows what purpose. I had a feeling it would have been nothing good.

My eyes fell on the male hovering above me, staring at me with intense curiosity. I should continue to be terrified of him, he looked so incredibly alien, but I felt rather calm in his presence. When he reached out a clawed hand towards me, I paused to look at the smooth inside of his palm, before I grabbed it and allowed him to pull me from the stasis pod.

I went a little faint in the legs, staring in shock at the fact that this male didn’t have any himself. He had a snake tail; the entire lower half of his body and then some was a long thickly muscled, scaly tail in the same beautiful light blue and silver as his upper body. The entire front of him, like his belly, was a lighter shade than the back part.

My feet were standing right between two thick coils of his long body. I gaped at those coils, trying to wrap my mind around such a creature. Ahaha, wrap… Like a snake. I was going nuts, what kind of alien planet had the UAR stranded me on?

The male made a soft hissing noise, rumbling from deep in his chest. It sounded soothing like he was trying to calm me. Tilting my head up, I met his bright look, an inquisitive gaze on his features. “I’m sorry, my translator doesn’t appear to have your language in its database,” rolled off my tongue, surprising myself. Why the hell would I even say that when he couldn’t understand a word I was saying?

Alien that he was, he didn’t blink at me in any normal kind of fashion, eyelids sliding shut over his eyes for a short moment from the inside of his eyes. Sliding horizontally across to the outer corners. What? I stared at his eyes, the bright azure briefly glowing through the pale, milky white lids.

With a loud groaning sound and an earsplitting shriek, metal tore, and the mildly tilted floor of the ship we stood in slid and shook. It was so sudden and unexpected that I tumbled forward, right against the alien snake-man’s chest. My palms flattened against his scaly pectorals, my entire body following suit, and then his arms came around me, steadying me.

“We need to get out of here, now! This whole vessel is about to slide into the water,” a male voice urged. It wasn’t the guy holding me that was speaking, his chest was silent, though all the pretty silver lines along his body had lit up and started glowing. My body flushed with heat while I tilted my head and caught sight of a second snake-man creature hovering near the exit. This one was a little smaller, leaner, and paler in color.

“Correct, we should leave,” a deeper, more resonant voice answered. My skin broke out in goosebumps, my nipples going hard, rubbing against the rougher texture of his scales through the thin shirt I was wearing. This time I knew it was the male holding me who spoke, I could even sort of tell that he was still speaking a foreign language, I could just suddenly understand it perfectly.

“No!” I said, shaking my head as I looked at the other pods, “We have to get the others out!” I pushed myself off that rock-hard chest, stumbling over a thick coil of his tail, and managed to stay upright by grabbing onto the stasis pod I’d just vacated. “Hurry!” I urged the males, unsure if they could understand me or not. I dashed to the nearest pod and ran my fingers over the wake-up sequence, muttering under my breath at the pod to get it to hurry up.

There was a brief, startled silence, and then I heard a whole volley of hissing, growling language exchanged between the two males. The pod I was trying to start was just sliding open when I spotted the long coil of midnight blue scales that curled around the next one.

Oh shit, there was a third of these guys? Yeah, there he was, a huge brute of a male, his dark skin making him blend into the darkened interior of the ship. He was curled over another stasis pod, his face almost pressed against the glass. My skin prickled with unease, why was he so fascinated?

“Where am I?” a frightened female voice asked me. My eyes slipped from the big male down to the woman I’d just managed to wake up. “No time to talk. We’re on a crashed ship and it’s about to sink into the water. Help me wake the others and get out of here.” My words were clearly distressing the young woman but she bravely bit her lip and struggled out of the pod, her eyes huge as she scanned her surroundings.

I hadn’t heard him approach, he was incredibly quiet as he slithered along the floor between the pods and the debris. He was just suddenly there, right behind me. Right in time too because the ship heaved and bucked with another loud groan as it slid a few more feet. I lost my balance again, stumbling on still weak legs, but this male had his arms back around me immediately, steadying me.

“Easy there, easy,” he rumbled in my ear, again, perfectly understandable. This time my back was to his front, one of his arms curled around my middle, the other braced on the edge of the stasis pod. The girl that I’d just woken hadn’t been so lucky, she’d gone down on the other side, quietly sobbing as she struggled back to her feet. Her eyes were wide and terrified as she noticed the scaly males surrounding us.

“Can you understand me?” I asked the guy holding me, I wanted to help the woman, but it seemed more prudent to get out of this broken, sinking ship first. For that, I’d probably need the help of these aliens. He made a low hissing sound that was close to a moan, his hand on my belly pressing me more tightly to him. “Yes, I can. We must hurry if we’re to free all your people.”

I agreed, my skin breaking out in goosebumps from his mouth, so close to my ear while he spoke. Why was I having such a potent reaction to him? Was it adrenaline fueling me? This was making no sense at all. When he let go of me, I hurried away, trying not to look back as I rushed for the next pod.

It was confusing that when he spoke next, I couldn’t understand a single thing he was saying, but now the smaller of the three males sprung into action. Messing with the panel of a stasis pod to try and open another stasis pod, while the female I’d woken was leaning against another one. “Are they safe? Can you understand them?” she asked, voice trembling.

I nodded, “I seem to understand them sometimes, they’re our best bet right now. We’ll figure the rest out later, okay? Just get these people out before we all sink.” She took a deep, rallying breath and gave me a nod. I was glad to see that she was putting her fear aside and getting to work on opening the pod she was next. There were six pods in all, and only two of us were out yet.

Heading for the next one myself, the huge dark blue male suddenly threw himself in my path. His huge body rose up high before me, towering over me, while he hissed words at me I couldn’t understand. I yelped, cringing back, and was immediately curled protectively into the arms of the male who had woken me. One thick arm bent around me, tucking me into his side, the other brandishing a sharp, curved sword in the face of the other male.

“Watch it Iave! What the blasting sun is wrong with you?” he angrily demanded. His voice a hissing growl that seemed to filter through my brain into crystal clear words. The huge brute backed up, raising his palms, dipping his chin in deference. While my protector had two sharp bone-white tusks sticking from his chin, this guy had only one with a broken jagged tip, he pressed that almost into his own throat.

“Please, tell her to open that coffin now!” the male rumbled, his arm swinging to the side to point at the stasis pod he’d been curled over a moment ago. I looked at it and felt a shiver of apprehension, what was he going to do to its occupant? He seemed completely obsessed with that pod. There was no choice though, we had to open it if we wanted to save the person inside it, and I very much wanted to get everyone safely off this broken ship.

“Okay!” I said, but the arm around my middle was keeping me from going. And the brute was repeating his demand, more angrily this time. I tilted my head so I could look up at the guy holding me. Really, I appreciated the help and the defense, but seriously he didn’t need to keep manhandling me.

“Tell him I’ll do it,” I ordered, his sharp azure eyes flicking down to my face for a quick second before glaring at the other male again. With a little shiver, I realized his eyes had narrow stripes as pupils, they were very, non-human-looking eyes, and the glare was intense. Despite the size difference, I figured the midnight blue brute had to be sweating it by now.

“Move aside, she’ll open the pod,” he said with a hiss, lips curled up to display a long set of impressive fangs. “Back off Iave! I’m warning you.” The midnight male curled his body backward, moving out of the way, but my guy wasn’t letting me walk off. I was suddenly up in the air, cradled protectively against his wide chest while he slid his long body in two rapid curls toward the right pod. When my feet touched the ground, he never moved away, his chest pressed close against my back.

“Back off buddy, haven’t you heard of personal space?” I demanded, my fingers already flying across the stasis pod’s controls. Inside the pod, I could see a young woman, she was very pretty. She had dark skin and tight curls on top of her head, the sides shaved in a geometric pattern. I really hoped she was made of sturdier stuff than the first girl I’d freed, she was going to need it if she had to deal with Mister Midnight over there. He hadn’t approached, just hovered a little distance away, watching avidly as I worked on the pod.

“If I back off, you and I cannot speak,” the male at my back declared, drawing my attention back to my own problem. It looked like Midnight wasn’t the only one who’d fixated on a female. I wasn’t sure what to think of Azure-Eyes picking me, I wasn’t planning to be some alien’s pet or worse… Of course, the thought of what this male might like to do to me seemed to turn my traitorous body on.

“Wait, we can only understand each other if we’re touching?” I asked, his words penetrating. So maybe it wasn’t the same kind of obsession as Midnight had for this woman. Maybe he was just being practical. Figures, nobody ever wanted me. Why would it be any different with an alien?

He didn’t answer, his attention suddenly snapping to the side, zeroing in on the crumbled front of the ship. “Iave, Corin, I think there’s a person trapped in there. Get her out, she’s probably injured,” his clawed hand pointed at a section of rubble. Despite the standoff between Midnight, I think his name was Iave, and my guy only moments ago, he rushed to do his bidding now. The two males hurried to shift debris with precision to get to whoever was trapped there.