Page 59 of Black Mamba

“I shouldn’t have come here. I was worried—” I shake my head and close my eyes after ripping off my ruined panties and tugging on my pants. “Fuck.”

“I will get rid of them. Stay here and clothe yourself.” Lukys faces the passageway. “We have barely begun. I would have asked you if you were all right when you screamed if you had not been grasping me so tightly.”

“Wait! No! I’ll go with you.” I yank on my shoes. “This was a mistake, I’m sick. They won’t believe you anyway, they’ll want to see me.” Words tumble from me.

My eyes flick to Lukys’s cock, hanging prone from the middle of his tail just below his hips. The bulge is as big as I remember. My breath hitches and I swallow against the suddenly renewed pulsations of my orgasm, imagining it pushing into me. It almost had. We were almost there.

Forget kisses, hand-holding, and dates.

I watch as he tucks his large appendage into the confines of his tail and presses his hand against it.

He turns to me. “It does not matter what they want. You keep saying that you are sick. I do not smell illness upon you, only a sweetness that makes me hungry.” Behind him, the sounds of Greg and Levy making their way through his cave grow louder. “But you should not be seeing others, let alone out of your nest—or mine,” he quickly adds. “If you are sick…” He scrutinizes me, his eyes wicked, heated.

I cross my arms. “It does matter. I don’t want them to worry or get themselves hurt on my account. I’m coming with you.”

He releases a frustrated hiss. “I want you to stay.”

“I don’t think… that’s a good idea.”

“Because you are suddenly ssssick?” He eyes me skeptically.

I’m beginning to realize… that he might not know what his presence—his pheromones—are doing to me.

“Yes…”

Despite Greg and Levy getting closer, their yelling drawing nearer, Lukys leans down and cups my face. I hesitate but don’t pull away.

“I will not claim you if you are sick,” he rasps. “If I had known…”

I lift my hands then drop them. “I’ll explain later. They’re going to get themselves hurt in the dark. I’m okay!” I shout, hopefully loud enough for them to hear me. “I’m…okay,” I tell Lukys quietly.

“Elena!?” Levy calls out.

He’s right outside the cavern.

Dropping his hands from my cheeks, Lukys twists around with an angry hiss. He lurches into the tunnel.

“Lukys, wait!”

I chase after him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

CLARITY

Elena

I grab the lantern from the table, then dash into the passageway after Lukys.

“The naga!” Levy yells. “Lukys, where is Elena!?”

“Levy!” Greg shouts. “Watch out!”

The sound of scuffling comes from inside the next cavern. The space brightens to reveal Greg rising from the ground on the other side of the firepit and Levy pinned to the cave wall behind him by Lukys’s hand.

Lukys’s hand squeezes, and the hides covering the wall behind Levy wrinkle. “You dare enter my home?”

“Lukys! Stop! Release him!” I run past Greg to grip Lukys’s arm. “They’re just here to help me, to make sure I’m okay!”