Page 34 of King of Serpents

He met her eyes flatly, his mouth pinching slightly as he studied her. “Death,” he said at last. “A Seshanamitesh will ruthlessly hunt down an Uralial invading their waters for the pleasure of the council.”

“Geez, tough crowd,” she mumbled as she took another quick bite of meat. She glanced up Therxian curiously as also took some meat. “You are staying? Didn’t you say that you would be missed if you didn’t return? I honestly didn’t even expect you to return tonight.”

His glowing eyes focused on her, and for a moment she could breathe under the weight of his gaze studying her. Finally, his gaze shifted away, and he dipped his chin in the negative.

“You did not have meat,” he replied simply, as if that explained everything, and he met her gaze gravely. “I will not lapse in my responsibilities to take care of you. I made sure that my presence was noted and ate several of the dishes before gathering the meat up to return. I merely had to hide the basket and wait until the servants returned to clear the table before making my way back to the lower tunnels. Now that it is done, no one will return to check on me until morning.”

She speared some more meat and mixed it with some sort of noodle that the Seshanamitesh appeared to favor. “You are staying, then?”

She didn’t know what exactly she expected, but it was the slow hiss as he replied, drawing out one word.

“Yes.”

An uneasy feeling settled over her, her mind wandering back to their conversation as they ate in companionable silence. Although Therxian’s words were delivered as a simple statement, they sent a shiver through her. If the Seshanamitesh would kill a native-born Uralial for intruding, what would they do to her?

Chapter 24

Therxian stretched, his tail unwinding slowly as it slid off the mound of warmth next to him. His gavo extended completely as he yawned, instinctively drawing air into his ethin. The ganda weight of moisture in the air was still low, but there was just enough to indicate that it was early into the evening on the surface. If he were among the Vehal still, he would be preparing the first hunt of the day. With his velkat in hand, he would lead the hunters through the skies over the mountains and the nearby surrounding desert.

He missed the feeling of the evening sun warming his wings and the hot breath of the air rolling over his scales as he flew. More than that, however, he missed the simple rhythm of the nara where juveniles and nestlings mingled freely under the supervising guard of the adults, and the gentle hum of activity droned peacefully in his ear whenever he returned with his hunters. And that hum became a song of welcome among the Vehal as the entire nara greeted the hunters. Heads tipped toward them, throats vibrating with a trilling hum to welcome the hunters as they descended, weighed down with as much game as they could carry for the nara. The fires illuminated the night, and the scent of food drifted over the stony rises to mingle with the soft, dewy scent of the plants and trees kissed by the night air. The nara was filled with life throughout the night until the sun rose high enough over the Vir to necessitate a retreat into nests to rest during the long midday hours.

But he was not among the Vehal, and there would be no hunting flight or jubilant activity within a small, peaceful nara. The Aglatha shinara was something else altogether. Not only was it of a size that outstripped the human colonies established on Seshana, but it was steeped in a rigid system of tradition that left him cold. He had never intended to return, and his chest tightened with a pang of longing for the simple life he had enjoyed before Slengral arrived with news of the Aglatha. Before that, he had been able to forget that he was born into the royal house and had been capable of ignoring all feelings of duty.

Higthar curse Slengral to the dusts of the desert for disrupting his life.

Because of his brother, Therxian was once again the eldest son of the royal house and once again thrust into the demands and expectations. There was no rising for the hunt among his fellow hunters. There was only confinement as palace servants brought him food like a tamed pet until it was time to bring him out to entertain the noble matriarchs and their daughters... or rather reassure them that the royal legacy would be seen to and not end with his mother.

Endless politics... and he did not even possess a voice that was considered of value within the Aglatha.

At least the servants would not arrive for some hours yet. He could rest longer and pretend that he was not imprisoned within the palace. Drawing a deep breath of resignation, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and rolled toward the source of intoxicating warmth beside him, his tail trailing a path over it as he curled himself tightly around it. A sweet, mellow scent reminiscent of fruit, sun-warmed earth, and something else that he could not identify filled his nose, and he tucked his head lower to sleepily breathe it in deeper. A sense of tenderness bloomed within his chest, warming and chasing away the previous ache, and his eyes slowly parted as he peered down at the source.

His entire body stiffened in surprise as he stared down at the short, spiky strands of pale human hair. He immediately jerked his coil off the sleeping human, only for her to make some soft sound that shot straight to his sant. It came dangerously close to emerging from his vent before he regained control of himself. All it took was ceasing to breathe so as not to absorb any more of her pheromone-laden scent into his system. Unfortunately, that was not practical as he required air.

Alex stirred, her face tipping slightly upward toward him so that he could see the tiny brown flecks of color sprinkled across her nose. He had never beheld her closely enough to have noticed them before. They always kept a polite distance from each other, and even in the nest they typically slept far apart.

His gaze skimmed over them in fascination. Truthfully, they were not unlike bio-luminescent markings that Seshanamitesh, Vehal, and Uralial bore in common, except that they did not appear to serve any kind of function on the small human. He continued to stare but recoiled when she mumbled in her sleep and her small body suddenly closed the space between them. It was not the contact, but the sharp stab of desire that immediately flooded him that made him panic.

Drawing his tail around himself, he inched further away, his eyes fastened on her warily, just in case she made a move toward him again. Tearing his gaze away from her, he glanced around the royal nest in confusion. He did not recall falling asleep there. That was exceptionally foolish and dangerous. Taking care not to wake her, Therxian slipped from the bed and nearly felt his heart exit his chest when she moved in her sleep and caught the tip of his tail beneath her hip. His head whipped around and peered over at her with annoyance, and an even more annoying feeling of charm that he quickly shook off. Extricating his tail slowly, he huffed at himself before winding from the royal nest and into the corridor. Although he felt an overwhelming desire to linger, he did not stop, nor slow down. In fact, he opened his wings and took flight to quicken his pace until he had left the lower tunnels and was once again in the palace. Even so, he did not breathe easily until he was once again within the walls of his own nest.

His prison.

He could not believe he was relieved to be locked away there again rather than reclining with a soft female in a cozy, sweet-smelling nest. His wings flexed in annoyance at his surroundings. Another day, another female foisted upon him to contend with.

Huffing again, he let out a long hiss and dropped miserably into his sunken bed. The tip of his tail flicked languidly as his gaze drifted restlessly around the room. Without Alex there, the nest seemed dull and smaller. It was truly annoying. As if his prison was not bad enough, he had developed an unplanned fixation on a female, one on which his well-being suddenly seemed to depend. Did mated males feel even a fraction of this? Surely whatever was wrong with him was a thousand times worse than anything experienced by them. It had to be a kind of mental illness from his forced confinement. Of course, he had latched onto the one other being who was forced to share his confinement with him.

His gavo snapped and his wings flexed as he tried to release the restless tension coiling within him and once again find a quiet place within himself from where he could simply endure the passage of time until the servants arrived with his morning feeding. He twisted, lashing his tail restlessly among the cushions to find a comfortable position, but froze at the soft chittering sound of something moving quickly over the stone. His gavo rose as he lifted his head, his gaze focusing on a far point at the other side of the room where a large insect skittered from one of the long air vents in the wall. His gavo vibrated as he sank down into his bedding on his belly, as he did in the sand when hunting the sand vorsk.

He studied his prey, the tip of his tail twitching faintly. Despite his focus, he felt ridiculous. This was no way for a mature male to hunt. But then again, he was no longer permitted to hunt, so he was no longer much of the male he once was. The reminder was an additional slap in the face and a hard blow directly to his ego. Any other male of the upper caverns could have offered Alex so much more than he could at that moment. And yet, recalling Alex’s pleasure whenever she killed one of the insects, he was determined to kill it and allow her to admire his kill. She would appreciate it. After all, she had done likewise.

His wings flattened to his back, he slithered forward but froze when the insect suddenly raced away and disappeared back through the vent at an abrupt clang coming from the entrance to his nest. He gave the vent a dour look before turning his head toward the entrance tunnel. There was no need to guess who it was. Only the servants assigned to his nest seemed to be the most inept of males. Not only were they noisy, but they needlessly fussed over everything. Now that he thought about it, he could see how Alex had so easily avoided detection when they announced themselves in such a manner. They were merely unskilled males mated to female palace servants. No skilled female would be assigned to the male residential quarters within the palace. Not when his mother and the noble matriarchs were eager to focus on bloodlines. Therxian nesting with an unapproved female was not something any of them were prepared to risk.

Coiling his tail around himself lazily, he watched as several small, slender males entered with platters just behind a slightly larger, bright green male. The male fanned his wings and gavo, his upper body dipping jerkily in small bows as he slithered forward.

Therxian was not impressed. Ingratiating worm.

“You are awake,” the male trilled. He gestured quickly to the table. and the males hastily and noisily obeyed as they quickly set the platters down and removed the lids. Therxian turned his head toward it briefly, just long enough to note with interest that it was all of his favorites. The male smiled and dipped his body again. “High Queen Zathexa insisted that you have all the best this morning. To sweeten your mood,” the male added with a knowing smile.

Therxian turned his head away, already bored with the conversation. If his mother was coaxing him with his favorite food, then he dared not to eat it. There was no way to know what she did to the food if she wished for him to be that agreeable.