Page 29 of King of Serpents

The absolutely worst place. She swallowed a groan. Of course it wouldn’t be some out of the way corner. Therxian was going to have to get her dangerously close to the queen before he was able to get her out of there. She dropped her head to her knees and swallowed back bile only to jump when she felt something large and cool touch her leg. She glanced over to see Therxian pressing a large metal basin against her leg... with the tip of his tail, to add insult to injury, as if to maintain distance as much as possible.

“In case you need to vomit,” he muttered, passing it over to her as he glanced resolutely away. He cleared his throat with a crackling hum. “I never said it would be easy,” he grumbled, “but I promise that I will get you down into the tunnel without incident.”

Her eyes slid shut as she leaned her head back against the wall so that the cool air from the vent slid over her skin. “Not easy” was an understatement. If she got through it without having heart-failure, it would be a miracle.

“Are Jathella, Kitanara, and Buosoa going to help us?”

He grimaced, which was not encouraging.

“In their way,” he muttered. “The guards will try to direct the chaos. I will be trusting them to divert it away from where we need to be.”

Her eyes popped open, and she dropped her head back a bit to look directly up at him. “You can’t be serious. You didn’t even warn them about your crazy plan?”

“Of course I did,” he huffed. “I just may not have shared all the details beyond directing Seshanamitesh far from the access tunnels.”

“Oh gods,” she groaned as she allowed her head to drop back again. “Please do not let this male kill me.”

Therxian hissed another chuckle, his eyes slitting warmly at her. “Where is your courage? Are you not a female hunter among your species?”

Alex’s lips twisted. He assumed that she would embrace this foolish plan because he imagined her something akin to the males of the upper cavern. Males who lived their lives at the edge of existence where they were free from those who would disdain them. Perhaps she should take a page out of their book after all.

“All right,” she sighed. “May the gods have mercy on us.”

His grin widened as he held the sphere, snapping the last component into place. “Higthar shall surely bless our efforts with his own divine tempests breaking loose through the shinara.”

Alex allowed her eyes to slide shut again. Of course.

Chapter 20

Nothing tested Therxian’s patience like waiting for the right moment to strike. It was necessary, however. Knowing when to strike was a matter of survival. As was knowing when to be silent. His eyes shifted to the wall, and he slapped a wing against it to silence the human’s muttering. She clearly thought she was being quiet enough, but Seshanamitesh hearing was far superior. As noisy as she was, he did not understand how she evaded detection whenever the servants arrived to set up a mating feast. The slap of his wing was casual, and he even stretched to make it more plausibly unintentional to anyone watching while delivering an immediate warning to Alex. Fortunately, the female possessed quick enough wit and survival instinct to understand it for what it was and promptly fell silent.

He rolled his shoulders as he gave his wings another subtle stretch, his gaze scanning the corridor that led to his nest. That was as far as he dared to take Alex out in the open without cover. It was just fortunate that he found the storage nook to temporarily stash her inside amid all the supplies regularly used to keep that part of the palace clean. He wrinkled his nose at the musty scent emanating from the space. It was really unpleasant. Although the plant material from which the clean rags were woven grew in the depths of the caves, clearly no one from the palace was inclined to properly clean and dry them on the surface of Seshana. He hoped that the human was faring well enough despite being surrounded entirely by the foul odor. From all the noise she was making, she clearly wasn’t suffering too terribly, even if she was complaining about it a lot.

Therxian grunted quietly as a small hand shoved adamantly at his wing.

“Therxian,” she hissed. “I can’t see anything. I can barely breathe. If you had been listening at all, I said that it stinks like a cesspit in here.”

“There is nothing you need to see,” he retorted quietly, angling his head slightly in her direction. “And breathe through your mouth if you dislike the smell. This is the only suitable place from which to launch our attack, and as a female is to be delivered to me, no one will pay much attention if I am loitering at the entrance of this particular corridor.”

After all, it was the one that led directly to his nest among others that had been carved out over time for all the royal hatchlings. There were twelve in total, few of which were ever opened in his lifetime.

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex mumbled. “Charming. When exactly is the lucky lady supposed to arrive?”

Therxian hummed thoughtfully as he scratched an itchy spot behind his left front gavo spine. Seshanamitesh did not measure time the way humans did. Beyond possessing a general understanding of shared calculation of day and revolution, their method of tracking the sun’s movement was incomprehensible despite how long he had observed those humans among the Vehal utilize it.

Noon. He understood noon. Beyond that, it was incomprehensible to him. He gathered it was based on a division of time particular to Earth that did not quite match the span of the day on Seshana, since they had also often complained about their difficulty with time conversion.

But then it turned out that he did not need to worry about it because a female adorned with the ceremonial painting on her scales was heading directly toward him. His stomach turned as he noted which female it was. Ferinia. His mood immediately darkened as she noted his presence and immediately began to preen as she made her approach. He studied her sourly. He should have known that she would have pushed to be next. He had hoped that another one of the younger, more easily frightened females would have been selected again, but knowing Ferinia’s temperament from her earlier displays, she had likely insisted.

“Therxian,” she hummed with obvious delight.

“Ferinia.” He made no attempt to soften his bearing or make himself more appealing as he stared woodenly back at her. He dipped his head, his gavo rising slightly in a brief display of formality before lowering again.

Her smile faltered with frustration, her gavo rippling in response before she regained control over herself. Her smile returned, though it was noticeably forced.

“So polite,” she observed, with a lingering note of irritation in her voice. She covered it with a small chuckle that made his scales prickle as she looped her tail around herself in one elegant motion. “There is no need to hold yourself so rigidly, Therxian. I will not bite.”

Therxian looked away, refusing to play whatever game she was determined to indulge in. He needed to find the perfect opening to create the necessary distraction. He could sense that Alex was coming close to shaking with anger at being pinned for so long in that hole. Ferinia was suitable cover and nothing more. The sooner he could utilize her presence to fulfil his needs, the better. Unfortunately, the cursed female was having nothing of it.