Page 110 of Something Handsome This Way Comes

“G-Grievance?”

No answer.

The sliding continued. A slow, dry whisper against the floorboards. Milo hugged the blankets closer to himself, suddenly far too afraid to lean forward and look over the edge of the bed.

“Grievance?”

Still nothing. Then the mattress shifted. Something was rising on the other side. Milo scrambled backward until his shoulders struck the headboard.

A hand appeared first. Or something shaped vaguely enough like a hand that Milo’s frightened brain was willing to call it one.

Long, powerful fingers curled over the edge of the mattress. They were too large, the joints too pronounced, giving them an almost spidery appearance. Glossy scales covered every inch, and from the tip of each finger curved a wicked black claw.

“Oh shit,” Milo gasped.

Grievance rose. And kept rising.

And Milo finally had a name for the creature rising before him.

A Naga.

His upper body held the shape of a man, but that was where the resemblance ended. Broad shoulders flowed into a powerful chest and thick arms, every inch of him covered in the same beautiful scales as the serpent body below. They gleamed in the low light of the dying fire.

More scales climbed his throat and swept across his face. Smaller ones patterned his cheeks, catching the light beneath his eyes, while a striking row spread over his forehead and disappeared into his hairline like a natural crown.

Milo stared.

Well.

Apparently, handsome was no longer challenging enough, and his mate had moved directly on to terrifying.

Grievance smiled, and Milo immediately reconsidered the word smile, as his mouth contorted, revealing way too many pointed teeth.

“Oh, Lanterns.”

A long, forked tongue slid free, flicking and tasting the air. Grievance continued to rise, pulling more and more of himself onto the bed. His serpent body was heavy and⁠—

Fuck! There is so much of it.

His enormous lower body filled the space beside the bed before looping across the floor in heavy coils. He had to be several times longer than Milo was tall. Perhaps longer still.

Milo wanted to touch it despite every primitive instinct currently screaming that this creature could swallow him without chewing.

Another muscular ripple traveled through the coils. The floorboards creaked beneath his weight.

Grievance’s tongue flicked out again. Milo stared, and a thought occurred to him. All this time, he’d been calling that ridiculous tongue a basilisk’s tongue.

Had it been a Naga all along?

Grievance’s eyes fixed on him.

Wanting.

Waiting.

Asking.

Milo swallowed. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how this would play out. His body answered with an immediate protest of absolutely not.