Page 54 of Serpents of the Night

Slengral’s head tipped as he watched him, his gavo rising and flicking to scatter its luminescence joyously as he trilled back in turn under the amused watch of the guards at his side. The females kept a steadily maintained position at either side of Slengral, their body language alert as their gaze frequently darted to him. There was such an intensity to their watchfulness and the concerned manner with which they carried it out that it was as if they were cautious monitoring his condition so as to be prepared for any moment that they may need to assist him. That worried Kehtal. Slengral had always been powerful and could outfly any of them when it came to tests of endurance and strength. His smile slipped but his nest brother caught his worry and tipped his head toward the sand before shifting his weight and gliding serenely down to it. Jathella and Kitanara dipped through the air, following him, leaving Kehtal with few options other than to follow closely after them as they descended together into the heart of the dunes.

Daskh had not yet joined them, but Kehtal had little doubt that the male had easily picked out their location even as thickly surrounded as he was by billowing sand. He would arrive soon. Until then, Kehtal would satisfy himself as to his nest brother’s condition.

The sand bloom of them all landing at once rose into the air before dispersing in a hazy, red shimmer. Slengral rose high on his coils, the image of their nest’s central strength and authority as he loomed over him. It was possible his nest brother’s weakness had been an illusion or perhaps Kehtal had simply been mistaken by what he thought he had seen. He studied his brother as he moved in closer, his eyes running over him with concern as he approached. The tremor of weakness was subtle, but not so much that his eyes weren’t drawn to it and focused on it as everything within him went numb. Unfortunately, once he saw it, he could not pretend that he had not as his mouth and throat worked with words that just would not come.

He did not understand—how could Slengral have been harmed?

A sad expression made a brief appearance on his nest brother’s face, but it was quickly replaced by a quiet welcome as Slengral opened his arms and wings for him. Kehtal was not a strong male. He did not pretend to be. Consequently, he also did not pretend that he possessed more strength than to not cling to his nest brother.

“Slengral, what happened?” he rasped, his hand reaching toward a face that was far gaunter than he remembered.

A serene smile curled the male’s mouth and he quietly chuckled, though it sounded painful to Kehtal’s ears. It was as if he had been brought from the gateway of death and was still recovering.

“Mother underestimated my resolve,” he said simply, his red eyes burning with an inner fire of barely banked rage. His gaze roved over Kehtal and his expression softened. “It is good to see you looking so well, Kehtal.”

“Not so well as a male who has found his mate,” Kehtal replied glumly. “We have searched everywhere without even a hint that she was here other than Buosoa swearing that she would not have been capable of getting far with her physical limitations. I worry that the desert will not surrender her to us now. We were late and I fear now that we have lost everything.” Sighing in disappointment, he dropped into his nest brother’s embrace as warm arms and wings wrapped comfortingly around him.

He could feel the tremor of weakness that rose between them, but Slengral did not act like it bothered him, so Kehtal did not pull away but leaned into the male and brushed his cheek affectionately against his scales as Daskh joined them. The male arrived in true fashion for one of his size—with a heavy spray of and a shout of welcome as Hashal’s excitable trill echoed all around him, drawing amusement from all of them. Wings closing around each other and tails entwining, they clung to each other with Hashal nestled safely in between them, breathing in each other’s pheromones and reestablishing their connections through touch.

They clung to each other in the shattering power of their shared grief, and with the healing warmth of relief from the strength they offered each other. Jathella and her sisters were watching them, but they kept a respectful distance, standing at guard as Kehtal twined with his nest brothers as they breathed one breath together, and their hearts whispered to each other with the same solid beat. They were one but they were fragmented, missing their hithana to bind them all together.

Kehtal reached for her instinctively and moaned quietly when he recalled that she was not there. His body shook with a fresh wave of anger and sorrow, but it was met by Slengral’s quiet song and settled.

“I know,” Slengral rasped, his own agony carrying in his voice. “I feel the same loss, but we will find her.”

“We will not abandon her,” Daskh agreed, his voice breaking on the words.

Jathella’s head turned, her gaze meeting that of her sisters before she at last met his eyes and those of his nest brothers grimly. “And we will help you. Lori shall not remain with spirit and bones lost to the sands.”

Chapter 44

The sun was going down again, and Lori drummed her fingers on the windowsill as she watched its passage. Although being so high in the mountains allowed them to enjoy a bit more of the day since they did not suffer so strongly from the heat there, she had become too accustomed to her mates’ sleep schedule to change now.

Not that she slept particularly well. She was restless throughout much of the day, and she was losing weight because she struggled to feed herself as her appetite slowly disappeared. Not even when held within the lab had she been separated for so long from the males, and even then, at least she quickly had Kehtal with her, even if they had not been mated yet. She knew it was affecting her. She felt like she was slowly dying from the inside. The only thing that kept her going was her offspring growing within her.

She laid a hand over her belly. She wanted to cry but she had done so much of it that she felt dry and empty. It had been so many days, and her stomach was starting to expand beyond the small bump that she’d had for so long. Her mates would have been delighted to see it. Slengral would have hovered in his proud and silent way, while Daskh, in his excitement, would have been always underfoot which would have alternately delighted and frustrated her. And then there was Kehtal. Of all her mates he was the one who would not have been able to stop caressing her belly. Her lips twitched at the thought. He never got enough of it and was captivated by every change in her body as her pregnancy progressed. And now he was missing it. They all were.

“Do you even realize how pitiful you look right now?” Sara sighed as she set aside the datapad with the scans she had taken of Lori’s growing baby. “You realize that this is not healthy for you—or for your little one.”

Lori gave the medic—a woman she was quickly considering her friend—an apologetic smile. “I know but I just can’t shake the feeling that they are out there looking for me with no way to get to me.” She fidgeted with the corner of the baby blanket that she was sewing—badly. “Because of how everything happened, I know that the trail will be difficult, if not impossible, to pick up on. Your mate did fly me here from the desert, after all. That doesn’t leave much to go on. Especially if it took them some time to escape the Aglatha.”

Sara sighed wearily. “You’ve said so before, and I don’t disagree with you, but Lori, it’s so dangerous to even reveal a hint of what’s going on up here.” She bit her lip. “If—and this is a big if—I get permission to allow to you very briefly contact your mates, you wouldn’t be allowed much time, just enough for them to lock onto the comm’s signal—if they have the ability to do so.” Her lips tightened. “It would be a one-time only deal, and you wouldn’t be allowed to contact Raza.”

Excitement welling up in her, Lori nodded quickly and set her work aside to grasp the other woman’s hands. For once, she didn’t know what to say that would be enough to convey everything she was feeling at that moment. Relief. Gratitude. She wanted to burst into tears. She wanted to giggle and shout out happily. She wanted to demand that Sara hand her comm over immediately so that she could try. She clenched her fingers together so that she wouldn’t automatically reach for it even as her heart pounded a rapid pulse within her chest, demanding that she do anything she had to.

Sara leaned back, her expression thoughtful as she pushed her chair out from the table. She couldn’t quite keep her lips from twitching, however, reluctantly betraying the direction of her thoughts as she stood.

“All right, don’t get too excited,” she admonished with a chuckle. “Let me go talk to my mate and see if I can in to speak to Therxian as he currently leads this nara.”

Biting her lip in an attempt to maintain some sort of composure and not hurry the other woman, Lori nodded. Her eyes never left Sara, however, as the medic headed out the door and stepped onto the path leading out from the small house into the small nara. She craned her head to peer out the window, a bubble of excitement catching within her chest as she watched Sara disappear between two other carefully built nests.

Would he agree? Although he had abandoned the Aglatha, she had no idea of what his feelings were or if he felt any remaining loyalty to his mother and the shinara he was raised within. He might not want to get involved at all, for all she knew.

A burning sensation filled her chest as she worried over the matter until the intense, squeezing pain reminded her to breathe. She exhaled and drew in a gulping breath, filling her lungs with the fresh, clean air. Somehow, she hadn’t even realized that she had begun to hold her breath. It was understandable, however. She was on pins and needles, waiting anxiously for some sight of Sara’s return. If she could have the chance to speak to her mates and let them know where she was and that was alive and well, she would readily agree to everything.

Time moved far too slowly, and Lori was unable to sit still. She got up from her seat and paced in front of the window, itching to just end the wait and go find Sara. Her fingers twisted together as she stared out at the street. The mist was settling lower over the ground as the night cooled and wore on but still, she could not pry herself away. She squinted at the mist and then nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise when Sara’s much smaller form stepped out of the fog with two large Seshanamitesh flanking her at either side, and something metallic with a faint glowing start-up light clasped tightly in her hand.

Lori’s breath stilled as she stared at the device. A comm! They had brought a comm. They were going to let her use it after all! She fairly shook with the enormity of the situation and the gift that they were giving her. She broke into a relieved smile as her friend ducked inside with the comm, but her smile faded at the grave look her friend bent on her as she carried the comm to the table and sat down, setting the comm directly in the center.

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