Page 23 of Delivered to My Serpents

Next time I opened my eyes, I heard my name so I replied, hoping it was one of the guys. The chaos had not slowed or silenced, so I couldn’t be sure, but hopefully any bad guys or gals who wanted to break in did not know my name.

I was the bad girl in this scenario anyway.

Then it all went quiet, and ordinary office lighting replaced the red flashing. The odd voices stilled, leaving only one.

“Jasmine.” It was Drake. I wasn’t sure if it had been him the first time. “Jasmine, Naga is coming to find you. Stay very still, please. From what we can tell, you’re in a precarious situation with a lot of heavy things balanced above you.”

“A lot of heavy things already hit me.”

“This is much more.” He spoke in a calm voice, but his words told me how serious it was. “Naga is going to deal with it, try to work things around and make it safe for me to get you out, all right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re staying still?”

“Yes I, ahhh!” A spiked head followed by a long spiked body appeared through an opening between table legs and broken glass. “Help me! There’s something here.”

“Don’t move! It’s only Naga. His serpent form. And he’s going to help.”

“He’s green and has spikes all over him? You’re sure that’s him?”

Despite the situation, Drake’s tone held humor. “Yes, and I’m purple in my serpent form. Why? Did you think there were other serpents around here?”

I tried to stifle my damned cough, but it broke out and rattled some of the things around me.

“Mate? If you can just stop for a minute and let Naga stabilize things, please? I know you can’t help it, usually, but if you can maybe take slow breaths or think pleasant thoughts?”

I was facing a pretty scary serpent with round pupils and… “Those spikes?”

“Yes, mate?”

“Are they poisonous?”

“No, not in our families at least. Hang in there. We’ll get you out.”

“I’m sorry I did this. It’s all my fault.”

“Not sure about that, but either way, we have to save you then try to figure out what to tell the insurance company.”

“That’s not funny.” I coughed a little less, but the faint laugh didn’t really help. “I’m scared.”

The green spiky serpent paused what he was doing, presumably stabilizing the equipment all around and over me, to gently nuzzle my arm. To my amazement, all I felt was love and other good feelings flowing from him.

“I’m not so scared now.” But why? “I don’t understand.”

“If Naga touched you, he did that. He has the ability to take away negative emotions.”

“Do you have a skill?”

“Yes, but it’s more about being a hot lover.”

The serpent next to me hissed, and Drake chuckled. “My serpent can read people and see if they are telling the truth.”

Oh gods. And they still wanted me around?

But this wasn’t a good time to ask any more questions. I just tried to stay unmoving and let the serpent known as Naga use the hand I hadn’t even noticed he had to shift things around until Drake could reach in and get hold of me and drag me out. Unfortunately they were unable to save the equipment that tumbled down the second I was out of there.

I was, but… “Naga? Is he still in there?”

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