Page 35 of Naga's Mate

"Why didn't you let me die?" The words emerge ragged, honest in their brutality. "I chose to terminate our offspring. I knew what the capsule would do."

"Yet you weep each night," he responds, his scales shifting in patterns I can't fully interpret. "Your scent carries the bitter markers of regret."

The observation strikes with surgical precision, laying bare the contradiction I've been avoiding. If I was so certain of my choice, why am I drowning in remorse?

"I thought I wanted freedom more than anything," I whisper, the admission painful in its honesty. "I thought escaping you was worth any price."

"And now?"

"Now I understand there are prices too high to pay." My hand moves unconsciously to my empty womb, to the space where possibility once grew. "I can't take it back. Can't undo what I chose."

"No," he agrees, the single syllable heavy with shared loss. "What's done is done."

Silence stretches between us, filled with grief neither species has adequate vocabulary to express. What do you call the emotion that emerges when captor and captive mourn together? When shared creation matters more than the coercion that initiated it?

"They took more than offspring," he says finally, genuine pain evident in his usually controlled voice. "They took possibility."

It's the first glimpse I've had behind his dominant façade, a momentary revelation of something unexpectedly vulnerable in the powerful alpha.

"Our offspring represented unprecedented developmental success," he continues, coils shifting restlessly. "Not merely viable hybrid life but potential evolutionary advancement. The specialized venom bond we developed allowed your system to support genetic integration no previous human-naga pairing has achieved."

The scientific assessment doesn't fully mask the personal loss. I remember his expression when I first confirmed the pregnancy—not merely possessive triumph but genuine wonder. That same wonder now inverted into grief.

"I made the wrong choice," I admit, the words inadequate for the magnitude of my error.

"Yet you survive," he responds. "You can heal. Continue."

That night, after completing medical procedures that leave me exhausted but noticeably improved, Nezzar doesn't leave as he has previous evenings. Instead, he settles his massive form beside my recovery platform, coils arranging themselves in a loose perimeter that doesn't touch me.

"You don't need to stay," I tell him, unsure what this change signifies.

"Your rest patterns improve with proximity," he responds matter-of-factly. "The venom bond, while damaged, still responds to physical presence."

It's true. My sleep has been fragmented and unsatisfying, plagued by withdrawal symptoms that intensify during unconsciousness. His presence already calms my nervous system in ways the medical interventions alone can't achieve.

As sleep begins claiming me, his coils shift closer, gradually encircling my sleeping platform without actually touching me. The familiar arrangement—protective rather than restrictive—triggers conflicting emotions. My body recognizes safety where my mind still questions captivity.

I drift toward unconsciousness with the realization that our relationship has entered territory neither of us fully understands—beyond captor and captive, beyond scientist and subject. Something not yet defined by any familiar paradigm.

His scales gleam in the dim lighting, iridescent patterns shifting with his breathing. Not touching me, but close enough that my traumatized system responds to his presence. The last thought before sleep claims me is uncomfortably honest: there are many kinds of prisons, and the one I tried to escape might be the only one where I actually belong.

CHAPTER18

MOURNING WHAT NEVER WAS

POV: NEZZAR

The specialized healingpool embraces my serpentine form in constant warmth, mineral-rich waters soothing both scale and flesh. Yet true comfort remains elusive. For the first time since discovering Lyra among the toxic blooms of the restricted greenhouse—since claiming her as territory, research subject, and breeding vessel—I find myself adrift in unfamiliar waters.

Predators aren't meant to hesitate. We assess, we strike, we claim. The natural order exists uncomplicated by emotional entanglements humans seem to treasure. Yet here I remain, suspended in therapeutic waters, immobilized not by physical injury but by something far more invasive.

Doubt.

The extraction operation achieved tactical perfection. My strike team neutralized the resistance cell with devastating efficiency. My territory's defenses have been reinforced with protocols no human infiltration could penetrate again. By every standard of naga assessment, satisfaction in restored order should predominate.

Instead, I find myself analyzing medical data that confirms what instinct already detected—the venom bond connecting Lyra to myself has been fundamentally damaged by the resistance's purging compounds. Not merely weakened but structurally altered, requiring careful reconstruction rather than simple resumption. The neural pathways her exceptional biology developed in response to my venom lie scorched like vegetation after wildfire. What remains forms a delicate network of connections that could either regenerate or collapse entirely under inappropriate stimulus.

More profoundly, the hybrid offspring representing unprecedented evolutionary potential has been lost. Terminated with clinical precision by compounds explicitly designed to eradicate all naga influence regardless of consequential damage.

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