Chapter 2

Corin

The grate came off with a good amount of brute force; it clattered to the stone floor with a loud echo. I slid out of the wall through it and groaned—it had been a tight squeeze. Leaning forward, I stretched my back with a pop, relieved to finally unfurl myself again. That had been a tough crawl through a seemingly endless twisting path of pipes, cables, and humming machinery. I now had a new level of admiration for what our ancestors had been capable of building.

The room I'd crawled into wasn't big, but it was tall enough for me to fully unwind. The grate I'd slithered out of was just behind me, set into a wall with several more vents leading in other directions. A control unit was located in the center, with a dormant viewscreen above a desk lined with several rows of symbols and buttons.

That was the perfect place to start my search; a machine not directly associated with Ahoshaga's living hub. If there was any sign of the Revenant that Zeidon and Farah had encountered, I should be able to find it. My gut churned at the thought: an ancient, self-thinking machine roaming the tunnels beneath my Haven.

Zathar might be responsible for our newly formed Clan, but I felt solely responsible for running our home. A home unlike any other on Serant, one that had made me incredibly happy—until I learned of the Revenant's threat. I might not have been able to become a Shaman, but running Ahoshaga had brought me as close to that dream as I could ever get.

To think that turning on the hydro plant that powered Ahoshaga had likely given this Revenant power again too… I felt doubly responsible for the warriors trapped because of its evil machinations. I had to fix this.

My tail lashed roughly in the air in frustration. No matter how determined I was to fulfill this quest, my mind kept straying back to a certain, always-smiling female. A female whose dark eyes hid things I knew were not nearly as cheerful as she made everyone think she was. What was Min-Ji doing right now?

I pictured her sitting next to Naomi at the campfire, flinging an arm around the Warlord's mate to reassure her. That was what she always did: care for the others, cheer them up, be there for them. She was always welcome everywhere, always greeted by the others with a smile, but I still remembered that it hadn't been that way at first.

They hadn't trusted her, and I still didn't know why. It was a mystery I wanted to uncover, threads I wanted to pull until it unraveled into neat, orderly information I could understand. But this wasn't the information I should be focusing on right now, I had an important mission. People depended on me, including a small, pregnant human female who was without her mate.

The viewscreen flickered to life when I touched the first row of buttons with a claw. A crack ran diagonally from the upper left corner of the screen, warping the images it displayed, but I could still make out enough to understand what I was seeing: diagrams of the vents and airflow status. All systems were green except for three. The pipe I'd used to slither into this room showed a warning symbol, and two others in a remote section were red. The latter might indicate a collapse, but they didn't appear to be critical parts of the system. I figured the first warning was likely from tripping or damaging a sensor on my way down.

A sound made my scales twitch and rattle along my spine, and my hand flew to the long knife strapped to the small of my back. I spun, my hunter training kicking in, instincts and skills that endless repetition had honed. My eyes locked on the grate I'd left open, my entry point into the Revenant's domain.

The soft noise came again, followed by a slightly louder whir and a muffled, high-pitched tone. My scales flattened, and my shoulders lowered. With an annoyed grunt, I slid the knife back into its sheath and returned my attention to the screens.

A small cleaning bot dropped out of the hatch behind me with a metallic thud and another high tone, one that came remarkably close to an indignant squeak. "I left you behind, you silly bot," I said. "You don't need to clean this place." My words fell on deaf ears, because this particular bot was as faulty as they came, and clearly it hadn't been turned off like I thought. It did clean like it was designed, but it only ever cleaned things it had decided needed cleaning. Far too often that was the tip of my tail, not the floors it should have been polishing.

It beeped a few more times, then whirred as its polishing discs spun on the underside of its small, round body. Of course, it was going to polish the floor of this room. As if I wasn't already frustrated enough, as if I didn't already have enough to deal with, now I had to keep the bot from harming itself while I was down here. I should deactivate it, but I couldn't bring myself to do that.

When it bumped into my tail, and I felt the gentle brush of a cleaning disc slide against my scales, I sighed. There we go. This bot always persisted in polishing every part of my coiled tail it could reach, humming merrily as it did so. Why it did that was beyond me, and though I'd asked Artek, the Shaman had been equally baffled.

"Fine, you can stay," I said, my eyes narrowing as I found the first clue that not all was as it should be down here. "But you've got to stick close. No wandering off on your own, and no cleaning any strange machines." I swear the little bot hummed, as though it was pleased. It settled down against the nearest loop of my body and didn't move again. I could almost believe it had understood what I said, but that was crazy.

There was too much data stored here—strings of symbols and numbers that had no function. They certainly weren't related to the vents. I struggled to transform the gut feeling I had into words that made sense. For now, I settled for locating maps of the tunnels, information I didn't have access to from Ahoshaga's central hub. If I could locate the hydro plant chambers, I could find the warriors. I also needed to check the chamber where Zeidon and Farah had escaped. I had to make sure the piece of the Revenant that Farah had thrown onto the floor was still there.

The map was confusing, with several layers, but after a few minutes of puzzling, I was certain I'd located the spots I needed to check. On a thin, finely cured piece of pale lavender leather, I drew the path I needed to follow in charcoal. It was rudimentary, but it would ensure I didn't get lost. I couldn't estimate the distances on the map, and I needed to hurry; the warriors wouldn't have much food left.

"Come on, bot," I said when I finished my map. I eyed the only door to the room with a hint of suspicion. Farah and Zeidon had a lot of trouble with opening doors down here, would this door be similar? I was confident I could get around it, but if every door became an obstacle, it would slow me down significantly.

The little bot made an annoyed beeping noise, a sharp tone that almost hurt my ears. I wanted to think it was irritated because I moved my tail, but a bot couldn't nap, and it couldn't feel "comfortable" on my coil, so why would it be? "Stay close," I warned as I headed for the door.

The bot whirred as it cleaned the floor, leaving a shiny streak along the dust-strewn ground as it followed me. The door opened without issue, which eased one concern but left me with another. The hallway was dimly lit by dirty crystals in the ceiling, and a massive crack ran along it, suggesting this place was not quite stable.

Once I had freed the warriors, I would have to do a complete survey to make sure our home was secure. I added the task to my already long mental list of things I had to fix. The females wanted their ‘plumbing' to keep working, and Naomi wanted the ‘mess hall' restored so we wouldn't be forced to eat outside in the winter. This would have to take precedence. I did not have enough hands, and I definitely did not have enough hours in the day to take care of all our budding Clan's needs. Not if they kept getting injured.

"Beep," the bot announced, and he bumped against my tail as if urging me to get going. Ah, now I was even thinking of the bot as he . I was losing my damn mind—first over the female, and now over this faulty machine. If Iave knew about this, he wouldn't recover from laughing so hard. I wouldn't survive the ribbing that would surely follow. He? No, it was a bot. It didn't have a gender, and it didn't have a personality. It couldn't .

The next sound I heard made me want to snap at the machine, tell it to back off, and let me focus. Only, it wasn't the bot making a noise this time. It came from behind me, again . I spun, hand flying to my knife, and I flashed it through the air, held in a defensive grip in front of my body. What now?

The viewscreen flashed on the vent control hub, displaying the diagram of all the pipes and warnings. A red light on the vent I'd used blinked rapidly, flashing alerts about blockages and system failures if not resolved. Then, a foot slipped through the open grate, followed by a delicate ankle, a gently curved calf, and then a thigh.

I gaped in shock, but that shock was quickly replaced by a wild rush of heat. My tongue flicked out, drawing scent particles into my mouth, pressing them against the scent receptors at the roof of my mouth. Her individual notes teased my senses and gripped my mind, igniting the primal instincts of my body. Min-Ji. It was her.

She unfurled from the vent without making a sound, agile as a Sleara. She was much smaller than I was—much smaller—but even so, it couldn't have been an easy journey for her through those pipes. Human limbs didn't bend and move the way a Naga body could, and, begrudgingly, I was very impressed she'd made it.

I didn't know how to respond or what to feel at the sight of her. Elation that she was with me? Absolute terror for the very same reason? I needed her to stay safe—I needed her as far from me as possible. But if she was here, with me, no other male could encroach on what should be mine. That kind of thinking was going to get me in trouble, but the sense of satisfaction, the feeling of victory, was starting to win out.

Her sleek black hair had grown longer over the past few months, tumbling around her shoulders in a messy cascade. Her skin looked as temptingly inviting as ever, and her soft pink lips made me desperately curious to experience the mouth-to-mouth greetings humans seemed to favor with their mates. I was not her mate; I had not staked my claim, but that mouth made me want to, badly.

She rose to her full height, which brought her just below my midriff in my current position. Min-Ji was a tiny human, about the same size as frail Cosima, who had been dubbed the smallest among Haven's members. Min-Ji only had an inch on the flame-haired woman, but her cheerful personality made her seem larger. When she planted her hands on her hips, my cock surged in its pouch, pressing against the slit as it threatened to escape my iron control.

"Hi," she said with a beatific smile. That smile said everything. She knew she wasn't welcome, and that I would try to send her back. I also knew that she wouldn't go, that was in the smile too. Nothing I'd say or do would convince her to crawl back into that vent and up to Haven, so she'd be safe. Min-Ji made it an art form to be the thorn in my side. No, not really, that honor went to the faulty cleaning bot.

I leveled a glare at the small, round machine, but it just blinked its lights back at me. When I turned that glare on Min-Ji, her smile grew a tad wider, but her relaxed posture didn't change. Neither of them was intimidated by me. I was losing my touch.

With a deep sigh, I rolled my shoulders and sheathed the blade I'd grabbed at the first sound. "Fine, you can come too, but the same rules apply." I held up a finger and pointed first at the bot, then at the wayward female. "Stay close." I raised a second finger. "And don't touch anything."

I turned away without looking at what she did, but I was hyper-aware of her position the entire time. I couldn't risk a stray touch revealing the secret I'd been holding. That kind of confirmation of what she already sensed would only embolden her more. For her safety, nobody could know, not even her. Definitely not the other her .

Min-Ji made a squeaking noise, and I knew that sound was accompanied by her hands pressed to her chest as if she could not contain her excitement. She always did things like that, and I could not bear to see them, they were too cute. It tore at my heart. "You're not even going to try to send me back? Really, Corin?"

The grunt that left my throat was half-smothered laugh, half-pained groan. If I had been distracted by her before, it was going to be agony to stay on task now. "What's the point?" I muttered under my breath. "You wouldn't listen anyway."