A Queen Among Snakes: Chapter Twenty-Nine - Mei

I’ve experienced all types of pain in my life, but this is entirely new. I feel like I’m waking up without remembering falling asleep, but even though I feel my senses returning, my eyes just don’t want to open and I’m not sure I want them to either.

My entire body aches in a way I can barely put into words. At best, I’d describe it as though my blood has been replaced with lead and I’m being crushed by my own blood. My blood hurts. That doesn’t even make sense. The pain just doesn’t feel as though it’s in my muscles or bones but in my very blood. I know there are no pain receptors in blood but this is the best way I can describe it.

“I’m glad you’re finally waking up,” I hear a smooth voice say. I can sense someone moving and sitting beside me. I then feel cool fingers brush my hair from my face. I want to move away from their touch, but my body is too heavy. All I manage is a groan of protest. “Sh, I know it hurts. It’s only temporary, but it’s for the best.”

I’m starting to remember where I’ve heard that voice…

The man in the woods.

I suddenly remember Setia’s pained screams. The memory has fear rolling over me, causing a burst of adrenaline to shoot through me, forcing my eyes to snap open.

Sure enough, it’s him. Same rich brown eyes, jet-black hair styled with gel, cool beige skin, defined cheekbones and whisps of black hair above his lip and on his chin. He’s looking down at me with an expression I just can’t understand and his scent… I still can’t smell it… actually, I can’t smell anything.

I try to listen for any distinctive sounds, but I can’t hear anything, not even his heartbeat. As panic begins to set in, I can, however, hear my heartbeat thudding in my ears. The room we’re in sounds strange like it’s loud and muffled at the same time and it’s hurting my ears.

I realise I’m lying on some kind of white, curved-leather couch and there’s another one opposite this one with gold cushions scattered on it. I see long windows stretching down either side of the couches and… wait, are those clouds outside the windows?! Are we on an aeroplane?!

The man follows my eyeline and chuckles, “Yes, we’re on a plane. I’d have taken us the faster way, but my contact was being difficult. No matter. Just means more time for us to bond,” he says as he caresses my cheek.

I manage to move my face away, but it feels like doing so drained all my energy. His touch feels like spiders crawling under my skin. I try to call out for Chris through our link, but I can’t feel him; there’s nothing there.

I can feel the room spinning and my heart beating faster.

I want Chris. Why can’t he hear me?

“Who are you?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm and even, even though I’m panicking inside.

“You have a beautiful voice, Wo De Huang Hou,” he smiles at me.

He’s calling me something in Mandarin, but I don’t understand him. That makes this so much worse. He’s speaking my native tongue, yet I don’t know what he’s saying. First I was tortured by a pack speaking a language I didn’t understand, and it seems history is about to repeat itself, only this is worse because it’s meant to be my language.

“Please let me go,” I beg.

He shakes his head, “Why would I do that? I’m taking you home,” he says in a soothing voice, but I don’t feel soothed at all.

“You took me from my home.”

“No! Your home is with me! I’m taking you back where you belong! With your own kind, not with a pack of mangy dogs,” he hisses. Literally hisses.

I flinch back at his tone, but my eyes are wide in surprise, “Y-You’re a nagata?”

He smiles, calming down a bit, “I am Zixin, Emperor of the Nagata and as I said, I’m taking you home,” he says with a tone of finality.

“Please. I know I’m one of you, but I have an animai and my home is with him,” I whisper pleadingly.

I gulp when his eyes flash gold and reptilian just like mine and his hand clasps around my throat crushing my windpipe, “That disgusting mutt touched what’s mine. It’s a setback for now, but rest assured, you are mine and unless you want me to rip out his heart and feed it to you, I suggest you be a good girl and do as you’re told,” he says sadistically.

Tears fill my eyes and all I can do is nod. I just want to go home. I want Chris, I want my pack. What does this man want from me? I was meant to be getting stronger, but again I find myself helpless.

“Don’t cry, my love,” he says sweetly as he kisses my cheek, his hand still around my throat. “You’ll feel better once we get you settled in. But these will have to stay on until I can trust you to behave,” he says lifting my wrist with his free hand.

It’s only then I notice the bangle around each wrist; they look like they’ve been carved from a gemstone. They’re mostly jade-green with white and blue marbling and my skin is burned where the bangles touch my skin.

Oh no, I know exactly what this is. Setia taught me about what things are dangerous for a nagata. Nagatas are vulnerable to iron, a flower known as snake head’s and a gemstone called serpentine. Iron has the same effect on a nagata as silver does to a mutolupus. Snake’s head is poison to my kind; in small doses, it weakens us painfully, in large doses it’s fatal and serpentine can render us as good as human. Even kill us.

He’s put serpentine around my wrists, and I can’t even see how you get it on or off and based on the pain I remember feeling when he took me, I think he may have injected me with snake head. No wonder I feel so weak and in pain, I’ve been poisoned and cuffed with something designed to render me human. It really is history repeating itself.

He releases his hand from around my neck and I find it easier to breathe. Again he strokes my cheek, but this time it’s as his eyes rake over my body and it fills me with disgust. That’s how the men back at Albus Mons used to look at me. It used to terrify me – it still does – but now it also repulses me. Only one person can look at me like that. I’d rather die than have anyone other than Chris touch me or look at me like that.

I feel a surge of courage build in my weakened body and I look back at the Emperor defiantly, “I am not yours, and I am not your love. My love’s name is Chris, and you’re not him!” I spit fiercely. I don’t care what he says or does, he can’t replace half of my soul.

His reptilian eyes shine brightly and at a speed too fast for me to catch, he backhands me across the face causing my head to bounce into the back of the couch. I cry out as sharp shooting pain radiates through my cheek, my vision blurs and blood fills my mouth.

My cheekbone is broken, I can feel it. He has the strength of a nagata while he’s rendered me human. He could crush me like an ant.

“Watch. Your. Mouth. Now I was trying to be nice, but if I ever hear you mention his name again I will cut out your tongue,” he says menacingly.

That’s not the first time I’ve heard that threat.

҉  Flashback Five Years Ago  ҉

I’ve been scrubbing the pack gym for hours now. Wolves don’t hold back when they train, which results in a lot of bloodshed. I have to use strong cleaning products to try and get rid of all the blood stains.

As I dig the scrub brush into the floor, trying to break up the blood stains, I feel a stinging pain in my finger that makes me flinch back. I stop scrubbing and examine my hand. I bite my lip to keep from crying when I see my nail has completely fallen off. I’m literally falling apart. If I continue to live like this there won’t be anything left of me.

“Who the fuck told you to stop working?” Growls a voice behind me as my hair gets yanked back making me whimper. “I’m talking to you!” He shouts.

The Alpha’s son is four years older than me, making him eighteen and even if he didn’t have Alpha blood, he’d still be stronger than me. He doesn’t need to use his full strength to make me submit, he just does it because he loves seeing me in pain.

“I-I’m… s-s-sorry,” I stutter as I keep my eyes cast down.

“Sorry what?” He growls next to my ear, and I begin to shake in fear.

“I-I’m s-s-sorry, A-A-Alpha,” I manage to say. He’s not Alpha yet, but he demands I call him that, but only when his father isn’t around. If his father heard him order people to call him Alpha his father would probably beat him too.

“You’re fucking pathetic. I don’t know why we keep you,” he says snidely as his hold on my hair tightens making me wince in pain. His eyes travel over me as he licks his lips. I want to crawl away and hide, but his hold on me is too strong. “Well, you might have some uses I suppose,” he says in a husky voice.

I gulp as my heart beats against my ribcage, fear coursing through my weak and tired limbs. He leans in to kiss me and even though it hurts, I manage to turn my face away from him, causing him to kiss my cheek. He growls viciously and pinches my face in his hand and forces me to look up at his glowing green eyes.

“You’re going to fucking regret that,” he spits. “What, you think you’re too good for me? Stupid bitch. Try a stunt like that again and I’ll cut out your tongue,” he threatens with his face so close to mine. “Understand?”

I nod fervently; each nod causing my scalp to sting as the hair is yanked from the grip he maintains on my hair. To my relief he lets me go and shoves me to the floor. I bite my lips together doing my best not to make a sound.

Why is this happening to me? I just want it to end.

The last thing I see is his foot aiming for my face before everything goes dark.

҉  End Flashback  ҉