CHAPTER#125

"I was wondering how long you would sleep." Ratu was holding one of Yuki's journals and sat on a chaise lounge across from him, but she seemed taller than normal. Mike looked around and realized that the dusty old mattress that had been in Yuki's room now rested directly on the floor.

"What time is it?" His voice was raspy, his throat raw. A drink of water sounded marvelous.

"Night time. You were out all day, which is probably for the best." Ratu rose and came to his side with a silver mug. When she offered it, he drank from it greedily. It tasted like mint. "How do you feel?"

"Strange." When he lifted his arms, they were sore, but he felt an odd tightness through his chest. He rubbed his pecs, wincing at the small wounds that were open there. "I feel tired, but so does my brain. Kind of. When I was younger, I used to do gaming marathons and would feel super burned out afterwards, but this is different. Everything is a bit foggy."

"Yes, well, about that." She knelt in front of him and inspected his face. "I suspect that wrestling with a Jabberwock will do that. Zel was pretty upset with the number of injuries you had."

"I shouldn't have been that injured." He thought back to the flight over the valley. "I don't even remember getting hurt."

"Ah, well, a good chunk of that was adrenaline. A good portion of it was self inflicted though."

He blinked, confused by her statement.

"Something else happened, remember?" Ratu plugged her ears dramatically. "It was loud enough to wake me up, that's for sure."

"Oh. Right." That explained why his throat was sore.

"I have some suspicions which we can confirm later, but I want you to tell me what happened while you were riding that thing."

It took a few minutes to tell the story. He stopped every few sentences to sip from the silver mug, and told Ratu how his intuition had guided him and kept him from harm. Once finished, she leaned back and smirked.

"Interesting. So you rode on this thing without a care in the world, somehow held on for dear life, and drove it to the ground."

"When you say it that way, you make it sound impossible."

"It should have been." Ratu took Mike's arm and stretched it out, and he winced. "You pulled most of these muscles. Would you like me to explain how?"

"Sure." He winced again. "Where is Zel?"

"She's on the ground floor sleeping. She can't climb the stairs, her ankle is pretty bad. Tink helped me carry you up here."

"Where is she?"

Ratu chuckled. "Last I saw her, she was stuffing her face in the kitchen with the rats. They had quite the tale for us as well." She passed along everything that Tink had seen, and Mike felt the bottom of his stomach drop out when he heard that Yuki had turned the others to stone. Once Ratu was finished, he started to stand up.

"I need to get back," he said, but Ratu pushed him back onto the bed, her body on top of his.

"Not until tomorrow. The rats need time to open a portal back, and everybody is wiped out. If you are going to face Yuki, you need to be prepared, mentally and physically." Her arms slid around his torso and she gazed intently into his eyes. "And I have a theory I want to test."

"I don't know that now is—" Her lips met his, and he felt a tremendous heat radiate from her body into his. A wave of arousal washed over him, and she broke the kiss, sitting up and straddling his waist.

"I think now is exactly the time," she told him, rubbing her crotch against his. "It will take your mind off of things and could even help your recovery."

"How?" A groan escaped him, and he let his head fall back.

"That's something we will find out together." A mischievous grin crossed her face, a wave of snakeskin rippling across her cheeks and down her neck. She pulled open her kimono to reveal the smooth tops of her breasts. "Do you remember when we spent the night in the ice cave?"

"How could I forget?" They had been freezing to death, and had eventually ended up naked in each other's arms. Just another weekday, he thought to himself with a grin.

"The lightning. I want to see the lightning again." When she slid out of her robes, they folded up around her legs and then melded into her skin, the flying dragon moving up her thighs and now circling her torso like a magical tattoo. "Show me your magic, Mike Radley."

"You certainly are forward." The heat pulsing through him helped his muscles relax, and he slid one hand across Ratu's breast. The skin beneath it was reptilian, and he marveled again at just how soft it felt against his thumb.

"I don't have time for men who play games." She leaned forward again to kiss him, but bit his lip playfully instead. Her breasts pressed against him, and the tightness in his chest relaxed a little. "Especially interesting ones like you."

"I'm not that... yeah, I don't think I can say it with a straight face anymore." Something had rolled over in his head, his sense of self just a little bit larger. He wasn't so sure about who or what he had become, but he was no longer a reclusive web developer. Here, in the arms of a naga, her blazing eyes just inches from his, he felt like the center of the universe.

"I can say without a doubt that you are one of a kind. I have met no human quite like you, and I have met many." She nibbled on his lower lip and then moved past his cheek, her lips now on his ear.

Her breath was hot against his skin, and he could feel the tip of her tongue split in two along his lobe. One side ran just underneath his ear, tickling his neck, while the other teased the outer ridges of his ear. She whispered softly with each breath, and he felt the heat pulsing through his body shift, targeting the areas where he hurt the most.