The wild dogs spread wider, hackles raised, yellow eyes glinting in the dappled moonlight filtering through the moonwood canopy. Their leader—Scar-Muzzle—lowered his front half in a mockery of a bow, lips peeled back from stained fangs.
"Last chance, serpent," he rasped. "Hand over the breeder. We'll even let you and the lion slink away with your pride… mostly intact."
Alex felt the exact moment Naga's temper snapped.
It wasn't loud. No roar. No dramatic hiss.
Just a sudden, absolute stillness.
Then the air itself seemed to thicken as Naga's coils began to rise—slow, deliberate, like smoke curling upward before a storm. Twenty feet of black and green muscle lifting in perfect, terrifying synchrony until his human torso hovered high above the dogs, shadowed against the silver trees.
His voice, when it came, was calm. Almost polite.
"You have three heartbeats to leave."
Scar-Muzzle laughed—a sharp, ugly bark.
"Big words from a snake playing house with a strange pregnant male. You think you can take all of us?"
He signaled at the bushes where more dogs were hiding, waiting for their leader to take action.
Naga tilted his head, the motion so slow it was almost lazy.
"I know I can."
Leo stepped forward, transforming into a beast, placing himself squarely between Alex and the pack. His mane flared in the moonlight, turning him into a living pillar of white fury. When he spoke, his voice was low, measured, and carried the unmistakable weight of someone who had already decided how this would end.
"You are standing between my pregnant mate and safety," he said. Each word dropped like a stone into still water. "That was your first mistake."
The younger dog—the twitchy one—licked his lips again, eyes fixed on Alex.
"He smells like he's carrying at least five. Maybe more. Think of the pups we could—"
Leo's head whipped toward him.
The growl that left the lion was not loud. It was deep. Bone-rattling. The kind of sound that vibrated through the earth itself.
The twitchy dog yelped and stumbled backward.
Scar-Muzzle snarled, trying to rally them.
"Enough talk! Take the breeder! Kill the—"
Naga moved.
Not a strike. Not yet.
He simply… uncoiled.
One thick loop of tail lashed out faster than sight, wrapping twice around Scar-Muzzle's torso and yanking him off his paws like a toy.
The dog's startled yelp cut off into a choked wheeze as Naga lifted him high—high enough that all fourteen could see their leader dangling helplessly, hind legs kicking air.
"I said," Naga repeated, softer now, "three heartbeats."
He squeezed—just enough.
Scar-Muzzle's ribs creaked audibly.
The pack froze.
Leo took one step forward. That was all it took. One step from a nine-foot lion in full battle-rage, mane fully expanded, golden eyes burning like twin suns.
The twitchy one broke first.
He turned tail and bolted.
Three more followed.
Then five.
Then the rest—except for two stubborn idiots who tried to circle behind.
Naga didn't even look at them.
His second coil snapped sideways—casual, almost bored—and caught both dogs mid-leap, slamming them together with a meaty thud before flinging them into the underbrush.
They did not get up.
Scar-Muzzle was gasping now, claws scrabbling uselessly at iridescent scales.
"Mercy—" he wheezed.
Naga brought him close—close enough for the dog to see the cold, endless depths of serpent eyes.
"You will run," Naga said quietly. "You will tell every scavenger, every rogue pack, every fool who thinks to approach my mate: the price is death. Not yours. Theirs. And everyone they have ever loved."
He opened his coils.
Scar-Muzzle dropped like a stone, hit the ground hard, scrambled up, and ran—tail tucked, pride shattered.
Silence returned to the moonwood.
Only the soft rustle of leaves and Alex's uneven breathing remained.
Naga lowered himself slowly, returning to Alex's side in an instant. His hands—gentle now—cupped Alex's face, thumbs brushing away the sweat on his temples.
"Are you alright?" he asked, voice stripped raw.
Alex nodded. Then shook his head. Then laughed—a short, shaky, disbelieving sound.
"You just… yeeted their leader into the air."
"I would have done worse," Naga said simply.
Leo padded closer, pressing his broad forehead to Alex's shoulder.
"They will not return," he murmured. "Not tonight. Not ever, if they value their lives."
Alex leaned into both of them—cool scales on one side, warm fur on the other—and let out a long, trembling breath.
"I hate this," he whispered. "I hate that they saw me as… as prey. As a prize."
Leo's purr vibrated against his skin.
"You are not prey."
"You are treasure," Naga finished, softer. "And treasure is always guarded."
Alex closed his eyes.
"I just want to get the damn stone and go home."
Neither mate answered.
Because they both knew—deep in the places they didn't speak aloud—that "home" was becoming a more complicated word with every passing day.
They moved on.
Faster now.
The moonwood forest slowly thinned as they pressed onward, the silver-barked trees giving way to denser, darker evergreens whose needles muffled sound and swallowed light. The air grew colder, sharper, carrying the faint metallic promise of snow that hadn't yet fallen.
Alex was quiet—unusually quiet—curled against Naga's broad chest as the serpent slithered forward with his characteristic eerie silence.
The adrenaline crash had left him hollowed out, shaky, and far too aware of every small movement inside him: the faint, butterfly-wing flutters that might have been gas, might have been imagination, or might have been six tiny lives reminding him they existed.
Leo padded alongside them, silent now too, though his ears never stopped moving. Every few minutes he would glance at Alex, nostrils flaring as though checking for fresh distress beneath the lingering fear-scent.
Eventually the path opened into a small, sheltered clearing ringed by towering firs. A shallow stream cut through one side, its surface reflecting fractured moonlight. The ground here was thick with fallen needles—soft, dry, perfect for bedding down.
Naga slowed without being asked.
"Here," he said simply. "We stop."
Alex lifted his head from where it had been resting against cool scales. "We still have hours of darkness left. We could—"
"No." Naga's tone allowed no argument.
"You are shaking. Your scent is sour with exhaustion and fear. The little ones feel it too."
Alex opened his mouth to protest—then closed it again when he realized Naga was right. His hands were trembling. His stomach felt tight in that particular nauseous way that had nothing to do with morning sickness and everything to do with almost being taken as breeding stock by a pack of wild dogs.
Leo was already moving, nosing fallen branches into a rough windbreak on the upstream side of the clearing. "We need fire," he said. "Warmth. And something hot in his stomach that isn't just nerves."
Naga lowered Alex carefully to the needle-strewn ground, one coil immediately curling behind him like a living backrest. "Stay," he murmured, brushing a kiss to Alex's temple before slithering off to help Leo gather wood.
For once, Alex didn't argue.