“Then who’s crawling up the back of my shirt?” he asked, standing so still I would have thought he met Medusa and was turned into stone.
It took an extra second for his words to register.
“Don’t move,” I ordered softly.
A bold green on green patterned snake emerged from the collar of his shirt and wrapped around his neck twice, then rose up. When its eyes met mine, its hood flared open, revealing a bold yellow pattern that seemed like eyes. It was a display of aggression toward me—a warning.
I knew a naga’s snake form when I saw one, and the vibrant yellow with that specific hood pattern told me who I was dealing with.
“Nakul, if you want to live through the night, you’ll leave Raphael unharmed,” I warned, trying to keep my voice steady. I was hoping two things—Nakul took me seriously and Raphael was immune to all nagas or at least wouldn’t die a painful death, even if his healing was torturous.
10
Chapter Ten
None of us moved for a long time, then Nakul moved all the way out of Raphael’s shirt, and there was a man holding a gun to Raphael’s head. Where he got a gun, I could reasonably guess, and it gave me a strong feeling as to how he got into my home.
“I’m here to help,” my uncle said softly. “But until you understand that, I’m going to keep this here.”
“Let me guess. In the mayhem of the breach and the escape, you got to my car, snaked into one of my bags, and hid there. And now that we’re here, you suddenly want to help since you realized I’d locked the entire condo down—no one in and no one out. You’re trapped and could have starved if not for revealing yourself. Or I would have found and killed you, eventually.”
“I knew you would find me, but I took advantage of your focus on getting away and into a safe location to hitch a ride, yes.” He nodded sharply. “Now, niece, we need to talk.”
“You…said as much at the prison when I was passing your cell,” I remembered, frowning. “What are you into this time?”
“It’s not about what I’m into, it’s about what you’re into. You’ve pissed off some powerful people, and they started pulling strings. You were supposed to die in the prison.”
“How do you know that?” I demanded, trying to keep my cool.
“Because they asked me to do it,” he answered simply.
Why am I not surprised?
“And? Are you going to try now or later? I don’t really have time to watch over my shoulder with you in my house. If you want to kill me, we might as well get this out of the way.” I didn’t have patience. If I was going to be dealing with people trying to kill me, I needed to get started with the why. The longer I let that question linger, the harder it would be to answer. I looked at Raphael’s black eyes and knew my own reasoning, but I already didn’t like how many unanswered questions there were around us. I didn’t want to deal with it anymore.
I can beat Nakul. He’s honestly one of the easier fights for me—a small boon.
“I obviously said no,” my uncle snapped. “Why in the gods’ names would I kill my niece and the last adult nagini?”
“Because I threw you in prison. Well, actually, Adhar threw you in prison to keep me from killing you,” I reminded him. “Honestly, I wish you were dead right now after all the terrible things you did.”
“I was out of my mind. Eliphas helped me regain my sanity, and I don’t plan on wasting it by killing my niece,” he said, exhaustion weighing down on him. I could see it in the lines of his sagging proud shoulders and the way his hard face softened. “I did do terrible things, but right now, I’m just trying to help the last real family I have. And our species. You can’t get killed. I won’t allow it.”
“We’re not family,” I whispered. “Not in any way that matters.” Nakul and I hadn’t had a real conversation since I was a child. When we saw each other after I became an Executioner and he was an insane serial killer, it had been close to seventy-five years since a family dinner when I was young. We most definitely didn’t talk.
“Kaliya, maybe you should tell him what happened to Eliphas,” Raphael said. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. Nakul