Prey (Male!Naga x Male!Reader)

Chapter 29

Y/n and Dr. Nilsson stared at each other for a long time. The gun in her hand was laid against the table, not quite aimed at him but close enough to be alarming. Y/n stayed very still, hardly breathing and Dr. Nilsson watched him almost as intense and unblinking as a snake.

This wasn't the time to be brave, but Y/n still squared his shoulders and did not waver in his steadfast gaze.

He opened his mouth —

A scream tore through the early morning air.

Dr. Nilsson's face went white.

Y/n turned to look behind himself — the scream rising in intensity and pitch, reverberating all across the shore — Dr. Nilsson shoved past him, nearly throwing him off his shaky balance. The gun in her hand was aimed at the ready and Y/n stumbled after her, feeling off-balanced from his injured leg to his spiraling state of mind.

As the (h/c) man pulled the tent's flap out of the way, he saw men rushing by, tranq rifles at the ready. They were heading towards the ocean bizarrely enough, and Y/n hurried after them as fast as his leg would let him.

But once Y/n had a clear view of the ocean, he stopped dead in his tracks. The man who was screaming — shrieking and shouting at them for help — was being dragged, quite strongly and quite forcibly out to sea. It was clear by the spell of turbulent waves and the violent swirl of water disrupting the low tide at dawn, that the man was being hauled away by something very deliberately.

He jerked above the surface, men rushing right to the coastline yet not continuing into the ocean after him. There was the exchanging of alarmed, some even frightened, looks and shouted words in foreign languages. Yet, no one went in the ocean after the man.

The screaming man's head ducked below the surface, his shrieks interrupting on a choke of saltwater. He breached the surface only once more before he disappeared under the waves for good.

A cloud of crimson began permeating the ocean at the same exact spot the man vanished from. And then, Y/n felt a low swoop in his gut, there was the telltale movement on the ocean's surface. Slithering and slinky, familiar dark scales briefly breached the surface, Enlil's tail curling across the raging ocean waves in powerful strokes.

Then the naga's face rose from the cerulean water, eyes burning a bright gold and jaw flexed, poised at the ready to strike. It felt like a threat; a show of the naga being able to break their unvoiced stalemate; their sense of security any time he pleased.

A jolt seared through Y/n's entire body at seeing the naga again — at the height of the creature's power; his domain without the security of a cage between them.

Yet, Enlil stayed only a moment before he disappeared under the ocean's tide as well. All traces of his presence vanished instantaneously and Y/n suddenly felt weak.

The (h/c) man stumbled, barely catching himself on his crutch. So that's how... That was how Enlil had been sneaking into camp, leaving those fruits for Y/n. The naga came in through the ocean, smart enough no doubt to wait for a break in the patrols before slithering up to land and then keeping quiet and invisible in the dark... The medical tent was close to the ocean as well. It would only be too easy...

Enlil did not have to out himself by traveling across the sandy beach. The naga could ambush them the moment they strayed too close to the ocean as that man clearly had.

The naga could ambush them any time perhaps... if he just waited silently in the blackness of the night, underneath the water's surface. And all this time leading up to this attack... had that just been Enlil observing them? Figuring out the best way to attack them?