Nagi Blood & Destiny

By YD La Mar

I am the first of my kind.

 

Born from the lineage of Naga King Hedros who once decimated the lands and conquered the entire western territories. I am a rare jewel amongst the scales and venom. My fate has bound me to a stranger—King Turalt, a birdman from another realm, one I never knew existed. He is not my chosen mate, but a collector of debts, his claim on me a payment for my father's dues.

 

Living in a strange new land spirals my life into chaos when a curse morphs me into something unthinkable. I become a battleship—a living, breathing weapon hauled into war by the made I wed.

 

A glimmer of hope pierces the darkness when my faithful maid assists in my escape, guiding me back to the world I once knew. I find refuge with Vaso Gralia, my father's commander, a man who always stirred longing within me. But my newfound freedom is temporary. Turalt learns of my flight, igniting a fierce battle for my possession that rages across realms and lineages.

 

Will I forever remain a pawn in the debts of others? Or can I find some way to navigate a world that blurs the lines between beast and battleship, duty and desire?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: YD La Mar
• Release date: Feb 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223677048

Book preview

Part One

Prologue

PINCESS SANIYA OF THE WESTERN SADRAD EMPIRE

We can’t do this. I can’t see you anymore, it’s too dangerous, I whisper as I turn my head left and right searching for any eavesdroppers.

His lips trail along the crook of my neck and my face flushes. His touch always does that to me. His magnetic presence is something I can never pull away from and that’s the problem. They’ll catch us and both our worlds will come crashing down for a single stolen moment.

Please, Vaso. I can’t. I can’t lose what we have. We need to stop, I beg again, trying to catch my breath. I cradle his scarred face and caress his jaw, needing him closer to me, needing him farther away from me.

Saniya, you torture me every time I see you. How can I not touch you like this when you’re within my grasp? His voice is guttural and it vibrates into the core of my being. Vaso Gralia is a large man with a countenance of a giant among our people. His confidence intimated men in the same room, but it’s his eyes that make grown men weak with fear. At forty-two, he was hardened by life and took no crap from anyone, only commands from his king—my father. It’s in these stolen moments that I’m privy to glimpse a secret side of him before life and war made him callous to the world. It’s in the way he softly touches me, the way he whispers his promises in my ear.

As much as I wish we could be together, fate has other plans.

I’m arranged to be married tomorrow. How could I break it to the only man who’s set my soul alight with just a glance? My father’s commander—A man I’ve lusted for since coming of age.

He’s never noticed me, not until the twentieth cycle of the third moon. His timing couldn’t have been any less perfect.

He grabs my chin and forces me toward his lips, dominating my mouth until I’m out of breath, ready to surrender. But I fight it. I always do, knowing in the back of my mind that as much as we want it, it can never be. Saniya⁠—

My eyes burn with unshed tears as I push him off me and escape the dark corner of the palace. He growls in frustration, grabbing my arm and pulling me back, pressing his scruffy cheeks against mine to hold me in place. I cradle his face and shake my head, holding in my sobs. The longer I let him seep into my skin, the more I will regret it. I shove him again and run without looking back, without looking to see if Vaso would follow me.

He can’t. We both know it.

A few soldiers step out of the next doorway and I slam into their metal armor.

Woah, princess. What’s going on? Where’s the danger? the first soldier says as he immediately draws his blade. It glints off the serpent crest on his chest and my breath stutters before I can compose myself.

N-Nothing. I thought I saw something skittering. It’s just my nerves. Sorry, I quickly reply, hoping they will fall for the way I innocently look up to them, playing with the long strands of my red hair. He nods and resheaths his weapon.

My father, Lord Albot of the Western Sadrad Empire, has a secret he keeps buried between these walls. One that’s recently emerged into my waking nightmares.

Growing up, I thought our emblem was just a symbol. Little did I know that I carried the bloodline of the exact serpent we showcase on our tapestry. The stories of the naga king, Hedros, who once decimated the lands and conquered the entire western territories. It was said he emerged from the sea like a deity, an act of vengeance upon the humans who had long since slaughtered his people over the centuries.

But they were only tales told to young children to keep them in line. It’s what we’ve all been led to believe.

It wasn’t until the night of my eighteenth birthday, moons passed, where what I thought to be horrible cramps from my monthly courses, turned out to be something far worse than I could ever imagine.

Chapter One

You’ll thank me when you come to understand why I must do this.

His voice echoes in my mind again. Did my father ever drown in the guilt he felt the day he took me to the mysterious caverns by the sea? The wedding ceremony held in our kingdom was a farce, the man who stood by me was a person sent by proxy for the real ruler of Astraria, a land I was told on the other side of the world. I shake my head again as I sit here alone, the only sound accompanying me, the sound of insects through the open window bays.

Nothing my father said that day could prepare me for the utter betrayal I endured once I was sent through the portal to the land of our ancestors. The memory burned into the back of my mind, occasionally resurfacing like the pounding of a headache.

"Where are you taking me, Papa? What is this place? I