Subject to Study (Naga!Brothers x Reader)

Chapter 22

With Kara's enclosure right next to Jyushi's, I took a deep breath before opening the enclosure door and stepping inside. While Sasha had said that Kara wasn't as mad as the others, I still needed to be cautious. The older three nagas had been through a rough week, from draining their venom and accidentally finding out about one of their more sensitive areas, to a surprise raid that ended in my injuries.

I had no idea if the other nagas were injured, and I didn't know what Ichi had done when he left his enclosure.

"Kara, I'm back," I called out to the faux jungle, looking for any signs of movement as I walked down the footpath.

"I thought you weren't going to approach me until you were ready."

Kara's voice came from above me, drawing my attention upwards as a branch was moved aside to reveal the blue insularis naga. He was laying on a loose pile of coils, the posture telling me that he was completely relaxed for the moment.

It took me a few seconds to realize that he was talking about the aftermath of the venom extraction incident.

"I'm more worried about making sure that you're okay," I looked back up at him, holding his copper hues, "Were you hurt at all a few nights ago?"

"Not as badly as you."

"Am I able to see where you were hurt?"

"It's not physical," He laughed a little, "My hearts did hurt a little when I saw them take you away, but it's better now that I know you're back...despite how your own injuries look."

"The bruise will go away on its own, but the eyepatch is staying on for another few weeks," I lightly rested my right palm over the aforementioned bandage, "Just consider me to be blind on my right side while it's on."

"Will you be able to see with only one eye?" Kara shifted on his coils, moving from laying on his chest to resting on his right side.

"I can still see things, but my depth perception is completely gone," I lowered my hand as my smile faded from my lips, "You said that you saw them take me away...what happened after I was gone?"

"I don't know who opened my door but when I took a look out into that back area, I realized that Todo had given you over to the humans with weapons. We were told to get back into our 'cages' shortly after by the same group of humans, with Jyushi putting up the most fight before Oso told him to listen to them," He let an arm hang down, his fingers barely brushing against my hair for a moment before curling into a loose fist, "The next day is when that other human came in, another female. She tried to act like you, and I guess that made my brothers a bit more agitated."

"She said that you weren't as mad. Was it because of the others' agitation?"

"I figured that the human needed some form of respite from their anger, so I withheld mine and let her have some breathing room here," Kara took in a breath before letting it all out in a sigh, "Not sure if that was a mistake or not, considering that she kept trying to talk to me or ask me questions about who I was and where I had come from."

"I don't think she meant any harm from it," I slowly reached up to touch his lowered hand, looking at the teal-blue scales underneath the skin, "When I had met her, she was adamant about meeting all of you, but seemed to have an innocent curiosity about it."

"There's curiosity, and then there's whatever she had."

"Why? What happened?" I shifted my gaze up his arm to meet his copper hues, a playful look about them before he looked away. I dropped my hand from his, just in case I did something wrong.

"When I think of curiosity, I think of you and how you act when you think I'm doing something weird. It's a tempered look that knows you can't just dive all in, touching something without permission or invading their space without warning. I'm not sure if your language has a word for it, but she wanted to see me up close and tried to convince me to come closer to her..." His voice trailed off in thought, "She kept saying that you gave her permission to do your job, which made me think that you were never coming back..."