The Naga’s Mate by Celeste King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
He may slither and hiss. But he’s all man where it counts.
The Naga’s Mate
Rule Number One if you’re a human woman on the alien hell world of Protheka: Don’t ever stop running.
Because if the orcs that burned your village stop chasing you, that means you strayed into Nagaland – the territory of the fiercest nightmares on the planet.
Their scales and forked tongues will mesmerize you as they catch you. You’ll end up like me – a pet to a naga general. He’ll parade you through his camp as his human female trophy as his eyes roam your very curvy, very human body.
But you won’t mind one bit.
Because he killed the orcs that burned your village. He fed you. Gave you clothes. Comfort. Security.
He gave you medicine to heal your body and gave you a bed to sleep in peacefully for the first time in your life.
But most of all…
He gave you his heart.1
A World with Dark Elves, Orcs, Nagas and Humans!
The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💙🖤💚❤️
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Story/Plot: 📕📗📙📘
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌍🌎
Character development: 😔🤨😛😁
The heroine: Jemma – she is a human on planet Protheka. Humans are the lowest species on the planet and Jemma hasn’t had a good life. She was orphaned when she was young and grew up on the streets on the outskirts of a Dark Fae town. They always had to stay under the radar of the Dark Fae, lest they end up being used for their twisted pleasures.
The Story: when Jemma and about twenty other humans are captured by Orcs, things take a turn for the worse. Orcs eat humans, they butcher them and turn them into jerky. If they are lucky, they are dead before that happens. So, when a chance to escape comes about, they take it and run. Though when some of the younger of the group fall behind, Jemma calls out to have the Orcs that are chasing them follow her. Until she ends up hurt on Naga land.
The Hero: Uzha – he is the Duke of his lands and when the Orcs start pushing at their borders and threatening their people, Uzha and his generals determine something must be done. While strategizing for upcoming war, some of his officers bring in a human female they found on Naga land. Very few Naga have seen humans since they rarely come near Naga lands but a few of the nobles have found some and kept them as pets. They are very similar to the Naga in some ways but very different in others.
“When the door opens, I realize it’s not a pet snake I was hearing, but some kind of snake man. Then my mind summons a word I’d started to think was just a myth. Naga. I’d heard of them in stories others had told in hushed tones about the snake people of Nagaland.”
The story was interesting, I was looking at some of the other books by Celeste King and she has a whole bunch of other series that take place on the same planet. Some with Orcs, some with Dark Fae, some with Gargoyles and more. It seems like a fun world with all types of monsters that don’t really get along with others. I may end up reading more. In this one, though all the Naga people were definitely against the two main characters being together, especially since they saw humans as pets.
The Naga’s are an interesting species, though I found it hard to completely picture them since sometimes they were described as slithering on their tale, but one part of the book made it sound like they actually have legs covered with scales in addition to their tales, he even wears pants. Either way, I am never too bothered by differences between species as long as both are sentient and can communicate with each other. Though I didn’t really like the fact that humans were considered the lowest of all the races. Even though I can see why since the Dark Fae have magic, the Orcs have muscle, and the Naga are a very strong warrior race that heals quickly. Humans are kind of weak and easily hurt and killed in comparison.
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