A review by brandys_reading_count
Cottonmouth by Naomi Lucas

adventurous dark hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

4.0

Characters: Vivian and Syasku 

Content Warning: torture, forced ejaculation, drugged, chained up, painful experiments, starvation

Vivian is aboard the Dreadnaut when a snake hybrid is brought in so they can perform tests on him. Vivian is apart of the group that is asking the creature questions. Syasku manages to get free and he bites Vivian on the neck. Shortly after that, she starts to feel things and the more she is around this creature, the more intrigued she is, but she also is very scared of this creature.

Syasku tries to obtain a mate in the last book (Boomslang), but before he could do that he is captured by humans and put on a ship, and from there he is caged up, tortured, experimented on, drugged and in chains. He is intrigued with the human woman who asks him questions, her scent is similar to the human woman he tried to obtain on earth. The more he is around Vivian, the more his pheromones start to work on Vivian, and her arousal is something that he can smell on her, so he starts to get aroused as well.

Vivian’s father is Captain Volp and he tells Ursula (the woman experimenting on Syasku) to give Vivian another job, so Vivian ends up getting put on a job for a month, meanwhile her arousal gets worse, and the only way it calms down is if she finally mates with Syasku (but she doesn’t know that at the time). She steals the key card from Ursula’s secretary and gets in to see Syasku. Ursula decides to lock Vivian in with Syasku, and Vivian and Syasku mate (rutting). 

There are some tensions below with the other human citizens that don’t want to be on the ship anymore and they want to be on earth, since they heard that the planet is habitable again. So the citizens start messing with the lights and other things that help run the ship (they run the core).

Ursula takes Syasku from his nest he created for Vivian (inside his prison), and when he goes into a room he sees Asera, another naga who Syasku rescued years ago and took care of. Asera deliberately got captured, because he knew he couldn’t survive on his own. He makes a deal with Ursula, that he will stay and be tested and experimented on, and Syasku would be set free. Syasku wants Vivian, but they try to keep him from her. He manages to escape (with the help of Asera) and kills the military commander. When Syasku gets to an elevator with Muffin (a medical researcher working with Ursula), he gets electrocuted by Ursula. 

So secretly Muffin decides to help Syasku recover (there is an area on the ship that the upper residents and workers don’t go there). It takes two months for Syasku to recover (with the help from their medical technology and Kyle). 

Meanwhile Vivian has been trapped in the Captain’s residence, being guarded by a Nurse named Lena. Her father tells her that Syasku is dead. She’s pregnant with Syasku’s child and her pregnancy is progressing very quickly, because of the Naga DNA. Vivian manages to escape and asks for help from Ursula. She helps Vivian and brings her back to her room where Ursula and Asera have clearly been mating. Vivian tries to warn Asera that Ursula isn’t a good woman and she is just using him. Then all hell breaks loose and the ship lights go off, fighting breaks out, Vivian goes into labor. Asera tries to help her, finally Syasku shows up and he and Ursula help Vivian deliver their child. Some deaths happen after this (I don’t want to give away too much 😬). Vivian, Syasku, Kyle, Muffin, and others make it on a ship and escape the Dreadnaut.

They all land on earth, but after how many days they look up at the sky and see that the Dreadnaut ship explodes, how many other ships arrive on earth, so Syasku and the other naga’s and their mates all hide underground.

My thoughts:

This installment of the series was darker in tone to the other novels, this took place mostly on the Dreadnaut, this was also slow paced, and there are a couple of short time jumps where the hero and heroine aren’t with each other. Also there are A LOT of deaths in this book, Syasku kills a lot of humans. This is the type of series where if you don’t start at the beginning, then you will be lost. There is a TON of world building in here and I am predicting that there is going to be a huge war on earth between Naga’s and other humans in future books. I really enjoyed this one, I do feel like Naomi Lucas is finding her stride in these latest installments to this series, the beginner books I wasn’t a huge fan of the romances, but the last two (Boomslang and this novel) I felt like the heroes weren’t as crazy possessive and dominant as the other heroes previously.

Glossery:

Lurkers: an alien race that came to Earth with the lie that they wanted to help with our technology, but ultimately ruined the planet and killed a lot of humans. 

Genesis-8: a technology in the bodies of naga’s (hybrid snake creatures), it alters naga and human DNA, and why the humans on the Dreadnaut want it. 

Yulen Research: medical science and technology that has been used by the Yulen family for generations. Laura Yulen is the mother of Vivian and other children. In the last book we find out that Laura Yulen’s fetal eggs were taken from her by the Captain, so he can use his sperm to inseminate the eggs and then his family lineage can be connected to the Yulen line. (The man is a very cold man, not caring one bit about his children), he only cares about the medical research. 

Muffin: a man who has been working with the other medical staff, and has been helping Vivian. He helps Syasku after Ursula shocks him with electricity brought on by a neck brace he has around his neck. 

Muffin discovers Kyle (who knows another naga), Kyle is related to Vivian.

The Sovereign: people who basically run the universe and the Captains superiors.

The Ketts: humans? Trying to destroy the Sovereign and others apart of the Sovereign 

Omari: the leader of the humans who run the core of the ship, that keeps all the electrical and tech running.