Page 108 of The Naga Lord's Pretty Little Mouse

"Three days, Seren," he murmurs, voice a silken thread of menace.

I barely hear him over the blood pounding in my ears.

"Three days until the ceremony. Until I bind you to me, fully. Irrevocably."

His fingers trace the collar’s edge, pressing lightly.

"By then, you will kneel because you choose to."

A laugh curls from his lips, rich with certainty.

"You will come to love me for it."

47

XIRATH

The war chamber hums with contempt. The Naga Lords sit coiled upon their thrones, their scaled tails curling and twisting over the polished stone floor. They listen, barely, flicking forked tongues between sharp teeth, eyes filled with disinterest.

I came back to Nagaland, aware that I can’t fight Jarith alone but this is a waste of time.

“She is human,” Lord Vashtar says, his tone flat, utterly unbothered. “Not a mate. Not a queen. Not worthy of war.”

“Jalith will not stop at her,” I grind out, struggling to leash the fury boiling beneath my skin. “This is about more than?—”

“It is about nothing,” another lord interrupts, waving a dismissive hand. “We are not fools, Xirath. You would rip open the earth to chase a pet. But we will not.”

My claws gouge into the armrests of my chair, cracking the wood. My control is thinning, unraveling fast.

“She is under my protection,” I snarl. “My claim.”

The lords do not even pretend to take me seriously.

“Your claim?” Vashtar repeats, amused now. “Yet you let her run.”

Laughter ripples through the chamber, low and cold, curling around my throat like a noose.

I push up from my seat, the shadows stretching with me. “Cowards.”

None of them flinch.

One merely shrugs. “Call it what you will.”

I turn, the rage crawling beneath my skin, searing. Burning. I should kill them for their insolence. But that would waste time.

Seren is out there. I will find her, with or without them.

Talyra is waiting outside,watching me with those sharp, too-knowing eyes. The torches lining the corridor cast shadows over the deep blue of her scales, catching in the gold piercings lining her brow and the tips of her ears.

Her expression is unreadable. That alone sets me further on edge.

“They won’t change their minds,” she says, falling into step beside me. “Not unless I push harder.”

I keep walking. “Do what you will.”

She exhales. “They see it as weakness, Xirath.”

“They are fools.”

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