Page 29 of The Naga Lord's Pretty Little Mouse

“Who are you hunting?” I murmur.

The elf struggles. "No one of importance."

I press harder. "Wrong answer."

His lips curl in something close to a smirk. "You have no idea what you are protecting, naga."

A slow, dangerous thing uncoils inside me.

I do not need his words to tell me what I already suspect.

This was not coincidence. This was a warning.

A test to see if they could find her.

My claws sink deeper. "You will tell me who sent you."

The elf’s smirk does not falter. "You already know."

The jungle swallows his final breath.

I do not let him suffer.

It is not worth my time.

But the truth lingers, coiling through me like a slow-burning fire.

Seren has been marked. Not by my kind.

By something far worse.

She has no idea what she has walked into.

I rise, shaking the blood from my claws, eyes already tracking her path through the trees.

If the dark elves are already looking for her, she has lost the right to walk this jungle alone.

She wanted freedom. She will not have it now.

13

XIRATH

The jungle is too still.

The moment I step beyond the glowing vines, something is wrong. The natural pulse of the forest, chirping insects, the distant rustling of unseen creatures has vanished. The silence is not emptiness. It is anticipation.

She is close.

Her trail is fresh, disturbed earth where her feet skimmed too quickly, the faint imprint of her fingers against the thick trunks where she steadied herself. She has been running. Not aimless, not in fear, but because something has forced her to.

Now, something forces me.

A low murmur filters through the trees. Words spoken in a guttural tongue, thick with the accent of a species that should not be on naga soil. Minotaur.

I shift my weight forward, my tail flicking against the damp moss, my claws flexing in controlled restraint. It takes no effort to remain unseen.

Another voice, deeper than the first, rumbles low. “She’s got some fight, I’ll give her that.”

---