Page 39 of The Naga Lord's Pretty Little Mouse

Steel clashes against scales, the impact reverberating through the pit. She moves fast, faster than she should, adjusting mid-strike, blade shifting to meet his claws as he lunges.

Her instinct is good. Her footwork still clumsy.

Orith sees the opening before she does.

A brutal backhand sends her skidding across the sand.

The gathered warriors laugh, hissing their amusement.

Seren’s body stills where she lands, her dark hair falling across her face, the blade still gripped tight in her fist.

She should stay down.

She does not.

She presses her hand into the dirt, pushing herself upright, spitting blood onto the stone. Her tongue flicks over her lip where his strike split it open.

She smiles.

It is not sweet.

It is feral.

Something cold curdles inside me, something sharp and unfamiliar.

She enjoys this.

Orith sees it too. He sneers, but there’s hesitation in the way his tail flicks behind him, uncertainty curling beneath his bravado.

Seren wipes the blood from her chin with the back of her hand and raises the sword again. “Is that it?”

Orith growls, lunging forward, claws out.

She lets him get close.

Too close.

She shifts at the last second, twisting her body low, bringing her blade up in a sharp arc, not to kill, but to wound.

The sword slices clean through the flesh of his bicep.

A sharp, violent spray of red bursts against the sand.

The gathered warriors go silent.

Orith reels back, clutching his arm, hissing through his fangs. He looks at the wound like he cannot believe it exists.

She cut him.

She bled him.

Seren straightens, blood dripping from the tip of her sword. “You should have hit me harder.”

My pulse is no longer steady.

Something deep in my chest, a hunger, a pull that should not exist coils tighter.

She is not destined for me.

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