Page 94 of The Naga Lord's Pretty Little Mouse

"Not faster than me."

I release him with a shove, sending him staggering forward. He gasps for air, tail curling in submission.

The rage in my blood is uncontainable.

She ran. Again.

She thinks she’ll get away.

"That’s enough, Xirath."

Talyra’s voice cuts through the madness, calm but firm.

She steps into the room, her scales glinting under the torchlight, arms crossed. Those sharp eyes assess the destruction in an instant, the bruised guards, the shattered remains of my restraint.

"Beating them to a pulp won’t bring her back."

I turn to her, chest heaving. "She’s out there alone."

Talyra sighs, exasperated. "Yes, because you’ve made this place so welcoming."

I narrow my gaze, but she doesn’t back down. She never does.

"She’s human, Xirath. She can’t survive out there for long, not with Jalith hunting her."

The mention of that filthy dark elf’s name stokes the fire inside me into an inferno.

"If he touches her, I’ll skin him alive," I snarl.

"Then stop wasting time." Talyra steps closer, voice lowering. "You can be mad at her later. Right now, you need to get to her first."

The words snap me into motion.

The moment I step outside the stronghold, I breathe her in.

Faint traces of her cling to the earth, leading east, toward the jungle’s edge, toward the lands beyond. Too far already.

I move.

The hunt is instinctual, primal, a drive as natural as breathing. My muscles coil and release, my tail cutting through the underbrush, my body moving with purpose.

She has a head start, but she doesn’t know the land like I do.

She doesn’t know that the paths she takes will betray her.

The forest ahead whispers secrets in the wind, the trees bending toward the distant mountains. I follow her path through the jungle, feet barely touching the ground, my movements swift and efficient.

But something shifts.

The signs of her trail are too fresh.

Which means…

He isn’t the only one tracking her.

A dark stain marks the ground ahead. A footprint too heavy to be hers, too broad, the edges sharper than a naga’s.

Minotaurs. Or worse.

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