Page 60 of The Naga Lord's Pretty Little Mouse

26

SEREN

Warmth wraps around me, thick, cloying. Not the jungle. Not the damp, bloodstained earth of the dark elf encampment. The texture beneath my fingertips is smooth, familiar. Silk sheets, impossibly soft against my battered skin.

I am back.

The realization rips through me, dragging me up from the fog of unconsciousness. My breath hitches as pain laces through my ribs, deep bruises pulsing with every shift of my muscles. They beat me badly. Left their marks.

Yet, I am alive.

My fingers twitch, testing the boundaries of movement. A dull ache hums along my limbs, a reminder of my failure, my escape cut short.

The room stretches around me in flickering torchlight. Dark stone walls, high vaulted ceilings. Xirath’s chambers.

The weight pressing against my chest has nothing to do with my injuries.

He brought me back.

The sound of shifting movement echoes near the hearth. My pulse stutters, a violent contrast to the dull throbbing of my body. Xirath stands with his back to me, shoulders tense, the rigid posture of someone barely holding himself in check. His tail flicks once, slow and deliberate.

The beast is restless.

The realization sends something sharp through me.

I force myself upright, biting back a grimace. The sheets pool around my waist, the loose fabric of a fresh tunic brushing against my bruised arms. Someone, he had tended to my wounds.

Anger and confusion coil beneath my ribs, a wildfire waiting to consume.

"You should have left me there.”

His head lifts slightly, but he does not turn.

Silence thickens between us, heavy and suffocating.

Then his voice. “Foolish thing to say, considering you would be dead.”

“Better than being here.”

That does it.

Xirath faces me, molten gold eyes burning with something unreadable. His gaze sweeps over me, lingering on the bruises dotting my collarbone, the torn knuckles resting against the sheets.

"You think I should have let them have you?" The words slip from him like a blade drawn too slowly, too dangerously.

A muscle in my jaw tightens. "I think you should stop pretending you care."

His silence is worse than his anger.

His shoulders draw tighter, the sharp ridges of his scales shifting under the dim light. The flickering flames play along the length of his tail, a deadly, coiled thing against the stone floor.

His voice drops, low and deliberate. "I do not pretend."

Laughter slips past my lips, bitter and sharp. "No? What am I then, Xirath? A pet? A piece of property you refuse to lose?"

The question lands between us, heavy with something I cannot name.

His expression does not shift, but something in the air does.

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