Page 3 of Craving Their Venom
At the mention of Zahir, a flicker of something crosses her face. True fear. She has seen the General. She understands what he is. Good.
“And what is amusing to a naga?” she presses, her chin lifting a fraction of an inch. “Do I sing? Do I dance? Or do I simply bleed prettily for you?”
The words are a slap. The sheer audacity of them. She speaks of her own death with a bitter sarcasm that is utterly misplaced. My tail gives an involuntary twitch of irritation.
I close the distance between us in two silent strides. I loom over her, casting her in my shadow. I want to see her break. I want to see that defiant spark in her eyes extinguished by the terror she should be feeling. I reach out, my clawed fingers tracing the line of her jaw. Her skin is warm, shockingly so. She trembles under my touch, a fine, violent shudder that I feel all the way up my arm. But she does not pull away.
“You will do what you are told,” I hiss, my voice a low growl. “And you will learn to find pleasure in obedience. It is the only pleasure you will be permitted.”
Her eyes, wide and dark, hold mine. “There is no pleasure in slavery,” she whispers, her breath ghosting across my hand.
“Then you will learn to pretend,” I counter, my thumb stroking the soft skin beneath her chin. “Pretence can be a form of survival. A valuable skill for a creature in your position.”
I am playing with her. A cruel, verbal game to assert my dominance, to fulfill my father’s command. But the game is turning on me. The feel of her skin, the scent of her, the unwavering courage in her gaze—it is all feeding a part of me I keep locked away. The part that is not the cold, calculating Prince. The part that is simply… male.
“My position,” she repeats, a strange, sad smile touching her lips. “Yes. I am a pet in a cage. But even a caged bird can refuse to sing for its captor.”
“It can,” I concede, my voice dropping lower. “But the captor can always break its wings.”
The threat hovers in the air between us, ugly and real. This is the truth of our world. This is the power I wield. I expect her to shatter.
Instead, she says, “Why would you want a broken bird? There is no beauty in a song sung from a broken throat.”
I stare at her, momentarily speechless. She has taken my threat and turned it into a philosophical question. She has appealed not to my mercy, but to my aesthetic sensibilities. It is a brilliant, unexpected maneuver.
I pull my hand back as if burned. I need distance from her. This is more dangerous than I anticipated. She is not a simple creature. She is intelligent. Cunning.
“You are clever,” I state, the words a flat observation. “Cleverness in a pet can be entertaining. Or it can be tiresome.”
“Which will I be for you, Your Highness?” she asks, her tone laced with a delicate irony.
I do not answer. I cannot. Because the truth is, I do not know. My father wants a novelty. Zahir wants a body to break. Kaelen sees a prophecy. And I… I am beginning to see something that threatens the very foundations of my carefully constructed world.
I turn my back on her, a gesture of dismissal. “A guard will bring you food. Eat it. My father may summon you at any time. Do not disappoint him.”
I stride toward the door without looking back. I can feel her eyes on me, a tangible weight against my scales. I have asserted my power. I have delivered my threats. I have done what was required.
But as the door closes behind me, sealing her in her gilded cage, I am the one who feels trapped. I have my answer for my father. The pet is suitably unbroken, its spirit sharp and entertaining. But I have a new problem, a new equation that refuses to be solved.
Her quiet question echoes in my mind.What does the Prince wish?
I wish for a stronger kingdom. I wish for my father’s throne. I wish for the power to reshape this world in my own image.
And, to my eternal, infuriating shame, I find that I wish to know the name of the song the caged bird sings when it is alone in the dark.
This fascination is a weakness. A vulnerability. And in the game I play, vulnerabilities are fatal. I must crush this one before it grows. I must master it.
But as I walk back through the cold, silent corridors of the palace, I know with a chilling certainty that this is one battle I am not prepared to fight. The human is not just a pet. She is a poison, and I have just willingly taken the first dose.
3
ZAHIR
The clang of steel on steel is the only music I understand. It is a song of purpose, of strength, of finality. Here in the training yards, under the bruised purple sky of the Capital, there are no lies. There is only the bite of the blade, the burn of the muscles, and the clean, honest scent of sweat and blood. My warriors move through their drills, their bodies a blur of crimson scales and dark leather, their hisses of exertion sharp in the cool air. This is my kingdom. Not the silent, perfumed halls of the palace, but this place of grit and violence.
My second-in-command, Rhax, approaches, his heavy tail slapping against the packed earth in a familiar, agitated rhythm. “General,” he grunts, his voice a low rumble. “A word from the palace.”
I do not stop my practice swings, my two-handed blade carving silent arcs through the air. The weapon is an extension of my will, a solid, dependable weight in my hands. “I am not interested in the palace’s words.”
