Page 2 of Craving Their Venom
The warrior with the scarred chest—the General—gives a slight, predatory smile. The Prince’s expression remains unreadable.
I am pulled to my feet and led away, down another series of cold, silent corridors. My quarters are a gilded cage. The floors are covered in soft furs, the walls hung with silken tapestries. A basin of steaming, fragrant water sits in the room. It is a room more luxurious than any I have ever known, and it is a prison.
The naga guard who brought me here gestures to the bath. “Clean yourself,” he commands, his voice flat. “You will be summoned.”
He leaves, the heavy door clicking shut behind him, the sound of a lock sliding into place echoing in the silence. I am alone.
I stand in the middle of the opulent room, the silence pressing in on me. The fear is a living thing inside me, a cold serpent coiling in my gut. But beneath the fear, something else stirs. A spark. A tiny, defiant ember of rage.
I will not be a pet. I will not be entertainment. I will not be broken.
I walk to the basin, the steam warming my face. I look at my reflection in the water. My face is smudged with dirt, my hair a tangled mess, my eyes wide with a terror I refuse to let them see. I take a deep breath, and the scent of the water—herbs and flowers—fills my lungs. It is meant to be soothing, to make me docile.
I begin to hum. A quiet, tuneless melody from my childhood, a song my mother used to sing to ward off nightmares. It is a small act, a meaningless rebellion. But in this cold, silent palace, in this gilded cage, it is the only weapon I have. And I will use it. I will survive. And one day, I will make them see the woman, not the pet. One day, they will learn my name.
2
VAROS
The throne room empties like a draining wound, leaving behind the stench of cloying incense and the faint, metallic tang of fear. My father’s pronouncements still hang in the air, heavy and absolute.The General may have use for it.The words were a dismissal, a casual flick of the wrist that consigned the human female to a fate of brutal entertainment. A fate I find, to my profound irritation, distasteful.
I remain by the obsidian throne, a silent sentinel in the echoing hall. My father shifts, the dry rasp of his scales against the stone a sound that has grated on my nerves since I was a fledgling. He doesn’t look at me, but I feel his gaze, cold and heavy as a shroud.
“The creature,” he says, his voice sounding like an ominous hiss that slithers through the silence. “It showed no proper fear.”
“It is a wild thing, Father. Unbroken, as the hunter said.” My own voice is a carefully modulated baritone, betraying nothing of the strange current that passed through me when her eyes met mine.
“Unbroken things are either entertaining or useless,” he rasps, finally turning his head. His eyes, ancient and cloudedwith cruelty, pin me in place. “Zahir will break it for his warriors, and its screams will be a brief amusement. But I am not in the mood for screams tonight. I am in the mood for novelty.” He pauses, letting the weight of his command settle. “Go to it. Ensure it is… presentable. That its spirit has not been shattered by the journey. A terrified, witless thing is no novelty at all. I want to see that defiance you spoke of before it is snuffed out.”
A test. It is always a test. He wants to see if I will falter, if I will show some misplaced sentiment for this creature. He dangles it before me, a fragile toy, to gauge my ruthlessness.
“As you command,” I say, my voice devoid of inflection. I give a slight bow, a gesture of perfect, hollow deference.
I turn and walk from the throne room, my steps measured and silent on the polished black stone. The palace is a monument to our power, a labyrinth of cold beauty. The corridors are wide enough for a dozen naga to walk abreast, the walls carved with scenes from our history—glorious, bloody conquests that serve as a constant reminder of our dominance. But I see the truth beneath the grandeur. I see the stagnation, the rot that has set in under my father’s reign. He clings to the old ways, to brutality for its own sake, while the world changes beyond our borders.
The menagerie is in the lower levels of the palace, a series of chambers where the rarest and most exotic creatures are kept. It’s a place of gilded cages and profound misery. The air grows warmer, more humid, thick with the scents of fur and musk and despair. The guards at the heavy, barred door to her designated chamber straighten as I approach. They unbolt the door without a word and swing it open.
I step inside.
The room is an absurdity of comfort. Furs from the snow-beasts of the northern mountains cover the floor. A basin of steaming water, now likely tepid, sits in the center, its surfacelittered with wilted petals. The human stands by the far wall, near a high, narrow window that looks out onto a walled garden.
She has been cleaned. Her tangled hair now falls in damp, dark waves around her shoulders. She wears a simple, sleeveless tunic of pale grey silk that does little to hide the fragile lines of her body. She is so… soft. Devoid of scales, of claws, of any natural defense. A creature designed for a gentler world.
She turns as the door closes behind me, her body going rigid. The scent of her fear is sharp, but it is laced with something else. The clean, herbal scent of the bathing oils, and the faint, sweet smell of her own skin.
“You are the Prince,” she says. Her voice is not a whisper. It is quiet, but it holds a steady, resonant quality.
I move deeper into the room, circling her as a predator circles its prey. I am assessing her, my gaze clinical. I am here on my father’s orders. This is an inspection, nothing more.
“I am,” I reply, my tone clipped. “And you are the pet. My father wishes to be entertained. He finds the idea of an ‘unbroken’ human novel. You are to be that novelty.”
I expect her to flinch, to recoil from the words. She does not. She simply watches me, her brown eyes following my movements. There is a small, crescent-shaped mark at the base of her neck, just above the collar of her tunic. My eyes fix on it for a moment.
“And what does the Prince wish?” she asks, her question so direct it startles me.
I stop my circling and face her. I am a head and a half taller than she is. I could crush her with one hand. The power dynamic is an unbridgeable chasm between us. And yet, she stands there and asks for my desires as if she has a right to know them.
“What I wish is irrelevant,” I say, my voice colder now. “You will do as you are commanded. You will be brought before thecourt. You will be amusing. And then, you will be given to the General.”
