Page 16 of Craving Their Venom
VAROS
T he aftermath is a ringing silence. The scent of her, a complex perfume of fear and unwilling arousal, is tangled with the musky, aggressive scent of Zahir.
My chamber, a place of cold order and absolute control, has been violated, desecrated not just by the General’s presence, but by the chaotic, primal truth of what occurred here.
We did not just claim her. We claimed each other, through her.
I stand by the high window, staring down at the sterile perfection of the garden, but I do not see it.
I see the scene replaying behind my eyes: the raw, savage power in Zahir’s movements, the way his crimson scales flushed dark with lust, the guttural groan torn from him at his release.
I see the terror and the dark, unwilling pleasure in Amara’s eyes as she was torn between us.
My own actions are a source of cold, burning shame. I lost control. I, who pride myself on precision and strategy, was reduced to a rutting beast, my claim on her becoming a crude, public performance of dominance for an audience of one. My rival.
The hatred I feel for Zahir is a familiar, solid thing, the bedrock of my existence.
But now, it is complicated. It is tangled with the memory of our shared act, the undeniable reality that our bodies moved in a brutal, synchronous rhythm with her as the fulcrum.
We were not allies. We were enemies engaged in the same savage act of conquest. And in that shared violation, a new, grotesque bond was forged. A bond of mutual possession.
I feel a strange, unwelcome flicker of something that might be mistaken for camaraderie.
It is the camaraderie of two soldiers who have survived the same bloody, soul-crushing battle.
We have both been marked by this. We have both seen a part of each other that no one else has.
And we have both been irrevocably altered by the human woman who now lies broken and silent in the other room.
The thought is a poison. I reject it. He is my enemy. She is my property. The matter is settled.
But the silence from the sleeping chamber is a growing weight. She has not made a sound since he left. No weeping. No movement. Just a profound, unnerving stillness. I, who have never felt a moment’s concern for the emotional state of a lesser being, find myself… hesitating.
I push the thoughts away. They are a weakness. A distraction. I have asserted my dominance. I have put the General in his place. I have reinforced my claim. That is all that matters.
A soft knock comes at my main chamber door. It is not the heavy, authoritative rap of a guard. It is a light, almost hesitant sound. I turn, my hand instinctively going to the dagger at my belt.
The door opens, and Kaelen is there. He is a column of silver-blue calm in the charged atmosphere of my chambers.
His twilight eyes are filled with their usual ancient sadness, but today, there is something else in them.
A sharp, assessing intelligence. A disappointment so profound it’s almost a physical blow.
“The threads have been rewoven,” he says, his voice sounding like a low, melodic buzz that does nothing to soothe the jagged edges of my soul. “Into a pattern of great violence. And great power.”
“Spare me your cryptic pronouncements, mystic,” I snarl, my patience a thin, frayed thread. “The General has been put in his place. The matter is concluded.”
“Concluded?” Kaelen gives a small, sad smile that does not reach his eyes.
“You are a fool, Varos, if you believe that. You have not concluded anything. You have merely begun.” He steps into the room, his gaze sweeping over the faint signs of our struggle, the slight disarray that my servants have not yet been summoned to correct.
“You think you have won a battle of pride. What you have done is arm our enemies.”
“Our enemies?” I scoff, turning back to the window. “My only enemy is the brute who defiled my property.”
“Your enemy is the one who orchestrated the events that led to this moment,” Kaelen says, his voice taking on a new, urgent intensity.
“The one who knew that your pride and the General’s rage would be a far more effective weapon than any poison dart.
You have not claimed the human. You have bound yourselves to her, and to each other.
You, Zahir, and I. The three prophetic serpents.
We are now linked, for better or for worse. ”
I turn to face him, a cold dread beginning to seep into my bones. “You place too much faith in ancient scrolls, Kaelen.”
“And you place too much faith in your own control,” he counters, his gaze sharp, unwavering.
“Tell me, Prince. When you were with her, when you and Zahir were… united… in your claim, did you feel in control? Or did you feel as if you were a part of something larger, something more powerful and more terrifying than your own will?”
His words strike a nerve. He is right. In that moment, I was not a Prince. I was a force of nature, a part of a primal, chaotic storm. The memory of it, the sheer, overwhelming power, is a heady, terrifying thing.
“The prophecy is real, Varos,” Kaelen continues, his voice a low, urgent whisper.
“The serpent in our halls, the Tikzorcu of Jalma, they are not just seeking to cause chaos. They are trying to manipulate the prophecy for their own ends. They want you and Zahir at each other’s throats.
They want you to destroy each other, so that they can rise from the ashes. ”
He takes a step closer, his eyes blazing with a fierce, prophetic light.
“But what you did, in all its brutality, was not what they intended. You did not destroy each other. You forged a bond. A dark, twisted, violent bond, but a bond nonetheless. Your shared desire for her, the very thing they sought to use as a weapon against you, can now be your greatest strength. If you are wise enough to see it.”
The pieces begin to click into place in my mind. The assassination attempt. The poison. The court’s whispers. The constant, escalating provocations between myself and Zahir. It is a pattern. A strategy. And I, the master strategist, have been a blind, witless pawn in someone else’s game.
The realization is a cold, hard fury that eclipses my anger at Zahir. I have been played. Manipulated. My own pride, my own ambition, used as a weapon against me.
“What would you have me do?” I ask, my voice a low growl. “Form an alliance with that… that animal? He would sooner see me dead than stand at my side.”
“He would sooner see her safe than see you dead,” Kaelen corrects me gently. “That has changed. You are both bound to her now. Her safety is your own. That is the new reality. That is the foundation upon which you must build.”
A heavy, authoritative knock sounds at the door. It is Zahir’s knock. My hand flies to my dagger. Kaelen places a calming hand on my arm.
“He is not here for a fight,” the mystic says softly. “He is here for the same reason you are listening to me now. He has felt the shift. He knows the game has changed.”
I hesitate for a moment, then give a curt nod. “Let him enter.”
Zahir fills the doorway, a crimson monolith of contained violence. His face has become grim resolve. His golden eyes find Kaelen.
“You spoke of an enemy,” the General grunts, his voice a low rumble. “Of a serpent. Name it.”
“The Tikzorcu of Jalma,” Kaelen says, his voice clear and steady.
Zahir’s eyes narrow. He knows the name. He knows their reputation for cruelty and deceit. A low growl rumbles in his chest. “They are ambitious fools. But they are not powerful enough to strike at the throne.”
“They are not alone,” Kaelen says. “And they are more cunning than you credit. They are not striking at the throne, General. They are striking at its foundations. At us.”
We stand there, the three of us, in the cold, silent chamber.
The Prince, the General, the Mystic. The three serpents foretold in the prophecy.
The hatred between myself and Zahir is still a palpable thing, a chasm of bitterness and rivalry.
But for the first time, we are both looking across that chasm, at the same enemy.
Kaelen is right. Our shared desire for Amara, the source of our conflict, is now the only thing that binds us. It is a volatile, dangerous, and deeply unstable foundation. But it is the only one we have.
“The human,” I say, the words feeling strange on my tongue. “They will use her against us.”
“They will try to take her,” Zahir growls, his hand clenching into a fist. “To break our bond. To turn us back on each other.”
“Then we must ensure,” I say, my gaze meeting his, a silent, grudging challenge passing between us, “that she cannot be taken.”
It is not an alliance. It is not friendship. It is a cold, hard, strategic necessity. A truce born of mutual hatred for a common enemy, and a shared, obsessive desire for a single human woman.
The camaraderie I felt was not a weakness. It was an instinct. The instinct of one predator recognizing another, and realizing that the only way to survive the coming hunt is to run in the same pack.