Page 2 of Craving Their Venom

VAROS

T he 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 clouded with 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 surface littered 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 the court. You will be amusing. And then, you will be given to the General.”

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.