Page 24 of Craving Their Venom

AMARA

I wake to the smell of my own fear. It is a sharp, metallic tang, mingling with the foul, thick scent of rot and stagnant water.

My head throbs with a dull, heavy ache, a lingering ghost of the sweet poison that dragged me into darkness.

I am not in the Prince’s cold, silent chambers.

This is a different type of prison. A truer one.

The floor is rough, damp stone that leeches the warmth from my body.

My wrists are chained, the cold, heavy iron biting into my skin, the chains leading to a ring set high in the wall behind me.

I am tethered like an animal. The air is thick, humid, and alive with the chirping of unseen insects and the soft, constant drip of water.

The only light is a faint, sickly green glow that seems to emanate from the moss and fungi clinging to the walls of this small, subterranean cell.

I am not alone.

A naga sits on a crude stool just beyond the reach of my chains.

He is one of my captors, his scales a dull, mottled green-brown, like a snake hiding in swamp mud.

He is cleaning his claws with the tip of a long, wicked-looking knife, his movements slow and deliberate.

He does not look at me, but I feel his presence, a cold, indifferent weight in the small space.

My mind, sluggish from the drug, begins to clear, and the memories rush back in a torrent. The garden. The shadows detaching themselves from the trees. The hand over my mouth. The despair.

And before that… the balcony. The three of them. Varos, Zahir, Kaelen. A united front. A council of serpents. My heart gives a painful, stupid lurch.

Are they looking for me?

The question is a spark of foolish hope in the darkness of my despair.

I imagine Zahir’s explosive rage, the barracks erupting in a call to arms. I imagine Varos’s cold, precise fury, the palace locked down, his spies slithering into the city’s underbelly.

I imagine Kaelen, his face tortured with ancient sorrow, his spirit reaching out through the cosmos to find me.

Then another, colder thought follows. Maybe this is for the best. I am the source of their conflict, the wound in their pride.

Without me, perhaps the fragile truce between them would solidify.

Perhaps my absence is a relief. A problem removed.

The thought is a shard of ice in my gut, sharper and more painful than any physical chain.

The naga on the stool finally looks at me, his slitted pupils contracting in the dim light.

“It wakes,” he hisses, his voice a dry, rasping sound.

He gets to his feet and approaches, the knife still held loosely in his hand.

He crouches before me, his face clinical with cold, reptilian curiosity.

On his hand is a ring, a tarnished silver serpent eating its own tail.

“The Prince’s little pet,” he says, his forked tongue darting out to taste the air. “You do not look like much. I do not see what has the two strongest warriors in the kingdom at each other’s throats.”

I say nothing. I press myself back against the cold, damp wall, my gaze steady on his. I will not give him my fear.

He reaches out with the tip of his knife and traces a line down my cheek, the cold steel a promise of the violence he is capable of. “Our master wishes to speak with you. He is curious about the nature of the Prince’s… affection. He wants to know what secrets you keep.”

My mind flashes back to the Prince’s chambers.

The feel of his cold, smooth scales against my skin, the weight of his body, the shocking, unexpected gentleness in his hands that warred with the brutal possession of his mouth.

He called me his property, a tool. But he touched me like a treasure.

The memory sends a wave of heat through me, a shameful, unwilling desire that I crush with a fresh wave of self-loathing.

“I keep no secrets,” I say.

The naga laughs, a dry, rattling sound. “All pets keep secrets, little human. The question is, how much pain will it take to make you share them?”

He leaves, and another, younger naga enters with a wooden bowl of thin, greyish gruel and a cup of brackish water. He shoves them onto the floor, just within my reach. I stare at the food, my stomach churning.

I spend the next cycle of light and dark—measured only by the subtle shifts in the green glow of the fungi—in this state of suspended terror.

I observe. It is the only weapon I have.

I learn the routines of my captors. There are four of them, a small, self-contained unit.

The one with the ring is the leader. He is cold, arrogant, and utterly confident.

The others defer to him, but I see the flicker of resentment in the eyes of his second, a larger, more brutish naga with a scar that splits his lip.

There is a weakness there. A fracture in their unity.

In the long, silent hours, my mind is my own worst enemy. It returns, again and again, to them. To the three serpents who have become the architects of my world. Such realization keep repeating in my head.

I remember Zahir. The brutal lesson in the training yard.

The savage, desperate kiss. The feel of his massive, hot body covering mine, a shield against the world.

He is a monster, a creature of pure, untamed violence.

But he is a monster who showed me his secret, gentle heart, his menagerie of broken things.

My body aches with a phantom memory of his rough, calloused hands, of the raw, honest hunger in his touch.

I hate him for the way he makes me feel like prey.

And I hate myself more for the part of me that wants to be caught.

And Kaelen. His touch was not a claiming.

It was a communion. A gentle, reverent merging of souls that left me feeling seen, understood, in a way that was more terrifying than any physical violation.

He spoke of my heart as a weapon, of my soul as a prophecy.

He made me feel like the center of the universe, a creature of immense, cosmic importance.

But it is all a lie.

The realization is not a sudden, crashing wave.

It is a slow, creeping tide of ice that numbs me from the inside out.

They do not want me. They want the “heart of humanity.” They want the key to their prophecy.

Their protection, their desire, their strange, burgeoning tenderness—it is all for the role I play, not for the woman I am.

I am a sacred object, a holy relic to be fought over and used for their own salvation.

The thought shatters the last of my foolish, desperate hope.

I have been so stupid. I, who have prided myself on my resilience, on my refusal to be broken, have been shattered from the inside out by my own heart.

I have fallen for them. For the cold, ambitious Prince with his hidden, visionary’s soul.

For the brutal, savage General with his secret, tender mercy.

For the wise, sad Mystic who saw the girl behind the captive’s eyes.

I have fallen in love with my captors. And it is all a lie.

The knowledge is a cold, hard stone in my gut.

It does not make me weep. It makes me angry.

A cold, quiet rage begins to burn in the ashes of my broken heart.

A rage at them, for their deception. A rage at the gods, for this cruel, twisted fate.

And a rage at myself, for being so utterly, completely, humanly, foolish.

The leader returns. The one with the ring. He dismisses the guard and crouches before me again, his eyes gleaming in the green light.

“You have had time to consider your position, little pet,” he hisses. “Are you ready to be… cooperative?”

I look at him, at his smug, cruel face, and the cold rage inside me solidifies into a sharp, clear point of purpose. I have nothing left to lose. My heart is already broken. My body is already a battlefield. All I have left is my mind. And my will.

“What is it you wish to know?” I ask, my voice surprisingly steady.

He smiles, a thin, reptilian stretching of his lips. “Tell me of the prophecy. The mystic speaks of it. What is your role? What is the key he seeks in you?”

I meet his gaze, and I let a small, sad, knowing smile touch my own lips.

“You think the prophecy is a weapon you can steal? A secret you can torture from me?” I shake my head slowly.

“You do not understand. The prophecy is not a thing. It is a… feeling. A connection. Something a creature like you, who deals in poison and shadows, could never comprehend.”

His smile falters. A flicker of uncertainty in his slitted pupils. I have not given him the defiance he expected. I have given him pity.

“The Prince, the General, the Mystic,” I continue, my voice a soft, confidential whisper. “They do not fight over me. They fight over what I represent. A unity you are trying to shatter. But you cannot shatter a thing you do not understand.”

I am speaking nonsense. I am weaving a web of half-truths and Kaelen’s own cryptic pronouncements. But I am speaking his language. The language of intrigue, of hidden meanings, of power that is not wielded with a blade.

“You are a fool if you think a few pretty words will save you,” he snarls, his confidence returning.

“And you are a fool if you think I am the true prize,” I reply, my gaze flicking to the door, to the brutish second-in-command I know stands just beyond it.

I look back at the leader, my eyes wide with a feigned, secret knowledge.

“The Prince is not a sentimentalist. He would not risk a war for a human pet. Unless… that pet was a distraction. A diversion. To keep your eyes focused on the wrong target.”

He stares at me, confused and suspicious. I have just planted a seed of doubt in the heart of his mission. I have turned their own weapon—deceit—against them.

He rises to his feet, his eyes narrowed, his mind racing. He looks at me not as a helpless victim, but as a potential player in a game he thought he was controlling.

“You are more clever than you appear, little human,” he hisses, his voice a low, dangerous thing.

“You have no idea,” I whisper, and I feel a spark of my own power. It is not the power of a naga, of scales and claws and brute strength. It is the power of a human mind. The power of a spirit that refuses to be broken.

He turns and stalks from the cell, leaving me alone in the green, glowing darkness. The fear is still there, a cold, constant companion. But it is now joined by something else. A fierce, wild, and utterly reckless hope.

I may be a captive. I may be a pawn. But the game is not over yet.