Page 14

14

SEREN

T he weight of sleep clings to me like a second skin, heavy and stubborn, resisting my return to consciousness. The softness beneath me is deceptive, a cruel contrast to the cold stone floors I’ve been tossed onto in past cages. My fingers twitch against silk, the fabric foreign beneath my rough, calloused fingertips.

My body remains still, pretending to still be lost in sleep as I take in the unfamiliar surroundings.

The room is too warm. The space too quiet, too vast to belong anywhere but a naga stronghold. A slow breath slips through my parted lips, and the stench of burning oils, rich, spiced, edged with something earthy and old coils into my lungs.

Xirath.

My jaw tightens as memory slams back into me, the minotaur mercenaries, the blood, the way he had stood over their bodies like a god of death.

And then, the long walk back.

Back to him.

Back here.

My eyes snap open.

The first thing I see is the ceiling, vaulted stone, lined with carved etchings that gleam with old magic. The walls are just as imposing, designed not for comfort, but for strength.

I am not alone.

He is watching.

Xirath stands near the edge of the bed, arms folded across his broad chest, golden eyes locked onto me with quiet expectation. He doesn’t speak.

Neither do I.

My fingers curl into the sheets, a sharp contrast to the bruises shadowing my wrist, evidence of the hands that had tried to drag me back to Jalith.

“I should kill you for bringing me here,” I murmur, voice hoarse from disuse.

Xirath tilts his head, the faintest flick of his forked tongue flickering between his lips before disappearing. “Should you?”

I push myself up onto my elbows, the ache in my ribs protesting the sudden movement. “You seem awfully fond of deciding where I belong.”

His tail coils slightly against the stone floor, the movement almost lazy. “You belong where you are safest.”

A sharp laugh escapes me before I can swallow it down. “Safest,” I repeat, rolling the word over my tongue as if testing its absurdity. “You think I’m safe here?”

The space between us shortens in three slow, deliberate steps.

“I know you are safer here than in the hands of those who would see you broken.”

A flicker of something unfamiliar slides through my chest, not gratitude. Never that.

But the weight of truth in his words settles deep, unwanted but undeniable.

The world outside his walls does not want to keep me.

It wants to own me.

“You think I should thank you?” I force my voice into something sharp, something bitter. “Is that what you’re waiting for?”

Xirath’s lips twitch, just barely. “You would rather bleed in the dirt than sleep in my bed.”

“Sleep in your bed?” My laugh lacks humor, my fingers twitching against the silk sheets. “You must have carried me here, then. Was I supposed to wake up on the floor?”

His tail flicks against the rock again, that damnable restraint of his a blade’s edge from snapping.

“If I wanted you on the floor, little mouse, you would be there.”

Heat blooms in my chest, not desire, but fury. “Do not call me that.”

He exhales slowly, as if weighing whether the argument is worth entertaining.

His hand moves, too fast for me to react.

I jolt back as his fingers wrap around my wrist, firm but not cruel, unyielding but not punishing. My breath stills as his thumb brushes over the inside of my wrist, the movement precise, deliberate.

A sharp sting burns against my skin.

I try to jerk away, but his grip is unshakable.

“What are you doing?” My voice is quiet, but the demand lingers beneath it.

Xirath says nothing at first, his gaze fixed on the spot where his clawed fingers press against my wrist. A slow, spreading heat builds beneath his touch, a faint glow seeping through my skin.

Magic.

I snarl and pull back, but he releases me before I can fully wrench away.

A mark remains.

Faint, barely more than a shadow beneath my skin, but it is there.

I press my fingers to the spot, pulse hammering beneath my touch. “You branded me.”

His golden gaze remains steady. “I marked you.”

There is no apology in his voice. No hesitation.

I want to rip the mark from my skin, to scrape it off and throw it in his face. “You had no right.”

His head tilts slightly, the way it always does when he is deciding how much truth to give me.

“Then you should not have been weak enough to need it.”

The words sink in deep, cutting like a dagger slipping through unguarded ribs. Not cruel. Just true.

A breath hitches in my throat, rage and humiliation twisting together, tangled into something ugly.

“I was not weak,” I grind out.

Xirath steps forward again, and I force myself not to move back.

“If I had not arrived when I did,” he murmurs, each word sharp, precise, “what would have happened, Seren?”

I hate that he uses my name.

I hate that he is right.

My teeth clench as I shift my wrist slightly, staring at the sigil seared into my skin, a crest I do not yet understand, magic that does not yet belong to me.

He watches me watching it.

Softly, dangerously, he says, “It is not a collar.”

I lift my chin, defiant. “Then what is it?”

His voice lowers, the restraint in it a thing that coils and tightens.

“Protection.”

The word scrapes against something raw inside me.

Because I should reject it.

Should tear it from my skin, spit in his face, remind him I belong to no one.

I do not.

That terrifies me.