Page 7

7

XIRATH

T he jungle stirs beyond the cliffs, thick vines shifting in the midnight breeze, their luminous blue veins pulsing like veins beneath darkened skin. The sky above is fractured starlight, jagged remnants of a cosmic wound the gods left behind.

I don't pray to them. They have already cursed me enough.

I sit at the corner of the open balcony, my coils shifting over the carved stone as I watch the distant spires of Kario gleaming against the abyss. The city never sleeps. The naga don't rest.

Yet she does.

Seren.

She is not a restless thing, not tossing in fitful dreams, not gripping the sheets like a woman haunted by past terrors. She is still. Controlled, even in unconsciousness, as if daring the world to see her vulnerable.

A lie.

Her heartbeat never slows enough to surrender fully. Her body is poised, even beneath the illusion of sleep.

She is waiting.

For me to break her. For me to snap the chain I have left unfastened and remind her what she is, what she was purchased for.

I will not.

Not yet.

The thought sinks its fangs into my mind, burrowing deep, curling in my ribs like a whisper of something inevitable.

She is unlike the others.

The human women I tested before were soft, their spirits brittle beneath a thin veneer of defiance. They feared me. They feared the darkness of my people, the weight of my coils, the strength of my hands.

Seren doesn't fear me.

She fears what I will make her admit.

That is why she pushes. That is why she threw the chain at my feet, as if rejecting the very idea of ownership, as if willing me to prove that my claim over her is a lie.

Yet she did not run.

She could have. She should have.

Instead, she walked into this house, into my world, and stood before me like something untouchable.

Amusing.

She may think herself beyond control, but control is not about force. It is about patience.

It is about knowing precisely when to let the trap close.

A rustle shifts in the distance, a change in the currents threading through the jungle. Something watching. Something waiting.

The beasts of the deepwood don't step too close to the city. But they sense weakness. They are drawn to the smell of defiance just as much as fear.

Much like me.

The wind shifts, and I inhale deeply, drawing in the salt of the distant coastline, the wet stone from the carved pathways below, the sharp iron tang of steel being polished by the guards in the courtyard.

Beneath it, her.

Not her skin, not her sweat, not the shallow perfume of humans that often reeks of too many bodies pressed into too little space.

No.

Seren smells like thunder before a storm. Like something about to break.

My claws flex against the stone, irritation curling through me.

The bond doesn't pull. The curse doesn't lift. Yet I hunger.

Perhaps more cruel than any torment the gods have bestowed upon me is this.

To crave something I cannot yet take.

The soft scuff of bare feet against stone drags my attention back to the archway leading into the main hall.

I don't turn.

She has already noticed me. Already hesitated in the shadows before stepping into the open.

She is learning.

Good.

I listen to the measured quiet of her breath, the way her pulse betrays the coolness she tries to cloak herself in. She is steady, but not unshaken.

She should not have come here. Not so soon.

"I thought you were sleeping," I say, my voice threading through the night, slipping between us like the cool wind curling in from the jungle.

"I was," she murmurs, stepping closer. "Then I decided I had enough of pretending."

The honesty in it surprises me.

I flick my gaze toward her, the slivers of silver starlight catching against her skin, painting shadows along her collarbone.

She has not covered the brand on her wrist tonight.

She notices where my gaze lingers. Her fingers twitch, the barest hesitation before she clenches her fist.

Not shame.

Rage.

I lean back, resting my weight on my coils, watching her. Assessing.

"You wear your defiance like armor," I murmur. "But armor doesn't make you invincible."

She lifts her chin, moonlight carving sharp lines against her jaw. "You wear your patience like a leash. Tell me, does it chafe?"

A slow smirk graces the corner of my lips.

She is sharp. She doesn't bare her throat, but she is willing to test her teeth.

Intriguing.

"You think I am waiting for something," I say.

She folds her arms across her chest, an unconscious barrier, one she doesn't realize she has created. "Are you not?"

The question hangs between us, pressing into the humid night.

I tilt my head slightly, my forked tongue flicking out before I still it. "Perhaps."

Her gaze darkens.

She expected a different answer.

Good.

She shifts, placing more weight onto one leg, the tension in her muscles barely visible beneath the soft drape of her tunic. A stance of someone prepared to move. Prepared to fight.

She doesn't understand.

She is already fighting.

Not with steel. Not with fists. With every sharp word, every refusal to yield.

She has not realized that I am letting her win, for now.

I push off the stone, rising to my full height, the movement slow, unhurried. She doesn't step back.

I expect nothing less.

"You have a choice to make, Seren," I say softly.

Her fingers flex at her sides.

"If you are not my prisoner," I continue, "then what are you?"

She doesn't answer.

A lesser creature would have already begged for the illusion of freedom.

But Seren Delyra doesn't beg.

She waits.

I step past her, letting my presence drag against hers, letting the weight of what has been left unspoken press against her skin.

"I suggest you make your decision soon," I murmur, low enough that she feels the words rather than hears them.

Suddenly, I am gone, vanishing into the darkened halls, leaving her there, standing at the edge of the trap she refuses to see.