Naga Lord's Little Mouse

Chapter 1

Xirath

The slave pits of Kairo reek of old blood, damp stone, and something fouler, desperation, thick as a veil, clinging to the doomed. A low hum fills the cavernous space, the susurrus of whispered wagers, muffled sobs, and the occasional crack of a whip silencing unruly flesh.

I have walked these halls a dozen times, trailed by wary glances and hurried bows, my status granting me both passage and distance. The dark elves who run this trade are ruthless, their market built on generations of cruelty. They deal in flesh with the same precision as a jeweler inspects his finest gems, hunting for flaws, prizing rare specimens.

I am not here for rare specimens.

The heavy wooden chair beneath me creaks as I shift my coils, muscles tensed against my growing irritation. This is beneath me. A naga noble should not need to grovel in filth, scouring through human chattel like a beggar picking bones clean. And yet, I am here.

The curse gnaws at me. 

I have tested dozens. Perhaps hundreds. Each time, the process is the same. I purchase, I taste, I discard. None of them unlock my senses, none make my blood sing. They don't break my curse.

I am running out of patience.

On the stage, a dark elf overseer paces, his silver hair tied in elaborate knots, his long fingers adorned with rings carved from the bones of former slaves. His voice is smooth, practiced, wrapping around the crowd like silk soaked in poison.

"Ah, and now, a prize unlike the rest," he drawls. "A recent capture from the borderlands. Small but untamed. Gentlemen, you will want shackles for this one."

There is laughter from the crowd.

The girl is dragged onto the stage.

She stumbles but doesn't fall, her wrists bound in iron, her dark hair tangled past her shoulders, strands clinging to her sweat-damp skin. Thin but not fragile, wary but not broken.

I exhale slowly.

I have seen too many like her. The ones who weep, the ones who tremble, the ones who have already given up. Boring. Even the ones who fight rarely last long. Humans are fragile, and fragility doesn't interest me.

But this one doesn't cry.

She doesn't cower beneath the torches’ flickering light, doesn't scan the crowd for a savior who will never come. Instead, she stares at the overseer’s throat, watching the way his pulse flickers beneath his skin, calculating.

My claws curl against  my chair.

The crowd murmurs as she is forced to turn, letting potential buyers examine the curve of her waist, the faint scars tracing along her arms. A fighter, then. One who has not yet been broken.

The noblewoman beside me titters behind her fan. "So feisty. A shame. That spirit will be gone within the week."

The girl lifts her chin and smiles.

It is not the forced, trembling simper of a girl attempting to charm her way to softer treatment. It is the smile of a predator moments before it sinks its teeth in.

Something stirs in my gut.

Not the curse. Not the bond I have sought for decades. Something else.

A quiet, insidious intrigue.

Bidding begins.

A vampire lord offers thirty gold. A dark elf merchant, his robes embroidered with the sigils of his house, raises it to forty.

I wait.

The overseer steps closer to her, tilting her face toward the light. When she jerks away, he strikes her. Not hard enough to leave more than a faint red mark, but the action is meant to humiliate, to remind her of her place.

The girl doesn't flinch.

Instead, she turns her head slowly and spits blood onto his boots.

The silence that ensues is suffocating.

The overseer’s expression flickers, only for a moment, but I see it. He had expected anger, fear, submission. Not defiance.

The girl exhales through her nose, storm-gray eyes like distant thunderclouds, and smiles again.

I hum low in my throat, watching her more closely now.

Yes. She is interesting.

I let the bidding climb higher. The vampire hesitates at fifty. The noblewoman raises her fan, indecisive.

I speak. "Sixty."

Deafening silence follows. No one bids against me.

The overseer clears his throat, recovered now, masking his irritation behind another polished smile. "Sixty gold to Lord Xirath Va’Therin. A fine acquisition, my lord."

The fine silver chain binding her wrists is thrust toward me. I take it.

She doesn't bow.

The dark elves glance between us, waiting for my reaction. I offer them nothing. Instead, I rise, my coils shifting over the stone floor, my presence alone enough to send the lesser nobles scurrying out of my path.

She doesn't step back.

Interesting.

The overseer’s lips curl. "A gift from the gods, perhaps." His gaze flickers to me, amused. "Or perhaps a curse."

I turn without answering.

I expect the girl to resist. To jerk away, to fight, to struggle against the inevitability of her fate.

She doesn't.

Instead, she matches my pace, silent, watchful, every muscle coiled for an opportunity that has not yet come.

I recognize that walk.

It is the stride of a hunter disguised as prey.

Fascinating.

We leave the pit behind, the voices of the traders fading into nothing. Only once we step beyond the iron gates does she finally speak.

Her voice is sharp, unbowed. "If you think I’ll kneel, you’ll be disappointed."

I glance down at her, considering.

Softly, almost absently, I murmur, "Little mouse, I don't want you to kneel. I want you to run."

She’s so small, a prey, like a little mouse. 

She stiffens.

I don't smile.

The truth hums in my bones, in the way she watches me like an axe waiting to strike, in the way my fingers curl against the chain, though I don't pull.

I have spent years searching for something that has no name.

As she walks beside me, silent, storm-eyed, defiant, I realize this time I don't feel alone.