Maybe he wasn't human.
Or maybe he had been, once—and left it behind.
Velra stepped closer, slow and graceful, her movements more animal than regal now. Her eyes narrowed, her thoughts no longer dripping with amusement but turning inward, calculating.
"You speak as if you're part of the old courts," she said softly, testing him, circling him like a flame around dry parchment. "But there's no blood in you. No scent. You're not one of us. So tell me, worm… what are you?"
He didn't answer right away. That was what intrigued her most.
Not the bluff, not the bravado, but the pause.
The measured silence of someone deciding what version of the truth to feed her.
"I'm the one who just stole your meal," he said at last, dragging a breath through clenched teeth. "And the one who'll do it again if you get in my way."
Velra's claws twitched at her sides. She hadn't moved to kill him, not yet, and she hated that she hadn't. It would've been easier. Cleaner.
But now?
