"Me?" Tanzi asked again but she was just confused. She was not on her guard. The question she asked was just so that she could confirm her thoughts but not because she was shocked.
With her eyes still closed dazedly, her body too went soft as she almost fell into the Serpent man's arms.
Of course the Serpent man knows of this and he slowly draped his hand over her shoulder to give her body some support. As soon as her skin touched his body, she slowly fell into his arms as if she had lost her spine.
He slowly murmured in her ears, "Yes, give yourself to me."
"Hmm," Tanzi was unable to react as she had lost her consciousness somewhere in the middle of this so-called conversation.
The Serpent man smirked and instantly raised her into his arms horizontally. After that he gave a glance towards all the snakes that were still in 'hiding' and said with his narrowed eyes, "I will take care of you all later."
His words made all the snakes shiver in fright. They were deeply hidden under the snow and yet they did not have such a chilly feeling as when they felt hearing his voice.
The Serpent man carried Tanzi and turned around before leaving the place.
By the time Tanzi opened her eyes, she found herself in a cave-like dark place with not much lighting around.
Her hand moved and her fingers touched something slippery. She turned her head to look at what she had touched to find that it was a snake's skin.
She felt creeped out for a second before she calmed herself down, not allowing herself to shriek, which would make a noise.
Her eyes followed along that snake skin that she just touched and at the end she saw the Serpent man whom she met earlier.
He was still in the process of molting and thus did not notice the small movements of the previously subconscious woman.
He closed his eyes and his long tongue kept on flickering in and out of his lips as he slowly moved his body forwards leaving a small part of his freshly shedded skin.
This is the first time Tanzi was watching the process of molting from such a closer view.
She slowly understood that she was now in his place and she was just safe until this moment only because he was somehow suddenly triggered to start molting.
Thankfully she was safe even though she was unconscious. His voice was really hypnotic and made her lose all her consciousness without knowing.
Looks like her act of pretending to be weak and frail made him have different ideas. It is a bad idea against this man.
Now she had to find a way to leave this place before he opened his eyes after finishing the shedding.
She placed her hands on the ground away from the shedded skin and tried to crawl a few steps away from the place she was lying at.
Without making any noise, she crawled in the direction, she felt a light falling in the place. Once she was out of the Serpent Man's reach, she stood up and started running away.
This is definitely not the time to fight. She had no powers to fight a monster. She had neither her wand nor her potions. She doesn't know any of her new powers that the body of an Elf could have.
As she ran with her steps as light as possible, she finally reached the place that emitted light inside this dark place.
But what her eyes met was that the light fell inside from the ceiling of the cave.
She understood that this place is the Serpent man's burrow. This place is below the ground and the only way to leave this burrow is by going through that ceiling at the top.
She needed to jump to reach the top and when she realized this, she sighed, placing her hands over her hips.
She then took a deep breath and took a few steps back. She ran forwards and jumped as high as she could but somehow her fingertips touched the ceiling but couldn't grab any grip over that point.
Though she fell down, she did not lose her spirit and went back once again before rushing forwards.
This time around she used more energy on the balls of her foot before jumping high with a spring.
Luckily her hands successfully grabbed the outer side of the burrow and her body hung in the middle air. She pushed her legs herself to jump above so that she could make her body leave this underground cave.
Just as her body was leaving the dark place, a slick hand grabbed her waist from the back and pulled her body inside at once.