Archangel's Viper

31

“One day,” Holly began, “after we’d sparred on the lawn at her and Janvier’s place, and I was sitting on the grass, looking down at the Hudson and feeling sad for the life I’d never have, Ashwini sat down next to me and said, ‘Holly.’”

Wild green eyes met his. “I was still Sorrow then, but that day, she called me Holly very specifically. I didn’t correct her because she had this tone in her voice that told me to be quiet and listen. And she said . . .”

“I’ve already strangled you twice,” Venom murmured with lethal silkiness, though he still wasn’t all right with what he’d done to save her from the entity inside her. “They say the third time is the charm.”

Her laughter was reckless and fearless and he wanted to drink her in until that laughter was his own. “I was focused so hard on her,” she said with a smile lingering on her lips. “My body was almost quivering to hear what she had to tell me—my future? My death? What? At last, Ash opened her mouth and said, ‘Don’t forget to learn Hindi.’”

Venom blinked. “What?”

“Uh-huh.” Her shoulders shook. “I’d have thought her completely mad, except that I’d been around Ash long enough to realize that when she says one of her weird things, you should listen. So I joined an online class.” The last sentence was spoken in the language of Venom’s homeland.

Something huge spread out inside him, a wild joyful thing without a name. “Your accent could use a little work,” he said in the same language.

“And you can’t speak Mandarin, so shut up.”

He replied in that language, saw her eyes widen. “I grew up on the Silk Road,” he reminded her. “I also spent over a hundred years in Neha’s court, and she has many courtiers who come from across the border.” Not all spoke the same dialect as Holly; he’d had to learn multiple variations—as he’d had to learn the languages favored in other parts of India. “Naasir always says he doesn’t like not knowing what secrets people are talking about. Neither do I.”

Holly’s smile was a wide-open thing of utmost delight. “My grandma made me attend Mandarin school all through my childhood. I used to get so mad because I had to spend my Saturday mornings there instead of watching cartoons.” She spoke the words in a mélange of the three languages they shared. “But as I grew older, I was glad. I can speak to her in the language she used with her own mother. And it’s something special, you know?”

Venom understood. “Janvier speaks Hindi, as does Ashwini,” he told her. “Most of the Seven have an excellent grasp of it, too. Part of it is they’re just old enough to have had the time to learn multiple languages . . .”

“But the rest is because they’re your family,” Holly said, raising her hand to brush her fingers over his cheek. “So, jaanuu, is it time to go? Also, did you know there’s a wolf behind you?”

“He’s just curious about the other predators in his territory. Don’t challenge him with eye contact, but also don’t appear weak.” Venom looked back to let the wolf know they were aware of it. “He wants to make sure we’re only passing through.”

Venom pulled on the pack and got up.

Accepting the hand he held out, Holly used it to haul herself up. “Is our safe house within a distance we can travel on foot?”

“Yes. But we might not make it before dawn.” Holly was weaker than she should be, even with his blood twining with her own. “We’ll have to camp in the forest if there’s any chance we might get caught out in the open.”

“Yes, that would suck after we successfully pulled off the stealth infiltration of an archangelic home.” Tugging the hood of her jacket on over her hair, Holly zipped up the jacket so that her face was neatly framed, her body a sleek black outline. “Let’s do it.”

They began to run, the wolf running alongside them for over an hour before it peeled off to return to its territory. Venom had kept the pace at one Holly could also maintain. She was doing better than he’d expected. Even at full strength, she wouldn’t be as fast as him—but she’d be fast enough to make it fun.

Flying over a log in their path, she turned to grin at him over her shoulder.

He grinned back, and they ran.

Wings flew overhead now and then, and when they did, the two of them crouched low, became motionless. The farther they got from the stronghold, the less Holly’s chest glowed—Venom knew because she’d unzip and check every so often, until, by the time they ran into a small mountain village, there was no wash of acid green pulsing off her body.

Dawn hovered a red line on the horizon, but it was just far enough off that the farmers who ran goats up in these mountains weren’t yet awake. Venom and Holly moved like shadows through the village, not stopping when dogs barked.

They were long gone and back in the forests before anyone so much as twitched a curtain in response to the canine alarm. If anyone had seen them, all they would’ve spotted were two dark silhouettes. Venom had pulled the knit cap back over his hair and made sure to keep his eyes open only a sliver so no one could identify him.

Sunglasses pre-dawn would’ve been a dead giveaway.

Safe in the trees some distance from the village, they stopped so Venom could drink the second bottle of blood, after which Holly would feed from him to continue her recovery. Before that, he gave her the prepackaged food she’d brought along: he never forgot that Holly wasn’t a vampire in the known sense, needed actual food, too. As she munched on a packet of cheese and crackers, he opened the bottle of blood and—forewarned by the last bottle—took a cautious sip.

Pretzels and coffee and roasting nuts.

He laughed. “Ashwini gave me New York this time.” Another home of his heart. He drank it down without hesitation, then kissed Holly again so she could taste it. And so he could taste her.

She licked her tongue playfully against his. “Shall we indulge in wildly-inappropriate-on-the-run sex?”

He sank his fangs into her lower lip, just enough for it to be a sting.

“Ouch.” She did the same back to him and when they drew apart, they were both panting.

“A bed,” Venom said silkily. “I want a bed and time.” The luxury to stroke her softly, slowly, drink her in.

Holly’s breath caught. “Then let’s move it.”

“Feed first.” But he didn’t give her his wrist.

Instead, he did something he never did . . . except with her. He leaned in so she could feed from his throat. Slender fingers curving around the side of his neck, a soft breath kissing his skin, her scent slinking around him like an affectionate cat.

His already rigid cock went stone hard when she sank her small fangs into his vein. To feed her, to care for her, it gave him so much pleasure that he knew he was in trouble beyond anything he’d ever before handled. He cradled her head to him regardless, glorying in the pleasure of the intimate blood kiss.

She took her time, sipping slowly rather than gulping and getting it over with.

When she did end the kiss, it was with a press of her lips against his skin. “Okay,” she said in a husky tone that stroked him just right, “maybe I could grow to enjoy drinking blood in some very limited circumstances.” A nuzzle against his throat. “Will you feed from me?”

Venom shuddered. “When we’re safe.” He wouldn’t take much, the act more about the offer and the acceptance than sustenance.

She nuzzled his throat again, small and fierce and strangely gentle with him. “I want to curl up and sleep.”

“Soon.” Forcing himself to break the skin-to-skin contact, he took a quick breath before rising, tugging her up at the same time. “We’re nearly there.”

They eased their way into a fast run, Holly moving more fluidly after the fresh injection of blood and food. Her distance from the abomination in the crib was also likely helping; the less strength she had to expend on fighting the alien energy from taking over, the more she had for herself.

The two of them made it to their destination just as true dawn cracked the world in spears of burning gold and brilliant red. That destination was a lodge deep within the trees. There were other lodges scattered through the forest, but all were far enough from one another that privacy was assured. Owned by the very wealthy, these lodges were winter homes meant for the skiing season.

The actual runs were a short distance away, which meant the forest around the cabins was thick, cocooning the homes in lush green solitude.

It so happened that the wealthy vampire who owned this lodge was part of Jason’s network of spies. Venom had once asked Raphael’s spymaster—a fellow member of the Seven—how he could be certain that a vampire who’d been so long in Michaela’s territory could now be loyal to Raphael. “Michaela has her moments,” Venom had said, “but she’s not evil for the most part, and she protects the innocents in her territory.”

“She also flays vampires alive and uses their skin to make purses,” Jason had replied, his wings blending in with the night as they stood on a Tower balcony on a moonless eve.

Shrugging, Venom had said, “Aside from that.”

Jason’s eyes had actually glinted with humor, the tribal tattoo that covered one side of his face an astonishing work of fine curves and dots. “Michaela ordered the death of a vampire our ally loved deeply,” he’d answered at last, the humor fading into a cool darkness. “It was not a deserved death—Michaela was capricious in giving the order and though she was apologetic in the aftermath, her remorse couldn’t breathe life back into the dead. Our ally and his lover were together for five centuries and devoted to one another always. He will never forgive Michaela for the loss, no matter how long he lives.”

It made more sense than a non-immortal—or even a young immortal—could ever understand. Love was a gift that came along rarely in their world, especially love so true that it lasted through centuries—that was beyond a gift. It was a treasure.

“Michaela doesn’t understand the depth of her crime,” Jason had added with spymaster quietness as his eyes tracked an angel with wings of peacock blue and emerald green who flew with Elena around the Legion skyscraper.

“She’s never loved that much, that desperately.” The passion in Jason’s voice was not a thing of fire, but of thunder, deep and potent. “She thinks he has gotten past it in the hundred years since the death. She has no idea that he sits every night at a table set for two and drinks blood in complete silence while looking at a painting of his love done three centuries earlier by Aodhan.”

Venom’s eyes went to Holly’s profile as she pulled back her hood and shot him a wild grin. And he knew. She’d never bore him, not through centuries and centuries and centuries. And if he won her heart, the fierce wildness of her would be endlessly loyal. He’d never, ever have to worry that she’d reject him. She’d drive him insane on a regular basis, but he’d be hers.

“We made it,” she said, but didn’t pad her way to the wide steps that led onto the porch fronting the A-frame structure. “You sense any danger?”

Venom shook his head, though she was the most dangerous thing in his world. “It’s safe to go in.”

Holly moved forward, stopping when he didn’t follow. “Come on, Viper Face.” Laughter in her expression, her hair rainbow strands across her face where it had escaped her braid. “Your eyes are pretty in the dawnlight, light green fire mixed with gold.”

No one but Holly had ever called his eyes pretty. Eerie. Striking. Unique. Yes. But never pretty. Not until her. “And you look like a unicorn kitty who wants to curl up and sleep.”

Sticking out her tongue at him, she ran up the steps and, after locating the hidden key exactly where they’d been told it would be, walked into the house. He ran after her in deadly silence. Once inside, they locked the door and—though need pounded at him—he told Holly to duck into the shower while he prepared something for her to eat. She needed more fuel. Her body was burning up what she already had too fast. He was certain she’d lost weight over the night, her cheekbones were so sharp against her skin.

“This ‘little winter cabin’ has at least three showers,” she told him after a short exploration, her eyes wide at the idea of such luxury. “You should use one, too. Jeez, some people are so freaking rich.”

Venom wondered when she’d realize he was rich. It made him smile to think of the gift he’d ordered her—she’d either shoot him when she saw it or she’d laugh in amused delight.

Because Holly would make it.

Showering quickly, he dressed in a pair of jeans and a black shirt with long sleeves that he folded back; clothes in multiple sizes had been left in one of the guest suites for those who might come through. When he went into the kitchen, he found it stocked with food as promised. Had anyone from Michaela’s court become suspicious about so much food in the home of a vampire, their absent host had a ready explanation: it was for the human mistresses he kept for blood and sex.

Nothing unusual about that. According to Jason, the women never knew that they were literally only conveniences as well as smoke screens. The vampire treated them with politeness and generosity for the time that they hung on his arm and, when it was time to part, he made sure they were in a good situation. “He uses them for cover,” Jason had said, “but his heart is never going to belong to anyone else. I think he lives only so he can wreak vengeance on Michaela through such methods as are open to him.”

Venom had witnessed that kind of love through time, but he’d believed himself incapable of it after his Making. He was too cold inside, the vipers and cobras that had been part of his Making marking him far more deeply than most people realized.

Bone-deep friendship? Loyalty? Fidelity? That he could do.

But the kind of love that softened a man and made him vulnerable? Love that was so intimate it dug its way into the soul and anchored in with millions of tiny hooks? Love that understood no boundaries, put up no walls, exposed its defenseless throat? How could a viper be capable of that?

Yet Venom was starting to believe he wasn’t only capable of it, he’d been built for it. Built to love with the same relentless will that had powered his psychic survival after the unthinkable horror of his Making. All he’d needed to awaken his heart, to turn on that switch of unyielding devotion, was one specific smart, fierce, and deadly woman who took no shit and whose fire was so bright that it embraced his cold without a blink.

Holly Chang. Sorrow. Kitty. Hollyberry.

No matter what he called her, she was the most dangerous adversary he’d ever faced.

Because once that switch flipped on, he knew it would never, ever turn off.