“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.
32
Holly stepped out of the glorious heat of the shower to find that Venom had thrown clothes on the bed in the spare bedroom she’d claimed. A loose white sundress with spaghetti straps and little eyelet holes in the lined fabric. It wasn’t what she’d have chosen, but, to be fair to Venom, there probably wasn’t much of a selection. She pulled it on . . . and had to laugh. She hadn’t seen the front, as it had been lying on the bed with the back showing before she tugged it on over her head.
That front had splatters of color across it.
“Okay,” she whispered into the mirror, “you do get me.”
Not bothering with underwear since her spare pair was shoved in their backpack, which was probably still in the lounge, she brushed her damp hair until her scalp tingled, then headed out . . . straight into a rich, savory scent. Underneath that lay a softer undertone of sugar and cardamom and spice. Her stomach rumbled.
She ran to the kitchen.
And came to a sudden halt.
Feet bare and a pair of well-worn jeans hugging his butt, the black shirt he wore a little worn at the seams and his dark hair falling forward across his face, Venom was . . . She took a deep breath and, bracing her back against the doorjamb, pressed her thighs together. Tight.
When he looked up, she found herself caught in the lethal beauty of his eyes, as if he’d mesmerized her. Holly gripped the doorjamb, her hands behind her back. If she got any closer she might jump his bones, and watching him cook was way, way too much fun for her to end it just yet. “What’re you making?”
“Here.” The gorgeous man who’d given her the most wonderful vampiric feeding experience of her life put a plate on the counter. “Sit. Eat.”
When Holly padded over to scoot up onto one of the three breakfast stools that lined this side of the counter, she saw that he’d made her an omelet with all kinds of things in it. Onion, ham, green peppers, mushrooms. Her stomach rumbled. She’d eaten half of it before she looked up and saw him watching her, a smile playing with the edges of his lips. “Get back to your cooking,” she ordered.
And he laughed.
God, he was beautiful.
Her heart went all askitter despite what she knew of his view of relationships. Because Holly wasn’t thinking about just a fun time in bed. Not with him. Not with the one man who’d always pushed her buttons and who challenged her on a daily basis.
No matter what they’d convinced themselves, it would never be simple, not between them.
Eating the second half of her omelet with a little more grace, she watched as he picked up a covered bowl of what proved to be dough. After using his fingers to quickly bite off the dough and shape the bites into small, flat circles, he began to roll out each piece. The tendons in his forearms shifted with every move, the burnished brown of his skin taut over pure muscle. She suddenly understood the obsession with cooking shows on television. Because if the chefs all looked like this . . .