“And after you sold yourself into bondage for your family,” Holly bit out, “they turned their backs on you?” It was a cutting denunciation.
Shaking his head, Venom ran his fingers through her hair. “They weren’t sophisticated folk, Holly. They didn’t know something like me could exist.”
“Bullshit.” Holly’s tone took no prisoners. “My parents didn’t know. My sister didn’t. Neither did my brothers. And yet you’ve witnessed how they treat me. What your family did to you was a horrible, nasty thing and you’re allowed to be angry.”
Venom went motionless.
All this time, all these centuries and he hadn’t admitted it wasn’t only grief that he carried deep within, but a primal anger that the people he should’ve been able to trust without compunction had forsaken him in his darkest hour.
Releasing a shuddering breath, he gripped Holly’s hip hard and said, “Yes, I’m angry. I’ve always been angry.” It was a searing heat inside him. “The young ones, I don’t blame. Mohan was only five. Later, when he was an old man, he made overtures. He wanted to see his bhai, introduce me to his descendants. But I couldn’t go.”
Venom fisted his hand in Holly’s hair as the memories crashed through him. “I’d seen too many of them die by then. I stood in the shadows through the decades and I watched their pyres burn one by one, until my mother and all nine of my brothers and sisters were gone, and I was the only one left.”
Tears burned his eyes, tears he’d never allowed to fall.
Holly tucked his head gently down to her shoulder, saying nothing, just holding him. And then, the man with the viper’s heart, the man the world thought as cold as the snakes that marked his eyes, cried tears that were very much human.
Raphael got in touch two hours later.
It was in the gray hour before dawn of the next day that Venom spotted Raphael high in the sky above Michaela’s stronghold, at precisely the time the sire had told Venom to expect him. Venom and Holly were hiding in the forest out of sight of the sentries, ready to move the instant Raphael gave the order.
Venom. The single word sang with a power so immense and dangerous that even most immortals wouldn’t be able to bear it.
To Venom, it represented a loyalty he’d chosen and one that would never hold him in chains. Sire, he replied, we’re ready.
Michaela appeared above her stronghold right then, flying up to meet Raphael on wings of finest bronze.
Raphael’s voice in Venom’s head again. Get to the location.
We’re on our way. Turning to Holly, he nodded, and they both began to move. The two of them had already known they’d have to get in on their own; Raphael was dead certain Michaela would, under no circumstances, permit anyone in that turret.
Regardless, Venom had every confidence the sire would get in.
As for him and Holly . . . “You remember how we practiced, kitty?”
She winked at him, this wild and strong woman who was probably racing to her death. When they ran into the first guard, she caught the vampire’s gaze like a champion, mesmerized him in a matter of heartbeats.
Venom took the next—much older—one. Then it got hard. They no longer had tree cover or darkness and the angelic squadrons had begun to buzz closer with Raphael in the air with their mistress. Those squadrons could do nothing if it came to a battle between archangels, but their loyalty to Michaela would allow nothing less than utmost vigilance.
For that, they had Venom’s respect.
“Venom, it wants me to . . .” Breaking off her words, Holly slid her arm around his waist, bit down hard on her lower lip . . . and they ceased to exist.
He whistled soundlessly. “That’s a good trick, Hollyberry.”
“It’s the proximity to what’s up in that turret—he’s stronger.” A trickle of sweat dripped down her temple, her eyes glowing such a vibrant acidic green that it would’ve made her stand out like a cat deep in the night had anyone else been able to see them.
Holly felt a little sick at having listened to that mad whisper.
Not that there was any point doing otherwise. The echo of Uram had spread stealthily into every part of her during the run here, now felt fused into her cells. Holly might have cried at the loss of herself, but there was no time for tears, for sorrow. If this went as predicted, she’d be gone before she ever had the chance to mourn who she’d once been.
It was a good choice, she told her screaming heart; she’d go out destroying an evil that shouldn’t exist. “This,” she whispered through her focus, “what we’re doing. It’s important.”
“Yes,” said the fascinating, beautiful, aggravating man with whom she wanted to explore eternity. “It might be the most important thing either of us ever does.”
Holly nodded. She’d needed to hear that, needed to know that the pain she’d cause would be for a reason.
Mia, Wes, Alvin . . .
Holly couldn’t think about her brothers and sister without emotion overwhelming her in a crushing wave. And when it came to Venom, she simply couldn’t think about it, full stop. She’d done a terrible thing. She’d brought him out of the self-protective cocoon in which he’d existed for three hundred and fifty years only to teach him that he should’ve stayed deep within it.
The woman who came after her would have one hell of a job getting through the carapace he’d grow around himself. Because Venom’s dirty secret was that he loved too long, too hard, too much. “Promise me,” she whispered.
“What?”
“That you’ll love again.”
A deadly stillness in his muscles. “Focus on the glamour, kitty.”
Holly went to respond when a large angelic squadron flew right overhead. She froze despite herself, only continuing forward when they didn’t so much as glance in her direction. The sleek Abyssinian cats did, however, prowling up and hissing from a distance, but those cats were too far below the squadrons for the angels to hear and become suspicious.
Her arm began to tremble around Venom as they walked into the stronghold through the open front entrance, her entire body taut enough to snap and the hard-faced guards on either side blind to their passage.
His own arm came around her waist, strong and warm and unwavering.
Hold, girl.
Gritting her teeth at the aristocratic command, Holly fought not to throw up. Whatever part of Uram lived in her, it was growing stronger inside her, becoming more and more a separate personality.
The walk up the stairs to the mezzanine floor was an exercise in brazen confidence. She and Venom passed within inches of a tall vampire so powerful she made the hairs rise on the back of Holly’s neck. The well-built blonde woman frowned, stopped, and looked around, her hand on the hilt of her sword . . . before finally shaking her head and continuing on down the stairs.
Holly had been aware of Venom going dead silent beside her, even as he reached back a hand to close it over the hilt of one of the two blades he wore on his back.
Now, he relaxed his ready stance and they carried on without bloodshed.
Only to enter the mezzanine and find an angel standing directly in front of the turret door. The angel, his wings white streaked by gray, wasn’t looking at them, couldn’t see them. But Holly could feel the pulse of his power buffeting her even from halfway across the floor.