Exhaling shakily, Holly nodded at last. And they turned the mirror.
At first, she felt a punch of visceral joy . . . only to wrench the mirror closer and stare. “What is that?” Her eyeballs stared back at her from the mirror. “What the hell. What am I supposed to put on my driver’s license now?”
Venom’s laughter filled the bathroom. “I think they call the color hazel,” he said solemnly when he stopped laughing.
“Be quiet, Viper Face.” Because her eyes weren’t hazel. They were a strange mix of darkest brown and acidic green.
“Anything you say, kitty.” Tipping up her chin, Venom kissed her hot and deep and a little desperate.
Holly let the mirror fall to the water. “Hey, hey,” she said when he broke the kiss, both of them breathless. “I’m here. I’m okay.”
Shuddering, he wrapped both arms around her and dropped his head to the crook of her neck. Holly stroked his hair, kissed his temple, held him. Held this man born in torturous pain and horror who let no one see his vulnerability. “I love you,” she said simply, honestly, forever. “You make the idea of forever a journey into adventure rather than a thing to be endured.”
He didn’t raise his head for a long time. When he did, his eyes held joy and pain and echoes of terror. “As long as you live, so will I.”
Holly’s heart smashed against her ribs. “Venom, no,” she whispered. “My life span is unknown.”
“And I’ve lived long enough alone.” No give in his expression. “How can you ask me to go back to it after I’ve known you? Loved you?” A shake of his head. “We take this leap into eternity together.”
Tears rolled down her face. “I’ll badger you every day to change your mind.”
“Nag, nag, that’s what kitties do.”
She scooped up a palmful of water and threw it at his face. He laughed. And he was so incredibly beautiful that she wanted to kiss him and kiss him and kiss him. “Come here.”
He came, sploshing water all over the place, his pants still on. None of that mattered. Because he was kissing her and kissing her and kissing her, and she was home. Always in his arms, she’d be home.
As he would be in hers.
Sitting astride him when she came up for air, Holly said, “What do my eyes mean?” That strange amalgam of who she’d once been and who she’d become with Uram’s energy inside her. “Is he still alive in some way?”
“Keir was at the Tower when we arrived,” Venom told her. “The healer says yes, Uram is alive, but only in the way any father is alive in his child. You are a being all your own now.”
Holly made a face. “I have a father. And it’s not that psycho.”
“Perhaps ‘blood sire’ is the better term to use,” Venom said. “Uram is alive inside you the same way Neha is alive inside me.”
Holly ran her hands over his shoulders. “That doesn’t make me feel better,” she admitted. “I wanted him erased from my body.” She pressed her finger to his lips when he would’ve spoken. “But if he was . . . then I wouldn’t be a vampire, and I wouldn’t be like you just enough that we fit.” And so he no longer felt alone. “I figure the trade is worth it.”
Venom leaned forward to kiss her.
Frowning at a sudden thought, Holly pulled back. “Wait. What powers do I have left?” Scrunching her eyes shut, she tried to go invisible. “Can you see me?”
“Your breasts are lovely.”
She flicked her eyes open to see that he did indeed have his admiring gaze on her tiny chest. But he seemed to like that chest. Who was she to argue? “I’ve lost the ability to create glamour.”
“Unsurprising.” He rubbed a thumb over the wet point of her nipple. “That is an archangelic trait that has never manifested in any other immortal.”
“Can I still move the way I did?” Hating that she might’ve lost that which tied them together, she went to get out, check, but Venom held her in place.
“I love you,” he said, his eyes locked with hers. “From the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. From yesterday to tomorrow and every tomorrow we will ever see. From this moment to the mystery beyond death. Every part of you, slow or fast, small or big, strong or weak. I love you, Holly.”
Her lower lip quivered.
Throwing her arms around his neck, she held on tight. When he rose, it was with both of them together, water dripping off their bodies. He somehow managed to get his pants off, and then their wet bodies fell onto the bed. There was no foreplay. She didn’t want it. She drew him inside her, held him, and they rocked, their eyes locked to each other’s.
Slow and gentle and forever.
It was some time later, while she sat on the kitchen counter wearing one of Venom’s shirts and watching him quickly put together a pizza for her, that Holly snapped something out of the air. She stared at the plum in her hand. “Why are you throwing me plums? Though, it does look nice.” She took a bite, hungry for food if not yet for blood.
“I threw it at my speed,” said the vampire who’d be aggravating her forever.
And she’d caught it.
Holly began to smile. She still had the speed, could still dance with him in their unique and inhuman way. Even if she’d lost everything else, that was enough.
“Want to hear my theory?” he asked as he grated cheese over the base he’d hand-made.
“Uh-huh.” She nodded around her succulent bites of plum.
“I think you’ll have retained all the abilities that integrated fully with you. The speed, the ability to become boneless in a fall, the mesmerism. The things that felt yours.”
“The glamour was never easy,” Holly admitted. “It was like I was wearing someone else’s coat.” She kicked her feet. “I’ll test the other stuff tomorrow.” She was far calmer now that she knew she had the speed. “Tushar?”
“Kitty?”
“Why am I alive?” Holly had felt Uram pull everything out of her body. “The ghost or echo or whatever it was, it tried to suck me dry.”
Her lover looked up from chopping green peppers. “You’re not going to like this.”
Holly frowned . . . then groaned. “I swear to God, if you tell me I have some of Michaela in me now . . .”
Not having mercy on her, Venom nodded. “Uram fed deeply on her. Too much for your body to digest or process. Keir believes a significant amount of her blood was still pooled in your stomach when the echo left you.”
“Ugh, ew!” Hopping off the counter, Holly threw away her plum pit and found a big glass; filling it with water, she drank it down in desperate gulps. “I know my reaction isn’t rational,” she said afterward. “But ew!”
Venom’s lips were curved as he watched her little freak-out. “Michaela’s blood nearly caused your own to go toxic, but its power also saved your life. The echo inadvertently helped by draining so much energy out of you that it left a void—into which Michaela’s power flowed, giving your cells what they needed to survive.”
Holly made throwing-up motions before putting down the glass and moving sulkily to his side. “How come I have to be the weird one who has archangelic blood messing with me?” Other people probably prayed for archangelic attention, but Holly had had enough of it. “Raphael didn’t feed me, too, did he?”
“No, the sire gave you his energy, but only in an attempt to heal.”
“Good, but seriously—the idea of Michaela’s blood sitting around in my stomach?” Shuddering at the thought, she dropped her head against his side. “Oh well, at least it wasn’t Charisemnon’s blood.” Any bastard who could orchestrate an act as heinous as the Falling was not someone she wanted in her bloodstream.
“Speaking of whom,” Venom said, “our friend Walter came through.”