Archangel's Viper

Holly bit her tongue rather than crush Arabella’s illusions. “Did you two want to tell me anything?” Every so often, the pair found her when they didn’t have any information to trade but were really hungry. Then she gave them blood vouchers that couldn’t be exchanged for money and were personalized to Zeph and Arabella so Zeph couldn’t try to barter them.

Just because a person was broken didn’t mean they had no value, no right to live.

“Um, yeah.” Zeph went to pick at a scab, stopped himself. He was like that, tried to be “normal” as long as he could. “We heard some guys were going after you.”

“They already tried,” Holly began.

“No.” Arabella tugged at Holly’s arm before snatching away her hand so quickly it was as if she was afraid someone would hurt her for daring.

Holly glanced over her shoulder and gave Venom the hard eye. He’d gotten closer, those irises of his penetrating the shadows as if she, Zeph, and Arabella were bathed in bright sunlight. Go. Away, she mouthed.

He slipped on his sunglasses instead.

Shifting her attention back to Arabella, she took the trembling woman’s hand. “He won’t hurt you.” She’d kick his ass if he tried. “What did you want to tell me?”

“There’s more guys,” Arabella whispered. “Someone put a big . . . Zeph, what’s the word?”

“Bounty.” Zeph scratched furtively at a scab. “Like if we kidnap you and give you to this person, we get a lot of money.”

Even though Holly already had that information, she let the two think it was new. Pride was as important as food when it came to survival. “How much?” she asked, not expecting a firm answer.

Arabella frowned. “I think we heard five million?”

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his dirty jeans, bony shoulders poking out through his holey black sweater, Zeph nodded. “Yeah, it was five mil. I thought I was zoned out and hearing things, but I never had a honey feed last night. For sure, it was five mil.”

Five million?

Even in her wildest dreams, Holly wouldn’t value herself at that extravagant amount. “Thank you for telling me instead of attempting to kidnap me.”

“Aw, Hol, you’re our friend.” Zeph pulled off his ubiquitous knit cap to reveal hair of an astonishingly beautiful auburn that surprised Holly each time she saw it. “We don’t got nothing else,” he added. “Just the rumor. Some of the other vamps were talking about maybe trying to get you, so we heard.”

“But most won’t try,” Arabella said with a reassuring pat of Holly’s arm. “Folks know you’re with the Tower and it’d just be stupid to get on the Tower’s wrong side.”

Unfortunately, if people were strung out or otherwise desperate, that wouldn’t matter. “Here.” She slipped them personalized blood vouchers as well as money; she’d put both in her evening clutch just in case. “Go get the good blood first, okay? I don’t want anything to happen to you.” It took a lot to kill a vampire, but if Zeph or Arabella got any weaker, another vampire might rip out their hearts or tear off their heads to get at their meager belongings.

“Thanks, Holly.” Arabella touched her arm again and Holly noticed that the other woman’s ragged military-surplus jacket had become even more so.

“Arabella, you need a new coat.” It got cold at night, especially for a woman with no roof over her head.

“Not yet,” Arabella said before Holly could offer to replace it. “If I have anything new, the others will take it. Maybe after it’s a little colder?” A hopeful smile that was shaky at the edges. “I know a charity shop that has stuff.”

“Just find me when you’re ready.” Waiting until they’d melted safely back into the shadows, Holly turned to walk back to Venom.

And nearly slammed into his chest.

7

Managing to maintain her balance, she scowled up at him. “You can’t even follow simple instructions?”

“I waited until the vampires left,” he said without a smile. “What did they say?”

“Take off those ridiculous sunglasses first.” Holly hated not being able to see his eyes.

Slipping them off, he smiled at her and it held no mockery or amusement. “Happy?”

Her stomach did a strange flip. “I just want to see your snakeyness in the unlikely event that I begin to think of you as human.”

His smile didn’t fade. “The information, Hollyberry.”

Holly wanted to refuse to share it. As soon as she told him, she’d put herself in an even tighter cage of supervision. Protective it might be, but it also suffocated.

Venom slid his hands into the pockets of his suit pants, as dangerous and urbane as Zeph had been shaky and broken. “Or would you rather I get the information from your friends?”

“You keep your hands off them.” Neither Zeph nor Arabella had the physical or mental strength to deal with Venom.

He just waited with the predatory stillness she’d never mastered.

Fingers tightening on her clutch, she said, “The bounty—they heard about the rumored payoff.”

“How much?”

“Five million dollars.”

Venom didn’t so much as blink. “That’s a big enough number for certain immortals to risk Raphael’s fury.” His power slid sinuously around her. “It’s also a big enough number that it’ll draw reckless but nonetheless experienced bounty hunters from outside the territory.”

“The goons in the SUV,” Holly said, standing her ground against the intensity of his strength. “Has Vivek confirmed their identities?”

“It wasn’t difficult.” He turned to walk beside her when she swiveled on her heel to head toward the club, a silkily prowling presence. “We’ll deal with them.”

The hairs rose on the back of her neck. “What will you do to them?”

“Dmitri is in charge,” was the simple answer.

And Dmitri did not take any attack against the Tower lightly—because at present, Holly was Tower property. “Didn’t it frustrate you?” she found herself asking. “Spending a hundred years under someone else’s control?” All vampires signed a Contract to serve the angels for the privilege of being Made near-immortal.

Venom’s face gave nothing away. “I made a choice as an adult in full control of my faculties,” he said in a cool tone. “Only the stupid regret choices. The smart learn to adapt.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Venom looked over at her, his lips curving. “‘Frustration’ isn’t the word I’d use, kitty.”

They’d reached the door to the club. The big and musclebound vampire bouncer had become increasingly more pale the closer Venom got. Now he opened the door with a trembling hand. “Welcome,” he croaked out.

Venom didn’t respond, his hand once more on Holly’s lower back as he ushered her in. She scowled up at him once they were inside the thundering noise of the club. “What? You couldn’t be polite to a lowly bouncer?”

Leaning down to her ear, he said, “That lowly bouncer is maybe two decades into his Contract.” His breath was warm against her ear, his body a tensile wall. “A vampire that young needs to be scared of me. Fear will keep him from running, and that means the Guild Hunters won’t have to track him and haul him back. At which point, his punishment would be a violently painful affair.”

His fingers moved in a slow circle on her lower back, his eyes shimmering in the pulsating darkness. “Fear,” he said, “also fosters control. That’s why the hundred years of service is necessary—so that the world isn’t overrun by blood-maddened vampires, feeding and feeding and feeding.”

Holly shivered.

Running his hand up then down her back, Venom held her gaze. “That’s also why you need to be kept under watch. No one knows what lies inside you, what deadly urges you must be taught to throttle.”

Holly wanted to refute his words, but damn it, he was right. There was a horrible something inside her, a monstrous creature that hungered. “Let’s go,” she said, jerking forward into the chaotic darkness of a club lit only by moody dark blue bulbs and glowing jewelry hung around necks or worn around wrists.