Archangel's Viper

They rode up in silence, exited in silence. He got lucky that no one else was up on the floor right then. Venom took Holly straight into his apartment—a massive sprawl with floor-to-ceiling windows and a large empty space in the center of his sitting area. There was no carpet there, only a square of highly polished stone that appeared to be a design feature that echoed the electric fire set into the opposing wall.

Shutting the door behind him, he locked it, then took off his suit jacket. Holly had gone motionless on entering, seemed to be taking in the apartment. He could tell it wasn’t what she’d expected. But she could have the tour later. “Take off your shoes.” He pulled away her clutch and threw it on a nearby chair.

Holly bared her fangs at him, but she was still shaky. She actually obeyed an order, kicking off her heels. “Now what, master?”

Having folded up the sleeves of his shirt and kicked off his own shoes and socks, Venom waved her forward to the stone section; it was just big enough to act as a sparring ring. “Now,” he said, “I want you to release the otherness inside you.” He knew it lived in her because the vipers and cobras who’d been part of his Making lived in him.

Holly didn’t move. “Why? So you can tell me I have no control?”

“Control isn’t the same for us as it is for other people, kitty.” That was what no one else understood, what Holly herself didn’t understand. “I’m not strong because I leash my impulses. I’m strong because I use those impulses. So use it.” Still, she didn’t take action. “Fine.” He moved, aiming to sink his fangs into her throat.

As he’d expected, she reacted out of pure self-preservation. And then the fight was on—but it was a normal fight. She wasn’t releasing the thing that lived in her. Venom scraped his fangs over her throat. She hissed and swayed for a moment before shrugging off the touch of venom.

“Bastard.” Eyes glowing, she jumped on him without warning.

The movement wasn’t human, not anywhere near. But it was her.

Grinning as she clawed his chest, half ripping off his shirt, he pulled her off and threw her aside. She gave an “oof” as she hit the wall, but she was up and running toward him a second later when she should’ve had multiple broken bones. Venom knew her exact tolerances, knew that her delicate-appearing bones were far stronger than normal vampire bones, even the bones of vampires hundreds of years older.

Holly’s bones were closer to angelic bones.

He slashed his nails tauntingly across her stomach as she tried to get to his throat again. It made her move with a speed even he couldn’t avoid. He was facing her, and then suddenly, her fangs were sinking into his shoulder from behind and her nails were clawing at his chest. He reached back and ripped her off.

Blood dripped down his back. “No more blood for you, kitty.” Holly might have been starving, but he was dangerously potent. She could drink herself into a coma. Oh, she’d wake up, but it’d take days or weeks.

Hissing, she jumped on him again.

He laughed in pure joy.

Because the way they fought now was nothing human, nothing vampire, utterly other. Their bodies were liquid, sinuous, bending in ways that shouldn’t have been feasible and striking so fast that had anyone been watching, the movements would’ve seemed impossible. Exhilaration filled his bloodstream. He loved sparring with the Seven and Raphael, Janvier, even Elena, but this . . . No one else fought this way. Like he did.

She was young and untried and more instinct than thought—but the latter was the point.

Gripping her throat at one point, he pressed a kiss to her cheek that was more taunt than anything sexual. She twisted out of his grip in a liquid movement and shredded his back, hissing poison at him at the same time. He laughed and twisted around her to grab her thigh—visible through the torn skirt of her dress—holding on hard enough to bruise.

She smiled and kicked up in a way that had her bones going inhumanly fluid.

He avoided the hit, but not the nails across his face. Licking at his own blood, he grinned, and they were at it again.

• • •

Holly lay on her back on the stone in the middle of Venom’s living area, her brain at absolute and blinding peace for the first time in years. She had no idea what had just happened. The damn viper had goaded her until she’d decided to let him have it. But rather than yelling at her to shut it down, he’d just grinned . . . and the rest was a haze of acidic green across her vision, a sense of exhilaration, and the thumping beat of her heart.

She raised her leg at the knee, felt a brush of air where there should be no air. “My dress is ripped.” That particular fact didn’t seem important, even though this was one of her favorite dresses, a piece she’d saved hard to be able to afford.

“So’s my shirt,” said the man who lay on the floor beside her, his breathing far more even than her own. “You’re fun to play with when you let yourself off the leash.”

Holly inhaled, exhaled. It felt good to have the air expanding her lungs, even better to release the slight tension. Everything felt good, her entire body liquid. “Weren’t you the one who gave me a lecture about possible bloodlust?”

“Two different things.” His voice was different . . . lethargic. Satiated. “You don’t drink enough blood to remain stable, you turn into a murderous monster. You let yourself off the leash while stable, you fight with a speed and a natural fluidity that’s extremely difficult to counter.”

Holly tried to think that through, found it too much work. “I’m drunk.”

“No, you’re just lazy after a good workout.” He flowed up into a seated position, moving in a way that was so boneless, she wondered if he even had a skeleton.

Letting the frivolous thought float away, she sighed. “I don’t remember most of what we did.”

“You will,” Venom said, flowing to his feet with that same liquid grace. “This was the first high. The more you do it, the more you’ll begin to maintain rational thinking even while surrendering to your prana.”

Holly couldn’t make herself get up, even though she knew it was ridiculous to keep lying on the floor when Venom was walking around doing things. “I don’t know that word,” she said after several minutes. “It sounds like a yoga word.”

A low chuckle. “It’s Sanskrit. It has a complex depth of meaning, like all Sanskrit, but the easiest way to describe it in this context is the primal life force that lives in us.” He knelt beside her. “I made you a cookies-and-cream shake.”

Holly turned her head; it felt deliciously heavy. “Can I drink it lying down?”

“No. Up.”

Exhaling again—and really wanting that shake—she managed to get herself up into a seated position. It was only after she’d taken two long draws of the shake through the wide straw that she realized one thing. “How do you know this is my favorite?” She shot him a suspicious look.

“Starting to come out of the haze, I see.” He sat down on the floor, his hands braced behind him. “I know everything, kitty.”

Holly thought about hissing at him, but the shake was delicious and he looked strangely delicious, too, with his shirt half-ripped to reveal smooth skin and rippling muscle overlaid with skin of honeyed brown. She was obviously more dopey than she realized, but right now, she felt too good to care. “Tell me about prana.”

A shrug. “Many use the word to describe the energy that is life, but I’ve always chosen it to describe the part of me that came into being during my Making.” His eyes nictitated.

Setting aside the shake, Holly went to crouch beside him on her hands and knees. She stared at his eyes. “Do it slowly.”

A smile. “I can’t.” There it went again, that membrane that turned his eyes into a shattered stained-glass artwork.

“Pretty,” she murmured, raising her fingers to his cheek.

He nudged her gently back. “Drink your shake.”

Realizing that she was still acting drunk, Holly did as ordered. “So,” she said after several more gulps, “what was this about?”

“Teaching you that you’ll have better control if you stop fighting yourself.”