Archangel's Viper

Holly frowned and sucked up even more of the shake that was a rush of sugar and fat and all those yummy things her body was craving. She was so glad she wasn’t a full-on vampire. “The only good thing about Uram attacking me is that over the past four months, I’ve developed the metabolism of an Olympic athlete.”

Venom yawned, his eyes slits of green behind lids gone heavy.

Rolling his shoulders, he lay down on the part of the floor that was stone. That seemed perfectly normal to her right then. Finishing off the shake, she put the glass carefully aside, then lay back down in the same stony area herself. And realized it was sumptuously warm. “Do you have a heated floor?”

“Just this part.”

Yawning, she curled onto her side. “It’s nice.”

A pillow softly hit her face just as she was about to drop off. Squeezing it to her chest, she snuggled in.

• • •

Venom woke first. He’d known he would—Holly wasn’t used to what they’d done last night, would take time to recover. She was curled up like the kitten he so often called her. In sleep, she’d made her way closer to him, so that his heat blazed on her back, while the floor’s heat blazed into a large part of the rest of her body.

She slept with her head half on the pillow, was hugging the rest of the pillow to her front. Her right leg was pulled up to lie partially on the pillow. The torn sides of her dress fell on either side of her leg, revealing a sweep of creamy skin marked by a few small bruises and scratches from their tussle. He’d been very careful not to badly hurt her, but some wounds were inevitable.

She’d heal relatively quickly.

His eyes skimmed her leg again—“Rein it back,” he ordered himself. “She really is a kitten.” Small and new and finding her feet. He wasn’t about to take a bite out of her.

Finding a soft, silky blanket, he threw it over her. She immediately tugged it right up under her chin and snuggled in for a longer sleep. He felt his lips kick up. When she wasn’t awake and snapping at him, she was pretty cute. Though he had to admit he liked the snappy, snarky side of her.

A softer woman would’ve been crushed that first day of horror.

Leaving her asleep, he went and stripped off his torn clothes before stepping into the shower. He turned up the heat, let it sink into his bones. He tried not to act too “snakey” as Holly would put it, but he couldn’t give up these burning hot showers. And why deny himself this one pleasure when there was so much he could never have?

He didn’t step out of the shower until a long twenty minutes had passed. Drying off, he hitched the towel around his hips and went to check on his houseguest.

9

She was moving a little but was still on the floor. Her eyes half opened at sensing him. A big yawn before she snuggled back down, her body soon going motionless in a way that told him she’d fallen back into deepest sleep.

He went and got dressed in a dark gray suit paired with a white shirt, then spent a couple of hours on the sofa in the living area going through security reports and other Tower data that Dmitri had forwarded him to bring him up to speed with current events. Regardless of any other calls on his time and attention, he was one of the Seven and he’d taken a blood vow to protect Raphael and his territory.

That vow was a thing of honor, not compulsion. Venom could walk away at any time. He chose not to do so, chose to lend his strength to the reign of an archangel he respected with every fiber of his being. As he respected Dmitri and the others in the Seven. He’d already updated himself on most of this data on the flight from the Refuge, but he wanted to ensure he’d absorbed every detail.

He also didn’t want to continue the search for those who were hunting Holly while she was asleep and unable to assist. Venom understood what it was to fight your demons—he wouldn’t steal her chance to conquer hers. His position on the sofa allowed him to keep an eye on her as she slept on.

He’d woken at nine in the morning. She was still fast asleep when he rose at noon to head back into his bedroom to grab his sunglasses. As he hooked them into the front vee of the shirt, he thought of how Holly had snatched them off his face. Most people were either fascinated by his eyes or repelled. Holly . . . the fascination was there, but there was also a sharp annoyance when he covered his eyes.

He was still thinking about that when he went back to the living area to see Holly sitting up with the blanket pooled around her. She looked a little confused in that soft “just woken” kind of way. Going to the bar to one side, he poured himself a glass of blood from the bottle in the underbar fridge. It wasn’t his favorite way to intake it—fresh from the vein was always better, but this was convenient.

He didn’t offer Holly any; she’d had more than enough to last her through today. Especially since she’d drunk from Venom. Sipping at the glass, he walked over toward her. She frowned and scrambled up onto her feet. Her hair fell around her, Holly having taken off her hair tie at some point. The strands were a slick waterfall of color-streaked black that reached past her waist.

Shoving them back, she glared at him. “What did you drug me with?”

“Your own spirit,” he said with an amused smile.

“Yeah, right.” She seemed to realize she was still holding on to the blanket, dropped it like it was a burning hot brand. “I slept on the floor. A stone floor.”

“A heated stone floor,” Venom supplied. “You’re the only other person who’s enjoyed it.” Curious about his tendency to sleep on the stone, the others of the Seven had all tried it at one point or another. None had lasted more than a few minutes. Not even Naasir. The most feral of the Seven had enjoyed the heat, but couldn’t understand Venom’s liking for the hard surface.

Scowling, Holly stepped forward and past him. “I’m going to my apartment.”

He didn’t stop her. Finishing off his lunch, he made his way to Dmitri’s office, the landscape beyond the Tower windows rain-washed dark gray. The other man wasn’t there, so Venom left him a note stating what he and Holly had discovered the previous night. His next stop was the technical core of the Tower. The man who was now the heartbeat of that core was someone Venom had only met in person yesterday, but he was very aware of Vivek Kapur’s skills.

All of the Seven had been briefed on the Guild Hunter turned Tower vampire.

It was relatively quiet when he walked in after a retinal scan to verify his identity, but the computers were humming and data scrolled through various screens. Strolling through the climate-controlled space, his sunglasses back on, Venom made his way to the very center—and the large circular control station that was Vivek Kapur’s personal subdomain. It had been custom-built to his specifications, and gave him access to multiple screens, several of which hung down from the ceiling on electronically controlled arms.

“Vivek.”

The other man swiveled around in a wheelchair that, Venom had been told, was as much a part of him as any of his limbs. Thin, with brown skin close to Venom’s shade, the hunter-born male had lost all feeling below the shoulders as a result of catastrophic damage to his spine while he’d still only been a child.

But today, he lifted a hand. “Venom.” A grin that was brilliant with life, his features handsome despite the lack of enough flesh on his bones. “Nice to meet you again.”

“Likewise.” Venom didn’t offer to shake the other man’s hand—vampirism had begun to have an impact on Vivek’s injuries far faster than anyone had expected, but the changes were unpredictable; the hunter had gained movement in both arms and his torso soon after his transition, but there’d been no further change in the months following.

That wasn’t why Venom didn’t touch the other man.

After a lifetime of not being able to feel anything below the shoulders, Vivek had become excruciatingly sensitive in the same newly awake region. Literally. His skin was a carpet of pain that could be triggered by the merest touch. The healers were of the opinion that it was simply an outcome of his nerves being shocked awake after years of somnolence—he’d just have to grit his teeth and bear it.

The only mercy was that it was solely touch from another living being that triggered the pain; Vivek could sit and sleep comfortably, work his instruments without problem. Venom wasn’t sure that was such a mercy, however: what must it be like to be deprived of the sensation of another’s hand on your body for most of your life, only for that touch to become a punishment?