Archangel's Viper

“You loved that place.”

“I’d worked in the kitchen since I was ten. It was my home.” Closing his hand over hers where she’d placed it on his heart, he took a breath infused with aching memory. “Not that it mattered—by that point, the debts were so substantial that a sale would’ve left us homeless paupers.”

Tears wet on his sisters’ cheeks.

White-faced shock in the faces of those of his brothers who’d been old enough to comprehend the dire reality.

His mother’s grief-stricken wails.

“As the eldest son, I had to make the choice, and the only choice I could make that would save them all was to become a vampire.” He remembered sitting alone in the inn’s kitchen, the accounts open in front of him and his heart cold with realization.

“How?” Holly frowned. “Vampires don’t get a payout until after the century of service.”

“Neha was a familiar face at the inn.” An archangel who had a liking for Venom’s cooking, and whose patronage gave the inn such cachet that, had the inn been managed well, they would’ve never ended up in such grim financial straits. “I spoke to her about our situation in the aftermath of my father’s death—”

“Hold on.” Holly’s eyes were wide. “You just rocked up to speak to an archangel while you were still a mortal? Funny, you don’t look demented.”

His lips kicked up. “The first time she requested to speak to the chef after stopping at the inn because she’d heard good things about it from her squadrons, I’d just turned seventeen and I’m sure my bones clattered from knocking against each other.” Never in his life had he been near anyone who burned with such violent power. “But when she kept dropping by . . . well, a chef has his own arrogance—and what seventeen-year-old boy wouldn’t be puffed up with self-importance by an archangel’s open pleasure in his creations?”

Laughing in an affectionate way that told him she saw the boy he’d once been, Holly said, “So by the time your father died, you were used to talking with her?”

Venom nodded. “She was, I think, sincerely sorry for my grief—I had become a person to her, not just another mortal who’d exist then die in an immortal heartbeat.” He wasn’t so certain she’d been truly aware of anyone else in his family. “When I told her our situation, she reiterated her invitation for me to become a vampire—and offered to advance me three quarters of my post-Contract payout. It was more than enough to cover the debts and keep the inn going.”

The Queen of Poisons had also authorized the Making of the woman to whom he’d been betrothed, the match arranged by Venom’s father just two weeks prior to his death. And that choice, to become a vampire or not, had been solely Aneera’s. No one would’ve held a broken betrothal against her, not in those circumstances, but she’d hungered for near-immortality, been ecstatic at the chance.

“Say what you will about Neha,” Venom murmured, thinking of the horrific torture of his actual Making, “but she is not ungenerous. Not human in any sense, but not evil, either.”

“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 . . .