“Is that what you did for her as a young vampire? Cook?”
“No. I was too altered after my Making—she realized I’d be far more useful as a warrior. So I trained for that instead.” A faint smile. “Though, every so often, I’d break into the kitchen at night and cook a feast for my friends. Neha discovered us one day and told me she’d chop off my head if I didn’t invite her next time. She used to sit with us at the wooden slab of the kitchen table, her wings brushing the floor, and laugh, eat.”
He shook his head, the movement slow and thoughtful. “She was different then. A dangerous queen, yes, one capable of cruelty as well as mercy, but also a warrior like Raphael. Present. Real.”
Holly couldn’t wrap her mind around the scene Venom was describing. The Queen of Snakes and Poisons was stunning, deadly, and unmistakably regal. The idea of her joining an impromptu midnight feast was incongruous . . . and it made Holly piercingly aware of the divide of life and experience that separated her and Venom. “You weren’t tempted to open your own inn after you’d completed your Contract?”
“Sometimes, kitty,” Venom murmured, “you can’t go back.”
Holly thought of the fashion templates she’d thrown away, the exquisite fabrics she’d made her mother donate to a local charity shop, and felt a stabbing sense of loss. “Who says?” she said defiantly, suddenly furious at herself for giving away a piece of silk she’d adored and planned to make into a dress. “We are the ones who make the choices.” And she was going to choose to find another piece of silk for her dress.
Venom’s response was a smile that said a thousand unspoken things. “Do you intend to make the choice to get up anytime soon?”
“Nope.” Holly snuggled into the stone—that sounded so weird, but she didn’t care. “Is Daisy all right?”
Venom’s smile faded. “No, kitty. Daisy is gone.”
Holly was seated cross-legged by the time he finished telling her what had taken place after she entered the isolation room, her tears for Daisy dry tracks on her cheeks. Venom had loaded the recording from the room onto a large tablet and she watched and rewatched the slow-motion replay until it was burned into her brain.
“Uram touched her,” she whispered, her mouth so dry it was dust.
“There is more.” Venom told her of how Daisy had ended up in the Hudson.
Pressing her palm on the tablet, over the image of a woman who’d never stood a chance, Holly felt a renewed burning in her eyes. “Why not me?” she whispered. “Why did I get to survive and she had to die?”
“Because you’re stronger.” Venom’s answer was so definitive that she stared at him. “It’s the only answer that makes sense. Whatever Uram hid in Daisy, it needed a host and she was starting to fail because of Kenasha’s abuse. It relocated.”
Holly tore open her shirt, uncaring that she was exposing her body to Venom—right now, she was more concerned about the strip of skin down the center of her chest. That skin was smooth and unmarked. Heart thumping, she put her hand on the part of her chest where she’d seen the thing penetrate. “I don’t feel any different. Just . . . greater.”
Oh God. Oh fuck.
Her breath punched out of her. “Like it’s bigger.” A whisper. “The otherness inside me. It’s gotten bigger.”
The serrated wings stretched wider, straining her skin, cutting her from the inside.
Curling the fingers of the hand on her chest into her palm, she gritted her teeth while fighting to hide the pain from Venom. He watched her, his eyes flicking to her tightly fisted hand. She flexed it through conscious effort of will. He can’t know that I am awake, the madness inside her whispered. He will kill us to protect Raphael.
Holly didn’t trust that insane voice but she also knew she was becoming something that shouldn’t exist, an abomination of creation. But she didn’t want to die. Not now. Not when she’d decided to live. And, she had the otherness under vicious control. She wasn’t a threat. If the madness tried to escape, she’d confess her sins, bear the punishment.
The one thing Holly would not do was repeat Uram’s murderous rampage.
“The tests on her and Kenasha’s blood,” Venom said at last, “are taking time to complete. The healers say they’ve never seen the like.”
“You need my blood, too. It has to be a new, post-incident sample.” Skin cold, Holly buttoned up her shirt, taking the opportunity to break the dangerous eye contact with a man who was as intelligent as he was lethal. “Or did you take it while I slept?”
“I don’t need to violate women, kitty. They beg me to take their blood and their bodies.”
Happy to be back on a familiar footing, Holly pretended to gag before she rose to her feet. “Let’s go donate my blood, then.” She watched him get up before a thought struck her. “Have you fed?”
“Yes.”
Holly slammed her mouth shut before she could ask the name of his donor. She didn’t care. She shouldn’t care. Yet the question was shoving so hard at her throat that it threatened to bruise. “Did you try that bottle of premium blood at Janvier and Ash’s? Ash said Ellie’s company is about to extend their flavor range.”
“To humor a good friend is one thing, but I will never voluntarily consume that mockery of blood,” he said with such an offended scowl that she had to laugh.
This, this was the man who’d once run his own kitchen.
But he wasn’t done. “Anyone who adulterates such a pure and perfectly balanced liquid should be banned from the business of blood.”
“You’re a blood snob,” she said teasingly. “Ellie knows how much I hate drinking blood, so she brings me a bottle of the expensive dark chocolate one when she visits.” Holly’s budget didn’t yet stretch to that. “I pretend it’s syrup and pour it over my ice cream.” Of course, she hadn’t consumed any blood for months before that near-bloodlust incident with Venom; it was a mistake she had no intention of repeating. “Next time, I’m going to put it into a milkshake.”
Venom shuddered. “Stop, before I throw up.” He pointed to the next level. “I have some of your things in the bathroom if you want to shower.”
“I’ll be quick.” She kept her word, though she did have a moment’s pause when she picked up her panties to slide them on. The idea of Venom handling the delicate peach satin and white lace . . .
Going downstairs afterward, dressed in tight blue jeans and a simple white shirt with the sleeves rolled up partway, canvas trainers on her feet that she’d painstakingly hand-painted with pink and orange stars, she said, “Thanks for getting a change of clothing for me. I didn’t expect the shoes.” The boots she’d placed neatly by the door definitely wouldn’t have suited this outfit.