His grin told her he’d caught her own and knew she’d meant no insult. His snakelike tendencies were a part of him and Holly had no intention of ignoring them—that would be like accepting one aspect of his nature and not the rest. And Holly was fascinated and compelled by the whole.
“Depends on the wall.” He ran his hand over it. “This one is extremely smooth from age. Even the seams in the stone have been worn away, leaving nothing in terms of a gripping surface. If we were at home, I’d try it, but as we’re not . . .” Opening his pack, he took out a coil of rope with a four-pronged hook on one end. “Here’s where we need some luck, kitty.”
Acid green filmed her vision as Holly listened to the night. “Wait.” His arm was rigid muscle under her touch, his skin warm. “Now,” she said the instant the wings in the air were at an optimum distance.
He threw.
The hook caught on the ledge of the open window, and when he tugged, it held. “Go.”
Grabbing the rope, Holly tried to remember the lessons she’d had. She was no expert, but one of the hunters who was friends with Ashwini liked climbing and Holly went with him sometimes. He didn’t know what she was, of course, just thought she was a badly Made vampire, but that didn’t matter. Demarco was fun and uncomplicated, their relationship centered on climbing.
The problem was, with this wall being so slippery, she had to rely on her upper-body strength and her thighs to get herself up. She could do it—thanks to her training schedule over the past four years—but she felt like she’d gone through the wars by the time she managed to crawl over the window ledge and into a well-lit passageway.
Pressing her back to the wall the instant she was inside, to avoid being silhouetted against the light, she made sure the hooks were holding tight. The rope went taut a second later. Venom made it up at ruthless speed and was rolling up the rope and putting it back into his pack before her heartbeat eased from its frantic tattoo.
Agony speared Holly’s chest without warning.
She could see that this place was as beautiful as she’d imagined—a chandelier up ahead fractured light into raindrops that cascaded over the deep blue carpet patterned in cream and jewel red. But the beauty was lost on her, her mind a clawing obsession painted in acid green.
She couldn’t stop her head from snapping to the left. “That way.”
28
Holly’s body wanted to go through the wall that stood between her and her destiny.
Taking her hand, Venom squeezed. “Stealth, kitty.” A murmur against her ear. “We have to go down the hall and find a way to get to that wing of the house. We can’t afford to crash about and get caught—the angels and vampires on guard within will be dangerous powers.”
She had the feeling he was talking as much to the thing inside her as explaining what they were about to do. But the otherness didn’t want to listen. It shoved so hard at her skin that she thought it was going to explode out of her like the ball of deadly energy that had erupted out of Daisy.
No. This is for both of us. Daisy, who never had a chance. And Holly, who came back from the dead.
She was a person.
Not a suitcase taking this . . . echo of Uram from one place to another.
“Go,” she said to Venom through gritted teeth, conscious that her control over the entity within wasn’t absolute.
Viper green eyes connected with hers before he moved silently down the hall, his hand linked warm and strong with hers. He broke contact only when they reached a corner and had to hug the wall before it to check if the way forward was clear. Venom looked very carefully around before jerking back his head.
He held up two fingers, then formed the shape of wings with his hands.
Holly pointed to her eyes and made a questioning face. Her mesmerism didn’t work on angels—Izak, the youngest angel in the Tower, if you didn’t count Ellie, had allowed her to try to capture him, the experiment supervised by Ash and Dmitri. It had proved a total failure.
Venom, however, was older and stronger. Now, he made a motion with his hand that she read as there being a fifty-fifty chance of success. Given his strength, it meant the two angels up ahead were old, possibly even people he recognized.
The wings inside her shoved.
Deadly cold flowed over her, her hands tingling and flexing without her conscious volition. I can kill those angels. The thought was as clear as if someone had spoken in her ear—and the voice wasn’t hers.
Fuck.
Holly wasn’t about to become a goddamn zombie. She lifted Venom’s wrist to her mouth and bit down without warning. Blood potent with power . . . blood that was deeply familiar hit her bloodstream, thrusting out the acid green mist crawling through her veins. Flicking her tongue over the wound to help close it, she released the strong weight of his wrist. Thank you, she said with her eyes when she met those of a far wilder green.
He ran his knuckles over her cheek, then took out a small mirror from his pocket. As she watched, curious, he held that mirror low by his leg and angled it—Oh. It allowed him to see around the corner without having to stick out his head.
Clever.
It was two minutes later that he said, “Now.”
Holly moved, Venom at her back. The upper arches of the wings of the angels who’d stepped off the railingless mezzanine were still visible, the central core of this part of the stronghold a vast empty space that soared to the ceiling far above. If the angels looked up, Holly and Venom were screwed, but the two men appeared to be focused on landing on the polished wood of the floor below. Holly ran with all her inhuman speed, but the passage was long and the angels landed before she reached the other end.
Falling to the carpet as close to the wall as possible, she began to crawl.
Voices drifted up from the ground floor, but the words were difficult to understand. She didn’t try, just focused on her destination and kept going. Now that she was going in the right direction, the serrated wings inside her chest had stopped trying to breach her flesh, but she could still feel them, lying just beneath her skin.
The distinctive susurration of wings, as if one of the angels was rising back up.
The end of this part of the mezzanine was too far for her to win a race against a being with wings. Holly rolled left and into an open doorway. Venom rolled in a heartbeat later and they moved behind the door to flatten themselves against the wall. Holly’s heart thudded hard, but below that was another pull far more visceral. Whatever it was that drew her, it was now so close that it was a hand around her throat that attempted to override her free will and haul her closer.
Holly thought of Mia, of their mom and dad and brothers, of Ash and Janvier, even Arabella and Zeph.
All people who saw her. Knew her.