“Let me taste.”
He didn’t give her the bottle. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to hers. Her free hand coming up to lie against his cheek, she accepted his gentle kiss and when they drew apart, her eyes were wet. “You miss it.”
“Yes. Sometimes.” New York was his home now. It was where his family lived—the Seven, Raphael, Janvier, even a few of the younger idiots, but part of him would always be that boy who’d come to adulthood in an inn on the Silk Road. The hot air, the sound of voices raised in conversation in a thousand distinct dialects and languages, the color and chaotic wildness of it, the piercing starlight so far out from the smoke and dust of a large city, the memories would live in him forever.
“Can you go back?”
Holly had no idea what she was asking. He shook his head. “Not home. I can’t go home.”
Her fingers tightened on his.
“But I can go to India,” he said, brushing back her hair again. “Neha likes me. She calls me and Janvier her Charm and Guile. We have never figured out which one of us is which.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to India,” Holly said on another shaky breath. “And to China. My great-grandparents came from a place called Xi’an.”
“We’ll go.” With that promise, Venom brushed his fingers down her bruised throat. “I’m sorry.”
Catching his hand, she pressed a kiss of unexpected sweetness to his palm. “I’m not. Thank you for helping me stay Holly. Now drink.”
Venom finished off the bottle of blood that held some magic that had made him speak of the past—and thought deliberately of the future he wanted, the future he’d fight to the death to win. “On our trip to India,” he said, “we’ll ride a motorcycle through the streets of Delhi, dodging bullocks pulling carts, and spindly rickshaws, and pretentious vampires in town cars, and we’ll surprise Neha with you. We’ll just have to be careful she doesn’t try to keep you.”
Holly’s fangs sank into his wrist when he held it up. She cradled that wrist as if it was a precious thing that could be hurt. So strange, was Holly. She made his heart hurt in ways that he’d have thought were impossible. But as she drank, he saw the cracks in her body begin to heal inch by inch.
She drank more than she normally would, and when she flicked her tongue over the wound to help it heal, she did so with utmost gentleness. He smiled. “Careful, kitty. You start being nice to me and I’ll begin to think you like me.”
“I’ll consider it, Viper Face.”
Grinning, because she was back, he rose and held out a hand. “Can you move?”
She accepted his help and slowly got up, then flexed as slowly. “Yes,” she said at last. “I feel bruised and the flesh on my chest and abdomen is new and fragile, but I’m not weak. I’ll just have to be careful not to tear open the wounds.”
He’d been going through the pack as she spoke. “Here,” he said, having found the long-sleeved black T-shirt she’d brought along as a change. “We need to clean the blood off you, too.”
Taking off her jacket, she stripped off her bloody top. Then she used water from a nearly empty bottle to sponge off the dried blood. “Am I clean?”
Venom looked at her small, sleek, perfect form. And wanted to bite her in ways that had nothing to do with survival. “Turn around.”
When she did, he nodded. “Blood’s gone.” Droplets would’ve sunk into the waistband of her jeans, but that wasn’t something they could deal with right now.
“How much got onto your jacket?” he asked after she’d pulled on the clean tee.
It turned out that the inner lining of her jacket was waterproof, and they were able to wipe it clean using the already damp top. Close as they were, the scent of her curled around him like the kitten he called her. He wanted to tumble her into his arms and explore her, find out if the passionate, fascinated, protective pull he felt toward her had become that most precious of things: home.
But first, he had to get her to safety.
Taking the bloody top they’d used as a rag, he said, “I’ll be back in five. Anything dangerous appears, poison it with those baby fangs.”
The sound of her snarl stayed with him as he faded into the trees, his destination the waterway he’d glimpsed not long before he’d stopped. There. A small stream tumbling over rocks. The large gray wolf standing on the other side was no surprise, not in this region. Its eyes gleamed at Venom as Venom washed out the top; it’d get rid of the concentrated smell of wet iron. Vampires had good noses, but they weren’t bloodhounds. This should keep a vampire from using their scent trail to mount a pursuit.
It’d have been a different case if Michaela had one of the hunter-born in her employ, but the former Queen of Constantinople and current Archangel of Budapest had a strange blind spot when it came to hunters. She used the services of the Guild and, according to the hunters Venom knew, she treated the hunters in her territory with courtesy. However, she didn’t have any deeper connection with the Guild.
Then again, neither had the Tower until Raphael fell in love with a mortal hunter and the world turned upside down. Most mortals, even the strongest, stayed away from immortals. It was good for their health.
“Good hunting, my friend,” Venom said to the wolf across the way, the one who’d stayed in place but had made no aggressive moves—like recognized like, and the wolf knew Venom wasn’t prey.
He was on his way back to Holly seconds later. He found her sitting with the backpack, her jacket on but open; the green glow continued to pulse. She hadn’t taken out her pack from inside his, probably well aware she’d need all her strength just to move, but she appeared to be repacking. “I organized it so the stuff we might need first is at the top,” she said without looking up.
Venom knew he was silent when he moved. “How did you know I was here?”
A shrug. “I could feel you.”
Unconcerned about that when he’d normally be otherwise, he walked over and hunkered down to look into the pack. “Why did you put that bottle of blood near the top?” It was the unopened one. “I already drank one.”
“I don’t think it’ll stay cold and good for longer than maybe till morning, so you should have it then.” A wicked smile up at him. “Wonder what flavor it is?”
“I’m never accepting gifts from Ashwini again,” Venom muttered, but of course it was a lie. He’d take anything the seer gave him. No one called her that, but they all knew it was what she was. Ash saw things that hadn’t yet happened, and if she liked you enough to offer you a helping hand, you’d be an imbecile not to take it.