When he turned to lift a lightweight and aerated cover off the wok that sat on the counter, she noticed all over again that his shirt was open at the collar, revealing a strip of golden brown skin. "It's still hot," he told her with a faint smile. "Perhaps the scent lured you out of sleep."
"You think you're joking but seafood fried rice--good seafood fried rice--is serious business."
Holly sat cross-legged on the stone and watched as he dished out the rice onto a glass plate, her mouth watering and stomach rumbling. She was ready to chew the plate itself by the time he returned to put it into her hands, along with a fork.
"Now," he said, "for the review from a connoisseur."
Holly took a deep breath and scented ginger, garlic, shallots, a hint of chili. Her first bite was heavenly, the moan that rose up out of her throat pure, unadulterated pleasure. She'd never, not in a million years, tell her mom, but Venom was at least equal with her in the cooking stakes. Then she didn't think, just ate, her starved body in ecstasy.
When Venom disappeared for a while to the kitchen and returned to place a glass beside her, she didn't pay attention except to glance at it and make sure it wasn't the dark red of blood. Ugh. She so didn't need a mug of blood.
It was only halfway through the plate of food that she felt the need for liquid with which to wash it down. Taking a sip from the blood-free glass without looking, she felt her eyes widen. "Mango lassi?" It was a whisper.
Venom tilted his own glass at her from where he was once more leaning up against the sofa--but this time he was facing her, very much in the present. With her. Not in the distant past where she could never go.
She took a sip and felt her toes curl at the tangy sweetness. "How can a vampire be this good a cook?" she muttered before diving back into the fried rice with its succulent chunks of crab meat and equally juicy scallops.
The next time she came up for air, it was to find he'd brought the wok over.
Smiling at her imperious demand for more, he dished her another full plate.
She ate it. And she drank three glasses of the cold yogurt drink he'd made fresh. Stuffed, sated, she fell back on the stone with her arms out on either side of her in what her yoga teacher had called the corpse pose. Holly hadn't lasted long in yoga. She'd felt as if she'd explode out of her skin at the slowness of it all.
"Is my belly sticking out?"
Venom chuckled. "No. Though I have to admit, I don't know where it all went."
"Me, either." She just knew she'd needed fuel and the fuel he'd provided had been delicious. "You're a vampire. You don't eat." Yes, he could have the odd small thing--like that glass of lassi, or a few bites of a food he particularly craved, but he couldn't digest entire meals.
"I wasn't always a vampire."
She turned her head to look at him. "Don't tell me: you were a cook in your human life."
"Yes."
Holly blinked. She'd been joking. The idea of Venom as a cook simply did not compute. "Really?"
An incline of his head, his hair falling farther across his forehead. "My family had an inn along a Silk Road corridor. We fed and housed hungry and thirsty merchants, couriers, travelers of all kinds."
Fascinated, Holly turned over fully onto her side. "What was it like?"
"A good life," he said simply. "I had the freedom to create and I created tastes so renowned that even angels stopped especially at our little inn." No pride in his tone, just the ache of memory. "Neha wanted my skills in her kitchen--I had a standing offer to come to Archangel Fort and apply to become a vampire. She told me I'd be accepted without delay and that I'd hold a distinguished position in her kitchens."
Which meant, Holly realized, that Neha had already managed to get hold of his blood to confirm he was compatible with the angelic toxin that turned a mortal into a vampire.
"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.
"It wasn't me," he said absently, his attention on his phone. "Ashwini turned up with all of it."
Exhaling quietly, Holly headed out. Venom came with her, and the two of them were soon in the testing area. The sweet-faced angel who drew her blood also took her blood pressure and did a couple of other tests, "since you're here anyway." The healers loved getting their gentle--but intensely curious--hands on her, the people she dealt with all senior Tower staff who knew her history.
"It's like you get a hard-on when I'm around, Lucius," she said to the angel with wings of softest yellow that children couldn't resist. Angels generally didn't like getting their wings touched by strangers, but many seemed to make an exception for the littlest mortals.
She'd once seen Lucius sitting quietly in a sun-drenched corner of Central Park, his wings spread out behind him, while a group of five tiny children patted his feathers with their baby-soft hands.
"We all have our vices, sweetheart." He threw her a wink over his shoulder. Built tall and strong, with blond hair and sparkling gray eyes, he was handsome and kind and funny--but she didn't want to jump his bones.
It wasn't the wings; she'd gotten over her phobia of those.
Lucius was just too old, too much from another time.
Problematically, she was beginning to experience the bone-jumping urge when it came to a vampire who'd lived more than three centuries and counting. This attraction laughed in the face of her earlier justification about Lucius. But then, Venom had always been an outlier when it came to Holly--he'd made her react, made her fight, even when she'd been at her lowest.
"Timeline, Lucius?" Venom asked.
"It's going to take a while longer. All the samples you sent us are . . . odd." He ran his fingers through his hair. "That is not scientific and I strive to be so, but there it is. It's all as odd as Holly's blood, and our lovely Hollyberry has set a high bar for oddness."
Holly threw a forgotten lab glove at his head. "I'll see you in a month, you bloodsucker," she said when he laughingly caught the glove out of the air. She had to turn up for a regular monthly checkup until her blood stopped being so mutable.
Who knew how long that could take?
"Highlight of my calendar, sweet girl."
Venom spoke after they'd closed the door to Lucius's lab behind them. "I didn't realize you were close to Lucius."
"He's been my lab tech pretty much from the start." Though it seemed strange to call Lucius that--he was so much more. Like Kenasha, Lucius had only a little innate power in angelic terms. But unlike the deadbeat angel, Lucius had spent his three thousand years of life learning endless medical techniques.
This decade, he was content practicing his skills doing bloodwork and other tests.
"What's our next stop?" Even as she spoke, she fought the urge to rub the knuckles of her fisted hand against her chest, to quiet the pulsing that had begun within. It was very low, barely detectable, and it had the rhythm of a heartbeat.
Holly tried not to hear it, tried not to feel it . . . because that wasn't her pulse.
21
Choking down that chilling realization because there was literally nothing she could do about it unless she wanted to confess and end up with her head on the chopping block--or her body caged in an isolation room--Holly said, "I'm wide awake and it's only one thirty in the morning." In immortal terms, the night was just beginning.
A sudden thought hit her before he could speak. "What about you? Have you had enough sleep?"
"I don't need as much as small kitties." Unaffected by her scowl, he said, "We still have to track down the individual behind the bounty on your head."
Holly had nearly forgotten that with everything else that had happened. "What we know so far is that the buyer is deadly serious and doesn't appreciate his or her time being wasted with false reports." She bit down on the side of her lower lip, frowning at the idea of the hours she'd lost. "Anything else come to light while I was napping?"
Eyes on her mouth, Venom shook his head. "Your phone did ring several times while you were out. No one spoke when I answered." He handed it over. "Fully charged."
"Thanks." Holly pulled up her call log, saw several familiar numbers. "These are pay phones in Zeph and Arabella's patch." She called one.
No answer.
The second one was picked up by Big Irma, a human who was an unlikely mother figure to a number of down-and-out vampires. "Holly!" she said in her energetically overloud voice. "Zeph was wanting to talk with you!"
It took a couple of minutes for Holly to narrow down where she'd be most likely to find Zeph and Arabella tonight. "Thanks, Irma."
"Just remember who helped you next time you're down here!"
"I never forget." And she knew Irma's poison of choice--menthol cigarettes.
Venom's eyes glinted after she hung up. "You have a scent?"
"Maybe. Let's go see."
And all the while, the quiet, stealthy pulse continued to beat in her.
*
The streets felt eerie and treacherous tonight, the squathouse to which she tracked Zeph and Arabella using Irma's information looming out of the night like an inanimate monster. Senses jacked up and the long knife she'd signed out of the Tower armory safe in the spine holster she'd hidden under a bright pink hoodie, Holly glanced at Venom and sucked in a breath.
"Don't kill anyone," she said. "No one in the squat is capable of being a threat to you." Certain serious powers did hang out in the shadier parts of the city, but they had better things to do than prowl the dirty, graffitied dens claimed by squatters.
"I kill only those who need killing," was the non-comforting answer.
He parked the Bugatti right in front of a group of skin
ny vampires with black scarves tied around their heads who were smoking outside the ramshackle building--the tobacco didn't do anything to vampiric bloodstreams, but the taste and oral addiction seemed to work the same as in humans.
Prowling up to them, he said, "A single scratch and I'll be extremely disappointed."
The entire group had frozen at his appearance.
Now, one of the vampire gang found the courage to squeak, "Yes, sir."
Not bothering to wait around, her gut churning at the heaviness in the air, Holly went straight to the doorway of the squathouse. The door itself was lying on the asphalt of the footpath, but that didn't signify anything: Holly couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the door--tagged with multiple gang signs--in place.
Venom joined her just as she stepped into the humid semi-darkness inside the building, full of old air breathed out by countless people who had nowhere else to go . . . or who preferred to live in the shadows. The only light was provided by the miraculously whole streetlamp outside--its yellowish glow coming in through the uncurtained windows--and by a standing lamp someone had plugged in.
The entire first floor was open plan; the stairs that led up to the second level hugged the left wall.
Bodies stirred on the floor at her entrance . . . before going preternaturally motionless. Holly knew she wasn't the reason for their fear--most of these people had seen her around. Some were friendly, some not, but so far, she hadn't had any trouble with them. Glancing back at Venom, she told him with her eyes to let her take the lead.
He slipped his hands into the pockets of his pants, the suit jacket he'd put on over the top of his shirt so perfectly cut and fitted that she knew it was bespoke--and created to hide his weapons. Looking at him, no one would guess he was armed with two short swords worn in a crisscross harness on his back. Holly had seen him move with those blades; "deadly" wasn't a strong enough word.
"Don't brush up against anything," she muttered, "or that'll be the end of your fancy suit."
His sunglasses reflected back her own image.
Scowling at the barrier, she returned to her examination of the squathouse's first level. About half the people within were curled up asleep under ragged blankets or piles of newspapers, while the rest sat hunched up against the walls, trying not to meet her gaze. Holly soon spotted the telltale signs of a fight--bruised faces, clothing torn and damaged worse than usual, scrapes of what looked like fresh blood on the floor.