Archangel's Viper (Guild Hunter 10)

“Huh.” Holly chewed on that. “Somehow, I didn’t think angels could have deadbeat sons.” It defied logic that a being of that age could have wasted his entire life. “Shouldn’t he have achieved something out of sheer boredom?”

“You would think so, but he is a parasite who sucks at his parents’ teat.” Venom’s lip curled. “He’s a disgrace. A son is meant to care for his family.”

Holly usually forgot Venom’s age, he was so urbane and now, and then he’d say something like that. But of course, it wasn’t only a case of age but the deep impact of a culture where elders often lived with the younger generation. Like Rania, the girl who’d been Holly’s friend since fourth grade, Venom had been born in India.

“Not just a son,” she said, an ache of loss and memory thickening her throat. “My siblings and I will be taking care of our parents when they’re older and can’t live alone anymore.” The idea of caring for the elders in the family was as ingrained in her as it apparently was in Venom. “My paternal grandfather and grandmother used to live with us until they passed.”

“You’ve made up with your family?”

Holly nodded. “My mother lays a guilt trip on me every so often, though.” She folded her arms and imitated Daphne Chang’s scowl. “‘Do you know how we felt? Do you, Holly? We raised you to know you were loved, that you could come to us with anything. And what do you do the first time you have a small problem but turn your back on your family! For shame!’”

Venom’s shoulders shook. “A small problem?”

“Oh, shut up.” But she was laughing, too. “That’s how she always puts it. As if waking up needing to drink blood to survive is the same as being fired from a job or having a car battery die.” Laughter turned into a smile. “She’s going to be mad at me forever, but she’ll love me while she’s mad at me.”

Venom was quiet for a long time as they drove along the rain-dark streets of the Enclave, no other vehicles passing them. If angels flew overhead, she couldn’t tell in this weather.

“You’re lucky, kitty,” he said at last. “Cherish the family you have for as long as you have them. Hold them tight as Janvier does his.”

Surrounded by the quietly falling rain, a hushed privacy between them, Holly felt the barriers melting away. “What happened to your family?” she asked softly.

She didn’t think he’d answer, as he hadn’t answered before, but he said, “A vampire son is one thing, but one with the eyes of a viper?” A shake of his head.

Rage crashed through her in a violent wave. “You did it for them, didn’t you?” she said. “Signed up for a Contract.”

Already turning into the drive of an angelic home, Venom didn’t answer, but Holly didn’t need one. She knew. A son who’d been brought up to look after his parents and other family members would do anything to give them a good life. Even barter his own.

That they’d abandoned and rejected him at such an incredibly vulnerable time because the cost of his sacrifice wasn’t what they’d expected? Holly wanted to tear their disloyal forms limb from limb. Too bad they were all already long dead.

She was still furious when they rounded a corner of the drive, and . . .

Her mouth fell open, her eyes taking in the monstrosity ahead. The rain had helpfully paused, as if the heavens wanted her to get the full picture. “So . . . you think Kenasha likes turrets?” The place was an atrocity of turrets and curlicues and God knows what else. She just knew it looked like the eighteenth century had thrown up on the seventeenth. Or was it the sixteenth?

Architectural history wasn’t her strong point. But one thing she knew—the building in front of them would stick out like a mutant sore thumb in any century in which you dropped it.

“The last time I saw this place,” Venom said after bringing the car to a halt, “it only had nineteen turrets.” He pointed to the right. “That one’s new.”

Holly squinted to see what made this turret such a must-have. It was skinny, with four round windows that didn’t match any other part of the house. “He has a turret-at-sea fantasy?”

“Let’s ask him.” Venom held out his hand. “I’ll need my sunglasses for this one. Kenasha fears what lies beyond them.”

That, Holly understood and accepted. So she handed over the sunglasses—but not before saying, “They come back off the instant we’re in the car again.”

Viper green eyes, slitted and unearthly, held hers. “Agreed.”

• • •

Even as he spoke, Venom was wondering once again why it mattered so much to Holly that he not wear his sunglasses around her. Most people preferred he keep his eyes covered up—the only exceptions were those who’d known him for centuries and who considered him a friend. None of the Seven, nor Raphael, seemed to care that his eyes were different than theirs. The same for friends such as Janvier and Trace.

In the Refuge, Jessamy had banned him from screening his gaze when the two of them were speaking. “I want to see your eyes,” she’d said when he’d asked why. “Just like I like to see Galen’s eyes, and the eyes of anyone else with whom I’m talking.”

Venom didn’t know why when his eyes weren’t readable like human eyes. He’d even stared at his own eyes in the mirror and tried to see if they reflected his emotions. As far as he could tell, they were as unreadable as the eyes of the vipers who had a part in his Making. The odd thing was that Neha hadn’t meant to torture him—she’d liked him, had actually asked him to consider being Made well before he’d ever thought of taking that road.

“I have a strong feeling I’m going to attack Kenasha.” Meeting him in front of his car with those words, Holly scowled up at the turret house. “I’ll fang him if you don’t keep him away from me.”

“You’ll hurt him if you do.” Venom slipped on his sunglasses. “Despite his age, he’s weak enough that my venom would kill him.”

Dmitri would probably rip him a new one for sharing so much information with Holly, but it was time people stopped babying her and gave her what she needed to survive in their world. She wasn’t a normal vampire and they couldn’t treat her like one. And should Holly betray them, Venom would hunt her down himself. He had a feeling he was the only one who could—she was moving far differently than she had when he left the city two years earlier, a predatory confidence to her that he didn’t think she realized.

“Oh, that’s interesting.” Holly looked up on that considering statement . . . and smiled, showing off those tiny fangs that were ridiculous and that fascinated him. “That means my venom should make him writhe about in pain for a while.” Her eyes glinted a glowing film of green. “Let’s go.”

His own predator nature uncurled deep in his gut, called to the surface by her deadly, beautiful otherness. “You don’t act without my go-ahead,” he said, regardless of the cold part of him that was in total agreement with her dark intent. “This is Tower business. If Kenasha has earned a punishment from Raphael, then Raphael is the only one who will deliver it.”

“I’m not suicidal, Viper Face. I’m not going to step on an archangel’s toes.” A shiver. “But if Mr. Turret hasn’t done anything that requires Raphael’s attention, then can I bite him?”

Venom smiled despite himself. “We’ll see, kitty.”

Growling deep inside her chest, Holly stalked beside him as they headed to the front door. It was already open, being held that way by a tall and skinny vampire with ghost white skin and pitch-black hair. “Sir.” He bowed so deeply he almost bent his skinny body in half.

Montgomery could teach this one a few things, Venom thought. Raphael’s butler was in a class of his own. “We’re here to see your master.”

Still bent over, the vampiric butler said, “Master Kenasha regrets to inform you that he’s not taking guests at present.”

“How unfortunate for him.” Venom turned his voice to the silken menace that always got a result.