Archangel's Viper Read online

  Whatever he heard back had him nodding. "You're cleared." A faint curve to his lips. "Nice outfit. I didn't know the Tower let five-year-olds drive."

  Eyes narrowed, Holly pulled out her best sincere tone. "Did you get your suit at Slick Vampires Are Us? Asking for a friend."

  Smile wiped off, the vampire just looked at her, unblinking. Holly stared back, not about to be intimidated, even if he was at least five hundred years old according to the internal chronometer she'd developed over the past year.

  A tingle ran behind her eyes.

  Shit.

  Though backing down was against her personal religion, Holly lowered her eyelids and took a deep breath. When she lifted them back up, the vampire was smirking. Gritting her teeth and refraining from pointing out that she'd been a second away from mesmerizing him into clucking like a chicken, she carried on inside. It was a relatively small area with a glass wall that looked out onto the airfield.

  Air traffic control was high above in their own little aerie.

  That had always struck Holly as funny: angels flew wherever they wished, but if they traveled in an airplane, they needed to obey the rules of airspace. Not that the man she was here to pick up had wings. Venom was a vampire. One of the Seven, Raphael's private guard. That, unfortunately, also meant he was far, far stronger than he should've been for his three hundred and fifty or so years of age.

  All of the Seven were violent powers.

  "Tower Airways Flight Three on final approach."

  Holly looked up at the speaker system with a startled grin. "Very funny, Trace," she said, having recognized the voice at once.

  Male laughter came through those same speakers. "I thought, my fellow adventurer into the wonders of worlds unseen, you might need a little entertainment," the vampire said in his warm tenor. "Would you like to come up?"

  She caught sight of the plane heading in to land. Her heart began to beat faster. In preparation. Because with her and Venom, it was always a war. "No, but thanks. And since when are you an air traffic controller?"

  "I'm keeping Andreja company."

  Trace signed off with a line of poetry that made her heart soar.

  Her and Trace's friendship was based in words, in the poetry in which they found wonder and comfort.

  Then there was the man about to get out of the plane that had come to a smooth stop on the tarmac. He'd been part of her life almost since the hellish day when she'd watched helplessly, her body paralyzed by poisoned blood, as an insane archangel tore a screaming Shelley's arms from her body as if he was pulling the wings off a butterfly, then paused to kiss Holly with his red-rimmed mouth.

  "Shh."

  Hands curling at her sides as the hairs on her nape rose, she shoved away the past to focus on the man she was here to pick up, a man who'd irritated and angered her from their first meeting.

  When the Tower had reassigned him away from New York just over two years earlier, she'd said good riddance. Only to realize that with Venom gone, no one in the city truly saw the part of her that was cold and deadly and eerily inhuman. The immortals who surrounded her were powerful and deadly, but no one else was so strangely other.

  Venom was both immune to her capacity to mesmerize prey and the only person who could teach her how to deal with the ability. Which meant she'd had to have his annoying voice in her ear once a week over the time that he'd been away--in a place no one would mention by name to her. He'd been meant to return to work physically with her, but a strange, taut tension had gripped the immortal world in the interim, and Venom had made no visits to New York.

  He stepped out of the private jet.

  Of course he was wearing a flawlessly tailored suit in black, paired with a black shirt and no tie. Wraparound mirrored sunglasses obscured his eyes. Holly still hadn't figured out if he wore the sunglasses because his eyes were sensitive to light, so people wouldn't freak out, or simply because he was an asshole who liked to look impenetrable.

  She'd bet on the last.

  After striding down the steps of the plane with a battered brown--in an elegant way, of course--leather hold-all slung over his shoulder, he turned to look back at the plane, raising a hand toward the cockpit. The early-afternoon sunlight caught on the clean line of his jaw, the burnished brown of his skin glowing in the light. His slightly overlong chocolate-dark hair was brushed neatly, not a strand out of place.

  The damn man looked like he'd stepped out of an ad for fine whiskey or luxury watches.

  She was scowling when he met her eyes through the glass. She knew he was looking at her despite the mirrored sunglasses. Arms folded and feet set apart, she stared back.

  He smiled and slid off the sunglasses.

  Eyes slitted like a viper's met hers, the color a bright astonishing green. I see you missed me, kitty, he mouthed.

  Holly gave him a sickly sweet smile . . . followed by the finger.

  2

  Sliding the sunglasses back on, Venom laughed. He was inside the waiting area moments later. The raw power of him crashed into her. Violently. Despite her earlier thoughts, she'd forgotten just how incredibly strong he was--she knew this was no power play; he wasn't trying to overwhelm her on purpose.

  This was simply who he was: a vampire a hundred times more deadly than the guard outside.

  "Damn," she said with a downturned face. "I was hoping you'd fallen into a crevasse." He'd mentioned in their last call that he was about to go out on a climb. "Too bad, I guess."

  "I see those little kitten fangs of yours are still just as cute."

  She wanted to hiss at him, controlled the urge only because it would amuse him--and because in the time that he'd been gone, she'd achieved iron control over the most obviously inhuman aspects of her nature.

  As for the ugly voice that kept whispering inside her when she was distracted, she'd strangle that, too. "Where's the rest of your luggage?"

  "This is it."

  Rolling her eyes, Holly put her hands on her hips. "Yeah, right. What did you wear for the past two years?" Venom had a suit for every day of the month.

  "You don't know everything you think you know, kitty."

  The world became tinged in acid green.

  His smile was slow and satisfied. "There you are." He took off his sunglasses again to reveal those eyes even more eerie than her own. "Boo."

  Getting her temper in check through sheer teeth-clenched grit, Holly looked up toward the speaker mounted on the wall. "Bye, Trace. Hope you and Andreja have a good day. Oh, I may be arrested for homicide soon. Please come visit me in prison."

  "Adieu, my beautiful girl," Trace said with cheerful gallantness. "And, old friend, while you may provoke sweet Holly to homicidal rage, it is a pleasure to have you home."

  "It's good to be back." Sliding his sunglasses back on, Venom looked at Holly. "You my chauffeur?"

  "I'm the woman you don't want to piss off unless you plan to walk all the way to the Tower," Holly said before striding out to the car.

  Venom paused to shake hands with the guard, then dropped his hold-all in the trunk. Coming around to take the passenger seat, he pushed it all the way back to accommodate his legs. He was whipcord lean, but he had wide shoulders, long legs, a lot of muscle. He could also move as fast as a cobra strike.

  "They let you drive now?" he said in a wondering tone of voice calibrated to get under her skin. "I leave for a couple of years and miss kitty's first steps. Did anyone take photos for the baby album I sent you?"

  "It's full of pretty pictures." Holly bared her teeth at him in a caricature of a smile. "Honor is a little concerned about how I keep drawing you with your head cut off," she said in a deliberately thoughtful tone, "but an artist must follow her instincts."

  "Oh, Hollyberry, I'm deeply touched that you couldn't get me out of your head."

  Holly deliberately skidded out of the parking spot before racing out so fast that Venom's head should've slammed back against his seat. Instead, he laughed, lazily bracing one arm against the
frame of the open window as the lethal wildness of his scent blew across her skin. "Got that temper under control, I see."

  "Oh, b--" Holly cut herself off before she said, bite me. She knew exactly what his response would be.

  "I am looking forward to fresh blood." It was a liquid sound, his body languid in a way that simply wasn't human. "Blood hot from the vein is so much better than the cold, preserved stuff. Don't you think?"

  Holly squeezed the steering wheel and tried to think of the calming exercise Honor had taught her in an effort to foster mental and emotional discipline at a time when Holly had been tearing herself apart. She hadn't needed that exercise for a while. Venom hadn't been in the city for a while.

  Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in--

  Blood pulsing in her victim's veins, drawn to the surface by quivering fear.

  --breathe out. In, out, in, damn it, out.

  The taste of hot iron on her tongue. Her mouth watering.

  Staring at the road with grim focus, Holly refused to give in to the potent--and abnormal--hunger Venom's words had aroused. She didn't need that much blood to survive. And she definitely did not want to tear open a helpless mortal's jugular and bathe in a dark, hot gush of red.

  Her stomach clenched, her gorge rising at the images that filled her brain. Horrific, nightmarish images straight out of a fucking asylum for the murderously insane.

  "Still fighting the reality that you're a vampire?"

  "I'm not," she said, her voice holding no indication of her utter terror--because Holly was used to hiding the madness submerged deep within. "I have vampiric tendencies, but I don't need as much blood as you." What she craved was a more violent and deadly thing. "I also have other aspects to me that aren't vampiric."

  "You mean the ability to mesmerize prey? Hate to break it to you, kitty, but I can do that, too, and I'm a vampire. Unlike you, my ability is no longer limited to mortals and very young vampires."

  Holly was well aware he was taunting her. He knew very well what else she could do. "I need food," she still said, because at least trading barbs with Venom was her version of normal. "That hasn't changed in the time since the Tower decided Manhattan would be better off without your delightful presence."

  "Stop, stop. I can't take the effusive welcome." Unruffled amusement in every syllable, he stretched out his legs. "You still craving samosas?"

  "No." She'd gone to her favorite Indian restaurant three times last week and stuffed her face full of the fried-- Wait a minute. "What possible reason could you have to remember that?" she asked suspiciously, the admission about her craving having slipped out during a long-distance training session.

  "Because it's another strange little Hollyberry fact to add to my growing collection."

  "You're an asshole." The exchange described their entire relationship, she thought as she continued down the otherwise empty private road that led to and away from the airfield. Thankfully, they merged into a much busier multi-lane road not long afterward. It gave her an excuse to ignore Venom and the prickling over her skin that wouldn't go away when he was in the vicinity.

  "So, what do kitties do on their days off?"

  "Be quiet. I'm driving."

  "Is that what you call it? I was thinking more lunatic roller coaster."

  "I don't see you putting on your walking sho--" She wrenched the wheel all the way to the right as a huge black SUV shoved into her lane. "Jesus!" It hadn't been a mistake on her part--the driver of the fucking tank was still pushing with unhidden aggression, as if he didn't have three other lanes to choose from.

  And now the bastard was beeping his horn at her.

  "Stop the car," Venom said, his voice ice cold. "I'll deal with this."

  Holly made it a point to disagree with everything he said on principle, but the idiot in the other vehicle was taking hazardous behavior to a whole new level. He could cause a crash--and most of the other drivers around her probably weren't vampires who could take far more damage than humans.

  She pulled over onto the verge. The SUV screeched to a stop beside her, rather than behind her. "Great, looks like the idiot has road rage issues." Holly shoved open her door without regard for any marks it'd leave on the SUV's gleaming finish. The space was narrow, but workable for a woman of her size.

  Venom was already on her side of the car, his speed vicious. But she got out in time to see the doors of the other vehicle slam open and a harsh male voice call out, "Grab the girl!"

  Grab the girl?

  Not. Fucking. Happening.

  Holly kicked the gun right out of the first goon's hand. The second was flying back against his car before she saw Venom move. The third took one look at Venom and went sheet white. "You're not supposed to be here!"

  Barely hearing the fearful cry, Holly snapped a kick at the first goon's jaw, slamming his head sideways. But he was strong, a vampire of at least three hundred. He kept coming at her. Holly couldn't use any of her new abilities when things were moving so fast, had to fight using only the skills she'd learned from Honor and Ashwini and Elena.

  All three Guild Hunters, all three used to fighting against stronger, faster opponents.

  Holly was smaller than all of her trainers. 'tite Hollyberry. That was what Janvier called her. The kids at school had just said "short." Holly didn't care right now. She cared only that the hunters and Janvier--and Venom--had taught her to fight in a way that used her size. She ducked under the goon's meaty fist and brought up a two-fisted punch of her own into his gut, right in the sweet spot.

  His agonized groan was music to her ears . . . right before he was thrown back so hard against his vehicle that he left a person-sized dent in the metal. It matched the dent left by goon number two.

  "I had that." Her chest heaved, her blood hot.

  After straightening his unrumpled suit jacket, Venom said, "You're welcome." He nudged at one of the crumpled goons with his designer-shoe-clad foot. "This one looks the most alive. Let's see what he has to say."

  It turned out to not be much.

  "There's a bounty to grab her." The goon was all but quivering in front of Venom, his pallid white skin flushed and blotchy.

  "How much? And who's behind it?"

  "I don't know. Mike had the details but I think you bashed his brains in."

  "He'll wake up. Eventually." A cold smile. "Then he'll discover the true meaning of pain."

  The goon's teeth began to chatter. "I swear we weren't going to hurt her," he sobbed. "Just take her for the bounty."

  Holly rolled her eyes. "I'm right here, moron."

  Said moron was still frozen in front of Venom--and she knew Venom wasn't using his ability to mesmerize. "That's all I know," the guy blubbered out of a mouth that was swelling up from the gash on his lip. "We stalked her, realized that she was dropping off her sister today and would be driving back alone."

  "Didn't you get a clue when I detoured to the private airfield?" Everyone knew it belonged to the Tower.

  The goon's eyes didn't even flick to her as he said, "She drives like a maniac."

  Venom laughed. "In that we agree." His laugh had the thick-necked goon flinching. "Now, the rest."

  The man spoke so fast his words rolled into one another. "We lost her right after the main airport and, after fifteen minutes of searching, decided to pull over at a gas station, get some coffee, make a new plan. We'd just got back in the SUV when we saw her car fly past."

  And the goons had figured it was their lucky day, too hyped up on the hunt to think about why Holly wasn't already in Manhattan when she'd taken off so fast that they'd lost her. Not bothering to shake her head at their incompetence, she said, "How were you supposed to contact the person who put out the bounty?"

  "I think Mike has an address to e-mail a photo to." He swallowed, licked his lips. "You know, for proof."

  Going to the goon whose head was crushed in on one side badly enough that she could see brain matter leaking out--gross, but far from the worst she'd seen--Holly sea
rched his pockets until she found his phone. She unlocked it using his thumbprint, then scanned his text messages.

  Nothing.

  A reminder popped up onto the home screen before she could check his e-mails: Kidnap Holly Chang. E-mail photo. An e-mail address followed.

  Taken aback at the idea that this vampire had needed a reminder of his intention to kidnap a woman--I mean, it didn't seem like the kind of thing you'd forget--she showed Venom the note.

  He met her eyes. "Can you pretend to look beaten and defeated?"

  No. She was never going to look that way again.

  "No," he said softly, "I didn't think so."

  Shoulders unknotting when he let it go, she thought quickly. "I can look unconscious." She pulled a few random hunks of hair out of her ponytail, then climbed into the backseat of the SUV and slumped her head to the side--one of the goons had torn her brand-new top, so with that and the messy hair, she looked appropriately bedraggled.

  Venom took the shot using Mike-the-forgetful-goon's phone, e-mailed it through. They still didn't have a response by the time a Tower team arrived to take the bounty hunters into custody. A tow truck followed, to haul away the SUV--Venom had damaged the engine when he'd thrown one of the goons on top of the hood.

  "Whoever put out the bounty might have people watching the ones most likely to succeed," he said once they were back in the car and on their way to the Tower, the silent phone in the cup holder. "If so, the lookout would've seen us take down the bounty hunters."

  Holly snorted. "If those three were judged the most likely to succeed, it's a seriously low bar."

  "Not a surprise, kitty. Only the stupid or the desperate would go after a woman who belongs to the Tower."

  Holly tapped a finger on the steering wheel. "Goons might not know that," she murmured. "I've only had a room in the Tower for seven months, and I try to keep my connection low-key." The weakest immortals, the ones who haunted the shadows, were aware she knew powerful vampires and angels and could get their concerns heard, but Holly wasn't considered a threat in her own right.

  What a con I'm running.

  She wanted to tear the steering wheel off its housing, wanted to scream out her rage. Too bad that super strength wasn't one of the abilities bestowed on her courtesy of her tainted blood . . . or that she couldn't forget the nightmare of her creation. She hated the emotions that had hit her during the kidnapping attempt, emotions that yet pulsed in her body.