Venom didn’t talk about his past. It was long buried and turned to dust. But at that moment, with the spices lingering on his tongue and the memories uncurling with warm stealth inside him, he couldn’t stay silent. “Home,” he whispered. “This blood reminds me of home.” His smile was a thing formed of equal parts sadness and happiness. “Long ago.”
“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