But still she drank and drank, until she could literally drink no more.
When she did finally tear away, it was to see Michaela’s throat wound close up in front of her eyes.
The archangel didn’t look weakened or as if she’d been hurt.
And Holly’s body swirled with power that threatened to burst her cells, burn out of her skin. Dear God. How did anyone survive feeding from an archangel?
“Was that enough?” Michaela’s question was gentle, her own hand rising to lie against Holly’s cheek. “I have waited for you.”
Holly’s skin cracked across her back, her chest, her soul in danger of drowning as pain ripped at her insides. Are you more yourself? she asked through the haze of it. Are you more Uram?
I need more blood. Her head turned toward Raphael. Stronger blood.
You are glutted on the blood of an archangel, and yet you seek more blood. Agony twisted at her guts as things began to crack inside her, too, her body full of too much archangelic power. You will always seek more and more and more. The craving clawed at her even as her body began to fail. You are starting to want blood with violence, aren’t you? You want to tear at Michaela’s throat like a wolf gnawing on his kill.
“No!” Holly’s body staggered back to press against the cold stone wall.
Sweat dripped down her temples.
Are you any stronger? Holly kept on pushing through the unbearable pain of a body bursting from the inside out. Even a little? The surge of archangelic blood, archangelic power, should’ve had a violent effect . . . and it had. Or are you unable to transmute that energy into a form you can use? Because you are only an echo.
Blood. A red haze. I need blood. A sudden, cunning thought. This body is weak. I need hers. The power wrenched out of her before Holly could do anything, bending her spine so far backward that she knew it was about to snap.
37
“No!” The shout left Venom’s throat as Holly’s back bowed violently, acid green light pouring out of her in a brutal surge.
Uncaring of the two—perhaps three—archangels in the room, he ran across to catch her body as it collapsed to the floor. He was too fast to allow that to happen. He caught her bloody, broken body in his arms, stopped her head from cracking onto the hard polished wood.
She weighed too little, his Holly.
And the power was still screaming out of her in a burn of acidic green.
When it did finally cut off, her head lolled to the side, blood trickling out of the corner of her mouth . . . and her face riddled with hundreds of tiny cracks. Blood filled those cracks, iron-rich wet against every part of her that he was touching. As if her entire body had fractured.
Venom’s heart was pounding too hard for him to sense her pulse.
He kept on trying.
Nothing.
No, kitty, no.
• • •
Raphael watched the energy erupt out of Holly, saw Venom catch her as she fell. And he saw unvarnished terror on Venom’s face for the first time in all the years he’d known the vampire.
But Raphael could do nothing for Venom’s love at that moment. “Michaela,” he said in warning.
She wasn’t listening, her eyes wide with hope. “My love,” she whispered . . . just as the ball of power smashed into her, covering her body in a slick of acid green fire.
Raphael could’ve stopped it. He didn’t. The instant he stepped in, he ignited a catastrophic war. The choice had to be Michaela’s.
Her eyes glowed the same distinctive acid green for a single piercing instant before she shoved the power out with a roar. “Get out!”
The green glow coalesced in the air again, crackling with veins of red. Blood red. Raphael wasn’t Michaela. He’d accepted long ago that the man he’d once called a friend no longer existed. When the malignant energy went to smash into him, he held up a hand ringed with angelfire. The energy drew back . . . and headed toward Venom. The other man moved with viper speed to evade it, Holly in his arms.
Raphael moved at the same time to put himself in front of Venom and the fallen girl he loved. This was a war between archangels. Venom and Holly had done their part. They’d done far more than could be expected of a vampire of only a few centuries and a mortal who’d been Made too young.