Venom had chosen to serve Raphael. The person who’d been most intimate with Uram during that time, and the one who’d know of any nascent abilities Uram might’ve developed, was the Archangel Michaela.
Who was also in Morocco—and who’d lie to Venom’s face just for amusement.
Then there was the fact that Uram’s blood had gone toxic. A toxin powerful enough to drive an archangel insane would’ve undoubtedly mutated whatever power it was that would’ve been Uram’s in the Cascade . . . echoes of which now lived in Holly.
“Have you taken a vow of silence?” Holly’s voice was sugar sweet. “Were you in a monastery while you were gone?”
“Yes, a monastery that permitted external calls to kitties in need of training.” He took the George Washington Bridge across to the cliffs of the Enclave, where Janvier and Ashwini made their home. The exclusive area full of angelic residences boasted such stratospheric price tags—and such limited availability—that usually only old or extremely powerful angels could afford it, but Janvier had been given a small property a hundred years earlier by an angel for whom he’d retrieved an object of great value.
“If I’m a kitty,” Holly said in that same honeyed tone, “what does that make you? Hmm.” A snap of her fingers. “Oh, I have it! Woof, woof! All slobbery tongue and drool.”
“That tongue is quite in demand,” Venom said mildly because he knew that would annoy her and annoying Holly was high on his favorite-things-to-do list. “Not that little Hollyberries know about such things,” he added in a lazy purr of sound.
“Ah, such innocence you have.” Holly crossed her legs the other way.
The long slit of her dress opened to expose a creamy swath of skin that made his fingers curl tight on the steering wheel.
Venom glanced away with an inward scowl. Holly might have grown up, but she was still only twenty-seven years of age and marked by horrific trauma. Unlike Venom, she hadn’t chosen to embrace the immortal world with all its beauty and its darkness. It had been forced on her.
She was the last woman he’d ever see as a partner for bed sport.
“There’s the turn,” she said at that instant, her voice back to polite and reasonable.
It made him want to irritate her just to get a rise. He knew full well this wasn’t the real Holly Chang. The real Holly Chang was a complex and intense creature, sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet, and always dangerous. “Does it hurt to bite your tongue so hard?” he asked with faux concern.
Holly didn’t miss a beat. “I’m in a car with you—I clearly have a high pain threshold,” she said as he brought the viper green Bugatti Chiron to a stop in Ashwini and Janvier’s drive.
She was outside by the time he moved around the car to open her door—and he’d moved with the striking speed of a cobra. “Well done, kitty.”
Giving him a patently false smile, she brushed nonexistent lint off her arm before heading up toward the wraparound verandah of Ash and Janvier’s home, the railing decorated with tiny lights that sparkled in the quickly falling night. The couple came out just then, smiles of welcome on their faces.
When their chocolate-colored mutt of a dog, its paws as huge as saucers, bounded out to sniff at Holly, she smiled and, bending, petted him with the ease of a woman who’d done the same many a time. The dog’s eyes closed in ecstasy at her scratch behind its ears, but it only allowed itself a moment before bounding over to sniff at Venom.
“Hello, Charlie,” Venom said, going down on his haunches. Janvier had sent him photos of the abandoned puppy he and Ashwini had adopted, a puppy who’d grown into a rambunctious dog who never tired of play, but this was the first time they’d met.
He held out his hand for Charlie to sniff.
The dog took its time doing so . . . before laving Venom’s face with a long lick, his tail wagging like a metronome.
Laughing, Venom played with the friendly beast for a minute before rising—to see Holly watching him with a small frown between her eyebrows. When he met her gaze, however, she looked away and returned to her conversation with Ashwini, while Janvier came over to take charge of the dog and welcome Venom.
Dinner was an unexpectedly relaxed affair—even Holly unwound and laughed with an open delight that made her eyes light up from within. Not with Venom, of course, never with him. However, she