middle of the balcony, while he’d stalked to nearer the edge. “I thought you enjoyed flirting with danger.”
“I’m trying to be more mature and sensible.”
To her shock, he laughed, throwing back his head. The indolent wind took full advantage to riffle its fingers through his hair. When he held out a hand, though anger and hurt yet choked her throat, Holly stepped forward to take it. She’d never have accepted the silent command had it been Venom who’d given it.
Her and Venom . . . they were equals. Not in power, but in other, vitally more important ways. Their relationship had never been and never would be like the one she had with Dmitri, where the power dynamic was so skewed, the imbalance was permanent. “Do you feel this way with Raphael?” she asked when she stood face-to-face with the vampire who had seen her at her pitiful lowest and darkest. “Like he’s your senior.”
A shake of his head, his hand protective on hers. “Raphael and I were friends when he and I were both pups in our own ways. We’ve grown up together.”
As I’m growing up with Venom.
How strange to think that, when Venom had lived an eon in comparison to her butterfly existence, but it felt right. He’d told her she hadn’t accepted the changes that marked her, but Holly didn’t think he was at peace with himself, either. “So,” she said, her hurt spilling over. “Do you plan to throw me over the side and rid yourself of the pesky problem of Holly once and for all?”
His face brutally hard, Dmitri dropped her hand only to grip her jaw while New York glimmered a patchwork quilt of streets far below. His eyes were chips of granite, his hold unforgiving. “If I’d wanted to rid myself of the problem of Holly,” he said very, very quietly and very, very dangerously, “I’d have snapped your neck years ago.”
It was a callous statement, but Holly wasn’t scared. Because this was Dmitri. Who’d been harsh, but who’d always kept her safe—even from herself.
That was when she understood.
Dropping her eyes, she released a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know you wouldn’t put me down like a rabid dog.”
“Would you want to live if you became that way? A mindless, mad creature who hungered only for blood and death?”
Holly didn’t need to think of her answer. “No. I will never be Uram’s legacy.” Lifting her head again, she said, “You told me once that you’d end me if necessary, that I’d never see you coming. Promise me you’ll do that if I become a monster.”
Fingers dropping off her jaw, Dmitri turned to stare out at the water far in the distance. It glittered and sparkled, as if there was no darkness in the world. As if monsters didn’t exist.
Holly turned the same way and, when vertigo threatened, she gripped the back of Dmitri’s black T-shirt. “Why do I always feel like a child with you?” she muttered.
A rough chuckle before his arm came around her and he tucked her close. “Yet you’re asking me to execute you. A father should never have to execute a child under his care.”
Holly heard so much pain in those words, so much dark history, knew she was asking a horrible thing . . . but she couldn’t ask Venom. The why of her reluctance wasn’t something she was ready to face. “When did I become safe?” she whispered. “When did I cross the line from being a possible threat to a person you’d protect?”
He didn’t deny that she had begun as an unknown danger it was his task to watch and perhaps eliminate. “I don’t know,” he said, his body strong and warm against her. “Probably at some point between wanting to strangle you and feeling pride when you successfully fought your way out of hell.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever be friends,” she said, the words solemn.
Turning to face her, he smiled again at last. “I don’t think so, either.”
Holly’s lips curved. Because that was okay. Dmitri was something else to her.
• • •
Venom felt a conflagration come to life deep inside him as he watched Dmitri and Holly through the floor-to-ceiling window at the back of Dmitri’s office. The conflagration was paradoxically a cold thing—emanating from the part of him that hadn’t existed before a viper’s bite—and a violent, heated flow of magma that altered him on a fundamental level.
Jealousy.
He blinked back to his senses the instant he identified the emotion. Because that was