the sharp edges shoving brutally hard against her skin.
Holly had touched angelic wings—Elena’s mostly.
The Guild Hunter had offered the contact so that Holly could overcome her traumatic fear of wings. It was probably only Elena who could’ve helped her conquer her throat-choking fear—because it was Elena who’d found her, rescued her. Holly’s brain was imprinted with that knowledge. As a result of her deliberate tactile experience, she knew that while angelic wings were powerful, they weren’t sharp. Ellie’s feathers had been silky soft under Holly’s fingertips.
Whatever it was that lived in Holly, it wasn’t natural.
Something brushed her leg.
She couldn’t help her jump.
Yowling, the black cat ran off.
“Damn it.” Hoping the sentries were accustomed to the feline sounds and wouldn’t pay them much mind, she carried on, Venom a dark silhouette in front of her. He took them not to the center of the back of the house, but to the right side. She saw why once they got closer—the back door was heavily guarded, but there were high windows on the side.
Not all of those windows were closed.
The structure of the stronghold also meant the guards on the door couldn’t see the windows from their position. It was only the angels doing security sweeps in the sky that could prove tricky.
She and Venom made it to the wall without problems. Holly crouched down beside him, their bodies brushing. Heat emanated from him, his flesh very much warm-blooded despite the mark of the viper that defined him. “How are we going to reach the window?” she whispered, as the first accessible one was at least two floors above ground level. “Unless . . . I heard you can slither up walls.”
His grin told her he’d caught her own and knew she’d meant no insult. His snakelike tendencies were a part of him and Holly had no intention of ignoring them—that would be like accepting one aspect of his nature and not the rest. And Holly was fascinated and compelled by the whole.
“Depends on the wall.” He ran his hand over it. “This one is extremely smooth from age. Even the seams in the stone have been worn away, leaving nothing in terms of a gripping surface. If we were at home, I’d try it, but as we’re not . . .” Opening his pack, he took out a coil of rope with a four-pronged hook on one end. “Here’s where we need some luck, kitty.”
Acid green filmed her vision as Holly listened to the night. “Wait.” His arm was rigid muscle under her touch, his skin warm. “Now,” she said the instant the wings in the air were at an optimum distance.
He threw.
The hook caught on the ledge of the open window, and when he tugged, it held. “Go.”
Grabbing the rope, Holly tried to remember the lessons she’d had. She was no expert, but one of the hunters who was friends with Ashwini liked climbing and Holly went with him sometimes. He didn’t know what she was, of course, just thought she was a badly Made vampire, but that didn’t matter. Demarco was fun and uncomplicated, their relationship centered on climbing.
The problem was, with this wall being so slippery, she had to rely on her upper-body strength and her thighs to get herself up. She could do it—thanks to her training schedule over the past four years—but she felt like she’d gone through the wars by the time she managed to crawl over the window ledge and into a well-lit passageway.
Pressing her back to the wall the instant she was inside, to avoid being silhouetted against the light, she made sure the hooks were holding tight. The rope went taut a second later. Venom made it up at ruthless speed and was rolling up the rope and putting it back into his pack before her heartbeat eased from its frantic tattoo.
Agony speared Holly’s chest without warning.
She could see that this place was as beautiful as she’d imagined—a chandelier up ahead fractured light into raindrops that cascaded over the deep blue carpet patterned in cream and jewel red. But the beauty was lost on her, her mind a clawing obsession painted in acid green.
She couldn’t stop her head from snapping to the left. “That way.”
28
Holly’s body wanted to go through the wall that stood between her and her destiny.
Taking her hand, Venom squeezed. “Stealth, kitty.” A murmur against her ear. “We have to go down the hall and find a way to get to that wing of the house. We can’t afford