than the vampire who closed his hand over hers and gripped hard. She wove her fingers through his and she stayed determinedly Holly.
She and Venom were in a darkened bedroom. Not Michaela’s, that much was clear now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The furniture was lovely, the bed made with flowing white sheets, the bed itself edged by four exquisitely carved posts. A chair with curved legs as elegant sat by the antique white vanity, and it looked like the light in the center of the room might be a small chandelier.
It was very pretty, but without personality. The kind of room where no one lived on a permanent basis. A guest room then, a nice one. It looked like it might even have a private balcony beyond the lacy curtains that hung on the other side of the room. The view—
She elbowed Venom . . . only to glance over and see him staring at those same balcony curtains. He lifted a finger to his lips, then began to slide along the walls in that direction, motioning for her to stay and keep an ear on the external hallway. He was halfway to his destination when the angels’ conversation became suddenly more audible. They’d moved to right outside the door.
Holly couldn’t understand a word of what the two were saying. They weren’t speaking English.
Of course they weren’t. She was in freaking Hungary.
She had a smattering of high school French and German, but the language was neither of those. Hungarian made sense. And maybe she was pulling a language out of her ass because she had no idea. What she did have was an app on her phone that Illium had told her to download. As Venom whispered closer to the curtains, she slipped the phone carefully out of her pocket but didn’t press the button to bring up the home screen.
First, she unzipped her jacket slightly—and silently—and tucked the phone up near her chin so the glow from the screen would be contained. It wasn’t the best way to see the screen, but she could just do it if she tucked her chin into her chest.
Bringing up the home screen, she swiped into the translation app. She’d already put the phone on silent, so the app wouldn’t speak. However, words began to crawl across the screen, with gaps where the app couldn’t pick up the sound. According to the screen, the language being spoken was Hungarian . . . right before it became ancient Greek.
Two angels, two preferred languages, but it was obvious they understood one another.
A cheery note popped up over the text, stating that the app’s ancient Greek module had been verified by a vampire professor who was an actual ancient Greek. It also helpfully noted that this was no longer a dominant dialect, but still popular among a “statistically significant percentage of immortals.”
Holly quickly got rid of it, far more interested in the conversation outside.
“. . . restless.”
“What . . . sentries . . . ?”
“Nothing, but I’m . . . alert.”
“. . . a good position . . . make it into the house, but we should be vigilant.”
“Agreed. No one can get past us.”
Holly winced as the sound of wings opening then closing came from almost directly outside. Well, that made that decision clear. Sliding away her phone, she did what Venom had and made her way silently to the balcony doors he’d parted the curtains very slightly to expose. He shot her a speaking look.
Shaking her head, Holly risked taking out the phone to show him the transcript of the discussion.
His jaw firmed before he returned his attention to the locked door. When he gestured at her hair, she frowned, having no idea what he wanted. He made pointy motions. What? Oh. Holly had braided her hair tightly for this operation and had no hairpins to give him. Making a “wait” motion, she reached carefully into her pack to triumphantly reveal a penknife. It was pink, with golden stars on it.
Venom rolled his eyes at the petite thing.
Making a face at him, she pulled out the metal toothpick tucked into the top of one side of the casing. She’d never understood why the otherwise girly penknife, given to her as a gift by Rania—yeah, it still hurt to remember her friend was gone—and filled with things like nail files and a tiny, slender mirror, had a disgusting, meant to be reused, toothpick. Needless to say, Holly had never put it