Page 89 of Craving Venom (The Venomous Beauty Trilogy #1)

Don’t make me fall in love with you.

Not when I could be the reason you die today.

Not when I’m the one who might’ve pulled the trigger without ever touching a gun.

When I went upstairs to get my purse, I slipped a tracker into the lining. I turned it on right before I walked out the door.

Tria will alert the right people anonymously. She’s probably already working on tracing my location, making sure my signal lands where it needs to. If I’ve timed it right, the cops will be here in about twenty minutes.

Twenty minutes before uniforms flood this mansion. Twenty minutes before panic replaces power. Twenty minutes before every rich, twisted fuck in this room scrambles to hide the chains and the blood and the girls.

Twenty minutes before Zane gets caught.

I didn’t want to betray him.

But I couldn’t trust him either.

Not after the lies.

He said he never killed an innocent person.

His mother? Maybe she deserved what she got. Maybe every crime tattooed across Zane’s record came with a fucked-up reason he could justify. But not Alex.

I wish I didn’t have to. I wish I could believe he was telling the truth. I wish the monster under my skin wasn’t whispering that he’s too dangerous to love and too damaged to save.

But I can’t wish away Alex’s blood.

And if Zane can kill someone like him…

Then no matter how much my heart breaks at the thought of letting him go, I can’t let him walk away free.

Zane lifts his foot off the waiter’s face with a final twist of disgust, and the man collapses. I stay frozen on his lap, too wired to move, too hollow to breathe right until a man steps onto the stage.

He’s draped in a thick black cloak that brushes the ground with every step. His mask is pitch black that covers only his dead eyes. He raises one gloved hand, and just like that, the room silences.

“Welcome, Masters.”

He steps forward, dragging one gloved hand along the edge of the podium next to him. “It’s an honor to host you again for the Four-Year Offering. You’ve waited. You’ve hunted. You’ve earned this.”

He paces across the stage, his cloak dragging behind him.

“This girl before you has been selected, trained, and prepared to meet your preferences. Whether that’s obedience, fear, pain… or purity.”

He stops at center stage and lifts his chin.

“Remember the rules. There are none. May your bids be brutal and your appetites be worse.”

“Will she convulse if we fuck her while she seizes?”

“Can I split her open and fuck the wound before she dies?”

“Can we skin her breasts now? I want to taste the scream in her throat.”

“Will she still cry if we blind her before it starts?”

“Is her pussy tighter if we dislocate her hips first?”

“Can I sew her lips shut after I use her mouth?”

“How much to keep her half-alive and breeding for a year?”

“Does she have a sister? I’ll pay double to make them watch each other die.”

“Is there a clause if I want to fuck her corpse?”

They don’t leave room for breath or mercy. Their words pile up, soaked in the filth of blood and hard-on desperation.

I look at Corrine and she looks straight at me.

There’s no begging in her eyes. No tears.

Just silent, quiet terror. The kind that’s gone past breaking. The kind that knows she won’t survive and still dares to look someone in the face anyway.

And it shatters something deep. My chest caves in around it. I want to scream. I want to run onto that stage and rip the IV tubes off her and press her into my arms until she forgets this place ever existed. I want to tell her she’s not alone.

That we’re getting her out.

That I’m sorry.

That someone still sees her as human.

Zane’s hand twitches at my hip. His fingers shake.

I turn my head just enough to look at him.

He’s gone.

Not physically, he’s still under me, holding me, but his eyes are someplace else entirely. His body’s wound tight enough to tear, struggling to trap the rage boiling underneath.

The auctioneer steps forward. “We’ll begin the bidding at—”

He doesn’t finish because a flash of black slices the air and lands dead center between his teeth. My eyes snap to Zane’s to see him pull this off with so much precision.

The auctioneer stares ahead, gagged by elegance, humiliated in front of monsters. Then he straightens and announces through the teeth-clamped card, “Slave 1028 belongs to Master ID 319.”

Zane lifts me off his lap and gently places me in the chair, his hand trailing down my thigh in one final touch before he lets go, and then, without a word, he turns and walks toward the stage.

My limbs shake because I don’t know what he’s going to do. Is he going to fuck her in front of all of them? Is he going to kill her? Is he going to break her because he can?

He steps onto the stage and reaches Corrine.

Her body jerks back, ready to be ripped apart. But he doesn’t touch her roughly. A few gasps ripple through the room as he kneels in front of her and removes the tubes one by one, careful, as though they’re thorns buried beneath skin.

And then he presses his mouth to her ear.

I can’t hear the words.

Her eyes go wide with relief, her knees buckle, and she nearly drops. But before I can reach them, flashlights slice through the shadows and the doors slam open. Officers flood the room. People scream. Chairs flip. Bidders scatter in every direction.

I whip my head to Zane, and he’s already looking at me.

I expect fury. I expect pain. I expect betrayal to paint itself across his face, but the hurt I expected never comes. He doesn’t look angry. He doesn’t even look surprised. He looks at me like I just proved something he always believed about me.

That I could destroy him.

And somehow—

He’s proud.

The first bullet cracks the air like a whip before everything goes to hell.

Screams rip through the chamber, followed by a rain of gunfire so brutal it splits my eardrums. Glass shatters overhead.

Velvet tears as easily as paper. Chairs flip.

Tables collapse. Masked men duck and scramble.

Blood spatters the marble. The chandelier swings wildly above us, loose from the ceiling, scattering diamond shards with every sway.

I close my eyes.

There’s no way I’m making it out of this.

Familiar hands slam into me, hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. My back hits the wall. A grunt escapes me, but I don’t fall because Zane holds me upright.

His body presses into mine, shielding me with everything he is. His hand grabs the back of my neck and forces my head down as bullets fly overhead.

He’s already firing.

His arm stretches out behind him, as the trigger is pulled again and again with a clean rhythm. Every shot finds its mark. One to the throat. Another straight to the temple. A third through the knee before the next one takes out the man’s skull.

He’s not aiming to survive.

He’s aiming to end this.

He turns just enough to put his shoulder between me and another blast of bullets.

They’re missing him. Every fucking shot.

The cops are screaming commands. “Drop your weapon!”

“Hands in the air!”

“Suspect is not complying!”

No shit.

Zane doesn’t comply. He eradicates.

Zane grabs a decorative pole from a broken banner and impales someone rushing at us. Blood sprays. I flinch. He doesn’t.

Another bullet zings past his ear and takes out a chandelier behind us. Crystal explodes, raining sharp, glittering daggers across the ballroom.

I cover my head.

Zane spins, using his body to block the worst of it. A few pieces graze his arm, but that doesn’t stop him.

Nothing does.

He reloads mid-pivot. Shoots without looking and doesn’t miss.

A bidder tries to drag one of the girls away. Zane puts a bullet in his spine.

The man doesn’t even get a scream out. Just folds.

“Zane!” I yell, loud enough to cut through gunfire and shattering glass. “Stop it!”

He doesn’t.

His head is turned, and his focus is locked on his next target. Blood spatters his mask before it’s ripped off. Shells hit the floor in a rhythm, constant as rain. He reloads again, and his body brushes mine as he lines up the next shot.

He’s not hearing me, and in a desperate attempt to break through, I do the only thing I can, I stand on my toes, grab the back of his neck, and yank him toward me with both hands.

I kiss him.

I kiss him like the world is ending because maybe it is.

His gun stays raised behind him, and I can feel the kickback as another shot rings out. He’s still firing. Still ending men while my mouth moves against his.

His hand, the one not gripping the trigger, grabs my waist and kisses me back. His mouth slants over mine as if he’s bleeding and I’m the only thing that can clot the wound.

I hear bottles shatter behind us. Someone screams. Someone else begs. A body crashes into a table hard enough to splinter wood.

But all I feel is him.

His tongue sweeps into my mouth, searching for something he buried there a long time ago, something sacred.

Freedom .

He’d once told me kissing me would taste like freedom, and now he’s kissing me like a man starving for it. And for me? It’s the opposite. His mouth feels like a prison I’d never want to escape. Kissing him feels like captivity.

I tug the back of his head to tear us out of the frenzy. “Zane,” I whisper against his mouth, lips brushing his as I pant, “ Breathe .”

His hand slides from my waist and fists my hair in return, yanking my head back to make my spine arch. He bites my lower lip with a force enough to make me gasp and grinds his hips against mine like he needs this kiss more than he needs oxygen.

“I’ll fucking die if I breathe.”

I want to ask him what that means, but I don’t get the chance because he’s kissing me harder this time.

I let him take my breath. I let his tongue invade my mouth, teeth scrape mine.

His hips grind harder against me, cock rock solid and straining through his slacks.

His hand stays in my hair like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.

And maybe I will. Maybe part of me already has.