Page 14 of Venom (St. Sebastian’s at Cravenmoor Academy #1)

Venetia

I stand frozen, the towel clutched in my fist, listening to the thunderous water slamming out of the shower, each drop a death knell. The steam clings to my skin, clammy and sweaty.

My hand creeps back to my breast, my fingers pressing against the soft skin where the phantom terror had taken root.

Nothing. There’s nothing there. It was all in my head, a ghost conjured by a memory and his unwelcome questions.

The relief is so sharp and sudden it almost brings me to my knees, but it’s immediately swamped by a wave of hot, corrosive shame.

He saw me.

Viper. The arrogant, tattooed monster I was supposed to break saw me fall apart.

He touched me, not with lust or dominance, but with a gentleness that was somehow more violating than any threat.

He saw the one crack in my armour I keep sealed from the world, and he didn’t use it to shatter me. He used it to help.

The thought is infuriating. I don’t need his help.

I don’t want his concern. I want to hate him.

It’s easier to hate him. It’s safer. Safer for him and safer for me when this inevitably catches up with me.

It’s a negative outlook, but I won’t pretend it doesn’t loom in my future.

I won’t do that to myself. I won’t be the woman who cries not because she’s dying but because she is leaving behind her husband and her daughter.

Safer.

My jaw aches from clenching it so hard. I force myself to move, dropping the towel and pulling my underwear and dress back on with jerky, angry movements.

He’s waiting for me, sitting on the edge of the bed. His expression is unreadable, his earlier smugness gone, replaced by a tense, watchful stillness.

“Ready?” he asks, his voice flat.

“We’re not going.”

“That’s not for you to decide,” he growls, rising and entering my personal space in that bulldozing way he has. “We’re going.”

“No. I’m not going.” This is a battle I have to win. I have to prove to him, and to myself, that the last five minutes didn’t happen.

“You are acting like a little brat, Venetia. Do you know what I do to brats? Hmm? I spank them into behaving. Do you want me to spank you? Christ knows you’ve got it coming.”

And that threat, or is it a promise, is the thing that slams some normalcy back into this situation. He isn’t treating me like I’m sick or dying. He is treating me the exact same way he always has. Like an annoyance rather than a person.

I move closer to him, my hands still shaking. “You want to spank me, Viper? Come on, then. Try it. See how far you get.”

His eyes darken, and he lets out a sound that is a cross between a rumble and a snarl.

He reaches out and grips my upper arm, hauling me to the bed.

A thrill shoots through me, but he pushes me down to sit and kneels in front of me.

His hand slides down my calf to my ankle, and he raises my leg.

I sit in stunned silence, seeing this powerful man on his knees in front of me.

He slips one shoe on my foot and then the other, and with that rough attitude, he hauls me to my feet again. “Move.”

“What, no spanking?” I snap. “Such a fucking tease, aren’t you?”

That triggers some kind of violence in him. He pulls me forward and then brings his hand down onto my arse in a spank so hard, my eyes water.

“Ah!” I cry out and kick him in the shin. “What the fuck?”

“Move, Venetia, before I spank you so hard you won’t be able to sit for a week.”

The raw sting on my arse is a sharp, grounding pain that shoves the terror back into its box.

He’s not treating me like a fragile thing about to break.

He’s treating me like his wildcat, a possession to be manhandled.

I rub my stinging flesh through the thin fabric of my dress, my glare a weapon.

He grabs my arm again, his grip unforgiving, and hauls me out of the room and down the long corridor.

My heels click frantically on the polished marble floor as I struggle to keep up with his long, angry strides.

We descend the grand staircase, a whirlwind of furious motion.

I catch sight of Blake Locke standing near the entrance.

His expression is one of cool, detached amusement as he watches Viper manhandle me towards the door.

There’s a flicker of something else in his green eyes, something calculating, as he takes in my flushed cheeks and the way Viper’s fingers are digging into my arm.

He gives a slow, deliberate nod in my direction, a silent acknowledgement of the chaos. An invitation.

Viper shoves me out into the warm afternoon air, his body a rigid line of fury. “Where the fuck is the medical wing?” he snarls, more to himself than to me. He spots a map on a nearby notice board and stalks towards it, dragging me with him.

“I told you, I’m fine,” I insist, yanking my arm, but it’s useless.

“You’re not fine,” he bites out, his gaze fixed on the map.

“You’re scared, and when you’re scared, you’re stupid.

” He finds what he’s looking for and changes direction, pulling me across the manicured lawn towards a smaller, more modern-looking building tucked away behind a row of ancient oak trees.

He doesn’t stop until we are standing before a set of sterile glass doors.

“Now,” he says, his voice a low command.

“You’re going to walk in there, and you are going to let them check you over. Understood?”

I wrench my arm from his grasp. “And if I say no?” I challenge, my voice low and shaking with fury. “What will you do then? Spank me again in front of the entire student body? Carry me in kicking and screaming? You don’t control me.”

His eyes darken, the muscle in his jaw clenching so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t crack.

He closes the distance between us in a single step, his body a wall of heat and fury that blocks out the world.

For a heart-stopping moment, I think he’s going to follow through on one of my suggestions.

Instead, his voice drops to a lethal whisper that slices through my defiance.

“If you don’t walk through that door right now,” he says, his gaze boring into mine, “I will call your father. I will tell him you’re refusing medical attention after thinking you found a lump. I will let him handle it. And you and I both know what that will look like.”

The threat hangs in the air between us, colder and sharper than any physical violence.

He’s right. My father would have me back in Cheshire under armed guard before sunset.

My gilded cage would become a steel vault, and I’d be poked and prodded and examined until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

He’d use preventative measures that I’d not even wanted to entertain, despite the carefully placed leaflets and ‘advice’ from every doctor.

Viper has used my fear against me, and he knows it. The bastard.

The fight drains out of me, replaced by a cold, bitter resignation. He’s won. He has found the one move I couldn’t counter.

Without another word, I turn on my heel, shove the glass door open with more force than necessary, and stalk inside.

To my horror, he follows me, practically stepping on my heels, he is that close.

“Fuck off,” I grit out.

“I’m not leaving you, Venetia. Get used to it.”

The air inside is cool and smells of antiseptic, a sterile world away from the ancient stone and simmering violence outside.

A woman with kind eyes and greying hair pulled back into a neat chignon looks up from her desk.

Her professional smile falters slightly as her gaze lands on Viper, who looms behind me like a harbinger of death.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

“She needs to be seen,” Viper says over the top of my head before I can open my mouth. Damn him for being a giant.

Her eyes flick to me. “And you are?”

“Venetia Corbyn-Hale,” I say, my voice tight. “I’m new.”

“She thinks she found a lump in her breast,” Viper cuts in, his voice leaving no room for argument. “There is history.”

The woman’s expression softens with concern as she looks at me. “Of course. If you’ll come with me, Miss Corbyn-Hale.” She glances at Viper. “You can wait out here, Mr…?”

“Stone,” Viper supplies. “And I’m not waiting anywhere. I go where she goes.”

“This is a private medical examination,” she says, her tone becoming steely.

“And I’m her private fucking security,” Viper snarls back. “Her father’s orders. I don’t leave her side. Not for a second.”

She clearly knows who Dad is, and it’s a trump card, Viper plays with cold exactness. Her jaw tightens, but she knows it’s a fight she can’t win. She gives a curt nod. “Very well. This way.”

She leads us into a small, clinical examination room.

The paper on the exam table crinkles as I sit on the edge, my skin crawling with humiliation.

Viper stands ramrod straight by the door, his arms crossed over his chest, a brooding gargoyle watching over his charge.

This is a new kind of hell. Not a cage of velvet and stone, but one of sterile white walls and the inescapable weight of his gaze.

“I’m Dr Alistair,” the woman says. “I’ll be conducting the examination. Can you show me where you thought you felt the lump?”

My hand is trembling as I lift it to the neckline of my dress. I hesitate, my gaze flicking to Viper. His face is a mask of stone, his dark eyes unblinking. He gives a short, almost imperceptible nod. An order.

My blood boils with a fresh wave of humiliation. Why am I looking to him for instruction? With my teeth gritted, I pull the fabric down and unclip my bra. My fingers, cold and numb, guide Dr Alistair’s warm, professional hand to the spot. “Here,” I whisper, the word catching in my throat.

Her touch is gentle as she palpates the tissue, her expression neutral.

The silence in the room is deafening, broken only by the rustle of the paper beneath me and the sound of my own frantic heartbeat in my ears.

I feel utterly exposed, a specimen under a microscope, with him as the stoic observer.

Every second stretches into an eternity.

Not only am I being examined by a doctor, but I’m being dissected by him, his gaze peeling back every layer of defiance to see the terrified girl underneath.

“I can’t feel anything abnormal, Miss Corbyn-Hale,” Dr Alistair says finally, her voice calm and reassuring. She pulls her hand away. “No lumps, no thickening. I’ll do a full check, though, if that’s okay?”

I nod, the relief leaving me dizzy.

She conducts the rest of the exam in silence, focused and stern.

“All clear,” she murmurs eventually, stepping back and writing something on her notepad. “However, given your family history, I’d like to refer you for a baseline mammogram and ultrasound. It’s purely precautionary.”

The word ‘precautionary’ is a gunshot. It’s the word my father will latch onto, the justification for locking me away forever.

I look at Viper. His expression hasn’t changed, but I see it in his eyes. He heard it too. He just got another key to my cage.

My fingers are numb as I refasten my bra and pull my dress back up. The clinical cold of the room seeps into my bones. Precautionary. A word that, in my father’s hands, becomes a sentence.

“That won’t be necessary,” I say, my voice clipped and sharp. I slide off the table, my bare feet hitting the cool linoleum. “I went six months ago.”

Dr. Alistair opens her mouth to protest, but Viper’s voice cuts through the air like a razor. “We’ll take the referral.” He steps forward, snatching the piece of paper from the doctor’s hand before she can even offer it. “Make the appointment. We’ll be there.”

His audacity is breathtaking. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t consult me. He simply decides.

I stalk past him, shoving the heavy door open and marching out into the hallway, not waiting to see if he follows. I know he will. His footsteps are a heavy, inevitable rhythm behind me. He’s a shadow I can’t shake, a chain I can’t break.

We walk back across the quad in a suffocating silence.

The other students are ghosts, their chatter and laughter a world away.

He doesn’t touch me, but I can feel his presence like a brand on my skin.

He didn’t just win. He changed the rules of the game entirely.

He’s no longer just my bodyguard. He’s my warden, armed with my deepest fear.