Page 26 of Venom (St. Sebastian’s at Cravenmoor Academy #1)

Viper

T hey say control is a myth.

A story you tell children to make them behave.

A lie whispered between lovers to feign security.

But for me, it is the only religion I have ever known.

The central pillar of my existence. Control the variables, control the environment, control the outcome.

My father beat it into me. My training honed it to a razor’s edge. My life depends on it.

And I have just willingly thrown it into a furnace.

From my position in the shadow of a stone archway, I watch her.

Venetia. She sits on a low wall overlooking the main quad, a book open on her lap, pretending to read.

A gentle breeze lifts strands of her blonde hair.

To anyone else, she is a picture of serene concentration.

I see the truth. The tension in her shoulders.

The way her thumb strokes the edge of a page, back and forth, is like a metronome counting down the seconds.

She is a weapon waiting for a target.

The plan is Blake’s, logically. The cold, detached calculus of it bears his signature.

But the execution, the initial proposal, was mine.

The words feel like ash in my mouth. We use her.

Let them think she’s slipped the leash. She draws them out.

It is the correct tactical manoeuvre. The most efficient path to the objective: neutralise the threat posed by Maddox Headley and his pack of hyenas.

It is also the single most difficult thing I have ever forced myself to do.

Every protocol I live by screams in protest. Protect the girl.

Maintain proximity. Eliminate threats before they manifest. This plan violates every single one.

It requires me to let her walk into the fire, trusting that we can pull her out before she is burnt.

Trust. That is the part that feels like swallowing glass.

I trust Rafferty’s skill. I trust Blake’s intellect.

I do not, under any circumstances, trust fate.

I do not trust that Venetia won’t get hurt.

I’ve seen it too many times. Lived it with my sister.

Our father using her, abusing her, pimping her out.

Vulnerable. She had nothing and no one except me.

I took care of it. I took care of her until she couldn’t stand her life any longer and figured the afterlife had to be better.

I hope she found the peace she was looking for because I was too late.

Never again.

My gaze scans the perimeter in the growing dusk.

A constant, unconscious loop. Students drift across the manicured lawns, their laughter and chatter a meaningless hum.

They are background noise. Obstacles. Potential witnesses.

My gaze snags on a figure near the entrance to the dining hall. Ana Countridge.

She holds court, flanked by two other girls whose names I haven’t bothered to learn.

They are irrelevant. Ana is the variable.

She laughs, a sound too loud, too sharp.

There is a smug certainty in the tilt of her chin, the casual way she dismisses one of her friends with a flick of her wrist. She radiates the effortless arrogance of someone who has never been denied anything.

She looks across the quad, her eyes finding Venetia. A small, cruel smile touches her lips.

There. The confirmation. She believes Venetia is isolated. She believes Maddox and his pack of mongrels have her cornered. The satisfaction rolling off her is a physical thing, a foul scent in the air. She is a pawn, and a stupid one at that, but her confidence is a necessary component.

A hot, familiar rage coils in my gut. A beast I keep chained in the deepest part of myself. It rattles its cage, demanding release. To cross the quad, to take that smug little face in my hand and show her what a real threat looks like. To dismantle her world so completely, she would never recover.

I crush the impulse. I don’t hurt women. Even bratty ones who need to be put in their place. No. Venetia will be her downfall.

My focus returns to Venetia. She is beautiful, but it is a lethal beauty. The kind that lures you in just before the strike. She is a queen on a board full of killers, and she knows the rules of the game. It doesn’t make letting her play this move any easier.

Neither does her absolute dismissal of me earlier. She had her hand wrapped around my cock, that smile on her face when I told her I belonged to her.

She fled. She said nothing and forced me to dress and catch up with her in a matter of seconds. I don’t know if she was testing me or was overwhelmed by my vehement declaration, but there is only one thing I know. I am hers. I was hers the second I laid eyes on her.

Refocusing on the plan, it requires a catalyst. A public severing. It must be loud, humiliating, and final. It must convince everyone, especially Ana and her spies, that Venetia is well and truly alone.

It is time.

I push off the cool stone, my movements measured. Each step is a deliberate act of will, forcing myself towards her, towards the act that feels like a betrayal. The students part before me, their eyes flicking towards me before skittering away. They see the predator. They are right to.

She looks up as my shadow falls over her. Her smile falters for a second, but she shakes it off.

“What do you want?” Ana asks.

“You,” I murmur.

Her friends move back slightly, giving her space.

“Shouldn’t you be watching Corbyn-Hale?” she asks suspiciously.

“I should, but I find watching you far more interesting.”

Her eyes widen at my tone. I need her to buy what I’m selling, and I need it to happen fast.

Her suspicion is a thin veneer over a core of pure, preening ego. I can see it in the way her eyes flick over my shoulders, checking if Venetia is watching. Of course she is. This whole quad is our stage.

“I thought you preferred trash,” Ana says.

“She’s a fucking job,” I correct her, my voice laced with a carefully crafted weariness. I let my gaze sweep over Ana, a slow, deliberate appraisal. “She’s made it clear she wants time alone tonight to conquer as many of the boys here as she can. I heard there was a party tonight.”

Victory dawns on her face, a slow, sweet sunrise of pure bitch. She’s won. In her mind, she’s stolen me right out from under Venetia’s nose.

“You should come,” she purrs, stepping closer, her hand landing on my arm. Her touch is a spider’s crawl on my skin, and it takes every ounce of my control not to flinch away and slam my hand to her chest to distance myself from her.

No one touches me.

Except Venetia.

The knowledge of that sits in my chest, but I push it aside. I can’t think of her right now.

“It’s at the old boathouse by the lake. I’ll make sure you have a good time.”

I crowd her space, forcing her to take a step back and hit the wall. Reaching out, I curl a lock of her hair around her finger. “I’m expecting you to.”

My intentions are clear, and it rattles her. She is everything that Venetia said she was.

“You have to work for it,” she murmurs.

“I don’t work for pussy,” I murmur back.

Her cheeks flush, and she gulps.

“We’ll see,” she says. “Meet me there? Half an hour?”

My gaze bores into hers, unnerving her, before I step back. “Sure.”

She scurries off, no doubt to ditch Blake, who will play his role as the affronted date. The more corners we back her into, the better.

When I turn back to Venetia, she’s gone.

Perfect.

Or not.

A cold knot of something that isn’t quite panic, but is fucking close, tightens in my stomach. I crush it instantly, replacing it with the familiar burn of control. This is the plan.

I turn, melting back into the shadows of the gothic archways.

The long way around. I move with a speed and silence born from a life spent in places where noise gets you killed.

The air cools as I near the lake, the scent of damp earth and pine replacing the manicured lawns of the quad.

Every step is a war with myself. The professional in me knows this is a necessary risk.

The man who watched his sister fade away because he wasn’t strong enough to stop the monsters wants to tear this entire campus apart brick by brick until he finds Venetia.

I circle wide, finding a vantage point in a thicket of overgrown bushes on a small rise overlooking the boathouse.

From here, I can see everything. The splintered decking, the water lapping at the pylons, the lanterns casting yellow light over the scene.

I am a ghost. A fucking promise. And when the time comes, I will be their reckoning.