Page 30 of Venom (St. Sebastian’s at Cravenmoor Academy #1)

Viper

T he world goes red.

A roaring fills my ears, drowning out the ticking of the clock, the pathetic whimpers from the cunts on the floor, everything but the sight of his fucking hands on her throat.

Maddox Headley is a dead man. He just doesn’t know it yet.

I cross the room in two strides. He doesn’t even have time to turn his head fully before my hand clamps onto the back of his neck.

I squeeze, my thumb digging into the nerve cluster at the base of his skull.

His grip on Venetia loosens with a choked gasp of pain.

I rip him away from her, spinning him around and slamming him face-first into the stone wall.

The crunch of his nose breaking is the most satisfying sound I’ve ever heard.

He slides to the floor, a boneless heap of sobbing flesh. I am not finished. I haul him up by his shirt front, my face inches from his bloody, terrified one.

“You touched her,” I snarl. “You had your hands on what’s mine.”

My fist connects with his jaw, once, twice.

Rafferty is on him like a shot, a vicious kick to the ribs that cracks bone.

Maddox screams, a high, thin sound that fuels the fire in my blood.

I drop him, letting him crumple to the stone floor, and plant my boot on his throat.

I press down, watching the terror bloom in his eyes as his air supply is cut off.

“Please,” he gurgles, his hands clawing uselessly at my boot.

The beast inside me roars for the final, satisfying snap of his neck. My control, the one thing I cling to, is a fraying thread about to break. I am seconds from ending him, from turning this stone floor into his fucking tomb.

“Viper.”

Her voice cuts through the red haze. It’s quiet, a little rough, but it’s a fucking anchor in the storm of my rage. I tear my gaze from the worthless piece of shit beneath my boot and look at her.

She’s standing tall, a bruise already forming on her throat, her white dress is torn at the shoulder, which is also blackening with a bruise. But her eyes are blazing with a cold, hard fire.

“He’s mine,” she says, her voice deadly calm.

I ease the pressure on his throat, but I don’t take my boot off him. My gaze sweeps over her, checking for any other injuries, the possessive rage in my chest warring with a wave of gut-wrenching relief. She’s alive. She’s fighting.

She walks over, retrieves her knife from the floor, and crouches down beside Headley’s whimpering form.

“You wanted to teach me a lesson?” she whispers, trailing the tip of the blade down his bloody cheek.

“Class is in session.” She grips his wrist and pins it to the floor, then slams the knife through his hand.

He passes out, but that doesn’t stop her from twisting it, her face contorted in rage.

She yanks it out, and blood sprays across her pretty white dress.

“Keep him alive. I want him to feel every second of this pain.”

She rises, and I take the knife from her. I press her up against the wall and slip it back into the holster. “Never let them disarm you,” I murmur.

“Didn’t really have much of a fucking choice,” she spits out, but I know she isn’t angry with me but at herself.

“You’re safe now.” I pull her closer, my hand cupping the back of her head. Expecting her to break, to sob, and to be grateful, I’m pleasantly surprised when she shoves me away from her. “I had this,” she states, her chin high, even as she places her hand to her ribs, an injury I can’t see. Yet.

“Of course you did,” I growl. Pride and fucking fury war inside me. She’s magnificent. A fucking Valkyrie covered in another man’s blood. But she’s hurt. My gaze drops to her hand pressed against her side, the slight wince she tries to hide.

“Let me see,” I command, closing the space between us again.

“I’m fine,” she bites out.

“Fucking fine,” I mutter, but I leave it for now. If I see her broken ribs while that cunt lies at my feet, I will end him.

“We’ll keep him alive, but make sure he wishes he were dead.”

Rafferty’s answering grin is a slash of pure, unholy glee in the dim light. “Now you’re talking.”

He bends down to haul Maddox’s body over to where the other cunts are sprawled out.

Venetia stalks past them, her head held high, and she descends the steps of the clock tower, somehow without making a single sound.

She is tougher than she looks. I leave Rafferty to his fun and follow her, not crowding her.

She reaches the bottom and comes face-to-face with Blake, waiting for her with a smile of sinister pride.

He cups her face and whispers something to her that makes her snort laugh, and then he holds her.

Gently. Pressing her to his chest, he wraps his arms around her, and she lets him for a second before she shoves him away.

I find a grim satisfaction in that. At least it’s not just me, she doesn’t want anyone coddling her.

I move forward, and my hand closes around her arm. “We’re done here,” I say quietly.

Venetia stiffens, ready to fight me, but a single look from me shuts her the fuck down. Now is not the time.

Blake just nods, a small, knowing smile on his face. He understands.

I pull her away, through the gathering crowd of gawking cunts. They part for us like the fucking Red Sea. They see the blood on her dress, the fury on my face, and they know to stay the fuck out of the way.

Her body is rigid beside me, but she doesn’t fight me. The adrenaline is fading. The pain will be setting in. She’s hiding it, the stubborn little shit, but I can feel the tremors starting in the arm I’m holding.

I don’t speak. There are no words. There is only the long walk back to our room, the silent promise of retribution Rafferty is delivering upstairs, and the urgent, consuming need to get her behind a locked door and peel back every layer of her defiance to find the hurts she’s hiding underneath.

She is mine to fix. Mine to protect. Tonight, I fucking failed.

“You didn’t fail,” she mutters, reading my mind in that way she has that undoes too much of my control.

“Yeah, I did. If your dad saw you now, he would string me up by my balls.”

“Now that I’d like to see,” she chuckles, but it hurts her ribs, and she grimaces.

That small, sharp intake of breath as she tries to hide her pain is a fucking blade in my gut. I want to go back up that tower and help Rafferty peel the skin from Headley’s bones. I want to burn this whole fucking place down around us.

Instead, I just keep walking, my grip on her arm unrelenting. The silence between us is a weight, thick with unspoken rage and the metallic tang of blood that clings to us both.

Once inside our room, I slam the door behind us, the sound a final, violent punctuation mark on the night. The lock clicks home. We are alone.

I spin her around to face me, my hands going to her shoulders. “Now,” I say, my voice a low, dangerous command. “Show me.”

“I’m fine,” she spits, her green eyes blazing with defiance, but there’s a flicker of pain in them she can’t hide.

“Bullshit.” My fingers go to the zip on the back of her dress. “You can play the tough little queen for them. For me, you’re just my girl, and you’re hurt. The dress comes off, Venetia. Now. Or I’ll cut it off you.”

The threat hangs in the air, a promise I am more than willing to keep. Her jaw clenches, a stubborn line of pride, but she knows I’m not asking.

But she needs a second. I get that. She needs to compose herself before she falls apart.

“You have until I’ve finished feeding Lucy,” I state and turn my back on her.

I hear her sigh of relief that I’m not towering over her anymore.

I feel her gaze on me as I tend to the snake that is getting pretty antsy.

I drop two dead mice into the tank, and Lucy strikes with silent, lethal speed. Nature. Simple. Fucking brutal. I slide the feeding door shut with a soft click and turn around.

Venetia hasn’t moved. She stands there, proud and defiant, her chin high, her arms crossed over her chest, which only accentuates the wince of pain that flashes across her face. My jaw tightens.

I stalk over to her, closing the space between us until I can feel the defiant heat rolling off her.

“Time’s up,” I growl. I pull my knife out of my boot and slit the straps of the dress.

She flinches but doesn’t move away. The dress slides down with a soft rasping sound that feels too loud in the tense silence.

The dress pools at her feet, a ruined white sacrifice on the floor. My eyes catalogue the damage. Angry red marks on her throat where his fucking hands were. A deep, ugly purple bruise blooming across her shoulder and down her side, already mottling her pale skin.

Rage, cold and pure, floods my veins. “I’m going to kill him,” I whisper, the words a raw, undeniable promise. My fingers, gentle for once, trace the edge of the bruise on her ribs. She sucks in a sharp breath but doesn’t pull away.

“No. He doesn’t get an easy out.”

Her words fire up my blood, and it all goes straight to my cock.

Prodding carefully along her ribs, she hisses. “Not broken, just bruised,” I murmur.

“I know,” she grits out.

I smile. “Are you always this much of a pain in the arse patient?”

“Yes.”

Liar. I saw her at the breast examination. I saw her fear and her willingness to cooperate.

“Why do you always lie to me?”

Her chin juts out, a familiar act of defiance that makes my cock twitch. “Because the truth is none of your fucking business.”

The words are a slap, but I don’t flinch. I just nod slowly, my gaze dropping to the angry purple mottling on her ribs. I retrieve the first aid kit from my bag and pull out a tube of ointment for bruising. “Sit,” I command, gesturing to the edge of the bed.

For once, she obeys without a fight, the pain finally winning out over her stubborn pride. I kneel in front of her, squeezing a dollop onto my fingers. My touch is gentle as I smooth it over her bruised skin. She hisses, her body tensing under my hand.

“The truth,” I murmur, my voice a low rumble, “is that you’re scared. You’re scared of being weak, so you pretend you’re made of fucking iron.” My fingers work over the damaged tissue, my gaze locked on hers. “And I’m scared of what I’ll do to the next person who lays a hand on you.”

Her breath catches, her eyes wide and vulnerable for a split second before the mask slams back into place.

“I don’t need your protection,” she whispers, the lie thin and brittle.

“Tough shit,” I growl, moving to the bruise on her shoulder. “You’ve got it.” I lean in, my lips brushing her ear. “And you’re going to learn to fucking like it. I’m being paid to do this, Venetia, but I would do it anyway. From the second I saw you, I knew you needed me.”

“I don’t fucking need?—”

I place the fingers of my other hand to her lips. “You don’t want to need anyone, I get that. But I’m here, and even if your dad told me to pay back what he gave me and that the job was done, I wouldn’t leave you.”

Her bottom lip trembles. “Why? What’s so fucking special about me? You have women drooling all over you wherever you go.”

I cap the ointment. Her question hangs between us, raw and exposed. She’s looking for an answer I don’t know how to fucking say in words that won’t sound weak.

“Because they’re lambs,” I finally say, my voice a low, rough rasp.

“Every single one of them. They want to be led, protected, told what to do.” My thumb brushes over her trembling bottom lip.

“You,” I growl, leaning in until my forehead rests against hers, “are a fucking alpha. You don’t want a shepherd.

You want another alpha to stand beside you while you tear the world apart. ”

Her breath catches, a soft, hitching sound in the silence. My heart hammers against my ribs, a foreign, frantic rhythm. This is new territory for me. It’s too deep, too intimate. But it’s everything.

“You’re the only other monster in the room, Venetia,” I whisper against her lips. “And monsters like us? We don’t find each other. We recognise each other.”

And then I close the final inch between us.

My mouth crashes down on hers, not gentle, not tender, but a fucking claim.

It’s a kiss of rage and relief, of possession and surrender.

I devour her, my tongue plunging into her mouth, tasting the fight and the fear and the fire that is all her.

She melts into me, her hands coming up to fist in my shirt, pulling me closer as she kisses me back with a desperate, hungry ferocity.

This isn’t a choice. It’s a fucking reckoning. And we’re both about to be destroyed by it.