Page 35 of Venom (St. Sebastian’s at Cravenmoor Academy #1)

Venetia

A s Viper holds me, I have the flashback I was trying to avoid. But it’s pushing at my mind, needing me to see something.

The rain falls in that peculiar English way—not a proper downpour, just a persistent, spiteful drizzle that soaks through everything eventually. Fitting weather for a funeral. My mother would have laughed at the cliché of it all.

I stand motionless at the graveside, numb to the cold seeping through my black dress. My father stands beside me, his face carved from stone, not a single emotion betraying the wreckage I know churns inside him. The Corbyn-Hales don’t break in public. It’s the first rule.

“Stand up straighter,” Nathan whispers, his fingers digging into my waist where no one can see. “Everyone’s watching you.”

I resist the urge to shrug him off. At seventeen, I’m already well-versed in picking my battles with him.

Two years older than me, heir to his family’s North London firm, and my boyfriend of eight months, he has opinions about everything I do—from my posture, to my friends, to what I wear and what I eat.

“You’re not wearing the pearls I bought you,” he murmurs, his lips close to my ear in what would appear to observers as a comforting gesture. It isn’t.

“My mother just died, Nathan. I’m wearing her locket.” My fingers touch the silver pendant at my throat, the only piece of jewellery I have on.

“It doesn’t go with the dress.” His voice is still soft, reasonable, the disapproval wrapped in concern. “I specifically chose those pearls to match this outfit.”

The vicar drones on about my mother’s kindness, her devotion to family. All true, but sterile, stripped of her fire, her wicked sense of humour, her secret love of terrible reality television that she’d never admit to in polite company, and the shell she became at the end.

Cancer. Such an ordinary way for an extraordinary woman to die.

“...ashes to ashes, dust to dust...”

“Don’t cry,” Nathan whispers sharply as a tear escapes despite my best efforts. “Your mascara will run, and the photographers will have a field day. The Corbyn-Hale heiress, falling apart at her mother’s funeral. Is that what you want?”

I swallow the sob building in my throat and steel myself. I’ll cry later, alone in my room, where no one can use my grief against me. Another rule I’ve learnt early: vulnerability is a weapon in the wrong hands.

My father steps forward, taking a handful of soil from the small silver shovel offered by the funeral director. He sprinkles it onto the gleaming mahogany coffin, his movements precise, controlled. When he steps back, his hand finds mine, squeezing once, the only comfort he can offer.

My turn comes. Nathan’s grip tightens momentarily before he releases me, a reminder to maintain composure. I step forward on shaky legs, take the offered soil, and let it fall from my fingers. It makes a soft patter on the polished wood, nothing like the dramatic sound effects in films.

“Goodbye, Mum,” I whisper, too low for anyone else to hear.

Nathan steps forward. He moves with the grace of someone always aware of being watched, always performing. From his suit pocket, he withdraws three black lilies, their petals a deep, unnatural shade that absorbs the weak daylight.

He throws them carefully on top of the coffin.

When he returns to my side, his arm snakes around my waist again, proprietary. “I had those specially imported,” he whispers proudly. “Black lilies are extremely rare. Only the best for your mother.”

I nod, not really caring about the flowers. They’re beautiful in a strange, melancholy way, but all I can think about is how my mother will never exist in this world again.

“What is it?” Viper asks, reading my mind as clearly as I read his. It seems we are a match made in a pit of snakes.

“The lilies… it’s probably nothing…”

“Anything is something.”

“Nathan,” I say slowly, pulling away from Viper. His body tenses.

“What about him?”

“He threw black lilies on my mother’s coffin at her funeral.”

“He did what?” he spits out. I think he is more pissed that Nathan was with me than at the actual act.

“That possessive fucking cunt,” Viper snarls.

The control he just regained slips, replaced by a raw, homicidal fury directed at a ghost from my past. “He was marking you. His territory. Even at your mother’s fucking funeral. ”

I wrap my arms around myself, a futile gesture against the chill of the memory.

Viper stalks to the window, staring out over St. Seb’s as if he can pinpoint Nathan’s location through sheer force of will.

“He’s just a man. And I’m going to find him.

” He turns to face me, his eyes burning with a dark, terrifying purpose.

“And when I do, I will introduce him to a pain so profound, he will beg for the simple peace of death.”

“We don’t know it’s him,” I point out. “It was just a memory I had.”

“Doesn’t matter. He hurt you in ways I will make him suffer for. If he is the one trying to take you out, then we kill two birds with one stone.”

I snicker at the play on the word ‘stone’.

“We have to treat it like a coincidence,” I say. “We can’t put all of our eggs in this one basket.”

“We won’t. We will keep our eyes open.”

I nod and then pull my phone out of my pocket when it vibrates. “Dad,” I say, answering it, forgetting momentarily that I’m still super pissed with him for sending me here.

“Venetia. Care to explain why Dr Ablett has come across a third-party referral for a mammogram?”

My eyes widen, and I stare at Viper as fear slams into me.

My blood runs cold. I snatch the phone away from my ear, my glare a silent accusation that bounces right off Viper’s stony expression. This is his fault. He forced the issue. He made the appointment. He gave my father another key to my cage, and now Dad is using it to lock the fucking door.

“Venetia?” My father’s voice is sharp, impatient.

I bring the phone back to my ear, my hand trembling. “It was nothing, Dad. The doctor here is just overly cautious due to my history.” The lie tastes like ash in my mouth.

“Is she?” His voice is dangerously soft. “Because last I checked, Academy doctors don’t go prying into new students’ records and invite them for tests off their own back.”

“That’s not exactly how it went down,” I mutter.

“Then enlighten me.” His tone is cold, but I know it isn’t because he doesn’t care, it’s because he does. It’s his worst fucking nightmare.

“I went to see her. It has been six months. I had a moment of concern when you pulled the rug out from under me.”

There’s a long, heavy silence on the other end of the line, a silence I know all too well. It’s the sound of him processing, calculating, deciding my fate from hundreds of miles away. Viper stands motionless, his gaze fixed on me, a silent, unwilling co-conspirator in this mess.

“A moment of concern?” my father repeats, his voice devoid of all warmth. “This isn’t a game, Venetia. What aren’t you telling me?”

Everything. I’m not telling him about the bruises that feel like they’re branded onto my bones, the fight in the clock tower, or the poisoned flower left on my pillow like a lover’s gift. If I tell him, my gilded cage will become a steel vault.

“There’s nothing to tell,” I lie, my voice surprisingly steady. “I’m fine.”

“Fine,” he growls. “Put him on.”

Shit. This is not how I wanted it to go.

Viper’s hand is already out, his expression unreadable.

I hesitate, then slap the phone into his palm and throw him an apologetic look.

I watch him, this lethal, powerful man, as he places the phone to his ear, his eyes never leaving mine.

His don’t-give-a-shit attitude is firmly in place.

I don’t think he has any other position.

“She’s safe.”

I hear my dad’s muffled voice coming through the phone, and I strain my ears to hear what he is saying. For once, I wish he would yell so I could make it out, but all I hear are snippets.

Viper’s responses are short, clipped. “It was a precaution. She’s fine.” He listens for a moment, his jaw tight. “I handled it.”

He’s not giving my father an inch. My dad will hate that.

He’s used to people crumbling, especially when it comes to me.

Viper’s gaze holds mine, a silent reassurance, or maybe a warning.

“Yes, she’s with me every second… No. She’s not coming home.

” My breath catches. He’s defying a direct order.

My father will be incandescent with rage.

“Anton,” Viper says, his tone dropping even lower, becoming a quiet, lethal growl. Using my father’s first name is a declaration of war, a refusal to acknowledge the hierarchy. “You hired me to keep her safe here. We had a deal that you don’t interfere. Let me do my fucking job.”

There’s a long pause. I hold my breath. The fate of my fragile, newfound freedom hangs on this one conversation between two monsters.

Finally, Viper says, “Good,” and hangs up, tossing the phone onto the bed. He turns his full attention to me. “He’s backing off. For now.”

“How?” I breathe out, stunned. “No one tells my father no.”

“I do,” he says simply, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.