A half hour, and they had bare minutes between each drop. “They know we’re here.” She’d pulled on her knit cap twenty minutes earlier and stuffed her hair underneath, just in case.
“Something’s certainly stirred up security.” Lifting his finger to his lips a few minutes later, Venom slipped behind a tree after nodding at her to do the same.
Holly went motionless in a way most human beings couldn’t do. Dmitri had been very clear that they weren’t to get caught or to leave behind any evidence of their presence. Raphael did not need a war with Michaela. So neither one of them could take out the vampire prowling the woods unless they did it in a way that could never be linked back to Raphael.
As a result, Holly stayed immobile, even when the vampire guard passed within a foot of her tree. She closed her eyes, in case they were glowing, and she surrendered to the thing inside her, the otherness that knew instinctively how to evade detection. She’d fought that surrender for a long time, believing she might not come back from it, but tonight, her resistance could get them discovered.
So she gave in.
And could feel herself literally fucking disappearing, her awareness overlaid with a layer of acidic green that made her stomach roil because it was a silent indication that she wasn’t in any way human. She knew that. Of course she knew that. But . . . she liked to pretend sometimes.
A movement she felt as a change in the air around her.
She opened her eyes a sliver and saw that Venom had stepped out from his tree. And, that quickly, she was visible again. Relief kissed her blood. He paused a second before waving her forward. She moved, flowing in the darkness behind him in a fashion that wasn’t like him, but worked. He was sinuous, a cobra snaking its way through unfamiliar territory with silent ease. She was a creature of the night, a bat with silent wings.
Great, thought the part of her that was still Holly. Now she was imagining herself as a bat. When was the sonar going to kick in?
An alert pinged off her consciousness. Oh, no fucking way.
Reaching forward, she touched her fingers to Venom’s shoulder. His muscles flexed as he came to a total halt. She shifted so that she was pressed against his front and he had his ear right next to her mouth. “There’s a group up ahead. Maybe five.”
27
Venom didn’t ask her how she knew. That was good, because she wasn’t ready to tell him she might be a human bat. Real sexy, that. He just pointed right. She looked that way and felt no sensation of danger, of a presence. “Safe.”
They went right, moving away from their destination for at least ten minutes before angling back, hopefully to come up behind the guards prowling the woods. It left them crouching higher up on the mountain, hidden in the night shade of a thick-trunked tree whose branches rustled in the wind. Holly looked up, loving the feel of the wind on her skin, loving how the canopy moved in the night.
“There.”
Glancing back behind them, she followed Venom’s pointing finger. It took her several seconds to spot what he already had—the men and women creeping about lower down the slope, stealth in the way they held their bodies. Probably vampires.
Holly smiled. “Let’s go before they realize we slipped the net.”
A dangerous grin.
And they were moving again, two creatures designed for this environment. Not like a tiger was designed for a forest. No, they were the shadows that whispered behind the tiger, unseen, unnoticed. The climb was hard, and Holly felt it in her calves, in the backs of her thighs—especially when the acid green that had lingered in her vision since the eerie but awesome invisible trick faded from view.
Damn. Turned out she was human enough that she couldn’t just slither her way up a mountain with boneless ease. “Do you have bones made of jelly?” she muttered to Venom when they paused to make sure there were no threats up ahead.
“No. Spaghetti.”
Holly nearly snorted out a laugh.
Hitting him lightly on the shoulder with a fisted hand, she took the bottle of water he handed her. They drank from the same one rather than risk the faint sounds of opening a second bottle. Then, skin flushed with heat and her blood pumping, the two of them carried on across unfamiliar territory.
When her senses pinged once more, she just glanced at Venom and pointed in another direction, and they went that way. More climbing, more changes in direction, sweat beading on her brow despite the cold night air.
The stronghold appeared out of the darkness in a shock of light.
Holly had been so focused on avoiding vampires and hiding from angels that she hadn’t put much mind to how close they were to their target . . . or that Michaela had been the muse of artists across the centuries, many of whom had worshipped her.
Her stronghold was as beautiful as its mistress.
It rose up out of the primeval forest like a castle built for a queen. Delicate spires and spiraling walkways, a white stone that glowed even in the scant light of the stars and the small crescent moon. The light within was a soft gold, the angels she could see landing on the high balconies graceful silhouettes that made her heart ache.
A flag flew from the highest point of the highest tower. Probably Michaela’s emblem. Just barely visible from their position were the exquisitely maintained gardens that wove in and out through the stronghold. There were dark patches, too. Probably water, ponds or pools of some kind.
“I’d heard it was a wonder, Michaela’s home of the heart,” Venom murmured. “But this is unexpected.”
Holly’s own heart was too full of the beauty of what she was seeing to speak. An artist had spent years creating this, piece by piece, and their work had been cherished through time. The stronghold showed no signs of neglect or ill use. It made Holly furiously curious about what lay within, what wonders and beauties. She’d had such good times inside, and Michaela’s laughter, it had ensnared him until he’d been—
Holly didn’t hesitate. She shoved up her sleeve and deliberately bit down on her forearm, hard enough to draw blood.
Venom’s head jerked toward her, his eyes narrowing. “Problem?”
She bit down even harder, until the pain had chased the last of the fog from her mind. When she looked at the stronghold again, it hadn’t turned into a squat ugliness, was still graceful beyond compare—but she could admire it without being overwhelmed.
Releasing her abused forearm, she took several deep breaths. “Was Uram intimate with Michaela?” She hadn’t lived in the immortal world then, but she could vaguely remember an article in a magazine dedicated to immortal gossip. A reporter had written a gushing piece about how Uram and Michaela made the ultimate “power couple.”
“That’s a very specific question, kitty,” Venom murmured. “The answer is, yes. He was her lover before he became bloodborn.”
Holly dug her fingers into the earth where they crouched. “He loved her,” she whispered. “He saw her scheming mind and pitiless ambition, but he loved her anyway.” A wet heat burned her eyes. “When she laughed, he thought eternity might not be so full of ennui after all.”
Venom closed one of his hands over hers, lifting it from the earth. “You have his memories?”
“Flashes only. Mostly of her laughing or smiling.” She stared out at the stronghold. “I’ve never felt anything like this before from the otherness.” It didn’t surprise her when her chest began to hurt.
She didn’t have to look down to know the wings had reappeared.
Turning so that the glow was blocked by Venom’s body, she quickly shrugged off her pack and retrieved the outdoor jacket she’d packed for exactly this possibility. Once on and zipped up, it followed the lines of her body without bulking her up—most importantly, it was thick enough to block the glow.
“Okay?” she asked Venom to be sure.
He nodded, his hair sliding forward a little. “You can still feel it?”
“Oh, yeah.” Slipping her pack back on after stuffing her knit cap in it, as the jacket had a hood, she squeezed her eyes shut for two long seconds. “I may become a liability if these memories take me over. He was consumed with her.”
“Maybe Uram should remember that Michaela was probably the one who stoked up his ego to the point that he—” Venom cut himself off. “It’s fucking irritating that you don’t have the Tower clearance to know certain things.”