Page 101 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
“It destroyed her. ”
“How old were you?”
“Eighteen.”
I bite my cheek to try and keep the tears at bay.
Beneath the water, my hand reaches for his. Our fingers twine together so naturally that—despite my intuition pricking with impending doom—it feels like this first time could be the millionth time.
Heaving a sigh, Levi shakes his head. “I watched her succumb to a despair unlike anything I could have thought possible, and there was nothing I could do about it. She couldn’t function. I could barely convince her to do more than get out of bed.”
My chest burns with sorrow for him and his mother. At least with my own mother, there was always the promise of his return.
“Oh, Levi... I’m so sorry.”
He shakes his head. “We had a few good days... Where, for a few hours, the dark cloud of grief would dissipate, and we would walk along the beach together.”
My eyes water and my lips tremble hearing this—imagining a young Levi having to go through such a thing alone. There’s nothing I can say to make it better.
“You grew up near the sea?”
Levi shakes his head. “We only lived there for a year after my dad died. I was in Boston before that... A city.”
Judging by the cinched tension in his brow and the slight downward turn of his lips, there’s more to be said in regard to that era of his life, but he doesn’t elaborate, and I can’t bring myself to pry.
“In any case, the point of me telling you all that is after witnessing what my mother went through, having to take care of her because of it, and her deciding that taking her own life was favorable to a life without him... I promised myself that I would never become so vulnerable that my happiness, my sanity, my entire life hinged upon another; that I would never fall in love.”
My stomach does a slow, anguishing churn.
“... And you still intend to keep this promise to yourself?”
Levi hesitates, studying me for a moment before his throat dips.
“Yes.”
Akash almighty.
I swear I can hear the fissures spiderwebbing across my heart.
How senseless can I be?
How could I have ever had any hope that my heart would be safe in the hands of mysoulboundwhen I have only ever witnessed the opposite?
Or thought that perhaps I was special enough to defy this logic?
My fingers curl against my palm as I unthread mine from his.
I dip under the water, relishing the heat of it. I don’t want to come back up. I want to stay here. My heart throbs with longing for the freedom of the sea. To escape this male, who has pledged a vow to never love another, but whom I have impulsively captured.
When the need for air burns my lungs, I resurface—shifting into my mer form feels far too intimate to reveal to him now. Especially considering no one, other than my mother, Somnus, and Azrael’s carriage driver, Oleander, has seen it.
Squeezing the water from my hair, I make my way up the steps of my bathing pool, giving him my back. My eyes burn even as I feel that ever-present anger and resentment rise like sickles from my flesh, ready to pierce and draw blood.
Just when I had opened up to the scarcest sliver of hope...
After all these years of forbidding myself from becoming romantically entangled with anyone—from ever potentially following in my mother’s footsteps or falling for someone who would shatter my heart in one way or another—I did it anyway.
The sensation of Levi’s gaze is searing as I walk along the edge of the pool towards the shelf of towels. There’s a tremor in my hands, my body. My knees threaten to buckle. I need him to leave. I need him to get out of here?—
