Page 102 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it, too, Violette.” Laying his palm over the center of his chest, his fingers ball into a tight fist. “Here. I feel it like a second heartbeat; a visceral need for you.”
His words bring my feet to a stop, eyes sliding to meet his.
“Clearly not enough to make you change your mind... But it’s a sensation that will not pass, no matter how we deny it.”
Levi’s face remains impassive, outside of the darkness lurking in his bright green eyes.
“So resistance is futile?”
“The more we deny it, the more painful it will become. And I refuse to live my life burdened by it. My mother died of a broken heart; wasted years waiting for a male who would never choose her.”
Us,I fail to say.Not over his ambitions.
“And I will not follow in her path.”
The emotion swelling in my chest is a bright, fiery, furious thing that has my jaw clenching to restrain the sob wanting to burst free as tears stream down my cheeks.
Akash, why am I so impulsive?
Levi’s passive expression morphs into one of pain as he witnesses my heartache.
Good. I fucking hope he’s miserable.
“Violette…”
I raise my hand. “Don’t.”
I want to fucking strangle him. Instead, I force the cogs and wheels of my mind to turn rapidly, nearly panicked with the need to muster some kind of solution. I am confident that flueratheurgy will have a solution. If I can create a potion to give sight to the blind, and even grant immortality to a mortal, surely I can create something to sever our bond. Worst-case scenario, I could seek out Azrael...
Why does my stomach swoop at the mere idea of seeing him again?
“You may return to your home. I’ll summon you when I find a way to sever our bond.”
The ill pallor Levi’s face takes on gives me a dark sort of satisfaction.
As much as the spiteful part of me wants to torture Levi, endlessly—reveal to him just how powerless he would be against me if I chose to wield my power and influence over him through our bond, our bodies, our minds, and our spirits—the idea oftrying to ingratiate myself into the arms of a man who does not truly desire me, like my mother did...
Well, I’d rather fucking die.
His voice turns to ice. “Sever it?”
“I see no other alternative.”
Silence hangs heavily between us. The fact that Levi vocalizes no protest against such a soul-altering solution makes my body tremble with the visceral need to scream, cry, and break something.
Iwillaway his newly gifted collar as I open a portal at the foot of the bathing pool.
“You may leave.”
LEVI
My eyes slide to the portal waiting for me. My bedroom lies just beyond. Logic tells me to go. My heart, my body, my soul tell me to stay. That’s three against one, butstillI hesitate to go after her. To pull her into my arms as everything within me screams to do so.
The look on Violette’s face is made of ice, but I can see the darkness and despair filling her eyes. At my hesitation to do what we both want, she turns and shuts the bathroom door behind her with a finality that makes my gut churn. It’s enough to force myself through the portal. The moment I step into my bedroom, the portal seals shut.
Fuck.
This is wrong. I know it in my soul. I should be there with her. Instead, I’m committing to this semi-broken life of solitude, peppered with vapid encounters and meaningless sex once a year or so to fill a biological need.
