Page 204 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
I shake my head in disbelief. “Then what the fuck was the point of all this? You vowed upon your blood and?—”
The realization hits me before I can even finish speaking the words.
“That’s why your neck won’t fully heal. Why your incorporeal soul won’t return to your body.”
He wants to die.
He’s using their vow—sworn on his blood and magic—to kill himself.
Emotions I shouldn’t have are suddenly a crushing weight on my chest. A heavy and harkening shadow of what I felt when my mother took her own life.
I shouldn’t care. I shouldn’t feel this way.
So why can I not breathe?
My claws are forgotten until they scrape my chest as my hand curls into a fist, unconcerned for the blood that follows.
Azrael stands, looking thoroughly shocked by my reaction as he attempts to lay a hand on my shoulder. “Hey, what?—”
I weave a way. “Don’t touch me.”
Azrael’s jaw snaps shut. The pain in his eyes bright and visceral—a mirror to my own.
And suddenly, despite my immortal transformation and all my newfound power, I feel more human and more vulnerable than I have in nearly twenty years.
“This whole time. You were manipulating us.Usingus. And still, you made us fall?—”
The words are cut off at my throat by my rising emotion, threatening to swallow me whole. Words that, in another reality, would be too soon to speak. Words that he doesn’t deserve.
Azrael’s expression tightens as his jaw works—an attempt to keep his emotion at bay. Two, fat, heedless tears tremble before making their descent as he breathes the words. “I didn’t expect...this.”
Gradually, I nod, fighting my own tears. “And now?”
Unfathomable pain—pain that, despite the events of my life, I know nothing about—shadows Azrael’s eyes before briefly slipping shut and sending more tears spilling over the edge.
“You don’t understand…”
The pain in my chest tightens further as I attempt to force my heart to harden against him. Against this insufferable pain. Everything I’ve attempted to avoid my entire life is now meeting me in this infuriating, selfish god.
Every impulsive ounce of my anger is torn between killing himagainand throwing him out.
Neither of which I can do.
I cast a glance at Violette, sleeping peacefully in the same position I left her.
The helplessness of this situation stokes the flames of my ire.
“You don’tdeserveher.”
He nods, chewing on his cheek to tame his tremulous lower lip.
“I know. Just one of many, many reasons why I was never going to claim her.”
I refuse to care.
Refuse to feel a single fuckingounceof concern for him.
I do anyway.
