Page 260 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
His gaze searches mine for assurance that I feel the gravitas of his declaration.
“My words are not merely some grand declaration of love—they are fact. The eons have made me mad; selfish; ruthless; prone to just as much violence as I am tenderness. Only you have coaxed this gentle side of me forward.”
My legs wrap around his waist, as his engorged cock slides directly over my aching clit, sending fireworks shooting up my spine. Back arching, I reach between us and align his crown with my weeping entrance.
“I wouldn’t want you any other way.”
Lazarus growls out a curse, nudges his hips forward, stretching me and forcing my body to adjust to his size. My back arches from the coiling pleasure that surges through my core. His hands grip fistfuls of my hips as his cock slides in, inch-by-blessed-inch, sending a breathy cry from my throat. I nearly call him by his original name, but I give pause, recognizing this slender window of opportunity toanointhis new name in a waythat might help him make peace with it; accept it; dare I say embrace it.
“Lazarus..."
His strokes slow, but don’t stop. Already tense brows knit together, gaze studying mine as he picks up my line of thought. Hips punching forward, he growls. “Yes, seraphim.”
The fervor of his thrusts increases as emotion tightens his features, eyes blazing down at me. A sense of urgency and need fills me—to achieve every possible point of contact with him. My hand searches for his in the same moment he seeks mine, and our fingers weave together. In my peripheral vision, I see the darkness blooming around us—his shadows, unfurling; cocooning us. Tiny effervescent pinpoints of light cast a glow.
Lazarus’ eyes glisten as he pounds into me and his shadows wrap around me, guide my wrists above my head, tease the tips of my breasts into aching points, and lift my hips to allow him to drive that much deeper into me.
Sensation spills through me in tingling waves of energy that are further intensified as those shadows reach between my legs to massage my clit.
My chest blooms with what I can only describe as light, gravity, and a breathtaking emotion that burns so brightly it sears my eyes—and begins to dissolve that fear inside me.
Every stroke he takes seems to push those three words further up my throat until, finally, the dam dissolves. Pulverized by his next words.
“I love you, Violette.”
Like wine being uncorked from a cask, the love and longing I’ve stifled for the last fifteen years pours out of me. “I love you. Lazarus—Azrael—the name matters not, so long as you belong to me in this life, and every moment after it. Even when Akashreturns our souls to her womb.”
Lazarus’ growl of satisfaction reverberates through me as he lowers his chest to mine, bracing himself on one elbow as his free hand slides up the length of my left thigh before gripping my hip. His nose nuzzles my cheek, murmuring, “Even when Akashreturns our souls to her womb, we will be bound.”
My skin prickles as magic follows in wake when the hand at my hip roams up the valley of my waist, the swell of my breast, and higher, until his palm cradles my jaw. Wisps of shadow shimmering with gold spill from his hand, caress my cheek before slipping between us, and seeping into our chests. The sensation of his magic pouring into me is powerful enough to force the breath from my lungs on a breathy cry as every molecule in my body seems to vibrate and hum with life and euphoria.
“Laz..."
I feel my own magic rising powerfully to the surface, twining with his. Tendrils of purples, blues, and greens in every shade wrap around the black and gold of his before sinking beneath his flesh. Lazarus’ lips part on a gasp and a moment later I see lilac streaking the bright amber of his eyes before settling and dimming.
Lazarus’ thrusts hasten, gradually turning merciless as his shadows continue to stroke and caress my clit. My core clenches and spasms around him with my rapidly approaching orgasm as our magic vibrates and swells within us. My lips part but I can manage no words, only breath and the sound of my pleasure tearing from my throat as my orgasm rises. In the same moment, Lazarus’ breath punches out of him and he groans, hips stuttering and cock pulsing inside of me.
The space between our chests begins to glow. Still wholly consumed by our climax, tendrils of energy streak through us as a gold and pearlescent light suddenly flares between us, forcing our eyes shut at the sheer blinding light. Still fully sheathedinside of me, Lazarus grips me tighter against him as a fiery electricityhumsand vibrates with increasing intensity before shooting down what I can only describe as a cord, engulfing us in its light before it implodes and disappears within our chests.
Our chests heave as we catch our breath, our bodies, and this new living, brilliant thing between us hums with life. Twin droplets of emotion streak down the proud curve of Lazarus’ cheeks before gravity draws them to my own.
“Our souls are bound, sweet seraphim.”
LAZARUS
Idon’twantto share her—despite the fact her soul is now bound to not only mine, but Azrael’s as well; just as we are now bound to Levi’s. It merely intensifies what already existed—a soul deep yearning and connection to her, and strangely, to Levi. Even if I don’t understand it, I cannot deny its presence—powerful enough to steal my breath.
Even so, there’s a certain weightlessness in my chest that I’ve never experienced before. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I feel like I can finally breathe a full breath. And it’s because my sweet seraphim is sleeping peacefully in my arms, where she belongs. My shadows surround us in a cocoon of darkness and twinkling light—a microcosmic fragment of entropy borrowed from the dwindling universe.
And I’m all too aware the moment Levi and my other self return, I’ll have to share her.
Before I’d procured a new corporeal form, my consciousness was still very much tied with the physical manifestation of me. Now that I am more than just a shadow form, but energy condensed enough to form a brain,and thus a body, I am now entirely separate.
My will is my own.
And despite this palpable longing for Levi, and even for Azrael, if only in a brotherly way, my will is for Violette to be mine, and mine alone.
LEVI
