Page 128 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
Palladium—the metal I used to weld the earrings—suppresses magic. It isn’t a painful sensation, but an unsettling one. Like a phantom limb.
“They aren’t too uncomfortable?”
“It was a necessary precaution, I suppose. I’m rather flattered you fear my wrath.”
“Any cognizant person would.”
Azrael huffs a laugh. “Your human doesn’t.”
“I think he has a death wish.”
Azrael frowns at that. “Don’t we all…”
“Aren’t you furious?”
The weight of his palm, and the electricity that follows from it, draws my gaze to find a hand-shaped shadow resting on my shoulder.
“In the moment, yes, but your touch has since calmed me. And it’s not like I can blame him for his actions. I would havedone much worse than murder and beheading if I had been in his shoes.”
My brows are lost somewhere near my hairline. This male is wildly reasonable. A far cry from the many nefarious rumors I’ve heard about him.
“Thank you for not killing us.”
It feels like a lame thing to say, but a necessary thing to acknowledge.
Azrael’s brows pinch. “I prefer you alive, my darling. As for yoursoulbound?—”
At my look, he corrects himself. “Formersoulbound, you clearly prefer him alive.”
Despite it all.
“Yes.”
Azrael gives a thoughtful hum. “I assumed as much.”
“You called him Salvatore Amato, but I know him as Levi Graves…”
Azrael gives me a look one might give to a child when explaining the obvious. “We all have our pasts, precious seraphim. It isn’t personal. I’m sure he will confide in due time.”
Silence follows briefly as my mind attempts to fathom who and where Levi came from, but only a few seconds pass before Azrael frowns. “Be a lamb and fetch my body, will you?”
My nostrils flare, registering the distant scent of burning flesh.
Hellish fuck.
LEVI
There’s something so cozy about a bonfire. It’s soul-nourishing, really. Especially when it contains the corpse of your enemy. His shadow may be...alive. Somewhere. But Violette can’t performcourtship rituals, or marry Azrael if he doesn’t have a body.
Right?
That’s the logic I’m clinging to anyway.
Hopefully, if he has no body to return to, this so-calledgodwill never return.
Perhaps he’ll reincarnate in another body and forget all about Violette.
And me.
