Page 69 of Venom Sweeter than Honey
A few moments pass as he soothingly strokes my hair.
“It’s okay to feel lonely, Violette.”
His words hit home like a stake to the fucking heart just as another chime rings at the door, drawing our gazes.
And I nearly have a fucking heart attack.
Royal sentries pour into the room like an unwelcome horde of finely uniformed and lethally armed rodents.
Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck.
Arturo sidles closely beside me, as though he’ll be able to protect me from their wrath.
One of the royal guards begins to make an announcement, his voice somehow distant, as I descend into panic. The only words my mind registers areQueen Theia,and a moment later, she appears, closely tailed by a wretched, pompous male that I immediately recognize.
Duchess Paramount Winnow Ardelean’s vizier.
Fuck.
Sacred, divine, holy fuck.
Did she find out I’m the one who kidnapped her cousin?
There’s no way.
No one else was there...?
Could it be the crown jewel Winnow paid me with? I returned it ages ago, unable to sell it on the shadow market knowing that it belonged to her mother.
Her deceased mother.
A wandering hand seeks the comfort of Arturo, squeezing his forearm as one might a life raft set adrift on a thrashing sea.
“Violette Lark, under the authority of Her Majesty the Queen, you are?—”
Theia takes another step forward, raising one regal hand to silence him. My throat works as my heart pounds a trepidatious beat.
“Miss Violette Lark, might I have a word? In private.”
Her pointed look flicks briefly to her guards, then to Arturo.
The sound of my voice is a foreign squeak.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
VIOLETTE
Queen Theia shuts the door to my office behind her, hammering another spike of fear through me. Her voice is so calm that one might otherwise think she were speaking of temperate weather.
“You kidnapped my cousin.”
There is no use denying her accusation. Her mind-seeing magic will no doubt suss out even the vaguest hint of deception.
Why am I this way?
Impulsive.
Vengeful.
