Page 41 of Rawest Venom

“Wha-what?” My eyes refocus on the task at hand. Cal is pointing to the computer screen.

“The video is over. You can close it. I thought it was funny.” He straightens up from showing me a cute ventriloquist routine, but I hadn’t been paying attention. Before he can back away from me, I snag his hand.

“It was! Will you show it to me again?” My voice is sing-songy. It’s so fake and Ihearit. But I can’t stop it.

“No. I gotta get to work in the back. Need to makemy rounds for the day since I closed early yesterday.” Almost reaching the black curtain, his eyes monitor me with indifference.

“Hope you’re not too tired. I had agreattime last night, by the way.” And I had. The problem was, after he ate my pussy like no one else ever had, the rest of the trip home was quiet. And it was the loudest silence. Like the car the night he took me back from the funhouse. It felt deadly. He was distant, which was both what I wanted and not what I wanted. This ambivalence is tormenting me. Any decision I make could get me killed. “Maybe we can do something again soon?”

His eyebrows close in tighter to each other. “Yeah. Soon, maybe.” Cal turns his back on me and walks away.

Oh, fuck. I screwed up.

Waiting until the end of the workday is fraying my nerves. It doesn’t help that it’s a slow day and every time the door chime rings, my body wants to leave the constraints of my skin in a panic. If I pick the wrong choice, I could end up worse than dead. Anyone could be out to get me at any moment.

On my break, I decide to speak with Echoes, but when her door swings open, a red-faced Alpha peers at me with daggers in her eyes while curling the top of her injected upper lip into a sneer.

“Youare not allowed back here,” she snarls.

Backing up a step, I say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. Sometimes Echoes lets me. Sorry, I’ll just—” Before I can turn around, she stops me.

“You’reJane, right?”

Pretending I have no clue who she is, I feign innocence. “Yes.”

“I’m Amanda. I work for Cal, too… I understand he’s taken you out on a few, um,dates.” She snorts a little laugh through her long, straight nose while saying the word with a dart of venom.

“Um…yeah.” I wish I could leave, but now I’m held in place, unable to move. Interacting with her is only putting myself in more danger. If she figures out who I am, I’m more dead than I already am. Tortured, maimed, then killed? That’s probably what will happen.

“You know he can’t be with you, right? He’s Calum Von Dovish. You’re…” She stands and walks over to me, her fit body looming over mine, standing about three inches taller. Her hands wrap around her leather-covered hips. I’ve always been good at grappling, but I know she’s quite the escape artist. I can’t expose my skills here. Not now. Tossing her dark brown ponytail over her shoulder, she glares at me with her icy blue eyes. “Who are you?”

I try to ascertain which particular word she put the emphasis on in her question as I steady my breathing. If she were a bull, steam would emerge from her nostrils, fury flaring some color into her cheeks. Letting my lips broaden into a wide, flirty smile, I tell her, “I’m his whore.”

Flipping around, my hair flares out, probably into her face. I walk back toward the front of the store as Echoes’s gasp rings out before the door slams shut behind me.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. My planned schedule needs tomove up pronto. I can’t wait anymore. If there’s any hope for extraction, I need to convince Dash.

Snatching my purse, I lock up the store, trying to not appear in a hurry. Slowly driving toward my apartment, I park in the lot, lock up my car, and wander upstairs just like every day. Just like every day, Zero. Pressing my back against my front door, I listen. Checks complete, I change into a black hoodie and exit down the fire escape through my bedroom, leaving the window unlocked and slightly ajar for my return.

In two hours, I’ve walked to the edge of Gnarled Pine Park, snagging a burner phone from a convenience store on the way. It’s dark now and I find a pine with low branches that will provide me good cover. Clutching the trunk around the base, I shimmy up the tree and I lie down on the wooden seat to wait.

Crunching leaves wake me. They’re mixed with wet, squishy sounds left by the incoming spring rains, but the sound is enough to make my heart race as my eyes snap open. Dash isn’t aware of my exact location, standing just beneath my tree, looking to his left and right. Probably smells me or something strange like that.

When I drop from my hidden position just behind his back, he whips around, pulling out his knife, pressing the sharpened edge into my throat. I laugh while twisting his wrist to stop him from plunging the blade into my neck, his grip loosening until I am able to rip the weapon from his grasp.

“Zero,” comes out with a sneer of recognition.

Patting his bulky upper arm, I smile. “Up your game, Dash-boy.”

“I need you to upyours. Why are you calling again so soon? If you’re laughing, that can’t mean you need extraction.” With a clench of his jaw, his arms cross as inspects my face in the dim light of the moon. Lowering his voice, he gives me a smoldering gaze from his golden eyes. “Are-are you getting needy again?”

His statement is a bit of a shock, but the feeling passes quickly. It used to hurt. To feel like he was mine, but never really. Are any of us ever actually with someone else if we can’t be real? Nothing true survives. All we had was lies, but at the time, it was all I knew, and he seemed safe.

Now I know safety doesn’t exist.

“No. Not for you.” He has the audacity to look both relieved and offended at the same time. “I fucked up. I think I fucked up big time.”

Tilting his head to the right, the wave of his hair that flows to that side swings in the breeze. “How bad?”

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