Page 61 of Rawest Venom

Cal’s stack nearly falls over on the small woman behind the register, but she sticks out a hand to stop it from leaning too far before I set my own pile next to it. “We’ll take all these, and I’ll add two thousand dollars on top of the bill for delivery to the Lordes Hotel penthouse sometime today.” The woman’s eyes broaden into saucer shapes. But Cal continues, “You’re right. If you can deliver it within two hours and pile on another fifty romance books, I’ll give you five thousand dollars. Thank you.”

After getting his credit card, she smiles brightly andsays she’ll have someone bring the entire order to the penthouse “right away” as a few workers mill about and begin to load up a wooden cart with books at his loud declaration.

“Five thousand is a lot of money,” I tell him as we make our way back out into the afternoon sun. But Cal is extremely generous. He thinks of his people before all else. I just wish he held himself in the same regard.

“I don’t need it. They do. They can have it.” Turning to me, he presses his lips against my cheek. “And you can have your books. You want a library back home for them? You can have one of those, too.”

My heart immediately feels hefty at his mention of “home.” Like it’sourhome. Like I’m supposed to be there.

Like it isn’t my duty to steal his passwords and kill him.

For the rest of the day, I try to pretend I’m not in a funk, but I am. I know my duty, and what the ramifications of not performing it are. I also understand that this man beside me cannot accept me as a true wife and equal because of the ways of legacy. No matter how much my being called a “mistress” upset him, he can’t wed me. If I were to give him children, they would be bastards.

And just then I realize…it’s not enough for me. Squeezing my eyes shut as we walk back from dinner to the hotel to prepare for the meeting, I try to keep my tears from escaping, from letting him know how affected I am.

I finally know what I want, and it’s something I can never have. But I also know what I have to do.

“What happened?” Cal asks back in our hotel room as I slide on some black jeans for the trek to the woods. My heart pauses its beating. Does he know about the text?

“What do you mean?” He throws on a hoodie before replying.

“I mean, you were happy. I thought we were having a good time today. Then something changed. Is it that you know I’m taking you back to your people now? Have you grown to love your master?” Pain tightens into a grip around my rib cage. He’ll never believe me.

Pausing after tugging on my jacket, I turn slowly to face him, but my lashes lower to block his face from my field of vision. “Sometimes, Cal, you’re very callous. Almost cruel. And I knowwhy. I get it. But pushing me away won’t protect you.”

“So you’ve decided, then.”

Lifting my gaze up to meet his fierce expression, I ask, “Decided what?”

“Decided to fulfill your duty,” he says flatly. He knows.

Attempting to seem confused, I say, “N-no. Wait, what?” But it doesn’t come out as a question. This is it.

A sneer of hate comes across his cheeks as his lip curls, narrowing his eyes at me. Raising the backs of his fingers, he gingerly strokes my face. “Let’s go, Zero.”

“This is the place?”Shuffling my feet in the dirt, we wait in the near pitch-black area between trees as big as skyscrapers. The trunks are so massive, they are a perfect cover for any footfalls that may approach us from any direction. Night has yet to fully overtake us, but within the thickness of the forest, the light does not survive.

Cal hasn’t spoken to me since we left, and his response now is only a curt nod. He’s left me untied, but there’s an unspoken knowledge that if I try to run, he’ll hurt me. Probably with those darts of poison in his pocket he always carries.

Those two vials were one of the first things I learned about my target. One holds the venom, the other the cure. Darkness and light. Sun and moon. But the moon doesn’t exist without the sun, and light is unrecognizable without the darkness.

Despite the deafening shield of the sequoias, my well-trained ears pick up on a difference in the wind to our west, then perhaps east. But the sounds echo through the trees in buoyant waves. Snapping my head to him, our eyes meet with a moment of clarity. We’re in danger.

Before I even realize it, my body throws itself over Cal’s as sharp zings whiz past us.

I’m diving for cover and taking him with me. As we hit the ground, more bees swarm overhead for several minutes. He’s not moving, but I shift so my hands are underneath his shoulders and crawl behind a large tree where we may be able to hide. It’s impossible to tell.

The bark isn’t exploding like it was hit with a bullet,so it has to be another type of weapon. Just as I raise up to try to get a location on the enemy or enemies, another pellet of sound whizzes nearby and sticks into the base next to my nose. It’s a dart with a feather tip. And if I know anything, it’s probably laced with something deadly. No one would waste time trying to hit us with regular darts. They wouldn’t do any damage.

I pretend to be hit with it and fall on top of Cal, slumping like his body is. Lying there for several minutes, no other sounds arrest my ears. The missiles have stopped flying past us, and we seem to be alone, which is odd. Why would the enemy leave us here?

Snapping to a stand, I scan the area immediately surrounding us while making quick zig-zagging sprints between the trees. There’s no sign of our predators, and no bows. Several darts stick out of the bases of the trees where we were, but that’s all.

When I sprint back to Cal, he’s lying in the same position he fell in, like a puddle of a human being with his tongue almost lolling about, eyelids half closed. My heart pounds harder in my chest at the sight of him hurt there. The pain of seeing his limp body is almost too much to bear. He’s been hit in the neck, the silver metal sticking out like a knife.

Pulling the dart out, I sniff it. It’s odorless and colorless once I shine my phone on it.

“Your antivenom. Will it work?” I dig my hand into his pocket and fish out two vials: one red and the other blue. I don’t know which is which. He made these himself. Usually red is poison, but, knowing him, it may not be. “Which is it, Cal?”

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