Page 141 of Beautiful Venom

“What the fuck are you doing?” I bypass him, but the intruder has already disappeared through the trees.

“I’ll chase.” Jude starts in the direction he disappeared in.

Preston places a hand on his chest and pushes him. “He’s my prey. Back off.”

His mouth is bruised, blood gushing from the corners of his lips and trickling to his neck. His shirt is ripped at the collar, and there’s a knife slash on his arm, blood soaking his shirt and gluing it to his skin.

I raise a brow. “I haven’t seen you this injured in a long time. You sure he’s the prey?”

“Of course he is,” he says maniacally and laughs loud, throwing his head back.

“He’s lost his mind again.” Jude sighs.

“Who is he, Preston?”

He smiles, all his teeth showing creepily. “He dared to hunt me in my own goddamn place. Love that!”

“You should’ve let us catch him, dumbass.” Jude hits him upside the head.

Preston doesn’t even retaliate, still laughing, still lost in a high. “No, I’m going to hunt him, too, before I chop him into tiny little pieces. Oh my, I’m getting hard thinking about it. I’m so fucking hard.”

“Focus, man,” Jude says.

“You fuck off, both of you. I’ll arrange the cleanup and watch some security footage.”

“Find out how he managed to trespass on this place, Pres,” I say.

“Not important.” He laughs as he walks away. “Not fucking important.”

“Get your dick sucked,” Jude shouts. “Don’t go fucking crazy.”

Preston only laughs again as he staggers between the trees, the sounds echoing like a symphony of chaos.

No one can handle him when he’s in this mode. He hardly ever goes crazy, but when he does, it’s a fucking drag.

“He’s going to do something stupid and probably get himself killed,” Jude says. “We should stop him.”

I run up behind Preston and then hit his nape with the gun.

He falls to his knees and the annoying sound of his laughter disappears.

“Well, that definitely stopped him,” Jude says. “He’ll fuck you up when he wakes up. You know he hates being knocked out.”

“Then he should’ve controlled his animal side better. I won’t clean up his messes.”

“You have a point.” Jude surveys the forest with a critical gaze. “Who do you think that was?”

“I don’t know, but we need to find and eliminate him.” I sheath my gun and grab Preston’s arm. “Help me carry him back.”

“What a nuisance,” Jude grumbles. “Always a damn fucking baby.”

Even as he says that, he rips his shirt and wraps it around Preston’s wound, then carefully slings the injured arm over his shoulder.

When we were children, Preston was slim and bony with baby features and often got bullied for looking like a girl. And while he made their lives hell afterward, mostly through some form of manipulation, he was physically weak and unable to defend himself. Somehow, Jude became his shield and proceeded to knock those boarding school kids’ teeth out.

Unfortunately, it didn’t stop at bullying.

Once, Preston was missing during a late-evening dorm activity, and Jude and I ditched the thing and went to search for him.

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