Page 102 of Sweet Venom
How sweet.
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
TWISTED HEARTS
Azariel
“He was my storm, and I was the lovesick fool who danced in his beautiful thunder.” – P
Morning crept in soft and slow, spilling gold across the cold marble floor like it belonged here. It didn’t. At least it didn’t before her. Now it does.
I blinked toward the window, realizing I’d forgotten to close the curtains. The sun was too bright for a room that had held so much darkness.
Her voice—husky, sweet, and etched into the very fabric of my bones—whispers through my mind, stirring things only she ever could. Things only she ever will.
I’m a grown man, one with more blood on his hands than in his veins, yet here I am—heart pounding like some love-struck kid.
I turned to the clock on the nightstand. It read seven thirty in the morning. I slept. Really slept. The whole night. Aftercarrying Poe to her room, after the garden, after she looked at me like I was something worth staying for. Someone worth loving.
That vision still burned behind my eyes and it’s all I saw when I closed my eyes. Not the blood. Not the people I’ve killed. Not the dark. Not a fucking number.
Poe.
Her in that white silk dress, clinging to every perfect curve like it had been made just to fuck with my head. Her long blue hair poured over her shoulders like a wild river at midnight. She stood in the garden I had made just for her, surrounded by blue roses and towering statues, the night sky thick above her, and still… she was the only thing I saw. The most beautiful thing right there.
Fuck.
Years of only shadows. Years of craving her through a screen. Years of unsent letters. Now she’s under my roof. Breathing my air. Sleeping behind my walls. And I’m never letting her go. I’m not sure I could let her go, even if she begged me. I’d walk through fire, raze cities, reduce the world to ash at her feet if it made her smile. If she asked it of me…
But letting Poe go?
That’s the one thing I don’t think I’ll ever be capable of.
Not when she’s the only light I ever learned to love in all this darkness.
Love.
The very thought of it used to make my skin crawl and want to destroy anything that crossed my path.
But then she found me and everything changed.
Love didn’t hurt anymore.
How could it?
Not when love is her. Love is blue. Love is funny. Love is brilliant. Love is Poe.
I rose from bed slowly, the weight of what I felt for her pressing into my spine. Gray sweats hung low on my hips as I sat at the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, hands loose, steepled in front of me. My eyes dropped to my fingers—ink crawling up every single one but the ring finger.
That one, I left bare.
As I looked at it, I thought of her. And for the first time in too many years, my chest didn’t feel tight. I didn’t feel like I was drowning in my own skin. That pressure I used to carry like both a sword and a shield? The one that kept her away? It has vanished. Not numb. Not softened. It just vanished.
Because she’s here. Because she saw through me.
Last night, I slept like a fucking king. No ghosts in my mind. No demons in my heart. Just her sweet scent on my hands and the warmth of her still clinging to my skin.
