Page 132 of Craving Venom

I force myself to look again, to make sure I’m not imagining it, that it’s not some hallucination crafted by my own panic.

But no.

Zane didn’t just fill my room with fear.

He filled it with power.

His version of beauty.

A sharp chill bursts down my spine, sweat breaks out along my neck, my back, my chest, but at the same time, I feel hot from the inside out, like my body doesn’t know how to handle this much fear at once.

One slithers over the foot of my bed, its forked tongue flicking out to taste the fear pouring off me in waves as a choked whimper slips from my lips.

I slam my back harder against the headboard. I have to get out. My head snaps toward the nightstand, my shaking hands already reach for my phone—only for my vision to black out at the edges when I see a beautiful snake with orange stripes and black blotches coiled tightly around it.

“Go baby.”

The words barely register before my body locks up completely, my spine presses so hard against the headboard it might break through the wall behind me.

My eyes shift to follow the source.

Zane stands in the center of the room. And somehow the room full of snakes looks less intimidating than him.

Because while the snakes are wild, instinctual, and primal.

He is deliberate.

He is intentional.

And he’s looking right at me.

As a kid, I always wanted to be a Disney princess, but right now? I’d sell my soul to be the Hulk. I’d crash through the goddamn wall just to get away from the way Zane’s looking at me.

A shudder rips through me so violently my teeth clack together, my nails dig into the sheets, and my entire body coils tight.

I want to cry.

I almost do.

But I won’t.

Not in front of him.

I will cry until the capillaries in my eyes shrivel up, until my body physically can’t produce another fucking drop, but I won’t now.

“Don’t tempt me,” I whisper. “I just might.”

I force my lips to move, trying to calm my own panic, to put some logic into this.

“I’m sure they’re not even venomous.”

Not that it matters.

Venomous or not, I’m not stepping foot on that floor.

The line of Zane’s jaw tightens briefly before relaxing. His expression changes, not with amusement this time, but something closer to insult. Like I just compared a piece of art to a kitchen spoon. He moves, and my body contracts instantly as I press harder into the headboard, as if I can physically disappear into it.

When he pulls out a knife I shriek. “Please—” The word bursts from my lips before I can stop it, it’s ripped straight from the part of me that knows this could be it.

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