Page 23 of Venomous Heart
Rejection stung like the bitch it was, and Ava was glad she didn’t have to answer, because she couldn’t have.
Instead, she nodded, once. Then she watched as he walked away from her, a knot in her stomach that she couldn’t explain.
7
Ava
Anger coated her body like a second skin, but Ava forced herself to nod politely as Dr. Yrakan took his leave. The Relany doctor was calm and kind, and Ava knew he would take his mission to care for her patients seriously. And that her patients would take to him easily. In fact, most of them would be happy to have him care for them instead of her.
The sting of rejection made her turn around and stomp down the hall as soon as the door closed on the Relany doctor. As she passed him, an Eok warrior eyed her cautiously, stepping to the side as if she were a rabid animal.
Which might have been the wisest thing any of the big blue idiots had done in a long time.
She stalked the hallways of the mansion without any particular direction in mind, walking fast to vent feelings she could no longer contain, but it didn’t work. Every inch of those hideous walls made her angrier, and it wasn’t long before she was fuming, stomping alone down the hallways on her way to nothing.
It’s not fair. He had no right to do this.
It had been three days since she’d last seen Arlen and one day since Dr. Yrakan had arrived on Aveyn with a small team of medical technicians. Even then, Arlen hadn’t come to see her, giving some Relany officer the privilege of telling her she was no longer needed in the medical clinic.
It had stung. It had stung like a big, blue bitch, but Ava had swallowed her pride and accepted it.
After all, Arlen was the Commander of the Eok forces on Aveyn. He had no real reason to have any contact with her.
Yet, as she pictured his cold, disciplined expression, a twinge of pain burrowed between her ribs and anger flared inside her. She knew it was pointless. Arlen had every right to replace her with a doctor whose credentials actually checked out without needing to threaten her professors, who would actually have her patients’ trust, and who wouldn’t be a security risk as soon as she stepped outside the walls of the clinic.
A doctor who wasn’t an anomaly in and of herself, whose very existence wasn’t forbidden by the laws of the Ring.
An abomination.
Her eyelids burned and Ava fought the tears that threatened to spill. She should be focusing on what mattered—on Uril, whose heart was still weakening every day. In a spike of frustration, she closed her eyes and slumped against the wall, trying her best to control the spiral of emotions that refused to die down inside of her.
Yes, she had lost all that had made her old life what it was. But she hadn’t lost everything. Uril still needed her. Now that she didn’t have to care for the other patients, Ava could focus on retrieving the Exo-Heart. Then, as soon as Uril was strong enough, she would leave Aveyn and all those living on it.
It would be just Uril and her, somewhere far in the Ring where no one would come find them.
As calm returned to her, Ava opened her eyes and then gasped in shock. She had been wandering the halls of the mansion without realizing where her feet were taking her, and now she stood right in front of the door to Knut’s personal apartments. As she stood there, alone, her pulse accelerated until all she could hear was the blood flowing through her veins.
Of all the places she could have ended up, it had to be here.
Her mouth became dry and her palms clammy in cold sweat. She tried to swallow, but her throat was closed and she ended up coughing instead.
Maybe it was time. Maybe she was just crazy.
Ava’s feet moved of their own accord and before realizing what she was doing, she stepped inside the room. Everything was as she remembered. The walls were ostentatiously golden and pink, priceless artifacts displayed on stands at every corner.
Ava made her way through the sitting area and stood there. To her right was the bedroom with its larger than life wooden four-poster bed, and in front of her, the balcony overlooking the garden.
Like he never left.
But that wasn’t what made her stare as tears filled her eyes. The portrait Knut had commissioned of her was on the wall, the most expensive work of art in the entire mansion, displayed in the place of honor right where he could stare at it, sitting on his sofa. Ava looked at her own face, the memory of what she’d felt as the artist painted her with pigments worth more than a dozen lives came back, biting as strongly as it had a decade ago. She had posed there, amidst the flowers, had hated every second of it, and yet, she had obeyed. Because Uril had just been born, and Knut had agreed to let her train in the medical field on the condition that she behave for him.
My perfect little toy.
Ava shuddered as she heard it in her head. That was what he had called her, to remind her that she wasn’t a person. That she was just a toy, a pet built to satisfy a man’s desire. That her life meant nothing.
A noise made her turn around and she stared, horrified and yet hypnotized, as Arlen stepped out of the cleansing room with a piece of cloth wrapped around his waist. His glorious torso rippled with muscles, tapering down to a narrow waist and hips, water making the marks on his skin more visible. Beneath the towel, his legs were strong, muscular. Ava stared, transfixed, at his male body, so powerful and perfect, as a strange twisting in her gut spread lower.
“Ava.”
