No more. “Who are you to hold my life in your hands?” she said to this man who’d made her feel so safe—and who might yet order her execution. “What gives you that right?” Her voice trembled from the sheer force of her determination. “Just because I don’t fit your perceptions of what life should be permitted to exist?”

A slow whistle. “Looks like the kitten has grown up, Dmitri.” Illium’s voice.

Dmitri didn’t look away from Holly. “Come here.” It was an order.

She almost glanced at Venom for backup. Strange as it was, she had the feeling she might even get it . . . but this was her fight. Joining Dmitri as he stepped out from behind his desk, she didn’t hesitate to follow him when he walked out to the sunlit balcony beyond. The wind was lazy today, but it was by no means dead calm, the danger of the fall beyond the railingless edge as perilous as it was on any other day.

Holly promised herself that regardless of what he said, what decision he made, the one thing she would not do was reveal how much it hurt that he continued to view her as a threat, one he was ready to eliminate at any time. Dmitri had become important to her. Not a father. She had a father whom she loved. But someone as significant.

Because she loved Dmitri, too.

“Why are you standing there?” he asked in a grim tone when she stayed safely in the middle of the balcony, while he’d stalked to nearer the edge. “I thought you enjoyed flirting with danger.”

“I’m trying to be more mature and sensible.”

To her shock, he laughed, throwing back his head. The indolent wind took full advantage to riffle its fingers through his hair. When he held out a hand, though anger and hurt yet choked her throat, Holly stepped forward to take it. She’d never have accepted the silent command had it been Venom who’d given it.

Her and Venom . . . they were equals. Not in power, but in other, vitally more important ways. Their relationship had never been and never would be like the one she had with Dmitri, where the power dynamic was so skewed, the imbalance was permanent. “Do you feel this way with Raphael?” she asked when she stood face-to-face with the vampire who had seen her at her pitiful lowest and darkest. “Like he’s your senior.”

A shake of his head, his hand protective on hers. “Raphael and I were friends when he and I were both pups in our own ways. We’ve grown up together.”

As I’m growing up with Venom.

How strange to think that, when Venom had lived an eon in comparison to her butterfly existence, but it felt right. He’d told her she hadn’t accepted the changes that marked her, but Holly didn’t think he was at peace with himself, either. “So,” she said, her hurt spilling over. “Do you plan to throw me over the side and rid yourself of the pesky problem of Holly once and for all?”

His face brutally hard, Dmitri dropped her hand only to grip her jaw while New York glimmered a patchwork quilt of streets far below. His eyes were chips of granite, his hold unforgiving. “If I’d wanted to rid myself of the problem of Holly,” he said very, very quietly and very, very dangerously, “I’d have snapped your neck years ago.”

It was a callous statement, but Holly wasn’t scared. Because this was Dmitri. Who’d been harsh, but who’d always kept her safe—even from herself.

That was when she understood.

Dropping her eyes, she released a shaky breath. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know you wouldn’t put me down like a rabid dog.”

“Would you want to live if you became that way? A mindless, mad creature who hungered only for blood and death?”

Holly didn’t need to think of her answer. “No. I will never be Uram’s legacy.” Lifting her head again, she said, “You told me once that you’d end me if necessary, that I’d never see you coming. Promise me you’ll do that if I become a monster.”

Fingers dropping off her jaw, Dmitri turned to stare out at the water far in the distance. It glittered and sparkled, as if there was no darkness in the world. As if monsters didn’t exist.

Holly turned the same way and, when vertigo threatened, she gripped the back of Dmitri’s black T-shirt. “Why do I always feel like a child with you?” she muttered.

A rough chuckle before his arm came around her and he tucked her close. “Yet you’re asking me to execute you. A father should never have to execute a child under his care.”

Holly heard so much pain in those words, so much dark history, knew she was asking a horrible thing . . . but she couldn’t ask Venom. The why of her reluctance wasn’t something she was ready to face. “When did I become safe?” she whispered. “When did I cross the line from being a possible threat to a person you’d protect?”

He didn’t deny that she had begun as an unknown danger it was his task to watch and perhaps eliminate. “I don’t know,” he said, his body strong and warm against her. “Probably at some point between wanting to strangle you and feeling pride when you successfully fought your way out of hell.”

“I don’t think we’ll ever be friends,” she said, the words solemn.

Turning to face her, he smiled again at last. “I don’t think so, either.”

Holly’s lips curved. Because that was okay. Dmitri was something else to her.

• • •

Venom felt a conflagration come to life deep inside him as he watched Dmitri and Holly through the floor-to-ceiling window at the back of Dmitri’s office. The conflagration was paradoxically a cold thing—emanating from the part of him that hadn’t existed before a viper’s bite—and a violent, heated flow of magma that altered him on a fundamental level.

Jealousy.

He blinked back to his senses the instant he identified the emotion. Because that was fucked up. Dmitri loved Honor with a passionate devotion that was a thing of chaos and beauty and legend. The leader of the Seven would destroy empires for his wife, if that was what she asked. Honor owned Dmitri heart and soul.

And she was looking out at the two on the balcony with a soft smile on her face. “I hate it when they fight,” she murmured. “Everything seems out of sync.”

Venom looked again at the tableau outside and called himself a fool. The way Dmitri was holding Holly protectively against his side, the way she looked up to him with such a willingness to accept his word, that wasn’t a stance between lovers. There was too much inequality there.

His mind flashed to an image of her riding him, her body arched in a sensual bow.

Holly would never look at him the way she was looking at Dmitri. Not even if he put a gun to her head. Not even if he pumped her full of poison. Not even if he promised her a billion dollars and her own personal empire of fashion.

Holly Chang would never ever, ever consider Venom her superior in any shape or form.

Venom smiled, the conflagration ebbing to a flickering anticipation, as Honor went to join Dmitri and Holly. Which left Venom alone with Illium for the first time since he’d tracked the angel down on the day of Venom’s return to New York. “In a better mood now, lovely Bluebell?”

A scowl from the other man. “None of your business, fledgling.”

Venom hadn’t been called that since about three decades after he’d come into Raphael’s orbit. “I’m not the one who had fluffy baby feathers not once but twice.”

“Once, only once. I’ll have you know there was no fluffiness the first time around.” Illium shoved his hands through his hair on that muttered comment, the blue-tipped black strands falling this way and that when he dropped his hands back to his sides. “I let Aodhan leave without saying good-bye.”

Venom had never had a friendship like Illium had with Aodhan. The two had known each other from the cradle. Illium was a little older, but only by a matter of maybe ten years, which meant nothing in angelic time. Angelic children grew so slowly that both would’ve been babies still.

All of Venom’s childhood friends were long dead.

He’d had a vampire friend who’d been Made around the same time, but they’d gone in different directions when their power diverged . . . because Venom couldn’t bear having a friend who was weaker.