Hisses and Honey (The Venom Trilogy Book 3)

by Shannon Mayer

  I shook, shifted, and stumbled away from her, shaking my head. “I can’t.”

  The crowd around us sucked in a collective breath, and I slowly turned. Hera had her sword pointed at my neck, but she didn’t thrust it, didn’t swing it. “Why can’t you? You are a monster, you’re designed, created even, to kill and maim.”

  “I . . . my husband cheated on me when I lay dying in my hospital bed. He used me for my money, he used me because I was a fool in love with him, my eyes closed to his faults.”

  Her eyes narrowed, and I swallowed hard. “I know you don’t want to think this is about a divorce, that this isn’t about you and Zeus . . . but I would hate him too. And you know what? If you’d come to me first, I have no doubt I’d be on your side of the field. Because I understand what it means to be hurt by the one you love the best, the one who held your heart and crushed it in his unfeeling hands.”

  She didn’t move. It was as if my words had frozen her. Her lips parted. “And what does it mean to me that we suddenly understand one another? You want to be friends?” She laughed and stepped back. “You are a fool. The pantheon doesn’t work that way.”

  I kept my eyes on her. “Maybe I just want to help make things right. Maybe I want to see if you truly have the best interest of the world in you. You want to rule? Well, maybe you need to show some compassion. End the virus.”

  I glanced at Ernie and nodded. From behind me shuffled those still able to walk but sick with the Aegrus virus. “You can save them, Hera,” I said. “You can be their hero.”

  The crowd oohed, but Hera didn’t move, her eyes half-closed, her body still.

  Those who were sick stumbled toward us, crying out for her to save them. That they would love her forever. Her eyes opened wide, a flash of pity in them. Hera slowly raised her sword, pointing it at Hades. “I will end the virus.”

  The sick humans cried out. She glared at Hades. “Do it, Hades.”

  “Are you sure? I think she’s just trying to make you do what—”

  “Hades!” we both yelled at the same time. He grimaced, nodded.

  “Fine.”

  The humans stopped moving, and a flash of green light flickered above their heads, flowing down like pixie dust, coating them. Within seconds, they were cheering. Healed. I closed my eyes, praying that Remo was just as healed.

  I shivered where I stood, and Hera stared at me. “Now what?”

  I shrugged. “Divorce Zeus, but take half of everything. Including control of Olympus.” I gave her a small smile. “Make him pay for what he’s done, but hurt him, not the rest of us.”

  She snorted, shook her head, and then looked over the parking lot. “And the pantheon? Would they split down the middle?”

  “Not my issue,” I said. “I just want the virus stopped, and I don’t want to be stalked by your heroes anymore. Go kick Zeus’s ass. I’m tired.”

  I sat down on the asphalt, then lay back so I could stare at the sky, the dark color fading into nothing as I waited for whatever the fallout would be. Not caring about anything . . . but then I jerked upright.

  “Remo.”

  CHAPTER 20

  The time it took to get back to the hospital on Whidbey Island seemed to be counted in years instead of hours.

  I wore clothes Panacea had given me, a long white dress that was pinned at the shoulders with two large discs engraved with snake heads. Smithy went with me, and Poseidon gave us a ride in his coast guard boat, though he grumbled the whole way. I gripped the edge of the boat as it zipped across the water, bouncing on the waves. Ernie sat on my shoulders, clinging to my hair.

  “We’ll get there in time, we have to,” he said.

  “You’re sure Hades turned him back into a vampire?” I asked Smithy again. Maybe for the tenth time. Because I couldn’t believe it.

  Smithy nodded, his face somewhat green in the growing light of the oncoming morning. “Yes. When he reversed the virus, everyone went back to the way they were before.” He leaned over the edge and vomited into the spray of water. I turned away from him. The sun was at my back, warming my bare skin even as we hurried.

  The sun was up. How was I going to save Remo if he was burned to a crisp? Fear clutched at me, driving me the rest of the way when I would have otherwise fallen to my knees, passed out from sheer fatigue.

  The boat pulled up to the docks, and I was climbing the ladder before Poseidon had properly moored. At least that’s what he yelled at me while I scrambled off the boat. Barefoot, I ran toward the hospital, shocked when I saw the bodies still there.

  “Ernie,” I whispered.

  “No, don’t think like that. Hurry.” Ernie pushed me, and I stumbled forward. I broke down the front doors and ran for the stairs. The stale air of the closed-off hospital, the faint scent of antiseptic, cleaners, death, unwashed bodies. I closed it all off as I bolted up to the tenth floor. To my room. I slid to a stop in front of the door, suddenly unable to push it open. As if I were that girl again, sick and dying, unable to save herself.

  Only now it was my heart that was sick and dying. Whatever lay on the other side of the door would either save me or be the shattering of my heart. With a half-hitched sob in my chest, I put a hand to the door.

  “You can do this,” Ernie said. “You’re not that girl anymore.”

  I pushed the door open and walked in, making myself look around. There was no one in the room.

  “No one came to be with him?” I did a slow turn. “Of course not. I sent Hermes.” I put a hand to my head and flicked my tongue out, scenting the air. There was a hint of cinnamon and honey . . . and other vampires. The more I breathed, the more distinct smells I picked up on. Ten, maybe even twelve.

  “The vampire council is how many?”

  “Baker’s dozen,” Ernie said.

  I nodded, feeling it in my bones. “Ernie, they have him.”

  His eyes were filled with worry as I crawled into the bed and lay down where Remo had been. I breathed in his scent and closed my eyes. I couldn’t save him if I was weak. I couldn’t do it without sleep. “Watch over me,” I whispered.

  Ernie answered in the affirmative, but it wasn’t him I called to. With my eyes closed, I saw my mother, I saw her smile and nod. “I will watch over you, my girl. Sleep.” And I let myself slip into the abyss that spoke my name.

  I woke up to a hand on my shoulder shaking me.

  “Alena, are you alright?” Tad’s voice cracked. “Tell me you’re alright.” And then he pulled me up while my eyes were still closed so that I was enfolded in his arms. I hugged him back and pressed my face against his chest. “I’m . . . no, I’m not okay, but I’m going to be.”

  I pulled back a little from him. “Dahlia and Sandy, are they okay?”

  He nodded. “They’re at Mom and Dad’s place.” The pain in his eyes, the look in his face. I knew without him saying it.

  “The vampire council is there.” I spoke the words as a statement, not as a question.

  He nodded again, and his voice cracked. “They’re hurting Dahlia and Remo. And Dad . . . he can’t stop them, he’s not strong enough after turning people who had the virus.”

  I stood and took a breath, then another, feeling my body shake off the last of the sleep. “No rest for the wicked.”

  “What are you going to do?” he asked, his eyes full of uncertainty and fear. “Alena?”

  I smiled, and while it was tiring, and a bit hard to make my lips turn up, I meant every word.

  “I’m going to save them.”

  We stood a few houses down from the front of my parents’ house, the midnight hour still a long ways off despite the darkness. A cold, wet gale had blown in off the water with us, and I was soaked through. I looked around, seeing the eyes of vampires here and there, watching us. “Anyone want to come with me while I will still let them?”

  A few crept forward, and I was surprised when it wasn’t Remo’s vampires, but Santos’s. Lee was at the lead. “We’ve been waiting for you to show up. We ar
en’t strong enough to take them on our own, boss. But we’ve been watching, looking for an opportunity.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Why?”

  He shrugged, his words matter-of-fact. “You said if Remo wouldn’t take us, you would. He denied us, so we are yours. And we have something for you.”

  From his back he pulled a flask. I backed up so fast I was twenty feet away between one breath and the next.

  Tad got in front of me and snarled. “You bastard.”

  Lee held up his hands, his eyes wide. “No, no. We did a switch. We took the fennel oil from them. What they have in there is diluted honey. It was the closest we could get to the right consistency of the oil.”

  I slowly regained my composure. “Why not just use olive oil?”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t have any on hand.”

  Tad beckoned him forward. “Let me see it.” He took the flask from Lee and spun the cap open. I could smell it even as far away as I was.

  “Ernie, take it to Smithy. Tell him to get rid of it.”

  Ernie saluted and scooped up the flask and was gone in a flash of wings and feathers.

  There were maybe fifteen vampires who stood waiting for some sort of instruction from me.

  “I want you to stay here. You’ll hear me if I need help.” Confidence flooded me. Not the cocky, I’m-going-to-win-and-everyone-hear-me-roar type. More the I’ve-been-through-enough-crap-to-last-a-lifetime-and-I’m-going-to-make-sure-said-crap-happens-no-more kind.

  Not one argument slipped out of their mouths, or Tad’s. I walked up to the front of my parents’ house alone and let myself in.

  Dahlia and Remo were laid out on the table, side by side, blood all around them. Their eyes were closed and their chests still. That didn’t mean they weren’t going to be alright again eventually, though; they were vampires after all.

  A hand shot out from my left to grab my neck. I reacted faster than even I knew I could move. I grabbed the hand, twisting it around until the arm snapped, and I kept on pulling until it came off. I held the vampire’s arm in one hand and his neck in the other. I didn’t look at him, couldn’t.

  Vampires shot from every direction, and I broke bones, snapped backs, and removed limbs as though I’d been doing it my whole life. All I could see was Remo and Dahlia, hurt, dying, at the hands of these monsters.

  In a matter of minutes, they were all incapacitated, groaning, injured badly enough that they wouldn’t get back up.

  I called out into the house. “You really do not want to upset me today.”

  “I see, then how about we do things the hard way?” slid a voice from down the hall as a vampire dragged my father’s limp form in his hands.

  “Alena, go,” my father whispered. That was the last straw, the final grain of sugar that tipped the scales.

  I tossed the vampire in my hands behind me, feeling the Drakaina’s power pulse through me, stronger than ever before. No, that wasn’t true. The power had always been there. I was just finally ready to fully embrace it as my own.

  The command in my voice was thick and heavy as mud-pie pudding. “Let him go.”

  My dad was dropped like a hot potato, and the vampire in front of him trembled. I lifted an eyebrow as he took a step. “Freeze.”

  His limbs seemed to turn to stone, and he shook even harder. “Impossible.”

  I strode toward him. “Rules are going to change, or I will do to you what I did to the rest of them, only I won’t be so kind with you.” I tipped my head toward the vampires I’d dropped.

  Whatever hold I had on him slipped. He snarled and flung an open flask at me. I didn’t stop moving, trusting that Lee had been telling the truth and he had truly swapped all the oil for honey. The sticky sweet scent of the thinned-out honey spread over my face and slid down my neck. I licked my lips. “Nice, but it isn’t going to save you.”

  He moved as if to run, and I was on him with a single leap. We crashed to the floor, and I pinned his arms down. “Oh no, you aren’t going anywhere. You hurt the ones I love the best.”

  “They aren’t dead,” he said.

  “You hurt them,” I repeated, tightening my grip on his wrists. “New rules, you understand?”

  He stared at me, his eyes filled with a mixture of hatred and fear. “What do you want?”

  “You will allow vampires to cross-species date, marry, or cohabitate as they please.”

  He grimaced. “It won’t work.”

  “It will work for those who want it bad enough.” My voice was silken smooth, deadly even to my ears, and I drew his face close. “You will not interfere in Remo’s life ever again, and you will not return to his territory. Ever.”

  “We are the council, it is our job—”

  “Ever.” The word rumbled with a hiss that started deep in my chest.

  He was silent. My fangs dropped, and I leaned in close to his neck. “Do you agree?”

  “Fuck you.”

  I felt the movement behind me. I rolled to the side, bringing his body with me. A long wooden stake was jammed between his ribs, right through his heart. I stared past him at a vampire I did know. Max, Remo’s second-in-command. He nodded at me.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled.

  “About time you showed up,” Max said. “They won’t negotiate. There is only one way to deal with them.” He pulled the wooden stake out of the vampire and drove it into another’s chest.

  I pushed the now truly dead vampire off me and stood as the house flooded with Remo’s gang. They scooped up the council members one by one and carried them out of the house. I’d killed two, and the rest were easily taken because of the injuries I’d inflicted. I heard the screams, I saw the wooden stakes. I ignored it as best I could, knowing I was going to have nightmares about this night. I went to Remo and Dahlia. I lowered a fang and sliced it through my wrist. I held it over Dahlia’s mouth first, as she seemed further gone. Her face twisted after the first few drops, and then she groaned and sat up.

  I moved my wrist over Remo’s mouth and waited. I touched his short hair, running my hand over his head. “Remo, please don’t leave me again.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to where Tad was checking on Dad. “How is he?”

  “Banged up, bitten, but otherwise okay.”

  A hand reached up and touched my face. I stared down into Remo’s now-open eyes and smiled. “Hey, Sleeping Beauty.” I said, and promptly burst into tears.

  EPILOGUE

  Three weeks later we had a party at my house in Seattle.

  To say it was strange would be an understatement. The theme was a mixture of anniversary, funeral, and triumph. I made the red velvet cake my mom had wanted. Dad cried when he talked about her, about how much she really had wanted both Tad and me to be happy. Tad kept his arm locked around Dahlia’s waist, his eyes saying it all. He was happy.

  Yaya was there, but she insisted we call her Flora from now on, seeing as she no longer looked like a yaya. Max had locked on to her and was currently following her around the room, asking about being a priestess of Zeus. I flicked my eyes up to Ernie, who was sitting on the top of the bookshelf in the living room.

  “You keeping your arrows to yourself?” I asked.

  He grinned. “Don’t need to use them; all of you are doing just fine. Finally.”

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help the smile. Hercules had even come to the party, though he stood off to one side. He had healed up fast from the wound Hera had inflicted on him—Ernie said it was because he was half-immortal.

  Smithy had declined the invite. Aphrodite needed him, as she was slowly healing from the venom burns.

  The pantheon was in upheaval, but Zeus and Hera were working together, and they had already reached out to the human government on behalf of the North American Supernatural Community. Or NASC. Ernie had snickered at the acronym.

  “Next thing you know, we’ll be wearing T-shirts with that on the chest.”

  I had a feeling he might be closer to the truth than h
e wanted to know. I was impressed at how fast Zeus and Hera had pulled things together. The north side of the Wall had been cleaned up in a matter of twenty-four hours, the pantheon put to work dealing with all the issues laid out, from sanitation to medical treatment to the SDMP. It was an impressive feat, even I could give them that. Though it only proved everyone had been right. Zeus was primed and ready to be a leader again; he’d just needed a gigantic shove in the right direction.

  Sandy approached me from the kitchen, her arms loaded with platters of baked goods and fruit. “I think this is a bit much.” She wobbled, and I helped her set them down on the dining table.

  “You’ve seen Tad eat, yes?”

  “Right.” She laughed and shook her head. Her eyes flashed when Jensen walked in, tucking his hat under one arm. I pushed her in his direction.

  “Can you show him around?”

  “Sure.”

  Ernie snickered and pointed two fingers at his eyes and then to me. I did the same back at him.

  There was a knock on the door, and my cousin Samantha put her head in. “Hey.”

  I smiled at her. “Come on in.”

  She cleared her throat. “I brought a date, is that alright?”

  I nodded. “Of course.” I should have asked her who it was first.

  She opened the door farther, and Roger walked in behind her. My eyes narrowed, and I strode forward as a hiss whispered past my lips. “You have some nerve. You think I’m going to let you hurt my cousin too? Break her heart?”

  Roger held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I am.”

  I glanced at Samantha. Her eyes were wide and a bit glossy with unshed tears. “You do care about me.”

  I snorted. “Of course I do. You are family, even if you are a goblin. But if you are serious about Roger, you’d better keep a short leash on him.”

  She grinned. “I’m good at short leashes. Consider him a pet project.”

  They laughed, and I shook my head. Not my love life. I locked eyes with Roger as they headed into the house. He’d tried to kill me, left me to die, and cheated on me. He deserved a goblin for a girlfriend. She’d bite his manhood off and eat it for lunch if he so much as looked at another woman. And by the way he all but clung to her, they’d already had that conversation.