Page 10 of Sweet Venom

Found her.

If she’s not inside sparring with father, you could usually find her in what was once her baby sister’s garden, though over time, it’s become a sanctuary for both her and me. Long ago, she tended to in honor and with love for Aunt Mila. But then she met Dad, and she fell in love with the roses. She says they remind her of him…of us.

Needing her presence after not getting a single hour of sleep the night before and along as fuck day today, I pushed open the wrought-iron gate with a creek that sounds like a sigh from the garden itself. I stepped in, I breathed deeply—the air, thick with the scent of rain-soaked earth and roses—Mom’s roses. The dark-red petals, almost black in the dimming light, glistened like drops of blood against the prickly thorns. There’s something hauntingly beautiful about the crimson hue, a paradox that stirred both peace and war within me. It’s fucked up, but it’s always been this way, ever since I was a boy…until the color blue.

Fuck.

Shaking myself free of the tedious thoughts, I focused on the garden instead, moving through it in search of the first woman who ever saw something worthy in me. The first one to see something that wasn’t so fucking ugly.

Mom has taken care of this garden for as long as I can remember and spends most of her days here. For a woman capable of snapping the neck of a man twice her size, she’s surprisingly tender with the flowers who have thorns. Maybe that’s how she got through my iron-clad defenses.

Mom’s heart was too big for her chest, though she doesn’t seem to believe it herself. But I do. The only reason I believe there’s good in this world is because of her. She may be cruel to her enemies, sometimes heartless to the rest of the world, but to us? To Dad, Raiza, and me? She gives everything. And fuck, if that doesn’t make me feel like one lucky bastard. Because even though I don’t share her blood, I carry everything else she gave me… her heart, her love, her legacy. And now, I carry it all with pride.

I looked around the large garden and didn’t see her anywhere but then the wind shifted, and suddenly, there she was. The woman who didn’t give birth to me yet she still gave me life when all I had before was darkness. Mom knelt in the dirt like royalty dressed in all black unbothered by the grime, her sharp and stunning features softened by focus. Her black hair hangs over one shoulder, and her hands—gloved in black lace, tend to a rose bush. She muttered something under herbreath and snipped a branch, like she’s scolding it for being a piece of shit.

Mom would be the only one to get angry at a rose.

I stopped for a moment, just watching her lit by the moonlight and roses not as beautiful as her. My mother is a corner of the world where my edges don’t feel so jagged. She scolded the roses but has never scolded me—her sharpness and her dark side is for everyone else.

Never her people.

I was lucky enough to be a part of her world.

“Azariel.” Her voice cut through the air like the shears in her hand, but her tone was soft for me. She hadn’t turned around yet, she felt me. “I was starting to think you’d run off and join the circus.”

The circus?

I mentally snorted.

The circus held beautiful memories for me, since it’s the place where I felt for the first time that I had a real family. She and my father did that for me. But being surrounded by clowns and children all day? Fuck, no. I must deal with that shit on a daily basis already.

I suppressed a smile as I stepped closer. “Circuses don’t accept heartless men.”

Mom chuckled. “Well, good thing you aren’t heartless.”

Her laugh sounded like the beautiful melodies she played at night with her cello.

I crouched beside her, brushing dirt off my black jeans. “I missed you.” It came off like a whisper. I didn’t say shit like that, only to her, because it felt natural. She glanced over, her whiskey eyes so much like my little sister’s Raiza’s, and her red mouth tugged into a small smile.

“Of course, you did.” she said seriously, then smiled some more. “The roses were demanding to know where their favorite grouch had gone.”

This time I snorted softly. Yeah… her roses are just like her—prickly but beautiful. “Business dragged longer than expected.”

“You work too hard.”

“There’s no such thing.” I mumbled.

She waved a hand, knowing it is futile to argue with me about business. I’ll never rest. Not until I have everything. I’ll never go without again.

“I assume you missed your sister’s latest disaster.”

“Do I want to know?”

“No, but you’ll hear about it anyway. Your father has already labeled it ‘the Fuck-up of the Century.’”

I couldn’t help the small smirk that twitched at my lips. Raiza, pain in the ass that she is, could do no wrong in my eyes. I’d never tell her that—her head’s big enough. Father made sure of that.

Mom hummed as she adjusted a rose. “Speaking of news…” She paused, carefully casual, though I knew better than to trust it. “Have you heard about Poe?”

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