Page 263 of Craving Venom

It was the part of her that had already given in.

I drag myself out of the memory. Out of the image that feels less like a painting now and more like a prophecy.

Zane’s watching me.

No, not watching.Devouring.

And I can’t stop staring back.

The full moon is bright tonight. Its glow spills across his face like silver fire, illuminating every sharp edge, every brutal line carved into his features. His greyish-silver eyes catch the light, glinting with something unholy.

It makes the black vein beneath his right eye stand out in stark relief. It pulses faintly, twitching with every breath he takes, as if it’s alive and trying to escape his skin.

I can feel the war inside him. The need to break the promise he never should’ve made.

He’s so close to kissing me.

So close to ruining me in a way that has nothing to do with blood or bruises.

And I want it.

I want to kiss him.

His hand leaves my throat. It trails down as his knuckles graze the center of my tits before slipping up and tangling his fingers into my hair.

He pulls.

Not rough enough to hurt. Not soft enough to forget. Just enough to tilt my head back, to force my chin upward until I’m staring at the sky.

At the moon.

The wind lifts strands of my hair around us as if we’re suspended in time.

“Look at it,” he whispers, voice rough. “The moon.”

I do. I let it anchor me. Let it blind me so I don’t have to look at him, even when every nerve screams for his eyes.

“There was a creature born with wings sharp enough to kill the sky,” His fingers slip down and stroke over my clit, “but cursed to never fly unless the moon calls it.”

His breath drags along my neck, and his cock slides deeper inside me.

“They called it theNighthawk. They said it would never love. Never feel. Just circle the dark until it forgot it was even alive.”

He thrusts deeper, grinding his cock against that spot inside me that makes everything go white.

“My father used to say,” he goes on, “that some people are born under curses, not stars. That fate writes warnings into their skin long before the world learns how to read them. He said that I’d hunt in shadows, that I’d bleed people just to feel something move inside me.”

I shiver, but not from fear. Not exactly.

“Do you believe that?” I whisper. “That you’re cursed?”

“I believe I was made for the dark,” he grits. “I’ve never followed light. Never trusted it. Not until you.”

His breath skates across my ear, and when he speaks, it’s not soft.

“You’re the moon to my Nighthawk.”

The moon to his Nighthawk.

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