Page 172 of Beautiful Venom
But also lost in a surreal world.
I can hear the players hooting and whistling. I can hear the crowd’s cheers and whispers, but all I can focus on is Kane.
He’s so dazzling, so godly, so irresistible, I can’t help it.
I don’t care that we come from different worlds. That I’m reaching for something I shouldn’t touch.
Vi used to say an aimless star should never get close to the sun or it’ll crash and burn.
But right now, none of those facts matter.
He’s consuming me.
I’m letting him.
Even if I end up regretting it.
* * *
I finally managed to get Hunter’s DNA.
Mainly because I stole his water bottle while he wasn’t paying attention after the game and switched it with a similar one that I’d emptied to the same level.
And I only got away with it because of the frenzy and chaos after the win.
Since the team is having a party at one of the town’s bars, I tell Kane that I need to finish a last-minute test at the lab, then leave.
Judging by his expression, he didn’t like it, but I managed to slip away when he was surrounded by the others.
I spend a few hours on the extraction, then I save the sample and make a note for no one to touch it so I’ll be able to proceed with the following step.
It’s possible to continue now, but it’s close to midnight, and Kane has called me twice in the past fifteen minutes.
He’ll soon come to pick me up and I can’t have him getting a whiff of what I’m doing.
Tomorrow, I’ll finish the amplification and try to move to?—
A creaking sound echoes in the silence.
I go still.
The white sterile lab feels larger and more oppressive. Who would come in this late?
“Kane?” I ask as I head to the door.
It automatically opens as two men walk in, clad in suits.
The same suits from earlier tonight.
Grant Davenport and Julian Callahan.
My blood freezes and the room seems to grow smaller with their presence.
Up close, Julian is more unsettling. He stands motionless in a tailored gray suit, its sharp lines cutting against his lean frame. There’s a ruthless edge in the set of his jaw, tempered by a polished, almost effortless sophistication. His dark-brown eyes—the same color as Jude’s—hold the same predatory focus, scanning me with a quiet, calculating intensity that feels like a cold blade pressed against my skin.
“Hello, Dahlia,” Grant says in his composed, unfeeling voice. It’s what Kane sounds like when he’s emotionless. When I can’t reach him. But with Grant, it’s more disturbing.
I wipe my hand on my lab coat and hold on to my cool. “What can I do for you? Though I’m not sure what you need in a lab at this hour.”
