Page 225 of Beautiful Venom
I refuse to think about that and take a cab to the Davenport house. The driver can’t go past Ravenswood Hill’s security gates, but I can since I was whitelisted by Helena. I hope I still am.
So I hop out of the car and run the rest of the way.
My legs burn, and my heart is in my throat, but I keep calling Kane and getting an out-of-service reply.
With each failed call, my brain fogs up and I resist the urge to cry.
I’m panting when I reach the big gate. My dress sticks to my back and my new pair of white sneakers—one of the dozen pairs that Kane gifted me for Christmas—starts to give me blisters.
I bang on the hard metal, my hands stinging. “Is anyone there? Open the door!”
A golf cart appears in the distance, and the gate slowly creaks open.
Samuel.
He stops the cart in front of me. “If you’d called ahead, we would’ve arranged for a smoother pickup. Please get in, Miss Thorne.”
As soon as I’m sitting beside him, I blurt out, “Where’s Kane?”
“Unavailable.”
“Unavailable how?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
Samuel doesn’t say another word, no matter how many times I ask him about Kane.
He merely drives me to a different entrance to the garden and stops. “You can wait here.”
“Where’s Helena?” I ask as I step out.
“Outside,” he says, then drives away without a single word.
I trudge along the cobbled path, my chest feeling so heavy, I can barely stand.
Grabbing the bowl full of fish food, I crouch by the pond and toss some in.
Sora doesn’t come over or fight the others, mostly swimming by himself at the edge.
“Hey, are you also mad at me?” My eyes burn and I throw a few nibbles his way. “I’m sorry I called you fat and an asshole. I take it back, okay? Come over.”
The other koi fish eat the food, but he barely opens his mouth.
“Sora…please…”
A breeze blows my hair back and sends leaves from the camellia trees into the pond. I bend over to remove the nuisance, unsure if they could harm the fish.
I slip and the bowl falls over.
The fish and Sora go crazy over all the food, and I close my eyes, resigning myself to the fact that I’m going to fall into the water.
A large hand wraps around my waist and lifts me up at the last second.
My yelp ends in a gasp when I’m spun around, and my front is flattened against a hard, muscular chest.
“I must say, I don’t like the sound of you begging someone else.”
His deep, slightly rough voice invades my ears and sets my skin ablaze, and the earth shifts beneath my feet.
