Page 18 of Venom Within Her

I pressed my finger to her lips, “Shh. I need you to stand up slowly and go hide behind those boulders. No questions, just do it. Do you understand?”

She nodded, the subtle rise and drop of her chest had stopped, but I could feel her heart thumping against my ribs. I guided her through a calming breath before helping her to her feet.

Once she was up and moving towards the boulder, the rustling started again. I turned around to find the barista from Roasterz, fire in her eyes and a hunting rifle pointed right at me.

Could she be one of the fucking hunters? I couldn’t help but smirk. She had no idea what she was getting herself into.

“Why don’t you put that down before somebody gets hurt?” I held my hands up in mock surrender. The only person who would get hurt today was her.

“I thought I told you to stay away from her.”

“She’s a big girl, barista, she can make decisions for herself. Including who she does and doesn’t want to spend time around. Jealousy is no reason to go around waving guns at people.”

She released the safety with a gentle click, readjusting her grip so the barrel was level with my chest. Apparently, she was in no mood to talk.

“Ilona, stay there, okay. Don’t come out.” With a roll of my shoulders, I shifted into my true form. Not fully scorpion, not fully human, but fully me.

My long, onyx tail stretched from the small of my back, curling out about seven feet. I could feel the venom pulsing within the bulbous stinger. My eyes went a full, glassy black as two full-sized claws sprouted from under my arms. I flicked my tongue out, the bright pink fading to pitch black as the length grew, still forked at the end. My limbs stretched, pushing me up to a foot taller than my human height.

“Ilona!” Her pathetic voice strained as her fingers trembled over the trigger, “I told you she was a fucking freak, come see for yourself!”

Her bulging eyes flickered over to the boulder where Ilona hid for just a moment, and I took the opportunity to lung forward. Right as I grabbed the barrel of the rifle, a bang rang through the trees.

A sharp sting radiated through my ribs, but I didn’t stop. This bitch was crazy and I needed to protect Ilona. I pulled the rifle effortlessly from her scrawny hands, and she did the stupidest thing she could possibly do: she charged at me.

I swung my tail forward, hitting her in the stomach and lifting her up off her feet and throwing her across the creek. Her body slammed against a large tree trunk with a sickening crack. When she thudded to the ground, she went limp.

I dropped the rifle, turning to find Ilona, praying she hadn’t seen anything.

“Stellan! No!” Ilona’s shriek rumbled through the trees.

I twisted around to find the barista pointing a small handgun right at me and Ilona emerging from behind the tree with a large rock. Before I could stop her, the gun went off at the same time Ilona cracked the rock against Stellan’s skull.

The last thing I remembered was blood splattering all over Ilona’s gorgeous, rage-filled face and my arm reaching out for her, black fading the edges of my vision. And then nothing.

13

Ilona

The fear of losing Larz overshadowed the shock of seeing what she really was.

With her half-conscious, I all but carried her back through the forest, into my home, and onto the kitchen table. She groaned in pain as her long, strange, muscled body stretched across the sturdy wood.

I used kitchen scissors to cut through the blood-soaked fabric of her shirt. The gunshot wound on her ribs was just a graze and had stopped bleeding for the most part. But the wound on her shoulder was large, with blood flowing down her arms and onto the floor.

Grabbing an armful of clean kitchen towels, I pressed down on her shoulder, trying desperately to stop the bleeding. Calling an ambulance had crossed my mind, but there was no telling what they would do with her if they saw what she was.

Her blood was dark and thick, soaking each towel almost immediately. I balled one up and stuffed it gently into the raw hole. Larz shot up with a pained groan, pulling my hand and the towel away as she panted through clenched teeth.

“I’m sorry, you were just bleeding so much, I was trying to help.”

She held her hand up, her face twisting in pain. “It's okay. Just…just give me a minute.”

Within seconds, the bleeding slowed. I examined her wound closely, the skin was stitching itself together. The hole shrank slowly until it was fully sealed. My mouth dropped open as I examined the same phenomenon on her ribs.

We sat in silence for a moment as Larz caught her breath. The reality of what just happened started to set in, but I held it in. The last thing I needed to do was freak out while she was in pain.

Although I was one hundred percent sure the creature of the forest I’d read about in Cutwood’s history book was sitting right in front of me, I still wasn’t afraid. I was shocked. Curious. Still coming down from the absolute terror of her limp body barely moving in my arms. But fear was the farthest feeling from me. This creature was still Larz and Larz had been nothing but gentle with me. Well, mostly gentle.