Page 32 of A Drop of Venom

Terolon hissed.

It was a sound I’d never heard him make before: a low, threatening promise of death that raised goosebumps over my entire body.

With just a few undulations of his long body, my mate filled the cottage’s main room and formed a barricade between Vedast and me. He thrashed his coils, smashing the table and everything near it, then used his tail to sweep it all into a corner, burying the pistol in a pile of broken furniture, smashed brandy bottles, and shattered drinking glasses.

“Please,” Vedast said, on his back with bloody hands raised as Terolon loomed over him. “I have coins and gold. Two chests under my bed upstairs. Take them and leave me be.”

When I chuckled, his gaze snapped from Terolon to me and back. “What is it you want, then?” he rasped.

He was very pale, his lips thin and bloodless. The rug beneath him was soaked with blood. Not even the best healer in the province could save him now. He must know that too, but men like Vedast always thought their wealth and power protected them, even from Death.

“Name your price,” he wheedled. “I’m a cousin of the king. I can give you anything you want.”

“Distant cousin,” Terolon grated out. He flicked his tongue, making Vedast flinch. “And fallen far out of favor, which is why you are here on the far side of the kingdom.”

I circled Terolon’s coiled body to stand next to him and ran my hand along his side reassuringly.

And of course Vedast noticed it. His face twisted in revulsion. “Snake’s whore.”

A tremor of barely contained violence ran the length of Terolon’s body.

“I prefer ‘serpentae’s mate.’” I smiled as I caressed my shelshan’s smooth belly scales. “Haven’t you recognized me yet, Lord Vedast? We’ve met before, you know.”

“I’ve met many whores.” Rage burned in his eyes, but his voice had grown thin and weak. “I can’t be expected to remember every mouse I’ve stepped upon.”

I flipped my hood back. “Do you remember the ones who refused to be crushed underfoot?”

Mouth agape, he stared at me in a combination of dawning realization and shock. I moved closer so he could better see the coral and lavender scales edged with crimson along my hairline.

“You’re dead,” he whispered, his head falling back weakly. “I saw you die.”

“No, you saw me fall.” I stood just out of reach and smiled down at his slack jaw and dulling eyes. “Not at all the same thing.”

“Witch,” he ground out.

“Witch,” I agreed. “Goddess-blessed daughter of the earth, especially the forest.”

His fingers twitched and he moaned, his eyes glazing. Time was growing short.

With Terolon at my side, I knelt and withdrew something heavy from my cloak pocket. I’d bundled it up in a piece of muslin to keep it from making any sound.

When I unwrapped the cloth, the dying man’s gaze sharpened just long enough to register what I held. He made a rough, disbelieving sound.

I held up the dirty, rusted witch manacles Terolon had dug up for me before we’d left on our journey south. “Open your mouth.”

Vedast pressed his lips together and shook his head.

“Open,” Terolon hissed, holding up a clawed hand. “Or I will break your jaw.”

Eyes narrowed with hatred, Vedast obeyed.

I pushed the wrist manacles as far into his mouth as they would go, feeling and hearing the rough metal scrape against his teeth, until his jaw and cheeks stretched wide.

“I am your reckoning,” I told him. “I am every woman you have abused, every man you have tortured and murdered, every child you have mistreated and left orphaned. I am justice, I am vengeance, and I am the witch you deserved to meet twice. And you are nothing.”

Vedast tried to speak, probably to curse at me, but the words came out garbled.

His heavy-lidded gaze slid to my weapon. Was he hoping I’d end his suffering?