Kiss of Venom Read Free Page B

some air,” I growled.
    Phillip gave me an amused look. “Sure you do.”
    I grimaced, slid out of the booth, and walked away.

3
    It was after ten now, and Northern Aggression was kicking into high gear. The dance floor was so packed that I couldn’t get to the other side without using blunt force. With the mood I was in, I wouldn’t have minded shoving a few dancers out of my way. Actually, I wouldn’t have minded being in the middle of a good, old-fashioned, knock-down, drag-out bar brawl, but there was no reason to take out my anger and frustration on folks who were just here to have a good time. So instead of going outside, I ended up retreating to the only other somewhat quiet haven in the club: the men’s room.
    Like everything else at Northern Aggression, the men’s room was done in lavish style. The floor in the outer room was made of the same springy bamboo as the rest of the club, and several small red-velvet couches crouched in the wide space. Roslyn’s heart-and-arrow rune was embroidered in gold thread on each of the throw pillows propped up on the thick cushions.
    I thought the little couches were an odd touch, since I’d never seen a man actually sit on any of them. But, apparently, they were great spots to sleep off hangovers. A dwarf was snoring up a storm on the couch in the corner right now. Since he was a few inches shy of five feet, he actually fit on the piece of furniture, although one of his legs was dangling off the side. It wouldn’t be too long before gravity took over and he slid off the slick velvet and ended up facedown on the floor, snoring into the wood.
    I pushed through the inner door and into the actual bathroom. Two vampires were whispering to each other in front of the paper-towel dispenser. They stopped and gave me suspicious looks as I entered. I’d probably interrupted some sort of hush-hush deal for drugs, blood, sex, or all three. Since it looked like they wanted their privacy, I moved past them and entered the farthest stall. A few seconds later, the whispers resumed, and the door creaked open and then shut as the vamps left. Apparently, they’d concluded their business and gone on their way. Bully for them. Somebody here should have a good time tonight.
    I stood in the stall and stared at the door in front of me. Maybe it was the way the light glinted off the metal, but suddenly, I was thinking back to another place, another time. The lawn of an elegant estate and the layer of glittering elemental Ice that covered everything, including the broken, frozen fountains planted in the grass . . .
    Salina lying on the Ice, stretching out her hand, begging me to help her, to save her. A crazy light flashing in her eyes, one that I’d somehow never seen before. My sharp, sick, horrified realization that the crazy light had been there all along and that everyone else had seen it but me.
    Gin staring solemnly at me, knowing what had to be done now and that I couldn’t do it. Phillip and Gin’s foster brother, Finn, clamping their hands on my arms, holding me back while I made a halfhearted effort to break loose, and all of us knowing that I didn’t really want to be free.
    Gin leaning down and cutting Salina’s throat. And then the sick, sick relief that I wasn’t the one to actually kill her. But everything inside me still turning, twisting, and tearing apart at what had happened, at all that my friends, my family, had suffered because of Salina—because of my blind faith in her.
    Turning away from Gin so she wouldn’t see my horror, my guilt, my complete and utter shame, at everything that had happened . . .
    I shook my head, and the door was simply a door, not some weird window into the not-too-distant past. But once again, anger surged through me, the way it had so many times over the past several weeks. Why did every single thing have to remind me of that night? Of how I’d failed the people I loved? Eva had suffered so much because of Salina. So had Phillip,