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Often in the days afterward, she’d wished that she, too, had died in that charnel house It was so ain laugh her breathless and giggly laugh, that Cara and Maxie would never again dither over a shade of lipstick, and Rania and Ping never again gossip about the men in their lives

There had been two other victims in that Brooklyn warehouse, women already dead and drained of blood by the time Uram took Holly and her friends to his house of horrors It was much later that Holly had discovered their names: Kimiya and Nataja

She’d been in no state to go to any of their funeralsand she couldn’t bear to visit their graves It hurt so ers she’d never known—and never would know—lying cold in the earth

“What I don’t understand is why anyone would want to kidnap a kitty with tiny baby vampire teeth”

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Venorief and loss and horror and rage “Come closer and I’ll show you exactly how helpless those baby teeth are” Her fangs dispensed an acidic green substance the Tower scientists had tested and declared a deadly poison

“Sorry, kitty Biting h I have been told my blood is the best women have ever tasted”

Hollywheel, incredibly glad right then for his aggravating and distracting presence—though she’d cut off her own head before she adet into the Tower”

“You play mean, Hollyberry Like poison”

Coly insult From Venom“Did you just co open “Take it back!” She couldn’t deal with Veno nice to her in any way, shape, or form

“Of course,” he said, “your poison is nowhere near as venomous as mine”

She went to snap back a retort about er, when the import of his words penetrated “Did the Tower compare the two?”

“We’re the only two venomous ths”

“How h his potency wasn’t a surprise Venoht look like he was maybe twenty-seven, but he’d lived a lot ine

And he’d look that way forever, a sexual creature no one would ever dare call a “boy” Holly, in contrast, was stuck with the face of a twenty-three-year-old who’d still had a youthful softness to her when Uram altered the shape of her existence The softness would’ve disappeared in another year; she knew because she’d watched Mia’s transformation

But Holly never got that extra year to grow into her skin and her womanhood

Vampirism—or whatever it was that ran in her blood—would probably refine her features to sobut young Not even if she lived to be five hundred years old Of course, a long, near-immortal life was the best-case scenario

“I’ve grown strong enough to take down a large nuels in the city,” Venom said lazily “It’s a secret the Toill execute you for speaking, so never share it—but I can shock the youngest ones into an intense involuntary sleep that the healers believe could lead to death, incapacitate the older with severe pain”

Holly scowled and said, “Bull,” wincing inwardly at using language for which her mother would threaten to wash out herdidn’t care what Holly was; she did care that her daughter comport herself like the lady she’d been raised to be Holly tried, she really did But only when her mother was in the vicinity to bear witness

Never again would Holly willingly cause pain to thebut her child Her dad was less demonstrative, but he was the one who kept aside certain pieces of clothing for her in his dress shop, pieces that were always colorful and quirky and Holly