The Venom We Bleed (Scorpion Kings #1)

by Lucy Smoke

don’t know if he’s just crazy about the girl or completely losing it. As far as I’m concerned, Juliet Donovan has done a total one-eighty on her personality. Gone is the preppy, pink-loving, blonde Princess. In her place is a blue-haired, violent-eyed rage queen.

Vi et animo is Latin for “with heart and soul.” My heart and soul stands before me now. Not in a picture. Not in a stolen moment

of her life plastered to my wall, but as a real live woman. Flesh and blood.

Whether we want to admit it or not, Juliet Donovan is affecting us all.

Violence is what built us. Violence is what made us choose this path. And though we’ll

eventually leave Silverwood, violence is in our blood and we crave it. Tonight, Josh and Rich will see some of that violence and if they know what’s good for them, they’ll disappear afterward. If they know what’s good for them, they won’t force us to make them disappear.

Good girls do as their mother tells them, Juliet. Good girls listen to their daddies. Good girls don’t ask questions. Good girls don’t care if their boyfriend cheats on them. Good girls forgive their best friend for fucking their boyfriend. Good girls smile even when they want to scream. Good girls don’t cause problems. Good girls … get shit on by the world. I don’t want to be good. Not anymore.

I get one foot out of the cafeteria doors and into the dull sunlight of autumn when a muscled arm covered in tattoos comes around my waist and plucks me right off my feet. "You were warned, baby." Lex's soft but deep baritone settles right next to my ear.

If history has taught me anything, it’s that I’m a poor judge of character and nothing has changed except my zip code.

I'd finally understood why Lex is and has been six feet under her thrall for so fucking long. Juliet Donovan is pain personified and men like us love a little bit of agony.

“This doesn’t mean shit,” she warns me. Lie. “It means everything.” I grip her waist and let some of my weight rest against her until she can feel the hard ridge of my cock in my jeans.

The moment my mouth finally meets hers, I know we’re both lost. Love? Hate? It doesn’t matter anymore. What we feel can’t be described by the written

word or a simplified emotion. What we feel transcends conscious thought and all tha...

You hate that I see you. You hate that none of the people you trusted ever saw the real you. But I do. We do.

“What is my name?” he repeats the question calmly. “Lex.” He nods. “Good. Remember that when I make you come so hard you forget everything else. I want to hear you screaming my name when you see God so he knows who sent you.”

For a long moment, neither one of us says a word. Then I ask the one question that no one has been able to answer yet. “Why?” Lex shifts forward, pressing his forehead to mine. I swallow roughly, feeling as if my tongue has swollen to an impossible size. “Because,” he whispers back, nuzzling his head back and forth, “you’ve always been mine.”