10. Camille #2
He lingers a second, then reluctantly follows. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“If you say so,” I call over my shoulder.
The lab wing occupies the rear of the estate—a renovation that cost me much more than I like to think about. The air shifts before we even reach it, getting warmer and more humid, despite the cooler climate elsewhere.
“Why is it so warm back here?” Ryan questions.
“Several species require higher heat and humidity.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense. They’re cold-blooded and all, right?”
“Yes, although ectothermic is the more accurate term.”
We reach the door.
I enter first, then hold it for him.
Ryan follows—and immediately catches his foot on the raised threshold, lurching forward into the room.
I close a hand around his upper arm before he can go any further.
“Careful.”
“Oh my fucking God,” he whispers, his voice barely audible.
I follow his gaze across the room.
Rows of enclosures line two walls, some tall and heavily planted for arboreal species, others broader and lower, each separated and secured.
Environmental controls give the room a constant underlying hum of noise, and the low lighting inside several habitats creates pockets of amber and green among the stainless-steel work surfaces.
Ryan’s fingers clamp tightly around my forearm as his eyes travel from one enclosure to the next.
His shoulder presses against my arm while he peers toward the nearest enclosure without seeming to realize he has reduced the space between us to nothing.
“Are they all venomous?” he asks quietly.
“Most.”
“Most?”
“Some are here for comparative behavioral work.”
“So some are just regular murder snakes instead of venomous murder snakes.”
“I am increasingly concerned about your scientific vocabulary.”
He ignores me, his gaze catching on Estelle; rightfully so, as she is impossible not to notice.
Under the enclosure light, her scales appear almost unnaturally blue, turquoise deepening to cobalt along the shadowed curves of her body.
Ryan takes one cautious step forward. “Whoa.”
That response is softer.
I watch his face rather than the snake. “Estelle.”
He glances back at me. “That’s her name?”
“Yes.”
“She’s… beautiful.”
“She is.”
Ryan moves closer to the glass. “How is she real? I didn’t know there were blue snakes.”
I step behind him. “Trimeresurus insularis. The white-lipped island pit viper, endemic to the Lesser Sunda Islands of Indonesia. Most of her kind are green, some yellow. The blue morph occurs almost exclusively on Komodo.”
Ryan jerks backward as Estelle’s tongue flicks out in interest. I catch him by the waist, pulling a soft gasp from his mouth as my fingers tease at the strip of bare skin he’s showing off.
He looks up at me, his breath caught somewhere in his throat. “Are you… feeding her?”
“No. I need to do a venom extraction. That’s what I was doing when you arrived.”
He stares at the snake, then at me, then at the array of implements on the steel table nearby.
His voice is feather-light as he says, “That sounds fucked up.”
“It is necessary for the research and doesn’t harm the snake.”
He sucks his lower lip between his teeth, uncertain, and then asks, “How do you do it?”
“You’ll see as you watch.”
He shivers. “Is it safe?”
“More or less.” I tilt my head. “For you, it will be.”
He hesitates. “I don’t know. I’m scared of them.”
“I know.” He looks at the floor, then at the snake again. “Will she bite?”
“She’ll bite the membrane of the collection cup.”
He lets out a nervous laugh and mumbles, “Could you not say it like that?”
“Say it like what?”
“Like… I don’t know, ignore me.”
I consider him, the flush rising on his cheeks, the way his eyes linger on my hands. I sit him on a stool at one end of the table, near enough to see the entire process but far enough that his knees won’t buckle and send him sprawling into a pit viper.
I wash my hands, glove up, and ensure everything is still as ready as I had it. It is.
Ryan’s breathing picks up as I unlock the enclosure.
The hiss of the negative-pressure seal breaking is, I imagine, worse than the snake itself.
I remove Estelle with a gentle hook and let her coil along my forearm, supporting her with practiced steadiness.
She is restless, but not defensive—her tongue flicks at the air, searching for meaning. Ryan’s eyes are wide as moons.
“Her venom is primarily hemotoxic,” I say, not looking away from Estelle, but aware that Ryan clings to every word. “It destroys tissue and blood cells, causes massive internal bleeding, and intense pain.”
He gulps. “Jesus.”
“There are some neurotoxic elements, also.”
He is very still.
I tease Estelle’s head gently into the cone of the extraction cup.
Her fangs slide forward, a glisten of pale needle against the glass.
I press her jaws, and the venom beads—then streams—through the membrane, a few golden drops at first, then a syrupy thread.
The entire process takes less than a minute.
Ryan’s lips part. He looks faintly ill, but he cannot look away.
I release Estelle back into her enclosure, lock it, and remove my gloves. The venom sits in the cup, viscous and beautiful.
Ryan swallows hard. “What do you… do with it?”
I cap the sample. “Study it. Test new antivenoms. Explore applications.”
His eyes trace the line of my neck, the bare skin at my collar. “You’re good at handling dangerous things.”
I turn, and our eyes meet through the haze of warmth and adrenaline. The tension between us is a living thing now—Ryan’s fear and fascination have braided together into something nearly electric. I set the cup down and step into his space.
I watch Ryan’s throat work as he forces down his fear, and I am struck by how beautifully the sensation of terror fits him, how it sharpens his features and makes him more alive than ever.
He is breathing quickly, almost on the verge of panting, and his hands clench the edge of the stainless worktable—knuckles white, tendons standing out along the back of his hands.
I remember how those hands felt only two nights before, digging into my shoulders, raking down my ribs, desperate to keep from being unmoored.
I crowd into his space, placing one palm flat against the table, pinning his right hand under mine. I feel each tremor in his fingers, and I press down.
“Your heart is racing,” I say, placing my other hand lightly over his chest, just above the exposed band of flesh where his shirt doesn’t quite meet his shorts. I splay my fingers and feel the thrum beneath; it’s addictive. “You are frightened.”
He tries to scoff, but the sound catches. “Yeah, well. You literally just milked venom out of a snake, Camille. I think I get a pass for having a normal reaction.”
He wants to look away, but I won’t let him. I move my thumb in a slow circle at the base of his throat, just above his pulse, and whisper, “But you are not running.”
He flinches, but only a little. “It’s not the snakes I’m scared of right now,” he admits, and then, with a self-deprecating laugh, “Which is fucked up. In case you wondered.”
I feel his gaze skitter across my mouth, then down to my hand, and then back to the table where the venom sample sits, molten gold under the recessed lights. “That can kill me?”
“It could,” I hum.
He licks his lips. “Cool… that’s cool…”
I lean forward, letting my body eclipse his view of the room.
“You are aroused by your fear.” It is not a question.
I draw my hand from his chest to his chin, tilting his face back so I can see him.
“Je le vois maintenant, petit chaton. Ton go?t du danger. C’est ce qui t’attire vers moi, n’est-ce pas?
” I see it now, little kitten. Your taste for danger. It is what draws you to me, is it not?
He tries to shake his head, but I’m holding him too firmly for that. “I don’t know what the fuck you just said,” he breathes.
“Je sais,” I murmur, and bring my mouth to his. I know.
He shudders against me, the exhale hard, as though some last defense has split.
I am careful at first, lips merely brushing, testing his resolve, but he opens at once, greedy and desperate.
He tastes like adrenaline and longing. His hands, freed now, clutch my shirt and yank me closer, so our hips are pressed together, and his shivering is matched by mine.
I slide my hands down until they find the curve of his waist, the place where his skin is warm and still trembling, and I hold him there as if I could root all the fear straight out of him.
I do not think; I devour.