The Venom.

Venom and Vanilla.

Shannon Mayer.

For all those who have stood by me from the very beginning-the ones who took a chance on an author they've never heard of before and have been with me and my characters ever since. Family members, friends, readers.

Believers.

This one is for you.

AUTHOR'S NOTE.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places and events are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fict.i.tious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, businesses, places or events is purely coincidental.

CHAPTER 1.

"Alena, do you remember the conversation we had about what I should do after you die?" Roger's voice was distorted behind the mask and full-body protective suit. Every time he took a breath, the air wheezed in and out as though he were Darth Vader having a particularly bad day. I half expected him to pull out a lightsaber and point it at me, demanding that I reveal the rebel base. Then again, maybe that was the painkillers making me delusional. It surely would not be the first time I'd gotten loopy on the drugs.

I blinked up at my husband from the hospital bed. "What do you mean? That was only last week."

"Well, I know. But . . . the doctors said this Aegrus disease would move fast. I . . . didn't want to a.s.sume anything day-to-day. I want to talk to you while I still can, and while you still understand me. You know?"

I ran my hands across the overstarched sheet, finding the tiny hole I'd been picking at for the last few hours. The loose threads were about the only amus.e.m.e.nt I had. Our ward wasn't allowed any technology, not even a TV. I don't know what they thought we were going to do, looking at a TV. Maybe get excited and press our nurse b.u.t.tons repeatedly?

"Roger, I'm not going to lose my mind, honey. That isn't how this works." I thought for a moment. "It's more like a cake that falls in the middle of baking. I'm going to just puff out of existence."

He turned his head away, and the biohazard suit crinkled like parchment paper being shoved into a baking pan.

I wanted to think about anything but dying, anything that would take me away from the brutal reality in front of me for at least a few minutes. I would take Roger away from it too, if I could. We'd both suffered so much already, and we had very little time left to us. I wanted to make it memorable in the best way-to go out on a high note, as it were, and to make him forget that I was contagious. To make him remember that I was his beloved wife no matter how horrendous the disease made me look. "Do you remember when we met?"

Roger turned back to face me, his eyes wide. "You want to talk about that?"

I smiled up at him but kept my lips closed. No need to show him how many teeth had fallen out. "Yes. Because that was the day I fell for you, and I want to hold that to me right now. Even if I can't hold you, I can remember, and know that what we had was meant to be. No matter how it ends."

I closed my eyes, the scene as vivid to me as if we were there again, at the edge of Kerry Park. All around me, the summer rose up like a slow-moving dream in full bloom. The smell of green living things and sweet floral fragrances heavy in the air taunted me to shed my shoes and run wild through the forest as I'd done as a child. The rush of wind through the few stray hairs that had slipped my tight, conservative braid, the tickle of gra.s.s against my ankles, even through the nylons-all of it imprinted in my brain. All of it was a part of the day my life changed.

I'd gone with my mother to preach the good word, and Roger had been there in the park playing Frisbee with a small group of his friends. They'd laughed at us as we strode toward them. Pamphlets in hand, I'd walked with confidence, knowing what I did was right, that if they would listen, they would be so much happier. Of course, we'd talked to the whole group about sinning right off the bat. The shorts they wore showed off their legs, and some of them even had taken off their s.h.i.+rts, including Roger. He was the first man I'd seen topless, besides the occasional glimpse of my father or brother, and I'd struggled to focus on anything but the sight of his trim body.

Like a knife through hot b.u.t.ter, he'd cut through the words I'd been raised to believe without question.

Pointed out the inconsistencies.

The hypocrisy.

I'd followed him to a coffee shop to set him straight, my mother urging me to save his soul, which I'd completely agreed with her about. In the end, we'd stayed for hours. We'd argued philosophy while he drank coffee and I drank decaffeinated tea, no sugar, no cream.

"I'll save you yet," I'd told him, staring into those eyes that so fascinated me. He had such a different view on the world, and I couldn't help but want to know more.

"Not if I save you first." He'd kissed me then, my first real kiss, and my fate was sealed. My knight in s.h.i.+ning armor, he'd been the one to open my eyes to the truth of the world.

"Do you remember yelling at my mom, telling her she was blind as a bat when it came to understanding the world? That if she was too stupid to see what was right in front of her, it wasn't worth arguing about?"

He grunted. "Didn't exactly endear her to me, did it?"

I laughed, the sound odd in the small room. "No, but then, she might have forgiven you someday if you hadn't blurted out-in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner no less-that you'd taken my virginity before we were married."

He laughed and his helmet wobbled, tipping precariously to one side. His hand snaked up and grabbed it before the clips came apart. "Wow. That was close. Would suck to . . ."

He stared at me and I stared right back, unable to even blink for fear I'd lose control of myself. I gathered my words, like scooping out a measure of flour, counting it off in my head.

"Get sick? Yes, rather," I murmured, doing my best to keep the sting out of my words.

As hard as dying was on me, I knew my fate. His was far more uncertain, and I wasn't sure I could watch him break down again. The first few weeks had been rough: crying jags over the phone late at night when I was still allowed that much contact. You only were allowed to use the phone up until the final stage of the disease. At that point, you were completely cut off from the outside world. The phone calls were brutal. All I could do was listen to Roger weep. I couldn't even cry with him, because my tear ducts dried up within days of my diagnosis.

That was before I was s.h.i.+pped to the End Stage Ward, here on Whidbey Island. The hospital was one of only four in North America that was designed for dealing with the Aegrus virus. Which really only meant it was set up to help people die at a rapid, pain-filled pace.

Really, people died from the virus so fast it wasn't a surprise that beds opened up at the rate they did. I'd only had to wait in the lockdown ward in Virginia Mason Hospital for a little less than a week.

So now, either someone saw me in person or they didn't talk to me at all. There weren't very many people who would take the chance of stepping into an End Stage Ward and take the risk of catching the deadly virus. Besides, they all knew the outcome. We humans all did.

Roger laughed again, but there was a birdlike twitter to it that made me cringe. His nerves were showing again. I let out a sigh. How was it that I was the one in bed dying, fading away at a pace the doctors didn't understand and couldn't stop, yet he was the one who needed handling with kid gloves? My lips curled up at the edges; he was my sensitive guy. The artistic one who wore his heart on his sleeve. Which was part of the reason I fell for him in the first place: the way he'd spoken with such pa.s.sion, defending his beliefs. Then there were his romantic gestures, the over-the-top dates, the candles, the flowers, and the complete wooing.

I was the business-minded one; I was the grounded one. I'd built my bakery on the back of hard work and the school of hard knocks. Developing my own recipes so I stood out in the midst of all the cafes around me had taken years. Trying new combinations of ingredients, tweaking them, learning from my mistakes; every burn, every late night was worth it.

Roger, on the other hand, could make the same mistake ten times and still insist he'd get it right the next time. Stubborn fool. I smiled, my heart aching with the thought of not seeing him ever make another mistake.

"Rog, sit with me."

"No, I can't. I can't stay."

With effort, I lifted my hand up to him. "Please, just hold my hand. Even through the suit . . . it's better than nothing at all."

He fidgeted, then twisted to look at the closed door. A face popped up in the window, and the woman waved her hands in a shooing motion. Long blond hair and brilliant red lipstick were all I saw before she was gone. Maybe she was one of the new nurses? They didn't like me to have many visitors. The chance of infection was too great among other humans. Which is why they sent us all to this facility on Whidbey Island to keep us contained. Or as my roommate called it, the Super Duper Hospital.

Supes were immune to the Aegrus virus. At worst, they got the sniffles. With humans, though . . . we weren't so lucky. It killed within weeks, sucking the life out of the body at a lightning pace.

"You sit with your wife," the woman in the bed next to me spit out. She was a little younger than me, twenty-five years old and on the same deathbed as me, if a bit further along.

"Dahlia, don't pressure him." I rolled so I could look her in the eyes. We didn't need mirrors in our ward; the disease stripped us all down the same way. Dahlia had been a redhead, according to her. Now there wasn't a single hair on her scalp, eyebrows, or eyelids. Several of her teeth had fallen out, and she had only a single fingernail left. Her body was wasted to the point of being a mere skeleton with skin stretched taut over the bony edges, like a macabre attempt at a tent by some tiny little devils who'd set up a home inside her.

Her sunken green eyes stared into mine. "You're dying. Least he could do is man up, find his b.a.l.l.s, and hold your hand."

Roger grunted as if she'd punched him in the gut.

A tentative hand wrapped around my fingers. I smiled as I turned. "Roger. You're so brave. I know how much this scares you."

His fingers tightened on mine until they were squashed together in a rather intense embrace. I didn't say anything, though. At least he was holding my hand.

Through the barrier of the mask, I could see that sweat clearly dripped down the sides of his face. "We talked about what I would do. With the money your dad's parents left you, and what I should do with my career." The words tumbled out of him in a rush. "I've made some decisions."

"I don't think there's a rush, Rog." I tried to squeeze his hand. "I mean . . . you have your whole life ahead of you. We both know that snap decisions aren't your forte. Take your time."

He reached to the back of his head protection as if to scratch at his neck. "I'm going to sell your grandparents' house. Your mom and dad are going to buy it back from me. At a good price, mind you."

I stared up at him, a slow curl of horror starting in the pit of my stomach. The house was worth over two million dollars; there was no way my parents could afford that. "You're selling the house . . . to my . . . parents? Why?"

Apparently he didn't pick up on the nuances of my question. "Yeah, it's great. They're actually paying me over market value to keep it in the family, not that your mom wanted to. I'm going to put that money in with the life insurance money after you die, and start up a new business. I even have a business partner lined up."

My hold on his hand slipped, and I dropped my fingers to the bed. Whatever heat I'd imagined through the suit from his touch was gone.

"What kind of business?" There was no way he could run a business. I'd tried to get him to help in the bakery, and he'd bungled even the simplest tasks. He couldn't even man the cash register without fouling the entire day's transactions, a position I normally hired a teenager to do.

I stared at him, trying to understand what had happened in the s.p.a.ce of minutes.

"Dog grooming. It's a booming industry." His words echoed in my ears, bouncing around like kids in a ball pit, screaming and laughing at my shock.

I had to be dreaming. Because this was the sort of weird twist that occurred only when I slept and the painkillers were heavy in my system. This was not reality.

There was no way Roger would start a dog-grooming business. No way he would sell the house that meant so much to me.

"You hate dogs," I managed to get out. "You always said we couldn't have one because they were too stupid to exist. They stink. And bark incessantly on top of being too needy. You chased Mrs. Whitmore's poodle with a shovel, threatening to brain it because it peed on our lawn."

He took his hands and clasped them behind his back. "That was then. I'm a changed man, and, well, I've changed my mind. We'll be grooming cats too."

I stared at him with my mouth open, unable to fully process the speed at which the conversation had begun to tank. What the fricky d.i.c.ky was going on? Had he smacked his head on something and gone off the deep end?

I pinched the bridge of my nose as I struggled to get hold of the conversation and myself. I had to steer this the right way, or Roger would never pull himself out of the mess I could see him sinking into. And in not too many weeks I'd be gone and unable to help him.

"Okay, let's a.s.sume you really do this. Cats hate water, they have claws and teeth they aren't afraid to use. And if I may remind you, the last cat I had, I caught you dancing a jig when she got hit by a car."

"I wasn't dancing, I was upset." His eyes lowered and he sniffed loudly.

"What, you just decided at that moment to see if you could still do the Robot?" I snapped. This was ridiculous. Dying I might be, but I wasn't going to let him throw his life away on some harebrained-no pun intended-scheme. Sitting up was no small effort, but I pushed my deflated body upright and leaned back against the metal-tubed headboard. "Roger, this is ridiculous. You're being stupid, and there isn't time to mince words."

"Tell him how you really feel, Alena," Dahlia said with a snicker.

"That's why I can't come here. I told her you would be like this. The needle to my hot-air balloon." Roger spoke as though his business partner actually had some say in this conversation.

"You got that right, you're a hot-air balloon." I took a slow breath and tried to contain my emotions. "Roger. You hate animals. You know nothing about running a business; the bakery was all me. You couldn't even take the garbage out without spilling it all over my kitchen. Three times in a row." I paused, summoning the courage to tell him the truth. "Roger, my love, someone has seen that you have money, and they're taking you for a ride. They're using you. Whoever this business partner is, they-"

He stepped back, his whole body shaking inside his suit. "That's exactly what she said you'd say. I told her you loved me and would want me to be happy. I guess I was wrong. There is something else too."

I put a hand to my head, my whole body trembling. Whether it was with fatigue from sitting up, or from what Roger was spitting out, I wasn't sure. "Who is this 'she' you are talking about?" Oh, G.o.d, the blonde in the doorway. "Your business partner came with you? Wait, what else have you got to tell me?"

He drew himself up, and I knew in my belly what he was going to say. I held a hand out. "Don't you dare sell my bakery to that woman. Don't you dare!" If he sold my bakery to Colleen Vanderhoven, I might die on the spot and be glad of it. She'd been the bane of my existence from the day I set my shop up. The closest thing to an archnemesis I'd had in my entire life. She'd done everything she could to sink my business, from setting up her bakery a street over, to attempting to steal my recipes, to actually stealing some of my employees.

"We're signing the papers next week." The words started out of his mouth strong and ended on a sigh.

My bakery. I leaned back against the headboard, eyes aching as though tears fell from them. I loved Vanilla and Honey almost as much as I loved the house my grandparents had left me. Shaking, holding back the gulping sobs that leapt up to escape me, I managed another question. "Tell me about this business partner. Who is she?"

What if he was partnering with Colleen in more than one capacity? Burn my sugar biscuits! If he partnered with fat-nosed, mean-as-a-badger Colleen in the dog-grooming business, I would strangle him myself.

Roger nodded. "I don't know why you're surprised. You were the one who said I should move on with my life. To find love again so I wouldn't be alone."

What was he going on about now? I opened my eyes and stared at him as his words settled around me.

Dahlia let out a low groan from her side of the room. "Oh, you didn't, you dumb schmuck. Tell me you didn't."

He acted like he hadn't heard her. As he leaned close, his helmet moved like a bobble-head doll on the dashboard of a car, giving the illusion that his head wasn't quite attached the way it should have been. Which in that moment I could believe. "I love her, Alena. I know you understand because, really, this was your idea. But Barbie doesn't want me coming back to see you anymore. She's afraid I might get sick, and she has a point. Not to mention the cost of the ferry back and forth all the time. I have my whole life ahead of me. You said it yourself. So I'm getting on with it."

"But I'm not dead yet," I whispered, horror making my voice soft. Or maybe that was the growing anger that wrapped itself around my throat, cutting my words in half.

His suit crinkled as he backed away, and he lifted a hand in a f.e.c.kless, offhand farewell. "A part of me will always love you, Alena. Take care of yourself. I mean . . . as much as you can now. You know." He shrugged, cleared his throat, and left the room.

The door whooshed shut behind him, the click of the latch signaling it was closed tight. I stared at the metal panel with the square window as I attempted to process the last ten minutes of my life. A week? It took him a week to find someone new and decide he would leave his dying wife in her hospital bed alone because some woman named Barbie told him it was a good idea?

"Tell me you didn't hear that, Dahlia. Tell me I was dreaming."

She sucked in a slow breath. "I'm sorry, honey. That totally happened. He's a d.i.c.kwad."

There were no tears, of course, but the sobs in my chest were real enough and my bones creaked with the force of the shaking.

"Don't cry over him, he doesn't deserve it. Alena, don't cry. You'll hurt yourself," Dahlia said, her voice soft and gentle.

"Take care of myself? What does he think is going to happen in the next few weeks? A magic d.a.m.n cure? The doctors are going to come in here and wave a wand over us and that's it, we'll be all better?" The words exploded out of me, and while they hurt my throat, it was better than holding them in, letting them fester along with the pain in my heart.

Silence fell between us, or at least as silent as a hospital got. Outside our room the slap of feet on the cheap tile and the hum of voices drifted through the thick auto-closing door. Here the quiet was never real, rather an approximation of the big sleep that would soon come for us both.

Dahlia s.h.i.+fted and her bed creaked under her. "There is a magic cure. If you can afford it, you know."

Again, I wondered if I was hearing things. "What?"

"It's expensive, but if you've got the money . . . a warlock can help you." Dahlia's dark-green eyes locked with mine as they had so often over the last week.

"Dahlia, those are urban legends. I heard the rumors before I got sick too. I even saw that special expose on TV. The Supe Conspiracy. That magic is the cure, and it's only a matter of time before the world knows. But there is no way our government would allow so many people to die if they could help."

She smiled, her pink gums s.h.i.+ning between the few teeth she had left. "Really? Do you not pay attention at all? They're trying to corral all the Super Dupers above the forty-ninth parallel. Keep them contained. The fewer there are south of the border, the better. They did the same thing in Europe and Asia, put up walls to keep the Supes contained in the middle, away from the humans. Every time someone is found to be a Supe, they s.h.i.+p them. My house isn't far from the Wall, I've seen large vehicles cross the border more than once in the middle of the night."