Viper's Kiss

Chapter 6

It didn't take long for my phone to blow up with notifications. Either hearts came flooding in for the new chapters or comments were rolling in like crazy, demanding a new update. It always warmed my heart to see that no matter how long of a break I would take, my viewers would always be there to support me. I scrolled down my notification center, urging myself not to scroll over to my private messages.

Breathing a heavy sigh I chose to read the comments on the chapter. It didn't take long for the comments to talk about how my character were somehow relatable and how they needed a new chapter because the stranger "sounded hot". Those comments always put a smile on my face especially when there were a lot of them. I kept scrolling through until I had finally reached the negative ones.

'The author sucks at writing s*x'

"There's not enough s*x. Like seriously that's it?"

'Why is this story so popular? It glorifies Stockholm Syndrome.'

'She makes the protagonist so dumb. Why is she not fighting back instead of looking for s*x?"

There was a few more and some of them were very harsh and others that said they wouldn't read my story anymore because it was so bad. I admit that it stung a bit especially when I worked so hard to put life into these character and not make them one dimensional however I had to accept that not everyone's taste were similar to mine.

The story had also started off as a fantasy that I had read about and was curious however I didn't expect people to want to read more of it especially considering that I didn't write as much as my other stories. 'Deceit' was my first try at a mafia story whereas my others consisted of fantasy and werewolves which is why I tried to pour my heart out into this story as much as possible. Angelo was the embodiment of my s****l fantasies bestowed upon me from reading Gizmo books late at night when I was supposed to be asleep. It was probably due to Gizmo that I had such high standards for losing my virginity. If it wasn't by a mafia don or a guy that could shift into a werewolf, then he wasn't for me. Call me crazy but a girl could have standards, and I wanted a hot guy who had more issues than vogue.

"So are you going to tell me who this new hot guy is? Is he hotter than Angelo? I got wet from just thinking about his glare," Zarina perked up, "I bet he f***s like a god."

"First off ew, that's my bed you're in. Second, how do you know what a god f***s like?"

"A girl can dream, and that's my secret to keep." Zarina winked. "But seriously details?"

"I'm keeping my lips sealed." I made the zipping motion and proceeded to throw it away. My ferocious friend had jumped off the bed, catching the fake key and proceeded to unzip my mouth for me. She leaned down and looked me straight in my eye pulling her face close to mine.

"Listen here White! I need to know if he's a permanent character." I could see the flames forming in her eyes. Zarina was a starved tiger and in this moment I was a gazelle getting ready to be devoured by this horny individual.

"If I say he's permanent will you back off?"

"I'll consider it."

"Then yes. He's permanent."

This had only made her lean closer. The gap separating our faces seemed to disappear and Zarina was now close enough that her breath fanned across my face. Her eyes, which held a sharp glare never softened, instead it was as if she was trying to burn a hole into me. If either of us spoke then our lips would brush against each other, and I'm not sure if I was ready to cross that bridge just yet. It seemed like the moment was dragging on forever, but yet neither of us said a word. It took a few more minutes of intense staring for Zarina to finally back up.

"And I hope you're not worrying about those shitty commenters. You're still young. The story is really good plus it's not like you have a team to give you ideas and fix up your story. Enjoy what you created and worry about the technicalities later. So as your best friend I'm going to ask you to stop being hard on yourself for my sake. Pretty please," she clasped her hands in front of her and gave me a big smile. It was like a kid asking for candy and I couldn't say no to her. "Good now let's open up a special message."

I spun back around and immediately clicked over to the message center scrolling past the few new messages I had just received. I made myself a mental note to read those later but right now I was focused on CloudPublishing and what they could be emailing me about? Had I violated some copyright law of theirs? Well, only one way to find out.

Taking a deep breath I opened the message and considering the size of it. It probably wasn't good.

CLOUDPUBLISH:

Dear Author,

We here at CloudPublishing have built a name for ourselves by priding ourselves on giving writer's a chance to express themselves through storytelling. It's been our pleasure to help the writer community build itself up and make royalties from their stories. We've been in business for over 100 years and will continue to do so in search of new writers as well as editors who want to put their foot out the in the world.

We've noticed that the Gizmo App is a place where lots of writers who have stories they share with their readers in hopes of becoming scouted. And we did just that! As of Summer 2018 we decided to host a contest in search of the stories here on this app. We asked avid readers to nominate the top 3 in search of tier prizes.

Number 1 story: Published story + 4 year contract with the chance of Television/Movie adaptation.

Number 2 story: Published story + 2 year contract

Number 3 story: Published story

With these prizes we aimed to get more and more people excited about writing. The contest had concluded with the winners being.

Number 1: My Never-Ending Nightmare

Number 2: My Alpha's Sins

Number 3: The Bad Boy Stole My Panties

Each of these stories are going to be published as either paperback or hardcover. And while your story 'Shades of Red' wasn't a winner. It had came within the top 10 of chosen stories to read. On the other hand during the author bracket. We had asked readers to nominate an author who was capturing their attention.

The winners were:

Number 1: HorrorFanatic

Number 2: CaspersPickle

Number 3: DevilsAvocado

Coming in at second place. We here at Cloud are prepared to offer you a full-time internship. We'd like to have writers get introduced into the world of publishing. It is a 6 month program that will start in the summer (since we aware that you're in school) and we will provide you with the necessary tools to succeed. You will have a close agent serving as a guide, a Cloud author serving as a mentor, an editor to help you with special projects, and many more included.

While we don't need an immediate response we would like to hear from you before March 2019. This way we can get all the necessary preparations for your internship. Our only requirement is that you send us a piece of your work. A fresh new one so we can see what type of writer you are. Nothing more than a page, after that happens we will set up a meeting with your assigned agent to debrief you.

We hope to hear from you.

-Your friends at CloudPublish

Zarina and I had read the message three more times just to make sure we weren't imagining everything. But no it was real. Very real in fact. And I didn't even know how to feel. Was I shocked? Am I happy? My mind was up in smoke at this point and it felt like I was floating on cloud 9.

The chair I was sitting in spun and I was now face to face with Zarina who couldn't hide the excitement on her face. Her eyes were glistening and a huge smiled was plastered on her face. "This is huge! See I told you that you're good at what you do. Are you going to take it? You'd be dumb if you didn't but I'd still love you regardless."

"I-" My head dropped down in shame. Despite the huge opportunity that was presented to me, I was thinking about transferring to a different college. 6 months for a full time, it would definitely stretch into next semester interrupt my school work and I'm not sure if I wanted to start late anyways. "I'm not sure." The words came out softly, as if they weren't mine.

"What's wrong babes?"

Zarina's hands dropped down to mine and she pulled me from my seat and led me towards the bed. My butt hit the soft mattress. Instantly my body fell back on the bed and it felt like a weight was holding me down. Zarina laid right next to me, copying my posture with her head staring straight up at the ceiling.

"I'm just not sure if this is something I want right now. Great opportunity but sometimes it feels like writing isn't for me. I get bored of it and writer's block is a bitch."

"I can't say I understand cause I'm not a writer however I do know that you're good at it. You have time to think. Don't rush it."

"Thanks Z. Sometimes I wonder what I'd do without you." I turned my head to the side and stared at her. She turned to face me, her face housing a wicked smile.

"You'd die a virgin with 20 cats fawning over fictional guys while wearing a Christmas sweater covered in ice cream stains."

"It was one time!" I started to push her.

"He was fictional. The sweater was overkill. Speaking of fictional, I'm sure you've got quite the story to tell me as to why you wanted to know more about the club." She laughed.

The infirmary was quite the story for me indeed.