Void(58)

When she finally pulled away, I folded in on myself, pressing a hand against my neck.

“Void, describe to the class how that felt,” the coach said as Peaches wiped my blood off her mouth and migrated back over to her seat, an extra pep in her step.

I swallowed the bile rising up in my throat, but I leveled him with a look despite the fact that I wanted to cry. “It felt like someone was forcing pleasure on me. It felt like rape,” I replied, moving my eyes to look out at the vampire students. A few of the females had the decency to seem disturbed by my analogy, but most of them kept an emotionless expression perched upon their perfect, porcelain faces. Blaire had the audacity to smirk like she was enjoying every second of this.

“That’s a bit of a dramatic explanation,” Coach Willis said “The venom in our fangs is meant to make the feeding an enjoyable experience for our victims. You’ll rarely hear of a human complaining.” He was making light of my mandatory participation. Acting like I was in the wrong here. He made me sick.

“Great. Well, you proved your lesson,” I said while moving to go back to my seat, feeling violated in ways I couldn’t describe. I just wanted to go back to the feral cabin. Hell, I just wanted to go home, wherever that was.

Coach Willis held up his hand. “I didn’t say you were done,” he said before clicking his tongue. “Raul, come here, please.”

A larger guy with dark, sweeping hair flashed forward, teeth bared at the smell of my blood dripping down my neck. I realized that I now had every vampire in the room hungry for a taste of me. Their prejudice only stemmed so far, I guess. They couldn’t deny their need to feed. Not with my blood running freely and the scent of it in the air. All of them had their fangs out now, even Blaire.

“Now, it is possible for a vampire to hold back their venom, in the instance of an attack,” the coach explained. “When defending yourself, you might not want your opponent to enjoy the experience. Sometimes you want them to feel pain.”

At his words, my heart started pounding, and the blood drained from my face. I took a step back, deciding that it was time I got the fuck out of here. I was prideful, yes. Determined to prove I was strong—hell, yes. But I didn’t have a death wish. Coach Willis looked over at me, and that gleam in his eye had only grown. I saw the monster behind his smirking expression, and I knew that I was in very real danger.

“Raul, test it out on the Void. Remember to hold back your venom. It takes practice.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head adamantly. “I don’t consent to this.” I held both of my hands up in front of me like that could ward them off.

Raul flashed closer to me, taking advantage of my outstretched hand to grab hold of my wrist and sink his teeth into my skin. I cried out, my eyes slamming shut from the tears that threatened to spill out. I couldn’t yank my arm back no matter how hard I tried; he was too strong, and it would only tear the veins and tendons in my arms. So I stood helplessly as he drank while my mind raced and my panic peaked.

I knew that if I reached up with one hand and yanked off my amulet, this could all be over. I could destroy them without a thought. But there was a part of me that didn’t want to prove them right. I didn’t want to be the Void everyone feared. I just wanted to be treated with some humanity. I guess that was too much to ask of a roomful of supers.

At Raul’s initial contact, that familiar pleasure shot through me, this time more aggressively. But upon the coach’s reminder to hold back his venom, it faded away, and the reprieve ended. Raul cut off his venom, and then a searing, sharp pain came next. It was a tearing sensation like my skin was being pulled back with licks of fire.

I gritted my teeth, barely holding back a scream. I refused to give these vamps the satisfaction of hearing how much they were hurting me. Instead, I focused on the hollow of Raul’s cheeks as he sucked from my wrist, and the crimson drops of life escaping the corners of his mouth.

“Next,” Coach Willis commanded, but Raul took his time pulling away. He didn’t even bother to clean the wound with his healing saliva either, just let me continue to bleed in pain as he turned and made his way back to his seat.

“This time don’t let your venom out at all. Control the impulse. Remember that she’s a disgusting Void. You don’t want this to be enjoyable for her. She’s a threat that you must get rid of,” Coach Willis shouted, his Southern accent in full swing as he stalked around me, clearly enjoying his demonstration.

Oh my gods. He wants me dead. The realization left me stunned. How could everyone just sit there and let this happen?

Another vampire girl flashed on me in an instant. She sunk to her knees and cut into my skin with her fangs, dipping into my plush skin right along my inner thigh. She drank heartily, and I cried out, unable to stop myself. It felt like knives were shoving through the muscle. It fucking hurt. So badly that all I could do was stand there as my awareness started to sink.

“Well done, Misha. That’s enough,” Coach Willis called.

But the heady scent of my bleeding puncture wounds was too strong. Misha didn’t disengage. Instead, her manicured hands curled around my calf, and she started drinking more.

And then, another vampire had flashed forward and sunk his fangs into my arm. And then another one was tearing through the tendons on my back. Then I felt more pain on my right shin; just above my ankle was assaulted. Then my chest. My shoulder. My stomach. My clothes became torn and bloody, and my screams finally escaped my throat until the sound was echoing through the gymnasium, bouncing back to my ears and playing my pain on a loop.