Void(59)

I tried to push them back, tried to break away, but it was no use. I just grew weaker where I stood. I could feel my eyes freezing over like the puddle outside my childhood home in winter. I could feel my skin grow clammy. Sweat danced around each bite, mixing salty determination with my blood.

I tried to reach up and grab my necklace, ready to fucking end them, but a hand stopped me before I could. “Nope. You won’t be using your Void powers right now.” My watery eyes opened to see Blaire standing there among the writhing, greedy vampires as they drank from me. “Such a nice view, watching my kind suck you dry,” she said with a smile, her fangs poking into her bottom lip. “Now you know what it feels like.”

Tears tracked down my cheeks and landed on the pair of vampire heads below.

“Enough! Disengage, class! Disengage!” Coach Willis shouted, but it was no use. The feeding frenzy was too strong.

I wasn’t sure how many vampires were feeding on me when my knees hit the gym floor. I didn’t want to collapse, but my body had other ideas. I couldn’t see Coach Willis. I couldn’t see anything except for blood and predators. Their triumph in the air was heavy on my tongue, and I briefly wondered what I’d done wrong in my life to die like this.

“Enough!” a booming voice yelled through the gym, but this time, it wasn’t Coach Willis.

I knew that voice. It was the only thing I could remember in that moment besides pain.

Noises like fighting broke out. Black dots kept littering my vision, and I couldn’t lift my head, couldn’t be sure what was happening. Then several vampires were thrown away from me, and stone-like arms wrapped around me. I was lifted and held against a bare, warm chest. My amulet started to vibrate at the familiar power, rippling across my bloodied skin. The Void was hungry again, likely trying to replenish all that was taken from me.

“Headmaster Torne will be hearing about this,” another voice yelled.

“Good,” Coach Willis’s voice replied coolly. My vision started to go fully black, but I could hear the vampire predator’s final words before I lost consciousness. “I was doing him a favor. She doesn’t belong here. Remember who the real enemy is, shifter.”

That’s the last I heard before my entire fucked up world went black.

And there was a small part of me—the part who hated who I was, the part who hated how hated I was—that hoped to never wake up. Or maybe I should wake up one last time just to destroy them all, be the Void they expected me to be.

Fate had planted destruction like a weed in my soul, and it was time to water it.





Chapter 15





“Why weren’t you there? Why didn’t you stop them?” an angry voice yelled to my right. Too loud for the headache I had.

I was lying on something comfortable. Plush, cool leather pressed against my bare skin. I was naked and swimming through darkness. Where had my damn clothes gone?

“Where was I? Where the fuck were you? That was your godsdamned class!” I heard Gritt yell. “I had to go check on the fucking bobcat. I couldn’t get out of it. I’m the paragon.”

“Yeah, well Devi almost fucking died because of your godsdamned paragon errand.” That angry voice belonged to…Render? I’d be baffled if I weren’t so groggy. “I texted you to say that I’d be late, but you obviously didn’t get it.”

“No, I didn’t. And in her first ten minutes alone, she almost gets fucking killed by a bunch of your vamps!”

A hum broke through their vitriol. “Words and instructions are funny, aren’t they? We were told to protect the other students from the Void. But who knew we’d also have to protect the Void from other students,” a calm voice replied to my right. Hyde.

“I didn’t think the professor would use her like a human blood bag,” Gritt said, the anger evident in his voice.

“She’s too weak. Can’t you do anything, vamp?” another voice said. It sounded like it was coming from behind me. Was that Quade?

“I’ve sealed all of her wounds, but she’s still too pale. They took way too much blood,” Render replied. Then I felt his cool tongue trace over my thigh. I flinched at the sudden touch.

“If they’re all sealed, then why are you still running your fucking tongue all over her?” Gritt snapped.

“I’m making sure I got them all. How did you even know she was in danger?” Render countered, but Gritt didn’t respond. Instead, it was Hyde that interjected.

“Ohhh. Looks like our growly Shifter Paragon is more connected to Devicka than he’s admitted,” Hyde said with amusement. “Good. Maybe now he won’t be so intolerable,” he teased.

I tried to move, but a groan escaped my lips from the pain. The entire room went silent. It seemed like the only sound I could have made were grunts and moans.

“Maybe we should call Banner?” Render suggested quietly, though it sounded like he didn’t want to.

“No,” Gritt replied almost immediately.

I wished I were strong enough to tell them all to fuck off. It was confusing, having them give a fuck one moment and toss me to the wolves the next. I was suffering from paragonal whiplash.

“Methinks thou dost protest too much, Wolfy,” Hyde replied with a chuckle. If I hadn’t been so out of it, I would’ve laughed at the necromancer’s words.