Void(61)

“My room,” Render replied before propelling himself off the wall and sauntering over to me. “Tell me why you did it, Void.”

I twisted up to look at him. “Excuse me? Please tell me you aren’t blaming me for what happened back there. It’s not like I asked for all those vamps to bite me,” I replied in a stormy tone. Now that I had my energy back, I was feeling bold. Angry. I had half a mind to set fire to this elitist school and never look back.

“No. I want to know why you just took it. You could have taken off your necklace, and it would have been done. It would have never gotten so far if you’d used your power.” He was angry, his face shadowed by fury I didn’t understand.

“What, and prove them—and you—right? Be the destructive Void everyone accuses me of being? I don’t want to take people’s powers, Render. I’d hoped you’d recognize that by now.” Years of prejudiced anger was boiling me up from the inside out. Why was I still being judged for my powers? I’d shown them who I was as a person. They should damn well know better by now. “I caved when I realized that they wanted to kill me instead of just fuck me up, but Blaire stopped me,” I said, shooting a look to Render, but the stoic vampire didn’t show any reaction at all. “But...I didn’t want to take off my amulet because I don’t want to be hated or feared. I don’t want to be the monster everyone thinks I am.”

“Fuck what people think. You could have died,” Quade interrupted. He strutted forward, and my heart skipped in tempo. I had nowhere to back up since I was still sitting, but he towered over me, looking so angry that my adrenaline spiked.

He leaned down, putting one hand on the backrest, his arm brushing against the sleeve of my shirt. With his face only inches from mine, I found I couldn’t breathe.

“You’re different than they said you were,” he murmured, his dark eyes searching my face.

I frowned. “Who?”

“My parents.”

I blinked at him, my mind whirling with everything that he wasn’t saying. We’d been ten years old when my Void had come out, and I’d been told I couldn’t play with him anymore—told I was too dangerous. But I’d never considered what he’d been told.

“What did they say?”

He didn’t seem to hear me. Instead, his gaze had dropped to my mouth, and I sucked my bottom lip in, biting it gently.

“Why does my power keep tugging me toward you?”

His words threw me for a loop, and confusion washed over my expression.

“I feel it too,” Gritt admitted, and I turned to look at him.

He and Quade were both so close, I could feel the heat of their breaths on my cheeks. I shifted where I sat, pressing my thighs together. They weren’t the only ones who felt a tug. My Void was calm inside of me, content for the first time, but there was this inexplicable reaction that I always had when around these four—like their power called to me, buzzing under my skin and warming at their presence. Maybe it was because they were paragons. Maybe being the most powerful of their kind was the reason for it. Maybe my own magic responded to that. I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t deny the pull.

“This is just a lot to process right now,” I replied warily before tearing my gaze away from them and rubbing a hand down my face. I was avoiding the conversation. I didn’t want to think about the implications of it. If I lured powerful supernaturals to me, then it would be another reason for them to distrust me.

“In case anyone is wondering, I feel the pull, too. Just throwing that out there,” Hyde added with flourish before tossing the beetle up in the air, letting its metallic black wings flutter in the air. He tilted his head back and laughed as the excited bug took flight before turning his attention to me. “I felt it really strongly a couple days ago, too. Pulling, pulling, pulling. Pulling my hair, pulling my power, pulling my di—”

“Shut the fuck up before I kill you,” Gritt interrupted, rubbing his temples.

Hyde didn’t get the memo though, because he ended with, “I’d like to call dibs on touching her next.”

I scrunched my eyebrows in confusion. “No,” I replied as I stood up. My feet were unsteady, and I felt myself waver before a strong hand grabbed my upper arm to steady me. I looked up at Quade before jerking from his grasp. “No more touching me. No more testing the Void out on your powers. No more whatever the fuck this pull is, okay? I’ll continue to work with Banner—”

“Oh, it’s always fucking Banner, huh? You sure are getting comfortable,” Gritt bit back, and I dropped my mouth open in shock. He was rippling with anger and jealousy.

“Who I get comfortable with is none of your godsdamn business. I’m the Void, remember? You don’t want me as a mate, that’s what you said. Unless you’ve changed your mind?” I challenged, glowering at him. He didn’t move an inch, just stared at me like I was some kind of dog treat he wanted to nibble on. When his eyes dropped to my chest, at the blanket I was still clutching around me, I realized that I’d let it gape too much. I quickly pulled it tighter around me, but the damage had already been done, because now my body was responding to the heat in his eyes.

“My, my. The sexual tension in this room could raise the dead!” Hyde quipped while clapping his hands together, the resounding smack echoing across the room.