Chapter 26

Disgust ate at his thoughts. How did he become a monster consumed by thoughts of magic, blood, and the next taste of it? Jeb had told his father to let him stay with him for a few days to help around his shop. It wasn’t the truth—they both knew it—but his father had bigger problems. Jeb was trying to help his father escape. The problem was Jeb made it clear that Reece could never go with them. Even though the process of turning into a full-fledged vampire with uncontrolled hunger had been stunted, the power, the change, and the need teased his surface. He could stomach food, though it wasn’t good. Eating the stuff gave him sustenance, but the scent of magic…it was like the smell of a favorite dessert. Human blood mixed with magic was life with chocolate and everything that he couldn’t have when he was a child. Once Jeb poked, prodded, and documented everything he could about Reece before deeming him able to be around others without attacking like a starved zombie, Jeb sent him home. He’d implanted a device under Reece’s skin to monitor him just in case Reece lost his control and snapped. Jeb warned, for the safety of all, if that happened, he may have to send a Vigilant to destroy him. Reece was just happy to leave Jeb with hope for a life he could stomach for himself.

He’d tested the hunger lust and went into the house to get a sandwich. His mother was in the kitchen. She watched him and asked him if he was sick. He heard her heart pumping in her chest, smelled blood rise from her body to tease his nose. It took every bit of will in him to not lick his lips and take a bite. He fought it so hard his hand pushed down on the table and broke the leg. His mother rushed off to get wood glue or something, and Reece ran back to the work shed to gather strength to test himself again.

Every day, he tested and restrained himself. It was getting easier with the necklace and angelic light helping him gain control. His strength built, not from the consumption of blood or magic but from the light within him that came with the prayer to become a Vigilant. It drew on the small amount of human blood able to survive within him through the barrier of the angel’s light, the vampire’s darkness, and the helpless human fighting within his soul to survive. How had this happened to him? The ring his brother had stolen may have changed him in some way as it had Dexter. Reece couldn’t be sure how he was stuck between his vampire and angel, but what he did know was he could do things that he couldn’t do before. Powerful things, deadly things. Even he was afraid of what he would appear to be when his body shaped itself fully. And slowly, he was learning to control the ebb and flow of the angelic light within him. Though it had limits, making his skin glow, lowered the intensity of the hunger, the angry beast within him that wanted to devour everything.

“I have to fight this.” He couldn’t keep skipping classes and asking Rei to cover him in them. He’d been leaving her gifts like her favorite candy, sending her text emojis of sad faces, even buying some of the romance novels she had on her wish list in the family online store account. She didn’t forgive him with words but with her actions.

She’d turned in his work, and with school winding down, the teachers didn’t ask questions. “Probably because they are used to students going missing.” He snorted. Brec and Volk hadn’t been seen. Reece wondered what Hook did to make sure they found their end. He wouldn’t ask, couldn’t because he needed to focus on his own problems.

Reece heard a knock at his workhouse door. He smelled the scent of a magical wafting through the slit in the window. The necklace and stone sat heavy on his chest. A slow seeping of sustenance flowed from it to feed his darkness inside. Jeb told him the only being who could see the necklace would be him or someone who had extreme magical abilities. Something told him that Megan was one of those people. He grabbed the nearest shirt and put it over his head. The black shirt had sleeves that covered his arms, and a high neck rested above the necklace. He opened the door before she could knock again.

Megan stood there smiling at him as if they were best friends. “Where have you been?”

“I don’t work for you.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “In that, you are mistaken. You owe me information. Zamina has disappeared. I suspect her relatives put her in hiding after finding out that she was consorting with the lower class. Whatever happened to her, I will eventually find out. But now that she and her lacky Ora are gone, that only leaves you as the source of information on the entrance to the royal’s secret abode.”

“She didn’t tell me.” He crossed his arms. Reece wouldn’t reveal to Megan that Ora killed Zamina. That was something he would keep to himself until he could hunt down Ora and return the favor.

Megan’s fake smile dropped. “Then you leave me no choice but to set up an opportunity for you to get me my answers.”

“Whatever. But make this the last time you come here looking for me,” Reece growled, feeling the tips of his teeth sharpen.

Megan stepped back, letting her eyes travel over him. “You…you’re…magical?” She pointed. Her eyes narrowed. “Vampire? But…strong. One that can take the daylight? Turned vamps never can.” She licked her lips and raised her finger to her tongue then slid it down his face. Megan popped her finger into her mouth and sucked on it. “Oh my! Something new, perfect for my plan. You just may survive it.”

“Leave now.”

“Vamp and Angel, a smidge of Soul Thief in there, too. How is that possible?” Her eyes widened.

Reece reached out and wrapped his hand around her neck, lifted her high above him, and growled, “If I see you around here again, I will consume every bit of magic in you until you are no more.” He inhaled her magic. The taste was strong, citrusy, and sweet. He drank and Megan fought him, scratching at his hand, his arm, but as her strength weakened, Reece’s built at the transfer.

“P-please, stop. I will leave.”

Reece dropped her. Megan scrambled away from him on the ground with tears and fear in her shaking body.

“What are you that you could take from me? No creature has the strength to do it, yet a fledgling vamp hybrid can.” She stumbled onto her feet and ran to her car.

Reece watched her run with his arms crossed. Megan’s magic had bite. It twisted, turned in his body, giving him visions of who she was, and with it came a name, Megan’s real name. A memory she kept hidden deep within the DNA of her magic. Reece smiled. A secret he would keep until he needed to use it to destroy Megan and her manipulations.

He’d learned some things about his new body at Jeb’s, things he was getting used to. He was like no other in this place: part of him was cursed, and another was blessed. Depending on his strength and control, each day one side revealed itself. The duality within him was visible in his glow and the black tinge of his veins. On this day, the darkness won.

His leather jacket was on the hook near the door. Reece slipped into it to protect him from the sun. Then he put on the gloves from the jacket’s pocket. He could live through the heat, but it still burned. Sometimes he’d pray, beg for the angel’s light to cover his arms and face when he tested his ability to walk in the sun. The angel’s fire would make his skin glow and his blood boil. It was a painful power to use. His vampire anomalies came with ease, but the human blood left within him was encased in some type of barrier, surrounded by the light of the angelic being that changed Rei and unknowingly changed him. Reece felt that was the only way he’d been stunted from fully turning into a Vampire.

He shut the door and walked to his motorcycle. He’d avoid the family for as long as he could. Moving day was soon, and today, on the last day of school, Reece knew what Megan had coming for him. He wasn’t finished with her yet. She would give him answers, but if she stepped foot at their house again, he’d take her life.

The drive to school was uneventful. Boiling blood in his veins was a living hell, and it was where he was trapped. Zamina’s face haunted his dreams. He missed her but wondered if what he felt for her was love or compulsion mastered by her seduction. Her loneliness made him her pawn, and from what Jeb told him, Zamina could have mated with others of her kind. She’d broken the being unseen to human law by trying to convert him to become a hybrid of her engineered vampirism with the blood of her father. The creator of Zamina was the King vampire who donated his blood to create her from a lab experiment. Jeb guessed that her deformed siblings were actually created from Zamina’s own blood, which was why she combined her blood with the King Vampire’s blood for Reece to consume. Now, with Zamina dead, the King Vampire’s blood was the stronger strain within him. Jeb revealed so much to Reece about this Void that it was still settling in how screwed his family had been when they’d crossed that long bridge to get to a place meant to destroy them.

Reece hoped that Zamina loved him in her own way. The restraint she used to only take small amounts of his blood when they were together impressed him as he struggled to control the compelling addiction. He didn’t need the blood or magic for nourishment. The small amount of human blood he had left allowed him to survive and stay weak enough to maintain human form. The magic, the blood, that was pleasure.

Reece parked the motorcycle, squeezed the handles, and took a deep breath to put on the fake calm face he wore when he was human. Now, there was no name for him. He was an abomination, a danger to humans and magicals. Jeb made it clear that if he returned to where he lived in NY, he could create a new species of vamps that could not be controlled. Reece swallowed the sadness, the chill that crept up his throat at possibly seeing his family for the last time. If he couldn’t go back, he wanted Megan to promise him that the others could. His sisters and brother deserved a second chance.

The scent of wolf mixed with fire floated from behind him. It was muted, the scent of—

“Hey, stranger. You’ve decided to show up to school, huh?” Emvee tapped his shoulder.

Reece’s nose flared. A dark bestial magic hovered beneath the surface of her skin, shaping, moving, and thickening. His mouth watered. The hunger rose, but he forced it down and cleared his throat.

“EmVee, you know I’ve been working on some weapons and a car for a client. With all that’s going on with Mom and Dad, I thought it was best I stay out of the way.”

Her dark auburn curls framed her face, and her hazel eyes had movement within them as her nose twitched like the beast in her recognized the one within him. EmVee shrugged.

“Your big sister is worried about you.”

Reece felt at ease enough to remove his helmet. “And I worry about you. Are you okay after the attack?”

He watched her flinch at the mention of it. EmVee tugged at her jacket covering the bandage from her wound. Reece wiggled his nose at the tinge of blood dried from it. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth to keep it from licking his lips.

“I’m fine.” She shrugged. “Well, I got to get to class.”

“Me, too.” He watched as she hurried away as if he reminded her of a nightmare. Maybe that’s what changed. Reece heard his mother talking to his father about her being attacked by dogs. It wasn’t a dog but a wolf with the scent of fire in its fur. EmVee wasn’t human either. Reece didn’t think she realized what she was yet.

He got off his motorcycle, locked it in place, and pulled up the collar on the jacket. Reece held back as most of the other students walked into the school. The scents rushed together. Many were magic, and so many different flavors flooded his senses. Having tasted blood, the hunt for it caused him to inhale deeper to find magicals that were magical and human. There weren’t many, but there were enough. He was shocked at the number of magicals compared to humans that he passed in the school. His human blood and body were rare in a sea of magical beings. Jeb told him magicals were cursed, or blessed, to have their own dominion to thrive and call home since their ancestors were fallen angels condemned to eternal fire.

Rei was in his first class. She put her books on his seat as if saving it for him. They sat in the back of the class so she could share her notes. Her gaze met his, and she smiled like she knew he’d be there today. Reece squeezed through the throng of students rushing to sit before the bell rang and fisted his hands at his sides to stop himself from sneaking a bit of magic from the students around them. He scanned the room and opened his mouth to taste what was in the air. Then he narrowed his focus on the one brown-haired girl in the front of the classroom that smelled distinctly and purely human. The girl squirmed in her seat and snapped her neck to the side as if she felt his gaze.

Back off!

Reece stepped aside at the audible warning in the voice of the girl that compelled him to change direction. She was human but strong. Telepathic. Reece shrugged and slid into the chair next to his sister. He gave her a sniff and noticed she smelled mostly human, but something lay beneath her surface—the fire of the angel with whom Reece felt a kinship since its essence resided within him also.

“Why are you staring at me?” Rei whispered. “You have been hiding in your workshop.”

“Just thinking.” He adjusted himself on the chair to make the teacher think he was paying attention. “I wanted to get stuff done before, you know, the day.”

Rei lifted her eyebrows. “I’m ready. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Why is your friend over there ignoring you?”

“I’m excommunicated or invisible to them. Everyone is ignoring me because stupid Megan made them.”

Reece pressed his lips together. “Why?”

“She fired me from the school paper and told me I was incompetent at getting the story she wanted.” Rei wiped away a wayward tear. “I don’t care. This will be behind me anyway.”

“You think so?”

Rei sighed. “No, I’ll never forget what happened to me here.”

“Me neither.”

* * *

Reece waited until most of the students left the school. He observed the scene just outside of Megan’s office to make sure she didn’t leave. No one had gone in or left the newspaper office in fifteen minutes. Reece opened the door. The office was decorated with personal touches that matched Megan’s personality and red hair. She must have been the lead editor of the paper for a long time. There were three desks in the room: one pink and one blue. The walls held paintings—scenes from different fantasy-themed locations.

“Oh, I see you came to say your goodbyes.” Megan’s clear eyes nailed him. Her thick red hair was pulled into a bun at the top of her head with two pencils sticking out of it.

“We made a deal. I will get what you want, but you will get my family to safety.”

Megan tapped her chin. “You threatened me, stole some of my essence, and now you want me to give you promises?” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m the deal maker, and every single one of them are on my terms. Besides, your situation is entangled.”

“I don’t care. I need to make sure they are safe.”

“What I need from you may not guarantee that but will make it a good possibility that some of your family will make it out of here alive. I don’t control the odds. I only put the pieces in place to make the strong possibility of a certain outcome.”

“What do I need to do?”

“Well,” she laughed, “now you are speaking my language. I need you to allow yourself to be captured, tortured, and taken to the Overlord’s home.”

“Overlord?”

She groaned. “Cyrillus is his name. He is the hidden hand that controls all of the magic in this realm—except mine. He captured my father, and I believe he has a death wish for more power that will destroy your former human world and send all of us offspring of the fallen to Hell in a handbasket. There are many forms of Hell, but the one meant for us magicals is to not exist in any manner since we don’t hold souls. That means we can either be thrown into the lake of fire like our ancestors or cease to exist at all.”

“So, you are asking me to sacrifice myself for you? What do I do when I get there?”

“For me? Aren’t you now a magical?” Megan flicked a hand in the air to dismiss his response. “Well, you need to gain his trust. He has a passion for weapons since he is building an army. You can show him your talent, and when you do, I will send someone to watch you, make sure you are getting close enough to stab him in the heart.”

Reece frowned. “If I do that, what happens to his control of magic? Won’t that destroy everyone?”

She drummed her fingers on the desk. “It goes to the one that holds the most power in the realm—the one who is a descendent of royalty.”

“And that is?”

She smiled. “Me.”

His blood ran cold. Jeb better be right. Sacrificing for Megan was better than what this maniac Cyrillus wanted. Reece only knew that, with Megan, there were no guarantees. He’d do what he could to make sure they all survived.