Page 45 of Crave

Ilet my head flop onto the cold bars.Fuck. That could’ve gone better.The look of betrayal on Susannah’s face hurt more than it should. I couldn’t even see Quinn from where he’d hidden behind the back of one of the Alphas.

You fucked that one up,Bowie said. I looked in the corner where my brother sat, bored. Unseen.

“Well, that went kind of shit for you, don’t you think?”

I reared back, my eyes finding the vampire in the darkness, his words echoing Bowie’s a little too closely. The vamp had been a surprise, that was for sure. The fact I didn’t even realize he hadn’t left annoyed me, though. My instincts were going to hell being locked up in this box.

I knew he was here,Bowie said smugly. Of course he did. Dead things spoke to other dead things.

I nodded at the vampire, walking further back into the cell and sitting on the hard bed. I’d been here for three days, waiting for Susannah and Quinn to realize I was here. I’d started off just needing to see that they were okay. But fuck, they weren’t the same people they’d once been. Neither was I, but Jesus, Susannah was beautiful now. The fire in her eyes was like warmth in my veins. And Quinn? He’d gotten impossibly better looking. He’d grown into his body, filled out until he was almost too beautiful for a man.

They are alluring,Bowie added, and I resisted the need to turn to face him as he spoke. That wouldn’t help my case with the vampire.

I looked back at the monster in question. He had an accent, but I wasn’t sure what yet. “You aren’t wrong, bloodsucker.”

He snorted. “Once upon a time I would’ve argued with that label, but not so much now.”

I narrowed my eyes on him. “What do you want?”

He shrugged, sliding down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, his back resting against the stone. “Curiosity, I guess. It might have killed the cat, but I’m already dead.” He laughed at his own joke, and Bowie laughed along with him. It was undead humor, and the ghost of my deceased twin had a warped sense of humor to start with.

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Tanner McCulloch. Vampire. Doctor. Extremely interested in the wellbeing of the two Omegas you were just eyeing like they were roast lamb on a Sunday.” He raised a brow. “This is the part where you share.” When I said nothing, he sighed but continued. “I’m not a witch. Or a Manix. In fact, my kind and yours haven’t always been friends. But I’ve known a couple of pretty powerful witches, and I know the feel of the magic on my skin. I can tell if you wanted to, you could bust out of there. So I want to know who you are, and why you’re letting yourself be imprisoned.” His smile was genuine, and it was both disarming and alarming, given the fangs.

“Jericho Wheeler.”

What, you aren’t going to introduce me too? Hi, this is the ghost of my twin brother, Bowie, who I may or may not have murdered in the womb.

I flinched.I didn’t murder you in the damn womb. Not anyone's fault. The Goddess can be cruel sometimes.

Bowie snorted.Amen to that, brother.

“Nice to meet you, Jericho. And the other part?”

I froze, thinking for a moment he meant Bowie. But then I realized he meant why I was letting myself be imprisoned. I shrugged. “It makes them feel better if I’m in here, and besides, where else was I going to sleep?”

The crazy-ass vampire laughed. “Good point. I don’t think Quinn really got the gravitas of why being a hybrid was a thing, but they haven’t done the studies I have. I want to know how you exist. You aren’t half-half anything; you’re something completely new. Man, what I would give for an ounce of your blood right now.” I stiffened, and he laughed. “For research. Not for tasting.” He paused. “Well, maybe for tasting. You smell kinda nice.”

“Uh, thank you?” There was no fucking way I was giving him my blood. Hybrid or not, I was still a trained warlock, and I knew better than to give my blood to anyone.

Bowie was laughing hysterically.I really like this guy.

“You’re welcome.” Tanner stretched his legs out in front of him. “It's been a long week, and I need a good bedtime story, so let's get to it. How do you exist?”

Man, this was a fucked up story, and I really didn’t want to tell it over and over, but I guess I had to explain it to someone. Bowie frowned, because he hated this story too.

“My ancestors weren’t… well liked in the witching community. They were too ruthless, too willing to bend the laws that guided us for centuries, in their pursuit of more. When their insane ideas started to seep out to the ears of other supernaturals, the greater community had an ultimatum. Excommunicate us, or it would be war. This was a century or two before I was born. Before my mother’s time, even.”

“Yeah, I get it. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. Continue.”

I snorted. He was kind of likable for a bloodsucker. “So, like I was saying, we weren’t well liked, so they were more than happy to cast us out in the name of peace.” I sighed. “But that just made them more extreme, more bitter, more willing to go to any lengths. So they started coming up with more radical ideas, playing with power that was darker and darker until it was so sullied it was no longer a gift from the Goddess but a curse.

“Around this time a girl stumbled into a trap my family had set. She walked into it willingly, but blindly, and she’d never escape. She’d die in that trap a few years later.” It was why Quinn and Susannah running around in the woods that night had rattled me so bad—because I knew how bad the things that went bump in the night could really be. “She was a Manix Omega. They weren’t quite as rare then as they are now, but they were definitely beginning to thin. Not enough that the Manix as a whole would tear apart the world to find her, anyway. No one came for that girl. And the things my family did…” I’d read my great-great-grandfather's grimoire, and then I’d burned it. That shit was pure evil that deserved to die with him.

Tanner shook his head. “I can imagine.”

“You really can’t. Anyway, after many unsuccessful attempts he managed to do what the family had wanted to do all along. He managed to create a being that was both monster and magic. Something that was impervious to the harm that so easily destroyed a witch, while still having full access to the earth’s magic.”

The vampire frowned. “Normally, one designation or the other reigns supreme. Or if that's not possible, they cancel each other out.”

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