Page 34 of Outlaw Witch

He wants me weak, brought to my knees before he can crawl to the surface and take over.

Worse than that, I keep getting these fierce cravings for meat. Steak. The bloodier, the better. And I just know it’s my cursed blood calling to me.

I know. Iknowthat sounds crazy. Man, I sound about as dramatic as Roscoe, which is saying something.

I’m sick, I know this. And people don’t talk about cancer the way I think about the curse in my veins. But this doesn’t feel like any ordinary sickness.

Tainted vamp blood. Cursed with whatever entity is now growing inside me. It’s like I’m both a poor schmuck that got abducted by aliens and implanted with one of their kind, and a seahorse daddy all rolled into one.

Not that I’ve said any of these thoughts out loud. I keep a lot to myself these days. Don’t need others to see the depths of my weakness. Even my own brothers. With them, it’s more that I don’t want to worry them. If they knew how far off the deep end I’ve plunged, I’m not sure they’d look at me the same. I’ve always been the one in control. The cool-headed, reliable one. But I don’t feel so reliable anymore.

I drag my tired ass out of bed after yet another night of staring at the ceiling. Last nightI think I managed to get twenty minutes of sleep at a time and my eyes are aching.

Slapping on a smile, I head down to the medical wing of our building where my little brother has had a room for the past five years. He also has a room in our apartment, but he never uses it. Said something about wanting his own space, and since he can be a moody little shit, we let him. I figure it’s got something to do with him not wanting to show us the worst days and hours.

I guess that runs in the family.

And what a family.

Seb and I share a mother. A mage with a soul that’s cold enough to have a kid with a man, not her husband, and then skip off out of town when that kid got sick. My father, on the other hand, is a distracted man. Not a bad guy, but he never saw the need to take care of me much. So taking care of Seb—the sick kid who wasn’t his by blood? No chance.

But Seb’s got me. He’s got my brothers who are as much his as they are mine. And I’d do just about anything about my little brother.

Which is why I’m in such a mess right now.

That and my own damn avarice. Not for money or for power for myself but instead to help Seb.

And now I can no longer help him or myself.

Seb’s in a mood when I get to his room. I can tell by the angsty music and the way he barely looks up from his gaming console when I walk in.

“Hey, champ,” I say, sounding more like an awkward middle-aged dad back from a golfing trip than my twenty-four-year-old self. “How are we doing this morning?”

He grunts at me, not bothering to look over. “S’alright. Lucy’s off sick, so I had Meredith this morning. She’s weird about breakfast, says I can’t have waffles unless I have fruit too.”

He gives an over-exaggerated pout, and I chuckle. He may have complaints that suit a five-year-old better than a teenager, but at least he knows he’s ridiculous.

“You’ll get over it.”

He shrugs like a brat. “Is Ro still coming down later? We’ve got a forty-day championship streak I don’t want to mess up.”

“I’m sure he will.”

Hell, Ro and Z both have an uncomplicated relationship with Seb. They have all the fun bits, none of the serious sit downs to discuss his latest treatment plan and why it’s not working.

“How is it this morning?” I ask, settling into my usual spot beside his bed. You wouldn’t think this place was in the middle of a medical wing to look at it.

The room is painted dark blue—his favorite color. And he has a sofa that’s more comfortable than the one in our apartment. He’s got a laptop, two gaming consoles and a massive TV that takes up most of the wall. There’s also a third console that he carries around whenever he leaves the room. Which isn’t all that often these days. And when he leaves, he doesn’t go far.

He got sick with some undiagnosable illness a few years back. At first, it made him weak, prone to passing out at random times. Then he hit his head a few too many times and his school decided he couldn’t attend on the regular anymore. I guess it was too much of a liability for them.

“I’m fine,” Seb mutters. “Same as usual.”

“Did you sleep okay? Eat everything last night? Lucy told me last week you were picking at your meals. You know you need to eat.”

I don’t exactly know when I turned into a nagging mother hen. It’s not like I was ever a cool guy since my father and Felix Hawkshead decided from my birth that I’d be the next in line as their replacement, taking over running the Nexus District.

Butthis? This henpecked hovering? I know it’s annoying; Iknowit’s why Seb prefers the others’ company, but I just can’t help myself.

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