Page 81 of Twice Bitten

“His blood is poison.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

Alric stalked over to me and stopped so close I could have reached out and brushed my fingers over his face. “Beckett has a defect. His sustenance comes from a local blood bank. We’ve sourced food for him for a while now, once we discovered how dangerous his blood could be to others. We can’t risk him trying to turn a human. If he does, the results could be catastrophic.”

A sick feeling churned in my stomach as my mind snagged on one word. “Poison. What kind of poison?”

Alric reached out and brushed his thumb over my bottom lip. My lips tingled at his touch, and I resisted the urge to lean in. His face softened. “Nothing in the natural world. He’s the only one of our kind born this way, but we only realized hiscondition a few months ago. There was no reason to look.” He shrugged. “Beckett is spoiled and vain. Typical vampire traits but elevated in him due to the status of his human father.”

Alric rolled his eyes, a surprisingly human gesture that almost made me relax. Almost, until I remembered everything the Prime did was cultivated to elicit an emotional response. He needed me to help him. Alric would do whatever it took to bring me around, and it was easy to appeal to my human side.

He did not divulge who Beckett’s father was, I assumed because he figured it didn’t matter or he was picking and choosing what information he gave me. Beckett, no matter his origins, was a problem. Didn’t matter if his dad was powerful. The information had been easy enough to find online anyway.

“For a while, we weren’t worried,” he continued. “We had him under watch, and he seemed stabilized with magic from our healers.” The Prime looked away. “A couple of weeks ago, there was an incident at his Nest, and several vampires were injured.”

The way he saidinjuredgave me pause. How could a single vampire injure several others? He was younger and one vampire shouldn’t be able to take on several of his own kind. Was Alric lying to me?

But Alric continued, either oblivious to my whirling thoughts or assuming my elevated heartbeat was due to his closeness. “I need to find him to prevent him from harming anyone else. We also need additional bloodwork from him. Our healers are working on an antidote, not only for him, but for everyone he hurt.”

I didn’t say anything for a long moment as I carefully parsed his words, trying to figure out the truth of his story. The best lies had truth sprinkled in, and I didn’t think for a second Alric was being completely honest.

The silence between us drew out. A horrible, final realization surfaced. The attack in the alley, the blood…

“No.” I shook my head in disbelief, but the symptoms I’dbeen having, the cravings. It all fit. Was all of this the result of Beckett’s poisonous attack or was my initial suspicion of turning into a hybrid vampire correct? To hear Alric, he was implying Beckett had infected me.

But I felt…

Well. I didn’t feel like I was about to start indiscriminately trying to murder people like Beckett. That had to be positive, right?

“I’m sorry.” To be fair, he did look regretful.

I rose from my stool so quickly, it fell backward and hit the floor with a loud crack. “You’re lying.”

I wasn’t dying. Nor did I feel sick. Not exactly. Alric’s description of the Beckett’s violent behavior didn’t fit me at all. Me and the crazy vamp were not going through the same thing. We couldn’t be.

But Alric seemed to think differently. He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. We’ve been looking for Beckett for a while. When he turned up at the conference, we thought we had him. His reaction after running into you was…unexpected. Up until then, he’d been tricky to catch but somewhat predictable. After you, his actions became erratic.”

I rubbed my hands over my face and resisted the urge to punch Alric in the face. “You call destroying my houseerratic?” A deep-seated, primal scream threatened to burst from my chest like an alien baby.

Alric gave me a chiding look, as if my house was the absolute last thing I should be worrying about. “We believe Beckett is degrading. Once he tasted your blood, he did not return to the Hive. No one in his Nest has seen or heard from him since the prior incident. He’s focused on you now, but that could change. If it does, there’s no way to judge the threat he poses to our people.”

“This is not my responsibility.” Even as I said the words, I felt like a shit person. I was a supernatural. In a perfect world,anything that happened to any of us would be a problem for all of us, but Alric was reaching here. The vampires had always been an insular people. They rarely stepped up to offer assistance to anyone unless it impacted their bottom line or benefited them. “I did nothing to deserve this.”

Alric dipped his head. “You’re right. But now you’re involved. If Beckett’s blood is not purged from your body, you will die.”

A half-hysterical laugh escaped me. I didn’t feel sick, onlyoff. And not like I was suffering from being poisoned, more like I was transforming. “Let me guess. You’re just the person to purge it.” I could not allow myself to become vulnerable to him. If I allowed him to purge Beckett’s blood, his influence would be the only one inside me. Was Beckett’s blood somehow fighting his hold on me, or was that part of my genetic makeup? The second made more sense. Witches, or pureblood witches, could not be turned. Maybe the hedgewitch part of me was fighting his influence.

So many questions and so few answers made me want to tear my hair out.

His self-deprecating smile was a clever veneer to hide the desperation in his eyes. Alric wanted my blood. Vampires weren’t known for altruism, so was he being genuine or did he want the blood for other reasons he refused to disclose? “Unfortunately, yes.”

I called his bluff. “So do it. Purge Beckett’s blood.”

His lopsided smile told me his answer.

I snorted. “As I expected. If I don’t help you, you’ll let me die.” I made jazz hands. “Surprise!”

Alric thought I was infected with whatever Beckett had and still wouldn’t help me unless I allowed myself to be used as bait. He might have helped me with cleaning up my house, but he’d only done it for leverage in this moment.