A nauseating certainty creeps into my awareness. I know it’s the Flame energy causing the glow. But the eyes. That’s my vampire blood. I look like a vampire.

I curl back my upper lip to check my teeth and expel a breath when I find no pointy bits at the end of my canines. Grabbing the soap, I run the tap and foam up a lather, then rub my face like a mindless psych patient attempting to scour away an alien presence.

My hands freeze midscrub.

The citrusy soap smells of Flanagan’s skin, and I’m hit by an image of licking the taste off his neck while chained in the cage. He’s holding me against him, his warm lips a hairbreadth from mine. His huge fist strokes me as I thrust and beg for more. And I’m loving it.

My cock swells with the memory. His scent, his strength, his tenderness. His perfect grip.

Gabriel.

I grab the edge of the sink with both hands, breath quickening. Is that what he meant by helping me? Holy beast balls. No way.

I shove the memory aside and slam a door on it. I can’t cope with that right now. But after only a second, I find myself sliding it out to take another peek.

Flanagan jacked me off? And I enjoyed it?

I relished a man wanking me to release. Bloody loved it. Is the Flame turning me gay? Or does it just leave you so desperate you don’t give a shit who helps?

Me and the big guy. Just no. It’ll have to join my “what the fuck?” pile along with all the other madness from the past week.

After another frantic scrub and a rinse, I finger comb my mess of dark hair back, but the weirdness continues to stare at me. A shiny stranger with electric green eyes. Reality hits me in the chest like a brick. I’ve been so busy surviving I hadn’t truly taken in the blood test results. I hadn’t processed what Channeler means. What part human, part vampire, and part some other ghastly thing means. How different it makes me.

I was always different, though. As a child, I could sense things my friends couldn’t—weather changes, voices in the wind, the buzzing energy that comes off the earth and the plants. I’d suppressed all that by the time I was a teenager. Life was hard enough without being a weirdo too. I don’t suppose much has changed in that sense. But this…this is on another level entirely.

I look at my face again, at the Flame creature staring back. My life has irrevocably changed. If I ever escape from Blackriver, there’s no more normal.

There’s no going back.

Chapter 16

16