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The fact that he was dead was enough for me. The fact that he’d never harm or kill another one of my brothers was all that really mattered.
I killed the engine when I figured we were far enough away and tossed out both anchors.
It was still pitch-black out, but in no time the day would break and the sky would begin to lighten.
I tossed them each a canteen of water, then opened mine and poured more cool water down my throat. The relief was minimal to the growing, searing pain that flickered in my chest. It was the taste of blood that I needed to wash away the most.
I knew it was all psychological.
My insides weren’t actually on fire. Logically, I knew that if I breathed out hard enough, flames would not shoot from my mouth like a dragon.
But the addiction defied logic.
It was all-consuming and rendered us little more than animals, free of empathy and only in search of satiating our need to feed the craving.
“Go back. More. Need more.”I shook my head and blinked. Fuck. The beast was speaking.“Blood. Need blood.”
What were Rix and Jorik’s beasts saying to them? How evil and dark were their voices?
I’d only gone through withdrawal once, but the voice of my inner beast was something that I’d never forget. He still woke me up some nights in a cold sweat, the grating, deep, cold demand in his voice causing the hair on my arms to stand up straight and my heart to race.
That voice lurked deep inside me. Was always watching. Was always there.
As long as I took the serum, that voice would follow me.
Grinding the heels of my palms into my eyes, I growled and went to sit between my brothers. I took their hands in mine and squeezed. “We’re stronger than this,” I said. “We can do this. We can do this for her. For us. We’re finally fucking free. We’re not going back. We don’tneedit. It does not define us.”
Like freaky doll heads, Jorik and Rix turned to face me at the same time, their eyes wide and vacant. Their beasts were talking to them right now. Telling them not to listen to me. Telling them I was wrong and that they needed more. That they needed to feed.
I squeezed my eyes shut, unable to look at them, even though I already knew that not much of my brothers were left in the conscious part of their brains. The beasts were taking over. Rix and Jorik were about to be locked in the cages of their subconscious, just like I was.
Jorik’s whimper had me opening my eyes. Pain creased his face so severely, I thought he might pass out. He let out a loud groan followed by a wail and started to pant and scratch at his eyes. “It burns,” he crowed, falling forward onto his knees and smacking his head into the floor of the boat. “My eyes, they’re on fire. Get them out. Get them out.”
“They’re not,” I said, knowing he couldn’t really hear me. I put my hand on his back, but he reared up and swatted me away with a vicious snarl, baring his teeth and glaring at me with his bloodshot eyes, the skin around them bloody from his scratches.
Fuck.
I gripped him by the shoulders and hauled him up to look at me. “Jorik, you’re not on fire. Your eyes are not on fire. Listen to me. Look at me. Jorik, LOOK AT ME!”
But he was too far gone. His green eyes shifted back and forth, rolled and darted all around, looking anywhere but at me.
“I need it,” he wailed. “I need it. It hurts too much. I need it.” He wrenched himself free of me and stood up, climbing up onto the back of the boat. “I’ll swim back. I need it.” He was about to jump into the black water, but I grabbed him and throw his ass back into the boat.
He responded with a snarl, lunging at me and throwing me down to the boat. His punches were slow, but his wild, maniacal eyes said he would not stop until he killed me. Until the blockade to the beast’s cravings was dealt with.
I needed to put him down, at least for the time being.
Wedging both feet under his belly, I kicked Jorik off me and sent him flying across the deck. I leaped up, went over to him, grabbed him by the front of the shirt and punched him hard enough and enough times that his eyes fluttered closed and he slumped to the deck unconscious.
I was just climbing back up the ladder, having tossed his dead weight into the bunk down below, when a blur of black shirt, khakis, and light brown hair came barreling at me, knocking me back into the cabin. The weight of Rix landed on top of me, and he swung out with an enormous fist. I narrowly dodged it and felt sick to my stomach when he grunted in pain from having just smashed his fist into the hardwood floor of the cabin.
He growled like a wild animal and tried to punch me again, but I kicked him off me, only taking a half-hearted punch from him in the gut. I leaped up from my spot on the ground and grabbed him from behind, wrapping my arm around his neck and squeezing until his struggles ended and he went limp in my arms.
I dragged his ass to the bunk as well and tossed him onto the bed with Jorik, then I went to the door above the ladder, closed it, and barricaded it as best I could by yanking the ladder off the wall and securing it in front of the door.
“More. Just a taste. Return to the source. Take what is ours. What we deserve. What we crave.”
Flames licked up my throat, and I doubled over in pain from how hot my insides felt. I wanted to scratch my skin raw and scream from how badly the burning sensation hurt. It was if my bones were made of hot metal and I was being roasted over a roaring fire, my flesh crackling and searing until it peeled away in charred black curls. I could practically hear it. Could damn near smell it. Burning flesh.
