the end of the school. I was hungry as hell, but I was grateful for the opportunity to miss out on seeing the vamps that tormented me yesterday. Luckily, I caught sight of a basket sitting on the teacher’s desk.
“Did you pack me breakfast?” I asked. “How thoughtful of you.”
“No?” Gritt replied. I noticed a card on top and picked it up to read the pristine script inside:
Devicka,
I was called away on council business. I left Gritt instructions on what to go over. Give him hell and see you soon.
Always in your corner,
Banner
I opened the basket and grinned at the various fruits and breakfast items. Maybe my little talk with Banner last night had been good after all.
“What is it?” Gritt asked.
I passed over the instructions Banner had left for him. “A gift from Banner. He won’t be here today,” I replied. Despite everything, I didn’t actually want to torment Gritt with our failed bond. I couldn’t blame him for hating to be stuck with me. He was a paragon after all, destined to do great shit that I wanted no part of.
“Of course he packed you breakfast,” Gritt muttered while reading the slip of paper. He dropped it as soon as he finished reading, and then started digging through his backpack. He pulled out a large textbook and sat down at a desk, motioning for me to sit next to him. “He left us a shit load of stuff to read.”
Gritt opened the textbook and grabbed a pencil from his pocket, nodding at the chair beside him before putting his shaggy blond hair up in a bun on top of his head. I settled into my seat, my uniform riding up my thighs as I twisted to look at the book in front of Gritt. It was almost amusing to have him as a study buddy. He didn’t exactly scream studious. With his huge muscles, tanned skin, and handsome face, he was much more the cocky jock.
“What’s on the lesson plan, Nitty Gritty?” I asked before tapping my pencil on the edge of the desk. I was still mad at him, but I was also mad at myself. I wish I didn’t let him get under my skin so easily. I wish I didn’t feel this pull toward him.
Gritt rolled his eyes. “The origin of Voids. You’ve got an entire chapter dedicated to your kind.” My mouth dropped open in shock, and I scooted my chair over to get a better look. My entire life, I’d been curious about my abilities, and Banner had found a book about my kind. I didn’t know where he’d gotten it, but I was grateful.
My fingers greedily inched toward the textbook. Gritt flipped through the pages, and once he got where he wanted, he shoved it toward me. “Read.”
He might as well have been a caveman for all of his single word grunts he tossed my way, but I didn’t care. I was too engrossed by the picture on the page in front of me. A man surrounded by black smoke looked back at me, right alongside a chapter-long list of warnings.
“The first recorded Void was all the way back in the thirteen hundreds,” I said, more to myself than anything.
Gritt grunted but made no other noise as he picked at his claws.
“Capable of draining immense power, all Voids have explained their ability in similar ways, describing it as an endless hunger. There have been testimonies of a Void consuming hundreds of powers at once, and it still being capable of draining more. There is no known limit to the amount of power that they can pilfer.”
My words died in my throat as I stared. I knew that my power was extreme, but I had no idea that it was limitless. Just how many people could I steal powers from until I had to stop? Would the Void ever be satiated? According to this, I had a lifetime of starvation to look forward to. That thought didn’t sit so well.
“Who was he?” I heard myself asking, my eyes still trained on the page.
In my peripheral, I saw Gritt look up from his claws. “Theodore Rhodes,” he replied in a bored tone. “Last known Void to exist. There used to be more thousands of years ago, but they were gradually killed off, as well as information surrounding them. He died about a hundred years before you were born. Leveled an entire shifter compound. A horde of vamps took him down.”
I swallowed thickly. No wonder