Page 68 of Property of Mako
He shouted, a guttural sound of pain, his body convulsing as my nails dug into his shoulders.
“Lyra!” Calix’s roar was thunder in my ears. Hands yanked at me, but I was gone, lost to the ecstasy of the blood. This wasn’t feeding—this was devouring.
Power surged through me, hot, electric, endless. My body arched as if the force of it might split me open. I couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop?—
Then something blasted outward from Dexter. A shockwave of heat and light slammed into me, hurling me back across the room. My body hit the wall, chains rattling as I collapsed, twitching, blood still smeared across my lips.
The fire inside me… shifted. It didn’t stop, but it bent, seared into something that listened. The hunger screamed, but I could hear myself again. My chest heaved, my fangs slick with his blood, my eyes locked on Dexter.
He was on his knees, panting, his hand pressed to the wound in his neck—already healing. His blood shimmered faintly on the floor, glowing gold for a fleeting heartbeat before sinking into the ground.
Everyone froze.
“What… the fuck was that?” Crypt whispered, staring at him like he’d never seen him before.
Dexter blinked, dazed, his face pale but steady. “I—I don’t know,” he rasped, voice hoarse. “I was just… trying to help.”
But even through the chaos, the storm still raging inside me, I knew—deep down—I hadn’t tasted just blood.
I’d tasted divinity.
The silence afterward was deafening.
Confused, I sat trembling on the floor, blood still dripping from my lips, chest heaving as the hunger clawed at me. But I wasn’t lost anymore. I was me again. Somehow, impossibly. Kind of.
Dexter’s hand pressed against his throat, but the wound was already gone, the skin unbroken, smooth. No vampire healed that fast. Not even Calix.
And then there was the glow. The faint shimmer where his blood had spilled, like sunlight trapped in water, seeping into the floorboards until it vanished.
“What the hell just happened?” Crypt’s voice cracked sharp through the room.
Nobody answered.
Calix was still crouched near me, his eyes wild, flicking from me to Dexter and back again. His hand gripped my arm like he wasn’t sure if I was going to launch again or fall apart.
Dexter looked just as shaken. “I—I was trying to help her,” he explained hoarsely. “She was in pain. I thought—if I could just… ease it somehow.” His eyes darted to mine. “You needed it. You were dying, Lyra. The transition was killing you—I think it might be because of your legacy blood. Amplifiers aren’t meant to… change.”
“Dexter, you shouldn’t have done that.” Calix’s voice was low, lethal. His jaw flexed, but there was more than anger in his tone. There was something like fear. “Vampires in transition are unpredictable—deadly.”
Dexter’s brows pinched. “I didn’t know she’d—” His throat bobbed as if he couldn’t even say it. “I’ve never… no one’s ever reacted like that before. I’ve aided in several transitions over the years.”
Crypt stepped forward, eyes narrowing. “That wasn’t normal healing, Dex. I’ve seen you patch up gunshot wounds and broken ribs like it was nothing, but that…” He pointed to the faint shimmer on the floor. “That wasn’t human. And it sure as fuck wasn’t vampire.”
Everyone’s gaze went back to Dexter.
He lifted his hands slowly, as if surrendering. “I don’t know what to tell you—I always thought I just had a gift.”
But I knew he was lying. Or maybe he just didn’t know what he was. Whatever ran through his veins wasn’t just blood. It was something else. Something ancient and dangerous.
And I had tasted it.
My body still thrummed with the echo of it, a lingering hum beneath my skin that made me both want to curl into a ball and tear the world apart with my bare hands.
Calix’s grip on me tightened, dragging my attention back to him. His eyes searched mine, like he was trying to decide whether to hold me closer or chain me to the floor again.
“Don’t touch her again,” he told Dexter flatly. “Whatever the fuck that was, we’re not testing it again. Her will isn’t strong—she’s too new.”
Dexter looked wounded, but he only nodded. My heart ached for him because he’d only been trying to help me.
