Twice Bitten (Love, Lust & Magic #1)

Pruitt

“The fuck was that?”

managed only a blurry view of Uriah as he nursed his throbbing temples in his hands. His first realization post-haze was that the lake literally was no more.

“I don’t know, mate, but did you know there’s a cave in here?”

whipped around to see a disheveled Uriah not far from him. Instead of water surrounding them, there was a sea of sand, sediment, and litter. That—and they were at the bottom of what looked to be a crater some thirty feet deep.

The opening on the farthest side of the basin cavity that Uriah was referring to did indeed appear to be a cave. “Fucking ominous,” Uriah cursed as he made his way to . “Sorry for pissing you off, by the way.”

?Call me crazy, but I’m thinking there’s a connection between all of this , ? replied telepathically. ?You. Me. Odessa. Griff, too.?

“It seems we really do have a past, eh, wolf boy?” Uriah joked as he went to slap his hand on ’s shoulder in a playful manner.

“Don’t!” ’s shout echoed throughout the crater. Uriah retracted his wrist at the last moment. “No touching until we figure out what’s going on.”

“All right, all right,” Uriah said with a guffaw. “But you have to admit—that sure was some paranormal shit, huh?”

rolled his eyes. “I think we’re going to have to pay our new human acquaintance a visit.”

“Ah, yeah, our little Happy Meal on legs, Griff, then?” replied Uriah. “Sure. These visions and flashbacks certainly have me working up an appetite, anyway.”

?I’m being serious.?

?So am I. Are you still serious about killing me??

“No. Look, I’ve got a big game coming up this Friday,” sighed . “If you actually paid attention to what’s happening on campus instead of just eating freshmen, you would know that. And I can’t afford to have some three-thousand-year-old witch bitch from hell—or some three-hundred-year-old-plus vampire with no self-control, for that matter—messing things up.”

“Maybe I’ll bump into the fella between classes,” replied Uriah, an excited look on his face as he pulled his flask out of a pink pair of old, wet underwear at the bottom of the drained lakebed. He spoke up again when he realized was staring daggers at him. “You know what? Yeah. I’ll stop by his dorm in the morning and have a chat. Us vampires, we sure love going out in the daytime.”

“Since I’m the only one who actually goes to class, I think that’s a great idea,” said . “Take an umbrella or something and find out what his deal is. From there, we can figure out just exactly what’s going on—and hopefully not kill one another in the process.”

“Says the guy who, moments ago, was trying to take a chunk out of me,” scoffed Uriah.

“I could say the same for you, Uriah,” sighed. “And don’t hurt him, either.”

“ Okay, okay . I’ll figure out the whole sun being out thing and handle recon first thing tomorrow. You handle being, what is it they call it? Oh, yeah, big jock on campus. But first,” Uriah’s voice took a more serious turn, “, pray tell, how are we getting out of here?”

Both men looked up.