55. (DEIRK POV)

(DEIRK POV)

Holy shit, Percy was a blood dealer. Not here for that, but he was one. Selling blood to vampires could get you a life sentence if they caught you. To put it simply, if a vampire was resorting to buying blood from the street, there was a reason.

I suspected Camilla had figured it out, too. That's probably why Percy had been holed up in the newbie dorm for the past six weeks. They were likely testing his blood to ensure he wasn't carrying anything that could be passed on to us. Vampire-transmitted diseases were a grim reality, not well-known outside our circles for obvious reasons.

Trying to maintain my composure after his confession was a challenge. This was the aspect of the vampire world I despised the most. Humans, driven by desperation, made choices like Percy's only to end up punished far beyond what their so-called crimes merited. Percy could have easily become a plaything for someone like Magness...tortured and drained nearly to death...all because he was driven