First Blood
The alley reeks of rot and stale beer, but I’m too tired to care. My shift bled into the early hours, and all I want is to make it home before sunrise. My boots slap against wet pavement, the echo too loud, too alone.
The city hums in a distant roar—horns, a dog barking somewhere, machinery thrumming behind the restaurant I just passed.
Then it cuts through: a growl, low and guttural, scraping out from behind the dumpster ahead.
A dog, I tell myself, though my pulse betrays me. But it isn’t a dog.
I freeze as my eyes adjust. A man crouches in the shadows, shoulders jerking over something pale. At first, I think he’s beating someone, fists pounding. Then the copper stench hits—thick, sour—and I understand.
Not fists. Teeth.
The body beneath him is naked and torn, throat shredded, chest punctured. Blood pools out, soaking into the pavement as the man feeds—tearing, sucking, his mouth buried deep in ruined skin, feeding, tearing, slurping in a way that made bile rise in my throat.
The growl wasn’t an animal. It is him.
He looks up—teeth bared, lips slick with blood—then screams, a sound so raw it splits the night open. It rattles through my skull. I squeeze my eyes shut, palms over my ears. When I dare to look again, he’s gone. Only the blood-soaked corpse sprawls across the pavement.
My pulse hammers as I fumble for my phone, fingers clumsy, slippery. Call 911. Just call—
Another scream tears the air, closer this time. He’s still here.
I spin just as a blur collides with me—pale face, gleaming eyes, teeth too sharp for any human. No time to scream before he slams me into the wall.
My spine cracks against brick, breath exploding out in a stunned gasp. His weight crushes me, unyielding. Fingers clamp bruises into my arms; his breath scorches my skin, rank with blood.
“Don’t—” I choke, but he doesn’t care. His mouth crashes to my throat. Fangs spear deep. Agony detonates—like knives sawing flesh, like fire poured into my veins.
My scream rips free, jagged and useless. I claw, kick, thrash, but he drinks like a beast—greedy pulls, throaty growls vibrating against my skin. Blood spills hot down my chest, freezing my body even as it burns. My vision shudders. Pulse surges, stutters—too fast, then faint, then failing.
Just before the darkness swallows me, something changes.
And then—weight gone. Ripped from me. A snarl shakes the alley as another figure blurs into focus. Taller. Faster. His strike is clean, vicious. The other smashes into the wall, bones popping in the silence that follows. And in the blink of an eye… he’s gone.
The stranger turns. I slump against the bricks, trembling, blood seeping hot between my fingers where they press my throat. My breaths are shallow, jagged, desperate.
“You’re bleeding out,” he growls, crouching close. His face is pale, sharp, eyes burning with something steady beneath the danger.
“I can save you, but it will hurt.”
I can barely nod. My body is too weak to resist.
He presses a hand to my neck, anchoring me, then bends. Fangs sink into torn flesh already ruined by the other’s bite.
The pain flares, sharp intrusion—but it shifts. His bite isn’t frenzied. It’s deliberate. Pull, release. Pull, release. Each draw quells the fire in my veins, transforms it into a weighted, consuming warmth. My chest loosens. I sag into him, hands clinging to his coat as darkness presses close. His low growl vibrates through me—not hunger, but restraint.
When he finally pulls back, his lips shine red. His eyes meet mine, a storm of danger and something unspoken.
“You’ll live,” he says, voice ragged.
I want to answer, to ask who he is, what he’s done—but my body gives way. The world tilts, edges blacken, and he is the last thing I know holding me upright before everything falls to nothing.
