Once Bitten *On Hiatus*

𝕾𝖎𝖝𝖙𝖞 𝕹𝖎𝖓𝖊

• 𝓜𝓪𝓮 •

I stared down at my torn clothes, then turned and looked back at Seraph. He blinked slowly, tilting his head and glancing down at the ripped outfit. The warm, ripped outfit I no longer could wear.

Man was an animal.

"Guess I'll just have to walk back naked," I said simply.

I blew out a breath then turned and started walking back to the castle, naked as the day I was born. I wasn't necessarily keen on the possibility of being seen walking around South District with my tits and ass out, but it didn't seem like I had much of a choice.

Seraph grabbed my arm and spun me back to him, glaring down at me. "I will be damned if anyone sees you like this."

I raised my eyebrows. "I thought the whole point of this was to get caught."

"To get caught while I fucked you and made you scream so they knew who you belong to," he corrected, and I about dropped to my knees.

Instead, I smirked. "Oh, I belong to you?"

He reached around me, cupping my ass, before leaning down and placing his lips by my ear. "Don't you?"

I hummed, pushing into him for as much warmth as I could get. After everything, I was suddenly coming down from my adrenaline high and I was starting to get cold. Which, with my vampiric body temperature, that meant it was freezing outside.

Not a fan.

I pouted. "I'll be anything you want me to be if you get me to the castle and into warm clothes."

His eyes darkened before he shook himself out of it. He reached behind him, grabbed a handful of his shirt, and pulled it over his head. He slipped it over my head and watched as I pushed my arms through.

The shirt reached down to mid-thigh, and while I was still freezing, at least people wouldn't be seeing my lady-bits.

I grabbed Seraph's hand and started pulling him back to the castle, half-running to escape the cold. He was tall enough that he didn't really have to speed up much.

Asshole.

I glanced at a house, that uncomfortable feeling returning from earlier. I didn't know what it was. On the outside it looked fine, so I wasn't sure what it was that was telling me that something was wrong.

"What's wrong," Seraph asked.

"Do you know anything about that house?" I motioned towards it as we walked past.

He glanced over at it and waited until we were closer to the castle before he responded. "That was Owen's old house. The woman he was with and her daughter live there. The woman is dying of cancer. I'm honestly surprised she's still alive."

People died all the time since the vampire takeover. Either diseases the vampires didn't want to cure, too much blood taken at the time of feeding, or domestic disputes that went awry. In the beginning, there was so much death that we became desensitized to it relatively quickly. Older kids tried to gang up on the vampires, only for them to be slaughtered.

It taught a valuable lesson right at the start.

No human could outsmart, overpower, or outrun a vampire.

But it wasn't the fact that the mother was dying that concerned me. It was the little girl I saw running in there earlier.

We walked into the castle and I turned to him. "Can I visit them tomorrow?"

He blinked. "You don't need to ask permission from me to do things."

Right. I had to ask permission from Kite.

At first, I thought it was Kite being overbearing. After what happened with Zero, I realized he was being protective. Overprotective at times, yes. But protective nonetheless. Since coming back as a vampire, he stepped back a bit.

Emphasis on a bit.

Seraph led me back to his room and grabbed a pair of his sweatpants and a shirt before turning and handing them to me. I changed, smiling slightly at the way he watched me. Something had changed between us. It wasn't a bad sort of change, but I could feel it dancing in the air between us. He looked at me differently. One part seemed like he wanted to own me body and soul, and the other part seemed like he simply wanted to cherish me.

I handed him his shirt, and when he went to grab it, I snatched it back, grinning.

He hummed.

"I think I like you better without a shirt," I said, trailing my eyes down his body.

His lip quirked. "And I like you better without any clothes at all."

I handed him his shirt, reading the underlying promise in his words. If I didn't give it back, he'd take his clothes back. And while I didn't mind, I had a feeling that since we were back in the castle, someone would come knocking sooner or later.

Though...would it be so bad? The only people who would come knocking would be Kite, Noah, or Luca - all three of whom had seen me naked before.

While the idea was intriguing, something told me that while Seraph had me, I was fully his. He didn't seem the type to share while he was in the vicinity. He knew of my "relationship" with the others, and didn't seem to have an issue with it. But I didn't see four against one happening anytime soon, if at all.

He pulled his shirt over his head and went to his window, drawing back the curtains before looking at me over his shoulder. He held his hand out and I went to him, linking my fingers through his and allowing him to pull me in front of him. I looked out, my eyes taking in the darkness. But within that darkness, I saw snow.

I watched as it drifted down from the sky, shocked to see that with my new vision, if I concentrated hard enough, I could see the shapes of the snowflakes. How different each were. How perfect they all were.

It was amazing.

Seraph pulled away, but I remained, fixated on the way more and more snowflakes began to fall. They stuck to the ground, and by the time I finally tore my eyes away, a light dusting of snow covered everything that I could see.

Seraph sat on his bed, watching me.

Noah stood nearby, a small smile on his face. I hadn't even noticed him come in.

"Sorry." I turned away from the window. "I got distracted."

"It's ok," Noah said. "It's fun seeing you discover things about yourself since becoming a vampire. It's not all so bad."

No, it wasn't all bad. Some things were amazing. My enhanced vision was probably one of my favorite parts about it. Well...

I glanced at Seraph, and his lip curled.

Another one of my favorite parts was beginning to be the enhanced feelings of touch. But only with certain things. I still hated the feel of towels against my skin, but it wasn't too bad as long as I had blood. Blood enhanced some things and desensitized my body to others. It was strange, to say the least.

If I ever decided to starve myself of it, I knew it would be hell.

"Kite wanted to make sure you two came back safely," Noah said. 

Seraph eyed him. "You mean, he wanted to make sure I didn't hurt her."

Noah shook his head. "No. He wanted to make sure both of you got back safely."

An emotion akin to confusion crossed Seraph's face briefly. He wasn't used to being cared for, and that made me sad. How long had it been since he felt any sense of security? Happiness? Seraph played off his emotions well. But not well enough.

I just wondered if I would fill that inherent need to be cared for, and if not, would he accept Kite, Noah, and Luca to finish filling in that need?