Nexus [COMPLETE]

4. Domare

(May 2013)

Intravenous feeding was so boring.

As I held out my arm to one of the nurses, and she shoved the needle into one of my vein's, I didn't bother to hide my annoyance. My grandmother was in the seat closest to me as usual. Overbearing old biddy. Her ebony hair curled over the back of her chair, and her smoky gray eyes fixated on me as she extended her arm to a nurse.

"How did selections go yesterday?" she asked. Grandmother looked as young as I did, but she was centuries old. Where a human might pinpoint her age somewhere between twenty and thirty, she was a far cry from young. Even though I was her only relative in Pluto, not even I knew her true age.

"Same as always," I said, voice still heavy with sleep. I almost smiled at her disapproving frown, but I knew she wouldn't appreciate the gesture.

"What was the highest compatibility rate they could find for you this time?" she asked primly.

"Seven percent."

She made an irritated sound. "That's it?"

I hummed. "I think if they ever found a match for me above twenty, they'd leap at the chance to bind me to a human."

"That would be foolish. The slayer would not survive the transfusion." She stuck up her nose. "It must have been your mother's side of the family with all those disagreeable genes. I've had three slayers in fifty years, and they can't find a match for you above twenty percent." She shook her head and tsked.

"Don't fret, Grandmother. I don't want a slayer." I reclined further in the chair, focusing on the overhead lights and the rush of new blood filling my body. I felt the press of my sharp fangs against my bottom lip. I hadn't taken a bite out of someone in so long that bloodlust constantly brimmed at the contours of my control. Unlike my comrades, intravenous feeding did not fully sate my hunger.

"Do you want to spend the rest of your time here as a mere Trainee, Domare?" Grandmother chastised.

"The rest of my life, you mean," I muttered under my breath, trying to focus on something other than the smell of blood in the air. Louder I said, "It's a prison, not a resort, you batty old woman, and I don't need a keeper."

"You need something alright. Someone to tie you down and knock some sense into that head of yours. To get your mind off of the bloodlust."

Of course she noticed me flaring my nostrils and biting into my bottom lip like some newborn fledgling who couldn't control himself. "And you think some military idiot is going to do that for me? The entire concept is ridiculous. These humans are not meant to be our friends, Grandmother. Enhanced or not, they slayers are our babysitters."

"A fresh group came in yesterday afternoon," she said ignoring me as usual. "Brucker and Clarice think that some of the new recruits might suit you."

I rolled my eyes. "They say that every time."

She sighed, slouched in her chair, and put her free hand over her forehead. Always so dramatic. She did a job of turning a pout into a performance though. Pretty as she was, Hazel Grayson was anything but demure.

"What am I going to do with you, Domare?" she said, despair lacing her words.

"Stop doting," I growled. "It doesn't suit you." I reached over and pulled the needle from my arm, leaving a streak of blood across my skin that made my mouth water. I gave in to the urge to lick it off. My nurse protested and glared at me. Had the blood-bag not been empty, I would have ripped it open and poured the contents over my own head, just to piss her off even more.