You Make My Blood Sing

Chapter One

Nico is hungry.

Starving, actually; not in the right state of mind to even figure out exactly how long it had been since his last meal, only that it's been too long. So long that it feels as though his chest had been hollowed out with a butcher's knife and there are ants crawling under his skin and swimming through his venomous veins.

If he weren't so delirious, he'd be able to able to fully comprehend the dangers of being famished for so long; he'd be able to go about the streets in search for a oblivious, half-willing donor; accept the invitation back to their place before he feeds from their necks in a way mortals only read as a little frisky. Nico's stealthy, so he always laps away the wound before anyone notices, and once full, he generously repays them with a sly grin, bedroom eyes and a couple hours of his time.

However now the urge to eat is animal, nothing but a sheer drive to consume. It's a strange need, since it is not the basic human instinct to merely survive, but a physical, coiling wrench in his gut tugging his strings like a puppeteer.

It hasn't been this bad since he was turned. Alone, waking up in an alleyway, trying to figure out why his skin crawls under the sunlight and why his teeth elongate into those of a predator.

There are no such things as vampires, sweetie a mother had once told her young daughter, who had caught a glimpse of his crimson eyes and the scarlet smear around his lips. Every now and then, Nico comes to think of that girl and how she's doing, whether, several years later, she had brushed it off as childish imaginings or whether it stuck to her, if she blabbered and is now being treated for delusions like most are.

Nico, who's emotional capacity is nothing but an empty vault, feels for those people. They're the right ones, of course. However humankind is merely too blissfully ignorant, stubbornly set on the wonders of science, and brush aside any anomalies and unexplainable miracles as though they're nothing.

In reality - the actual reality - vampires do exist, alongside so many others. So many more species, that either remain hidden in the places that humans consider too extreme to live, or hide in plain sight (like Nico) who blend in as mortals and not mythics.

But right now, his disguise is at risk and if he ends up shifting in this diner under the eyes of several human witnesses, there would be no mistaking this as a simple trick of the light, and by the time it hits the news hunters would already have a stake buried in him.

It takes every inch of his being to get a grip on himself, and second by second it slips through his fingers. There's no way he'd be able to seduce someone in this state, let alone do so without completely selling himself out, and though his thrall is always an option it's a little too far of a stretch against his moral compass - the only one time that he did use it was when he lured a kidnapper away from a courtyard and drained him to his very last drop.

His senses are nulled, his limbs sluggish, and he thinks he may end up hibernating here for a day or ten, but then the door chimes and Nico's renewed with an all new wave of energy when he picks up on that scent...

Wolf.

It's a fight or flight response increased by a tenfold, and whatever adrenaline equivalent chemical roars through his blackened capillaries rejuvenates his strength and coherency in a way that he would almost consider a blessing - even if it's only temporary. His body seems to do this only in the times of immediate danger, as if it could pick up on his surroundings quicker than his mind can comprehend. It's an involuntary reaction, of course, and although helpful it always leaves him severely drained whenever it seeps away.

The man that enters is undoubtedly a handsome being, but ever since he's been forced into this world, looks have never been more deceiving - especially when he's a walking example himself. Naturally tan skin, golden hair, well-built, but most significantly a wolf. Reckless creatures, that shift under the glare of a full moon into beasts fuelled with bloodlust. They won't be so pretty then.