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CHAPTER NINE 
FINN
“Why do you do this to me?” Marcus asks as he walks into the living room where I sit, prepared to crack open a book and just decompress for a bit. He acts like I have a single idea about what he’s going on about. I literally have no ideas about anything, especially something that’s so important that he had to come grumping to me.
“Which thing? I’ve done many things to fully ruin your life, I’m sure. So please, please inform me, which one have I done today? Was it when I called you Fangy McFucker or was it McFangy Face? Or when I confessed my undying love to you?”
“No—”
“Oh! Not that? Must have been when I put you in roller skates.”
Marcus’s eyes narrow. “We do not speak of that. That has been extremely clear, has it not? Have you forgotten about that? Have you forgotten that you promised me that we’d never speak of it again? It is my life goal to destroy all roller-skating rinks,” he decides.
“Wow, such a brave life goal! Death to the rinks!” I say, which makes Marcus’s eyes narrow even more. He might well close them before long if he keeps narrowing them like this. “Imagine all the crying children. Should be enough tears for you to feast off of for at least a week!”
“I am not afraid of you, human,” he says.
“Oh, thank god! I’m so glad you’re not,” I tease. “Now please, tell me what I’ve done so you can feel better, and I can feel amused.”
He holds up his phone, showing me a text chain between him and Claude.
Claude: Pink, yellow, or orange. 
Marcus: I hate color. 
Claude: Ooh, this lavender would complement your eyes. 
There’s a picture of a rather gaudy-looking lavender cloth. Like big fake gems tacked onto it mixed in with a quite… vibrant pattern.
Marcus: If you bring that cloth anywhere near me, I will light it on fire and make you watch it BURN. 
Claude: Magical! 
Marcus: This is not something to be joyous about. 
Claude: Do you have dress shoes in any color other than black? 
Marcus: They don’t make them in any other color. 
Claude: I found a gold pair for you. 
Marcus: Come over here so you can watch them fly. 
Claude: Marcus, sometimes I feel like you’re overly aggressive, and I don’t know why. Sometimes I feel like you hold too much hatred in your heart and you need a strong, firm hug to just squeeze that black miasma out and embrace the love I am giving you. Doesn’t Finn hug you enough? 
Marcus: I’m positive you’re losing your mind. There is nothing oozing out of me besides disbelief that you think I’d wear something like that. 
The next picture that comes in is one of Alexei who clearly must be dead as he lies on the couch draped in the ugliest colors I’ve ever seen. Alexei is pretending like he’s not even part of this journey but I do notice that Marcus hasn’t replied to it at all, so pretending to be Marcus, I write:
Marcus: I LOVE that. Capital love. 
Claude: OMG REALLY? 
Marcus: I admire the way it sucks his soul out. It’s exquisite. Dazzling even!!! 
Claude: GASP. Thank you. Are you okay? Are you dying? 
Marcus: Dying from how cute that is!!!!!!!!! 
Claude: Like… the clothes? 
Marcus: What else? They’re gorgeous. Finn is going to be all up in my bizz when he sees me wearing this. He’s gonna faint from horniness but the way that sparkle shines will revive him in an instant! 
That’s when there’s a hammering on the door. Honestly, it’s so fast since the last text that I don’t even guess that it’s Claude until there’s a clear “MARCUS” that comes through the door. It sounds so urgent that I feel a little uncertain.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Marcus asks as he grumbles his way to the door, making me realize that Claude has zoomed his ass over here. I’m confused about why until Claude grabs Marcus’s face the moment he sees him.
Instead of looking overly joyful at assaulting his brother’s head, Claude looks shocked as he shakes Marcus in a way that I believe is supposed to be caring.
“He’s having a heart attack. NO! His brain… something’s happened to his brain. Finn, please. Hurry. We need to get him to a medical facility,” Claude says as he grabs Marcus. I’m too delighted to say anything as I watch him scoop Marcus up into the air. The look of joy on my face is probably quite apparent as I realize that Claude thinks Marcus is dying because of his replies to Claude’s text—aka MY replies.
Have I ever been this delighted in my life?
“What the fuck?” Marcus asks as Alexei zips in looking alarmed.
“What’s the emergency? What happened?” Alexei asks as he looks between us like he’s assessing who might have lost a leg or two by the way Claude is acting. What the hell did Claude tell him to make even Alexei concerned?
“Marcus is dying,” Claude announces. “Start the car. Is it faster to drive? Should I run him? Can I run faster if I cut through the alleyways? I will run him!”
Marcus, who can’t seem to get out of Claude’s grasp, is thrashing about.
“He’s having a seizure,” Claude realizes.
“I’m not having a fucking seizure. Put me down, you idiot. What the absolute hell do you think you’re doing?”
Oh, my heart. My fragile heart is loving every minute of this as I take out my own phone and start recording as Claude cradles Marcus like a baby while looking unsure what to do. He seems rather surprised that his dying brother still has so much life left to give.
Oh, the joy.
Alexei seems reasonably confused until he looks at me and sees that I’m oddly not alarmed at all about my one true love’s supposed demise. Then he gives me an exasperated look. “What is happening?”
“I would fucking like to know too!” Marcus yells. He’s now got Claude in a headlock, like he’s prepared to choke him if it sets him free.
“Marcus is dying,” Claude says. “Why the hell is no one else concerned by this? Why does no one else realize that he’s going to die?”
Marcus has him in a chokehold now. Claude just looks confused as he struggles and begins to fight now for his own life.
Alexei lets out a sigh before taking a seat next to me. “Do you have any idea what’s happening?” he asks as the brothers are now in some weird brawl. Claude is trying to drag Marcus out to safety and Marcus is trying to battle him off—neither are making it very far.
“I took Marcus’s phone and pretended to be him and told Claude how much I loved the clothes, so Claude thought that meant Marcus was dying,” I explain. “It’s like a TV drama.”
Alexei nods. “Makes total sense. Honestly, not even surprised.”
“You did what?” Marcus barks. He’s now got one arm around Claude’s neck while Claude has Marcus’s leg up in the air, preparing to drag him by one foot if he needs to.
“It was an accident,” I say then give him my best innocent expression that always lets me sucker him.
Marcus’s face tells me that he doesn’t believe in accidents and that my expression needs some work. “Dammit, Finn, tell Claude so he stops being an idiot.”
“But isn’t it cute how much he cares about you?” I ask.
Neither Marcus nor Claude seem overly in love with me saying anything’s cute at the moment. Which… honestly, I’m not surprised by.
“So… you’re not dying?” Claude asks, sounding astonished. Like Marcus fending him off at full strength didn’t prove that.
“No… thank you for… caring to check,” Marcus says, and I’m honestly surprised by the conviction of it. He actually does seem to care that Claude was willing to get thwacked to save his life.
Instead of leaving, Claude sinks down on the couch, flopping his body over my lap as well as Alexei’s.
“I really thought Marcus was dying, Finn. Why did you do this to me?” he asks as he looks up at me with his puppy dog eyes.
I tug at his perfectly styled hair. No matter how much I mess with it, it goes right back to its perfect position.
“Because Marcus can’t tell you himself how much he loves the outfit, so I felt like I had to do it for him.”
“Ha,” Claude says dryly. “So funny. I’m not falling for your lies again, you cute little menace. I trusted you with my heart and look at what you’ve done to me.”
I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to look at. Just him wallowing around? Or was there something more? Either way, I can’t help but enjoy it. “You poor thing. Do you think you’ll be okay?”
“I might, but I’m honestly not sure.”
“I hope you are!” Of course, there was a dash of amusement tossed in with that.
Claude just smiles warmly at me. “Thank you. I feel so loved when I’m around you, Finn. So very much loved.”
“I’m glad,” I say as I pat his head until Hela leaps onto Claude, and then I use her claws to brush his hair. He doesn’t seem to mind. He just loves attention, and that’s all that matters to him. Hela does sneak a few licks in there—when she gets a lick of his hair, she seems mildly disgusted by whatever product he uses to make sure it refuses to move away from perfection.
“Did you figure out anything about Ender?” I ask.
“Bits and pieces, really. The information that I can find leads me to believe that he was killed, but no one truly knows how or when. Because he was feared, many people had created these… complex stories about him… about how he’d become the strongest of all vampires by killing and eating the ‘old ones,’ which we now know are the true vampires. We have no proof that would change anything,” Claude says. “Why have you stopped petting me?”
I stare down at him. “I… didn’t realize more petting was required. But of course. I will pet you more, I guess.”
“You have caused me great trauma. More pets are required.”
I set Hela’s ass on his head, assuming that would suffice. The look he gives me tells me it doesn’t, but honestly, he shouldn’t be so damn picky.
She decides to smack his face with her paw and when he flinches, she thinks it’s the best thing ever and starts play biting at his hair. He picks her up and holds her above him as she wiggles.
“You are too damn cute. You could eat all my hair and I would still love you,” Claude decides, which is quite the compliment. I remember how he reacted after he lost a single eyebrow. Then he turns back to me. “I can’t figure out where he came from. Around the time he slaughtered Marcus’s village was when he started to become known. People feared him but often fear turns into stories and stories turn untruthful. It’s so hard finding exact information about him that doesn’t stray from fact.”
“Which is understandable. Marcus was probably rumored to be the evilest in the land,” I say.
Claude grins. “I’m sure many thought of him that way.”
“Many still do,” Marcus declares, apparently proud of this fact, which makes me shake my head.
“I wouldn’t brag about that,” Alexei says. “When we first started working together, the other detectives would call on him just to have him question people because he could take one look at them and make them piss themselves.”
Marcus nods approvingly, a fond expression on his face that I’m quite worried by. “Thank you.”
“That’s not something to be proud of,” I remind him, but Marcus doesn’t care. He and Alexei are thinking back on this like it’s a memory of good times. Honestly… I’m not sure how he never got fired. How was he ever even put in a position of authority?
“Then you had to take all those classes about human interactions,” Alexei says.
“I made the man in charge cry.” Marcus is still proud. Maybe even prouder… of course he is.
“Dear god, Marcus,” I breathe. “Do you want me to show them your reviews? Because I will unless you try a little harder at being less evil.”
“I follow his reviews. I like them,” Alexei says. Of course he does. “The one you wrote yesterday brought a smile to my face.”
Of course it does. “Why do I even try with either of you? Clearly, you both hate kindness and love.”
“Immensely,” Alexei says.
“Why didn’t you two ever get together? You two would have become evil villains and ruled the world.”
Claude turns to me. “Maybe we should be lovers instead.”
“Maybe we should,” I declare. “I would like all of you to be aware that Claude and I are now together.”
“That’s nice,” Marcus says, obviously not caring.
I try to pick Claude up to carry him off, but the man is ridiculously tall, and I can’t pick up anything but a single leg which I promptly put down. In some sad act of pity, he picks me up and holds me awkwardly. “Where are we going, lover?”
“To the bedroom, of course, you sexy stud.”
“Rawr,” Claude says as he trots off with me while Alexei and Marcus don’t seem to mind at all. I’m pretty sure they’re distracted by something on Marcus’s phone.
“I can’t wait to touch pee-pees,” I announce loudly, but I can hear Alexei and Marcus now sharing reviews and not caring about my new lover.
Claude slams the door, drops me onto the bed then sinks down next to me. “Oh, Finn, your anaconda is making my Loch Ness Monster perky!”
I’m not even sure what’s going on now as Claude rolls onto his side to stare at me.
“I’m worried about Marcus,” he says.
“Because of the texting?”
“No, because of this bullshit with the assholes from his past. Marcus is like a fucking steel box where he refuses to ever open it because he’s allergic to sharing anything about his past. And it doesn’t matter what you do to that box, it’s fucking welded shut.”
“He’s opened up a little, but I’m sure he’s keeping the rest locked down tight.”
“The relationship he ended up in with that group was extremely toxic and he did things that he will probably never want to tell you out of fear that you will see him differently.”
“Can I be honest and say that I feel like I’m not doing enough or something? Like I get that Marcus likes living a life where he hides everything he can, but I feel like I’m not doing enough as a partner to make him feel comfortable in opening up to me.”
Claude reaches out and grabs me, pulling me down so my head is on his chest where he proceeds to pet me. It’s awkward yet kind of nice in some weird way. And once I give in, it’s oddly comforting, so I let myself sink into him. “It’s not you, Finn. It’s not that he’s not close enough to trust you. He loves you so much and would do absolutely anything for you. I’ve never seen Marcus open up to anyone in his life like he has with you. He just thinks that he has to keep everything to himself because he has to be the strong one.”
“I can be fucking strong too. I once punched a vampire so hard that I broke my prosthesis.”
“You probably shouldn’t brag about that,” Claude says.
“What if I just like tie him down and refuse to let him leave until he tells me?”
“I think that’s a very healthy decision,” he says with a touch of sarcasm. “Just… whatever Marcus does, don’t let them get in his head. Okay?”
“I won’t.”
“His head should be empty of everything but me,” Claude decides.
“What about me?”
“Oh yeah. Me and you. I’ll share a little bit. Not a lot but a little bit.”
I hear someone try the door but don’t realize until the door doesn’t open that Claude locked it.
“Don’t come in, I’m indecent with my lover,” Claude says.
“Open the fucking door,” Marcus barks.
“I’m busy with my stallion,” I assure him.
“I will break the door,” Marcus declares.
“Dear god, don’t break the door,” I say.
Bam.
The door flings inward and just like that, I watch while Claude is dragged across the bed as Marcus pulls his ankles. It’s like something out of a horror movie as he grabs and claws at anything he can get a hold of before disappearing off the bed.
“No! My stallion!” I cry.
“Horses belong outside,” Marcus says as he drops Claude near Alexei. “Trot along.”
“God, you’re evil,” Claude decides as he straightens up his clothes. “Alexei, my love, let’s go before we catch the ‘evil.’”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that Alexei caught it long ago. I mean… you can’t even claim to have not caught it while also telling your new human coworker you’re going to eat them. Last I checked, that wasn’t the right way to greet new employees.
But they head home, leaving me where I’m still lying on the bed. Marcus walks up to the foot of it and stares down at me. “What were you doing with Claude?”
“Touching our pokey peters together,” I say.
Marcus folds his arms over his chest. “Can I have a real answer?”
“Sword fighting with our meat swords.”
Marcus’s eyebrows rise. “Finnigan Annigan Hayes.”
“Stop making up middle names for me!”
“Tell me.”
“Honestly? He told me to be careful and not let you get drawn back into that stuff… with them. And I told him that I feel like I can’t do enough because you are allergic to opening up to people.”
He’s quiet for a moment and I fear I said too much. I don’t want him upset with me, but I also know we’re far enough in our relationship that we shouldn’t have to hide these things.
“You don’t have to tell me, Marcus. I just want you comfortable enough that if you decide you ever want to talk about it, you know that I’m here. I’m happy to listen.”
His expression softens as he climbs onto the bed and sinks down next to me before closing his eyes.
“I’m sorry if I said something that was too much,” I say, feeling kind of guilty.
“You’ve definitely said some stuff that’s too much but they’re usually things like… ‘meat swords’ too much,” he says.
I grin as he looks over at me.
“But no, I know I’m not good at opening up. I know I suck at sharing feelings. Sometimes… sometimes I just feel like even though I know you care and would listen to anything… I don’t know if I feel like sharing it. Not because of you. It’s never you. It’s just… I don’t know. Stupid shit. I’m good at just tossing stupid shit in the corner of my brain.”
“Life is packed full of stupid shit,” I say as I lift up my prosthetic arm and flex my fingers.
Marcus reaches out and takes my hand, and even though I can’t feel it, I find myself envisioning how his skin on mine would have felt there. He slides his fingers over the prosthesis, gliding over the metal.
He draws my hand up to his face, kissing my fingers. I’ve spent so much of my life hiding my prostheses, even from those close to me. I never wanted to draw attention to them because while I loved them for giving me freedom, I also hated them. It was a bizarre mix that even I struggle to understand sometimes.
But then Marcus did things like this, telling me that he loved every part of me, and I love and appreciate him for that.
As I roll into him, he slides a hand over my side, pulling me closer. “Alright, you want to hear how I met Kaden?”
“I do,” I say.
“It’s not that interesting.”
“Anything pertaining to your past is interesting, Marcus. Now sometimes when you talk about pig blood and stuff, that’s less interesting, but you know… the rest is interesting.”
“It’s just because you’ve never tried it,” he decides.
“Pretty sure that’s not it but sure, let’s pretend.”
He grins at me. “Okay. I met Kaden… he seemed alright… then I realized he was a dick, so I thought about murdering him, but then I remembered that was wrong to do. The end.”
I stare at him while wondering if he honestly assumed I’d be satisfied with this bizarrely condensed story. I mean… really? That’s all he’s going to give me?
Marcus stares back.
“Can I write a review? One star. Story had absolutely no depth and narrator sounded like he’d rather be kicked in the balls but he was pretty hot so I’ll give him a star.”
Marcus grins at me before sighing. “Fine.”
And then he finally begins.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER TEN 
MARCUS
The sun is blistering hot. I want to find shade, but I can’t seem to find anything. Just blood… and death… and sun.
There’s something that keeps me moving, but I’m not sure what it is. Something is forcing me up to my feet and moving me away from that place, away from all that death.
I spent too long searching the village, hoping for at least one other to have made it, but they’re all gone. They’re all dead and there was nothing left for me there. No reason to call it home any longer among the dead.
I’m tired. Very tired.
Honestly, is there even any use in going on? What’s out there that I even long for anymore? I feel exhausted of this life, and I can’t even explain why. Maybe the lack of blood has me feeling like this.
Deer and other wildlife have passed me as I stagger through this wasteland, but I can’t even find the desire to drink from them. Instead, all I can think about is how I’m constantly surrounded by death. Is it me? Maybe it’s me. Hell, they’d all still be alive if it weren’t for me.
This is why I hate humans. Too fragile.
Too useless.
I knew better but I needed a place to stay and because they didn’t know what I was, I became comfortable. Even hating what they were, hating that they were humans and knowing if they ever found out what I was, they would despise me, I stayed. I was using them, surely, but then why do I feel so damn sick and tired of everything now that they’re gone?
My foot catches on something as the blistering sun beats down on me. Stumbling, I can’t find the energy to catch myself and drop onto my knees before falling onto my back.
The sun hurts my eyes, but it makes me feel something, so I can’t stop staring up at the sky.
“Hello.”
I open my eyes that I hadn’t realized I’d closed and look up into the eyes of a human, a young man of about twenty, staring down at me. My first thought is whether or not I should eat him. I could probably feast on him without killing him, but I’m hungry enough that it might be risky.
Are there others around to see? Will someone miss him? Or find his body out here rotting underneath the hot sun?
“Are you okay?” he asks. “Need water?”
He holds water before me, and even though I’m dying for a drink, it isn’t what I want. And as his hand comes close to me, I can almost taste what it’d feel like to sink my fangs into his wrist. To break through that skin and feel that sweet taste of blood on my lips. Just thinking about it is nearly enough to get me on my feet and latching on to him.
He’s watching me curiously, like I’m an oddity, and out of habit alone, I try to portray myself as a human just to keep him from running because if he runs… I fear I might chase him.
“Did you come from the village up north?” he asks. “I heard everyone was dead. No one knows what happened… but I have an idea. No one believes me though. They claim I’m mad at times, but that’s okay. I know what hides in the dark.”
“Do you?” I ask. Clearly, he doesn’t know too much or he wouldn’t be stopping for me right now.
His brown eyes watch me closely. He’s not afraid of me but seems almost intrigued as he continues to hold the canteen above me. He tips his head to the side, and I see the scars of an old wound. From here, it looks like his throat had been torn into, like a vampire wasn’t happy with just drinking. It’s a wonder the human survived.
“I do.”
I stand up, driven to my feet by hunger and anger and desperation. Desperation to live? I don’t know. Desperation for something.
Snatching up the human by the throat, I pull him in before looking around to make sure we’re alone. It’s easier to leave a body behind that way.
“Are you going to kill me?” he asks, not even sounding afraid of what I might do.
Am I? I hadn’t planned on it, had I? Or had I?
My head is a mess, my body aches, my thirst is consuming me.
“I was merely looking at your wound. Were you attacked by a wild animal?” I ask.
“I feel like you know exactly what I was attacked by,” he says, eyes trained on mine.
Instead of answering, I take his water and drink from it, which makes him uncertain now. He’s probably heard the stories that those who feast on blood consume nothing else. He’s obviously experienced it firsthand, but now that he sees me drinking water, he won’t know what I am.
He’s just watching instead.
Yet, he’s clearly not afraid. “I can’t offer you much, but I can offer a roof. Not a very good one, but a roof,” he says as he turns from me and ventures over to a horse that’s picking at some weeds. The large mare that looks like she’s spent the better part of her life in a field lumbers toward us. He waves me over to the large animal that’s bare of anything but a driving bridle, leather half rotted and ropes instead of reins or lines attached to it. It makes me wonder where he managed to get the plow horse or whether he stole her, but I don’t ask as he urges me to get onto her back.
For some reason, I do. Maybe curiosity, maybe intrigue, maybe just because I need to get away from this hell. He climbs on behind me and sets the draft horse off in a direction away from where I’d been planning on going.
The human falls quiet as we ride and the mare continues at a walk, no interest in anything faster, and the human doesn’t push her.
Just after night falls, we reach a small run-down shack off the main road. It looks like it was once used for pigs or chickens before time worked at the structure and a tree began to grow through it.
The human hops off and ties his horse to a tree before waving me inside.
“We have food and blankets,” he says.
I can hear people inside the hut, probably about six from the sound of it.
Maybe one will be a woman I can get to follow me and feed from while distracted by pleasure, but it sounds like all men… not that I couldn’t get a man to follow me. The human waves me on inside, trailing after me as I walk through the doorway. The men who’d been playing a round of cards look up at me.
“Finally return, eh?” a man says from where he’d been standing near the wall.
“I did,” the younger man says as another steps between me and the doorway, blocking off my exit.
“Looks like a good one,” the one in the doorway says with glee in his voice.
“He should be,” the human says, still behind me.
The man who first spoke, a human with dark red hair, smirks as he walks up to me, circling me and placing his dagger right against my throat like he thinks such a threat will make me toss out all the money I own.
“How about you empty your pockets, buddy?” he asks from where he now stands behind me.
Why the fuck do I get myself into these situations? Why does it seem like I’m drawn to absolute bullshit put on by the humans?
Well, at least I’m not going to go hungry.
The older man who is standing irritatingly close moves in even closer and pokes me with the tip of his knife. It stings and I can feel the welling of blood, but I don’t move. Not yet.
“You deaf?” the man asks as he twists the knife, digging it into my skin.
“No, I heard you. I’m just thinking about who I want to eat first,” I say as I look around at them.
The man closest to me laughs, like he thinks it’s hilarious, and his laugh annoys me enough that I debate whether or not he should go first. I mean… he’s practically volunteering.
But when the guy behind me pushes the knife in a little deeper, I turn and snap his wrist faster than he can react. As he cries out, I grab him by his hair, tear him forward and sink my fangs into his throat.
Panic erupts around me as the sweet taste of blood fills my mouth. A moan escapes me. God, I’m so fucking hungry.
Someone comes at me with a knife, pissing me off that he dare force me to tear away from the man I was enjoying. But that’s okay. There’s plenty more where he came from as I grab onto the one whose laugh had irritated me. I tear the knife from his hand and fling it at another man who’d decided lopping my head off would be his next priority.
Yanking his head back, I sink into his throat and this time, not a single one of them stops me as I drain the man dry. When I’ve finished, I drop him to the ground and look around me. All but the man bleeding on the ground with a knife in his chest have run. He lets out a strangled noise as he tries to backpedal, dragging himself backward.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” I ask. “I can smell the people you killed before me, left out to rot behind here. Was that your plan? Rob me and murder me? Or would you only murder me if I didn’t have what you wanted?”
He shakes his head, mouth opening but unable to find words before drawing still. He takes a few more breaths before his last and I turn from the shelter, feeling full and alive. And feeling ridiculous for ever caring about stupid humans. Humans who always only ever care about themselves.
As I walk out, I realize that I am not, in fact, alone. The others have run, and I could easily catch up to them, but my attention is on the young man who’d brought me here. He hadn’t been around when they’d attacked me either, no, he’d left the moment he’d passed me over to them. So was that his job? To bring people for them to rob?
He’s hiding beneath the horse who is busy taking a nap, his eyes wide as he watches me.
“You didn’t kill them all,” he says.
“Was I supposed to?” I ask.
“I’d been hoping.”
I reach under the horse and grab him by the ankle. He cries out as he grabs onto the horse’s pastern before wrapping his arms around her cannon.
The horse doesn’t even bother to wake, just swishes her tail, but when I pull him harder, she lifts her leg and he slides free.
“Please, no! Please don’t kill me! I knew what you were. I brought you here knowing you’d kill them. You were never in any real danger. They were idiots. Please?” he asks as I drag him across the dirt that he sinks his fingers into, scrambling and grabbing for anything, but he’s useless against me.
All humans are.
I release his leg and he rushes up to his feet, choosing to run now… why didn’t he run before? He could have easily taken the horse and gotten far enough away I wouldn’t have bothered him, but instead, he’d stayed.
Why?
I move in front of him and he slams into me before scrambling backward.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Please, I can do whatever you want. I can help you. You want help? You want something? I’ll do anything you want.”
“Yes, I’m hungry.”
He’s shaking. I can feel the fear dripping off him as he holds his arm out to me. “Y-You can feed on me if you p-promise not to kill me.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “Is that what you did before? Let someone chew on you?”
“I had no choice,” he whispers.
“What was his name?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“What did he look like?”
“Dark-haired. I don’t know. I do know he hunted your kind and kept pets for in between.”
Hunted my kind? How intriguing.
“I’m sorry.”
I debate this information for a moment before dragging him over to the horse. I take the rope he’d used to tie her and wrap it around his wrists. Then I untie his horse, get up on her and aim her toward the nearest city as he’s forced to run behind me.
I have no fucking idea what I’m going to do with the human, but the idea of letting him go when he could tell me about the man that I want to kill sounds like a waste. He has information, he just isn’t willing to give it yet.