The Beau & the Beast

20 - The Wolf

The evening was unusually dark and rough, my legs moved stiffly and my hands sank deep into my pockets.

   The party had been worse than most, I despised the giggling girls and the way too loud music made my head ached.
Sometimes I wondered why I insisted on hanging out with humans at all, but sometimes my work  required it.
   The alleys were dark but I was not afraid, it was me that everyone else should be afraid of.
  It was creatures like me who hid under beds and in alleys and waited for their victims. At least if you believed in the fairy tales and movies that were run on TV.

   My feet were moving at a slow pace, I did not know where I was anymore, and it did not matter much. 
  I did not want to go home.  The apartment was too empty and quiet.

   I walked away from the world of humans and into neighborhoods that felt more at home and a myriad of scents immediately struck me. Food and sweat mixed with blood and the smell of various animals.

   Vampires were not immediately welcome in these neighborhoods, but if I just kept to myself, no one would notice me. Were we really welcome anywhere?

   There was a tingling sensation of magic in the air, the sound of clinking glass and fights penetrating from basement windows further down the street.  It was reassuring in some ways, it reminded me of my hometown, of Paris on the other side of the Atlantic.

   When I walked the streets with humans, I usually had several eyes on me, I assumed that I was considered beautiful. At least that was what I heard when the girls pulled their fingers admiringly through my long black hair. Too bad I was not a bit interested in their compliments.

   But here the eyes were different, it was a funny feeling to be studied, to be immediately recognized as a blood-sucking parasite and I wondered if they saw it in me or if I had a special scent just like them?

   The wolves were the most suspicious of them all and it struck me that I never asked my teacher why we'd always hated each other.  Or did we really, maybe it was something that was expected of us.

   "Speaking of the devil," I sighed wearily as a rough looking gang of broad-shouldered shifters began to close in on me and I hurried my steps.

   Sure, I could probably run faster than them, hide in the shadows and all that, but I would rather avoid a fight. That kind of attention was not something I was looking for.

   All I wanted was to walk along the streets until the sun rose, because for some reason I slept better when the sun was shining outside the window.

   The voices of the wolves came closer, damn, could they not just let me be?  I sped up and tried to make myself as invisible as possible.

   I hurried around the corner into a narrow alley and crashed straight into a hard gray wall, with brown curly hair falling down his back.

   My hand immediately flew up to my nose when I felt the blood begin to flow down my upper lip.
   Fuck, did his back muscles actually break my nose? I thought angrily and glared at the guy who looked down at me with an expressionless face.

   The voices had caught up with me now and I realised in despair that the guy in front of me might be one of them.  But he stood as still as before.

   "Sorry," I mumbled through the runny nose and made an attempt to push past the body that was more than a head taller than me.

   The rather expressionless face began to look more and more amused as I tried to squeeze past him, pressed against the brick wall in a desperate attempt not to smear him with nosebleeds.

   "Who the hell builds houses so damn close to each other ?!" I muttered and ducked under an elbow that belonged to one of his large forearms that crossed his chest of the annoyingly unshakable roadblock.

   But then finally I was on the other side and was about to start walking towards the welcoming darkness when a dark voice echoed towards me.

   "If you are trying to run from someone, you should take another path," he said amused, and met my despairing look as I turned around, "it's a dead end, sweetheart." I eyed the taller guy in front of me but kept my mouth shut as I wasn't clear of his intentions, maybe he was looking for a new punching bag, just like the others. "You are clearly not the type to learn from your mistakes," he stated, leaning lazily with his shoulder against the house wall.

   "And what mistake was that?"  I asked way too cocky for my own good, but something told me I was not on this wolf's menu, not today anyway.

   "I don't know," he replied, crossing his arms across his chest, "I'm not the one hiding in a narrow alley."

   I raised an inquiring eyebrow, "ehm, yes you are?"

   "I'm not hiding," he simply stated and stuffed his hands, with torn, bleeding knuckles in his jeans pockets, which looked as worn as the stained otherwise white T-shirt, the whole outfit matched the dark ring under one of his eyes and the cracked upper lip.

   I had felt the smell of blood in the distance and I had immediately followed the trail until I found the Wolf, alone in an alley outside some ruff place.
   And now I was standing there, without any fucking explanation. 

   "If you say so," I replied with a shrug and eyed the blood-stained shirt.

   "It was my own choice," he muttered to my open curiosity.

   "Okay" I laughed. "So I guess you catch people for a fee, or throw them out?"  I eyed him from top to bottom, "or you fight for payment, but in that case you are probably not that good at it."

   "Do you want a taste?"  he growled, an animalistic sound emerged deep from within his wide throat and suddenly I felt extremely small.

   And way too late I realised that I was probably right, he fought for money and tonight's match had probably not gone so well given the depressed mood, and he was hardly surrounded by a cheering fan club.

   Hell Belmont, I muttered to myself, you could have said something more sensible. "So, can we take a rain check on that? After you rest up and so on? Feels pretty unfair otherwise." I replied and scratched my neck.

   "No teeth," he mumbled before taking a staggering step forward and squatting down with his head hanging low between his shoulders.

   "Um ... hey, are you okay?"  I asked a little cautiously and leaned forward.

   "Best day of my life," he muttered sarcastically before spitting out a mouthful of blood that protruded extremely well on the dark asphalt.

   The smell of blood triggered my instincts and I had to take a calming breath and closed my eyes for a while to drag myself back to reality.

   Shocked, I discovered that the guy had collapsed in a large motionless pile when I opened my eyes again.
  It was as if he asked me to take a bite.
I glanced at him for a while, there was a hissing sound as he breathed and I saw how he kept his hand pressed against his ribs.
   A punctured lung?  I thought, tilting my head to the side, maybe it's just as well to end his suffering?

   Carefully I took a step forward and squatted down to pull away some curls and bare his neck, but something made me hesitate.
If I saved his life, maybe he would do the same for me someday?