Chapter 3

Ren turned over and puked until he couldn't breathe. The man stood behind him. After Ren spilled his guts, he flipped over on his back, lying wasted in the dirt. He gazed up at the man and glared. The blood had been good at first—more than good actually—only now it had turned sour. Ren reached out for the fallen stick, but the man stepped on it.

"Listen to me," he said. Ren noticed the man's fangs for the first time. They were longer than his own. He could kill Ren in a second if he wanted.

The strange observation of those fangs did something to him that he didn't want to understand. The buzzing had a mind of its own and though he'd been dealing with it for well over a year, he still didn't want to give in to it. The worst of it was in the pit of his stomach. He felt a faint heat blooming inside of him. It called him to move toward the strange man and give in to the need the buzzing had set inside of him. Like a blazing fire, it made him feel like a hungry beast rather than the young man he was.

"I didn't kill her." Ren didn't make a sound. By the look on the man's face, he knew Ren didn't believe him.

"There's blood all over you," he replied. He was surprised he could even form words. His chest rose and fell in a desperate way. He could feel a headache forming right where he'd been hit.

The man looked down at himself then. It wasn't a lie. Bright red blood ran from his elbows down his hands and continued to the bottoms of his boots. They both knew it hadn't appeared on him out of nowhere.

He shook his head. The look on his face looked almost annoyed. 

"I wasn't drinking from her. I was hunting."

Ren tugged on the stick, but it barely moved from under the man's foot.

"Why should I believe you?" The words fell from his mouth before he even realized. He raised both brows to show his own fearlessness, though he might have a heart attack right then and there. 

"Because I didn't do it! I heard a scream and I ran to see what was going on. When I found her, she was already dead. Whoever did that to her was already gone."

He stepped back and looked around the forest. "I don't know who did it. I was hunting a deer when it happened."

Though there might have been some truth in his words, Ren wasn't paying attention to any of it. His mind was focused on the stick that was now free. He tightened his fist around it, analyzing the weight and where he should hit the man first. The second the man turned his head, Ren lunged from the ground and swung as hard as he could. The stick snapped in half around the back of his skull. The wood shattered into splinters and as some struck Ren's face, he pulled back and swung again.

This time he hit the back of the man's knees.

"Motherfucker!" He stumbled to the ground, clutching the back of his head. 

Ren didn't have the time to think about if he'd caused any serious damage. At this point, he'd already thought the man a killer. He wasn't going to stick around to see what the man had planned for the only witness.

Ren threw the stick somewhere on the ground and took off running.

"I said it wasn't me!"

This time Ren didn't glance back to see his expression. The frustration in his voice sounded too real, but Ren didn't care. He knew what he saw. Even if the man hadn't killed the girl, he wasn't going to stay and chat with a vampire.

His determination had gotten the best of him. That was made clear when he tripped over the next pile of branches. 

He fell with his hands out first to catch his fall. His head slammed into the ground. He landed on his stomach, gasping for breath. He groaned as he tried to move his hands, but it felt like they were glued bent at the wrist. Each time he pulled back, a hot flame of pain shot through his hands.

The man was beside him. Ren tried to pull away but he wasn't strong enough. The man grabbed his arms and turned him over. The touch made his stomach flip.

For a moment, the man stared down at him. Their eyes met and Ren thought this was the end. He waited for the moment when he would bend down, touch his fangs to the tender part of his neck, and rip his throat out. 

A sick part of him wanted it to happen. He wanted to feel the gut wrenching pain as his blood was drained from him. His thighs clenched as he felt arousal, pure and simple, flush through him. He turned his head, gasping as his pants tightened. Embarrassment washed over him as he tried to regulate his breathing. All of it was too much. His body was overpowered by lust, blood, and the mania of the buzzing. 

The moment never came. The man didn't take what was in front of him.

Instead, he lifted Ren's wrist with the gentlest of touches and stared at it like it was a new found oddity.

The touch of his skin against Ren's radiated a heat that started at the center of his chest. It spread through his body until it met the tips of his fingers. The lower and the above flush mixed until he couldn't tell them apart. 

He lost his voice. All he could do was look at him.

The man's face was thin and tan like he'd been sitting in the sun for too long. Tiny freckles scattered his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. The moonlight lit up his hair and Ren could see that it was shades lighter than his own. The golden brown shined even in the low light. 

"Why aren't you healing?" His words were spoken so light Ren barely heard them. He leaned forward, inching closer to peer down at Ren. Ren backed away. 

His heart hadn't stopped racing. The way the man was looking down at him was only making it worse. He tried to close his legs, to making it hurt so stupid feeling would leave. Yet, none of the pain made the heat go away. It kinda made it worse.

Ren tried to pull his hand away.

"Wait," the man said, grasping Ren's hand with both of his. His hold didn't tighten. It was as if he was afraid he might break Ren.

A puzzled look crossed his face. 

The answer to the man's question was on the tip of Ren's tongue. It was always there, hiding in wait until Ren finally admitted what was truly wrong with him. This was the first time someone had openly asked him. The first time someone had cared enough to give that amount of respect to him. But he also knew that the man was merely curious. He was confused why Ren, a vampire like him, wasn't the same. 

He didn't want to say it, speak the words, but he also wanted to throw it back in the man's face. Everyone already knew what he was except for this man it seemed. He liked it in a way. It was a piece, a little secret, that he had the choice in whether to reveal it or not. 

"I'm not fully vampire," Ren finally said. His voice sounded a million miles away. The forest was so quiet that whispering felt like yelling. His throat felt like it was swelling to swallow the words away. His body was afraid—turned on—but still much afraid of what was to come. 

He didn't quite know what else he could be afraid of. Death was what he should fear, not what this vampire thought about him. 

The man's confusion deepened. 

"I'm part human."

The man dropped Ren's hand as if he'd been burned. Ren hissed at the pain and cradled his hand to his chest.

"That's...I've never met a halfy."

Ren's head shot up. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He scratched the back of his head. "It's just a term we use for…"

Ren thought steam was shooting from his ears by the heat flushing up his face. The buzzing was telling him to bite the man again. Harder and rougher until the flush was eased away by warm blood. "What? For things like me?"

The dead girl was a thing of the past. His rage gave him a new sense of strength. It was one thing for humans to believe he was a monster, but for vampires to label him as some weird creature was another. It was ridiculous.

He spit out a string of curses and attempted to stand. His knees buckled under his weight, but it didn't stop him from using his hands. The pressure was too much for his wrists and he fell back down with a yelp.

He growled, kicking his feet out in blind rage at his own weakness. 

The man grabbed him by the waist and helped him sit. Ren swatted his hands away.

"I don't want your help. Killer."

His face turned red. "I didn't kill her. How many times do I have to tell you? The blood is only on my hands and legs. She'd been killed by a vampire ripping her neck out. Now why isn't there blood on my face if I killed her?"

Ren didn't like how the more the man talked the more his story sounded believable. Before he was a crazy vampire trying to kill Ren, a murderer who was set on getting rid of the only witness, but Ren could hear how desperate he was in his truth. Too much of what he was saying made sense and Ren felt like an idiot for running away.

Then, it hit him exactly what that meant. If this man wasn't the killer…

Shakily, Ren looked around the forest. "Where are they?"

The man knew what Ren meant. They went still, listening to the forest. The night was quiet as ever after their fight. With all the noise they'd been making, whoever had killed the girl would've heard them and might even be on their way to kill them both.

As time went on, the creeping paranoia settled in Ren's head. Every flash of a shadow sent his heart racing and every tiny noise made him sure he was going to die in the next coming minutes.

At least his erection went down. The very last thing he'd hate to explain while he was getting murdered was why he was turned on.

The man lowered to the ground and sat in front of him. They sat in front of each other. Ren couldn't avoid his gaze. The calculating look was too natural on his face. A true vampire sat in front of him. The first one he'd seen in the flesh. 

His eyes, a glowing red, were far more beautiful than he'd been expecting. They were hypnotizing. 

A sound came from the right of them. Ren startled, but before he could release a peep, the man slapped his hand over his mouth. His eyes widened, yet he didn't fight. 

The buzzing screamed with delight. They were closer, so close he could smell the man's cologne. Musky, like the wet forest, and a mixture of blood.

It was pure torture.

He closed his eyes and prayed this wasn't how he was going to die.

 "I think they're gone." The man relaxed and after a hesitant second, he held his hand out. 

Ren looked at it flatly. His eyes flickered up to the man's.

"You punched me," he said, as if that was all he needed to say to clarify. 

"You bit me," the man replied, but he lowered his hand anyway.

Though it was true, Ren had only been defending himself. He narrowed his eyes, unsure where this conversation was going. He should have high tailed it out of there since there was no impending threat and this vampire didn't seem like he was going to rip his throat out.

"And hit me with a branch."

Ren rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry then." He wasn't. Not in the least.

The threat wasn't the man now. It was someone who was on the loose in the forest and could be after anyone next. Ren's heart settled and he struggled to get up from the ground. 

The man looked almost like he wanted to help Ren and as nice as that seemed, it was also fucking irritating. 

Ren dusted himself off, wincing as his wrists ached with every swipe.

"What now?"

It sounded strange now that his fear had settled. Of course, there was the smell of blood he couldn't get ignore, but he was just going to have to get over it if he wanted to make it back home without anymore incident. 

This was also too much like a normal conversation. He was caught between wanting to run away and also budging into the man's personal space. He blamed it on the buzzing and the headache it was causing him. It wasn't like it was his fault a girl had been murdered and this man just so happened to be here at the wrong time. 

They were talking as if all of this was normal. That didn't sit right with him for some reason.

Ren stopped himself, looking at the man with a kind of fixation he couldn't place anywhere else. Then he remembered he hadn't even caught the man's name. They were already twisted in a murderous plot, had fought, and he'd had the man's blood in his mouth.

There was also the fact that his body—for some fucked up reason—was turned on by him.

They couldn't get any more personal than that. 

"Who are you?" Ren hadn't meant for his voice to break or for it to be a hushed whisper. They were out of danger, as far as he could tell, and there wasn't a reason for them to be so quiet.

But he couldn't find the guts to speak up. It didn't seem right in the large span of things. 

The question led to a string of information Ren might not want to hear and he feared the unwanted was what he was going to get.

The man turned, his red eyes too intense for Ren to look into. He glanced away only to stare at the lobe of the man's ear. The adrenaline that had helped Ren beat and yell at the man was gone. It was replaced with the awkwardness. 

It was uncomfortable to stand there with the man's gaze on him, knowing this was the first time he was actually looking at Ren. None of what the man was thinking mattered, but the doubt and lies Ren told himself were too real to ignore. He couldn't explain, he couldn't justify anything he was feeling and that made it fucking worse. 

"Hold on." The man grabbed Ren by the shoulder. Ren looked at the offending hand, unsure if he should deal with the horrid touch or push the man's hand away. "Are you...you don't know who I am?"

Ren blinked. "No?"

Maybe he should have. The second he saw him Ren knew he was a vampire, but he hadn't thought beyond that. He hadn't even wondered who he was until this very moment. 

Staring at him now, he saw that the man wasn't really a man. He couldn't have been older than Ren himself, but the way he'd carried himself had made Ren think he was much older. His face was no longer hardened in thought nor was it overshadowed. The moonlight glinted off the delicate slopes of his face.

He was on the edge of being a man. Perhaps in numbers he was, but his face showed that he had much to learn before he was out of boyhood.

Those thoughts swarmed Ren's head. It took a little longer than it should have before it dawned on him. 

"Oh." He could barely hear the soft spoken word himself. It was a lost sound in the forest. 

The Mantels lived around this side of the mountain. He didn't know how far or close they lived, but he knew the general area. It wasn't hard to put two and two together when it was right front of his face. 

He was no longer 'the man'. He was Mantel.

Mantel's touch was like a burning iron seeping into Ren's skin. He stepped away, his eyes questioning everything around him. 

"It's just me," Mantel said and he held Ren's shoulder firmly. "I promise."

Ren didn't know why he believed him. It might be how true his expressions were or how he said it so softly. As if it was an admission that held more weight than at first glance. But Ren was still cautious. He had to be. There was a dead body lying less than a mile away from them.

"You're a Mantel." Ren said it with such certainty he actually might have known him. 

His breathless voice carried in the wind and he wanted to be carried off with it. This night had turned too strange even for him to comprehend. He felt like his arms were being pulled to the ground. It felt as if he might collapse there, right now, with a Mantel right before him.

It was like seeing a ghost for the first time. The Mantels were legends, folklore kids in town joked about, but Ren had never thought about meeting one in real life. 

He nodded mostly to himself. The best thing, the smartest thing, to do then would be walk away. But he knew if Mantel wanted to he could do anything to him. Even though Mantel didn't look like he was going to kill Ren, he had a feeling Mantel didn't want him leaving.

He never confirmed he was a Mantel. He didn't need to. Ren knew he was right just by the look on his face. There was no doubt then, nothing that made Ren unsure of the truth.

His hands were shaking. The pain in his wrists and his face were muted as he felt a panic attack creeping on him. He breathed evenly to calm his racing heart. The buzzing loomed around him, laughing as he began to lose control. Again. He could feel it starting to lose control again.

Blood. Painted all around him. He wanted to bathe in it. 

He grabbed the sides of his head, groaning as a whirlwind of dark thoughts interrupted his own. This wasn't the lack of a feeding. This was because the buzzing wasn't getting what it wanted and now it was going to throw a fit. 

He got it to settle down. 

"What are we going to do?" He swallowed down the unbearable urge to cry. His emotions were acting on their own. It wasn't like him to cry. His body didn't know what to do and he didn't know either. 

The girl's face, her mouth slack as if she'd been about to scream one last time, flashed in his head. She didn't look much older than him either. 

Mantel thought over Ren's question. He had a hard look in his eyes and he looked down with his brows drawn together. Ren couldn't be of any help. He didn't want to help.

The shaking in his hands was all because he didn't know what to do with himself now that the adrenaline had passed. The buzzing had given him control of his body for once, but it was now that he wished it had taken all the responsibility. 

"We need to look at the body," Mantel finally said. He let go of Ren's shoulder and began walking toward the site where the girl's body would be waiting. "Maybe...maybe it wasn't a vampire. It could have been an animal."

Ren followed closely behind, but he wanted to run. The fear he'd bottled inside kept him glued to Mantel's side and his stupid curiosity wanted to stay to find out the truth. He wasn't quite sure if it was his own curiosity or the sick and twisted ways of the buzzing. 

"You think an animal did this?"

Animals that lived in the forest were deer, rabbits, and squirrels. He'd never seen a predator besides owls and had never heard of anyone being attacked by a wolf or coyote.

He wrapped his arms around himself, his eyes focused on the path ahead of him. He was starting to breathe evenly again, his heart not pounding as hard as before, but he felt just as weightless. It was a battle between his body floating or being pulled down by his own weight. 

He couldn't cypher the meaning or start to understand if it meant anything at all. This feeling. All the feelings that were swirling around him as he tried to regain control. Time had run from him. He hadn't been thinking about home or what he was going to do when he returned to the real world. 

Because this was going to end. At some point. And then he would have to deal with everything else once more.

Mantel, whatever his first name was, was starting to look less like the killer the more time Ren spent with him. And for only knowing him for ten minutes, Ren started to feel like he could trust him. The feeling confused him for one. 

He hated strangers. He hated everyone and everything that wasn't his mom. 

New people were hard to figure out and seeing as he spent most of his life running away from danger, it made sense that he didn't trust others easily.

There was still some level of mistrust. Mantel was, well, a Mantel and that meant he had to not trust him. The whole line of Mantels was full of conniving uppity vampires who thought they were better than everyone else. It was why when Sangui had formed, the Mantels were shut out for being too much of assholes.

But the buzzing was drawn to this particular Mantel. That couldn't be a good sign.

"I don't think it's impossible." Mantel held a branch away from his face and held it for Ren to pass through.

"But it's unlikely. I couldn't get a good look before you came, but I saw puncture wounds."

Chills ran down Ren's spine. He wanted Mantel's first theory to be correct. An actively killing vampire could do so much more damage than an animal could ever do. To think something like this would happen outside Montis, it was hard to process. 

Vampires belonged in Sangui. There was no reason for them to be in Reginae.

They slowed as they came close to the spot. Ren saw the familiar path led into the small space. Inside the leaning trees, he saw the speckle of color against the black and brown. 

When Ren had found her and Mantel, he'd been blind to the smaller picture outlining the larger. Details he hadn't noticed before became crystal clear as he saw for the first time what was the dead girl.

The river of blood had stopped flowing and her open eyes stood out from the rest of her. He didn't have to touch her to know how cold she was. Her chest, still as a statue, was the eeriest of all. 

People were always moving. Living things, plants and all, had movement inside of them. The glaring difference between the dead and the living was immortalized in the young girl's body.

He wished he could unsee it.