lionheart

“You know,” he said, and there was a sigh in his voice that he did not mean to air, “You really do know how to work up one’s appetite.”

The vampire before him was perched atop a particularly sturdy tombstone, the remains of the coyote corpse it was feasting on dripping blood onto the soil beneath. The words were dry as they escaped his mouth, and Blake watched the creature with an interest but not a vested one, having seated himself at the base of another grave out of a certain feeling of ennui, the cold stone pressing into his back as his long legs jauntily laid ahead. The vampire looked up, affixed him with a beady gaze, and scooped out the liver to chew on with the same dumb look a cow gave while chewing cud, never dropping eye contact.

Wonderful. Blake shook his head in defeat, casting his eyes up to the sky to search for the first stars of late dusk. His most trusted and timeless companions, but they didn’t have anything more interesting to offer than the beast that served as the Terror of all Coyotes that was feasting before him. Getting up, he dusted himself off and gave one final glance around the cemetery, hoping in vain that he might finally see a ghost. But there was nobody – his quest to find someone to give insight into the Civil War, his latest topic of historical research, was going unanswered and he’d successfully wasted time, again, as he was oft to do as he still grew used to how to spend it. But he had enough of it.

A wind was beginning to pick up, shaking the leaves of trees nurtured by the dead. Between them, a low howl was building, a dreadful moan, and foolishly it somehow still made him nervous even after all this time. And there was no reason why, either; slayers no longer scared him, as he doubted in this era they would be so unskilled as to botch the job. There was nothing to fear aside from fear itself.

He was not the first to notice her, the blonde girl running, hair trailing behind her in the wind. He might not have even noticed her at all if it was not for the vampire darting past him, hell-bent on escaping from the cemetery to catch even better prey, vastly enjoyable to the malnourished snack it just had. It ground to a halt a few metres before Blake, perking up and sniffing the air, before scuttling its way down the hill to continue the hunt. Blake hesitated in his step, confused, until it hit him too – the wind gusted, the scent carried, and he knew at once what the vampire was after. Looking wildly around, it took him only a second to pinpoint it – her – and then he himself was running, boots pounding the ground with frenetic energy. He snatched the vampire, bracing his body as the pair of them skidded an inch in the mud, tightening the creature to him as it thrashed to escape – its chosen prey so achingly close. His own fangs elongated and red eyes flashed, a hiss cutting through the creatures own, turning desperately scrabbling claws limp in his grasp. He could see the girl properly now at the base of the hill passing by the gates, and uncertainty immediately grabbed his mind – if he simply left, there was zero doubt in his mind that the other vampire would attack. Grinding his teeth, he made his decision, pushing the vampire away from him like it was diseased – “Leave,” he snapped, jabbing a finger in the vampire’s direction before he turned on heel again for the entrance, but he knew that the creature would not obey to that extent. Stay was as much as he could hope for. As he walked, he could feel the creature’s eyes on his back like a renegade wolf split between listening to its alpha.

Making his way out of the cemetery, in fury he headed towards the girl – jogging as she was, her scent was as thick in the air as if it were already dripping from an open vein. In the recesses of his mind, he knew that if the vampire had attacked her, drawn blood, he stood too high a chance of turning on her himself. The knowledge clouded his judgement – he needed to be angry at himself not at her, but she had no escort and if he had not been here she would be dead, any escort would be dead, she would be ripped to pieces just like the coyote that lay shredded and abandoned, and…

Her breath came out in small puffs, freezing in the very clearly still winter air. Turning to tiny clouds that disappeared before her eyes. But it was fine - part of Lea enjoyed how the cold hurt her lungs, because that was a solid reminder that she was still alive, that her body was doing just what it should be, and that she should be grateful to have lungs that functioned completely normally. She’d had her iPhone’s headphones in her ear, music up just high enough to drown out most outside sounds but not so much that she couldn’t hear anything at all.

Lea had decided to not run too far from her house this evening -- it had already been late when she’d left, but there was still just enough light to begin a run. Lea had tied her hair up in a high ponytail, finished off with a red scrunchie. She’d pulled on leggings, sneakers, and her ACHS Track jacket. It had her last name on the upper arm of the sleeve, matched Katie’s perfectly. Lea had initially texted Katie to see if she wanted to go for a run, but Katie was busy finishing assignments, because, as she’d texted Lea “not all of us are overachievers who did our homework all while we had time off”. But that was fine, time alone let her take however much time she wanted all for herself, which was what she needed right now.

The charm from Amanda’s bracelet hit against her wrist in almost perfect rhythm. Pat, pat, pat. Mimicking the pattern of her feet as they hit the ground, as if to once again say, ‘Here, here, here’. It was why she continued to wear it, in part - in part because she loved it, and Amanda had chosen it for her and it was a sort of present that one could wear everyday, so it only seemed logical.

She found herself immersed in the song, and on making sure that she tried to head come soon, lest Laura Parrish get an idea to come out looking for Lea. If she could manage secret self-defense lessons with AJ, this should be absolutely nothing.

All of a sudden, a figure appear behind her and it took everything Lea had to not let out a scream, suddenly jerking her headphones out of her ears as she skidded to a stop. She stuffed them in the zippered pocket of her light jacket.

Isn’t it obvious what I’m doing? “I’m out for a run.” Her throat felt dry, and she swallowed a few times to try and clear the dryness away. This was fine, this curious and handsome man was just out for a walk as well, though his choice to inquire after her was a bit odd.