Ren turned over and puked until he couldn't breathe. The man stood behind him, but he didn't move toward Ren like he thought the man would. 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 saw the move and 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 any demands it was making. The worst of it was that in the pit of his stomach, Ren felt a faint heat blooming inside of him. It called him to move toward the strange man and give in to the need that the buzzing had set inside of him. Like a blazing fire, it made him feel like a hungry beast rather than the young man that 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 at this point. His chest was rising and falling 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." He flailed his arms as if that was supposed to prove he was telling the truth.

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

"Why should I believe you?" The words fell from Ren's mouth before he'd even realized what he was thinking. He raised both brows to show his own fearlessness even though he thought he was going to 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 and whoever did that to her was 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. A sense of deja vu fell over him. The wind whipping across his face and the pain through his body felt too familiar. As he ran for his life, he pictured himself in the place of the girl. Lying lifeless with no future ahead, the girl looked too much like him in a really fucked up kinda way.

"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 that 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 then. Ren wanted to pull away but he wasn't strong enough. The man grabbed his arms and turned Ren over. The touch made his stomach turn.

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.

His face was thin and tan like he'd been sitting in the sun for too long. Tiny freckles were spread across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose like someone had sprinkled them down upon his face. The moonlight lit up his hair and Ren could see that it was almost as dark as his own. It was a dark brown with golden highlights that Ren couldn't absolutely say would burst once the sunlight hit them. For now, they were doormat. 

"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 that stupid feeling would leave him alone. 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.

The puzzled look upon his face almost made Ren feel sorry for him. Almost. The buzzing and the fight to stop himself from letting it be known that he was fucking hard stopped him from feeling any remorse.

He was fucking dying to get the hell away from this man and return back home where he could pretend none of this had ever happened. 

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 the same as him, wasn't actually all that similar to him. 

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 he chose 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 on the top of his lungs. 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 cuss words and attempted to stand up. His knees buckled under his weight, but it didn't stop him from using his hands. The pressure on his wrists was too much for them 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 more 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 the both of them.

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 Ren. They sat in front of each other. Ren couldn't avoid his gaze, the calculating look that 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 slammed his hand over his mouth. His eyes widened, yet he didn't fight. 

The buzzing screamed with delight. They were closer, so close that if Ren leaned just slightly forward, 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.