April 4th

April 4th

It was becoming strange for a night (for you'd become almost nocturnal at this point) to go by without seeing him; on more and more of those nights, you were waking up together unclothed. Part of it, you rationalized, was sensible; you were alpha predators stalking a dangerous, prey-rich urban landscape, and both of you had fended off Lesser Turnskins together more than once. The irrationality...that came when you stared into each other's eyes, 'hooked by the brain' as he put it. The quiet moments alone at the waterfront, your fingers laced with his.

The blood-soaked kisses shared over Prey.

Your and his prospects had improved. You'd left the bank after planting a chaotic, code-vomiting Curse in the main server, triggering a small financial collapse with the goal of taking a few days off. Finally liberating yourself from the notion of work and reclaiming your time and body and identity, you'd reshaped yourself like molten silver into something far more than you could have ever been; outside the demands of the Hunt, you were free to return to an old passion...pulling the strings of your many connections and knitting them together to host grand performances and concerts; last month you'd pulled off an art show in an old, converted steel mill that made the papers across the state, and the concert you brought together at Shimmer Hall on this special night had pulled in thousands of people...an astonishing success. No doubt the low door price encouraged traffic at $5 - you didn't need the money, not when you could simply...take it from drug dealers, trick ATMs into spitting out thousands at a time.

You took a lot of photos that night. The both of you did, in fact, and a lot of those were not the sort of picture you usually took...not of yourself anyway, but he had that effect on you. He always had, since the day he scared off your date, charmed you like no man ever had, and blew your mind in that seedy motel room - there was the small detail of the Bite: of the descent from humanity into this terrifying and wondrous, sensual and gore-spattered existence in The Jungle, but...you weren't on the Hunt. Not tonight.

The ANGKHOR Q 85mm f/1.8 S Lens was a prize torn from the grasp of a particularly misfortunate Hisser, one who'd turned over her ill-gotten treasures to you rather than being devoured. A bit on the bulky side, you'd never taken concert shots with something like it, and the difference was clear as the distant daylight in a dim environment, filled with people. Mars Unpacked was the opening band's name - a quartet of Louisiana locals. Up on the balcony overlooking the main hall and the bar, your camera was poised like a hawk's eye, your tuned hearing picking up the subtle mechanical whirring within and sending ASMR waves down your spine. You, Isabel Aphelion, lived for this.

The first shot: Red plumes of smoke billowed menacingly from four jets set in the edge of the stage. Donnie Parks, lead guitarist in his spiked denim vest and baseball slacks gleams oil dark; his wiry frame is bent forward, beer-belly thrust forward with brutish pride as he roars into the mic. His little brother, Ronny "Smacky" Parks on synth, looks like a musician on some greasy 90s talk show with his big red-rimmed shades, his shiny grill of a grin - you catch his spidery fingers skittering impossibly over the keys like sea spiders. Lilly 'Tres-Leeches', her gold skirts ruffling around her zaftig thighs, cherry red of her leather vest squeezing her round, heavy breasts lewdly, is looking up at you as she grinds her guitar, tongue waggling down to her chin lewdly. Carmine LaBlanc's laxidasical presence at the drums belies his skill at the set, the speed of his hands a blur of sticks that you catch in ghostly motion; his Buddha-like, dark face is smiling serenely, earlobes drooping with gauged rings.

"They're a'right," Vahn quips at your side.

You'd registered his approach long before he appeared, but your pretty young mortal lover fancied himself some sort of ninja - maybe amidst the deaf and scent-blind Herd, but you recognized the distinct pattern of his heartbeat from meters away. He leans an elbow on the railing easily, the playful heat of his gaze playing across your shoulder.

"You, on the other hand..." there's that charming eyebrow quirk of his.

Vahn does have a point...you're looking good. You started seeing Vahn on the side a few months ago, and interestingly Mizrah didn't mind, you even shared some lovers together. You'd never have been able to do it without reclaiming yourself - that meant your wardrobe, your time, your body and your confidence. It helped that you could survive being hit by a bus; run down a man as if he was moving through butter; that you could tear apart and slaughter every single mortal here and bathe in their blood if you so chose...not that you would, right?

A short, black leather skirt graces your hips - well, short for you at mid-thigh. Your long, coltish legs are tantalizingly hugged in a pair of fishnet stockings (Mizrah was particularly fond of them), short black boots with steel toes for your protection and the breaking of ribs. A black, ribbed tank-top clings to your svelte torso, hair-tie curled around your slender wrist. The young, hungry buck's eyes track up from your calf to your thigh, to your hip, to the curve of your pert breasts and eventually to your face; framed by a few dark stray strands from your flowing, wavy ponytail. You're the picture of dark-eyed, classical Hellenic beauty.

You lower your camera and smile back at your lover. Almost too young for you, but also hard to resist with those pretty Circassian features, and that sweet smile you knew reflected a genuinely kind heart...and that was what you loved most about him. "Hello Vahn, yes you also look terribly dashing."

Still reclined against the railing, he reaches out and touches your fingers, tugging you lightly toward him, and your lips meet. You enjoy the way he's been kissing you lately, softly and sensually, that cupid-bow mouth seemingly designed for it...you feel the light rasp of stubble on his upper lip where normally he's completely smooth - has he been trying and failing to grow a mustache? Your fingers trail up the center of his slender chest, then back down over the cut of his abs, the shape of his Apollo's Belt underneath his shirt...he's yours to enjoy as you please. You can see the bulge of his manhood beneath those board shorts, and your instincts whisper suggestions of sexual shenanigans with him.

"Can I buy you a drink and introduce you to a karate master?"

"A karate master this time, sweetheart?" you purr in your lightly accented voice as your fingers play against his and then hook onto the waistband of his shorts, pulling his slender, carved body against you. His physique is so distinct and different from Yusuf's...flexible and bendy and sinuous, probably from falling off skateboards, ramps, bridges, railings...if there is space between it and the earth, Vahn has likely fallen from it and gotten back up, laughing and ready for more.

Speaking of, that laugh is infectious - something about him reminds you of a satyr, not just in his reveling, kindly demeanor but...you know what he's thinking the moment he sees you. You're conscious of those smoky, bright-eyed looks he gives you through the crowd, flashes of teeth and his tongue as he mouths lewd things at you.

"I know who you're going home with, but I'll still have you..."

"I've missed you, I've missed the way your fingers feel around me...*

" - make you cum on me, hard, Isabel..."

The lights darken, your predator's vision intensifying and your blood pumping...the next band is setting up, and in a show of dominance that has become less a conscious action, you seize Vahn's collar and you pull him toward you in a kiss that demands him. He only crests you by a few inches, and his body fits with greater ease against your sapling-strong, thin body than Yusuf's; he's long and sinuous like a python. Your calf snakes around his, fingers sliding over the cleft beneath his hipbone. You grind yourself over the turgid shape through his shorts, your arousal Marking him with your scent that others of your kind would pick up on.

'Mine,' your brain growls in a monstrous, loving voice as you break the kiss, keeping him close by nipping his bottom lip and not letting go. You walk your fingers up and down his hardening package surreptitiously, amusing yourself with his good-natured arousal. Go on...show me the karate master. I'm still waiting. You smell how hot and bothered he is, and making him wait is going to make your inevitable mating all the more powerful. You give his cock a squeeze as the lights come back, and he leads on with that funny smile men get when they know they're going to be well fucked.

Your long legged stride makes it easy to keep up, a bemused quirk of your shapely red lips as you feel eyes upon you...ever since the Change you've attracted more attention than before, an alluring admixture of attraction and fear; Yusuf had explained it as a consequence of new pheromone produced by your body, as well as an effect on probability.

Your senses are incredibly attuned to other Predators and Prey, and you pick up on their presence here through the Marks they leave.

See the young man with the pink mohawk left reeling after a short, strong woman's kiss leaves him paler than before...you watch her tongue flicker out, closing two little pinpricks in his throat.

See the pair of tall men with their alluring V-torsos - twins, perhaps? - their hair scarlet, their farmboy features handsome and disoriented as they stagger past...they smell powerfully of another wolf's musk - Arryn's, perhaps, you knew her proclivities.

See down toward backstage, where a curvaceous black girl whose buxon chest is restrained in a purple tank, the width of her hips contained in low-rise jeans; she staggers from a dressing room, reddish band of satisfaction across her cheeks, smiling ear to ear...you can smell your mate upon her, even from here.

Cheeky bastard.

Vahn's movements have a sort of dancer's aplomb both on and off his skateboard, and he takes you to a part of the railing where a girl you somehow haven't noticed before is fiddling with her cellphone...she's being a total wall-flower. You have a few inches on her; she's not not willowy and Elfin with your ethereal, almost ghostly movements, but compact and tight, and her skin carries brass tones compared to your marble whiteness. Her pin-straight hair is worn in a bob, azure streaked with bright purple; a black Iron Maiden T-shirt a couple sizes too big sits on her frame, and you spot a tantalizing hint of black bra and firm sidebreast through a sleeve. A black pleated skirt that flutters from her broad hips to her knees, checkered flats clearly not meant for a mosh pit adorning her feet.

"Annie!" Vahn calls, proudly leading you with an arm around your waist. "This vision of loveliness organized all of this - Isabel, that's the karate master."

"I don't know karate," her voice has a flatness that suggests she's told Vahn this a few times already.

Blue-hair Girl straightens and makes eye-contact with you, and her scent floats near -

Your veins pulse behind your eyes and you resist the urge to Change. Your bones crackle, eager to give height to tower over her; your muscles creak to overpower and pin her; you feel heat prickle through belly and chest while sweats break out across your brow. Experiences the exact same set of physical responses, and you see the light flash in her azure eyes. She's like you...another Turnskin. A Werewolf, like you.

You hear her knuckles pop above the music and the crowd with your heightened sensitivity; the instinctual desire to dominate one another is an age-old struggle for Turnskins living amongst humanity, and you fight the dread desire to hex and curse her into submission - this isn't the place for that, and besides...you'd hurt Vahn's mind. Mortals aren't meant to be around the clashing of Great Predators.

"Okay, okay not karate, MMA whatever. Isabel, a couple weeks ago when we were at that retro theater I remember you being all 'I wish I knew martial arts', so as usual your boy Vahn went and got youuu the hookup." He's oblivious to the deadly forces that leap back and forth between you and Annie, a particularly resilient mortal toward the pressures of being near an Accursed Being, which you'd learned could be...corrosive over time for mortals.

He nods with blithe ease, smiling between the two of you as you stare the other down - his attention is grabbed by someone in the crowd he knows, and he goes off to give you two a moment to 'co-mingle'.

Nice. Every movement broadcasts a calm control of yourself and your environment - you were in charge here - but it's all carefully measured as you lean your back against the railing and take her in. She does the same, eyes never moving from you, fingers tapping across her phone unceasingly. Neither of you says anything until, finally, she puts it away and places both hands on the metal railing.

"I'm not looking for trouble. Didn't know this was turf, didn't see markings." She's cordial at least, showing you her hands as is custom, you'd learned, in the uneasy interactions between your kind.

"It's not claimed. You and your own got the right to be here."

"...long as you're not planning to tear something up in the middle of my concert." Your shift in posture is a subtle thing but to other Firstbloods body language was louder than for mortals; you are defined by the liquid-steel ease of your pose...shoulders relaxed, your elbows against the metal and your face exposed. You're unafraid. You do not dare her to strike, but the message is clear that you know you can handle her - even if she's got some martial arts skill, you've learned how to make the world itself turn against Prey. Besides, there was always Mizrah nearby, and he had a reputation for prowess as a boxer even among the mortals. Among your kind, it was well known to avoid engaging him in a one-on-one where he excelled.

"I'm just here to chill," she insists but the lie is a weak and flaccid thing...no Firstblood ever chills in a place like this, surrounded by humans who were just as dangerous (if not moreso) than other Changing Beasts...as was the common refrain, 'no respite to be found in the Jungle, not even amidst your own'. You pin her under your gaze waiting for more; the Asian girl betrays an edge of irritation as she spreads her ring-clasped fingers defensively. "Okay. Fine. I'm Hunting."

"Knew it." You watch her with stoic patience, steepling your fingers under your sharp chin. "What's the Prey?"

"A dirty fucking pickpocket," she admits. "Nobody I want to tear apart, just...believe me. I'm not here to make problems with you or your pack." She repeated that point, skirting the edge of a nervous stutter. You read her like a book, like you read anybody really, and you know there's more to it...you don't need imprecations and jinxes either, she gives all the tells of a Lone Wolf. Mizrah had told you about those days, how difficult life had been during the time between when he lost Mikey and Sadira, and when he discovered you. The part of you that wants to care for the City's detritus, blown up against your doorstep, desires to reach out to her...but you don't know this Wolf. Instead, you lean a palm close to her elbow.

"I know. You wouldn't dare. All the same Annie, I'll be watching you. My pack will be watching you, so...have fun. Enjoy my man's singing. Hunt your Prey, but let its blood elsewhere."

Your smile is serene as a distant summer storm; she holds your gaze, expression neutral like the flat surface of a pond. The tension is like a taut wire until it's snapped by Vahn's jovial, flowery return - his very scent is relaxed and happy, defusing the pressure with an almost audible -pop- as he sidles up to you both with a trio of neon blue shots in his hands. "Look what I gooot!" He announces, and you can't help but smile. He's sweet...a truly rare, gentle soul.

He may be callow in his dismissal of the future, careless with his treatment of his own body, but your young lover knows how to warm a chill atmosphere and make people smile. Your glasses clink together, and even as your stare remains pinned to Annie's while you drink, your Vahn's gentle presence makes it easy to talk about...90s cartoons, bar mishaps, the annual floods, and soon the three of you are laughing at his silly jokes, his many stories. He's telling you the one about the "Municipal Gnome Shenanigans", and you note the absence of Annie's scent upon him, but...you can't help but note the flickering jealousy in her eyes when she picks up your Mark, still freshly indented into his scent.

Curious, and maybe a little vindictive, you gently dig, nibbling at her edges. "So Vahn said you know how to fight, hmm?" your tone has the bland, almost saccharine lilt of casual bullshit conversation - it masks the simple fact that you're picking her apart and reading what you find, now that she's entered what is effectively your domain.

Vahn, of course, answers for her - her own expression is wan and wary as Vahn shows you her hand, so to speak - eagerly holding his phone between you all. "She sure as hell does! Check it out, this is Annie beating up...this chick, and that chick, and this dude..."

...wow. Vahn wasn't kidding. She's a brutal fighter in the cage, and while you're no martial artist and can't attach technique to style, you're able to pick up patterns. A side kick snaps a jaw...a roundhouse kick dislocates a shoulder...a front push, spinning heel, a tornado kick...

"It's not karate, so what is that? Like Kung-Fu right?" Vahn chirps.

"No - "

"Kickboxing!"

"It's TKD Vahn, dude..." she pulls her blue bangs before her eyes, an obscuring curtain.

You take it in...every captured movement, every measured strike, every feral twist; this is actually a terrible disadvantage for any Werewolf, you really have to wonder how she let herself be filmed fighting so much...or perhaps she's one of those people for whom the pull of the stage is just too much to resist. Mizrah is like this, so is Vahn - curious, how this type of personality is drawn to the quiet firelight of your presence, you who by your nature prefer to watch from the shadows. Are other Firstbloods all this way?

More to the point, what possible challenge could there be for a Werewolf going up against mortals in the cage? It was unfair; bruises, contusions, even broken bones regenerated in a matter of moments, as you'd experienced. Concuss a Werewolf, she's back on her feet in seconds - did she use her Imprecations in the cage, you wonder? That would be truly inglorious, increasing the likelihood that every strike would be debilitating; rendering herself impossible to lift from the gruond; did she use her Predator's Aura upon the tough ones? You find your respect for her waning.

Annie chugs down her blue drink, refusing to make eye contact with you and instead scanning the audience down below as they drift back toward the stage...the second band is almost ready. Your grace Annie with a final pointed glance whose message is clear: watch yourself, Lone Wolf.

"Vahn, come on with me up into the skylight. I need to get some good shots." You know precisely the tone to use - mostly casual but with the lightest playful, needy lilt, a knowing edge to your eyes as your fingers tug his belt-buckle toward you...now Annie's watching you both with cool intent.