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Amber and crimson, the sun made her descent from the twilight sky, sinking closer to the curve of the Earth with each step Keigo took. Soon, the Hunter’s Moon would rise, ethereal blue light spilling across the horizon, filling the forest with haunting shadows. Keigo trudged on. He had little time – late as he was. If he didn’t breach the ruin’s defenses before nightfall, his work would be insurmountably difficult. As it was, he was cutting his arrival closer than a careful shave.
By nature, Keigo had a touch of recklessness in his blood. At times, his willingness to fight when others fled was invaluable. In fact, as a hunter of Lilith’s blood, he relied on the insatiable itch under his skin, relishing the pleasure found in bloodshed – a primal instinct he was trained to channel for one purpose only.
Autumn leaves drifted around Keigo as he made his way through the old forest. He was light on his feet, slick organic compost squelching under his boots the only sound he left. Ochre-tinted rays painted the bleak landscape in illusionary warmth, but as the light waned, the only discernible vibrancy left was the red cloak draped over Keigo’s shoulders.
Breaking out of the thicket, Keigo found himself at the border of the ruins of a once-magnificent castle. Rumors and folktales, passed by word of mouth, noted the place as the site of one of the area’s greatest mysteries and, depending on who you asked, tragedies.
Long before Keigo’s birth, during the reign of the Lunar Blood Kings, a young bachelor, a noble Lord some claimed, took residence in the castle. As Keigo’s elders told it, the young Lord had been a private man, uninterested in involving himself in politics and land disputes. He allied with none and kept a small inner circle of trusted confidants.
Tragedy befell one of the Lord’s closest friends, a man he spent many a long day with, sparking rumors of romantic entanglement. For years, the man mourned the loss of the other, comforted by his oldest friend, who had been close with them. Days became shorter, and years flew by faster than the Blood Tides could rise.
After a decade of grieving, the Lord entered an official union with his faithful companion, and for a time, the men were happy. They took in a refugee princess, cursed with powerful magic that only the Lord seemed to be unfazed by, loving and doting on her as if he was none the wiser. An errant teen, rumored to be like a son to the family, wandered the grounds, fading in and out of the shadows like a cat. Few knew his face, and fewer still knew his name.
But, as all good things do, the Lord and his family’s happiness came to an abrupt end.
On a fateful night, most disturbing news was carried to the Lord of the castle. Lilith’s Plague Knights had been sighted in a neighboring province, and the General’s Regent, orchestrating the passage, bore a striking resemblance to the Lord’s lost friend.
Consumed with reawakened grief, the Lord and his husband rode to intercept the demonic riders in the dead of night, taking no troops and leaving their charges in the custody of a trusted sorcerer.
Little can be said as to whether the events that unfolded next were avoidable, for surely the catastrophe they wrought were fated by a bored god, who’d tired of letting good triumph.
Keigo’s recollection of the retelling of that night’s events was foggy at best, and few could recount details worth their weight in salt. For come dawn, the Lord returned home, skin crusted in his lover’s blood, empty-handed and alone. It is unclear if the man he sought was his deceased friend, and there wasn’t a storyteller alive that could agree on what fate had befallen the Lord’s husband.
All that was known was that the man who returned was not the man that had left. Death, fear, and coppery anguish hung over his head. Without explanation, the Lord sent his daughter and son away, exiling them from the castle along with the flaxen-haired sorcerer to whom he’d entrusted them. After which, he locked himself into his study and didn’t leave, not for a fortnight.
Following those long days, the Lord left his chambers, eyes glowing red and mouth drawn into a harsh line. Strolling his grounds, he attended to his staff and all those living within the castle walls, killing them viciously – the walls of his ruined home coated in viscera.
Attempts were made to bring the Lord to justice, but nothing but blood ever came from such efforts – and never his. Centuries later, his tale was nothing more than a warning meant to keep children and troublemakers out of the desecrated ruins of the once-proud castle.
Keigo wasn’t a child, though, nor was he a troublemaker. No, he was the shadow that trouble feared, an avenger born of light with gold in his veins.
To Keigo’s annoyance, the ruins were nestled amidst thorny brush. Thick vines with sharp edges twined together to create a wall that would be best penetrated by fire. Unable to afford spending time clearing the brambles, Keigo shrugged his cloak off, shaking out his impressive, crimson wings.
Watching the moon peek over the horizon, Keigo swore, kicking off into the air to soar above the ruin’s defenses. With winter hissing at the heels of fall, the air was full of cold currents that cut at Keigo’s cheeks, feeling like shards of ice as they whistled through his hair and feathers. Winter would surely come early this sun cycle.
Landing in the castle’s courtyard, Keigo hissed, feeling the effects of the weather in his joints. He wasted little time surveying his surroundings. Overgrown topiaries and sludge-filled fountains would be of no help to him. The sun may have waned, but what – or who rather – Keigo sought wouldn’t be found wandering the castle’s gardens.
Having ventured into a fair few castles, Keigo was able to find the master wing with little trouble. Breath puffing out in clouds of condensation, Keigo paused before a set of grand doors that stood ajar. Without his cloak, Keigo was even more sensitive to the increased drop in temperature that he felt as he neared his destination.
Plucking a long, primary feather from a wing, Keigo used his divine blessing to harden and sharpen the holy weapon. Pulling his wings tight against his back, Keigo shrugged through the doors, careful and quiet. Shrouded in moonlight, the ruins were illuminated by rays of silver, but this part of the castle was cloaked in suffocating shadows – each window curtained by thick tapestries and dusty drapes.
Making his way down the once-elegant corridor, Keigo’s wing caught the edge of what felt like a sheet. Tugging himself free, Keigo’s heart leapt into his throat as he caught sight of his reflection in an ornate mirror that was leaning against the wall. Startled by the unexpected visage, he clutched at his chest with one hand, his fist tightening around the hilt of his holy blade.
Calming his racing heart, Keigo smirked, glad no one was around to witness the embarrassing incident. At least, until he caught sight of the velvety black cat that was watching him through the mirror’s reflection.
Peculiar, Keigo thought, brow scrunching. Had silence not been paramount, he’d have whispered to the creature that it wasn’t safe for it here. Instead, he turned to face the cat, blood slowing when it wasn’t anywhere to be found in the corridor. Swallowing, Keigo pressed onward.
By the time Keigo found himself facing the master bedchambers, his blood was humming with hunger and tainted by errant nerves that licked at his skin like the flaming tongue of a hellhound. As long as he acted fast, there was still a chance for his mission to go smoothly.
In the room, the splintered remains of a four-poster bed were strewn about like the entrails of a fresh kill. Torn sheets hung from the wood, and in the center of the room, a stone coffin sat, radiating energy darker than any Keigo had encountered on his previous hunts. Jagged shards of glass littered the floor beneath the frame of what must have been a mirror, and dark splatters stained the worn throws carpeting the floor.
Keigo’s task was simple. All he needed to do was pierce the heart of the monster that lay slumbering in the coffin with his holy blade, cleansing Lilith’s blood from its vessel. With practiced stealth, Keigo crept forward, reaching to lift the coffin’s lid, feather at the ready, breath steady.
While there was no glory in killing a sleeping man, there wasn’t a better time to get the drop on a vampire then before they woke. Easing the lid open, Keigo pulled his arm back, preparing to plunge the tip into the monster’s heart.
Whistling through the cracks in the castle’s mortar, a stiff breeze disturbed the curtains, giving Keigo an illuminated view of his target, freezing him in place.
Haloed by dark hair, a man of arresting beauty lay, arms folded over his chest, in the body of the coffin. However, it wasn’t the sudden swelling of attraction in Keigo’s chest that gave him pause, though it would be a lie to say that Keigo didn’t inhale sharply at the otherworldly allure of the creature at the edge of his blade.
No, it wasn’t that. A pair of glowing red eyes met Keigo’s gaze, leaving him quite literally breathless, his lungs unable to fill more than a shallow sliver. In Keigo’s hand, his feather blade went limp, his wings drooping behind him. Shoulders heavy and back aching, Keigo’s head swam, forcing him to steady himself on the coffin’s lip.
“You seem lost.” The vampire’s voice was cold and flat. “Don’t you know it’s rude to wake a sleeping man?” His eyes narrowed, but their glow persisted, blurring Keigo’s thoughts together into a swirling mire. “Do you remember your way out, or shall I show you the door?”
Inwardly, Keigo cursed himself. Falling prey to the vampire’s spell – his body a puppet that he couldn’t control – spelled certain death for most. Against lesser vampires, the golden light in Keigo’s veins made him hard to influence, but this vampire, no doubt strengthened by the Hunter’s Moon, was far more powerful than he’d anticipated.
Inside Keigo’s hazy mind, a faint voice clawed against the spell. Managing to regain a fraction of control over his body, Keigo unsheathed the hunting knife that he kept strapped to his belt. On most occasions, the small metal blade was useless to him, his holy blades far stronger and sharper, but Keigo was nothing if not prepared.
In no shape to fight the vampire, Keigo prayed to his ancestors, pleading for them to grant him enough cunning to buy himself time as he bluffed his way out of the grave he’d willingly walked into. Cracking a dazzling smile, Keigo waved the hunting knife lazily through the air, quirking an eyebrow.
“Oh, I’m far from lost,” Keigo crooned. “In fact, I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.” Clinging to his feigned confidence, Keigo’s stomach soured, his words were far from pacifying. It would be a lot better for his health if he didn’t push his luck, but he couldn’t help himself. Outside of his chances of being mauled by a vampire, his tongue’s proclivity to speak without prompting was perhaps the biggest danger to him. “Heard there was a tall, dark, and handsome type running around these parts. Now, I don’t know about the tall part, cause you’re lying down, but you fit the rest of that description in my books.”
Rising from the coffin, the vampire slid into Keigo’s space, startling him into silence. A hand colder than the darkest day of winter snaked up Keigo’s neck, the vampire’s thumb brushing over one of his humming arteries. Leaning in, the man inhaled Keigo’s scent, his pale nose ghosting over the soft skin of Keigo’s collarbone before trailing up along his neck until the vampire’s lips were a hair’s breadth from Keigo’s ear.
“Trespassing and lying,” his words lanced through Keigo, the sudden sharp pain of them granting Keigo further clarity. “I can smell the celestial energy in your blood. I know what you are – why you’re here.” Keigo’s blood drained from his face, dread clasping him tighter than the vampire’s spell. Without his permission, defensive rage boiled up in Keigo’s gut, burning through some of the spell’s strength. Through gritted teeth, Keigo growled, pressing a hand into the vampire’s chest to push him away.
When Keigo’s hand met bare skin, his rage faltered. Blinking in surprise, Keigo’s eyes flitted down, and he realized that the distractingly attractive vampire’s grab was rather indecent. Given vampiric lore, it wasn’t entirely unsurprising, if one was to believe all they heard about the supposedly lustful leeches.
Tight, dark leather pants hugged the man’s thick thighs, and a loose-fitting white tunic, sheer enough to show the vampire’s chiseled musculature, was tucked haphazardly into the top of them, cinched by an elegant belt. The low neck of the tunic was unbuttoned, the fabric falling open to reveal the impressively toned chest that Keigo’s hand was pressed firmly into. Blushing, Keigo jerked his hand back, clenching it at his side.
It was unfair how dizzyingly beautiful the man was and had Keigo not been so resolved in his convictions, he might have abandoned his mission in exchange for trying to bed the vampire. A taboo thought of grand proportions given Keigo’s blood right. If the man eyeing Keigo hadn’t looked so utterly unamused, Keigo might have assumed the flaring heat under his skin was part of the vampire’s spell and not his own attraction attempting to undo him.
“You don’t get it,” Keigo managed, grip tightening on his hunting knife, his knuckles white in contrast to the warm tan of his hand. “I don’t have a choice. Either I kill you and maintain my sacred honor, or I die at your hands in disgrace.”
“Are Nephilim always this brash?” The vampire’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not every day I wake up to a self-righteous butcher in my bedchamber.”
“I’m not a butcher.” Keigo glowered. “You speak of Nephilim, so you must know that what we do is necessary.”
“Is killing ever necessary?” the vampire sighed through a yawn. “Worth the effort? Practical?”
“Certainly, it’s necessary to you,” Keigo frowned, still unable to scowl freely.
“I suppose you would think that,” the man mused, rubbing his temple. “It’s not true, but it supports your agenda.”
“W-wha-” Keigo started, shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t have an agenda, and there is no way you sustain yourself without taking blood.”
“I do need blood, but you’re the one assuming I kill for it.” Lips pulling back, the vampire licked his fangs as they grew out from his gums. “Tell me, hunter. Could you, in good conscience, kill a man who bothers none?”
Fixated on the vampire’s fangs, Keigo didn’t respond immediately, a rebellious part of his mind running away with thoughts of what it might be like to feel them against his lips. Tearing his gaze away, Keigo managed a proper scowl.
“I could, in good conscience, do what must be done,” Keigo deflected, putting more energy into glaring back at the vampire than was entirely necessary.
“Without even knowing my name, you’d slaughter me? And why? Because you’ve been told to? Do you even want to kill, or are you merely a puppet for your god?”
The clarity Keigo had fought so hard for melted away as if he’d never reclaimed it. He didn’t have time for ethical discourse nor the mental or emotional capacity at the given moment. Finding himself entirely overwhelmed, Keigo huffed out his frustrations, eyes glazing over as his chest rose and fell a beat too rapidly.
“It’s Aizawa, should you care,” the vampire added, expression neutral though his eyes held an indecipherable spark that twisted Keigo’s gut. “Shouta to friends.”
“Friends?” Keigo couldn’t help the sneer that ebbed into his tone.
“Once upon a time,” Aizawa sighed, his gaze finding the moon. “In another lifetime. I’m sure that’s hard for you to understand. You know us only as what we’ve become. It wouldn’t make what you do easy if you asked who we’d been.”
Aizawa was right, and on nights when booze was Keigo’s only companion, and the moon asked him to reflect deeply into who he was and who he could be, he’d have agreed. In the moments where Keigo questioned his appointed path, the killing bothered him. Could he afford the luxury of indulging Aizawa’s questioning, or would doing so be falling into a trap he wouldn’t be able to fly free from?
“Fine, I’ll bite,” Keigo chewed his lip, heart still racing at a dizzying speed. “How do you get the blood? Call it professional curiosity before we end this.”
A pearly fang pressed into the supple flesh of Aizawa’s lower lip as he considered Keigo, an eyebrow raising in amusement. “Why don’t I show you,” he dipped his head, nestling his face under Keigo’s jaw, “Angel.” Aizawa’s whisper was cool against Keigo’s neck, sending a series of shivers across his sensitive skin.
A no hovered on the tip of Keigo’s tongue reflexively, but seeds of desire to experience something no other Nephilim had were sprouting in his core, watered by his natural curiosity. Aizawa seemed to have no genuine interest in slaying him. Even so, it went against everything Keigo had been taught - against his very purpose.
With a gentle tut, Aizawa pulled back from Keigo, refusing to take what wasn’t offered. Stretching, Aizawa turned, making to clamber back into his coffin. “You ought to leave. I’m tired.” Though he muttered the words, a wave of something powerful washed over Keigo, commanding his feet to begin marching him out of the room without his heading.
At the door, Keigo’s hand shot out, gripping the door frame with every ounce of his strength. “Wait,” Keigo grit out, shoulders shaking from his effort to withstand Aizawa’s influence. “I- I changed my mind.” As quickly as the force pushing Keigo from the room came, it left, falling away like a discarded sheet.
“I should warn you,” Aizawa murmured against the back of Keigo’s neck, having moved in the space between one blink and another. “My venom has… addictive properties. An average man would become weak to me. Beg for me. Long for my presence. It’s a nuisance. You, though,” Aizawa’s hand slid up the side of Keigo’s head, his fingers pushing into the blond’s hair, a cool pinky resting on his cheekbone. “You might be able to fight its pull. Your blood makes you resilient.”
A trail of shivers crept up Keigo’s spine. He wanted to scoff at the idea. In part, he didn’t believe Aizawa, but his other half was intrigued beyond reason, enthralled by the idea.
“Will it turn me?”
“No.”
Silence. Faltering Breath. And then…
“I want to know how it feels,” Keigo’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
“Look at me,” Aizawa hummed.
Turning, Keigo found Aizawa’s gaze, reveling in the abyssal beauty of the man’s obsidian eyes - no longer glowing red. With a gentle hand, Aizawa wrapped his fingers around Keigo’s jaw, tilting his head up and away to expose the length of his neck.
Later, Keigo wouldn’t remember the pressure on his neck as Aizawa sunk into him. Nor would he recall the dull throbbing and spreading numbness that followed. He would, however, remember the way he melted into Aizawa’s chest, the way a strong hand found his hips, holding him in place, and the way Aizawa licked long and slow over the small punctures, sealing them with his saliva, his lower lip catching on Keigo’s skin.
Days later, a farmer’s boy, out wandering the woods, would happen upon a crimson cape at the briar’s edge. The child would carry it back home and receive a scolding for taking what wasn’t his, but it wouldn’t matter, for the owner of the cape would not be needing it, having never returned to claim it.