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The new year was a week away, and there were countless tasks needing completion, but He Xinlong instead lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling. Shivers wracked his frame and heat slid through his veins.
But even if he wasn’t so sickly, he had no way to assist with preparations.
Three days ago, he had made the mistake of walking the crumbling, earthen path bordering the Taihang Mountains. Too close to the forest’s edge, much closer than his mother ever allowed him to go despite having reached his twentieth year.
On that rare night, Zihao and Hanyu had accompanied him, market goods towering in their arms. The sun had set, but lightning bugs dotted the warm summer air.
Xinlong remembered shoving his fear away after his mother acquiesced to their begging, just for one perfect night, and in that moment feeling freer than he’d ever felt, he never wanted to never return home.
Picturing his worried mother’s face, he had batted that desire away as a minor sin.
The memory of laughter at Zihao’s shopkeeper impression danced through the stale air of Xinlong’s chambers. He had doubled over, stumbling through laughs, when Hanyu slapped Zihao on the back of the head, and his bag spilled over the top, three luffas rolling down the side of the path.
“She’s my mother’s friend…” Hanyu grumbled.
“Hold up, guys,” Xinlong said as he slid down the ditch to retrieve them. After all, his mother had only granted him a handful of pocket change to grab New Year’s celebration ingredients, and she always expected a receipt and change.
As these memories played behind his eyelids, Xinlong rolled onto his front and shoved his face into his sweat-soaked blanket, biting the fabric against the flood of tears threatening his eyes. All he'd done the last three days was cry over his decision to climb down that ditch, not checking to see whether his friends had heard him.
Then, the echo of the howls rang in his ears. The rumbling, slobbering beasts who pounced from nowhere—Xinlong had been a coward. His only instinct had been to cover his mouth with his palm and flare his nostrils, heart pounding in his chest, eyes darting side to side then squeezing shut as he listened to the struggle. To cries of pain and gnashing teeth. To their hands scrambling on the gravel for purchase before it all came to a muted end, screams of anguish dampening as their bodies were dragged away from the road into the darkened treeline.
Only when he thought the coast was clear did Xinlong scale to the path and set off running past the streaks of blood and scattered groceries.
Except he wasn’t alone. One wolf remained, staggering and drooling. Hanyu must have nicked it with his trick knife before being captured. When it flopped to the ground with a whimper, Xinlong ran for his life.
It was when he returned home, and his mother inspected his sorry state and the remaining bruised vegetables, shutting out all explanation Xinlong attempted to give, that he noticed the bite in his calf as the crusted blood ran the bathwater red.
The wolf must have nipped him as he bolted past it.
Still dripping wet, he’d shown it to his mother, and her face transformed in horror. Imbecile! Reckless halfwit, she shouted. Bringing that back to our home, have you no piety? For all I’ve done you—
And she had locked him in the attic since then.
All Xinlong had was the barred window, a mat, the various herbal medicines the staff brought, and a bowl of plain white rice.
He deserved it.
His friends were dead. He chose that path. In his yearning for the first hint of freedom in years, he’d lost it all in a matter of moments.
Night air whistled past his open window and sent more shivers over his clammy skin, so he rolled out of the makeshift bed of rags and blankets and limped over to close it.
But just as his shaking, sweaty palms clasped the shutters, a sensation arrested him. It whooshed from his nose to his core, through his arteries and into his heart. Then settled into his stomach. Xinlong didn't notice the thick line of drool dangling from his lip until the sensation he was feeling registered as a scent.
The wind carried the thin trail of it to Xinlong’s window, goading him from unreachable clouds, and then it dispersed. Losing aggravated a fissure in Xinlong’s core; his heart pumped hotter and his breathing shortened into shallow, huffing pants.
Blood and ozone. The image of fresh autumn game bound and laid over his father’s narrow shoulders, feathers molting with every heavy-booted step. Xinlong’s trembling fingers tying traplines, and the salt of his tears reaching his lips when small rodents would squeal in agony.
Despite all it reminded him of, it smelled divine now. Delicious, more tasty than any charred meat, any spiced tea.
He whipped his gaze down to the street, seeking the intoxicating flavour's source, but the streets were bare. It must have been past midnight.
A growl sounded off in the quiet room, and it took Xinlong a long moment to realize it came from his chest, not his stomach.
Time passed in hazy bursts of consciousness after that. Xinlong’s grasp on his situation deteriorated, dotted by the arrival of flavourless food and herbs through the slat in the door.
That shocked him, initially, that his family estate would have such an elaborate cell tucked away. For what, Xinlong still could not guess, but the shock wore off days—perhaps weeks—ago, and it no longer represented anything other than tepid relief from the hunger clawing his stomach to shreds.
“Mama,” Xinlong howled, throat raw. How could she do this to him? He hadn’t seen her since that day. At first, her familiar scent clung to stray fabrics around the garret, but in Xinlong’s writhing, he had washed it all away. Replaced it with the heady, wet-dog odor of not bathing. His unkemptness would have embarrassed him, if his brain had the faculties left for embarrassment.
That lack of shame also made it so easy to bound to the window when the first tinge of charred meat slipped through the air. It was but embers, little and flickering, as if only meant to tease Xinlong’s hunger. That was the only sensation tying Xinlong together on a given night: pure hunger.
He pressed his face to the bars, damp sweat sliding along wrought iron, hands wringing and twisting until it groaned alongside him. He sucked in deep inhales, uncaring of the thick and foaming drool the scent pulled from his lower lip. Never before had he this voracious appetite, but what was forbidden always tasted sweeter, and imprisonment had ramped him up hundred-fold. Rice nor congee nor bitter herbal vials could quell the ache in Xinlong’s teeth. When he closed his eyes, he could sense fibers of red meat tearing.
For Xinlong to want for anything with such headiness was a change. A boy of little wants turned into a starving man—beastlike.
This did not bother him. He could change. His teeth could lead him.
The smell receded, and Xinlong fell to the ground with his nails digging splintering, pale divots into the hardwood.
A year ago, Xinlong would have cowered at the sight. Now, he felt power. He felt strength. And these feelings rippled through him like rupturing bedrock.
The scent returned several moons later, just as the sun set over the mountain range.
Distantly, Xinlong realized it must be the start of the New Year's celebration. The streets were filled with raucous cheers and overlapping words, children's screams, and firecrackers snapping along the pavement.
Rather than yearn to join them, to eat himself round with heaping piles of celebratory meals and to dance under lanterns with his little cousins, Xinlong's nose wrinkled with distaste. The commotion had shaken up the scent he yearned for more than anything else.
It wasn’t even the time spent without it that made Xinlong all the more desperate. He could have it every day and still feel his core yearn and contort itself for the blood.
At the window, Xinlong gathered up every ounce of awareness to hone into it. However long he had sat in this attic, consumed by hunger and delusion, he could not stand it any longer.
So, this time, he clenched his fists just a little tighter around the metal bars. Focused his nose and tongue on the delicious aroma and lapped it like water.
The iron groaned as it always did, but this time, it bent.
Xinlong scrambled back from the window.
His prison was merely a set now. At first, his mother’s disappointed face flashed in his mind, her reaction when she would see Xinlong’s destruction of her property. But then, that latent enormity of the hunger inside him swelled at the sight of his own power and overtook his fluttering fear. He needn’t bat her away this time because all thought of her was consumed by real power, like nothing he’d ever had before.
He crept to the window, floor creaking underfoot, and he grasped the bars, admiring as they snapped from the frame. And then the next one gave, and the next one, until freedom greeted Xinlong as a cold gust of night air, flavoured with familiar meat and blood and ash and fireworks’ smoke.
Before he could think twice, he crawled through the opening. He knew, from the corded energy in his thighs and in his joints, that he would survive the leap.
So he leapt. Dust kicked around him when he dropped the four storeys, and while the shock absorbed through his spine, pain did not. If anything, the fall fed and confirmed the strength Xinlong was welcoming into himself, and pushed him to take off running toward that irresistible scent.
His bare feet slapped along the cobblestone path as he sprinted down the back alley behind his family's house. It must be close by. The streets were teeming with people in their best robes, so he zipped and weaved, ducking under low-hanging signs and decorations.
Finally, not three blocks away, Xinlong ground to a halt with a sweat-slick palm grasping the corner of a shop.
Down this narrow, dark alley, he saw it. The source.
Fresh blood.
A gasp slipped past his parted lips.
The man at the end of the alley dropped whatever he held, and it landed with a wet slap.
“I wondered how much longer it would take you,” the stranger said. He took deliberate steps towards Xinlong. The stiffness in his gait was disturbing, as was the paleness of his skin which glowed hazily even in the darkness. Robes swished around him.
Xinlong, despite how swollen his gums felt and how loud his stomach growled, still put an arm in front of him for distance and pointed towards the discarded, silhouetted, coppery thing at the end of the alley.
“What’s that?” he asked. “What were you doing with that?”
“Don’t worry,” the stranger said. He took one step closer, and a firework went off overhead, briefly lighting his face in sparkly reds. “I’m glad you finally made it out. I’m Jiahao.”
Blood coated the bottom half of Jiahao’s face, but the top half of it—the top half, Xinlong wondered if he’d ever seen such a beautiful person before. Eyes like black pearls, glimmering in deep water, curtained by delicate lashes and adorned by a mark of kindness on the crest of his cheek. His hair was a little messy, fussed by someone or something, but a red ribbon pulled the thick tresses back. No signs of having tonsured the front of his hair. Xinlong’s bianzi had long grown out over the course of his imprisonment, and it was now a shaggy mess, nearly concealing his vision.
The firework's light faded and dipped them back into darkness.
Xinlong’s eyes darted down to the blood once more, and his stomach growled.
“You starved for weeks.” His cold, wet hand cupped Xinlong’s gaunt cheek. “Poor puppy.”
The words spurred Xinlong to act on his hunger, so despite all manner and propriety imposed on him since birth, his tongue darted out to lick the blood from Jiahao’s chin.
The scent could never compare to the taste. While the metallic flavor quelled his toothache, it set his body aflame in tandem. He was lightheaded at first, and his hands grasped at Jiahao’s hard, thin shoulders to yank him closer, but then the strength crashed into him like falling belly-first into a body of water.
Blood. Fuck. Did it taste like that all along?
The little Xinlong who hid behind tree trunks as his father butchered rodents and deer would nearly faint at the sight of their blood. Never once did it pique his salivary glands, flood his mouth with hot drool.
Jiahao’s laugh sounded like a bell, and he wiped Xinlong’s lip with his thumb as he guided Xinlong to stand straight.
Xinlong whimpered, then flushed at his own noise.
“You’ll need more than that.” Jiahao turned on his heel and made towards the street. “Follow me.”
They ended up in a mountain shrine, off the path and pale in comparison to the luxury of Xinlong’s family estate. So far away from the city, the only noises surrounding them were crickets, owls, and the creaking floorboards under their bare feet. But there was enough to make do. Namely, the bathroom, where Jiahao had shepherded Xinlong to.
He disrobed Xinlong by candlelight and hummed at the vision of his body illuminated by low flame.
“I don’t—” Remember looking like this, Xinlong wanted to say, but the shock of his own muscled frame stole the words from him. It was still his body, but a touch bigger and stronger than before. His narrow shoulders felt stockier, his waist and back more reliable. Would his father still see him as a runt if Xinlong could show him now? Was it the body or the mind that kept him under beloved heels?
The questions floated away on their own.
“You're okay,” Jiahao said as he tittered around the room. He shoved a barrel of water over to the tub, and the wood scraped against the tile floor as he tipped it into a trough big enough for Xinlong to climb into. “The water will be cold, but you can take it.”
Not only could Xinlong withstand the cold, it soothed the raging heat within him enough to clear his mind.
Jiahao used his panbo to shove his sleeves up to his elbows, and he reached into the water with a pail. With stiff, yet gentle hands, he guided Xinlong’s head back and poured the water over him. The relief grumbled in Xinlong’s chest, then even louder when Jiahao’s hands massaged his scalp.
“Apologies if I scratch you,” he said, though Xinlong heard no sympathy in his tone. If anything, his voice lilted with amusement as his claws combed through Xinlong’s hair.
“Who would leave their puppy so dirty?” Jiahao hummed and kneeled closer to the tub. “That’s what I’ve been wondering the past few weeks. The smell of such a sad creature dampened my usual hunting grounds.”
Without knowing what he was apologizing for, Xinlong mumbled, “Sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for.” Jiahao poured another wave of water over Xinlong’s head, and this time, he scrubbed his face. “I’m sorry your pack rejected you.”
Xinlong squinted one eye open. “My pack?”
“Mm, well, yes. Stunted turning, letting yourself be taken into a vampire's lair, so evidently they taught you nothing at all.”
“Turning?” At this, Xinlong pushed Jiahao’s icy hands away. He couldn't bring himself to even consider the word vampire. “What are you talking about?”
Jiahao considered him, expression void, arms crossed over his chest.
Another few moments, and then something clicked for him. He smiled at Xinlong, and it looked like pity.
“Were you attacked?”
“Um,” Xinlong said. “Yes. But—but it was my friends and I. We were irresponsible, and a pack of wolves…”
Jiahao nodded, encouraging Xinlong’s realization.
“A pack…”
“Where did they get you?”
Xinlong lifted his ankle out of the water, and it amazed him that the bite mark had turned into a thick, white scar, ripped and jagged. It had healed fine despite the lack of care. It was like tissue paper to the touch.
“Poor thing.” Jiahao laughed. “This does make more sense. You lack the composure of a natural-born werewolf.”
The scar held the impression of teeth, but not enough for it to have been a full bite. If just a nick had been enough to rob Xinlong of his personhood, to transform him into this hungry, violent beast, what had the werewolves done to his friends? Their limbs strewn apart, organs shredded and feasted on. Faces frozen in fear, in awe of Xinlong’s betrayal.
“Look at you; you’re all pale,” Jiahao said, setting the pail aside. “That’s no way for a wolf to look.”
The words floated above Xinlong’s head and didn’t register until the scent of blood slickened the air once more.
“Eat.” Jiahao offered his slit wrist to Xinlong’s mouth. “Though it’s not raw meat, fresh blood will sate you until we can hunt tomorrow.”
Xinlong grabbed Jiahao’s arm and latched onto it, sucking the nectar with fervor.
The first drop that hit his tongue had every desire from the last month swirling in Xinlong’s consciousness like water down a drain. It revealed the shape of what he’d become behind his eyelids. The power of his new body and the weakness caused by his hunger anthropomorphized into a snarling wolf, coated in blood as if newborn.
“Hm. I have no brood, so I have no comparison but,” Jiahao’s voice was muffled by the pounding in Xinlong’s ears. “It feels like I’m your maker now.” His free hand petted Xinlong’s wet hair. “My fledgling came out slightly weird. And hairy.”
Xinlong grunted and shoved more of Jiahao’s arm into his mouth. Jiahao giggled.
“Watch your strength, mutt.”
But Xinlong couldn’t.
He was so hungry.
Jiahao tore his arm back to his chest, and that refusal was what finally cleaved Xinlong in two. All the hours of reining in his transformation poured out of the separation like a fresh wound. Whatever humanity he had clung to out of the ignorance of his becoming, faded.
No, hunger didn’t come close to describing the burning in Xinlong’s body, how muscle and bone began to creak and squirm under his skin.
He followed Jiahao’s blood, fangs first, splashing water on the floor as he climbed from the tub.
“Oh.”
Jiahao’s back hit the ground, and he stared up at Xinlong with even wider eyes, both pupils and irises soaking up the sclera. On either side of Jiahao’s head, Xinlong’s hands now sported claws and a dusting of fur at the knuckles.
“Can I have more?” Xinlong asked, droplets of bloody spit hitting Jiahao’s cheek. He bent to lick it clean, and it zapped his salivary glands like citrus juice. “Please?”
“How are you changing even further?” Jiahao wondered aloud, ignoring Xinlong’s plea. He pressed a thumbpad to Xinlong’s exposed fang and gasped when it popped through his skin. Xinlong sucked the digit into his mouth. “You’re still turning, how are you still turning? How did you hold back?” He retracted, but Xinlong’s mouth did not open.
He pulled the trickle of blood out with rhythmic suckles, tongue laving over the cut to force it open. The pit in his stomach filled with the reprieve, and his eyelids shut as he imagined himself at a long, ornate dinner table, shoving his face with bloody, raw meat.
“Oh my,” Jiahao said through a thin gasp. The mental image shifted to Jiahao laid out on the table, robes shoved up so Xinlong could sink his teeth into soft inner thigh skin. He shoved more of Jiahao’s thumb along his soft palate until Jiahao stopped him, pressing down on his tongue.
“Look, puppy.”
Xinlong’s gaze followed Jiahao’s down to where their bodies pressed together, and his cock stood hard and drooling, pushing against Jiahao’s clothes.
“My blood made you needy. It’s helping to complete your transformation.”
Xinlong whimpered again, but he couldn’t force himself to feel ashamed. Though he’d never dared to touch himself at home, he could no longer remember why. With fear and shame now dead, remaking the old guilt in his stomach was impossible, no matter how he tried or who he thought of.
Need warmth.
That was all he could think, though he wasn’t certain how to accomplish it—getting his dick somewhere tight and warm to sate the howling creature locked in his skull.
“Can I…?” Xinlong pushed Jiahao’s robes up like he did in his fantasy to reveal smooth, milky, undead skin.
“Of course,” Jiahao said. He squirmed out of his clothes and bunched them into a cushion under his head so he could lie back bare and comfortable, like serving himself up for consumption. “Do whatever you’d like.”
“No,” Xinlong whined in return, deep voice pitching like a wounded animal. He rubbed his face along Jiahao’s throat, nuzzled his nose against a sharp clavicle. Underneath the driven snow scent of Jiahao’s skin were the tendrils of addictive blood that sent Xinlong’s mind scrambling for the memory of the taste. He licked his teeth. “I don’t—I really don’t know… tell me, please.”
Jiahao cupped Xinlong’s face and guided them nose to nose. “But you do. You might not have last night or the night before, but you’re nearly there. Follow your new instincts.” Those long, stiletto nails combed through Xinlong’s wet hair. How it was possible for a creature with such pale skin and coal-soaked eyes to be so endearing, so tempting, and not at all frightening, Xinlong could not understand. “I want to see it happen, please.”
Despite his misgivings, Xinlong has always been weak to a firm request.
He rolled his hips slowly to savor the sensation of Jiahao’s frigid skin against his raging hot cock, then immediately fell into hapless rutting once euphoric warmth soaked into his groin. He’d never imagined it feeling like that. It sent shivers up his spine and fuzzed out his brain until all he could think was how good it was and how beguiling Jiahao was, sprawled out underneath him, thighs spread apart for Xinlong to use.
And though his inexperience was vast and his understanding of the current circumstances was limited, his mind flashed with the thought of shoving himself inside Jiahao’s tight body, obsessed with chasing warm blood boiling under the snowy surface.
“Can I…” Xinlong began, voice rumbling. He lowered himself on top of Jiahao and shoved his face into that beautiful neck, and spread his knees to thrust with deeper abandon. It wasn’t enough. “Can I put it inside?”
“Mm, you want to make love with me?”
Jiahao’s voice lilted with amusement, but again, Xinlong rammed through any shred of dignity.
“I want to, I think—” he panted, and his words staccatoed by his tongue lapping at Jiahao’s skin like a stray, desperate for butchered scraps. “It’ll feel good for both of us that way, r-right?”
“I suppose.” Jiahao pushed Xinlong back by his shoulders with impressive strength. “I can take the pain, but it’ll be better if you get me rea—”
Would that Xinlong could control himself, he might have had the foresight to carry Jiahao somewhere plush and secure, to plant a devotional length of kisses down the length of his body. Instead, he flipped Jiahao onto his front on the tile, spread his cheeks apart and dragged his tongue over the hole before eating him with an appetite guided by the weight between his own legs. When he eased his tongue inside, the same delicious scent and warmth as Jiahao’s wrist and thumb floated through all his senses.
He didn’t know whether he wanted to tear into him or fuck into him.
“Xinlong, oh, oh,” Jiahao whimpered, “slow down.”
The beast in his skull whined and refused and sank his claws into Jiahao’s hips to pull him closer in. Nose smushed to Jiahao’s tailbone, Xinlong tongued and sucked and licked to the music of Jiahao’s cries, so desperately encouraged by the surprised note underlying each moan. He was being good. His instincts had guided him somewhere pleasurable for his mate underneath him.
Mate.
Mate, mate, mate, mate—
“Xinlong, Xinlong!” Jiahao’s hand scrambled backwards to grab him by his fringe. Once Xinlong slipped away, blinking in confusion, Jiahao huffed as though exhausted. “I thought you might eat me alive.”
The thought was not unappealing.
Xinlong sat back on his heels and dragged a hand over his face, wiping away the excess saliva. His eyes drooped as his gaze roamed over Jiahao’s messy frame. The claw marks. The wetness. His limbs were strewn and trembling, and so much more affected than Xinlong ever thought he could exact on another.
“Fuck. Sorry.” He wrapped a hand around his cock and stroked it. “Feels like I can’t help myself.”
Jiahao considered him, face peeking over his shoulder. He wasn’t sweaty or flushed, likely too… dead, but he radiated a syrupy satisfaction that beckoned Xinlong back to him. Mouth slack, eyes so wild. He looked impressed, and it drove Xinlong’s wolf crazy with the need to prove himself.
Xinlong pressed against Jiahao’s back and kissed him over his shoulder. He’d never kissed before, and it wasn’t as straightforward, but he hungered for it all the same. Jiahao’s lips were soft and plush, and they opened so easily for Xinlong’s prying that it sent a wash of heat over his body, and he ground against Jiahao’s ass and lower back, arms propping himself up.
“Do it,” Jiahao whined against his lips, jaw flexing. “Put it in, Xinlongie. Your wolf needs it.”
He did need it.
With a thumb to the base of his dick, Xinlong lined himself up to Jiahao’s spit-slick hole and pushed in. Their combined strength opened Jiahao up so nicely, so easily, so sweetly, while still letting him squeeze Xinlong within an inch of his life.
Like this, he could feel Jiahao’s fiery blood through his velvet walls all around him. Milking him. A deep sound rumbled through his chest, akin to a purr.
“So good,” Xinlong said, then pumped his hips back and forth.
Jiahao hummed in accordance and arched into it, and it goaded Xinlong to move faster. Their skin slapped together, ringing out against the bathroom tile.
How could this be real? That only hours prior, Xinlong had paced the worn floors of his cage, twisted tight with rage and cravings he couldn’t put to words, and now he was letting it all out on the most gorgeous creature he’d ever seen. Something from a dream, a fictionality, a mirage of sex and seduction and those void-black eyes staring back at him, eyebrows pinched in the middle, pink mouth hanging open to let out little, whiney moans with every thrust Xinlong fed into him.
Xinlong groaned and pulled Jiahao’s hips until his back bowed and his knees settled under him. His long hair slipped out of its ribbon and spilled over his shoulders to reveal unmarred skin.
Instead of teasing, Jiahao hung his head between his forearms and pushed back into it. Needy vampire. Needy, evil thing. Xinlong grinned and cinched his paws around Jiahao’s waist. The skin dipped under his grip.
“Feel good?” Xinlong gritted out, his pace a demanding snap, rough enough to have Jiahao’s hands scrambling for grip. Holding back was impossible. Any gentler, and Xinlong might lose his mind.
More heat poured into his belly when Jiahao nodded and hummed, still meeting Xinlong’s thrusts in the middle. And somewhere in the noise of their coupling, the temperature surrounding him, the feeling under his palms, Xinlong sank deeper, and the wolf grew stronger.
“So-o good, puppy. So—good—”
He could hardly recognize himself when he whimpered back, “Good for you, good for my maker. My m-mate.”
The responding unabashed moan sounded ripped from the base of Jiahao’s throat.
Xinlong drove his cock in faster. Watched it slide in and out of Jiahao, entranced by it. Amazed at how Jiahao took it so well and so deep, no matter how much meaner Xinlong’s wolf got, bending one leg at the knee and planting it on the floor to fuck Jiahao that much harder.
Jiahao kept taking it, kept moaning for it, and kept praising Xinlong for what a good boy he was, giving him exactly what he wanted.
And then it happened.
“Holy—” Jiahao whipped his head around and pushed himself up onto shaky arms. The change in position had him clenching tighter around Xinlong, who whimpered and threw his head back, pausing his thrusts to grind against Jiahao’s hole.
“Hurts, it hurts,” Xinlong said. The silky pleasure swelled with discomfort, and his thrusts grew shorter. “What’s happening?”
“I—hah—thought they were a myth,” Jiahao said, licking his lips. His own fangs descended. “It’s so much more perverse than I thought it would be.”
“Muh? Huh?” The fog overtook Xinlong’s mind, gaze trained on those pin-sharp teeth. He could only whine for aid.
Jiahao steadied himself once Xinlong ground to a halt.
“A knot to lock us together for…” he trailed off. His voice sounded shy. “Look at yourself. It’s at the base.”
There, near the base of his cock still half buried, was a knot. Thicker than the rest of it. The wolf told him to squeeze it, but he stilled his hands.
“And that’s not normal?”
“That’s—what?” Jiahao gasped then. “You don’t know?”
“No…” Xinlong had never gotten this far. Had never even peeked under his clothes to see what it looked like hard. That Xinlong from the past felt so far behind him, it may as well have been a different person.
He was changed. He was changed, he had changed. It rang out through his head, but he lacked the wherewithal to let it sink in. A smaller, meeker voice told him to ignore it. If he started thinking about how insane this experience was, he might spook himself right out of the glory of it all.
Jiahao stayed silent for a few beats, and then his voice broke once he spoke.
“You’ll have to shove it in. Or else… I don’t know, but I’ll take it. I know you can't help yourself. I’ve got you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course. This is what your wolf was begging me for every time I passed your window, wasn't it?” Jiahao asked, lips pulled in a teasing grin as he pushed his hips back and bumped against the sensitive knot. “Smelled like sex. I wanted to take care of you, puppy.”
Xinlong whined and nodded for Jiahao’s affection. Not only was the sex blowing his mind, but the prospect of being cared for, the softness of Jiahao's voice and the selflessness to offer himself up to a budding monster made Xinlong feel raw with affection. When was the last time he felt a warm touch? The last time someone gave to him without strings attached?
“Mount me, okay? This way I won’t accidentally bite you.”
Instincts overrode to instruct Xinlong’s body what to do. He shuffled closer until his and Jiahao’s thighs touched, and then he draped himself completely over Jiahao’s back until he could nose along the enticing line of shoulder meat. The scent of blood was especially strong near Jiahao’s nape. His forearms wrapped around Jiahao’s waist, and then he fucked forward and felt the fat knot bump against the wet hole.
“Fuck,” Xinlong moaned. He smushed his sweaty face against marblesque skin, dragging saliva with it, so far gone as to drool over Jiahao. “Fuck, I want it so bad.”
“You can have it,” Jiahao said. “Please—please. Make me take it.”
His wolf howled, which sent waves of excitement through Xinlong, lighting every nerve and muscle with fever. Something built in his lower belly, tightening with every wet slap against Jiahao's open body. Sweat poured off him, glistening the slide of their bodies and drenching Jiahao in his scent.
Mate. Mine.
He wouldn’t hold back. With every slam of his hips against Jiahao’s ass, Xinlong felt the pull grow stronger. His abdomen tightened, muscles rippling underneath. The shaggy fur on his arms, his hair, his belly and chest grew thicker, blanketing Xinlong into the image of half-beast, half-human, so unbecoming but so hot against Jiahao’s pristine body. His bangs hung in his eyes, and his lips curled up as he snarled, teeth bared, dripping spit, and grazing the flesh underneath them. That delicious scent was now all his. All the power, all the strength that solidified him to be reborn now vibrated with anticipation.
His to bite, to drink, to eat, to fuck and breed with. To hunt with.
His knot bumped once, twice, three more brutal, demanding times before it sank inside Jiahao’s body with a squelch and locked them together. They both cried out. Fully animal in that moment, Xinlong’s canines followed suit: he bit into Jiahao’s shoulder muscle and growled at the flood of thick blood.
The last thing Xinlong felt before blacking out was his own hot come pumping into the vampire.
Xinlong awoke to Jiahao’s vampiric eyes staring back at him in the dark. It took a moment to register that his own eyes could also see well with no light.
“Wuh—”
“You are a naughty puppy,” Jiahao said, though his actions contradicted his words as he combed through Xinlong’s hair once more. “Knotting me, biting me, then passing out on top of me. Wouldn’t let me move an inch. Very greedy.”
Xinlong rushed to apologize, choppy words tumbling from his mouth before Jiahao crawled on top of him.
He pressed a finger to Xinlong’s lips. “Hush.”
Xinlong complied.
“You and I are going to hunt now that it’s dark, and then I’m going to take you back here and we’re going to learn together how you treat a lady. You understand?”
Xinlong’s head spun, but he nodded all the same. He knew, in other circumstances, how to treat people. How to have manners.
But this was a different promise than those of his mother or of the tutors or the countless, prying aunts and uncles ready to cast their direction down on Xinlong.
Long before the werewolves, Xinlong had grown restless and tired of their siege. And despite all his fealty, all the years of keeping his head down, one mistake had landed him in a cage for a month with no sign of escape nor whisper of care.
In the quiet, the wildlife sounds floated back through the window. The rush of a nearby river. No smell of smoke or industry. No crying babies, no metal slat to wait by for every meal.
Xinlong stretched his legs out on the bed and soaked in the relief permeating his new body.
It was as though the wolf had occupied every dark corner of his mind. Where there were once crevices for incessant worries and insecurities to hide in, they were now filled by budding confidence and that addictive strength Jiahao had nurtured to the surface.
In the contemplative stillness, Jiahao drew circles with his fingertip over Xinlong’s chest, watching him with unblinking eyes. They felt different from his mother’s ever watchful ones.
Something told him Jiahao would be different. Maybe it was that Jiahao had washed and cleaned him, tucked him into a warm bed, and watched him through his first sleep as a new creature.
A creature whose instincts could be celebrated, trusted. And, when he slipped, corrected with a gentle hand. After all, it had been instinct that kept him alive in that ditch so many moons ago. Correction then had been swift and brutal.
The desire to return home was long gone, as if it was never there to begin with.
Now, He Xinlong, who was reborn in the new year, would never be caged again.