#65k words rn with some more to go before it wraps up

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Blood of the Sun - Chapter Two

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CW: hypothermia, frostbite, blood mention, scar mention, drugging

“Clear off our bed, and get the spare blankets,” Percy instructed as he carried the human into the cabin. Jasper gave a curt nod before darting up the wooden stairs that led to the loft. 

“Don’t die on us now,” Percy whispered to the body clutched in his arms as though it could hear him. It was nothing short of a miracle that they had made it back to the cabin with the boy still breathing. Whether he would make it through the next twenty-four hours, well, that was another question entirely. 

Percy made his way carefully up the creaking steps, taking care not to jostle the frail human body too much, and entered the master bedroom. Jasper had already pulled back the blankets and pillows so there was a flat surface to work on, and Percy wasted no time in getting down to business. 

Once the human was laid out on the bed, Percy began to remove the clothes he hastily pulled on to the naked body just forty minutes earlier. In the bright lights of the master bedroom, and out of the dark haze of snow, the severity of the boy’s condition became apparent. 

Fang marks littered his paper-thin skin, each wound in a different stage of healing. The ring of purple around his neck spoke to where his former keepers preferred to drink, but the deep gashes across his thighs demonstrated a more eclectic taste. Percy’s stomach churned as he continued his inspection, noting the severe frostbite on the boy’s fingers and toes, and he observed the signs of nascent infection in one of the deepest wounds. 

“We need to get him warmed up,” Jasper said with urgency, and Percy was pulled out of his momentary stupor. When he turned to look at his companion, he saw a mound of blankets clutched in Jasper’s arms, the fleece and down stacked in billowing folds. 

“Right.” He stood to help, and began by pulling a downy quilt up to the human’s neck. Jasper followed with another blanket, ensuring that the body was covered evenly, so as not to warm the extremities before the core. 

“I’m not sure we can save his hands,” Percy said as yet another blanket was laid on the body. It was much too early to know definitively, but from the scent of tissue death that clung to the back of his throat, and the blackened blisters that extended to the boy’s wrists, the prognosis was grim. 

Jasper gave a solemn nod as he layered another blanket. 

“It didn’t look good out there. He’s going to be in a lot of pain when he’s finally lucid, that’s for sure.” 

“Not if I can help it.” Percy already had some solutions in mind, tucked away in the cabin’s medical bag, and in the depths of his own body. 

“There’s no way we have enough morphine to get him through this,” Jasper said with a look of incredulity in Percy’s direction. “The kit has enough to set a broken arm or two, that’s it. And there’s no way we can get him out of here before he’s either awake or dead.” 

“I wasn’t going to use morphine.” 

Jasper’s eyes widened, and flicked between Percy and the boy with a sense of alarm. 

“We don’t have a lot of blood here to spare. It’s another three days before Tobias is due in with the next shipment, and I know you’re hungry.” 

“I’ve been hungry before, and I’ll be hungry again,” Percy growled. “Do you think I’m an animal, incapable of controlling my instincts, my desires? You should know me better than that. I have this human’s blood on my hands and I haven’t so much as licked my lips.” It was true - the open wounds had wept crimson onto Percy’s palms. 

Percy was already rummaging around in his nightstand by the time Jasper made another sound of protest. Percy’s hands were hunting for the familiar leather sheath he always kept stashed in the top drawer, usually buried amongst the other personal necessities. It never hurt to have a knife within arms-reach in the Alaskan backcountry. 

But before Jasper could speak again, and before Percy ever found the knife, the body in the bed let out a piercing cry. 

--- 

Cold. 

It was a word in his mind as much as it was a feeling in Shiloh’s very bones. He ached under the cold, and he worshipped it, gripped by both fear and awe the same. It was what he would have expected to feel if he had seen an angel and been forced to bow to its might. 

But instead of resting with angels, Shiloh was conscious. He was staring up at timber ceilings, so similar to those of his prison, and he was weighed down by blankets. Blankets. It was a sensation he had almost forgotten. 

The next thing he saw was two pairs of red eyes staring down at him. 

He screamed as fangs pierced his skin. Two powerful arms held him down alongside his shackles, but Shiloh thrashed against them nonetheless. His legs fought for purchase on flesh, on cement, on anything that could leverage him away from this blood-sucking leech. All he could see were those god-forsaken wooden planks above him, his sole facsimile of a sky. 

And still the monster purred in the crook of his neck, lapping up the hot liquid that dripped across Shiloh’s collarbone. He was sticky with sweat and with dried blood. He was sticky with rage, anger, molten fury that resonated with every heartbeat. But then his head began to spin, as it always did. It told him that he was soon going to teeter on the brink of consciousness, and the beast would finish its meal, leaving Shiloh’s body to replenish its stock. 

“Fuck you,” he grumbled as his lucidity slipped away, merely grateful that he could curse without the leather gag in his mouth. 

“With pleasure,” Griffith murmured into Shiloh’s soft skin, and then he resumed drinking.

The present returned to him, and the red eyes came into focus once more. Shiloh hadn’t seen these two vampires before. No, even among the fleeting guests among the orgies and dinner parties, these two faces were new. New was never a good thing. 

He tried to sit up, but a strong arm planted itself in the middle of his chest. Shiloh found himself pinned to the bed, a soft mattress beneath his back. He couldn't remember the last time he laid on something quite so soft. His mind floated in a thousand directions at once, but he couldn’t feel any restraints on his limbs. 

Focus, he thought to himself, the chills gradually transforming into body-wracking shivers. Even though there was fabric between himself and the vampiric hand that rested on his chest, Shiloh swore he could feel the unforgiving claws. This was all too much. 

“Human, please,” a soft voice pleaded. It was as close as Shiloh could imagine to one of those monsters pleading, anyway. They were beasts incapable of mercy, so this was likely nothing more than their usual monstrous trickery. 

“Get of’a me,” he grumbled, but his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. The words came out slurred, and when he tried to grab at the hand on his chest, his arms didn’t move. He couldn’t feel his hands at all. And again his heart was pounding against his ribs, begging to be let out, pushing a thunder of blood into his ears. 

“What th’ fuck’ve you done t’me,” he slurred, his voice cracking as his body was seized by shivers. Pain and cold coalesced in a cruel symphony of pain. Shiloh tried to curl his hands into fists, but there was no response. He couldn’t feel anything below his elbows, nor below his knees. Neither responded when he tried to move them. 

“Young human, I can understand you’re in distress.” This was a second voice, coming from the vampire whose head was ringed in thick brown hair. The red eyes glittered like rubies. Shiloh loathed it. 

“I- I’m-” Shiloh stuttered as he came up short. Consciousness was slipping away again, a sharp heat prickling across his extremities until it grew cold, and his old wounds were set alight by some invisible hand. His lungs were gripped by an unforgiving iron hold that made it impossible to draw a breath. If he could have died in that moment, Shiloh would have gone forth eagerly into the afterworld. 

“Get me the knife,” one of the voices said. Shiloh’s head was spinning too severely to pinpoint which of those creatures was speaking, or to whom it made the request. Shiloh also knew that he wasn’t going to survive another bloodletting. 

“This is dangerous.” 

“I don’t care. It’s his best shot. He’s going into shock, and he’s going to die if we don’t do something. I’ll be fine, Jasper, just hand me the knife.” 

The tears were involuntary, as were the spasms that pulsed through Shiloh’s core. The vampire holding him down was the only thing that kept him still beneath the blankets. Perhaps it would be for the best if he was still, so the knife could find its target, and so Shiloh could leave this world and find something that resembled peace. 

At least I tried, he thought to himself as a flash of steel glinted in the low light. At least I outsmarted them, at least for a little while. I hope they all burn in hell. 

His mouth parted in one last scream, his body no longer able to contain the pain, and arched his back with the last of his core strength. If Shiloh ever had control of his body, he had surrendered it now. The angel of death contorted his muscles and commanded them at will. 

And then his scream was cut off as flesh was shoved between his teeth, blood pulsing hot across his tongue. 

--- 

“You’re choking him,” Jasper said, his voice barely above a whisper, but the younger vampire made no move to stop Percy’s haphazard feeding. 

Percy felt his own strength waning the moment he split his skin. His healing factor was already inhibited by days without feeding, but his own blood spilling into the human’s mouth weakened him instantly. Blunt teeth grazed his own pale skin, and he stared down into two wide eyes, their brown depths glittering with fear and hatred in equal part. 

“He’ll be fine,” Percy said. A moment later the boy swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and his muscles began to relax shortly thereafter. The human swallowed three more mouthfuls of blood beneath Percy’s watchful eye, and only then did the vampire pull his crimson-streaked arm away. 

“Get me some gauze,” Percy commanded, his eyes still transfixed on the human. The agonized thrashing had been reduced to twitching. Bright and wild eyes had dulled, eyelids slipping shut as the human was pulled towards a healing slumber. 

“You’re an idiot.” Jasper’s hiss came to Percy’s ear as his partner pushed white gauze down on Percy’s pulsing knife wound. 

“He’s comfortable now, isn’t he? I think that’s worth a few drops of my blood.” 

“He’s unconscious, again, I might add.” There was silence, and then Jasper sighed. “Okay, maybe this was a mercy. We still don’t know if he’s going to make it through the night.” 

Percy looked down at the human, now entirely limp, his limbs immobile beneath the blankets. It would be hours before the human’s core temperature would return to safe levels, even with all the blankets in the world. The next twenty-four hours would reveal just how much damage winter had done, and whether any of the decay-tinged limbs were salvageable. 

“I’ll feed him more blood if I have to,” Percy swore softly. The knife wound was already pulling itself together in a patchwork of white scar tissue. In a few more minutes, it would be as though the wound was never there in the first place. 

Jasper’s hands soon found their way around Percy’s waist. It was all he could do to not surrender to them entirely, to simply sink into that comforting warmth and forget the human-shaped disaster he had dragged into their home. 

Percy closed his own eyes and leaned back into Jasper’s chest. God, what he would give to stay there forever, warm against his lover’s steady heartbeat. Eventually he mustered the courage to speak again. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. 

“Don’t be,” Jasper responded, a soft breath in Percy’s ear. “This is what I love about you. You are selfless to a fault. We’re going to do all we can for this boy.” 

“We’ll keep him safe until sunrise,” Percy said. Jasper held him tight, and Percy could feel those familiar wisps of curls bobbing with a nod. 

“Until sunrise.”