Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Usually on a Friday night, B would have found a quiet place to keep away the wind chill where she could curl up and sleep. There were too many people, too many drunkards, and too many potential dangers for a girl as small and–currently–as weak as her.
This particular day was different. It had been two days since she had gotten those leftovers from that old couple who had pitied her. Two whole days since she had last gotten a good meal. Not that B hadn’t been looking, for she had. She had even tried hunting some nearby birds, but her cat appearance was too eye-catching and humans had started harassing her. Being in the middle of Alaska meant it was too dangerous hunting anywhere outside of town, and when people started trying to catch her, going so far as to nearly run her over in the process, the girl had no choice but to give up.
Now she would have no choice but to do the one thing she hated the most; going through garbage.
It was past midnight when she dared peel herself out of the shadows, but she wasn’t stupid about it. She kept to the alleys and the empty streets, always on high alert. While she was weak in her current state, her senses weren’t. It was all too easy for her to pick up on the sound of footsteps or the laughter of stupid humans. So long as there weren’t too many sounds overlapping each other, it was easy for B to tell when she was being followed.
It took two hours of skulking for B to smell it; food. It was nowhere near fresh, but some of the scents seemed new enough that it was worth the risk of following the trail. She felt some bitterness well up inside of her when she found the location of the scent, but she didn’t let it deter her. She was too hungry to be picky about where she was getting the food from.
This particular alley made B’s usual hangouts look like the suburbs. It was beyond dark, untouched by any streetlights. The doors that lined the walls of the alley had lights attached to them, but people either didn’t bother to turn them on or they were simply broken. Anyone who didn’t have cat eyes like B would struggle to see in front of their face, it was so dark. The place smelled to high heaven, enough for B to want to hold her breath and, quite frankly, it was simply disgusting. Trash bags weren’t the only things that littered the alley. There were green, smelly puddles of muck and even a few dead rodents. Rodents that B wouldn’t dare touch in case they had been poisoned. She didn’t get sick, but poison was definitely another story.
Regardless of the state of the alley and how much she would prefer to be anywhere else, B still pushed herself forward. There were new trash bags to the side of someone’s door and she couldn’t afford to be too picky. With a nose like hers, it would be easy enough to tell what should and shouldn’t be eaten, and with her malnourished state the chance of there being even one edible substance in a single bag was too good of a chance to pass up.
There were things much more important to B than disgusting smells or getting dirty. Things much more important even than B’s own dignity, in fact.
What was so much more important to the girl was quite simple; survival. B was determined to survive no matter the cost. Not just for herself, but for her family, who never got the chance.
So B dropped low, out of sight of any potential onlookers glancing through windows, and made her way over to the trash bags. She took the one closest to her and carefully ripped it open so nothing spilled out on the ground, meticulously searching through the garbage with her hands, eyes, and nose. Then she did it again. And again.
The more B went through the trash, the more frustrated she became. It was bad enough that the sinking feeling in her gut was telling her the bags of garbage might be a bust for her after all, but she was also becoming frustrated with what she saw. There was so much food, too old or rotten to be eaten by B, but the girl knew it would have been a great meal to whoever the owner of the trash bags might have been. Yet they dumped it anyway.
“Ugh.” B’s frustration temporarily got the better of her and she shoved another useless bag to the side, letting its contents spill out onto the ground. Sometimes she wondered why she let herself fall so far. Why did she have to let her morals get in the way of a good meal? If she would get over herself and steal something once in a while, she wouldn’t have to find something to eat in the garbage.
Of course B knew why she wouldn’t drop her morals. Regardless of how people looked on the outside, she never knew if they would need that meal or money as much as she did. If stealing from them might mean they wouldn’t get to eat or that they might get punished for B’s thievery.
So instead of going out to steal something, she went back to searching. One garbage bag after another, sifting through enough once good food to have fed her well for days. Yet instead, humans dumped it out because it wasn’t to their liking or because they let the food waste away in their house instead of eating it on time. She could never imagine doing the same; even when she had a home, a family, money, and the pretense of safety, B and her entire family had never even wasted a quarter of what a single human household did. Not that she should be complaining; it was the humans’ food waste that allowed her to live this far after all.
Finally, B hit pay dirt. She found a plastic container among the garbage and gave it a sniff before opening it, almost afraid to get her hopes up. Yet she found there was no rotting, no mold, no bugs. When she gave a few cautionary sniffs, she found it wasn’t even old; it had likely been thrown into the garbage in the last day or two. If she had to guess as to why the barely touched burger had been tossed, B would think it had to do with how the meat was basically raw in the middle. Most humans would likely balk at such a thing, but not B. This was what she would consider a lucky find. Not only did she not get sick from such things, but the raw meat would even serve to soothe the cat side of her a little.
Now that she knew the meal was safe, B didn’t hesitate to start inhaling her meal with all the excitement of a kid getting to eat a slice of birthday cake. She was so focused on her meal that she didn’t pay much attention to the world around her. There were footsteps of people as they passed her alley, voices and heartbeats, although uncommon. So when she heard another pair of footsteps passing by, she didn’t think anything of it. She didn’t make the connection that while there were footsteps, there was no heartbeat to accompany them.
The wind shifted at just the wrong moment as it flowed through the alley, carrying B’s scent out to the street right as a blonde woman started to walk past. The lungful Kate Denali got of the girl’s scent was more than enough to make the woman stop in her tracks as desire was lit inside of her like never before. She turned in the direction of the scent, inhuman golden eyes scanning the darkness.
It took only moments for the woman to pick the girl out. She was crouched in the alley devouring a burger, a curtain of oily, stringy brown hair covering her face, save for her intelligent dark green eyes. Her clothes were torn and faded, hanging onto a frame that was much too boney to be healthy, and the girl’s skin was so caked with dirt it was hard for the woman to pick out the pale skin beneath it. The hungry way Kate eyed the girl immediately changed to one of concern. Her instincts, which had been screaming mate and pushing her to pounce and seduce the girl quieted, replaced by new urges. Urges to protect and provide for her mate, who looked like a gust of wind would be strong enough to blow her over.
So driven by her instincts, Kate thought nothing of how she would approach her mate. She stalked toward the girl as if she were stalking prey, quiet and focused on the girl’s back. Even driven to help, Kate still inhaled the girl’s scent again, taking a kind of comfort in her mate’s unique smell–forest and honey. Every inhale of that scent made the pull Kate felt even stronger, more insistent, to the point she had to hold her breath or risk almost pouncing on the girl in her animalistic eagerness.
There was no doubt in Kate’s mind that the girl was her mate, and that made it all the harder to control herself. She had spent over a thousand years alone without her other half, and now that she finally found her, to realize that she had been suffering. It was harder seeing that she was human. Not that Kate minded that her mate was human, not really. The problem was with how weak the girl’s humanness made her. It made her weak, susceptible to disease and cold and death in a way that vampires weren’t. The urge to turn her would have been overwhelming if the girl didn’t appear so weak that she might not survive the change.
Kate already knew what she was going to do. She was going to help her, woo her, and once she was healthy and happy, Kate would turn her. Then the girl would be hers for eternity and never know suffering again. She would only know happiness and love and safety and everything else she deserved.
The warrior almost grinned in her excitement over her plan, but then the wind shifted again. Instead of bringing the girl’s scent to Kate, it went in the opposite direction, pulling the girl’s scent into the alley and taking Kate’s own smell along with it. Kate became a little grumpy that she could no longer revel in her mate’s scent, at least for the moment, but then another concern came to light when her mate stiffened. It wasn’t by chance but instead in reaction to something, as if she had scented or heard Kate approach. That obviously wasn’t possible. Humans couldn’t scent other creatures like vampires could, and even if they could, everything about a vampire was designed to draw humans in. Kate being her mate would only mean that her scent would be more enticing for the girl than it would be for other humans. As for potentially hearing Kate approach, while she had been impulsive and excited upon finding her mate, she hadn’t been stupid. Her approach had been so silent even other vampires wouldn’t have been able to hear her.
Yet what else could explain the look of fear that appeared on her mate’s face or the way she started to tremble in fright?
Kate’s gaze darted around the alley, looking for anything else that might dare to frighten her mate, but there was nothing. The only ones in the alley were her and her mate–even the animals had fled upon sensing the vampire’s presence.
Little did she know that Kate’s presence was her mate’s problem.
B’s instincts screamed at her to run from the moment she inhaled the vampire’s scent. Usually the smell of warm chocolate and cinnamon would make B lick her lips with want, but not when there was that underlying scent that, while B could never put a name to, told her that the scent belonged to a vampire.
B hoped with every ounce of her being that she was wrong. What were the odds that she could be so unlucky a second time? Hadn’t she suffered enough after losing her family? Yet all it took was one glance over her shoulder to confirm it; there, in the entrance of the alley, was a woman. A vampire.
In any other situation, perhaps in another lifetime where B had grown up normal, she would have taken the time to admire the woman’s beauty. The vampire was beyond gorgeous with straight blonde hair and sharp features. She was dressed like she was ready to go clubbing in some slinky yet thick white shirt, tight black pants, and fancy heels. While her golden eye color confused B, the way they darkened made it clear that she was thirsty. She must have noticed B and decided that she was an easy meal in the making.
Even knowing that she was about to become a snack, B was too terrified to move. She knew the chance of defeating a vampire, especially in her current state, was zero. After all of her fight, after all of her struggles, she was going to become another meal for the cruel creatures. Just like her family had.
“Hey sexy,” Kate said without thinking. Fuck, that wasn’t how she should have gone about introducing herself to her mate. But how else was she supposed to call out to her? Maybe she should just go about trying to offer help? “What’s a girl like you doing hanging out in an alley at this time of night? There’s much better places to be.” Like in my arms, where I can protect you properly.
The vampire took a step toward B and she had to fight the urge to back up. She knew if she backed up or turned tail and ran it would trigger the vampire’s instincts to chase her. Not that keeping still was exactly helping either. It was clear that the vampire had already decided that B was going to be her dinner.
There’s nothing I can do. Nothing in this world is going to save me. The thoughts brought about despair, but at least there was one good thing to come out of her impending death; it meant she was going to see her family again soon.
Kate saw how nervous the girl was of her, not that she could blame her mate with how seamlessly Kate was fucking everything up, but still. She had to work harder to get her mate to calm down and hopefully accept Kate’s help, even if something about Kate seemed to terrify her. Should she hug the girl? No, that might be too much. The girl was clearly skittish. A handshake would have to be what she started with.
It was as the vampire seemed to reach out for B that panic took over. No. No! I don’t want to die! Not yet! Without a thought, B shifted before the vampire’s hand could even touch her. The vampire let out a sound of startled surprise as she realized the girl she was trying to shake the hand of was now a twenty pound cat.
That moment of surprise was all B needed. It was only a few extra seconds, but B used it to her advantage and bolted away from the vampire. The surprise didn’t stun the vampire for long, and soon the vampire was racing after her.
“Hey, Kitten, wait!” The nickname slipped out before Kate could even think to stop it, but she had much more important things to worry about. While she hadn’t planned on pursuing her mate quite so physically so soon, she couldn’t let the girl escape. If she did, she might never see her again, and Kate’s instincts absolutely raged at the thought of that happening. It was so bad that Kate wasn’t sure she could stop chasing her mate even if she wanted to; the beast inside of her wouldn’t allow it.
To B’s horror, she realized that the vampire was gaining on her. She poured on even more speed, pushing her weakened body to the absolute limits and well past that. All the while she tried every trick in the book to lose her pursuer. She made sudden turns, backtracked and went a different way when she had the seconds to spare, waded through giant puddles, and ran across busy roads.
Still, the vampire chased her. Seeing as B had no choice but to stick to the dark, quieter streets to insure no human could see her running at such inhuman speeds, the vampire could go just as fast as her. Which meant that it wasn’t hard for the vampire to keep up, and when B’s body started to give out from strain, the vampire was still able to run just as fast.
Then B got lucky. She saw her best, but most disgusting bet in a giant sewer pipe. It would barely be big enough for her to fit through, but it would be much too small for the vampire. While her escape would be smelly and nasty and likely cover her fur in all kinds of questionable substances, it was worth it as there would be no way for the vampire to get to her. Nothing save from her pursuer ripping the pipe right out of the ground, anyway. While there was no one around to be able to witness the spectacle, fixing such destruction wasn’t as easy as creating it. There would be no way for her to cover her tracks quickly enough for people not to notice.
B didn’t need to further convince herself. She dove for the pipe, for her chance of safety, desperately–so desperately that she managed to slip on the first puddle of water her paws touched. She was still able to enter the pipe, but her misstep caused her to slow and stumble just enough for the vampire gaining on her.
A cold hand grabbed her tail before she could get far enough down the pipe, gripping tight enough to hurt. B let out an involuntary yowl of pain and instinctively whirled to slash at the offending hand, only to find that the vampire, for some strange reason, had let her go.
“Shit! Sorry!” the vampire said, sounding almost as panicked as B felt.
B didn’t think or hesitate at the woman’s response; she knew it couldn’t be anything but a trap. Instead she continued to run deeper into the pipe, never once looking back. Even as her fur got soaked and heavy with who knew what kind of sewage, even as her nose clogged with all of the vomit-worthy stenches, even as the long and creative cursing from her pursuer became too far away for her to hear, B continued to run.
Fearfully, B wondered if the vampire would ever find her again. She didn’t think she would be so lucky a second time.