So...heh.. I figured I couldn't just leave you guys hanging with only one chapter, so here's another one!
Love you all, enjoy reading<3

_____

𝟏𝟓𝟗𝟐 | 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐞

- ♦♦♦ -

Seonghwa dragged the body all the way over to the gathering of rocks where he had left the other warrior earlier. Looking a little at the arrangement, he tilted his head slightly, thinking of how peculiar the scene seemed. Headless man and opponent with an arm laying in a very unnatural way across the ground. The sight made him scoff.

Silently, Seonghwa returned to the battlegrounds, collecting dead bodies like they were mere ripe fruit hanging from a tree, ready to be plucked and devoured. After clearing the area around the west side of the village, cadavers were piled up against the rocks, and soon he moved them toward the mountain rather quickly.

Seonghwa was the one disposing of the dead. A situation that served his bloodthirst.

One of the wounded wasn't dead. He was crying, voice rough from how much he had been yelling in pain, and for a moment, Seonghwa felt pity for the mortal. Seonghwa's notable, although stained, but still white-coloured clothes told that he came as peace.

"You're a healer- pl-please help me, my-my," the man stuttered in desperation as his hands were pressed tightly against the leg he had strapped with a rope, trying to stop the bleeding.

He seemed like a middle-aged man, but the ragged clothes and the deep lines on his forehead and around his eyes made him look much older. His beard was stained with blood, as the rest of his body was. Seonghwa noted where all the blood must have come from when he discovered how the marks from a strong sword had been cutting into his thigh. The man was shaking in fear.

Seonghwa sat down in front of him, eyes staring right into the pure soul with his own tainted eyes, and there he might think that the pained man realised what he was speaking to. He could hear the galloping heartbeat in his chest.

"See.. are you sure that you want my help?"

He watched the man gulp troublesome as his eyes were drawn to the sharp fangs in his mouth. Seonghwa licked up the delicate emotions trading with the air. The man became quiet, but his lip quivered like he wanted to say something more.

Looking down at the wound, it made the man's eyes follow along and Seonghwa felt how the new tears welt up in his eyes again, "No," he choked out and removed a hand from the rope and put it for his mouth and whispered: "Please end it."

Without any further instructions, Seonghwa moved forward and snapped the man's head to the side before he could even react. All healers did was help, and Seonghwa did what was best.

A man without his leg was a dead man anyway.

Sighing, Seonghwa let go of the corpse, watching how the limp weight fell to the ground, hollow and daunting, far from any peaceful. Humans were so fragile.

♦

He moved some more bodies into the mountains before he gathered the rest he could find in a huge pile that he soon would reckon to set afire. People from the village wouldn't have time to mind the devilish act of burning the dead without any proper funeral as it seemed at the current moment. Seonghwa didn't want the blood to attract his kind to the village either.

The sun had left the sky to be enveloped in darkness, the moon's light shining down onto the landscape of shadows instead. The starving flames eating at the village became more visible in the dimmed light.

As Seonghwa turned to a body laying down a smaller hill, his sense of smell quickly caught up on the fresh scent of blood. Another one of the bodies close by was still alive, despite having laid here in half a day. Seonghwa wandered down the slope, finding the substrate of the ground slippery with soil and water. When his footsteps created little wet sounds in the mud, the body nearly threw itself around. There was no denying that the human was painted with a touch of something peculiar.

Seonghwa wanted not to bother himself too much and pulled his ingeom from its sheath. He halted his own motion when the man on the ground took him by surprise.

"No! I beg you to spare my life. I've watched you all day, sir."

The hand that held his weapon slowly dropped to his side as Seonghwa furrowed his brows.

"You have watched me?" he asked perplexed about the reason why.

The man nodded, his every move filled with so much desperation that Seonghwa never had seen before, "Yes, and I have decided to live."

Seonghwa put his sword back into its place underneath his clothes and moved down to eye level with the man, hand taking a stern grip on his hair and pulling very fiercely. It made the young warrior whimper in pain and tears came trickling down his cheeks, "Please.."

The torn expression on the face before him made him bare his fangs in a sharp hiss.

"You want to live?" Seonghwa asked, and soon the young man was sobbing in so much pain and grief because he was going to die.

The young man's breath hitched, his eyes shimmering with misery, "I will do everything - I swear, I will give you everything I have if you just will help me!" his arms hung helplessly by his sides as if they were benumbed from a powerful strike.

Seonghwa could kill him so easily.

But there was something about the way this man was looking at him - something rooted deep in his eyes, entwining with his strong soul as he fought death with everything that he had to offer. The man had clearly been penetrated with a heavy weapon considering the gory wound in his stomach, and honestly, Seonghwa had a hard time understanding how it still was possible he sat here, looking the devil in the eyes with forces that powerful, despite all the tears running down his cheeks. This man really had decided that he would not be dying today.

"But poor little thing, don't you already know that the only help that I can provide is an end to your suffering? I don't do magic," he smelled sweet, of liquids and iron, and Seonghwa slowly let his fingers out of the man's hair and let them trace his sharp features.

"Sir-" he breathed, "You must could do something, I- I know that you are far more than human."

Seonghwa felt an odd sensation spreading throughout his chest from the way the man told him that he nearly knew about his secret there lastly had been the talk among tongues three centuries ago. "What is your name, brave one," Seonghwa asked as he diverted his eyesight even closer to the man's dirty face. He could feel the staggering breath fanning against his cold skin.

"I do not care if you hurt my family," the man whispered as if Seonghwa had been telling him his true intentions with the mere knowledge of his name.

That made him purse his lips. He pressed him to answer: "Your name." It was not a question, it was an order. The man swallowed, wide eyes clearly following the threatening fangs illuminated in the moon's faint light.

"Jeong Yunho. And I am not scared of you."

Indeed, he was not scared of Seonghwa. Not yet anyway.

♦

Seonghwa pushed his head back down into the squelching mud, sending the young man into a coughing fit of spitting blood out of his mouth. Seonghwa hissed into Yunho's panic-painted face while he seemed not to be able to stop the continuation of blood running out of the small gap between his lips. He wanted to kill him so badly - his nature told him to do so, now that the man had revealed himself as a threat to his secret. But Yunho only wanted to live, and he had given Seonghwa his everything - and it was a little too fascinating phenomenon for him to just ignore. Never in his rather long life had he encountered someone as courageous and determined as this young man here, and Seonghwa would not allow his instincts to get rid of that young glowing ember that currently was burning his fingers wherever he touched him.

Bringing one of his wrists to his own lips, he imperturbably tore the skin with his teeth before violently forcing the blood into Yunho's mouth. Startled, the man deviated from the act by turning his head away, whining loudly as he fought the horrific taste out of his mouth again. But Yunho was weak and unfocused with the task of trying to simply breathe, having no fair chance to defend himself against the assault. While the man writhed and bucked his body underneath him, Seonghwa slowly climbed on top of him, planting his weight down as he pressed his knees into his sides to hold him in place. Yunho desperately tried to scream - Seonghwa couldn't tell if it was out of anger or fear, but that didn't matter anyway for Yunho wanted to live.

"Drink," Seonghwa growled and moved his other hand to push the back of Yunho's head further down into the grime. Yunho resisted with every might he could muster. A fresh smell of blood scented the air from how the man's muscles squeezed at his wound the more he squirmed under Seonghwa's forcing body.

Suddenly Seonghwa felt his skin prickle, the sensation making something snap within him. He had given Yunho a second chance to live, and yet he took it for granted. Seonghwa slipped a hand under his clothes as he maneuvered Yunho's trashing body with his legs only. He pulled a small dagger out and held it to the man's throat, "Drink. I said drink!"

Yunho froze the moment he could feel the sharp material against his skin. He stared right into Seonghwa's mad expression. There, Yunho gave up, trapped underneath an animal forcing him to drink blood.

Seonghwa calmed the moment he saw Yunho willingly open his mouth and swallow the amounts of blood that were dripping down onto his lips. Gradually, he lowered his wrist again, pushing as much of the open skin into the man's mouth to suck.

"Fool," Seonghwa grumbled and slowly removed his dagger again when it seemed like Yunho had given up fighting against him.

Silent tears kept overflowing Yunho's eyes. Seonghwa studied them with an intense stare.

It had never happened before. Therefore, Seonghwa had no idea of what in the world he was pushing this human into doing. Yet, it seemed like Yunho didn't care anymore. His eyes were dull, showing no emotions at all. Maybe it was the blood causing his brain to tire, or it was his body finally giving in to his lack of energy. He surely had strained himself, and mortals were fragile.

Seonghwa stood up before he bend down and effortlessly lifted Yunho into his arms, but not in the way he had dragged the dead bodies. He knew he had to be more careful with this man if he wanted him to keep his life intact. Glancing down, he noticed the man's closed eyes. If not it had been for the quiet thumping heartbeat resonating in Seonghwa's ears, he would have believed the man was already dead.

∞