The Howling

She heard the howls echo in the night, growing steadily closer, then falling apart, but she didn't move. Didn't twitch. The clearing was the most dangerous place for her to be, and yet she was not afraid. She was perfectly content sitting in the middle of it, and that was how she wanted to be when he found her. Moonlight bathed her shoulders, gleaming in her messy dark hair, playing shadows over her face whenever the treetops swayed. Her eyes were closed, listening to the sounds of night for the one she sought most.

She heard him first, the soft press of his paw in the soil, the quiet sniff he gave the air. Then she felt him draw near, saw the shadows grow underneath her eyelids.

Her eyes slid open. "You're late."

A soft growl was his response, and the wolf circled around her, eyeing her with a narrowed gaze that suggested he thought she would make a satisfying meal. He paused after a single revolution, sitting in front of her. A set of scars notched the pale, almost-white fur along his face and legs, and his pupils were so enormous that she almost couldn't see the amethyst iris beyond, but unlike the rest of him, which was scarred and knotted muscle, his eyes were soft. Childish. One of the few characteristics that let her know there was a man underneath the beast.

As if cued to her thoughts, his claws and fur receded into his flesh, his snout morphed into a human nose, and his pupils shrank. In moments, a man stood where the wolf had sat, entirely nude. Without a word or a sidetracked glance, his companion tossed a sack of clothes at him and turned around, staring blankly at the woods beyond until he grunted permission.

"You seem tired, Ivan," she said idly.

"As do you, Bryar," he remarked, matching her smirk with a fleeting grin. Of the set of scars that he donned as a wolf, only one remained when he was a man. One, stretching over the bridge of his nose and rendering one of his beautifully rare eyes useless, clouded over with a milky white film. "Is the pressure finally reaching the vampires?"

"No, but Kirkland refuses to say or do anything," she said with a hint of bitterness. Kirkland, her coven leader, had taken to hiding inside his cabin once the attacks began, and as far as she knew, he gave no intention of coming back out until they ended. If they ended. The werewolf population had thus far been the sole victims of the attacks, severely diminishing their ranks in the Black Forest. Bryar could tell that it worried Ivan—a tribe leader himself—but she had no words to console him when she didn't even know what the perpetrator was.

Ivan gave a throaty laugh, digging a hole in the soil with his foot, the most noticeable habit of his bloodline. "As expected of him." He eyed her similarly to how he had earlier but with less ferocity. "What do you know about the attacks?"

Bryar shrugged. "All I know is that the perpetrator leaves the markings of both a wolf and a vampire when it kills. Like I said, Kirkland isn't saying anything. We find out this stuff for ourselves."

Ivan nodded, resuming his pawing with a furrowed brow. "Unfortunately, I have not been able to do much either. The tribe is beginning to resent me for it. I hear them call me a coward when they think I am not around, that someone stronger should be in my position." He chuckled, the grin transforming his gaunt face into something less harrowed but strikingly handsome. "But what they don't know is I have eyes and ears everywhere, connections with people they wouldn't dream of existing. Even my sisters don't know the half of it."

"How are they?" Bryar inquired, images of his two sisters—Katya, with her motherly touch, and Natalya, with the fighter's strength—crossing her mind fondly. She had never met them—how could she, being what she was—but the stories that Ivan weaved of them made her feel as though she had. The stories had come less and less frequently in recent months. Now, there were too many other issues to spare a moment for them.

"Afraid," Ivan answered, starting to pace around the clearing. "Natalya hides it better than Katya, but they are both scared. I can sense it."

Bryar reached out to stop him, laying a hand on his broad chest. He stared at her with those kind eyes—too kind to understand the cruelty in hers—but when he leaned down to press their lips together, she understood his kindness better than she understood herself. She felt it, coursing through her veins as warm blood pushed through his. Her arms snaked around his neck as his slid around her waist, the ends of her hair grazing his incessantly bruised knuckles.

His hands found their way underneath her form-fitting shirt, settling on her hips and exuding a warmth she would never again feel, but Bryar relished the sensation while it was there. Almost subconsciously, her fangs slid out, lightly piercing his full bottom lip. It was enough to draw blood, but not enough that she risked drinking too much, only to bead and smear her lips in a thin film. Yet she felt his erratic pulse underneath, and she pressed herself against him as closely as she could, claiming what she was able before she had to stop.

She hadn't taken more than a few drops before an unearthly growl forced them apart. Bryar spun around, expecting to see another wolf, enraged at the sight of a tribe leader fraternizing with a vampire, but it was something far more devastating than that.

She wasn't sure whether it was human or a lycan. It had the structure of a human, but its skin was ebony and devoid of fur. Black eyes with red irises narrowed at her, flicking over her body as though assessing whether she looked tasty enough to kill, and its mouth pulled back in a snarl, revealing teeth stained red with the blood of a recent meal and—fangs?

Was it a vampire, too?

Ivan shoved her behind him, a stony expression on his face. The creature caught sight of the blood on his lip and let out another throaty snarl, taking a step forward. Ivan took one backward, and Bryar was astonished to find that there was fear in his face.

"What is it?" she whispered, afraid that speaking normally would provoke it. Usually, she wouldn't be so tentative about a fight, but the longer she looked at this…this thing, she realized that there was a good chance it was much stronger than she was. If it was what she thought it was, she doubted Ivan could take it either. Not by himself, at least.

"A hybrid," he answered in a voice barely scraping a rasp. "In other words, the thing responsible for the attacks."


This one's title was inspired by a song of the same name by Within Temptation, one of my first introductions to the band. :)

The hybrid is intended to be another Hetalia character, one with a connection to both England and Russia. Any thoughts on who it might be?

All the same, I hope you enjoyed this little fantasy, and I look forward to hearing what you think! Thank you for reading!