Bloodbath

Coilean sighed, stretching his arms above his head.

He had just been out hunting for the first time in almost five months.

It felt great.

But he had gone a little overboard...

He wore a simple pair of cheap shorts that he had left lying at the edge of the forest before he took off. His chest was bare, pale skin tinted slightly red from the blood of his mutilated prey.

His orange hair had strands strained red.

He looked like he had just come from a bloodbath. He wanted to head back to his room and take a nice long shower before he did anything else.

Shanti wandered the halls as usual, her hook blades hidden from prying eyes but easily accessible. She hummed as she walked, wondering if she would run into anyone. Avira had told her to avoid people, so she had been, but that got boring.

And just her luck, as she rounded a corner, there was a man, with orange hair. She had to guess he had been hunting he was covered in blood.

Caterva padded along at her side, and at the sight of Coilean, rolled his one golden eye. Well this would prove to be an interesting meeting.

His tongue ran over his teeth, sucking as he tried to remove all evidence of blood from between his teeth.

He didn't know how vampires could do this after every meal. Blood was a pain to get out of the gap between his teeth.

Coilean ran a hand through his long hair before pulling it over a shoulder to braid.

He nodded politely at the girl then stopped, staring at the cat. Heh... He didn't think Caterva was very friendly with people besides Avira.

How odd.

He looked odd himself stood in the middle of the hall, wearing only bloodied shorts, hair half braided and hands still in his hair, staring at a one-eyed cat.

Caterva meowed, and Shanti smiled.

“He won’t attack me.” she said, as if reading Coilean’s mind. “Avi usually has him accompany me around the mansion.”

The girl turned her eyes up to Coilean. Her eyes were big, brown and pretty. She offered the older male a sweet smile, dipping into a bow momentarily.

“Apa ko pura karane ke li'e accha, I am Shanti.” she said.






----
It's good to meet you.

He blinked. "You know Avira?" Well enough to call him Avi, obviously.

The Lycan continued to braid his hair, typing the end into a knot instead of using a hair band. He hadn't been taking great care of his hair lately. But he didn't much care. It was only hair.

He returned the bow with a small one of his own. "I'm Coilean. It's a pleasure, Shanti."

Shanti smiled again.

“You’re pretty tall.” she commented. “Bare bha’i said you were older than him. By a lot right? You don’t look much older.”

The little girl rocked on her heels. She was interested, to be honest. So this was Coilean, the lycan who had caught her stoic big brother’s attention? All the girls in her village had been all over Avira, even some of the men! But she had turned down all of them, without even meaning to. He just didn’t notice.

But this one. This man had gotten his affections. She wondered why.

"Uhm...thanks?" he muttered, a little unsure. His height wasn't usually commented on. He was a pretty average height of 5'11. Not tall compared to his father and a lot of other men he had met over the years.

"Bare bha'i?" He guessed that it was Avira.

"Well, I'm Eighteen hundred and forty six- seven," he corrected. He had forgotten about his birthday in his long lack of caring about anything outside of Avira coming back.

"I guess that's pretty old..."

Shanti laughed.

“Bare bha’i is only three hundred and fifty I think.” she mused. “Maybe a little more or less.”

Caterva slunk between both their legs, making sure Coilean didn’t leave. He knew it was about time they got to know one another, so they had better get it over with.

Shanti was all for it. So this was the guy Avira loved; how interesting! He was so much older and taller, he must have a lot of stories to tell! But maybe he didn’t know who she was, she suddenly realized. Better tell him.

“Ah, sorry, you probably don’t know who I am.” she held out her small hand to him, golden bangles glittering in the light. “I’m Shanti Behari, Avi lived with my family for five years in India.”

He chuckled softly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah... Avira's a little younger than I am." Fifteen hundred years give or take? Ha, he really felt ancient when faced with that number.

His silver eyes flickered down to the cat and he arched an orange brow at him.

Coilean's gaze flickered up to Shanti again and his brows furrowed slightly. Ah, that's why she looked familiar. That old photograph... He had just assumed she was a lookalike and dismissed it.

Obviously she wasn't just a lookalike.

He smiled at the girl. "Coilean....No last name. I hope you're having a pleasant stay here at Cacciatori di Sangue?"

“It’s alright.” Shanti chirped. “Bare bha’i says I have to stay away from people, so it’s a little bit boring, but the library is nice.”

When she noted Coilean’s odd look, she smiled and pointed to herself.

“I’m mostly human, so it’s a bad idea for me to run into things like vampires and lycans without Avi around, you know?” she said.

He gave a half-grin. "Tony'll be pleased. She likes to know people are doing well here." Though she didn't show it, her coven was her pride and joy. She loved hearing that people were enjoying staying with her.

Avira had told her to stay away? That wasn't good; people needed interaction. They needed to talk to others and joke and laugh and have fun.

He nodded. "Yeah, us Lycan have a pretty nasty temper when we're pushed. And the vampires here don't all care about human lives... Yeah, I'd steer clear of most of us unless you have someone Avira trusts to protect you."

Who did Avira trust? Caterva? Ignis? Not himself, that's for sure.

“Yeah that’s why he has Caterva or Ignis stay with me.” she said. “I can take care of myself but there are some pretty old and strong people here, like you.”

She smiled cheerfully.

“I know a great way to get blood out of hair if you want some help.” she commented. “Laoshi was always beating me to a pulp when I was training so I had to learn how.”







---
Laoshi; Teacher in Chinese

He nodded. "Yeah, we've got quite a few old people here. I'm not the oldest here." Nearly two thousand was old. But there were a couple people - his father and Tony - that made him seem like a pup.

And neither of them were nice people when they got annoyed.

He doubted a couple of house cats would be able to go against many people in the mansion to protect Shanti. They were just little cats, after all.

"Ehhh..." he lifted the braid to get a good look at how much blood was actually in it. A fair amount...

"If you'd be so kind." Getting blood out of hair was a bloody pain.

Caterva seemed to read Coilean’s mind and glowered at him. Shanti took the lycan’s hand.

“C’mon~ I saw a master bath a ways back~” she chirped.

Caterva meowed, rubbing against her leg. She leaned down and scratched his ear.

“I’m with Coilean now, you can go ahead and go get some blood~” she said. “I know you haven’t been hunting in a while.”

The cat meowed again then disappeared into the shadows.

He arched a brow at the cat as it glowered then glanced at Shanti.

He let the girl lead him through the halls by the hand, shifting to scratch his head with his free hand. The blood was drying and getting pretty uncomfortable.

Now he remembered why he had pushed himself to learn how to hunt cleanly all those years ago. There were no good decent showers eighteen hundred years ago like there were today.

Shanti stopped in the door to the master bath. She smiled sweetly, gesturing for him to go inside.

“I’ll be right back!” she said.

When she returned a few minutes later, Coilean was already in the bath. She had bowl, which proved to have lemon juice in it.

The little girl perched on the edge of the bath, picking up a lock of Coilean’s hair and beginning to clean it with the lemon juice.

He padded towards the bath obediently.

When she left, he slid his shorts off and folded them neatly, setting them on the edge of the bath and slipping into the hot water.

He moaned quietly, relaxing back against the edge.

The Lycan's nose wrinkled at the overpowering scent of lemon when the girl reappeared.

Lemon was a vile scent at it had his nose itching.

He sneezed softly when Shanti began cleaning his hair with it, lifting a ahdn from the water to rub at his nose.

Shanti hummed as she used the lemon juice to clean the blood out of Coilean’s hair patiently. As far as she was concerned, he was now related to her and her responsibility. Just like Avira.

Avira acted like he wasn’t certain he would end up with Coilean again, but provided that the lycan just kept playing his cards right, she knew he would. Avira had never really fallen in love before. Coilean was special.

“Do you feel better?” she asked. “After hunting I mean?”

"M-hmm. It's good to be able to get out of bed again. Two months I spent in that damned bed..." He shook his head slightly then stopped when he realised it was pulling out of the girl's hands.

He prodded his decidedly thin stomach with a scowl. "I've lost all my muscle definition, though. It's going to be real fun trying to get all of that back." It had taken him years to become as toned as he was. It was gonna take a fair amount of time to regain that muscle.

"I forgot how good hunting was. It's been nearly five months..."

Shanti continued to comb her fingers through his hair.

“Bare bha’i hasn’t been doing too well either.” she admitted softly. “Sure he seems alright but he’s not, not really.”

She sighed sadly, small fingers working knots out of Coilean’s hair.

“Even when he lived with us he was bad with feelings. He just didn’t understand how to cope with them, he still doesn’t. And you make him feel things he doesn’t know how to handle.”

"He makes me feel things I dont know how to handle, too," he admitted, sinking further down into the water.

Avira made him feel...giddy.

Not once had someone been with him and told him they'd forsake a family just to stay with him.

he didn't know how to feel about that.

"Avira and I are a right pair," he groaned softly before sneezing again. Damned lemon juice.

“Dunk.” Shanti instructed, coaxing Coilean to lower himself into the water.

Once he had washed out all the lemon juice, she picked up the shampoo. Lathering her hands, she began working it into his hair.

“Avi loves you, you know?” she said softly. “But…he’s had a very hard time of it. Always. And then he jumped in headfirst with you and got hurt. He’s…skittish. He doesn’t want to get hurt anymore, he wants to be safe.”

She smiled.

“But I’m alive. So maybe he won’t panic over being a stepfather so much. Even though your daughter apparently looks older than him.”

He dipped under the water obediently, running his fingers through his hair to clean out the nasty smelling liquid.

"I love him, too," he murmured softly.

"Everyone gets hurt in love. That's why its likened to war." His eyes slid shut and he moaned softly as she began threading her fingers through his hair. "But...I want to soften the blows. Protect him from it even if just a little."

His lips curled upwards. "Yes, Moe's physically about nineteen. But you said he was three fifty right? He's still older than here where it counts. He has a century more life experience than she does." The smiled stayed in place as he thought about Avira accepting his daughter enough to become a parent for her.

“You should tell him that.” Shanti said. “It would mean a lot to him to know you want to protect him.”

She smiled as Coilean moaned, finishing lathering his hair. She had him dunk again, then reached for a comb. Shanti used to do this for her mother and Avira all the time.

“Avi’s gonna be really awkward about being a parent.” she admitted. “Or at least an adoptive one. I doubt he has any idea how.”

He nodded with a sigh. "When....when he trusts me a little more, I'll tell him."

The last thing Coilean wanted was for Avira to run off because he had aid something too forward while he was still wary about being with him again.

The Lycan chuckled softly. "Her terrible two's are over, thank god. They really were terrible. She's a grown up, independent, beautiful young woman now. Caring for her'll be easy until her damned boyfriend fucks up somehow."

He was putting his money of Zeke fucking up and breaking his daughters heart. he'd need all the help me could get to help pick up the pieces of his daughters heart and beat the living shit out of the good for nothing pup that did it to her.