The Highland was the most prestigious hotel in Willowstream. Standing at nearly twenty stories tall, it was just about the tallest building in the town, and with Willowstream being an ample location for tourists wishing to appreciate it's picturesque surroundings; it was never without busy foot traffic.

It even posted a doorman before it's immaculately kept, swivel front door; dressed in smart attire with white gloves and all, as if to give the impression of grandiose wealth and luxury. Naturally, it was owned by the Santana estate. This is where you came to stay if you wanted a place of comfort when visiting the town.

Alaric sat relaxed, his legs hanging over the precipice of the rooftop of the adjacent building. The cool temperature of the stone was seeping through his jeans, and coupled with the night time breeze that tousled at his immaculately kept hair, was a welcome coolness to the heat of todays events.

The sheer drop beneath him was nearly ten stories, and to most it would seem daunting to look down and see nothing but hard ground to catch you from the dizzying height. There was a time when Alaric feared such things. All things are born with two fears. The fear of falling, and the fear of something bigger than you. But Alaric lost fear for the former when the biggest thing he'd ever known was his father, and suddenly; falling didn't seem so bad. Comparatively so, when the worst that would come from him falling from most heights is an hour at most of pain.

The pain was what bade his curiosity most. In moments of contemplation, such of this, he became acutely aware of how little he felt of it. It was almost addictive, in it's own grim, manner. Nothing ever hurt enough. It took a lot to make him bleed, and even then it would be done with in a matter of seconds. Even the emotional sundering he felt at Yasmine's death, arguably the most painful thing he had ever experienced to memory, never quite scratched the itch that made him wonder if he really was just numb. Which wasn't right. It wasn't correct.

He upturned his face to the sky, breathing in the scent of the coming rain as he watched the small drift of wispy clouds beginning to block the quarter moon from view, before returning his gaze forward. As luck would have it: he was exactly in line with Marshal and Mark's room.

He wasn't watching out of some succinct voyeurism, no. That was much too callous for his taste. His primary concern was to check on Marshal, but he had somehow lost himself in his own reverie along the way.

Watching the two he couldn't help but feel a distinct spike of jealousy as he watched them in the awkward fumbling that was to be their third round of the night. All elbows and thumbs. It was caring and bright, filled with laughter, but most importantly: it was happy.

It wasn't a jealousy born of wanting Marshal for his own, because Alaric didn't. Although he'd be lying if he said he wasn't at least curious. Marshal was a good looking guy, and Alaric was incredibly interested in exactly how Merfolk blood differed to humans.

No, this jealous was born of his own doing. Alaric was a Vampire. He was violence and blood. His own first time, whether with a man or woman, was exactly that. Violent. It wasn't what this was. It wasn't mischievous giggles and blushing cheeks. It was a beastly rutting, just nearing the edge of a masochistic hunger for pain. To ravage inconsolably. To scratch that inconsolable itch that always seemed just out of reach, but would quieten down once the deed was done just enough to be ignored.

For the second time today, he found a dolorous pang of yearning, stretch his heart thin. He wanted what Marshal had. But monsters don't get happy endings. Monsters get slain.

Due to the recent murders: anyone under the age of eighteen had been restricted to a curfew. Although that didn't really matter for those of his age, who could just about pass for above the restriction at a glance. Not that Alaric had, had any issue navigating as an adult. The moment he'd had his growth spurt, which had shot him to six-foot, he'd been confidently able to manoeuvrer wherever he pleased.

But still, the curfew meant that the older generation took the opportunity to relish in the kid free streets during the night time. The local night club, named Solstice, was swelling with patrons as Alaric turned the corner. People dressed in their finest, and most sparkly clothes, glittering like fish scales beneath the lamplight; were being filed in one by one. Anyone from his own age, to mid-twenties, and older seemed to be in attendance. Quite the selection to someone who was feeling cold, and itchy.

Upon entry, Alaric was met with the heavy thrum of music. A hearty mixture of electronic with drum and bass that punctuated each beat with vibrations he could feel through the soles of his shoes. It travelled through his legs and thumped at his ribcage as he was welcomed by a sea of chattering bodies, writhing against each other in a cacophony of laughter and flirtatious chatter.

He leaned with his back turned against the bar, crossing his legs at the ankles and waited. He was here to clear his mind, and wasn't in the mood to be particularly picky about it. At least he thought so, but after firmly, yet politely, turning down three strangers that had already offered to by him a drink, he began to think otherwise.

That was until a woman sauntered nonchalantly over in his direction that immediately caught his gaze. She was slightly shorter than he was, with thin lips the colour of cherry blossoms. Her eyes were a deep hazel in their colour, lending an almost ethereal quality to the gentle tan of her skin. The chestnut brown of her hair was kept in an unruly manner, that seemed like she'd put next to no effort in its keeping, was wildly untamed and fell to just below her shoulders in a tangle of curls. She wasn't as dressed up as many of the other girls in the room, and she did not seem to care. Her clothes hung in all the right places, in colours of beige and brown, with a slew of different wooden beads around both of her wrists.

He would've assumed her tired, or just entirely nonplussed about being here, but there was a glistening alertness to her eyes that belied a world of aloof thoughts.

"Hey." She said as she stopped in her approach, leaning on the bar with one arm. Close enough that Alaric could hear her, although with his keen hearing, it wasn't as necessary.

"Hello" Alaric offered curtly, his eyes telegraphing his desire as much as he possibly could, as he turned to face her properly. No nonsense. He stepped into her space, and was only mildly surprised when her demeanour did not change in the slightest. No quickening of the breath, or stammered heartbeat. It would seem she got the idea quickly as before he could make a move: she did. Pressing the sweetened taste of her lips against his own with a swiftness that immediately made her intention as equally crystal clear as his own.

"I'm Robyn." She breathed into his ear as he gripped her lightly at the waist and pulled her closer.

Alaric didn't bother to reply, he was here to feel something. Anything. Pleasantries were not necessary. Instead he took her by the hand and they made their way outside.

Within a matter of minutes, he had her pressed against the brick wall of the nearby alleyway. Pushing himself against her with a burning hunger that manifested hotly in its hardness as she gasped readily in to his mouth.

Her hand knotted itself tightly into his hair, her nails scraping against his scalp as she grabbed a fistful and wrenched roughly. Calling a guttural growl to barrel from his throat as she began to nibble at his neck and along his exposed collar bone, she deftly drew her tongue along the length of his cut jaw before catching his mouth once again, and began to devour greedily.

He stooped low, gripping her by the thighs and lifting her from the ground as his tongue left its duel with her own and began it's tortuous course along her jaw line. He pulled her ear lobe lightly into his teeth, before pouring a generous onslaught of kisses down the nape of her neck. Using his arms and his hips to keep her aloft, he made sure she was aware of his hardness straining against his clothes as he slowly began to gyrate his hips.

The friction tore a curse through Robyn's lips, the bottom of which was firmly pinched between her teeth, and she bade her hands down the back of Alaric's shirt where her nails tracked deeply over his shoulders and alongside his spine.

With a deft display of movement, and before a word of protection could be uttered, Alaric had freed himself from his jeans, which pooled at his ankles, and had moved the lace of her underwear aside with his member. Entering the hot wetness with such a force, that Robyn let out a loud moan as her legs tightened around his mid-rift.

Alaric bounced her on his cock, burying deep to the hilt, as he sung small growls into the stretch of skin that separated her neck from her chest. She clawed at his back and his neck, as her mouth desperately searched for his but found it turned away each time as he made righteous patterns on her skin with his tongue.

With a snap of reflex, Alaric's hand snatched a small object from the air, stopping mid-stroke as he did so.

He looked at it curiously as Robyn was still clutched with her arms hooked around his neck. It was a small silver bolt. Perhaps only slightly bigger than a standard, ball-point, pen.

There was a distinct whistling sound, and in a hurry, Alaric shifted away just in time to turn Robyn away as a second bolt bit deep into the meat of his shoulder. Narrowly missing where Robyn's right arm had just been draped over Alaric's back.

She let out a yell of surprise, landing with a grunt as her backside hit the floor. When she regained some focus, a look of pure horror stretched across her face as her eyes widened in fear at the hooded figure standing at the entrance to the alleyway.

They were thinner than Alaric had expected as he turned to face the would be attacker. Their frame small and unimposing. Almost weedy, as they were wrapped in some form of subtle body-armour. It hugged the frame at the torso, arms, and through the shadow of the hood, a darkness that even Vampire eyes could not pierce; Alaric spotted the slight matte of armour shielding the lower half of their face.

Alaric bared his fangs in a hiss that travelled the distance with unnatural bass, causing the small intermittent puddles of rain water to ripple from the sound. His eyes clouded in a murky crimson until the entirety of their original colour, whites and all, were swallowed whole. All the grief, all the anger had surmounted into this point as all he could think was that he could end this tonight.

He was vaguely aware of Robyn, scrambling to her feet and bolting the opposite direction down the alleyway. He watched the hunter push a button on a small wrist band on the hand that clutched the metallic, hand crossbow.

A high pitched beeping sound chirped twice, before pain racked through Alaric's left shoulder as the bolt that still embedded itself; began to tear in a whirring of mechanical noises and sloshing muscle. Alaric clenched his jaw and balled his fists, as he tried to prevent himself from crying out in pain.

With a grit of angry determination, he reached his hand to the bolt and ripped it from his shoulder in a gout of blood that pulled along ribbons of mangled flesh. Four bladed prongs had sprung out of the shaft, revealing an inner working rotary system that caused the blades to rotate; which they still did slowly.

Alaric snapped the bolt, tossing it carelessly on to the ground, as he felt the wound on his shoulder begin to rapidly knit itself back together.

He swatted another bolt from the air, deflecting it from finding it's mark in his head; before breaking out in to a full on sprint towards the hunter. He didn't have time to question why the hunter stood his ground, as when Alaric came within reach, he felt a vice like grip constrict painfully around his ankle. Within a second: Alaric was thumped to the ground as his leg was pulled out from underneath him, and hoisted high into the air as the snare sliced into his calve muscle and held him suspended from the nearby lamp post.

Alaric curled upwards, grasping at the metallic frame of the light and began pulling himself upwards. Pain racked through his body, almost causing his strength to falter, as a thrown blade sunk into his back, just below the ribs, with all the ease of a hot knife through butter.

He managed to clamber onto the top of the lamplight, reaching behind once again to pluck the offending item from his skin. Alaric had to delve much deeper into his own body than he would of liked, as his fingers came back bloody and shaking with the shiny metal clutched between his index and middle finger. Dropping the small throwing knife to the ground, he became significantly aware of how slowly he had begun to heal.

The Hunter knew what he was doing. He was trying to cause as much physical trauma as possible so that his body would wear down it's resources. It was, albeit rather rapidly, a battle of attrition at it's core. He had to keep away from Alaric long enough that his healing couldn't keep up any longer, which would mean brute forcing his way through to victory would be much more difficult and much more dangerous.

Alaric's fingers slipped in between the metallic wire that had bit through his leg in it's snare, and pulled. Before any purchase could be made however, he found the wire constrict even tighter as the hunter gripped the section of length closest to the ground and pulled. Alaric was yanked from his lamp post perch, falling from it's twelve foot height. Luckily he managed to twist his body, almost in a cat-like manner, and land heavily on his feet.

Without a moments hesitation, and now much closer to the hunter, he lunged forward. He shoved with all of his Vampiric strength, contacting with the hunters chest, and sending him rocketing backwards where he collided with a heavy crunch against the brick wall. It dented inwards with the crack of stone, sending small flecks of debris pouring over the hunter's frame.

He could hear the hunter let out a pained groan. That was enough force to crack more than a few bones, the fact that he was still conscious would have been a surprise to Alaric had he not been so focused on ending this as quickly as possible.

Alaric began his approach once more, being forced to stop in his tracks yet again as the snare still tugged viciously at his leg. He growled at the trap, wrenching his leg forward but having to stop as the thin wire travelled agonisingly deeper into his calve. Reaching down, he hastily gripped the wire, pulling it from his skin and snapped it apart.

Yet there was something new as he rounded to face the hunter once more. Anger. Failure. The Hunter had disappeared completely. The only trace left of him being the dent in the wall and whatever ammunition he had left behind. Alaric strained his sensitive ears for any sign of a heartbeat or rushed foot steps, and when he heard none; his fist reduced a small portion of the wall to dust, as he bellowed his fury to the sky.

A/N: Not much else to say really other than I hope you enjoyed the chapter ^-^

Thanks for reading!