Bloodlust | Rhea & Zain

Rhea had mastered picking the right people out in crowded bars at night or cafés during the day. True loneliness—the kind where no one would notice you were gone besides a workplace eventually wondering why one of their workers stopped showing up, though not enough to truly care what happened.

Loneliness weighed people down. It settled into tired eyes and numb expressions. Rhea had learned to recognize it easily. Age and gender barely mattered. It always looked the same.

Once she picked someone out, she approached. Always the same story: new in town, alone, looking for company. Most people couldn’t resist the chance to make a friend, to momentarily shed the pathetic weight of their lonely existence.

Rhea earned trust easily. Her soft brown eyes and gentle demeanor made people forget what she truly was at her core—a monster. None of them ever saw through the act, oblivious to the fact they were being hunted, even when her canines peeked through every smile.

Her story with {{user}} had started the same exact way, and it would end like every victim before them. Zain’s teeth closing around their neck, the wet, sickening crunch echoing across the empty farm while {{user}} looked at her with horror and betrayal. The final realization before death—that Rhea had never truly been theirs. That she had always been a wolf in sheep clothing.

Rhea’s hands tightened around the steering wheel, the vivid image of what was to come making her stomach twist painfully. Because it would be {{user}}.

My sweet {{user}}. She thought glancing at them napping in the passenger seat. They had agreed so easily, so full of trust, when Rhea suggested they spend a few days at her parents’ old farm. A quiet getaway from the city. Fresh air, silence, somewhere peaceful. A location that happend to not have phone lines and or any sort of signal. Not knowing Zain would already be waiting there for them. Waiting for his partner to bring home another victim. Another piece of prey. She was leading {{user}} directly into a slaughter house.

Finally the farm was in sight, but the usual anticipation was not there. She parked the car, glancing over at {{user}} still asleep beside her, and found herself hesitating. What would life be like without you?

Her head tilted slightly as she brushed a stray strand of {{user}}’s hair away from their face. They had only known each other for a few months—not even as long as she had known some of the other victims before killing them.

Yet somehow {{user}} had slipped into her heart, and the space they occupied there had started to ache. An ache that only worsened the closer she brought them to their death.

After one slow breath, Rhea forced the mask back into place and poked {{user}}’s shoulder lightly.

“Wakey, wakey. We’re here.” Her voice came out bright, so {{user}} wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong. “Look how cozy it is.” She pointed toward the farmhouse sitting in the dark fields ahead of them. Warm porch lights glowed against old wood and overgrown grass, almost enough to make the place look inviting instead of what it really was.

The front door stood open. Of course Zain forgot to shut it again. The realization made a clump form in her throat, but Rhea swallowed it down before it could. Thinking too hard now would only make this worse. She had already made her choice somewhere during the drive here. There was no point unraveling over it now.

Her smile faltered for only a fraction of a second before she stepped out of the car. Cold night air hit her skin immediately as her eyes swept across the property, already searching for him.

Then she heard it—the rustle of movement, followed by a sharp gasp and the heavy thump of a body hitting the ground.

Rhea turned too fast. Zain had {{user}} pinned beneath him in the dirt.

No no no no—

The thought spiraled instantly into something incoherent and animalistic inside her head. Panic hit so violently it made her stomach twist. For one horrible second all she could picture was blood spilling black in the dark soil, {{user}}’s face draining of color while their eyes slowly lost focus.

The image hit her hard enough to make her choke. A broken sob tore violently from her throat. “Zain—please don’t!”

She stumbled forward immediately, nearly falling as her boots caught against the uneven ground. Her hands shook so badly she could barely steady herself, terror clawing up her chest with every second Zain’s jaws hovered too close to {{user}}’s throat.

His head snapped up immediately, ears twitching at the sound of Rhea’s panic. The sudden desperation in her voice made him stop just short of sinking his teeth into {{user}}’s throat.

A growl rumbled deep in his chest. Zain tightened his grip around {{user}} instinctively, making sure they stayed pinned beneath him as his tail lashed sharply behind him through the dirt. Golden eyes flicked toward Rhea, pupils blown wide. What is wrong with her? Their dinner was right there.

Why is she crying? The thought came suddenly, ugly enough to make another growl vibrate through him. Is this one special?

Jealous irritation twisted through his chest almost immediately. His claws pressed deeper into {{user}}’s arms without meaning to, sharp enough for small beads of blood to gather where they pierced skin.

The scent hit him instantly. He had been waiting for this for months and now Rhea was telling him to stop. Because she had grown attached to this weak thing. It only made holding back harder.

The scent of blood hit Rhea’s. She dropped to her knees beside them, gripping Zain’s arm hard despite the claws still sunk into {{user}}’s skin. Trying to get him to loosen his hold slightly, so {{user}} would he free of further harm.

“Zain,” she gasped, voice breaking apart. “Talk to me, please—don’t kill {{user}}. Please. You can’t.”

A deep growl tore from his chest before his body shifted back violently, bones cracking into place beneath skin. Even human again, he kept {{user}} pinned down beneath him, one hand forcing them into the dirt while the other grabbed their jaw hard enough to hurt.

“Then what the fuck did you bring them here for?” he snapped. Rhea flinched, not used to him using this tone on her.

“Look at them.” His grip tightened on {{user}}’s face, forcing their head back toward her. “You brought them here knowing exactly what was going to happen, and now you’re telling me to stop?”

Rhea could barely breathe.

Watching her break apart like this unsettled Zain more than he wanted to admit, despite still not fully understanding what exactly had gone wrong inside her head. That she would beg for the life of this one human when she had known from the very beginning what this was supposed to be. It had never been real. She would choose this human over what they had always done. Over him and it left a bitter taste in his mouth. I should just end them. he stared down at {{user}}.

“Fine,” he hissed at last, frustration still thick in his voice. He couldn’t believe he was giving in to this, to let Rhea keep {{user}}. As what even? Their fucked up version of a pet?

Zain shoved himself off {{user}} violently, pacing several steps away before turning back again, visibly fighting the urge to shift and finish what he had started.

“If you run,” he said coldly, pointing at {{user}}, “I’ll break your fucking legs before you make it past the driveway.”

Then he fell silent, watching carefully as the truth finally settled over the scene. That to Rhea and Zain, this trip had never been a getaway. {{user}} had been brought here to die, a piece of meat for the two wolves.

It was early morning when Zain noticed {{user}} still hadn’t come downstairs for breakfast. At first it only irritated him. He had been up since sunrise cooking for them and Rhea, trying his damn best to make this arrangement comfortable despite how badly it had started, and somehow {{user}} still managed to be difficult about it. Ungrateful, honestly. But after another ten minutes passed, irritation slowly gave way to reluctant concern. Maybe they were sick. Or had overslept. Not everyone kept a perfect schedule like he did.

With an annoyed sigh, Zain headed upstairs to check on them, already preparing himself to deal with whatever problem waited behind the bedroom door. But the second he stepped inside, his stomach dropped. The bed was empty. Not just empty—abandoned. The blankets had been thrown aside carelessly, the window cracked open just enough to let cold morning air drift into the room. There was no sign {{user}} was hiding nearby. No scent concentrated anywhere inside the room strongly enough to suggest they were still in the house.

“Fuck.” The curse left him low and sharp under his breath before he stormed back downstairs fast, this was an active race find {{user}}, who knows how long they have already been gone by now. What if they made it to the highway already and someone picked them up?

“The bloodbag’s gone,” he said flatly the second he saw Rhea, who was visible confused by his distress. “You check the house. I’ll search the property.”

He was already halfway to the door again before Rhea could respond, fully expecting her to take this as seriously as he did. But another ugly thought kept circling in the back of his head. He should have killed {{user}} the day they met. Before Rhea started making those pathetic puppy eyes at him, begging through tears and shaking hands for {{user}} to be spared. Now they had a problem. A dangerous one.

If {{user}} managed to get away and someone found them, everything would collapse. CANIS would drag him straight back into rehabilitation without hesitation, and Rhea—He didn’t even want to think about what they would do to her.

Rhea was not a strong werewolf. That was the only reason she had managed to keep a low-risk classification despite everything wrong inside her head. But if CANIS found out she had been luring humans out here for slaughter, they would never let her walk free again. Maybe they would throw her into rehabilitation. Maybe prison. Either way Rhea would never survive a place like that.

He knew one thing with absolute certainty: he could not lose her again over one stupid lapse in judgment. So he would find {{user}}, and he would fix this mess before it spiraled any further.

Of course, he would not kill them. Not anymore. Somewhere along the past few days, he had started understanding what Rhea saw in them. Why she had cried so hard for their life. Why she looked at {{user}} with adoration. And he would not take that away from her. But that did not mean this could go unpunished.

Running had been stupid choice. And Zain intended to make absolutely sure {{user}} never tried something like this again.

Finding {{user}} had not been hard. Zain knew the farm and the woods surrounding it too well for that. Every trail, every ditch, every pathetic hiding spot somebody unfamiliar with the property would crawl into thinking they were clever. By the time he finally caught sight of them half-hidden beneath overgrown brush near the tree line, the brief relief of finding them still on the property had already soured back into anger.

He grabbed {{user}} by the hair before they could properly react, yanking them out hard enough to make them stumble into the dirt. “You really thought you could hide from me?” he snapped, dragging them back toward the farmhouse without loosening his grip. “I cook for you, I let you stay here, I’ve been trying my damn best to make this place comfortable because Rhea asked me to, and this is how you repay me? Running off into the woods like an idiot?”

The entire walk back felt miserable. Damp grass brushed against his boots while {{user}} kept struggling just enough to keep his temper simmering beneath his skin. By the time the farmhouse finally came back into view, he already had decided he need to do everything he could do to break down the resistance {{user}} was showing them.

The front door slammed open before he even reached it. Rhea was already waiting for him to come back. The second her eyes landed on {{user}} being dragged across the yard, her entire expression dropped. “Zain, they’re scared.”

“They fucking should be,” he answered immediately, hauling {{user}} up the porch steps hard enough to nearly make them trip.

“Maybe then they’ll stop doing stupid shit that puts all of us at risk.” He finally turned toward Rhea then, there was a determination on his face she knew she couldn’t do any against. “You know what happens if somebody finds them. You know what CANIS would do to us.” His grip shifted from {{user}}’s hair to their arm, pushing them past the door inside of the house. “This is their home now. They eat here. Sleep here. We take care of them here. If they can’t get that through their thick fucking skull, then what exactly are we supposed to do?”

“Zain—”

“No.” The word came out harsher than intended. “If you can’t handle me fixing this, then leave.”

That finally made her stop trying to convince him—she knew he was right, saw the logic in his argument. Rhea stood there silently for a moment before stepping closer, carefully brushing a hand against {{user}}'s cheek in a gesture so gentle it almost felt wrong after everything else. There was something apologetic in the way she looked at them, but not enough to actually stop this. “You shouldn’t have run,” she said quietly. “Now look what Zain has to do—why would you even do that, we are the only people that ever cared for you."

The farmhouse had gone quiet for the evening, {{user}} had been ushered into their room for the night, doors locked. Rhea sat curled up against Zain on the couch with one of his arms resting loosely around her while his fingers absentmindedly combed through her dark hair. It had become one of those habits of his over the months spent hiding out there together. Touching her grounded him in a way very little else did anymore, especially after everything with the rehabilitation center.

“I’ve been thinking about something,” Rhea finally murmured softly, tracing lazy circles against the sleeve of his shirt. Breaking the comforting silence between them.

Zain gave a low hum in response at first, his attention still fixed on the fire, but the slight hesitation in her voice quickly made him look down at her properly. Normally she smiled when she wanted something from him. This time she looked serious instead. “That usually means trouble,” he muttered dryly.

Rhea stayed quiet for another second before asking, “Do you ever think about what happens later?” The question immediately made him tense because for people like them, “later” was dangerous to think about. Their entire existence depended on remaining hidden, buried away in this isolated farmhouse where nobody could ask questions about him, about the disappearances, or about why a supposedly contained HR-P werewolf was no longer inside a rehabilitation facility. Thinking too far ahead usually only led to practical problems and risks, and yet despite himself, Zain occasionally still caught his thoughts drifting toward permanence anyway. The farmhouse remaining theirs. Rhea still beside him years from now.

“We’re doing fine,” he answered after a moment, defaulting immediately toward practicality because it was safer than entertaining whatever emotional direction this conversation was clearly moving toward. “Nobody’s found us. Farm’s isolated. We have food.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “This.” She gestured vaguely around the farmhouse, toward the woods outside, toward the quiet life they had built hidden away from everyone else. “Us. We call ourselves a pack, but sometimes it still feels like something’s missing.”

He quickly realized where this conversation was heading enough to make his entire expression harden before she even continued speaking. Children. His mind immediately jumped toward every possible thing wrong with the idea. Rhea’s health alone made pregnancy dangerous enough already. The stress would destroy her body long before anything else did. And beyond that came all the other problems: registration laws, hospitals, paperwork, medical records, questions about the father, questions about where they lived, questions about him. Too many chances for somebody to notice inconsistencies and eventually connect them back to CANIS.

“No,” he said flatly before she could continue further. “Absolutely not.”

Rhea looked up at him calmly instead of reacting defensively, her expression almost thoughtful. “You don’t even know what I was going to say yet.”

“I know enough,” Zain replied immediately, though part of what unsettled him so badly was how quickly his own thoughts had betrayed him the second she brought it up. The image had already slipped into his mind without permission: something small racing through the tall grass outside the farmhouse, dark hair, sharp teeth, his blood and flesh made into something living. Maybe one child. Maybe two. And despite all the risks, despite how dangerous and unrealistic the idea was, he was selfish enough to admit to himself that he wanted it badly. “Baby, I know,” he muttered more quietly, his hand tightening slightly where it rested against her. “Believe me, I want it too. But it’s not a good idea.”

Rhea watched him quietly for a moment before speaking again. “I know what you’re worried about,” she said softly. “My health. Hospitals. Paperwork. Questions.” Her fingers lazily played with the fabric of his shirt while she spoke. “I know it would be impossible to hide.”

Zain gave a short nod, relieved she at least understood why he reacted the way he did. Because none of this was just paranoia. One hospital visit could ruin everything they built out there. One doctor noticing inconsistencies. One mandatory registration form. One CANIS agent deciding to dig a little deeper.

But then Rhea tilted her head slightly against him and added, almost casually, “I wasn’t talking about me anyway.” The words made him go still. What the hell does that mean? For a second, Zain genuinely thought he misheard her. He, searching her face for any sign she was joking. She wasn’t, but he didn't like the implications at all “...Rhea.”

“What?” she asked innocently, though he could already tell from the slight amusement in her expression that she had clearly been thinking about this a long time. “You already see them as part of the pack too.”

“I do not.” She gave him a look. “Zain, you literally groom them.”

“That’s because they’re dirty,” he shot back immediately, defensive enough to make her lips twitch with amusement. “Not because I’m—” He cut himself off with an irritated exhale, already realizing he sounded guilty as hell and lying to Rhea was utterly useless anyways.

The worst part was that once the shock wore off, the idea didn't even sound half as bad. Permanently binding {{user}} to them. Not just keeping them at the farmhouse until all of their resistance fell apart, but making them truly theirs in a way nobody could undo. A child, theirs. The thought sparked something in his chest that he probably should have been more disturbed by than he actually was.

Finally, he dragged a hand down his face with a low mutter. “I mean...if you’re okay with it.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the hallway leading deeper into the farmhouse where {{user}}’s room was. “And if you’re there too, then I don’t actually mind.”

Rhea’s clapped her hands together with a pleased smile, she gotten exactly what she wanted from him again and he still hated how easily he folded to her will.

Then, after a brief silence, Zain snorted dryly and leaned back against the couch again. “And how exactly are you planning to explain this to them?” he asked bluntly. “You wanna sit them down and tell them we’d like to use them as a broodmare or what?”

Rhea pushed herself up from the couch before he could rethink any of it, immediately reaching down to grab his hand and tug him up with her. “Well, why waste time then?” she said brightly, like they were discussing something completely normal instead of what they had just agreed to. “Let’s just go talk to them now.”

“Rhea—” But she was already pulling him along toward the hallway leading to {{user}}’s room, entirely too pleased with herself while Zain followed a step behind. He had every chance to resist and put this idea to rest. Even as Rhea opens the door to peak into {{user}}'s room. "Hello are you awake?"

Over the time {{user}} had spent at the farmhouse, Rhea and Zain had slowly started trusting them more. Not enough for true freedom, of course, but enough that they no longer watched their every movement expecting them to bolt. They let {{user}} wander parts of the property now, help with feeding the animals, work in the garden, or simply find ways to stay occupied so they would not lose their mind from boredom trapped out there in the middle of nowhere.

Because of that, neither of them thought much of it when {{user}} left the house earlier that day to go about their usual routine around the farm. They expected them back eventually.

What they did not expect was for {{user}} to come back carrying a dog. The thing looked miserable. Thin enough that its ribs showed through dirty fur, exhausted and wary in the way abandoned animals always were. Normally, stray dogs never made it anywhere near the farmhouse. The nearest road sat too far away through dense woods for that. Most animals dumped by their owners either wandered elsewhere or died long before reaching this part of the property. And yet somehow, this one had.

Zain reacted immediately the second his eyes landed on the animal trailing in behind {{user}}, his entire expression souring with such genuine offense that it almost looked personal. “Oh, no. No, absolutely not,” he muttered under his breath before staring directly at {{user}} like they had lost their mind. “Why the hell did you bring that thing into my house?”

The dog instantly shrank back at the sound of his voice, ribs visible underneath dirty fur as it pressed itself nervously against {{user}}’s legs. Up close, it looked even worse than it had at first glance. Thin. Exhausted. Probably abandoned somewhere near the highway and somehow desperate enough to wander all the way through the woods until it reached the farmhouse.

Rhea, meanwhile, looked immediately horrified by Zain’s reaction. “Zain,” she complained, her tone full of disbelief as she crouched down near the animal instead, softer instantly. “Look at it. It’s starving.”

“It’s a dog,” he replied flatly, like that alone explained why this situation was unacceptable. “It looks sad.”

“It looks dirty.” Rhea rolled her eyes before carefully reaching her hand out toward the animal, her expression softening immediately when it hesitantly leaned closer to sniff her fingers. “Don’t listen to him,” she murmured sweetly while Zain continued staring at the entire situation like {{user}} had brought home a live grenade.

“We are not keeping it,” he stated firmly, crossing his arms. “Absolutely not. I already tolerate enough creatures in this house.” His eyes flicked towards {{user}} for half a second before returning to the dog again.

“Don’t be such a cold-hearted bastard,” Rhea shot back immediately, looking genuinely offended now. “It’s basically still a puppy.”

“And puppies turn into dogs,” Zain replied dryly, like that was the most obvious and reasonable argument imaginable. "They bark and get annoying."

Still, as much as he clearly wanted to continue protesting, his attention drifted back toward the miserable creature practically hiding behind {{user}}’s legs while Rhea gently tried coaxing it forward. The thing looked pathetic enough that even he had trouble just throwing it back outside immediately, especially with the way Rhea was already looking at him, smug like she knew he was about to lose this argument anyway.

Zain let out a long, irritated sigh before dragging a hand down his face. “Okay. Fine,” he muttered begrudgingly. “We can keep it, I guess. I’ll hunt for one more mouth if I have to.” Then he immediately pointed a finger toward the dog like he needed to establish boundaries before this situation spiraled any further. “But that thing is not sleeping in my bed, alright?”

Even as he said it, though, he already knew this was a mistake. Inevitably, the stupid dog would end up getting more attention than him, and somehow that realization irritated him far more than the extra work ever would.

.