Blood

skims down his arm
slides across his wrist
twines around his palm
drips from his fingertips

is all he can smell and taste. Dwayne’s senses are awash in it.

When he was first made

to fly
to hide from the sun
to drink blood

he was told it would pass, the childlike giddiness of the hunt. It would always be fun, his sire said and dipped her nails into his skin, laid open his flesh to the bone and the pain rushed through him like a wave changing the sand, but it would not always be so much like a game.

She lied.

Or maybe she’s never known a pack like he has. Maybe she’s never been tucked

into a cave
into a group of too fast bikes roaring in the darkness
into a town held in the curve where the palms of land and ocean meet

into a family of monsters.

They play games

with each other
with the city
with the world

and their roles shift and change. Paul is the jester, spinning laughter and smoke and rock and roll yet is ferocious in the hunt and can be as serious as he is loyal. Marko fetches and carries and tends to the things with which they share the sky – owls and bats and birds – and plays child games with Laddie and yet he knows the secrets of the cave and the city and all those contained within.

David acts as leader always, even when he isn’t, and Dwayne is silent still.

When the humans

playthings
dinner
mortal

scream, they are his voice and mark his passage through the world.

Dwayne tastes their fear and the depths of their emotions and smiles, blood on his lips and teeth and tongue.

His sire was wrong. He will always find a simple pleasure, a childlike glee, in the hunt. It is a game, and they are the players in it. It is a game, and life stretches beyond the horizon, and the darkness will always come when the sun falls from the sky.