Blood Bonds: Bloodlust

PROLOGUE

“Going for a run!” he called over his shoulder to no one in particular. 

Neil MacArthur shivered at the crisp spring air that smacked him in the face when opening the front door.  He sought to leave the frat house of Gamma Delta Psi for his usual nighttime run.  It couldn’t be managed during the day because of classes and work, but Neil enjoyed a good jog at night.  As a great way for him to unwind before bed, he relied on it.  Neil found that he slept so much better.  Since he’d been working hard on a group project for a business ethics class, which was now thankfully completed, he looked forward to some needed rest to recharge and get ready for tomorrow’s presentation.

“Hey, don’t take all day!” Iggy reminded, holding a black PlayStation controller in his beefy dark chocolate hand.  “Remember you’re on KP tonight!” 

Neil ducked his head back into the house to see the big screen LG television hanging on the wall of the living room paused with a split scene.  Two first-person views of men gripping assault rifles roamed a rainforest by the look.  From the couch, Iggy’s big brown eyes blinked at him all flirty, very tickled no doubt.  The black man couldn't help rubbing in the captain of their Club Football (tackle) team and current president of the fraternity, Neil lost a bet to gain a date with a notorious superhot beeoch named Crystal Watkins. 

It just so happened that Crystal was the best math tutor on campus.  About everyone on the football squad had to use her at some point.  Mr. Ferrian’s teaching style made the majority flunk his required college math class.  As it happened, Crystal being his assistant was able to decipher his teachings.  Her gift was to relay to her pupils what they needed to know in an understandable format to pass the mid-term and final exams, which accounted for almost 60% of the overall grade. 

During one of their awesome frat parties, Neil got pissed drunk and decided to enter a wager with their very arrogant and newest frat brother, a freshman named Brian Jergens.  Underestimating the guy’s talent for getting what he wanted, Neil, a junior, had to pay the piper.  There was no way Brian should have been able to charm the pants off the cold prude Crystal, but he had somehow…damn him!  In fact, the bastard was out on a date with Crystal now!  Brian actually liked her!  Ugh!

No way presented itself to weasel out of this one, not even on any gullible freshman, Neil knew.  With regret, he tried to get a number of the guys from the football squad to swop chores with him.  No one did as they laughed at him.  He was stuck with kitchen duty for a month, and he hated it.  The guys were such slobs, but they were being especially disgusting because he lost the bet.

“Whatever, man!” Neil retorted over his shoulder with the dismissing wave of his hand.

Iggy snickered while flipping him the bird.  "Suck it loser!  You sound like a girl!"

Neil flipped him a double bird.  "Fuck you!"

“Look at it this way, at least it’s not bathroom duty!” chimed Iggy’s buddy Jim with his long blond hair pulled in its usual man bun.  His blue eyes sparkled with his amusement, too.

“Shut up, ass-wad!  Who asked you anyway?”  Neil slipped back out the door.  As he jogged off the frat property, the cackle of their laughter followed him.  He slipped his house keys in the right pocket of his heather gray sweatpants.  On his feet were his favorite New Balance gray and white sneakers.  He lifted the hood of his pullover sweatshirt printed in black lettering “UMNB” for the University of Michigan New Bristol where he proudly went to school. 

From his other pocket, Neil popped in his white earbuds for his iPod with the latest tunes downloaded from Zedd, Pitbull, and Ariana Grande, along with some old stuff from Katy Perry and Beyoncé.  He liked Katy’s music more than he would admit and started with “Birthday.”  The guys would rag him so hard if they knew.  The song was upbeat, and the perfect tempo for his more relaxed style of running, though.

Katy’s cheery tunes kept it light and flowed right from one another despite the memory of the guys trying to bring him down.  The first mile was always the hardest for him.  It served as a warm-up of sorts.  Being the end of the day, he felt so used up.  Often he wanted to turn back, yet Neil never did.  Once he ran well into his third mile, he breathed deeply with the routine of his movement and let his mind go. 

Getting too warm,  Neil tossed down his hood.  The breeze felt good to his sweat-lined forehead.  The same formed a slick trek down his neck, over his muscular arms and legs.  The welcoming burn in his legs and the rush of energy coursing throughout his core made him want to run faster.  Neil only increased his gait a little to fall into the propulsion of his normal pace for the next three miles. 

The great dance music continued as the soundtrack for the run.  On the clear night that showed no moon, his landscape remained the manicured lawns of the university campus.  He liked to keep his paths varied like the terrain, mixing it up, never going in the same areas in the same way twice.

A section of woods marked his path on his way back to the frat house, which separated the parking lot from the nursing building.  He liked running by there in some fashion because they had plenty of nursing students at their school.  Many of them were super cute girls pursuing two-year programs for LPNs and NPs.  Neil could not say tonight he saw any though coming or going from their late night classes to the parking lot nearby. 

Something close passed before his eyes from one side of the grove’s path to other.  Neil jumped back with a gasp, startled by the fast movement.  He wondered if he imagined it.  Neil’s eye followed the subtle shift of shadows before him.  A strange amber gleam of two round eyes stood to a height unexpected of an animal.  He peered into those strange eyes that grew larger and larger. 

Come to me, the cold whisper of a voice uttered in his ears making him look around in confusion.  He saw nothing out of the ordinary until he looked before him again at those amber eyes.

A cold sweat lined Neil the longer he stared at those eerie eyes that entranced him.  A sick churn of his stomach digesting two chili dogs he ate for supper from Rally’s attempted to rise for a second tasting.  His mouth dropped open slack, but a fog crawled into his mind.  Instinct warned him to flee.  The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end in alarm. 

Still, Neil remained slack to the danger thrumming in his head and made it ache.  He was so thirsty all of a sudden.  He bit his lip as the claw of fog over his senses pushed his fear aside and made his body relax. 

Do not fear.  Come to me … now, the cold voice whispered in echo around him.  Neil did not look around this time.  His eyes remained fixed on the amber ones before him.

His legs obeyed the absolute command bouncing about his head.  Something wasn’t right, but Neil struggled to keep control.  The action rewarded him pain the likes he never endured before shocking his head.  He whimpered at the injury suffered making him wobbly on his feet and dizzy. 

Unable to help it, Neil lumbered forward where bid.  He saw that the amber eyes drew him off the path he traveled and further into the trees that had no apparent path.  A little brush marked his way but not much of it.  The crunch of dry leaves sounded under his sneakers, but none of this hindered him. 

When he halted in the innermost section of the small grove, Neil felt the swirl of the night around him like dark silk.  He tried to touch it but felt nothing substantial.  Suddenly the amber eyes hovered before his face, snatching away his iPod and earbuds.  Before Neil could scream, the wind was knocked out of him by the blow taken at his shoulders, which caused him to fall flat on his back.  He tried pushing at the ground with his hands and feet to get away from the presence shielded in the night save those eerie eyes.  Why did he look into them again?!

Obey me. 

The claw of fog clouding rational thought forced Neil to relax even though at the back of his mind he knew that he shouldn’t.  Long fingers ripped at the neck of his cotton sweatshirt clear down his arm.  He saw no actual fingers.  The cloth parted on its own. 

Neil felt the iron strength of the invisible fingers though.  The hand he could not see trapped his neck and forced his head sharply to the side.  Neil still saw the eerie eyes glowing brighter than ever before his face.  They locked him under their amber spell, rendering him helpless. 

The sharp pain surged at the bite that clamped to his neck.  His mouth opened to cry out for help, but the only sound heard was wet slurps at his throat.  Something warm ran down his shoulder and back, but that was not all.  His fingertips and toes grew numb with rapid cold.  Neil knew he needed to get that dense blackness away from him.  It made him tired… weak. 

The fingers of the fog were strong in making him submit like the luring command of the whispers.  Be still.

What astounded Neil next was the pleasure that made his nipples harden like his cock.  It must have been shock.  The amber eyes swelled larger than ever.  Long phantom fingers played at the waistband of his sweatpants.  Neil panted with his excitement trying to move but couldn’t.  The warm hand slipped beneath the waistband.  It sliced through his underpants without resistance from him while trembling in the lust, working deep in him.  With rough authority, the invisible hand stroked him the way he liked from tip to base. 

Neil moaned shamelessly unable to help his hips pivoting into the warm slickness.  Stunned, he did cry out weakly when he came within his sweatpants in a sick rush.  The invisible hand was not done with him in its renewal of pleasure harder than before.  His next climax arrived with jerky, hot squirts of semen soiling himself even more.  Somehow even with how sexually aroused Neil was, the blood to his cock left with the loud, greedy slurps at his neck.

The invisible hand worked down his sweatpants.  Exposed to the chill night air, Neil allowed its play with him.  It found him unresponsive to its hot skill, and so the invisible hand cupped the soft organ.  Pins were felt below with the hand turned into a claw.  The amber eyes showed not just hunger, but cold malice.  Neil's eyes swelled in horror at the feel of nails pressing into his crotch.  Claws materialized as Neil experienced the points of each efficiently unmanning him with one wicked slice of its sharp fingernails. 

His mouth opened again in a terrible scream of agony.  It filled his mind.  The sound snuffed out before it could begin.  Tears flooded his eyes while trying desperately to move or call out and doing neither.  His mouth was rewarded with a taste of himself as he gagged trying to breathe around the bloody organ shoved there with the clasp of the invisible hand over it so that he could not spit it out. 

The slurping wet sounds went on and on sinking deeper into the flesh of his neck.  Metallic wetness filled his mouth and flowed down his throat.  Neil felt bile rise at the back of his throat that worked to take what had been forced into it.  The terror and ecstasy warred with one another.  The pain of his weakening body and a raw pleasure at the heels of it bewildered him. 

Neil’s breath hitched in tiny gasps.  Tears spilled from his eyes in his fight with altered states of confusion, anxiety, and agitation that he could not battle the malicious presence before him.  The dark seduced him, controlled him.  His heart’s once rapid beat grew slower while a coating of sweat on his skin made him so cold.  Three beats… two beats… one. 

Neil was no more.

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