Cutting Teeth

  "So, young one. What do you think?" The question echoed through my mind as I took in the scene. I slowly scan the village, looking for potential threats, and the best meal. "The men over there, and the group opposite of them look to be the warriors. They will fight to defend their homes, but they are not like us, Sire." The past few months had been very strange, learning to dig a hole to sleep in before dawn came, rising through the dirt after dusk, or coming across a cave nestled deep within a mountain. One never knew what they'd come across in there.

  "Please, Alban, call me Gunther. I wouldn't mind testing their mettle, perhaps one of them is fit to be your new brother? Would you like that? How about that wench over there by the fire, she looks delicious." He always said things like that. I would shake my head, and voice my opinion. Gunther was kind in that regard, he would ask me what I thought, but more often than not did what he wanted anyway. Which normally lined up with my ideas, but his methods were so...brazen, as if there wasn't a thing in the world he was afraid of. "Indeed, she would make a fine thrall. This clan is not as strong as mine former, I doubt they would prove worthy of your gift. Best to drain them and move on." Gunter nodded, and then clapped me on the shoulder. "Well then, shall we?"

   As my Sire moved to the left side of the village, I moved over to the right. With my Eyes of the Beast, it was all too easy to keep tabs on everything happening nearby. I eagerly waited for my Sire to begin tearing into his group of humans. A cry rang out, and I knew that my first true kills were at hand. I ran into the village, grabbed a human by the throat and tore his esophagus out with my claws. I was accosted by a brute of a man wielding a bastard blade. I dove to my left as the blade came crashing down, and I pounced on top of him and shred his face to pieces. A third man broke and ran off, but I found a Seax on the corpse of the first man and sent it hurling into the craven's spine. He gave a weak moan and collapsed onto the ground. My sire had already dispensed with his dinner, so I slowly walked over to where the broken man was trying to crawl away. "You have brought shame upon yourself and your kin with your cowardice. I, Alban, condemn you to die."

  I knelt down, drove my elbow into his mouth, cupped his head in my hand, and sank my teeth into his neck. I could still taste the fear as the last of his vitae flowed out of him and into me. It was...intoxicating.