Chapter 2
He eats pain, he will find some way to take it and twist it and fit it down his throat, so he can swallow it. He's made of it. You all can endure it until you overcome it, but him...he wants to be in hell.
Over the years, Regulus learned that there were two things, that he would never get enough of: The first thing were the highs. The time when he was escaping his body, floating outside of it and there were no pain or morals or consequences. He felt immortal, untamable. A cruel, beautiful, beastly creation. At first it had just been a side effect of his needs. His needs to harm. To tear through warm flesh and graze over bones. But as the years passed, he found himself chasing those highs.
The second thing he'd found himself rather addicted to were men. He learned that he liked them and only them.
He also learned that he liked having control. In bed. In life. He liked to meticulously plan what to do next, he liked to manipulate. He liked to play nice, to smile, to wear a mask of shyness so that the sheep didn't recognize him as the wolf until it was too late. Not until he sank his teeth into their throats and they had nowhere else to go.
On that summer six years ago he'd realized that he craved the maroon, wet warmth, that only living things could provide. The first time he killed he was ten. It was Billy, a boy he met in the backyard of his favorite library in town. He was about two years older and had blonde hair, disheveled from the wind. Regulus noticed him because he was sitting in the wet, green grass. His eyes were closed as he faced the sun.
His mother never let him ruin his clothes anymore. He walked over to him until he casted a shadow over the boy. When his eyes opened they were as green as the wet gras he was sitting on.
And then the boy smiled and Regulus smiled back. He didn't remember what the conversation was about, if he were to guess, he'd said it had been about books. He did remember the way Billy had bared his sunburned neck like a submissive animal. He did it without meaning to. But it triggered something sleeping inside Regulus. A dark, predatory need.
Looking back, the one thing he did remember as clearly as if it had happened just now, is the way he'd leaned forward, small stones digging into his palms and pushed his lips against Billy's neck.
It was red and hot and sweaty.
He could feel Billy's muscles tense on his lips, as he followed the same instincts that made him want to tear open his own chest.
Then his fingers were on Billy's shoulders clawing into warm flesh. He could feel it tear. Seconds later his fingers were sticky with warm, red wetness.
That was the moment Billy started screaming. But Regulus was quick to put a hand over his mouth and only stifled a moan as he felt the boys teeth's biting into his fingers.
There was panic wedged into his tight muscles, as he struggled against Regulus's grip but Regulus held him down with all his strength, as he buried his teeth in the boys neck.
The familiar sent of iron spilled into his mouth and this time he didn't care to stifle his moan, as his eyes rolled back. He could see the clear, blue sky above him. It was almost soothing in contrast to the flow of adrenaline.
For the next unmeasurable amount of minutes, Regulus skirts on the outermost edges of awareness.
It's like he has slipped into a crack between worlds, where he's floating in and out of conciseness.
He doesn't remember his first time feasting. What he does remember, is the rush of pure joy.
And he remembers the way he felt afterwards. Like he would do anything, cross everyone just to feel this experience this feeling again.
He felt like a drug addict who just came down from his very first shot of ecstasy.
And you know what they say about addicts. They will always chose the drug over you.