Name: Colt Mercer Occupation: Veterinarian & owner of River Red Ranch Age:Â 36 Sexuality:Bi Species: Human Hometown: Port Liery Relationship Status: Single Personality Traits: Loyal, Emotionally closed off, Protective, Stubborn. Secretive, Grounded, Resourceful
Biography (tw: parental death)
Colt Mercer was a man carved out of the land he called home. Born and raised on his family farm â a place where hard work and grit were more valuable than gold. A boy, with the sun in his hair and dirt under his fingernails, who turned man the moment fire roared through Red River Ranch.
The blaze took more than timber and fields that night. It stole his father, the backbone of the Mercer name, and left Colt standing among the ashes, too young and too stubborn to fall apart. His mother packed what she could carry, took his baby sister by the hand, and left Port Liery behind.
Colt stayed. Maybe out of pride. Maybe out of guilt. Maybe because he couldn't bear the thought of letting the flames turn to ash his father's hard work. He took over the ranch, and rebuilt it from nothing, like a phoenix being reborn. A veterinarian by trade, the Mercer son cared for livestock with the same quiet reverence he reserved for peopleâhis gruff exterior hiding a deep well of empathy for the injured and the vulnerable.
There were rumors about what caused the fire. Some said old debts. Some said spite. Some said something worse, something unnatural. Colt never pressed too hard for the truth. He learned early that some things don't bring peace when dug upâthey just bled.
Instead, he poured himself into the land, into the animals, into the kind of backbreaking work that didn't leave much room for grief. He became a fixture in Port Liery â the quiet rancher, the steady hand, the man people turned to when the world turned cruel.
It was how he found himself tied to The Brotherhood â a quiet favor here, a shelter offered there. He didnât ask questions the night he found a man half-dead in his barn, bleeding from wounds no animal couldâve made. Didnât ask when strange men knocked at his door, looking for shelter and silence. Some part of him, the part that remembered fire and loss and things with teeth in the dark, already understood.
But after a while, when Colt refused to mark himself a hunter, The Brotherhood saw him for who he truly was â a man with one foot in their world, one foot stubbornly rooted in his own. Human. Soft. They wanted to remind him what side he was supposed to be on. So they set him up. Dropped him in the path of a wolf â an old one, powerful and mean enough to rip him apart if it wanted. A lesson. Except the wolf didnât kill him. It spared him.
He didn't know why. Maybe because they spoke the same language. After that night, everything shifted. Colt still patched up the hunters when they came to his door â but he started helping the wolves too, in secret. A splintered loyalty he carried in silence, like another scar nobody could see.
Some nights, Colt still wondered if he was walking a road that was going to end in ruin. But he was a man born of fire and stubbornness. And he loved the land that taught him to keep going.
Headcanons
He has a cow named Belle, who likes to drink Bourbon.
Wanted connections
MY BABY SISTER, ALL GROWN UP // Coltâs younger sister, taken away the night of the fire by their mother, has returned to Port Liery, no longer the little girl he remembers. Grown and carrying her own secrets, sheâs looking for refuge or redemption before the past catches up to her. Maybe she was turned into something unnatural, a werewolf, a vampire, and now sheâs come home, either to hide... or to make peace.
THE ONE WHO LEFT // She used to sneak into the barn when it rained. Stayed after the fire, helped Colt patch fences and bottle-feed calves while ash still fell from the sky. They never said I love you â but it was there, quiet and steady like the river. One day, she asked him to leave Port Liery with her. Start fresh somewhere new. Colt said no â too much left to fix. She left instead. Heâs never seen her again, but he kept her old flannel tucked away in the back of his closet.
MORE THAN A MARK // A Brotherhood hunter â probably stitched up more times in Coltâs barn than either of them care to admit. What started as one-night mistakes (and too much whiskey) grew into something slower, quieter. Nights where neither of them slept, but not for the usual reasons. They both knew it couldnât last â but Colt saw it: the way they looked at him, like he was a life theyâd never get to have. ( @reidhalstead )
THE MAN WHO BURNED IT DOWN // The vampire Coltâs father made a deal with â back when Red River Ranch was secretly turned into a blood farm. At first, it was about money. Later, fear set in: fear that Colt was growing up, asking questions, and wouldnât offer the same loyalty. So the vampire burned it all down â the house, the fields, the legacy â to keep the secret buried in ash.
A BLOODY MESS // An employee who once worked for the vampire that ran the blood farm in secret. After the fire, they wormed their way into the rebuilt ranch, hiding in plain sight. Still offering their services to vampires behind Coltâs back â a parasite tangled up in blood and betrayal, feeding off the new life Colt fought to build.
OTHER CONNECTS: THE WOLF WHO SPARED HIM ( @anish-hassim ) / THE HUNTER WHO WANTED HIM DEAD / EMPLOYEES / FRIENDS / BROTHERHOOD HUNTERS /
