Hunter's Prayer
A Vamp!Rhys x Vampire Hunter!Reader AU
(This is a separate universe from my Dancing with the Devil Vamp!Rhys and just a little blurb I made for my Spooky Season AU list)
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“Nece ne neceris”
The words are carved above the altar, painted in glittering gold. The congregation repeats them in a drowning, lifeless chant that echoes off the church’s ancient walls.
“Kill lest you be killed.”
Death is your family’s sacrement. Blood their offering. The wooden stake pressed into your shaking hands the tools for Holy Judgement this side of Eternity. They’ve inked the words into your flesh, hammered them into your soul. This is your purpose; this is your Divine Right.
“Nece ne neceris,” you repeat, loud enough to be heard over the chanting. For milenia the night has belonged to the Dead, to the damned and the wicked alike, but tonight, tonight it belongs to you. Your footsteps echo against the church’s worn floors, the doors creak open in a ghostly howl as you step out into the moonlight.
You are not prey.
You are not afraid.
The night belongs to the hunters. And you will be the best of them.
The congregation follows you only to the doorway, their sacred cowls obscuring their faces, though you feel their eyes all the same as you step out into the gravel walkway that leads to your crumbling parish. The empire of hunters died a long time ago. Time can only hold onto the mortal for a heartbeat before it loses its grip. Hunters are a dying breed, to be crowned one is to meet Death with open arms. Death who took your father, your brothers; Death who claimed your city and your home. This little steeple and the stake in your hands is all you have left. You’ll be damned if you don’t fight to keep it.
“Nece ne neceris,” you chant as their voices grow dim. “I will not die today.”
The path from the church leads into the woods, the dense, overgrown trees soon shrouding out the moonlight. From far off the hooting of an owl tells you that nothing hunts to the north. Your prey is downwind tonight, which means they already have your scent. The church often claimed hunters smelled different than normal humans, though you had never decided if you believed it. Although, you suppose, there is only one way to find out…
You walk deeper, until all light disappears within the forest canopy overhead. Then you take the sharpened tip of the stake and slide it across your palm. Crimson blooms from the shallow wound, pebbling off your skin into the rocky earth beneath you. You close your fist and squeeze, wincing slightly against the burn, as you draw more out.
“Come on out,” you whisper to the darkness.
It starts as a gust of wind, a rustling of leaves on branches, though there is no howl of the wind. The hair on the back of your neck rises as you spin to face it, stake raised and ready.
“Nece ne neceris,” you remind yourself as you crouch, ready to fight. There is nothing for you to see in the darkness, but you know that it is there. Eyes watch your every breath with the stillness of a lion tracking a wounded deer.
“What a brave little hunter,” a voice purrs in your head, the sound decidedly male.
The stake slips from shaking hands, clattering into the blood you’re still dripping into the earth. “What are you?”
“They didn’t warn you?” The voice purrs and there’s another gust of wind at your back, making you spin to face it, ready to meet the gaping maw of your enemy, but there is nothing there.
“I can do many things,” It says with a voice made for the gentle darkness of a bedroom. You can practically feel its hot breath on your neck. “I can be your greatest desire, your sweetest sin.”
To pick up your weapon, you have to bend down, take your eyes off the trees and pray you’re fast enough to grasp it before the thing lunges for your throat. Your training has been extensive, but you are no match for something of this speed, it’ll have your heart in its hands before you can blink.
“Or I can be your worst nightmare. What will it be, little hunter?”
Your heart hammers like the church bells in your ears. “Come here and find out!”
There’s not even time to blink, time to scream before an icy hand grabs you by the throat and slams you into the nearest tree. You reach out to claw at it, but your nails break against skin that might as well be solid adamant. Your lungs ache, constricting so tight dark spots start to swirl across your vision.
“Disappointing,” it purrs at you. Vampire eyes are supposed to be yellow. The church’s paintings depict them with dark veins twining around their gleaming eyes like streaks of lightning. Those marks are there, but these eyes are so blue they’re nearly violet.
You lash out with a booted foot, trying desperately to free yourself from the crushing grip on your windpipe, but even though the blow makes contact, the creature doesn’t flinch. He grins in fact, elongated canines gleaming past his full lips.
“I was hoping to have some fun,” he pouts.
The spots swirling across your vision grow bigger with each passing second his vice-like grip remains clamped down around your throat. No amount of kicking or punching will free you from your suffering.
“Your little parish sent you to die, you know that, don’t you?” He says.
You can only gasp for air, choking out every fleeing breath.
“Oh, right,” he releases you as quickly as he’d grabbed you and your body slides limply into the earth, air rushing into your lungs as you cough and sputter. “I forget how fragile you humans are.”
“Fuck you!” You snarl at him in between breaths.
He chuckles at your disdain. “You have spirit at least.”
Your stake is too far away, lying there in the mud, taunting you with your failure. “Just kill me and get it over with!”
He crouches, eyes gleaming in his tan face. For an Undead monster, he’s ridiculously handsome, the sharp angles of him clean enough to have been sculpted from marble. Dark hair falls in soft ways across his temples. He looks nothing like the horrific monsters you’ve been told about.
“Oh I don’t want to kill you, Little Hunter,” he purrs. “I have plans for you.”
Time slows as you watch him rip his fangs through his own palm, and then speeds up all too quickly as he leans forward and presses his hand against your lips. His other hand cradles the back of your head, holding you in place as he forces the copper tinted liquid down your throat. His strength is unparalleled, there was no way you were ever beating him with that pathetic little stake.
Only when he’s satisfied that you’ve taken enough down does he remove his hand. You spit it back out at him as best you can, but there is no denying that there was some that made it down the back of your throat. He only chuckles his amusement as his hands move to grip your head, and then twist, and the world goes black in an instant.
It might be hours later. Days. You awaken to find yourself lying on your back, nothing but glittering starlight above you. Your whole body aches, bones feeling like they’re trying to stretch right out of your skin. The slight flutter of the breeze against you feels like a thousand nails scratching across your skin. And your throat! It’s never been so dry!
You sit up slowly, groaning. Your neck hurts the worst, then your jaw, as if your teeth are suddenly too large in your mouth. When you raise a finger to poke at your tender gums, the sharp tips of your canines break open your skin.
“Finally! I was starting to think you were actually dead.”
You’re on your feet in an instant, hands twitching at your sides. That thing leans against a tree, arms crossed over his broad chest, violet eyes watching you intently. “What the fuck did you do to me?!”
He smirks as he pushes off the tree and stalks over to you, every move languid and powerful, like a large cat. “I saved you.” He purrs.
“You…” you run your hand over your teeth again, once again tearing skin over the two sets of fangs sitting in your mouth. This cannot be happening to you! “You ruined me! You made me like you!”
He shakes his head as he crowds into your space, face inches from yours. “Nece ne neceris.”
You are dead, there is no blood in your body to run cold, yet your limbs stiffen anyway.
“I was you, Little One,” he says, his voice a husky whisper. “They sent me out to die, just as they have you.”
“No!” You snarl, body moving with inhumane speed to swing at his head.
He catches you by the wrist and twists so that you're pinned with your back to his chest. He runs his lips over the shell over your ear. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you what you need to do to make them pay.”
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