Chapter 1

Everyone knows how love stories are supposed to start. It the old days there was the rescuing, or the unexpected encounter. These days it's all about chance meetings, twists of fate, people brought together by supernatural desire. But whatever happens it's all flutterings of the heart, longful silences and deep gazes. There is always angst. Always. And misunderstandings and tearful reunions. Everyone knows that's how love stories always start, especially teenage love stories.

My name is Toby, I'm eighteen, and my love story started with nearly dying, and not the cute romantic kind of nearly dying, or the cry for help kind of nearly dying, but the torture kind of nearly dying. In a way, dying outright would have been so much better.

Evenings after college I worked at the local pub, in the kitchens. I'd started out last year of school and worked my way up from kitchen porter by proving that I could actually cook, knew how to sharpen and wield a knife and the final piece of work that got me bumped up to chef de partie was being able to butcher half a pig while still serving the Sunday lunch rush.

That Friday I'd closed up the little country pub and by the time I began walking the four miles home down country lanes in the pitch black it was just gone midnight. The moon was a perfect semi-circle against a sky bright with stars as thick as paint. It was a perfect kind of night, with just enough chill in the air to make my breath fog. I breathed out swirls of dragon breath, trailing my fingers through them, pretending to making patterns in the clouds.

A twig snapped and there was a rustling, shortly followed by the lowing of a cow. When you live in the countryside you get used to the sort of noises that make city dwellers jump. I plugged my headphones in and scrolled through the list of songs for something that I wanted to rock out to on my way home. My dad hated it when I walked home alone at night, but he didn't like to leave my little sister at home all by herself and also didn't like waking her up to come out and get me. And I liked the walk.

I was just about to settle on the first Jet album, picking Are you gonna be my girl? When I saw a shadow on the bend of the road up ahead. A figure, sitting by the side of the road. I plucked out my headphones, letting them dangle in the neck of my t-shirt and watched the figure as I approached. Singing would mean drunk, silence would mean passed out, this happened sometimes. Once or twice I'd had to ring an ambulance to fetch a drunk wanderer who couldn't get their shit together to tell me where they lived.

This figure did not look passed out. The moonlight was useful, I rarely used a torch or the light on my phone to see by, but I could make nothing out except a pair of hands, fingers running something silver and flashing from one hand to the other.

"Hello?" There was no answer from the shadow, "Hey are you OK there buddy?" I jogged the last few yards to the figure, hoping that it wasn't going to be some major injury from a car crash or a drunk fall, "Dude are you alright?"

As I crouched down I realised words were coming from under the hood the figure wore.

"Oh sweet innocence, how sweetly my prey comes to me. I don't even have to try."

What I saw under the hood made my blood freeze. My brain managed to process what I saw a few seconds after my body had already started to act on it. I stood and backed up even as my mind flashed what I'd seen through my inner vision. Horns. Fur. Fangs. Blood. I ran.

I got about six strides before I felt myself start to fall. I flung my hands out and shouted as the tarmac scraped the skin from my palms. My jaw hit the ground and I bit my tongue, tasting blood. I scrambled up to hands and knees, my mind racing. Come on Toby, you've seen horror movies. Get up, get up and run and hide somewhere dark that you know about. You walk this route nearly every day. You know where the hiding spots are. You can hide and follow the hedge to the alpaca farm. You'll be safe. And inside the honest voice said; you've seen horror movies, you aren't making it home.

I jumped up and turned. The shadow figures hood had fallen away and the half-moon clearly showed a face covered in short fur, a muzzle like a giant panther and horns that curled either side of its head. Blood soaked the muzzle and the chest of the creature. I wanted to scream. I couldn't. A hand tipped in sharp claws wrapped around my throat, pulling my oesophagus away from my neck. I choked, tasting blood, feeling pain rip through me as the claws tore my flesh. I refused to let my mind focus it, and I looked into acid coloured eyes and saw my death awaiting me.

"Oh no."

"Oh yes." The voice sounded like delighted golden syrup, "I love new flesh." A hand tipped with claws raked across my chest, tearing through clothes and skin.

I screamed. Pain flared through me as my skin open to show the bones of my chest. A hand ran through my hair, I saw moon, the thick band of the milky way, felt pain rip into my throat as it was ripped open. Death was coming. I was nearly grateful.

I opened my eyes what seemed like years later to find myself lying in a puddle of bloody grass. My throat was still lain open, but the creature that attacked me was licking the wounds on my chest. A weird tingling sensation rose, skin and muscle knitting back together. The fucking monster was healing me!

I tried to kick him but my legs weren't working properly. I wanted to scream, to get away. I managed to send all my energy to one hand and all I could do in my efforts to throw the beast off was feebly grabbed one of the narrow horns that jutted out of its head.

"Awake I see." The beast left off licking and rose, it's face over mine, "And now the fun begins again."

Quick strong hands flipped me over, claws sank into my back, rending flesh from bone. The air was cold, my broken nerves flashing like lightning in my brain. Surly no one could live through this. The tongue returned and I felt soothing numbness, then tingling as the wounds began to close again. A second time claws slashed at me and I cried out, choking on the grass and blood and mud below me.