Desire

After eating so many pastries he thought he might burst, Damien watched Dezzy polish off the rest of the pastries in short work, and felt a strange mixture of awe and dismay. Dezzy always had a large appetite, but usually that could be easily supplemented by gathering wild vegetables and hunting in the forest. With Dezzy planning on staying in the city, Damien worried a bit that she might run through her money fairly quickly. 

"Question," he said, when he thought Dezzy was probably done obnoxiously licking her fingers. "How long are you really planning to stay here?"

"As long as you need me," Dezzy answered easily, not bothering to look up from where she was attempting untangle the makeshift shirt-bag they'd used to carry the pastries.

"That's very kind of you to say, but what if it ends up being a long time?" Damien asked.

"Shouldn't you have worried about this before we left?" Dezzy asked, finally looking up and treating him to a mildly exasperated sigh. "You worry too much about these things."

"Do you have a plan?" Damien demanded.

"I dunno, get a job, I guess," Dezzy shrugged. "It could be fun."

Damien blinked. Right. He supposed that was an option. Surprisingly reasonable, too, considering the idea was Dezzy's.

 "Oh."

Dezzy grinned at him. "See? Stop worrying. I'll figure it out. You just focus on getting better."

Damien sighed. "Fine, I'll stop worrying about that. I'm sure I can find something else to worry about instead."

"You are impossible," Dezzy sighed, throwing her hands in the air before shoving the pastry-shirt back in one of the overstuffed satchels she was carrying. "Anyway, is there anything you want to get before we meet Grace?"

Damien shrugged. "I don't know anything about this town," he said. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

"Oh! Well then why don't I give you the grand tour?" Dezzy suggested.

Damien thought this sounded like it would take a lot longer than an hour, but he also figured he could always cut the tour short when too much time had passed. "Okay," he agreed.

Dezzy cheered, stood immediately, and began marching off in a random direction, leaving Damien scrambling to follow after her.

The town wasn't exactly lively, especially considering the fact that the people lived under the shadow of the vampire castle. Outsiders and inhuman features were shunned, likely because these humans had lumped all supernatural creatures into the 'monster' category. Damien couldn't exactly blame them for it, but it took him an embarrassingly long time to figure out why so many places of business were posted with notices along the lines of "Entry Granted at Owner Discretion" or "Unaccompanied Guests Prohibited".

He'd gasped aloud when it hit him, and he murmured, "Vampires need to be invited in."

"Yeah, the signs are because there's a certain level of implied invitation for stores," Dezzy whispered back in an undertone. "So they have to explicitly revoke the invitation somehow, or a vampire could walk in whenever they wanted."

Damien shuddered at the thought. "That makes sense," he said. "Especially for a place like this." 

While he hesitated to call it gloomy, there was definitely a dispirited quality to the town, as if the humans had been toiling too long under a heavy burden and were now on the verge of collapse. Damien knew that feeling well, after these past few weeks. He felt sorry that the people living here had experienced that sort of weariness, too. Dezzy seemed rather immune to the energy of the place - or perhaps she maintained her usual bright spirit in spite of it - as she led Damien around the town. It didn't take very long, and soon they had circled around to where Grace was already waiting.

"Sorry we're late," Damien apologized.

"Oh, no, I just got here myself," Grace assured him, even though Damien suspected it was a lie. Her shopping baskets appeared too well-organized for her arrival to have been very recent. 

"Well," Dezzy said, "am I going to be able to get in this time, or is it better if you two go on your own?"

Grace made a small face. "Well…" she said slowly, "Cain isn't back yet, so…" she made a weak gesture. 

Was Cain such a big deal to all thralls, or just the one that Dezzy liked? Damien wasn't sure, but he certainly didn't like it. "Does Cain tell you all what to do, or what? I don't quite understand what his role is," Damien said, glancing between Dezzy and Grace with mild annoyance.

"He doesn't tell us what to do," Grace said, her voice soft and low. "He protects us from… well, from the more difficult situations."

Difficult situations? Damien frowned. "Like… feedings?"

Grace's eyes widened a bit, her hand flying up to cup the side of her neck protectively. "No, not that, not usually," she said. "But not all vampires really care about the comfort and privacy of humans. They want you to do things for them, like fight, or…" she flinched a little, her eyes falling to the ground, and Damien felt instantly awful for pressing the matter.

"I see," he said quickly. "That's… yeah, it sounds difficult, all right."

Grace nodded, a concerned look crossing her face as she said, "You're Cain's thrall, right?"

Damien felt a deep and visceral reaction to that. "What? No!" 

Grace blinked. "Then why did you come?"

Damien couldn't bring himself to say the words he's my mate, mostly because he was horrified by the idea that a thrall wouldn't see any difference between a werewolf mate-bond and the horrible controlling bond of a vampire's bite. "I… need to be with him."

Grace's expression grew confused. "But you're not a thrall?"

"I told you he's like a thrall," Dezzy interjected, giving Damien a 'shut up, you're ruining it!' look.

"But not a thrall," Grace said, glancing between Dezzy and Damien.

"Like a werewolf version of a thrall," Dezzy said.

"They're nothing alike!" Damien yelped. 

Dezzy shot him a venomous look. "You need to be near him, want to submit to him, and feel a deep connection to him. Those are how thralls feel, too," she threw a glance at Grace, "right?"

Grace nodded.

Damien felt sick again. "It's different," he insisted. And then he was able to fully process everything Dezzy had implied. "Wait, you think I'm the omega in the mate-bond?" He wasn't sure which was more insulting, the idea that his sister had automatically assumed he would take the submissive role, or that she thought that a submissive werewolf was no better than a thrall with a vampire master. The dominant partner of a werewolf bond was nothing like a vampire. The alpha would sacrifice everything for their mate, and because they took full responsibility for the health of the relationship and would do anything to keep their omega safe and happy. Alphas took on the dominant role because they were givers, not takers. They were nothing like a vampire, who only bonded with thralls to gain power and satiate an unslaking thirst. In the same way that omegas found security in the bond by surrendering their trust to a dominant partner, even going so far as to bare their throat, trusting their mate not to rip it out. Alphas found strength in the bond by living up to the trust and expectations of their mate, of being the person the omega relied upon and trusted. It wasn't anything like the one-sided consuming nature of a vampiric bond, but was a mutual expression of trust and love. 

And Damien knew he would never truly experience that for himself, not with a vampire for a bond-mate. It didn't matter whether he was the omega or the alpha, really, because he had no faith that his mate would fulfill either role to a satisfying extent. If the vampire was alpha, there was no chance that Damien would be able to trust him, and even if he did eventually learn to trust him, there was no way a vampire would understand what his wolf mate needed, or that he would even view mate the same way that Damien did. And if the vampire was omega… Damien didn't know if he could be a good alpha, didn't know that he would deserve that vampire's trust, not when he was going to this castle with the sole intent to cause the vampire as much pain and trouble as he could, before probably dying (or falling into an eternal sleep) in the throes of a pyrrhic victory. 

"Are you not an omega?" Dezzy looked surprised.

"It's not like it's assigned at birth," Damien said, feeling a bit exasperated. "It's to do with the function of the bond. Your status matures together with your bond."

"Oh," Dezzy looked a bit surprised. "I didn't know that. I just figured you'd want someone to take care of you." 

She… wasn't wrong. Part of Damien definitely wanted to be cared for. He had lost his pack from a young age, and while he appreciated his mother and Dezzy, their little family wasn't what he needed, an unconditional support, even through his transformations. A mate should offer that, along with a pack. Two things it now seemed Damien would be forever lacking. But he'd also wanted to be the sort of person who could take care of someone else. To be the one who created a safe space, who built a pack of love and support and care and showered his mate with affection. He wanted to give himself, body, heart, and soul, to the task of protecting and supporting his mate. And now that he'd learned who his mate really was, he doubted he would be able to do that, either. So no matter which role he settled into, he doubted he would ever feel truly fulfilled by his mate-bond. And he was a little bit furious that he'd been saddled with something so useless as a mate-bond to a creature who couldn't possibly meet his needs. 

He would just live a half-life, constantly teetering on the edge of mate-sickness, with a mate who didn't care about him or even really acknowledge his existence. And he was supposed to be satisfied with that? If he was going to be forced to live a life of suffering, the least he could do was ensure he didn't suffer alone. That was why he planned on doing everything he could to inconvenience this vampire, Cain. He didn't want to suffer alone, and if he couldn't look forward to a strong and healthy mate bond, perhaps he could at least fashion a bond of misery between them.

"What I want isn't really on the table," Damien sighed. "At this point, I'm focused on survival."

Grace hummed sympathetically. Dezzy narrowed her eyes at him, but chose not to press the issue, for which Damien was deeply grateful. 

"I don't really understand what a werewolf bond is, or what it's like," she admitted, "as my only experience is with enthrallment." She looked a bit embarrassed. "But I do think that however the bond happened, you were both lucky and unlucky in the vampire that was chosen for you."

Damien raised an eyebrow. "Lucky how?" he asked.

"Well," Grace shrugged her shoulders a little, "Cain is one of the few who doesn't enjoy breaking thralls. So you should be able to keep to yourself easily."

Damien had to admit that wasn't terrible to hear. But he thought lucky was a bit of a stretch. "And the unlucky part?"

Grace avoided his gaze as she said, quietly, "Cain doesn't want a thrall. He hates being beholden to, so he always avoids feeding directly from a human." 

Damien didn't see the downside. "So?"

Grace dared a glance up from the ground. "I thought werewolves left… mating marks," she said. 

"They do," Damien said, slowly, still not understanding exactly what the problem was. 

"That's why you're unlucky to have Cain," Grace explained. "He's the only vampire we know who refuses to feed on anyone."

Damien felt like he was still confused. "But what does that have to do with the mate-mark?" he asked.

"Because he would never go along with it," Grace explained, her voice full of genuine sympathy. "Cain's the only vampire I know who will refuse to bite you."