F oxx grew his claws longer as he ran, smiling when his ears picked up the calm droning beats of many hearts. The smell of their sweat and cheap body spray reached him, even before he spotted them or the building.

Weather-worn would be an apt description of the structure. White and red paint chipped and faded, the shiny new metal doors stood out starkly and looked out of place. As did the two guards standing by the left side entrance that he was approaching, their all black outfits making them hard to miss.

The moment Foxx broke through the trees, he didn’t hesitate. Leaping towards the two men, he had wrapped his hand around the heart of the human standing to the right of the door before either guard had a chance to raise their guns.

Foxx tore the still beating organ from the man’s chest, smiling as the unfinished scream cut off on a gargle. His eyes were wide, and rapidly losing all signs of life. With blood dripping from his mouth, the human collapsed, while the guard standing just feet away started to scream.

He crushed the heart in his hand, jumping back in time to avoid the still living human’s first round of shots. The sounds of screams, and guns going off all around the building, reached his ears as he rushed forward again. Knocking the gun from the second guard’s hands, he latched onto the man’s neck and broke it with a hard twist.

Foxx grabbed onto the inset door handle and tugged outward, his smile widening as the door started to bend and warp. Once he had successfully jammed it closed, he let go.

Leaving the bodies where they laid, Foxx skipped around to the front door. Picking up his pace when the guards spotted him, he continued to skip out of the way of the gunshots. Moving at an inhuman speed, the guards let out a fearful yelp, when to them Foxx had likely just appeared between them out of nowhere. Before they had time to react, his hands shot out, and they both screamed as his claws punctured their chest.

Foxx then just stood there smiling, his hands inside their bodies, with their unharmed beating hearts lovingly cradled in his palms. The two living humans whimpered and held so very still, their guns falling from their grasps.

“Aww, and I thought the only heart you wanted was mine,” Harlow said with a mocking laugh as he approached slowly from the right. The man’s hands were also covered in blood, the liquid splattered over his clothes.

“No worries, I don’t intend to keep them.” Foxx giggled and squeezed.

Crushing the fragile bits of flesh in his hands, the men barely made a sound while they died. He yanked his hands free as the two began to fall, not caring enough to wipe the gore away. The feeling of their blood on his fingers seemed to somewhat soothe the anger he’d hidden under all the sadness he’d been dealing with since Charity’s death.

“Wow, that’s fucked up. I love it!”

He flinched at the words, glancing towards Gavin, who he hadn’t even heard approach. “Do we need to put a bell on you?” Foxx asked.

Harlow snorted. “Tried it, he managed to move without it ringing.”

“Yep! No bell shall defeat me!” Gavin said proudly with his hands on his hips.

“Skillful.” Foxx chuckled as he eyed the dragon. There was no blood on him, but the strong scent of smoke, and the hint of burning flesh, told him all that he needed to know.

When the sound of people panicking inside reached his ears, some trying to open the doors they’d broken, Foxx asked, “Who wants to go first?”

“After you, Brat.” Harlow waved towards the door, just as a man burst out.

“Don’t mind if I do!” he hissed as he attacked. The human yelped, and tried to back up, but the sound was cut off on a gurgle as Foxx sliced through his neck, slipping past him to get inside as he did.

Foxx kept going, even when he spotted the crowd of ten humans behind the man he’d just killed, ramming right into them. Sending the humans tumbling down, he leaped over the toppled men, leaving them for Harlow and Gavin to deal with as he ran deeper into the building.

Foxx went left, into what he soon discovered was a maze of industrial sized wooden crates that were taller than him, and by his guess, likely Harlow. All he could see while on the floor was the area he was boxed into, and the high roof arching above.

Moving around a large rectangular crate, Foxx jerked back on hearing a familiar clicking sound, avoiding a rain of bullets. He jumped up, tackling the man off the crate that he had just fired on him from. Laughing as he tore the gun from the human’s hand, Foxx brought the butt down onto his face. The first tap was light, but by the third, the man’s head was caved in. Tossing the broken weapon aside, he continued on, starting to hunt, all the while, screams and gunshots came from other parts of the floor.

His first thought of it being a maze turned out to be rather accurate, as there were far too many corners and dead ends—for the humans, that is.

When Foxx reached a dead end, and heard the fearful, rapidly beating hearts of the five humans on the other side of the crate that blocked his path, he jumped right over with a gleeful cackle.

The five screamed as he landed right in the middle of them. Still laughing, Foxx spun around with his arms stretched wide, his claws extended. Blood went flying, whipping around him and splattering on the crates, as his claws connected with flesh. By the time he stopped moving, the five men laid dead, now mutilated versions of themselves.

“Tornado-ing for the win,” Foxx said with a chuckle .

Slowly smearing one of the drops of blood trailing down his cheek, he licked it off his finger with a hum as he glanced left and then right, pausing when he heard another person approaching. From around the corner to his right, a man appeared, freezing when he spotted him.

Foxx waved cheekily.

The human’s gaze flicked from him to the bodies and back, a whimper slipping out. The man took a step back, and Foxx took one forward.

The human’s hands went out, as if to ward him off, while he stuttered, “M-mercy!”

Foxx flinched, the word feeling like a punch to the gut.

“Mercy…?” he whispered. “Are you asking me for mercy?”

The man’s eyes widened, seeming shocked that Foxx spoke at all, like he was a beast without that capability. But then, that was exactly what he was to this man, and every fucking human in here. A vicious, unfeeling, murderous creature with no worth.

“Y-yes?” The man licked his lips. “P-please, don’t kill me! I’ll do anything!”

Foxx’s hands clenched, the wetness of the blood coating them did nothing to calm his rising anger as it had before this.

“Anything?” He laughed lightly, giving the man a lopsided smile, making sure his fang flashed along with his dimples, even as his rage boiled.

The human swallowed hard, nodding.

“Hah, that’s hilarious. Did you hear that, my Goddess above?! Mercy—he asked me for mercy, Nycinthea. He’s begging me to let him live,” Foxx sneered. “Let me ask you this, human. When Evy begged to live, did you hear her?”

Tears pricked at the corner of his eyes, as the face of the woman who died in his arms nearly two months ago flashed in his head. She’d been so young…and so scared.

“I…I don’t know…who that is.”

“Hah…you don’t? What about Diago, the young werewolf who died screaming as he begged his uncle to help him? Did you hear him? No? How about the wails of despair from the families of the three wolves you infected? Still, no?” He giggled. “Fine, what about th at pack you wiped out? Did you hear the children cry as they were either put down for the safety of others, or died in agony?!”

The human, who was now paler than before, shook his head, a bead of sweat flying off as he did.

He nodded, his smile widening even as his tears finally spilled over. “Well, that’s okay! I know one that you must have heard, as it just happened!” Foxx chuckled. “You heard her, didn’t you?”

“H-her, w-who?”

“ Charity ,” he ground out, his smile dropping. “Charity Bartlett. The kind, bright human your organization murdered two days ago!”

“I d—” The man’s words cut off when Foxx wrapped a hand around his throat. The bastard grunted in pain as he pinned him against the crate at his back.

“Please,” the human wheezed with the barest bit of oxygen Foxx was allowing, while he clawed at his hand, desperate for his freedom.

With tears trailing down his face, Foxx eyed the man, his stomach churning with hatred. Slowly, he placed his other hand on the man’s chest, and began to tap his fingers, spreading blood wherever he touched.

“So,” Foxx rasped. “You’re telling me that you didn’t hear her say ‘It’s okay’, right before she died in front of me? That you, in fact, didn’t hear any of them?”

Foxx tightened his grip, stopping the man from saying a damn thing. “Mm, no, we both know you don’t have a right to speak now. You want to answer me, use your head.”

The human gave a barely detectable head shake.

“Hah, that’s what I thought.” Curling his fingers, Foxx slowly pressed the claws of his left hand into the man’s chest, nowhere near his heart.

Yanking them out as the man screamed, the sound sent a tremble of satisfaction through Foxx’s body. He trailed his claws downward, shredding through fabric and skin alike. Leaving a path of blood behind, Foxx lazily continued, creating a swirling pattern on the man’s skin as he started to speak.

“So, let me get this straight. You never heard the voices of the people Humanity’s Last Stand killed. You don’t even know who they are, their names, or the people who loved them. All you know is that most of them weren’t human. But even with the humans, you didn’t care enough to learn their names. Yet, you dared to ask me for mercy?” He giggled, the noise sounding unhinged even for him.

Foxx stabbed his hand into the man’s stomach. He didn’t flinch as blood sprayed from the human’s wide scream-stretched lips. Tugging his hand free, his smile twisted while something other than disgust, sadness, and rage surged through his body—an undeniable feeling of sexual need. One that, as monstrous as it was, he still embraced. Foxx in fact welcomed the feeling with open arms as each pain-filled sound the man made satisfied the dark urges inside of him.

They hadn’t, and wouldn’t ever, see him as a person, so he was going to be exactly what they thought he was…a monster.

“You asked me for mercy when you gave them none?” He stabbed him once more, this time puncturing a lung. “You dare to ask me for something you have never given others?! To beg me for something that so many never even got a chance to ask for?! Something we both know you would never give! Something that isn’t even in your vocabulary when it comes to someone not human?”

Again and again, Foxx punctuated each question, each sentence, by digging his claws in deep. As he yanked his claws free once again, the human now gurgling blood, and producing only pathetic and raw whimpers of pain, Foxx began to laugh, even as his tears kept coming, and tingles of pleasure trickled through him.

“Why would you ever think you deserved something like mercy?!” He started to laugh harder, his hand slowly squeezing tighter and tighter around the man’s neck. “You took someone from me. I watched my friend DIE, you hypocritical fuck!”

Foxx lowered the man, who he’d been holding up since the third stab, until he was at face level. “If you want mercy—” He leaned in closer, a vicious smile spreading across his face. “—then ask your fucking God for it!”

Even as he said the words, he didn’t kill the man, he just let go. Foxx let the human drop to the floor, like the piece of rubbish he was, and then he did absolutely nothing.

With tears still trailing down his face, and his cock hard, Foxx just watched. He watched while the human struggled to breathe, his body bleeding from too many puncture wounds to count. Foxx tried to catch every single moment as the man twitched and flopped around uselessly on the ground, trying to get up but failing, all while his heartbeat became sluggish. The human’s mouth still moved, but no words came out, besides incoherent sounds of agony.

Regardless, Foxx knew what he was saying. Mercy , the man mouthed. Mercy , the man begged. Mercy , the man still demanded from him.

“Why are you demanding mercy from a monster, human?” he mocked, before tsking. “I’m afraid it’s your body you should be begging now. Beg it to stop fighting. Beg it to stop feeling. Beg it to cease. I’m not causing your pain. Your body’s own drive to survive is. You want the pain to stop? Then fucking die.”

Foxx chuckled the moment he saw the fearful realization come into the man’s eyes, but it was more due to what followed—a look of regret. One that seemed to become clearer as the sounds of others dying elsewhere escalated.

“Ah, you just realized it, didn’t you? That the only one you have to blame for your current suffering is yourself. But you haven’t learned from that, have you? Because ultimately, you still blame me and my kind for how you ended up here, don’t you?”

The human didn’t answer, of course, he just continued to mouth the same word over and over again. Minutes ticked by, the man’s breathing becoming weaker by the second as his own sped up. And then it finally happened…

Ten minutes after he dropped, and far sooner than he deserved, the human’s heart stuttered to a stop.

With the word mercy still on his lips, the man died, and at the same time, Foxx came. His eyes rolled back as his whole body shuddered in pleasure. He stood there unseeing while he continued to shiver, uncaring as he dirtied his undergarments.

When his orgasm finally stopped, Foxx blinked and took a shaky step back. As unsteady on his feet as he was, he felt... satisfied .

At the sound of gurgling, Foxx looked left. He barely registered the human with a severed jugular falling to the ground before Harlow had yanked him against him. The dhampir cupped one side of his face, at the same time as he slammed his mouth onto Foxx’s .

Clinging to Harlow, Foxx moaned the moment he tasted human blood, and felt the press of the man’s hard covered cock. He had heard the dhampir arrive while he’d been torturing the human, but he’d completely pushed his presence from his mind when Harlow had stayed back and quiet.

Breaking the kiss, the dhampir drew a breath in deeply. The man visibly shuddered as he exhaled, his gaze trailing down to Foxx’s crotch, as if wanting to see the cum that was now staining his boxer-briefs, which he no doubt smelled.

Harlow’s eyes flicked back up to Foxx’s face. As the man brushed away one of his tears with his thumb, he felt a stretch of fresh blood smear across his cheek.

“I don’t know if he suffered enough for causing these, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy watching. It was… exhilarating ,” the dhampir said huskily, before giving him a hard but brief kiss and growling, “ Mine .”

Foxx smiled, his tears drying up. “Did I turn you on, Old Man?”

“Mm,” Harlow hummed, before pressing another quick kiss to his lips.

He kissed the dhampir back, whispering, “Love you.”

“ Mine ,” Harlow rumbled again. He looked as if he was planning to do more than kiss, when instead, the man spun with a clearly irritated huff, and killed the dumb fuck human, who had been attempting to sneak up on them, with a quick jab to the neck. “We were talking!”

Foxx giggled at how put out the dhampir sounded, but his head cocked as he heard what sounded like a loud bang coming from the direction of the front door.

“Reinforcements,” he chimed happily, on picking up all of the new heartbeats gathered together in that direction.

“That was fast,” Harlow snorted when there was another loud bang. “They must have been nearby, but out of our hearing range.”

“Must have. Did one of you damage the front door?”

“Yep.”

Foxx held out his arm, just as there was a booming, screeching noise. “Want to be generous and go greet the new arrivals? ”

Harlow chuckled, his gaze slipping down briefly. “Do you want to toss those first? I don’t imagine it’s comfortable.”

He blinked, before barking out in laughter on realizing the man meant his soiled boxer-briefs. “You wouldn’t happen to have an extra pair in that jacket of yours, would you?”

The dhampir cocked his head, his expression blanking. But then, beyond belief, Harlow started to dig inside his jacket.

Moments later, the man pulled out a folded up pink square with white polka dots, which turned out to be boxer-briefs when he shook them out. Boxer-briefs that suspiciously looked exactly like the pair that had mysteriously disappeared from the dryer months ago…that had almost ended with him tearing the dryer apart trying to fucking find them.

“You stole my underwear!” Foxx cried.

Harlow blinked. “I did not.”

“You did! The evidence is literally in your hand!”

“I didn’t steal them, I borrowed them. I figured you’d need them one day, because you dislike walking around in dirty underwear, paired with our tendency to have sex where we probably shouldn’t. And what do you know, I was right. So, like, you’re welcome for my considerate foresight.”

“Foresight, my ass!” Foxx hissed as he snatched them from the man. “What are you, a squirrel?! Ask next time, you psycho!”

He groaned—ahh hell, he was going to have to question every single fucking time he lost something now, wasn’t he?

Had Foxx actually lost the thing, or had his crazy ass boyfriend just squirreled whatever it was away in his jacket? Who knew!? He sure as bloody hell didn’t!

Ahh, fuck a duck…