What entered the cavern where the dying man rested smelled of the earth, soft loamy soil and the woods after a rain. The smells mixed with the odor of his own blood, tainting the calming fragrance like oil poured into a lake, coating everything it touched with a sickly pallor. It almost angered him that he had been the cause of this being’s distress. He could hear it in the way she walked, and the gentle gasp of her voice when she entered the chambers; she was female, and from the way she smelled, Carpathian.<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff"> “Please…” </span>his voice was raspy and dry, even as he forced himself to uncurl his hand, letting the rock clatter to the ground. He slid down the wall, holding his side as his teeth gritted tightly together against the pain. He was barely holding himself together, only willpower keeping him alive now. He could smell her get closer, dragging himself towards her.<br/><br/>He knew he looked something awful, a leg bent awkwardly at a wrong angle, badly broken. Deep gashes and swelling bruises from his long descent. The skin of his hands was sliced to ribbons from grabbing at tree limbs to slow his fall, and from digging in the hard and rocky soil to create a small depression where he could rest. But his face was the worst of all. Deep voids where his eyes should have been, surrounded by what looked like acidic pockmarks and trails of blood coating his cheeks.<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff"> “I… I can’t die… she needs me…” </span>slowly but surely he dragged himself closer, dark hair matted from the blood that had pooled from wounds in his scalp.<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff"> “I… I will not… hurt you… but I need…”</span>his hand met hers, and immediately latched onto her wrist in a death-like grip, dragging her closer to him before rolling, attempting to pin her to the ground so she could not stop him.<br/><br/>Instinct was a terrible thing, countermanding everything he knew was wrong and uncouth, unacceptable in their society. If she pressed the matter, he could be exiled for what he was about to do. But he had to live. He parted his lips, latching onto her neck as his fangs broke skin, drinking deeply from this font of youthful life that had come to him in his darkest hour. Hands still tightly around her wrists, he managed to force himself to stop, regaining some semblance of coherence as his tongue gently caressed the wound, urging it to heal.<span class="fixed-color" style="color:#4da6ff">“I… I’m sorry… I need you to stay… to not fear me… I can’t even open the earth… you can’t go to the others. They’ll think I’m too far gone… you have to help me…” </span>his voice was quiet, pleading, as he begged her for help even after committing what could be considered one of the worst sins a Carpathian male could inflict on another of his kind. His voice still ragged and raw, he did not loosen his grip on her, for some reason desperate that she stay.