[ P ] I'll be running wild

war in my veins

It wasn't often than he ventured into bars this close to the college. The place was crawling with bright eyed and bushy tailed college students. Most of them barely old enough to drink the booze they consumed like water. He was only here because of his sister. Once again, he can caught her sneaking out, or trying to, and much to his misfortune he was the only one home still. She had glared at him defiantly, promising to leave the moment he fell asleep. Enzo had tried not to grind his teeth together. She whined something about it being part of her graduation, students who had gotten jobs reuniting for the first time since they entered the real world. Begrudgingly, he had agreed to escort her.

So here he sat, in an over crowded bar where it was loud and bodies were constantly bumping into him. Finally he could take it no more and after spotting his sister surrounded by girlfriends, he stepped outside. Shaking out of his coat, he blew out a breath. The seasons had only just changed, but the nights were significantly cooler than they had been. It was a huge relief from the hot stuffy air inside.

Stepping off the beaten path leading to the front door of the questionable establishment, he found a quiet clearing, one that still left the door within his line of sight. The moon was gone from the skies tonight, casting Rionna to utter blackness. The darkest parts of his coat all but disappeared. It seemed suiting, the way bits and pieces of him disappeared in the dark, much like the way he lived his life. Most knew him for his businesses, his place at the head of successful companies, his income was spotless. But his entire family kept many skeletons in their closets.

There was no sin the Vincenzo family didn't commit. There was no moral compass to guide them down the right path. Sure they all knew right from wrong, but they just didn't care. Whatever kept them on top, whatever kept the money flowing in. Enzo thought no different and he did no different. He was in line next and he was ambitious enough to take their family to new heights.

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**[set for after Rayne helps Reuben break out of jail]**


The path was becoming all too familiar. She had walked it many times before: opening the doors to the bar, getting herself some drinks, and stumbling home. Rayne was anything but proud of this routine, but here she was again, retracing her steps. What was the definition of insanity again? Oh right. Her. Rayne released a long sigh as she approached the door and reached to open it. Before she could, someone swung the door open, nearly hitting her. She didn’t even flinch. Mentally and physically exhausted, she brushed off the grumbling comment from the other person about her being in the way and stepped inside.

She bumped into people left and right as she made her way to the bar. After knocking back her first drink, which was bitter, she followed it with two more, hoping they would help her forget.

The barkeep eyed her warily as she requested another drink, but he shook his head slowly. "You're better than this," he said. Rayne laughed. "Yeah, right," she responded. "Just one more and I'll be out." She saw the worry in his brow but ignored it, knocking back one more drink.

True to her word, she slid off the seat after paying and made her way to the door, taking a left as she stepped outside. She walked down the path unsteadily, and accidentally bumped into someone not far from the bar's entrance. She turned quickly to see a large man and immediately apologized. "I’m so s-sorry," she slurred, wiping at the spot where she had bumped into him. "I didn’t even see you." It was hard to see much of anything, really. Without waiting for a response, she continued on, her steps unsteady as she lazily made her way across the cobblestone floor.

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war in my veins

From a young age, Lorenzo had been taught to pay attention. His seemingly self-restrained disposition allowed him the opportunity to take notes of the small details, the things that were always overlooked. He picked up on wolves ticks, their tells, what could a reaction out of them - it’s what made him such a ruthless opponent. Enemy or not, he found your weakness and exploited it. It didn’t matter that tonight he was off the clock, he wasn’t here on business. Well, maybe he was. Babysitting his sister was damn near a full time job. It wasn’t official business. But it didn’t matter, he was just as aware as he always was.

He saw her approaching, the slight stumble in her step, the extra sway in her hips that announces to the world she is drunk - vulnerable. This was why he was here, he wouldn't allow his sister to stumble home alone, knowing she'd be unable to defend herself from the things that went bump in the night. How easy of a target she could become. Mismatched eyes watched, even as she set herself on a path that would have her running into him.

Shifting slightly, he gave himself the opportunity to turn and look at her when she finally did bump into him. Enzo's gave found her bright baby blues, even in the black of night. It was a striking color even when glossy with the effects of alcohol. She reeked of booze. But she didn't just look drunk, she looked... sad... I’m so s-sorry. Her voice slurred as much as she swayed when she walked. Disapproval shimmered in the recesses of his dark stare. When she wiped at his fur, like that would actually do anything, his eyes snapped to her paw, watching the motion until she stopped. Not many were quite so brave, or stupid, to invade his personal space uninvited. I didn’t even see you. Now a brow lifted. That was her excuse? Never mind that Enzo had perfected the art of being unseen when he wanted to.

"You should be more careful. Walking home, drunk and alone..." His voice trailed off, not the least bit shy about letting her know what he thought of her choices. Choices that were none of his business. But Enzo's nose was in everyones business. A keeper of secrets, the Vincenza man made his business to know, to inform, to utilize information to get what he wanted. What had him focusing his sights on her though? He'd blame Alessa and her questionable lifes choices lately.

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You should be more careful. Walking home, drunk and alone...

Rayne's ear trailed back, her chin following as she locked him into her ocean-blue sights once more. It was enough to make her stop stumbling forward, turning around so she could face him and assess him with her inebriated abilities. Her head cocked slightly, a soft smile tugging at her lips as a chuckle followed close behind. "If you care so much," she hiccuped, breaking her sentence, but she cleared her throat, determined to finish her thought. "Then walk me home. If not—" Her shoulders raised into a shrug, then fell lazily, and again she turned to continue her walk down the dark street.

Not before she called behind her, however. "Or you can put me out of my misery," she laughed, "life does what life does anyway!" Since her fallout with Reuben, she had grown more careless. Alcohol seemed to be the one thing that numbed the pain and her ever-screaming thoughts. She chose to drown them out the wrong way rather than occupy her mind with other things. Rayne didn’t have many friends. She couldn’t go to Riften, she couldn’t crawl back and beg Reuben. She only had herself, and it was lonely, to say the very least.

A searing jolt of pain caused her to stop dead in her tracks as she lifted her front paw away from the cobblestone path, air hissing through her teeth while blood trickled from her paw to the ground. "Ouch!" She looked at the area; embedded in her pad was a piece of broken glass. The sight of the blood made her queasy as she stumbled back again, regaining herself for a moment, knowing she had to get the glass out. If she pulled it out herself, however, she knew she would surely pass out. Rayne turned back toward the strange man, hobbling over on three legs as best she could, nearly tumbling in between. She extended her paw for him to see, a subtle gag catching in her throat. "I can't pull it out," she admitted, scanning over his darker features and taking note of his mismatched gaze. "Please," was all she managed to add.

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war in my veins

Still stumbling, she managed to turn and look him, not the least bit fazed. It came as no surprise that she wasn’t willing to heed his warning and in all honestly, Enzo didn’t care. He wasn’t going to take her up on her offer to escort her home, not when his sister was still in the bar. She wasn’t truly his responsibility, just yet another lost soul that chose to drown their sorrows in a cup of liquor. It was a luxury he was never afforded. While the heir could often be found with a glass in his hand, it was only ever one glass, maybe two if he was on edge. The dulling of his senses was a weakness he couldn’t get lost in. That’s when mistakes happen and mistakes couldn’t happen in his world.

Or you can put me out of my misery! A ghost of a smirk crossed his lips. Clearly she had no idea who she was addressing. His monster perked its ears and licked his chops, suddenly intrigued by the woman giving them her back. The image of her soft throat gripped between his jaws, bleeding so prettily, popped into his mind. The predatory glint in his eyes was always present as he watched her. “Be careful what you wish for.” He crooned. Prepared to let her go on her way, Enzo didn’t utter another word, he turned away from her, stepping back towards the bar, intending to go back inside and drag his sister out. Instead, ears twitched with the shrill cry of pain. The metallic perfume of blood hit his nose a moment later. Arrogance had him looking over his shoulder at her - not even out of sight before succumbing to her drunk. What he didn’t anticipate was her to come hobbling back to him. On three legs, she hopped to his side, bringing with her the soft drip of blood.

Her paw shot out towards him in offering and he just looks from it to her. A brow quirks as if to say ‘and what do you expect me to do?’. A flicker of amusement crossed his features as she gagged. So it seemed this stranger could stomach her booze but not her own blood. I can’t pull it out. Ignorance was bliss in her case - she didn’t know the sweet sound of glass sliding between ribs, the whoosh of a lunge collapsing. She clearly wasn’t addicted to the metallic tang that was teasing his senses Please? She didn’t know what she was asking, who she was asking. Her pleading struck a nerve, whispering sweet nothings to his monster that tugged against his chains. “Sit.”

The command fell quietly from his lips. Enzo didn’t move a muscle until she complied and only then did he reach out towards her, taking her paw in his. Blood oozed from the wound, the glass sticking out offensively from her pad. The warm and wet liquid wasted no time in matting the fur of his paw, spreading between his toes in a way he knew all too well. Grabbing the glass gently between his teeth, the taste of her blood exploded across his tongue and just like, she was forever branded into his psyche in a way only a select few were. With a sharp tug, he pulled the shard from her paw which immediately caused the wound to well up with blood. Tossing the glass aside, its clattering was forgotten as he swiped his tongue over her paw, cleaning away the excess blood. His monster raged, demanding to be let out to play. But Enzo had spent many years keeping the upper hand, he didn’t come out to play unless Enzo unlocked the door.

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There was a long, drawn-out silence, so extended it made her uncomfortable and left her questioning whether he would indeed help her. Then a simple, yet commanding word fell from his lips, snapping her to immediate attention and prompting her to obey. The cold cobblestone floor pressed against her as he took her paw in his, carefully extracting the glass shard from her pad. She winced, the pain enough to dull her previous buzz, and as she tried to retract her paw, she found resistance.

Unable to face the sight of blood pooling between her toes, she felt a wave of nausea and unease. Her vision flickered between fading blackness and the color of his face, leaving her disoriented and ill.

A warmth and wetness swept over her paw, pulling her blue gaze back to him. Her paw remained in his as he tenderly licked away the blood. The intimacy of the gesture made her heart sink and swell with an unsettling mix of emotions. Rayne knew nothing about him, yet his act of cleaning her blood stirred something deeply buried in her subconscious, something she hadn’t even known existed. She swallowed hard, her eyes flitting from his mismatched hues to her paw and then to his blood-stained muzzle.

Overwhelmed, her breath began to slow, the encroaching darkness pulling her under. Her body went limp, collapsing to the floor with a heavy thud.

fade out rayne bc she's knocked out

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war in my veins

The moment he looked to her face, he knew she'd faint. Her skin was practically green and she looked queasy at best. "Don't-... He started to say but he never got to finish because she swayed before collapsing in a heap at his paws. Enzo sighed. Women... Some of them were so easily offended by the sight of blood. Looking around, they were mercifully alone, for now. The last he needed was this scandal. His father would never let this go.

Ears shoved forward the moment he heard someone walking towards him but before he had to disappear into the shadows, he saw a familiar face. One of his guards, one he could wholly trust. Questioning eyes went from Enzo to the girl and back to Enzo. "Don't fucking ask." He grumbled, not wanting to explain he was now being punished for his good deed. "Make sure Alessa gets home." He didn't need to say anymore, the other wolf didn't need anymore details, he knew his job.

Scooping up the still unconscious woman, he headed home. Just not to the home she'd be expecting to wake up in.

fast forward...

After dumping her unceremoniously onto his bed, Enzo took his time, soaking in the details he hadn't seen in the dark. Even in the dim light of the fire, she was stunning. She wore a coat of several colors with a mask painted special for her face. With delicate features, she oozed femininity. There was a gentleness to her that clashed with the violence he knew as well as lover. She wasn't meant for his world.

Shaking his head, he cleaned her paw up before wrapping a bandage around it. Enzo was methodical, no detail overlooked as he looked, washing the blood from her fur and laying the bandage down flat. He didn't need her passing out again. Not when the sun would be creeping its way up over the horizon in a few short hours. If she woke before him, she'd find the door locked and windows overlooking a courtyard, a few stories up. He doubted she'd be sneaking by him though, not with out lightly he slept. With the booze in her system, she'd be out for awhile. Curling up on linens and pelts beside her, Enzo filled his half of his bed. He relaxed into the plush surface

In the confines of his room, her perfume was quick to infect the air around him. It was sweet and earthy, something that reminded him of fall. Dragging in another lung full, he didn't consider the ramifications of one of his siblings walking by and smelling her because there would be not. She was not the first woman to spend the night in his bed and she probably wouldn't be the last. She definitely was the first to only sleep in it though.

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If only she had listened. If only she had heeded the stranger's advice and walked home carefully—probably not drunk—she might have been snuggled up in the sheets of her own bed. Her head throbbed as she groaned, her eyes refusing to open at first. A furry paw gently pressed against her forehead, and she was greeted by a peculiar, cottony sensation. One blue eye fluttered open, taking in the strange encasement around her paw. She blinked in confusion, her gaze sweeping the unfamiliar room. Light filtered through a window she didn’t recognize. Blinking again, she forced her eyes open, half-expecting this to be a dream or some trick of her blurry vision. Where on earth was she?

Leaning back into the plush pillow, she inhaled deeply, detecting a distinctly masculine musk. Her confusion grew as she turned her head to glance over her shoulder, where she saw a man's split face beside her. Her gaze darted around the room—ceiling, door, window—before returning to the ceiling. What had happened last night? The pounding in her head was a harsh reminder of a night out on the town, one that had evidently ended in drunkenness and...

"Oh no," she whispered. If she was piecing things together correctly, then... She felt a wave of nausea rise within her, adding to the growing panic. Little did she know, the paw she was so confused about was the result of her actions from the night before. With the limited strength she could muster, she rolled out of bed, her injured paw hitting the ground first. A sharp, searing pain shot up her leg causing her to suck the air between her teeth. She winced, trying to stay as quiet as possible to avoid waking the stranger beside her. She was the real stranger here, not knowing how she had ended up in this situation or what had transpired between last night and now. Her heart raced as panic set in, and she hurried to the door, only to find it locked with a mechanism that was unfamiliar and baffling.

Frantic was an understatement. The blackouts of the previous night left her with no recollection of who the man was or why they were together. It seemed as though she had become another victim of a regrettable one-night stand, a situation she promised herself she would deal with once she was safely home. She tugged at the door again, but it remained stubbornly shut, each attempt only amplifying her growing distress.

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war in my veins

Enzo slept, as much as he ever did that is, wrapped up in the sweet scent of maple. It wasn’t until the bed shifted under him that he woke. Consciousness flooded in though his eyes didn’t open right away. He sought out of the soft sound of her breathing, tracking her that way. The moment her paws hit the cold floor, she gasped, a pained sound like she didn’t remember the cut on her paw. Still, Enzo didn’t move, didn’t let her know that he was awake. He listened as she padded quietly across the room, as quietly as she could on three legs. The muted sound of the door knob rattling was his first clue. She thought she could just slip out without saying a word, without looking at him in the light of day. She kept trying though and each tug at his door grew more and more frantic, louder and louder. It wouldn’t budge, she could pull on it all day, but the door wasn’t opening until he unlocked it.

“It’s locked.” He finally said, his voice even huskier than normal from sleep. Opening his eyes, he finds her immediately the door, like it’ll eventually just magically open for her. Even at a distance, she’s oddly adorable in the morning, her fur all disheveled with sleep, though some might say Enzo was built to sport bed head, his fur artfully tousled from minimal sleep. Sitting up, he propped his upper body up on his elbows while his hips stayed tipped to the side. In the privacy of his own room, Enzo was at ease, lounging like a king on his throne. Sleepy eyes watched her, the wolf in no obvious hurry to get to his paws and let her out.

He still needed to decide what to do with her. Already he could hear her pleading to go home, to her home. But she was hardly in any condition to travel, she still couldn’t put weight on her paw. Enzo had already carried her here, he wasn’t in a rush to carry her anywhere else. This was definitely a first for him. She wouldn’t believe him, but he didn’t make a habit of keeping unwilling women locked in his bedroom. The only hostages he kept were houses deep in an underground cave that was heavily guarded to protect the Vincenza family secrets. There was just something about her, what it was, he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Unfortunately for her, she was stuck here until he either no longer cared or he found out what it was. Keeping her long term would be an issue though - his nosy ass siblings would descend from on high the moment they caught wind of her.

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She heard him stir behind her, but before she could turn around, his husky voice cut through the air. "It’s locked."

Slowly, she pivoted to face him. Her blue eyes sought his, and she couldn’t help but give him a look that screamed, ‘No kidding.’ As the morning light filtered in through the windows, she took in his features with unsettling clarity. His mismatched eyes and his split-colored face were striking, so much so she almost found it hard to look away. Her gaze finally dropped to her paw, which hung limply in the air, and she tried to piece together the events that had led to this moment. The sight of him, though, triggered a flashback.

"You," she murmured, almost as if she was afraid to say it aloud. Her eyes fell back to her paw as she tried to sift through her disjointed memories. A vivid recollection surfaced: he was the one who had gently pulled a shard of glass from her paw, then licked and groomed the wound clean. The memory left her with a tumult of emotions—uncertainty, confusion, and an inexplicable fluttering in her stomach.

When her eyes met his again, something stirred within her, a heat that spread from her belly to her throat. She inhaled sharply, trying to steady her racing thoughts. Clearly, she had blacked out, but there was still one question that gnawed at her. “Did we...?” The rest of the question remained unspoken, hanging in the air between them. Despite his undeniable attractiveness, she found herself unable to fully confront that thought; her emotional and mental state was far too fragile.

Rayne’s gaze drifted back to the door, which was indeed locked. She still couldn’t understand why he had felt the need to lock it, or whether it was simply to keep her in—or everyone else out. “Well, if you could unlock it, I’d be more than happy to be on my way,” she said, doing her best to muster a smile despite the wild thudding of her heart and the surge of anxiety coursing through her.

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