Hotbloods, Coldbloods, and the Creatures In Between

#4: Domenicatonio

"Do you know where we are?" I ask Vito. He's looking at street signs and squinting, not because he can't see, he's got perfect vision that rivals any bird of prey, but because we're lost.

"If Beriah was here," he grumbles.

"I remember we crossed the river. The bridge, remember?"

"It wasn't a river. It's the bay." Vito dragged as he struggled with our direction.

"You have mom's sense of direction. It's terrible." We once let her drive to Portugal for a family holiday, but took a wrong turn. Dad was asleep, and it wasn't until we were on the ferry from Algeciras, Spain to Ceuta, on the northern tip of Africa, when he woke up. I was excited; I've never been to Africa, but no one else shared my enthusiasm for the side adventure.

I found the North Star in the sky. "We need to go North West." I said, pointing to the sky, then down the street we were to follow.

"You were an astronomer when you were a warmblood, I'm sure of it." Vito said with a nudge. He was kidding, of course. Mom thought I looked old enough to have children, a family, maybe, but times have changed in the last few centuries. When I looked in the mirror, I wasn't sure how old I looked. Vito said twenty. Dad said seventeen. Mom said twenty-five. I think I looked three years a vampire. Pale, with a fresh pair of fangs, and in winter, my lips would turn blue, like a warmblood's.

It felt like we'd been walking for an hour. "What time is it?" I asked.

Vito reached into his pocket and sighed with disappointment. "I don't have my phone." He said, turning his pocket inside out; a small pellet of lint tumbled out. "The bouncer has it. It's behind caution tape and warmblooded police."

"I'll be fine." I tried to say before Vito's glance, a stark you-almost-bit-someone-tonight look. "I'm on high alert."

"You haven't even known we're being followed." Vito sneered. Once I recognized what he was saying, I began looking over his shoulder, then to my sides and into the shadows, but no one revealed themselves. Vito leaned into my neck, "it's your warmblood." He whispered, and as if on cue, the blue-eyed warmblood stumbled out from an alley. He avoided eye contact, despite standing before us, and instead, scratched the back of his head and pursed his lips, as if he was going to whistle, but couldn't.

"Oh," he said, playfully startled, with wide eyes filled with coincidental surprise, "are you two lost?" He asked. Vito stared at him unamused and finally crossed his arms, then looked at me. Like it was an inconvenience I had caused. Like it was my problem to fix, now. Then, Vito shot back a suspicious stare and rushed towards blue eyes.

Blue eyes took a few steps back and then turned to run, but it was too late. No one can outrun Vito. Not even me. "Whoa!" He said as Vito lifted him into the air.

"Are you following us?" Vito growled as blue eyes' legs dangled and reached for ground. "What do you know about us?" Vito never forgot who we were. He was the heir to the Milanese Kingdom after mom, and she did well to educate him on the politics involved. Even half a world away, he was acutely aware of the possibility that someone might want to kill us or kidnap us to get to mom.

"No!" Blue eyes begged and I felt myself lounge forward.

"Vito," I said sympathetically. "Don't hurt him."

He ignored me, "Are you following us?" Vito's grip on his collar tightened and small threads began to snap under the pressure. Blue eyes began to choke.

"Vito!" I shouted, and this time, I was on the receiving end of the razor sharp glare of shut-the-hell-up.

"Yes?" Blue eyes' voice sounded rough like sand paper. Vito immediately asked why.