Forced to march with his nose practically to Killian’s back, Eric realized suddenly what was wrong with his scent. Killian smelled like…nothing. He smelled like metal, and the van, and the woods they’d trekked through. But there was no sweat or oil or grease. Nothing.

Eric jerked to a stop. Three blades bristled immediately to his neck and spine. Killian’s cloak whipped across Eric’s face, and his dirk found Eric’s chin on its edge, but Eric knew more about the magicka than the magicka did. He knew exactly what Killian Samson was.

“Let me tell the story of your life,” Eric panted. He didn’t have time to stop and breathe, and the white proximity of the four blades closed his throat. His Adam’s apple convulsed drily–he’d better talk fast.

“You’ve always had baby fat. Puberty ended a lot sooner than you expected. You’ve never had any interest in any gender, never gotten off to even the weirdest porn, and never had a single patch of acne. Stunted hormones, or at least that’s what you wish you could say.”

Killian Samson stilled so extremely that Eric thought his heart might have stopped. The hunter inhaled and exhaled hard. His dirk bit Eric’s neck, but the metal tremored.

More importantly, the three swords aimed Eric’s way shifted. Only a millimeter—but that millimeter was towards Killian.

Reckless and jittering almost to the point of pissing himself, Eric grinned right into Killian Samson’s face.

“It hasn’t always been this bad for you, has it, though? You wouldn’t have joined the Scarlet Brands thinking a half-assed pair of contacts and a fake girlfriend would keep you safe. But things changed. Maybe something traumatic happened recently? A death in the family? Sorry to hear about it, you’ll get over it.”

Eric spat past the dirk to Killian’s feet. “Dark magic, though. That’ll only get worse.”

Killian Samson blanched sharply. The challenge in his eyes broke, just a little.

-Black Dragon

I get stage fright with executing plot points–everything gets moved around at least once, and cleaning up the draft from Nano is always an exercise in blind perseverance. Lucky for me, I get to put it off for a little while to finish taking stock of what’s actually in the draft. As I said, my Nano drafts are chaos.