Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride

Nikolai's gaze lingered on Madoka for a moment as she looked at him with a stunned expression. Her breathing ragged as she panted, fingers clenched and still disoriented from the impact of his blows.

He could almost taste the flicker of doubt he'd planted in her.

"Do you insist on this fight?" He asked.

The men aiming gun barrels at him ignored his words and instead adjusted their aim.

"Step away from her!" the lead operative barked, voice muffled under the helmet.

Instead, he reached down, grabbed Madoka by the collar of her black bodysuit, and lifted her with casual, one-armed strength.

"What—" she started, but he was already moving.

With a single heave, he hurled her toward them. She crashed into the front line of operatives, her weight and momentum bowling two of them over the railing in a tangle of limbs and weapons.

The wolf was already in motion before they could recover.

The black aura flared like smoke igniting, and he blurred across the room. The first operative to level his gun had his throat torn open before the safety latch even clicked—a spray of blood misted in the cold air. The second took a clawed backhand that caved in his visor and sent him spinning into the wall.

The rest opened fire.

Muzzle flashes strobed the room. Rounds slammed into Nikolai's body and shredded through the air behind him—but in this form, his flesh knitted faster than the bullets could dig in. Each shot left nothing but a brief spark of pain before vanishing under black fur and muscle.

He hit them like a hurricane.

A rifle was wrenched from one man's hands and used like a steel bat to break another's jaw. His claws ripped through ballistic armour as if it were paper, each swipe sending red arcs across the walls. A boot crushed an operative's knee sideways, dropping him screaming into a follow-up that silenced him instantly.

Their formation dissolved in seconds.

"S-Stop!"

"HELP!"

"ARRRGH!"

The few who tried to retreat found no escape. But Nikolai was faster, intercepting them mid-stride and tearing them down. His breathing slowed down to a steady rhythm beneath the chaos, eyes black and unblinking.

By the time the last man fell, only silence remained. His helmet split clean down the middle as the air became heavy with copper and flooded with dark red pools of blood.

Madoka was nowhere to be seen. Whether she'd crawled away or been pulled clear in the chaos, he didn't care. His message and feelings should have been transmitted to her by now.

He didn't linger and rushed to the exit.

"Haaa..... that was great...."

The wolf's form carried him through the corridors of the hidden facility, each stride a blur until the sterile white gave way to rust, shadows, and the familiar stink of the tram yard. He shoved through the last steel door and emerged into the grey daylight.

Nikolai's figure started to revert to his human form, the bullets lodged into his flesh popping out as he healed rapidly and hit the floor.

Rain had started again, a fine mist that barely cut through the metallic tang of blood still clinging to him.

But something was wrong.

He froze on the edge of the yard, hackles rising. The graveyard of old trams was no longer silent. Black-armoured figures moved between the hulks, methodical and watchful. The insignia on their shoulders was a little different, cleaner, more polished.

British SSS.

They swept the area in squads, voices sharp and focused. A pair moved to check an overturned tram, while another group set up a heavy gun on a tripod in the centre of the yard.

"This isn't good."

Nikolai's nostrils flared, sniffing the air. These weren't the sloppy, barely-disciplined crews he'd just torn through; their movements were different. He could tell that these men were trained to hunt non-humans... Anti-Supernatural Troops.

And they were hunting him.

***

Although the rain would mask his scent, it had the same effect for them. Nikolai's nose struggled to detect their movements like normal. Forced to rely on his other senses, those that couldn't match his nose.

His body hurt from the duel with Madoka... her attacks left lingering cuts and wounds that burned for hours like a cat scratch.

After leaving his transformed state, his body hummed with the emptiness he felt when it faded, a hollow ache where his brimming power and speed had been. Each muscle felt strung too tight, and each breath carried a copper tang from deep in his lungs.

He felt vulnerable.... and human.

The perfect time to be crawling into a yard swarm of SSS.

He lowered himself, slipping between the twisted skeletons of abandoned trams, each one a rusted carcass that groaned and squeaked when the wind pushed through its cracked windows. His boots splashed in murky puddles too shallow to hide in, but he tried to creep so no one would look this way.

"Unit Two, sweep's clear on the east side," a voice crackled over a nearby helmet's radio.

"Copy. Unit Three, status?"

"Negative contact. We've got prints near the drainage tunnel—looks fresh."

Nikolai froze mid-step.

That's only a few seconds away.

They were far too close.

A pair of soldiers passed on the other side of the tram, boots clanging softly on the warped track. Suddenly, a light shone through the glass. Shit! Nikolai threw his body between a broken seat and a bent metal frame, the steel bit into his flesh, slicing a long gash along his right forearm.

Through a hole in the frame, Nikolai caught the edge of their conversation.

"…he's supposed to be fast. Like really fast. Close combat monster."

"Orders are to disable, not kill."

"Good luck with that. You seen what he did in the main lab?"

Static buzzed again, sharper this time. "Command to all units—target confirmed in zone. Proceed with extreme caution. Repeat, extreme caution."

Nikolai's gut tightened. He edged along the side of a tram, keeping his profile broken in the shadows. The rain ran down his hood, dripping from his jaw.

A sudden beam of white light swept the space ahead—a patrol with torches.

He ducked under a set of rusted wheels and lay flat on the wet gravel. Boots splashed just metres away, when another man's voice entered his ears.

"Any sightings of the beast?"

"No, Captain!"

"Remember, if you get eyes on him don't be a hero. Call it in and wait for the heavy."

"What if he jumps me before that?"

"Then pray you still got enough face left to ID."

The younger members' voices tightened with each word. They swallowed loud enough for Nikolai to hear, the sound carrying over the drizzle. Nervous. Unblooded.

Most of them moved on, their torchlight fading into the skeletal maze of trams. Only one remained—the rookie with the big mouth.

Nikolai exhaled slowly.

The ache in his limbs reminded him that the wolf was gone, spent. Fighting his way out now was dangerous. But the wolf still stirred in the dark corners of his mind, whispering about the warmth of the human heart walking so close.

Not now.

Crack!

Before his own restraint could catch up, the rookie's neck bent in a sharp, final angle. The body crumpled into the wet gravel without a sound. Nikolai eased him down, eyes already on the shadows ahead.

He moved quickly now, slipping between two gutted tram shells and pushing toward the fence line. The stink of the city's outskirts was already in the air: sour waste, oil, stone, and the faint warmth of hearth smoke.

Almost there.

Then a voice tore the night.

"Contact! Contact! South fence—visual confirmed!"

A flare hissed upward, painting the tram graveyard in bloody light. Radios erupted in overlapping commands, the alarms wailing a moment later.

Nikolai froze, caught between the half-open gap in the fence and the growing wall of boots and rifles moving to seal it.

He could vanish now, take the city's veins before they closed the net.

Or… he could turn back and bleed them dry.

"..."

He looked back and thought of the danger that might await Leona and Anya should he return now... before they got a glimpse of his face, he closed his eyes.

The wolf stirred again, hungry.

He made his choice.

Boots pounded closer, their beams slicing the dark. Nikolai slid back from the fence and into the red-lit maze, his shadow melting between rusted hulks. Shouts grew louder and sharper. Someone had eyes on him again.

"South quadrant! Cut him off!"

A burst of gunfire shredded a tram wall where he'd stood seconds before. Shards of glass and metal bit his cheek, the sting only feeding the pulse in his ears.

He didn't run in a straight line. He zig-zagged through the graveyard's ribs, letting the wolf's instincts read every gap, every blind corner.

By the time the heavy weapons arrived, he was already gone—into the deeper dark, toward the city's sleeping heart.

They'd find the bodies later.

But the wolf had already eaten his fill... the Tram was now truly a graveyard.