Dante’s hand was on fire. Literally.

Instinctive self-preservation was the only thing that saved it from incinerating in the mid-day sun. As he pulled his hand inch by slow inch down into the grave he’d dug, the desert sand caved in on itself, dousing the flames.

His breaths were soft and shallow, so much so that a human would not have been able to survive the lack of oxygen. He didn’t really need to breathe. It was more a habit than anything else, even after hundreds of years. The hot, dry air did little but burn the inside of his lungs, yet he continued the struggle.

He lay absolutely still in his grave. So still, in fact, that he could feel the movement of a creature slithering across the sand above him, tracking it with his heightened senses and by the vibrations in the fine grains. Arresting his breath, lest the serpent sense the predator lying in wait just beneath the desert floor, he forced himself to be patient. If he struck prematurely, before it got close enough to his hand, it would get away. Dante had learned this the hard way.

But this time his skill was dead on. The snake had no time to defend itself or escape before it was pulled down into the grave with him. His fangs—larger than the serpent’s own—sliced effortlessly through its protective scales. When he finished draining it of its lifeblood, he pushed the corpse away to join the pile of partially decayed reptiles above and let the burning sand settle over him again.

Dante had no sense of time as he waited to heal. He had no idea how long he’d been there, buried under the hot sand to protect him from the sun by day and insulate him from the freezing cold at night. How long he’d lain in the grave he’d dug for himself with bloodied broken fingers. After he’d jumped from the plane, he’d landed in a heap of shattered bones and lacerated skin, the pain such that he’d never felt before. Not even when he was a young, cocky vampire that had been put in his place more than once.

What he did know was that his bones were nearly healed now, in spite of the meager offerings from the desert. And that he’d been damn lucky the sun had already descended below the horizon, or he would have burned to ash before he’d been able to burrow into the sand.

And he was ravenous for more blood.

Hours, or years, later—he honestly didn’t know or care which—he felt the heat of the sun begin to wane. The sand that protected him cooled as quickly as it heated. In the distance, he heard a yip, followed by a howl. Threads of the coyote’s voice still hung in the night air when it was joined by others, together forming an eerie, beautiful song.

Dante worked his arm up through the heavy sand, cautiously breaking a few fingers through the surface. He waited a few seconds, and when he felt nothing but a cool breeze caressing his desiccated skin, he pulled his arm back in to his body and clawed at the grains in earnest.

It seemed a losing battle at first, for with every handful of sand he moved, more fell into the pocket of air he’d just created. But over time he made his way to the surface, unearthing himself like something out of a human’s nightmare with a little help from the night winds.

The effort exhausted him.

Once free of the heavy weight, he collapsed face first onto the sand and rolled over onto his back. He gathered his energy as he ran his tongue over lips, cracked and dry with thirst. He couldn’t even swallow.

Squinting his eyes against the brightness of the moon, he let his head fall to the side. All he saw was sand, sand, and more fucking sand. Turning the other way he saw much of the same. Wait, no. There were a few patches of creosote, and just beyond it some type of round cactus.

Neither of which would ease his particular type of thirst.

Dante studied the bursts of light above him. It had been a long time since he recalled seeing so many stars in one place before. As his eyes followed a particularly fascinating constellation spanning across the never-ending expanse of blackness, they were drawn down to a portion of the night that was brighter, more illuminated than the rest. Only one thing lit up the night sky like that.

A city.

And where there was a city, there were humans. And humans were full of blood. Much more than the scaly creatures he’d been surviving on up until now.

Dante burst to his feet in a flash of movement that belied his exhaustion of just a few moments ago. The thirst burned his insides like the sun burned his skin, and his fangs shot down, readying to feed. Pure vampire instinct took over, and Dante became the predator he had been reborn to be.