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of the forest.  I pounced, spreading my body over the animal’s back, in a holding manoeuvre I had become familiar with.  It was handy in a large animal, in case it decided to move while I was feeding. 
    The cow jumped in shock, so I held on tightly.  Its short fur felt silky under my fingers, and I nearly slipped, but I gripped more firmly around its neck.  I could hear the cow’s blood thrumming through its body, propelled by its powerful heart.  My teeth tingled and elongated, and I sank them into the cow’s neck, and drank warm rich fluid straight from the jugular. 
    Delicious. 
    The cow soon calmed down as whatever chemicals I produced sedated it, and I relaxed into the feed for a moment, but then I heard a hoof beating against the ground.  I frowned, retracted my teeth, and looked up.  The rest of the cows had awoken and come over to watch.  I felt an eerie disquiet as they fixed their beady black eyes on me.
    They didn’t look too happy. 
    Nor too friendly. 
    My heart rate sped up as moon light glinted from the animals’ eyes, and I decided it was time to retreat.  I let go of my cow and soared back into the woods.  I could handle myself against one cow, especially once I got feeding, and it was sedated, but could I handle it if a herd of the things charged at me?  It was something I was happy not to find out. 
    I was glad I’d got a good feed in first, but to make sure I was truly sedated I had a drink from a couple of badgers that I found nearby.  I was just fine with stopping a feed now.  I trusted myself not to kill an animal while feeding, unless it was very small, like that mouse that was my first animal feed, which, to be honest, were hard to even bite into without killing.  I’d learned to avoid such encounters by going for the deeper, slower heartbeats, and hadn’t taken a life in a long time.  Even when I was really hungry, first feed of the night hungry, I could still stop before I took too much blood.  I hoped this meant I’d be just fine around humans now.  ‘Please let it mean that,’ I thought.  Over and over again I thought that.
    I cleaned myself up and started to explore beyond the edges of what I considered my territory.  Since I’d come to the woods I hadn’t ventured too far, not beyond the confines of my chosen wilderness.  But I knew that no-where in Britain did wild land stretch far.  If I walked I would soon come across people.  And so I did.  Well, I ran, as it was getting later and I wanted to find an awake man.
    At the edge of the woods I came to a road, a country lane bordered by ferns and wild flowers.  I ran the lanes for a while, and I saw people drive past in cars, and I did not attack.  OK, so it did cross my mind that I could stop a car and just see what it would be like to feed on a human, but I knew this would be foolish, so I hid in a gateway when vehicles approached.  I passed small villages with bustling pubs, but I continued on my way, in search of openness, in search of men outside at night.  But as I continued on I gave up hope of what I was looking for.  The pubs closed, and my energy stated to wane. 
    It took three nights of searching to find the campsite I was looking for, an occupied one, with maybe twenty tents and a few campervans, all widely spaced out between different fields.  This campsite was by a stream, and most importantly for me, it was also by a dark forest I could spend the day in.  I took up residence in a large tree hollow, made perfectly cosy by my one blanket, and that night I decided it was time to do some spying. 
    This wasn’t like last time, I wasn’t looking for a meal, I was looking for a connection, someone who I’d enjoy spending time with.  I was still fully aware that once I approached a man my luck would be in, that really this wasn’t fair, it wouldn’t be their choice – it would be mine.  But I longed for company, and I’d decided this was what I would do.  And if my cravings became