It had always struck him as strange that werewolves possessed an affinity for relieving pain. He remembered as a child he almost didn't believe it. It was just too difficult for him at the time to reconcile the talent with the fearsome image he had of them in his mind. Vampires seemed to be of the mind that werewolves were dangerous, potentially unstable, ferocious beasts at best. At worst they were nothing more than mangy animals in human skin: vile, uncouth, and unsophisticated.
Anafiel taught him that the reality of it could be a great deal more – well, romantic than the other vampires would have him believe. Alcuin had learned right away that this was undoubtedly true of his own master, but his master was not born a werewolf and still remembered what it was like to be helpless. Derek, he gathered, had always been a werewolf and that was a horse of another color entirely. What motivated a man like Derek to be kind was beyond him.
Alcuin never truly realized how breathtakingly compassionate the gesture really was until he witnessed the blackness of his pain pouring out of him, watched it travel through the other man's veins until he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. “Does it not make you feel ill?” He whispered when the worst of it had left him, his dark eyes opening with concern.