Julien and Nemrod’s first encounter

Julien and Nemrod’s first encounter begins with a sound behind Julien on a Montréal rooftop and ends with Julien carrying a wounded stranger into his home. The meeting joins attraction to emergency: Nemrod’s presence first arrests Julien’s attention, but his green blood and collapse force Julien to act. What begins as a startling encounter becomes the first step toward a bond that will pull Julien into Nemrod’s dangerous world.

The Rooftop Encounter

A rustle interrupts Julien’s thoughts. Ready either to flee or to confront whoever is there, he turns—and is nearly left breathless by the man standing behind him. Nemrod is bare-chested beneath the moonlight, with a powerfully built torso and the broad shoulders of a soldier or warrior. His dark hair falls in disarray across his face, adding to Julien’s immediate fascination. The scene is filtered through Julien’s desire: for an instant, the stranger seems so compelling that Julien overlooks the most urgent fact about him.

Nemrod steps forward with a low growl, and green fluid drips from his torso onto the rooftop. Julien then notices blood at Nemrod’s flanks. The contrast breaks through his first impression: this beautiful stranger is injured, and the blood he identifies as blood is an impossible-looking green. Before Julien can learn more, Nemrod falters and falls face-first. Julien catches him in time; Nemrod lands against him, confused, his head resting on Julien’s chest. The encounter has shifted from a charged first sight to an immediate crisis.

Julien’s attraction does not disappear, but he recognizes that Nemrod’s life takes precedence over his fantasies. As a medical professional, he understands that caring for the injured man is his responsibility. In the winter night, he carries Nemrod into his apartment and lays him on the bed, hoping the injuries are not too severe. The decision turns the rooftop encounter into the beginning of a practical, intimate connection: Julien does not yet know why Nemrod bleeds green or what he is concealing, but he chooses to care for him rather than leave him to collapse alone.

Care, Marking, and Recognition

Julien’s first response develops into hands-on medical care. He draws on his nursing training and supplies from his first-aid kit, intending to clean Nemrod’s wound with disinfectant and stitch it if necessary. Later, Nemrod’s bandaged flanks make the care visible: the stranger Julien caught on the roof has become someone whose survival has depended on his attention.

The connection then turns from treatment to bodily intimacy. After thanking Julien, Nemrod draws him close; later, he uses semen from Julien’s chest to mark him, declaring that Julien now belongs to him. The gesture gives their bond a physical and possessive form. Julien does not yet understand the full meaning of the claim, but he welcomes it and says he wants to belong to Nemrod.

Their recognition is expressed through scent as well as speech and touch. Nemrod leans in to smell Julien, and Julien returns the gesture, taking in Nemrod’s citrus-and-spice scent. Nemrod then touches Julien’s cheek, identifies him as his companion, and kisses him. The sequence carries the encounter beyond rescue: Julien has tended Nemrod’s injured body, while Nemrod’s marking and declaration recast Julien as part of his intimate world.

The Bond Opens onto a Clan War

Nemrod’s claim on Julien soon places their private connection inside a larger struggle. After recovering from his transformation, Nemrod explains that Tyler, a Jaguar-garou, is pursuing him; the attacker Nemrod threw from a balcony was one of Tyler’s henchmen. Nemrod is fighting to lead a united pack of werewolves and jaguar-garous, and the paired wolf-and-jaguar tattoo on his arm reflects that ambition. He also recognizes the danger his conflict creates for Julien and apologizes for involving him. The revelation reframes the rooftop meeting: the wounded stranger Julien carried home is not merely a mysterious lover, but a contender whose life and leadership are under threat.

The conflict reaches Julien again at the hospital, where his nursing work brings him face to face with Sam Stanton, a blond patient covered in bites and bruises. Sam’s jaguar tattoo matches the jaguar portion of Nemrod’s, and Julien realizes that the patient is the jaguar-garou Nemrod cast from the balcony, now back in human form. Instead of administering the morphine Sam needs, Julien switches the syringe for one containing potassium chloride, a substance that can stop the body if too much enters the bloodstream. He uses his medical knowledge not to treat the patient but to threaten him, demanding Nemrod’s whereabouts and warning that the injection can be fatal. Sam gives in and tells him where Nemrod usually stays.

Julien’s actions mark a consequential shift from rescuer to participant. Earlier, his professional duty had led him to bring Nemrod inside and tend his wounds; now his anger on behalf of his companion leads him to put a patient’s life at risk. Watching lovers walk hand in hand, Julien decides that loving someone means supporting him unconditionally. He resolves to find Nemrod and help him win the clan war, carrying the bond formed through rescue and marking into an explicit choice to enter Nemrod’s struggle.

Narrative Function and Bodily Power

The encounter establishes a pattern in which care, intimacy, and power become difficult to separate. At first, Nemrod’s injured body makes Julien its caretaker; later, Nemrod’s marking turns physical closeness into a claim of belonging, while Julien’s medical skill becomes a means of coercion when he confronts Sam Stanton. Wounds, bandages, touch, scent, and the syringe each make relationships legible through bodily contact or risk. The rooftop meeting therefore does more than introduce attraction: it sets the terms of Julien’s transformation from a professional who accepts responsibility for a stranger to a partner willing to cross ethical boundaries and enter a conflict on Nemrod’s behalf.