Kianu Chaka

• bartender at the Crimson Velvet
• gender: male
• race: shapeshifter (Swara/cheetah-shifter)
• age: 25
• height: 6'1"
• eyes: gold
• hair: brown, shoulder-length dredlocks
• unique power: speed
• relationships of note: Chance's lover, dislikes Sena
• Quote: "Stay away from my bar."

Kianu is a sensation junkie, everything that can be experienced, he will. The human world is still so new to him, and he has a cat's attention span (ie: none). Kianu is talkative and never keeps his opinion to himself, an attitude that often comes off as very annoying to those around him. He is also severely honest and overprotective of the things most important to him (his bar and his boy). Physically, as a human, Kianu is long and lithe and still greatly the resembles the animal he truly is. Often wearing dark eyeliner in the familiar shape, he also dresses in spotted clothing, never falling far from who he really is.

Background Information: Kianu doesn't speak much of his life... although he has a great deal to say on everything else. He was born as a cheetah in an American zoo in an unspecified location. When he became aware of his shifter ability, Kianu was out of his imprisonment before anyone else knew what was happening. Still just a young cub, he left his cheetah family, never to see them again. Kianu hit the town hard. Anything and everything there was to try, he did. Such an attitude landed him in jail on quite a few occasions, but even that was something that got him excited.

Finally, as the cub grew into an adult, Kianu learned many trade skills that exposed him to all kinds of different people and experiences. The one that he liked the most ended up being bartending. It was a place he could claim as his own territory, his own hunting ground, and the intoxicated people that the nights produced were just the sensual, touchy people that Kianu loved so much.

It was at one particularly seedy bar where Kianu worked that opened his eyes to a different kind of feeling. The bouncer's younger brother, a redhead named Chance, caught the cheetah's eye. During the evenings before a long night's work and the dawns of restless nights of passion, Chance and Kianu became inseparable.

One fateful night, Kianu left his precious bar early in search of his young lover who had gone missing earlier that day. He found Chance bleeding in a dark alley, throat nearly severed by a rogue vampire who was "just having a bit of fun." The next few nights, Kianu did nothing but care for Chance, nursing him painfully back to health. By the time Chance could walk again, they had decided to run away together, hiding everything from Chance's brother.

The two wandered around from city to city before finally meeting up with a particularly clever vampiress with a business opportunity for the both of them. She promised Kianu that his lover would be well taken care of. And that was how Kianu came to work for the Blacks and the Crimson Velvet.