I stepped toward her slowly, glass crunching beneath my boots, arms crossed tight over my chest. She didn’t move. Just watched me with that steady, unflinching gaze—searching my face for answers, for truth I wasn’t sure I wanted to give.
Her voice cut through the silence, low and steady. “Why do you have blood in a decanter on your desk, Alaric?”
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “For someone so determined to ask who I am—you haven’t said much about yourself.”
I froze.
Not because I didn’t expect the question—but because she asked it so plainly.
No fear. No flinch. Just curiosity laced with something calculating.
"You wouldn’t believe me if I told you," I said finally, my voice quieter than usual.
Her eyes narrowed. "Try me."
A ghost of a smile tugged at my lips. She had fire, and I liked that about her.
I exhaled slowly, dragging a hand through my hair before resting it on the desk.
"I was human once. A long time ago. The sea has a way of changing a man, reshaping things in its image. I became something else. Cursed. A vampire"
She didn’t flinch, didn’t even blink. If she was afraid, she hid it well. "A vampire?" she asked, her tone even.
I tilted my head.
"Not in the way you think. I don’t prowl darkened alleys hunting for unsuspecting victims." I said quietly.
She motioned to the blood and glass surrounding her feet, the broken remnants of the decanter pooling at her toes. "And this?"
"A necessity." I met her gaze. "Not a pleasure."
I glanced at the blood on the floor—not ashamed, but not unbothered either.
“I take what the ocean allows. No more. No less. And it never lets me forget the cost.”
For a moment, silence stretched between us, broken only by the gentle creak of the ship settling against the waves.
"How long?" she asked, voice steadier than I expected.
"How long what?"
"How long have you been like this? Bound to this ship, hunting to survive? How long have you been a vampire?"
I exhaled, glancing toward the porthole where the dark horizon stretched endlessly. "Longer than I care to count," I said, and the weight of it sat heavy in my chest.
"Long enough that the memory of land feels like a dream I woke from centuries ago. Time does not pass here as it does on land. The sea doesn’t measure years—it counts in losses. Storms survived. In forgotten names."
She stared at me, head tilted like she was trying to solve a puzzle that wasn’t hers to touch. Then her lips parted.
“So, you’re a vampireanda pirate?” she said slowly, eyes dancing with something dangerously close to amusement.
She grinned. “You’re avampirate.”
The word landed and she snorted, completely undignified. “Sorry, I know the curse is horrible—truly, existentially grim—but vampirate? That’s objectively hilarious.”
I didn’t even flinch. “Glad centuries of agony have been reduced to a punchline.”
She was already on a roll. “Do you sleep in a coffin below deck? Do your fangs come out when you say arrr? Plunder necks instead of treasure?”
