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⌎⊱⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷⊶⊷ ⊰⌏
Circe Melantha
"Lady Death Afloat"
✧ ▬▭▬ ▬▭▬ ✦✧✦ ▬▭▬ ▬▭▬ ✧ The blood adorning her body had begun drying warm in some places, tacky in others, but his eyes didn’t seem to care. Nor did she.
Not when he looked at her like that.
The gold in his eyes seemed to darken after he’d realized Circe had appeared by his side– silent, swift, always his. Her blade was already cleaned. Her breath calm. Her beauty ruinous. And when those strong hands curled around her waist and drew her against his sculpted body like something he had earned?
She let him.
Because the truth was simpler than any vow she’d spoken, simpler than any thread of myth she’d carried from her House. In that moment, the carnage, the fire, the mutiny meant nothing. Not when he kissed her.
Circe couldn’t remember when she had started feeling this way, nor did she know what exactly these feelings were.
Her lips opened beneath his without hesitation, the taste of blood and smoke and salt and Sebastian rushing in all at once. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It rarely was. But gods, it was real. His mouth on hers, rough and claiming, his fingers bruising at her slender waist, the silk of her slip sticking to her thighs, the iron scent of gore still clinging to her hair– and yet, in all that chaos, he was what grounded her.
His kiss was a command and a reward. And she obeyed.
Circe’s breath hitched, barely, as she dipped her tongue into his mouth to taste the insides of his cheeks. Her hands didn’t rise to his face– she didn’t cling like a girl. She merely leaned into the heat with a low moan, into the promise, into the tether between them like a woman remembering what she was forged for. And when he pulled back, she followed for half a heartbeat, chasing his lips before she caught herself.
You are his blade. Not his bride.
“Fenris…is as loyal as you are–”
The words itched across her pride, though she didn’t flinch. Not outwardly. But her eyes narrowed slightly in disapproval, and something in her presence grew colder– not hostile, but distant. As if he’d mentioned another woman’s name while cupping her cheek (and gods help him if he ever dared. When had she gotten so possessive over him? Why had she gotten so possessive?). As loyal as her? Fenris hadn’t worn chains on his limbs day by day. Hadn’t been dragged from ash and shadow and named mine like a blade plucked from the pyre. He hadn’t fed on the Captain’s blood with his hands trembling, tasting command and salvation in the same mouthful. Still, she offered no spite minus the slight pout of her lips before they widened into a slow smile– indulgent, dangerous– as though Sebastian had just told a particularly amusing lie and she was too gracious to correct him aloud.
“Tolerate,” she echoed, almost mocking in a way. The very fact that Fenris was still alive after her years aboard this ship was toleration enough. If she could have her way–
“Keep this up and I’ll feed you with my thigh.”
Oh.
A spark flared beneath her ribs. Not blush, not quite– though something warm curled behind her cheeks. Her lips parted as though to breathe, but no breath came. Not when he said it like that; teasing, claiming, promising. Not when his hands were still there, holding her, one finger hooked under her choker. Not when his eyes were looking at her like she was worth keeping.
Circe leaned closer. Only a breath. Enough that her words ghosted against his mouth. “Fine. I suppose I’ll play nice with your dog.”
His weapon had followed him into the storm like a shadow made flesh– fluid, silent, loyal. The Captain’s parting tug on her choker still ghosted across her throat like a brand, her silver eyes catching the moonlight just as he slipped into his long coat. Her nightdress still clung to her like ink spilled across parchment, wet with blood, split at the thigh, slashed at the ribs. She didn’t bother trying to change. There was no time, no need. She wore it like warpaint.
“Come now. We will purge these snakes from my garden.”
Gods, how she adored when he said we.
As her Captain descended into the carnage, Circe followed, not a step behind. Her bare feet left no sound against the slick deck, though they did leave bloody smears in her wake. He fought beside her like war incarnate. And she moved like something both holy and unholy, cutting through the mutiny like it was her own sacrament. While he shot down the foolish and dueled the bold, his first mate wove between the chaos with her dagger in one hand and fire in her veins. Her blade sang in gleaming arcs, slipping beneath ribs and across throats like a silver whisper. Where Sebastian clashed, Circe danced. Where he shattered, she slipped the knife between the cracks. Truly a match made in the fiery pits of Tartarus. When their movements brushed– a shoulder to a chest, the arc of her dagger crossing beneath the sweep of his sword– it felt less like battle and more like communion. She wanted to taste him again. Right there in the blood and gunfire.
She swore could feel him even then– feel the heat of his gaze when she moved like sin personified, slicing through the trembling elite who had dared rise against him. She didn’t need to see his grin to know it was there. She could feel it in her spine.
But then came the flare of something else. A tug on her wrist. A sudden pull– firm, protective– and the world narrowed. Before she could even protest, she was against Sebastian’s chest, inside his coat, his hand caressing the back of her head. He could have barked an order, commanded her away like a beast meant to be kenneled– but instead, he wrapped her in his own warmth and shielded her. Her body stilled in an instant, nestled against him, rigid with instinct, but she did not fight it. She never did when he held her like this. Circe closed her eyes. The warmth of his coat and body wrapped around her– velvet and salt and the distant echo of gunfire. Her fists tightened into the fabric at his chest, not for fear, but for restraint. Her fangs ached. Her hunger twisted. But she waited.
And then the world erupted into light.
A blinding sun screamed into existence just beyond the folds of his coat. She felt it– a holy burn she was never meant to endure– yet she didn’t suffer it. Because he had protected her. Because even in the maelstrom of rebellion and fire, Sebastian shielded his monster like a lover shielding a flower from hail.
She said nothing. Only waited. The moment passed, the false sun fell.
Sebastian was speaking again– dark promises against vanishing magic, twisted promises coiling like breath on the back of their enemies’ necks– and Circe smiled faintly in amusement against his chest. She might have pressed a kiss against his sternum. His darkness was her lullaby. His madness her melody.
His thumb was still stroking the back of her head, and she leaned into it before he realized what he was doing.
And then his warmth retreated like the low tide, exposing her once again to the moonlight. She blinked slowly, her silver eyes adjusting again, lips parted not in fear but in awe.
“You’re not hurt, are you?"
A heartbeat passed before she answered. “No. You wouldn’t allow that.”
“We’ll hit port tonight and I need you ready to kill.”
That– that– was the truth of her. The purpose carved into her bones. Not lover, not bride, only concubine when they were alone together. Assassin. Blade. Monster on a leash of gold and shadow.
Circe bowed her head slightly. “Of course, my Captain.”
“Go help round up the prisoners–” “–and let me know if you find anything interesting.”
She broke from his side like a riptide veering off course with a final glance at his back. The taste of him still lingered in her mouth. She did not linger. She moved– toward port side, where the fleeing nobles scrambled like rats. But she would remember the way he’d shielded her. She would remember the sound of his heartbeat under her ear, steady even as the sun had burned behind them.
The Captain had commanded the deck, and he would paint it in flame and fear. But she– she would tend to the remaining escapees. The ones who thought themselves clever. The ones who thought distance could save them from what was bound to them by blood and blade.
Circe moved through the smoke, ignoring the chaos as if the battlefield were a ballroom. The cries of the wounded faded behind her, muted by the crashing of waves against the hull. Moonlight speared through the fog, illuminating the narrow stairs down toward the lower deck. She glided down, a wraith in red silk. By the time her bare feet touched the loading ramp near the port side, the nobles were already in the rowboat. Six of them. Two oars in motion, a lantern dangling from the prow. One man cursed as he tried to untie the rope mooring them to the Reaver’s Wraith.
By the time the nobles realized she was among them, it was already too late.
The nearest noble– a silver-haired lordling with rings crusted over every finger– froze mid-motion. His back stiffened as if he’d felt something crawl down his spine. A second man turned, eyes going wide as he caught the shimmer of her in the gloom.
The vampire sat at the prow of the rowboat like some ancient sea relic, half-siren and half-statue, one bloodstreaked leg folded beneath her while the other trailed lazy patterns in the seawater. She said nothing at first as she watched them almost curiously, head tilted. She didn’t have to.
“I wouldn’t,” she said gently, her voice velvet and winter smoke.
The men hesitated. She stepped closer.
“Row, now–” one of them barked.
“Shhh.” Circe pressed one finger to her lips, and the man who had shouted forgot how to breathe. She turned her gaze to the silver-haired noble and let the ancient weight of her bloodline uncoil behind her eyes like a storm rising from still water.
“Look at me,” she breathed, the barest coax of a command.
He did.
“Good.”
Her voice wove around him like silk spun through a harp. Her accent, touched faintly by the old continent, curled each word into something richer– slower– deeper.
“You’re not afraid of me,” she said, stepping closer to the edge. “You’re not running. You’re…returning.”
The oarsman dropped the paddles as her voice poured down like honey mixed with venom. “Go back aboard,” she whispered, “It’s cold on the water. So…cold. You’ll catch your death.”
The noble’s lip trembled. His hands, which had been sawing frantically at the rope, went limp. Another man beside him blinked, glassy-eyed, and muttered, “We should go back. We should– yes, back. It’s safe there.”
One by one, her compulsion coiled through them. Her voice softened further, a lullaby that had once rung through marble halls beneath chandeliers.
“You came aboard his ship. You bled on his deck. You breathed his air. There is no escape from that.” She didn’t smile as they began to pull the rowboat back towards the loading ramp by the frayed rope. Not truly. It was too easy.
Circe rose with unhurried grace and stepped back aboard the Reaver’s Wraith, stepping aside as they fumbled up the boarding ladder. Half in a trance. Half in fear. Eyes on her, every last one of them. She let them pass– touched the cheek of one boy barely past twenty as he murmured a prayer– and whispered:
“Now, hush. Wait by the top of the stairs for me. I’ll see you soon.”
The last noble, still bleary-eyed, and obedient, dared to speak as he passed her. “W-what will he do to us?”
Circe tilted her head, eyes aglow.
“I don’t know,” she said, her voice sweet and cruel all at once, “But I know what I will do if you try to run again.” That smile bloomed, slow and terrible. “And you won’t like it.”
⋆༺𓆩☠︎︎𓆪༻⋆
They followed her like lambs to the slaughter.
Twelve in total. Silent. Wide-eyed. Spell-struck.
Not one bore a scratch, not one limped from injury– yet every step they took behind her felt like surrender. Like a dream they couldn’t wake up from. Another rowboat bobbed gently next to the first, tethered by her will alone, forgotten by the fools who had climbed inside it just moments before with freedom in their hearts and daggers at their backs.
Now, they climbed the stairs to the upper deck in a single file procession, heads bowed like children led to confession. Their jewelry clinked faintly with each shuffling step. Fine gloves torn. Ribbons and frills limp with seawater. Whatever pride they once held had been replaced with something else– something closer to awe. Or fear.
Circe led them without looking back.
The Reaver’s Wraith welcomed her return with a low groan through the hull, the kind it made when its hunger had been sated. She crossed the deck without ceremony, shadow and moonlight trailing in her wake. Her dark hair billowed in the wind and her gown, still clinging to her, shimmered faintly where the spray of the sea had kissed it. When she reached the Captain’s perch, she stopped.
And turned.
“Down,” she said. One word.
The prisoners dropped to their knees like marionettes with their strings severed. No chains needed. No swords. Just her voice. Her silver eyes found Sebastian’s immediately. “I told them they were already yours,” she said, soft as satin, “They believed me.” The vampire then tilted her head. “They’re intact, if you’d like to make examples of them. I left that…pleasure to you.”
Then, as if recalling something minor but inconvenient, Circe drew a folded piece of parchment from the bodice of her ruined slip. Damp around the edges but otherwise sealed. The wax emblem still bore its noble crest. “I found this beneath the bench of the boat. Hidden beneath silk cushions, but they weren’t clever enough to hide it from me.” She handed it to him without preamble, her fingers brushing against his. Then, her voice dipped.
“There’s something moving behind this mutiny,” she murmured, quieter now, for his ears alone. “I don’t believe it was only greed.”
And when she finally looked up at him– truly looked, as if seeing past the blood and moonlight and triumph– her voice gentled to something nearly human.
“I thought you might want to know.”
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