Will and Aliyah

Moonlight split the clouds in a single ethereal beam, illuminating the girl by the railing. Her gaze was cast into the distant night, seeming to pierce the cloying fog and the roiling darkness of the water below. For an instant the boy saw it, not from his place in the shadows, but through the girl’s crystalline eyes. The dark was something to be commanded, not to be skirted around in fear. She was beautiful and terrifying. Not a glimmer of doubt pervaded the icy stillness of the girl’s expression; no tremor broke her predatory stance. The night was hers.

The second time the boy saw her, he watched. Because someone else was watching. A demon creature hiding in the shadows, waiting for its chance to drink the young woman’s blood. And so, the boy watched the demon. And when the girl left, the creature followed, and the boy followed them both. He came around the corner just as the thing made to attack her, but seeing the boy, it became distracted, allowing the girl to escape its clutches and go to the boy’s side. Her eyes shown with tears of gratitude, their steady gleam from the first time he’d seen her gone. She knew she’d been in danger, but of what kind, the boy was sure she was sorely mistaken.

The creature came for the boy that night. He killed it.

As days passed the boy saw the girl again and again, and they shifted from polite acknowledgement to conversation in hidden corners. As nights passed, more of the creatures lurking on the ship came for him in the name of avenging their fallen brethren. The boy made sure to reunite them.

And then one night there were no creatures and only the girl. She leant close to him, pressing his back into a wall, and brushed her lips softly against his.

“Will you come to see me tonight?”

“If you would like me to?”

“I would.”

And then she was gone, floating down the hall with a sweep of her skirts, leaving the boy cold in the places her body had warmed him.

***

The boy knocked quietly against the girl’s cabin door, casting a wary glance down the hall for passers-by, but his was the only shadow stretched across the floor. The handle turned ever so carefully, and half light beckoned from the space beyond the threshold. He stepped inside.

“Will, you came.”

“Aliyah.”

She appeared like a spirit, or creature of the night, inhuman and utterly entrancing. Her light hair was unbound, framing her shoulders, and her dark nightclothes clung to her in shadows and soft lines. She didn’t seem real.

The door nicked softly shut and then she was pressed against him, mouth on his, taking his breath away. Her hands were cold but she soon warmed in his arms. Will trailed his lips down her throat, kissing a line along her collarbone and she gasped, arching into him. His hands ran down the back of her, until he was picking her up and carrying her to the bed. All the while she kissed him, breathy and urgent.

Aliyah went soft laid beneath him, one leg hooking around his, her hands cupping his face. They melded to each other, pressing the cold away, and Will’s heart beat fervently in his chest. Before long Aliyah pressed against his shoulder, and he knew what she wanted. Will let her roll them so that he was the one with his back to the mattress and she was flush against his chest. She kissed him harder and Will kissed back. She gripped his shoulders with a strength he hadn’t been expecting.

Without warning she broke away from him, lips hovering barely an inch above his.

“You know you’re very good at what you do, Will.”

He was caught in the feel of her, the smell of her, the warmth of her breath against his skin, and he barely registered her words. He smiled distractedly.

“Is that so?”

“Mmhm,” she teased pressing her lips lightly to his, before kissing him at his jaw, and then the place where his neck met his shoulder. She paused.

“But I’m better… Hunter.”

And then fangs sank into his throat.

Will arched in pain, hands reaching to push her off but she found them and pinned them down on either side of his head. He tried to struggle, thrashing beneath her but already his movements grew sluggish. Aliyah was strong. She bit down harder and Will cried out, all his attention reduced to the burning in his neck and the creature holding him captive.

But Will’s urgency dwindled and the pain grew duller too. He watched the shadows creep in along the ceiling and wondered why he was trying to fight at all. He was tired, he realised, and wanted to sleep. The darkness swept across the room, taking Will in its cool, quiet hold, and he let it.