#i had to set up why they're snippy when they try and recruit the surviving pirates and this just kinda happened

[dyrewrites]

Before Deluca -- not what he wants

We took the meals into our quarters, and setting them up against the desk as casually as luggage left me curious how long the effects of our bite would last.

“Long enough, treasure,” Lucient purred, pawing at my shirt, angling for the heat beneath, “for us to take our time…”

“Hungry, my dream,” I reminded, aware of how desperate I would grow—ravenous and violent. Smiling at that eager glint in his eyes, I couldn’t help the gasp at his chill on my stomach, but he peeled off, pouting as he turned.

The Captain he grabbed first, beside him in a blink he slapped the man’s hat off and lifted him so easily by hair alone. Sputtering and groaning, the Captain could do nothing against Lucient’s grip, but he tried. With wild arms that jerked uselessly at his sides, he tried.

And Lucient laughed before tilting his head towards me, moonlight eyes so bright as he offered me his hand, “Share with me, mon amour?”

“Of course, amore mio,” I returned, accepting his hand as I grabbed the Captain’s coat with my other, helping hold him up. All but glistening with sweat and sea spray, the man’s neck and collarbone were exposed by the thin shirt he wore, attracting my eyes in a manner that forced the fingers in mine tighter.

“I do hope that is hunger in your eyes, treasure,” Lucient warned.

I smiled and though I was starving, and entirely uninterested in the amateur pirate in my grip, I teased, “And if it’s more, my love?”

“Mm, naughty,” he scolded, but he said nothing more, lips occupied with the taste of the neck that captivated me.

Following his lead, I nudged beyond the heavy fabric of the Captain’s coat and dug my teeth into the soft flesh between neck and shoulder. And after so long with fish to stave off but never sate, that blood burst too hot and sweet on my tongue. Its flavor salt-sweet but unremarkable, it yet cooled my ever-burning heat and soothed the puckering ache in my veins. More than the meal, however, was the soft moaning that undercut my own. From the Captain, enraptured by the touch of our fangs, but more from Lucient. He sunk into our first true meal after what we would learn had been months at sea and I sunk into his enjoyment over my own.

Satisfied, my love, I asked his sweet sounds, growing louder the harder he drew.

His fingers tightened again on my own as he answered, Not yet…

Sharing as we were, the Captain wouldn’t be enough to truly sate, even as spasms took his muscles and the last gasps of life choked from his throat. Delicious though he’d been, he was an appetizer. With his blood pounding in us our hunger growled still, begged still, demanding more. And we fed it, dropped what remained of the Captain to pounce on his second.

I picked that one up, so much larger than the Captain—too tall for Lucient to lift high enough—and sat him on the desk. Groggy that one, waking from the near-narcotic touch of our teeth. He tried to run, screaming in his unknown language, and while Lucient stared at him as one might a decadent treat, I slid between the man's legs, pinning his thighs to the desk.

That snapped Lucient from his gaze, forcing hard eyes on me, accompanied by a harder tone, “Teasing again, treasure?”

“Always, my love,” I said, absently, unable to think of more in my want of the pulse before me.

Never looking from the second’s eyes—soft brown they were, wide and terrified in the shine of my own—I released a single hand from his thighs and offered it to Lucient, smiling as he climbed the desk and sat behind the man I’d trapped.

We held each other around him, pinning him still—between us—and he gasped with the closeness...but he didn’t scream. Nor did he try to escape. In fact, when I leaned in for his neck, he made to meet me with his lips.

I had no intention of accepting, of course, but Lucient reacted all the same; grabbing the man by his hair and yanking his head back.

“He’s mine,” he almost growled, biting into that pulsing vein just below the ear.

Chuckling at the outburst, the sight of it, I went for what he exposed so beautifully—the throat.

And that blood was nothing so mundane as the Captain’s had been. It oozed rich and heady, hotter yet cooling the further it dripped. Tart, he was, salt-sweet as all others but that tart aftertaste carried something that made his dying spasms—coming quickly with Lucient’s jealous teeth in his neck—too delicious not to hold him through.

He lusted for you, treasure, Lucient teased my thoughts, pressing ever-closer against the cooling body between us, squeezing the last of that blood onto our tongues.

I was lost to the sensation of it, as well as the confusion. I’d been overwhelmed by what others felt, grew drunk from drink they filled themselves with, even experienced the euphoric simplicity of being a shark...but attraction? Lust one felt so briefly...for me? That was new.

And Lucient enjoyed it far too much. Shoving the body to the floor, beside the other—forcing me back to allow it—he remained on the desk, lids low and smile sharp as he scolded me, “Chose coquine, tempting our food in such a way…”

“How did I tempt?” I shot back, fighting against the warm pulse growing in me, begging to grab him, slip what little he wore off and trace all of him with my tongue.

“Come,” He demanded, waving me to the desk, “pin me as you did him, treasure and see how you teased, how this eager blood is your doing.”

Scoffing, I did as instructed, slipping between Lucient’s knees and gripping his thighs as tight as I had the other man.

He gasped with that grip, smiling at me, cooing, “My naughty treasure, grabbing another so sweetly.”

I hadn’t meant it, but it would have been pointless to explain—and he was in my head anyway—so I played into it instead, “And what will my dream do about it?”

“Mm,” bottom lip firm in his teeth, he leaned to whisper in my ear, “nothing.”

Chuckling, he hopped off the desk and sauntered out on deck, leaving me alone, far too heated—with the corpses we’d made. His reaction wasn't what I expected and, with all that lustful blood pumping through me, it wasn't what I wanted. But he'd drank it too, surely he felt the same.

So I caught up and tested, “My love, aren't you upset?”

I was against the cabin wall before I could take another breath, pinned by those strong, slender hands on my shoulders.

“I’m furious,” He admitted, voice too sweet for the sharpness of it, lips not close enough before he kissed my neck and breathed so softly, “but that's what you want, isn't, treasure?” He wouldn't let me answer, drawing a gasp with teeth in my ear, and his body so tight against mine, “you want me riled, want me jealous—aching,” then he shoved away from me and his voice dropped, “so you get nothing.”

His smile never fading, he spun and continued to the waking crew, leaving me stunned—and grateful for the thickness of the drawing case stuffed in my breeches as I followed him.