Claimed by the Vampire of the Cove

The fire had burned down to a bed of glowing embers, casting a soft, pulsing light across the spines of the leather-bound books that lined my library. For a creature who feels no cold, the hearth was a concession to aesthetics, a flicker of life in the quiet stillness of my home. Outside, the North Atlantic was a vast expanse of black, its ceaseless roar against the cliffs below a familiar lullaby that had sung me through more than a century in this place. Solitude was not a punishment; it was a state of being I had curated with the same care I used to select the rare vintage of blood stored in my cellars.

I turned a brittle page in the vellum manuscript resting on my lap, the Latin text a familiar comfort. Another night, indistinguishable from the ten thousand that had preceded it. The world outside my walls moved on, birthing and dying, warring and loving, but here, time was a placid lake.

That was when the first discordant note broke the harmony of the night.

The low thrum of a diesel engine, a fishing trawler. Not unusual. The local fishermen knew to give my stretch of coastline a wide berth, but occasionally a new or foolish captain would venture too close, drawn by the deep waters at the base of my cliffs. I typically ignored them. Their fleeting lives were of no consequence to me.

But the sound changed. The steady chug of the engine became a strained, high-pitched whine. Shouts carried on the wind, sharp and panicked. My hearing, a curse as much as a gift, picked them apart from the crashing waves.

“It’s caught! The winch is seizing!” one man yelled, his voice thin with alarm.

“What in God’s name is in there?” another shouted back, the words laced with a greedy sort of fear.

I set my book aside, the ancient parchment crinkling in protest. A flicker of something—not quite annoyance, but a disruption of my peace—stirred within me. I rose from the worn leather of my armchair and walked to the tall, arched windows that served as the room’s only art. The glass was cool beneath my fingertips as I looked down into the churning darkness.

The trawler was a small, ugly vessel, its deck lights cutting a garish yellow swath across the black water. The boat listed heavily to one side, its main winch groaning under a tremendous weight. The net, a silver web in the artificial light, was pulled taut, its lines vibrating with tension.

Then I heard it. A sound that was not human, not mechanical. It was the frantic, desperate thrashing of a powerful body, a struggle that sent plumes of white spray into the night air. It wasn't the panicked flailing of a shark or the clumsy bulk of a whale. There was a desperate, almost intelligent violence to the motion, a fight for life so profound it resonated deep in my own dead chest.

For the first time in decades, a genuine curiosity cut through the fog of my immortal ennui. The fishermen were preparing to hoist their catch, their greed overriding their fear. Whatever was in that net was moments from being dragged from its world into the harsh, killing air of mine.

I didn’t think. I simply moved. A predator’s instinct, dormant for so long, had been awakened not by hunger, but by the raw, primal cry of a creature I could not name. The stillness of my manor was left behind as I went to the balcony, the salt-laced wind doing nothing to stir my hair as I prepared to descend into the chaos below.

I vaulted over the stone balustrade without a sound, my body a shadow against the lesser dark of the cliff face. For a human, the descent would have been suicide—a sheer drop of jagged rock and crumbling shale. For me, it was merely a staircase. My fingers found holds invisible to the mortal eye, my feet landing on razor-thin ledges as if they were wide promenades. The world became a blur of grey stone and black space, the wind a silent rush past my ears. I moved with a speed that defied physics, a controlled plummet that carried me to the churning shoreline in the space of a few heartbeats—if I’d had one that beat.

I landed silently on a broad, flat stone slick with sea spray, the impact absorbed by limbs that felt no strain. The air was thick with the smell of salt, brine, and the diesel fumes from the trawler. Crouched in the absolute darkness provided by the cliff’s overhang, I was invisible. From here, the scene was laid bare. The boat’s winch strained, metal screaming against metal, as it tried to drag its prize from the depths. The net was a writhing knot of rope and something impossibly powerful.

It was in that moment a large wave swelled and receded, pulling the tangled mass partly from the water. The harsh deck lights illuminated it fully. My breath, a thing I no longer needed but held out of ancient habit, caught in my throat.

It was not a shark. It was not a whale. It was a woman.

From the waist up, she was undeniably female, her form slender and strong. Her skin was pale, almost luminous, a stark contrast to the dark, heavy ropes cutting into her shoulders and arms. Long, wet hair, the color of midnight, was plastered across her back and face, obscuring her features. She twisted, her muscles cording with effort, a silent scream of exertion on lips I could just barely make out.

And then I saw the rest of her.

Where human legs should have been, there was a tail. It was immense, a marvel of biological engineering, easily seven feet from the elegant curve of her hips to its wide, translucent fluke. It was covered in scales the size of silver dollars, each one a shifting mosaic of color—deep cobalt, sea green, and flashes of violet that shimmered and changed with every desperate movement. The fluke, a fan of delicate, membranous fins, beat against the water, propelling her with a force that made the entire trawler groan in protest. The raw power in that tail was breathtaking.

I had lived for centuries. I had seen the world’s hidden corners, witnessed wonders and horrors that would shatter a human mind. I was a creature of legend myself, a thing men whispered of around fires. But I had never, in all my years, believed they were real. A mermaid. The word felt foolish, a child’s fancy. Yet the proof was there, fighting for its life not fifty yards from where I stood. The fishermen on the deck were shouting again, their voices filled with a mixture of awe and avarice. They saw a prize, a miracle catch to be sold or displayed. I saw a creature of impossible beauty being tortured, ensnared by the grubby hands of a world she did not belong to. A wave shifted her again, and for a second, her head turned. I saw her profile—a straight nose, a strong jaw, the curve of a cheekbone that was achingly perfect. She was no monster of the deep. She was magnificent.

The winch shrieked, a piercing sound of metal under duress, and the net lifted another foot from the water, pulling her torso partially into the air. A raw, guttural sound of pain was torn from her, and it hit me with the force of a physical blow. A decision made itself in the space between one strained groan of the winch and the next. I would not let them take her.

Slipping from the rock, I entered the churning surf without a splash. The North Atlantic was brutally cold, a temperature that would kill a man in minutes, but to me, it was merely an absence of warmth. I moved through the turbulent water with the same unnatural silence and speed I’d used on the cliff, a dark shape cutting through the black waves, my goal the shadow beneath the trawler’s hull.

I reached the tangled mass of rope and struggling flesh in moments. Close up, she was even more astounding. The deck lights filtered down through the water, illuminating her in strobing, ethereal beams. The thick, abrasive ropes of the net were cinched cruelly around her waist and one of her arms, pinning it to her side. Deeper wounds, dark lines against her pale skin, showed where she had been fighting the bindings for some time. Her powerful tail beat the water in a weakening rhythm, the iridescent scales catching the light like scattered jewels.

I reached inside my coat and my fingers closed around the familiar cold steel of a knife I had carried for two hundred years. Its edge was as keen as the day it was forged. There was no time for finesse. The winch was gaining ground, the ropes tightening with every turn.

I positioned myself behind her, my body shielded from the view of the boat by her own. My left hand went to her waist to steady her, to hold her still against the pull of the net so I could cut the rope without slicing into her skin.

The moment my fingers touched her, a jolt went through me. Her skin was cool from the ocean, but it was the coolness of a living thing, pliant and smooth beneath my touch. It was nothing like the icy, permanent cold of my own flesh. Under the thin film of water, her skin felt like silk over steel. The sensation was so foreign, so deeply unfamiliar after centuries of touching only the dead or the dying, that it was a shock to my entire system. She flinched violently at my touch, a full-body tremor of fear and surprise, and her head whipped around. Her hair swirled in the water, and for a second I saw a flash of a wide, terrified eye, the color of a stormy sea.

“Hold still,” I murmured, the words absorbed by the water between us, my voice a low sound she likely felt more than heard. I pressed my hand more firmly against the small of her back, just above the breathtaking juncture where human flesh gave way to scaled perfection. The scales there were smaller, smoother, like a fine mail of mother-of-pearl.

My other hand brought the knife up, the blade gleaming. I sawed at the thickest rope, the one digging mercilessly into the flesh of her side. The fibers were tough and swollen with water, but the blade was sharper. It parted with a series of dull snaps. She shuddered as the pressure eased, her body going slightly limp against my steadying hand. I moved to the next rope, this one wrapped around her arm and torso. To cut it, I had to slide my arm beneath hers, my hand brushing against the side of her breast. The contact was brief, clinical, but it burned itself into my memory—the soft weight of it, the firm muscle beneath.

The fishermen shouted above, something about the weight shifting. They were moments from seeing the net had been tampered with. I worked faster, my movements economical and precise. Slice. Another rope gave way. Snap. A thick cord binding her tail came loose. My knuckles brushed against the hard, slick surface of her scales, each one a perfect, interlocking piece of armor. Finally, only the main hoist rope remained, cinched tight just below her arms. I hooked the blade under it and pulled with all my vampiric strength. The rope, thick as my thumb, severed with a loud thwack, and the tension on her body vanished completely.

For a long moment, she simply floated, her body limp with relief, held steady by the arm I still had wrapped around her waist. The heavy, ruined net drifted away into the blackness below. Above us, the shouting on the trawler changed from triumph to confusion. The sudden lack of weight on their line was a mystery they were now trying to solve.

She shifted, and my arm tightened instinctively, a possessive gesture that came from a place so deep and old I didn't recognize it. She turned fully in my grasp, her body brushing against mine, and I finally saw her face.

The water had washed the hair from her features, and I found myself staring into the most extraordinary countenance I had ever beheld. Her face was not soft or delicate in the way of human women. It was carved with a wild and striking beauty, all sharp angles and defiant curves. High cheekbones, a strong jaw, and full lips parted slightly in shock. But it was her eyes that seized me. They were a maelstrom of color, a deep, turbulent grey-green rimmed with a darker circle of blue, like the sea in the heart of a storm. And in their depths, I saw everything: the lingering terror of her capture, the exhaustion from her struggle, and a dawning, potent curiosity.

Her gaze swept over me, taking in my pale face, my dark hair slicked back by the water, my eyes that had seen far too much to be human. Fear was still there, but it was being eclipsed by a profound sense of wonder. She was looking at a monster, but I was the monster who had saved her.

My fingers, still pressed against the small of her back, could feel the rapid, frantic pulse of her life, a stark contrast to the absolute stillness within my own chest. The sensation was intoxicating. The cool, living silk of her skin was a revelation against my cold, dead flesh. I felt the fine, smooth scales at the base of her spine, the powerful muscle of her back, the undeniable life that thrummed through her. For the first time in centuries, I felt something other than the gnawing emptiness of my existence. It was a sharp, piercing feeling, a jolt of possessive awe that was entirely new. I wanted to pull her closer, to press my face into the curve of her neck, to learn the texture and scent of her.

A beam of light from the boat above swept across the water, illuminating us for a fraction of a second. The spell shattered. Her eyes widened, not with fear of me, but of them. The world we had created in that silent, underwater moment was fragile, and the real one was about to intrude.

She placed a hand on my chest to push away. Her fingers were long and slender, webbing almost invisibly between them, and the touch was electric. It was not a violent shove, but a firm, deliberate pressure. A silent communication. I have to go.

I let my arm fall away from her waist, my hand trailing reluctantly over the curve of her hip and the top of her powerful tail. The scales were smooth and hard, like polished stones. She slipped from my hold with a grace that was breathtaking, her body moving through the water as if it were an extension of her own being.

She propelled herself backward several feet with a single, fluid flick of her fluke, putting a safe distance between us. She paused there, a shimmering, ethereal shape in the murky depths, her gaze still locked on mine. The anger and fear had vanished from her expression, replaced by an intense, unreadable look—a mixture of gratitude, wonder, and something deeper, something that mirrored the sudden, world-altering shift in my own soul.

Then, with a final, powerful beat of her magnificent tail, she turned and dove. She disappeared into the black abyss of the ocean, leaving behind only a swirl of water and the ghost of her touch on my skin. I remained motionless in the frigid sea, the shouts from the boat now a meaningless background noise. The cold of the Atlantic was nothing compared to the profound chill of her absence.