#screeeeeeeeech

He took one last drag of his cigarette and flicked it into the unsuspecting crowd. Lilly frowned. “You know your father hates it when you smoke.”

Alrick scowled. “He’s not here right now, is he?”

“No, but-“

“But nothing,” Alrick warned her. “What my father doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, I’m quitting on this trip anyway,” he glowered at the ship before him. “Don’t you even think about running off and telling him that I haven’t yet.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Lilly bristled. Smoking was a habit Alrick had picked up during their stay in England, one his father disapproved of. But Lilly liked it. She liked the scent of cloves and tobacco that faintly clung to Alrick’s fingers. She liked watching him roll his cigarettes in the morning and slip them into his pewter cigarette holder. She even liked the way he looked when he smoked; bold and regal. It made him look a little older, if only by a few human years.

But it was not her place to dictate the prince’s life based on what she liked. That was Burai’s job.

Lilly gave herself a little shake. She was once again becoming too wrapped up in her thoughts, poor behavior for the royal bodyguard.

She grabbed their two smaller suitcases and followed Alrick through the crowd to the boarding ramp. Above her, a man shouted something unintelligible as a car was hoisted into the air and placed on the bow of the ship. Lilly nearly walked into Alrick at the sight, her mouth falling open in awe. She had never seen a car on a ship before. Of course, she had little experience with cars outside the one they had used in England. Apparently, the Titanic was home to all modern metal machines.

“Remarkable,” she muttered, hoping Alrick was too engrossed in himself to hear.

A crewman met them at the top of the ramp. He shot a quick look at Alrick before taking their luggage from Lilly. It was far from traditional for a woman to carry a man’s belongings, especially if she was dressed to look like his wife. But Lilly knew the true construct of their relationship, and she knew that despite her appearance and “name” she had more in common with a scullery maid.

Thinking this, she looked down and saw the third-class ramp below them. Maids, immigrants, and other commoners were filing onto the Titanic in a large, huddled mass. At the top of the ramp, a crewmember was running a fine-toothed comb over one man’s beard and shaking it off over the ocean. Lice, fleas, and other vermin were not permitted aboard the Titanic.

Lilly shuddered. If it were not for Alrick she would have been among the third-class passengers. He was the one who insisted that she also have a first-class ticket to be nearby in case of an emergency. It wasn’t the thought of possibly sharing a stateroom with an unknown human stranger that bothered her, it was the thought of being so far away from the one person she was supposed to protect.

Alrick gave their tickets to the crewman at the end of the ramp. The red ink jumped off the paper, bright and vibrant like a fresh drop of blood. White Star Line, they said. First Class Passenger Ticket per Steamship Titanic.

The man tucked their tickets into a small box at his waist and waved them inside. “Welcome aboard!” he shouted over the cacophony of the other passengers. “Your stateroom is up that hallway and down the grand staircase,” he directed their attention to somewhere over his shoulder. “Introduce yourselves to any of the crewmembers back there and they’ll guide you to where you need to be.”

Alrick nodded once in thanks and made a beeline towards the nearest crewmember. Lilly gave the ticket man a small smile in apology and followed behind. Alrick didn’t mean to be rude, it was simply his royal upbringing. He was lucky to have Lilly around to be polite for him when he forgot.

They stepped into their shared stateroom and Lilly’s mouth dropped to the floor. It was like stepping into a small palace. The walls were covered in dark mahogany and gilded with gold leaf. There were two enormous bedrooms, both of them larger than her small room back home. She could lounge in the private balcony if she wished, or play a game of chess in the sitting area, or even take dinner at their private dining table. Everything shone brighter than the midday sun reflecting off the nearby sea.

The crewman gave Alrick a small tour of their accommodations. “Everything here was crafted by artisans, all handmade down to the tiniest detail. I trust the Parisian style is to your liking, Mr. Rosenfeld?”

Alrick impassively slid his gaze over the furniture. “It’s fine.”

“Well,” the crewman smiled politely, having been around aristocrats before. “I do hope you enjoy your honeymoon, Mr. and Mrs. Rosnefeld.”

Lilly jumped a little at hearing the name “T-thank you!”

The crewman tipped his hat at Lilly and left with a little bow. Alrick waited until they were alone before turning to her. “It could be worse,” he nodded at the decor. “Much better than staying in a second or third-class cabin, eh Lil?”

Lilly swallowed. She was terribly uncomfortable when she and Alrick were alone. She could cut the tension between them with the dull edge of her sword. “It’s very nice,” she tucked an errant curl back into place. “I feel guilty though. It must have cost a fortune to get two first-class tickets instead of one.”

“Hardly,” Alrick scoffed. He sank into a chair near the mantle, looking right at home among the fancy decor. “It was nothing. I’d rather have you at my side than down below.”

“But I’m sure your father would have preferred-”

“Lilly,” Alrick cut her off. “We’re not having this argument again. The money was no object, and even my father agreed to it. Stop complaining about being in the nicest room of the ship.”

“Okay, okay,” Lilly defensively crossed her arms.

“Besides,” he leaned his cheek on one hand, looking like a marble statue, “I’m sure there are loads of ladies who would kill to share a cabin with me. You should consider yourself lucky, Mrs. Rosenfeld.”

Lilly’s face immediately turned scarlet. It was Alrick’s idea to pose as two newlyweds on their honeymoon. He reasoned that it was the only way for him to secure a ticket in the same cabin as a young woman. Lilly was more than a little embarrassed by the idea of being Alrick’s fake wife. Until they met with Burai in America, this week-long trip would be the longest time they had ever spent together unsupervised.

She set her hat on the table in an attempt to distract Alrick from the redness of her face. “Speaking of sharing a cabin, which bedroom would you like?”

Alrick raised an eyebrow. “Which bedroom?”

She blinked. “You’d like the bigger of the two rooms, right?”

“Of course. Move your things into the larger room and set them beside mine.”

Lilly stared at him incredulously. “With all due respect, that’s not very reasonable. If all my things are in your room, how am I going to dress in the morning? You can’t expect me to waddle across the cabin in my nightgown.”

Alrick threw back his head and laughed. “As funny as that would be to see, no. Why bother taking a different room when you can share mine?”

“Eh?!”

“It would be far easier, don’t you think?” his lips curved into a sensual smile. “No need to take up the entire cabin when it’s just the two of us.”

Lilly’s face burned with embarrassment. She should have known this was what Alrick meant, he was such a cad. “A-Alrick, that’s hardly proper-”

“So?” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “Who cares if it’s proper? Wouldn’t you like to be Mrs. Rosenfeld in more than name? I can’t think of a better way to do that than to share a bed with me.”

“Alrick! I-I’m-”

“You’re what? Flattered by my invitation?”

“I’m not sharing a room with you!” Lilly didn’t realize she had been shouting until the words escaped her.

Alrick looked slightly deflated. “Fine, fine,” he sat back in his seat. “I merely thought I would extend the offer.”

“I-I’m perfectly fine sleeping by myself, thanks,” her voice shook more than she would have liked. She grabbed her hat and marched past him to her own room. “And don’t make me remind you!”

Alrick’s laughter followed her even after she slammed the door. Lilly threw herself against the wood and buried her face in her hands. Two minutes alone and he was already teasing her about the crush she had on him. If this was what he was going to be like the whole trip she would rather have been in third-class.

It was no secret to anyone that Lilly liked Alrick. She had been pining after him ever since they were children. The rumors of her love for the demon prince had spread as far as his father’s demon court. They often made jokes about the prince and his future human bride. It infuriated Burai. He detested the gossip around his son, and he did everything in his power to keep them as far apart as possible.

Normally Lilly didn’t mind the whispers, but lately Alrick had been making those sorts of jokes himself. He spent the last two weeks before their trip teasing Lilly about how excited she must be to finally be a Rosenfeld. She thought he was doing it to spite his father, but now she could see he was just being cruel.

“Ugh,” she pressed her forehead into the door. He didn’t have to dangle himself in front of her for fun. She wanted nothing more than to be with him. Fully, unconditionally. Not as a servant, but as his equal.

But she knew it could never be.

She would rather spend their trip in solitude than listen to Alrick’s teasing. If he was going to spend their one week alone acting like a jackass then she didn’t have to be around to hear it. It was easy to avoid him at their manor back home, it would be even easier on this monster of a ship. All she had to do was set her mind to it.

Lilly felt very satisfied with her newfound resolve until she remembered that she had left her suitcase next to Alrick in the lounge. She squared her shoulders with a sigh and went back out to the Demon Prince’s company.

Lilly was the last passenger on the top deck when the ship finally pulled out of Southampton. She stood side by side with the other passengers screaming their farewells to onlookers on the port below. There was no one down there for her to wave to, but she cheered just as loud as the humans beside her. The exuberance was palpable, lingering over her as the crowd drifted away as the Titanic continued its journey to Cherbourg.

Alrick had opted to stay in their stateroom to nap until dinner time. Being a demon made him naturally nocturnal and he found that boarding the ship in the early afternoon had exhausted him completely. Lilly was fine with this, her anger from earlier had not yet faded. She was content to explore the ship alone and think about anything and everything other than Alrick Rosenfeld.

The first-class passengers had access to private lounges situated on nearly every floor of the first-class wing of the ship. Lilly found a reading room, a Turkish bath, and even a cafe on her self-guided tour.

It was liberating to walk around the great ship. Here Lilly was another face in the crowd, one that blended in with the other aristocrats and travelers on their way to America. She could lose herself in the books of the reading room or wander down to the dining rooms and take a peek at what was for dinner. She had no chaperone to worry about, no escort to keep her out of trouble. She didn’t have to train until her fingers bled or stay on guard. She could just be herself.

Shortly before dinner, the Titanic made the first stop of its journey to Cherbourg. Lilly returned to her shared stateroom to get ready and change into her evening dress. She found it strange that aristocrats had different outfits for different times of the day. She had seen Alrick change from day to nightclothes occasionally, but being a servant meant that she never needed to worry about it. But pretending to be an aristocrat meant wearing their fancy costumes even when it was cumbersome.

Lilly opened the doors to their shared quarters to see Alrick half-naked in the middle of the parlor.

She yelped, the sight of his bare shoulder enough to short-circuit her brain. Lilly slammed the door in a huff, her face already beet red.

Alrick’s muffled laughter slipped out from behind the door. “Is there a problem?” he asked, his voice dripping with mirth.

“Y-you're naked!”

“Hardly, I’m still wearing pants.”

“You know what I mean!”

“I suppose you’re right, I should lose the pants.”

“Alrick!” Lilly pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. “That’s not funny!”

“From the sound of it, you seem to think it’s very funny.”

“It’s not,” she lied. “Please hurry up, I need to get dressed for dinner.”

Alrick opened the door and stuck his head through. “Don’t be so prudish, just come in here and join me.”

Lilly glanced around the hallway. There were no other passengers around, and it probably wouldn’t have been too unusual for a pair of newlyweds to dress together. But that would mean seeing Alrick naked…

“N-no,” she vehemently shook her head. “No, I’m fine out here.”

“Tch,” Alrick rolled his eyes and disappeared back into the cabin. “Your loss.”

Lilly would soon realize that she had lost out on more than seeing Alrick naked. After dressing for dinner, the prince was acting icy toward his “new bride”. He barely spoke to her on their way to the dining hall, and he didn’t even offer to pull her chair out for her when they reached the table. Lilly didn’t mind that, Alrick wasn’t chivalrous by nature. But it did earn him some side glances from the other ladies at the table.

Alrick let his gaze wander around the dining room. A few ladies caught his eye and blushed or turned away at the sight of him. He had that effect on women. He could make a crowd of girls do anything he asked with just one of his crooked smiles. Lilly was used to this. Alrick couldn’t help being gorgeous, it wasn’t his fault that he caught the eye of everyone the moment he stepped into a room. But she did wish that he could at least attempt to turn down the charm when he was sitting next to her. He was her pretend husband after all, surely that meant he would try to be less flirty?

A slightly older woman returned Alrick’s wandering gaze with a coquettish smile. Lilly’s temper boiled and it took every ounce of her self-control not to smack that smile off her lipsticked mouth. She forced her attention away from Alrick and stared down at her dinner plate.

There were too many forks.

They flanked either side of her plate like tin soldiers. She stared at them, their shiny silver surface gleaming in the dinner light. There was an air of elegance about them, something subtle in their finely shaped prongs that said “You’re not good enough to eat with us.”

The forks were right.

She remembered Burai teaching Alrick how to eat with multiple forks when they were younger. Lilly was not privy to the instruction herself- a servant should have no need for fine dining. It was something simple, like starting with the furthest fork and moving inward.

Lilly’s hand hovered over the trident-shaped fork at the very end. Or was she supposed to start with the utensil closest to the plate? Which side was closer, the left or right side? Why were there three spoons- surely there couldn’t be more than one kind of soup. And what the hell was she supposed to do with the fork above her plate?

Lilly looked towards Alrick, tears stinging in the corners of her eyes. If she could just watch him eat when the food came then she’d be able to figure something out. But to her dismay, Alrick was engaged in conversation with the man next to him.

“Um-” she tried tapping him on the shoulder. Alrick waved her off, his attention held by the man sitting next to them.

Shit. She glanced around at the other members of the round table. No one had seen her internal struggle over the forks, they were all too engrossed with making introductions and appearing more important than they were. This anonymity was a small blessing. She would just have to wait until everyone else was severed and watch what they were doing.

This meant that Lilly had nothing to do until dinner. She folded in on herself and did what she usually did when she was bored; she imagined what she would do in an emergency.

It would start innocently enough. Perhaps it would be the man at the table across from theirs, the one with the bushy mustache and tall hat. His eyes wandered to Lilly’s every now and then, though she couldn’t fathom why. He looked to be the right build for an assassin too, muscular but not hulking. His face was otherwise unremarkable, aside from the mustache. He would make an excellent would-be killer.

She imagined him laughing with one of his companions until they turned away. His laughter would die down, his face would harden. He would reach inside his vest and withdraw a common silver fork, throwing it directly at Alrick’s head.

Lilly would grab his shoulder and slam him to the table before she had time to think. Two more men-

No. She blinked, returning to reality. Two men and one woman- there should always be a woman in an assassination team, Lilly thought. No one ever expects a woman to be a trained killer.

Two more men and one woman would descend upon the table. She imagined the woman with the coquettish smile pulling a vial of holy water from her purse and throwing it in their general direction. Lilly could counter that easily with the serving platter to her left. She would hold it like a shield, the holy water splattering against it. Then she would hurl it across the room into the woman’s forehead, or better yet her teeth.

The three remaining men would give her the most pause. By this time, Alrick should have the good sense to crawl under the table to give her room to fight.

Unless! Lilly gripped the linen tablecloth as a new thought seized her. A trained assassin going after a demon would never leave a table untampered with. Surely one of them would have inscribed a demon trap under the wood, rendering the table useless as a hiding place.

Lilly rewound the scenario in her mind, this time throwing Alrick clear of the table entirely. She would still use the serving tray to incapacitate the woman, but with Alrick out of the way she could pull out her own sword without worrying about accidentally nicking him.

Of course, the whole plan depended on the attackers being human. If they were enemies of the royal family the plan would be slightly different, Lilly would grab as much real silver as she could and begin throwing them around her like knives. None of them would think to put a demon sigil under the table so in that scenario it was once again a viable hiding place.

She ran the scenario over and over in her mind, changing the details every time. Instead of trained assassins it would be a group of jilted lovers out to settle a score. The mustached man would pull out a gun instead of a well-disguised fork. Bullets were harder to fight off, though not impossible for a Nephilim like herself. The woman with the coquettish smile and garish lipstick was always a part of the plan, sometimes as a mastermind and sometimes as a lowly grunt.

“Are you alright there, honey?”

Lilly was jerked from her fantasies by a warm hand falling on her shoulder. It took all her willpower not to grab the stranger’s arm and throw them onto the table, but that wouldn’t be very proper of an aristocrat. She blinked up at an unfamiliar woman in a dark dress, her dark curls pinned around a stern yet round face. Ropes of pearls dangled from her throat and a large feather was pinned into the back of her hair.

The woman frowned. “Is something wrong? You look as pale as a ghost.”

“Forgive me,” Lilly blurted. “I was, um, just lost in thought.”

The woman smiled, her dark eyes twinkling. There was something worldly about her, although Lilly couldn’t place what it was. “Feeling a bit overwhelmed?”

Lilly’s eyes darted to Alrick. She needed him to rescue her from this situation, she was wholly unprepared to talk to another member of the upper-class. Damn that man next to him and whatever nonsense he was talking about.

“Um,” she reluctantly looked back at the woman. “A little bit, yes,” she admitted.

The woman looked between the two of them and the fake wedding ring on Lilly’s hand. Her smile broadened. “Completely understandable. When I first married my husband I couldn’t think about anything but him for almost a week,” she laughed. “Of course, he was a lot younger back then, and not nearly as handsome as your young fellow.”

Her accent was thick and obviously American, although Lilly wasn’t sure what region. “T-thank you for understanding, ma’am.”

The woman laughed more, her shoulders shaking with the motion. “You can call me Margret, honey. Just give me a holler if you need anything, alright?”

Lilly liked her immensely. “Thank you Margret, I’ll try to remember that.”

Dinner service began shortly after Margret’s departure. Her presence had a positive influence on the other ladies at the table. They began introducing themselves to Lilly with polite smiles. She couldn’t remember a single one of their names a moment later, but it was nice to be included.

“And what does your husband do?” one of the ladies asked as bread was served.

“He-” Lilly glanced at Alrick. “Well, he, um-”

“I work for my father,” Alrick interrupted. “He’s been waiting for me to finish my studies in England and join him in America.”

“And what work is that, Mr. Rosenfeld?” the woman’s husband chimed in.

Alrick smirked. “Making the devil’s deals, of course.”

The man burst out laughing. “The stock exchange!”

Another man shook his head. “Don’t be daft, he means politics.”

“Truthfully, it’s a bit of both,” Alrick said in mock sheepishness. “My father’s been waiting for me to return and help him expand his business. Naturally, I’ve brung my Lilly along to complete the task.”

My Lilly. Her heart nearly stopped at the phrase. It was true that she belonged to him, but to be his Lilly… That was something else entirely.

“Mrs. Rosenfeld?”

The woman across the table snapped Lilly from her stupor. “I beg your pardon?”

“I was inquiring as to how you met your husband,” she delicately gestured to Alrick.

“Oh! Of course, that was-” she paused. What was the story supposed to be? “We met-” she glanced at Alrick. Did they meet at the university? Were they childhood friends? Did his father arrange the match?

“Lilly’s mother is a lifelong friend of my father’s,” Alrick replied smoothly. “We met when we were children and things happened from there.”

Alrick’s ability to lie was flawless. Lilly absentmindedly buttered her roll as he spun a tale about how they had met as little children and then reconnected in their university days. Lilly’s father died of consumption, forcing her mother to sell off his assets and move away from Alrick’s wealthier family.

“When we reconnected it was like the last ten years never happened,” he gazed at her with such false adoration that she almost believed it was real.

“How lovely,” one of the ladies dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. She raised her champagne glass in a small toast and the rest of the table guests followed. “To young love.”

Lilly couldn’t help but notice the hardness in Alrick’s eyes as he returned the toast. He has nothing to worry about, she thought bitterly. He can stop pretending after this week is over.

After dinner, the men at the table withdrew to one of the lounges of the ship. Several of them invited Alrick to join them for a whiskey but he declined every time. “Not tonight,” he said, stepping away from the table. “I have some business to attend to before bed. Mrs. Rosenfeld,” he took her hand in his and bent her lips to the skin. It was far too light to be a kiss. “I’ll see you this evening.”

Lilly’s stomach fluttered in the most uncomfortable way. If she was permitted to hit the prince she would have slapped him. Pretending to be his wife was one thing, but physical affection was crossing a line. Was there no end to his cruelty?

Alrick bid the now swooning women at the table adieu and slipped into the night.

She felt even more out of place now that Alrick was gone. The other ladies resumed their conversation, gossiping about who was from where and whom they were with. Margret, or Molly as one of the ladies referred to her, seemed to be a bit of a well-known socialite. Lilly listened to their gossip with a strange sense of detachment. She knew some of the names on board, like Astor and Guggenheim. But the rest of the names were unfamiliar and uninteresting.

She withdrew from the table as soon as it was polite to do so. The night was still relatively young from Lilly’s perspective. She had spent most of her life living by the light of the moon with Alrick’s family as demons do. There was still time to explore the remainder of the ship. She didn’t know if people were permitted to cross class boundaries- she hadn’t seen a single soul from second or third class since boarding. But it would be fun to see what the rest of the Titanic looked like.

She circled the promenade deck idly. As more and more people finished their dinners the conversation swelled around her like a pleasant hum. It reminded her of being at Alrick’s father’s castle. The royal court was always abuzz with gossip and conversation. The tinkling of wine glasses and soft music could have been from any one of his father’s spring parties. Perhaps demons and humans didn’t celebrate so differently.

It wasn’t too much longer when the people had begun drifting off to their private quarters. Lilly figured it was an appropriate time to head to bed. It would do her no good to spend too much time on her own this late at night. She needed to get accustomed to waking up during the day, otherwise she was going to miss out on breakfast and lunch.

The stateroom was quiet when Lilly returned. She had expected to see Alrick awake at one of the tables working on something for his father- or better yet, drawing. But the room was dark save for a few dim oil lamps. Spending the day among the humans must have taxed Alrick more than he let on.

She made her way to her bedroom, thinking about how nice the sheets would feel against her skin. Her hand pressed against the knob, turning the brass quietly as to not make a click-

THUMP

Her blood froze. Lilly whirled away from the door, the attacker fantasies coming back to her in a horrible rush. What if the mustached man really was out to get the prince? She should have known better than to let him sleep alone on a ship full of strangers.

Lilly threw herself down the hallway and into Alrick’s room with a bang. “Alrick, I’m he-”

The two figures in the bed froze. The woman sat up, her dress falling around her waist in a heap of silk. Lilly realized it was the woman with the horrible lipstick from dinner. Alrick looked out from underneath her, his shirt unbuttoned and barely hanging on his shoulders. Lilly could see more clothing strewn about the room and amidst the tangle of bedsheets.

The three of them stared at one another in a moment of garish silence.

Lilly was the one who broke it. “S-Sorry!” she yelped, throwing herself against the door. Her face flushed, a deep red that matched the shade of her curls.

The woman with the horrid lipstick, a mere red smear across her lips and chin at this point, leapt out of bed with an indignant huff. “I thought we were to be alone,” her voice was wild as she hurled the words at Alrick.

“As did I,” he groaned, sitting up. He rubbed his jaw with one hand. “But it appears I was mistaken.”

The woman gathered the nearest article of clothing and stormed out of the room with Alrick’s blanket still wrapped around her. A moment later Lilly heard the door to the stateroom close with a slam.

Alrick righted himself in the bed and slung his legs over the side. A terrible silence fell over the room as neither he nor Lilly spoke. She could not help but notice that his chest was nearly bare. She remembered how he teased her with the prospect of seeing him shirtless. Now she was seeing more of him than she ever had before. She couldn’t even look him in the eye.

She cleared her throat. “And, um, who was that?”

“An unhappy woman in an unhappy marriage looking for a bit of fun.” He sighed. “And my soon-to-be dinner.”

She digested his meaning. “You were going to eat her?”

Alrick looked at Lilly for the first time. “Of course I was.”

“Here? On the Titanic?”

“Don’t act so surprised, Lilly. You cannot pretend as if you don’t know that I need to feed upon humans.”

“I-I’m not saying that,” she stuttered. “I just-”

“Just object to finding me in bed with another woman?”

Her heart caught in her throat. “Yes-” Shit. She wasn’t supposed to say that.

Lilly backtracked. “N-Not for the reason you think, but because you’re being so careless!”

“Careless?” He looked around. “The only other person who saw was you, how’s that being careless?”

“Because! What were you going to do with the body after you finished? You can’t have expected to throw it over the side of the ship?” Lilly pressed her hand to her forehead. “Alrick, this is the Titanic! Passengers can’t just… go missing like they could in the past.”

Alrick looked at her incredulously. “Do you think I’m an idiot?”

Lilly recoiled. “No, no, of course not-!”

“Then don’t treat me as if I am!” He leapt from the bed in a fury. “I’m not fucking stupid, Lilly. I know this isn’t a bloody tea ship!”

“Then why are you taking unnecessary risks by feeding? It’s only a week to port, surely-”

“I wasn’t going to kill her!” He snapped. “I told you, I’m not a fucking idiot. I was going to have a bite or two and send her on her way.”

Lilly’s resolve was fading fast. “B-but wouldn’t she have remembered the bites from tonight? Or her husband, he would have seen the marks on her neck. A-and on other… other places.”

Alrick scoffed. “This isn’t my first time biting a human woman, Lilly. I’m not a novice, I know how to conceal such things.”

“I- I know that, but-”

“Why are you so interested, anyway?” Alrick strode towards her. He was close enough that Lilly could smell the faint remains of his cologne that clung to his skin. “You’ve seen me with numerous snacks before, why do you care about it all of a sudden?”

“I-” Lilly floundered. She knew very well why she cared about the lipsticked woman. She was supposed to be his wife. It may not have been real, but the idea that she could be Mrs. Rosenfeld, even if only for a little while, was too good to be real.

Seeing him with another woman had shattered the illusion.

“I’m just trying to look out for you,” she lied. “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

He scoffed. “And you know how to do that better than I do?”

“Alrick, it’s my job-”

“I don’t need you to nanny me!” He roared. “You don’t think I can do anything by myself, do you? You’re just like my father!”

The words felt like a slap to the face. Lilly stared at him, numb.

Her voice was quiet when she found it. “You don’t really mean that, do you?”

“Tch. You nag me about smoking, about women, about the ship,” he waved his hands in irritation. “If I wanted to spend my time with someone like that I’d just spend it with him.”

The anger vanished from her. Lilly stepped away from the door. The numbness had spread through her body down to her fingertips. “Goodnight, Alrick.”

She slipped away before he could respond. Lilly disappeared into her room, closing the door with a soft click. Darkness had completely fallen over the ship and from inside her chambers, not a peep could be heard. Not even the muffled sobs she hid as tears slid down her cheeks.