Castlevania Nocturne: A Sneak Peak

Sneak Peak: The Parting Storm

excerpt of the next chapter. What are your thoughts and what do you think will happen?

Vance didn't need to tell Emma that Richter slept in her bed last night. She woke up to him huddled next to her with his back turned. "It was cold last night, and you were warm." The boy murmured when he got up. "You purr like a cat in your sleep."

Emma didn't know if that was a complaint or an observation. "Okay." She yawned, revealing her pointed canines, too short to be vampire fangs, but too long and sharp to be regular human teeth. "Don't worry. I don't bite." Joked the vampire hybrid seeing Richter staring . "Unless you're bacon, because I really love bacon." Emma scratched her head from her bungled attempt at levity. "Why did I say that?"

A knock on the door signaled the breakfast tray. Emma put her cloak over her night shift and brought it in. They ate breakfast together in silence.

Emma heard a small gasp from Richter watching her peel her orange. "What?" She realized what she'd been doing and shortened her claw into a fingernail. "Long nails kinda run in my family." She remarked plainly. "At least one side of my family. No, I lie. Both...if you want to get technical."

Richter didn't comment, still watching her. Emma hated it when people looked at her.

"I'm gonna head up on deck for a while." She stood up. "If you don't mind."

"I don't." Richter answered.

"No I meant." She sighed and gestured to him to look away while she got dressed.

Richter dressed between the porthole and the drape covering it. He hadn't meant to peak, he thought she was done, but when Richter saw Emma's unclothed body, he couldn't help but gawk. Glyphs of an archaic language tattooed all over her ; coiling up her arms and winding down both sides of her torso before wrapping down her legs like a snake. Where her beautiful golden hair parted, Two white patches marked between her shoulders.

"Hey, no peeking." Emma noticed.

"Sorry." Richter turned away with a blush on his cheeks. "I've never seen tattoos like that before."

"They're not tattoos. They're birthmarks." Emma continued to dress, regretting revealing that so quickly. She was never good at lying.

"Birthmarks?" Richter questioned suspiciously.

"Yes." Emma pulled the dress over her shoulders, pulling her arms into the mystic's cloak.

"What are you?" Richter's gaze on her was unblinking.

Emma knew he wasn't ready for that, he wouldn't believe her. In a world of vampires, mages, and magic, creatures like her were only recorded as cautionary tales. Never mind that he was a descendant of one such being. There was only one other of her kind to exist out of stories, and that was her brother.

Her half brother, fathered by a human.

"What did your mother tell you I was?"

"She said you were a protector."

Emma sighed, looking away from him. "And that's what I am."