Tamara recoiled as if burned, outrage flashing across her face.
"Why did you turn around?" she demanded, eyes blazing. "If you had not moved, I would have torn your throat open."
Daniel looked at her with mild disbelief rather than fear. He straightened from the door, brushing imaginary dust from his sleeve as if the attempted bite were merely an inconvenience.
"So that was your plan?" he asked dryly. "You were going for my neck?"
There was no panic in his tone, only curiosity. If anything, he seemed more interested in the mechanics of her attack than the threat itself.
Tamara lifted her chin defiantly. "You are my prey. That is where I strike."
He studied her for a moment, then gave a faint, almost amused exhale. "For the record, your lips taste like seawater."
Tamara's glare sharpened, but before she could retort, Daniel added calmly, "You can give up on killing me. You can't kill me. I'm what you would call… an immortal being."
She paused.
"Can't die?" she asked, and for the first time there was a crack in her certainty. Until now, she had assumed this was simply a powerful human—strange, dangerous, but mortal.
"Yes," he replied evenly. "Can't die."
A flicker of something close to frustration crossed her face. The option of dragging him into the deep and ending this had clearly been her fallback plan.
Daniel noticed.
"Don't look so disappointed," he said lightly. "I'm not chaining you here. You're not restricted. You can leave whenever you want."
She narrowed her eyes. "Really?"
"Yes."
She didn't believe him. Her gaze searched his expression for deception.
He met it without hesitation.
"However," he continued, "before that, there is the matter of punishment."
Her posture stiffened. "Punishment?"
"You did attempt to eat me," he reminded her calmly. "Repeatedly."
Tamara crossed her arms, defensive but alert. "What punishment?"
"You'll know in time," Daniel said. "For now, it's simple. You stop trying to eat humans while you're around me."
She looked unconvinced.
"And if I don't?" she challenged.
Daniel's gaze sharpened slightly. "Otherwise, I will spank you."
Tamara froze.
The word clearly did not fit into her understanding of threats.
"You will… what?"
"You heard me," he said evenly. "So behave."
She stared at him, stunned more by the absurdity than the danger.
"…Understood," she muttered at last, though whether from agreement or sheer confusion was unclear.
***
"So, Jack, where's the entrance to the Fountain of Youth?" Daniel asked, leaning against the rail while Jack stood at the bow with a spyglass pressed to his eye.
Jack adjusted the angle, studying the dense jungle and broken cliffs ahead. "I don't know, mate.
The map wasn't generous with details. It marks the island, not the door. And even if we find it, we'll need Ponce de León's cups if we want to enter the place where the fountain is."
Daniel folded his arms. "And?"
"And," Jack continued, lowering the spyglass slightly, "I am reasonably certain that the Santiago ran aground somewhere on the far shore of this island. If the legends hold, she carried the cups… and perhaps a few other items of a more portable and financially comforting nature."
Daniel gave him a sideways look. "So you only need the cups?"
Jack's mouth twitched faintly. "Technically, yes. Practically… if we are already retrieving sacred Spanish relics from a doomed expedition, it would be irresponsible not to examine any accompanying valuables. Purely for historical preservation, of course."
"Of course."
Jack lowered the spyglass completely now, voice dropping a notch. "And, mate… I have no money. If I can't pay my crew soon, they'll start remembering other captains who can."
He didn't say it dramatically. He didn't need to.
Pirates were loyal—until they weren't.
Daniel studied him for a moment, then glanced toward the island again. "Fine. We get the cups. And whatever 'historical preservation' you can carry without slowing us down."
Jack's grin returned, subtle but satisfied. "See? This is why our partnership thrives."
"Then let's go get it," Daniel replied.
He grabbed Jack's wrist before the pirate could object, and with his other hand caught Tamara firmly by the arm. He had no intention of leaving her aboard the Pearl; the moment his back was turned, she would dive straight into the sea.
Tamara struggled. "Release me."
"Not happening."
The shadows beneath their feet thickened, stretching unnaturally across the deck. They spilled over the rail and reached toward the island's shoreline like living ink.
In the next breath, the three of them vanished.
Daniel extended his awareness through the darkness, letting his shadow sweep across the island's coast. It slipped between rocks, through trees, across hidden coves—searching.
It found the wreck in less than a minute.
The Santiago lay broken on the island's far side, ribs exposed, hull split, half-consumed by sand and time.
The shadows recoiled.
A moment later, they rose from beneath a twisted tree on the beach, and the trio stepped out onto the sand.
Jack staggered slightly as the world reassembled around him. "Sometimes," he muttered, brushing himself off, "I wonder what a journey even means to you. One moment we're on deck, the next we've arrived. No wind, no rum."
Daniel glanced at him. "You prefer walking?"
"…On second thought, this is acceptable."
They stepped forward from the tree line and the coastline opened into a vast stone arch—a cavern carved by centuries of tide and storm.
Light filtered in from the far end, illuminating sand and scattered rock, but the center of the cave was shadowed and cold.
Jack slowed.
"Now that," he murmured, "is dramatic."
Daniel followed his gaze upward.
High above them, lodged between jagged stone teeth near the ceiling of the cavern, hung the remains of the Santiago.
The Spanish galleon was impaled against the rock face as if thrown there by a god's hand. Her hull was split, masts snapped, rigging dangling like the ribs of a skeleton.
*****
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