The Reluctant Vampire Page 0,30

you were a very good pirate," he said finally, and she chuckled.

"I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not."

"A compliment," he assured her. "You're clever enough, and had the fighting background for it."

Drina nodded. "Yes, we were very successful. But I eventually grew tired of watching my men die."

Harper arched an eyebrow as he picked up his wineglass.

She shrugged and picked up her own glass. Turning it in her hands, she said, "They were all very skilled, of course, and I insisted they train daily, but they were mortal. They weren't as fast or strong, and didn't have the "healthy cons tu on" or quick healing I enjoyed." She sighed. "I lost a lot of good men over the years, and finally decided enough was enough. It was me anyway. They were aging, I wasn't, and I had taken a wound or two that should have been fatal but wasn't." She grimaced. "When the figh ng comes from every side, it's impossible not to take injury."

Harper nodded in understanding. "How did you explain that away?"

"It was pre y tricky," she said wryly. "The first wound I took was a sword to the back. One of the buggers snuck up behind me while I was dealing with two others and - " She shrugged. "Fortunately, it was near the end of the ba le, and one we won. I woke up in my cabin with One-eye, the ship's cook, si ng beside me, his mouth scrunched up as if he'd sucked a lemon." She laughed at the memory. "He'd dragged me from the ba le while my first took over leading the men to finish the ba le. He'd carried me to my cabin, stripped away my jacket and shirt to tend my wound and discovered I had breasts. He was more horrified by that than the length and depth of the wound," she said dryly. Harper laughed.

"One-eye didn't admit this," she con nued, "but I read his mind, and it seems he was so sure he must be seeing things when my breasts were revealed that he grabbed me through my pantaloons in search of my

'equipment.' Much to his dismay, there wasn't any," she said wryly, and Harper's laughter deepened.

"How did you handle that?" he asked finally, as his laughter waned.

Drina smiled wryly. "Well, it took some talking and a bit of mind control, but I managed to convince him not to tell anyone. I suppose I could have just erased the memory and sent him off the ship, hired another cook, but he was a good man. A bit older than the others, more wizened, but a good man.

"Fortunately, he felt I was a good captain, so agreed to keep the secret, and the whole thing was so upsetting to him that he didn't seem to notice that I should have died from the wound.

"One-eye kept an eye on me a er that, though, watched my back in ba le and wouldn't let anyone else see to my wounds on the rare occasion that I took one." She took a sip of wine, and then added, "I only ever let him bind me if I couldn't manage myself, and then only once directly a er receiving the wounds. It was to be sure he didn't no ce how quickly I healed. He, however, thought it was because I was shy of his seeing my body, and I let him think that.

"For the first few wounds, he was so flustered by tending a woman that he prac cally closed his eyes while he did it." She chuckled. "Actually, he was surprisingly missish about it for a pirate. I think it was only because I was his captain." She shrugged. "But eventually he got more used to it, and then I took another wound that would have been fatal to a mortal, and that time he did notice."

"How did you explain it?" Harper asked.

"I didn't. What could I say? I just muttered that I'd always been strong and a fast healer and left it at that, but he started watching me more closely and started putting things together."

"Like what?"

"Like the fact that I stayed in my cabin all day, leaving the helm to my first, and came out to man the helm myself only at night, doing so with an unerring sense of direc on, as if I could see through the darkness," she said dryly. "That I only approached ships at night to a ack them. That I was