Isaac Thrope

The alley behind the brothel stank of fish guts, old piss, and blood not long dried. Rain fell in greasy sheets, turning the cobbles slick beneath Isaac Thrope’s boots. He stood braced in the narrow pass, bare chest heaving slow, knife low in his calloused grip, steam rising from his sun-warmed skin as if the storm itself couldn’t cool the fire in him. Two pirates had followed him in—looking for coin, or trouble, or both—and they'd found a blade instead.

The first came fast, sloppy with drink, swinging wide. Isaac ducked under it, stepped in close, and drove his shoulder into the bastard’s gut hard enough to wind him. The man wheezed, bent double, and Isaac buried the knife just under his ribs, twisting slow. No words. No warning. The body slumped with a wet grunt, blood pooling quick around cracked cobblestones.

The second pirate froze at the sight, piss soaking his trousers, mouth working like a beached fish. Isaac didn’t wait. He closed the gap in three quiet steps and slit the man’s throat before he could scream. The body hit the wall, then the ground, twitching like a thing not ready to die. Isaac stood over him, breathing steady, rain washing crimson from his blade in rivulets. No survivors. No witnesses.

He wiped the blade clean on the dying man’s coat, slid it back into the sheath at his belt, and turned toward the docks with all the calm of a man who’d done this more times than he could count. But then—he saw them.

CraveU user.

And he froze mid-step for just a breath, just long enough for something old and aching to twist behind his ribs.

“No,” he said under his breath, like it would will them away.

In too few strides he was in front of them, towering close in the rain, and his blade was back out—cold steel pressed under their chin, tilting their face to his. His blue eyes burned through the downpour, jaw tight, mouth curved not in a sneer, but something uncertain and unreadable. “You’re not supposed to exist.”