Blood lust in New Orleans

The air in New Orleans was thick. Not just with the humidity and jazz, but it had an air of something old. Something watching. Something hungry.

The French Quarter glowed with flickering lamplight. Tarot readers sat at small tables, candles trembling in the breeze. Jazz spilt from open doorways. The city felt alive.

April looked around the dive bar with wide eyes. She and her three closest friends had flown in from England for Halloween. For them, this was a pilgrimage of pleasure. All dressed in corsets, chokers and fishnet stockings with matching maroon lipstick: they were goth girls at heart, especially April. She’d been obsessed with vampire lore since she was fourteen. She devoured Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, obscure erotica…she lapped it all up. New Orleans was her Mecca.

When they pushed through the door of a shadowy dive bar, April felt like she had stepped into one of her fantasies. This bar was everything she’d dreamed of. The faded red wallpaper, the live blues band groaning in the corner, and the scent of clove smoke & something metallic in the air. She sipped her absinthe and scanned the room.

And then she saw him. Tucked away in the farthest booth, half-hidden in the shadows, he sat utterly still. Jet black hair. Skin as pale as moonlight. Eyes as black as onyx but lit from within. His stare caught her like a moth in a jar. He didn’t blink. He didn’t need to.

Her chest tightened. Her thighs pressed together.

“Earth to April,” her friend teased, waving her hand in front of April’s entranced stare. “You’ve been gawping at that man for five minutes.”

April didn’t answer. She rose without thinking, drawn forward by something older than choice. She moved with such grace that she felt as though she was floating through the room towards the stranger in the shadows. As she reached him, the air grew heavier, thick with magic, lust and fate.

“Do you always summon strangers with your eyes?” she asked, breathless but loaded with lust. His smile was slow. Lethal. “Only the ones that call to something ancient in me.” He said with a smirk. Her laugh was soft. “And what do those parts want?”

“You,” he said simply. “Every way a man can have a woman…and in some ways that he cannot.”

She slid into the booth beside him, and his hand was on her thigh before she even knew it. Cold, but electric. His touch and his stare put her into a trance.

“I’m April,” she whispered. He took his hand and slid a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’m Lucian.” She tried to speak, but before she could utter a word, he took her hand and led her out the back of the bar into the alley. The music behind them faded. The thick, New Orleans night pulsed around them. He pressed her against the brick wall. “I’ve never seen you here before, yet you seem so familiar. You don’t belong to this city.” He murmured, scanning her mouth.

“Maybe I do now.” He kissed her: starved, reverent, claiming her for his new plaything. Her fingers tangled in his coat as she pressed herself against him. She felt sharp teeth graze her neck. “Do you trust me, April?” he whispered. “I shouldn’t,” she breathed. “But you do.” He smirked.

His fangs bared, and before she could speak another word, the world tilted. In one impossible motion, he lifted her, and the alley fell away. Wind roared in her ears as the city’s lights blurred beneath them as he carried her through the air. They landed on a wrought-iron balcony, stepping into a mansion draped in velvet and shadow. Candles lined every surface, their flames dancing across black-and-gold wallpaper.

Inside, the air smelled of old paper and roses. He laid her gently on a velvet chaise, his coat falling away to reveal the taut lines of his body. “I want to taste all of you.” he growled, kneeling between her legs.

He lifted her dress, her stockings still clinging to her thighs as his mouth explored her. His tongue was slow and deliberate. Her hips writhed beneath him. He traced her throat with his fingertips, pausing at the frantic flutter of her pulse. Her scent was divine. Ancient. It was driving him wild. He hadn’t felt like this for an eternity.

His eyes locked on hers, and with a low growl, he slid inside her, his hand still on her throat, his other gripping her hip. His movements were deep and unhurried; each thrust paired with a hungry kiss to her neck.

“Turn me,” she gasped. “Please…I want to be yours.”

His bite was deep. She felt a sharp pain that bloomed instantly into euphoria. This time, he took her hard and hungry. He fed from her neck and her wrist, drinking her in like she was his only salvation. She came with a cry, again when he bit her wrist, and once more when he whispered against her lips, “You’re mine now.”

She woke in his arms, her body buzzing with new power. She felt no heartbeat, no breath, yet she felt more alive than ever.

“What happens now?” she asked, tracing a hand along his chest. Lucian smiled. “Now…we have eternity, my love.” She glanced in the mirror and saw no reflection. But Lucian saw it. Her eyes were brighter, lips redder, her newly acquired fangs sharp. She didn’t feel damned, she felt chosen.