We seek shadows not to fear them, but to see what we become inside them.

🩸🌹🩸

She would never forget the way the moon looked that night.

Not just red, no, that would've been too simple.

It bled. Slow and deliberate, like a wound torn open across the sky. It hung there, over the city rooftops, swollen and watching, casting everything in a quiet, feverish glow.

Amalia Dervaux was twenty-six, and she was already tired. Tired of soft smiles and empty dates, of good intentions and forgettable nights. The world had become beige, polite and predictable. And somewhere deep in her chest, where want curled into something hungrier, she had started to ache for something more.

She hadn't told anyone where she was going that night. She didn't need to. It wasn't rebellion, it was instinct. Some part of her had already made the decision long before she slipped on her black dress, before she painted her lips the color of bruised roses and left her apartment without a word.

Just a scent of perfume. A hint of fire.

The club wasn't marked with a sign. Of course it wasn't. You didn't find Le Sang Noir by accident.

It was carved into a quiet street in the old part of town, velvet-lined and stone-laced, tucked between a shuttered bookstore and a closed florist. She stepped inside without hesitation.

The air was warm and red, like a mouth about to close. Music pulsed low, slow jazz crawling through shadows like it had nothing left to lose. The people inside weren't loud. They didn't need to be. Their glances said everything.

She realized, at first, that she wasn't like them, that they knew what she was.

In this city, vampires no longer lurked in the shadows, hidden and whispered about like bedtime stories for frightened children. They were real, tangible and they walked among humans openly, a truth no longer masked by superstition or denial. The world had adjusted, forced to accept their existence not as monsters, but as something darker, something more refined.

They lived their lives under the heavy velvet curtain of night, mingling in the streets and clubs, sitting across polished tables, their pale skin glowing softly under artificial lights, their eyes sharp and distant, reflecting centuries of knowledge and hunger. Their beauty was unnatural: too perfect, too cold, too precise and it drew attention like moths to flame, yet they never burned. They moved with a grace that mocked time itself, bodies lithe and statuesque, a living contradiction of motion and stillness.

There were rules, unspoken and ironclad. Laws that kept this delicate balance between worlds from shattering into chaos. Agreements between vampire covens and human governments, delicate threads woven to preserve peace and order. Above it all stood the Supreme Guide, a figure draped in mystery and power, whose will stretched across continents, ruling the vampire kind with a quiet, merciless authority. The name was spoken in reverent whispers, a ghost on every tongue but a shadow rarely seen.

Let's dispel the childish myths right away. Vampires don't combust like kindling under sunlight. The idea of fragile immortals reduced to ashes by a few rays is a story told to thrill and scare, not to explain.

Vampires never walked under the sun. Not because it would harm them, the sun was powerless against their immortal flesh. No, their absence in daylight was a matter of instinct, of nature. Like nocturnal creatures, they belonged to the night. They thrived in darkness and faded with the first light, retreating to shadows and secret sanctuaries until the world fell into night again.

They live in the twilight, moving with the moonlight's rhythm, their lives entwined with the night's slow, intoxicating pulse. Their bodies glow softly under neon lights, their senses sharpened in the dark, every glance and movement laced with a dangerous elegance that humans could never hope to match. To them, day is nothing but a long rest, a necessary pause in an endless dance with the night.

Amalia had never glimpsed this world beyond the surface, only felt its edges, like a secret brush of cold fingers against her skin. She had never met a vampire, not truly, not close enough to taste the danger behind the beauty.

Not until tonight.

...Chapter 1. Velvet Door...

......................

...We don't always walk into danger with our eyes closed....

...Sometimes, we enter with full lashes and painted lips,...

...Waiting not to escape the fire...

...But to feel it wrap around our bones....

🩸🌹🩸

Amalia Dervaux stood at the edge of the entrance, her heels pausing on the smooth black marble floor, eyes trailing up the glowing sign above. There's no subtitle, no explanations. Just the name: clean, red, and pulsing like something alive.

It wasn't her scene. Not really. But then again, nothing had felt like her scene lately.

Her fingers brushed the side of her dress, smoothing invisible creases from the tight, obsidian fabric. A little black thing with sleeves that hugged her arms and a neckline that dipped just enough to feel brave. She wasn't dressed to seduce, not consciously, but there was a quiet hunger in her tonight. Not for someone but for something: a shift, a sensation, a step outside the suffocating predictability of her life.

A girl could only powder so many faces and contour so many cheekbones before needing to feel her own skin again.

The bouncer didn't ask her name. He simply looked, held her gaze for a second longer than most would dare, and then tilted his head. The door opened without a sound.

Warmth hit her first. It wasn't heat but that low, perfumed breath of velvet air. The scent was expensive, dark: amber, myrrh, something faintly metallic underneath.

Music throbbed behind the walls, too low to be dancing, too heavy to ignore. The lighting was dim, sensual and curated. Every surface gleamed like oil poured over shadow.

Inside, it didn't look like a nightclub. It looked like a secret. She stepped in. The place was filled with them: the vampires.

They weren't huddled in corners like forgotten folklore. They sprawled across leather couches, lounging with their wine-dark drinks, their hands moving lazily across thighs, necks, skin.

They were beautiful. Of course they were. But it wasn't just beauty. It was the kind of presence that rewired a room. People moved differently around them: slower, more careful, as if afraid of making the wrong sound.

And humans were here too. Some gazed with reverence. Others, with the fragile thrill of prey dancing close to the teeth. Amalia didn't know which one she was yet.

She made her way to the bar, perching on a stool that curved beneath her hips like it had been waiting for her. The bartender, a human, she guessed by the warmth in his cheeks poured her a drink without asking. It was something red but it wasn't wine.

🌹 "What is this?"

She asked softly, her fingers curled around the crystal glass.

The bartender didn't answer. He just smiled and walked away.

She brought it to her lips. Whatever it was, it tasted like cherries soaked in secrets.

She glanced around, her eyes adjusting to the rhythm of the place. The music had no lyrics, just dark pulses and breathy notes, as if the club itself was exhaling.

She caught glimpses of them, the vampires, as they passed. They were tall, cold elegance wrapped in silk and suits. Their skin was pale in a way that caught light without reflecting it. Hair too perfect. Eyes that seemed to forget to blink. Some smiled. Others watched. She was being observed. Like a new scent introduced into a long-forgotten room.

Her skin felt too tight. Her thoughts, too loose. It didn't feel like danger. It felt like falling.

She lifted her glass again, lips brushing the rim and that was when she saw her.

Amalia's eyes tilted upward, drawn not by sound but by something more magnetic, more primal. At the top of the velvet staircase, partially veiled by shadows and crimson light, stood a woman.

A vision.

She was wearing a long black dress, fitted to her body like it had been sewn on by a sinner. Her blonde hair was swept up, not a strand out of place, exposing the graceful lines of her neck, the kind of neck one would want to worship or sink their teeth into. Her skin was alabaster, not pale in the fragile human way, but cold and eternal, untouched by time. Her blue eyes, glacial, bottomless, landed on Amalia like a quiet possession.

For a second, they stared at each other.

And in that suspended instant, Amalia knew this wasn't a woman. This was one of them. One of the night creatures. She could see it in her stillness, in the haunting perfection of her face. Not even the most advanced surgeons in Beverly Hills, not the most sacred Korean skincare rituals, could sculpt a beauty like that. It was inhuman. It was divine. It was terrifying.

The woman moved.

She descended the stairs like dusk descending on a ruined church: elegant, inevitable, sacred. Her red heels clicked faintly against the floor, but the sound was too soft to be real, more like a memory of sound. Each step was a whisper. The kind that makes you lean forward, forgetting everything else.

She didn't scan the room. Her gaze stayed locked on Amalia.

And Amalia...she couldn't look away. Her throat tightened. She felt her own pulse between her thighs, a throb of heat blooming in places she hadn't expected. Her fingers clenched around her glass. The world faded behind the woman's slow, hypnotic approach.

She was tall and thin. Her hips swayed as if the very air parted for her. There was poise in her bones. Red lipstick painted her lips in a shape too cruel to be angelic, and yet nothing about her said demon either. She was something older than either myth.

She reached the bottom of the stairs, and for a moment, simply stood there, watching Amalia, claiming her with a look.

The human's lips went dry as the unknown woman began to walk again, her path a straight line, not rushed, not hesitant. The way her dress flowed behind her: silent silk dragging secrets, made Amalia feel underdressed and overexposed all at once.

This wasn't seduction. It was worship demanded.

The vampire reached the bar, just a few steps away. Her scent preceded her: dark roses soaked in blood, laced with something ancient and wild. The kind of scent that would linger in a lover's bed for days, weeks. Forever.

She turned her head and smiled.

🩸 "You're watching me like you're afraid you'll wake up"

She murmured, her voice low, smooth, touched with the heat of something more primal than flirtation.

Amalia blinked.

🌹 "Maybe I am."

🩸 "And yet, here you are. Wide awake. Wanting."

The vampire leaned against the bar, not sitting, not relaxing, just existing, in that haunting, motionless way that made every inch of her seem forbidden. She didn't reach out. She didn't need to.

The air between them already felt like it had hands.

🌹 "You don't even know what I want."

Amalia said, trying to steady her voice.

🩸 "You wouldn't be here if you didn't want something wild...Or someone."

Amalia's breath caught in her chest.

It wasn't just attraction. It wasn't flirtation. It was pressure. Lust with teeth. Gravity with hunger.

🌹 "Who are you?" she whispered.

🩸 "Someone you'll dream about even if you run."

Amalia didn't move. Because part of her already knew she wasn't going to run.

🌹 means Amalia

🩸 means the vampire

...There is a color deeper than blood,...

...Softer than sin and louder than silence....

...It drips not from wounds, but from need...

...And tonight, it waits with its fangs behind silk....

🩸🌹🩸

The music dulled behind Amalia like a pulse wrapped in velvet. She followed the sound of silence, not the absence of noise, but the seductive hush that fell the moment the vampire moved.

The creature had descended the grand staircase like a woman from a dream. Grace molded into flesh. Now, her red heels whispered over the floor without sound, her long black dress trailing like spilled ink.

She hadn't said a word. And yet, Amalia followed her.

The corridor behind the main floor was dim, lined with dark mirrors and the subtle scent of rosewood and something iron-sweet. The vampire walked just ahead, never turning back, never checking if Amalia still followed. She didn't have to.

A black velvet curtain waited at the end of the hall. She pulled it aside with a single movement, revealing a private room. There's no windows or crowd. Just low crimson light, a curved couch like a sin, and a single glass table holding two fluted glasses. The room pulsed faintly with ambient music from hidden speakers, the kind of rhythm made for slow movement and bad decisions.

🩸"Sit"

She said softly, and it wasn't a request.

Amalia sat. The room's temperature shifted. Or maybe it was just her. Her throat was dry. Her skin too warm. Her pulse? Loud enough to hear.

The creature poured a liquid that slid into the glasses was the color of garnet, thick, almost syrupy. It clung to the glass as she handed it over.

Amalia stared at it.

🌹"It's not blood, is it?"

🩸"Would that make you run?"

The vampire asked, already sipping her own.

🌹"No."

🩸"Pity."

Her smile was soft. Dangerous. A slow blade wrapped in silk.

Amalia took a sip. It wasn't wine. It was darker, spiced, strange, something like plum and ruin. Her tongue tingled. Her skin responded like someone had traced fire down her spine.

She felt... warm. And exposed.

🩸"You wear the same face as all the others.

The vampire murmured, gliding closer, glass in hand.

🩸"Curiosity dressed up as courage. Desire pretending to be rebellion."

Amalia looked up at her. Her mouth was dry again.

🌹"And you?" You wear cruelty like perfume."

The vampire smiled, amused. Her heels clicked once, gently, as she crossed the distance and sat beside her. Their thighs touched.

🩸"So quick to bite back. I like that. But let's not pretend you came here to win a game. You came here to lose."

Amalia's breath caught.

The old creature reached out, trailing a pale finger just beneath Amalia's jaw, lifting her chin slightly.

🩸"Why are you here, young human?"

Not what are you doing here. Not the usual small talk. Just that "why".

And her name in that voice... it felt like velvet being dragged over bare skin.

Amalia couldn't look away.

🌹"Because I'm... bored of safe things. Of polite men and beige bedsheets. Because I want something real. Raw."

🩸 "You want to be ruined

The vampire said, as if stating a fact.

🩸 "You want to be seen, touched, undone. Not loved, not yet, but devoured."

The human flushed. Her glass trembled slightly in her hand.

The vampire leaned in. Her voice dropped.

🩸"You think you're ready. But you've never even seen the edge. You're still standing at the shore pretending you've drowned."

The creature didn't move right away. She just watched Amalia: gaze sharp, amused, calculating. A silence stretched between them, thick as honey and twice as dangerous.

🩸"Tell me something"

She murmured at last, fingers tracing the rim of her glass.

🩸"Has your straightness ever... bent?"

Amalia blinked, caught slightly off guard. Then she laughed, softly, low in her throat, the sound uncertain but genuine.

🌹I've never really been with a woman

Not like that. But... I've also never spent much time wondering how straight I am."

She turned slightly, meeting the vampire's gaze without flinching now, her voice quiet but steady.

🌹"Maybe I just needed the right... temperature. To shake a little."

The creature lips curved, not in mockery, but something close to approval. She leaned back just slightly, the corner of her mouth stained red like the promise of something sweet and dangerous.

🩸"A flame doesn't need permission to catch, only fuel."

Her eyes swept over Amalia again, not lewdly, but thoroughly, like she was reading her heat, her hesitation, her hunger.

🩸"You're not afraid of labels. That's good. You'll need that openness if you want to survive me."

Amalia's pulse fluttered. She wasn't sure if it was a warning or an invitation.

🌹"Who said I want you?"

She arched a brow, pulse skipping.

It was barely more than a murmur, but the defiance in her tone was clear, measured and cool.

For the briefest second, the vampire's blinked, intrigued. It wasn't often she was challenged. Certainly not like this.

Then her composure snapped back into place, quick as a blade returning to its sheath. A slow, delicious smile curved across her lips. Her eyes glittered like glass catching firelight.

🩸"Oh, sweetheart... your body already betrayed you."

Without asking, because asking was not in her nature, the creature leaned in. One hand rested on the back of Amalia's chair, the other slid deliberately under the table, her fingers finding the inside of Amalia's thigh.

🩸"You can't hide the way this tight little core...."

She purred, voice silk-wrapped sin.

🩸"...craves my tongue, my fingers. You've been clenching for me since the moment I stepped into view."

Amalia's breath hitched. Her legs stiffened under the table, muscles tense. Her cheeks flushed a violent heat that ran down her neck.

The contact had been brief. Barely anything. But it felt like it had rewired something beneath her skin.

🌹"You're... you're unhinged."

She said, forcing out the words. They lacked venom. They even lacked denial.

She wasn't meeting the creature's eyes anymore. She couldn't. She was looking straight ahead, eyes wide, jaw clenched, as if she was trying to wrestle her body back under control. But it wasn't working.

The vampire chuckled, low, wicked and devastating.

🩸"Oh, darling. You should hear the things I don't say."

She withdrew her hand like a queen sheathing a dagger, slow and smug. Then she rose from her chair, red heels clicking softly against the floor, a soundless dominion.

The scent of her perfume lingered in the air, something floral laced with dark spice. A hypnotic contrast, just like her: a perfect contradiction in every breath.

She walked a slow circle behind Amalia's chair, trailing one long finger across the fabric as if she were marking territory. Then she leaned in again, close enough for her breath to touch Amalia's skin.

🩸"You pretend to be curious. But your body is desperate."

Her lips almost brushed Amalia's ear, and the shiver it caused made the younger woman's breath stutter again.

🩸"If you ever decide to stop clinging to your pride and follow the ache between your legs instead…"

She tilted her head, sharp and regal.

🩸"You know where to find me."

And then she was gone. Like mist pulled through velvet. No goodbye, no backward glance. Only the scent of expensive perfume and something darker, older, magnetic.

Amalia sat frozen, her heart thudding against her ribs like it wanted out.

The room still buzzed with the energy the night creature left behind. It was like the atmosphere had been torn open and stitched back together with invisible thread.

God, that woman was insufferable. Arrogant. Unbearably full of herself.

And yet...

Every cell in Amalia's body was still reacting. Still wanting. Still wet.

She swallowed hard, suddenly hyperaware of the tightness in her throat and the heat pooling between her thighs. Her skin was on fire. Her thoughts, a chaotic mess of refusal and longing.

How did she do that?

How could a stranger leave her like this, undone without a single kiss?

🌹"Shit"

She whispered, closing her eyes and trying to breathe.

This wasn't like her. She didn't lose her balance like this. She didn't react to people like this, especially not to women. Especially not to vampires.

But there was no denying what was happening.

She hated how much the female vampire got under her skin. She hated how badly she already wanted to see her again.

She already knew. She was going to go back.