Epilogue
ALL HALLOWS’ EVE
Lucien
One year later
New Orleans belongs to the night.
Our Creole Baroque manor hums with music and laughter; candlelight drips from the chandeliers like molten gold.
My guests, an eclectic mix of mortals, immortals, the curious and the damned, swirl through the ballroom in masks and finery, celebrating the season that once haunted me.
Tonight, it’s mine again.
Ours.
All Hallows’ Eve.
I stand on the balcony overlooking the revelry, a glass of blood-dark wine in my hand. The scent of it mingles with roses and smoke, and beneath it, faint but distinct, the perfume of lilies.
Elara.
She moves through the crowd like a succulent secret the world is honored to know. Her gown is scarlet silk, the color of blood and survival, the train whispering across the marble. Every head turns as she passes, but she spares no one a glance.
Her smile belongs only to me.
She is breathtaking. And beneath that perfection I know the truth: the faint silver scars that trail her skin, the old echo of sigils that gleam faintly when candlelight hits them just so. Proof that she loved me enough to die, and lived enough to come back.
I love them.
Every mark.
Every story carved into her skin.
She catches my gaze across the room, eyes flashing silver. The bond between us thrums like a heartbeat shared. The music slows to an old waltz, heavy with strings, and I descend the stairs to meet her.
The crowd parts without knowing why.
“Elara.”
“Lucien.”
She slips her hand into mine, her skin warm and perfect. “You’re brooding again,” she murmurs.
“Admiring,” I correct.
Her mouth curves. “It’s a fine line.”
“Then let me blur it into adoration.”
I draw her close. The waltz takes us, slow and inevitable, spinning us through the halo of light. Around us, mortal and mythical beings alike laugh and flirt, but I see nothing but her—my wife, my curse, my miracle. The scent of her blood calls to every dark thing in me.
“You promised not to devour any guests,” she says lightly.
“Not all of them. Only the one to dare to stare too long at my love.”
She laughs, soft and sinful, her breath brushing my throat. “Jealous as ever.”
“Always.”
Jealousy is my nature, my oldest vice, my truest devotion. I will never stop wanting to own every breath she takes, even knowing she can never truly be owned. It’s the balance between us, the hunger that keeps eternity from growing cold.
The waltz ends. Applause follows, scattered and nervous, because they feel what we are even if they don’t understand it.
I turn to the room, my voice low but carrying. “My friends,” I say, “the night is long and pleasure is short. Take your leave before I forget my manners.”
Laughter ripples, uncertain. Then fear catches it by the throat.
Within minutes the ballroom empties; silk, laughter, perfume vanishing into the corridors until only the echo of footsteps remains.
Then the doors shut, locking the world outside.
Silence. Candlelight. Her.
Elara stands at the center of the floor, the red of her gown blending with the blood-red drapes, her eyes gleaming in the half-light. “You didn’t have to chase them all away,” she says, though her voice is already softer, darker.
“Yes, I did. I couldn’t wait one second longer to fuck you.”
I cross to her, unhurried, every step deliberate. She doesn’t move as I take her glass, set it aside, and draw her against me.
Her heartbeat stirs under my palm, a fragile, perfect rhythm that once stopped the world.
“This night is ours again,” she whispers.
“It is. Every breath. Every gasp. Every hole.”
“Prove it.”
I do.
I lower my mouth to hers, tasting wine and memory.
The kiss deepens, slow and consuming, until the only sound is breath and silk. The candles flare, painting the ceiling in gold and shadow. She tilts her head back, offering me her throat.
When my fangs graze her skin, her fingers clutch my shoulders. “Yes, my love. Always yes,” she gasps.
The taste of her floods my mouth, ancient and sweet, a reminder of everything I almost lost.
She answers in kind, teeth at my wrist, her tongue finding the vein. Our blood mingles again and the bond reigniting until the very air hums with it.
We dance, and we fuck. I come in her pussy, then her mouth, then her ass.
And when we do it all over again…when she wraps her beautiful legs around me and I lift her, it isn’t with hands alone—it’s with will.
Power gathers low in my spine, spills into the air, and suddenly her body rises with mine, weightless and wanting, hovering five feet above the floor. Then ten. Twenty.
“Lucien—” she gasps, arms tightening around my neck as I guide her higher, our bodies suspended in the velvet-dark hush of the empty ballroom.
“A new trick,” I murmur against her lips, thrusting into her as we hover above the marble floor. “You like it?”
Her answer is a broken moan, her legs locking around my hips, her nails raking down my back. “Sublime. More,” she breathes. “Gods, more.”
So I give her everything.
I keep us suspended with one hand splayed against her spine, the other gripping her thigh as I drive into her, slow at first, then deeper, harder, each thrust sending us drifting in a lazy circle above the chandeliers.
“Look at you,” I growl, kissing her open mouth, tasting her need. “Flying for me… squeezing me with your beautiful cunt like you were made for this. Come for me, my love.”
She shatters beautifully, her climax tightening around me, pulling my own from my body in a fierce rush that sends us both trembling in midair.
Only when she slumps against my chest, boneless and laughing breathlessly, do I lower us back to the red silk sheets I’d ordered for this night waiting at the edge of the room.
When we reach them, the world falls away in solemn worship of two creatures remembering what it means to be un-alive and still burning.
When it’s over, she lies against me, her skin aglow with candlelight, her breath soft against my chest. The ballroom is a ruin of petals and overturned glasses, but I’ve never seen anything more beautiful.
Outside, midnight bells ring. Another year. Another eternity beginning.
Elara traces the scar on my chest with a fingertip. “Do you ever regret it?” she asks softly.
“Regret loving you?” I lift her chin, meet her gaze. “That’s the only sin I’ll never confess or atone for.”
Her smile is quiet, certain. “Then drink to it.”
I raise her wrist to my lips, taste the promise there. She mirrors me, her teeth grazing my skin, our blood mingling once more.
“Until the end of ends,” I murmur.
She echoes it, voice like a prayer. “Until the end of ends.”
When I return her ring to her finger—her ring, my claim—the bond hums like a heartbeat between us, ancient and newly reborn.
The candles burn low.
Outside, the wind carries laughter from the last of the revelers, but inside the ballroom, the world has narrowed to two breaths, two magical heartbeats, and a promise carved in blood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~