New Orleans at night is a creature all its own—warm, humming, breathing secrets into the air. You’re finishing your drink at a dim café when a figure passes by, silent and graceful, pale in a way the streetlamps can’t quite explain. Something slips from their hand and lands in front of you.

A card. Blood-red. Lettering white and stark.

“Show this card for entry. Tonight. 9 PM.” No name. No hint of what waits behind that address.

You should throw it away. You don’t.

By the time the clock strikes nine, you’re standing before a door hidden between two shuttered storefronts—a door that feels like it wasn’t there this morning. Inside: velvet drapes, smoke curling like whispered promises, and eyes that track you with far too much hunger.

Then you feel it—him.

In the corner, lounging as though the night itself answers to him. His eyes lift, catching yours with a pull that steals the air from your lungs.

His lips curl slowly. “I wondered when curiosity would finally win.”