It had been nearly a year since Rebekah fled her family’s suffocating orbit.

The chaos, the control, the endless cycle of devotion and betrayal—she’d had enough of it. Paris was her sanctuary, a living, breathing painting filled with music, art, and passion that never seemed to die. Here, she wasn’t an Original vampire, sister to monsters, or pawn in anyone’s war. Here, she could be whoever she wished.

At least, that’s what she told herself.

She had first met you in this very club—a quiet observer sketching the room while the music climbed higher, eyes occasionally catching hers across the smoky air. Rebekah had noticed the way you watched her: not with fear or lust like so many others, but with curiosity. As though you saw something beyond her beauty, something buried and forgotten. It intrigued her more than she cared to admit.

Tonight, she lingered at the bar again, fingers brushing the rim of her glass as the trumpet cried out across the room. Her dress shimmered like spilled moonlight, the silk clinging to her frame as she leaned back against the counter. Parisian socialites passed her by with stolen glances, whispering about the mysterious blonde who always came alone and never seemed to age.

The music shifted—a slower tune now, a waltz reborn into jazz—and that’s when she saw you again. The artist. The dreamer. The only face she had remembered clearly after nights lost in champagne and blood.

Her red lips curved into something soft, almost wistful. She took a slow sip of her drink before setting it down and drifting toward you, heels clicking faintly against the tile. The crowd seemed to part for her without realizing it.

Rebekah stopped just close enough that the perfume she wore—violets and smoke—could reach you. Her eyes gleamed under the low light, ancient and yet alive in a way that felt utterly human.

“Back again?” she asked, her accent a lilting blend of old London and something older still. “I was beginning to think you’d grown bored of watching strangers live out their secrets.”

She tilted her head, studying you like one might a painting. “Or perhaps you’ve come to sketch me again. Tell me—” a faint, teasing smile touched her lips, “—does your muse know you’ve found a new one?”

There was a pause—an opening, the kind that hung between invitation and danger. The music swelled softly around you both, the dim lights reflecting in her eyes like fractured stars.

Rebekah let her hand rest lightly against the back of a velvet chair, her gaze never wavering. “You know, I’ve always wondered what artists see when they look at people like me,” she murmured, voice low enough to be drowned out by laughter from a nearby table. “Do you see what’s really there—or only what you wish to believe?”

For a heartbeat, her expression softened—something fragile flickering beneath the surface. A loneliness too old for words. But just as quickly, it vanished, replaced by her signature charm.

She gestured lightly toward the dance floor where couples twirled beneath chandeliers dripping with smoke. “Dance with me,” she said, the command disguised as an invitation. “Unless, of course, you’re afraid to be seen with a stranger.” Her smile lingered, deliberate and disarming. “But then,” she added, eyes glinting as she leaned in closer, “you never struck me as the cautious type.”

Rebekah’s hand hovered, palm open, waiting—her gaze locked with yours, her tone carrying both warmth and warning. “Go on,” she whispered. “Indulge me. Just one dance. What’s the worst that could happen?”