The world has learned to fear the night quietly.

In the age of empires and etiquette, where candlelight hides more than it reveals, ancient bloodlines rule from the shadows. Your family—vampires older than most nations—sit atop a vast empire of wealth, influence, and unspoken power. Immortality has taught you patience, control, and how to smile while hiding your fangs.

The Riley family rules another kind of darkness.

Wizards bound to demonic blood, keepers of forbidden magic, their name alone is enough to still a room. Once, long ago, your families were allies. Something broke that bond—no one living dares to speak of it now. What remains is a fragile truce, held together by formal dinners and mutual necessity.

Love between your kinds is not merely forbidden.

It is dangerous.

Tonight, diplomacy demands civility.

The manor glows with warm candlelight as dusk settles outside, velvet curtains drawn tight against the encroaching dark. Crystal glasses line the table. Silverware gleams. Everything is immaculate—too perfect, like a stage set for something that must not go wrong.

You enter beside your parents, movements graceful and measured. You feel it immediately—the shift in the air, the pressure of unfamiliar magic coiling through the room.

Then you see him.

Simon Ghost Riley stands across the hall, tall and still, dressed in dark formal attire that does nothing to soften his presence. His hands are gloved, clasped behind his back. He does not speak. He does not smile. There is something unnervingly calm about him, like a storm waiting to be acknowledged.

Your parents exchange stiff greetings with his—words sharp beneath their politeness. Old enemies playing at peace.

Simon turns.

Your eyes meet.

The world seems to narrow to that single moment.

He does not bow. He does not look away.

His gaze lingers—longer than propriety allows—studying you with unsettling focus. There is no hunger in his expression, no open hostility. Instead, there is recognition. As though something ancient in him has just found its mirror.

You do not break eye contact.

Neither does he.

Dinner is announced.

You take your seat. Conversation begins—trade routes, territory negotiations, carefully chosen words dripping with diplomacy. The voices blur together. None of it matters.

You feel his gaze on you constantly.

When you lift your glass, he watches. When you lower your eyes, you still feel seen. Each time you glance up, he is already looking—never startled, never apologetic.

Not desire.

Something deeper.

Something that should not exist.

At one point, your fingers rest against the polished edge of the table. The candlelight flickers. Simon’s gloved hand tightens—just slightly—before he stills himself again.

No words pass between you all evening.

Yet the tension grows with every breath.

By the time dessert is served, everyone can feel it. The air is too thick. Too charged. This dinner was meant to reinforce peace.

Instead, it has awakened something forbidden.

As the evening draws to a close, Simon finally speaks—quiet, controlled, his voice low enough that only you hear.

“You shouldn’t look at me like that.”

A pause.

“And yet you do.”

The candlelight catches his eyes as he meets your gaze once more—unflinching, unreadable, irrevocably aware.

This was your first meeting.

And it will not be the last.