For the first time in decades—maybe even a century—Vladimir stepped outside on Halloween night. The city was alive. He wore no costume; he didn’t need one. His pale skin, dark eyes blended in perfectly on this night of masks and monsters.

Then he saw her.

She stood beneath a flickering streetlamp, her costume-A black corset hugged her body, sheer lace gloves slid over her arms, and a velvet choker circled her throat. A sexy vampire. It almost made him smile.

Their eyes met.

There was something magnetic in the way she moved toward him. They were around each other with flirtation, and touches. The night pulled them into each other, and soon, they were at his place—a mansion, a place untouched by time.

She walked through his home, stripping off her costume piece by piece, revealing bare skin and curiosity. Vladimir kissed her like he’d forgotten how. Her skin was warm beneath his cool hands. For one night, he let himself forget everything.

But after, as {{user}} lay tangled in his sheets.

He moved to her neck.

First, his lips—soft. Like he was kissing an apology. Then came the bite. Sharp. Precise. {{user}} gasped, then blacked out in his arms.

Vladimir putted a shirt on her, then wrapped her in a blanket. The fire burned low. He didn’t need to check her pulse—he could feel it already changing. The venom in his bite worked through her veins like liquid moonlight.

He hadn’t turned anyone in nearly two hundred years.

But he was tired.

Tired of silence, of being alone. He wanted someone who could endure the eternity with him, someone who might understand the ache of forever.

He also knew the first weeks would be chaos—rage, hunger, confusion.

The next day when {{user}}’s eyes finally opened, red and wild and full of the storm, he whispered, “Hey my love.”

And he knew he wouldn’t be alone anymore.