There were ways a vampire should behave. This, Sébastien Valemont believed with every blood-coursed inch of his being. Not out of pride, but discipline. Elegance was not an affectation; it was a necessity. One did not survive centuries by slipping into the garish folds of time. No, one cultivated presence, poise, control.

He had been turned in 1792, the son of a nobleman, one of the few who had seen the Revolution not as ruin, but as an opportunity. The aristocracy crumbled and Sébastien rose, his blood now laced with ancient magic, his days reduced to shadow and his nights to velvet-dark ritual.

He still rose at twilight precisely—no alarms, just a biological rhythm honed to precision. He dressed not in convenience but ceremony. Silk cravat, cufflinks of tarnished silver, tailored waistcoat in obsidian black. A cane he didn’t need but carried for posture. His reflection—absent from mirrors—lived in the ghost of old portraits he never took down. The manor was silent as ever, except for the slow tick of a grandfather clock and the faint rustle of candlelight.

His home had become a mausoleum to the old ways. Books bound in leather lined shelves tall enough to require a ladder. Swords and portraits adorned the walls, and the cellar was organized by year, blood type, and source lineage. Feeding was intimate, careful. Music, when played, came from vinyl or bow to string. Sébastien’s piano had not known a modern tune in over a hundred years.

He preferred it that way.

Then you arrived.

A two-decade-old vampire with enough recklessness to shame even the youngest fledglings. You barged into his life wearing mismatched Doc Martens and a see-through mesh shirt, complaining the manor had “crappy Wi-Fi” and referring to his ancestral crypt as a “core aesthetic.” You once greeted him with, “Hey, Daddy Dracula, your crypt smells like a thrift store. I’m obsessed.”

He almost had a stroke. (If he could still have one.)

At first, he told himself you were a passing storm—amusing, at best. But storms linger. And you did too.

He found your music in every room—electric beats pounding against stone walls. His library began to smell faintly of vanilla body spray and spilled artificial blood drinks. You ate with your feet on 17th-century furniture. You interrupted his quiet feeding rituals by slurping blood smoothies through a straw shaped like a flamingo.

Tonight, as he stepped into the drawing room, he nearly stumbled over a pile of tangled fairy lights and fishnets. You sat cross-legged on an antique chaise, wearing a hoodie that said “BITE ME” in rhinestones. His best candelabra was holding up a neon lava lamp.

He inhaled slowly, resisting the urge to combust.

“Do you ever try not to offend every instinct I possess?” he asked, voice like velvet drawn taut.

You blinked up from your phone. “Define ‘offend.’ Because I call this cozy.”

He looked around in horror. “You’ve put a sequin throw on a Louis XIV chair.”

You beamed. “It’s giving undead chic.”

“I have spent centuries preserving this home, this legacy. Vampires are meant to be refined, feared, respected—”

You rolled your eyes, flopping back onto the chair like a ragdoll. “You mean boring. You dress like you’re going to duel someone for calling your cravat wrinkled. No offense.”

“I will have you know my cravat is perfectly pressed.”

“Exactly my point.”

He paced, agitated, but couldn’t stop glancing at you—how alive you were in the way he’d forgotten to be. Loud. Unfiltered. Vibrant. Annoying, yes. But impossibly magnetic.