#btw the one on his shoulder in the normal way i draw him was sewn in by duck <: ]

[mtsodie]

10 yr old red

[smallerinfinities]

Closer: All Hallows Eve (Vampire!Shawn)

a/n: hello, my dear friends! I haven’t written in an age and then Halloween happened and I couldn’t help but revisit my friend vampire!Shawn. this was going to be a blurb LOL and then ended up turning into a 5.5k oneshot(?) of this little universe I’ve created. I honestly think Closer is going to be non-linear. a series of oneshots of different periods in Shawn’s vampire life. this is one such period. btw, some of this is based on characterizations found in the show Versailles, so if you’re into that show you might find familiar things in here! enjoy!

The first chapter of Closer, along with the rest of my writing is linked in my masterlist! ❤️

warnings: smut, blood, bisexuality, more blood, aggression, mentions of infant mortality

Two fingers of scotch swirled in the tumbler in front of him. Some tawdry monster song poured from the jukebox to a full crowd on the dance floor, accompanied by hoots and hollers from the humans. Halloween was always an event at The Trinity. Old and young, sire and fledgling, all of them flocked to the city for the festivities, for the time when the wall between paranormal and normal was but a translucent curtain, easily passed through or, in the case of The Trinity, ripped down. It was this one night a year that vampires could feed openly and no one batted an eyelash. Humans came dressed in costume and paid a pricey cover fee to get in. Liquor flowed freely from John Somerset’s bar and The Trinity vibrated with energy from sundown to sun up.

“It’s not what it used to be, is it?” John walked over with Shawn’s favorite scotch to top off his glass. Shawn hummed his assent, remembering a time when humans knew nothing of vampires, and their feeding habits weren’t such a spectacle. He missed the old days. Missed the thrill of the chase.

Tonight, he’d put forth minimal effort to keep up with the expectation, just painted black fingernails and a touch of eyeliner. Humans didn’t need much convincing once they looked at him. He had always been beautiful, even when he was a human in the 14th century, but when he became a vampire, that beauty was eternalized, frozen forever. Neither women nor men could resist him and he knew it.

“Remember 1685?” Shawn sat back and tilted his head at John.

“Ah, yes. You were in France then, oui?” John winked, clearing the wine bottle that had stacked up behind the bar.

“I was,” Shawn hummed and swilled his glass, tipping it up and letting the brown liquor burn his throat all the way down to his empty and aching stomach. His eyes shut, lulled by the warmth of his drink. Hazy memories burst into color behind his eyes.

+

His heeled shoes clicked against the parquet floor, the burgundy brocade bows adorning his toes kept in place by antique silver buckles. It was 1685, and Louis, le Roi Soleil, was King of France. The chandeliers above the king’s new mirrored walkway were lit with dripping candles, makeshift skeletons hanging from them. A macabre scene set for the masquerade happening at the palace. The noise rose to deafening as he crept toward the ballroom, filled with courtiers and royal family members, all of them ready to lay down at Louis’ feet. He entered quietly, like he usually did, not wanting to draw attention to himself in a room full of humans.

“RAUL!” The Duke of Orléans shouted Shawn’s French name over the crowd. The King’s brother came rushing over, his advancing age finally beginning to show in his face, “how long have you been here?!”

“Philippe, you just saw me walk in the door. Don’t be coy.” Shawn drew him in for a kiss on each side of his face. Philippe reached up and tousled Shawn’s cropped, curly brown hair.

“You know if you just wore your hair long people wouldn’t ask so many questions.” Philippe knew Shawn’s dark secret, knew what others whispered about him. Shawn could look around the room and pick out the handful of courtiers he’d fed on, courtiers he’d taken to his rooms in Philippe’s wing of the palace. Though Philippe had never shared his bed, he’d been Shawn’s friend for years, since his brother welcomed Shawn to the palace in the wake of the English Civil War thirty-five years ago. The duke had been ten then. The forty-five year old man in front of him was starting to gray.

“What makes you think I don’t want them to ask questions?” Shawn smiled wide enough to show his already lengthening fangs responding to the adrenaline and blood present in the room. There was no better place to feed than at a party in the presence of the king.

“Monsieur!” The Chevalier de Lorraine came up behind Philippe, tickling his sides. Ever since he’d returned from his second exile, the Chevalier and Philippe had been more and more open about their continued affair, despite Philippe’s wife dancing not ten yards from them in the ballroom. In fact, Philippe was wearing one of her heavy brocatelle gowns, much to his brother’s chagrin, and a golden mask that hid his whole face.

Shawn’s own mask was black with burgundy texture, a demon in plain sight. His jacket and culottes were black, embroidered with burgundy bats and stars. The leather sewn sleeves allowed his deep red shirt to show beneath. He was every bit a vampire, but the fools in the ballroom were too blind to see it. Especially tonight of all nights, All Hallows’ Eve.

He could see a few others here. His kind stuck out like blinding beacon amongst this crowd of flushed and greedy humans. Some were regulars in this crowd. He spotted Reynald de Chatillon, an old foe, in the corner with his ruddy beard and thirst for young ladies-in-waiting. He regarded him, nodding, receiving little more than a sneer in return. But others were new. A delicate shoulder brushed against his and a brilliant jewel caught his eye. She was cold as ice with a matching frozen glare. Her perfectly coiffed and powdered gray wig bespoke her fledgling age. The older the vampire, the more out of fashion they tended to be, and she was the epitome of fashion. Down to the smooth yellow sapphire delicately tied around her neck. He’d never seen her before, not quite a rarity, but he would be sure to ask Philippe about her later.

“Gentlemen!” Shawn clapped one hand on Philippe’s shoulder and one hand on Chevalier’s, “we feast tonight!” The two men led Shawn to the front of the room, giggling at his double entendre. Before any feasting though, the three of them had to acknowledge the king. Shawn bowed.

“Raul. So good of you to come,” the king’s lip curved up in the corner somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. Louis had never been able to stomach the truth about Shawn, even though Shawn’s money had helped make him the so-called Sun King. His disgust relegated Shawn to his brother’s company, which caused no complaint. Philippe was pleased to keep Shawn close, an addition to his band of privileged misfits.

“You know, you might be the only person my brother is more disappointed to see at these functions than me,” Philippe bumped Shawn’s shoulder as they walked away.

“Disappointed and yet he keeps you here,” Shawn reminded Philippe.

“That’s the real humor in it. To trap me under his thumb, he must gaze upon my face every day.” The duke smiled wide and curtsied, fanning out his overskirt and sticking his tongue straight out when he stood up again.

The party had been going for hours before Shawn had walked in. Generic golden masks littered the tables, some soggy from tipped champagne flutes. Chevalier seized one, licking up some stray champagne from its edge. He’d come unprepared for the occasion as he usually did, unbothered by party themes especially those hosted at Versailles. Affixing the mask to his face, he grabbed at Philippe’s hand.

“Darling! Let us dance!”

Shawn let them skitter into the center of the dance floor without him. The crowd parted  to the center as it always did. Philippe was still the king’s brother and that afforded him privileges no matter what others thought of his choice of lovers. The two of them were so caught up in each other that the opinion of others didn’t matter.

Shawn kept to the perimeter, preferring to stalk the room. He caught eyes here and there. He could smell their responses to him before he saw them. A girl no more than eighteen flushed immediately when his eyes met hers, her giggle betraying her girlish immaturity. He turned from her, hearing her little sigh of disappointment, before his eyes stopped and lingered at someone else.

He was feeling aggressive tonight. Though his body was devoid of blood, the chemicals that had once made him human still coursed through his muscles. They made him strong and virile and, more than anything, an animal. He needed to chase tonight, to delight in the thrill of catching his prey.

He turned his nose toward the breeze in the room and let it guide him, taking quick sniffs, trying to cut through the smell of champagne and red wine. Closing his eyes to strengthen his other senses, he caught a whiff of cinnamon and turned his head. He honed in on the spice of it, the touch of bergamot that thickened the blood. When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t stop himself from gasping.

It was a man. A young man dressed in uniform with a navy blue mask, peacock feathers sprouting from the temples. The gold of his buttons glimmered in the candlelight, his jacket settled against a defined chest untouched by war. His turquoise and gold eyes contrasted starkly with the black eye kohl that ringed them, eyes that kept darting to and from Shawn’s face. Shawn stared, moving toward him slowly. Even though the room was filled with music and dancing and the dim hum of a thousand voices, he knew that his feet made no noise.  

The hunt had begun.

“Do you know,” Shawn reached out his hand and fingered the delicate feathers, “that these are the same color as your eyes?”

“Enchanté to you too, Monsieur Mendès. Or should I call you Shawn?” He emphasized the name with a curl in his lip.

“You know me?” Shawn’s eyes widened in surprise. In this court he’d only ever been known as Raul Mendès, the French rendering of one of his Christian names.

“If by know you, you mean do I know the truth of what people say about you?” he bowed low, his outstretched hand brushing Shawn’s shoes. “Then yes, I know you quite well.” When he reached his full height again, he had removed his mask and revealed his flushed pink cheeks. Shawn could see the blood rushing wildly with his quickly beating heart just under the skin. His mouth watered despite the panic rising in his throat.

“Well, well, and who are you, monsieur?” Shawn dipped his head, filled with nerves he’d never show. If he had a pulse right now, if would be racing. Thank God he hadn’t fed in over a month. A vampire’s name was a closely guarded secret, known only to familiars, especially a former name.

“I am Lucien de Foix, a captain in the king’s army,” he stuck out his hand for Shawn to shake. Shawn took it hesitantly, a creeping unsteadiness overtaking him. How does he know my name? He kept a grip on Lucien’s hand, squeezing a little harder than he normally would, squeezing until he could see the sweat forming on the young captain’s head. Lucien’s brow creased, his mouth opening as if he might cry out, but as he looked past Shawn something caught his eye and to Shawn’s horror, he smiled.

“There, there, Shawn,” a cold hand, accompanied by a female voice, ran down his back and caused him to shiver. “Fear not, we are the only ones here who know your secret.”

It was the young fledgling vampire with the powdered wig. Her skin, unlike the white painted faces in the room, was naturally pale as blank china, marred only by a pair of starkly painted black eyebrows and two round circles of blush. She pursed her lips, tinted crimson as if she’d recently fed and left the stain. She circled Shawn, stopping in front of him and linking her arm with Lucien’s. Shawn turned his hand, exposing Lucien’s wrist and the livid, purple pinpoint marks left by repeated feedings. He should have fucking known.

“So,” he squeezed his hand again, enough to feel the bones grind together, “you’re a blood slave.” The fledgling hissed at him, whether it was at sensing her toy’s pain or at his implication, he didn’t know. If he hadn’t been in a ballroom full of people, he might have snapped both their necks without consequence or remorse. As it was, he had to play nice.

“He is my husband,” she cooed into Lucien’s neck, her tongue darting out to trace the bulging vein running from his collar to his well-defined jaw.

“A tasty one at that, I presume,” Shawn smirked at her. He knew this game. Vampires developed a taste for certain humans, enthralling them, keeping them as pets. She may have convinced him that he meant something to her, something more permanent, but one day she would move on. He would not. He would likely descend into madness, looking for her or for his next pleasure fix, but no vampire would touch him after that. He would be persona non grata, tainted and tossed aside.

“Very,” she purred, “can I interest you in a taste?”

“That depends,” Shawn hated that his mouth was still watering, still craving the spice that his blood promised, “who are you and what do you want from me?”

“I,” she held her hand out for him to kiss in a deep curtsy, “am Madame de Montpensier, enchanté.” Her wig was fixed with several small doves, matching the embroidery on her silver and white gown. Even at her most bowed, the wig still reached clear over Shawn’s head. This vampire wanted to be seen.

“And I would like you to introduce me to your friends.” She nodded toward the two men still at the center of attention on the dance floor.

“To Philippe?” Shawn tipped his head and laughed, “Philippe has little time or regard for women. I doubt you’d gain any ground on that front.”

“Oh, it is not pour moi,” she nodded at Lucien and he advanced toward Shawn, his heart kicking up speed. Shawn’s fangs grew to full length. They ached to sink into his beautiful tan skin. God, it was as if she knew he hadn’t been feeding, knew his habits and preferences. His weakness for young men with ambition and a false sense of power. It was as if this Lucien had been groomed for this.

The pieces finally clicked. His eyes darkened and his voice lowered to a whisper through his teeth.

“Tell me, Madame, has Reynald fallen so far out of favor that he sends his young fledgling to do his bidding?” Fucking Reynald. This was low, even for a leech like Reynald. His claws were always in some king’s coattails. It was the only way to keep up with his ravenous appetite for blood and power.

“Reynald does not need you! He is just as powerful as he always was!” She seethed, tilting her head toward Lucien again. He draped himself in front of Shawn, practically offering himself for the taking. Shawn could feel his body stirring. He wanted this man, wanted to rip into his veins and drink until he couldn’t anymore, until his whole body was hot and flushed with the young captain’s blood. Until his heart beat again and the memories surged behind his eyelids.

“Reynald needs me plenty or you wouldn’t be here,” Shawn spat, locking eyes with Lucien, a hair’s breadth away from taking him right then and there. He dipped his head to Lucien’s ear, licking the outer shell and relishing the feel of his body shivering beneath him.

He could see his ministrations were having an effect on her. Her fangs were lengthening. Shawn could smell her arousal, the blood and adrenaline a trap for one so young as she was. She couldn’t have been more than fifty years dead, frozen forever in her twenty-year-old body. She was thirsty. All the time. That feeling, the clawing beast inside her skin that could never be sated, the endless need for blood in the first century of her new life would be almost unbearable.

He took Lucien’s earlobe between his teeth, grazing, but not breaking the skin before he whispered.

“Run.”

Lucien shot from Shawn’s arms, past his mistress and toward the enormous French doors that led to the outdoor terrace. Shawn was so attuned to him now, so caught up in the chase that he could hear Lucien’s booted footfalls on the delicately manicured grass over the din of the crowded room. He stood in front of Madame de Montpensier and waited.

“Thank you for the gift, you’re more than welcome to join me,” he heard his prey stumble on the gravel path near the great fountain in the garden, “but you can tell Reynald that it will take more than a beautiful boy and a game of blackmail to get me to do his bidding.” He brushed past her, too concentrated on the blood waiting for him in the garden to hear her cry of indignance.

Exiting the ballroom to the terrace, he crouched down and laid his palm against the chilly stone. He could hear Lucien breathing hard. He was running. His footfalls vibrated against the stone from the treeline, slower and slower until he stopped to catch his breath. Shawn smiled, finding his opportunity.

He sprinted, almost faster than a human eye could track, his vampire speed in the dark rendering him practically invisible. His feet barely touched the ground, silently making his way closer and closer toward Lucien’s gasping breaths. He stopped behind a tree, looking past it. Lucien was doubled over, his cheeks flushed with exhilaration, sucking cold air into his lungs and huffing out little clouds with every exhale. Shawn snapped a fallen twig under his heel on purpose.

“Who’s there?!” Lucien’s head snapped up.

“There, there, monsieur,” Shawn cooed, using his softest voice to soothe, “you knew it was me.” He smiled wide, his fangs extending past his lower lip, as if they might cut into his own skin. Stalking silently, he moved closer, taking measured, slow steps to put Lucien at ease. The blood tasted so much sweeter when it wasn’t tainted with fear.

“You won’t hurt me? Madame never makes it hurt.”

“I make no promises.” Shawn stopped just in front of him, dragging a cold finger down in his pink cheek. His skin was on fire despite the chill in the air. The warmth of his blood sang a rich melody that only Shawn could hear. It was intoxicating. He bent down to Lucien’s mouth, where the smell of him was strongest.

“Can I kiss you?” Shawn asked, an honest question. He prefered intimacy with his prey. He wanted them to feel the truth of his desire, wanted them to know that without them, he was nothing. As powerful as he was as a vampire, he was nothing without their blood. He wanted them to want it.

Lucien nodded his head, a crease between his eyes as if he was surprised he felt agreeable to it. Shawn grinned. Men were always surprised at how far they were willing to go to gain Shawn’s approval.

Shawn pressed his lips to Lucien’s and gasped into his mouth. It was simple, two lips pressed together, but it was heady with that natural spice that men always seemed to have. The power they sacrificed to be fed upon, the beautiful surrender of delicate ego. It was everything that he loved about being a vampire captured in a moment of pure submission. He pulled away light-headed, his eyes black with hunger.

Shawn’s cold fingers found Lucien’s neck, tipping it to the side, exposing that deep, pulsing vein that he could see beating a quick rhythm full of blood, even in the low light. He cradled his head and ran his tongue along the sinews, the muscles that would become his chalice. Lucien shivered, gasping a hot breath against Shawn’s cold skin, filling Shawn’s nose with that warm spice that he’d smelled on the air inside.

His fangs broke skin.

Lucien cried out. In pleasure or pain, Shawn didn’t know. He didn’t care. All he knew was the taste of the warm, viscous liquid pouring from Lucien’s neck. Cinnamon, citrus, smoke. Each note bloomed behind his closed eyes in brilliant jewel tones. Rubies, emeralds, and amethysts swirled like a kaleidoscope.

Shawn felt Lucien’s fingers curl into his hair and push his neck farther into Shawn’s mouth, forcing Shawn to pull even more of his precious blood. It overflowed, dripping in rivulets from Shawn’s mouth. There would be stains, evidence of what had happened, but Shawn didn’t care. He was lost in this man. For a split second, he understood why Montpensier had taken him as a slave. Regular encounters with these veins would surely drive him mad.

The kaleidoscope swam as it always did into images, the moments from his past that he hid from between feedings. The list he kept of the humans he’d fed on turned into faces, one by one swimming into his mind. Memories of blood, of battle, of humanity. His heart was coming alive again, beating strong with Lucien’s blood, stronger than Lucien’s own heart.

He pulled away panting. Lucien’s head lulled, still alive but incoherent. Shawn laid him gently on the cold ground and backed away, controlling the temptation to take all that Lucien would give him, all that he had to give. Leaning heavily on a massive old oak, Shawn’s mind swam. His old life, his old humanity was coming back to him on a tidal wave, slamming him over and over into the bark against his back. Poitiers, Agincourt, Bosworth, Paris, Bologne. So much death and blood and iron, battles between kings and men, all dead and buried, turned to dust.

The final wave of memories was always the same hazy image. A fire burning in the hearth of the home he’d built with his own hands, a woman and child in a chair before it. He walks up behind her, touching her shoulder, and she looks back smiling. The child suckling at her breast, warm and pink, fixes him with a blue-eyed stare. It was everything he’d ever wanted.

And it was taken from him.

His chest rose and fell. The compelling need to breathe to keep up with his newly beating heart overwhelmed him. He always felt most human in the seconds just after the feed. Though blood coated his chin and ran down to his now ruined shirt, his senses were dulled to that of a living thing. He couldn’t hear past the beating of his own heart, couldn’t taste past the life he’d consumed. He was vulnerable and she knew it.

Madame de Montpensier had been watching. She came out from behind the tree where she’d been hiding, smiling wide, fangs grown to their full length. Closing the gap between them quickly, she planted her hands above Shawn’s shoulders, her fingers playing with the loose curls at his neck.

“Isn’t he lovely?” She cooed, looking back at her pet lying on the ground.

“He is,” Shawn licked his lips, turning her head with his fingers to look him in the eye, “‘tis a dangerous game you play with Reynald. You would do well to not cross me again.”

“Reynald is gone,” she whispered, “and besides, I’m not sure he interests me anymore.” She set him with a look, a look that shouted his needs and greatest desires into existence. If he wanted her, he only needed to reach out and take.

“Oh, does he not? Madame, I know you are young,” he rested his forehead against hers, his earlier anger eroding by the second, “but you will find disavowing your sire more difficult than you think.”

“That may be,” she lifted up onto her tip-toes, reaching her tongue out to lap up some of Lucien’s still warm blood from Shawn’s chin, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun while I try.” She ran her hand down his chest to where the blood he’d taken from Lucien was rapidly pooling in his groin.

He growled, taking her hand and moving to drag her off to the nearest bedroom. She dug in her heels to stop him, looking back at Lucien still passed out.

“Leave him,” Shawn barked, “perhaps it will teach him not to dally with vampires.”

In a moment, they were back in Shawn’s rooms, a trail of shredded clothing on the floor from the door to the bed. She moved to remove her choker but he stopped her.

“Leave it on,” he snarled, rolling his hose down and removing the last of his ripped and bloody shirt. She moved her hands away from her throat and sat back on the bed, leaning back on her hands. She spread her legs in an open invitation.

She was fucking beautiful. Her skin glowed in the half-burned candles sitting on every surface, smooth and unmarred by age or sickness. He couldn’t stop himself from groaning. It had been some time since he’d been with a woman. Too long. He approached her slowly, bending down to crawl on his knees to her.

He covered her body with his, taking in her clean scent suffused with Lucien’s. They were both warm, hearts beating together with the same blood. She curled her legs around his thighs.

“I want you inside me.” She purred in his ear.

All he’d needed was permission. He drove his hips into hers, pumping deep into her warm cunt. She cried out, arching her back and clamping her arms into his wrists. Her nails dug into his skin, drawing blood. Hissing, he pulled back and lifted onto his knees. She laughed, licking each of her crimson stained fingers.

“Come on, Shawn. Give me everything you’ve got.”

He roared. Grabbing her hips, he pulled almost all the way out of her warmth and then tugged her back onto him. Their skin met in a deliciously wet slap and echoed off the ornate walls. It was intense. He felt her clench around him, deep inside, all the way through his repeated strokes. He rowed into her over and over and over again until the delicate doves placed in her wig flew off the bed, cracking loudly against the floor. She held tight to the bedpost behind her, her strength creating resistance for him to fuck harder into.

He wasn’t going to last much longer like this, but he needed her there with him. To fall off the cliff and into the ocean of Lucien’s blood that they shared. He wrapped his arm around her middle, hauling her up to his chest and slamming them both backward against the headboard, still fucking his hips up into hers.

Her eyes were black, her mouth open in silent pleasure. He wanted to hear her scream.

Shawn ducked his head to her chest, placing open mouthed kisses along her breast bone. Her red-flushed nipples called to him, grazing his chest with every thrust.

“Come with me.”

He sank his fangs into her breast, suckling on her perfect diamond-hard peaks. Blood rushed again into his mouth, filling him with that spicy, citrusy blood he’d lost himself in earlier. It mixed with florals, oleander and magnolia, inside her body and he came hard with the mix of masculine and feminine.

“Shawn!” she cried, bearing down on him harder than ever, riding her own orgasm into the wall behind her. They rocked back and forth together. Shawn fucked his hips up into hers as she held his head to her chest. Her memories came to him, blooming in front of him as strong as her shaking body in his arms.

There were not many of them; as he had suspected, she was not old. He saw her as a young woman, a human, hand in hand with a child, a daughter, with bouncy, loose blond curls. He saw her dressed all in black, saw Reynald finding her on her knees beside a child’s mausoleum. He promised he could take her pain away.

Reynald lied.

He let go of her breast, breathless for the second time that night. She heaved against him, clawing at his face, pulling him to her lips. Blood poured into her mouth and they both moaned, her memories and his mixing. New and old, predator and prey, lovers.

They collapsed onto the blood stained sheets. Shawn held his arms open and she crawled into them quietly, fingering the bit of chest hair that had grown before he had left his humanity behind. She knew what he’d seen. When vampires fed from each other, the memories flashed in both their minds.

“Reynald made false promises because he wanted you,” he whispered, tracing patterns on her bare skin, “he is nothing but a liar.”

“Will I ever forget her?” she asked, knowing the answer but needing to hear it from someone she knew would tell her the truth.

“No,” he kissed her forehead, “she will come to you every time you feed, just like I see my wife and child even now more than three hundred years since their passing.”

“Teach me,” she pleaded, the hazel of her human eyes bright after feeding, “teach me how to live with the pain.”

“Shhhh,” he smoothed her hair, “let us sleep.” He draped the heavy blankets over them and she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Nothing could dare hurt you here.”

+

“Shawn?” John clinked his glass with an empty beer bottle, “I think someone is watching you.” He nodded to a far corner, beyond the sea of human and vampire heads now dancing idiotically to “Monster Mash.” The figure moved with inhuman speed through the crowd.

He blinked to make sure he wasn’t seeing a ghost.

How in the —

“Oh, don’t look so shocked to see me, Shawn,” she lifted her black leather covered leg over his, “All Hallows Eve always was our time.” Her lips, always painted red, lifted back over her cartoonishly long fake fangs.

“Hélène, what are you doing here?”

“Don’t you mean, H��lène, how did you escape when I left you for dead?” She narrowed her eyes to slits, her long chandelier earrings tinkling under her blunt-cut black bob haircut.

“It was 1792, Ellie. You wouldn’t leave France. You made your choice.”

“It was my home!”

John made a clicking noise, “vampire disputes go outside.”

“There’s no need, John. She was just going,” Shawn glared at her. “We have no dealings. If you are only interested in blaming me for what I could not change, then we have nothing to discuss.”

She slammed her hand down on the bar, leaving a wax-sealed envelope in front of him. An ornate, crimson R was pressed into the black wax.

“Reynald requests your presence.”

“You went back to him?” Shawn shook his head, a humorless grin pulling at the corner of his mouth, “after all that time?”

“Yeah, well he didn’t abandon me.” She picked up her leg and turned to leave, giving his curls a tug at the last second. He caught her hand and pulled it to his lips. She was warm, recently fed. He had always loved her skin in the days after a feeding, curling into her warmth every night in bed. They fed and fucked and drank and danced for a century and she still went back to him.

“I never meant for that to happen.” He wasn’t sure what he had meant to happen all those years ago when he left her, the peasants breaking windows and setting fires a few blocks from their Paris apartment, but he sure as hell didn’t mean for her to go to him.

“We never mean for bad things to happen, but it’s like you said that first night. I don’t know why I ever thought I could disavow him.” She wiped at the corner of her eye, ripping her hand from his and hurrying away from the bar.

Shawn ripped open the note she’d left.

Dear Shawn Peter Raul Mendes,

Did I get all of your names in? I do love knowing them all.

Isn’t she lovely? Thank you for taking her in all those years ago. She was too headstrong, too willing to leave. I love her now. My beautiful broken pony. She begged for my forgiveness. I gave it to her. It took awhile. Fifty years in an abandoned well. That was how long it took to get your stink off of her.

I do hope you’ll come see us. I’m sure you remember where to find me.

Best wishes,

  Reynald

Shawn crumpled up the old piece of paper and lobbed it into the fire near the stairs to the street. White, hot anger courses through him. He needed to leave before he took and fed on the first thing that fell into his arms, unsure if he could feed without draining. He needed to find Hélène. He needed to find Reynald.

I’m going to kill that bastard once and for all.

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