Chapter 2: Echoes of the Past

The days following the Midnight Masque dissolved into a fevered haze for Seraphine Duval, her body and soul ensnared by the lingering echoes of Lord Draven Voss’s touch. Velmont’s cobblestone alleys, once a wellspring of inspiration with their twisted gothic architecture and shadowy denizens, now loomed oppressive, each corner whispering his name, each shadow mirroring his predatory silhouette. The city’s perpetual fog, thick with the briny scent of the Sea of Whispers and the faint decay of forgotten sins, seemed to coil tighter around her, amplifying the ache between her thighs, a constant reminder of the amplified edges she had endured in Draven’s thrall. Her studio, once a haven above the Rue des Ombres, had become a prison of unrest, its walls lined with canvases that bled crimson and obsidian, their images—entwined bodies, eyes aglow with unholy fire—reflecting her own torment. The portrait of Draven, unfinished on its easel, stared down at her, his crimson eyes piercing through the gaslit gloom, a relentless reminder of that night in the alcove. Each glance at it sent a shiver through her, her nipples peaking against her bodice, her core throbbing with phantom sensations. Still, her heart trembled with a deeper wound—the fear that this consuming connection was a gilded cage, her vulnerability laid bare to a predator who might devour her soul.

Seraphine tried to reclaim her life, to anchor herself in the routine of her art. Commissions piled up—a portly merchant demanding his wealth immortalized in oils, a young heiress seeking to capture her fleeting beauty—but her hands shook as she mixed paints, her mind drifting back to the alcove, to the cold fire of Draven’s fingers, the sharp ecstasy of his bite. Her body betrayed her at every turn, her nipples hardening at the memory, her cunt slick with unbidden arousal, but her heart ached with the weight of her fragility. The bite marks on her neck healed unnaturally fast, left faint scars that tingled under her fingertips at night, sending phantom sensations cascading downward, stirring mini-edges that made her writhe in her narrow bed. Her dreams were a torment of crimson visions—Draven’s touch igniting her skin, his voice commanding her to seek him out, her body arching toward release only to awaken denied, her sheets tangled, her fingers slick with her own juices, tears streaming down her face as she whispered, “Why can’t I escape you?” The loneliness of her orphaned past, the abandonment of her first lover, resurfaced in these moments, each unfulfilled climax a mirror to the void within her.

Who was Lord Draven Voss? The question gnawed at her, a mix of curiosity and dread that fueled her days. Velmont’s libraries, dusty repositories of forbidden knowledge, beckoned her with promises of answers. She spent afternoons hunched over ancient tomes, their yellowed pages crackling under her trembling fingers, the scent of aged leather and ink mingling with her own nervous sweat. Her research was a battle against distraction, her free hand straying beneath her skirts, circling her clit in a futile mimicry of Draven’s teasing, stopping short as her mind flashed to his gaze, her heart racing with the fear that he saw too much of her. One volume, Chronicles of the Eternal, spoke of a nobleman named Draven in the 15th century, a warrior who vanished during a siege only to reappear decades later, unchanged, his eyes glowing with an unnatural fire. Whispers of vampirism threaded through the text—immortality granted by a dark ritual, a thirst quenched not just in blood but in the essence of desire, leaving victims begging, their bodies trained to the edge, their hearts broken by his eternal hunger. Another tome, The Shadowed Annals of Velmont, detailed the city’s own tangled history, its foundations built atop catacombs riddled with tunnels where the undead were said to dwell. Legends spoke of a coven of vampires manipulating the nobility, pulling strings through erotic enthrallment, masters of denial who fed on the emotionally frail. Draven was their apex, a figure of myth and terror, rumored to have sired a lineage of thralls—artists, lovers, poets—bound to his will. His bite amplified their talents, but their freedom and hearts were sacrificed, and their bodies forever ached in his absence.