Thirst

“Thirst”

The bar pulsed with laughter and low music, warm bodies packed in too tight, and Amber didn’t mind one bit. It was Friday night. She wore confidence like perfume, her deep green dress hugging curves that turned heads without trying. She sipped her drink and laughed with her friends, feeling the week melt off her shoulders.

Then he walked in.

Tall. Impossibly tall. Dressed in tailored black, he moved like a panther—graceful, assured. His skin was a rich, smooth umber; his jaw chiseled and shadowed with dark stubble. Eyes like polished obsidian met hers across the crowd, and the noise fell away.

He came straight for her.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the empty space beside her.

His voice was velvet—slow and deep, like something that stirred from underground.

“I’d be mad if you didn’t,” she said, her lips curling into a smirk.

His name was Lucien.

They found their way to the back patio, a quieter corner under string lights and the occasional swirl of cigarette smoke. They talked for what felt like hours—about art, about the ache of loneliness, about secrets they never told anyone else. He listened like a man starved for honesty. Every now and then, he’d brush his fingers along hers, and heat would rise like lightning under her skin.

He asked her to come back with him.

Amber hesitated.

“I don’t normally—”

“I know,” he said, close now. “But tonight feels different. Doesn’t it?”

She bit her lip. “Let me say goodbye to my friends.”

Her friend Jenna pulled her aside, eyebrows knotted with concern. “Amber, you don’t know this guy.”

Amber squeezed her arm. “I’ll text you the address. I swear I’ll check in.”

“You better.”

Amber turned back to Lucien, who waited by the car like a shadow with a smile.

The elevator opened into the penthouse—a cathedral of glass and black marble. The city stretched endlessly beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, glowing like stars had been poured across the earth. Inside, everything was sleek and silent.

“Wow,” she whispered.

He poured red wine into crystal glasses. “To moments that feel like fate,” he said, handing her one.

They talked more—closer now, knees brushing. His gaze wandered across her face, to her lips, her neck.

When he kissed her, it was careful, slow—testing.

She pulled back, heart thudding.

His eyes didn’t move, didn’t waver.

Then she leaned in again, and it was as if something inside them both uncoiled.

Clothes fell away like petals. Her skin was soft, glowing like candlelight—warm, supple, inviting. His hands were firm, reverent, sliding over the swell of her hips, down the arch of her back. She ran her fingers across his chest—solid and defined, like carved marble. Every muscle flexed under her touch like he had been sculpted for worship.

They moved together on the cool sheets, breaths deepening, bodies locked in a rhythm that felt ancient. She arched into him, their sweat mingling as the city glimmered behind them. Her fingers tangled in his thick hair. His lips brushed her throat, her collarbone, the soft hollow between her breasts.

As she reached the peak—her body trembling, spine arched—she felt him tense.

And then, something changed.

His eyes flashed—not with desire, but hunger.

Two fangs dropped from his upper jaw, gleaming white against his full lips.

She gasped, “What—?”

Before the word was finished, he sank his teeth into the curve of her neck.

The scream caught in her throat. Her nails clawed at him, panic overriding pleasure, but his strength was monstrous—unyielding. He held her like a beast with its prey, drinking deep, her blood warm and metallic down his throat.

Her struggle weakened. Her hands dropped. Her body slackened.

Lucien exhaled as he let go, mouth slick with crimson. He sat back on the bed for a moment, watching her still body, eyes half-lidded in bliss and hunger.

Then he stood, naked and glistening in the citylight.

He walked slowly to the towering window, the city sprawled below him.

Blood painted his mouth like war paint.

He looked out, not as a man. But as something that had once worn one. Something that had fed again.

A dark god watching over his kingdom.

And somewhere behind him, the night swallowed the last whisper of Amber’s name.