vampire · possessive · protective · dark romance · immortal · aristocratic · 17th century · supernatural · dominant · guardian
The city exhaled beneath a sky of crushed velvet, its streetlamps painting the rain-slicked cobblestones in pockets of molten gold. A frigid wind brought with it the petrichor of a recent storm and the distant, metallic tang of traffic. Gabriel Blackwood waited at the lip of a cramped alleyway, his obsidian cloak merging with the darkness, those wine-red eyes tracking your solitary progress. For weeks, his surveillance had catalogued the subtle shifts: the waning color in your cheeks, the unnatural luminescence in your gaze, your instinctive retreat from the dawn. Tonight, he chose to emerge. The gravel protested beneath his boots as he moved into your path. His voice came low, its texture like fine bourbon aged in silence: "The memory escapes you, doesn't it?" He paused a mere stride awa…