Bloodlust

Chapter Fourteen

Night has fallen on the City of Lights and with it, a surge of power overcomes me. The power of the daylight ring is drawn from the vampire who wears it, rendering them powerful, but less so than they are at night.

Or maybe that's just shit and my real power comes from the stunning dress I've donned.

When the Blood Council was first formed, Pierre had begun to roam the streets of France as a Ripper, quickly making his way to the feast of Paris. At the very initial creation of the Council, I was their unwilling, but compromising, servant. When they enlisted me to "put down" Pierre, I was desolate. He was a great friend, one who never turned me away in times of desperate need.

Around the time of the Order, I had entered a new stage in my relationship with Thierry Gerard-Toussaint. Our love was passionate and burning; in reflection, destined for disaster. He witnessed my conflicted feelings in directly defying my old friends and killing one who had been invaluable and unendingly kind to me in his lucid state.

So, exercising his jurisdiction as tête de sorcière, Thierry spelled Pierre into his shop with an important distinction: no one could enter, unless accompanied by a male partner. It sounds strange and out-of-date, but all spells have some sort of loophole and Thierry's was quite clever, in retrospect. Very few women buy custom made suits and very few men bring friends on suit fitting trips. Hundreds were saved by Thierry's strange law.

Thankfully, Thierry had the insight to provide a second loophole - I could enter without an issue, accompanied or otherwise alone, to visit one of the last people who saw me as more than a monster.

Anyways, back to my dress. Since the dawn of time men have loved to scorn women with their obsession with clothes, their inherent and societal necessary need to look adequate or good or fabulous or brilliant. But I believe there's something more than that in clothing. Pierre does, as well.

A good dress or pair of shoes or shirt or pants will make you feel powerful. It will lend its stitching to your mindset, increase your self-worth. Perhaps add a bit to one's vanity or ego, but each person should require such an inflation.

It prevents the world from stomping you underfoot.

My dress acts as an armor; it shows the version of me that I wish to present. Nadya Telemun; or as of tonight, Nadya Audibert, a classically French woman. It shows a woman who nurses money, prestige, and more importantly, class.

It does not show the vampire who rips out hearts, murders without a care, and has long since abandoned the notions of love and care.

It does not show me, the one person buried beneath the layers of vampirism, bloodlust, and pain. The centuries have strengthened my shell, rather than broken it down. And I know, as long as I live, no one will see that girl.

She has long since died. 

there's not really much of a point in this chapter beyond furthering a version of pierre and nadya's relationship and overcoming some writer's block. enjoy, readers! xx, k.

ps, a double update? merry christmas, ig