Bitten by fade

Damien had perfected the art of blending in. For centuries, Halloween was his easiest night-a chaotic symphony of masks and manufactured fear, where his actual inhumanity was merely another clever costume. He attended the exclusive city party not for amusement, but for observation, cloaked in an impeccable, anachronistic suit that made him look less like a monster and more like a dangerous, old-world aristocrat. His existence was one of profound, cold solitude, and he preferred it that way.
​Then, he saw Aria.
​She was the antithesis of everything dark and deliberate in his life-radiant even amidst the strobe lights and costumed frenzy, dressed in a playful, almost innocent, interpretation of a mythological creature. When their eyes met across the crowded floor, Damien's control, usually absolute, flickered. He approached her, drawn by a hunger far more complicated than the simple thirst he normally quenched.
​Aria, charmed by the enigmatic man whose eyes seemed to hold centuries of untold stories, felt a magnetic pull. His presence was compelling, almost overwhelming, but in the intoxicating atmosphere of the masquerade, she dismissed the chill radiating from him and the unnerving intensity of his gaze as performance.
​Their meeting felt like destiny disguised as coincidence. Under the guise of anonymity, a dangerous connection sparked-the vampire falling for the very vitality he craves, and the human falling for a beautiful lie. Neither of them knew that when the midnight chimes rang and the masks came off, the true horror of their impossible attraction would only just begin.