Blood Moon and Bad Blood

Isadora:

The dress feels like midnight made flesh as I slip in on. Black lace clings to every inch of me, a whisper of shadow against bare skin. I fasten the crimson-ruby earrings Loralie pressed into my palm earlier, their cold weight a pulse at my throat. The matching necklace settles like a promise—or a threat—above my heartbeat. When I tie the mask, its filigree edges bite lightly into my temples, framing the world in obsidian.

Loralie bursts into my room in a shimmer of rose-gold sequins, eyes already glittering with the night’s intoxication. “Mistress of Moonlight,” she declares, looping her arm through mine. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” I breathe, though the air tastes like a storm already brewing.

The corridor outside thrums with distant music and the murmur of gathering bodies. We follow the sound through a maze of candlelit arches until the Grand Hall yawns open before us—a cathedral of shadow and flame. Lanterns sway from iron chains, bleeding red light across marble floors slick as wet stone. The blood moon stares through the vast glass dome, painting everything in a restless crimson.

Students and faculty drift inside in jeweled masks and dark finery, a tide of laughter edged with hunger. My pulse stumbles. I can feel them even before I see them: the Royals, their presence a low thrum against my skin. Somewhere in this crowd, four sets of eyes are already searching.

A figure steps into our path. Draven— a gentle vampire, if there ever was one, from Botany, all polite smiles and the faint green scent of cut herbs. “Loralie,” he says with a graceful bow, “would you grant me the first dance?”

Loralie’s delighted gasp answers for her. “Of course.” She glances back, apologetic but giddy. “Don’t vanish.”

Before I can reply, another shape emerges from the shadow behind him. Taller. Leaner. The kind of pale that isn’t absence but moonlight sharpened to a blade. Hair black with a flicker of blue when the lanterns catch it. And eyes—crimson, steady, impossible.

“I’m Viktor,” he says, voice smooth as chilled wine. “Would you care to dance as well?”

The hall spins in a slow hush around me. I could refuse. Stand alone while the night devours itself. But the thought of isolation burns hotter than the risk of his touch.

“Yes,” I hear myself say.

Draven offers Loralie his arm; she slips beneath it, laughing. Viktor mirrors the motion, and when I place my hand on his sleeve he draws me close in one elegant, unhurried motion. His other hand settles at the small of my back. Warm. Possessive. My breath hitches—not from him, but from the force of a gaze that strikes like lightning.

Across the hall, on the raised stage, Lucian stands.

His eyes—those piercing black storms—lock on mine, searing through the crowd, through Viktor’s hand, through everything. Power coils from him like smoke, invisible but suffocating. The music hasn’t even begun, yet the air is already electric.

Headmistress Voss steps forward to speak, her voice a distant echo. Words about tradition, the blood moon, the binding of night to magic. I barely hear her. I’m caught in Lucian’s stare, the way it pins me, claiming without a word.

When she finishes, Lucian takes the podium. His presence swallows the hall, every note of his voice a dark vibration in my chest. He speaks of revelry, of shadows and moonlight, of a dance to welcome the red tide of the season. But the words are nothing compared to the way he looks at me while he says them—as if the rest of the hall doesn’t exist.

The final syllable falls like a blade. Without another glance he steps off the stage and disappears into the throng.

Viktor exhales a quiet laugh near my ear. “Shall we?”

The music erupts—strings and drums, wild and ancient. He sweeps me onto the floor before I can gather a thought. Bodies swirl around us, masks flashing silver and scarlet. His movements are flawless, practiced, a predator’s grace wrapped in velvet.

“You’re trembling,” he murmurs.

I shake my head, though it’s true. “It’s the music.”

“It’s him,” Viktor corrects softly, spinning me so my back fits to his chest. “The one who looked at you as if you were his next breath.”

Lucian’s presence lingers in every shadow, a dark gravity tugging at my skin. I should feel flattered, or frightened. Instead there’s only a low, dangerous heat coiling in my blood.

Viktor’s hand slides a fraction lower at my spine, and the hall tilts. For a heartbeat I wonder if the ruby at my throat is burning, if the moon itself is bleeding just for me.

Somewhere in the crush of dancers, I know Lucian is moving—closer or further away, I can’t tell. But the weight of his gaze follows, invisible and inexorable.

The night has only just begun.