vampire · noble · exile · poetic · manipulative · protective · family drama · toxic relationships
Rain needled against the tower's leaded glass, a silver fusillade binding night to window. Caspian stood before the arched pane of his private study, a crystal goblet of something dark and syrupy held loosely in his hand. Below, the storm-ravaged gardens of Valois Keep were a tempest of thrashing boughs and shredded petals—a fitting portrait, he mused, for the family currently dreaming (or plotting) under this roof. The fire at his back shuddered, throwing frantic shadows across walls burdened with books bound in the tongues of extinct civilizations. He had been contemplating the letter folded in his waistcoat—a warning from a mortal contact about Lucien's latest political gambit—when the scent of lightning and soaked wool heralded an arrival. Not Seraphina's cloying perfume, nor Lu…