Eternal Shadows:
Book 1: Blood and Jazz
New Orleans, 1925
The summer heat clung to the city like a lover who refused to let go. Elias Moreau wiped sweat from his brow as he slipped through an unmarked door on Rampart Street, the password murmured low to the doorman. Inside the speakeasy, the air was thick with cigarette smoke, the sweet rot of spilled bourbon, and the low thrum of a trumpet weaving through a slow, dirty blues. Red lanterns cast a crimson glow over the room, turning every face into something half-shadow, half-secret.
Men danced together here - close, shameless, bodies pressed tight in ways the daylight world would never forgive. Elias felt his pulse quicken the moment he crossed the threshold. At twenty-five, he had painted enough forbidden scenes in his tiny attic studio to know desire when it stared back at him from the canvas. But here, it stared back from living eyes.
He ordered a gin rickey and leaned against the bar, letting the music sink into his bones. That was when he saw Victor de la Croix.
Victor moved through the crowd as if the room had been built for him alone. Golden curls fell in soft waves to his collar, catching the lantern light like spun sunlight. His skin was pale, almost luminous against the dark suit he wore, and his eyes - Christ, those eyes - were the colour of old French coins, sharp and knowing. He caught Elias watching and smiled, slow and deliberate, like a man who had all the time in the world.
He crossed the room in no hurry. When he reached Elias, he didn’t speak at first. He simply slid onto the stool beside him, ordered absinthe in a voice smooth as river silt, and turned those coin-bright eyes on Elias fully.
“You taste like desire,” Victor said at last, the words barely audible over the music, yet Elias heard them as clearly as if they’d been shouted.
Elias laughed, nervous and thrilled. “Do I now?”
Victor leaned in, lips brushing the shell of Elias’s ear. “I would know. I’ve tasted a great many things.”
They talked for hours - or perhaps minutes; time felt slippery in Victor’s presence. They spoke of art, of poetry, of the cruelty of daylight laws and the freedom of night. Victor’s hand rested lightly on Elias’s thigh beneath the bar, a cool, steady pressure that sent heat spiraling through Elias’s body.
Eventually, Victor stood and extended a hand. Elias took it without hesitation.
The alley behind the club was narrow and dark, stinking of piss and jasmine. Victor pushed Elias against the damp brick wall with gentle but unbreakable strength. Their mouths crashed together - Victor’s lips cold at first, then warming as Elias kissed him harder, deeper. Tongues tangled, teeth nipped. Victor’s hands were everywhere: unbuttoning Elias’s shirt, sliding over heated skin, pinching nipples until Elias gasped into his mouth.
Then Victor dropped to his knees.
Elias’s breath stuttered as Victor unfastened his trousers with practiced ease. Cool fingers wrapped around his already aching cock, stroking once, twice, before Victor’s mouth descended. Hot, wet, merciless. Victor took him to the root in one smooth motion, throat relaxing around Elias’s length as if he’d been made for this. Elias’s hands fisted in those golden curls, hips jerking helplessly as Victor sucked with devastating skill - tongue swirling around the head, cheeks hollowing, one hand cupping Elias’s balls and rolling them gently.
Elias came with a choked cry, spilling down Victor’s throat in pulsing waves. Victor swallowed every drop, humming low in satisfaction.
When he rose, his lips were swollen and red. He kissed Elias again, letting him taste himself, sharp and salty. Then Victor tilted Elias’s head to the side, exposing the long line of his throat… but he didn’t bite there.
Instead, he pushed Elias’s trousers down farther, spreading his legs. Victor’s mouth trailed lower - over collarbone, chest, stomach - until he knelt again. This time, he lifted Elias’s thigh over his shoulder and pressed his lips to the tender skin high on the inside.
Elias felt the sharp prick of fangs a heartbeat before the pain bloomed into blinding pleasure. Victor drank slowly, reverently, each pull of blood sending lightning through Elias’s veins. His spent cock twitched, hardening again impossibly fast as Victor fed. When Victor finally pulled back, Elias was trembling, vision swimming.
Victor stood, bit cleanly into his own wrist, and pressed the wound to Elias’s mouth.
“Drink,” he commanded softly.
The blood hit Elias’s tongue like fire and honey. He latched on desperately, sucking hard as the power flooded him. His body convulsed - orgasm after orgasm tearing through him without touch, cock jerking and spilling again onto the alley stones. His heart thundered, then slowed, then stopped altogether. The world went black.
When he woke, the night felt sharper. Colors deeper. Sounds richer. And Victor was there, smiling down at him.
“Welcome to forever, mon cœur.”
The Years That Followed
They hunted together after that, moving through the city like twin shadows.
Some nights they fed quickly - draining a corrupt cop in a patrol car, or a pimp who preyed on boys too young to know better. Other nights they lingered.
One such night, they found Marco.
He was a longshoreman, built like a brick wall - broad shoulders, thick arms roped with muscle, hands rough from years of hauling cargo. They spotted him in a dockside bar, nursing a beer and watching the room with dark, hungry eyes. When Victor brushed past him and their gazes locked, Marco followed them without a word.
They took him to a rented room above a jazz club on Decatur Street. The windows were open to the night air, trumpet music drifting up from below.
Clothes came off slowly. Marco’s shirt first, revealing a chest dusted with dark hair and scarred from knives and fists. Victor kissed him while Elias worked Marco’s belt open, sliding rough denim down thick thighs. Marco’s cock was heavy and uncut, already leaking as Elias wrapped a hand around it and stroked.
Victor guided Marco to the bed, bending him over the edge. He slicked his fingers with spit and opened Marco slowly - one finger, then two - while Elias knelt in front and took Marco’s cock into his mouth. Marco groaned, a deep, broken sound, hips rocking between Victor’s fingers and Elias’s throat.
When Victor finally pushed inside, Marco cried out - raw and desperate. Victor fucked him slow and deep, each thrust driving Marco farther down Elias’s throat. Elias swallowed around him, humming, hands gripping Marco’s hips to hold him steady.
The rhythm built. Victor’s hand reached around to stroke Marco in time with his thrusts while Elias sucked harder, tongue pressing against the sensitive underside. Marco’s moans turned to sobs of pleasure. When he came, it was with a roar - thick ropes of cum flooding Elias’s mouth as his body clenched around Victor.
That was when they fed.
Victor bit first, fangs sinking into the meat of Marco’s shoulder. Elias followed, teeth piercing the wrist Victor offered him from the other side. They drank in tandem, blood hot and rich with adrenaline and lust. Marco shuddered between them, riding the edge of another climax from the euphoric venom alone.
They drained him slowly, lovingly. When his heart finally stilled, they laid him down gently, arranging his body as if in sleep. A peaceful end for a man who had lived hard.
Afterward, Victor and Elias lay tangled on the rumpled sheets, blood-stained and sated. Victor licked a stray drop from Elias’s lower lip.
“Do you regret it?” Victor asked quietly.
Elias turned to him, tracing the sharp line of Victor’s cheekbone. “No. I’ve never felt more alive.”
In the years that followed - through the rest of the Roaring Twenties, as jazz gave way to swing and the city changed around them - Elias learned the truth of immortality.
It was not solitude.
It was Victor’s cool mouth on his cock under a full Louisiana moon.
It was Victor’s blood, copper-sweet on his tongue after a hunt.
It was Victor’s laughter echoing through the French Quarter at 3 a.m., mingling with trumpet cries and river fog.
They were two, bound by blood and desire.
And for nearly two decades, that was enough.