The humidity in New Orleans was a physical weight, a heavy, wet blanket that smelled of swamp water, blooming jasmine, and stale bourbon. It was late August, the kind of heat that made the air shimmer above the asphalt, but Solis didn't mind. He liked the intensity. It felt alive.
He sat at a small, wobbly iron table on the balcony of The Royal Absinthe House, watching the chaos of Bourbon Street churn below him.
Solis looked the part of a man who owned his time. He was dressed in a bespoke, cream-colored linen suit that breathed in the stifling heat, the jacket unbuttoned to reveal a crisp white dress shirt open at the collar. On his wrist sat a Patek Philippe Nautilus—understated steel, worth more than the cars stuck in traffic below. He was six-foot-two of relaxed muscle, his dark skin catching the amber glow of the gas lamps lining the street. He swirled a glass of Sazerac, the ice clinking softly, his eyes scanning the crowd with a predator's patience.
He was looking for nothing in particular, just soaking in the aesthetic of a city that celebrated vice.
Then, the atmosphere shifted.
It wasn't a sound. The jazz bands were still warring for dominance—a trumpet screaming from a club on the left, a heavy bass thumping from a dive bar on the right. But the flow of the crowd changed. Tourists, drunk and oblivious, were subtly steered aside by locals. Bouncers straightened up. The street seemed to inhale.
Solis leaned forward, resting his elbows on the railing.
Walking down the center of the street, ignoring the sidewalk entirely, was a man who moved like he had negotiated a personal truce with gravity. He wore a fitted charcoal Henley that showed off a fighter's physique and dark denim jeans that cost more than Solis's flight. He was laughing, clapping a street performer on the shoulder, but his eyes were sharks—black, dead, and constantly moving.
Solis felt a sharp, electric jolt behind his eyes. A migraine spike. A memory forcing its way through the fog of twenty-three years of a new life.
Marcel Gerard.
The name didn't just pop into his head; it slammed into it. The Prince of the Quarter. The self-proclaimed King.
Solis gripped his glass, the condensation cool against his palm. He watched Marcel stop to charm a group of sorority girls, flashing a smile that was dazzling and entirely practiced. This wasn't a cosplayer. The deference the locals paid him was too real. The fear in the eyes of the shopkeepers was too genuine.
It's real, Solis thought, his heart hammering a heavy rhythm against his ribs. The vampires. The witches. The harvest. It's all real.
He checked his watch instinctively. If Marcel was still strutting this comfortably, Klaus Mikaelson hadn't arrived yet to burn his kingdom down. Solis did the mental math, dragging up old wiki pages from a life he hadn't lived in two decades. Two months. Maybe three.
He should leave. That was the rational play. Go to the airport, fly to Bali, and forget he ever saw the monster in the designer Henley.
But then, Solis saw her.
She was standing near the entrance of a shadowed alleyway two buildings down from where Marcel was holding court. She was breathtaking—a vision in emerald green silk that draped over dangerous curves. Her hair was a cascade of dark curls, her skin the color of polished mahogany. She was looking up at the balcony, locking eyes with Solis.
She smiled. It was a slow, inviting curl of red lips that promised trouble.
Solis felt that familiar pull, the fatal flaw that no amount of IQ points could fix. He loved beautiful women, and he loved the chase. The rational part of his brain screamed that she was close to Marcel, that the timing was suspicious, but his ego whispered that he was rich, handsome, and untouchable.
He finished his drink in one swallow, the anise sting of the absinthe coating his throat. He left a hundred-dollar bill on the table—overpayment, to ensure he wouldn't be followed by staff—and descended the stairs.
The street level was louder, smellier, and more chaotic. Solis navigated the press of bodies with practiced ease, slipping through gaps in the crowd without spilling a drop of the confidence he wore like armor.
He found her waiting near the mouth of the alley. Up close, she was even more stunning, but there was a sharpness to her features, a hunger in her eyes that wasn't sexual.
"You looked lonely up there," she said. Her voice was smoke and honey.
"I was just enjoying the view," Solis replied, his voice smooth, a practiced baritone. He stepped closer, entering her personal space. "But the view is much better down here. I'm Solis."
She didn't offer a name. She just reached out, her fingers trailing lightly down the lapel of his linen jacket. Her hand was cold. Unnaturally cold for a humid August night.
"Solis," she tested the name, stepping backward into the shadows of the alley. "Like the sun. You certainly burn bright enough."
"Careful," Solis smirked, following her. "Get too close, you might get burned."
"I like the heat," she whispered.
They were ten feet into the alley now. The noise of Bourbon Street faded abruptly, muffled by the damp brick walls rising on either side. The air here smelled of old rain and copper.
Solis went to place a hand on her waist, a standard move, confident and charming.
She moved faster than humanly possible.
One second, she was in front of him. The next, Solis was slammed against the brick wall, the air driven from his lungs in a harsh wheeze. His vision blurred. This wasn't human strength. It was the force of a hydraulic press.
He looked into her eyes and saw the whites vanish. Veins, dark and jagged like lightning, rushed out from her pupils. Her face contorted, the beauty ripping apart to reveal the predator beneath.
Vampire.
Panic flared, white-hot and primal. Solis tried to leverage his weight, tried to use the judo throw he'd practiced for years, but she didn't budge. She held him pinned by the throat with one hand, her grip like iron.
"You smell expensive," she hissed, sniffing his neck. "High-quality diet. No drugs. Just... rich blood."
Solis's mind, usually a fortress of logic, scrambled for purchase. Don't fight. She's ten times stronger than you. If you fight, she snaps your neck.
"Wait," Solis choked out, forcing his hands to stay open, palms out. Surrender. "I have money. Whatever you want—"
"I don't need money," she laughed, a dark, wet sound. "I need a snack."
She lunged.
Her fangs sank into the soft flesh between his neck and shoulder.
It wasn't just pain. It was a violation. It felt like two hot nails being driven into his muscle, followed immediately by a sickening, pulling sensation. He could feel his life being drawn out, the rhythm of his heart syncing with the greedy gulps of the monster attached to him. His knees buckled. His linen suit scraped against the dirty brick as he slid downward, held up only by her teeth and her grip.
The edges of his vision turned gray. He was dying. He was going to die in a dirty alley in New Orleans because he followed a pretty girl.
Think, he screamed internally. Think, damn it!
"Hey!"
The shout echoed off the alley walls, sharp and authoritative.
The vampire tore herself away from Solis's neck with a growl, blood smearing her chin. Solis collapsed, hitting the pavement hard. He clapped a hand to his neck, feeling the hot, sticky wetness pulsing between his fingers.
A man stepped out of the shadows at the end of the alley. He was wearing a dark leather jacket despite the heat, looking bored. A nightwalker. One of Marcel's inner circle.
"Dammit, Thierry," the woman hissed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "I was stopping."
"You were draining him," the man, Thierry, said, walking closer. He didn't look at Solis with concern; he looked at him like a damaged piece of merchandise. "Marcel's rules, Gina. 'Feed and release.' You kill a tourist, the cops start asking questions. The cops ask questions, the business suffers."
"He's fine," Gina spat, though she looked longingly at Solis's bleeding neck. "He's big. He can take it."
"Get out of here before I tell Marcel you're poaching outside the Quarter," Thierry warned.
Gina glared at Solis one last time, her eyes returning to normal—brown, beautiful, and deceptive. Then she blurred, a streak of green silk and motion, vanishing up the fire escape.
Solis lay on the ground, gasping for air. His heart was racing so fast it felt like it might explode. The pain in his neck was a throbbing, fiery pulse.
Thierry looked down at him. "You alright, tourist?"
Solis didn't answer immediately. He focused on his breathing. In for four. Hold for four. Out for four. He needed to lower his heart rate. He needed to look harmless.
He looked up, his eyes wide, feigning a shock he didn't fully feel. The shock was there, but beneath it, the gears were already turning.
"What..." Solis rasped, his voice trembling perfectly. "What was that? She... her face..."
Thierry crouched down, his expression mock-sympathetic. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small vial. "She was on bath salts, man. Crazy junkies in this town. You know how it is."
He offered a hand.
Solis looked at the hand. He knew what this was. Compulsion was coming next. Look into my eyes and forget.
Solis took the hand and let Thierry pull him up. He stumbled, leaning heavily against the wall, making sure to smear a little blood on the brick—evidence.
"Yeah," Solis lied, allowing his eyes to unfocus slightly. "Bath salts. She... she bit me."
"Nasty stuff," Thierry said, staring intently into Solis's eyes. "Listen to me. You had too much to drink. You tripped and cut your neck on some broken glass. You're going to go back to your hotel, patch it up, and sleep it off. You had a great night."
Solis felt the push against his mind. It was like a thick fog trying to roll over his thoughts. But he had vervain in his system? No, he didn't. He hadn't prepared yet.
Wait. The memories were wrong. Or maybe... maybe his mind was just different. Or maybe the compulsion took hold, and he just knew it was happening.
He decided to play the part. He blinked slowly. "I... I tripped. Broken glass."
Thierry smirked, satisfied. "Attaboy. Go on now."
Solis pushed himself off the wall. He stumbled toward the street, keeping his hand pressed to his neck.
As soon as he turned the corner, back into the noise and light of Bourbon Street, the stumbling stopped.
Solis straightened his spine. The pain was still there, sharp and brutal, but his mind was crystal clear. The compulsion hadn't worked—or at least, not fully. He remembered everything. The veins. The speed. The politics.
Marcel's rules save the tourists, he thought, hail-ing a cab with his free hand, blood soaking into the collar of his expensive linen shirt. Because tourists are money.
He climbed into the back of the taxi, the leather cool against his feverish skin.
"Where to?" the driver asked, eyeing the blood in the rearview mirror nervously.
"Hyatt Centric," Solis said, his voice cold and steady. He pulled out a wad of cash—bloodstained hundreds—and tossed them onto the front seat. "And find me the nearest 24-hour pharmacy. I cut myself on some glass."
He looked out the window as the city blurred by. New Orleans wasn't a vacation spot. It was a chessboard. And he had just been used as a pawn.
Solis touched the wound on his neck again, feeling the twin puncture marks. He didn't feel fear anymore. He felt a cold, calculating ambition.
He needed vervain. He needed wood. And he needed to figure out how to get that woman, Gina, alone in a room again. Not for revenge—but for leverage.
"Welcome to the supernatural," he whispered to his reflection in the glass.