When your ex villain crashes your wedding reception š
Sullivan opened his mouth to say something, but stopped.
He felt itābefore it arrived, before it curdled the air. His scars flared first, a bone-deep warning of something fouler than the levin charged rain.
The roaring thunder stopped mid strike.
A shift, slow and coilingāa shadow of blight and disease curling around the ribs of the world. It suffocated the air before it could be breathed, laced with Deathās putrid kiss. A rot that was greedy, all-consuming, and insatiable.
Sullivan didnāt need to see. He already knew. He recognized itāknew it from centuries of surviving monsters, even those among his own kind.
And there was no one on Earth who bled as green as he.
When he walked, the world itself held its breath.
The damp air, already thick and succulent with laughter and thunder, crackled with a surge of electrifying energy. An auraāvast, unyieldingācaught the lashing rain mid-fall, holding it suspended in the air, frozen in reverent stillness for a single breath.
All at once, the world ceased its reverie.
The Great Hall fell into breathless silence.
His steps echoed, deliberate and unhurried.
Not a single drop of rain dared touch his path.
The low hanging mists parted.
His pace was light, yet unshakably assured.
Even the lights dimmed in passing, as though his radiance demanded their sacrifice.
He parted the revelers like waterāno touch, no word, only presence. They stepped aside of their own accord, unbidden and eager, as though a prophetānoāas though divinity itself had entered the room.
āMy friends, my friends!ā The jovial, downright neighborly tone was enough to command their attention.
āI heard you were throwing a party!ā
Drowned in Starlight
Gothic post-apocalyptic vampire romantasy / romantasy ruin
AO3: [link]