His eyes were closed when he felt her presence for the very first time.
The first time he laid eyes on her, she wasn’t truly awake.
Her body remained locked in slumber, draped in a red velvet shawl—untouched by time, breathless, eternal.
But there she was.
Reclined on his boudoir like a sacrificial muse, her lips lush and red as bloodied cherries.
Her eyes remained shut, yet he swore he could feel them—gazing into the marrow of him, filling him with sins he had not yet committed… but would.
He would, if only to steal one kiss from those lips.
He knew she wasn’t real.
Not entirely.
Her silhouette glided through the room, fading in and out of shadow, like smoke slipping between candlelight.
She left behind a trail of scent—clove, cinnamon, and orange—that ignited the part of him he thought had long withered.
Desire.
The smell lingered, taunting him even after she vanished.
He opened his eyes—and sighed.
That scent drove him mad.
It clung to his skin, his sheets, his mind.
He began to imagine how she might sound—if her voice would be velvet or venom, lullaby or lament.
And with each passing day, his obsession deepened.
He became a man possessed.
Sirah started crafting perfumes, oils, even soap bars in her honor—desperate to bottle the alchemy of her presence.
He sourced ingredients from a forgotten perfumery in Tuscany, one that claimed to mimic ancient Roman formulas.
Still… nothing came close.
None could capture the haunting warmth of orange, the sharp bite of clove, the whisper of cinnamon that seemed spun from her soul.
But he lathered himself in them anyway, just to pretend—just to feel her next to him.
Sirah began to form a ritual of his own.
In his desperate attempt to see her again, he religiously bathed in that scent—orange, cinnamon, clove—each night, like an offering.
He whispered to her with his mind, begging her to return, to feel her beside him, to touch her skin, to inhale her perfume, and to dare—just once—to taste those cherry-red lips and get lost in those deep, brown, all-knowing eyes.
And one night… she came.
Not in the coffin.
Not in the antique room downstairs.
But sprawled across his bed like a Venus sculpted by the hands of Sandro Botticelli—regal, sensual, unreal.
Her eyes were half-open, bathed in moonlight, her crimson lips curled into that maddening, seductive smirk.
He was utterly under her spell.
Only she wasn’t truly there.
His desire surged. He reached for her—but she faded between his hands, vanishing in a warm, fragrant embrace that sent electric shocks racing down his spine and pooling in his thighs.
She was an echo.
A projection.
An astral visitation drenched in ancient power.
Still… he was aching.
And he would do anything to feel her again
The change was so drastic that Ophelia noticed it immediately.
At first, she watched him with innocent curiosity.
But soon, she began to feel it—the fangs of jealousy sinking in.
And as they say, the eye of a crazy woman is never wrong.
She started paying closer attention to his routine.
From the kitchen doorway the next morning, she observed him like a hawk.
He was clean-shaven.
Hair slicked back like he was about to meet the Four Founding Fathers and sign the damn Declaration of Independence.
Sirah never wore cologne—but now he reeked of it.
His shirt was unbuttoned just enough to flash a teasing glimpse of his hairy, muscular chest.
He looked… handsome.
Groomed.
Touched.
Inspired.
She knew that look.
It wasn’t for her.
She leaned closer. Sniffed.
Oranges. Clove. Cinnamon.
A strange cocktail for a man like him.
That wasn’t her perfume.
Not anything she owned.
Anxiety bloomed in her chest.
Who was this thing?
Was he seeing someone?
Or worse… was it that he couldn’t stand her anymore?
She never saw him go out—not even to those sleazy jazz clubs where the flapper girls liked to play their games or mingle with those mafioso types. Those mafioso men were not his friends but mere acquaintances that he kept for a rainy day, for when he needed special favors. Those men with slick hairdos and too many secrets. He never liked them;in fact, he envied them. Especially that snake, Francesco Gulianni.
Something wasn’t right.
Something had changed.
And Ophelia could feel it in her bones.
Whatever this was—this obsession, this perfume, this phantom figure or woman—it was rooted in that shop.
“I’m going to find out what this presence is,” she whispered to herself, jaw clenched.
Because Sirah was staying behind closed doors…
And worst of all—he was avoiding her.
Sirah began to dream while awake—sleep had become useless.
In slumber, he could no longer feel her.
The visions were too vivid, too erotic to dismiss… too sacred to ignore.
He spent his nights buried in scrolls and old texts—dusty grimoires, auction catalogs, leather-bound histories of the occult.
He hunted for symbols, names, patterns… anything that might explain the beautiful woman from his waking dreams.
And then—he found her.
A grainy black-and-white photograph of a long-lost painting tucked inside an obscure 19th-century volume on vampire studies—one banned from public circulation.
A woman.
Regal, bare-necked, reclining with a jeweled serpent at her feet and a black cat perched beside her.
Her eyes—his dream’s eyes. Deep, brown, and impossible to look away from.
Her lips? The same sensual shape that haunted his sheets curved in eternal provocation.
Below her image, a single caption carved in fading Latin:
“Mylene di Catania – The Last of the Cursed Line, Blood-Bound to Vittorio Medici.”
Sirah nearly fainted.
Vittorio Medici.
He had heard that name before—once during a brief search through ancient Roman records, and again whispered in Sicilian folk tales.
A nobleman.
An occultist.
An artist.
A vampire who disappeared in the 15th century, leaving behind no grave… no trace… only blood-soaked rumors and whispers of his whereabouts.
He left not a pact with the Devil, but a trail bound to the goddesses who ruled the underworld: Hecate. Persephone. Demeter.
Sirah followed every clue, every thread, until he uncovered the truth so chilling it made his spine stiffen.
Mylene had not been turned by Vittorio—
At least, not in the traditional “you suck my blood, I suck yours” sense.
No.
She had already been chosen.
Her clan—descendants of witches and pagan lords—had consumed a divine elixir, a potion said to freeze time itself.
It was gifted by Hecate in a vision of fire and roses.
They were immortal not because they were bitten, but because they were blessed.
Vittorio found her after.
He didn’t create her.
He became infatuated.
He did not make her his.
He claimed her.
Because Mylene…
Mylene was a woman so beautiful, she could drive any man to madness simply by being beyond his reach.
🕯️ Felt the pull? Let her haunt someone new.
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One soul. One shadow. One whisper.
Mylene remembers the ones who speak her name.
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