Chapter Text
July, 1920
The room was loud and crowded as a band played high pace and energetic music. Everyone was in high spirits at the speakeasy that night. The police were deep in the pockets of the gangs that ran this part of town, which meant that everyone was free to just drink, dance, and be the kind of people the government had deemed unsavory and undesirable.
Rose Astor liked being unsavory and undesirable - or at least according to government standards.
Until a few months before she turned eighteen, she had been such a good girl. When she was little she always had her socks pulled up over her knees and her hair perfectly set in ribbons. As she grew her skirts got longer and she wouldn’t dare to have spoken to boys without a chaperone. Her parents trusted her, she went to church, and no one doubted that she wouldn’t go to college, get a degree, find a husband, settle down, and raise her own perfect children.
Then, two months before her eighteenth birthday, they’d enacted prohibition. For the whole school year, all her friends had been turning 18 and having grand parties where they got to drink champagne for the first time and beautiful cocktails, and she’d been so good, refusing every drink offered to her and every dance with a man she didn’t know and hadn’t been approved by her parents. Then when it came to her party, she got nothing.
She knew it was silly, but it seemed so unfair. She’d behaved and now she was being punished. So she, along with so many people in the city, rebelled. She loved it. She loved the short dresses and the feel of the beading whipping around her legs when she danced. She loved dancing, especially with strangers. She loved drinking cocktails and coups of sparkling wine. Her favorite cocktail was the sidecar, and she loved it when people bought them for her and then took her out on the dancefloor.
She’d been coming to this club since a month before her eighteenth birthday. She wouldn’t even have been allowed to drink even if there was no prohibition, but the bouncer hadn’t cared to check her ID and she attracted enough attention inside that she never had to risk buying a drink to get one. It had now become part of her weekly routine. Friday and Saturday night were the nights she let go and was everything she’d been raised not to be. There had been a few scares with police raids, but so far she’d never been caught, and the risk of being caught was part of what drew her to it.
The past few weeks she’d attracted the attention of a man claiming to be a duke. Marcellus Lakatos was a little older than she’d normally entertain, though it was hard to say how old exactly. He spoke like a man who had seen and experienced everything the world had to offer and had grown a little bored with it. He dressed like a man who wasn’t quite comfortable with current fashion but was trying to fit in. It intrigued her, it still might not have been enough on its own, but he was also the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was short, but she wasn’t particularly tall herself, so she still looked up at him. His skin was like porcelain, and he had the palest eyes she’d ever seen in her life. His dark hair looked like coal against his milky white skin. He stood out and while she worried that his interest in her was hardly made from good intentions, he mesmerized her.
Besides, she liked his accent and the deep timber of his voice.
She could feel his eyes on her now, and as he approached with the martini glass filled with amber liquid she knew was for her, she also knew she wanted to go home with him.
The thought wasn’t one she would have entertained six months ago. Rose Astor of six months ago was a naive girl who believed that sleeping with a man would ruin her. Her father would still believe that to be true, but she’d learned a lot in the last six months, and now she wanted to be ruined. Her future husband would never need to know, and she liked the idea of having this secret.
“My darling,” he said, offering her the glass. “I’m glad you came.”
“I’m happy to see you too,” she replied, taking the drink. “I was hoping you’d be here.”
He raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow at her. “Oh, really?” he asked. “What would you say to going somewhere quieter so we can get to know each other better.” He leaned in, bringing his lips to her ear. His breath was cool on her skin and sent a shiver down her spine. “Or would that ruin your reputation?”
It was like he knew exactly what to say to get her to do what he wanted. There was no way he was going to say no to the invitation after that. Part of her knew he was pushing her buttons. Part of her even knew that this might be dangerous. She didn’t care, as soon as he’d issued the challenge she had to accept.
“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and he took her hand, leading her toward the door. She put her drink down on one of the tables as she followed after him. A car pulled up at the entrance to the speakeasy as they stepped out onto the alleyway, and the driver, a small, hunched man, darted out and opened the door for them both. Rose had no idea how it could be possible that the driver knew to pick them up, yet here he was, ready and waiting for them in a black Rolls-Royce Phantom.
Rose climbed into the back of the car with Marcellus. She had been in cars as luxurious as this before. Her family had money so she was used to some of the finer things in life, but still, it was an impressive vehicle.
“I do like these modern fashions women wear these days,” Marcellus said, his fingers ever so slightly skimming over the tassels on Rose’s flapper dress. It made it feel like spiders were crawling on her skin, and she shivered slightly. “It is so much more attractive than the frumpy clothing of the past.”
“You don’t think it’s too scandalous?” she asked. “My parents hate that I show so much skin.”
“It is the job of the youth to rebel against their parents,” he said, his fingers skimming up the beading of her dress. “And what is life without some scandal?”
He leaned in closer and closer as he spoke, until his lips were hovering over hers and she could feel his breath on her skin. She bridged the distance, pressing her lips against his, and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He coaxed her mouth open with his tongue and sucked on her lower lip. She let out a soft moan, but it was cut short as he bit her, a sharp pain shooting through her lip, and the taste of iron filling her mouth.
She pulled back suddenly and wiped her mouth with her index and middle finger. When she pulled them back they were stained red with her blood. She was shocked, but unsure what to say. Rather than being apologetic, Marcellus seemed hungry. His usual blue eyes were red, and he looked at her like a predator looked at its prey when it knew it had nowhere to escape. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “Do not worry,” he said, bringing his thumb to his mouth and sucking the blood from it. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Please just let me out,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind.”
His hand moved up, skimming around the side of her breast and up to her neck. “Come now, there’s no reason to be afraid.”
She tried to push his hand away but it was like pushing on a stone wall. He gripped her neck so hard that it felt like his fingers were going to break her skin. “Come now, Miss Astor, is this now what you wanted?”
Before she could answer, his lips were on hers again. She struggled, trying to push back against him, and when she realized how fruitless it was, she began to scramble to open the door of the car.
His lips moved from her mouth to her neck. “Please. Stop,” she said as she beat against the window. She knew he wouldn’t but she hoped that her struggles might draw the attention of someone outside, maybe even a police officer. Maybe the driver might take pity on her and pull over, or unlock the doors.
He yanked her head back and raised his head, his mouth open, exposing teeth that were far too sharp. The next thing she knew he was attached to her neck again and there was a sharp stabbing pain as his teeth broke her skin.
She cried out, struggling under him as her veins opened and spilled her blood into his mouth. The scream died out as her head began to swim. It felt like she was drowning, and all she could do was struggle to keep her head above water. They say when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. That wasn’t the case for Rose. All she saw was every mistake she’d made until now. She was being punished. Something had gone wrong in her life and she kept being punished for wanting to have fun.
The world swam and began turning black. Her awareness of the world around her was almost non-existent as she barely held on to consciousness. Marcellus pulled her head back and opened his shirt, and using one of his nails he cut through his snow-white skin. Blood oozed from the wound sticky and black and he pushed Rose’s face against his chest, her lips pressed against the oozing wound.
She couldn’t fight him - she was barely able to register what was happening outside of the fact it felt like she was drifting off to sleep. When the blood smeared over her lips, a deep, primal part of her awakened, and she began to drink. She suckled like a baby, the thick, metallic-tasting liquid filling her mouth. As she swallowed it down, her energy began to return, but the world still spun around her.
“Good,” Marcellus soothed. “Drink. Tomorrow night, you shall be born anew.”