When the Night Calls.
The first time Diana saw the Vespera Aeterna, she knew something was wrong.
It wasn’t just a nightclub.
It was a palace disguised as a temple.
A place where the music didn’t just play… it settled into your bones.
From the taxi window, she watched the endless line of people waiting to get inside.
Laughter. Bodies pressed together. Hungry eyes.
The air vibrated with anticipation and desire.
And something else.
Something she couldn’t name.
“Here we are,” the driver said.
Diana swallowed before stepping out.
The building rose before her like a living creature. White marble, elegant columns, red and gold lights washing over the façade like fire. The doors stood wide open, releasing deep, hypnotic music into the night.
Too many people.
Too many eyes.
The urge to turn around was immediate.
She pulled her phone from her pocket, fingers slightly unsteady, ready to call Edith, when a familiar voice stopped her.
“Diana!”
Sofía and Edith were walking toward her, radiant, confident—like they belonged there. Like she didn’t.
“Maggie already went in,” Edith said. “She’s at the bar. It’s her trial shift.”
Diana glanced at the line. At the doors. At the building.
Her heart beat faster.
“Maybe I shouldn’t—”
“Come on,” Sofía interrupted, grabbing her arm. “Trust us.”
She guided her toward a side entrance, away from the crowd. A tall man in black stood there, his face hidden behind an elegant mask.
His eyes locked on Diana.
“Miss Carliston. Miss Blummenberg,” he greeted. “I see you brought a guest.”
“This is Diana,” Sofía said. “Dashiell knows we’d be bringing someone.”
The name lingered in the air.
Diana didn’t know why, but a shiver ran down her spine.
The guard smiled slowly.
“Then everything is in order.”
The doors opened.
The interior swallowed her whole.
Red tapestries. Dim light. Old lanterns. The air smelled of alcohol, incense… and something sweet.
Metallic.
Blood.
She didn’t know how she knew.
But she did.
They walked down a long corridor toward heavy velvet curtains. Sofía and Edith stepped through without hesitation. Diana stopped for a moment.
The place was watching her.
Then she stepped forward.
Music exploded. Bodies moving. Red and violet lights. The bar glowing in the distance like temptation itself.
Two shirtless men were waiting for her.
“Miss Livingston,” one of them said. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Diana’s heart skipped.
And for the first time that night, she knew she had made a terrible mistake.
EARLIER....
College life was difficult.
That was what Diana thought as she listened—without truly listening—to her arithmetic professor lecturing in front of a classroom full of students with lost expressions. The low murmur, the scratching of pencils, and the constant drone of the professor’s voice caused a dull headache to throb behind her eyes.
For someone who had been homeschooled until nearly adulthood, arriving in the city had been a brutal shock.
Too many people. Too much noise. Too many eyes.
The first time, she had felt small. Out of place. Four years later, she still felt the same… even if she no longer admitted it.
She lived alone. She was close to finishing her final year at university. And yet, she had never stopped feeling like an intruder.
The town where she had grown up lay in the north of the country. A tiny place with barely three hundred inhabitants, most of them elderly people deeply rooted to the land that had raised them.
Her older brother still lived there, running the only tavern in town. Thanks to him, Diana had managed to escape the confinement that had defined her childhood.
Even after four years living in the city, her spirit remained reclusive. Her apartment was large. Too quiet. She disliked visitors. Long conversations. The idea of someone invading her space. She preferred staying home, stretched out on the couch watching her favorite series or reading architecture books until sleep claimed her.
She was almost twenty-three years old.
Of those twenty-three years, nineteen had passed without her knowing anything beyond the walls of her home.
Her father traveled the world making money.
She could barely remember his face. She had seen him so few times that he felt like a stranger. Her brother, on the other hand, was everything to her. And even so, she owned only a single photograph of them together, kept inside a pendant that now spun unconsciously between her fingers.
She couldn’t focus.
When the break bell rang, Diana released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She stretched her arms, a dull ache spreading through her stiff back. Her muscles protested. Her friends approached almost immediately.
“Di!” Edith exclaimed, resting her hands on Diana’s shoulders. “You’re coming with us tonight, right? Please say yes! We don’t have any assignments due!”
Diana blinked.
“Go? Go where?” She asked, though she already suspected the answer. Her stomach tightened slightly.
“To Vespera Aeterna,” Sofía replied with a crooked smile. Her beauty was overwhelming—blonde hair, golden eyes, a magnetic presence. “We know you don’t like going out,” she raised her hands before Diana could protest, “but this time it’s for Maggie.”
She pointed to the young woman with perfectly straight black hair, nervously fidgeting with her fingers. Maggie was usually the most cheerful of them all. Seeing her so anxious was unusual.
She had landed a trial shift working at the bar of the famous Vespera Aeterna club.
To Diana, the place was nothing more than a den of excess. A venue where the music was too loud and people stood far too close. Still, more than once she had been tempted to go along with them. She never dared. The club only opened from Thursday to Sunday. Dancing, small concerts, a bar. Everything seemed normal… except for one unsettling detail.
The owners were vampires.
They didn’t hide it. They even offered an exclusive area for humans willing to donate blood.
Diana had seen the marks on many students’ bodies. Small. Discreet.
Bite marks, without a doubt.
No one seemed alarmed. Humans and vampires had coexisted peacefully for years. Some celebrated it. Others opposed it. Diana simply didn’t have an opinion. She didn’t know enough. And, more importantly, she had never been that close to one.
“Are you starting tonight?” Diana asked, a mix of concern and pride in her voice.
Maggie shook her head.
“Then it’s not necessary for me to go,” Diana murmured, clinging to the excuse like a lifeline.
“I’m not officially starting. It’s just a trial,” Maggie said. “I’ll be making drinks… but I’m really nervous.”
Her eyes shone. Pleading.
“If you come, I’ll feel safer. I need you.”
The three friends exaggerated dramatic gestures, hugs, and fake sobs. Diana closed her eyes. Her resistance slowly crumbled.
Damn it.
She would have to leave Sun Lovers for tomorrow.
“I don’t like you going to those kinds of places, Didi. You know that.”
Elias’s voice echoed from the computer resting on the vanity. Diana watched him through the screen as she got ready. He was at the tavern, as always, warm light from the streetlamps reflecting in his blue eyes.
“I know, bro, I know,” she replied while applying hair cream. “Believe me, I tried every possible way to say no. But I couldn’t turn my friends down.”
Her fingers slid through the black curls cascading in glossy spirals down her back, nearly reaching her waist. She had hated them as a child. Now, they were one of the few things she truly cared for. She leaned closer to the mirror, added volume, and, satisfied, blew herself a kiss.
Elias watched her in silence. For too long.
“What?” Diana asked, arching an eyebrow. “I look good, don’t I?”
Elias snorted.
“I’ve seen better.”
“Ha!” she scoffed. “Who are you talking about? Mrs. Berry with her walker full of wine bottles? Or Mrs. Krim and her cane, always ready to scare off tourists?”
Elias burst into laughter. His white teeth contrasted with his sun-kissed skin. His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, muscles flexing as he polished a glass absentmindedly. Diana sighed. Her brother was ridiculously handsome… and completely unaware of it.
“I don’t know how you’re still single,” she muttered.
“Someone has to keep these old folks happy,” he replied with a crooked smile. “You know I can’t abandon them.”
She smiled. He always said the same thing.
“I have to open now,” Elias announced, leaning closer to the screen. “If you saw how the old folks are already crowding the door, you’d be scared.”
Diana laughed, relaxing slightly.
“Text me if you need anything, okay?” he continued, lowering his voice. “And, Didi… be careful. The city isn’t like our town. And you’re so bad at recognizing danger that you wouldn’t notice it even if it were right in front of your face.”
The comment pricked her pride.
“Hey—”
But Elias was already laughing. The call ended before she could reply. Diana stared at the dark screen, her expression torn between annoyance and affection.
“Idiot,” she whispered, though part of her felt strangely protected.
And, for reasons she couldn’t explain, she remembered his words hours later.
