No Rules, Only Consequences
Mardi Gras in New Orleans always smelled like bourbon, sweat, and secrets. I step out of the limousine into the noise-soaked night, my heels hitting the cracked pavement like a declaration. The driver behind me barely has time to shut the door before I vanish into the sea of costumed chaos. I don’t need my siblings tonight. Don’t want them. For once, I crave anonymity. A night where no one knows my name. No bloodline. No responsibility. Just the pulse of music and magic thick in the air and a darkness I can dance with.
The mask I wear is delicate; deep red and gold, Venetian-style, with dark feathers curling from the edges. Except, it doesn’t hide me enough. Eyes still follow me. Men notice my legs. Women notice my presence. The vampires and demons lingering in the crowds? They bow their heads slightly and step aside. Not because they know who I am, but because they feel it. Power is difficult to mask, even with glamours and shadows. Although, Mardi Gras has its own rules, and tonight, I intend to break every single one.
I wander through Bourbon Street, ignoring the usual stares, the cheap beads thrown from balconies, the howls of drunk mortals, and the magic that laces itself into the gutters. I stop only when I feel it. A pull. Maybe magic. Maybe desire. I can’t explain why, but I feel compelled to turn and look at something. Whatever something is. I turn my head toward the alley across the street and see a man.
He is tall. Broad-shoulders. Dressed like sin incarnate, all in dark charcoal with subtle silver accents at his cuffs and collar. His mask is simple, half-face, steel gray. He leans against the brick wall like he owns it, a lowball glass of amber liquid in one hand and a lazy, sardonic smile curling one side of his mouth. I don’t know his name. Something about him makes me want to know. When his eyes meet mine, ice-blue and sharp as obsidian, something inside me clicks into place.
Without thinking, I cross the street. Without words, he straightens and offers me the drink. I take it. Drink it. Hand it back. I mean, no rules right? Still no words. Instead, his gloved hand curls around my wrist, warm and firm, and he leads me down the alleyway into the back entrance of a club pulsing with red lights and a heavy beat. The bass thrums through the floor, through our bones, through the electric thing snapping between us.
The next few hours are a blur of fire and teeth. Of sweat and laughter. Of breathless kisses against the wall of the VIP lounge, hands tangling in hair, hips colliding like war drums. No names. No lies. Just skin, magic, and something ancient screaming in both of us that we’d done this before, in other lifetimes, and failed.
He kisses like a man who doesn’t know softness. I respond like a woman who never got the chance to forget who I am. We end the night tangled in silk sheets in a hotel suite overlooking the city, his mouth presses to my collarbone like a promise he can’t keep.
Morning comes with cold sheets. I wake up alone, my mask on the nightstand and a half-drunk bottle of bourbon sitting beside it. The only clue to his identity is a faint scent of sandalwood and something darker, like ash soaked in whiskey. He didn’t even leave a note. Typical.
I stare at the empty side of the bed, my chest oddly still. I’d known it wasn’t going to last. That had been the point. No attachments. No history. No scars. That pull hasn’t stopped. Even now, it lingers under my skin like a song I can’t forget. A mark I can’t reach. I reach for my phone. No messages. No alerts. My siblings are probably still at the second party Lucifer had invited them to, and I’d made it clear I wouldn’t be joining them.
I dress with my newly conjured clothes slowly, my movements precise, calculated. A crimson blouse. Black slacks. Heels like knives. My face becomes a mask again—not the one with feathers and beads, but the one I wear for my empire. By the time I step into the elevator, I bury the ache. Again.
A month later, it comes back like a bomb. It started with nausea. Easily written off. Then the headaches. The irritability. The blood cravings at odd hours. And finally, when Viktoriya, my middle sister, joked that I was acting like a pregnant woman, I laughed. Until I didn’t. I now sit on the cold bathroom floor of the estate with five different magical pregnancy tests glowing bright crimson and the room spinning around me.
“No,” I whisper, staring at them. “No, no, no—”
The truth was obvious. The faint mark that appeared on my arm after should have been my first clue. I don’t cry. I don’t do crying. Instead, I get up, wrap myself in my favorite night robe, and walk barefoot into the family library where my siblings are gathered. Rurik, the eldest, ever my protector, is sprawled across the couch. Whiskey in one hand and a death glare reserved for anyone not family.
Viktoriya, sitting cross-legged on the rug, looks up from a spellbook. “You look like hell,” she says cheerfully.
I stare at them. “I’m pregnant.” The silence was immediate. The kind that falls right before lightning strikes.
Rurik sits up straighter. “Whose?”
“I don’t know his name,” I say flatly. “Mardi Gras. Hotel suite. Masked. Gone before sunrise. That’s about all I remember from a month ago.”
Sasha’s brows lift. “…Okay, that’s oddly romantic and completely terrifying.”
Rurik’s voice is quiet steel. “You’re sure?”
I nod. “Five tests. Magical. Demonic. Arcane. All glowing like a damn Christmas tree.”
He stands. “Then we find him.”
“You can’t,” I say, cutting him off. “I didn’t get a name. No phone number. Whoever he is, he didn’t want to be found afterwards.”
“But not from you,” Viktoriya murmurs, her eyes narrowing. “That mark…”
I meet my sister’s gaze. “It appeared. That night. I didn’t know why. I thought—”
“You thought it was lust,” Sasha says gently.
“I hoped it was lust,” I correct.
Rurik walks over to me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll handle this together. You’re not raising a child alone.”
“No,” I say, straightening. “I’m not. I have a plan too. One that will protect my child and allow our revenge for our parents death. One that will be our new legacy. I want to try and start as soon as possible.”
Viktoriya smiles. “You have a plan, huh? Well, I guess we better start cracking down on it.”
My hand curls over my stomach. I don’t feel like a mother. Not yet. But something inside me stirs, something ancient and protective and furious. A child born of my magic and that stranger’s fire. I will protect it. Raise it. Shape it. One day, if fate dares to bring him back into our world, he’d have a lot of explaining to do. The next time I meet him, I’d remember everything, and he’d have nowhere to run.