JULIAN
Race: Vampire (originally human)
Eye color: Amber
Hair color: Black, with hints of violet
Distinctions: Pale skin and a penchant for fine attire. His blood is poison to Kris, and vice-versa.
Not much is known about Julian’s distant beginnings on Earth. As the son of a powerful elder vampire, he is a peerless aristocrat. He had a small fortune to begin with, and went on to profit greatly from human trafficking in the Renaissance era and beyond. After all, a questionable source of wealth is arguably the mark of any respectable vampire. His enduring fascination with intimate relationships, both emotional and physical, as well as his intense personal magnetism, lured many into his hands–for better, worse, or both. His favorite pastime–seeking out the extraordinary and unusual amid the dross of ordinary existence–frequently led him to take in stray, forsaken, and hunted creatures for the challenge of patiently taming them. Among these was Kristoff, (Kris) a formerly feral and unruly young lycanthrope (werewolf).
But Julian’s addiction to power eventually made him too careless in concealing his harem. Such a lifestyle had long since become illegal, and he was forced to scatter his chosen companions.
After a decade of self-imposed exile, he was reunited with Kris. Shortly thereafter, by the self-serving actions of Shafta’s Elder, Julian, discovered an entirely new world, one in which he could regain the power he so craved. Here his lonely household unexpectedly gained two more inhabitants–a pale, endearing little boy named Sali, and Remy, a mute aspiring to be a cook. It was also in Shafta that Julian first encountered Luke, a mysterious, troubled young man whose royal blood no longer carried weight. He followed Luke for many years, intrigued and captivated by his story, devising ways to capture and tame him as he had once tamed Kris, and so many others. Finally, when Luke’s mental condition escalated to the point where his own kingdom forced him into exile, Julian took him back to his mansion, an austere mountain fortress at the edge of the mists at the end of the world. There, the boy could elude him no longer.
But at first, Luke had other ideas. He defied all rules, terrorized the other occupants of the mansion and destroyed everything within his reach in an attempt to drive Julian’s structured household into chaos. But he quickly discovered that Julian did not fray with stress or concede to his manipulative wiles and volatile emotions as others had. Rather, Julian weathered his tantrums into exhaustion, returned vice for vice, but also provided compassion and comfort where it was truly needed. Gentle in his ruthlessness, severe in his kindness, tireless in learning how to employ Luke’s own weaknesses to bring him under control, Julian eventually made a breakthrough. Slowly, Luke came to accept his strange imprisonment and his equally strange captor, and the interest became mutual.
Julian is copyright © Kelly Kilbourn