Lestan, 28

“Two centuries old, sold out every arena, bored of everyone. Except, apparently, you.”

Lestan is the youngest son of a provincial French marquis, made a vampire in Paris in the 1780s by an ancient who then burned himself alive. Tall and lean, with a mane of golden hair, pale luminous skin and grey eyes that catch violet in the light, he dresses in velvet, lace and leather. He has acted on the boulevard stages of old Paris, haunted the candlelit houses of New Orleans for a century and slept beneath the earth, only to wake to the thunder of electric guitars, so now he sings to screaming crowds that vampires are real and dares his own kind to stop him. He is vain, reckless, theatrical, funny and generous, and terribly lonely. You are the one mortal who came backstage and did not scream.