by Anna Abner
Blooddrinker’s Prophecy
Beasts of Vegas Series Book 3
Written by Anna Abner
Copyright 2018 by Anna Abner
Praise for the Dark Caster Series by Anna Abner
“A sizzling and sweet paranormal romance.” 5 out of 5 stars.
--Christine Rains, author of the 13th Floor Series
“A wonderful, suspenseful love story.” 5 out of 5 stars.
--Coffee Time Romance
“A great paranormal adventure with many twists and turns.” 5 out of 5 stars.
--Community Bookstop
“This book kept me on the edge of my seat.” 4 out of 5 stars.
--The Reading Café
Praise for the Red Plague Series by Anna Abner
“If you’re a fan of zombie books, I would recommend Elixir in a heartbeat.”
--Kristin Noel at Pretty Little Pages
“Kudos to Abner for penning such a gripping book! I literally sat in front of my computer, glued to the monitor as I scrolled through the pages as fast as possible.”
--Book Landers
“Elixir is one of the very best books about zombies that I have read in a long time. … I loved it and I can’t wait for the next book in the series.”
--Avid Reader
“This will be a series I’ll read more than once.”
--Victoria’s Reviews
Other Works By Anna Abner
Novels
Spell of Summoning (Dark Caster Series Book One)
Spell of Binding (Dark Caster Series Book Two)
Spell of Vanishing (Dark Caster Series Book Three)
Spell of Shattering (Dark Caster Series Book Four)
Elixir (Red Plague Trilogy Book One)
Antidote (Red Plague Trilogy Book Two)
Panacea (Red Plague Trilogy Book Three)
The Red Plague Boxed Set
Remedy (A Red Plague Novella)
Shopgirl’s Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Series Book One)
Spellspeaker’s Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Book Two)
Blooddrinker’s Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Book Three)
Won’t Get Fooled Again
Short Stories
(Free to read on Wattpad and AnnaAbner.com)
“The Night Trevor’s Soul Came Loose“
“Shadow Cells“
Short Stories By Anna Abner Writing As Sadie West
“Driving the Lane“
“Odd-Man Out“
“Extreme Whiteout”
“I Only Have Two Hands” (fan fiction available at ArchiveOfOurOwn.org)
“Say You Won’t Let Go” (fan fiction available at ArchiveOfOurOwn.org)
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Happy reading!
Chapter One
Maksim Volk struggled to his knees despite the pain in his muscles and joints, despite the hunger gnawing at him from the inside out. The garage tilted, fluctuating the shadows of the wooden joists supporting the roof. His chains rattled, clanking among his wrists, ankles, and the bolt in the concrete foundation.
There was nothing for him to do but wait while his body wasted away. The infection swimming in his veins would keep him alive indefinitely, healing injuries and enhancing his senses, making him stronger than human men, granting him strength. Not enough to escape, though, not after starving for days.
But Maks hadn’t survived decades of torture to surrender to a few links of chain and a dry spell. During the twenty years he’d been a prisoner and guinea pig of the US Army, his captors had tried everything to test the limits of his fortitude, including starving him. He knew exactly how badly things could get before he desiccated.
Connor had done this to him. He and Anya.
No, she preferred Ali now, the name her biological father Uri Rusenko had given her. It was a pretty name, but it was difficult to gaze into her big blue eyes—eyes so like her mother Katya’s—and not remember the little girl named Anya.
Maks had never considered loving a child. Turned into a vampire at seventeen, he was barely more than a child himself when he first laid eyes on Katya. But when he infected her rather than lose her and she birthed a beautiful, blue-eyed baby girl into his hands, Maks had been completely and utterly smitten. For the first time in his life, someone had not only depended on him, but trusted him too. As Anya had grown, she’d gazed up at him and it had felt like someone in the world believed in him. He was a father, no matter how unconventional, and Maks loved every minute of it. Loved Ali. Loved Katya. Loved being part of a family.
But his daughter had stood by and watched Connor Beckett lock him in chains.
Maks gripped the links near the bolt and heaved upward. One of his finger joints dislocated, and still he pulled.
It wasn’t enough. The bolt remained secure, and he drooped, exhausted.
It wasn’t Ali’s fault, though, that she’d lost faith in Maks. She’d been in Britain under Uri’s brutal care for almost her entire twenty-two years of life, far from vampires and the supernatural. Far from him. It wasn’t her fault she thought he was a monster.
If he escaped the chains, he’d do anything to make it up to her.
He kicked the only object in range—a section of half-finished wall. Little remained of its original shape, and Maks further added to its deterioration with three or four savage blows with his bare foot. Wood splintered, drywall crumbled, and nails squealed in protest.
Unable to remain on his knees any longer, Maks slumped onto his side and closed his burning eyes.
Dozing in a blood-starved haze, he thought of his amber-eyed captive, Violet. It was like he could smell her sweet breath. Like he could feel her creamy, soft skin.
Maks had kept a lot of blood donors over the years, but Violet had impressed him from the start. She wasn’t cowed, despite having suffered under Oleksander. She was brave, smart-mouthed, and her blood was fine liquor after a hard day. But keeping Violet a prisoner was like trapping a wild bird in a wire cage. It wasn’t right.
He must find her before Sergei hurt her. Anya would help him. No, she went by Ali now. Still, his little girl would help him save Violet. She had to.
Someone approached the garage. Footsteps crept nearer, and the side door swung open on silent hinges.
#
Ali Rusenko wasn’t super excited to do the Oracle’s bidding today. Ilvane the Oracle, also known as fourteen-year-old Caitlyn from suburbia, wasn’t exactly a friend. So far, Ali’s experiences with her prophecies were less than positive. If it hadn’t been for the Anya from Nadvirna prophecy, Ali wouldn’t have become the obsession of Oleksander the Destroyer and nearly died.
But the Oracle had recently visited Connor and asked him to be at a street corner in Vegas today a little after two. Oh, and by the way, bring Maksim Volk. The only hitch was, Maks was currently chained up, feral and half-mad himself, in their cabin in the Nevada desert.
“Prophecy time,” Connor Beckett announced, whipping open his hotel suite’s front door. “When the greatest seer in the world tells me to be somewhere at a certain time—I’ll be in that spot at that time.”
Ali strolled into the hallway and pressed for an elevator. “Any chance the Oracle’s ramblings were just that?”
“Caitlyn may be batshit,” Connor said, gracing her with a slow smile, “but everything she says happens.” The smile, at odds with his words, widened suggestively.
Her boyfriend was damned sexy, even more so since he’d been infected. A card-carrying member of the supernatural world—he was without equal in strength, speed, and healing ability. In her humble opinion, he was the hottest vampire walking.
Still amazed at how lucky she’d been on her first
trip to the US, Ali rose on tiptoe and pressed a sweet kiss to his mouth. Growing up sheltered and different in the UK, she’d never believed she’d ever fall in love with such a beautiful, warm-hearted man, let alone that he would love her in return.
Still in his arms, Ali asked, “Didn’t she say taking Maks with us was optional?”
The elevator doors opened on the underground parking structure and they beelined it for Connor’s souped-up 1973 Ford F-350.
“She said it’d be fun. Besides, I’m not taking any chances with fate.” Connor held the passenger door open for her, and she climbed in, bouncing on the wide bench seat. “Especially when it comes to helping people.”
“Speaking of helping people,” Ali said, “can we agree to release Volk after we do this thing for the Oracle? It’s not right keeping him like a captured animal.”
Ali didn’t enjoy the thought of Maksim Volk, or anyone, chained up in a cabin—alone, restrained, starving. No one deserved such treatment, not even Olek’s right hand man. But the last time they’d interacted with him, he’d been raving mad. Not long ago, Volk had murdered her cousin Stefan right in front of her. She didn’t exactly trust him. Connor had never trusted him.
“I don’t feel right keeping him prisoner,” Ali told Connor as they raced across deserted highways south of Las Vegas. “Either we hand him over to the government or we let him go. We can’t keep him caged indefinitely.”
Connor glanced at her before returning his attention to the gray road unspooling under the hood of his pickup. “You know what the government would do to him.”
“Torture him,” she agreed. The US Army had already held him prisoner for the past twenty years, testing God-knows-what on his body, his blood, and his spirit. “Or just kill him.”
“Is that what you want?”
Ali sighed. “Of course not. I’m simply making the point that we don’t have a lot of options.” Maksim Volk was the closest thing to a father she had left, which depressed the hell out of her.
She possessed no memory of it, but according to Maks, she’d lived with him and her mother in some twisted vampire family for the first two years of her life. Volk had infected Ali’s mother Katya when she was nine months pregnant with Ali. The infection had forced Ali into the world and into Maksim Volk’s arms. Which made her feelings about the vampire complicated. To say the least.
Connor pulled the truck onto a long, sandy driveway and, after coding a number into the security gate, parked in front of a one-bedroom hunting cabin once owned by Connor and Roz’s friends, Anton and Natasha. But after the unlucky siblings had been murdered and eaten by the Four Sons, Roz had inherited the property as well as a great deal of money to use in researching the paranormal.
Connor caught up to her at the garage door. “I don’t hear anything.”
Ali tried peering through the side window, but the glass was too dirty. “Is he okay?” Oh, God. Had they killed Maksim Volk?
“I expected to hear chains rattling,” Connor said, “or swearing, or something. The last time we saw him he was screaming bloody murder.” Stepping around her, Connor unlocked the door and opened it extra slowly, examining the large space an inch at a time.
“For God’s sake,” Ali exclaimed, wiggling under his arm and shoving wide the door.
Volk hadn’t escaped. He was exactly where they’d left him. Though his gunshot wounds had healed, it was obvious from the various dark red streaks that he’d tried to squeeze out of the shackles around both wrists and ankles. He may have even tried to chew himself out.
“Maks?” she called softly.
“His heart’s beating,” Connor said, remaining by the door. Apparently satisfied the vampire curled on the floor, pale and covered in his own blood, posed no threat, he said, “He’s alive, but he needs to drink if you want him to stay that way.”
Ali threw Connor an annoyed look over her shoulder before kneeling beside Volk. Of course, she wanted him alive. If everything he said was true, and who knew with his reputation as a liar and a traitor, then her mother had loved him enough to leave her human life and join him in some vampire commune in the Ukraine with her newborn daughter. If Katya had trusted him, Ali could give him another chance.
“Maks?” Ali repeated, reaching out a hand to touch his blood-crusted hair. Her fingers brushed at the dark lock covering his face. “Can you hear me? We brought blood.”
At the B word, his sunken eyes opened, but he remained eerily quiet.
“Here.” She gestured for Connor to hand her a blood bag, which he did. She tore open the tubing and pressed the dribbling end to his lips, then, shifting into a sitting position, she pulled Maks’ heavy head into her lap. He swallowed as if it hurt.
She found the vampire’s musky scent faintly familiar. Was it a distant memory emerging from the shadows of her past? Maybe, but when she focused on it, the recollection disappeared.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, cupping the side of his face. “We thought we left you enough blood to last two weeks.”
“Looks like,” Connor said, kicking at empty, discarded packets, “he drank everything the first day to boost his strength to escape.”
“We should have come back sooner.” Ali didn’t enjoy thinking of him in such a desperate situation, especially one she’d put him in.
“She’s helpless,” Maks hissed between swallows, finally breaking his silence. “…my fault.”
“Who is ‘she’?” Ali asked as he finished the first bag. He’d been ranting about saving someone since they’d captured him, but he hadn’t yet been lucid enough to explain.
“Violet.”
She’d never heard of her.
Connor handed Ali a second blood bag.
“Unchain him,” she said firmly. “Enough’s enough. He can’t even feed himself.”
After a pause, Connor said, “Fine,” and knelt to unshackle Maks’ wrists and ankles.
Ali offered Maks the next bag, but he didn’t immediately take it. When he attempted to lift his right arm, it became obvious it was dislocated.
“I can help with that shoulder,” Connor said.
After Maks inclined his head, Connor grabbed his right wrist, pushed back with his boot, and slid the arm into its socket with a wet pop.
Ali cringed, but Maks didn’t react to the pain.
“So,” Connor said, leaning against the wall. “The Oracle asked me to take you with me to the corner of Thompson and Faraday at two oh six this afternoon. Wanna come?”
“Why?” Maks asked.
Ali gazed down into the vampire’s pale, boyish face. Holding him was like carrying a sleepy lion in her lap. He was dangerous, and yet his weight was comfortable and familiar, as if they were friends. Or even family.
No. Not even close.
Ali wiggled out from under the suddenly stifling burden of Maks’ upper body.
“You think the Oracle makes sense?” Connor chuckled. “She told me to be at a certain place at a certain time, and then tacked on that I should bring you. ‘Fun’ is what she called it. Now, drink your fill, clean yourself up, and let’s hit the road.”
“So you can lock me up again?” Maks questioned angrily. Grabbing a third blood bag, he sat up and sank his fangs into the plastic pouch.
“I’d rather trust you,” Connor said. “But it’s not easy. Are you a bloodthirsty psychopath, or are you a misunderstood victim? Or something else altogether? I don’t know. No one knows.”
“I have to get out of here,” Maks said, struggling to stand.
He swayed, reaching for the wall that was too far away to help. Ali imagined him tumbling onto his face, and her stupid sympathetic heart won over common sense. With a muttered curse, she swept under his arm and supported some of his weight.
“I don’t know if he’s strong enough to come with us,” Ali told Connor, frowning at Maks’ so-white-it-was-nearly-translucent skin. “I’d rather drop him off at the suite and put him to bed for a couple days.”
Connor shrugged. “C
aitlyn said I should take him.”
The Oracle was never wrong. She’d foretold Connor’s releasing of Oleksander the Destroyer and Ali’s role in the same warlord’s final battle. Ali didn’t mess with the Oracle. Caitlyn simply knew too much.
“If you swear to me,” Maks looked directly into Ali’s eyes, “that you’ll let me go, then I’ll do the Oracle’s bidding. But you have to swear.”
Before she could second-guess herself, Ali said, “I swear it.”
Connor grumbled something unintelligible and handed Maks the fifth and final bag of blood before leading them outside.
#
Maksim Volk stared at the side of Connor Beckett’s head and snarled around his fifth blood bag. He was feeling a little more like himself—arm healing, joints mending, any and all torn flesh regenerating—which meant his annoyance with the uppity twat had returned in full force.
Who did Connor think he was? What made him believe he could romance Maks’ little girl and act like lord of all vampires? He was such a holier-than-thou asshat, Maks could hardly stand him. Maks was a prince, a lieutenant, a goddamned warrior. He should terrorize anyone idiotic enough to make eye contact, but Connor Beckett jerked him around like the dumb kid Maks certainly was not.
Maks glanced to the right at Ali. Her love for Connor was the only reason Maks hadn’t eviscerated him already.
By the time Connor’s truck passed through the outskirts of Vegas, Maks had finished devouring the bagged blood.
“Explain to me again the Oracle’s instructions,” Maks said, dropping the empty blood bag on the floorboards near his feet.
He needed to get this prophecy shit over with so he could track Sergei’s group. They’d probably fled their last hiding place on Red Rock Road. If they’d taken Violet with them rather than slaughter her and leave her for Maks as a warning, he would find her.
Guilt niggled him. If he’d let her go when he could have, she’d be safe in her home now, not an abused blood slave at the mercy of a pack of psychopaths and sadists.
