by Ava Benton
“You really mean that?” I pulled away and looked closely at her.
“I really do. I’m finally doing something good for somebody else. And it doesn’t even hurt,” she smiled.
But it was a sad, tired smile. She was doing her best for me, to make sure I was happy.
“You promise you’ll get any help you need once you get home,” I ordered, shaking a finger in her face. “Talk to people. Tell them how you’re feeling. Don’t push them away. Everybody will want to help you get through this.”
“I know. I’ll do my best.” She shrugged. “That’s all I can say.”
“And be nice to your new Nightwarden.”
“I’ll do my best there, too.” She gave me a playful shove. “Now finish what I started and get moving.”
“Bossy,” I muttered, wrinkling my nose.
We laughed together for the last time as sisters—and one of the few times.
A shame it had to be one of the few times.
Epilogue
Mariya
“I used to think I was good at adapting to new situations, but this is beyond me. And you know I’m trying.” Elias shifted one of the bags of groceries on his hip as he groaned.
I laughed. “It’s been eight months living like a normal person, and you still haven’t gotten used to it?”
“Some things, yes. Coming and going as I please. That’s different.” He looked around the busy street, all the people walking around us. “I don’t have to be with you all the time, which is new. I don’t mind it.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said with a touch of sarcasm.
“You know what I mean. I’d be with you all the time, every day if I could. But you have to work.”
“Speaking of learning how to deal with things,” I laughed in spite of myself.
“You’re doing well.”
“Yes, because I have help, don’t I?” I made an extremely fast and efficient executive assistant when I used my abilities to my advantage. I didn’t like to do it all the time—it felt like cheating—but it helped when my boss threw a curveball at me. And when I had to pretend I knew how to do things I had never attempted before.
“You’ll never make a domestic out of me. Simple as that.” Elias shrugged as we walked up the stairs to our apartment.
“Fine. I’ll do the shopping on my own. I’ll just use one of those little carts, or go more frequently for smaller trips so I can handle it. All right?” Compromise was the cornerstone of any good relationship, I reminded myself with a wry smile.
Philadelphia wasn’t New York, but it was becoming home.
We lived in a simple apartment filled with books.
He read faster than anybody I had ever met—a side effect of never sleeping—and refused to use electronic books. He didn’t trust them and didn’t care how ridiculous it sounded.
So it was the three of us: me, Elias and our library. We’d need a separate apartment soon just for them.
But we were happy. It had been the best eight months of my life, even with the little bumps in the road.
I had adjusted to working for a living, and he had adjusted to living with another person, instead of having a little cell of his own.
He still felt Vanessa sometimes, when she felt something very strongly, but the fact that he had imprinted on me helped work her out of his system.
The connection that they had was lessening every day.
I found it comforting in a way and would be sorry when she was no longer part of him. I could sort of keep up with her through her feelings, make sure she was doing all right, make sure she was still alive.
The rest of it was all behind me.
Behind us.
There was no reason for them to look for us and they would probably never find us in a million years. We were two needles in a haystack, with millions of other people, living a normal life together.
It would’ve been different if Elias went hunting at night, or I tried to find or form a coven. We made it a point to fit in and make no waves.
I put away the groceries while he sat down in a beaten-up easy chair by the window with a new book, one almost as big as his head.
I couldn’t help but smile fondly, even though I had other things in mind.
His long, strong body was too good to resist, and we didn’t have any other plans for the day.
“I’m still so stressed out over this week,” I said, shaking my head, rubbing the back of my neck.
“Hmm?” He didn’t look up.
I almost growled.
“I said, I’m stressed out from all the craziness at the office. It’s Saturday morning, and I still can’t shake it. My neck is so tight, my head is achy. I feel terrible. I wish I could work this tension out somehow.”
“Mm-hmm.” He flipped a page.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten before speaking again.
This time, I pulled my sweater up and over my head, then tossed it at him.
It covered his book—he wasn’t the only one with good aim.
When he looked up with an expression of surprise, I said, “I would love it if you would help me relieve my tension. Maybe in the bedroom?”
One corner of his mouth quirked up in a wicked smile. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Dense as always. It was a good thing I didn’t fall in love with him for his talent at picking up a hint.
Keep reading for an Excerpt from Blood Rules.
Excerpt
Konstantin is a vampire on assignment. He’s one of the elite Nightwardens assigned—make that conscripted—to guard witches. He and the rest of his brethren serve one purpose. Bodyguards to the High Sorceresses. He shouldn’t be plagued by blood lust. He shouldn’t be yielding to emotions.
Monika is the daughter of a High Sorceress. To say she finds Konstantin attractive is to put it mildly, despite his brooding, dark, stoic front. She buys him an ancient sword, not knowing the price involved.
Until the one collecting on the price comes calling.
Chapter 1
Konstantin
After decades, I was still sure I’d never get used to Marissa’s moods. Marissa, my charge—the one I served as a Nightwarden. Fancy word for bodyguard. Except unlike most bodyguards, I was immortal. And a vampire.
Not that she was the moodiest witch I had ever guarded. Not even close. That had been Penelope. With Penelope, there had been a period of time when I expected to hear the shattering of glass or porcelain at least once a day.
I used to thank my lucky stars that my reflexes were so sharp, or else I would’ve gotten hit right upside the head more than once.
But Penelope had been a hot-headed witch—which was why the High Council decided to remove her from her position as early as they had.
And a good decision it was, too. Just because a witch possessed exceptional powers didn’t mean she was fit to lead a coven.
Naturally, her early retirement had meant an early return to The Fold for me, but it was still a better option than risking serious injury every day. So, I’d chilled in The Fold, in a state of stasis, while my body purged every trace of Penelope from my body. The usual time it took was typically not more than a century.
But back to Marissa; she was a leader. Nobody could ever question that. She had the judgment for it. She didn’t take things personally, which was extremely important. She never flew into fits of rage. She always took the time to think a problem out before coming up with a solution. Sometimes, she reminded me of a general on a battlefield instead of a High Sorceress. That was likely why she had been High Sorceress of the coven for many decades, a long stretch for almost any witch.
Still, she could be moody. Deeply moody. Those were the times I made myself scarce, in my room until she called on me for service.
Not that I was hiding, I reminded myself as I did push-ups until my shoulders burned from the effort. I was working out. Making sure to keep in shape so I could be on my toes if a threat ever presented itself.
Not that there
were any of those on the horizon, but there was never way of knowing for sure. No one from the Crescent Moon coven had expected a threat, but it had presented itself nonetheless, in the form of Kristoff.
I made it my business to keep out of Marissa’s private affairs, but it paid to keep an ear to the ground and stay abreast of current events.
I knew that was where Marissa’s anxiety stemmed from, the Crescent Moon incident. Knowing that another High Sorceress had been kidnapped—her own niece, no less, though they didn’t have much of a relationship. From what I had overheard, the High Sorceress—Vanessa, was her name—had returned to her coven, but her sister died in the fight to save her. Another of Marissa’s nieces.
I attributed Marissa’s testy attitude to this as I rolled onto my back and proceeded with crunches. I wasn’t working toward defining my body—vampires tended to look good no matter what we did, thanks to the nature of what we were—but rather toward keeping myself in fighting shape.
Besides, I needed something to do. Life as a Nightwarden wasn’t exactly an exciting one unless there was some sort of war going on, or tension with the human world.
I remembered the height of that tension, during the witch hunts in the seventeenth century, and sometimes I even wished for it back.
Not that I would gladly go back to a world without modern conveniences. It was a very foul time in a lot of ways, and the fact that my senses were sharper than a human’s only made it worse. The dawn of better hygiene and sewage systems had made life more bearable.
Those weren’t the only problems I wouldn’t miss.
The old superstitions had faded away, pushed back into history where they belonged. There was a time when a woman with a strange birthmark was considered one of Satan’s mistresses. Or a woman who wanted to learn the mysteries of science that in the twenty-first century were considered everyday knowledge.
Not to mention the fact that real, actual witches were in danger every time they so much as stepped foot out of their home back then.
Even though human advancements were a positive thing, I missed the excitement of those days. That was living. That was real day-to-day type action which kept me on my toes.
What was there in the modern era?
Accompanying Marissa to meetings of the Cascade Circle Coven. Hearing stories dedicated to the many witches who had perished in the early 1900s, thanks to the sorcerer who was responsible for recently causing trouble at Crescent Moon.
Marissa remembered those terrifying days, but I didn’t. I was in The Fold then, sleeping off my most recent round of service. When she spoke of those times, she always used a hushed voice. Like she was talking about the ancient goddesses she and her coven sisters paid tribute to.
That was it for me. I stood by and waited for things to happen instead of feeling as though I had a purpose. I supposed I should feel grateful there wasn’t anything urgent that needed my attention.
There were always sorcerers in the world, and there would never be warm feelings between them and witches—at least, not the witches I had known throughout my centuries of service.
There could be witches who used their powers to control others, I supposed, the way sorcerers did. They coveted the powers of the supremely powerful witches protected by Nightwardens like me and couldn’t understand why a High Sorceress would use those powers for good.
But Kristoff was dead, and he was easily the most evil of all sorcerers known to either coven. Even so, Kristoff had lain in wait for a century before inflicting more pain. There could be another out there like him, also waiting. This thought drove Marissa insane with anxiety.
I could sense it as surely as I could feel the floor beneath my back when I finished my crunches.
She knocked at the door to my room not long after I finished.
Sometimes I wondered if she could read my thoughts.
“Yes?” I called out.
“I would like to visit my daughter before we go out for the meeting.” At least she didn’t order me around.
I had dealt with that in the past, too. Marissa always informed, never demanded.
“All right. I’ll take a shower and be right with you—I just finished working out.” I rose and opened the door so she could see the sweat rolling down my chest.
She raised a sardonic eyebrow before turning and walking away. “By all means.” She wasn’t one to mince words.
I liked that about her. I was never a master of conversation.
I thought back to one of my earlier charges, Francesca, and what a talker she was. Back in those days, we used to say a person’s tongue was hinged in the middle when they chattered incessantly. Francesca’s certainly was. Sometimes I could still hear her prattling on and on in my mind, talking to fill the silence between us. I never could get her to understand that I preferred silence. I sought it out, in fact.
She wanted to visit her daughter Monika. I wondered vaguely when things had thawed out between them—Marissa had nearly thrown the fit to end all fits when her daughter had announced she was taking time to visit Europe. Monika had been ill for no reason any doctor could discover and had believed the change would be good for her.
Of course, this was all around the time Kristoff was terrorizing her cousins, so Marissa wanted none of it. But Monika had gotten her way.
As far as I knew from the whispers overheard at the tedious coven meetings, they hadn’t spoken since. Four, maybe five weeks had passed since then.
I could never be accused of liking a witch. I tolerated them at most.
But Monika was one of the better ones I had ever known. She was very young when I went into service for her mother, and had since grown into a capable witch who some believed would take her mother’s place one day. It often happened that way.
The things a Nightwarden learned while listening to side gossip during meetings... I had to do something, or else I’d lose my mind from sheer boredom. I’d been watching their meetings for more years than I could remember, once every month at least.
A witch’s powers were at their most potent during a full moon—even I could sense it when I fed on Marissa at those times. Her blood was sweeter and hotter and even more irresistible then. I always came out of a feeding with a feeling of headiness, almost a high. A dangerous feeling. Addictive, even.
Just thinking about her blood made me thirst for it—and when I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror, I saw that my eyes had gone from green to nearly rust red. My fangs extended, long and bright white, shining. Waiting to be used.
The lust was overtaking me.
I gripped the porcelain sink with both hands and growled, then looked down to see my claws leaving deep gouges in the surface. The sound echoed through the small room, bouncing off the tile walls and floor.
“Konstantin? Are you all right?” Marissa called out; her hearing was almost supernatural.
“Thirsty,” I managed to rasp, closing my eyes and willing the feeling to pass.
I hadn’t experienced that sort of all-encompassing lust out of nowhere since I was a young vampire, freshly turned. Hundreds and hundreds of years prior.
It seemed like it was happening more often lately, too. I would’ve been able to think about it more clearly if I wasn’t on the verge of a rampage. All I could think, speak, hear, smell was blood. I licked my parched lips and shook with need.
Marissa banged on the door. “I have some. Open up. Quickly.”
I lunged for the knob and turned it, gripping it as hard as I could to keep myself from tearing into her and taking the precious blood I needed so badly.
For a split second, I saw myself crushing her body to mine, sinking my fangs into her throat to open her artery and drinking until she stopped moving. Draining her completely and tossing her lifeless body aside so I could get more. More.
I could hardly see—my vision blurred, then clouded. I barely made out the shape of the vial she thrust toward me, but I could sense it. I could smell it. She had already pulled the stopper for me
, so I tipped the vial back and poured the blood straight down my throat.
It was heaven. As close to heaven as a creature like me could ever get, at any rate. Like explosions of pleasure rippling through me from head to toe.
I could breathe again. I could think again. The lust eased from an all-encompassing, searing panic until it was nothing but a dull roar in the back of my mind.
I leaned against the sink, breathing deep.
A quick run of my tongue across my teeth told me the fangs had retracted.
“Thank you. I don’t know how it came over me so fast. I haven’t experienced anything like that in hundreds of years, the way it came on so quickly.”
She nodded.
I noticed the way she stood in the doorway instead of coming into the room. She was ready to do what she needed to subdue me if I tried to attack. Or to flee.
“Do you feel ill?”
“I don’t think it’s possible for me to feel ill, per se,” I informed her as I tightened the towel around my waist. “I’m better now. Thank you.”
“Do you need another vial?”
I shook my head. “No, this will do.” I tossed the drained vial into the wastebasket before going to my room to dress.
My head still spun, but much less than before. I could think clearly again—even so, I had to sit on the edge of my bed for a moment once I was alone.
What was happening to me? I had never heard of a Nightwarden losing control, having to go back to The Fold early. It was unthinkable. Was there a time limit to our service? None I was aware of. I wouldn’t even know who to ask. I had no friends, no way to contact anyone of my kind.
