Blood Rules (Blood Immortal Book 2) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Blood Rules

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Excerpt

  Afterword

  Blood Rules

  Blood Immortal

  Ava Benton

  Contents

  Blood Rules

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Afterword

  Blood Rules

  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.

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  Prologue

  Years ago, more like centuries and centuries ago, there a new strain of vampires was brought to creation. Nightwardens, they were called by those who knew of their existence. A Nightwarden’s mission was simple. Guard the High Sorceress he was assigned to until needed no longer, then return back to his place deep within the earth, a place called The Fold.

  A new High Sorceress would come to power every so often among the covens. Some covens were fortunate enough to have Nightwardens to keep them safe. These Nighwardens were bodyguards in essence, except they were bodyguards without a choice. Bound by the blood of the one they were charged with protecting, the Nightwardens were faithful, monastic, and unemotional. Or so it was thought.

  No one counted on the emotions that would arise in these creatures that walk the dark and protect the sorceresses that wield power.

  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 he
r 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.

  I didn’t even know which of my brethren had been selected to replace the dead Nightwarden from Crescent Moon—and if I did, I wouldn’t know how to reach him.

  What would I say if I did? I think there’s something terribly wrong with me. I can’t control my blood lust anymore. I think I’m becoming the monster humans believe we are.

  For once, I wished we weren’t such a secret among others like us. Our secrecy had always been our strength. Only the witches of the covens we served knew of us.

  And the sorcerers.

  For the first time, I wondered if a sorcerer’s spell was to blame.

  But why? To get to Marissa?

  I was making excuses.

  The problem was me.

  If I couldn’t perform my Nightwarden duties without fear of blood lust paralyzing me at any moment, I would have to step down.

  2

  Konstantin

  Marissa’s home sat along the shoreline in Greenwich—she preferred the peace and quiet, she said, not to mention the fact that her neighbors left h
er alone.

  The fact that they never questioned her agelessness didn’t surprise me. Witches had a way of lulling humans into overlooking the obvious, not that humans were that observant to begin with.

  The smell of sea air braced me as we walked down the wide, wood plank steps leading from the front porch to the driveway. I did enjoy the view of the water, even if the town was a tourist nightmare throughout the summer.

  It was still February, however, so everything was quiet and still. I didn’t have to block out the sound of hundreds of overlapping voices—or the smell of human blood.

  I swallowed hard at the thought and reminded myself that I had just fed. Perhaps I should’ve accepted the second vial when Marissa offered. I hadn’t fed directly from her in years, ever since her daughter walked in on us and gasped in horror at the sight of me sucking blood from her mother’s wrist.

  Monika knew what our relationship entailed and had been an adult at the time, but it was still a shock.

  In my saner moments, I could understand why. It would be like walking in on a parent having sex, only sex was less likely to kill a participant if it went too far.

  Marissa had started draining her blood into glass vials and storing several at a time for me immediately after that. “I never enjoyed the feeling of you draining me,” she had explained at the time with a careless wave of her hand.

  If I could feel feelings, I would’ve been hurt by that. It wasn’t as if I enjoyed being forced to feed from her and no one else. No Nightwarden celebrated his fate. I would’ve much rather been free to hunt as I used to, in the dense forest of my Serbian home, many hundreds of years earlier. Living the way a vampire was supposed to, not as some caged prisoner. Though my cage was a gilded one—Greenwich was hardly a cesspool, and Marissa’s farmhouse was more like a mansion—it was a cage nonetheless.