Eternally Ivy

Chapter 1 - Meet Ivy

Ivy’s POV

My upbringing was normal, or as normal as it could be when you had a six-figure trust fund waiting for you on your eighteenth birthday and access to your parents’ money until then. My parents came from old money, so old that I was sure it had come across with our ancestors on the Mayflower. But whilst our wealth was old, it didn’t stop them from wanting to have more. No amount would satisfy them. I spent a lot of time at home with a nanny when I was growing up until I was old enough to stay at home alone. Whilst they were distant, they didn’t completely ignore me. They checked in on me regularly, always ensured the fridge was full, and I had everything I needed. They also always made sure my grades stayed on track and that the doorman knew to call them any night that I didn’t come home before curfew. I guess that was their way of showing that they cared.

I filled my time with school, volunteering with as many charities as I could to try and ease my guilt over having so much when others had so little and spent every other spare moment I had with my best friend Emerson, whose parents were just as rich as mine, but for them, nothing she did was ever good enough. We were there for each other no matter what, and most of the time, I felt like we were sisters more than best friends, we knew everything about each other, or so I thought.

On her eighteenth birthday, her parents had her committed to the nuthouse because they thought she was going crazy. It turns out she wasn’t crazy, not that I thought she was. Her parents had adopted her when she was a baby. Her birth father was an Alpha werewolf, and her mother was a powerful witch. The only reason her mother abandoned her was to keep her out of the hands of a power-hungry, thousand year old vampire who wanted to breed with her to create an all-powerful new hybrid species. Yes, you heard me correctly. I just mentioned three supernatural creatures that are supposed to be mythical creatures. I strongly believed that until one of those creatures kidnapped me and took me across the country as a bargaining chip to keep my best friend in line. That was the day that changed the rest of my life.

To say I was shocked to find out that she was a wolf/witch hybrid would be an understatement, but at the end of the day, she was the same girl I grew up with. So she could turn into a wolf and control the elements. She was still Emerson to me, my best friend.

That was when I met the man who turned my world upside down. He was the light in an otherwise stressful and scary situation.

Whilst the vampire who took me scared the hell out of me. I felt a sense of calm wash over me when this one walked into the room. When I stupidly decided to try and help in a battle of werewolves and vampires and got hurt, I thought my life was over.

There was no way even the best hospital and doctors could help me, but Vlad could. He drank my blood, and I drank his, and after three days of feeling like I was burning alive, I opened my eyes, and the whole world had changed. I was no longer a seventeen year old girl. I was a killing machine. Vlad told me that I could survive by just drinking his blood. He promised me that I would never have to hurt a living person to survive, but it was difficult those first few months. My hunger was intense. It was not safe for me to be near anyone with a pulse.

Not to mention I had to deal with the other changes in my body. I stopped aging, was now extremely fast and strong, could see and hear from long distances. Sunlight was not my friend. Well, it wasn’t until Emerson made my amber necklace which was spelled to allow me to go out in the day without burning alive, and I also healed from the majority of wounds inflicted on me unless something was cut off. Vlad also told me that one day I might be able to transport myself large distances in the blink of an eye, but not all vampires inherited that skill.

Those were the benefits of my new life, but there were also things I had to give up. I had to limit the contact with my family and all of my friends, apart from Emerson, as they would start wondering why I wasn’t ageing, but more importantly, I had to give up something that most women wanted one day, I was never going to be able to be a mother. I would never feel a child growing inside my body or bring another life into the world and watch them grow. Vlad told me that male vampires could reproduce with other species, humans or other supernatural creatures, but apparently, female vampires didn’t have that ability. Nowadays, most vampires are bitten, not born, and that process requires something specific in a person’s genes to allow them to survive the change. This was not someone that was commonly found. It threw me at first. It was a lot to take in, but if he hadn’t changed me, I wouldn’t be here today, so it’s not like I would have had the chance to have kids anyway.

I felt a strong arm snake around my waist, pulling my body tightly against a muscular, bare chest. A set of lips pressed against my neck, trailing soft kisses along the bare skin, leaving it burning with desire in their wake.

“I woke up, and you weren’t in bed”, Vlad advised me quietly.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I replied, placing my hand over his and leaning back until my head rested on his shoulder, relaxing almost immediately. He felt like home.

Vlad Nicolescu was a five hundred year old vampire and my eternal partner. We had been put on this earth to find each other, just like my best friend Emerson and her werewolf mate Declan. I had dated some guys in my life, but it never lasted long as I always found the relationship lacking. When I met Vlad, he worked for the enemy, but something about his brooding green eyes drew me in. I mean, if you looked at the whole package, 6’0 tall, chiselled jawline, a slim but strong build, shoulder-length brown hair, no girl in her right mind could not be attracted to him, especially with his accent. When he first spoke to me and called me Miss Ivy, I instantly went weak at the knees. But once he turned me into a vampire, that pull I had towards him grew tenfold, and I couldn’t imagine a world where we weren’t together.

He made my transition into the world of the supernatural more tolerable and made it easier to give up all that I had to to be together.

His hands rested on the belt of my robe as he continued to nuzzle my neck, “Come back to bed, my love.”

There were lots of misconceptions about vampires out there. Firstly, we didn’t sleep in coffins, a bed suited us just fine, holy water was just water and would only succeed in making us wet nothing more. A stake through the heart would kill us if you could pierce our nearly impenetrable skin, sharp mental was better for that and crosses didn’t repel us. Sunlight wasn’t good for us unless you had an in with a witch who could put a sun charm on a piece of jewellery for you, such as the chunk of amber I wore around my neck or the red stone that Vlad wore in his ring. The best ways to take us out were decapitation or fire, so unless that happened, we would live forever, and as long as Vlad was at my side, I was okay with that.

I shuddered as I felt his nimble fingers tug on the belt, holding my robe closed until it was untied, allowing the robe to separate and reveal my naked body beneath, “That is not playing fair, Vlad.”

He chuckled softly against my ear, “There is no fair when it comes to you.”

I hated to admit it, but he was right. We were both as insatiable as each other. I wondered if that would change if, over the many years ahead of us, it would diminish to a point where we wouldn’t want to jump each other's bones all the time. He had turned me into a nymphomaniac, and I loved every minute of it.

I spun around in his arms until I was facing him, allowing the robe to slide off of my arms and drop to the floor before I wrapped my arms around his neck, “I’m all yours.”

He ran his thumb over my bottom lip as he cupped my cheek with the palm of his hand, causing my fangs to descend

automatically. His weren’t far behind, and slowly his green eyes morphed into a bright shade of red, just like I assumed mine had as well. Apparent from our paler skin, we could pass as humans more or less until our fangs came out. Only then did our eye color change. It had scared me the first time I was looking in the mirror when it happened, but seeing the same eyes on the man I loved put me at ease.

Vlad dropped his hand from my face, and both of his hands wrapped around the back of my thighs, exerting just enough pressure to force me to jump up and wrap my legs around his waist at the perfect angle for my naked core to me pressing against the bulge in his boxer shorts.

“Yes, you are Ivy,” He responded lustfully as he started to walk us back towards our bed and laid me on the mattress, covering my body with his as he stared down at me with nothing but love in his eyes, “Just as I am all yours.”