Eternally Ivy

Chapter 2 - Meet Vlad

Vlad’s POV

It had been over five hundred years since I had made a deal with my sire Malik, to gain the strength I needed to free my mother and sisters from my abusive father. In that time, I had seen a lot of bad things. I had seen many wars fought, millions upon millions of people killed for stupid reasons. I had seen technology advance to the stage where we could video chat with people across the country with a device that I could hold in the palm of my hands, and in all that time, I had kept my promise to Malik and always remained loyal to him. Even after he became obsessed with control and creating an all-powerful offspring, that loyalty had still never wavered. Well, that was until he had one of our men kidnap a human to keep her werewolf/wolf friend in line, and the moment I saw her being dragged into his office, scared, bound and gagged, the sweet smell of her blood hit me like a ton of bricks and I knew I was in for a world of trouble. The way her blood called for me could mean over one thing. She was my eternal partner

Vampires didn’t find their eternal partners as easily as wolves did. Their life spans were shorter than ours, so they found their mates faster. With us, our eternal partners could be born many centuries after we were turned. After this long walking the earth without hearing the call of another's blood, I had given up hope that I was ever going to find my one true partner and started to assume it was just a fairytale. Yet there she was standing in front of me, and my sire was threatening to drain her in front of her friend if she didn’t cooperate, leaving me to make a tough choice—my sire who had freed me from a life of abuse and pain or my eternal partner, the one person that was put on this earth to be mine.

I made my choice, letting Emerson’s mate know where to find them, and in the end, it seemed pointless because my sweet Ivy got hurt anyway. I had wanted to take our relationship slow, to allow her the chance to get to know me before I told her what she was to me and give her a chance to choose whether she wanted this life, wanted me. But unfortunately, one of my nest injured her, and she had to make a choice when the only other option was death.

I was grateful she had allowed me to turn her, and in the five months since her transition, she had taken to vampire life like a duck to water, especially since she was turned after Malik’s demise when our entire nest was in turmoil. As his second in command, I was next in line to take over as leader and, whilst a few vampires in the nest didn’t agree to my truce with the wolves as they wished to avenge Malik, I believed that he dug his own grave when he kidnapped one of their own, who was also a very powerful witch as well. So I was spending my time restoring order. Those who didn’t agree with my decision could leave or die by my hand, although sometimes it was hard to determine who was on our side and who wasn’t.

After our morning activities, my beautiful partner fell back asleep, and I couldn’t help but lay in our bed and just watch her. I had had so much time without her that I was afraid to waste a second more now that I had her. She was asleep on her stomach, the sheet hanging dangerously low across her ass, leaving me to admire her perfectly pale skin. Most people think that vampires were pale because they couldn’t be out in the sun. That myth was debunked when a clever witch created a spell that allowed our bodies to withstand the sun's effects because even though we now were able to be out in the daytime, our bodies were basically dead and therefore no longer produced melanin with the help of sunlight and as such out skin was pale.

Her skin was so inviting that I couldn’t help but run my finger from the point where her head met her spine, all the way down her spine to the top of that gorgeous ass I loved so much.

She shifted a little, turning her head towards me, her beautiful brown eyes opening slowly, “If you keep doing that, we are never going to leave this bed.”

I chuckled, placing a soft kiss on her shoulder, “I could think of worse ways to spend my day, but alas, you are correct. There is work to be done. Do you need to feed before we get up?”

The older the vampire, the longer they could survive between feedings. Given my age, I could go months at a time without taking a single drop of blood, but Ivy was still relatively young, and it had been a few days since she had had any blood. As destined partners, we could survive by just drinking the blood of our partners. I was grateful that she never had to take the blood of another human. It was something I detested, and until I could convince Malik that there was a better way to survive than draining people completely, I only hunted those who committed unforgivable crimes. Rapists, murders, abusers, violent offenders, I had killed them all, and although they were pure evil, their deaths still weighed on me. Like humans, some vampires were good, and others were evil. We were not the soulless monsters they made us out to be in the movies, and Ivy had one of the purest souls I had ever met. She would not survive taking a life.

She looked at me, unable to hide her embarrassment, “I guess I am a little hungry.”

I cupped her cheek softly, “You never had to be embarrassed to feed my love. If you wait too long, it could be disastrous.”

Ivy nodded, biting her lower lip. “I know, I’m sorry.”

I tilted my head to give her access to my neck. You could feed from any part of the body, but the neck was by far the best spot due to its proximity to the carotid artery. Ivy leaned in, nuzzling my neck until I felt her fangs scraping against the skin before sinking deep in. She fed from me for several minutes before releasing me, running her tongue over the marks until they started healing. When she pulled back, her eyes were still blood red, and her fangs were still extended. I reached up and wiped a little blood still remaining on the corner of her mouth with my thumb, rubbing it on her bottom lip until she drew it into her mouth, sucking the last of my blood off it. When I removed my finger, she closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Her fangs retracted back into her mouth, and when she opened her eyes again, they had returned to that warm chocolate color I adored.,

She was still learning how to control her shifts between her vampire face and human one, but she was doing much better than many vampires that were turned many years before her. She was a natural.

We both got up and started our day with a shower in which we got very dirty and then clean and went into our respective closets to get dressed. As Malik was no longer here, I could have taken his room as it was the biggest and most lavish in our mansion, but I couldn’t bring myself to move in, given the circumstances in which I took over. Instead, I renovated my current room into a large suite with his and her walk-in closets. Money was never a problem for us. Over the years, we had come up with a great system. We had various warehouses set up containing works of art and other valuables from various centuries that were now worth a small fortune. Every time we sold pieces, we replaced them with new ones from the current time, and it continued in a large circle. That money was put into real estate and other investments. Over the millennium, we had accrued more wealth than we could ever need and were actually one of the wealthiest nests in existence.

“What have you got planned for the day?” I asked Ivy as she emerged from her closet, looking ravishing in a pair of colorful tights and a simple black tank top, her black hair tied up in a messy bun on the top of her head.

She sat on the edge of the bed to put on her sneakers, “I have training with Raven this morning, and then I wanted to go through Malik’s offence again and try and get it in some sort of order.”

Ivy had been training regularly with one of my top soldiers a few times a week since she made it through her transition. She was learning how to draw on her vampire senses, such as her increased speed and agility and basic fighting skills. Unfortunately, vampires still had many enemies and whilst I had no desire to leave her side, I knew that I may not have an option one day and wanted her to be able to protect herself.

As for Malik’s office, I welcomed her assistance, that vampire was a packrat, and it would take me years to go through it on my own. I, however, had a different morning plan. I had several mind-numbing meetings to look forward to with some of the other nests in the country to discuss the ongoing truce we had with the werewolves. It was time our species stopped being at odds with each other because all it was doing was causing losses to both sides and an ongoing war that no side would ever win. Ivy’s friend Emerson and her Alpha mate Declan continuously met with other wolf packs to pledge peace on their side while I worked on the vampires. So far, it was going well, many nests and packs had signed a peace treaty, but we still had a long way to go before we could rest. Especially as the werewolf King and Queen were still not on board yet. Something to do with Malik killing the king’s grandfather.

Vampires didn’t have to worry about royalty. Our monarchy was decimated centuries before I was turned, We had an elders council that still resided in Europe but they barely interceded in the running of the nests and who our allies were. They were more like record keepers who were more interested in preserving our history than ruling our kind.

With one final kiss, we parted ways and began our days. I just had to get through the day, and then the night would be completely ours again.