A Vampire's Thirst_Ivan Read online

  Ivan

  Marissa Farrar

  Contents

  License Notes

  Publisher’s Note

  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

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  About the Author

  Also by Marissa Farrar

  A VAMPIRE’S THIRST: IVAN

  Copyright © 2018 Marissa Farrar

  Warwick House Press

  Edited by Lori Whitwam

  Cover art by Monica La Porta

  @A novel set in A Vampire’s Thirst World Created by A K Michaels

  License Notes

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of these authors.

  Publisher’s Note

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Prologue

  The creature scented blood on the cool night air.

  A low-lying fog crept over the barren land like a lover’s fingers across their partner’s skin. With no towns or cities nearby, the breeze carried with it the aroma of boggy peat and animal dung, and underlying that was the faint sweetness of the yellow gorse bush that covered the ground. The lack of pollution meant it was able to pick out the slightest variant in scent, its nostrils twitching, its upper lip pulling back from its teeth.

  The massive granite outcrops of the tors of Dartmoor towered into the night sky. Trees were scarce out here. The ones that managed to grow in the inhospitable landscape were stunted and bent against the wind.

  The creature used the rocks as shelter to move from place to place to keep from being seen. With its belly low to the ground, it slunk across the moorland.

  Animals sensed it coming. The wild Dartmoor ponies kicked up their hooves and galloped away, snorting their fear in hot plumes of air which turned white against the cold. Grazing sheep bleated their alarm. The creature had made plenty of good meals out of the sheep, but it was developing a taste for something bigger.

  A river burbled somewhere nearby. The creature’s ears pricked and it slowed its pace.

  What was that smell? Human. It had resisted for so long, but the time was getting near, and it didn’t know if it could last much longer. Hikers, camped out for the night. It heard their easy laughter over the babble of the river, the cracks of cans being opened, the scent of meat being cooked. The campers had to make do with a barbeque rather than an open fire. Open fires weren’t allowed on the moorland, the risk of it spreading too great.

  A darkness churned at the creature’s soul. It wouldn’t be the first human it had taken, but others had been more happy accidents. They’d been lost people who’d happened upon its path. The sort of people no one would notice missing.

  Hunting them, however, was something new ...

  Chapter 1

  Ivan Sokolov stood on the London street outside the club, his hands jammed against his hips, and a frown marking his face. Cheap plyboard had been used to block up all the windows, and someone had already spray-painted graffiti across the wood. Barely a week had passed since the owner of the club, Deacon Thorn, had been arrested and put to death by The Directive for his part in people trafficking, and yet the place looked as though it had been shut for months.

  On the road behind Ivan, numerous cars, including black cabs, drove by. On the other side of the street, a group of drunken youths staggered arm in arm, calling out loudly to each other, despite being close enough to be attached.

  Guilt snaked through Ivan for not getting down here sooner. He’d tried calling Michaela—Deacon Thorne’s daughter—after her father’s arrest, but she hadn’t answered any of his calls, and there had been no sign of her at her flat. Perhaps he should have tried harder, but there had been too much to deal with, and the members of The Directive had only recently left.

  Maybe Michaela didn’t want to be found, yet her face kept playing on his mind. What they’d shared hadn’t been anything like what his vampire offspring Nikolai and his Bloodmate Lauren had together, but they’d had some good times, and he hated to think how she was now left without a father, and her family’s business had gone under in part because of him. It wasn’t his fault her father had been involved in trafficking and The Directive had been forced to step in, but it hadn’t been her fault either.

  Ivan didn’t like how they’d left things, and he wanted to make things right. She’d probably call him every name under the sun and punch him in the face, but if that went some way to helping her heal, then it would be worth it. The Directive had interviewed her after her father’s death and come to the conclusion she hadn’t been aware what Deacon had been into, and that was good enough for Ivan. He knew there was no chance of them still messing around together, and he didn’t want that either, but a sense of responsibility lay on his shoulders. Deacon Thorne had been her father, no matter what he’d done, and she was bound to be grieving. He hated feeling as though he’d just abandoned her.

  Ivan sighed and glanced around, uncertain of how to progress. He wasn’t sure what he thought he’d find here at the club—Michaela herself, perhaps, or even a forwarding address. All he knew was he didn’t have anything else to go on, and that realisation made him wonder exactly how much he’d known about the half-wolf. He’d thought he’d cared about her enough to push Nikolai into doing business with her father, but now he’d seen how Nikolai was with his Bloodmate, everything he’d shared with Michaela seemed so superficial. Maybe that was what he was doing here. Maybe he was hoping to share something deeper, or reach into the more intimate recesses of emotion than just sex and blood. Not that there was anything wrong with sex and blood, but now he found he yearned for something more.

  He spotted the alleyway which led to the back entrance of the club. He doubted he’d find anything, but something drew him. Using his vampire’s hearing, he tuned in to the area. Yes, he heard movement. Footsteps from inside, and a muffled heartbeat. Not vampire, then? Wolf? He inhaled deeply. Unlike his progeny, Nikolai, he didn’t share the other vampire’s revulsion of the scent of a werewolf. They did have a distinctive scent, however.

  Michela was only half wolf, and she’d only ever smelled mostly human to him. He’d fed from her a number of times, and her blood had tasted mostly human, too, but with a faint hint of something muskier, which he assumed was her wolf side. It was an acquired taste, he realised. Had she offered herself up to someone like Nikolai, he’d probably have turned green with disgust.

  Returning his thoughts to the present, he took the number of steps needed to bring himself opposite the entrance of the alleyway, and then called upon his vampire’s speed to dart inside and stop beside the rear doors with his back pressed to the red brick wall of the building.

  He listened again, hard, trying to place the person. They were headed this way, through the corri
dors which had once led to the club for exotic dancers, and the werewolf’s den for trafficking those with special blood to ancient vampires prepared to pay a lot of money to own it. The person was human. Who were they, and what were they doing here?

  Ivan froze, his breath held as he waited, not wanting to alert the person to his presence. He sensed they were human, but that didn’t mean they were solely human. They might be a witch, with some kind of spell that would alert them to the intrusion, or another kind of supernatural he hadn’t considered. Either way, his senses had gone on high alert.

  Footsteps grew closer, the thumping beat of the person’s heart increasing. It had been a while since Ivan had last fed, and at the thought of a pulse thudding beneath skin and fresh blood flooding down his throat, his fangs extended. Ivan frowned and forced them back again. That wasn’t like him. He was over three hundred years old, and he had good control of his bloodlust now. It hadn’t been so easy at first, and he’d often taken more lives than he’d needed, but now he didn’t need to kill. He’d feed from those who were willing, or from blood banks, not from random strangers he hadn’t even seen yet.

  The door beside him cracked open, and Ivan lunged into movement. Catching the new arrival by the front of his t-shirt, he yanked him through the open doorway and out into the alley. Before the man had even had the chance to yell in surprise, Ivan had used his vampire’s strength to lift him and shove him up against the wall. He held him high, so the man’s feet didn’t even touch the ground. Not that it mattered if they did. This human was no match for his strength. He wouldn’t be going anywhere until Ivan got what he wanted.

  He could compel this human to tell him what he needed to know if he wanted, but he didn’t think there would be any need. From the fear in the young man’s eyes, he’d spill everything quickly enough.

  “I’m looking for the daughter of the werewolf who used to run this club. Where is she?”

  His eyes were wide, showing the whites, the pupils flicking back and forth as though he was searching for an escape. “Daughter?”

  “Yes. Michaela. You know her. Everyone who worked here knew her.”

  He nodded frantically. “Yes, yes. Michaela. I know her.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Not here. She went away. Wanted to get out of London.”

  He gave the man a small shake. “Where”

  “I don’t know. Somewhere down south. She said she wanted to go somewhere remote, where no one else could find her. The moors, I think she said.”

  Ivan frowned, narrowing his eyes. “The moors?”

  “Yes, yes. Dartmoor!”

  Ivan didn’t know that part of England. The farthest south he’d been was Folkestone to get into France via the Channel Tunnel. Maybe it would do him good to get away from London as well. There wasn’t much here for him, not now Nikolai had found his Bloodmate, and Michaela was gone. He had his businesses in the city, but they’d manage without him for a few days. So much could be done online these days, and he was sure even Devon had WiFi.

  “Do you know where she’s staying?”

  “No, but she made the arrangements from Deacon’s office.”

  Hmm. Perhaps there would be something there that would tell him where she’d gone. He believed the human when he’d said he didn’t know where she was staying. It wasn’t as though he’d been hard to get information out of.

  Ivan loosened his hold on the man’s shirt, and he dropped to the ground and scrabbled away.

  “Don’t worry about locking up,” Ivan said as he moved towards the still-open doorway. “I’ll see it gets done.” He paused and then added, “Oh, and if you happen to see or speak to Michaela, make sure you don’t mention that I was here.”

  He didn’t give a shit one way or the other if the club was locked up or not, but he didn’t want Michaela to know he was stepping on her territory. Perhaps the club would make a good place for squatters—after all, there were enough homeless on London’s streets. The place certainly wouldn’t be opening as a new club any time soon. The Directive had frozen all of Deacon’s assets, including this place. If it had been acquired by ill-gotten gains, the club and everything inside it would be dissolved.

  Ivan knew his way through the club’s back corridors. Slipping inside, he navigated them quickly, making his way to what had once been the werewolf Deacon’s office. Electricity was still being run to the place. Ivan’s eyesight was excellent in the dark, but once at the office, he flicked the switch and flooded the space with light. There was no point in working harder than needed.

  He moved behind Deacon’s desk, his gaze scouring the wooden surface. He wasn’t sure what he thought he’d find—a printed invoice, perhaps, or a scribbled note with the name of a hotel on it. But most of the contents of the desk, like everything else in the club, had been cleared out.

  Ivan let out a growl of frustration. Maybe she didn’t want to be found. That was most likely correct, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him. He wanted to tell her that he had never intended for things to end up as they had. Maybe it wouldn’t help, but he was a selfish creature, ruled by his own desires, and he thought it might stop him turning over the events in his head.

  It didn’t look as though he was going to find anything of use here, however.

  He was about to leave the office when the phone on the desk caught his eye. The computer had been removed by The Directive, most likely wanting to see if anything on it would help them learn if the trafficking had spread further than just Deacon. So there was a chance she’d used the phone to book where she was going. It was a long shot, but he picked up the handset and hit the redial button. With his hearing, he didn’t need to place the handset to his ear to hear what was being said.

  “Good evening, you’re through to the Hare and Hounds Hotel.”

  Ivan didn’t respond. Instead, he gently placed the handset back down and allowed a hint of a smile to curl one side of his lips.

  He knew where she’d gone.

  Chapter 2

  “What the bloody hell would do something like this?”

  Police Constable Charlene Ramsden shook her head as she stood over the body of the mutilated sheep. Its previously white wool was stained pink with blood, so only its rear end resembled anything of the animal’s normal colour.

  “You think what rather than who?” Her colleague, Constable Stephen Farnham, was standing beside her, rubbing his hand over his mouth.

  Charlene pressed her lips together, and her nostrils flared. “This has been the third one in a little over a week. They’ve all got exactly the same injuries, the same massive bite mark to the throat, the same loss of blood. If this was kids, they wouldn’t have been able to kill the animal in exactly the same way each time.”

  “I don’t know, Charlie. They could be messing around with black magic,” he suggested. “Cut the throat each time as some kind of sacrifice.”

  She knelt and, with her gloved hand, lifted the animal’s chin to expose its ravaged throat. “That’s not a cut mark, Stephen. That’s a bite.”

  “Dammit. You know what’s going to happen if word about this gets out. We’ll have every local newspaper speculating about the Beast of Dartmoor, and this place will be crawling with reporters in no time. They’ll scare away whatever is causing this.”

  “Maybe that would be a good thing,” she mused.

  Myths that there was some kind of giant animal roaming around the desolate moorlands had been going on for hundreds of years. Every now and then, there were a spate of killings of the local wildlife and it stirred up the rumours again, and then things died away. All the tourist shops dotted around the national park stocked numerous books about the myths of the moorlands, including haunted bridges and lost soldiers, and, of course, the Beast of Dartmoor, but nothing was ever proven. There were numerous sightings and some casts of paw prints—most likely created by the same people who photographed them and offered them up as proof of the creature’s existence—but no actual animal had ev
er been caught. Besides, it would be hundreds of years old now if such a thing were truly real.

  The truth was, there wasn’t a huge amount they could do about the slaughtered animal. They were there as a formality, taking photographs, bagging anything that might look like evidence, before bagging up the animal as well and sending it to a local veterinarian to be disposed of. The police budget didn’t stretch to putting any more resources into finding out what was happening to a handful of animals that effectively roamed wild out here. They had a duty to follow it up, but chances were they’d never actually find out what was responsible for the killings.

  “I hope this is the last of it,” Stephen muttered. “I hate being all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. This place gives me the chills.”

  Charlie laughed. “I’d rather be out here than having to deal with the clubs kicking out in the city. People punching each other, and puking, and vandalising things. Give me nature any day of the week.”

  He nodded down at the sheep. “Even this kind of nature?”

  “Well … I normally prefer them frolicking around a field, but yeah, I’d still rather deal with this than a bunch of drunk students.”

  “I prefer lamb on my plate for Sunday lunch,” Stephen said with a grin.

  She sent him a mock scowl. “Hey, have some respect for the dead.”