Thirst (Ava Delaney #1) Read online

THIRST

  (Ava Delaney #1)

  By Claire Farrell

  A Paranormal / Urban Fantasy Novella

  Ava Delaney calls herself a hybrid-a living, breathing human who happens to have vampire poison running through her veins. The only thing greater than her thirst for human blood is her capacity for guilt. She does her best to avoid the human world, for everyone's sake.

  When Ava accidentally enslaves a human while saving him from a vampire, she realises she has to look for help setting him free. Despite her misgivings, she expands her world but finds herself dragged into a possible vampire civil war. With the help of some new friends with ambiguous loyalties, she tries to find a way to keep her human, and herself, alive.

 

  Copyright ? Claire Farrell

  [email protected]

  Book cover image provided by Inga Marchuk @ Dreamstime.com

  Licence Notes

  All rights reserved. Not for resale.

  Chapter One

  The scent of fear mixed with fresh blood stopped me in my tracks. My fangs slid out rapidly-too many missed meals. Feeling like a monster, I made an effort to retract them and sniffed the air again. Definitely human, definitely in trouble.

  I closed my eyes and listened to my senses, the extra ones I usually ignored, relishing the opportunity to indulge. In my mind, I sensed rather than saw the streets around me. Nothing but darkness filled with the occasional red throbbing of a human heart.

  Probing further into the dark, I found the injured human's presence easily. He stood in an alleyway nearby, his pulse calling to me-strong and loud. An emptiness appeared, too close to the human. A void in my other sight screaming supernatural. A dead, soulless vampire stalking his prey, tantalised by the scent of fear.

  Just like me.

  That's why the guilt always hit me so hard. If I didn't help then it meant I was bad as the vampires. I couldn't conquer the thirst, but I could keep my humanity, even if I did my best to avoid humans.

  Sometimes I interfered and helped humans escape from prowling vampires. It had never been a big deal, usually over before anyone got hurt. The vampires never realised what I was because they didn't believe someone like me could exist. The humans never realised they had almost been slaughtered by a mythical creature they didn't believe could exist.

  Adrenalin coursed through my body at the thought of confronting a vampire with a bleeding human. I knew I had to calm down, or the vampire would hear my heartbeat a mile away. I took fourteen steps. A good number because one plus four equalled five. Five was safe. Unlike six. Too many sixes scared me. Fourteen more steps. Relief. My pulse slowed.

  Too human to be stealthy, I embraced my clunky stride. Swallowing my fear, I walked into the alley as if I owned the place. Fourteen steps.

  A dark cloud blocked the moon, leaving me pretty much sightless. I rested my hands on my hips and waited, hoping I made a believable vampire. My eyes didn't adjust to the dark straight away, but that racing heartbeat drew my head in the right direction, hiding my lack of night vision. My eyes focused in time for me to see the vampire's surprise. He drew back from the human's throat, revealing a gaunt face with concave cheeks and desperate eyes that glittered with hunger.

  Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one... I thought I had long grown out of counting people's heartbeats, but there I was using my fingers to keep track of every batch of forty-one. Almost as good as fourteen.

  The vampire kept his eyes on me, his dark hair slicked back behind his ears. In life, he might have been handsome once, but not anymore. Most vampires were ugly. Death did that to you.

  Hoping to intimidate him, I looked him up and down. He hadn't yet noticed anything off about me, and I counted on the human's stench covering me until I got him away.

  The vampire watched me but didn't make a move. He had already tasted the human, but I could tell the wounds were shallow. He was still at the taunting stage vampires seemed to like so much. As cruel as cats, they enjoyed playing with their food. My insides tensed with anticipation. Faking confidence, I tapped my foot five times while I stared him down. He licked blood from his lips with slow, careful movements.

  14, 28, 56, 112... I hoped I wasn't mouthing the numbers I doubled in my head.

  Mr. Vampire finally relaxed, but his hand remained on the human's chest, keeping him pinned. I stayed mute and prayed the human would stop making those cornered animal noises. They provoked me, so I could only imagine what they did to a real vampire. Creatures without a soul, vampires didn't bother trying to control their instincts. However, they were smart enough to rein in their impulses in order to survive. Although, this one didn't seem to be particularly clever. He still hadn't noticed my heart beating.

  "Share?" The vampire spoke at last, his voice hoarse. I raised my eyebrows and tapped my foot another five times. I didn't know that much about vampires, so I tended to trust my instincts and hope for the best. It had worked so far.

  "He's yours?" the vampire asked, his voice holding a more respectful tone. He thought I was above him in the pecking order, I realised.

  "Yeah, he's mine," I said, meaning it. I gestured toward the human. "Come here."

  The human pushed aside the vampire as if he were made of cardboard. I tried to act unsurprised when he trotted to my side like an obedient puppy.

  The vampire bowed his head. "Apologies. I didn't smell a bond on him."

  I shrugged and turned to leave, my anxiety growing. I had already seen the strange query spark in the vampire's eyes, as if he noticed my own eyes lacked the red tint that his held-or maybe he realised he could hear another heart beating. Unsurprising, considering how much my heart rate had increased since the still-bleeding human moved closer to me.

  I grabbed the man's arm and dragged him out of the alleyway after me. Thankfully, he didn't panic and followed me without protest. Most people lost the plot when total strangers bit them, so it was a relief to see he was able to hold it together.

  "Run!" I hissed, as soon as we were out of the vampire's sight. Despite his dazed expression, the human sprinted onward, forcing me into a run just to catch up to him.

  A forceful sensation washed over me, making me shiver. The vampire knew something was wrong with me, and he was going to follow us. It was as though he'd sent a silent message straight to my brain, letting me know his intentions. Creepy and invasive.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted him following us from a distance. His footsteps were completely silent. He didn't even appear to be running, but he was fast, and his face was full of solid determination.

  "Shit." His expression scared me more than anger would have. A persistent vampire meant I'd have to keep the human with me until the coast was clear. That could be a problem.

  "Hurry! Keep running until we get to my place," I told the human.

  He moved faster than I could have believed possible. He also ran in the right direction ahead of me, which made no sense. I was too busy counting our collective footsteps to really consider the implications. We reached my home unharmed, but I was sure the vampire could have caught us easily.

  The apartment block I lived in was protected by magical safeguards to ward off unwelcome visitors. I had purchased most of them online, so their authenticity is probably dodgy, but enough of them worked to hide us if we needed it. I hoped.

  Opening the front door of my apartment building as fast as I could, I pushed the human man ahead of me. Skidding in after him, I slammed the door shut, praying we were safe. I watched through the door's glass panel with my fingers crossed, trying to ignore the heavy breathing of the human.

  The vampire wandered around outside, looking puzzled but not altoget
her concerned. To my relief, the spells hid us well. When he finally left, he made an outstanding jump upward and out of my line of sight. Letting out a shaky breath, I closed my eyes and leaned my forehead against the door. Too close, my existence was meant to be a secret. Lucky this time, but at least the vampire was gone. Relieved, I thought it was all over.

  Then I smelled him. The human. The blood on his neck had congealed, but the odour was still there, tempting me. Too close. He did everything to provoke my instincts whether he knew it or not. I whirled around and glared at him, bolstered by anger.

  "Get upstairs to my apartment, and clean yourself up. It's on the third?"

  He was already heading up the stairs as if he knew exactly where to go. The door to my apartment was unlocked, so I figured he'd find his way eventually. As soon as he went upstairs, I leaned against the wall and sank to the floor, light-headed with weariness, tension, and thirst.

  The last thing I needed to do was taste his wound, but that was all I wanted to do. Breathing deeply, I tried not to think about the one time I tasted a human's blood. I focused on sunlight and churches, cartoons and music. Anything that reminded me of being human, but it wasn't working.

  The only thing that had ever helped with the thirst was counting. I was never sure if the counting was a side effect of the thirst, or if I would have counted numbers anyway, but as I sat there drumming my fingers in sets of three, I didn't care.

  Five fingers, five fingers then four. My nails tapped out the rhythm on the wall. Three sets adding up to fourteen. Because four minus one equals three. Safe numbers to calm my nerves.

  At last, the spinning stopped, and I felt more like myself. My breathing slowed; the raw intensity of my thirst subsided. I even stopped drumming my fingers. But I didn't trust myself. I couldn't, not until the human left.

  After I had calmed down some more, I followed the human upstairs. It seemed like the vampire was long gone, so I contemplated kicking the human out and letting him fend for himself. He was in the bathroom still, so I waited. I drank a whole litre of milk, hoping it would help with the thirst. I could survive on real food, and had my whole life, but I thirsted constantly for blood.

  The thirst was the biggest problem in my life. I literally planned my days around it. It was always worse at night. Something about the moon dug the craving from me and gave it a new spark of power. It was a raw hunger that came from somewhere other than my stomach.

  I tidied up my tiny living room until the human strolled back in, unfazed. I really looked at him for the first time. After ignoring people for so long, I tended to forget how distinctive their faces could be. A handsome man, he had thick blond hair and clear blue eyes-a poster boy for healthy living. Over a foot taller than me, he was built to be touched. I wasn't technically attracted to him, not really, but the miniscule wounds on his neck drew me in straight away. I found myself wandering over to him, entranced.

  My mind went blank. His blood would taste like heaven. I could take it easily. My eyes fluttered upward, stilling him with one look. His heartbeat slowed as my gaze turned darkly seductive. My tongue snaked out of its own accord, curling up to moisten my top lip. He inched forward, drawn by an unseen force. I felt like a predator: powerful and sexy. The compulsion to count vanished. I curved myself against him, my eyes widening at the contact. He stood there as if the way I was behaving was completely normal.

  I moved as close to his neck as I dared, right on the edge, but unprepared to jump. The man smelled so good that my mouth watered again. He was as calm as if we had just been walking a dog, not running for our lives from a vampire. I had an insane urge to straddle him and lick his neck, but I stepped back thanks to the warning signals going off in my head.

  I ran to the window and shoved it open, my own behaviour making me frantic. Hoping the fresh air would clear my thoughts, I stuck my head outside. It had been a long time since I was quite as close to a human for more than a couple of seconds. My body cried out for me to respond to him in the way I was supposed to, but I wouldn't. I had enough guilt on my shoulders. I couldn't deal with any more.

  His hand on my back sent a shudder running through my body. For a second, I arched against him and almost purred. But then I remembered the last time I felt good when a male hand touched me. I pulled my head back in and pushed him away as roughly as I could.

  He stumbled backward, knocking over a lamp and falling awkwardly against a wall. The thud of the impact made me wince, but he smiled at me with eerily empty eyes before getting back on his feet.

  He hadn't spoken at all, and for the first time I realised something wasn't quite right. Although grateful he wasn't asking me hysterical questions, I had to admit I should have expected some sort of a response. I had been so busy flirting with disaster that I hadn't paid enough attention to how weird he was acting.

  "What's your name?" I asked, trying to fill the awkward silence that weighted the air. Although he seemed comfortable, I was tense enough for both of us. I realised I was wringing my hands together in a steady rhythm and moved them behind my back, self-conscious of the nervous habit.

  "Carl. What's yours?" He responded easily enough, but the tone of his voice was blank and emotionless.

  "Uh, Ava. Listen, you're probably wondering what the hell just happened out there?"

  "I'm not."

  His calm was disturbing, and I trembled all over. He might as well have had a flashing sign saying blood donor hanging around his neck.

  I kept expecting the man to lose the plot and act like a normal person would under the same circumstances. He was behaving as though being bitten by a freakishly strong, strange man and pushed around by a freakishly strong, strange woman were perfectly reasonable things to happen.

  "You're amazing," he said. I shook my head, his words knocking me even further off-kilter.

  He shot toward me, intimidating me with his height. Cornered, I panicked. The sudden sense of alarm I experienced made it harder to concentrate on not doing anything stupid-like draining Carl dry.

  Logically, I knew I was stronger than him, but I was raised to understand men were supposed to be stronger than women. It was hard to see him as a victim when he was heading for me with intent on his face. Holding my hands up in front of me, I backed away. He pushed them out of the way, rushing forward to grab my waist and press his lips against mine.

  His tongue forced my mouth open. There was nothing sexy about it. It was sloppy and rushed and unattractive. But the pulse in his neck was so temptingly close, I almost put up with the kiss. On the edge of a dark line, I stepped back, retreating firmly onto the side of human.

  The girl in me got pissed off at his roughness. It was a good distraction from the thirst. I shoved him, slapping his face hard as he stumbled back. He rubbed his jaw, but the dopey, languid smile never left his face. I resisted the temptation to slap him on the other cheek just to make it even.

  "You need to go home now, Carl. Forget about tonight, and mind yourself. And don't even think about doing that to me again unless you want a broken nose." My voice was steadier than I felt.

  He frowned at me, his forehead wrinkling as though he was trying to figure something out.

  "I want to stay with you."

  His voice was interesting, quite high in pitch for such a big man. It had a nice tone, and I wondered if maybe he was a good singer. I realised I was staring at the pulse ticking in his neck instead of his face. To my absolute horror, he inclined his head, offering me his throat.

  "What are you doing?" I whispered, backing away because the strings holding me together were already stretched as far as they could go.

  He's willing, whispered a little voice inside. What harm is one little sip?

  I shook my head vehemently, trying to silence the urges. They hadn't always been this loud. I doubted one little sip would be enough anymore.

  "I'm... not sure." His eyes were confused again, th
e colour dulling as he answered.

  "Okay, time to leave." I wanted him as far away from me as possible.

  Gripping his arm firmly, I held my breath so I couldn't smell him. I led him to the door and pushed him out into the hallway. It was hard enough to stop myself licking his neck without him offering it to me on a plate. I slammed the door after him and waited to hear him go downstairs. He didn't. I peered out the peephole and saw him still standing there, motionless. His face was slack; he was just... waiting. It was like someone had switched off his brain.

  "Sod him," I said under my breath. I stalked over to the alcove that passed as a kitchen and rummaged around for some bread. After shoving some slices into the toaster, I fidgeted around my kitchenette, slamming press doors even amounts of times before scrubbing at a clean plate until the toast was ready. I slathered on lots of strawberry jam then sat on an armchair in the adjoining living room and munched away, the sugar soothing me a little.

  His pulse outside the door was enough to keep me on the edge of my chair. I drummed my fingers as loud as I could, but the beating went on and on, louder and louder, until I felt like screaming. My head pounded as the thirst intensified, my entire throat feeling as though it had been caked in dust. The gnawing in my stomach had grown into something I couldn't ignore.

  I got up to look through the peephole again. He stood in the exact same position.

  "Get out of here, Carl!" I shouted at him before storming into the bathroom for a shower. The water helped drown out the sound of the blood pumping through his veins and made me feel a little more human. I had to get rid of him-that much I knew. His reasons for sticking around niggled at me; the abnormal blankness on his face bothered me even more. It wasn't natural.

  After I showered, I went back to wandering around the flat. After a few minutes of pretending Carl wasn't there, I relented and opened the door again. I had to figure out his game.

  "Why are you still here?"

  He shrugged, his eyes unfocused.

  "Where do you live? Are you sick or something?"

  He shrugged again. He tilted his head to the side, exposing his neck once more.

  "Oh, crap," I said, slamming the door and retreating in a hurry. I spent the next couple of hours lying on my bed with music blaring until I fell asleep.

  The first thing I heard when I woke up the next morning was a slow thud, thud, thud. It took me a few minutes to realise it was him. Still there.

  I went to the door and opened it, exasperated beyond belief. Carl looked like he hadn't moved all night. His face brightened when he saw me, but dark circles cushioned his bloodshot eyes. He yawned then, looking completely exhausted.

  "Why won't you go home?" I asked, startled by the whine in my voice. He stared back at me.

  "Sit down." I meant in my apartment, but he sank to the floor. Not a good sign.

  "Leave, and don't come back," I ordered, testing out a theory. He cocked his head to the side and looked at me with puppy dog eyes.

  "What the hell? Just come in, before someone sees you." I glanced out into the hall to see my slutty next-door neighbour smirking at me from her doorway, her dressing gown opened just an inch too far.

  "Lover's tiff? At least you finally found a man," she said, tossing her honey-from-a-bottle coloured hair. She winked provocatively at Carl-who didn't notice-then went back inside, leaving the stench of overly sweet perfume in her wake.

  "Come on," I said, majorly annoyed at my neighbour.

  Carl followed me into my apartment; straight away, I felt suffocated by his presence. My flat wasn't large, but it seemed miniscule with him there. He was huge and filled up all of the free space.

  Pacing up and down, a rush of thoughts came to me at once. Vampires could enslave people, enthral them. What if I had somehow done that to Carl? I hadn't done it before, but I was as unnatural as the vampires; who knew what I could do?

  When I was younger, I had been desperate to learn about my origins and snuck lots of books on vampires home from the library. They were supposed to be fiction, but I was pretty sure a lot of it was accurate. My grandmother caught me and flipped out about it before I could finish them, but from what I read, vampires had abilities. Mind control being one of them. Maybe I could do the same thing-or something similar.

  I was infected with vampire poison while still in my mother's womb. Born an oddity, I was a human-vampire hybrid with a soul. A conscience. Guilt. And major thirst for human blood. With that kind of conflict, I should have had a split personality, but instead I was just a tad OCD.

  Acting like a normal person ended badly for me, so I made the choice to hide from humans and vampires. My grandmother had made sure I remembered the legacy my mother left me. Nobody can know. If vampires didn't find out how I was created then they couldn't do it again. I thought I was the only one, which made me a fluke-or a freak. I hadn't tried to test my limits, so I was never sure what I could do.

  One thing was clear-Carl wasn't going away. He did whatever I told him to do-anything except leave-and he acted like he was a willing sacrifice or something. The more I considered it, the more I was sure the whole mind control thing could be done. But I didn't know how it was done. I always assumed it had something to do with biting humans.

  I definitely hadn't bitten him. But he was still there, not moving, waiting for me to command him. I stared at him, not having any idea what to do. If I didn't know how I caused it, how could I fix it?