Vampire Savage

VAMPIRE SAVAGE Nightshade Vampires ROWAN HART Copyright © 2023 by The Lion and Raven Press, LLC Cover by Covers by Combs www.rowanhartbooks.com All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. ALSO BY ROWAN HART Nightshade Vampires Vampire King Vampire Enforcer Vampire Savage Vampire Runner * * * Knights of Hades MC Security BLAZE Keep up to date with Rowan Hart’s books, news, and even fire-hot monster art by signing up for her newsletter. Sign up today! CONTENTS Content Warning Prologue 1. Wren 2. Lan 3. Wren 4. Wren 5. Lan 6. Wren 7. Lan 8. Wren 9. Wren 10. Lan 11. Wren 12. Lan 13. Wren 14. Wren 15. Lan 16. Wren 17. Lan 18. Wren 19. Lan 20. Wren 21. Wren 22. Lan 23. Wren 24. Wren 25. Lan 26. Wren 27. Lan 28. Wren 29. Lan Epilogue Also by Rowan Hart About the Author VAMPIRE SAVAGE CONTENT WARNING Vampire Savage is aptly titled. Because of this, some readers may want to exercise caution before delving in. Some of the content includes: Abusive Narcissistic parent Deadly force from a parent Attempted sexual assault (not from the MMC) Extreme Kinks/BDSM: breath play, knife play, blood play, intentional scarring, and more Dubcon sadistic play Lack of safe word for a scene Gratuitous violence This list is not all-encompassing and readers should understand that this book is a darker mafia romance featuring a psychotic like main male character. PROLOGUE Lan Winter, 1652 Near the border between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Tsardom of Russia This is a damn trap and all of us know it. We’re foot soldiers, though, and we’ve all seen what happens if someone questions General Jurgis Demencius. At least out here, in the bitter cold and endless rain, we have a better chance of surviving than questioning the general. We’re supposed to be fighting back against raiders and bandits plaguing the principalities as a show of allyship, but there’s been no sign of bandits for weeks. The general has us searching for something, something he’s grown more and more obsessed with. Something that keeps him up at night, poring over strange drawings with symbols that compel most men to make the sign of the cross and pray to their gods. I’m all too familiar with the world of magic to know that what the general is searching for could exist. The man my mother, Josephíne, claims as her father, the one I will never see as my grandfather, is a monster. He is a strzyga, someone who was once a man but now cannot die and must drain the life of others to survive. Oleksandr, though I know that is not his true name because he is already musing about new names. About moving across the sea and taking my mother with him. She will have no choice because of him. It is because of him that her husband, my father, left. Every bruise my father put on her flesh is this vampire’s fault. Every tear she shed, every drop of blood. Doubly so, because he did nothing to stop it. And when my father left my mother, what did her so-called father do? Demanded she return to his side and obey him as a ward once again. Soon my commission with the military will be up and I will have enough money to take my mother away from him and his ways. That’s if I make it through tonight. There are a dozen of us, muskets over our shoulders, as we creep closer to the large wooden izba house in the middle of the woods. “This is where Baba Yaga lives,” Sergi, my friend on my left, whispers as he moves beside me, his boots crunching in the snow. His hands are gripping the musket tight, and ice clings to the bristles of his black mustache. He’s looking at the house, the two stories of windows dimly lit from within. “Evil is inside, Landon. You know this. We should turn back now.” I pause, resting my shoulder against a tree where we crouch and look back the way we came. Somewhere in the dark, General Demencius waits for us in his tent, warmed with braziers and wine while our fingers turn black from frostbite. I adjust the brittle musket strap on my chest and meet Sergi’s dark eyes. He is my opposite. Bulky and dark like a bear where I am leaner and fairer like the snow mountain cats, ibises. “Baba Yaga might be in there,” I agree, inclining my head towards the house. We’re fanned out around it. According to the general, what he seeks is in the house and we’re tasked with retrieving it. But as Sergi says, there is evil inside. Experience with vampires tells me that we are not alone in these woods either. “But if we do not go in, we will die and be branded traitors. Your wife and daughter will not be paid your commission. If you die here, at least they’ll be paid, ya?” He spits on the ground and mutters a curse I silently agree with. “Then we run, Lan. We know these woods better than anyone else.” How to explain to him, a man who does not know of the creatures that exist in this world, that we would be hunted by creatures of nightmares? “Better to fight here,” I tell him, clasping him on the shoulder and squeezing. I put every ounce of charm and light my mother claims are within my soul into my smile and my eyes. She has said I’ve always had a gift to bolster others, something that my commanding officers have agreed with. A kindness that inspires bravery. “We fight as brothers, and I’ll buy you a bottle of wine back home.” Sergi’s brow softens and