Origins of Eternity

  NICOLE PYLAND

  PYLAND PUBLISHING LLC

  Copyright © 2025 Nicole Pyland

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

  ISBN-13: 979-8-88696-084-6

  By the Author

  Chicago Series:

  • Introduction – Fresh Start

  • Book #1 – The Best Lines

  • Book #2 – Just Tell Her

  • Book #3 – Love Walked into The Lantern

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  San Francisco Series:

  • Book #1 – Checking the Right Box

  • Book #2 – Macon’s Heart

  • Book #3 – This Above All

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Tahoe Series:

  • Book #1 – Keep Tahoe Blue

  • Book #2 – Time of Day

  • Book #3 – The Perfect View

  • Book #4 – Begin Again

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Boston Series:

  • Book #1 – Let Go

  • Book #2 – The Right Fit

  • Book #3 – All Good Plans

  • Book #4 – Around the World

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Sports Series:

  • Book #1 – Always More

  • Book #2 – A Shot at Gold

  • Book #3 – The Unexpected Dream

  • Book #4 – Finding a Keeper

  • Book #5 – Making It Count

  • Book #6 – Side by Side

  • Book #7 – Crashing into Love

  • Book #8 – Spin Serve

  Celebrities Series:

  • Book #1 – No After You

  • Book #2 – All the Love Songs

  • Book #3 – Midnight Tradition

  • Book #4 – Path Forward

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Holiday Series:

  • Book #1 – The Writing on the Wall

  • Book #2 – The Block Party

  • Book #3 – The Fireworks

  • Book #4 – The Sweet Escape

  • Book #5 – The Misperception

  • Book #6 – The Wait is Over

  • Series Finale – What Happened After

  Fire Universe:

  • Book #1 – The Fire

  • Book #2 – The Disappeared

  • Book #3 – The Kidnapped

  • Book #4 – The System

  Stand-alone books:

  • Reality Check

  • The Show Must Go On

  • Future Wife

  • Echoes

  • Timeless

  Young Adult / New Adult:

  • The Moments

  • Love Forged

  • Pride Festival

  Anthology:

  • The Meet Cute Café

  (a collection of 8 interconnected love stories featuring couples of different ages and backgrounds)

  Erotica:

  • Once a Month

  • Voyeur

  Royalty Series:

  • Book #1 – Ascending

  • Book #2 – Appointing

  • Book #3 – Arriving

  • Book #4 – Awaiting

  TruLove Universe:

  • SoulMatch

  • TruLove

  New Orleans Series:

  • Book #01 – January

  • Book #02 – February

  • Book #03 – March

  • Book #04 – April

  • Book #05 – May

  • Book #06 – June

  • Book #07 – July

  • Book #08 – August

  • Book #09 – September

  • Book #10 – October

  • Book #11 – November

  • Book #12 – December

  Origins of Eternity

  After a three-century-long love affair that no longer feels right to her, Iro Black is ready to say goodbye to the vampire who turned her. She gave up killing, feeding on humans, and any kind of violence years ago, but Cassia, the woman who made her a vampire, still revels in it all. When Iro moves from Paris to Washington, DC, for her business, she lands in a bar one night, expecting to have a drink and go home alone, but she meets a woman who will change everything.

  Arwen Lam only goes out with her best friend because Zara has something important to talk to her about, but before Zara can bring it up, Arwen spots the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen, and when that woman offers to buy her a drink, Arwen simply cannot refuse.

  What follows is the story of Iro leaving a life with Cassia behind to begin a journey of love with the woman she was always meant to be with, but Cassia, of course, is not ready to let go. She keeps her eye on Iro’s budding romance with a feeble human before trying to stop it once and for all and finally have her revenge.

  To contact the author or for any additional information,

  visit: https://nicolepyland.com

  Subscribe to the reader’s newsletter to be the first to receive updates about upcoming books and more:

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  By the Author

  Origins of Eternity

  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

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  EPILOGUE

  Afterword

  By the Author

  About The Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Iro

  “My love, you know I adore when you do that,” Cassia said and ran a hand through Iro’s short, black hair. “It’s been far too long.”

  Iro wasn’t sure about that last part. It had been years, yes, but they’d been apart for longer, much longer than a few years before. They’d been apart for decades at a time. They had always returned to one another, though. This time hadn’t been a planned reunion during their relationship intermission, but Cassia had invited Iro to join her in Florence, the city of Cassia’s birth. Iro had been in Paris on business, and because her boredom with the world, while ever-present, had been worse recently, when Cassia had suggested they interrupt their separation for one night, Iro had flown on Cassia’s private plane and had arrived a few hours later.

  Her tongue slipped between Cassia’s folds, and she licked her the same way she had licked her for hundreds of years now. She had once believed it would never get old, touching, stroking, licking, and sucking the woman who had made her, but their times apart had begun to span longer than their times together, and she knew why, even if they hadn’t spoken of it to one another.

  “Yes, Iro,” Cassia encouraged, holding Iro’s head in place as Iro sucked on her clit. “You know what I want. Do it.”

  Iro moved her mouth to Cassia’s inner thigh and called her fangs forth. They emerged on cue from her upper and lower canines, and she bit down hard into Cassia’s skin, letting the blood drain out and onto her lips, coating her tongue. Some rolled down Cassia’s thigh and stained the white bed sheets beneath.

  “Oh, yes,” Cassia let out as Iro sucked. “Taste me, my love.”

  Vampire blood wouldn’t sate her in the same way human blood would, but Iro had given that up a long time ago, so drinking from a vampire’s vein or artery was the only way she’d get fresh, hot blood that tasted close enough to the human variety. She sucked and sucked, reveling in the taste of it, and listened to Cassia, who was moaning. When Cassia eventually began rubbing the back of her head, Iro let go of her and let her fangs recede. She licked at the holes she had created as blood continued to trickle out of them until they began to heal and disappeared altogether. Then, she moved her now-bloody mouth back to Cassia’s clit and sucked just as hard.

  “Yes! Yes!”

  Cassia came seconds later, like she always had, but Iro didn’t stay between her legs long enough to help her come down. She didn’t climb on top of Cassia to fuck her how she would have in the past. Instead, she stood, wiped her mouth, walked naked into the luxurious bathroom she’d used a million times before, and started the shower.

  “Where are you going?” Cassi
a asked, following her into the shower after Iro got in without waiting for the water to warm. “I haven’t had my way with you yet.”

  “Cass, I’m showering.”

  “And I can’t shower with you?” Cassia pressed her to the wall. “Let me taste you, baby. It’s been too long. I need to feel connected again.” She moved her fingers into Iro’s folds and started to stroke while digging her teeth into Iro’s flesh at the base of her neck. “Fuck. You taste like no one else.”

  Iro let her suck and watched as red drained down with the clear water until Cassia finished both with her neck and with giving her an all-too-brief orgasm.

  “You barely made a sound,” Cassia accused, wiping her mouth and looking into Iro’s eyes with her deep gray ones as water rolled over their bodies. “Was this merely a warm-up?”

  “I’m good,” she replied.

  “What do you mean, you’re good?” Cassia asked, moving her thigh between Iro’s legs. “My love, we’ve been apart for a long time. We need this now that we’re back together.”

  “We’re not back together,” Iro told her, moving out of Cassia’s grasp and more under the direct spray to clean herself.

  “Of course, we are. It’s been since 2020. We’ve been apart for–”

  “Cassia, you were here, and I was in Paris, so it was just a quick trip and sex. I’m not ready to get back together.”

  “Why not? Is there someone else?”

  “No, but you live here, and I’ve been bored of Florence for centuries.”

  “You loved Florence.”

  “When we first moved here after you turned me, yes. I don’t want to live here anymore. You love it here. Your family is still revered. You know I have business. I–”

  “Insist on living in the human world,” Cassia scorned, interrupting her. “I don’t understand why.” Her hand reached for the faucet, turning off Iro’s shower. “They’re so very… mortal,” she added, unaffected.

  “I don’t live in their world. I live in the world,” Iro said. “And I wasn’t done.”

  She turned the water back on.

  “Iro, just come back to bed with me. We can talk about your melancholy all you want over a meal. I’ll find you a nice blonde. You still love blondes, don’t you?” Cassia asked and rolled her eyes, likely because of her own dark-brown hair.

  “I don’t–”

  “Eat humans. Yes, I’ve heard that before. I’d thought, in our most recent time apart, you would have returned to the proper ways of being a fucking vampire, Iro.” Cassia pushed open the shower door and, without drying off, walked into the bedroom of her villa. “Do you even remember that you’re a vampire? Or was that the first time you’d used those fangs since the last time we did that?” she yelled, being pretty far away now.

  The answer to her question was yes, but Iro wasn’t going to tell her that. She turned off the water and climbed out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel. When she ran her hands through her short hair that bordered on a pixie cut to help it dry faster, water droplets sprayed on the floor and sink, but Iro didn’t care. Cassia had cleaners whom she trusted to come in and wipe all traces of blood away, so they’d be able to take care of some water drops on the bathroom mirror.

  “Cassia, I’m moving back to America.”

  “You’re what?” Cassia asked.

  “I’m done in Europe for a while. I’m moving back to America.”

  “Where to this time? It was LA before, and New York prior to that. Is it Seattle again, because it’s dark and rainy most of the time? You were living like those horrible interpretations of vampires in that book for a while there, Iro. Will you return there and hope no one wonders why you haven’t aged a day?”

  “I’m moving to the East Coast,” she said and walked out into the bedroom, letting the towel drop to the floor. “DC. I’ve got a contact there.”

  “DC? Washington, DC?”

  “Yes,” she replied as she located her underwear on the floor. “I’ve got some new investments to shore up, and he’s going to help.”

  “What does he do?” Cassia asked and lit a cigarette with her perfect hands that Iro used to beg to be touched by.

  “Works with people like me. Where is my shirt?” she asked, looking around.

  “Oh.” Cassia laughed her uninterested laugh and said, “It’s here. But you might need a new one.”

  She held up Iro’s button-down, which was now stained with blood because it had gotten caught beneath them. The red stuck out easily on the white, so Iro took the shirt from Cassia and tossed it into the trash can behind her. From her bag, she pulled out a new one and buttoned it up.

  “Have I ever told you that I love how you don’t wear a bra?”

  “Yes,” Iro said. “Many times.”

  She knew her small breasts were visible under the shirt, but she hadn’t wanted to waste time putting on an undershirt.

  “What is going on with you?” Cassia asked after taking a long hit of her cigarette. “We’ve hardly spoken since you’ve been gone.”

  “We don’t usually talk while we’re on one of our breaks.”

  “We talk sometimes.” Cassia spread her legs and added, “You answered when I called. You came running, my love.”

  “I didn’t come running,” she corrected.

  “Well, you’re here, and you’re staring at my pussy, Iro. You know it missed you.”

  “No one took care of it for you while I was gone?” she asked, pulling her jacket off the chair by the bed and slipping it on.

  “Yes, of course; you know me. But none of them know my body how you do. How could they?” Cassia began stroking herself with her free hand. “There are these two women. Well, I turned both of them, and they travel with me now since you and I aren’t together at the moment, despite my wishes.”

  “You’re turning people again?” she asked, slipping on her watch. “Cassia, we were supposed to be lying low so that no one discovers us. You can’t–”

  “There is no great vampire authority that decides these things, Iro. We may do as we please. And it pleases me to fuck these women, watch them fuck each other, and I turned them because I felt like doing that, too. Now, we may fuck each other whenever we want for all eternity. In fact, they were supposed to be here tonight, but when you answered my call, I told them another time.” Cassia slipped two fingers inside herself, and Iro couldn’t resist watching. “One of them has a tongue ring. I’ll admit, when I first saw it, I thought it a bit silly, but when it strokes my clit and my nipples, it is anything but silly. Do you know that when she takes it out, her tongue heals, and she re-pierces it herself when she chooses? Fascinating, isn’t it? Being a vampire.”

  Iro sat down in the chair and stared at Cassia’s hand as she continued to work herself up.

  “Why did you call?” she asked. “We said ten years this time. It hasn’t been ten years yet.”

  “We prescribe a period of time every time we separate, but we don’t always stick to it. Loving each other for all eternity isn’t what they make it out to be in the classics, is it?” Cassia moaned then and closed her eyes. “We have lived together far longer than any of these humans you choose to associate with. I enjoy our breaks, my love, but it’s time to end this one and focus again on us.” She tapped her unfinished cigarette into an ashtray and spread her lower lips with her now-free hand, giving Iro a better view, which she took in. “Your tongue knows just the spot, baby. Please come back and lick it for me.”

  Iro squinted and said, “You seemed to be doing fine on your own there.”

  She crossed her legs and clenched her thighs.

  “You’re not wearing any pants yet, Iro,” Cassia noted.

  Iro looked down and realized that she had, indeed, not put her black slacks back on.

  “Spread your legs. Show me how wet you are,” Cassia ordered.

  Iro obeyed, revealing herself to the woman she continued to stare at.