The Relic (Cradle of Darkness 2)

I wasn’t afraid of the truth, even if I didn’t care for it, admitting, “I am as stupid as you say. I always have been. Stupid and sickly and starving.”

Those eyes turned up, cracked black cheeks sparking with flame turning his tears to steam. “I was wrong… and foolish. As much as I hate your evil thoughts about yourself, I should have held my temper. But no soul has challenged me in ages, and I’m out of practice. This entire behavior was so beneath me and so unworthy of what you deserve.”

What I deserved was that tomb, the journal, the notes, the rotting things within.

The dark.

“No, my love.” Monstrous paw to my cheek, a thumb tipped in a curling claw wiped my tears. “You deserve the sun. I don’t care what God you think granted it to you. In fact, I should thank him, if it is indeed a man you see in God. For if you had been born human or Vampire, either way, once I had brought you back to my embrace, you would have lost the daylight. And now you can walk in both worlds, holding my hand.”

A hand that dwarfed mine as he took it and brought it to his black lips.

“And you can look the angel while I look your devil.” Another fervent kiss to my knuckles. “Lead me about by my nose.”

Why was this breaking my heart? “But you are the devil.”

“One who will learn to be good if only you’d love me.”

Those eyes. Beast or man, no matter the shade or glow. I knew those eyes. “I do not want to talk to your Jesus, or sit with him, or know these things you know. I’m too tired.”

“Lie down, my soul. Rest yourself under my wing. Sleep through the day, knowing I’m here.” Beseeching tears fell from his unwavering, weighty gaze. “Forgive me my temper.”

There was only one answer for all of this. “I will sleep under your wing, if you take me back to my tomb.”

And leave me there to rot.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Your soul would sing in sleep, and I’d hear and be driven mad by it.” The monstrosity began to rise. “Even eternity entombed beside your corpse would not be enough to sate the beast. I need you. I need my soul. Order me about. Make demands. Hurt me. But thrive as you do so.”

“You sound so—”

“In love?”

“Insane.” Yet I said it with a teary laugh.

“Please. Let me beg. Let me grovel. Touch my face. See me.”

And it should not have moved me as it did, but his pleading stirred my belly enough to remind me to breathe. “I do see you. The serpent in the garden. And I have been waiting for the apple.”

“It was a quince in the first telling of that tale. And there also was no garden nor Adam nor Eve, but I will pretend there was if it will appease you. Tell me to lie, and I will do so.”

“Your truths are unbearable.” And overwhelming, like walking over shards of glass.

“You are tired, my love. You are overwrought.” It crept into the bed, the very bed I slinked toward the middle of to make room for the monster. “Sleep under my wing. Let me serve you.”

He already stretched the massive appendage over the two of us, and I found myself having lain back upon the pillows. I accepted the dark. Because the rest of him did not touch me.

I dreamed of Coney Island.

I woke to smiles and joy. His joy.

Grit in my eyes, dog-tired as if I had not slept a wink, I wanted to turn my face into the pillow and hibernate for a year. Or a thousand.

“I think a long sleep would do you well.” It had crept closer as I slumbered, flush to my frame and having pulled me to his chest. “Which I will grant you. But considering the mistakes I have already made, I would be remiss in failing to offer you the chance to see your daughter marry her love. I cannot let you regret it later.”

The same daughter I had learned of only hours before. On my first date. Where all the actions I had always fantasized about had been delivered… along with many so out of my scope I had neglected to enjoy a moment of it.

“Seeing you—” Talons carded through my hair. “—it’s hard to restrain my enthusiasm to have you home. To have you so close and so untouchable. To crave. Show me pity.”

His pleadings had gone from forlorn to wide-eyed and silly, as had the expression on the face of the hideous thing. And I found that I had fallen for it, smirking no matter how I fought my lips.

“Three days? Three days, sleep. Three days, rest.” The beast melted into the form of a man yet kept those wings. Though it had not kept the tatters of its clothing. “And on the third day, rise.”