Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

I believe she sensed my arousal anyway, where tearful begs were abandoned in favor of her making a break for the door.

Never run from a predator.

My speed could not be beaten by one so young or weak, and the violence her act inspired caused me to be rougher with her than I’d intended. Which in hindsight, might not have been so bad a mistake. Jade’s pride was legendary; crushing it was nothing but good for her.

It also solved the dilemma of how to inspire her to bite. This hissing, scrappy monster salivated for a chance to harm the male who pinned her in place and held her by the hair. Snapping a quick bite into my own wrist, I assured she’d latch with proper placement, and rubbed my taste on her mouth.

The sound she made, the half-scream, half-moan, and I was fully hard. Cock weeping. Just how I wanted this first enforced experience to proceed, I pulled her back to my chest, sat us both upon the bed, and wrapped the snarling kitten in a tangle of my limbs.

With her distracted by the feed, with both her hands gripping my arm so she might gorge, I was free to begin.

It started with a featherlight kiss to her neck, over her jugular, so soft it was only a whisper. Every night I would do this until my touch was no longer associated with whatever horrid thing her father had planted in her mind. Until King Darius undid this work, my attention she’d slowly learn to abide. Another kiss, and another, trailing down her vulnerable throat. Innocent as it appeared, this very kind of affection did not exist between vampires. Not at the throat. Never at the throat.

Unless they were extremely intimate.

Cautious with her, finding she was far deeper into a feeding haze than I might hope for, I set her hair free, and let my other hand wander. I dared stroke the daughter of the king under the pretense of comfort, and then I took advantage of a cruel man’s poor word choice.

“Give me a grandchild.”

Sitting beside my love in her conservatory I had focused on those words. Trapped behind stone while Jade slept in the sun, I’d broken down and rebuilt my thoughts until the only concept that might be pieced from my brain was that of obedience.

I was doing the king’s will in this.

My touch ghosted between her legs. Soft, creamy thigh, satin panties. I didn’t dare intrude past that soft fabric, not yet, but so thin a barrier made it easy to still tease. I circled her clitoris, so delicately that the flood of wetness that instantly soaked the gusset of her panties astonished me.

The girl redoubled her efforts to gnaw my wrist in half, leaving me to smile against her neck. This was what I had been waiting an eternity for. And this was what I would take.

Skimming my lips to the shell of her ear, I murmured warmly, “Jade. You’ve had enough.”

Just as I knew she would, she growled.

It took every ounce of my self-control not to tease her ear with a lick. “This is your final warning, Jade. Disengage.”

Have I mentioned that she’s greedy? My greedy, little terror dared draw a deeper pull of my blood.

The delicious ache of fang dropping inspired my cock to jump where it was nestled between her cheeks, the urge to tear at that soaked satin shielding her cunt and fuck her through the rest of her feed so overpowering I groaned in delighted anguish. But this was a lesson on restraint.

For both of us.

So I acted.

Driving razor sharp canines straight into her throat, I hit a vein with practiced precision, and made sure it was not a bite of pleasure. Jade squealed, knocked straight from her stupor into horror, when I took a taste of my female.

She screamed all the harder once my wrist was free to twist us both into the perfect posture for feeding. Like this I could use her as I wished. She could not break free, yet her blood freely filled my mouth and warmed a dead heart until it raced.

I swallowed a single, perfect gulp. I drank of my love straight from the source. Not stolen licks of spilled blood left behind from one of her punishments. Not the desperate gathering of her tears on my tongue when I moved so fast she hadn’t fathomed what I’d done.

“Malcom?”

By the Gods, she was so afraid. And I wasn’t sure if it was because her life was in the grip of my teeth, or if it was the way her legs had spread and her panties had soaked. I cupped her there, warmed her before I retracted my fangs from her bleeding throat and let out a guttural growl at her ear. “You were told to disengage.”