Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

“Yes!” I didn’t even need to think about prostituting myself for such a cause. I’d fuck the entire city to have my way in this.

Unhooking my claws from Malcom’s back, I reached between our bodies so I might undo his fly, but my wrists were caught so quickly I yelped. Pinned over my head, I was trapped again. Next thing I knew, I was being kissed until I grew delirious. And I gave, I gave all of myself to that kiss because I wanted Ethan more than anything in the world. A tongue tasting of my blood, of my pussy juices, of cloves and honey and shadows richer than the rarest Bordeaux danced with mine. Nicked on my fangs, he dripped heaven onto my tongue to mingle with a droplet of blood his quick nip had drawn forth from my lower lip.

I came.

From a kiss alone, sensation washing all the way down to my fingertips as his groin rubbed, and rubbed, and rubbed between my legs.

A curse—I don’t know what language it was—crossed Malcom’s lips. His grip on my wrists grew almost too hard, but the pain had the opposite effect. It left me wanting more, force and pressure delivered in a way Ethan’s human frame could never supply.

“I love you.” The words were breathed into my mouth, the softest of confessions. Malcom’s ruination.

He was so hard. Even with the fabric of his trousers and my panties between us, I could feel the pulsating outline of him. I could smell him—the tang of cum yet to be spilled. His sack was so full, swollen with what he’d usher between my legs so I might have my wish. Thinking of it in that way, of his cock, of his seed, had me making noises the man greedily swallowed.

Provoked, encouraging him with my arching body and digging heels, a space inside me shifted. I felt it like a physical thing, an opening door I was forbidden to look through. Desire unraveled, it possessed me with terror. Unsure how to equate the two, or why I suddenly began to tremble, to weep.

To beg. “I need you to hurt me.”

“Never.” Soft kisses trailed down my throat, my shoulder, the careful drag of fang leaving just enough sting to soothe.

Ethan. I thought of Ethan and why I needed to stop hyperventilating and control irrational fear. I’d been fucked by hundreds of men: violent men who took pleasure in my misery. Shy men with fumbling hands and sloppy mouths. Generous men who coaxed climaxes from my body. Terrible men I’d been attracted to. Vagrant men. Drunken men. Men of God. Women.

A virgin’s fear had me pressing my thighs closed, had me stretching away from an expert mouth and the weight of oblivion.

Fully clothed, cashmere sweater, pressed, pussy-soaked trousers, even socks, this male was more threatening to me than all the others combined. And I’d once lost a limb when my father’s champion was far too rough.

I was going to come again. From nothing. From just soft touches and rocking hips.

“Help me!” God help me. Save me. Deliver me. End this!

“I swear to you I will.” How earnest this fallen angel sounded as he spun me into greater torment. Wet, hot, his mouth closed over my fabric-covered breast. Nipple aching, it was undulated, worked. Suckled.

Tears were in my hair, sobs wracking my ribs. “I’m dying.”

This had to be how the sun felt to pure-bloods. A blistering, searing incursion that turned a body to dust. But I held form, even when couture split on the claws of a vicious warrior. My panties, ripped by the flick of his finger. My thighs gripped and spread until my knees hit my shoulders.

Malcom, ruthless Malcom, twisted his demon’s tongue through my folds, penetrated where his fingers had planted their uninvited touch earlier. And I screamed, deformed, and scattered.

One moment I was having my pussy eaten by a starved man, the next I was in hell.

The Cathedral.

Chapter Sixteen

One moment the world was up, the next it was down, travel through an unanticipated magical portal leaving me to cough up a bubble of blood. One immediately swallowed down before a drop might pass my lips and mark the ground. I knew where I was by rote. The cracked, worn stones, the stink of agelessness, rotting flesh, and everlasting life.

Evil, unseen and gelatin, weighed down all things in the throne room. Even the air refused to stir despite the masses gathered to watch a rare occasion where my father sat the throne.

A sight even I had not seen in decades. Not when I avoided him at all costs.

Yet there I was on my knees, the straps of my slip dress having fallen down one arm, panties sodden and sticking to skin swollen from friction. And I had garnered attention. There was no need to glance up to confirm that those vampires nearest where I had appeared out of thin air stepped back from my panting, bent, and objectified frame.