Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

Petulant, fighting her response even as her nipple whorled into tight buds, my Jade said, “I don’t need to feed.”

“If I fuck you like this, it might hurt.” She’d only get the one warning.

Though she could walk in the sun, compared to me she was fragile, and I’d left my marks in aches and pains enough. Brushing her folds, I found them wet, but she hissed. It wasn’t the hiss of disgust, it was one of discomfort.

“No more.”

Because I loved her, I pulled my fingers away, hovering over her to take in her routed expression. Endearingly trounced in less than five minutes. Excellent progress.

“I love you. I always have.” And I’d already abstained for decades upon decades.

Her lip curled, abject perplexity smearing away her usual haughty sneer. “You say that as if it’s a living thing.”

Tapping my finger to my breastbone, I stated. “It is. It’s here.” I tapped her next. “And here.” Then I looked over her skull, gave it a long stretch of contemplation. “It might take some time to undo your father’s work. I’ll give you patience and refrain from my stronger impulses. But I will still fuck you, and feed you, and layer you with jewels. I’ll also punish and be rough with you, but I swear on all that ever is or was, that it shall only be for your own good.”

“So you’ll beat me when I disobey?” A fair enough question, as I’d done it before. And always to save her from her father’s hand.

But there was so much more at stake than broken bones and hurt feelings. “Don’t try to run. You’re only safe where I can see you right now.”

Sardonic, as if she’d already forgotten she was naked and I was hard, Jade said, “Going to keep me prisoner in this room?”

“No.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “We’re going out tonight.”

She could not have been more confused when I pulled my weight away and offered her a hand to rise. “What?”

“Ethan.” What magic there was in that ugly name. Her entire demeanor shifted from pliant to wary in a blink of a vampire’s eye. “I thought you might want to see him.”

Distrust, dislike, all the things I didn’t deserve from my wife.

“We made a deal, Jade. I’ll keep my end. Until it’s appropriate to change him, you’ll have access to see what you traded your eternity for.” Catching a tangle to tuck behind her ear, I gave her the softest smile a warrior might offer.

After all, my intention was never to frighten her.

***

Jade

Malcom smiled… and it was the most chilling thing I’d ever beheld. This one had lived too long, his brains warping. He smiled at me as I fed from his wrist; me trying to keep our bodies as separated as possible before he got any ideas and began pawing between my legs again.

Scratches, gouges, throbbing bruises, and aching joins cleared up as if I’d never known pain a day in my life. Until I was sated and full and like a cat ready to nap, fat and happy.

A glass of wine was pushed between my pliant fingers, a chilled white I had not seen him procure nor smelled waiting on my nightstand. Mineral, crisp, it cleansed my palate and set me leaning back onto fluffed, char-smeared pillows. Aware I was being managed and manhandled expertly by a creature who knew me better than any other, I was at a loss.

I asked for a bath.

Immediately he denied me, Malcom looking over my healed body with a thoughtful eye. Stinking of body odor, sex, and burnt meat. Gritty and sticky and uncomfortable, I pushed past and made three steps toward my bathroom before I was flung back to the bed.

“I need to pee!”

Eyes narrowed, he hissed. “You’re lying.”

Yes, hissed. The same man who’d just spat all his crazy at me in the tender voice of a lover. And yes, I was lying. But I was also intensely uncomfortable with this attention.

A thought openly crossed his face as if something so common had never occurred to him that I was covered in soot and uncomfortable. “I’ll bathe you.”

I rolled my eyes.

“And after, I get to choose your clothing for our sojourn. No complaints.”

This strange journey to see Ethan? Fine. Arms over my chest, I nodded.

And should have known better. Hours Malcom spent showering my body, his wet, slippery and very naked form pressed to me at all times. My hair was dried, the male working a round brush like a fucking pro. And then right there at my priceless vanity, he bent me forward and thrust in with not so much as a warning.

My cosmetics spilled, the startled scream from my lips hushed when he pressed his fingers into my mouth.

Hard, but not fast. Every thrust an exclamation point to an unspoken promise. All the while he held my eyes in the mirror, mangling my noises as fingers stroked my tongue. Massive ruby bouncing at my throat, tits vulgar in how they jiggled, all of me jerked in the tempo set upon me.