Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

For two more days I was kept locked in my rooms, living in a new mind that felt alien and too large. For two days I tidied my mess. Piling up broken, glittering things. Sweeping them with the remains of my ruined wardrobe.

There was more chaos than clean. But some parts of my tiled floors did sparkle as if freshly polished. The rest were cracked, broken, and in need of replacing. I slept, and I dreamed, and I drank more water from the tap. And as the hours crept on, as the sun rose and set, I found that tap water tasted better than any blood I’d ever known.

Malcom came on the third night bearing food. I refused his wrist, eating chicken wings off the bone and chugging a local, frothy beer, and found I liked both things.

Heaven help him, he tried to talk to me, but I wasn’t ready. It wasn’t stubbornness, not at its heart. It was something unnamable. I had almost a century to process and only a handful of hours in which I’d been able to do it.

I thought of the Seine. A river I’d only seen in pictures and how Vladislov had tempted me with the idea of it. I thought of Paris, and art, and modern women, and food.

I thought of what real love might feel like, staring at the male who believed in his heart he felt that emotion for me.

Puzzling over this concept as I sucked the marrow from the bones. Staring at Malcom, at a man beautiful beyond description and devious as my devil of a father, I thought long and hard over the mechanics of it.

And wasn’t sure our kind was capable of such a human thing.

“You have permission to fuck me, if you want to.” That was all I said to him over that dinner of peasant food and beer.

It earned a sad smile, one from a man who just might know the exact torture of a broken heart. “Not tonight, my love.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Malcom

The state of her rooms was a reflection of the state of her mind. Piles of shattered things, spots she’d cleared, everything sharp and ready to harm her—her glass cage where my beautiful bird could never sing.

In all my centuries, I’d never seen a being look so sad. Not even the humans kept by the worst vampire houses. Not even the cattle who’d lost everything only to live out their remaining days drained of the last drop of blood in their veins. Until withered and unwanted, burned where thousands of others just as unwanted as they had been sent to burn.

Ash that floated over a polluted city, forgotten, mourned… nothing.

“You’re thinking to yourself right now how anyone could love you.” And I didn’t understand how it was possible, but I loved her even more in that moment. To the point I thought my heart might burst and the soul I’d sold was returned to me.

She didn’t answer or shrug, just watched me. Waiting for some trick, that little girl in a blue dress all grown up. There was no minute flinch when I took her hand. A first. Rubbing warmth into her fingers, I relished this intimacy. I took things slowly with my virgin.

That’s what she was now, reborn. Jaded, and aptly named.

Paying strict attention, I smoothed each of her fingers from base to tip, gently attended the webbing between them, before turning her palm up, to spread that flesh with my thumbs. My flower melted, just a little of that ice she’d been encased in from birth seeping away from simple kindness.

“You are not what he made you to do, or the traits he coerced you to embrace. I have always seen the real you. I see it now. And someday, you will too.” I pressed a kiss to that palm, and felt a tear fall from my cheek to drip down her wrist. I, the old, tried warrior, wept for this damaged thing that was beyond dear to me.

And by her sudden, violent retreat, I think it might have frightened her more than any torment her father might bring down upon us should he discover we even shared such a conversation. Hand to her heart, fingers fluttering, lips thin, cheeks white, eyes wide. She gave an inch, even as she took another step away.

Rising so she’d be forced to see all of me—my stature, my strength, my prowess, and my superiority to other males, I declared, “I do love you. Every single thing about you. I always have.”

“I’m grotesque.” This she said, looking down at her body as if all she saw was rotting flesh and bloated limbs.

I flashed to her side, took her fingers again, and kissed the tips. “But there you’re wrong. You’re clean. Brand new. Mine to treasure.”

Challenging, because she was born royal and would never easily cede, Jade sneered. “How do you know that you don’t just love me because Darius made you? How do you know it’s real? I’ve had my thoughts ripped apart for the last few days, and let me tell you, most of what is trapped in my skull is utter bullshit. It’s no different for anyone else in this place.”