Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

And though I had no desire to mingle with them, I began to understand my people. A people vastly reduced in this part of the world. Less than half of what had been left within the throne room when I’d left survived that night. Vladislov had scores to settle. I’d even heard a rumor that he’d approached the former queen of France, smiling as he’d told her that sharing that cake with me decades ago was the only reason any had been left alive at all. Marie Antoinette had not found the ‘let them eat cake’ reference anything but terrifying. Which Vladislov, no doubt, found hilarious.

I wished never to go back there. Should those survivors wish to see me, they would come to my building, my kingdom, my sanctuary where Malcom saw to my every last need… almost.

“When?” I demanded, impatient in every way.

Smiling, nuzzling my neck, Malcom murmured, “Soon.”

Through those days and those nights and those moments with my lover, I had known deep gratification and a lightness of spirit, but I had also known deprivation. Though he would give me endless physical pleasure, he had denied me his cock.

And made me a beggar.

For weeks. Months. Seasons.

Don’t get me wrong, his fingers and tongue were magic. The tricks he knew beyond imagining. The man was capable of getting me worked up into such a state I sang out his name like a hymn. But that cock, unless I was feeding from one of its veins, it was not in my mouth or my pussy.

He called me his virgin.

I found I relished the endearment far more than I should.

“Define soon!” Because this was torture, this endless waiting with no real answer. I was so wet, always wet, and I had not forgotten the feel of him. Which is why I primarily chose to dine from the prominent vein twisting up the side of a glorious erection. It was the only way to tempt him to spill. To let his seed mingle with his blood and leave me boneless yet sadly empty.

“No.”

“Am I being punished?”

Another of his grins, freely given and so beautiful I sometimes forgot what I meant to say. “You are being adored.”

Diving between my legs, he licked my clit with abandon, rough with a flick of his tongue at the end of each swipe until my legs shook, and I found I’d lost the words to beg for more. Replete and breathless, I’d lain like a bit of flotsam on the waves, and felt him snuggle me.

“When I claim you—savagely fuck you, as you so elegantly demand—you’ll never doubt what you are to me. I’ll know when you’re ready, and that day is not today.”

Bastard! He didn’t get to dictate or deny me something I’d had practically every single day of my existence. Something it would seem I could hardly think straight without.

A single time I’d threatened to find another who would ride me until I was satisfied.

I saw real anger that night. I felt it in the sting on my skin when I’d been pulled over his knee.

That same night he’d given me Ethan, freshly-changed and ridiculous. Arrogant, and unaware that he was trapped in servitude for a century or more. Though this had been explained to him repeatedly before Malcom found him ready to enter our home.

Which Ethan still considered his home.

He went straight to the fridge to grab a beer, popping off the cap and taking a swig, only to immediately spit it back up. There would be no more craft brews in his future, a concept that had still failed to sink in.

That entitlement alone made him unattractive to me, though vampirism had done nothing but add to his beauty. He’d kissed me. The taste of his mouth on mine when he’d rushed forward with all the enthusiasm of a puppy, was unwelcome.

Malcom had given me his word. My body for this creature. Our agreement was that I could fuck Ethan to handle my urges. And Ethan was hard, very hard, as he rubbed against me and rambled on about all the clubs we’d be seen at together. How as immortals we’d control Wall Street, the White House, rule the city like king and queen.

“And what of your blonde and your child?”

Did he not realize he’d never see either of them again? That he’d not be permitted in public for at least two generations?

He acted as if nothing had been mentioned.

After all, he’d learned I was a princess. I could pull strings and there was no need for him to serve. Maybe I’d give him a sip of my blood so he could go into the sun too! Oh, we’d go to Belize, soak up the rays and play in the waves.

This man was an idiot.

And though I was practically starving for cock, his was the last I’d consider.