Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

Each nerve was attended, sometimes with pain. Just enough to cull any thoughts she might have of retreat. The notion had crossed her mind, more than once in the hours I’d rode her hard. Small moments of conceptual duress, mental pockets still poisoned that required purging.

She’d retched once. Just the once. When I’d made her say my name. Panting from the exertion to unwork another buried layer of ugliness her father had tucked in her psyche. Fighting back, claws in my ribs, she bucked to remove me from my home.

My cock held fast, drilled all the harder so I might undulate my pubic bone against her sensitive and exposed clit.

“My name is Maelchon of the Picts. I’ve conquered and decimated tribes, countries, destroyed peoples—salted their earth while mortal. I took no wife in pillage, waiting to find you. Immortal, I waited still—slain for you, sold my soul to have and keep what’s mine. The treasures I’ve collected, finery I’ve provided, your food, your drink”—pressing my lips to her gaping mouth, I breathed into her lungs—“your very air comes from me, wife.”

Twisting our bodies, upending our play so my female might straddle my muscular thighs, I lifted her, lowered her, filled her up as her head lolled and her body fought through a faint. “And you will speak my old name, my true name, until I am satisfied.”

But she couldn’t, not with her eyes rolling back and her pussy clamping down as if to beg my sack to fill her again.

I obliged.

Convulsions moved her as if she were possessed by the devil, made all the more extravagant when my thumb mashed her clit and my hand left a bruising grip on her ass. Seated, she would stay. Forever, if I had my way.

Seated upon me. Full of me. Who loved her best and would cherish even the most horrible parts of her.

Slick with sweat, she fell forward to my chest, her hand to my heart. Little claws digging into my ribs. Like this, she slept.

Vulnerable, womb sticky with my fluids, hair matted from how I’d tangled my grip in it to hold her still when she thought to tell me how to fuck.

I had never been more in love.

Right then I made my vows, in the ancient language, inundating each word with magic. I took the vows from her as well, wove them into her being as she foolishly snored over my beating black heart.

Just as I would have stolen her from her people ages ago, taken her to my hut, and made her my wife.

Force was a powerful motivator to eternal bliss.

Vladislov kept his word to me. None interrupted.

Satan himself could be no worse than that one. But he’d been strong enough to hide portions of my memory from Darius, who never once understood how his child had lived.

In sleep, Jade’s cunt tried to push me out, spilling some of my liquid gift. I’d give her more, make her fat with babies. But now my dear one needed rest. So I explored the bones of her spine, dipped my finger under her shoulder blades to work out knots. Forming her musculature into soft, pliant, comfort that made her hum in sleep.

Ethan had never done this for her. The mortal pig had never tended her.

Or given her the pleasure I had, dozens of times in the span of one night, I might add.

No male—and I had witnessed every last act of fornication my woman had endured—had made her scream as I had. While feeding, she’d only tried to kill me twice. A marked improvement and playful tussle.

Wine, food. No bath. A point had to be made when she woke. Already the sun was rising, I could feel the snapping whip of its spark upon my skin. But so full of her, I did not char. I tolerated. For as long as I might.

I sang her to deeper sleep, the old songs my mother had warbled over fires. I spoke to her what my people considered the duties of a wife. How I’d be gentle with her when I laid her in my furs. That she’d drink from none but me, growing stronger daily until she remembered all the gifts she’d been born with.

We’d have dozens of children. Mighty warriors and elegant lasses. Pureblood to glorify our house. We’d change whomever we desired, building an army of servants to tend our brood and to cook my daywalker's fine meals.

Ethan would scrub her toilet, not that I’d speak that slave’s name aloud. Why disturb a perfect moment? The sun was already doing that.

My skin began to smoke, to crisp down to the bone, but I had held her in it for at least an hour. And were I not certain it would kill me and leave her without a protector, I would have lain in that misery until moonrise.