Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

Careful with my prize, I rolled my wife from my chest, not so much as twitching when sunlight found new skin to burn. The finest sheets, wet from our lovemaking, were pulled to cover her, down-filled duvet bearing blue blossoms on a white background fell like snow over her body.

She smiled in sleep.

A thing I had never witnessed.

Warmth spread from my heart, bringing with it a horrible certainty that should I lose her, I would cease to be.

My Jade. Named for a common stone but more remarkable than a diamond.

Chapter Nineteen

I saw it, the look on her face when she woke to find her sheets smeared with char. The outline of my body where I’d burned caressing her as long as I possibly might. Fully healed and well-fed, I stood in the shadows and reveled.

Those beautiful eyes had flashed with concern. For me.

For a brief flicker, she’d believed I’d gone to ash in the sun. And she’d felt.

Sitting up, linens falling from her perfect breasts, she’d traced her fingertips over a soiled soot mark that smelled a bit of burnt flesh. Jade moved as if aching, groaning and sinking down into her sheets even as she gathered them about herself. Covering the subtle, lingering bruising I’d purposefully left behind.

I wanted her thighs to ache, her sex to throb, her joints to remember what we’d done. It was nothing that a single feed wouldn’t erase. But these teachable moments were precious and never to be wasted.

“Coffee first… or a feed?” What a pushover I was. One grimace from her and I was already tripping over myself to lavish my princess with whatever she desired.

Hand to her forehead, eyes anywhere but where I lingered in the dark, she grew shy. So sweet a thing my blood-fat heartbeat. My necklace was still around her throat, had been for days, and it was there her fingers trailed next. Testing the collar, she found it was solid and not designed to be easily removed.

The fact she had not tried sooner, intriguing, though much had happened since I’d locked it around her throat.

“I’ve taken the liberty of filling your chests with more treasures, but that necklace will remain in place until I see fit to replace it with another.” It was not about the childish way Jade enjoyed flaunting her throat before our kind, it was about ownership.

I owned her, and now she knew. Vampires did not trade flimsy rings.

She tried all the harder to remove it, but the clasp was ancient and the workings beyond her ken. “Jade, take a deep breath. Look at me.”

It wasn’t instant, obedience never was with her, but after a few more pants, a pouty warble, and a long sigh, she did. “Our agreement never involved this.”

“You offered me your body. There was no stipulation on how often or for how long I might enjoy it. I have decided on eternity. Take better care when making deals in the future.”

“Are you insane?” There it was. Her fire, her anger, her spirit. “I think you really have finally cracked. Get this damn thing off my neck.”

Time wasn’t wasted sauntering to her. I flashed from the dark corner to our bedside, took her wrist in hand. Her fingers flailed for a moment, the widening of her eyes betraying surprise before she tried to hide all she was feeling behind a cold mask of indifference.

“My gift to my wife stays around her pretty throat.” I pressed a kiss, one that would have been considered chaste had it not lingered, to her temple. “And more gifts shall be put upon you and inside you.”

I lowered her hand to cup my erection, Jade failing miserably at pulling away until I’d made her feel the throbbing, hard line of me. I set her free, she scooted back, the headboard containing her when I crept like a wolf over prey.

I had bathed, though I’d despised rinsing her scent from my skin. But too much had been burnt for the perfume to remain without the stink. I had dressed: pressed slacks, cashmere sweater. Both dark and perfectly fit to my powerful form.

She’d tear at them, I was sure, when I captured her parted lips and pressed her deep into the bed where I’d finally claimed her. Patience I had in spades, but I could also be playful. I knew she secretly loved playful.

And forceful.

She loved me, she just didn’t grasp it fully.

Around my tongue she garbled her complaint. “Would you stop!”

Yes. No.

Set her mouth free? Yes. Remove it from her body? No.

I tested the soft flesh above the choker, nipped hard enough she gasped. The gasp of pleasure. Unbidden, unexpected despite a full night of lessons.

“I asked you a question, wife.” There was no resisting trailing my tongue over her ear. “Coffee or blood? Which would you have first?”