Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

“And he’ll kill my father?” I’d pushed her too far, Jade throwing up the hand that wasn’t trapped by my arm. “You’re all insane. No one can best him. You’ve seen what he can do. The entirety of his body can spread out to all corners of a room. All corners of your mind. He is the devil, and you are a fool for thinking your foreigner might actually take his throne. I’m going to run!”

With a sigh, and a heavy heart, I caught her flailing arm and kissed her knuckles despite how she fought. “Then I’m going to have to chain you.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

But we were already falling through a gate. One expertly crafted to deliver us outside Jade’s preferred entrance to the Cathedral.

My hand over her shrieking mouth, I dragged her through a foyer with a new, head-shaking, eye-rolling vampire who must have heard how difficult and obstinate the king's daughter could be. Not a soul stopped me. No matter how she kicked, tore at my palm, and tried to scream for freedom.

Spectators, witnesses, smirking lips and the old dame’s style of waving hand. They had seen this before: they found it boring; they found it titillating; they found it nothing. In this dead kingdom of lost souls and the damned.

I wasted no time dragging my cargo to the conservatory, even less parting the doors and forcing her inside. Then they were dragged closed despite her attempts to pull them back open. Barred, with steel.

To the guards, I said. “No one enters. Ignore her raving and lies. The princess is in one of her moods.”

And I left her there.

Already aware a fine dinner of extremely rare Kobe beef, properly prepared as it would have been in the Land of the Rising Sun, waited under a dome. Two bottles of fragrant wine also sat atop her table. One red, decanted and perfect. The second white, chilled yet uncorked.

She’d had blood enough from me earlier to tolerate a day or two while I did the work deserving of our house.

Though I couldn’t hear her while I went about my night, I knew she cried. I suffered with her, and took out my frustration on my food. Not that I killed any of the well-fed and well-bred humans from my personal stock. I just took a bit more, a touch roughly, and didn’t give a shit that they begged for mercy.

Of all immortals in this kingdom, there were few more merciful than I.

Then a hunt began, the dregs in the lowest pens released for sport. In that game I was savage, collecting the most ears with ease. Vladislov, still the guest of King Darius, found the whole thing hilarious.

***

Jade

Days before, I’d accidentally cast a gate while in the throes of unwanted orgasm, I’d dropped my sad self into the throne room before my personal Jesus Christ. But now, stuck in my conservatory I could do nothing. Try as I might.

Blood ran down my nose, an aneurysm to be sure, I’d tried so hard.

And when I could not find my exit from hell, I made hell my plaything. Everything I might reach I destroyed. The glass coffin of my childhood, trinkets, baubles, priceless art, bedding, the rug. I even pulled every last settee and couch asunder. Raging like a demon.

Red eyes, sharp fangs.

Powerless.

Malcom would pay for this. Trickery, mockery, lies. He would pay when I tore his cock off with my teeth and shoved it so far up his ass a creature incapable of shitting would never be able to get it out.

Of course, he’d grow a new dick. Leaving me more than happy to repeat the procedure.

The pain I would bring down upon that man. The hate I felt. Like a warm blanket, reassuring and normal. Wrapped in the cocoon of loathing, covered in down feathers from torn blankets, I made a nest in shattered glass and pulled my knees to my chin.

I slept through the worst of the sun, waking at dusk.

There was no water waiting when I woke.

I, the princess of this kingdom, was made to stand, burned as I was, and walk to my bathroom to drink from the tap.

Scooping water into my palm, sucking it down a dry throat, I died a little more. Until I stood straight and saw myself in the cracked remains of the mirror. A horror.

A demon’s spawn.

In great need of a shower, a new life, a rebirth.

Poisoned by this place and the horrible creatures gathered in it.

Envy at a memory, one my father would tear from my mind the second he sensed it, lanced my being. Vladislov sitting daddy’s throne. How I would have loved, even in play to have sat that throne.

To have the immortals here look upon me with veneration. Instead, I’d been dragged inside screaming, not for the first time, and laughed at. The tittle-tattle most likely carrying on would leave me shamed for years.