Cathedral (Cradle of Darkness 1)

But I? Over and over, those who didn’t know better assumed my pussy was some prize worth having. It wasn’t.

A sleeve to slake lust within. A potential garden for the next life.

Not that I had ever conceived.

Every single day since I’d reached maturity, I had obeyed the order to try.

Miss a turn of the sun and be beaten. My father’s creative concepts for torture were so extreme that I’d only refused to mate once.

More daywalkers were needed to be his perfect spies. Daywalkers he could flaunt when visiting aristocracy graced the Cathedral.

And his troublesome embarrassment of a daughter would become instantly disposable the next time I inevitably pissed him off.

I’d often wondered if I’d even be allowed the honor of holding my future child before I was murdered. Would I be granted the honor of choosing their name?

Jade was such a common stone, as unremarkable and easy to find as a pearl.

I’d hated that name long before I’d heard others laughing behind their hands at how little my father cared to choose something so commonplace.

At my back, the man picked up speed.

A grunt, a hiss, a grunt, and a rougher thrust shoved my slack body fully against the wall. Wafting stench of garbage, steam rising from cooling vomit, the scratch of vermin. He came.

No single apology for breaking my nose was offered when he pulled out and cursed.

“Darius will be notified that you received your honor, Calder.” Chanting preceded the opening of another portal gate, our observer expending his magic to expedite the Viking’s departure. “You’ve done us all an honor.”

Without so much as a farewell, my horrendous lover obeyed.

Moments later, the air stilled, my paramour gone. But my handler remained.

Turning so my sex could be covered by falling silk, I pressed my shoulder blades to the brick and wiped blood from my healing nose. “I’ll be careful of your fragile state, he’d said. Dick.”

Edging closer, close enough that my stomach rumbled at his scent, the inevitable chastising began. “Jade, you wouldn’t be so physically weak if you’d feed as you should. More importantly, starvation clouds your judgment. It makes you unreasonable.”

“Malcom.” I parroted his demeaning tone. “Despite my submission to having cameras all over my home, I do not enjoy having an audience while I’m being fucked.” Angry, hating that this man had stood witness to another session of my degradation, I snapped. “You could have at least turned around!”

Faster than I by far, exponentially stronger, one moment Malcom was a comfortable distance away, the next his fingers carded through my fallen hair. “You need to feed.”

How I hated that I jumped.

Against the undead, I was a piss-poor fighter. That didn’t stop me from instantly shoving him so hard the wall he flew into cracked from the force.

“Don’t touch me!”

He’d rebounded to his feet in a blur, completely unharmed by my outburst. Brushing dust from tailored black slacks, he had the audacity to smirk. “Pathetic, really. You can do better.”

And then his fingers were playing with my hair again.

I couldn’t effectively retaliate, because he was right. I was starving, and weakened, and so fucking tempted to tear into his flesh, that behind my lips, my fangs punched downward.

Embarrassing.

So I turned my head away instead, eyes locking on the dumpster as if failing to acknowledge him would make him disappear.

Lips at my ear, a willing throat far too close to my salivating mouth, Malcom murmured, “Give me your word that you’ll feed tonight, and I’ll leave you in peace.”

Grinding my teeth, refusing to concede to such a blatant taunt, I hissed, “I’ll eat.”

Oh, I’d eat. I’d eat and I’d disgust the bane of my existence in a single swoop.

With the pitter patter of rats already creaking under the dumpster, as soon as one might skitter by, I’d snap it up and tear in.

Right there where he could see.

I’d suck that vermin dry and then grab another. Who cared that feeding from animals was forbidden, lowly? Agitated as I was, I didn’t even care that I would most certainly be punished once my father found a hint of my action staining my memory.

He backed away at my agreement.

Once my eyes darted to where skittering was the loudest, Malcom knew what I was about. Silvery golden hair wafting about his shoulders like he was some goddamn phantom, he barked, “Jade, don’t.”

But I had already reached out. Fur filled my palm, and almost my mouth, before I realized that I held no rat.

A mewling kitten, dropped before I might scream.

Blood drained from my face. Vampire pale, I stared in horror as the feline scampered back to its hiding place, and I felt a thing I was forbidden from feeling.

“Look at me, Jade.” Why did he dare sound so sympathetic? “The cat’s gone. Look at me.”

Gowned in Chanel couture, prettied, and coiffed, with cum running down my thigh, I didn’t even attempt to pretend that we both didn’t know why I trembled.