The Relic (Cradle of Darkness 2)

...was gauche.

But really. If they were not allowed to touch, they should at least suffer knowing why. Pearl was stunning. Her pulse beat at her throat as if she were human.

She exuded the scent of all things delectable, I could gobble her up.

I would have had she been born nearer to my turning.

Oh.

Well then.

Now I knew why she had taken so long to be reborn. I lacked any sort of self-control when it came to such a being. I would have killed her on accident and wept over her bones until the earth rotted.

And it would have rotted. That was how it worked.

All in me reflected, as it should. This was my kingdom.

And her new name? Pearl.

How had I not seen?

A bit of sand in the belly of an oyster. Rolled about. Made smooth. Made precious and glorious over ages.

I cackled, startling my bride. Head thrown back, I practically howled at the moon.

A pearl. A Pearl. The scratching bit of sand in the world—my realm’s—belly. Because I refused to let her leave me and she had sworn on the life of her newly born monster to return. And here she was reborn and named and hilariously exact.

Nothing had ever been so hysterically deserved. Oh, fuck you, fates.

Now I could stand near so much deliciousness and not crunch her bones in my maw.

Enough pretending. With just a bit of effort, I could make others see whatever I wished. Fabric tore as my body expanded. Wings knocked into spectators who had no clue why they sidestepped or what had sent their hair flying back.

My precious Pearl liked me as I was.

So I was.

But only for her eyes.

Everyone else saw what I told them to see, including the couple preparing to speak their vows. No soul knew me but her.

She didn’t even mind that I singed her dress.

Looking back and forth, her concern not for her skin that burned or the way I dug my claws in until just a touch of her blood scented the air, Pearl asked, “Why isn’t anyone screaming?”

Of course she would be more concerned for strangers than herself.

“Because I am yours and they cannot see me. Because you love me and they don’t.” Spittle dripped from my fang, hissing when it landed on red silk.

One time, she rubbed her lips together, turning in my arms to look over the burning mess of my fine clothes. “I really want to watch my daughter get married. Can you please control yourself until it’s over?”

“Yes.” And that was truth. Every last winsome part of me settled. Physically, I formed around her, wings and all. I took her in my embrace, as I was, as she was.

The ceremony began.

Chapter Seventeen

Vladislov

How long had it been since I actually paid any attention to such tripe? Modern weddings. I must have attended several. After all, I knew the dress code and the expectations. But gatherings were a question of impression—of the mental variety in my case.

All talk in my head ceased.

My damned offspring’s blood-born Daywalker child linked hands with a man whose easy breaths were the wedding gift of my wife. The mother of the bride.

My wife, who had borne that child in pain so excruciating that I would indeed scrap that memory from her mind, even if she hated me for it later. Never would Pearl see what had been done or know how much of her was lost that day.

My Pearl and that Pearl were not and never would be the same.

Jade had been granted what Darius had stolen from my soul. It glittered under her skin for those who knew how to look. The shimmer of a Pearl. It made her.

As strange as such a thing was to say, it made her.

Her mother’s loss, the fight, the abundant will to save her child… the universe had passed that to Jade.

Who glowed.

Who was truly at peace so long as Malcom was near.

I knew exactly how she felt.

“I give myself to you while I take everything that you are.” Spoken in Malcom’s native tongue. Words I translated, in soft hues of speech so Pearl might know what took place.

She shivered under the burn of my wings.

“A world I lay at your feet.”

Jade did not know the language in which her bridegroom spoke, but she knew every last promise made by the River Seine. Just as Pearl knew me and would soon recognize what we were.

“Eternity by my side. For eternity, I shall care for you.”

Jade, as queen, would not return the vows before guests. That would be something done in private, out of the ears of the immortals she ruled. Still, she spilled tears of happiness.

Clear as night, I could see the dark things stuck inside her falling away like dead flies off a reborn corpse. Jade was made new.

“She looks so happy.”

My darling one was desperate that her words sang true. So I let her see. I opened up just enough for her to see what I saw.