The Relic (Cradle of Darkness 2)

True to human form, no one approached what looked like a wild-eyed vagrant to offer help. Police were not summoned. Strangers walking dogs gave her a wide berth, their snapping little spaniels pulling at the leash to sniff at the bloody woman.

Anyone could have hunted and ended her, caught as she was in her distraction.

And they might have, considering the enemies she’d made in one night of bloodlust. Except I was watching over her. Giving her time to settle down and enjoy the feel of sunlight and the weight of her sleeping child in her arms.

“Running from me out of temper was unwise. I’d rather you strike me before—”

That was all the permission she needed, her upper body turning so she might lay open palm full-force upon my cheek.

I’m not sure who was more surprised. That even stung!

Where was I supposed to go with this? “Okay... that’s a start.”

“Don’t you ever do that to me again!” Hackles raised, she stood from the bed, put herself physically between my body and the sleeping child as she railed. “You can’t claim to love me and do something like that!”

My bride was too young to grasp that I did it because I loved her. “You could not have attended the wedding and failed to participate in the aftermath. It’s expected to fuck in celebration, and rejection would have been a slight on the couple.”

Arms crossed under her bosom, her free breast pushed up so invitingly it took all my will not to glance downward and lick my lips.

She hissed, “You could have warned me.”

“You wouldn’t have gone. And then you would have regretted missing what has thus far been the most important moment in Jade’s life.” Yes, I was highhanded. I know that. But I was also right.

My soul was in a state—an agitated, furious, angry state. The same tenor of state that had unraveled into a rather beautiful massacre. And yes, I had already heard all about it. It was all vampires could talk about, the story growing outlandishly garish.

The amount of complaints I had received. Yikes!

As if Pearl might have actually ripped a head from some old fart’s shoulders. Please.

She didn’t rip it off completely. She had delicately separated the majority of the throat, but her sweet little claws had not cut through the spinal cord. I’d seen the corpse as I had directed the cleanup.

Excellent work, I must say. Totally worth pissing her off, if that was the response I might get.

No one was going to fuck with my wife now.

Not when the vampire she had “dismembered” was so damn ancient he might as well have farted dust. The undead were terrified of the glowing angel.

I’d added in that last tidbit—glowing with sunlight that burned all who dared approach.

Dramatic stories were far more fun when they were peppered with a touch more flavor. I mean, how many times had a total stranger walked into a hive and just torn through the locals, draining them dry as if they were human cattle?

I heard all about how they had run screaming from the avenging angel. What a lark!

Considering a mass murder was not enough, the tale was far more outlandish. She had approached Darius and dared confront the maniac for his crimes.

A Daywalker reeking of my come.

As anyone who was actually important would have been at the wedding, who cared if Pearl had been a bit overzealous as she fed?

Her first real hunt!

What a success. And she got a prize.

A cute one that at first blush seemed perfectly innocent. At second glance just might be the antichrist incarnate.

“I have lived too long to see you risk yourself out of anger. And let’s not pretend you won’t be angry with me again. You were born angry. Just as I was born to rule you.”

“No.” Squaring her shoulders, Pearl unknowingly took on the mantle of a queen. Of my Goddess. “You were born to see in me a thing you want but will never completely have.”

Oh no…

I was growing brave, and she could see it, and she was already growing angrier.

Pinching my pointed ear as if I were a child, she dragged me from the room in which our little boy dreamed of rivers of blood.

And I let her.

She really had no idea the effect she had on me. If I just brushed the tip of my cock on her blood-soaked skirt, I was going to spurt.

Already, I was angling my hips, the urge ruined when she snarled, “Don’t you dare.”

But we were in our bedroom now. The bed was right there! And she looked absolutely delicious, and I wanted to fuck her, and she admitted she was my wife. “Please?”

That set her to screaming, Pearl threatening to leave me forever if I ever did something so horrible again.

I asked her to define horrible… and she struck me again.