The Relic (Cradle of Darkness 2)

She had dropped the weapon, one that had been stolen from our father—the king of the known world—and smuggled into the harem. Clattering right at the feet of the head eunuch. Blood was said to still be running down her thighs.

And right there, she had lain upon her back, spread her legs, and shown the damage with a grin of triumph… to a guardian forbidden to so much as look, a half-man who could not tear his eyes away.

As if it would not make me love her all the more.

As if I was not to have the eunuch blinded for seeing the precious cunt of my bride.

Naughty vixen. We would have fun with that dagger. I couldn’t even recall the amount of times I fucked her with the handle once she’d learned of the physical pleasure she would only ever know under my touch.

That is, once I turned her body into the woman she was born to be.

It was the very reason I left that dagger on her pillow the first night I dragged my new, hissing bride to our chambers.

The first time she had ever left the seclusion and safety of the gardens to learn the truth of men.

The first time I poured seed into her womb. As our father had poured his seed into our mother. And his before him, and his before him, in a line of kings and queens long forgotten by history—vaguely evoked as old gods by modern man, who lived and died long before the pyramids.

They were not gods. I was the only God.

“Please stop looking at me that way.” Blushing, her cheeks as rosy as her nipples, she meekly tried and failed to remove her wrist from my grip.

As if I might be capable of turning away from such beauty. Though perhaps the rather large erection pointing her way was a bit insensitive… considering.

I’d never hurt her, but I would transform her. Through tears, gasps, frantic kicking, and ultimate release.

But not today. Not like this.

Not when even after all these years I still remember that… it had taken her some time to love me eons ago.

In that, I was prepared to reevaluate my approach.

These days, I was nothing if not a gentleman.

In my formative years, my father had taught me the ways of our people, of our Queens, of their power and frustrations. How to cow them as a man must a woman, how to physically please in the process, so they might be safe in their furious release and bear strong sons. The strongest sons were always made in battle. Their bodies growing under the changing heart of resentful yet passion-drugged wife.

Until resentment bloomed into respect upon seeing that first bloody baby.

Until it became more than passion shared between a lusty warrior and a strong-willed woman.

Until it became love.

But such was the world long lost.

Such savageries were no longer considered romantic or rightful in this time.

I would not rape her.

This time, I would woo instead.

Chapter Three

Pearl

Three weeks. I knew it had been three weeks, not only by the rise and fall of the sun outside my windows—windows, as in more than one—but because something called a digital clock also confirmed the hours and date. Three weeks and I had not left that room, despite the fact that the door was unlocked.

A cozy room, with simple furnishings and warm cream walls.

A room with a feature, a luxury I could hardly describe—a private bathroom.

A private bathroom, where no line for the entire floor collected. Where the warm water never ran out.

Though when I locked myself in the bathing space—who enjoyed such luxuries?—upon leaving, freshly cleaned, covered from neck to toes, I found one wall had been papered. Little flowers, exactly like the paper from my apartment.

Which I now understood had been demolished and something called a mall had been put up in its place.

The exactness of that wallpaper, even the way it was faded and dingy, frightened me.

The exactness of all the things left for me, as if the demon who kept me knew my every secret, was precisely why I knew I was still in hell. This was all a trick of Lucifer.

Even the priest, as he heard my confession, looked at me as if my ravings of demons, of the black abyss, were only a trick of my mind.

I wept when I told him why I was here, that I had killed a man who had followed me home from work and left his body in the snow. That I was damned. His eyes grew sad. “Chadwick Parker died in 1923. That was practically one hundred years ago. What you blame yourself for... it isn’t possible.”

“You’re not listening to me!” And that had to be part of the torment. Those kind eyes so full of pity as I paced and told my story day in and day out. “I’ve been locked away. There was this book full of entries written in my hand. A box full of notes about demons and hell.”