The Relic (Cradle of Darkness Book 2) Page 11

  Worship led to tragedies like my poor Pearl, her hammering heart, the way she clutched at the rosary I slipped into her fingers—one she didn’t even realize she held.

  I would be picking apart that knot in her life for eons. On the day when Pearl’s eyes truly opened to the way of the world, she would be…

  Inconsolable.

  My poor darling. Maybe it was a kindness that my son had filled her head with false ideals. The longer she held to some sort of faith, the more time she would have to see that all along it truly had been I fulfilling her needs.

  Heart already breaking for her, I pressed a kiss to her hair. She really did smell of sunshine, of goodness. She smelled of all the things that had been torn away from me the day fate dared try to take my soul from me.

  Humming in her hair, I confessed an open truth. “I love you.”

  No change came to her bearing, no stiffness. No fear in her scent.

  Progress!

  Tenderly swaying as if the pair of us moved to music that was ours and ours alone, I enjoyed this corner of my mind while the rest of me worked.

  As I said, I exerted my will on all who stood in attendance.

  I whispered in the minds of every last immortal. A cohesive symphony of soft, indomitable rule. A smattering could hear it, the thousand voices moving like mist over thought, or like daggers through resistance. Some could only feel it, taking comfort or distress.

  This is mine.

  Do not touch.

  Look at her and envy.

  Look at her and know she can unknowingly decide your fate with little more than a frown.

  Look at her and love her.

  Look at how I touch her, how I hold her. I would never touch you in such a way.

  Look at how she trusts me, how she fits against my body because we are one.

  Do you see her mouth? There was no need for paint. Her lips are red from my attention.

  Do you smell her cunt? My seed even now drips down her thigh.

  I will make her fat with life as she drinks down yours.

  Never question me.

  Offend her and it won’t only be you I unravel thread by thread. I will eat your home, your children, your children’s children. You will be erased from the world.

  Weep if you wish, but I will never love you.

  Prostrate at her feet. Offer your wrists.

  Those who bleed the most shall gain my favor. Those who seek to deny my soul her due shall learn the true meaning of regret.

  Yes, I had a flair for drama.

  True, few in that myriad collection knew just what I might be to them.

  Rumors of the winged-demon had begun to spread in private whispers between those I wished to suspect.

  Those who did not deserve to know me? I plucked the thought straight from their puny brains.

  Yet, it should be noted that when working with immortal minds, it takes something more than a soft spoken order to gain the attention of something that has already seen everything and found it wanting.

  Those with the skill and the years whispered back to me, carrying on their current conversations as if we were not discussing the very fabric of their existence.

  “No insult is intended toward your bride. What excellent taste you have. I’ve longed for a Daywalker of my own.”

  Then fuck a human and make your own.

  “It’s been ages, Vladislov. How do you fair?

  Oh, I am well. I am well enough that the world might actually bloom for a space. Well, maybe after one more plague.

  “Gifts will be sent.”

  Indeed they would be. The most honored of the flocks would be bled for my soul’s breakfast. And it would be delivered, steaming hot, in jeweled cups. There would be gowns, art, trinkets, land, palaces, secrets….

  And those who delivered most would have no true understanding of why they did as they did. Something deep within would niggle at them to produce, that their survival was on the line.

  All of this would be kept from Pearl. Well, not the blood. She deserved to sample the fare. But all the chalices, all the wealth, would be tucked away. She would drink from the same crystal to which she had grown accustomed. Live in what she considered quite lavish circumstances, though they were far from what true depravity might offer.

  The simple things made her soul sing all the louder.

  Caskets of jewels? Those could wait and be playthings for our children. An entire museum of cups crafted just for her lips would be erected in some far off country. To amuse her, I’d take her there some day.

  She would laugh to see it.

  Gold, diamonds, silver… cups carved from meteors. I could already say for certain that she would still prefer the simple cut crystal.

  But few would know such secrets.

  Of course, there would be grand soirees in which she might hold a finer cup. But the guest list would be excruciatingly hand-selected. Maya could be trusted with such a task, should I be able to tempt her away from her immediate hunt of those who dared plunder her homelands for what humans considered ancient—such a laughable term—artworks of one of the most interesting and valuable cultures. Nok, they called it these days.

  She’d been a wonder, born to a family of wonders.

  Such a soft spot I had for wonders. Most of whom were wise enough to take the invitation in my less structured flock.

  Ach, but Maya was also in love with a human man, which I pointedly ignored and equally found intriguing. She lived with him as a human.

  “Work from home.”

  What a term, what a marvelous construct. Vampires anywhere smart enough to install the proper windows could play human. She had children!

  Hid their nutritional needs in their food.

  That would be an epic disaster the day she came clean that she was older than dirt, wanted in several countries for very grisly murders of art “collectors,” and that they would not age past their prime.

  The husband… would she change him?

  Not that I cared. Really. I didn’t. I even wondered if she did it all to amuse me. That’s how self-centered I am. Am I not a wonder on my own?

  She, who fought for the treasures of a people long lost, had seen me in my hideous glory thanks to Pearl’s request I show her my true face. And Maya had wanted to know when she too might have such wings.

  Adorable.

  Unlike the stunning brunette of true Grecian stock daring to glare at me, and who I would unmake before sunrise. One pretty female I had turned thousands of years ago.

  She’d had her time in the shadow of my interest.

  And she knew better than to allow jealousy and dark thoughts of comparison between herself and my true bride. Apphia seethed, demanding her due for servicing me for so long to be thrown over for a skinny daywalker with a mind she could easily see was Swiss cheese.

  That’s how she thought of it! How dare she!

  She even dared ask me if I had fallen into madness.

  As I stood in the midst of the strongest I had created, as the most powerful of my kind fluttered and gathered like bees about their queen. As my dear bride laid her eyes upon her child for the first time and worked through the complications that arose from such a monumental occasion, I tore the jealous harlot’s mind to ribbons.

  But with subtlety. After all, this was a wedding, and it would be inappropriate to make a scene.

  First, I took away her name, so that she would never recall it. A small thing that would lead to very amusing situations later. A thing she wouldn’t notice, not while she was still arguing with me over the sacrifices she made for me. Not when she dared claim that she loved me in a way my Pearl could not.

  Nothing, ever, would love me as my soul already did. Pearl wasn’t aware of her connection yet, how woven together we’d already become. My son was right in claiming that any who saw my true face and willingly took me into their body in that state and survived the onslaught had to be my equal.

  There was a reason I called her my soul. But Pea
rl was so much more.

  If I was a demon, she was an angel.

  Maybe in ten thousand years she’d have white, feathered wings and glow with the sunlight running through her veins. Instead of the imps she had imagined, our babies could be fat cherubs.

  Wouldn’t that be cute?

  The creature in my arms spoke, her attention fixed on the couple preparing to link their immortality together. “Vlad, you’re growling.”

  Fine. I was.

  Wait? Had she just called me Vlad?

  SHE HAD!

  I was now Vlad!

  A pet name. A term of endearment.

  How my heart soared!

  Fuck Apphia. Not literally. Eww. Never again.

  So what if I had seen that girl’s beauty while I awaited the return of my soul? Yes, I had taken the maiden from her family. Sure, we had eaten her parents once she’d woken to the night and made sport of her siblings until any remnant of her human line had ended so her vampire line might begin.

  But Apphia had never borne me a child—all the seed sprayed meant for another and dumped because time was monotonous and pricks liked to leak into slits.

  I owed her nothing. Not after the palaces, the notoriety, the power, and the distinction she held with our race. Foolish woman.

  Who would I make the new queen of the European nations? Maya?

  No.

  Maya would laugh at the very idea. She was already a queen and needed no nations to prove that point.

  Vacuums in power were extremely annoying. “You have no idea how hard it is to get anyone to do their job these days, my love. Really. Can I have another kiss? Please?”

  Ah! I had made Pearl laugh. She found my angst amusing, did she? Well, that I could lay on thick. “One kiss, sweet soul. I promise to keep my hands out of your bodice. And yes, I know you are blushing and still embarrassed. But those tits. Come now, darling. They are perfect, and I am incapable of resisting.”

  She giggled even more. Giggled! Oh, I was so getting laid later. “If I kiss you again, will you please be quiet?”

  “Yes.” No.

  Another quick slant of her lips upon mine, her neck craning to meet me.

  I felt the erections rise from those males who found pleasure in females, all of whom I had called to look. Showing off my bride...

  ...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.

  Jade was in bliss.

  Malcom loved her as no man ever had loved, save I.

  Weeping in joy, my bride made demands. “You can’t ever hurt him. Never.”

  “As you wish.”

  Blubbering, extremely cute, and every bit the embarrassing mother at a wedding, Pearl added, “Men don’t… they don’t think of women as he thinks of her. He sees beyond her beauty or what she can do for him.”

  Black talon tracing her cheek, I said, “Come now. I love you even beyond the ways in which he loves her. And you know that.”

  “But you are not a man.” As if that might make her not realize her slip.

  The very slip that brought a frightening grin to my lips. S
harp teeth on display, I let a black forked tongue trace my lips. “You know I love you.”

  She wouldn’t lie. She wasn’t capable of it. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be shy. “I know you think you do.”

  Taking her chin, I turned her back to the spectacle. To Jade and Malcolm.

  He offered his naked throat to his queen.

  As she nuzzled in, he found the place where her collar split just enough, where fangs placed with infinite care could be snapped off by the prey, daring enough to try to drink from such a guarded throat.

  He pierced her flesh delicately. She tore at his—an expected statement, considering their vastly different stations. And they fed.

  The sucking sounds were suggestive to an extreme, inspiring the onlookers to begin their own feast, whether with lovers or upon those humans delivered as snacks.

  One moment, the couple was feasting on one another. The next, Malcom manhandled his queen into his arms.

  They vanished into the night.

  After her daughter was gone, as Pearl processed, it was the first time I had ever heard regret in my bride’s mind for her shortened fangs. Imagination full of her own potential wedding, she knew there was no skin she might break.

  “I would slit my throat before every last one of my chattel. You could drink me to death.” Every word sang through my being.

  She turned in my arms yet kept her eyes on where the ribbons of my shirt still smoked. “Don’t be silly.”

  The tip of my thumb delved into her mouth, the world blocked out so none might see or hear. Wings raised so even the sky had no access to my female, I pressed the pad of that thumb to her sad fang. “They will grow back. Until then, cut me to ribbons in any way you please.”

  Shy blue eyes went from cracked, fiery chest to my hideous face. “This has been the strangest night of my life.”

  All that, spoken around the digit that still teased at her slight fang. That pressed until my skin gave the flavor of her favorite treat.

  Not that my delicate flower would suck me before the crowd.

  Kidding. She was already licking at the droplet. The poor dear had absolutely no control once she had a taste of me.