Cathedral Read online

  Slacks, a fitted sweater. Utilitarian yet impeccably tailored.

  And pity.

  He was wearing pity on his impossibly attractive face. “It’s ten minutes to midnight. I’ll count this last mating towards your debt for tomorrow.”

  I would not let my wet eyes spill. “Fuck off, Malcom. If you think I’m falling for that, you’re going to be disappointed.”

  His face returned to its normal state of smugness. “You’re due home at sundown.”

  Wiping my nose on the back of my hand, I sighed at the ruin this evening had made of my dress. “And you’re reminding me of a standing appointment why?”

  “It is my duty to inform you when you have been summoned.”

  The exact thing he’d announced when he’d intruded on the Viking’s interlude. “I see.”

  He’d interrupted on purpose. Technically he had not broken any rules. I hated when he did that.

  Eyes like starlight, jaw flexing, Malcom dared another modicum of emotion. “Do you recall the exact reason why you dislike me, because I can’t?”

  I had no intention of playing this game with him.

  But he muttered on, running a hand through his hair. “I remember that day. Why you grew upset when you saw a cat. I remember that you were wearing a blue dress with a red bow.”

  If his reason for existence was to torment me, he was doing a phenomenal job. “Funny that you remember that dress but don’t remember why you sicken me.”

  “Funny that we remember anything…” The anger on his face washed away into deep consideration. Crossing his arms over his chest, my custodian sighed. “You haven’t even reached a century in age, Jade. You’re still such a blind, inexperienced child. Acting out without thinking. Refusing to eat. Pouting.”

  The light in his eyes, it was as if he thought I were cute. There was no reason I had to stand there and bear it. Brushing past, I made to exit the alley.

  “I’ll throw you a portal, Jade.”

  The very thought of taking Malcom’s magical charity made me want to scream. “I’ll walk. Thanks.”

  Despite my rejection, he cast a gate at the mouth of the alley, leaving me no other option. “If you’d have eaten, you’d have been able to summon your own.”

  Fucking prick.

  Chapter Five

  Disobedient and ego bruised, I broke my promise to Malcom. I didn’t feed.

  Not on rats, not on cats…

  Not on vampires.

  Stomach churning with acid, drenched by the spray of a boiling hot shower, I let the magic of indoor plumbing wash away what had happened in the alley.

  Malcom most likely watched me via pinhole cameras, waiting for another sign of weakness he’d taunt me with later—his team monitoring Satan’s daughter for one slip.

  Guarding, he’d claim. Watching over a precious asset other vampire rulers desired to collect to serve in their courts.

  Fuck modern technology and the all-seeing eye. What need was there for it except to pry?

  All I need do was stand in the presence of my father and the devil would see every last thought, mistake, exchange, disappointment that crossed my mind.

  Darius could tear the mind apart looking for a memory so remote and useless he’d done it only for his own amusement.

  I know this because he’d done it to me.

  Water turned off, I stepped from the steam and caught my reflection in the mirror. Nose healed and perfectly straight, scrapes and bruises long gone, any set of outside eyes would see me as pristine now that the deluge had scrubbed away the blood on my face.

  Inside I was uglier than the pile of vomit I’d just been fucked next to.

  I couldn’t wait for the sun to rise, to burn my skin and promise me in the sting that no other immortal might come near.

  The only company I’d have to tolerate was Ethan's plaything. The blonde had been munching a bowl of chips on my $20,000 couch when I’d walked through the door. Without lifting her eyes from the TV, she’d announced, “Ethan said I could stay.”

  Well, she was going to be disappointed once she realized he wasn’t coming home tonight. My phone had already flashed with a message stating he had a rendezvous lined up. Just like me, he was getting fucked for his family.

  Unlike me, he enjoyed it.

  His blue-blooded prick was balls deep in a sixty-year-old pussy who liked flowered hats.

  Ignoring the beautiful blonde, satisfied that she hadn’t seen the state of my dirtied dress, I shuffled down my hall and locked my bedroom door behind me.

  Head throbbing, I’d bunched up my discarded clothing and tossed them out of sight.

  Out of mind.

  Like the kitten.

  Had I been wearing a blue dress that day?

  It was so many years ago, and that horror had been the ugliest moment of my life. Small details I couldn’t recall, but I did remember the sound my skull had made splitting against stone when my father had flung me across the room.

  I remembered seeing chunks of my brain spilled out on the floor.

  Everything had gone orange, and I could taste grape.

  Six years old.

  A baby when I’d cuddled my pretty white cat to death.

  She’d had a pink bow around her neck. She’d been sweet. And I’d been so hungry. The next thing I knew, the ball of fur wasn’t moving.

  So I’d carried her from my glass conservatory where I was made to bear the pain of sunlight while I slept, and entered the hall where my daddy kept court. I’d interrupted to show him, so he could fix her.

  Standing from his throne, he’d been furious.

  It was the first time I’d recognized his anger directed at myself. Young as I was, I hadn’t understood that there were esteemed guests greeting our king. On no level did I grasp his embarrassment when the king’s daughter walked in with the animal she’d accidentally eaten.

  Feline blood must have been all over my face, I probably licked my little pouted lips as I’d pulled on my daddy’s hand and asked for help.

  “Daddy, I broke my kitty.”

  When he’d ignored me, I’d settled for putting my fingers in his, hanging on to look over the reason I wasn’t being addressed.

  A man with shining, long brown hair and a high forehead. He looked like an old oil painting. Distinguished, handsome, and dead-eyed.

  Too young to grasp his station, I’d offered the stranger a smile.

  Completely failing to notice that the retinue behind him and the entire room were staring at me, I’d said, “Hi.”

  Belly longing for food, I pressed against my father’s leg and clung. I probably had even tried to climb him.

  “This is your daywalker?” That man, that golden-eyed stranger, smirked. “She’s precious.”

  I’d shimmied my shoulders at the attention and swung harder on Daddy’s arm.

  The unsmiling guest measured me with unblinking attention. “Does she favor her mother?”

  Large hand settling over my hair, Darius, my beloved father, stroked my head. “Vladislov…”

  That one word was the only warning offered. That, and the squeak of pain I’d made when my father gripped my fingers too tight in his fist.

  “Come now, old friend.” Vladislov picked at his sleeve, outwardly serene. “The little one means no harm—”

  And that’s when I had done it. Staring at waved brunette hair far longer and prettier than mine, still hungry, I’d instinctively sunk my little fangs into my father’s tempting wrist.

  Airborne before I might flail at weightlessness, my skull met the wall. Shattering. Large parts of what made me me spilled all over the floor.

  I don’t recall if I’d cried before his overflowing court, after all, half my brain was gone. All I remember is orange. A world of orange and the need to move my body away from danger.

  No undead dared assist me, though I could hear my human nursemaid screaming.

  To this day, I don�
�t know if she screamed for me, or because that was the last day of her life.

  Smearing old stone, over many long minutes, I dragged my broken body out of the throne room with my only functioning limb. Across worn, icy stone, down the galleries to my sunroom where day after day I slept in a glass coffin and burned in the light. I have no clue how I managed to get my body up inside that bed, but that’s where I went to die.

  Like a wounded animal working on the last dregs of instinct.

  And I should have died. A long way from full-grown, the damage was that severe.

  But with my head pillowed on bloodstained ivory satin, liquid life itself slipped over my tongue.

  Careful fingers put parts of my skull back together. Unable to scream, I wriggled as he’d popped my eye back into the socket. Clinging to the stranger’s wrist with the scant energy I had left, an orange version of that foreign, brunette man leaned over my bed and stuffed handfuls of pocketed brain matter into my skull.

  While I’d fed from him.

  Over horrific hours, I’d mended, and I’d cried. And from that night onward I was terrified of my father.

  It was never spoken of, not once. The next interlude where my stupid, childish steps had crossed my father’s path it was clear he’d been surprised I still lived

  He had not sent his ancient guest Vladislov to save me.

  More importantly, my father had never seen in my mind just why I still drew breath. Everyone just assumed it had looked worse than it was.

  Pleased that his naughty Jade wasn’t shattered after all, King Darius demanded a kiss on the cheek.

  I’d run away screaming.

  Chapter Six

  “Harder!” I could not shriek it loud enough, could not spread my legs wide enough to make that joining satisfy.

  Thrusting with all his sleek-muscled strength, his blonde standing by as she watched, a sweating Ethan pounded my cunt.

  “Fuck me harder, goddamnit!” For three more thrusts the poor human did try, until he came at the unrelenting squeeze of my pussy.

  We’d been at it for less than five minutes, after I’d gone down on my knees and worshiped his cock with my mouth.

  Because I had a need.

  The third party staring from the corner had not been invited to join, which was for the best. She could watch Ethan pound into my slit and have him later when desperation and duty called me away. Internal organs throbbing in their need for actual release, my body sucked in human cum from a spent cock, churning it up at the gate of my womb.

  And I furiously rubbed my clit chasing what had been lost with Ethan’s premature ejaculation.

  When I did come, it did nothing to chill the boil—thoughts of dumpsters and vomit and violence the only thing that carried me over the edge.

  Unfulfilled despite Ethan’s somewhat valiant attempt to hold back, I closed my eyes and tried to melt into the mattress. I tried to breathe through the disappointment.

  With a slap of my hip and what was most likely a jaunty smile, he took his weight from my body and did his typical post-sex stroll to the bathroom. He always took it first…

  “Do you want me to eat you out?”

  Cracking a lid, I peered at the blonde.

  Technically, I had been seeded. There wasn’t any standing rule that someone couldn’t slurp it all out. But I knew that was past the pale.

  Not that I gave a fuck in that frustrating moment.

  Spreading wider, I invited what’s-her-name’s attention and let a raspy tongue play where I needed so much more than anyone in my penthouse might provide.

  It wasn’t until she tried to fist me that I’d finally bent my spine and screamed release.

  Immediately, I’d asked her to stop. Sitting up, I’d kissed her cunilingus swollen lips as if she’d done well, and went straight for the freshly abandoned shower.

  Ethan would finish her off, I’d caught them tangled in my sheets more than once upon exiting the bathroom. She’d squealed like a champion porn star and he’d winked at me, surging with silly male pride.

  I liked the show, the fakeness of it. Both were grade-A pretenders.

  Both tasted sweet when their fluids hit my tongue.

  But she was gone by the time I’d washed and dried my abundant dark hair.

  Ethan remained, dressed in a beautiful gray suit for whatever function he was to attend that night.

  Smiling, I sat at my vanity and began to style my hair.

  “I adore you. You know that.” An eager puppy, all big-eyed and cute.

  He earned a huge smile, one that grew stunted at his next words.

  “Kitty’s pregnant.” Expression warm in the reflection, adjusting his cufflink like he always did when he was nervous, Ethan softly pled, “Can we keep her?”

  Brow arching and like the perfect idiot, my brain failed to put two and two together. “Can we keep her?”

  Kissing the exposed nape of my neck, he smiled against my skin before stringing a glittering new necklace around my throat. “Yes. Imagine the three of us and a little baby. Won’t that be fun?”

  …he was talking about a person, not a pet. “Who’s Kitty?”

  Ethan’s startled chuckle failed to hide unusual agitation under his mirth. “You’re kidding, right?”

  He couldn’t be talking about the blonde. “I thought her name was Polly.”

  The last bit of his smile dried up. Straightening to loom over my reflection in the vanity’s mirror, he frowned. “We haven’t played with Polly in over a year, darling. Her name is Kitty.”

  The necklace, the ambush of compliments and sweetness… it began to sink in. If it wasn’t so disappointing, it might have been amusing. “And she’s pregnant...”

  A locked jaw, sheepish answer. “Yes.”

  Knowing my extended direct gaze made him uncomfortable, I refused to let him look away. “And you want us to keep her.”

  “I do.”

  Now this was something... that didn’t feel at all good.

  Slipping an earring into my left lobe, I stood. Velvet robe gaping just enough to hint at nudity underneath, I moved with the grace my thoughts lacked. “You got your fucktoy pregnant, and what you’re really asking is if I will keep her. As in, keep her here for you.” Knowing what his answer would be, but making him voice it all the same, I purred, “Since you seem awfully enamored with the idea of your Cat filling up with cream. Why not take her back to your penthouse and play daddy.”

  “You know I can’t—”

  “No. I don’t know that. All I know is that you want your girlfriend to house your pregnant fucktoy.”

  “Stop calling her that.”

  “I didn’t even know her name.” Which made this all the more humiliating considering my unseen audience. “Why you think I’d be invested in hiding your love child from Senator Rothschild, I cannot begin to understand.”

  Gritting his teeth, jaw working, Ethan set aside the charade. “She was a stripper, Jade. A nobody. I can’t take that home! Imagine the scandal.”

  Reaching for my phone, going through the motions as if this conversation were a quick chat about the weather, I shrugged. And I felt angry.

  I’d never been angry with Ethan.

  “Look. You have plenty of rooms here and the green guestroom already has a bunch of her clothes in it. You’re never home and you won’t even notice she’s here. We’ll get a nanny to keep the baby quiet.”

  Pinching my brow together, I turned on him, as if such an idea were totally absurd. To say I wish I had not charged from my room like a disgruntled lover to find that my expectations were not reality was an accurate statement. I should have been embarrassed; instead I was totally baffled upon arrival to the green guestroom.

  Just as Ethan had said, feminine shit was everywhere. The bed had been slept in. Even dirty clothes on the floor. Most of the scattered couture was mine—borrowed without permission by an interloper.

  I’d known she’d hung ar
ound. I’d known she’d eaten my food and fucked my lover when I was too busy to do it. But this… carnage. She’d been living here and I hadn’t deigned to notice.

  Abashed, when he found the stricken look on my face, Ethan offered, “I’ll have her clean this up. We can set the rules. Manage her allowance.”

  Why did that hurt so much?

  Like the viper I was—a true daughter of the king of deceit—I let anger, hunger, and humiliation wash away reason. “You are extraordinarily out of line. My answer is no.” I lifted a finger when it looked as if he thought to interrupt. “This relationship has been taken for granted far too long for you to expect my feelings about a stranger living in my house would be blasé. A stranger, it would seem, who already is living in my house… I don’t mind sharing you; I like fucking other people. But they are just faces, and pussies, and cocks. We are not a ménage.”

  And there it was, a flash of shame in his desperation. “I love her, Jade.”

  He couldn’t. He was supposed to love me.

  “No, you don’t.” Softening the blow, I put a hand to his arm and gave a gentle squeeze. “You may like her a lot, but she’s no different than any of the other blondes we’ve tangled with. They all look alike. They all laugh the same. Each of them fawn over you. That’s what you love. The only reason Kitty, or Polly, or whatever her name is seems special, is that this one got pregnant. Most likely on purpose. Cut her loose. We’ll find a new one. A better one.”

  It was as if someone had told the spoiled boy he couldn’t have a new kitten for Christmas. All frowns and hurt feelings, he said, “Kitty and I have gotten to know each other. I mean it when I say I love her.”

  Lacking my father’s skill at making people dance on my stage, I tried my damnedest to take that lie straight out of his mind. “No. You don’t.”

  If he’d loved her, he would have taken this Kitty home, and not tried to hide away his massive fuckup at his conveniently non-jealous girlfriend’s penthouse.

  Lifting the cellphone clutched near cracking in my grip, I dialed security before I might do something I would always regret. When the officer answered, my voice didn’t waver in the slightest. “I’m going to need my locks changed and codes reprogramed within the hour. Ethan Rothschild is no longer cleared to enter. He’ll need to be escorted off the premises immediately.”