The Relic (Cradle of Darkness Book 2)

by Addison Cain

  And I drank.

  And they ran screaming when the carnage in my wake was discovered.

  Vladislov had made me strong. God had designed me to be deadly. Darius had wrung the goodness from me. And I had agreed to be wife to the Demon who controlled the world.

  Glassy-eyed humans in pens, deep under the rot of the twisted church. Hundreds, thousands in the catacombs. They didn’t speak at the sight of my blood-soaked body as I passed by. They didn’t ask for help.

  Their minds were mush, their state hardly above that of an animal.

  Though I could have, I didn’t help them. I wasn’t there for them. I didn’t even acknowledge them.

  My mind was filled with the glowing beauty of a towheaded child that had his own pen, his own rags, his own snarling rage.

  I tore the bars of his door right from the stone, bent metal… as if it were a simple task.

  Scooping up a wild beast who tore into my throat in his hunger, I grew complete.

  I sang as I rocked him, until the drowsy thing had a full belly and I had a sleeping child in my arms. His head lolling against my shoulder, I carried him away from his suffering. I bore him out of the desecrated Cathedral straight out into the world.

  My son.

  He smelled of poison ivy, of birch, of blood, and of fire.

  The sun rose as he indelicately snored. And he nuzzled against his mother, a stranger who wanted him.

  Vladislov did find me in time, resting on a park bench, curled around my boy.

  A boy he looked upon as if he saw through the pretty, filthy shell. Smiling, honest, Satan held out his arms to take the burden from me. I allowed it.

  Cradling the still sleeping little one, he waltzed slowly around, humming a few bars. Our eyes met, my husband asking, “Can we keep him?”

  Forever. “Yes.”

  “What bliss!”

  Chapter Twenty

  Vladislov

  The boy lying fast asleep upon the bed was an angel. Well, at least angelic in appearance. I couldn’t even blame Pearl for falling in love with him at first sight.

  Parted lips and apple cheeks smeared with dried blood, on an utterly cherubic face. He smelled of my wife, the same wife seated beside him as she continuously petted his matted, pale hair. I don’t think the little thing had ever been bathed, not that I had any intention of poking around in his wee brain until greater topics had been sorted.

  “Pearl, my darling, beloved wife, I’m angry with you.”

  Her hand stilled, just as filthy as the boy lying atop a pricy silk coverlet. It hovered, the tips of her claws unable to fully retract with her young near and a very real threat looming beside them.

  “Don’t think I can’t see how you seethe, trying to hide it because the fate of the boy matters more to you than your pride. And I know why you’re angry too. I can see that as well.” Stooping down so my lips might brush her ear, I growled, “I can see right through you.”

  She didn’t have an answer for that. How could she after the night she’d lived?

  My Pearl may have refused the perfectly wonderful bath of blood I’d prepared with love, but she had bathed in plenty of blood on her own.

  Drenched. I found her sitting in a human park in broad daylight looking like an extra from a horror flick. Rocking a small child in her arms, too taken with him to notice the looks she was garnering from the locals.

  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?�
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  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.

  Really hard!

  Which made me really hard. Achingly hard.

  My throbbing excitement leaked a string of pearly fluid that dangled from the tip, making her all the more enraged. So, I got down on my knees. “You can’t be mad at me for seeing you like this and wanting to fuck you. You look glorious, my love!”

  “I’m covered in dried blood and other things, in a torn, ugly dress, and I smell.” Every word was shrill, Pearl tearing at her tangled hair in frustration.

  “Exactly! So pretty! And please, darling, lower your voice before you wake up our son.”

  Those were not the right words, the woman on the verge of further violence. “He’s my son. Mine!”

  Ah, ah. I had been very careful with my word choice when I approached my angry woman in the park. “You said we could keep him. That makes him mine too. Also, you love me and want me to be happy. Don’t try to deny it. You told Yeshua as much. Don’t pretend you didn’t. And don’t gape at me like a fish when you know I can read the memory as if I was standing right there beside you.” Palm to my heart, my entire being lit up in joy. “You even claimed to be my wife.”

  Her face was turning red, and not in embarrassment.

  Holding up my hands, I softened my approach. “I know. He’s tricky in the way he gets what he wants. He said you never had to tell me. He suggested that you could torment me by withholding the statement. And you will!” I smiled, the last vestments of my human mask fading and the real me on full display for her to enjoy. “You will torment me. But… you know just as well as he does that I can see all the beauty of your thoughts. So don’t be mad at me or cross with him.” My smile stretched, the hideousness of my mouth and all the sharp teeth on display. “Get it? Cross?”

  “That is not….” But the corner of her mouth twitched.

  Oh, but it was. “It is funny, my soul.”

  I was myself before her, all charred skin and crackling fire. Massive, winged, ugly, pure. Taking her dirty fingers, I brought them to my lips for a kiss. “I’m sorry. Really, I am. I have not felt fear in so long that when you disappeared last night….” What really was there to say? “I love you. I know you’re angry. But you are only angry, truly angry, because you love me and it scares you.”

  Pearl worked to collect herself in her storm of feelings, letting out a deep breath as she snatched back her fingers and pressed her palms to her face. One moment passed, then another. Her breath slowed, her heart rate normalized. She peeked through her fingers and looked at me as if to say what am I going to do with you?

  She was going to love me. Already, it throbbed in her chest right beside the annoyance. And it frightened her to no end.

  But I reveled in both.

  She was so stiff, and I was so much larger. So I let my wings hover around her slight form as if they might embrace her. “Pearl, do you want to talk about the Cathedral?”

  “No.”

  “Should we discuss Darius?” She had withstood far more than my son had given her credit for. That pussy was unable to know her like I did. Pearl would have eaten Darius’ face down to the bone. Though I am glad she didn’t. He probably tasted terrible.

  Voice smaller, she answered, “I’d rather not.”

  It was like pulling teeth sometimes with this woman, but I loved every moment of it. “Okay. Then let me bridge the gap you have failed to address. Why haven’t you asked me if I knew about the boy?”

  Lips turning down in a frown, eyes flagging, my soul went from queen to grieving mother. “If you had known, you would have offered him to me in exchange for exactly what your son demanded.”

  She was so right. I which is why I had offered the boy when I really wanted to get my way and make her a bit less angry about the wedding thing. Though I had not anticipated Yeshua would act after only having seen my bride a single time. Though it would be a lie to deny I was grateful he had.

  My worrisome boy wasn’t usually so spontaneous. Which meant he was also desperate.

  What Pearl really should really have been asking was, how did my son know about the boy?

  God had not whispered that secret in his ear. I had. Tucked it right in his memories so the desperate bugger might have an opportunity to get what he wanted most.

  For me to be laden with a soul.

  And now I was. One who’d acknowledged she was my wife.

  The part of me the fates had finally returned.

  “Please tell me you love me, Pearl.”

  She wanted to say it badly, because she was infinitely good. She craved the moment she might divulge that there was more to her than confusion and sorrow. But she didn’t have the conviction—

  “I love you.” Her voice had been small, her eyes on the floor when it slipped over her lips.

  My jaw might have hit the floor. She admitted it! The wife I swept up and began waltzing around the room as my wings broke everything in their path said it.

  And the pair of us were laughing.

  This was real.

  “I don’t deserve you.” I never would. EVER.

  Laughing, she agreed, “You don’t.”

  Swallowing her words, I kissed her so hard I knew my teeth tore at her lips. And I drank of my bride. I lapped at her closing wounds. I ravaged.

  What I had done to her at the wedding had been calculating and boring. What I did to her then? Poets would write songs about it.

  That dress, no matter how she gasped or bled at my onslaught, was demolished. Her filthy skin, scoured clean by my tongue. In no way had she been ready to see the true starvation I endured or how it had to be quenched.

  Had she not grown so fierce, she would have been terrified.

  Each breast, those perfect, delicious tits, were worshiped. Wide, burning palms pressing them into her body, kneading the flesh, claw teasing the nipple so it might be sucked.

  She screamed no. She screamed yes. She screamed for more.

  She even screamed my name.

  Right as I held up the monstrosity of my cock and lined it up where she was wet, aching, and owed. I told her I was going to fuck her for three days straight and offer no succor.

  Not to my wife. Not to my queen. Not to the other half of me, the better half. The half that commanded such action by raising her hips and hissing when my hand went about her throat.

  Milking my cock on that first thrust, she came.

  She came, weeping with the joy of release.

  And I fucked her.

  No woman had ever been fucked the way my Pearl was fucked through those days, through those nights. Blood pouring from where I had slit my throat, I fed the monster who strangled my cock for more.

  Deceitfully slight thing that she was, she worked to drain me dry in all ways.

  I hurt her.

  She hurt me.

  I pleasured the Goddess.

  She fed me the torment that made my sac draw tight.

  That first time I came, the ground shook. The second time, bits of Paris began to crumble.

  Soothing me with a soft touch, even as she rocked her hips over my exhausted form, Pearl asked me to leave the city in peace.

  The words alone drew another bubbling of seed from my body, my thumb rolling her clit as I expanded almost to the point her pretty body might not take.

  Weeping, she found another climax, sucking my offering deep.

  And I knew, that was the one that would plant a baby that would grow in her womb.

  A baby in which she would find joy.

  Epilogue

  Vladislov

  “Why doesn’t Mommy ever play with us?”

  Because Mommy had been fucked senseless and was too tired to even feel when I carded my fingers through her hair. A pretty dark, waving lock I lifted off her pale cheek less than an hour before so sun might fall on her face as she slept.
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  Precious Pearl, always the napper, sleepy darling lass that she was.

  “Mommy’s body is busy growing your sister.” Winking at the little hunter at my side, I said, “You’ve seen how big her belly is. She’d fall right over if she tried to run.”

  The kid laughed.

  And adored me.

  The feeling was mutual. So much so that my other son had shown up more than he was welcome, the jealous sot.

  “I’m going to catch her something good to eat.” And get all her kisses for it, no doubt.

  Since she’d shorn him, washed him, taught him to speak, he was her world. But I was her God. Worshiped in the sun and in the moonlight.

  Often, I had wept on her breast because the sensation of so true a love overtook me. I was her slave.

  Which was why we now lived here, in the jungle, on an island where the world might let us enjoy what we were. Away from cities that quaked when my moods were free to roam. Away from Cathedrals she had a drive to purge.

  And for sport, all the vampiric houses who wanted to survive my wife’s reign dropped immortal treats into the jungle for our boy to snack on.

  Down to his bones, that kid was a killer. Even I, the perfect predator, had not needed to teach Jasper how to stalk.

  And Mommy didn’t need to know that her occasional sip of morning blood had come from a screaming vampire her cute progeny had caught and dragged home especially for her.

  He relished the screams, and he drained them into a teacup. Because it had to be fresh for Mommy.

  Silver platter and all, Jasper would carry it in with a smile. “Pretty Mommy, look what I brought.”

  Pretty Mommy would glow.

  On her silk sheets. In the palace I ordered built for her. Where live-in staff treated my erection as a castle.

  Yes, that was a penis joke.

  There were civilized parties. There was passion. There was a garden tended by the only human on the grounds. One strictly off-limits to our son. Not that he had not tried a time or two.

  Jasper was a real devil.

  And Pearl knew it… and loved him anyway.