Cathedral Manuscript-WIDE FINAL

by Addison Cain

  My father’s favored guard did not hesitate. “She uses starvation as a means of rebellion, but in no other way has she dissatisfied.” Feet planted as if an entire temple were braced on his shoulders, Malcom was the perfect servant. The perfect informant. “I suggest a mandatory feeding schedule and the installation of rotated offerings placed in her building to attend her requirements.”

  A trough of unwilling and embarrassed immortals for me to nip at when I had a hankering.

  Already my cheeks heated from the mockery that would be made behind my back should my father agree.

  I’d rather starve, eat once a week, and look strong in the only way I could, than be forced to snack nightly like my brethren did. This rebellion, as Malcom called it, was all I had to own my place here.

  I hadn’t seen him move, but next thing I knew, my father’s thumb and forefinger pinched my chin. “You don’t look enough like your mother to please me, girl. Keep that in mind when you let your thoughts run wild.”

  Because I looked just like him. Same high forehead, same lush mouth.

  The only thing I had of her was the blue of my eyes… when they didn’t go red.

  “I apologize.” For being born the way I was.

  Next I knew, my hands were taken, arms spread so my father might peruse my clothing. “I like this color. Next thing you know, black will no longer be the staple at court.”

  Black had not been in vogue for years, but my father had not sat his throne or paid attention to such trivialities for longer than that.

  My thoughts made him smirk.

  Pressing a fatherly kiss to my cheek, I heard my sentence for whatever list of failings he’d compiled. “Malcom, you’ve done well. Tonight she’s yours.”

  “Sir,” Malcom said with perfect reverence.

  “Well, go ahead. She’s failed with everyone else. Enjoy your reward and give me a grandchild.”

  To protest in any other way than the hysterical quickening of my heart and shallow breaths was unthinkable. I hated Malcom more than I hated life itself, yet still I turned, bending over the nearest table to present.

  With my father as witness, my short skirt was lifted, lace thong pulled down my buttocks to stretch across my spread thighs. And then the blunt end of an extremely hard cock met the dry lips of my sex.

  Quickly working himself in, Malcom took my hips and began a slow, steady pace. All the while I stared at the wall, unblinking, even when my father’s red robes slipped from my door.

  The snap of the latch, two more thrusts, and Malcom ceased the rock of his hips. “Do you wish for me to stop?”

  Nodding my head, I was already sobbing before he drew completely out. Slipping from the table to the floor, too overwrought to be ashamed of such a display, I curled in on myself and cried harder than I had in years.

  I wept at the feet of a man I’d never forgive, and let him pet my hair because I lacked the strength to show him just how much I desired his death.

  Broken by something so commonplace as penetration, I was every bit the child Malcom endlessly accused me of being.

  Crouching so that his weight rested on the balls of his feet, he set his lips to my ear, whispering things I could not hear over the sound of my sobbing. Not one utterance made sense, just catches of meaningless sound.

  But somewhere, somewhere between my gasps and choking, a single string of coherent, unlikely words broke their way through the gibberish muddling my thoughts. “This does not change how much I love you, my darling Jade.”

  Chapter Nine

  Malcom

  And yes, I loved her. I loved her with my entire being. For a century I’d watched her every breath and counted the beats of her heart. I’d broken her, I’d hurt her, and I’d done every evil thing possible to keep her alive.

  Because my Jade was so young and so foolish. So goddamn blind.

  If she only knew what I’d sacrificed, what I still gave, to keep her safe. What do I care if she hates me? Jade doesn’t need to love me back. I love her enough for both of us.

  “You will eat now.”

  “Get out, Malcom!” Crouched down at my feet, she tore at her hair as if to erase my touch, ruining the sleek ponytail she’d worn to mock those she secretly wished would accept her. And, again, I loved her enough to make up for every last immortal’s loathing of their princess.

  “Your father, your king, decreed that you are mine tonight. A specific period of time, Jade. The sun won’t rise for many hours yet. You will eat. You will bathe. You will converse with me.”

  It was as if I had said something utterly inconceivable. Blue eyes ringed in red, bloodshot from crying, and unbearably beautiful, turned up. She looked at me. Right at me. And could not see what stood before her.

  And I knew why. I knew what tricks Darius played. How many times he’d written and rewritten what memories this female possessed, how many times he’d altered her and coerced the ugliest parts of her psyche to come forth.

  And even those parts were beautiful.

  She was a creature of his twisted design, as selfish and proud and cruel as he could make her. But even he could only push so far. In the wreckage of his mental machinations, under all of it, Jade was still Jade.

  My Jade.

  Who for the first time in almost a century, I got to have for the night. To have, not to guard. Mine until sunrise. All because I understood the games and she did not.

  “You may feed from me.” I straightened, imperious and imposing as those wet eyes measured my stature. “Or I can summon another.”

  Without thinking, without understanding the true reason why she picked cruelty, why she chose exactly as I knew she would, Jade named, “The fresh-changed male from the hall. I want him.”

  What she wanted, deep down, was to irritate me. Because no matter what her father stripped from her memories, she knew. Somewhere in that mess, she knew she was mine, and desired a display of my regard.

  Spying from the shadows, I’d seen the way she’d salivated for the male. And yes, I was envious—black blood boiling jealousy I’d never expose. Not where the Devil might see.

  Here minds must be kept blank. Here one never lied.

  After all, the truth could conceal far more than any subterfuge. Jade was too free with her feelings, those fleeting childlike things.

  Even that I loved about her.

  My blind little mistress still had her panties caught around her thighs, I could almost see a sliver of her beautiful cunt. I certainly could smell it.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” Her whip-like snap, her embarrassment and anger… even after all her lovers, she was still so innocent.

  “You’re beautiful, Jade.” Especially when she blushed.

  Finding her outrage and pulling it about the sad, frightened, and cracked parts of herself, she filled weakness with rage. Glue settled into a damaged spirit, my princess lashing out. “I hate you.”

  “That can’t be helped.”

  She hated when my voice remained even in the face of her anger. Hated it. But what was I supposed to do, quote sonnets to her? Sing? I was forbidden from courting her. I was forbidden from wooing her.

  Darius knew.

  He’d seen it when I’d first set eyes on the infant, and he’d laughed. A pealing, cackle of evil mirth I could still hear echo between my ears. The honor of guarding his offspring, the demotion from favored assassin, assured I’d know torment every waking hour. Forced to watch her fall in love, forced to see her fucked by multitudes. Forced to watch her father use her in the most horrendous of ways.

  I had made mistakes over the last century, and she had paid for them. But I am also the only reason she still breathed.

  My aching cock had been in her for two minutes, forty-seven seconds. I could have come on that first thrust… but it would have only made her sad.

  My starving cock had been in her after a century of longing, and it had been done to punish us both.

  I
wouldn’t fail her again, but I was also not giving up my night of her company. “Come now, Jade.” Helping her stand, I dared much. Lace in my fingers, I pulled up her panties, my features perfectly controlled.

  Hers… were not.

  Batting my hands away, she pulled down her skirt and put as much distance between us as she could. Straight to a side table bearing a decanter of her favorite wine she went—difficult to acquire wine I had procured for her and ordered to be available in her rooms. It was difficult to acquire because I had bought every last bottle I could find the very night I’d first seen her try it. Three cellars in this city were packed with cases of the rare vintage, doled out by me for her without her knowledge.

  Red fluid hit her tongue, that moment of recognition, the flicker of appreciation when the flavor profile worked its magic. It calmed her, just enough.

  These little things. These small moments I gave her…

  “Repair your appearance before Lawrence arrives. Should you let him live, you don’t want there to be talk.”

  Exasperated, she kept her back to me yet snarled over her shoulder. “I’m not going to kill him.”

  That remained to be seen.

  She fed like the demon who’d bred her. Not always, and the lad had a greater chance of survival considering she’d already had a taste of me. But when she starved, as she was wont to do, she was as messy as a freshly-turned babe.

  Pride, alluring and adorable, Jade reeked of it as she smoothed her hair. Silver handled brush I had obtained from a long-dead Russian noble in her hand, ran through jet locks. All that raven glory was caught up again, tied back, beautiful, vulnerable throat on display. Almost every trinket in this room, every last treasure, an unknown gift from me.

  A knock came to the door.

  Jade poured herself another glass of wine. She made the nervous male wait.

  Cruel.

  Maybe she would let him live…

  On that note, I was wrong. Detached from the scene, unmoving from the same spot where I’d penetrated her thirty-eight minutes fifty-four seconds ago, I stood by as she unleashed what she really was on the boy.

  His first mistake was trying to fight back when she’d drained him just a little too much. It was the only time Jade was stronger than the rest of us, and whatever deeply set inferiority her father had fostered made a bully of the starved girl.

  The harder they fought, the more violent she grew, the deeper she drank. Someone should have warned the child. Daywalkers couldn’t help but kill.

  When it was done, when her dress was ruined with immortal blood and the life had gone out of the rival male’s eyes, the flash of regret in hers came. As it always did.

  I would have killed him outside of these rooms, my jealousy in that moment was so acute. I longed to wrench his head from his shoulders, to tear off the cock she’d ridden as she’d feasted. She’d made him cum in his frenzy to survive her.

  Sexual quota met for the night, but there wouldn’t be a child.

  Jade would carry no male’s child but mine. We had eternity to assure it.

  Disengaging from the corpse, its sorry, flaccid cock falling from her body, Jade failed to disguise her self-loathing.

  My feet began to move, carrying me toward her because I could never resist. “Bathe yourself. I shall choose what you will wear.”

  Voice small, she stared down at what she’d done. “Please leave me alone, Malcom.”

  Never. Never for a single instant was she ever free of me. “No.”

  “You’ve made your point!” The nearest treasure went flying, shattering against the conservatory’s bullet proof glass.

  A Fabergé egg. Irreplaceable. I’d acquired it for her tenth birthday.

  Ignoring her common outburst, I refilled her abandoned glass of wine, wondering what it was about that vintage that pleased her so profoundly. I’d never had it on my tongue, not when it was for her.

  Someday I’d taste Jade’s after she’d consumed this drink. Maybe it would perfume her flavor. Maybe it would calm her when I drank from that perfect vein between her creamy thighs.

  She took the offered glass, vibrant eyes weighing the temptation to throw it in my face. Instead she sipped, rinsing the taste of that lesser male from her mouth.

  “Take a bath.” Wash the stink of another off your skin. “You’ve had a complicated day. You’ll feel better if you allow your body to relax.”

  I love you. I love you so much that I broke an almost century-long pact and whispered it in your ear while you wept.

  “I’ll clean this up.” Already I was dragging the corpse by the ankle toward her door. Servants would be called and the blood removed. Ours was an efficient hell.

  Frustrated, tired, my darling said, “Malcom. You don’t have to stay…”

  “Your father ordered me to give him a grandchild.” And these rooms were made of glass, the moon was high, and very little was more interesting for my people to watch, to hate, and to gossip about. Should I leave, it would cause her more harm than good.

  “But I…” Blue eyes darting toward the door I’d flung the corpse of her feast through, all the color drained from her face. “I already…”

  She would not be getting away from this. I’d watched every breath of her life and knew every last trick she’d used to humiliate the others. Not a single one would work on me. “There are ways to assure you enjoy it.”

  I knew exactly where to touch her, what pressure she preferred, the order of strokes that would make her scream my name. There was not a single act of coitus she’d participated in that I had not viewed. With modern technology, I even had recordings of the best, so that I might study them and prepare.

  Fresh tears, real tears began to gather in her gaze, and then she pled, she pled beautifully. “My father promised me he’d never let you have me.”

  What was there to say? Only the truth. I’d literally just penetrated her before him. “He is the king of lies.”

  And the things she’d done to earn that promise, the humans she’d allowed sully her skin. Another fragment of her pride crumbled, another flash of the real Jade shining through from underneath.

  “I’ve ordered lamb for your dinner. It will be waiting when you’ve completed your bath.” Her favorite, prepared by a brilliant chef I’d personally turned in 1936 for this express purpose, because daywalkers need more than the blood of their brethren. “You will eat. Afterward we shall play a game of Risk. Beat me, and I’ll allow you to choose a film.”

  A sculpted brow arched, Jade’s hands coming to her hips. “You want to play board games and watch a movie?”

  Is that not what humans did? Yes. Yes, it was. Jade loved human things, human toys, human bodies. Modern human customs…

  It was adorable, reminded me of my long-lost youth.

  I drove the point home. “If you’d rather, there is a hunt planned throughout the premises for tonight’s entertainment. The humans are to be set free from the pens, led to believe they might escape, and chased for sport. A great prize is being offered to the vampire who gathers the most ears.”

  Like me, she knew what the prize would be “A night with me…”

  “There is no greater prize than you, Jade.”

  Shifting her weight, my love took a step toward her bathing chamber. “I don’t want to terrorize humans and cut off their ears.”

  Exactly my point. “Then we’ll stay in and avoid unpleasantness.”

  As she soaked in a tub crafted of solid gold, as she washed off the other male and her disgusting perfume, I chose her clothing for the night. Modest silk pajamas and a blue robe to adorn her limbs.

  Hair wet, face devoid of paint. Purely herself with the artifice scrubbed off, she took a seat, drank her wine, and faced me over the game board.

  Of course, I let her win.

  The film of her choosing was Seven Samurai, a movie so long it assured the sun would chase me away before the story concluded. Smirking, I
allowed her this rebellion, horrifying her a moment later when I drew her feet to my lap and began to carefully paint her toenails a soft pink.

  I didn’t need to read her thoughts to know she grasped it was this or be fucked by a creature she hated even more than herself.

  I’m not a doll, her eyes screamed. You can’t just dress me up and paint me!

  Blowing on her toes, I ignored the silent protest, too caught up in the fact that I was touching her, that the arch of her foot rested on my palm… that it might be centuries before I’d be permitted to do something so intimate again.

  Before dangerous thoughts might follow on that wave of realization, I switched off feeling. I became blank. Then I met her eyes and stated, “The new feeding schedule will be enforced starting tomorrow—every evening, under my supervision, until you can learn to feed without killing your prey.”

  Lips curling, a hint of undescended fang catching the light, Jade threatened me like a kitten poking a tiger. “I thought you wanted me to feed from you.”

  “The option stands.” Chest puffing out, arms flexing as if I’d already had her pinned, I smiled right back. Unlike my timid kitten, I let the full length of my fangs slip down. “But even at your worst, you don’t stand a chance of overpowering me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  So I offered my wrist, knowing she’d reject potent blood half the females in this flock would kill to taste.

  Nose in the air, she turned her head. Predictable. Adorable. And mine for another two hours.

  Chapter Ten

  When the sun’s approaching rays began to pinken the sky, I felt the burn itch and scratch anywhere flesh was exposed. Still I sat beside my Jade, her film nearing an end, and her easy snores divine.

  She’d fallen asleep in my near presence, a thing that had not happened since she was a child.

  What a human thing to do. After all, vampires didn’t sleep; not in this way.

  We became dead, we even rotted. Another reason immortal vanity was an endless cycle. Wake, bathe and deny the rotting truth with paint, and silk, and rare jewels.