Cathedral Manuscript-WIDE FINAL

by Addison Cain

  Shuddering, I pulled my claw from his chest, and moved myself far away. The room went ice cold, my skin bumping, more shivers following. And now it was full dark.

  “I… I have to get ready for tonight.”

  Why did he have to pursue every time I retreated? Why couldn’t this man just leave me alone? While I shrank into myself, while I tried to rub heat into my arms, the bastard toyed with my hair. Just like he always did when he really wanted to piss me off. “You’re not attending the fundraiser this evening. The excuses have already been sent. I don’t trust you not to approach Senator Parker.”

  Screw that. Defiance stole my chill. “I’m going to marry Ethan.”

  It was hardly a whisper. “We’ll see.”

  “If you try to take him from me like you took Gerard, I’ll kill you.” Slapping the fingers away he thought might trace my jaw, I dropped fang and made sure he heard every word. “Do you hear me, Malcom? I’ll see you dead no matter the consequences. And then I will hunt your children, and their children, and their children. I’ll see your entire line demolished.”

  There was a look in his eyes, something utterly unsetting when he purred, “Then you better start feeding so you might gain the strength you’ll need. Not a single challenger in seven hundred years has been able to take me down, child.”

  And we were back where we’d begun. A feeding schedule.

  “Let’s get this over with.” That’s when I noticed the cut of his sweater exposed his neck, and my panic returned. “Not from you!”

  “Yes, from me. And then from another where you will practice restraint. There will be penalties if you kill your dinner.”

  This had to be a joke. A barb because of my embarrassing slip last night. “Last night was an accident…”

  Rolling up his sleeves to expose strong forearms, Malcom ignored my complaint. “And starting tonight you’ll learn how to prevent them. Starting tonight, you’ll learn restraint.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Malcom

  She argued with me for an hour, just as I knew she would. Jade argued, she threw things, she went through the stages of denial, even begging so prettily it took a sheer force of will not to grow hard and frighten her.

  I believe she sensed my arousal anyway, where tearful begs were abandoned in favor of her making a break for the door.

  Never run from a predator.

  My speed could not be beaten by one so young or weak, and the violence her act inspired caused me to be rougher with her than I’d intended. Which in hindsight, might not have been so bad a mistake. Jade’s pride was legendary; crushing it was nothing but good for her.

  It also solved the dilemma of how to inspire her to bite. This hissing, scrappy monster salivated for a chance to harm the male who pinned her in place and held her by the hair. Snapping a quick bite into my own wrist, I assured she’d latch with proper placement, and rubbed my taste on her mouth.

  The sound she made, the half-scream, half-moan, and I was fully hard. Cock weeping. Just how I wanted this first enforced experience to proceed, I pulled her back to my chest, sat us both upon the bed, and wrapped the snarling kitten in a tangle of my limbs.

  With her distracted by the feed, with both her hands gripping my arm so she might gorge, I was free to begin.

  It started with a featherlight kiss to her neck, over her jugular, so soft it was only a whisper. Every night I would do this until my touch was no longer associated with whatever horrid thing her father had planted in her mind. Until King Darius undid this work, my attention she’d slowly learn to abide. Another kiss, and another, trailing down her vulnerable throat. Innocent as it appeared, this very kind of affection did not exist between vampires. Not at the throat. Never at the throat.

  Unless they were extremely intimate.

  Cautious with her, finding she was far deeper into a feeding haze than I might hope for, I set her hair free, and let my other hand wander. I dared stroke the daughter of the king under the pretense of comfort, and then I took advantage of a cruel man’s poor word choice.

  “Give me a grandchild.”

  Sitting beside my love in her conservatory I had focused on those words. Trapped behind stone while Jade slept in the sun, I’d broken down and rebuilt my thoughts until the only concept that might be pieced from my brain was that of obedience.

  I was doing the king’s will in this.

  My touch ghosted between her legs. Soft, creamy thigh, satin panties. I didn’t dare intrude past that soft fabric, not yet, but so thin a barrier made it easy to still tease. I circled her clitoris, so delicately that the flood of wetness that instantly soaked the gusset of her panties astonished me.

  The girl redoubled her efforts to gnaw my wrist in half, leaving me to smile against her neck. This was what I had been waiting an eternity for. And this was what I would take.

  Skimming my lips to the shell of her ear, I murmured warmly, “Jade. You’ve had enough.”

  Just as I knew she would, she growled.

  It took every ounce of my self-control not to tease her ear with a lick. “This is your final warning, Jade. Disengage.”

  Have I mentioned that she’s greedy? My greedy, little terror dared draw a deeper pull of my blood.

  The delicious ache of fang dropping inspired my cock to jump where it was nestled between her cheeks, the urge to tear at that soaked satin shielding her cunt and fuck her through the rest of her feed so overpowering I groaned in delighted anguish. But this was a lesson on restraint.

  For both of us.

  So I acted.

  Driving razor sharp canines straight into her throat, I hit a vein with practiced precision, and made sure it was not a bite of pleasure. Jade squealed, knocked straight from her stupor into horror, when I took a taste of my female.

  She screamed all the harder once my wrist was free to twist us both into the perfect posture for feeding. Like this I could use her as I wished. She could not break free, yet her blood freely filled my mouth and warmed a dead heart until it raced.

  I swallowed a single, perfect gulp. I drank of my love straight from the source. Not stolen licks of spilled blood left behind from one of her punishments. Not the desperate gathering of her tears on my tongue when I moved so fast she hadn’t fathomed what I’d done.

  “Malcom?”

  By the Gods, she was so afraid. And I wasn’t sure if it was because her life was in the grip of my teeth, or if it was the way her legs had spread and her panties had soaked. I cupped her there, warmed her before I retracted my fangs from her bleeding throat and let out a guttural growl at her ear. “You were told to disengage.”

  Her only answer was a whimper.

  Last night’s feedings, this morning’s cup of blood, and her most recent binge on my wrist had already strengthened her, the wounds on her neck closing while I took all the damn time I desired, licking them clean.

  Poor, trembling thing wasn’t accustomed to her food being so much stronger, not after her beautiful fangs had found their prize. Not when I stood over every feeding she’d ever had, threatening even elder vampires to remain still or I would see them ended when it was over.

  Ancients tolerated her brazen feasts. Younglings died.

  She sounded like the little girl she had not been in so many decades. “My father will see you punished for hurting me.”

  I could not help my smile, or the touch of conceit warming my voice. “A master’s bite is a common reprimand in training. If you don’t wish to feel its sting, learn.”

  She squirmed, as if only just noticing my hand over her sex. “This is—”

  “Tell me now, before I escort you into the other room. Have you had enough of my blood to keep your wits through a proper feeding?” Strengthening my grip on her just enough to give a hint of discomfort, I drove my point home. “If you lie, and if you kill our guest, your punishment will be worse than a gentle nip on the neck. So think on your answer, Jade. Do you need more of me before you a
ttempt to feed?”

  More fight went out of her. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “Why? Are you expecting to fail?”

  Yes. We both knew she had zero restraint or self-control. “If you fail, I’m going to make you stronger.”

  Jade hated when I spoke this way. She hated it. Already I could feel her tensing even further, and considering the punishments I’ve doled out over the years, I grasped why. But I am gentle compared to her father… and oh so careful.

  The fact that she wasn’t fighting harder to extricate herself from my grapple, the fact she hadn’t fallen into a full-fledged panic, demonstrated that my less than idle threats were working. However, there is still a great deal of bite to her question. “Are you going to let me up?”

  Smiling into her hair, I consider how much longer I might get away with holding her so close. King Darius placed very specific rules to prevent me from ever earning her love: I’m forbidden from courting her. He will always unravel any progress I’ve made circumventing that decree, leaving the girl with nothing left but hate for me as he walks away laughing. It’s with a delicate touch that I seek to upend and take what I can between his visits with his child. Considering I broke a vow by confessing that I loved her, knowing what that will cost me should my transgression be uncovered, I’m willing to bend the rules a great deal this round.

  But even I can’t break them.

  Not yet, at least

  “Answer the question, Jade. Do you need more of my blood before you attempt to feed?”

  “I… no.”

  And right there I knew I’d won. She would kill the vampire waiting to serve as supper, and I would gain another inch in this eternal battlefield.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jade

  “I won’t do it.”

  “You will.”

  The way he murmured his easy retort, the way I could feel it against the flesh at my throat… I didn’t need to see Malcom’s eyes to know they glowed. If my father were Satan, this infuriating male was Lucifer. A fallen, devious angel. God’s lost Morning Star.

  Again, and with every fiber of denial I might muster, I spat my refusal. “I will not do it, Malcom.”

  “At what time did you think you were being given an option?” Pushing my hair behind my ear, tucking it back despite its crusted, unwashed state, he allowed his touch to trail over the delicate shell.

  Practically naked, hardly a scrap of silk could hide my shiver. No, all I had to hide behind was old, dried blood and dirt.

  I wanted to cry.

  I had cried, in front of this man.

  Seven nights of punishment, each progressively worse, because I couldn’t… I couldn’t not kill my prey. And this one was already sobbing.

  A pure-born vampire child, no older than twelve. A terrified, blood-fat babe dragged into the same pit I’d been thrown in when I’d made a genuine endeavor to kill my guardian four days past.

  It was the first real violence I’d attempted in all the decades of my life, outside of the feed. Every last cell, each singular thought, had been focused to a point. I’d sprung, used every pathetic trick I knew, and he’d… toyed with me.

  Laughed.

  Mocked each swipe of my arm as he waltzed under the best assault I could muster. Faster than a human’s eyes might catch, our bodies had danced. I’d even drawn his blood. One single slice across his cheek, and then I’d been forced to watch his tongue dart out to catch the black rivulet I’d earned.

  Mesmerized by the movement, I’d ceased flailing. I’d stared. Hungry. So many meals I’d made of this male in the last waxing of the moon, that I craved. And when I hesitated, eyes stuck on that tongue, he acted. My cheek hit the wall. Old, musty brick and mortar leaving the taste of old dust and pain on my lips. My fangs ached, fully extended and throbbing.

  My body, crushed, bent, manipulated, went slack from pain as if it were pleasure. I’d then done something unspeakable. I’d turned in his arms, eyes locked to his blood smeared lips, the thief tongue who’d stolen what was mine, and I’d put my mouth to his to get it back.

  Devouring what he’d gathered, sucking his tongue, scraping it with my aching teeth. Licking at his mouth, even as his cheek healed. I’d bitten his lower lip, wrapping my legs around his waist. It wasn’t a kiss. I was wet and he was erect, but it wasn’t sex.

  It was devastation.

  Senseless, starved for more, I went straight to the nearest pulsating source. I’d raked my teeth over a black-hearted pulse. When my fangs punctured, I’d come. And… so had he. Because I’d jammed my hand down his slacks, and it was only his greater strength preventing it that kept his cock out of the hungry cunt that wept over his crown like a dribbling poison fountain.

  I’d fought to put him inside me, as I did with most of my male food. Habit. Survival. The quota.

  “Disengage.”

  My cunt was still milking nothingness in that ill-spent orgasm. Sucking upward as if his spattered, warm spend on my lower lips might be dragged inside. Within my fist, the shape of his member, I felt it all. Each pulsation. Each spurt I aimed. Malcom’s seed drenched my labia, saturated my swollen clitoris… his blood running down my throat.

  I ground down, fought, and lost, more focused on receiving, of being breached, that my locked jaw unhinged.

  “Good girl.”

  And though he’d already come, though my climax had begun to abate, he punched forward to penetrate me in that moment—pushed his spend as deep as it might go, and held me there, spread against him, full of cock, startled, and silent.

  He didn’t fuck me. He didn’t move. Instead he made me feel him, twitching inside me, flexing his meat so it might jump, so I’d have to meet his eyes, know what I’d done, and feel every last inch of him.

  “Jade. It doesn’t have to be all violence or games.” His voice was velvet, those glowing eyes warm as molten gold. “When you’re ready, I’ll show you.”

  What the fuck was there to say to that? I’d tried to fuck my food, lost my senses and my temper as he batted around my feeble attempts to end him.

  I hated this male, and I had done this.

  “You don’t need to be scared. I’ve always kept you safe, even from yourself. I always will.” His cock jumped again, as if he’d willed it to spill a second burst of seed against my womb despite a lack of friction.

  This was a level of intimacy even Ethan didn’t press. No, he’d always spurt and then jumped up to shower. He certainly hadn’t plugged my body, held me open, and tried to talk to me. Not unless it was sweet platitudes and praise for the glorious things I’d just done for his pleasure.

  Out of my element was an understatement. I had just tried to kill this man. I wanted this man dead more than I wanted anything… except perhaps my father’s love. The strangest sensation crept over my heart, one I’d never had and couldn’t place.

  An unnerving desire for my mommy.

  Whom I’d never met and was long since dead.

  “Whatever you’re feeling, allow it. But do not speak it out loud. You must learn to be more cautious with the opinions you voice. Thoughts can be arranged, words spoken can’t be retracted.”

  Under everything was the very thing he’d cautioned me not to acknowledge. Because saying it out loud, giving life to it, meant that Darius would pick it from my thoughts and toy with it. Still my lips moved. “My father is never going to love me.”

  “No, he won’t.”

  Spread wide, back to old brick, spine scraped, and pussy still full, I forgot my body, the mess I had made, and was too buried in thoughts to care. “And for eternity, I’m going to be alone.”

  “Jade…” Malcom spoke my name with such weight, as if he actually cared and knew what it was I carried.

  In that moment, what was there to do? I’d lost the battle, I’d shamed myself beyond repair. Even still I had his cock in my body—one he didn’t thrust or use to give me pleasure. It was just there, forc
ing me to recognize the incursion… so I did the only thing that made any sense. I notched my head back, and smashed it into his so hard I felt the bones of my face break.

  The pain was excruciating, beautiful, even as nothingness stole in.

  And I woke in this pit. No doors, no windows, no way in or out. Just a round room of dust and darkness. My shredded clothing from the fight was gone, no pallet was on the floor for my comfort. Empty, naked, cold, utterly alone, I took my punishment without complaint.

  Left with nothing but my thoughts, without the luxury to which I was accustomed, without human background noise and social media and farce. A well-fed daywalker with a mind full of ugliness that was chilling to be alone with. What I would have given for Ethan’s stupid jokes or irresponsible smile: any distraction from the mental racket.

  Before my father had flung me against the wall and spilled my brains on the Cathedral floor, I’d had a wet-nurse. A human who lived in a state of terror that I assumed was normal because it was all I had ever known. She did care for me, and not just out of a sense of duty… or slavery. Her lap was warm when she’d read me stories. Her voice, when she sang, was sweet. I remember the taste of her milk in my mouth. But I cannot remember her name. Maybe that segment of my brain matter was left back on the stones, and I wondered in those lonely hours what else hadn’t been put back in my skull.

  Had I loved ponies once? Was my favorite color purple?

  Because of my father’s wrath, there were pieces of me left to be trampled into the floor by careless feet all over the Cathedral. There were pieces of me missing.

  “Are you hungry?” Malcom. I couldn’t see him in the dark, I didn’t know if he’d been there all along, or if he moved through the shadows and magicked himself outside of the pit.

  “No.” For once I wasn’t responding to be difficult. I really wasn’t hungry, in any way. Not after the amount of blood I’d been coerced to swallow since the feeding schedule had been inflexibly enforced.