Cathedral Manuscript-WIDE FINAL

by Addison Cain

  Light blazed, a single small candle that was over-bright in such a dark place. Dressed in his impeccably tailored and pressed slacks, a fitted sweater highlighting the physique of a natural predator, his typical expression, Malcom held the flame and looked me over. “Stand up. Come to me and drink.”

  It felt like the same conversation we’d had for decades. His demands, my pointless, irritated responses of denial. “Fuck off, Malcom.”

  “You could have cast a gate and left this place at any time. Why are you still here?”

  “This is where you put me, isn’t it?” After I’d attacked then molested him. After he’d penetrated me to make a solid and twitching point that I really was the world’s greatest fool.

  Malcom minutely tilted his head. “Answer the question, Jade.”

  Irritated he was going to make me admit it aloud, I snarled, “For the same reason I take taxis everywhere. I don’t know how to cast a gate!”

  “I have watched you cast gates since you could walk. You used to laugh and lead me on a chase through the Cathedral that I found quite… frustrating.” But the way he’d shared that memory sounded anything but frustrated.

  “And then my brains splattered the floor, and I forgot how to do it.”

  “You cast a gate last month, after a feed so that you might leave the Cathedral and return to your apartment before Ethan left for his business trip to Paris.”

  Absurd. “I traveled by cab.”

  Another fractional tick to his head. “And here I thought you were smarter than to trust every memory in your head. Consider where you are, Jade. Consider why.”

  Bare ass to the dirt, back to the wall, I let my head loll back. Lazy in my perusal of him, admittedly forlorn and equally apathetic, I measured all I knew. Like how this man had been responsible for the death of Gerard ages ago, and how I swore I’d never forgive him.

  As if my thoughts were bared, he nodded. Squatting down, as if to exist on my level, Malcom waited.

  He who spoke first lost. Wasn’t that the common saying?

  The perpetual loser, I broke the silence on a sigh. “How much longer are you going to keep me in here?”

  He set the candle atop the dirt, red wax dripping, and began to roll up the sleeve of his sweater so his wrist might glow on display. “Forever, perhaps… it seems it’s doing the spoiled princess some good. A quiet time-out until you feel like trying.”

  “I’m not in the mood to play with you anymore, Malcom.” And that was it. I was tired, disgusted, empty, and too full of blood to consider the wrist he held out.

  Soft as a breeze, his fingers danced over my hair. “Were you playing when you tried to tear off my head?”

  I could hardly remember the rage that had set me feral. “Yes, my favorite game.”

  “Were you playing when you tried to fuck me?”

  Head in my hands, dirty hair covering my face, I couldn’t even try to defend such an unspeakable thing. “I have a quota…”

  “Ahhh, but one you have failed to meet for the last three days.” But this disapproval he so thickly poured on me was not about required sex. It was about the rotting bits of torn apart immortals that decorated my circular cell and perfumed the air. I’d failed to restrain myself even a little, and it wasn’t for lack of trying.

  As if I might explain myself, I muttered, “You’ve only brought me females.”

  “But you could have cast a gate…”

  There was no keeping the cracking weakness from my voice. “What is it you want from me?”

  There was no answer, just a long incomprehensible look that was hard to read by the light of a single candle.

  Hating pregnant pauses, having lived a life of filling them up with false laughter or banal jokes, I didn’t know what to do. What would ease the monumental itch that vibrated in my veins when he looked at me in such a way?

  Unfurling from his crouch, he stalked closer, wrist out so I might drink.

  The now familiar taste of him so near, the smell, and my mouth began to water. “I’m not hungry, Malcom.”

  “Good.” Bumping my lips with the cool flesh of his inner wrist, he added, “Then perhaps tonight you might show mercy.”

  My teeth sunk in, as if my mouth were separate from my psyche. And I looked up at him like a dirty, starving waif as I fed. The entire time he held my eyes. The entire time he praised me, petting my hair as if I were some puppy.

  And then I heard the crying.

  The child had been dumped in my oubliette. A clean little vampire girl in a blue dress. A replica of the one I’d worn that day. Red satin bow, hair in curls. All that was missing was a fluffy white kitten.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “It’s simple enough. Don’t kill her.”

  But the sobbing, begging, traumatized kid was so frail one bite—even from a weakling daywalker—would probably rip her neck in half.

  Thick, black, male immortal blood coated my tongue, mixed with the dirt on my face after I’d spat out his wrist to pace. Bare feet crunched over rotting limbs, squishing old meat into fetid dirt. Bone parting from bloated flesh squelched. I kicked a skull, half the face flying one direction, the bone smashing into the wall just as mine had long ago burst like an over-ripe fruit before my people.

  The child screamed, clawing at the walls as if she might get out.

  I ignored her, tearing at my hair, looking every bit the monster that I was. Clumps of black came away in my fists, bare feet still slapping through the remains of my last meals. Like some demon from Grimm’s fairy tales, I hunched and hissed, aware I was so ridiculous that even I had to scoff.

  “Whenever you’re ready, Jade.”

  Assurance, positive reinforcement? Why the hell did he use that tone as if instructing me on how to play the flute? Just lift the instrument to your mouth, purse your lips, and blow. It’s that simple, silly rabbit.

  Under my breath, scattered, I muttered, “I think I’d rather play the harp…”

  “What?” Real confusion was in his abrupt reply.

  I was going completely insane, that’s what. “Malcom, I will drink from you every day, from any vein you want. I’ll do it on my knees before you. Bow to you as if you were my king. Do not make me kill a child!”

  He spread his arms as if to call me to him, and I flew like a bird to his fist. Soft cashmere hit my cheek, molding myself to the creature however I thought it would best please him if that’s what it took to get that little girl to stop screaming. Lifted, cradled, maneuvered so my lips neared the juiciest of arteries in his neck, I sunk in the bite he silently ordered. And I drank until I thought I might be sick.

  No hint of weakness came with loss of blood. Malcom didn’t stagger. The arms around my body didn’t twitch or sag. I swallowed far more of him than I ever had before, past the point of my discomfort, and then swallowed more.

  A never-ending fountain of black, primeval blood.

  Full vampires could eat dozens of humans a night, one after the next like popping grapes between their lips. Malcom, I suspected, fed a great deal, though I’d never once seen him do so before me.

  “You’ve had enough, Jade.”

  Truer words, even with my lips to his neck, my fangs in his veins, each swallow had a backwash of equal size. A vomit of blood that waved from my belly to splash against his skin for me to fight to swallow again.

  I was shaking from the effort to keep the sick down. Overfed, for days… and still I’d torn the bodies apart.

  And I’d do it to that little girl too.

  Cuddling me to him, petting my hair like his prize kitten, he hummed at my ear. “Take her throat. One sip. Just one. And that will be the end of it.”

  But I’d run to him, I’d let him hold me. I’d drunk more and more and more. Hadn’t we agreed?

  I couldn’t think straight with her screaming. Another wave of blood purged from my belly, falling over my lips to dribble down my chin like a cheesy zombie horror flick. I
must have looked like the worst kind of demon.

  I certainly felt like it.

  Maybe it wasn’t so bad in my pit filled with splintered bones and rotting organs.

  “Oh, and Jade…” My hair was gathered in a fist, toes set to the floor so I was made to look up at the menace I’d smeared in filth. “If you kill the child, Ethan will die in the most diabolical of ways. I’ll toy with him. I’ll make him suffer, maybe for years, until his mind is nothing but a waste of human mush. And then I’ll make you eat him too.”

  Fucking asshole.

  Threats and mind games and blue dresses and pain. Cock and fucking and quotas and eons of slavery.

  Child’s brains scattered on the floor, the half dead carcass dragging itself to its glass coffin to die.

  No more nursemaids, or cuddles, or milk.

  My virginity had been sold when I’d bled as humans do. The man had left money on the table, laughing when it was over, and I asked for him to keep me.

  “Didn’t think your kind existed anymore.” Because his cum had been tainted a soft pink from the breaking of my hymen. And he’d checked before tossing cash to the nightstand the brothel’s madam would collect after he’d done up his pants.

  His name had been Gerard.

  He’d died in the war despite his family’s attempts to keep him from the draft. Malcom had assured it. Somewhere on a beach in Normandy.

  And in my mouth was a little girl’s neck, and on my tongue was the pure-born thing that gave her eternity. She tasted of heaven.

  And it made me sick.

  Still I swallowed.

  I always swallowed, every last thing my father made me do.

  Staggering, I dropped the doll in the blue dress, half-dead atop my pile of rot. Her heart beat on.

  Mine raced, raced so fast I was sure it would burst. Blood came from my nose, and my eyes, and my ears. It came from my womb just as it had that first time.

  “Jade?”

  Was that fear in Malcom’s voice?

  Bits of someone’s rib cage jabbed into my spine, the whole of my body seizing. Pupils blown, I stared into the dark, whispering, “I loved Gerard.”

  Lips to my ear, hard body pressing mine to stillness in the gore, Malcom whispered, “There never was a Gerard.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  When I woke, he was there. When I slept, he was there. I ordered Chinese takeout, he was there, beside me and silent at the table as I saturated fried wontons in mustard sauce and stared into space.

  Malcom no longer relied on the cameras to track my every move. Not even the sun kept him from the darker corners of my apartment. He thought to converse with me.

  As if sitting in Ethan’s chair, moving out Ethan’s things and putting his things in their place made him a fixture in my world!

  Refusing to look at him, trying my damndest for days to ignore him, I finally met the startling clarity of his eyes, and said, “I don’t love you in return.”

  “I know you don’t.” Reaching for an eggroll, Malcom made a show of joining my dinner. He even took a bite, chewed, and spit it out in a napkin so quickly it was almost unseen. “These are disgusting.”

  It had been two weeks. No texts from Ethan. His clothing, his collection of designer watches, all packed up and shipped out before I’d been released from the pit. He had not come to grovel, to say he’d like to keep me.

  His uncle had not emailed with demands for wedding dates. And instead of mourning like I wanted to, I was saddled with a lurking houseguest who’d dared hang his trousers and sweaters in my closet.

  The male used my ironing board.

  Made me coffee in the morning and brought me fresh croissants.

  And he touched me almost constantly unless sunlight kept him at bay.

  Even now, under the table, his foot pressed against mine. And if I moved, he followed. My routine was so programed in his brain that he handed me cosmetics as I painted my face.

  He’d stolen my perfume. My credit cards. Every last bit of jewelry Ethan had ever given me.

  When I’d demanded my necklace back, Malcom had deeply frightened me. I was pinned and his fangs were in my throat so quickly, I wasn’t even sure how we’d gone from the walk-in closet to my bedroom. He drank without permission while I fumbled beneath him and gasped for air. It wasn’t until I was weak and limp that he pulled away, wiping red blood from his mouth.

  A new necklace lay around my neck. One bearing a ruby the size of Manhattan. A weighty choker crafted in the old world by artisans and jewelers long dead. It was nothing like the sleek, modern pieces Ethan’s assistant would choose for me. It was a treasure long kept, hoarded, and draped over my throat as if he’d waited millennia to put it there.

  A quick flick of his nail and black blood dripped down his neck. Warmth splashed my lips, the salt of ever-living flesh followed. Drained, addicted, I drank. Far, far more than I should have.

  It was the orgasm that snapped me out of the feed.

  The bastard had dared to put his fingers inside me, my skirt bunched and my panties stretched by his fist. When our eyes met, mine full of accusation, his thumb brushed my clit, and I shuddered.

  “This time I want to watch you.” And he moved his hand again.

  It wasn’t just the shock of it all, it was the hunger. There had been no suitors arriving demanding their chance to seed the vampire king’s daughter. There had been no human males seduced in seedy bars or dragged into dark corners before the clock struck midnight. There had been no playful touch from a selfish lover or his blonde toy waiting to lick my pussy when said lover was done.

  Starved for touch… that’s what I was as I lay under Malcom’s weight and felt my hips rock of their own accord to the pressure of him strumming my clit, riding the fingers that hooked and beckoned my insides to run with lubricant.

  I came so quickly, my eyes on his, that I didn’t understand what was happening until a cry broke from parted, swollen lips. Lips he kissed when dumbstruck incredulity took the fight from me.

  His stilled hand parked inside my pussy, a cunt that tremored and twitched despite my horror, refused to budge. Even when I muttered a sad, “My father…”

  “Isn’t here.

  Was that anger in the unflappable Malcom’s voice? Anger toward his king?

  “I’ll be punished.” Horribly punished, Malcom’s house arrest having forced me to break several of the rules I survived by.

  Fingers squelching from my fluids, the male teased every last nerve below. “Let me make love to you. If there is a child, there will be no reprimand.”

  “Jesus.” Was that my breathless voice, my head tossed back as if I might close myself off to all of him if I just refused to look. “No.” I was going to die of pleasure in a blood-drunk haze of agonizing and instant lust. “Malcom, stop.”

  And he did, rearing back to sit over where I was spread and ready. Licking his fingers of my juices as he studied all that lay before him. “What do you want in return for letting me have my way in this?”

  Was he out of his mind? I couldn’t even stop the laugh that jiggled my breasts and drew his eye to the neckline of my rumpled dress. “The centuries have set you mad.”

  There was no moving him, by strength or by power. A point proven when his finger came to trace the swell of my breast and no grip on his wrist might stop him. “I’d rather not force you, Jade. Name your price.”

  “Did you think playing house with me would warm me up?” Anger set my heart pounding, narrowed my eyes, and layered a hiss in my voice. “You make me sick.”

  No amount of spite seemed to affect the man. In fact, he began to rub himself over me as if he were a cat in heat, soaking the front of his trousers with the tell-tale lubrication that drenched my panties. A full body massage with just a few carefully maneuvered limbs.

  His weight on me. The smell of a delicious, available blood source that left my insides fluttering.

  Tongue flicking
my ear, pelvis grinding against where I’d begun to ache for more, Malcom whispered, “Jade?”

  I would never be able to live with myself, the shame would kill me. “No.”

  Knowing how best to disassemble me, the constant demon in my life offered a greater temptation than I could resist. “Not even for Ethan?”

  My nails dug into Malcom’s back. Lashes flaring, I drew in a breath but found no ready reply.

  “Did it not cross your mind to ask me to change him? You wanted to keep him forever, didn’t you?”

  And then my heart raced for another reason. “But you said…”

  “Give yourself over; let me make love to you, and I will see your human turned. A member of my household, protected by my name. An eternal Ethan to do with as you will. I’ll even see his centuries of service are cut in half.”

  “My father…” Why did all my statements always circle back to Satan?

  “Will enjoy the irony more than you can imagine.” Smirking, Malcom leaned back so I might see his face. “Do we have a deal?”

  “Yes!” I didn’t even need to think about prostituting myself for such a cause. I’d fuck the entire city to have my way in this.

  Unhooking my claws from Malcom’s back, I reached between our bodies so I might undo his fly, but my wrists were caught so quickly I yelped. Pinned over my head, I was trapped again. Next thing I knew, I was being kissed until I grew delirious. And I gave, I gave all of myself to that kiss because I wanted Ethan more than anything in the world. A tongue tasting of my blood, of my pussy juices, of cloves and honey and shadows richer than the rarest Bordeaux danced with mine. Nicked on my fangs, he dripped heaven onto my tongue to mingle with a droplet of blood his quick nip had drawn forth from my lower lip.

  I came.

  From a kiss alone, sensation washing all the way down to my fingertips as his groin rubbed, and rubbed, and rubbed between my legs.

  A curse—I don’t know what language it was—crossed Malcom’s lips. His grip on my wrists grew almost too hard, but the pain had the opposite effect. It left me wanting more, force and pressure delivered in a way Ethan’s human frame could never supply.