Cathedral Manuscript-WIDE FINAL

by Addison Cain

  And forceful.

  She loved me, she just didn’t grasp it fully.

  Around my tongue she garbled her complaint. “Would you stop!”

  Yes. No.

  Set her mouth free? Yes. Remove it from her body? No.

  I tested the soft flesh above the choker, nipped hard enough she gasped. The gasp of pleasure. Unbidden, unexpected despite a full night of lessons.

  “I asked you a question, wife.” There was no resisting trailing my tongue over her ear. “Coffee or blood? Which would you have first?”

  Petulant, fighting her response even as her nipple whorled into tight buds, my Jade said, “I don’t need to feed.”

  “If I fuck you like this, it might hurt.” She’d only get the one warning.

  Though she could walk in the sun, compared to me she was fragile, and I’d left my marks in aches and pains enough. Brushing her folds, I found them wet, but she hissed. It wasn’t the hiss of disgust, it was one of discomfort.

  “No more.”

  Because I loved her, I pulled my fingers away, hovering over her to take in her routed expression. Endearingly trounced in less than five minutes. Excellent progress.

  “I love you. I always have.” And I’d already abstained for decades upon decades.

  Her lip curled, abject perplexity smearing away her usual haughty sneer. “You say that as if it’s a living thing.”

  Tapping my finger to my breastbone, I stated. “It is. It’s here.” I tapped her next. “And here.” Then I looked over her skull, gave it a long stretch of contemplation. “It might take some time to undo your father’s work. I’ll give you patience and refrain from my stronger impulses. But I will still fuck you, and feed you, and layer you with jewels. I’ll also punish and be rough with you, but I swear on all that ever is or was, that it shall only be for your own good.”

  “So you’ll beat me when I disobey?” A fair enough question, as I’d done it before. And always to save her from her father’s hand.

  But there was so much more at stake than broken bones and hurt feelings. “Don’t try to run. You’re only safe where I can see you right now.”

  Sardonic, as if she’d already forgotten she was naked and I was hard, Jade said, “Going to keep me prisoner in this room?”

  “No.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “We’re going out tonight.”

  She could not have been more confused when I pulled my weight away and offered her a hand to rise. “What?”

  “Ethan.” What magic there was in that ugly name. Her entire demeanor shifted from pliant to wary in a blink of a vampire’s eye. “I thought you might want to see him.”

  Distrust, dislike, all the things I didn’t deserve from my wife.

  “We made a deal, Jade. I’ll keep my end. Until it’s appropriate to change him, you’ll have access to see what you traded your eternity for.” Catching a tangle to tuck behind her ear, I gave her the softest smile a warrior might offer.

  After all, my intention was never to frighten her.

  ***

  Jade

  Malcom smiled… and it was the most chilling thing I’d ever beheld. This one had lived too long, his brains warping. He smiled at me as I fed from his wrist; me trying to keep our bodies as separated as possible before he got any ideas and began pawing between my legs again.

  Scratches, gouges, throbbing bruises, and aching joins cleared up as if I’d never known pain a day in my life. Until I was sated and full and like a cat ready to nap, fat and happy.

  A glass of wine was pushed between my pliant fingers, a chilled white I had not seen him procure nor smelled waiting on my nightstand. Mineral, crisp, it cleansed my palate and set me leaning back onto fluffed, char-smeared pillows. Aware I was being managed and manhandled expertly by a creature who knew me better than any other, I was at a loss.

  I asked for a bath.

  Immediately he denied me, Malcom looking over my healed body with a thoughtful eye. Stinking of body odor, sex, and burnt meat. Gritty and sticky and uncomfortable, I pushed past and made three steps toward my bathroom before I was flung back to the bed.

  “I need to pee!”

  Eyes narrowed, he hissed. “You’re lying.”

  Yes, hissed. The same man who’d just spat all his crazy at me in the tender voice of a lover. And yes, I was lying. But I was also intensely uncomfortable with this attention.

  A thought openly crossed his face as if something so common had never occurred to him that I was covered in soot and uncomfortable. “I’ll bathe you.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “And after, I get to choose your clothing for our sojourn. No complaints.”

  This strange journey to see Ethan? Fine. Arms over my chest, I nodded.

  And should have known better. Hours Malcom spent showering my body, his wet, slippery and very naked form pressed to me at all times. My hair was dried, the male working a round brush like a fucking pro. And then right there at my priceless vanity, he bent me forward and thrust in with not so much as a warning.

  My cosmetics spilled, the startled scream from my lips hushed when he pressed his fingers into my mouth.

  Hard, but not fast. Every thrust an exclamation point to an unspoken promise. All the while he held my eyes in the mirror, mangling my noises as fingers stroked my tongue. Massive ruby bouncing at my throat, tits vulgar in how they jiggled, all of me jerked in the tempo set upon me.

  I came from penetration alone. Hard. Far too hard for so little effort on his end. My sleek, styled hair was set in disarray when he pulled out and spun me about. Jerking his fist up and down an ivory white cock that spilled pearls all over my breasts.

  Belly.

  My hairless mound.

  I gaped when open palms rubbed it into my skin like lotion.

  “Lick me clean.” The statement was not a command. It was a test of the waters.

  I wasn’t ready for whatever it was he sought. So I shook my head no. Not even a hint of disappointment took the glow from his eyes when he praised me anyway, Malcom pumping his fist from base to tip, gathering the last drops of his cum and smearing them over the flesh of my hip.

  Bodily turned around, sat back upon my vanity's seat, Malcom went back to brushing my hair, leaning down, that smile intact as he whispered, “You were wet.”

  Chapter Twenty

  I was dressed in white lace… the gown almost bridal. And certainly not one that came from my wardrobe. The man had shopped for me. Everything new, including the underpinnings—my preferred Agent Provocateur encasing breasts and whispering over my pussy. The shoes were blood red, glinting with stones that set off the ruby collar he’d locked around my throat. With the skirt long and clinging, there was only the vaguest flash of a glittering crimson toe when I moved, subtle and considered. This was something Malcom had spent endless hours preparing.

  Bearing in mind he nightly wore the same thing in various shades of black and dark gray, I would not have expected he had it in him to adorn a woman in more than cum.

  My thoughts were crude. I was crude. Malcom was collected to an unnatural level. None of this made sense.

  “Remember, do as you will, but always where I can see you. If you cast a gate, I’ll have to hurt you.” He took my chin before the mirrored elevator taking us to the rooftop restaurant of the prestigious Rothschild building dinged our floor. “And I don’t want to do that.”

  “Your threats, Malcom, are as old as you are.” Eyes to my lips, a strange shiver leaving my flesh to bump, I muttered, “If there is a bridal arch and a priest on the other side of those doors, I’ll set this whole building on fire.”

  “Very funny, Jade.” His hand went to the small of my back, possessive and just a touch too low to state anything but ownership.

  Doors parted, a scene so common I was already bored waiting on the other side. Humans, my humans I’d sheep-dogged over the decades having their boring political conversations, scrounging up millions, be
gging for scraps while wearing Armani. And into an apparent fundraiser for Senator Parker we strolled.

  Noticed.

  Immediately noticed.

  For I had been away for over a week, no Ethan on my arm, arriving with a stranger far more beautiful than any living creature. One who made it very clear that he was not there with me, but that I was there with him.

  He might as well have pissed all over me the way he glared around the room. Mine. Do not touch.

  It didn’t move the humans as it should have. Already the senator descended down upon me, frown fixed above his sagging chin. “You’ll arrange a private chat between me and your father. Technicalities are to be ironed out.”

  I’m not sure why it came over me then, but I was so utterly weary of all of this—these people, their politics, the human idea of wealth. “Let me guess, no check arrived. Short of funds?”

  Never had I spoken with such rudeness to this man. I’d always groveled, and bantered, and submitted to grotesque jokes and a woman’s place.

  The senator’s face went purple, his voice dropping low as if to prevent a further scene. “If this is due to my nephew’s liaison, I can assure you she’ll be kept out of sight.”

  Not removed from the equation, but tucked away so as to save me further embarrassment. “And the baby?”

  I don’t know why I said it, why I dug that dagger in specifically to cause Ethan harm. Because there was no way either the senator or Ethan’s illustrious father knew of the fetus. A child I had just done harm by making it real with words.

  Calculations, considerations of the most unconservative kind worked the wheels in the old republican’s skull. Was it too late for abortion? Could the baby be given away? How much was this going to cost to hide from the tabloids? “Will be sent abroad to school, of course.”

  I really was evil… “Of course.”

  Before the strangest wave of self-reproach might mingle with the unhealed ache in my heart, I heard my name called. With joy. As if the world once again turned because I’d been found. “Jade!”

  Ethan was there, as promised, sauntering over in a ten-thousand-dollar suit. No pregnant blonde beauty at his side. Careful of my red lipstick, he kissed my cheeks in the European style, took my fingers and asked me if I’d care for a drink, already pulling me toward the bar.

  Leaving the senator alone with Malcom, who was infinitely dangerous and smiling again.

  “Listen, I know I should have called.” Running a hand through his golden hair, mussing it perfectly, Ethan gave a self-deprecating grin. “You just threw me out… and I… I you know.”

  “Left me for another woman.”

  “Well”—he stood a bit taller, slightly put out—“I didn’t leave. You had me removed from our house.”

  “My house, where your girlfriend had been living without my knowledge.” And one thing bothered me above all others. “She wore my things.”

  That brought out a grin. “You’re the same size.”

  I didn’t even know how to respond to this, it was like speaking to a happy monkey that had no concept of right or wrong. And considering who I was, all the atrocious things I’d done, I was a bit shaken. “Ethan, apologize this instant.”

  And he did, with great big, wide, shining eyes. “I’m sorry, Jade.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “Of course I do!” This exclamation came with an enthusiastic kiss that felt more for show than real. Because Ethan knew never to kiss lips painted blood red. Not unless he had a chance to repair his appearance or was giving me a gift draped in diamonds. “These situations, they’re nothing to people like us. I’ll tuck her away, you’ll never need to see her again. Split my time between you. Of course, she’ll never be”—he waved his hands around the grandeur and elite gathered sipping their martinis—“a part of this.”

  Oh, the foolish boy. Malcom was going to give this to me. He was going to give me this bumbling, stupid, sweet idiot. And there would be no need for mistresses or hidden families. We weren’t the fucking Kennedys, and I had no need to tolerate a Marilyn. He’d be changed and mine forever, and all I had to do was let Malcom fuck me.

  Like he had already done a dozen times.

  My cheeks grew flushed, my breath uneven, and without intent my eyes sought him across the crowd. Watching me. One glance, and I knew he knew.

  I was thinking of him fucking me right now.

  Which was so beyond disturbing that I blanked completely. Ignoring Ethan sputtering on about our future, his less than subtle hints that I better get those funds to his uncle before he addressed my father directly.

  Wait.

  Had Ethan just threatened me?

  Had my Ethan dared, considering his sins? I knew my eyes went red as disgusting human blood, redder than the ruby at my throat. And all the anger that I hadn’t had a chance to purge because I’d been too busy mourning left me looking much less than human.

  A thing witnessed by a powerful family’s golden child and black sheep.

  It was utterly cliché, laughable, but undeniably right in that moment. “Do you have any idea who my father is? Can you grasp what he would fucking do to your entire family for disturbing him for even a moment? He’d see you all slaughtered and walk away laughing.”

  Ethan went white. The pallor worn by all humans trapped as livestock in the Cathedral.

  “You want money, power, things I have assured for your family for an age? The sacrifices I’ve made to guarantee a Parker holds the Senate? The bailouts for your father’s empire? Tell me again that I’d be wise to make my expected donation to a political campaign that goes against your family’s direct orders.”

  “Jade?” I was scaring him.

  It felt wickedly good and equally awful. “Open borders, Parker. I don’t give a fuck how the senator sells it. Your family works for your bread like everyone else.”

  A cool hand came to my back, instantly smoothing raised hackles. “I think it might be time to leave, my love.”

  A blink. Just one, and red went to blue; fangs retracting. I had not even realized I’d gone so far.

  “Idiot human”—Malcom stood between us, only inches left between my Ethan and my guardian—“you will remember nothing of this except that you’re sorry for rudely asking your ex-girlfriend for a political donation. Which she denied. Bad form.”

  And off I was swept, through the party, and into the elevator, not twenty minutes after I had arrived.

  In a daze, I confessed, “I don’t know what came over me…”

  All I could see was my smeared red lipstick reflected back to me from the polished elevator doors, and I was annoyed. Annoyed Ethan had ruined it.

  He’d ruined everything.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Maybe I was young, inexperienced in real feeling. Maybe Gerard wasn’t real. Try as I might in those awful moments in the elevator, I couldn’t remember how much I’d love Ethan’s grandfather.

  Or… I remembered someone. But it wasn’t the long-lost previous version of Ethan I still pined for.

  And my father had most likely done this to me. For sport maybe. To keep me complacent and sad, and hating the world for taking what I’d loved. But I was starting to think that I had never loved. That I was a pretty shell, a puppet, and a dupe so unworthy even Ethan Parker chose another over me.

  Silent tears smeared my smoky eye and mascara, though my expression hardened as I considered.

  What if nothing about me was real? What if everything, every part of what made me me was all made up by dear old dad?

  “It won’t be easy.” Warm palm still resting at the dip of my back, Malcom thought to soothe me with a simple gesture.

  Blue eyes, then red, then blue. Red again. I could not control what was churning in my scarred and broken brain. “I think I died that day, when my brain fell on the floor. Whatever I am now, I’m not that girl in the blue dress who ate her cat on accident.”

  Reaching fo
rward, Malcom pressed the hold button, stopping our descent. In a mirror-lined box where I could see myself from every angle, where I saw infinite facsimiles of myself and this male, he took my hand. Played with my fingers as if touching me in such a way were novel, exciting, that it soothed him. “You are capable of overcoming and thinking for yourself. Of growing up, of choosing to resist what you think you know and what you are afraid you know.”

  Because I needed to hear Malcom say it again, I looked him dead in the eye. “Gerard was never real?”

  “Not the version of him you cling to. And yes, I did have him shipped out to fight in the war despite his family’s attempts to keep him out of battle.”

  “So my father didn’t lie when he told me Gerard never loved me…”

  Malcom shook his head.

  “What’s real? What isn’t real?” Breaking our stare, I looked at myself in those mirrors, at the long line of my face and back, over and over into infinity. “How many times have I figured this out?”

  “You’ve come close, but never this close.”

  Because Darius would have caught wind that his wind-up toy needed a tune up. What he’d do to me after this. What he’d tear and replace and rework… “I won’t go back to the Cathedral.”

  “Listen to me, Jade.” Pulled forward into a cool embrace, touched in a way I think I’d been manipulated into seeing only with disgust, I tolerated and tested the waters as Malcom spoke. “Help me place Vladislov on the throne and all of us will be free.”

  “And what makes you think he’d be any better than the devil we know?”

  “Does it matter?” A hand cupped my cheek, pressing my face to his chest. An act so intimate and uncomfortable that I knew it was my father’s exploitation in my mind that made me cringe so. “He has his own agenda that has little to do with you.”

  “Which would be?”

  Strict as he’d always been with me, Malcom pulled back enough so that I might see his smirk. “None of your business.”

  “Would I still have to”—I gesture upward to where the fundraiser continued—“do this? Let them fuck me? The quota?”