The Relic (Cradle of Darkness #2) - Addison Cain Page 0,31

on her face was not melting into gratitude.

I could work on that. Lips stretching in a smile that displayed the fangs Vampirekind was known for, I reached for a golden dome, sweeping it from a beautiful offering with a silly flourish. “I have chocolate for you. Parisian delicacies,” the words sung as I tempted her with a bite of sweets.

Though her nostrils flared at the aroma of so much decadence, under her breath, she muttered, “This is sin.”

My own muttering was far less tragic and far more eye-rollingly annoyed. “Wasting it might be.”

Okay, so this was the third tub I had filled over the last few days of rigorously fucking my bride. But what had swirled down the drain was not wasted exactly. It was a practice run to make sure that this tub was perfect. Even the candlelight had been arranged just so to play off the quickly setting sun. A pretty stage, a room inviting my timid bride to embrace the heritage that had been denied her.

What point was there in hesitation? My Pearl just needed a little mental nudge. “Humans have bathed in milk for as long as I have walked this earth. Does milk not come from animals? Yes, it’s generally used for sustenance, but it also softens the skin and is enjoyed as a luxury. You ingest immortal blood—” I gave her a roguish wink, growing hard just at the thought of it. “—and we both know I’m your favorite snack. The only difference here is perspective.”

Opening her mouth as if to argue, like a true gentleman, I put a finger to her lips and saved her the trouble. “I’m right, of course. So in you go.”

Where my touch traced her kiss-swollen lips, she frowned. “I wouldn’t want to take a bath in milk either. I’d hardly had the funds to taste it before you woke me up from the nightmare.” Visibly shuddering, my darling bride grimaced, because somewhere deep in her very scarred psyche, a bubble of awfulness I refused to pop grew. It grew, and it teased at the scars Darius had dug into her mind.

Everything that had been done, taken, rewritten, molded, concealed… it was in there. It clamored. Someday, it would make her a monster in need of checking. Which was why my gentle Pearl needed taming and self-acceptance.

I’d make her a God… and she might make the whole world pay for it.

Maybe the world deserved what they created—Vampire, human, Daywalker, and all the other monsters creeping along the earth’s crust.

Pupils dilating, Pearl stared down at the warmed tub. “I can hear the screams.”

Yes, she could. But they were her screams. Buried and in need of exorcism. Hand to my heart, I set my obsessive, complete, unbreakable love plain on my face. “On my honor, no contributor to your warm bath died.”

There was really no point in bringing up the human livestock that had gone into fattening up the donating immortals… considering the unraveling mental state before me. Their blood was not technically in the tub, so it didn’t matter. The effort, the two previously drained tubs, and the volume—a cool hundred humans had most likely been eaten. But they would have been eaten anyway. Just like cows were butchered in messy slaughterhouses en masse.

Pools of scintillating immortal blood, romantic moments of this nature, were not produced from mass hunting of monkeys on the streets. The humans involved had been taken from pens all over my worldwide domain. And not even the good bloodlines. Those fed to immortal prisoners were waste product. Hardly edible.

But again, that was neither here nor there. Overthinking wasn’t going to get my bride into that tub. The racing echo of her heart, the ripples of her mind, the little twitches all over her body—nothing that night was going to get her into the tub.

I had misstepped.

I had conquered nations.

Therefore, I knew every mistake held the seed of an even better victory. “Pearl, I’m sorry.”

“Why?” How confused she was. How disarmed. Horrified, dangerous, full of my strength and learning her own. The very essence of her trapped in the mind of a stunted seventy-year-old. An infant, considering our longevity.

A survivor whose fangs would grow back sharper than they had ever been before.

It wasn’t her hesitation or the newness of the situation. It was a fundamental, lingering complaint. My Pearl was offended, yet she didn’t comprehend why. My vicious bride reborn was angry, but not with me.

Even in that moment, her mind wrestled with the joy she found