The Relic (Cradle of Darkness #2) - Addison Cain Page 0,41

look at me, and speak to me.”

From annoyance to amusement, a snap in temperament from one to the other that kept me on my toes and him interesting. “And here you thought to pretend you were meek.”

Chapter Sixteen

Vladislov

My will poured over the gathered guests at the wedding party in such a way that Pearl was clueless as to my designs. I deigned who might hear us, who might so much as see her. Each glance she garnered was at my whim for a specific purpose. Whether it was to announce to other females with whom I had shared physical pleasure not to think to proposition me for more. Or to dash the hopes of those who clung to the idea that someday I might return their ardent affection. Or to ordain that this is your goddess and I am her slave. Or so males might know just what would become of them should they brush against her or think to tempt her from me.

And they would. That was the game amongst our kind. They didn’t know I wore a plain face for a purpose. I didn’t flaunt my riches. Why should I? Their riches were my riches. The very blood in their veins, regardless of their sire, came from me.

I knew what I had created the first time I was tempted to set my vein to the mouth of a near-dead mortal. It was as if the world had unfolded before me. A scroll accounting family trees, impossibilities, eternity, joy, sorrow, fascination to end my loneliness and agitation at how difficult my children would be.

Those first vampires, my bright-eyed babies, were all dead.

I ended them, one by one, after they had left my flock and begun flocks of their own. Their purpose had been served—propagation. Their egos, titles, the worship of them in temples… it was too much and far too gaudy.

Never did I request temples to my name or call for minions to hear my gospel. Not that temples didn’t exist. And it would be an outright lie to claim that several of my names were not called out in vain by those foolish enough to think I might give them power. But unlike my son and his faulty religion, I had been born a living god to my people and understood exactly the flaws with such a path.

Worship led to tragedies like my poor Pearl, her hammering heart, the way she clutched at the rosary I slipped into her fingers—one she didn’t even realize she held.

I would be picking apart that knot in her life for eons. On the day when Pearl’s eyes truly opened to the way of the world, she would be…

Inconsolable.

My poor darling. Maybe it was a kindness that my son had filled her head with false ideals. The longer she held to some sort of faith, the more time she would have to see that all along it truly had been I fulfilling her needs.

Heart already breaking for her, I pressed a kiss to her hair. She really did smell of sunshine, of goodness. She smelled of all the things that had been torn away from me the day fate dared try to take my soul from me.

Humming in her hair, I confessed an open truth. “I love you.”

No change came to her bearing, no stiffness. No fear in her scent.

Progress!

Tenderly swaying as if the pair of us moved to music that was ours and ours alone, I enjoyed this corner of my mind while the rest of me worked.

As I said, I exerted my will on all who stood in attendance.

I whispered in the minds of every last immortal. A cohesive symphony of soft, indomitable rule. A smattering could hear it, the thousand voices moving like mist over thought, or like daggers through resistance. Some could only feel it, taking comfort or distress.

This is mine.

Do not touch.

Look at her and envy.

Look at her and know she can unknowingly decide your fate with little more than a frown.

Look at her and love her.

Look at how I touch her, how I hold her. I would never touch you in such a way.

Look at how she trusts me, how she fits against my body because we are one.

Do you see her mouth? There was no need for paint. Her lips are red from my attention.

Do you smell her cunt? My seed even now drips down her thigh.

I will make her fat with life as she drinks down yours.

Never question me.

Offend her and it won’t only be