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 in our physical pleasure. The pain Darius had stripped from her. The pain he had left her with.
The endless slog of her life until, in a state of terror, she had finally found other beings like her.
The unfairness.
A bath of blood.
A cracked porcelain sink she had vomited crimson poison into after ripping the throat of Chadwick Parker on that snowy night in 1927. The unfairness of the world and the fact that a thing she regarded as the antithesis of the Christian God was the only creature to show her kindness.
Her mind screamed. Her face became that of stone.
The impassive visage of an angry queen.
“I won’t go in your tub.” What a voice she could wield when she dug it out.
What a woman.
She challenged me. Me? A creature of her worst nightmares. Her bridegroom. A bat of my eyelash and she would implode.
The things Darius had done to her were nothing compared to a true imagination.
There were vast, innumerable, disturbing, elegant reasons I was feared the world over. Why I had earned so many monikers.
There were reasons I was also beloved. The morning star. The most beautiful creature to walk the earth.
The most hideous.
Running my fingertips through her tousled hair, my heart aching with love, I gave her truth. “I can have the building burned to the ground so your eyes might never lay upon this room again.”
Waspish, she threw off my touch and crossed her arms under perfect breasts. Plumped, delicious skin I might never have my fill of was distracting beyond belief. But I kept my eyes on hers, even as she challenged, “You can’t burn a building down because I don’t like something in it!”
“Of course I can.” Seriously, starting fires was really easy. The amount of cities I had sacked….
I mean, really. If mankind had any concept of the civilizations I had crushed into powder—metallurgy, plumbing, technology—the entirety of documented history would be upended.
But it all had come too soon when the rest of the world was still picking fleas from their hair.
And the best minds were welcome to join my family. To become my children, of a sort.
Da Vinci still painted hidden works when he was not unraveling astrophysics. The human lives that child of mine has suffered. Because living as a human is suffering. Especially to the brilliant.
“Vladislov”—had she just spoken my name?—“I dreamed of your time in the desert. He warned you. You warned him. Neither father nor son listened.”
Taking her chin in my hand, struggling to remain human in appearance when I was so deeply affected, I said, “The tub, Pearl. We can talk of my indiscretion while I was awaiting your rebirth later.”
“Would he hate me?” And the question was bare to me—I could see it plain as moonlight. Would he hate her for what had been done to her?
“He will love you.” Though it had to be said, “You may not love your Jesus in return. In fact, you may resent him. So much hinges on the legacy he never comprehended, and I warned the boy. The second coming will never be what humans have imagined. It won’t be at all. He is unloved no matter how he represents himself through the ages. “Even now, he stands in the American Senate proffering love and change. Jewish, ethical, strongly beloved by a loud minority, threatened and quashed by a more powerful majority. No different than his early years.”
“You said he was in Brazil?”
“Your daughter is getting married to the soldier who ripped your fangs from your skull tomorrow evening.” My granddaughter, my stepdaughter—my weak yet stronger than many, oddly bound offspring. “She too is now free of Darius. Would you like to witness her find peace?”
So much regret passed through the mind before me. Flashes of how Pearl had seen humans hold and nurse their babies. How she had no memory of feeling kicks behind her ribs or suckling. How she had been ripped to shreds.
“As the tub is getting cold, might I suggest you offer the experience to a friend? We’ll go out to dinner. You find a place on the Yelp. Any city, and we can be there in a flash.”
“What would someone wear to a wedding these days? Pants?” How she despised trousers on women! It was endearingly adorable. But, those were tears gathering in her eyes.
Pearl had not yet accepted the facts. “You could show up naked if you wanted to. You’re my queen.”
The idea of a child was still spinning in her mind. Proving I was once again right for seeking to impregnate her for her own joy.
Wide, wet eyes met mine. “If I took the bath, would she like me more?”
This desire for acceptance was going to be a problem. One I had overcome with countless generations of offspring. “No.”
Pearl’s heart slowed. “I shouldn’t go.”
Tired of pretending the human
