Wouldn’t that be cute?
The creature in my arms spoke, her attention fixed on the couple preparing to link their immortality together. “Vlad, you’re growling.”
Fine. I was.
Wait? Had she just called me Vlad?
SHE HAD!
I was now Vlad!
A pet name. A term of endearment.
How my heart soared!
Fuck Apphia. Not literally. Eww. Never again.
So what if I had seen that girl’s beauty while I awaited the return of my soul? Yes, I had taken the maiden from her family. Sure, we had eaten her parents once she’d woken to the night and made sport of her siblings until any remnant of her human line had ended so her vampire line might begin.
But Apphia had never borne me a child—all the seed sprayed meant for another and dumped because time was monotonous and pricks liked to leak into slits.
I owed her nothing. Not after the palaces, the notoriety, the power, and the distinction she held with our race. Foolish woman.
Who would I make the new queen of the European nations? Maya?
No.
Maya would laugh at the very idea. She was already a queen and needed no nations to prove that point.
Vacuums in power were extremely annoying. “You have no idea how hard it is to get anyone to do their job these days, my love. Really. Can I have another kiss? Please?”
Ah! I had made Pearl laugh. She found my angst amusing, did she? Well, that I could lay on thick. “One kiss, sweet soul. I promise to keep my hands out of your bodice. And yes, I know you are blushing and still embarrassed. But those tits. Come now, darling. They are perfect, and I am incapable of resisting.”
She giggled even more. Giggled! Oh, I was so getting laid later. “If I kiss you again, will you please be quiet?”
“Yes.” No.
Another quick slant of her lips upon mine, her neck craning to meet me.
I felt the erections rise from those males who found pleasure in females, all of whom I had called to look. Showing off my bride...
...was gauche.
But really. If they were not allowed to touch, they should at least suffer knowing why. Pearl was stunning. Her pulse beat at her throat as if she were human.
She exuded the scent of all things delectable, I could gobble her up.
I would have had she been born nearer to my turning.
Oh.
Well then.
Now I knew why she had taken so long to be reborn. I lacked any sort of self-control when it came to such a being. I would have killed her on accident and wept over her bones until the earth rotted.
And it would have rotted. That was how it worked.
All in me reflected, as it should. This was my kingdom.
And her new name? Pearl.
How had I not seen?
A bit of sand in the belly of an oyster. Rolled about. Made smooth. Made precious and glorious over ages.
I cackled, startling my bride. Head thrown back, I practically howled at the moon.
A pearl. A Pearl. The scratching bit of sand in the world—my realm’s—belly. Because I refused to let her leave me and she had sworn on the life of her newly born monster to return. And here she was reborn and named and hilariously exact.
Nothing had ever been so hysterically deserved. Oh, fuck you, fates.
Now I could stand near so much deliciousness and not crunch her bones in my maw.
Enough pretending. With just a bit of effort, I could make others see whatever I wished. Fabric tore as my body expanded. Wings knocked into spectators who had no clue why they sidestepped or what had sent their hair flying back.
My precious Pearl liked me as I was.
So I was.
But only for her eyes.
Everyone else saw what I told them to see, including the couple preparing to speak their vows. No soul knew me but her.
She didn’t even mind that I singed her dress.
Looking back and forth, her concern not for her skin that burned or the way I dug my claws in until just a touch of her blood scented the air, Pearl asked, “Why isn’t anyone screaming?”
Of course she would be more concerned for strangers than herself.
“Because I am yours and they cannot see me. Because you love me and they don’t.” Spittle dripped from my fang, hissing when it landed on red silk.
One time, she rubbed her lips together, turning in my arms to look over the burning mess of my fine clothes. “I really want to watch my daughter get married. Can you please control yourself until it’s over?”
“Yes.” And that was truth. Every last winsome part of me settled. Physically, I formed around her, wings and all. I took her in my embrace, as I was, as she was.
The ceremony began.
Chapter Seventeen
Vladislov
How long had it been since I actually paid any attention to such tripe? Modern weddings. I must have attended several. After all, I knew the dress code and the expectations. But gatherings were a question of impression—of the mental variety in my case.
All talk in my head ceased.
My damned offspring’s blood-born Daywalker child linked hands with a man whose easy breaths were the wedding gift of my wife. The mother of the bride.
My wife, who had borne that child in pain so excruciating that I would indeed scrap that memory from her mind, even if she hated me for it later. Never would Pearl see what had been done or know how much of her was lost that day.
My Pearl and that Pearl were not and never would be the same.
