Blood drunk, healing at a rapid rate, yet still bearing gnarled corpse’s fingertips and reforming organs. Driven utterly mad, for reasons that spread my wingspan and left her cowering, Pearl hid behind her tangled, dark hair.
An improvement. She wasn’t trying to run… potentially because I held her slender wrist in my very large, very dangerous fist. And her pretty, filthy skin only smoked a little.
Beating the air with one relaxing flex of my wings, I gave myself the luxury of a deep breath. And contemplated.
She started screaming again.
The bridge of my nose between forefinger and thumb—a habit from my mortal years I’d never quite set free—I even groaned in mirror to her terror, somewhat tempted to let her wrist go. Yet concerned that chasing her through the maze of the Cathedral would only heighten her confusion.
Instead, I tried to explain. “You died in childbirth. Our seventh son.” Bitterness welled from a place I had forgotten, lacing a demonic growl into my litany. “Not in some great war, not from a rival’s poison… in duty and fealty to your husband.” My free hand, tipped with razor-sharp claws, knocked against my breastbone, a loud bang fitting the mood. “The universe dared take you from me, and I have squeezed payment from its bones. As you are my soul, there is a chance you spent our time apart in some version of hell you keep referring to.” I rolled my eyes toward the heavens, aware of the pun. “If there even is such a realm.”
At the widening of her bloodshot, tear-stained, and beautiful eyes, I amended, “Though I greatly doubt you’d have been condemned. My bride is a creature of light. Even in immortality.”
Which was, in many ways, hilarious.
More importantly, the creature who suffered through hell had been I. “And now you are reborn and delivered. You are home. With me.” Adding, so it could not be said, that despite the form I might bear, I still possessed charm, “And I will love you until time itself ceases to be.”
An already fragile mind unraveling before me, my naked, filthy bride screamed, “Satan, has your demon not shown me suffering enough?”
Never having enjoyed that title, I corrected, calm as the precious dead of night, “Call me Vladislov. Or Steven. Do you like the name Steven?”
If Satan got her hackles up, the name she’d known me by in her past life would cause this hissing kitten further distress. Come to think of it, any of the monikers I’d borne over the centuries would. Therefore, Vladislov it would be. Just as she would remain Pearl.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
A fresh start that I could improve upon in all ways from our last union.
With a reverence I felt down to my unbreakable bones, I said her new name. “My Pearl.” Adding, “And I agree, Steven is too bland. You could just call me ‘darling.’ ‘Sweetheart.’ Oh, I’m partial to ‘honey.’ Bees are such fascinating creatures.”
I said it with love—my eyes, though glowing red, my skin, though black, cracked, and fiery, all of it softened with an adoration more eternal than the stars.
In this, she found me hideous and screamed.
How ashamed she was to be naked before her husband.
How brittle her mind after so much damage had been wrought.
And even as she was now, pathetic and weak, I was moved by the very being of her. I always had been a bit obsessive when it came to my soul.
Just as enticing as the original, her form was a song. And though she tried to cover her breasts and pubis, I did look my fill.
I drank her in.
As she had drank me so she might live again. As my blood fortified her body and would strengthen her beyond measure.
As my care would heal her.
This little hiccup of fear… it would be forgotten once she had more time to learn how wondrous her bridegroom was.
And despite fate’s fuckery, one day, Pearl would find me beautiful. For it was not our features that defined what we were, but our shared godhood. And I had spent mine as rationally—as purposefully—as any holy man might. Monitoring legions of vampires while trying to leave them free will, an impossible feat I really did not receive enough praise for.
She would appreciate that.
Perhaps that was reason enough not to kill them all? Let them sing my praises and scrape at my feet for her to see.
And once I calmed, fed, and tended to this mess, I would choose a form to please her. One known by vampirekind the world over. One not so beautiful as to stun, but approachable, real.
Despite my hold on her wrist, the woman I adored, coveted, and craved above all things fell to her knees before me.
So unlike the queen she had been.
“Queens do not kneel, even to kings.” But I wasn't a king. I was a God. And she was not a queen. She was a defanged Daywalker.
Where was my possessive, violent vixen under all this meek ineptitude?
Where was the impulsive, warlike beastie—the mirror of our great father?
Where was the warrior, who the first night I’d taken her to bed had tried to cut my throat? Not that I’d ever faulted her for it. From the day she’d been born, I’d watched her, coveted, peered through the garden walls in which the female offspring of the king were kept, knowing one day I’d be the first man, the only man to have her.
Not even the eunuchs had been allowed to touch, look upon, or pleasure my Jewel.
The Jewel of our kingdom—one of dozens of offspring from hundreds of wives, concubines, slaves, and fodder. But she was the daughter of the Queen. Pure-blooded. A prize no intact male, save our father, was allowed to look upon.
