Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

Perhaps it’s the context; her, in a wedding gown, standing over her
fiancé’s dead body. And yet, her only real reaction was to me, as if his death
bears no consequence to her.
Bending down, she presses two fingers to Mateo’s jugular, and my
shoulders tense, the thought of her DNA anywhere near him making me
nervous. Not because I care if she’s implicated—it won’t matter in a few
hours, anyway—but because I simply don’t want her touching him.
The tiara ensnared in her hair shifts as she moves, and mascara smudges
beneath her eyelids, making her look sullen and defeated, though I know her
to be anything but.
I kept watch over her after she turned eighteen, fulfilling a favor owed to
her father, before allowing my depravity to take hold, giving in when she
asked me to ruin her.
Therefore, I know everything there is to know about the woman before
me: her favorite poems—Shelley’s The Masque of Anarchy and Browning’s
My Last Duchess—as well as what she prefers for breakfast—whole wheat
toast with peanut butter and fresh fruit—and that she loves learning.
If she’d had her way, she’d be studying literature and not just how to
teach it.
I know about the little pomegranate tattooed beneath her breast, and have
traced the line work myself with the tip of my tongue. She even tastes like the
fruit, explosive and utterly bewitching; the kind of succulence you want to
sink your teeth into.
And fuck, did I.
Her blood is just as sweet.
I know she’s drawn to darkness, having watched her bask in the low hum
of the stars as moonlight spilled across her pale skin more times than I care to
admit.
As I study her now in her state of disarray, I know she’s not upset about
the death of her fiancé.
It’s a mirage, as much as their marriage would have been. A sham for the
press, making her father look good while destroying the tattered remains of
the soul I broke weeks ago.
Elena sniffles, and for a moment I think she’s about to burst into tears; I
lean on the balls of my feet, ready to sweep her away from the scene before
she becomes hysterical, but then she glides her hands down the front of
Mateo’s chest, slipping one beneath the flap of his tuxedo jacket.