Cradle Novels & Stories

His fingers twitched slightly at his sides, the only betrayal of the storm building within him. “Subject: Deceased. Adrium: Not detected.” The lead drone emitted a short, shrill beep, and the others responded with a synchronized retreat, lifting upward like vultures denied a feast. In seconds, they were gone, vanishing into the smog above the ruins. Tunde exhaled slowly. His eyes flicked to the crate. The shard glowed faintly in the shadows like a heart still beating.

Not ours. The phrasing caught in my chest, strange, confusing. But I followed, each step measured, the floorboards creaking faintly as though reluctant to hold me. The bedroom was spacious but not ostentatious. Pale curtains, a wide bed dressed in linen, a cradle pushed quietly near the window. The sight of it rooted me in place. The cradle. Its smooth wood gleamed under the pale light, freshly polished, too perfect to have ever been used. My throat tightened as I drifted toward it, fingers brushing along the rim. The baby rolled again inside me, almost answering the shape waiting for them.

Blocking every name route would hollow me out before I reached my son. I looked at the floor where Leo's black-gold cradle had vanished. Vessel Preparation Nursery. The phrase made my skin crawl. "We go after my son." Mira's eyes widened. "And Eli?" "We take him with us." The cradle was too large to carry. The boy inside was not fully restored. The registry wanted him to stay where it could process him. So I broke the cradle. Not with power first. With the pipe Silas handed me. Glass cracked under the first hit. Pain lanced up my arms. The second hit opened a spiderweb fracture across Eli's outlin

One by one, I pull them out. "Wow." I say as I pull the first one out. I remember this. It's one of the first vibrators Noah bought. He calls it 'Midnight Rose'. It has this deep, matte plum color, shaped like a blooming flower bud. It’s small enough to fit in the palm of my hand, with a soft, silicone mouth at the center. I know that it doesn't actually vibrate in the traditional sense. It just uses Air Pulse. Like creating rhythmic waves of air pressure that mimic a suction sensation.

“He will not mind. He will love it.” Torrhen came up to see the cradle that evening, and he did. He stood in the bedroom and ran his hand along the polished apple wood and read the carved line and put his arm around Garrett’s shoulders without saying anything, the way two alphas stood beside a third generation’s first piece of furniture without needing words. The cradle was placed beside the bed, where the small new life would sleep within reach of her mother’s hand for the first months after she was born. Brynn watched it every night before she slept now. It was so much closer to real than the abstract knowledge of pregnancy ha

“Where… are we?” Kael looked ahead. The horizon was jagged, filled with the shapes of colossal spires rising out of the earth, not buildings, but something older. Bones. Towering, fossilized ribs of creatures so ancient they could’ve been gods. Between them ran rivers of black glass, winding and glimmering faintly under the dead light. “The Cradle,” he said quietly. “This is where the Warden was born.” Lira swallowed. “Born from what exactly?” He hesitated. The words felt heavy even in his mouth. “From the same power that made the Crown. From the first mark.”

Thank you! Xoxo -Reema

"I called Marcus and he is already on his way. He says he will be here in Blackwater by evening to help us find Lihont." Mira was the most excited of all, she kept walking around the room, talking to herself. She was so happy that she was going to become a grandma and was already making a long list in her head of all the special herbs and supplements that nourish a pregnant woman's body…She wanted Naelis to be the strongest mother ever. "We need ginger for the stomach and red clover for the blood," Mira muttered happily. Everything was suddenly interrupted by a loud ringing of a phone.

During this time, Cradle had woken from hibernation. When she was revealed to me, I refused to sleep anywhere near the glass separating us. Cradle was a mass of black, backwards legs, all pointing up at the roof from the joints. She looked like some kind of mutant spider; with a face that split down the middle into a perfect V. Her hairless black body curled upwards, revealing her soft underside that had white horizontal stripes running up it. Her glowing silver eyes were the only things I could look at. She didn’t even speak English. As far as I was concerned, Ignascha and Diesel were my only friends.

The kind of cosmic, soul-ripping sound that made the Cradle drop to her knees, hands over her ears, as the very air began to flake like dead skin. And from that screaming sky… A claw emerged. Not metaphor. Not dream. A real claw. Bigger than cities. Dripping ink that turned to rot as it fell. Kael screamed—and this time it was only him. “I can’t hold it—” The Cradle stood, blood dripping from her ears, and looked at him. Then she looked at the claw. At the sky fracturing above them. And she decided. She ran. Straight at him. “Don’t—” he choked.