#jurdanhellwrites

Large stone archways yawned toward the high ceiling, curving upward as they met the dome roof and slanted downward at sharp angles. Thick marble columns rested on either side of the entryway, continuous sets echoing down the length of the bank in mirror imagery. 

Desks lined either side of the wall, more than half of them empty, all the way to the back, a large one at its center. Wealthy merchants were scattered about the floor, unbuttoning and rebuttoning their cuffs, busying themselves with other trivial things. He grit his teeth for a moment, forcing himself to forget his limp as he walked to the far desk. He rolled his shoulders back slightly, throwing on that same arrogance that every other merchant’s son had grown, festering like an infection from a wound.

The man behind the desk scribbled on a piece of pale parchment absentmindedly. 

“Excuse me,” Kaz drawled, drawing out his words as if he had all the time in the world to speak them. “I’d like to open an account for myself.”

The man behind the desk didn’t so much as raise his eyes.

Kaz’s eyebrows knit together in mock annoyance. “I have a lot of money, and I’d like to put it somewhere safe,” he said, standing up straighter. The man behind the desk glanced at him, then set down his pen.

He sat up in his chair, peering down over his desk into Kaz as if he were a merchant’s boy, destined to make his own fate on his father’s dime. Kaz pulled out a stack of Kruge , bound together with a thick band in the center. 

The man– Mikhial, his nametag read–smiled at him as if they shared a secret. “An account you say,” he let out a hearty laugh, “a growing thing like you needs one of those in this changing world. How else will you be able to keep your things safe if not in a bank,” he tutted.  

He picked up his pen again, scribbling something else and casting the sheet of parchment aside. “So,” Mikhial said, “Your name?”

“Radomir,” Kaz announced as he leaned forward, mimicking juvenile authority. “Alexei Radomir.” His mind flickered back to the eldest living Radomir heir, no more than twelve. An old name, but not so known that it would draw suspicion. 

Mikhial hummed, scratching his pen against another new sheet of parchment. “And how much would you like to deposit today, Alexei?” He inquired, looking at him through his brows, greed in his eyes. Kaz fought the quirk of his lip.

He made a show of digging through his pockets, layering the disheveledness any other merchant’s child might have shown at having to attend to matters for themself. He placed the stack of the pale, purple bills still in his hand on the edge of the tall desk and another from his pocket on top of it. 

Mikhail made a face. “That can’t be all you’ve got, now. You wouldn’t want to see your balance to be so low from the start, would you?” He leaned in close, voice dropping low. Kaz took a step forward, as if mystified. “‘Tell you a secret. You start out as big as you can, and keep funneling more in. Never sell for more than you can make. That’s how all the big players do it.” 

Kaz nodded, face drawn in concentration as if he’d just received gospel directly from the Saints. Truly, he thought, there was no more fitting a place for it to be than in the centre of a bank. 

He dug around in his pockets for a moment, and pulled out a few other large, crumpled bills, as if they’d simply been sitting in the bottom of his coat pockets for weeks, forgotten. 

Mikhail nodded in approval, a glimmer in his eyes. “Now you’ve got the right idea. Let’s get you squared away.” He scribbled down on a piece of paper and set the large stamp across it with a heavy thud before settling it back down on the inkpad and filing the whole thing away in a drawer at his side. He fumbled for an envelope and slipped the crumpled Kruge into it, so thick it was bulging and wouldn’t close. Kaz pretended he didn’t notice when a few of the bills fell into a place they did not belong, unretrieved. “Now,” he said, smacking his lips, “there will be some paperwork for you to fill out at the other end, near that line of desks,” he gestured to the opposing side of the bank. 

Kaz filed the paperwork, carefully signing Alexei’s name across the blank and handing over his identification. Really, Rotty did an impressive job at its duplication. 

As he stepped back out onto the streets of the Exchange, the sun slipped over the horizon of the Harbor, colours dancing across the sea. He turned the corner into an alley, raising a brow at the small goat that knocked over a crate and bleated in his direction.

Inej turned the corner and came up beside him, offering his cane. He took it, leaning heavily against it as he came to rest on a wall, taking the weight off his leg. Inej bent down, stroking the goat’s coarse fur. “If you feed it,” he said, “it will come back.”

She laughed at him. “Would that be so bad?” Kaz raised a brow as she stood again. “You came back, you know.” He wasn’t the one that left, she knew. Though he was the one that took her offerings like any properly starved man, like there was yet another kind of greed he had yet to learn to bend to his will. 

His gaze dropped to the way her hair fell across her shoulder. The small scar at the top of her lip. He changed the subject. “The accounts are kept individually in a series of files, but not well. They’re being skimmed off by the tellers.”

“So how do we get in?” She asked, slipping further down the alleyway.

“Getting in isn’t the problem,” he limped heavily behind her, and she waited for him to catch up before continuing. “It’s keeping our hands clean after we get out.”

She picked up a crate and turned it on its side for him to sit on. “Our dear friend Radomir has an account now that we have access to. Currently, there are a couple hundred Kruge in it, waiting patiently. The bank knows it’s a large sum, so it shouldn’t be hard to fudge the numbers of the ledger.”

“So we funnel the money into the Radomir account, change the ledger to make up the difference for the missing funds, and then. . . what? We can’t withdraw that without drawing suspicion.”

“No,” he said, taking a seat on the crate and sending her a thankful look. He rest his cane against a barrel just to the side of him. “Which is exactly why we need someone on the inside who can do the moving for us. Then, before anyone notices their accounts have been siphoned, we’ll break in and drain Radomir’s account, too.”

“Someone on the inside?”

“There were a number of empty desks. I’m willing to bet they’re hiring.”

“And who exactly do you propose we send in?”

Kaz leaned back against the brick wall. “Wylan’s a merchant’s son. And, as the Van Eck heir, I’m sure they’d love a known name attached to their business.”

Inej shook her head. The goat bleated again from behind them, trailing along. Kaz shot her a look. “He won’t agree to that,” she said, bending down to pet the goat again.

He frowned. “He will if we can also talk Jesper onto the job,” he reached for his cane and leaned over the top, putting all his weight on it as he stood. 

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“I think it’s time we visit the Van Eck manor,” he said, turning to face Inej. “Bring the goat.”

Masterlist

I am unlearned at love and its making, but no matter how obvious that is to him, he does not let it show. Not when he guides my hands so carefully over him. Not when he redirects my nails to claw again at his back as he brings his mouth to the tender space just behind my ear. I suck my lip between the sharpest edges of my teeth, against the sound that rumbles in the back of my throat, because what this really is is a secret, and the more he knows is all the more he can use against me. I bite down on my lip hard enough to bleed. 

The familiar sickness of poison roils through my gut, twinged with something else. A layer of sweat sheens over my skin and I am dizzy from the blood that rushes to my cheeks, my head, no doubt as diseased as what I’d ingested only earlier today. As infected as myself. 

I tip my head back, again reminded of the things we’d done in that secret room behind the throne, and all the things we hadn’t. He brings his mouth to the hollow of my throat, pushing me back into the office in the Court of Shadows that I’ve taken as my own. He pauses only to push the door closed. 

The dizzying absence from his hands on my skin leaves as quickly as it arrives, as though it was aware of how soon it would be replaced with another, equally intoxicating feeling. 

Since my time in Faerie, I have grown very good at pretending. Pretending that my muscles do not sing from the acute pain from the swinging of my sword, pretending that it didn’t hurt every time I’d been made an example of being something lesser. Pretending that I do not feel as I do, hiding even from myself. I am not sure I keep the longing off my face, but with his hands drifting down the tie of my breeches, nose deep in the crook of my neck, I am not sure it matters. 

Perhaps desire is like mithridatism, where I should be taking doses slowly, accumulating my body to the poison until it affects me no longer. Perhaps my overindulgence here will kill me as surely as any sharp blade. 

It isn’t until he sinks down onto his knees, pushing the backs of my legs to the edge of the desk, mouth drifting across my navel that I decide that I do not care. 

Religion in Faerie is scarcely discussed, brought up only with the slandering of poor fates and cursed as surely as any gambling man might blame the hand. There might have been gods, once, but anything infinite in an immortal mind is just as easily forgotten. But he slides my breeches down to my knees with such piety, pushing my legs apart with such reverence that I’m sure one of us has found it. 

Something flutters in my chest as he brings his mouth to my center, looking up at me through his dark lashes. Not as though I ought to be the one praying, but as though this is the prayer. As though any noise I might make would make for choir, would carry the cadence of a hymn. He looks at me as though he means to memorize it, this moment. The shape of my very skin. 

His hands move methodically against me, into me. There is strategy here yet, and I refuse to concede. I will not concede. 

This time, I do not let my hands shake.

I bring one hand to his hair and knot my fingers so deeply I am not sure they will ever be free. I am not sure I want them to be. His tongue brushes flat against me, but it is the heat of his breath against my bare thigh that is my undoing. He moans my name against my skin, whispering dirty things I'm certain he would not say if his goal wasn't to make me give in. I will not give in. 

I lean back against the desk, putting my weight on my elbow. I’m half-aware of something being knocked to the floor when he sinks lower to bring one of my legs over his shoulder. 

There is an awful kind of pleasure in being granted what you’ve so desperately wanted, even if you’ve convinced yourself you didn’t. It seems we are both good at making terrible decisions. 

This deep underground, it is too dark for plants to grow. There are no windows to allow moonlight to skim in, pooling like milk against the scarce furniture that was undoubtedly stolen for the home of thieves. That does not stop vines from snaking their way up the walls, cloying around any surface they can find purchase on. Surely, deep down in their making, they must know they were doomed to die the moment they sprouted. There is nothing for them here. No light, no water. No chance for survival. 

That is what I tell myself as Cardan’s other hand slips beneath my shirt to palm at my breast. That is what I tell myself as I let him. There is no chance for survival. There is no way I would have survived this, anyway. 

Maybe I can still take him down with me. 

His finery is disarranged as I pull against his hair, beckoning him to his feet as I yank him roughly overtop of me, laying myself flat against the desk, my hair spilling over the edge. He looks dissatisfied, as though he were a cat whose cream I’d just stolen for no other reason than to be cruel.

I am, I know. But not for this. 

His lips are swollen when I bring them roughly to my own, tasting myself from his mouth. It is a stupor that fills my lungs, my brain, working its way into my blood that controls me. My volition is not my own. I do not think it has been for a long while. 

My hands go to his breeches, toying with the lace in the front, but not untying it. I do not know much, enough that he is aware of, but not so little that I am completely unknowledgeable. I refuse to think of the way he looked up to me, his mouth against the softest parts of my skin, drawing sensitive shapes with his teeth, his tongue. 

A flower I do not recognize springs from the ivy that unfolds above us, a deep blue that might have been purple in the sun, trumpeting from its stem on the vine. Its yellow-white center does not shy away from the darkness of the room around us. 

I move my hands to undo the buttons of his shirt with as much slowness as I can manage with his mouth working delicious cruelties over a soft spot on my neck. 

The room is overcome with blooming buds in the darkness. One of my hands drifts over a knot of scars at his back, and I realize that it is not despite the darkness that they crest so fully, so openly, that it is in spite of it. That, maybe there is a kind of bravery in being so honest. In knowing the risks of a poison, and taking the plunge anyway. 

He pushes himself against me in a way that is somehow more intimate than when we were both bare. It is not unlike when the clouds part from a silvered sky, letting the moonlight drink in the land, the faelights crashing up into the stars and melding into the air. Somehow, the unbrokenness of this moment is what is visceral, is so guarded by its profoundness that it will know nothing else. I am certain that when I open my eyes, I will see stars.

I am filled with a hatred so hot it warms me from the inside out, so bright that I might never truly be cold. 

I hate that he is the one that makes me feel this way, and that the statement alone is as much honesty I can bare, even to myself. I am a coward. 

My thoughts are splintering under the guiding action of his fingers, and I realize his clever poison is not simply along the sweat of his skin or tucked in between stolen kisses. It is in his words, his breath, and it is in me, too. And now, I am not sure I will ever be able to escape it.

Masterlist

i don't think i've ever written a first-person tfota fic. anyway i have absolutely nothing to say for myself. enjoy, sluts and whores <3

Tag List:

Oneshots

It's Always You

Lead Me

Threads

Love in Every Line

Take Me Home

Like Fire

Colours

Bloody Beautiful

War

Your Hollowed Skin

Silver Drop Thief Modern Faerie Tales

Power

For the kindred

I Will Know Nothing (Until I Know You)

what is a secret, but not a promise?

Multi-Chapter

Heart Stopper

Delirium

Spirits

Twitter AU

Poems

That One (1) Jurdan Poem I Wrote

That Other Jurdan Poem I Wrote

Drabbles

Don't Be a Prick

Horror Show

Headcannons

A Child's Nightmare

School, Safety, Clothing

Lost Possessions, Children, Safety

Excitement, Romance, Kisses

And Then There Were Three

Everything Lies in Detail

Somber Songs

Tipsy Kisses

The Truth in Lies Part I

The Truth in Lies Part II

The Truth in Lies Part III

Anyways, Always

He stood, overly aware of the cold floor beneath his bare feet as he made his way to the window, leaning against the stained glass. It cast beautifully when the curtains had been pulled back to let in the late afternoon light, bringing warm, colourful shapes to the ceilings, the walls, decorating the whole room. Now, they were drawn shut and tight so they might sleep. He leaned against a column where the curtains were parted, peeking around the fabric to look at the coloured glass. And then, out. 

The sun crested over the horizon ahead, and the moon made way for his arrival. Cardan glanced back at his wife, at her braid dripping down the side of the bed, now long enough to nearly touch the floor. At the way she curled into the empty space beside her where he had been. One of her hands stretched into the expanse, searching. She didn’t wake. 

He pushed open their bedroom doors and crept to the sitting room, stealing a book from an end table he’d left it on haphazardly hours ago, when he had inevitably become distracted by his wife’s curious hands. She’d felt her way down his spine, lower, and they’d whispered promises to each other in the darkness before she’d kissed his cheek and assured him that she’d come back after a meeting with her spies. 

He’d waited for her return as the moonlight softened, making room for morning, even as his eyelids grew heavy and he could no longer keep them open. Cardan crossed the sitting room to the bay window, cushioned with ornately embroidered pillows, overstuffed with fluff and feather. He tossed them aside and rest his head against the window, squinting into the sky and searching. 

He opened his book, page marked by a lace from one of Jude’s dresses. He’d tugged it once, and she’d pulled it free, tossing it at him and laughing. He tucked it into his pocket when he was sure she’d forgotten about it. 

He thumbed through the deckled pages, breathing in the cool air that pressed against the window. It ran its fingers down his skin, raising gooseflesh along his arms, and he welcomed it.

His tail thrashed against the side of the lounge seat, coming to curl up around his ankle when he could not blink away a memory. There, and then gone. The very thing that had woken him, and he could not even remember it. Could not will it back into existence, though it haunted him like any true spectre. 

The morning would not vanish his penchant for nightmares, but it could not summon them, either. It was a secret’s job to be kept, to remain, drinking in the moonlight in all their debauchery. But there were bad secrets, too. Nasty ones, that ought to remain in the foulest places, so you might never look for them. Secrets to be buried, and forgotten. Perhaps that was what the moon had been praying for. 

Jude padded across the floor quietly and came to rest upon the opposite end of the window seat. She frowned, blinking away her exhaustion as Cardan gave her a soft smile, and opened his arms. She twisted, laying against his chest and looked out the window. He wrapped his arms around her, one hand resting across her center to hold up the book, the other going to her hair. 

She was nearly asleep again by the time she remembered what she’d come out to find him for. “What’s wrong?” She asked, voice thick with sleep. 

He rest his chin on the top of her head. “What makes you think something’s wrong?” He was grateful, for once, that she was not, could not, look at him. 

“You’re reading,” she said, blinking hard as if to wake herself. 

He huffed a soft laugh. “I assure you,” he said. “This is no new habit of mine.” He swallowed thickly and hoped she hadn’t heard it. 

She inhaled deeply and sat up, turning back to face him again. Yawned. “I’m going to ask you how you are,” she whispered. The hair on Cardan’s arm stood on end again. “And I would like you to answer me honestly.”

He nearly huffed at the last amendment. As though he could do anything else. Instead, she had meant the fullness of the truth, the lack of evasion. For better or for worse, she would get it out of him at some point. At least he’d stopped sweating. 

He let the book fall open on his lap and spoke before she could ask again. “I had a nightmare,” he said. “I’m fine, now.” It could not have been a lie. Jude raised a brow, assessing. Surely, she’d rooted out how fickle of a word fine could be. 

“Do you always read at the break of dawn?” She asked instead. 

The corner of his mouth twitched. “No, but sometimes I would read through it, and into the late afternoon hours.” She looked at him incredulously. “I seem to make a habit of willingly forgetting.” 

She leaned against the window. “Come back to bed,” she whispered. “It’s late.” Maybe this was a promise, too. 

Cardan looked down to the book in his lap, at the passage highlighted that he’d reread so many times he wondered if the words were engrained in his eyes. When she said nothing, he read aloud. “Ah, love may be strong,” he whispered to her. “But a habit is stronger.”

She took the book from his hands and set it aside as she stood. Pulled him to his feet and wrapped her arms around his waist. Pushed his damp curls back from his face. Pressed a kiss to his temple. 

“What was it about?” She asked. A line appeared between her brows, and it took him great restraint to not reach down and smooth it away with his thumb. 

“I don’t remember,” he said. “Only that it was terrible.” She said nothing, so he continued into the silence. “For a moment, I revisited every time I closed my eyes as if a memory. Some integral part of me. And now, I know not what it was, only that it may never leave.”

She shook her head and pulled him close. “We get to decide the parts of us that we keep.” Her hands came to rest gently on his stomach, reached for his hand, and pulled him to their room. “What we do not like, we cast aside. We are stronger when we reforge ourselves, I think.”

Jude tugged him onto the bed, and curled him gently into her chest. His ear came to rest against her heartbeat, and he made no secret of listening intently to it for a moment. “A habit is stronger,” he continued from the passage, “and I knew when I loved by the way I behaved.”

She pressed a kiss to the top of his head, stroking loving shapes along his spine. 

“You’re my favourite habit,” he said into the darkness.

Masterlist

i start therapy tomorrow and if i die, i die

Tag List:

She stood and crushed her cup, striding into the kitchen and tossing it into the open garbage bag that hung from a knob drawer. The island counter was decorated with a dozen different kinds of alcohol, opened and most half-drained, scattered across the marble surface like an assortment of poisons she’d once seen in a museum. She ran her hands through her hair and clawed her hands down her face, turning on her heel and running smack into her boyfriend. 

“Hello, there,” he’d slurred, acknowledging her for the first time that evening. She looked up at him through her brows, raising one when he seemed unfazed by her annoyance. He snaked an arm around her waist to hold her in place as he drained the last of whatever was in his cup and haphazardly sat it on the counter beside him. It clattered to the ground and bumped into her foot. She turned, tracking it as it rolled to a stop. Locke hooked a finger under her chin and brought his face to hers. 

The smell of old liquor rolled off his breath. She wrinkled her nose. “Where did you go off to?” He said, brows drawing together in an expression not unlike concern. 

She frowned. Tilted her head. “I could ask you the same thing,” she batted her eyelashes as his expression shifted and pushed away from his chest. 

“You don’t get to just go off and do whatever you want,” he spit, anger flooding his voice where concern might have just been. “Screw whoever you want.” He picked up a half-empty bottle from the countertop. “When you’re with me,” he popped off the top, “you’re with me.” He took a long swig and slammed it down on the counter hard enough Jude thought it would break. 

“Who said I wanted to be with you?”

He let out a low chuckle, watching her from the corner of his eye. “Why wouldn’t you? What else do you have?” 

Her fingers curled tightly at her sides as she turned to him, narrowing her gaze. He cocked his head. 

“Oh, there you are,” a voice rang out, turning the corner into the kitchen. “I was wondering where you went,” Taryn said, fiddling with the zipper of her skirt. She looked up, eyes widening as she looked between Jude and Locke, noting the space between them. 

“Did you need something?” Locke asked, his tone shifting into something Jude didn’t know how to read. 

Taryn stood straight, spine stiff. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Jude glanced back to Locke, watching the way he watched her sister, as he might have once done her. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, cheeks heating. Heavy bass pulsed through her blood, jangling her nerves. She turned half away from him before she could think and brought her fist to his jaw. 

He crashed backward and hit the ground with a heavy thud, head smacking against the polished hardwood floor. Taryn raised her hands to her mouth and took a step back.

Jude flexed her fingers, stepping over his stomach as he sprawled on his back, clutching his jaw. She bent down over him and smacked his hand away from his mouth, gripping his chin between her fingers. “We’re done,” she whispered, adrenaline shaking her hands. 

She stood, casting Taryn a withering look as she stepped back and began to retreat down the hall, pretending all the while that she did not notice as Taryn rushed in to Locke’s side after she’d gone. 

She swept herself outside to the porch, hoisting herself onto the railing and letting the bitter cold wrap its arms around her. She rest her head against the wooden column behind her and closed her eyes. 

A hand forced her fingers open, pushing a plastic cup into her palm. Jude opened her eyes. “To keep you warm,” Cardan said. He ran a hand through his hair and plopped down on the wooden deck in front of her, back against the railing. 

She swirled the amber liquid he’d pushed into her hand and downed it without much other thought. It burned cold down her throat at first, only turning hot when she took in a deep breath of the cold, early-winter air. She shivered as the wind curled its way through her hair, the heat of her cheeks stinging in the bitter wind, watched absently as the plastic cup slipped from her fingers. 

Cardan turned to her, gaze focused on the redness of her knuckles. He brushed the pad of his thumb against their swollen tops absently, freezing as he caught himself, looking up at her through his lashes. Jude met his gaze, sobering, and looked away. He noted that she didn’t take back her hand.

He pushed to his feet and gripped her fingers, tugging her along down the stairs of the porch and down the sidewalk, down to a dark-coloured car parked parallel to the street.

She looked down at their interlocked fingers and cursed herself as she rose onto her toes and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Cardan stilled, eyes wide as he looked at her. He held her fingers tighter as he brought his mouth to hers, pressing her back against his car. Her free hand came up to tangle in his hair, his gripped her side.

His mouth dropped to her neck, pressing wet kisses to her throat. She tilted her head back, resting it on the roof of his car. He pulled her forward and slipped the keys from his pocket, clicking a button and unlocking the doors.

Jude looked at him sidelong. "Where are we going?"

He dropped her hand and opened the back passenger door. "I'm hungry."

He pushed her back onto the passenger seats and climbed in on top of her, making a cage of his body, mouth dropping to the empty space above her chest, palm between her thighs. His fingers were icy from the cold outside, making her hair stand on end. His hands found the hole in her tights he'd left behind.

He made a space between them, leaning back to close the door, running his hands beneath her shirt. She arched upward, pressing into him. His hand slipped beneath her, unclasping her bra. Her hands tangled through his hair again as he pushed her back against the far door, sitting her upright and sliding into the space between her legs, hiking her skirt up and pulling her tights down. Tore them away from her fully and threw them to the floor. His thumb rubbed slow circles over her clit, making her hyperaware of the only separation being her underwear.

He pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh and stripped her of them, pushing her thighs further apart as he bent back down in between. His hand ghosted over the apex of her thighs, the pads of his fingers tracing the shape of her. He slipped one finger into her heat. Two. She turned her head from him, pressing her face to the cold glass. He brought his tongue to her center as her hands found purchase on the headrest beside her.

He lapped at her gently, pushing his fingers in and out. His other hands worked her free of the buttons on her shirt, one after the next, popping them free and skirting his icy hand over the planes of her stomach. He peeled her blouse away from her, slipping his hand beneath her loose bra to palm her breasts as his tongue flicked against her clit. 

His hand slipped from her heat to her thigh, clutching them tight and dragging his nails down their softness. Her hand gripped the hair on the back of his head, pulling it tight as his thumb drifted over her nipple. He flicked his tongue against her, watching as her breath caught in her chest, as she arched her back, white-knuckling her grip on the headrest beside her.

He shifted his hand to wrap around her thigh near her hip, holding her to him as her hips stuttered softly. His hands drifted to her blouse as her breathing slowed, buttoning the first few and giving up halfway through, pulling the edges of her skirt back down near her knees. He backed toward the door as she caught her breath and pulled on the handle. Cold air rushed in, sobering her. Her eyes fluttered open just in time to watch him toss her underwear into the passenger seat of his car.

She sat upward, limbs heavy, and scooted down to the open door. He took a step back so she could stand, and opened the passenger door, gesturing for her to sit down. "Let's go," he said, voice heavy in a way that made something deep down inside her flutter.

She cast her gaze between him and the open door. The breeze blew cold beneath her shirt, snaking its way up along her skin. He watched her carefully as she made her decision, as she gave in and sunk into the cushioned passenger seat of his car and reached for the seatbelt behind her. He shut the door.

A small, dangling thing caught her vision, drooping down from the rearview mirror. She caught it between her fingers and brought it closer. A small porcelain duck sat on a swing made of thin rope, hanging from the mirror above it. She let it go and watched it swing. Cardan opened the door and slid into the seat, buckle already in hand as the door shut behind him. He stuck in the key and turned over the ignition, pulling the car out onto the street and down the road.

"Where are we headed?" Jude asked.

He glanced at her as he leaned forward to look around her, turning onto a main road.

She sunk low in her seat and looked out the window, brushing her thumb tenderly across her sore knuckles.

"What was it you said to him?" Cardan asked, eyes on the road.

Jude made a face at him. "Just that we were done," she said, shifting to look out the window. "That it was over." She swallowed, resting her head on the cool glass. “You can’t choose to love someone.”

He nodded. "That's good."

"Is it?" She tilted her head, looking back to the duck on his swing.

He scrunched up his nose. "Do you feel better?"

"I feel like my hand hurts."

Cardan snorted as he pulled onto a freeway, leaning back into the seat fully when the tension had settled back down into the quiet. Jude looked to him without moving her head, at the tightness that remained between his knuckles, despite how he eased himself further back into the dark leather of the seat. She glared down at her own hands, anger creasing her thoughts as she began to fiddle with the buttons on the dash. Angry at herself. At him. She wasn't sure who.

Just that it felt good.

She turned on a heated seat. Hers. His, maybe. Turned on the radio. Flipped through the channels aimlessly until one came through clear. Cardan glanced between her and the road, turning up the volume and humming along softly. His hand drifted from the control panel to her knee. Higher.

She caught his gaze out the corner of her eye. "You should watch where you're going." It didn't stop her from letting his hand slip higher still.

"Oh, but this is much more interesting."  His thumb slipped beneath the elastic band of her skirt. Pulled it away from her waist and let it slap back against her skin.

He pulled off the freeway and slowed as he hit the main road again, dimly lit in the pooling, golden lamplight overhead. His hand slipped beneath her skirt, dragged one long finger against her hot center, let her wither under the pooling heat between her legs, the dampness soaked his fingers as he slipped one digit in, swirling as far into her as he could reach.

She held in a breath. "Cardan, the road."

He hummed. Removed his hand. "I suppose you'll have to finish what I started." He stuck one long finger in his mouth and sucked it clean.

"Right now?" He raised a brow at her in answer. "I thought you said you were hungry." She didn't bother pushing her skirt back.

Cardan raised his chin, letting the lamplight wash over the sharp features of his face, the deep crimson that had stained his skin, his cheeks. It pooled down his neck in the low light, blood thrumming below his skin as sure as any devotion. He could feel the pump in his ears, the rush, the ecstasy still lingering on his skin, between his lips. He’d choose it a thousand times over, the heat resting along his skin, as sure as any delirium. 

Maybe Jude was right.

Maybe they weren't meant for this.

The thought didn't stop his reply from tumbling away from his tongue. "Starving."

She slipped down into the seat, fingers trailing along her damp folds. Hooked one leg up on the door handle and leaned her knee against the center console. His fingers slipped back to her knee, finding purchase somewhere along the red patchwork he'd made along her thigh only hours ago.

Her fingers crested her wet folds before she sunk them deep inside herself, curling them when she'd hilted her hand against her clit, sighing into her shoulder. He dug his nails into his skin, scratching lightly along the inside of her thigh, tracing a pattern she couldn't see. She bit her lip as a wave of desire rolled through her so heavily it lingered on her skin a moment longer than she'd have liked, inking its way across her skin in sharp red lines left behind by deft hands.

It might have continued on like that for an hour. Maybe more. She was only aware of her own fingers sliding between her legs, of Cardan's nails drawing shapes on her skin as he stared at the road ahead. She wasn't sure where they were.

Wasn't sure she cared when they pulled to a stop in a different neighbourhood, in front of a house she'd seen before, holding hands with someone else. Someone who'd never leashed her own desire this way. Would never have tried.

She paused only as Cardan's hand lifted from her leg to trace her jawline, turning her head to face him fully as he leaned over his seat. She hadn't even seen him remove his belt.

He leaned in close enough that she could feel his breath on her lips, could feel the electric crackle between them as she realized he was waiting for her to decide. To lean in, or pull away. To let the crashing water overhead drown him, or to swallow them both.

She loosed a long breath and brought her mouth to his. Let him kiss her with a deeper desire than she'd ever recalled being kissed with. Let him take her face between his hands for a moment as they fell from that crest, as the sun melted away their wings as sure as the water above became the water below. As they fell, and fell, and fell.

He pressed a kiss to the side of her mouth. "Stay the night," he whispered against her skin.

He'd drive her home, if she asked.

"Please," he said, hand slipping from her hair. She hadn't realized in the daze of his words where his hands had gone. That he'd fixed her skirt. Pushed her hair out of her eyes.

She didn't ask.

Jude swallowed, facing the sobering expression Cardan had reserved from the night around. "Okay," she said, so quietly she couldn't even be sure she'd said it aloud.

"I'll stay."

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