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I.
She was a tempest forced inside muscle and bone. Sea water in the shape of a girl. And she had kissed him first. Her tongue was cold, and the morning after he found pearls, like droplets of water, scattered in the folds of his sheets.
Loving Nicasia was easy. Her beauty, her cruelty; it was like a mirror.
Jude is nothing like Nicasia. A daughter of dirt. A festering wound of a girl. And she had kissed him first. The threat of a slit throat, and her fiendish little mouth had his heart slamming against his ribs.
II.
“You were surprised when I said I loved Nicasia. You don’t think I’m able.”
“I don’t think of you at all, Cardan.”
Jude is a liar. Sometimes Cardan forgets this.
III.
On her finger is a ring, a simple toadstone.
In the bath, with rising steam and the scent of lemongrass, he thinks of it. That gold band wrapped around her delicate appendage. Jude could become as vicious as she liked, that tiny bone would still break if he crushed it with his hands. If he peeled away the skin, sinew, let the blood run down his wrists-if she did the same to him-
He sinks beneath the water, staying below until his lungs burn.
IV.
It’s not the request that offends, but her assumptions of him; a thing without feelings. He’s sick with longing, and she does not care.
Behind that ivy hidden door he stains himself with her humanity. He can smell her mint scented breath, her sweat, her cunt. The sounds of her slickness and sighs fill the room. Her mortal flesh twitches beneath his tongue. His thoughts beat against his skull. Jude. Jude. Jude.
When they are dressed she does not leave him with a kiss, but a command veiled as a reminder.
“Don't forget what I said about Nicasia."
V.
He has always imagined love as creature that prowls, with claws, and teeth dripping with heart’s blood.
Now-
When he thinks of love all he sees is Jude at the bottom of the sea; waiting.