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Cardan was dreaming again. Dreaming of her.
Even slumber offered him no reprieve from her face, from her red mortal lips. It was enough and more then enough to deal with her at the palace lessons every day. To deal with her ferociousness and viciousness, all the while battling his own shameful desires. His dreams, at least, were meant to stay his own. But Cardan often wished for things he couldn't have. He wished for her gone from his sight as well as his mind. He wished for Balekin to seek another target to take out his frustrations on, someone other then him. He wished his mother and father hadn't been such cold, heartless beings. And yet, due to his perpetually rotten luck, his wants scarcely ever came to fruition.
And so Jude invaded his nightmares the same way she invaded his waking thoughts.
Her presumptiousness ought to have been the thing that finally corroded the last bit of infectious lust inside of him. It ought to have made him hate her more, enough to rid him of this ilness once and for all. He thought of her angry face, the gall she had when facing him. The promise she'd made to take him down with her in this game they were playing. There had been so much hate in her, in the soft brown of her eyes, in the harsh pull of her eyebrows.
There was nothing meek about her, in that moment. Nothing soft and mortal.
And it was wrong. This wasn't the way things worked. He was the Prince of Faerie. He was magic, and immortal, and had so much power that he could suffocate her with it in an instant. Her defiance was a pervesion. An unnatural thing she insisted on pushing on him for the love of testing him. She was human, and weak, and the bastard child of an unfaithful wife. Her very existence was a taboo.
And so it was with burning, scortching shame that he admitted to himself how much he wanted her because of it. It dirtied him, every time he thought of her. It left him feeling weak and irritated, tail lashing back in forth in an acrid combination of resentment and desire. Worst and worst was that her defience ruined him even more. It made his corrosive thoughts bloom further, made him dream up her eventual surrender as that much sweeter. The sharper her tongue, the more he imagined softening it. The more delightful her submission.
His dreams all start like this;
They are in a forest, perphaps somewhere near the palace school grounds. The night is dark, and full of terrors. Light pours only out of stray fire lillies or discarded emerald torches. There is no one but them in the vast darkness, surrounded by the looming greenery of the trees. And that is when she comes to him, always, demure and perphaps a bit afraid.
"Little mortal," He says in a softly. He knows that she knows the timbre of his voice meant only danger.
Her eyes snap up to his, and her face is gloriously wiped of contempt. There is a small tremble to her reddening lips, a flush crawling up her neck. Jude's eyes shine with something like fear, admiartion, and impossibly, desire. She swallows, and her skin flutters with the motion of it.
"Fragile creatures like you should not be about alone," Cardan tells her, playing the worried prince. There is a smirk in his voice that he is sure reveals his delight either way. "Lest someone snatch you away, and you are never to be seen again,"
"I've come to apolagize," Jude says at last, her voice resolute. And yet she cannot meet his eyes.
His smirk widens, but a bolt of fury threads through him just as well. She should of apolagized from the start. She should of never tried to be his equal. She should of never tempted him. In two small strides, he is before her, gripping Jude's heart shaped face with the pads of his fingers. He is being rough, but she deserves punishment. Deserves to have her lips pucker under the pressure of his touch.
"And how will you do that, hm?" He asks her lowly. She is trembling, a small whimper leaving her mouth. He cannot even hide the desire that courses through him at that, and he ignores the slight mortification that comes with it.
Jude's eyes move frantically over his face, like a trapped bird. As though she is both searching for a way out and a way in.
"You have angered me," He hopes she suffocates under his gaze, hopes she crumbles. "You should have kept your pretty head down. You should of obeyed me, should of cleaved for my mercy the first chance you got."
"You're right," Jude whispers at last, voice sweet and earnest. "Of course you're right. Me and my sister should of never been tutored with you. I have done wrong, my prince. Will you forgive me?"
Cardan snakes his hand into the roots of her, tugging harshly on the strands. She winces, but she does not pull away. Their gazes meet, and he wants to devour her whole. Wants to shed her clothes right then, to turn her against that tree and take her until she's begging for him to never stop. A molten pit of want has taken root within his body, spreading and infection every crevice of his being.
He laughs meanly. "What happened to all of your ambitions, sweet Jude? Where is that despicable viciousness of yours now?"
He is mocking her. He wishes to know how far he can test her. How far she will go in her surrender.
Jude's cheeks heat. "I thought I could be like you," She says at last, gaze downcast. "I was wrong. I am only mortal."
"Oh, indeed," Cardan's eyes study the slope of her face. She is so unlike the fae. The soft curve of her face is full and round, the part of her lips plump and so very red. There is a beauty to her that alarms him, that makes him want to feel every fleshy inch of her body. "Do you wish for my absolution?'
"Yes, my prince," Her voice is all breath.
"Tell me, how much?" He whispers against her neck. Her hands tighten on his arms.
"More then anything," She admits softly. "Please."
He bites her neck, feasts on the sweet, supple skin there. "What will you do for me, my little villan?"
Jude gasps, but only a little of it is in pain. He can smell her arousal, her mortal neediness traitorously pooling between her thighs.
"Anything. Anything you want," She beeseches, head thrown back.
He pulls back, slowly. Her pupils are wide, glazed over, fully willing to bend to his will. The absolution of his power in this is almost staggering to him. And yet he knows that Jude would not dream of opposing him now. Not with her plesing pleas of clemency, with her brown eyes blinking up at him through a fog of lust.
"Convince me of your surrender," He urges, his voice velvety.
"I will be good," Jude promises, biting her lip earnestly. "I will be so good for you, Prince Cardan."
That is, perphaps, what always undoes him. When he leans in to kiss her, she is just as eager, but is is obvious who dominates the motion. Her lips are soft when he digs his teeth into them, relishing in the split that draws blood. Jude lets out a small squek, but he covers it with his own mouth, eagerly covering her sounds. She curls into easily, as though she is just as insatiable as he is, as though she can't stand the thought of not touching him.
Want threatnes to consume him whole.
He pushes her eagerly, and she obediently falls back against the trunk of a tree. Jude's mouth is a hot, sinful sensation. The slide of her lips is soft, a complete contrast with the rest of this devastating kiss. She's warm, Cardan realizez. So very warm. Unlike the fae, he'd heard that mortal blood runs hotter in their veins, rushes faster through their bodies. He feels it in the fevirish feel of her arms, the sweat on her brow, the flush of her smooth neck.
Theres something carnal about having Jude like this, so wonderfully pliant and soft in his arms. There is a rush of something dangerous that comes with her apology, but what fuels it, what feeds the fire inside of him that much more, is her physical submission. The look in her eyes, which so very easily could have been anger, had just as quickly melted into desire.
What is happening between them is a travesty.
Cardan knows it as he titlts her chin up to his, as he brands his mouth on to hers over and over again. But here, at least, he can pretend that he is the one in control. That although he might desire her, Jude craves him even more. And that he, as the merciful prince he is, conceeded to her greedy mortal desires.
Then, suddenly the scene shifts. They are no longer in the mossy forest by the palace grounds, but in his rooms at Hollow Hall. His chambers are poorly lit, with only a few candles strewn here and there. But moonlight pours through the windows, spilling over the floor and feather blankets like wine. He has no issue with the lack of light, but he knows Jude is likely to struggle. He makes no move to help her, however.
In this new frame, wrought by his foolish mind, she stands only a few feet from his bed. She is clad in a soft blue velvet dress, intricately stitched with swirling gold designs. Her hair is done in that peculiar way that makes her seems as though she's got horns, an interesting attempt to look like the folk. She is breathing heavily.
Cardan pours himself a cup of wine, then lays down on the bed haphazardly. He watches her through half lidded eyes. "Well?" He drawls. "You vowed to show me how sorry you are. Come then. Please me well, and perphaps I will reward you."
For a second, she hesitates. "I-"
He smirks. A part of him had expected this. "Prudish mortal. Do not grow shy now."
"I am not shy," Jude says, and if this were real life, her words would contain vitrol. Instead, she just sounds wonderfully sensual. Perphaps she wants him to know that she is eager for him, that she wants it just as bad. And as though to prove it, she returns his look through her own lashes, and then slides her dress off.
There are a lot of things that make Jude mortal. There is her heart shaped face, and the fat curve of both her cheeks. There are her ears, naturally, which are oddly round and just delicate as the rest of her. And there are her weaknesses; her slower reflexes, her lack of immortality, her infirmity to magic and glamours.
And yet what makes her most painfully human is her body. It is fuller and softer then is often seen in Faerie, slightly trembling in the almost darkness. Her arms lay by her sides - an invitation if there ever was one - for him to look his fill. And look he does. At the heaviness of her breasts, and the blushing peaks they come to in the wake of her lust. The slope of her stomach and the delicious strength of her legs. The curve of her widening hips, the meeting of her thighs and the soft pink flesh there.
The force of his desire is like a slap to the face. He should despise all of her now. Should despise her human features as he'd been raised to. And yet, all he feels is sickening wonder and want. All he wants is to feel her, to grasp at her skin until she whimpers. What would it be like? What would she be like? More sensitive, perphaps, as mortals are in most things? Would she come undone quicker, or slower? Would she taste sweet when he put his tongue between her legs?
"Come here," He orders, voice rough.
Jude obediently saunters over, and the sway of her body is a poison in itself. Cardan places the wine on his nightstand, then props himself against the headboard of the bed. He pats his thighs in invitation. She wastes no time in moving, and a moment later she is settling herself on his lap. Like this, he can feel the heat of her scorthing him though his own clothes. Naked and spread out on either side of him, he only need look down to see the obscene parting of her cunt.
He is so impossibly stiff that he can barely breathe.
"Here is what we will do," He tells her lazily, injecting soft malice in his voice to make it seem as though he is not at all affected by her presence. "Since you have vowed to be good, you will keep your hands behind your back until I deem it otherwise."
Jude's eyes are full of liquid heat when she follows his command, and sitting there, on his lap, she looks ripe for the eating. A deliciously fleshy offering.
"I am yours to do with as you please," She whispers in his ear. "Yours to touch, and yours to please."
He palms her waist, squeezing the skin there apprecietively. "Oh, but do you deserve it?"
For a moment, she looks confused, and he barells on, tone craefully considering. "Do you deserve my fingers, I wonder?"
Jude swallows. Cardan leans and sucks a mark right on the apple of her throat, and she lets out a strangled sound. "Do you deserve to be ravished, after all that self rightousness?"
She looks at him with needy eyes. "Please. Please, will you touch me?"
Cardan slithers his hand into her hair, then twists it painfully. He pulls her to him, and with her hands behind her back, she has no choice but to fall forward. "I am nothing if not merciful."
Then he drags her into a mean and filthy kiss. She lets him do it. She lets him do it all. His teeth move scrape her throat and she doesn't protest at the agressivness of his mouth, at the violet splotches he leaves there. She trembles, but and even there her pliancy does not waver. When cardan lowers his head to her breasts, all she does is moan, an infectiously lewd sound.
This is what fully yielding looks like, he thinks. How wondorous it is to see her give in, to hear such sounds come from her lying tongue. If he were not so impossibly arroused, he might of been in awe at her capacity for self betrayal.
In the moment, he does not care. He'll ruin her as long as she lets him. He'll make her feel so good she'll never think of opposing him again.
Cardan dives back down to her breasts, palms rough aginst their smoothess, and they are just as mallable as the rest of her in that moment. He bites the blushing peaks and twists the puckering skin between his thumbs, watching Jude squirm under his mean minstriations. Her chest is red and tender when he moves away, fleshy and shining with spit.
"What a delectable sight," He murmurs against her throat. He can hear her heart thumping wildly in her chest, like a trapped bird. Her eyes are hafl closed, gazing at him as though through a daze.
He moves his hands down her thighs, stopping to squeeze her backside roughly. She yelps at this, but he doesn't give her a chance to do more then that. She is slick like oil when he brings his fingers where she needs him most, and he glides easily through her folds. The heat of her is heady and almost unbearable - he'd been right about that quality in humans. He does no more then stroke her, but she quivers anyway, mouth half parted around a moan.
"Wicked girl," Cardan bites her earlobe. The entire span of her chest and neck had been purpled by his mouth. "You're gushing."
"It's not my fault," Jude answers breathily.
He raises a mocking eyebrow. "Oh?"
He speeds his movments.
"Y-you do this to me," She admits, as though he had not known already.
Cardan chuckles lowly. "I can do so much worse,"
Then he speared a long finger inside of her, groaning at the feel of her. She was burning like the embers of a fire, hot and intoxicating.
"Oh," Jude gasped. "Oh, god..."
He grinned, burning up right along with her. He spread her open further with a hand on her ass, then slid another finger into her. There was a slight resistence this time, but he pushed past it, and it gave away to the easy glide of before. She was wondorously slick, wanton and plaint and panting right in his lap. Jude threw her head back, neck bared, thighs trembling. She tried to close them, but he smacked them open. She would not have been able to do much, anyway, with his own legs in between hers.
She was glorious like this. Glorious with her eyebrows scrunched, pleasure etched on to every corner ofher face.
He felt her tightening deliciously and knew she was close. He sped up his movements until she crumbled against him, whining and groaning. And throgh all of it, she'd dutifully kept her hands behind her back. Even in his dreams, he could hardly believe this level of compliance was coming from her. He was drunk on it. High and more then high, gone and untethered from the ground.
Cardan extracts his fingers from her sopping entrence, then grasps her chin. Her mahogany hair had come undone at some point, messy and array in the wake of his rough handlings.
"Do you know what I am going to do to you now?" He asks, his face still impassively mean. There was a harsh power imbalance between them now, one he knew he should have in real life, but didn't. But here, it was wholly different. She was naked and spent, roughed up at his call, while he sat back and imperiously admired his work.
Jude swallows, then nods.
"And do you want it?"
She leans in, pressing her chest to his own. "I want you to take me, my prince." Her voice is all silk and want.
He growls, kneading her pliant flesh. "Tell me exactly how,"
"Roughly," She whispers. "Roughly, like I deserve,"
Cardan grasps her neck from behind, but she continues before he can open his mouth.
"Make me bleed, if you want," Jude tells him lowly, a seductress sent to torment him. "Make me come undone."
He kisses her again, and hopes she understand everything through it. Hopes he bruises her with his mouth. Slipping out of his breeches, he sinks into her in one swift motion. Jude's breath stutters, and the sound that crawls out of her throat seems as though its been dragged out. She's warm and wet and impossibly tight. He groans into her breasts, lost in every aspect of her.
One hand goes to her back, clasping her arms there securely. She makes no move to stop him, and from then on he lets completley loose. The sound of her wetness is downright indecent, and each time he thrusts into her from below, she lets out a punched out gasp and a trembling whine. He snaps his hips mercilessly, and their skins slap together in sweaty tandem.
"Look down," Cardan orders through his harsh breaths. "Look at how well I'm spreading you,"
She obeys, but her eyes are barely focused. The thought that he turned her into this, that he mollified her to this extent, makes another bolt of satisfaction crawl up his spine. While one hand locks her hands, another reaches up to her mouth, tumbing her bottom lip.
"Who's are you?" He snaps his hips into her.
"Yours," She cries.
Cardan's thumb slips into her mouth, and she readily wraps her tongue around it, sucking obediently. He was in a frenzy now, watching her wide eyes stare at him as he ruined her below.
"And does it feel good?" He taunts, sweat beading on his own brow. "Does it feel good to loose, my sweet mortal?"
"Yes, yes, ah-" Jude babbles, almost incoherently, around his finger.
She comes undone like that, almost sobbing, with his thumb in her mouth and her hands helplessly restrained behind her back. Her body quackes and spams, and at lasts he falls forward on his chest, spent and defeated. Cardan follows quickly after, stuttering and growling her name. He pulls out, and the indecent sight of his spent dribbling out of her is the last thing he sees before the dream fades.
Cardan wakes up hot and aching. He sits up, panting, horrified with himself. And then, like always, the shame comes trickling in, scortching him from the inside. He's stiff, and embrrassed, and dizzy with want. He thinks of Jude, who he imagined just now in his rooms, probably sleeping peacefully in the General's house, hating him in her slumber.
For all of his ambitions, he knows, in the marrow of his bones, that Jude will never conceede to him.
Cardan moves to his desk, searching for parchment and a quill. Then he begins writing.
Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude, Jude...