Chapter Text
“What are you doing here?” her eyes are wide, heart thundering in her chest. Cardan, ever the image of nonchalance just gave her a lazy smile.
“Aren’t you happy to see me?” he asked, for a moment almost seeming unsure of himself. Red tipped his ears and dusted over his face, flushed from the cold.
Jude pulled the door open wider, “It’s not that but- really, what are you doing here?”
Taking the gesture as an invitation, Cardan swept inside. Dark black eyes flickering about. “Are we going to pretend you didn’t feel it, Jude?” he asks finally, only looking at her through the corner of his eye.
“Feel what?”
“So we are,” he affirms. With nimble fingers he undoes the dozens of polished silver buttons holding his extravagant black coat closed. Gently, he sets it along the back of her worn grey couch, taking great care to avoid any wrinkling. The deep black cat stretched out on the arm of the couch, eyes opening and taking in Cardan. Almost assessing him with careful eyes. Those cunning eyes that seemed to intelligent to belong to a cat was what had first drawn Jude to her. Nightfell had been her closest companion ever since.
“Did you miss me?” he asks, falling onto the same couch, extending his long legs in front of him and resting his hands against the back of his head. Cardan seemed to fill the whole room, the very presence of him overfilling the already cramped space. His dark hair was messy, like he had been running his hands through it, and his eyes were alight with some spark Jude didn’t quite understand.
Ignoring the flutter in her chest that always seemed to appear when he was near, she answered, “I saw you earlier today.”
“That isn’t an answer darling,” reaching a hand out, he lightly latched onto Jude’s wrist, pulling her onto the couch next to him. So close that the side of his thigh pressed firmly against hers. Even once she was firmly seated and hadn’t made a move to stand, he held her wrist delicately, fingers skimming patterns over the sensitive skin there.
“Perhaps you didn’t miss me,” Cardan continues, leaning close, “But I missed you.”
A shiver raced down her spine, lighting up her nerves. Suddenly she was hyper aware of everything, of the heat transferring from his leg to hers, the smell of his cologne, the one she had bought him for his eighteenth birthday, the felling of his warm breath caressing her cheekbone, the proximity of his soft lips to hers.
“I don’t believe that,” she whispers, eyes cast down.
Tender fingers brushed through her hair, “You know I do not lie, Jude.”
Warm brown eyes finally fell on cool black ones, “I do.”
It was perhaps one of Jude’s favorite things about Cardan. Not once through the entirety of their relationship did, he lie to her, hide the truth at times maybe, but he had never outright lied. Even when comforting lies where what she so desperately wished to hear from his lips, he would not give them.
“What are you doing here?” she asks again, forcing any emotions out of her voice.
Cardan smiled like he knew exactly what she was doing, and as much as Jude hated to admit it, he probably did. “I would like to take you on a date Jude. An official one.”
She couldn’t quite keep the shock of her face, “But…”
He interrupts her, eyes intense and boring into hers, “I made the mistake of letting you go once, I do not wish to make it again.”
Something lit up inside Jude at his words, something that felt far too familiar. An odd mix of longing and hope and perhaps something else she couldn’t quite identify.
“Okay,” she whispered, nodding slightly.
It had been hours since he breezed through her door and back on the streets when she found it. A charcoal coloured box, a dagger necklace sitting snuggly inside.
The next time she saw Cardan he was standing in the quaint little coffee shop that had sat around the block from her apartment. It was not nearly as good as the one back home, but it was close. The navy and gold coat he wore stood out, setting him apart from the others, all bundled up in protection of the cold. Jude herself donned a thick deep green wool coat. It had been a gift from Oriana, who had even taken the care to embroider Jude’s name on the inside of her cuff. Jude and her adopted mother had not always seen eye to eye, but as Jude grew older the two of them had grown into a familiar and easy relationship. Oriana was not her mother and could never replace her, but she was… close.
Cardan had caught her eye the second she stepped through the door, a brilliant smile lighting up his face. He moved to sit in one of the chairs at the small table, slightly pulling the other out so it would be waiting for her. It wasn’t exactly a grand romantic gesture, but it tightened Jude’s chest regardless. Two steaming mugs had already been placed there. Shrugging her jacket off and hanging it on the back of her chair, she sat across from him.
Cardan’s hands were clasped together, rings adorning each finger. One in particular stood out to Jude, a snake swallowing its own tail. A deep sense of satisfaction rings through Jude before she has a chance to stop it.
“My darling god,” he says as a greeting, just had he had when they were seventeen. The nickname falls easily on Jude’s ears, like the words of a long-forgotten song.
“My wicked king,” she says back. Cardan’s dark eyes spark at the nickname, a dreamy smile falling on his mouth. Gold glitter dusted them, as well as his cheekbones. In the yellowing light of the café he nearly glowed with it.
Conversation flowed easily, a mixture of catching up and reminiscing. Cardan had said something that caused Jude to throw her head back and bark out a laugh. Something she rarely ever did, and only ever seemed to do around him. Cardans eyes caught on her throat and stayed there, caught on the small dagger dangling on her chest.
Cardan being there felt normal. It just felt right. An invisible hand caught Jude by the throat, all the air in her lungs forced out as a feeling of something akin to fondness swept over all her senses. How was she going to manage this?
“You did not seriously date Nicasia!” Jude laughed; wine glass clutched in her right hand. On the other side of the couch, back pressed against the arm, Cardan cringed.
“It was a lapse in judgement,” Is what he says, and its true in part. His judgement was clouded but he was just so desperate to get over Jude, to get her and her gorgeous brown eyes and wicked tongue out of his mind. He hadn’t succeeded. Nightfell had curled against his leg, taking a liking to him quickly, even as Cardan shifted and shook with laughter. When was the last time he had laughed like this?
Jude’s nose wrinkled, “She was pretty obsessed with you.”
“What can I say,” he gives her his most charming grin, “I am rather irresistible.”
Jude snorts, taking another sip of her wine.
“What about you,” he prods, “Any dramatic ex’s in the time you’ve been gone?”
Her nose wrinkled, “Just one I suppose.” Cardan hums, swirling the crimson liquid in his glass, “And what made him so dramatic?”
“He left me for Taryn.”
The words and the casual tone she says them with sends Cardan sputtering, nearly coughing out the sip of wine he had just taken. “Was he insane?”
She shook her head, “Maybe, but I think that was one of the most sane things he ever did. Taryn was always the better twin anyway.”
Against her will a ball formed in her throat at the words. Long ago had she come to terms with betting the least favored twin, and Locke and Taryn’s engagement. Wine always made her sad and sappy though, breaking out the bottle was likely a bad idea.
Hands cupped her cheeks gently, so gently it nearly brought tears to her eyes. A gentle intimacy she had not felt in a very long time. Cardans face was only inches from hers.
Cardan watched as her eyes widened at their proximity, hoping she saw what he was feeling. Hoping the emotions played out in his face in a way she could read, a way she could understand. Hoping he saw exactly how he felt about her.
“How can you say such lies and convince yourself they are the truth?” his voice is soft and questioning, as if he truly cannot fathom the truth in her words.
“They aren’t lies Cardan,” Her hand moves to her cheek, resting right over his. She moves to push him of but finds herself holding on.
“I have never heard something so untrue leave your lips Jude.”
And suddenly his lips are on hers. Its slower than the others they had shared. Tingles still trailed her skin everywhere he touched, as if he was leaving a trail of sparks along her body. Pushing her hands into the soft black hair at the nape of the neck she pulls him closer. Pressed chest to chest as they were, she could feel his heart beating rapidly in his chest.
She pulls away, just centimeters between their lips, “Stay with me tonight?”
“Always.”