#this is the jurdan fluff i so desperately need

[starrynightsxo]

"Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway."

- Cardan Greenbriar, How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

[scarletaire]

flowerfall

A/N: Not my usual Jurdan fare, I know, but after reading A Sky Beyond the Storm, this fic poured out of me and I was helpless to stop it. Canon-divergent for Chapter LX, but mostly follows canon for everything after.

WARNING: Spoilers for A Sky Beyond The Storm!

Fandom: An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

Ship: Helene Aquilla x Avitas Harper

Genre/s: Fluff

Rating: T

Links: Masterlist | Read on AO3 

[Summary and tags under the cut because spoilers!] 

Description: 

When Avitas Harper falls, the Blood Shrike makes a deal with Death.  Snapshots of their life together after the war.

Tags: Harper Lives, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Helvitas Living Their Best Lives, We Stan One (1) Power Couple

_______

When Avitas Harper falls, the Blood Shrike makes a deal with Death.

It happens as Mirra of Serra takes her knife to Keris Veturia’s neck. The blood and the life leave her body, but the Shrike cannot revel in it, for her love is dead and cold in her arms.

How is it possible that she still had anything left to lose?

But of course, to love someone is both to gain and to lose a thousand pieces of the world all at once.

She roars in the face of it.

In the face of Death.

And this time, with the bridge between worlds on the brink of evisceration, Death answers.

I need power, says Mauth to anyone who will listen, weakened, and scrambling for any strength to beat back the storm. Power to fight.

The Blood Shrike has never heard the voice of Mauth before, but what he asks for is familiar. She knows all too well the pursuit of power, the search for anything to keep fighting. It is what she searches desperately for now.

Give him back, she orders Death with the voice of a girl who has still too much to lose, give him back, and I will give you the strength you need.

The power of the Star. The power of song and healing. The power of Rehmat, reborn again through the centuries and a thousand times in her blood.

Whatever it is, it will be enough.

It has to be.

The maw opens its jaws. The Nightbringer succumbs to the maelstrom. The Sea of Suffering overtakes the sky.

And Helene Aquilla sings her last song.

____

For a moment, there is only the storm. It surges through the escarpment, it rages across the cliffs, it consumes everything in its path.

For a moment, all is lost.

For a moment, she thinks that at least she didn’t have to wait long before following him.

And then, between one breath and the next, the maelstrom disappears.

Beneath her hand, Avitas Harper stirs.

____

In the end, her deal hadn’t mattered. It wasn’t Mauth that saved them all. It was Laia of Serra, because of course, of course, who else could have done it but her. Helene is full of a strange mix of pride and awe when she pulls Laia into a hug. The girl she once tried to kill, the girl who pieced together the broken world.

The once Beloved, the once Forsaken now rests in chains of mercy, and so the world continues on.

Mauth never speaks to her again.

Maybe because there is nothing she could possibly offer anymore. Maybe because the next time Mauth speaks to her, it will be at the end, when his words will be the last thing she will ever hear.

Briefly, she wonders what Death will do with the power she gave him. Then she thinks that it doesn’t really matter much to her, anymore.

____

She stands with Elias as they take in the bodies of their dead. They are spread out in lines across the forest floor. There are too many of them, Martial, Scholar, Tribal – it isn’t important anymore. They were divided in life. Today, they are united in the loss of it.

Above her, around her, the forest blooms alive, like a panacea for the death and destruction spilt upon the soil, blossoms of apricot and cherry and Tala filling the air with their sweetness, falling to the ground like colored snow.

It is a good thing, then, that Harper is alive. If she had lost him, truly lost him, then she would not have been able to bear the sight of flowers ever again.

____

It turns out dying and being brought back to life takes a toll on a human body.

“When will he wake?” she whispers into the quiet of the healer’s tent. “It’s been days.”

She knows the body lying still before her is merely asleep, but she remembers the way he had looked with all the life drained out of him, and it is a sight she will never forget.

“Give him some time,” Elias says. “Being resurrected by Death itself is no easy thing.”

She raises her eyebrow at him askance.

“I know a thing or two about being resurrected by Mauth.” He shrugs, and the movement is so familiar, so genuinely Elias that she feels the corner of her lips tilt. “Guess it runs in the family now.”

Avitas Harper wakes two days after.

She doesn’t give him a chance to get his bearings. The words are out of her lips before he can even try to sit up, like a song she can’t keep silent any longer. “I love you.”

He raises his fingers to her face, tracing the scars there like a benediction. “I got my wish.”

Emifal Firdaant.

She presses her palm against his hand, trapping it against her cheek. “With all due respect, Captain Harper, it was a bleeding stupid wish. So I did you the courtesy of vetoing it.”

When she kisses him, she feels like she can breathe again after a millennium of holding her breath.

____

When Mirra of Serra takes up the mantle of Soul Catcher, Helene watches the life return to Elias’s eyes, and the hope return to Laia’s.

The Bani al-Mauth turns to Harper. “I suppose I should thank you. For offering me shelter and safety in the bowels of Antium.”

“It was an honor, Lioness. You repaid me in kind when you helped the Blood Shrike through the tunnels.”

“And when you aided in the battle with Keris,” Helene adds.

Mirra scoffs, white hair dancing in the wind. “I worried that the Shrike wouldn’t be able to keep the secret to herself. Not like you. A mind like a steel trap, you have.” She slaps Harper once across the chest. He does a fine job of hiding his grimace as she knocks his healing wounds. “Think you’ll be a fine brother-in-law for my daughter.”

Elias splutters, Laia flushes, and Helene feels a laugh bubbling up in her chest for the first time in ages.

____

As their troops begin to file out of the Forest of Dusk, she sees the figures of two men talking under the shade of a tree. Elias is taller, but Avitas is older. And so it is he who holds out his hand for his brother to shake.

And it is Elias who takes it, but uses it to pull him into a hug instead. She sees Avitas’s back stiffen in surprise, but he doesn’t push him away.

“It shouldn’t have taken so long for this to happen,” Elias says. “I’m glad you’re alive, brother. I’m glad I wasn’t the one to have to pass you on.”

____

When Quin Veturius proclaims her Empress in front of the conclave of their people, her eyes immediately seek Harper.

Help me, she tries to convey. Knock the old man out before he actually convinces them.

“Stand strong,” he says aloud, instead, love and pride sparkling in his green eyes, “Empress.”

____

Later that night, when she sings Zacharias to sleep with a soft lullaby, her blood doesn’t sing with her. It’s silent, dormant. The air is empty with the ghost of her magic.

Leaning against the door a few feet away, Avitas has closed his eyes to listen, his lips curled up at the edges.

And it should feel like something has been stolen from her, but really, it feels more like a blessing than anything else.

____

She dances with Avitas at the Moon Festival in Nur, and the night is warm and they’re both still in armor, and neither of them really know how to dance properly anyway, but it is enough.

It is more than enough.

Skies, it’s more than she could have ever asked for.

He lifts his arm and she twirls under it, catching the twinkle in his eye, and suddenly, she wishes they weren’t in such a crowded place full of other people. Suddenly, she wishes they were alone, in a room, flushed and pressed up against each other just like this. Dancing a dance they both know the steps of far too well.

On her next twirl, she catches Musa’s eye, where he leans against a table, flirting with a pretty Scholar girl. He winks at her, as if he knows exactly where her thoughts have strayed.

She’s far too happy to be annoyed in any way, and so she almost sends him a wink of her own before Harper pulls her close against him again and the thought is forgotten.

____

It occurs to her later in the night, as the festivities draw to a close and she glimpses Musa walking back to his tent alone, that she had come far, far too close to understanding his loneliness in a way she hates to imagine.

____

At night, the Empress walks her city.

Avitas Harper walks with her.

The blue irises native to Antium are in full bloom, littering the ground.

One year, she thinks, as she cups her hand around a petal that floats down to her through the air. It’s been one year since the last flowerfall.

The one in which the world was broken. The one in which the world was remade.

____

Sometimes, she wakes thinking of her family. Of Livia, bleeding out in front of her son. Of her mother, father, Hannah. All of them, their throats cut, their lives lost, gone.

Sometimes, she wonders if they will hate her for bringing back her lover instead of one of them, any of them.

Sometimes, she wonders if she will ever forgive herself for any of it.

____

Avitas Harper, as it turns out, is a shockingly good babysitter.

The first time he gets Zacharias to sleep in under ten minutes, she chalks it up to dumb luck and good timing.

The second time it happens she almost kisses him despite the baby in his arms, too grateful for the peace and quiet after a long hour of listening to her nephew scream.

The third time it happens, she stares at him in disbelief.

“Did you bring back anything from the afterlife, maybe? Does Mauth have supernatural baby-charming magic that we don’t know about?”

He flashes her that half-smile that she feels underneath her skin.

Her next decree, she decides, will be outlawing all attractive men in armor from holding adorable, sleeping babies. It should be absolutely illegal by now, the sheer power of the sight before her.

____

She may be the Empress, but she is a soldier first and foremost.

When the Karkauans hold hostage the Martial ambassador she had sent over to confer the peace treaty, she is first in line for the mission to take him back.

“It’s not over yet,” she tells her men, when all efforts at neutral negotiation fall through. “I’m most dangerous when I’m cornered.”

Harper stands strong at her side. Her Blood Shrike, always watching. “That makes two of us.”

They march together into the fray.

____

The next Moon Festival, Mamie Rila finally succeeds in shoving her into a dress.

She puts up a good fight, doesn’t go down easy. In the end, it takes the combined forces of Laia, Afya, and an exasperated Mamie Rila to wrangle the Empress into the thin, strappy excuse for a gown.

“What is this supposed to be, a slip? Where’s the rest of it?”

Laia furrows her brows. “What are you talking about? That is the rest of it.”

Helene gapes. “I can’t wear this. I’m the Empress. I can’t walk around looking like I’m one stiff breeze away from a public scandal!”

“If you ask me,” says Afya, “a public scandal might do you some good. Just the thing you need to convince some of those troublesome, barbaric Karkauans to ally with you like you’ve been planning.”

“Burning, bleeding hells.” Elias’s eyes go wide when he walks in. “Who are you and what have you done with the real –”

He chokes off as Laia elbows him in the gut. “Don’t listen to him. Or Afya. You look great. Harper will love it. Shall we get on with your hair?”

Helene rears back, because her hair is the last bastion of normalcy she has.

Harper looks like he's been stabbed in the heart a second time when he catches sight of her, and Helene vows to never wear a dress again.

But when his fingers find the hem of her skirt under the table, tugging first, testing the stretch of the fabric against the skin of her thigh, and then slowly inching under, and then up and up and up — well. Maybe dresses aren’t so bad after all.

____

Sometimes, when she walks, Laia is there beside her. There are some nights when the ghosts of the past seem to walk with them, too. This night, in Serra, is one of those nights. Spring has come, and the flowers here are different, cushioning the road on which they walk with bright yellow petals.

“I can’t forget their faces.”

Laia has never been a killer. But she has dealt her fair share of death during their war, and that leaves a mark on the soul that can never be burned away. The difference now lies in how one goes about dealing with those marks. No, Laia has never been a killer, even when she had to be.

Helene, on the other hand, has spent too much of her life wearing the skin of one, and so she speaks as much to herself as she does to her friend when she replies.

“And you won’t. Just don’t forget the ones you saved.”

____

The first time Zacharias speaks a full word, it’s in the middle of supply negotiations with Tribe Nasur. She has just been reunited with her nephew after months in the capital and so is making up for it by carrying and snuggling him everywhere she goes, even if it is to a highly political trade meeting.

Fortunately, Tribe Saif is in close relations with Tribe Nasur, and so no one throws dirty looks when the baby babbles nonsense right when someone tries to speak. The Fakira even smiles encouragingly when Helene begins to bounce him on her knee.

That’s when Harper enters behind her with a missive from Blackcliff.

“Empress.” His voice is warm, and she realizes that it’s because Zacharias has noticed him, and is dimpling up at him with his head tilted back in that way that only babies can do. “We have positive turnout for the new recruits at –”

“Hapa!”

The whole room stills, as if everyone understands the gravity of this moment. Helene feels a grin break across her face, and she realizes that this is a first for her, too. Her first real grin in so, so long, after so much pain. Harper’s large, brown hand comes over her shoulder to pat Zacharias’s downy head in gentle praise, and she forces herself to get it together in front of all these important Tribespeople.

The meeting goes on. But then, one little detail niggles at her, like a tiny pebble in her boot.

Later, when she’s pushing him against the side of an empty caravan, her lips maybe a little too punishing against the skin behind his ear, he has the gall to chuckle at her.

“Are you jealous? Because his first word was my name and not yours?”

And so Helene sinks to her knees and shuts him up the best way she knows how.

____

Once, and only once, Mirra of Serra, Bani al-Mauth, visits her on a balmy night. The snow is almost over, and the Empress stands at her balcony overlooking the grounds, singing a lullaby to a sleeping Zacharias. He is getting too big now, and so she relishes any moment with him while she can still carry him in her arms.

It is on a dying winter wind that the Soul Catcher comes to her, the white locks of her hair stark against the night. “So it was you. I should have known.”

Helene glances at her out of the corner of her eye. “Known what?”

Mirra casts her gaze out into the city, and beyond, seeing something that only the Chosen of Death can see.

“There is a song across the river,” she says. “In the Waiting Place. All the ghosts ready to pass on hear it. It gives them peace.”

Ah, Helene thinks to Mauth, even though she knows he isn’t listening, so you used my voice after all.

____

When flowerfall comes again, and she has lost count at this point, how many it’s been, Helene Aquilla does not need to walk outside to know.

The blue petals of her beloved city, so familiar now, drift across her window like rain. The air is sweet with the smell of it, and with all that the two of them had done during the night, tangled together in the sheets of her bed.

She lifts a hand to trace the outlines of the silver Mask on his face. He pulls himself out of his doze just enough to smile at her.

“I know I said I would never marry and have children and all,” she begins, and the words are slow like honey in her mouth, “and I stand by my vow as Empress. But the adjoining room to my chambers is empty and I was wondering if –”

“Yes.”

She blinks at the swiftness of his answer. “Are you sure?”

“Of course. How else will I keep you out of trouble, my love?”

And so their lives go on.

_____

End Notes: 

Thank you for reading!

I did not foresee ever writing for this fandom, but after that ending, writing this was the catharsis I needed. Now back to regularly scheduled programming! 😂

* Didn’t tag anyone for fear of spoilers, and also because I wasn’t sure if they’d be interested in non-Jurdan fic 🙈But if you’d like to be tagged in any future stuff, I’d be honored to do so! ❤️

[darklesmylove]

Hi hun! Morning whispers destroyed me in a beautiful way. I'm weak for soft Jurdan. And I adore your writing 💙 Can you add me to your taglist please? Thank you!

aw thank you so much!! i’m glad you enjoyed the jurdan fluff we all so desperately need hahaha

and yes of course i’ll tag you! 🥰

[sarahjtrash]

An Untimely Admission

2.3K, Jurdan, Rated T

Jude shares something she's been keeping secret during an inopportune moment.

A/N: Despite what the summary may suggest, I just want to say this isn’t a pregnancy fic. Nothing against those, but I don't really write that. Fluff and angst still ensue. Enjoy!

-o-0-o-

Jude couldn’t take it anymore. 

While she understood that being exiled and keeping her title a secret was the politically wise thing to do, she couldn’t watch Cardan pursue his carnal desires anymore. It didn’t matter that she knew he would never fully pursue these women, that he would crawl into bed with Jude and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. She was tired of being sidelined in her own life once again. So when Cardan leaned down to whisper something in Nicasia’s ear, Jude handed her drink to the nearest courtier and stormed out of the hall. 

She heard Nicasia’s laughter follow her out the room. 

As she walked, she pulled her jewelry off and dropped it on the floor. While Cardan and her agreed that it made more sense for them to win over courtiers this way, she hated it. She had the same privileges in almost anything being fair game in the hall for political advancement; however, after three months of it, she wanted to punch something. They always tumbled together afterwards, neither going farther than chaste kisses with a stranger, but Jude was tired of playing these wicked games. She wiped her sleeve against her face, trying to stop the tears that rolled down her face, surely smearing her makeup. 

Whatever the guards and servants wanted to say about the state of their supposed seneschal didn’t matter. 

When she reached the end of the hallway, she turned towards her old rooms instead of the king’s suite, refusing to share a bed tonight, or perhaps any night in the future if she had it her way. Cardan could certainly find himself someone else to satisfy him.

That thought seemed to work like a summoning as she heard quick footsteps following behind her.

“I don’t want to talk right now,” she said pathetically. 

She heard Cardan stop moving. “Please don’t run away,” he quietly begged.

She whipped around quickly, her jealousy quickly becoming anger. “And what would it matter to you?” She hissed. 

His face morphed into something she couldn’t recognize. “Let’s not do this in the hallway.”

Her blood positively boiled. “Or what?” She seethed, “Someone would hear us? What a catastrophe that would be.”

Cardan’s face changed to match hers. “You can stand here and yell all you want, but I am going back to the King’s chambers.”

Jude watched his back as he strode away from her and damned herself when she followed him after a few seconds. It amused her that he had to refer to their bedroom as ‘the King’s’ for fear of discovery. His cloak billowed behind him, emanating power as he strode down the halls like he owned them, which she supposed he did. 

When they finally reached his chambers, Jude fifteen paces behind, her anger began to swell once more as they entered the room, and he gently closed the door behind them.

His entire demeanor changed when they crossed the threshold, and his eyes filled with care. “What’s wrong?”

It was exactly this kind of mind game that drove her insane. “I don’t think you get to ask that.”

He let out a frustrated sigh. “I am really exhausted of fighting you, Jude.”

“Then don’t.” 

“I can’t do that if you’re not telling me what’s wrong.”

She crossed her arms and broke his infuriatingly concerned gaze. “Every day in Elfhame, I am constantly reminded of how inadequate I am. I have fought tooth and nail every day for years to crawl to where am I. Which by the way, where I am is a Queen without a crown and a title no one knows about. And I was willing to accept that. So stupidly willing to accept that. Now, all I have is a husband who can dance and swoon and kiss whoever he desires, and I just get to watch while everyone thinks I am a petty, dumb mortal.”

“We can march into that throne room right now and declare you the rightful Queen.”

Her eyes felt like stinging once again. “That is not what this is about. You just party and seduce all the time, without ever caring about—“

She watched the frustration build in him, as he spat out, “You know as well as I do that you are held to the same standards that I am.”

“And what good does that do! If you even cared a little a bit, you would know that I haven’t tried to be seductive towards a courtier in over a month now. I just wait like a naive, trained dog for you to crawl home and get a good fuck in. Do I have any affect on you or do you just enjoy watching me suffer?”

He tried to reach for her, his voice begging a little. “You know what you do to me.”

She stepped back from his advances in disgust. “I should have known. Everyone in your life leaves you or betrays you for one reason or another. Maybe it’s the disappointment or the lack of concern you have for others, but everyone in your life has been part of a sick twisted game, and I am finished being a pawn Cardan. I must be such an idiot, one who watches you drink and play and then gets repeatedly fucked over. Could you even imagine that? How awful it is to be in love with someone who is constantly trying to best you? And you let yourself get fooled time and time again because maybe this time they’ll behave differently.” 

Cardan’s eyes grew wide as saucers as Jude’s heavy breathing filled the room. 

“You’re so inconsiderate to everyone around you that I’m not surprised that Balekin—“

“Jude,” He interrupted her sentence. 

“You can’t even let me finish one sentence. It’s like when I speak—“

“Jude,” He practically yelled at her. 

Anger filled her, and she couldn’t help the glare that she hoped buried him six feet under. “If you’re so inclined to hear yourself, then what,” She spat. 

“I think you should stop speaking—“

“And you’re so controlling and goddamned—“

“Before you say more things that you don’t mean,” He finished loudly.

Their breathing settled between them, and tension filled the room. She thought about what she could say that would ruin him as much as he ruined her when she realized what she’d admitted.

Her thoughts must have shown on her face because he said, “Sometimes Jude, I really wish you couldn’t lie.”

She wouldn’t give him the reassurance of admitting that she meant what she said. Instead, she chose to let him believe the worst. “I think it’s best that I leave.”

He didn’t say anything as she walked out the door. 

-o-0-o-

Three days later, Jude felt awful. 

She still saw Cardan daily at meetings and the revel last night, but neither deigned to speak with the other more than necessary. They played their roles of King and Seneschal, so that no one would notice anything amiss. It drove Jude insane. All she wanted was to apologize, let him know the truth, or at the very least say hello. All she got, though, were cool glances and smirks thrown her way. 

If she truly wanted what she claimed she did the other night, she knew that she would have to instigate relief efforts, no matter her pride. For the past two days, she’d written and rewritten a letter over and over, trying to explain what she meant. Eventually, she left it short and handed it off to a servant as she walked towards a dueling ring in the courtyard. 

The other letter she’d written was to the bomb demanding her presence in training gear. In the palace, she was Jude’s most worthy adversary. After the better part of an hour, sweat dripped off Jude as she blocked and deflected the bomb’s jests and strikes. Her mortal heart pounded in her chest. It felt so good to release herself like that his that she’d forgotten all about the three little words she wrote on that sheet until she heard an approach from behind.

“My queen?” Cardan called almost hesitantly. 

The bomb instantly stopped fighting and sagely made no noise as Jude turned around. 

“Is this true?” He asked, there was more than just desperation in his voice, almost as if he hoped for answer. 

“Would I lie to you, Your Highness?” She asked. 

He licked his lips in a way that set Jude on fire. “I have need of Jude, Dear, if you don’t mind her leaving the session early, Bomb.”

The bomb said, perhaps too innocently. “I don’t think she minds at all.”

When they reached his room, Cardan held out his hand with the letter in it. “I’ve received word that perhaps you’re ready to end this little feud.”

She took the letter while watching him. “And is this word to be trusted?”

“I feel inclined to believe so.”

As Jude unfolded the letter, she already knew what she would find. It was something that had taken her days, to draft. It was incredibly short and simple, and barely reflected her thoughts. 

In her own handwriting, the cream paper read, 

I didn’t lie.

She pretended that she was mulling over its contents, that it was some long policy proposal instead of a flimsy admission. In an uncharacteristic manner, Cardan patiently let her stare at it. 

She decided she wasn’t quite done with their little game. “Anyone could have written this.”

Cardan’s eyes drifted to the letter as well. “Though true, it appears to be in your handwriting.”

“Anyone can fake that.”

He leveled her a look. “The servant said, ‘From your seneschal, Jude Duarte.’”

“Perhaps a twist of words.”

“Jude.”

HIs name seemed to rattle through her, and she remembered why she even wrote that blasted piece in the first place. 

“For the more hurtful things I said the other night, I apologize. For others, I meant what I said.”

“And what part was that?” He challenged.

She rolled her eyes and looked off. “It seems to have escaped me.”

“Liar.”

When she looked back at him, she said, “I hate you.”

He watched her very intently. “I know.”

She inhaled deeply and panic seemed to fill her bones as she thought about her next words. It would probably take her months to say it if she didn’t let it escape. It would be so easy to fall into their little game once again, but Jude felt her tiredness from before sweep through her. In the long run, that was not what she wanted. Not at all.

“But,” she paused, drawing a shaky breath. “I also love you more than I ever thought possible.”

A small goofy grin pulled at his lips as he reached out for her. She obligingly tucked herself into his arms as hers wrapped around his neck. 

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He teased. 

She leaned up and kissed the corner of his mouth. “Is that all you wish to say?”

He pulled her slightly closer, a new hunger filling his eyes. “Not in the least.”

“Then the King shall speak his mind.” She brought her hands down to his shoulders.

He released a pathetic little nose laugh. “I have never been more envious of your ability to lie.”

“It never really seems to do me any favors,” she said quietly. 

His hand made a smoothing gesture on her back, and he brought his gaze down to hers. “I think you underestimate its success rate.”

“Stop avoiding the topic.”

“I am also quite envious of your earlier courage,” he said.

Jude gave him a significant look, and he sighed before saying, “But, the answer to your question is yes.”

“I never asked you anything,”she said confused. 

“You most certainly did. The other night you asked me if I ‘could even imagine that?’,” He asked in a terrible impression of her voice, “‘How awful it is to be in love with someone who is constantly trying to best you?’ Jude. Jude. My dearest Jude. I have never met anyone who holds my heart so dearly and still manages to behave as an adversary.”

She laughed a little at that. 

“Like I said, though, my answer is yes. I can most certainly imagine that because I am so tragically in love with you that it pains me despite all you have done to try and undermine me.”

They paused for a second and let his words settle, but it didn’t take long until they were suddenly a clash of lips and tongue. It felt like breathing for the first time and that every barrier they’d ever put between them came crashing down with their words. Jude pulled on his hair slightly, needing him to just be closer to her. Her heart may have just about leap out of her chest, and she couldn’t help the small sound that escaped her when he pulled away. 

“Jude?” He asked. 

She knew her pupils were dilated and her breathing heavy, but at that moment she couldn’t find an ounce of her to care. Anything he asked, she’d be willing to do. “What?”

“While I appreciate our vigor, I have but one request.”

She cocked her head at his tone. 

“I understand that your training is important, but I think we would both benefit if you bathed yourself before we continued.”

Jude’s mouth opened slightly in fake astonishment, and she pulled away. “If you can’t appreciate me while I’m in this condition, then I must really question your previous declaration.”

Jude stepped toward the wash room, watching Cardan’s shocked face, before turning around and strutting away, perhaps swaying her hips more than necessary. When her hand reached the doorknob, she threw him a significant look. “Perhaps you should call for a servant. There’s one spot on my back I can never reach.”

“I believe I could help,” he all but growled before approaching her quicker than Jude had ever seen.