𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄     ♱     𝙲𝚁𝚄𝙲𝙸𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙳

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♱

The night draped itself over Spring Falls like a suffocating shroud, thick and damp with the scent of honeysuckle and rot. Jacqueline Cain stood hidden in the tall shadows beneath the oaks, the rough bark pressing into her back as she watched him through the dim light of the window. There he was, Father Vincent Rien, framed in that golden square like some unholy relic, his silhouette moving languidly through the narrow room. She could see the faint sheen of sweat on his brow, the curve of his lips as he murmured words she could not hear, could never hear—though she strained for them, her heart leaping with each shift of his jaw.

A woman emerged from the dark recesses of the room, her form ethereal, draped in loose silk that fluttered with each of Vincent's touches. Jacqueline's breath hitched, the sound swallowed by the night, as she watched him run a hand down the woman's bare arm with the ease of a snake coiling around its prey. Her limbs trembled, a fever crawling under her skin, and she felt the weight of a thousand judgments pressing down upon her. Covetous, whispered a voice like a slither of wind through the trees. Impure.

The heat from the room seemed to reach out and brush against her cheeks, stoking a fire that burned hotter the longer she stared, and she knew she should look away. But Jacqueline's gaze clung to him, her eyes tracing the unspoken hunger in the bend of his neck as he leaned closer to the woman, his lips ghosting over the shell of her ear. There was something wicked in the way his hands moved, deliberate and tender, as though consecrating her flesh for a darker purpose. And yet Jacqueline watched, unblinking, as though by seeing, she could partake in that sinful intimacy, a silent witness to a communion that left her aching and hollow.

The woman's laugh echoed through the windowpane—soft, breathy, and Jacqueline recoiled as though struck. She pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle the cry that threatened to spill out, a strangled, pitiful thing that clawed up her throat like a trapped bird. She felt her innocence cracking, splintering like brittle glass beneath the weight of her desire, the kind she could not scrub away with cold water or absolve through prayer.

She backed away slowly, limbs leaden, eyes still fixed on that window. There was a glint in Father Rien's eye as he glanced up, a gleam that pierced the darkness and seemed to catch on her skin like a blade. In that moment, she felt as though he saw her—truly saw her—out there in the gloom, and perhaps he did. A wicked thrill coiled around her spine, mingling with the dread, as she let herself disappear back into the night, knowing that she would return again. And again. And again.

For something had woken in her—a dark want that throbbed like a bruised wound. It festered in her chest, a quiet delirium that murmured, You are his, as he is yours. And all the rest is nothing but dust.