Nocticadia

by Keri Lake

“That is the tragedy of women, isn’t it? We deny ourselves beauty for the sake of misleading men.”

Calling her beautiful was like calling the sun lukewarm. She’d blazed like the hottest part of a flame in that dress. And fuck me, I’d felt the heat.

“Jealousy is a callow schoolboy’s emotion that ends in hard feelings and bloody noses. What I feel for you, Miss Vespertine, would destroy lives.”