Novah's Creative Corner

Writing out the stories in my head for my own sanity. Posting in case it's what you needed today. :) Currently accepting requests! I write for Clone Wars, Bad Batch, ACOTAR, and Ninjago. I am open to writing for other fandoms as well. Lemme know :)

[novahthecreative]

Masterlist

Bad Batch

Understand - Tech x gn!reader (fluff)

To Keep A Promise - Hunter x gn!reader (angst)

The Bet - Bad Batch x bi!fem!reader (suggestive)

Tantra - Hunter x fem!reader (NSFW)

Hyperhidrosis Headcannons - Bad Batch x gn!reader (fluff)

Monster - Crosshair x gn!reader (hurt/comfort)

ACOTAR

Arachniphobia - Cassian x gn!reader x Azriel (fluff)

Bad to Worse - Cassian x gn!reader (hurt/comfort)

Solstice Gifts - Cassian x fem!reader (suggestive)

To Clear the Clouds - Azriel x gn!reader (fluff)

The Rules We Regret - Tamlin x fem!reader (smut)

The High Lord's Lie - Azriel, inner circle x fem!reader (angst with a happy ending)

> Part II

> Part III

The Favor - Feyre x Rhysand x fem!reader (smut)

Fate and Free Will - Azriel x gn!reader (fluff)

Mended With Gold - Azriel x gn!reader (hurt/comfort)

Ninjago

Appendicitis - Lloyd x gn!reader (fluff)

Soulstice - A Ninjago Collection (Cole x reader)

Withering Hopes and Watering Cans (hurt/comfort)

Part of Your Life (hurt/comfort)

Harry Potter

So big, so empty - George x gn!reader (angst)

[novahthecreative]

Mended With Gold (ACOTAR)

Azriel x gn!reader (established relationship)

Summary: When a precious possession of yours is broken, Azriel learns more about you, and to his surprise, more about himself.

Tags: hurt/comfort, fluff, Azriel needing to heal his inner child, the reader has a nephew, descriptions of Azriel's abusive childhood

Word count: 1.6k

_____

Azriel thought he was good at fear. He thought he was good at listening to its pleas and discerning when they were real or irrational. And then, he’d either accept their wisdom or dispel their nonsense accordingly.

But in this moment, he was paralyzed.

There’s no danger– no real danger, he told himself, even though the thrum of his pulse said otherwise. There was no enemy to engage or foe to face– just his lover, their nephew, and a shattered mug on the kitchen floor.

And he was terrified.

The fear squeezing his lungs wasn’t a nameless thing– he knew exactly what form it took. His father, stepmother, and brothers loomed in his mind, always looking down on him as if he were still a child. Always ready to punish him the second he made a mistake. To carve new patterns in his hands, to make him scream and writhe until he lost consciousness. In his mind, the first eleven years of his life had never ended.

Azriel told himself that he knew you, that he knew what kind of person you were– kind and gentle and loving. But standing in the kitchen, ceramic shards littering the floor, he suddenly wasn’t sure what he knew anymore.

People’s true colors came out when they were upset. And if he was honest, Azriel wasn’t sure he knew what it looked like when you were upset. But that was your favorite mug on the floor, one that you’d collected on your travels and held irreplaceable memories. When he was lucky enough to have free time in the mornings, he would bring you coffee in that mug. You always smiled the same grateful smile, as dependable as the sunrise.

Azriel liked dependability. He liked routine. But this was untested territory. And that was your favorite mug scattered across the kitchen floor.

The shattering rang in Azriel’s ears. His body went rigid from where he sat at the kitchen table, eyes glued to you.

Your gaze was on the floor. He could see that it was registering. You had loved that mug, had always fixed tea in it before going to sleep. Azriel didn’t have many possessions that he cherished, but he knew that this was one of yours, hence why you had told the young boy to be very careful when he had asked to use it.

“Oh,” you sighed, eyebrows knitting, your lips quirking to one side.

He should have gotten up, should have grabbed the broom from the closet, but he couldn’t move. He needed to stay seated. His eleven-year-old self needed him to stay seated.

Your nephew wasn’t even ten yet. Azriel knew that you loved the boy, that he lit you up like sunshine. It had made you so happy to hear from your sibling that he was going to stay with you for a month. And you were so good with him– kind and playful and spirited.

But this is new territory, Azriel’s fear reminded him. It held him in chains as he watched your eyes rise to your nephew’s. He held his breath.

Your shoulders rose to your ears and then fell again as you exhaled. “Whoops.”

Azriel’s fear had cased his lungs in lead. But the single word you uttered– not a yell, not a reprimand, just an acknowledgement of what had happened– let his chest yawn open. He took a shaky inhale.

A short-lived reprieve, because your nephew burst into sobs, standing in the wreckage of the mug he’d dropped.

Azriel hadn’t been allowed to cry. He had anyway, which had only resulted in more beatings. By the time he was eight, he’d learned how to turn off his tears to keep himself safe. Five hundred years later, he couldn’t cry if he tried. It was like pulling up a bucket from a dried-up well.

Your nephew was crying, exercising a right that Azriel had never had. And because he never cried, he didn’t know how you would react. Guilt crawled up his throat. Why was he doubting you? You had given him no reason to doubt.

A soft smile brightened your beautiful face into something otherworldly. You didn’t move your feet and risk stepping on a shard of ceramic, but you crouched, bringing yourself below your nephew’s eye level.

The looming figures disappeared from Azriel’s mind.

“Are you hurt?” You asked the wailing boy.

Through his tears, he managed to shake his head.

You nodded, smiling. “That’s what matters, darling.”

Azriel’s body remembered how to move. He pushed the chair away from the kitchen table, rising. Both you and your nephew were barefoot, so Azriel carefully stepped through the ceramic shards, lifting the crying child off the ground and holding him in his arms. He didn’t know why the impulse possessed him. He only knew that he needed to keep the kid from injuring himself, needed to hold him as he had never been held.

Your eyes met his as you hopped onto the kitchen counter and maneuvered to the other side, where the floor was clear.

Azriel met you there in a daze, your nephew clinging to his neck. He’d never held something so young and so precious before. Something so fragile. Azriel had not been allowed to be fragile.

On some level, he’d always comprehended that what had been done to him as a child was wrong; some of it was flat-out torture. But as he rested a hand on the boy's head, he understood just how messed up his family had been to want to inflict pain on a child. In truth, he’d been afraid that he was predisposed to cruelty like his brothers seemed to be.

Your hand rested on Azriel’s bicep, the other wiping at your nephew’s tears.

In that moment, he knew he was wrong, because all he wanted to do was protect your nephew, to love him deeply as you did. And all he wanted for himself was to be loved like that, too.

He was, he realized. He hadn’t always been loved, but he had always been enough to be loved, despite what his stepmother had drilled into him. You proved it to him every day.

As much as Azriel might have wished he’d been born to different people, deep down, he knew that he wouldn’t change it. His upbringing only made him more grateful for your love now. It wasn’t even his tears you were wiping, but he was healing anyway.

Your nephew sobbed out that he was sorry, but you just purred sweet things back.

“I’m not mad,” you told him. “I break things all the time. It happens.”

You were filling Azriel’s cracks with gold, mending him like he was the smashed ceramic on the floor. He didn’t know how much he needed to believe that you would still love him if he messed up.

The boy’s sobs turned to sniffles, and you smiled at him. Azriel didn’t think he could fall harder for you.

You ruffled his hair. “There are two reasons why things break. Do you know what they are?”

Your nephew shook his head, wiping his nose on his sleeve, an action that would have driven Azriel’s stepmother to beat him with a fire poker for ruining his clothes.

You took your nephew’s hand in yours and squeezed it. “The first is that we learn that we didn’t really need that thing to be happy. The second is that it allows us to fill the space with something new. And better than that, we get to make new memories while we do it.”

Azriel couldn’t take his eyes off you. Couldn’t help but wonder if someone had told you these things when you’d needed to hear them, or if you had said them to yourself because no one had.

Your eyes lit up as an idea shot through you. It was one of Azriel’s favorite expressions of yours: pure elation.

“There’s this art studio in the Rainbow,” you began. “They have a couple of pottery wheels, and they teach classes. We could all go make mugs!” You tapped your nephew on the nose, making him giggle. “That way you can have your very own mug whenever you visit us.”

Azriel was in awe. He didn’t have much experience comforting other people, and he never sought it out for himself. But he was pretty sure it was a rare thing to make someone genuinely happy after they'd been crying only moments ago.

Your nephew smiled, his eyes lighting up as a child’s should.

You took the boy from Azriel’s arms and asked him if he could help you water the herbs on your porch. After you handed him the watering can and sent him outside, you retrieved the broom and dustpan from the closet to clean the floor.

But Azriel had other plans. He grabbed you from behind, making you squeal and drop the broom. He peppered your cheek and neck with kisses, affected by something so simple as your kindness.

“Az!” You laughed, managing to turn around in his arms.

He captured your lips in a kiss before you could say anything else. He couldn’t get enough of you, even though his tongue was past your teeth, even though you were as close as physically possible.

You eventually had to tear your lips away, hungry for air. You raised an amused eyebrow. “What was that all about?”

He shrugged. “A consolation kiss. I know you loved that mug.”

Your smile shrank a little bit as you nodded. “Yeah, I did. But I love my nephew more.” You leaned into his chest, his heart rising to meet your cheek. “I’ll eventually forget all about my mug, but he’ll never forget how we reacted when mistakes were made.”

Azriel once again wondered if that was experience tainting your voice. Whatever it was, it was mending wounds he didn’t know he still had.

He pulled you impossibly closer to him, thinking that perhaps there's a third reason why things break: as a reminder that real love doesn’t ask us to be perfect.

For the first time in over five centuries, Azriel’s eyes swam with tears.

[novahthecreative]

The High Lord's Lie - Part III (ACOTAR)

Part I, Part II, Masterlist

Azriel x fem!reader, inner circle + reader

Summary: Rhysand's arrival at the townhouse throws carefully laid plans out the window, turns brothers to enemies, and brings your fears to a head.

Tags: Angst, hurt/comfort, physical altercations, pregnancy, fluff

Word count: 5k

A/N: Last part in this little trilogy! Thanks so much for reading and sharing your feedback. It means so much ;)

@slut4acotar, @gemini-196, @giovax, @imgunnapayforthis

_____

Rhysand just stared at you from where he’d stepped through space and time, a nightmare made real.

You snapped the bond in your chest closed before a spike of fear ran through your body. Fear of what would happen if Azriel sensed Rhysand near you. It would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You rose from the couch, Mor and Feyre doing the same. Lucien backed into the sitting room, keeping his body in front of yours like Rhysand was some feral animal about to lunge.

You weren’t afraid that he would hurt you, but you were afraid of what his actions, or lack thereof, would force you to do. To take your mate, your child, and renounce your allegiance to a court that did not serve its people.

Rhysand looked worse for wear. His hair, usually neatly combed and gelled, fell in errant locks over his forehead. His clothes might have been the same from two days ago. There were bags under his bloodshot, puffy eyes. Mor had been right about his drinking and crying. You hoped she was also right about him coming to his senses.

“Back for more?” He asked you, his voice raw. “Are you attacking my mate and my cousin now, too?”

My mate. My cousin. Like they were his. Like they were no one to you.

You shook the thoughts from your head. This was about the children under the mountain, not some existential fear that your family wasn’t really your family.

“Rhys,” Mor said, warning in her tone. “Y/n’s not attacking anybody. Not even you. This is about the Court of Nightmares.”

“Which is all my fault, right?” He asked, shaking his head. A muscle ticked in his jaw, and he ran his tongue over his teeth.

“It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Feyre said. “It’s mine, it’s all of ours. What matters is that we set things right. We can make new policies, Rhys. We can open the Hewn City–”

“So our enemies can storm Velaris?” He asked, running a hand through his short, black hair. It didn’t do anything to tame it. His eyes landed on Lucien, who had backed up all the way to you, his fingers brushing yours. “What’s he doing here? This doesn’t involve you.”

Lucien’s spine straightened. His hand clenched into a fist. Though his tone was supposed to sound light-hearted and snarky, it came out with a poisoned edge. “I’m just looking out for my interests.”

You stepped around Lucien, unable to take a backseat any longer. “You know that those children in the mountain shouldn’t be forced to live there. And I know that giving the Hewn City its independence was a show of goodwill to your enemies. If you redact their right to conduct court as they see fit, you would be taking a firm stance against them. It would cause unrest, making many courtiers unhappy. You’d also antagonize some in Velaris who believe their safety is due to their isolation.”

Rhysand eyed you but said nothing. His shoulders, usually broad and imposing, were curved in. He was not at full strength.

You took a step forward, passing Lucien. “It’s simply untrue– a lie to lull ourselves into believing that it’s safe here. Enemies of our court are everywhere, not just under the mountain. War found Velaris anyway. And by keeping the Hewn City isolated, their dogma will only be amplified. It’s become a cesspool for xenophobia, not only towards foreign courts, but also their own.

“To dissolve the Court of Nighmares will cost the utopia of the Court of Dreams. You can’t separate the part of yourself that you share with your family and the part of yourself that would do anything to protect them. You will lose some of Velaris’s love for you, but for good reason– for equal opportunity regardless of creed and origin. Wouldn’t you ultimately want to know if your privileged and safe existence was at the expense of someone else’s?”

Your chest was fluttering with emotion as you ended your appeal to the ruined high lord. It had taken everything in you to keep your voice even, but you had managed it.

Feyre caressed your mind with a soothing touch. Lucien’s hand brushed yours.

There was such pain in your high lord’s eyes. He knew everything you said was true. He wasn’t stupid. Just stubborn. Just defensive because he’d given so much to protect his court, and it hadn’t been enough. His jaw strained, but before he could say anything, Mor stepped forward, eyes set.

“It wasn’t until I was betrothed to Eris that I had a way to get out,” she began quietly. “There was nowhere to run under the mountain. It was– is a prison, Rhys.” She gulped. “Not everyone down there is out to draw blood, and many of those who are only do it to survive.”

Rhys’ face crumbled, expression somehow becoming more pathetic at his cousin’s confessions. He took her words as he took yours, like blows to the soul, each one landing on a weak point. Even as his armor clattered around him, he tried to hold his defenses up, eyebrows furrowed, eyes intense.

Mor shuddered at her memories, arms folding over her chest. She looked so much younger, so much meeker like that. “I should have spoken up a long time ago. I didn’t want my past to follow me here, so I told myself it was fine that I left them behind.” She raised her eyes, chin high as she said, “I was lying to myself. I abandoned them.”

A tear streaked down Rhysand’s cheek. It was so silent in the townhouse, you thought you heard it hit the floor.

He was not your enemy, not even half of one. He was a child, like you, trying to survive in a wicked world. Trying to hold onto a precious thing and keep it from harm.

His head bowed to his chest as his shoulders shook with his sobs.

You realized that there were tears on your cheeks, too. Tears for Mor and for Rhysand. Tears for your baby. They would not get to grow up in safe, sunny Velaris. Enemies of the court would soon roam these streets, freed from their prison in the mountain. Your baby would know a life of light and shadow, and there was no guarantee you could protect them as much as you might try.

But adversity was as inevitable as dawn. There was already evil in places full of goodness, like Velaris, just as there was good in places of corruption like the Hewn City.

Rhysand slumped to his knees like a broken male, his pride shattering. Feyre reached out with a hand, about to say something to her mate, but pulled back. Mor similarly seemed unsure of what to say. Because there was nothing to say that had not been said. The battle was won, though you didn’t feel much like a winner with your high lord sobbing on his knees.

Lucien tried to clutch your wrist, but you evaded him as you crossed the room and sank to the floor beside Rhysand. You opened your arms to him, just as you would to the immigrants of the Court of Nightmares.

Of course, you were afraid. Terrified, even, to let people like Keir roam free. But your own words from the other night rang in your heart, true and clear. I will always choose war over injustice.

And freedom over safety.

And truth over bliss.

Rhysand fell into your arms, sobbing into your shoulder. You held him with pity in your heart, grateful that you did not have to bear the weight of the entire court as he did. Your nails combed through his short hair, offering the only comfort you could.

The front door of the townhouse slammed open with wood-splintering force.

Azriel stood in the doorway, a torrent of shadow. The light had been extinguished from his eyes. You felt for the bond in your chest, realizing that it was still closed on your end. Azriel must have felt you silence it, had been looking for you, assuming the worst. You opened the bond again, and the wave of emotion that rushed through from his side made you crumple forward, a sharp, pained gasp escaping from your lips.

A self-fulfilling prophecy, indeed. Because Azriel only saw the pain twisting your face and Rhysand’s body on yours. And your mate made the only connection he could, so far gone in his venemous devotion.

“Run, Rhys,” you breathed, wrenching out of the high lord’s arms to get between Azriel and the rest of the home. You clambered up from the floor to block your mate, but he disappeared into thin air, shadows curling in his wake.

Cassian and Amren squeezed through the doorway where Azriel had been a heartbeat ago, both wide-eyed.

Wood screamed behind you. You whirled, finding Rhysand in the wreckage of the coffee table, Azriel standing over him. His back was to you, but you knew there was murder in his eyes. It was pouring through the bond in crashing waves, making it hard to breathe.

 Mor was yelling, back pressed against one wall. Feyre’s eyes were glazed over, probably trying to pierce Azriel’s mind to get him to back off. But the enigmatic spymaster had a mind of steel.

Rhys retaliated with a kick, sending Azriel stumbling back, his wings flaring to balance him. The clash of night-kissed magic and shadows that commenced sent broken glass and splintered wood flying through the room. A body pressed you to the wall, shielding you from the shrapnel.

“Let me go, Lucien!” You cried, fighting his hold on you. He wouldn’t budge. You craned your head to call for Cassian to help detain Azriel, but he was way ahead of you.

Blue and red light flared in the townhouse’s living room, the foundation shaking from the brawl. You fought against Lucien’s steel grip, but couldn’t escape his hold. You were about to bite down on his arm– a last, but necessary resort– when deadly silence swallowed the townhouse whole.

The three males were gone. Rhysand must have winnowed, bringing Azriel and Cassian with him to draw the fight away from his family. Or the other way around. Neither option was better than the other.

Lucien was distracted by the silence, allowing you to crumple to the floor and dive through his legs into the living room.

Everything was broken– the furniture, the artwork, the knick-knacks. You didn’t care. All you could think about was the rage flooding through the bond.

Feyre was already gone, presumably tracking her mate and trying to end the fight.

Mor, Amren, and Lucien were left among the wreckage. “Take me to him,” you told Mor, holding out your arm so she could winnow you away.

She shook her head. “Cassian and Rhysand will deal with it. You’ll only make it worse.”

Amren and Lucien would say the same thing, would try to keep you there.

So you darted for the open door before anyone could grab you and hold you down. Glass crunched under your feet as you bolted, and your name in Lucien’s voice carried to you on the wind.

***

It wasn’t hard to figure out where they were.

From the noise alone– trees being felled, shouts echoing through the whole valley– you knew they were in the forest bordering Velaris. And if that wasn’t enough of a clue, the explosions of (mostly) blue light lit up the wilderness.

You sprinted through the streets, Lucien on your heels. His legs were longer and stronger, but your mate was in danger of hurting himself and his brothers. It opened up space in your lungs, sent fire to your legs, and quelled the need for rest.

Just below the stampede of your heart, the bond, normally a soft song in your chest, was a battle cry. You tried to send your baby’s safety through the bond, but Azriel’s emotions were so strong that they reflected your feelings back to you without breaking through to him. The bond was open, but blocked, an impassable storm standing between you.

You had to reach him.

With every stride, every clap of thunderous power echoing through the valley, your desperation grew. Your body forgot what it was to feel tired. You just ran with Cauldron-gifted endurance.

Somehow, seconds or minutes later, you made it to the edge of the city, taking a trail that led you into the evergreen treeline. Stirred dirt swirled in the air, obscuring your view. You jogged through the forest, narrowly dodging trees in the low visibility. Gusts of wind blew sediment into your eyes, making each step a little harder.

Everything seemed to be trying to keep you away from Azriel. The bond was blocked, the wind was whipping, and Lucien, Mor, and Amren were likely all looking for you. The only consolation was that the dust bowl was also working against your concerned friends, dimming their senses.

You squinted, covered your nose and mouth with a sleeve, and pressed on.

Azriel wasn’t in danger, not physically anyway. Cassian and Rhysand would try not to fatally injure him. But Azriel would have no such qualms, not with his mind mirroring the state of the bond. And if he hurt them, it would revert Azriel into that male who believed he was good for little more than destruction.

Rhys and Cassian would heal– Az might not.

“Azriel!” You called, but your voice was swept away by a tree slamming into the ground. Blue and red light flared ahead. Cassian yelled in pain or exertion. You cried out again, and debris filled your lungs when you breathed in.

You wheezed but didn’t stop moving. Lucien was calling after you, a ways behind. You thought better of calling out for your mate again which would lead the autumn male to you.

Azriel’s siphons were a hundred yards or so ahead, so bright that you had to look away. Your hand reached out, feeling through the dust cloud. If you could just touch him, if he could just feel your beating heart, the fainter pulse of the baby growing within you, then he would snap out of it. You were sure. You had to be.

Suddenly, a tsunami of darkness swept through the forest, dyeing everything the color of night. Rhys or Feyre’s doing– or both. The black was so inky that any remaining visibility you had was gone. Everyone in the forest was blinded.

Except for the stabbing sensation in your chest pulling you towards your mate. It would still lead you to him. Even a broken compass points north. You just prayed that he wouldn’t winnow away.

Branches from the forest’s brush scratched your arms, drawing blood. You ran on. Azriel's voice carried to you on a night-swept wind. It wasn’t a yell of pain, but of delirium. Something– no, someone collided with a pine tree, and it cleaved from the ground with a sickening groan.

Blue light burst like a supernova up ahead, momentarily breaking through the darkness before it was swallowed again. Time slowed, and you threw yourself to the ground as a comet of red hurled toward you. Cassian flew overhead, skidding across the ground behind you with a cry.

You jumped to your feet, retreating towards the gash in the forest where Cassian had landed. It would be easier for Azriel to find you than for you to find him.

And he did. Just as Cassian had been thrown through the starless sky, siphons aglow, Azriel’s blue light grew as he barreled towards you, chasing down Cassian. It grew lighter and larger with each throb of your heart. Little did he know that you stood between him and his enemy. Little did he know that you dug your feet into the ground, that you weren’t going to move, even if he flew right into you.

Only when the light was as bright as the sun, mere feet away from you, did you glimpse his beautiful wings illuminated by his killing power.

Azriel finally clocked your position, using every ounce of his strength to stop his forward momentum by parachuting his wings out. But it wasn’t quite enough. He’d seen you too late, and was moving too fast.

An arm wrapped around your back, another cradling your head to his chest as he fell into a roll, taking the brunt of the impact. You tumbled across the ground in his arms, skidding to a stop with Azriel on top of you, arms caging you in.

His siphons winked out, launching you back into complete darkness. “Y/n,” Azriel panted. His face must have been inches from yours, but you couldn’t see him. His vision was much better than yours in darkness, but you didn’t think even the shadowsinger could see through Rhys or Feyre’s storm. He cursed, his breath hot as it fanned over your cheeks. Where his skin touched yours, he was burning, possessed by some fever.

“You’re hurt. He hurt you,” Azriel said, too fast, panic in his voice. He wasn’t just jumping to conclusions; he was winnowing to them.

“I’m fine,” you said. “He didn’t hurt me.”

“Don’t defend him,” he hissed. “You don’t owe Rhys anything.”

“Az, you have to stop,” you begged, knowing that any second you would lose him to instinct. “I’m safe. We’re safe.” You were afraid to say the high lord’s name, lest it trigger your mate. You prayed that Cassian wouldn’t come after Az preemptively. “You don’t want to hurt them. They’re your brothers.”

“Stay behind me,” he said as though you hadn’t even spoken.

“Az, no,” you begged, trying to keep him on the ground, but he stood easily, pulling you to your feet. His hand was a vice around your wrist, keeping you behind him. His wing brushed your body.

A presence slipped into your mind like water through a sieve. Feyre.

Hurry, she said, and even though the communication was mental, you could hear the strain in her voice. We can’t keep him contained much longer. He’ll find a way through my wards.

So that’s why he hadn’t winnowed.

“Azriel,” you said. “Azriel, can you hear me?”

His siphons illuminated, charged with that killing magic you would never understand. It cast just enough light to see the contours of his face. His expression was twisted into something like hatred.

The bones in your wrist groaned from his pressure. He was going to break it without realizing. “Az, you’re hurting me.” He couldn’t even hear you. You tried the bond again, knowing that it would be futile.

What do I say? You cried into your headspace. How do I get through to him?

It was the high lord who answered this time. Do what you did the other night. His response was one of gritted teeth. Snap him out of it. Quickly please.

What did you do the other night? You racked your brain. You had stepped in front of him, put yourself between him and the enemy. Reminded him that you were safe and well.

But you’d just tried that, and it hadn’t worked. The first time, when it had been enough, the bond had been passable. This time, you had no such luxury.

New tactic. A page from Azriel’s book.

Azriel always knew how to redirect you to a brighter tomorrow on dark todays. He needed something to believe in other than murdering his high lord.

You wrenched your arm so that you were in front of him, unable to break the hold on your wrist, but you took his face in your free hand. His siphons put out energy that burned like cold fire. It illuminated his face and your own.

“Emrys,” you said.

His eyes flickered to yours. “What?”

“Emrys,” you repeated, softer. “You wanted to talk about baby names. I like the name Emrys.”

Through the storm in your chest came a single beam of sunlight. A gossamer of a ray, but it was enough. You sent your love flooding through the keyhole right into Azriel’s heart. His hand dropped your wrist, clutching at his chest, eyes squeezing shut as something other than bloodthirst filled the space. He fell forward a step, but you were there to catch him, to hold him as the storm parted in your chests, replaced by sunlight and love.

As within, so without. The darkness in the forest parted like a ripple in a pond, retreating from where you kept Azriel from falling to his knees. 

He was so still against you for a couple of moments before his shoulders shook as he cried silently into your shoulder. You’d only seen Azriel cry once before, standing in the carnage of battle. Just as he did now.

The first time you had seen his face streaked with tears, you had assumed it was for slain friends. Now you wondered if he was crying for the lives he had taken, for the part of himself that had to die to survive.

“I can’t control it,” he gasped. “I wanted to kill them. I would have killed them. You’re not safe around me.” He took a step back, eyes wide, hair wild.

“I’m not afraid of you,” you said sharply, trying to close the distance, but he only stepped away again.

“I am,” he said, and you felt the truth of his words deep in your soul. The bravest people are the ones who fear the most, and Azriel was no exception.

“I know,” you breathed. “I know you are, Az. And I know it’s not just because of the baby. I know that you’ve always been afraid of yourself.” You stepped forward again, but he retreated. “But I need you to face your fear because our baby needs their father, and I need my mate.”

He shook his head, black curls stuck to his face with sweat. “I can’t. I’m not– I can’t. Go with Lucien.” His breath caught. “I can’t be around you. I’ll kill them.” His eyes landed on your wrist, covered in angry red marks that would bruise. “I hurt you.”

“You did,” You said, your own calm surprising you. “But it will heal. And so will you.”

Your hands landed on your stomach. You’d considered Lucien’s proposal many times in the past few days, but only now did you have the clarity of mind to refuse it. “I’m not leaving. I’m not running away, and I won’t let you run either. This is our family. They’re going to help us get through this, get through everything that comes our way.”

He bit his lip, head shaking.

You lunged forward before he could evade you, grabbing his jaw. “Do you know what it means to be mated, Az? It means that I’m never giving up on you. It also means that you can’t give up on yourself, if not for your sake, then for mine. For our child. Do you understand?”

His eyes met yours, so much grief and shame in them. He looked as though he’d already lost you and your child, had already accepted that he was never worthy of them in the first place. This definitely wasn’t the first time he had thought that.

“You are allowed to be happy, Az,” you said sadly, feeling tears well up in your eyes. “I wish you believed it as much as I do.” Your forehead fell against his chest as you cried to yourself. If he couldn’t believe it, then he was right. There was no future if his shame stood between you.

Lifetimes passed as you cried against his chest, certain that you had lost him, not to his darkness, but to his fear of it. 

Then he pulled away from you, and the world was swept out from under your feet.

But he didn’t leave. He kneeled on the ground in front of you, looking up into your eyes with that devotion again. It was a sheathed blade, but you knew it could strike again at any moment.

Azriel pressed a kiss to your abdomen, arms wrapping around your middle as he held onto you like a lifeline. “Emrys,” he whispered, tasting the name, tasting what it was like to believe in something good.

A choked sob escaped your throat at his unspoken promise. A promise to fight the fear that had grown like a gnarled weed into suffocating devotion. Azriel was still that child from five centuries ago who knew nothing but malice for so long that he thought he deserved it. A child who held onto love with white knuckles, believing it would be ripped away any moment when the Cauldron remembered that he wasn’t worthy.

But both of you would face the fears brought to light by the child growing in your womb. Both of you would become better people for your baby, for each other, and for yourselves.

You gazed off into the forest as your fingers carded through Azriel’s hair, taking in the wreckage in the clear air. The forest was a battlefield. Splintered tree trunks, deep gashes in the earth, upturned roots.

Suddenly, the air rippled with an iridescent shimmer, revealing your whole family on the other side of the small clearing. The wards and glamours fell away, leaving only streamers of sunlight between you.

Feyre, Rhysand, Amren, Mor, Cassian, and Lucien.

Your family. Just because it was Azriel who made you a part of this family didn’t mean you were any less a part of it. They would be there for you and your mate, and the baby entering your world. And you would all stand together as the Night Court changed.

You nodded at no one in particular. Just to say that you were okay, that Azriel would be too, and that you loved them.

 Rhysand nodded back, and then he winnowed them away, leaving you and your mate in the woods.

***

~6 months later~

The nursery was not built to entertain eight adults, two of whom had massive wings, and one of whom was very pregnant. But somehow you’d managed to cram inside.

The crown of the room was painted with flowering vines. Feyre had also added a meadow scene. Fawns and bunnies played above the baseboards, butterflies and birds flitted around at eye level. The painting Feyre had made for you all those months ago was destroyed in the fight, but the mural wrapping the nursery was the perfect homage.

After the townhouse was restored, Cassian and Rhysand had pitched in and helped you build a dresser for the nursery. Lucien had reunited with Jurian and Vassa but returned a few days ago to visit you. He’d been helping you prepare your garden for winter as it became more difficult to do things around the house.

And you had a new project as Rhysand’s diplomat that kept you busy and fulfilled beyond imagination: facilitating the merge between The Court of Dreams and The Court of Nightmares into a unified Court of Liberty. The legislation was official– emigration from the Hewn City was legal.

As expected, there was plenty of fallout. Many loyalists threw a ‘hissy fit’ as Rhysand called it, but quickly shut up when they realized that the high lord had no qualms about ridding them of their title and influence. Though many chose to stay in the mountain, other families ran, some settling in beautiful Velaris, others renouncing their loyalty to Night and heading south. You helped many of those families find their way to Spring, to a good and fair high lord and a rebirthed court. Tamlin welcomed the refugees from Night with open arms, and having others to look after seemed to be good for him, too.

When you wrote to him about the pregnancy, Tamlin had sent you an enchanted music box that now sat on the dresser. Your friends didn’t talk about the high lord anymore, except to ask if you had heard from him recently, or how he was handling the refugee situation. You told all the stories that you wanted to these days, and freeing your past had brought peace to your heart.

You were tired– but so pleasantly tired. Your family was making it work. Your high lord and high lady were serving their people, every last one of them.

And Azriel was fighting battles that no one saw, making peace with impermanance, accepting his shadows along with the light.

You hadn’t realized that becoming parents would force you to change as people. To learn to accept the love around you that had always been there, to let go of the need to make the world perfect.

You beamed as you watched your family chatter excitedly in the small nursery. Cassian was pouring champagne into tall glasses and handing them out. You didn’t think there was normally so much drinking at a baby shower, but Cassian insisted that you had to christen a nursery with a toast.

A shadow slid along your lower back, and you smiled as Azriel shimmied through the room, trying not to stab anyone with his wings. He handed you a tall glass of fizzy water, almost identical to the champagne in his other hand. You leaned into his shoulder, watching Cassian pour a glass that almost overflowed with foam, forcing the Illyrian to sip off the top before offering it to an unimpressed Lucien.

A glass chime reverberated around the room, calling everyone’s attention to Rhysand. One of his hands was on Feyre’s back, the other raising his glass. He inclined his head to you with a smile. “To Y/n and Azriel, who will be the best parents Prythian has ever seen, and the last ones that you will ever want to piss off.”

Everyone drank to that. Then Feyre went, Cassian, Amren, Mor, and Lucien. You thought that was the end, but Azriel raised his glass, and the silence held for him to speak.

He faced you, the bond like the quivering strings of a lyre in your chest, alight with music and love. “To Y/n, my mate, my everything.”

Your eyes burned with tears that you blinked back. You smiled at Azriel, taking his hand in yours.

Everyone drank, and then their eyes landed on you, the only one who hadn’t made a toast yet. You faced the room, looking over their faces, and it didn’t take you long to find the right words to say.

You raised your glass above your head. “To family.”

[novahthecreative]

Fate and Free Will

Azriel x gn!reader (established relationship)

Summary: After several years of marriage, the mating bond snapped between you and Azriel. The shadowsinger can't fathom why you still call him your husband in the presence of a destined connection.

Tags: fluff, smitten Azriel, mates, established marriage, non-graphic mention of sex, some of my issues with mating bonds and philosophies about love lol

Word count: 2300

_____

“And this is my husband, Azriel,” you were saying as he approached you and the Dawn Court legislator, drinks in both hands.

Azriel offered you a stemmed glass of faerie wine with as much of a smile as he wore in political appearances such as this. He preferred to cling to the facade of the stone-cold spymaster, but it was your job to make friends– friends in high places that would stand by the Night Court in the future. 

But even though he maintained a surly exterior, it didn’t stop him from resting a hand on your low back. You were both on official Night Court business, but he was still your mate, and it was expected for mates to be public about their affection. That, and touching you made him feel bubbly inside like the wine he was sipping.

He exchanged brief introductions with the Dawn Court legislator and then left the rest of the talking to you. The wooing, Azriel called it, because he was quite sure that it was your smile and charm that turned enemies to allies and allies into friends. Not that your prowess as an ambassador didn’t help, but Azriel knew firsthand the effect of your pretty smile, your beautiful laughter.

Even as he stood beside you, running a scarred thumb up and down your exposed midriff, your laughter still sent pleasant warmth through him, smoothing his rough edges.

Since the mating bond had clicked into place, it had become more difficult than ever for him to appear dauntingly enigmatic when you brought out a side of him that smiled without realizing, that laughed easily when you whispered in his ear, that wanted to whisper back sweet things or dirty promises he had every intention of keeping.

It took all of his restraint to keep his shadows leashed to his wings, lest they scamper to your body as they did in private.

Though it was well known that you were mated, he liked keeping his romantic life separate from his work. Sometimes the line blurred, since you were a part of both, hence his fingers splayed on your skin.

Across the sparkling parlour, Rhys was displaying far more affection with Feyre, pressing kisses to her cheeks and lips every so often. Azriel didn’t think he’d ever be comfortable sharing that much of your relationship with other people. In the presence of others, he kept his touches to a hand on your knee, the brush of his knuckles over yours, or, when you decided to sit in his lap rather than the empty chair beside him, he would hold you steady.

But in private, he worshipped. His love for you was an artistic pursuit, a craft that he would refine until the day he died. Every kiss was a stroke of a brush, every caress a splash of color.

Azriel had zoned out for a bit because the next thing he knew, the Dawn Court legislator was mingling across the room, and you were smiling up at him, melting his heart.

“That’ll be great, won’t it?” You asked.

He didn’t know what you were talking about– something about Dawn's foreign policy, maybe– but he nodded, one corner of his lip curving up. He opened his mouth to tell you how beautiful you looked dressed in gold, a halo about you like the corona of the sun, but you were already addressing Thesan’s mate, the Peregryn general. Azriel should probably have known his name, but couldn’t seem to remember, not when you were all that he could seem to think about these days.

The mating bond was still so shiny and new in his chest, only a month old. It made tangible your delicate luminosity, magnified it into a powerful beam, and cast your light on his life.

His sun, his partner, and now his mate. How could he be expected to think about anything other than the person that lived in his very soul?

Then your eyes were on him, your hand brushing his shoulder as you smiled at the Peregryn. “I don’t believe you’ve officially been introduced to my husband, Azriel, Night Court Intelligence.”

Azriel greeted Thesan’s lover– you must have said the Peregryn general’s name twice by now, but it had completely bypassed his brain– and exchanged a few polite words with the male who still seemed rather wary of the Night Court’s reputation, even after going to war together.

It was nothing that a few of your sweet smiles and adorable jokes couldn’t remedy. You soon had the Dawn male smiling into his wine.

But Azriel was still stuck on the word you had chosen to introduce him with. He realized that you had used the same word when you introduced him to the legislator from earlier.

Husband.

He didn’t know why it was bothering him when hearing that word from your mouth had always elated him. He had loved being your husband… but now he was your mate. That was how he referred to you in introductions and as a term of endearment.

He raked through his memories as the conversation rippled around him. Yes, now he was quite sure that he’d never heard you refer to him as your mate, except when directly acknowledging the bond. It really shouldn’t have bothered him. Of course, you felt it as intensely as he did... didn't you?

Maybe you used that term sparingly for the same reasons that he kept his affections to a minimum in public. But then again, you didn’t call him your mate in private either.

It could be a force of habit, he told himself. You’d been calling him your husband for years before the bond snapped. Sure, he never made a mistake, couldn’t with the constant reminder in his chest, but maybe it was ingrained in your mind.

Azriel chewed on it as the party burned into the early hours of the morning. While you built and maintained relationships, he tried to focus on what he was best at: sifting truth from lies. But there wasn’t much valuable information shared at a social event like this one, where the focus was camaraderie and cooperation. His shadows had little of value to report, except what they told him about you toying with your wedding band, a habit that you’d had for years. It was something you did when you were socially drained, when it became harder to have vibrant conversations with stranger after stranger, and your hands fell listlessly at your sides with fatigue.

“Time to go” is what it meant to Azriel. He excused himself from Cassian’s side, where he’d ended up after a few hours, snaking through the crowd until he made it to you. His knuckles brushed your arm, even the smallest contact sending a zing through his body.

Your smile was still bright, but he could see the limit approaching behind your seemingly endless hospitality.

“Shall we?” Azriel asked, arm out for you to take.

Relief washed over your face, and you nodded, taking his offered arm and letting him lead you through the beautiful Dawn palace to your guest lodgings. It was a wordless walk; you had used your breath making political friends, and Azriel savored the quiet times when you just existed together.

In that silence, he sank into the bond, feeling you without touching, knowing you without asking, and loving you without restraint.

And when you made it to your quarters, Azriel worshipped. He took his time in removing your jewelry piece by delicate piece and unclasping your intricate clothes as though he’d designed them. Then he loved your body as though it were his masterpiece in the making.

Only once he’d taken you to that dizzying place twice did he pull you snug against his chest, his chin resting on the top of your head.

Though he’d reached his own release, he couldn’t dissolve into the heady air as you did. There was still a nagging question in his mind. It was that damned word that kept getting lodged in his thoughts. Why did it bother him so much?

“Tell me,” you mumbled, half-consumed by sleep already. The afterglow of your lovemaking honeyed your voice. “I can hear you thinking.”

He was certain that you weren’t a daemati, but you still made him doubt. Somehow, you always knew when he was turning something over in his mind. His stoicism worked on everyone but you, apparently.

“It’s nothing,” he said, making your hair flutter with his breath.

You sighed. “You’re my husband, Azriel. I know when it’s something.”

There it was again. Husband.

His thumb explored the skin of your arm, as though that act would make him feel less exposed in front of you. Azriel was not an insecure male, not usually. But the thought that he might feel leagues more for you than you felt for him made his chest clench painfully.

“You still call me your husband,” he said– a question disguised like a curious observation.

He didn’t really know what he expected from you, but it wasn’t the soft “mhm” you answered with. You didn’t say anything after that, and he thought you might have fallen asleep, so he stayed silent, prepared to lie awake analyzing your little hum for hours.

Then you shifted so that you could look up at him. He could see you quite well, even in the darkness.

“Does it bother you?” You asked.

“No,” he lied. A mistake.

You lightly shoved his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It doesn’t,” he lied again, then decided against digging a deeper hole. He took a deep breath, trying to configure his thoughts. “But we’re mates.”

“We are.”

He had thought he had a point, but now he wasn’t sure. Your sleepy reply was making him doubt why he was even upset. You were in his bed, in his arms, in his life– why did he care what you called him?

Azriel decided to let the issue rest. But he really should have known that you wouldn’t let it go until it was solved, even though you were teetering on sleep’s threshold.

“Would you rather me call you my mate, Az?” You asked, eyes closed.

Yes. No. He didn’t know. If you didn’t want to call him your mate, then it would be worse if you did.

“I was just curious,” he said, evading the question. “Do you dislike it when I call you my mate?”

“I love it,” you said, and everything he thought he knew was new to him again. “I love it because I know what you mean when you say it.”

Azriel didn’t know how to reply. He had no idea what you meant.

Your breathy laughter made his heart hiccup. “Az,” you purred, “You call me your mate because it means the most to you. I call you my husband because it means the most to me.”

The insecurity squeezing Azriel’s heart relaxed its grip at your words.

You nuzzled into the pillow. “Our marriage means more to me than the bond.”

“It does?” He asked.

You nodded, hair brushing his lips. “The Cauldron may have chosen you to be my mate, but I chose you to be my husband. Love– for me, anyhow– is always a choice, not something we fall into by accident.”

The silence that followed was one of perplexity. Azriel’s head was spinning. He’d never thought of it like that. In his mind, to be fated for one another was the highest form of love. But you believed that it was choice– conscious and constant. Love was something you did, rather than something that happened to you.

Azriel loved you because there was no other way to exist. He loved you because he had no choice.

You loved him because you did.

“When I call you my husband,” you continued, a mumbled chain of sleep-ridden words. “It’s because we chose each other as life partners because we believed in each other, not in a force outside of our control. And fated or not, I choose you over and over again.”

Little did you know that Azriel’s world was unraveling before his eyes. He hadn’t known love until Rhys and Cassian came into his life, and now he was realizing that, five centuries later, he’d never really understood it. Not as you did, so sure of yourself as you drifted off to sleep in his arms.

Did you know how profoundly you altered him as you lay there sleeping? He felt that, for the first time, he was really seeing you. For the first time, he truly knew what it was to be loved by you. And Cauldron– he didn’t have the words to describe how it felt. Your sun in his chest chased away the darkness, even in the shadowed corners of his mind.

He pressed his lips to your hair. You didn’t stir.

He couldn’t help loving you. Couldn’t even fathom the choice to do anything else. And he had thought it would destroy him if you didn’t feel the same.

And you didn’t– you had just told him that you didn’t, that for you, loving him was of your own free will, a decision you made over and over again.

And he was still breathing, still alive. Better now than ever. Your love was so vastly different than his, but not any less powerful, any less consuming. It was unique, like you, and magnificent.

Whether or not he understood it, Azriel wouldn't take your love for granted for a single moment.

He was your choice.

You were his destiny.

His forehead dipped to yours. He couldn’t wait for the next time you called him your husband.

[novahthecreative]

The High Lord's Lie - Part II (ACOTAR)

Part I, Part III, Masterlist

Azriel x fem!reader, inner circle + reader

Summary: Your fight with Rhysand did more than drive a wedge between you and the high lord. It reopened old wounds for Azriel, awakened new doubts about your place in the Inner Circle, and launched your baby's future into uncertainty.

Tags: angst, some misogyny (in jest), throwing up, pregnancy, hurt/comfort

Author's note: Special thanks to those of you who asked for a part 2! Part 3 is out now, too! Thanks for reading!

@shysstqrz, @stressed-reader, @karolamurdock, @thecraziestcrayon

_____

The morning following your fight with Rhysand was the worst so far in your pregnancy. Your morning sickness had been a mild thing before, a subtle nausea that you could chase away with a few deep breaths. But no longer. You lurched out of bed, awoken by your dinner rising up your throat. If you had just run to the bathroom as you planned, you wouldn’t have made it halfway there, but having a mate who can winnow has its perks. Strong arms wrapped around your abdomen, and a heartbeat later, you were keeling over the toilet.

Azriel sank to the floor with you, keeping your hair from your face as you emptied your stomach. He pressed kisses to your exposed shoulder whenever you sat back on your heels to catch your breath.

And when you were pale and shaking and your throat burned from the bile, he lifted you off the floor and sat you on the counter as though you weighed nothing.

He wasn’t even supposed to be here right now. In fact, you remembered him telling you the other day that he had an early engagement this morning. In his line of work, that could have meant anything from paperwork to extracting intel. But here he was, offering you your toothbrush and preparing his own.

He didn’t ask you how you were; that would have been a stupid question between last night and this morning. He didn’t ask if you wanted his help; it was just there. His true power wasn’t the kind tamed by his siphons, you thought. It was his quiet kindness that was always roaming, always there if you leaned in and listened. Those who were lucky enough to know Azriel had learned the subtleties of his love, and none had learned it better than you.

Once you’d brushed your teeth, Azriel started on your hair, running a brush through it as he stood between your knees. His own hair was wild with sleep, unruly black curls falling down his forehead, obscuring beautiful, hazel eyes. Your fingers brushed back the locks to see him clearly.

He met your gaze with adoration, concern, and that new tier of devotion that you’d seen for the first time last night. You had only needed one look in his eyes to know that he would have killed Rhysand had you not gotten in the way. Or he would have tried to– neither of the males would have walked away unscathed from that fight. The townhouse would have been reduced to rubble.

Your heart leapt. You had started a fight that could have gotten Azriel killed. It all dawned on you, every word you’d yelled at Rhys came rushing back with tsunami force. You’d taken petty jabs at Rhys instead of focusing solely on the situation. If Azriel and Rhys had gone at it, it would have been your fault.

“Cauldron, Az,” you cursed, hands flying up to grip your hair, interrupting the stroke of Azriel’s brush. “Rhysand could have– I almost–”

“Stop,” he said, voice thick with a fatigue denser than sleep. There were circles under his eyes, born from analyzing all night, from trying to solve a problem that didn’t have a solution. You would know– you’d been up most of the night doing the same thing, both pretending the other was asleep. Because if you acknowledged he was awake, you would have had to talk about it, and you hadn’t been ready for that.

“Stop,” he said again, soft like the pad of his thumb that brushed your cheek. “I know what almost happened, but it didn’t.” He set the brush down on the counter, gripped you by the base of your thighs, hoisting you onto his hips. On instinct, your legs locked around his waist, pressing you to his bare chest.

You thought he might carry you back to bed, but he just stood there, burying his nose in your shirt and keeping you flush against his body. Your heart could have burst with love as you wrapped your arms around his neck, nails scratching his scalp. His wings quivered at the touch as they always did.

If the circumstances weren’t what they were, this would have been another one of those domestic moments that you catalogued for when his work kept him away for weeks on end.

 But your mind was spinning, and your stomach was doing guilty flips that were at least partially responsible for the morning sickness episode. And knowing that Azriel was dodging his duties as spymaster to be with you right now was not helping.

“What about your meeting?” You asked into his shoulder, choosing to assume it was the paperwork kind of work and not the torture kind of work he was neglecting.

If you weren’t connected to his body so wholly and completely, you might have missed the way his muscles tightened. Not a flinch, but a brace. He manually softened, nuzzling a little deeper into the crook of your neck.

“Rhys can handle it,” he murmured.

You weren’t sure if that meant that the meeting was with Rhysand or if that meant he was leaving Rhys high and dry to deal with it. You prayed it wasn’t the latter.

“Az, don’t stay here just for me. My fight with Rhys has nothing to do with your work. I know how good you are at your job. Please don’t–”

“Some time away will be a good reminder of my value,” he answered. “And I’m not here just for you. I’m here because I want some time with my gorgeous mate all to myself.”

You leaned back, mouth open to protest, but he beat you to it. “And you promised we would discuss baby names.”

Your eyes flew up to your hairline. Azriel’s distraction technique had worked. “You were listening when I said that?” Your lips quirked, the most of a smile you could manage. “I thought you were just nodding along to appease me.”

His smile was a mirror image of yours. “I always listen to you.”

Your cheeks bloomed with heat, but once again, that moment of domestic felicity was wiped away by the horror of what had transpired last night. Your lips turned down, and you let the weight of your own brash actions hang heavy on your head as you fell forward onto Azriel’s shoulder. “I wish I could think about that right now, Az, I really do. But I can’t pretend like it’s all going to be okay, because it won’t be, not even if Rhysand grovels at my feet. I can’t forgive him until the Court of Nightmares is free.”

You buried your face in his neck, pressing a lazy kiss to his skin. “Our child is going to grow up with a family who loves them, in a city that accepts them, and in a court that protects them. Not every child is blessed with the first one, but the last two should be a right.”

Azriel kissed your shoulder. “They should be. Giving the Hewn city to Keir was supposed to be a compromise to protect the Night Court from internal threats.” He sighed deeply. “That’s what I told myself it was. But you’re absolutely right; we’ve been circumventing a civil rights issue for centuries. And I’ve been complacent in all this.” His lips brushed your ear. “I am so sorry.”

You hadn’t realized how frustrated you were with not only Rhysand, but also Cassian, Mor, Amren, and even Azriel. You let out a breath, a weight lifting off your chest at his apology.

“No one is blameless in this, Az. And no one person is completely responsible, not even Rhys. But it can’t go on like this.” You melted into him with a deep sigh, absorbing his warmth and love for a long moment before pushing away from his grasp. “I have to go talk to Rhysand.”

You unclasped your ankles, but Azriel’s grip on your thighs tightened. “You are not talking to him right now.”

“I have to, Az,” you argued, trying to pull his fingers from the meat of your thighs, but his grip was iron. “Even if he doesn’t want to hear it, I have to say it. And if not Rhys, then I’ll talk to Amren, Mor, anybody. Get them to admit that what’s happening in this court is wrong.”

Azriel’s wings shifted, his shadows skittering across their membranes, brushing over the two sharp talons you’d stabbed your eye on once or twice before. “You said your piece last night. It’s my turn to talk to them and admit the bullshit we’ve allowed.”

“Then I’m coming–”

“No.” It wasn’t a yell. It wasn’t a spymaster’s order. It was the plea of a mate. He was afraid, and seeing Azriel afraid sent ice through your veins.

But what was he afraid of? Rhysand? No, Azriel didn’t fear any male, not even a high lord.

It dawned on you. What your mate feared more than anything else was himself. Since the beginning of your relationship, he’d always been afraid of hurting you. Were the scars on his hands too rough against your soft skin? Was he holding you too tightly? Were his demons suffocating you, too?

It had taken time to teach your mate that you were not made of smoke and mirrors. You would not slip through his grip, nor would you shatter at his touch.

Last night had set him back. He was starting to fear himself again. He didn’t say it, but you knew what he’d meant when he told you no. If you got into danger, he didn’t know if he could stop himself again. He didn’t know if he could keep himself from killing his brother.

“Okay,” you whispered. “Okay, I’ll stay here if you think that’s best.” As long as Azriel didn’t think you were in danger, he could deal with Rhys and the Inner Circle. You forced a smile. “I’ll work on the nursery.”

The crease in Azriel’s eyebrows disappeared as he nodded, a relieved smile tugging on his lips. He lowered you to the floor gently, taking your face in his hands, an action that had taken weeks of reassurance for him to be comfortable doing. You didn’t want him to turn dark and distant like he used to be. So you would stay here, and this time, you would let your mate fix it.

***

Letting him handle things was easier said than done. You’d had breakfast together, and then he left. You didn’t love the fact that he was armed to the teeth like he was about to step onto the front lines. But he always had a few blades on him– Truth Teller plus one in each boot, one up his left sleeve, and a razor sewn into the inseam of his leathers. You were more worried about the flash of light as Azriel attached his siphons, knowing that if he went head-to-head with Rhys, knives would be of little consequence.

That was the worst-case scenario, and after he winnowed away from the front door of the cottage, you did your best not to focus on it.

The nursery was a welcome distraction. The small room next to the main bedroom was to be your child’s, painted in the softest green. You chose the color because it reminded you of Spring, something you couldn’t say out loud to anyone other than Azriel.

You frowned at that. You’d been filtering yourself for your friends, trying not to trigger Feyre or Rhys, or invite commentary on Tamlin. You’d kept fond memories from your former life to yourself because your friends hated Tamlin for his recent actions. At one time, you’d thought that fear might have been irrational, that your friends wouldn’t treat you differently for caring about the fallen high lord. But you’d spoken up about the children in the Hewn City, and look how Rhysand had reacted.

You had wanted to fit in at the Night Court, so you’d dropped your past. But if perpetuating a cycle of abuse was fitting in, then you were proud of your Spring heritage. You couldn’t quite call it home, but you couldn’t really call Velaris home either when it was Azriel who made you feel like you belonged.

Azriel had wanted to help with the nursery, but realistically, he was too busy for that. You’d planned to ask Feyre to paint some trailing vines and flowers around the crown of the room, but she would take her mate’s side in all of this. Mor had excellent taste, but she was his cousin. Cassian was his brother.

Rhysand was their family. You were just their friend.

As deep as that ached, you couldn’t blame them. You would choose Azriel over the world. And he would choose you over them. That thought didn’t make you happy like you hoped it would.

The nursery would be a solo project.

You lowered yourself to the floor to assemble the crib you’d bought from a woodworker in the Rainbow. It was too easy; it didn’t take more than half an hour to have the elm crib pressed to one wall. You took measurements for a dresser and built a mobile to hang over the crib. You made little paper birds to hang from the dowels, adding a few bats for your big bat.

Speaking of your big bat, what was taking him so long? You’d occupied yourself for two whole hours, and still he was gone.

The mating bond hummed softly in your chest. You thought about reaching through the bond, but no, that wasn’t a good idea. That might cause a repeat of last night. 

Yardwork it was, then.

Your forehead was glistening with sweat, cresents of dirt under your fingernails, when someone set the watering can you’d left on the porch on the ground next to you. You placed the moonflower you were transplanting in its hole and looked up.

His hair looked like a flame in the mid-morning sun, and his skin had a healthy tan to it.

Your mouth opened and closed like a fish as you stared up at the male whose presence here made no sense.

“What? No hug?” Lucien said, grinning down at you.

You clambered to your feet, throwing yourself into his chest. “Lucien!” You were probably getting dirt all over the back of his vest. He didn’t seem to mind as his arms wrapped around your shoulders. You squeezed him tighter at that.

“Careful,” he chuckled. “Don’t want you to hurt the baby.”

You jumped back with a gasp. “How did you know? I didn’t tell you in my letter! Unless– did I? My hormones are making me do weird things– what are you doing here, Lucien?” You inclined your head toward the cottage, eager to clean yourself up.

“You didn’t tell me in your letter,” he said, following you indoors. “Rude, by the way. As the baby’s godfather, I really should have been the first to know.”

That made you laugh, and your old friend laughed with you.

Lucien’s wide grin became a soft smile. “Your mate dropped by this morning. Said I should pay you a visit. Not sure that I had a choice, though. He had an awful lot of knives on.” Lucien took the glass of water that you offered him as you sipped on your own. “Anyway, it gave me a hunch that you were knocked up, and as always, I was right.”

The bond in your chest sang as Azriel tugged on it from his end– a question. You tugged back, as though saying, Yes, you did well. Thank you.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you told Lucien, realizing just how isolated you had felt this morning now that you were in the company of someone who truly understood you. Lucien didn’t know the ins and outs of your life these days– he was on his own journey below the border. But you didn’t have to hide your history around Lucien, and that was worth everything.

“Do you want to tell me why I am here?” He asked, swirling the water in his glass. His russet and gold eyes met yours. When your face fell, he gave a curt nod to himself and started opening cabinets in your quaint kitchen. “I see. We’ll need something stronger than water for this.”

You gave a dry laugh. “I can’t drink. Pregnancy, and all.”

“Bummer,” he said, finding a bottle of something amber. He popped the top and gave it a sniff. “More for me then.”

So you told Lucien everything from last night, not even sparing the details you normally would for court secrecy to prevent invasion and all that. You honestly sort of hoped Lucien would lead an army to the Court of Nightmares and liberate it. It couldn’t get worse than it was.

Most of the conversation happened while you were hanging pictures in the spring-green nursery. You held the level and the frame, and Lucien hammered. It was better to keep busy while you explained.

Now you were slumped against the wall, leaning on Lucien’s shoulder. He swallowed the last of his drink, letting out a breath before breaking the buzzing silence. “I haven’t properly congratulated you yet.” He nudged you with his shoulder. “Congrats. That’s going to be one lucky baby. Two loving parents, one charming godfather…”

You exhaled sharply out of your nose. “Thanks,” you mumbled.

He cleared his throat. “You, Azriel, and my nephew are always welcome to stay with me.”

You looked up at his face, but his eyes were fixed on the opposite wall. Lucien’s soft side hid under a mask of sarcasm, and when it came out, his eyes always found somewhere other than yours to be. Still guarding, still afraid to look sensitive.

He smoothed a wrinkle on his pant leg. “I think Tamlin would feel the same way if you wanted to go back to Spring.”

You bit your lip. “So you don’t think there’s a way to repair the Night Court?”

“I didn’t say that,” Lucien replied. “But fae live so long, and when rulers scarcely change, a court takes on the identity of its high lord. The Night Court won’t change until Rhysand does. Until he stops playing two parts.” Lucien shrugged as he contemplated. “He’d be vulnerable if he let his mask fall. His court will look weak and fickle–”

“So you think things should stay the same?” You interjected. It seemed so simple to you last night; no one should be discriminated against. That was a truth you felt in your soul. But why couldn’t everyone else realize it? Was Rhysand right that sacrifices had to be made?

Do some faeries have to suffer for the rest to know freedom? Which ones?

“No,” Lucien said, tearing a hole through your doubt. “No. No one deserves a sentence for simply being born in a prison.” His fist clenched in his lap, and you wondered what memories he was combing through. “Your high lord is scared to act. But the division will only get worse the longer he puts off this decision. I think vulnerability now will make the Night Court stronger in the future.”

“As do I,” you said, a smile crawling up your lips. “You sound a lot like the Spring Court emissary I knew fifty years ago. That silver tongue of yours might persuade me to make you godfather after all.”

Lucien’s little celebration made you smile as his arm draped across your shoulder and he pressed a soft kiss to your hair.

A brother in all but blood.

***

Azriel returned later in the day. Apparently, Rhysand had disappeared last night, and Feyre hadn’t seen him since. Off to brood, Azriel had added.

But he’d spoken with Amren and Cassian, the former who was insistent that the cons outweighed the pros of opening the Hewn City. To Amren, the world was black and white, gains and losses. Cassian had scarcely said anything when Azriel had spoken to them. Azriel believed his brother did agree with you, but was worried about Rhysand's mental state.

And Mor, who hadn’t been present for the fight, was taking a day for herself after dealing with her father, and Azriel hadn’t wanted to interrupt that.

Furthermore, your mate had sent new spies into the Court of Nightmares to record everything from population counts to instances of abuse. The reconnaissance would hopefully move things along faster and get help for those who needed it once you convinced Rhysand to free the city.

Coward, you thought, chopping a bell pepper rather angrily as night fell outside the sleepy cottage. Rhysand is being a coward. He can’t separate his personal feelings from his court, blows up when I criticize it, and then dares to disappear. Cowa–

A hand closed around your wrist. “No more knives for you,” Lucien said. The cutting board looked like a vegetable massacre. You let him take the blade from your hand and scrape the chopped pepper into the skillet where the onions were already sizzling.

Lucien had never cooked for you when you were in Spring, unless roasting a rabbit on a spit counted. You didn’t think he knew how to cook back then, but it seemed that he’d picked up a thing or two with his new friends. He talked about them a lot. It was cute.

Azriel emerged from the bedroom, having bathed, and helped you set the table for three.

Dinner with your mate and your quasi-brother was the strangest, best experience you’d had in a long time. Old feuds were long gone, and both seemed determined to keep your mind on something other than the Court of Nightmares.

Lucien was telling a story about Jurian, but you were half-listening, wondering what it would be like to raise your child without the Inner Circle’s support. If you wanted to take Lucien up on his offer or even return to Spring, what would Azriel say?

Your mate’s hand landed on your thigh under the table.

In your heart, you knew that he would follow you anywhere. Sometimes you felt like he was the sail and you were the rudder, setting the course. Would that course take him away from his home?

You burned with guilt as you ate, swallowing painfully. 

No, you could fix this. Rhysand could be reasonable. You hoped.

***

Lucien’s arm was linked in yours as you strolled through the Rainbow the following morning. It was the last thing you wanted to be doing. Literally anything was more productive than taking a meandering stroll through the art district. But whether Azriel had asked him or Lucien assigned himself to the task, he had become your babysitter. At least Azriel didn’t get that murderous look in his eye when Lucien got near you. That was something.

But Gods, you wished you had protested harder against the walk, because there were Feyre and Mor, a ways down the street. The last time you’d seen the high lady, you’d inadvertently announced your pregnancy while cussing out her husband. And Mor had no doubt been clued in to the situation. You’d probably die of the awkwardness.

But Feyre was reasonable, young, and impressionable. And she knew discrimination– she might not be an adversary, but an ally. If you couldn’t convince Rhysand, she could.

“Double time, Lucien,” you murmured under your breath, pulling him across the square. You dragged him all the way up to the stand where Feyre and Mor were browsing.

“Hey,” you said, making their heads turn.

Feyre blinked. “Y/n. Lucien.”

Mor greeted you with a soft smile, pressing a kiss to your cheek, and inclined her head mockingly to Lucien.

“Can we talk?” You asked, eyeing Feyre. “I feel bad about the way I left things the other night.” That much was true. You’d gotten more personal than you would have liked. “I just want to say that I’m sorry I went off like that. And for snapping at you.”

She blinked again, then shook her head. “I wasn’t expecting an apology, and I don’t deserve one, honestly, Y/n. That night, I should have defended you. You were right. We all knew you were– well, Amren’s Amren, but everyone else. I was afraid to break the peace. It’s been so fragile since the war. That’s not an excuse, just my explanation.”

Mor nodded beside her. “I heard what you said, and I love you for it. Those were the worst seventeen years in my life that I spent under there. When I finally got out, I didn’t want to think about that place.” She smiled sadly. “I’m still learning that avoiding things doesn’t make them go away.”

You let out an exhale you didn’t realize you were holding. “You don’t completely hate me?”

“Cauldron, no!” Mor cried.

“Right now, we just really hate ourselves,” Feyre added, lips quirking to the side.

You chewed on your lip. “Have you talked to him, then?”

The high lady shook her head. “He’s at the cabin. Closed the bond. Brooding like a moody teenager. He put wards up so no one can get in.”

“You’re high lady, aren’t you?” Lucien drawled like he wasn’t interested. “Doesn’t that mean you have equal powers to Rhysand? Can’t you abolish the segregation of the Court of Nightmares or, at the very least, unseat Keir from power?”

Feyre looked from Lucien to you. “Does he know all our secrets?”

You shrugged. “Honestly, Feyre, I think the Night Court’s biggest threat is itself, not an attack from Lucien and his merry men.”

“Band of Exiles,” Lucien grumbled.

“Technically, I have the authority,” Feyre said slowly. “But I’m not going behind Rhysand’s back. If we’re going to be transparent as a court, we have to be transparent with each other too.”

“How are we supposed to do that if he doesn’t come out of his hidey-hole?” You asked, frustration evident in your voice.

Mor squeezed your arm. “He just needs to get shit-faced, cry himself to sleep, do it all over again, and then he’ll come to his senses. I’m telling you, it’s like clockwork.” She gave you a pretty smile. “Now, since that problem is working itself out–” You disagreed, but alright– “What do you say we go for a walk?”

“To the townhouse?” Feyre suggested. “I have something for you.”

You looked up at Lucien. “I can go on my own if you’d like to do something else.”

“No, no,” He said with a smirk. “I happen to be a life-long student of female communication. It’s fascinating how your kind can talk so much and yet say so little.”

Lucien yelped as three females slapped him.

***

It was a painting of a deer fawn in a meadow surrounded by shoots of green, blooming flowers, and sunlight streaming in from the top left corner.

“I painted it last month,” Feyre admitted, chewing on her lip as she held the canvas out for you to see. “I had the weirdest inclination to paint babies, which I’m beginning to think might have been less random than I assumed. It’s fine if you don’t want it, I just thought I would show you–”

“I want it,” you blurted, taken aback by the painting. How your high lady had somehow sensed your pregnancy before you even knew about it was beyond you. “I love it, Feyre. I want it.”

Her shoulders relaxed, and a smile lit up her features.

You looked between Feyre and Mor. Lucien was leaning in the mudroom doorway, flipping through the pages of a book.

“I’m sorry you found out like that,” you began. “We were going to tell you soon. It just felt like the only way to keep Az from…” You trailed off with a wince. “I would have come by sooner, but he said he was going to handle things.”

“Where is he anyway?” Mor asked.

“With Cassian and Amren. Getting them on the same page, I presume. The hope is that Rhysand will listen if his whole family is united.” You swallowed the lump in your throat, the unsaid truth that you weren’t really a part of that family. They probably just thought of you as Azriel’s mate. An extra factor that they had to adapt to. “I don’t think I should be there, though.”

Mor made a face. “Don’t stay away to preserve Rhysand’s feelings, Y/n. He needs to hear it, and you were the one who was brave enough to voice it.”

“I’m not afraid to confront him,” you sighed. “But he didn’t listen to me the other night. He should hear it from someone else, from the people who know him best. And I’m worried what my proximity to Rhysand might do to Azriel.”

Feyre and Mor nodded solemnly at that.

Lucien snapped his book closed, mouth open to say something, but stopped when he saw your face. You were looking just past his shoulder, wide-eyed, where darkness was gathering like a tendril of smoke.

And out of that darkness stepped the high lord, violet eyes finding yours across the room.

_____

Can you tell I love Lucien and Azriel? hehe

[novahthecreative]

obsessed with The Favor… would love a continuation! if not, im looking forward to whatever you choose to write! xxx

I don't have anything in the works for The Favor rn, but I'll keep it in mind in the future! Glad you enjoyed! ;)

[novahthecreative]

The Favor (ACOTAR)

Feyre x fem!reader x Rhysand

Summary: Feyre asks you to model for a painting. With her mate. At their house. The details are murky, but who are you to question your high lady?

Tags: SMUT 18+ mdni, threesome, fingering, edging, oral (m and f receiving), lingerie, penetration... I'm bad at tags. It's explicit sex, alright?

Word count: 7.5k-- strap in, folks

Smut below the cut...

_____

When your High Lady asks for a favor, you say yes. And when she’s a close friend who you’ve had feelings for for some time now, you say yes. And when the favor is posing with her handsome mate for a painting, whom you may or may not also have feelings for, you say–

“Yes!” You stopped frantically nodding, amending your eagerness into something more casual. “Of course, love. Always happy to help.” You waved it off as though it were nothing, trying not to draw attention to how excited you were. Your floundering had definitely made it worse. You should have just stuck with “yes.”

“Perfect!” Feyre beamed, setting back to work on the canvas in front of her, a cityscape of Velaris. “How does the river house tomorrow night sound?”

“At night?” You asked. “Wouldn’t you rather paint in the daylight in your studio?”

She dipped her brush in deep blue paint, blending it into the mountains in the background. “I’m going for a more intimate feel with this portrait, I think. So, faelight should suffice. And the river house is more private and has more than enough places for me to paint.”

You nodded, thinking you understood. “Great. I’ll be there.” You turned to leave her little studio, not sure how much longer you could be around her without your heart turning to thunder. You turned on your heel at the door. “Oh, do you need me to wear something specific?”

She smiled at you, her blue-grey eyes playful. “No. I’ll lend you the clothes I want you to wear tomorrow night.”

Your heart fluttered at the thought of wearing her clothes. Of pretending to be her just for one night, for one little painting, probably standing regally next to Rhysand like you were his high lady. You wanted to be their high lady. But they were mates. You’d settle for Feyre’s attention as she painted you to look like her, as Rhysand tolerated your presence next to him, wishing it were his wife’s.

And your heart sank. Your dreams were just that– dreams. You bid Feyre goodbye, wondering if by doing a favor for your high lady, you were torturing yourself.

***

Your blood pounded as you jogged up the walkway to the River House, letting yourself in as you’d done hundreds of times. You couldn’t be more portrait-ready than you were– your hair was freshly washed, you’d done a ton of papering, and had applied some rouge to your cheeks to give them a little life. Hopefully, it would make you a little more comparable in beauty to Feyre, for whom you were standing in.

“Feyre?” You called when you found the main room empty.

“Coming!” She called, descending the stairs in a pair of short shorts and a T-shirt splattered with paint. Oh, if that didn’t do something for you. Maybe adding blush to your face was too much, considering how red you were turning without it. She smiled at you, nearly sending you to your knees. “Hey! Right on time! I have to get some more paint from the closet, but you can head up to the bedroom. Rhys is already there.”

“The– the bedroom?” You fumbled, pointing up the stairs.

“Yeah, go on in!” She disappeared into another room, leaving you mortified at the bottom of the steps. Feyre was inviting you into her and Rhysand’s bedroom.

For a painting, you told yourself. Snap out of it.

With unsteady steps, you climbed the stairs, finding your way easily to the main suite. The door was partially ajar, and you knocked as you let yourself in. Rhys lifted his head from where he was sprawled across the bed to grin at you. He rolled up in a flash, wearing all black as always, but his jacket had been discarded, leaving him in a dress shirt rolled up to the elbows and fitting pants. Two cauldron-blessed buttons were undone at the top of his shirt.

“Y/n,” he purred, stalking across the room with feline grace. You’d stopped just inside the bedroom, but he came right up to you anyway, lifting your hand in his and kissing it. Sparks flew through you. How is it so easy for them to do this to me?

“Rhysand,” you responded with an inclined head. He was still your high lord at the end of the day, even though you and he would be Feyre’s playthings for the next few hours. It had started as a clean, wholesome thought, but your mind twisted it into something filthy.

“None of that,” he said, a finger under your chin drawing your face up. “No rank tonight. Just Rhys and Ferye, ‘kay?”

You nodded, making yourself take a step back even though you’d rather have plunged forward and pressed your lips to his. The paintings on the wall rattled as you backed into them.

Rhys just smiled and walked to a low dresser where a board of food was laid out. “Hungry?” He asked, gesturing to the spread.

You didn’t know what to say. Yes, you were a little hungry. Preparing for tonight had been a rigorous effort, and you hadn’t eaten before you came. But if you said yes, you would have to cross the room to move closer to that beautiful male pushing a grape past his lips–

Get a grip, Y/n! I’ll have to stand by him anyway for the portrait. You nodded, meeting him in front of the table, surveying the options. But Rhysand had selected for you. He held a strawberry between his fingers, offering you a bite.

Gods, why do they have to be like this? Everything about them is flirty, even though that’s just how they are, right? Or is it their personal mission to torture me? Do they have a vendetta of some kind?

The strawberry was inches in front of your lips. You leaned forward, bit into the succulent flesh, and pulled back.

The door shut on the other side of the room, making you whirl as Feyre closed the three of you in. You leapt away from the high lord as though you’d been caught red-handed.

“Got everything I need,” she said, pulling an easel into the center of the room next to where she had set her paints.

“Wonderful,” Rhys said, crossing the room to take up his previous position on the bed.

Your eyes widened as he took a bite of the strawberry, the one that had been between your teeth moments ago. The high lord looked in your direction, smiling innocently.

Good. Then he didn’t know how heat pooled between your legs at the sight of him eating a berry.

“Thanks again for doing this, Y/n,” Feyre said as she adjusted the easel, pointing it at a chaise lounge against the opposite wall from the bed. That would be where she would paint you as herself with her mate. Gods, that shouldn’t have turned you on as much as it did. “It’s really hard to paint myself from memory, and I prefer to look at a live model than an old self-portrait. Adds more life to the scene, you know?”

You thought that made sense, but really, you were just trying not to melt to the floor in a puddle. You couldn’t help but think that they’d probably made love against every surface in this room. The thought was too much to handle. All you could do was swallow and nod.

Feyre studied you, looking you up and down, taking in the colors in that special way of hers. “You are gorgeous, Y/n.”

“Oh,” you said, because it was better than the gasp that had almost slipped out. Or worse, that needy moan lying in wait in your throat. “Thanks. I am standing in for you, so I’d have to be. Beautiful. You’re beautiful– I mean–” Your face was as red as the strawberry Rhys was finishing, an amused smirk on his face. “Did you say you had something for me to wear?”

Feyre’s lip was snagged on her teeth like she was trying to hold back laughter. Of course she was. I’m a bumbling idiot.

 “Ah, yes.” She pulled open the dresser drawer, rummaging for a moment before closing it. Her face was tinged pink as she stopped in front of you, offering the ball of fabric in her hands.

You held up the… dress? Could it be called a dress if it were barely longer than a shirt? It was deep red, almost pomegranate, held by two barely-there shoulder straps. It would cover the bare minimum, if that, leaving your legs, shoulders, and a fair share of your cleavage completely exposed.

Feyre’s words were coming back to you now. Intimate. Private. This was not going to be your ordinary stiff-figured portrait. This was a moment between mates that Feyre was hoping to capture.

You blinked. Did you want to do this? Gods, yes. Would it utterly ruin you and majorly embarrass you in front of your two massive crushes and close friends? Gods, yes.

“You don’t want me to wear this,” you said quickly, trying to preserve the last of your dignity. “I’ll probably stretch it out. I doubt it would fit. Maybe it’s not too late to get Mor–”

“It’ll fit,” Rhysand voiced, strolling closer to stand behind his wife. His hands landed on her hips. “Besides, I’m not posing for a portrait with my cousin with her wearing that.”

“But you’ll pose with me?” The words were out of your mouth faster than you could stop them.

Rhysand’s head tilted like a puppy’s. “Of course,” he said simply, as though that didn’t raise more questions than it answered. His stare was too intense, so you looked back to his wife, who wasn’t much better.

Her eyes sparkled. “The red will pop in this lighting. It’ll look great with your skin tone.”

That doesn’t really matter, you thought. She’s not really painting me. She’s painting herself. Feyre is just trying to get me to agree, and frankly, it’s working.

You pulled the dress close to your chest, nodding at last.

They both smiled at you in unison, and you could have died right then and been a very happy faerie. What you wouldn’t do to make them smile…

***

Their bathroom was enormous, as expected. You stared at yourself in a massive wall-to-wall mirror. You were right about the dress's length. It barely reached past the mound between your thighs, concealed by a matching thong Feyre had also handed you as she pushed you into the bathroom to change. So there were no underwear lines, she had said.

After the door had shut, you admittedly debated for mere seconds before bringing the little panties to your nose and inhaling, finding only traces of the female’s scent.

But Rhysand was right: the dress did fit. It hugged your curves, left very little to the imagination, but covered everything it was supposed to– a miracle.

You peeked out of the bathroom, finding Feyre and Rhysand pressed together in a heated kiss that broke at the sound of the door creaking open. Both of their heads turned to gaze upon you, eyes hungry, a lingering effect of the kiss they’d shared. Another lingering effect of the kiss was the warmth in your belly, the wetness darkening the silk thong. You pressed your legs together in a futile effort to stop your body’s reaction.

“That’ll do,” Rhys said under his breath, eyes still roving you in his mate’s dress. You wondered if he bought it for her. Did he resent you for wearing it? Or did the borrowed clothing have the same effect on him that it had on you?

“Perfect,” Feyre praised. She looked back up at her husband, connecting their lips in one final kiss before they parted. “Are you ready?” She asked you.

You nodded.

Rhysand seated himself on the chaise lounge, pushing his black sleeves up a little higher. You were scared you would lose your nerve if you hesitated, so you crossed the room and took the seat next to him, a foot between you. You stared forward, so as not to meet the intensity of his eyes.

“Not quite, darling,” he purred, and you had to check to make sure he was talking to you and not Feyre.

The artist smirked as she crossed the room, stopping in front of your knees. “The pose I had in mind is a little different. Mind if I move you?”

Your heartbeat was in your ears. Pose. You hadn’t considered a pose. Hadn’t imagined what Feyre could expect from you in a dress as short as this. If you lifted your leg too high, the dampness of your thong would be a secret no longer.

But you nodded because you were doing a favor, not because of some secret hope that they would see how turned on you were by this and help you out. Because that wasn’t even a real hope. It was a dream.

The high lady took your hands and pulled you to your feet. She shifted you aside and pushed you back down. Right into Rhysand’s lap.

Your whole body went stiff as you waited for him to protest, waited for Feyre to change her mind and pull you out of her mate’s lap. You waited for anything that could save you from imminent embarrassment when your arousal eventually started to moisten his pant leg.

Instead, a warm hand settled on your hip. “Comfortable?” He asked, his voice a deep rumble that you felt against your spine.

“I–” You didn’t know how to respond. Words failed you. His warmth seeped through your body, a welcome relief with so much skin exposed. “I– yes– no– Are you sure about this?” You didn't know who you were asking.

Feyre’s hands cradled your face as she leaned you back into Rhysand’s chest, settled your head against his shoulder, and tilted your face so that the bridge of your nose teased his throat. “Lovely, just like that,” she muttered. Then she adjusted Rhysand’s hand, moving it from your hip to your stomach, flattening out his palm. She stacked your hand on top of his.“Good. The final part now.”

There’s more?

You shifted slightly to watch as Feyre kneeled to the ground in front of your knees, pushed her hands between them, and–

“No,” you breathed. She was going to spread your legs. She was going to see how you’d dampened her pretty little underwear, how you were falling apart at their touch. “The dress is too short. I’d rather sit like this, Feyre. Please.” You were begging. You didn’t care. You hid your face in the crook of Rhysand’s neck again, this time to hide your embarrassment.

“No need to be shy, pretty girl,” Rhysand purred. The hand that wasn’t on your stomach fell on your thigh. Feyre’s hands were still on your knees. “If you’re worried that Feyre will see how turned on you are, don’t. We can already smell you.”

“Oh, gods, I’m sorry,” you apologized into his skin, unable to move. You’d have to spread your legs to get up off him, and that wasn’t an option.

It was Feyre who laughed. “It’s fine, Y/n. You really think we’d put you in a skimpy dress, put you in a male’s lap, and expect you not to be turned on? I know firsthand what sitting in his lap does to a female. No shame, baby.”

Again with the pet names. These two would be the death of you.

Feyre’s thumbs rubbed circles on your knees. “Please, Y/n? For me?”

How can I say no to that?

You parted your knees a fraction, and your high lady pushed them the rest of the way open.

She sucked in a breath as you kept your eyes firmly shut. “Perfect. Absolutely perfect. Rhys? Final touches, please?”

The warm hand on your leg slid across your skin to the apex of your thighs, hovering over the damp panties. You could feel the warmth of his hand even though he kept it a hair away from where you wanted it most.

“May I?” He might as well have been asking for a dance for all the nonchalance in his voice.

The squeak that served as your affirmative answer made him chuckle. His palm pressed into your clothed cunt, sending the most pleasant sensations fluttering in your stomach. You kept your face neutral, bit down on your lip to keep from sighing.

Feyre used your knees to push off the ground and stepped back to admire her models. Does she care that her mate’s hand is cupping another female? Does she mind that I am breathing in his scent, turned on by the smell of him?

“Just like that, you two. So fucking perfect.” She retreated to her easel.

You became attuned to your pulse in your pussy. He could feel it. Of course, he could feel it. You were ruined. How would you ever look at the two of them the same after this?

Time slithered away as Feyre’s brush moved across the canvas, her face peeking out every few moments to study you.

Rhysand barely moved behind you, still and as solid as stone.

And you… were singing the alphabet to yourself in your head. Over and over. Then you counted to a hundred. Then you tried to recall the alphabet backwards, which proved to be an impossible task, and then–

“Y/n?” Feyre called.

You blinked your eyes open, lifting your head slightly to look at her.

She grinned. “You're grimacing. Everything okay?”

“Yep,” you said, like you weren’t in the best and worst spot in your entire life. “Do you– do you want me to smile?”

She chewed on her lip in contemplation, brows furrowing. She looked so sexy like that. “Not smile, per se, but look pleased. Like Rhysand’s making you feel really, really good with his fingers.”

You wanted to go home, bring yourself to orgasm at the memory, and then curl up and die.

“If it would help,” Rhysand muttered, “I could actually make you feel really, really good with my fingers.” He was such a tease, and Feyre didn’t even seem to mind his flirting.

You squeaked, then calmed yourself. They’re mates. I’m no one to them. I'm just projecting my feelings. “I’ll just try biting my lip, thanks.” When you nestled your head back into place and sucked your lip in between your teeth with your eyes shut, Feyre groaned.

“Just like that, Y/n. You look so goddamn sexy like that. Don’t move.”

Okay… so maybe you weren’t imagining everything. When your high lady calls you ‘goddamn sexy,’ that means something, right? And when your high lord has his hand up your dress, that’s an indication that something’s going on, isn’t it?

“So,” you began tentatively. “It’s just now occurring to me that Feyre and I don’t have identical body types at all, that we are different sizes, and that, if this dress were in fact made for Feyre, it wouldn’t fit me at all.”

“Interesting insight” was all Feyre said from behind her canvas.

“And to that same point,” you continued, feeling the soft rumble of Rhysand’s laughter against your back. “If you’re painting my body as you see it, you're not going to end up with a painting of you sitting in Rhysand’s lap, but a painting of me in Rhysand’s lap. And I dare say that’s what you were going for.”

“Finally figured it out, did you?” Rhys breathed, the hand across your stomach flexing. “Took you ages.”

Feyre appeared from behind her canvas, letting out a burst of laughter that she must have been holding back. “We bought you a short dress and some pretty panties, put you in Rhys’ lap, and spread your legs wide, and it still took you until now to notice?”

“That you like me?” You asked, still not sure that you believed it yourself. They both laughed again, dark and sultry sounds that made your hips jolt into Rhysand’s hand. He brushed a thumb over your clothed clit, drawing a clipped breath from you before his hand stilled again.

“Hey, back to positions, you two,” Feyre scolded. “I’m serious about this painting.”

“Yes, darling,” Rhysand drawled as you bit your lip again and resumed your pose. He was unmoving in all but his hand, which lazily fingered you through your panties. They were soaking wet at that point. 

You moaned out his name in labored breaths. His throat bobbed, and you felt his length pressing into your back. Either he got an erection really fast, or you’d been too busy singing the alphabet to notice it before. “Cauldron,” you panted. He was bringing you to that edge so fast. “Rhys, stop, you’re going to make me–”

He did stop. Pulled his hand away from your aching core. You whimpered. You hadn’t really wanted him to stop. What you meant was– I’d rather come on your fingers than in my underwear.

“You will,” Rhys and Feyre chimed in unison.

A horrified gasp escaped your throat. How many of your dirty thoughts had they heard?

“Most of them,” Feyre answered, paintbrush whispering along the canvas. “It’s like you’re shouting them, actually. They’re hard to ignore.” Her smile was downright naughty as she peered around the canvas.

“Not that we’d want to,” Rhys added. “You’ve given us so many delicious ideas. I particularly like that fantasy of yours where Feyre sits on your face while you take my cock.” He addressed his wife. “What about you, darling?”

“I like the one where we tie her up and edge her for hours. Or maybe the one where she and I tie you up and make you watch while we scissor.”

You moaned. Your arousal was battling your embarrassment for dominance, and it was winning. You craned your head a little further, pressing your lips against Rhysand’s neck, following it with your tongue.

His hips jerked at the touch that even he didn’t expect, rutting his erection into your ass. You both groaned at that.

“What in Prythian is going on over there?” Feyre chided, only amusement in her voice. She didn’t stop painting.

“Your models need a break, love,” Rhysand lilted. The hand on your stomach pulled you impossibly closer to his body, increasing the friction of his cock on your ass.

“Just a little longer, dear,” she called back. “Be good for me.”

He hummed. “I thought you wanted to play with Y/n tonight. Not with me.”

Feyre tsked. “We’ll all play soon enough. I’m nearly finished, and you’ve both been so good for me. Keep still.”

“Yes, Feyre,” you breathed. Wanting to please, always wanting to please.

“Ooh, I rather liked that,” she praised. “Say it again.”

“Yes, Feyre,” you repeated, louder, more broken with pleasure as Rhysand’s hand met your clothed pussy and began his ministrations again.

***

It felt like it had been hours before Feyre finally took three large strides back from her canvas, gave a little nod, and announced that she was finished. It felt like hours that Rhysand had been edging you through your panties, now soaked through, coating your inner thighs with your arousal.

You slumped forward, and your toes hit the floor, your ass sore from sitting in one position for so long. Your legs shook from the orgasms you’d been denied.

“Let him stand up, baby,” Feyre said, taking your hands with her paint-splattered ones and pulling you to your feet. “He has old man knees.”

Rhysand scoffed from the couch, but indeed groaned as he stood. “You’re both lucky that’s my only ineptitude. Let’s see this painting of yours.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” Feyre chided, dashing back to her setup and stealing the canvas from the easel. “Let it dry. We’ll see it in the morning light. Besides, we have better things to do than look at my art.”

“I love your art,” you blurted. You didn’t want her to talk badly about her passion for a second.

Your high lord and lady shared an amused look.

“So do I,” Rhys mumbled, stepping behind you. His hard-on was against your back again, warm hands on your chilled, bare arms. “But what Feyre means is that we’d rather admire you. She wants a taste of you. We both do.”

Rhysand’s words emboldened you. Somehow, you’d managed the wherewithal to say, “Then give the lady what she wants.”

Your feet were torn off the ground as Rhysand scooped you into his arms as though you were a baby, not a fully grown female. No one had ever lifted you like this, certainly not with the intent to place you lovingly in the pillows of a mating bed that was not your own. But he did just that as Feyre climbed onto the bed, crawling over to you.

You clenched around nothing, seeing your high lady on her knees. Then she tore off her paint shirt and tossed it to the floor, leaving her in a lacy bra. Her breasts spilled out, so pale and milky and perfect.

A flash of movement in the corner of your eye made you turn. Rhysand’s shirt and trousers were gone, leaving him in a pair of boxers that gave you a very good idea of what he was working with. A wet spot was forming on them from the tip of his cock, making your mouth water.

Gods, what you wouldn’t let him do with it. He could have your mouth, your pussy, your ass, your thighs, your breasts–

“Her creativity is astonishing,” Feyre giggled to her husband as she pressed her belly to the mattress, face by your knees. “Never a dull moment with you. Spread your legs, baby. Let me see how much you want this.”

It was the second time tonight she’d asked you to spread your legs, but this time there was no hesitation. Your knees flew open, heels pressing into the mattress.

“Sit up, dearest,” Rhys drawled, tapping your shoulder. You obeyed immediately, and he slid in behind you, resting against the headboard with you in between his legs.

You knew the lull that followed meant your high lord and lady were having one of their daemati conversations. Talking about you, no doubt. It made you wriggle and Feyre’s face was so close to your core. Your hips bucked, brushing your clothed cunt against the tip of Feyre’s pretty little nose.

Her eyes widened, her smile growing wicked. “You were being so good and patient up ‘til now. Hmm? What’s that about, love?”

“I know you’re talking about me,” you said. “What are you saying?”

“We’re just debating what we should do with those pretty underwear of yours,” Rhysand said. “But she’s right, Feyre. No more mental chit chat. Let her hear your ideas. She might have a creative one of her own.”

“Well,” Feyre began, pressing a kiss to the inside of one thigh. “They look so pretty on you. I could just push them aside.” She hooked one finger in the fabric, her knuckle against your clit, making you sigh. “Or I could take them off you and stuff them in your mouth. Or maybe they’d look really pretty around Rhysand’s cock. What do you think, pretty girl?”

“Yes,” you breathed, too focused on Feyre’s finger running up and down your folds, collecting your arousal. “All– any– fuck– I want your mouth, Feyre.”

“You made her sit still for almost two hours, darling. I think we should oblige her.” Rhysand’s hands went wandering over your stomach, up to your breasts as his lips dipped to your shoulder. A moan slipped free from your throat, hips lifting involuntarily. Feyre took the opportunity to slide your panties down your legs. The soiled material was wine-dark with your arousal. Her eyes were hungry as she studied them.

“Next time,” she said, “I think let’s go with light blue. She’ll look so pretty in light blue.”

Next time. Cauldron, they were already thinking about next time. But you, you were lost in the moment, in the nipping kisses Rhysand was leaving from your shoulder up to your ear, in Feyre’s sultry voice and the view of her body.

“Here, Rhys,” she said, stretching the underwear on her thumb and launching them to the headboard. Her mate caught them easily.

Feyre threw one of your legs over her shoulder, the other sprawled out to the side, begging for her to take you. She pressed a chaste kiss to your pubic bone. You bit down on your lip as she followed with her tongue, kitten licking all over, cleaning up the mess on your thighs that you’d created.

Rhys brought your panties to his mouth, sucking on the fabric. You bucked your hips, knocking Feyre’s nose so pleasantly against your swollen clit. You gasped.

“Gods, you taste divine,” he said, and Feyre hummed her agreement as he pulled your panties out of his mouth and pressed them to your lips. “Taste yourself, Y/n.” You opened for him, and he stuffed your panties into your mouth with two fingers, leaving part of the fabric hanging down your chin.

You could taste yourself in the wet fabric, and taste Rhys’s mouth right along with it. The thought sent you barreling over the edge, Feyre’s tongue still light and teasing on your clit. You came with a deep moan, arching forward, fingers finding your high lady’s bronze hair and gripping it.

She groaned at that, letting you rut your hips into her face until your orgasm fizzled and your ass fell back down onto the mattress. Your head lolled, falling back into Rhysand’s bare chest, his skin so pleasantly warm.

“Thank you, Feyre,” you mumbled into Rhysand's hand as he took your panties from your mouth and caressed your cheek.

“Aww,” Feyre cood. “She’s so polite. You knew she would be.”

Rhys hummed his agreement. “You’ve seen her fantasies. She just wants to be our good little girl.” His knuckles brushed over your chest. “Well, most of the time, anyway. Are you going to be good for us tonight, Y/n?”

You nodded fervently. “Yes, Rhys.”

“Then why don’t you return the favor to Feyre, dearest?”

Anything. Favors to your high lady were your specialty at this point. You sat up from Rhys’ chest, and swung your leg off Feyre’s shoulder with some difficulty. Your thighs felt like jello from the orgasm.

Speaking of thighs, there had never been a pair you wanted to be suffocated by more than Feyre’s as she stepped off the bed to slide her shorts and panties to the floor. Gods, you wanted her to–

“Um,” you began, shyness creeping back in. Were you allowed to make a request? “Can– can you–” No, you couldn’t ask. You’d sound like a needy little girl. They wanted you to be good for them. Good girls don’t make requests.

“All you have to do is ask, darling,” Rhys purred against your earlobe. A shiver ran through you.

You made yourself look up at Feyre in all her naked glory. She’d removed her bra too, those beautiful breasts caressed by shadows in the low light. “Will you sit on my face?”

“Of course, my dear,” she said, making her way up the bed. She sat on her knees in front of you, pulling your face forward. She connected your lips in a slow kiss, sweet and soft and just like her. Her tongue ran across your lower lip, reminding you that she was also fierce and sexy and a tease.

You settled on your back in the center of the bed, your dress sliding up your hips, leaving your bottom half bare and exposed to the empty room. Rhys was still at the head of the bed, but you could feel the mattress dip as he changed positions.

Feyre swung a knee over your head, giving you the view of your dreams. Your hands wrapped around her muscular thighs, pulling her pretty folds down to your tongue.

“Patience, baby. We have time,” She scolded, but it was more of a breathy reprimand. Warm, calloused hands brushed past your own, exploring the curves of Feyre’s body. Rhysand was kneeling, hands tangled in his mate’s hair, her own on his chest.

His boxers were gone, his member standing erect, teasing the plane of Feyre’s stomach, spreading the precum gathering on the tip.

You gaped at the sight of the husband and wife kneeling over you, perfect specimens in their own right. You watched them make out for several moments before your patience was gone, and you tugged on the high lady’s thighs. She finally gave in to you, sinking onto your mouth.

She’d been gentle and slow– you had no such restraint. You licked and sucked and nosed her clit in a fever state, needing her to sink further, to push your tongue deeper into her opening.

You needed her to suffocate you.

She said your name like a curse as she heard your thought, and her hips dropped lower, holding less of her weight up. You ate her out like a starved female, chasing her high as though it were your own.

And though you hadn’t yet thought it, she somehow obliged your next request before it had formed, grinding into your face, mashing her perfect pussy into your lips. You were short on air, but you didn’t need it– just her.

Her legs spasmed as she came on your tongue, driving her hips down mercilessly, falling forward into her mate’s chest with a moan. She went still and heavy on your face.

“I don’t think she can breathe, and I don’t think she minds,” Rhysand told Feyre. Two strong hands lifted her by the hips, helping her off your glistening jaw. “But she’s turning a little too purple for my liking.”

Cool air rushed into your lungs as you wiped your nose and mouth, licking traces of your high lady off of your lips. You sat up, pushing yourself off onto your knees. Your high lord was against the headboard again, lazily stroking himself with– with your panties in hand. You licked your lips at the sight. Feyre was leaning against his shoulder, looking you up and down.

“Tired?” She asked.

You shook your head. Even if you were, you wouldn’t admit it. This was one of the best nights of your life, and you didn’t want it to end yet. “Can’t be tired. Haven’t had Rhys’ cock yet.”

The mates grinning devilishly.

“Good answer, sweetheart,” Rhys praised. “How do you want me?”

“From behind while I finger Feyre,” you answered before they could skim it from your mind and put it into words first.

Rhysand and Feyre exchanged a glance. The high lady turned back to you, her own hand teasing her folds apart. “You’ve got us both wrapped around your finger, you know that?”

Around my finger? You felt it was surely the other way around. But the adoration blazed in your chest all the same. “Let me show you what else I can do with my fingers, Feyre.”

She barked a laugh, head falling back against the headboard. “Gods, yes, Y/n.”

You tugged on your dress to pull it up over your head, but Rhys tsked at you. “The dress stays on, at least until I’m done with you. Alright, love?”

You smoothed it back down into place with a nod. Rhys grinned, setting your panties on the nightstand as he inched closer to you.

Suddenly, you wanted to taste him, to see just how far you could take him before you gagged.

“Be my guest,” he murmured, ushering you onto your hands and knees. He gave his length a pump, then brushed it over your cheek, ignoring your gaping, waiting mouth. He smeared his precum over your chin as your tongue roved your lower lip, trying to reach him.

When you pouted up at him, his violet eyes crinkled at the corners. “Here, darling.” He let you swipe your tongue over his tip and take him into your mouth, but every time you tried to impale yourself on his cock, he pulled back.

“Don’t hurt yourself, sweetheart. Slowly now.” His finger gripped your hair, keeping your head jerked back in place. Then he pushed in, giving you a few inches with each thrust. You took it well with hollowed cheeks and a spirited tongue, flicking over his vein, across the slit at the top of his cock, pulling rumbling moans from him. He granted you another inch, teasing the back of your throat now.

You could handle it. You looked up at him through your eyelashes to silently ask for more.

That was his undoing. He slammed into the back of your throat, your muscles relaxing to take all of him without pain. Tears pricked your eyes, but it felt incredible watching the male fall apart as he fucked your mouth. That knot in your stomach had tied itself up again after your orgasm by Feyre’s tongue, growing infinitely tighter as your high lord went feral.

“Careful, love,” Feyre chastised. “That perfect mouth of hers will make you cum faster than you think. You still need to take her from behind, remember?”

Heeding his wife’s words, Rhys pulled away. Your mouth tried to chase his retreating length, but his hand tugged on your hair. A jolt of pleasure surged through you at the sting of your scalp. He guided you up off your hands and leaned down to claim your lips. There was a mix of all three of you on your tongue now.

The high lord moaned as he tasted it too. 

Feyre settled herself on the pillows, legs spread wide for you to slot yourself in between them. You kissed your way up her tummy, swiping your tongue over her perky nipples, arriving at her lips. She kissed you mercilessly, a slender hand gripping your throat, applying gentle pressure. One of your hands landed beside her head, the other wandered down, pinching and tugging on her nipples, drawing mewling sounds from her lips whenever your kiss broke.

Rhys shifted your dress a little higher on your hips, exposing your ass to him. The male kneaded it between strong, rough hands. A finger ran along your labia then slipped inside. You could hardly feel it, so wet and so ready for more. He added another finger, giving you a little friction, but not nearly enough.

You found that your own hand was mirroring Rhysand’s in Feyre. You pumped two digits into her entrance, curling your fingers with each thrust.

“Please, Rhys,” you moaned. Feyre kissed and licked the exposed parts of your breasts. “I’m ready. I can take it.” Your high lady pulled you down by the throat again, clashing her tongue against yours. You pressed the heel of your palm into her clit with every thrust, her back arching and stomach tightening at the change.

“Anything for you, Y/n,” Rhys said, teasing his tip against your folds. Then he pushed in, and it felt like a homecoming as he sank to the hilt inside of you.

There was no pain. You were so wet, so turned on, so Cauldron-blessed to be sandwiched between these two. 

“Fuck,” Rhys said with a shudder. “You take me so well, sweet girl.” His hips pistoned into you, finding a slow and exact rhythm as he adjusted to the squeeze. He sank so deep inside of you that he touched the knot tightening in your stomach.

Y/n, Feyre’s voice said inside your mind. It had to be in your mind, because her tongue was running over your teeth. Do you want Rhys to take you gently, or do you want him to fuck you like an animal?

Both. You wanted both. But the second option sounded particularly endearing at the moment…

Feyre’s laughter bounced around in your mind, having seen the images her inquiry had sparked. He’s got this fantasy, you see. Memories– or dreams, maybe– shot through your mind. They didn’t belong to you, didn’t even belong to Feyre, but to Rhysand. But now they were in your head, and you knew exactly what Feyre intended for you to do.

Your lips broke the kiss as you turned your head to look at the male behind you. His eyes were blown with lust, though he seemed to be restraining himself, holding back for your sake. You did not want that.

You reached behind, and he took your hand, thinking it was just a gesture of intimacy. But you used it to sit up on your knees, pressing flush against his chest, his cock buried deep within you.

“Y/n,” he moaned, hand instinctively wrapping around your front to keep you from falling forward. He didn’t break pace, skin slapping with each thrust.

Feyre crawled over to you, fondling your breast in one hand, rubbing tight circles over your clit with the other. She winked at you.

You bit your lip, head thrown back against the high lord’s shoulder. “Please, daddy–”

His hips hesitated for a moment as he took in your words, took in the name that you called him.

“Daddy, fuck me harder,” you breathed into his ear.

His resolve snapped like a mating bond, and he pulled out to the tip only to bury his cock into you. Stars danced in your vision. Rhysand’s left hand pressed into your stomach, feeling himself with each thrust. His right hand gripped your jaw and pushed two fingers past your parted lips.

It was all you could do to close your mouth around them, to flick your tongue over his fingers. You could do naught but hold onto Feyre’s shoulders as she worked your clit and her husband rammed into you from behind. Drool dripped from the corner of your mouth and slid down Rhysand’s wrist.

“Fuck– I’m so close,” you cried, though it sounded more like a garbled whine with his fingers in your mouth.

“Gods, me too,” Feyre moaned. You hadn’t realized her other hand was touching herself until now, too swept away in it all. “Rhys is gonna fill you so full, baby. Do you want that?”

“Please, Cauldron, please,” you whined. “Please, daddy, cum in me.”

Rhys’ forehead hit your shoulder, fingers falling from your mouth, his nails dug into the flesh of your hips as he rammed into you, chasing his high. “Always for you, love.”

You hit your climax first, his erratic and errant thrusts driving you wild as Feyre’s hands shook with fatigue and ecstasy against your clit. You screamed out both of their names, chanting them over and over like a prayer as orgasm claimed your body, pulling every muscle taut. You clenched around Rhysand’s cock like a vice, tipping him over his own edge.

He came with a roaring moan, so vulgar and so completely undone as he snapped his hips into you, filling you with all of his seed and nothing less.

Feyre came last, at the sound of her mate finding his release, or maybe it was his ecstasy through their bond that did it for her. She continued the ministrations on both of your clits, pushing you into oversensitivity.

You whimpered, pulling back from her touch and landing in Rhysand’s warm arms as they wrapped snugly around your chest. One of his fingers fixed the dress strap that had slid off your shoulder, as if he could make you look half-way presentable right now.

Feyre grinned up at you from where she was reclining in the pillows, as beautiful and shining as ever. She beckoned you to join her as Rhys eased out of you, the evidence of your activities spilling down your legs. You fell forward ungracefully, cheek smacking the pillow. Feyre’s fingers carded through your hair. She pressed a kiss to your nose.

In the attached bathroom, you heard the faucet running, a bath being drawn.

The high lord lay down next to you, thumb running over your shoulder blade in comforting little circles.

“You know,” you said, voice muffled by the pillow and groggy with fatigue. “You guys could have just asked me out to dinner. You didn’t have to come up with such a stupid-elaborate ruse to get in my pants.”

“Ah, but a stupid-elaborate ruse is so much more fun,” Rhys purred, the smile evident in his voice before it gained a more serious edge. “But you know this wasn’t just about sex, right, Y/n? We don’t only want you in bed.”

“You also want me in the bath?” You muttered, sleep staining your speech.

Feyre and Rhysand laughed, drawing in closer to your body, sandwiching you between them. You were a pendant hanging from the chain of their mating bond.

“Yes,” Feyre whispered, pressing a kiss to your temple. “And everywhere in between.”

[novahthecreative]

My top three Azriel ACOTAR ships:

Azriel x requited love

Azriel x happiness

Azriel x me (because I will give him both of those things)

[novahthecreative]

The High Lord's Lie (ACOTAR)

Part II, Part III, Masterlist

Azriel x fem!reader, inner circle + fem!reader (could be read as gn!, but there are mentions of reader's pregnancy)

Summary: You thought you knew what to expect when visiting the Court of Nightmares. You thought it was a political battlefield, not an imprisoned city. With your own child to protect now, the truth of the matter affects you more deeply than ever. A truth that your High Lord will have to answer to.

Tags: Angst, open ending, perceived gaslighting, yelling, mentions of past abuse and torture, abused children, PTSD, defensive asshole Rhysand, physical altercation, pregnancy

Author's note: I don't normally write unresolved angst, but here it is. I think I'm taking the domestic issues of a fictional nation a little too seriously...

Word count: 3.6k

_____

Every other time the Inner Circle visited the Court of Nightmares, you’d stayed in Velaris. Rhys had told you what a terrible place it was, full of scheming courtiers, inky promises, and old feuds. You didn’t have a desire to go down there for a long time, not since you’d made it out from Under the Mountain last year. You’d been underground enough for one immortal lifetime.

But each time your friends returned, they seemed downcast, as if they’d suffered a loss. You couldn’t understand. Rhysand was the High Lord; didn’t he control his own court?

So you piped up at dinner one night when plans were being made to brave the darkness of the subterranean court. Heads turned when you told them that you wanted to go.

“I’m part of your court, aren’t I?” You had asked. “Can I not go?”

Rhys had looked deeply troubled, violet eyes darkening to a shade of midnight. “I didn’t think you would want to. Of course, you can come. You do as you please here, Y/n.”

Azriel had squeezed your thigh under the table when you promised Rhys that you really did want to join, that you weren’t just feeling pressured into making an appearance.

The wind whipped your hair and whined in your ears later that night as Azriel flew you home to the little cottage in Velaris that you shared. When he asked you why you had a change of heart, you told him simply, “Because I serve this court now, and that includes those in the mountain.” Maybe part of it was that you wanted to know everything about the world your baby was going to grow up in, from the glittering spires to the deepest dungeons.

You clung to your courage as you dressed in something form-fitting, silver, and elegant. You painted your eyelids like smoke and ash, ready to join the performance that Rhysand and Feyre were leading you into. Gods, you hoped this wasn’t a mistake. You hoped that you could act the part.

But… what part was that? Why did you have to pretend to be something other than yourself for these people? Did you not outrank them? Were you not afforded the same self-expression as you were in Velaris? All of these questions you shoved down, knowing your High Lord and Lady must have a good reason you didn’t understand.

The Night Court wasn’t anything like Spring, where you’d spent centuries serving as Tamlin’s diplomat, visiting towns and cities in his domain and listening to their concerns. It was your job to understand your people, even those who wanted to do the high lord harm– those were perhaps the most important to understand. You’d been avoiding your duties for long enough, even though Rhys had insisted that you didn’t need to come.

You did. For you. For your court. For your baby.

And before you knew it, you were standing in a throne room much more beautiful than the one where you’d spent fifty years being a slave to Amarantha, forced to play music every night for hours on end.

You steeled yourself.

Rhys sat on his throne, Feyre in her own on his right. Cassian stood next to the high lady, and Azriel stood to the left of the high lord. You tried not to stand too close to your mate, even though you wanted to cower behind him. Eyes roved your body as though you were the banquet to be feasted on.

You watched Rhys intently, noting how he had become someone else entirely. Someone cruel. And everyone seemed to be playing along with him. For what?

There was dancing, and there was music, and you looked on at the musicians, wondering if they were forced to play just as you had been. The memories came rushing back. The threats to cleave your hands from your body if you stopped playing. The blisters on your fingers from the strings and the calluses that had eventually built up over them.

Your fingers brushed together, feeling over the keratinized skin that remained. Your heart was in your throat. The groping hands, the sneering smiles— suddenly it felt like everyone’s eyes were on you once more, waiting for you to slip up in your performance and pounce.

You disappeared from Azriel’s side with a little “I’ll be back.” He couldn’t protest because of whatever part he was playing, just watched you disappear down a blackened hallway. A shadow coiled in your hair, brushing cool relief against the nape of your neck, a reminder that he was with you and would come at your beckoned call.

Where you were headed, you didn’t know, but you followed flickering torchlight through the mountain where the music of the party couldn’t reach you. There were so many doors and corridors that you could have easily gotten lost, but your mate could track you if you really got trapped. The shadow remembered the way back.

Eventually, you’d disappeared so far down into subterrenia that you rested against a wall, listening to the suffocating silence of the mountain. Then there was laughter and fast footsteps, and you stilled against the wall. Two children came darting down the hall.

Children? What are children doing down here?

You stepped away from the wall just as they neared, making the little boy and girl jump. The torchlight danced across your silver outfit, the shadow in your hair hiding from view.

“Hello,” you greeted. But both children only looked at you wide-eyed and afraid. “What are you doing down here?” Again, neither answered, but the girl’s lip trembled. You kneeled slowly, knees leeching warmth into the stone. “Do you live here?” You asked.

This time, the boy tentatively nodded, and your heart broke.

“Do more children live within the mountain?”

The boy nodded again, his face turned slightly away in a cringe. You lifted a hand to point to the way they came, but the boy’s hands flew up to cover his face.

You fell back a step in horror. He thought you were going to hit him. Before you could try and explain yourself, the children took your retreat as a cue to leave and dashed down the hall, all merriment forgotten.

The darkness of the hallway closed in on you, as did the realization that made your bones go cold. The Court of Nightmares is a city imprisoned under a mountain. A city full of innocents, of children.

And Rhysand knows.

The shadow stirred in your hair, and you treated it like a summons, letting it slither along the corridor and lead you back up to the main chamber, where the haunting music greeted you like the ghosts of your past.

But you barely listened, thoughts far away in the future.

***

Conversation washed over you like a wave, but you didn’t really take any of it in. Instead, you watched the logs sizzle in the townhouse’s fireplace, letting the heat radiate to your skin, almost burning it. Your insides felt just like the crackling logs.

A hand brushed over your hair, and your eyes followed the boots that appeared beside you up muscular legs, past tucked-in wings to the face of your mate, whose brows were laced with concern. Azriel lowered himself next to you, resting his head on your shoulder when you didn’t lean on him first. His hand snaked across your lap, resting on your tummy. There was no bump yet, but it didn’t stop Azriel from caressing your stomach and pressing kisses to it all the time.

Maybe that was why tonight had affected you so deeply. Your baby was going to be born in beautiful Velaris, given every opportunity for happiness. But those kids in the mountain had been given no such chance. If the circumstances had been different, that might have been your baby growing up pale and ghostly in perpetual darkness.

Your hand curled into a fist.

The fire grew too hot. You stood up, carding your fingers through Azriel’s hair before taking the last available seat on the couches. Rhysand was seated directly across from you. You didn’t need to look at him to know that his violet eyes were on you.

Softly, carefully, he spoke. “You haven’t said a word since we were down there.”

The room was silent, giving you space to answer. They were waiting for you to say something about how it reminded you of Under the Mountain, how the music burned your ears, how you hated Keir and Eris. You didn’t have anything to say about those things, not when betrayal burned the hottest beneath your skin.

“There are kids down there, Rhys,” you muttered, holding the attention of everyone in the room. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he is ignorant, not apathetic. “I found a little boy in the halls. He flinched when I lifted my hand. He thought I was going to hit him.”

Everyone’s heads seemed to dip in unison, as if in some sad acceptance of an unpreventable tragedy.

Rhysand winced as he shook his head. “It’s awful. How they treat their children is unthinkable. Keir–”

“I’m not mad at Keir, I’m mad at you!” You blurted. Your emotions must have been turned up to an eleven by your hormones, because never once had you raised your voice at your High Lord, not even in jest. Sometimes, your stoicism was all you had– it was all that kept you alive in Amarantha’s Court. Your composure was what made you so good at connecting with subjects. But it was gone, lost somewhere in the labyrinth of tunnels under the mountain. Azriel had risen to his feet by the fire, but made no move to say anything. His shadow had reported back to him what happened in the tunnel; you were sure of that. You knew he had to be angry about it, too.

You took a shaky inhale. “You told me that the Court of Nightmares was full of courtiers forced to stay in their domain. You said it was a political battlefield concealed under the mountain, not a civilization! Not a concentration camp.” Your jaw clenched as you watched Rhysand’s face fall into ruin. Quietly, because it was all you could do to keep from screaming, you whispered, “Have those children ever seen the sun, Rhys?”

Feyre’s hand landed on Rhysand’s leg, trying to instill him with some comfort. He seemed to be battling demons that you’d just awoken. How long has it been since someone raised this issue with him? Certainly, Mor must have; she was born down there. You’d thought that was a fluke or some kind of exception because her parents controlled the place and were always needed. At the very least, you thought keeping children down there was some kind of malpractice that had to have been banned centuries ago.

Rhys’s shoulders sagged. “I thought you understood what the Hewn City was. I wish it wasn’t this way–”

“You’re the high lord!” You blurted, standing up from the couch. In the corner of your eye, you clocked Azriel adjusting his stance. Still, he stayed silent, wouldn’t come to your aid until you needed it. Then again, you were insulting his high lord and his best friend. He might not take your side at all. That thought made your heart clench, but you couldn’t think about it right now. Your eyes narrowed. “You are the High Lord of the Night Court, and yet, you only care about half of it.”

“That’s not true–” Feyre interjected on behalf of her husband, but you weren’t done.

“It is, Feyre. One city gets to grow up in the sun, and the other withers in the darkness.” You faced Rhys because it was easier to direct your anger at him, not the twenty-year-old who had been thrown into ruling a foreign court just months ago. “How is that fair to the children born down there? You’re neglecting them, and you’ve neglected the rest of your court for Velaris, your jewel.” Pettiness leaked into your tone. “I know why; it’s a lot easier to look at the shining city you saved and fuel your hero complex.”

Rhys jumped up from his seat, a slim coffee table in between you holding the only space in the room. Cassian’s hand was on Feyre’s shoulder, rubbing comforting circles. Amren leaned her cheek against a fist, watching madness unfold. Azriel was– where had he gone?

He appeared beside you in a flash, and from the bond singing in your chest, you could feel his love for you sharpened to a point. His hand grazed over your low back.

Was he asking you to back down? To sit by and tolerate injustice? Tolerate cruelty? You reminded yourself that your anger was not with Azriel, not completely, even if he’d been idle in all this. His duty was protecting the court from foreign threats, not domestic ones.

Rhys took notice of Azriel next to you, voice lowering as he said, “You don’t know what I’ve given to protect my court.”

“I do,” you almost growled back. “I was under the mountain with you, remember? I took those lashings from you.” Your eyes stung at the memories. You’d been playing for hours, your hands had been shaking, your mouth had gone dry, and at some point, you’d gone unconscious, falling straight off the platform, smashing your instrument. You were always Amarantha’s entertainment, but that night, it took on a new meaning. “I watched you do the most despicable things to ‘protect your court.’ I thought that meant more than just your friend group.”

Cassian was about to shout something to defend his high lord when you raised a hand. “No, that’s not fair of me. I know you had to make a choice. But I’ve been here for what– a year now? I’ve never heard you mention the Court of Nightmares with anything other than contempt. Not pity, or sadness, or shame– you act like it’s not under your jurisdiction, but it is. You’re the high lord. Act like it.”

The air in the room had become so charged that the hair on your arms was standing up on end with static electricity.

Rhys made an animalistic sound from his throat. You’d effectively punched a bruise, opened a wound that had not yet healed. But it would never heal. Not until those kids were free. Not until everyone in the Night Court was afforded the same opportunities as the lucky few in Velaris.

“I’m sorry, I’m not your fair and mighty Tamlin who let his entire court fall to ruin. I should have left everyone to die equally. Is that what you are saying?” The smile that ghosted over Rhysand’s lips made you go feral.

Feyre came to her feet, reaching for Rhysand’s balled fist. She and Azriel seemed to have taken up the same responsibilities of reigning their mates in, not that either was particularly succeeding.

Especially not since Rhysand mentioned Tamlin. He was still playing his part from earlier tonight, a cruel sneer on his face as he aimed for your weak points. And despite all that Tamlin had done as of late, you’d been his friend for centuries, owed him more than you could ever repay. And though your allegiance to Spring had faded out over the fifty years in Amarantha’s court, your devotion to your friend had not.

“I’m saying you should have fought for everyone equally. We were all ready to die for Spring, for Tamlin, because he served every last one of the faeries under his domain. Do you think the children born in the Court of Nightmares would do the same for you when they grow up? Do you think they would lift a finger for the court that they’ve never even seen, much less die for it?”

“Should I sell out my court to Hybern, too, since Tamlin’s such a role model of a leader?” Rhysand wasn’t even responding to your arguments anymore. He wasn’t even listening; he was just taking every opportunity to spit on Tamlin’s name as he always did. You’d always remained quiet or left the room when they talked about him. Clearly, Rhys had noticed.

“This isn’t about Tamlin,” you said, trying to rein in your fierce loyalty to your old high lord. “You brought him into this. This is about the children in the mountain. This is about your court being a dichotomy, and it’s not fair, Rhys. You have the power–”

“I don’t!” He yelled, losing the grip on some of his magic as night pulsed around him. Azriel took a step forward, his broad shoulder concealing half of you. Distantly, you noticed Cassian come to his feet, gently urging Feyre away from Rhysand. Cassian’s hand clapped on Rhysand’s shoulder.

“I think that’s enough,” he said, to you and to Rhys, the warning evident in his tone. “It’s been a long night. We can talk about this in the morning.”

“Why?” You asked, knowing that Cassian had a point, but your emotions were running you. “So we can just shake hands and pretend like there isn’t a massive problem in your court? If you’ll stop being so fucking defensive, Rhys, maybe I can help you. That’s my job, isn’t it?”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried, Y/n?” The high lord launched back. Cassian’s hand on his shoulder wasn’t doing anything to keep his power contained. “Everything changes slowly for immortals. Sometimes you have to settle to keep the peace. I’m not their tyrant; the Hewn City governs itself. High lords can’t just do whatever they want!”

“How would you know? Have you tried to change the Court of Nightmares, or do you just escape to your Court of Dreams? How can you even call it that, full well knowing that there are innocent people down there living through hell? Not to mention the Illyrians, whom you also govern, and still you refuse to change anything because heaven forbid it rocks the boat.”

Rhys snarled, fury in his eyes as he roared, “To prevent war! In case you forgot, we just ended one!”

You side-stepped Azriel, getting as close to Rhys as you could, shins butting against the edge of the coffee table. “I will always choose war over injustice!”

The coffee table was suddenly gone, sent to Rhysand’s pocket dimension, as he lurched forward to close the distance, mouth opened to bite back.

He didn’t account for the knuckles colliding with his nose, sending a sickening crack through the room. Your hands flew to your mouth as Rhys stumbled back, landing on the couch. Azriel’s fist was still raised, his shadows darting about him in angry and defensive spikes.

Through the bond, you felt his rage, his desire to protect, something animalistic and unstoppable. And the wave of aggression from his side of the bond to yours made your eyes go wide in realization.

He’s going to kill Rhysand.

You flew in front of Azriel, putting yourself between him and Rhysand, whose nose was dripping blood. “Az, stop it! He wasn’t going to touch me! It’s okay.” You held your hands up in placation, trying to calm the storm that was your husband. His pupils were blown, lips curled into a snarl. His eyes were still on the male behind you. Azriel tried to move you, but you wouldn’t budge. “Azriel! Look at me!”

His hazel eyes fell to yours, and that cloudy rage in the bond parted a little, revealing pure devotion to you, and to your–

You took one of his hands in both of yours. “I’m okay.” Then you pressed his hand to your tummy, to the future that lay within you. “The baby’s okay. See?”

Azriel seemed to shake himself free from the primal desire to kill anyone who dared hurt his pregnant mate. Including his brother. His eyes were full of concern, traces of shame at the edges.

You turned back to Rhys. “I’ve said my piece, perhaps more emotionally than I would have liked, but I don’t regret saying it.” You nodded to Cassian, acknowledging his suggestion. “You’re right. We can talk about this later.”

No one responded to that.

But Feyre piped up from beside Cassian. Though she was probably furious with you, she asked so gently, “You’re with child?”

Even Rhysand’s hot temper was doused by the news, leaving a new kind of stunned silence hanging over your family. Shame and understanding were there too.

You swallowed and nodded. This was not how it was supposed to go. You and Azriel were going to wait a little longer. It was supposed to be a happy announcement, not a Hail Mary to keep your mate from killing your high lord.

You look back up into Azriel’s eyes, the message clear enough. He winnowed you both back to your cottage.

The insatiable anger that had been governing you was dissipating, and you could finally feel the swelling sadness behind it. Tears pooled in your eyes, falling when you blinked. Azriel pulled you flush against his chest, wings wrapping around both of you to block out the rest of the world as you sank to your knees on the ground.

You sobbed into your mate, hands wrapped around your abdomen, holding your unborn baby. You were supposed to be welcoming a new addition to the family, not driving a wedge between the existing members. But you couldn’t just embrace ignorant happiness, even if it meant choosing your child and your mate over your allegiance to the Night Court.

And until Rhys started acting like one, he wasn’t your High Lord any longer.

[novahthecreative]

The Rules We Regret - ACOTAR (NSFW)

Tamlin x fem!reader (established relationship)

Word count: 4.8k

Summary: You are Tamlin's financial assistant from the Spring Court Treasury, and you also happen to be dating the High Lord. You tell Tamlin that he can't touch you during work, a rule you'll come to regret.

Author's note: First smut I've finished. Hope you like it!

Tags: SMUT (mdni) 18+, biting, power play, some sub!Tamlin, dom!reader, they're both switches, masturbation, oral (m!receiving), penetration, the works

Smut below the cut...

_____

“Hands to yourself, Tamlin,” you said cooly. “I’m working.”

You’d been so consumed with the tomes you were replacing in his vast library when his hands had landed on your hips. You tried not to startle, though that was your first instinct.

He did not obey your command, just pressed the front of his body against the back of yours, inhaling the floral scent that lingered in your hair. He might have smelled himself in your hair, too, from the night before. You hadn’t had time to wash it before work this morning, and you prayed that the servants wouldn’t detect it.

Thankfully, there was no one else in the library at the moment, but that wasn’t the only problem. You lifted his hands from your hips and spun around, finding him towering over you with carnal hunger in his eyes. That look alone sent heat through you, but it was the affection he couldn’t conceal beneath his desire that made your knees clench so as not to drop you to the floor.

“Later,” you said, pressing your hands against his abdomen. A mistake, because you could feel the hard muscle underneath it. Blood rushed to your cheeks. Still, you pushed him away, and Tamlin indulged you by taking a single step back. But your message clearly did not reach him. That step back was him toying with you as though you were playing a game of cat and mouse.

As much as the thought appealed to you, you couldn’t indulge in it right now. You were working. You’d have to be more direct.

He still hadn’t said a single word since he’d entered the library. His emerald eyes roved you, in worship, and also like he was deciding which article of clothing he’d rip off first, whether he’d hoist you on his hips and take you against the bookshelves or bend you over the table.

“Tamlin,” you said, making your voice firm. “I’m serious. Not now. You can’t touch me when I’m working.”

He blinked, then cocked his head, canines flashing as he grinned. “And why not?” The distance between you was closed again, and you weren’t fast enough as his hands slid to the sides of your face, so warm and gentle despite the predator he could become. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows that you sneak into my bedroom. You don’t have to be shy, beautiful.”

“Yes, I do,” you said, taking his wrists and pulling his hands away from your face. He let you do that, too.

It was true that the staff was gossiping about the two of you. That didn’t surprise you. But what worried you was that they’d turn from talking about your relationship to talking about you.

“Tamlin, not when I’m working. I can’t slack off.”

He easily broke your grip on his wrists and took your hands into his, leaning another inch over you. He was closing in, a cat cornering its mouse, and if he did lay you across the table, you weren’t sure you’d keep fighting him.

“I think you’re forgetting something, Y/n,” he said lowly, a purr-like sound caressing his words from deep within his chest. He smiled again. “I’m your boss. And I’m asking you to take a break. But I can order you, if you’d prefer.” His grin turned the slightest bit sinister.

“You are not my boss,” you argued. “I don’t report to you. Directly, anyway. Tam, if I’m not vigilant about my job, people will talk. Rumors will fly.”

“I’m the High Lord,” he reminded you, raising one of your palms to his mouth to kiss. Then he bit into the succulent flesh of your thumb, making you squeeze your legs together.

“Yes,” you breathed, not quite able to keep the arousal from your voice. “You are the High Lord. You can have whoever you want. But, as you said, I’m your employee. You might survive the rumors unscathed, but I won’t. If I start slacking because of you, then no one will take me seriously. They’ll say that I’m just your bedwarmer.”

He’d lost the playful smile, and though his eyes were softly amused, he nodded thoughtfully. He pressed a kiss to the bite on your palm, letting your hands fall to your sides. He didn’t even need to be touching you; the energy in the air between your bodies was charged and heavy. “Why do you care what they think of you? Isn’t what you think of yourself enough?”

Slowly, you nodded. “It is. It’s just… I’m good at what I do, Tam. And I take pride in my job. I don’t really care what other people think, but it’s about what I think of myself. I’m someone who does good work and also has a relationship with the High Lord. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive.”

Tamlin took a deep breath. He tilted his head and smiled. “Fine, but only because you’re so adorable when you tell me no.” His gaze turned to the floor. You thought he might reach out and touch you, but he managed to keep his distance. “You’ll just have to make it up in private.”

Heat surged between your legs, and you pressed them together.

You nodded. “Thank you,” you whispered.

His emerald eyes shot to your eyes, then fell to your lips. “I can’t even kiss you goodbye?”

Maybe it was cruel, but you shook your head, trying to keep the smile off your lips. From the way his eyes darkened, you knew that you would be paying for that decision later in the best ways possible.

He left the library, throwing you a wink that made your stomach do backflips.

​

__

“I wish Y/n would quit,” Tamlin mused with a frown, running a claw around the rim of his goblet.

“Quit?” Lucien asked through a mouthful of breakfast. “Why? I thought she was good at her job.”

“She is,” Tamlin snarled, as if insulted by Lucien’s suggestion that you could be anything less than incredible. “That’s the problem. She won’t… come by my room until after work, and she won’t let me give her another day off every week.”

“Fire her then,” Lucien suggested, as if it were the simplest solution. Seeing Tamlin’s stare made him add an “or not” to the end. He took a swig from his goblet. “Don’t make your libido my problem, though.”

Lucien left to attend his duties, leaving Tamlin alone at the breakfast table. How could you say no to him so easily when he couldn't deny you anything? It didn’t sit well with his ego, even though he completely understood why you wanted to be respected for your own accomplishments, not for your association with him. But he couldn’t find enough to do to distract him from the thought of you.

Tamlin threaded his fingers together, elbows propped on the table. He’d just need to find a way to make you reconsider your stance.

__

Tamlin had been calling on you more and more. They were little things he wanted– correspondence to other High Lords delivered, ledgers updated while he read aloud the court’s expense reports, and surveyors dispatched to his towns. You were happy to do your job, to see that he was keeping his hands to himself when you were in uniform. Though you saw his claws peek out from his fingers when you set down a pile of books he requested, the passages you’d marked in them for his research. The back of your hand brushed his on accident as you stepped away, and you had to admit that you did think about reaching out and squeezing his hand, tilting his head up to yours and kissing his lips, letting him take you into his lap and bring you to climax with his fingers.

You coughed to distract yourself from the rush of heat between your legs. You inclined your head and left the library, feeling his eyes on your back as though he could imagine what you were just thinking.

Your two days off came and went, and Tamlin was away for both of them, leaving you restless and needy. He returned from wherever he’d been conducting business while you were doing the payroll for the month, summoning you to his room. If you were honest, you were itching to touch him, to do the salacious things you’d been thinking about during those solitary nights. You were hoping he was as deprived as you, and your steps were hurried as you climbed the grand staircase.

You knocked and pushed his door open, finding him hunched over his desk, writing a letter in a beautiful hand.

“Hi, Tam,” you greeted, not bothering to bow. After all, this meeting was going to be off the books.

He looked up from his letter, eyes lighting up at the sight of you. “Beautiful,” he greeted, rising from his chair but not moving further than that. You wanted to cross the room and kiss him, but you remembered your uniform, what you had asked of him, and he’d done so well keeping his hands to himself. You could do the same.

“You called for me?” You asked, hoping that he would throw you onto his bed and love you deeply.

He hummed, pointing to the letter on the table. Then he promptly crumpled it and threw it into the wastebasket. “I need your help writing a diplomatic ‘I want to fucking kill you, but I need your help’ to Autumn. The ass-kissing doesn’t sound sincere when I write it.” He beckoned you to take the seat.

“You want me to pen it?” You asked, sitting in the chair as he pushed it closer to the desk. You turned back to protest, finding him leaning over the back of the chair, hand on the armrests as he drew a fresh piece of parchment and handed you the quill. His touch singed you as you took the pen from him.

“It’ll look a lot prettier in your hand,” he said, his breath a caress on your ear.

That was a flat-out lie, and you knew it. Your handwriting was decent, but nothing like the elegant loops Tamlin and his constituents wrote in. But you weren’t stupid– this wasn’t about the letter, not entirely anyway. This was about Tamlin making you sorely regret the line you’d drawn in the sand. At the moment, you didn’t fucking care. You’d play his little game if it ended how you hoped it would.

You didn’t miss the way he squeezed his hands into fists to keep his claws in. He was angry that he couldn’t touch you, giving you a little more willpower than you actually possessed to keep yourself in control. Seeing him fall apart made you want to pull yourself together. You knew how it made him feral when you held onto the shreds of your rationality in heated moments. It only made him want to rip the last of it to bits, to finally take you both to the place you called “Consequences be Damned.”

Just when you thought you’d figured him out, he stood up and pulled away, leaving you breathless and wanting. Wasn’t he going to hover over you until you couldn’t stand it anymore?

“Let’s start with something like ‘Dear Beron, you bastard,’” Tamlin said, seating himself against the headboard of his bed.

You pinched your brows. Maybe he wasn’t aching for you like you were. Well, it didn’t matter right now. He’d asked for your help drafting this letter, and you were good at your job, even if rewording his passive-aggressive comments into something sweeter wasn’t usually part of your duties.

“How about just ‘High Lord of Autumn?’” You suggested. “Formal enough to make him realize you hate his guts and not going to make him recind aid.”

Tamlin hummed his agreement from behind you.

He would dictate a sentence, and then you’d filter out the cursewords, writing the amended sentence as neatly as you could. If he wasn’t toying with you and actually intended to send this letter, you had to do this well. But he was trying to make you laugh, too, throwing extra callous phrases towards Beron for you to filter out.

You giggled at one and scribbled down the much nicer version when you heard a deep, suppressed groan from Tamlin behind you. You turned around in your chair, face going pink at the sight.

He was leaning against the headboard, pants unzipped and shimmied down his hips, his erect length on display and fisted in one hand. His eyes were half-lidded as he studied you, face completely serious. “Now ask the prick to send a legion along with the supplies.”

You blinked. “Tam, what is this– what are you–” The words died in your throat as you watched him pump himself, eyes fluttering closed as he tipped his head back. He was as hard as steel. How long had he been touching himself before you turned around?

“Well, I have to keep myself occupied until you’re finished with work somehow,” he said, answering the unsaid question. He gestured to the desk with his free hand. “Keep writing.”

You couldn’t tear your eyes away, swallowing.

Tamlin cupped his hand under his lips and spit into it, holding you captive as he spread his saliva all over his cock. You wanted to lick a stripe up the vein, swirl your tongue over the head, and then take him as deep as you could go.

You shook yourself from the stupor, turning back to the desk with shaky resolve and even shakier hands. What was the sentence he wanted you to write again? Something about troops? Right.

The slick sounds that filled the room grated on the last of your nerves. And the obscene groan he let out made you want to leap from the chair. As your last defense, you shoved your hand against your clothed cunt, bringing a little relief to the ache there. You’d made it clear that you wouldn’t slack off during work, and you could hold off. Yes, you could.

You didn’t really bother to hide your non-dominant hand rubbing yourself through your clothes. He could already smell your arousal. “What’s next?” You asked, not daring to look behind you, where Tamlin’s breathing had become a rapid thing. Then it would slow, and you knew from experience what he was doing to himself– drawing close to a climax and then inching away from it, teasing himself and you in the process. Keeping your eyes on the paper didn’t really help, since you knew exactly what was happening behind you from the twist of his wrist to the pinch of his eyebrows.

“Sign it off,” he said with more resolve than you anticipated. “Write my name for me. It’ll make him furious that I didn’t write it myself.”

You decided on ‘sincerest wishes’ and did your best to pen Tamlin’s signature that you’d seen a hundred times. The quill clattered to the table, the task finished. You could run from the room before you went back on your own words.

“Bring it over and read it back to me,” he instructed.

Nevermind.

Your circles became smaller and faster over your clothed clit. You suppressed a groan of your own, slumping over the desk, knowing that he was watching you fall apart. It was bound to happen, and you were only delaying the inevitable, but that was your game. Normally, you would win, but today, it would be Tamlin.

You’d give him a run for his money, though. Your hand parted from the crest of your thighs as you stood on shaky legs, grabbing the letter and taking it across the room. It was a losing battle, so you let yourself look at the beauty spread across the green and gold blanket. When had he taken off his clothes?

His skin was sun-kissed, and his hair was pure gold, and he was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen stretched out and pleasuring himself, his bottom lip tugged between his teeth.

His eyes opened, and he gestured for you to sit. You lowered yourself onto the bed, drooling shamelessly as he stroked himself. It took a good minute for you to remember the letter in your hand, and you lifted it, the paper shaking.

As you read, you stole glances at him from over the top of the paper, your voice petering out as he quickened his pace again. He was going to make himself cum with you sitting right here doing nothing to help him. Not to mention the throb between your thighs that would still be there once he satisfied himself alone.

“Tam,” you breathed, “Gods, let me, please.”

His gold-flecked eyes were hazy with pleasure and pride. He knew he’d won, the smug bastard, but then again, he wasn’t going to deny you or himself a moment longer.

You weren’t sure how all of your clothes ended up on the floor, but you were hyper-aware of the scent of him as you took him into your mouth, tongue running along his vein as you dipped your head down.

His restrained breathing and mumbles of praise were only adding to the arousal spreading between your thighs as you rubbed them together to get a little friction. Tamlin’s fingers weaved into your hair, so much gentler than he needed to be. You looked up through your eyelashes, telling him through one hard stare that you didn’t want him to hold back now. You’d already gone against your own decree, and if you were going to break the rules, then you were going to break them properly.

Tamlin didn’t need more reassurance than that. His grip tightened on your hair, and his hips bucked into your mouth. All the while, praise spilled from his lips. Tamlin’s hips shuddered as he came with a resonating groan, not unlike a growl, and you swallowed everything he had to give.

You rested your head on his thigh as his chest rose and fell, drawing little patterns on his sculpted abs.

“I thought you said no touching during work,” he teased. His hand brushed your hair gently now, tucking it behind your ear.

You pouted at him, nuzzling into his thigh. “It’s not fair when you’re missing on my days off.”

“You’re right. I have some making up to do, don’t I?” He said. “So I guess I’ll see you back here tonight?”

“Don’t tease me when I’m in biting distance from some very precious parts,” you grumbled.

He laughed deeply, and it caressed you with warmth as he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to your forehead. With unnatural strength, he hoisted you easily into his lap, pulling you down to him in a hungry kiss. His claws poked into the flesh of your hips, leaving red marks no matter how hard he tried to keep them retracted.

You didn’t mind, tangling your fingers into his golden hair at long last, tongues meeting in a furious and desperate kiss. Against your stomach, Tamlin was already hard again, and one of your hands traced down his sculpted pectorals, over the generous ridges of his abs, and took him in hand.

His fingers flexed into your hips, claws digging deeper and making you jolt.

“Hands above your head, High Lord,” you ordered. He obeyed in an instant, and it sent a shiver through your whole body at the thought that the High Lord of the Spring Court took orders from you and you alone.

The desperate need to be filled by him consumed you, so you sat up on your knees and lined yourself up, running the tip of his cock through your folds. His eyes met yours, surprise and satisfaction at how wet you were. He hadn’t even touched you yet, not really, and you were dripping.

You sank down, both of your heads falling forward and meeting in the space between. He disobeyed your command to keep his hands pinned above him as he wrapped one around the base of your neck, keeping your foreheads pressed together as you seated yourself completely on him. Your breath mixed with his as you sat there in perfect, contented stillness, adjusting to the feeling of having him inside you.

He was big. Almost too big. Every time you slept together, you weren’t sure he would fit, but then everything seemed to fall into place, and your body accommodated his length as though you were made for each other. Just as it did now.

“Hands,” you reminded him, and before obeying your command, he tilted your head to press a long, slow kiss to your lips. Then he leaned back against the headboard, resting his hands against the wood, his right hand clasping his left wrist. His grin was feral.

Just because he indulged your orders didn’t mean he was good at listening to them. And if you gave an inch, he would take a mile. It must be a High Lord thing, so used to commanding others but never taking orders. Or maybe Tamlin just wasn’t good at doing what he was told. But he liked it when you pretended to have authority over him, even if it was somewhat of a placebo.

The jasmine scent of Tamlin’s magic infused your senses as an invisible force pushed you forward, making you throw your hands against the headboard to keep from faceplanting. You were about to scold him when his lips locked around your nipple, licking and sucking and running his teeth across. You had to settle for the gasp that fell from your lips.

The magic pressing into your back disappeared. You lifted your hips and sank back down, Tamlin’s answering moan against your breast sending a shock through you. Your hands gripped the headboard, Tamlin’s hands resting between yours, his claws extended as he flexed his fingers with each movement of your hips. He switched to your other nipple, and you imagined him putting his skilled mouth to other uses, too. He pressed hot kisses up your chest past your collarbone, each one punctuated by a little nip of his canines. There were always marks when he was finished with you, like he’d drawn a map over your skin of all the places he’d loved you.

At the connection between your neck and shoulder, Tamlin clamped down with his teeth, lightly, but the message was clear enough. You’re mine, the bite said. But the kiss that followed whispered, I’m yours. Beyond the games and the commands and the disobedience, there was only love and respect between Tamlin and you.

You gripped his jaw to connect your lips again, hand sliding down to rest on his throat, his lightning-fast pulse underneath your thumb. You pressed into it, feeling his life in your hands. Gods, you loved him, trusted him with your whole being.

“Tamlin,” you gasped. “Fuck me.”

The High Lord of Spring did not need to be told again. A heartbeat later, you were on your back, Tamlin still sheathed to the hilt inside of you. He threw one of your legs over his shoulder with such ease. Then he thrust into you, deep and exact. He was still holding back, reminding you how powerful he could truly be, how much he kept contained to keep from breaking you.

But you wanted him to break you.

“Harder, Tam,” you moaned. “Hard as you fucking can.”

A snarl ripped loose, and your wish was granted. He freed the animal inside of him and pounded into you harder and faster and deeper. Tamlin clutched the thigh pressed to his chest tighter, then dropped his hands to frame your face. His pupils were blown wide when he set his emerald eyes on you.

His face swam from the tears filling your eyes. You moaned and cried and begged him to keep going, a knot in your core growing larger and hungrier, twisting your insides so pleasantly as Tamlin rearranged them.

Tamlin cursed, bowing his head down to yours, golden hair curling with sweat. “I love you,” he purred. “I love you so fucking much. It’s torture not being able to touch you whenever I want to. Will you cum for me, beautiful?”

You couldn’t choke out a response, so you nodded, tears streaking from the corners of your eyes to your temples. Tamlin slammed into you unrestrained, filling the room with the obscene sounds of your lovemaking.

The knot in your stomach unraveled as he hit that spot, your spine arching off the bed, breasts colliding with Tamlin’s glistening chest as your orgasm swallowed you whole. You clenched around his cock, half from the shuddering effect from your climax, and half to bring him over the edge with you.

And it did.

He painted your insides white as he came with a shout tinged with a whine that made your stomach tighten again. His hips stilled as your orgasm finally spit you out, leaving you a sweating and soaking mess beneath Tamlin. Your hands gripped the corded muscles of his biceps as his abs flexed with each heaving breath.

You pulled his face down to yours, kissing him sweetly as he lowered his weight against your body, propped on his forearms to give you enough breathing room. Your fingers brushed his hair behind his ear, twisting the ends as you chewed on your lip. “Maybe we can rethink my work schedule a little,” you mumbled.

He hummed, vibrating both of you. “Or maybe you should just move in with me.” He pressed a kiss to your collarbone.

“Move in with you?” You asked. “I already live in your house. And if you mean move upstairs, you should already know that an assistant can’t live with her High Lord. Sleeping together is one thing, but living together is another. It’s not possible, Tamlin.”

“Move in with me,” he repeated. “Come to bed with me instead of sneaking up after dark. Let me appoint you a lady of the court.”

You blinked at him. “I’m not nobility.”

He gave you a look that said it all.

“Right,” you breathed. “You’re the High Lord and can do whatever you want.”

“Exactly,” Tamlin praised, kissing the tip of your nose.

You quirked your mouth to the side. “I’d have to quit my job to take on a role I don’t even know if I want. I like being an assistant to the treasury. I do have interests outside of you, you know.”

He made a hurt face. “You wound me.” Tamlin played with your hair. “It’s a shame, because I was going to ask you to be my political and financial advisor.”

“What?” You yelped, sitting up and knocking your forehead into Tamlin’s. You pressed your hand to his forehead in apology, then rubbed at your own.

He didn’t seem to mind, a smile playing on his lips. “I’ve been considering you for the role for a long time. The hours are flexible, and you’d report directly to me. But if you’d rather things stay the same, I’ll have to find new ways to entertain myself while you’re working.”

“Are you serious about me being an advisor?” You asked, hopeful but wary. “This isn’t just because you’re horny and you want me to drop my work whenever you want to fuck?”

He shook his head. “It’s because you're competent. Look–” He reached across the mattress toward the letter to Lord Beron. It was a little crumpled and had a few wet spots on it. Maybe sweat, maybe not… “I already conducted your interview. And stress-tested you. It was cute how you were touching yourself under the desk, by the way.”

You went as red as the roses in his garden, but couldn’t keep the smile off your face. “Tamlin,” you whined, embarrassed as you craned your head to escape his gaze. But you were trapped underneath him, so you conceded, glancing up at him despite your blush. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” he breathed.

“I love you too,” you responded before he sealed the deal with a kiss, pulling away many moments later.

He gave the letter a shake, smoothing out the paper as he examined it. “I like how you write my name. I think this will send the perfect message to Beron.”

You squealed, reaching for the letter. “No, Tamlin! You can’t send that! I thought you were kidding!”

He pulled it out of your reach. “I’m perfectly serious, Y/n. This is a very well-constructed letter, and I really do need Beron’s aid. I particularly like the subtext here.” He pointed to a wet patch that you could now confirm was not sweat.

“Tamlin,” you scolded, and you really hoped he was kidding.

He was not.

[novahthecreative]

To Clear the Clouds

Azriel x gn!reader

Summary: Azriel has a tendency to get stuck in his thoughts, and you have a plan to get him out at your own expense.

Word count: 2k

Tags: fluff, friends with feelings, snowball warfare, tomfoolery and shenanigans

_____

You had subjected yourself to hypothermia because he needed it. That was all. You didn’t do it because your heart pounded in his presence, or because you hoped it would change how he looked at you. You did it because of the ashen stare in his eyes that impaled your stomach with an icicle. You hated to see him lost in the dark realms of his mind that he often visited. It pained you, just as it would pain any friend.

Somehow, you’d ended up at the back of the pack with Azriel. He usually kept in step with Cassian and Mor, who were chatting about this or that, occasionally going single file to make way for pedestrian faeries who were also out and about on a beautiful snowy day in Velaris.

Solstice had offered a much-needed reprieve for your family, and the holiday had been everything that Rhysand had painted it to be and more. Even Azriel, ever watchful and married to his duty as spymaster, had set down the role for a few days to enjoy time with his family and Feyre’s sisters, who you supposed were melding in with the former group. He certainly seemed to enjoy Elain’s company. You were reminded how it irked you that he had lent her Truth-Teller, the blade that had never left his side before as far as anyone knew.

Unknown to the rest of your family, he’d given you the blade one time when you’d awoken kicking and screaming to a nightmare that had you ripping the sheets off of you. They had felt like hands holding you down. Only when you had cleared your bed of linens and sat sweating and panting on the bare mattress did you notice the shirtless Illyrian standing in your open doorway, knife raised and shadows pulsing in time with his heartbeat. He’d probably thought you were dying when he had heard you screaming and rushed in. But even after he had discovered that you were, in fact, not dying, he didn’t leave. Azriel had sheathed Truth-Teller and set it on the bedside table, and had sat on the edge of the bed until your lungs found their natural rhythm again. He had offered to stay, but it was too personal, and you were too embarrassed, and you knew that you wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing he was lying beside you, so you bade him to return to his own room in the House of Wind.

Only after Azriel had left did you remember his blade on your nightstand, thinking that he had left it by accident. But Azriel never went anywhere without his blade. The steel was as much a part of him as his wings. You had found sleep that night, clutching the sheathed blade to your chest, holding a piece of him with you that seemed to ward the monsters away. You had handed the knife back to him in the morning, and that was that, nothing admitted to, no thanks given.

He’d given up a piece of himself to make you comfortable. And that thought remained with you as you walked through the sunny street, slushy kisses of snow dribbling from waning trees and wetting your shoulders. He looked so lost in his head, already back in that place where everything was a threat, and his friends were liabilities to be looked after. He made himself unreachable and untouchable, and his shadows kept close to his shoulders, not drifting an inch past his leathers.

When he drank, or when he laughed and smiled, his shadows had the habit of straying away from him, relaxing their tight grip on his shoulders. On the night of Winter Solstice, you’d sat next to him on the couch, and whether he noticed it or not, his shadows went exploring, skittering across your neckline, traipsing down your spine. Despite their cold, void-like presence, it had made you burn for him, and you hoped he was too inebriated to notice.

Only two days later, he was already a soldier again, with a bit of free time to indulge in a family stroll through town, and you wondered if the only reason that he had come was that Elain was going, hoping to spot a special variety of flower that bloomed just after the Winter Solstice. You’d already agreed to go, but after Elain tagged along and subsequently Azriel, you didn’t feel much like watching him pine over her.

Now you were glad you had come, because Elain had fallen into step with Rhysand and Feyre, and Azriel had fallen so far behind, lost in the dark corners of his mind. Sometimes it felt like you were the only one paying attention to the expressions passing over his face, the ones that seemed to be unreadable at first glance, but you had learned the language of his eyes.

As friends do, of course.

You had to do something to shake him from this stupor. Even though he had a little time to spend with his family, his attention was far, far away in a war room, scanning and integrating intel, or coaxing it out of some traitor. He might as well have been working, for all the good this walk was doing him.

Azriel could be the sweetest, kindest male, and somehow, he tucked all of that light away to keep it from being extinguished by his work. You just needed to tease it out.

As the group made its way along the Sidra, now out of the bustling part of Velaris, you tried out different plans in your mind, looking for the right one to break the hold on Azriel.

Rhys was scrutinizing a plant on the ground, trying to discern if it was the one Elain was searching for. Feyre crouched with her sister. Cassian kicked a block of snow, sending snowdrops raining down around him. Mor was admiring the frozen river, which was almost see-through in places where the sun licked it.

“Hey,” you whispered to Azriel, bumping him lightly with your arm. The clouds in his eyes parted, and he focused on you, but the shadows were still there, a storm lurking on the horizon of his attention. You offered him a wicked smile. “Want to watch me make two enemies with one snowball?”

He blew out of his nose in amusement, some of the brightness returning to his face. His soft frown was gone in an instant, replaced by confusion. “How exactly?”

You felt like a fisherman, and Azriel had just taken the bait. “So, yes?”

The corner of his lip quirked up as he nodded after a moment’s consideration. Your family would die for each other many times over, but there was always a desire to see a friend humiliate themselves publicly. The duality of friendship, you thought.

You grinned back at him, stooping to the ground to press slushy snow into a firm ball, letting crystal drops of water drip to the ground. This would be a doozy. You pressed a finger to your lips as you looked at Azriel, finding his full attention on you. Then you casually left him behind and went to stand by sweet, unsuspecting Mor. You set your sights and took aim, letting the ball of snow (and maybe a little ice) fly…

...Hitting Rhysand right between the shoulderblades. The snowball shattered into a thousand fractals, raining down, leaving a noticeable wet patch where you’d struck him.

You schooled your face into one of surprise as you turned to Mor, ignoring the way Rhys whipped around to see who had thrown the snowball. “Nice throw, Mor!” You said, giving her a single pat on the arm. Her eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to protest, but a hunk of snow collided with her face and chest, sending her stumbling a step back at the force of Rhysand’s throw.

You turned to see Azriel, who was holding back his laughter behind a hand, eyes twinking with starlight. Heat bloomed in your chest. It had been a success. He was smiling. He was happy. He was laughing.

And you… were dead.

Mor brushed off her clothing, staring you down with eyes of steel. “Love, you have no idea what you just started.”

Nervous laughter bubbled up your throat before you blew a lazy kiss at Azriel (one you would think and rethink in bed tonight) and took off running along the Sidra, past Rhysand, before Mor could divulge who actually sniped him with that first snowball.

It didn’t take long for the truth to come out, to have the pair of very terrifying and very accurate cousins sprinting after you, snowballs in hand. You were all laughing, even though you were so afraid you could wet yourself.

Snowball after snowball hit your back and legs, making you stumble until you finally skidded into a snowbank, cornered and trapped. Rhysand’s violet eyes glittered with mirth, and Mor wore a smug grin of satisfaction as they jogged to a halt, both armed again.

“Mercy?” You asked with a nervous grin, hair threaded with white snow.

“Mercy?” Rhysand repeated, tsking at you. He tossed his snowball to himself. You were in for it.

Snow sprayed against your cheeks, but it took you a second to realize that you were just receiving the shrapnel of a snowball, not the whole thing. It had hit Rhys on the back of his neck, and he shivered as snow tumbled down the back of his shirt. Mor couldn’t even turn around before she was hit. You blinked through the snow on your lashes, focusing on your savior.

Azriel grinned in the way that made your heart flutter. It wasn’t cocky or arrogant like Cassian and Rhysand’s smiles. But it held a trace of a challenge and a boyish sort of joy you wanted to see more of.

Your own smile grew as you leapt to your feet, using the distraction to slip past them and join Azriel. He handed you one of the two snowballs in his hands.

“You would have been better off hitting Cassian,” he said. “He wouldn’t have let Mor get a word out against you.”

“Ah,” you said. “But then I wouldn’t have succeeded at making two enemies with one snowball, now would I?”

And so the war began.

You were dripping wet and shivering as you walked back to the townhouse. Rhys and Mor were damp, Azriel almost completely dry, but you were soaked from falling in the snowbank and being the main target. You peeled off your wet sweater as you walked, deciding to brave the cold air over the icy water. But that problem resolved itself as a warm weight landed on your shoulders, and Azriel’s leather jacket trapped your heat against your skin, already infused with the warmth of his body.

A blush spread across your cheeks as you met his cloudless gaze. He rubbed circles on your back, pressing his jacket into you.

It was Truth-Teller all over again, left on your bedside table without so much as a word. You knew his kindness would be extended to anybody, should they need it, but you didn’t need to be the sole recipient to feel special under his gaze. That was the effect he had on everyone, making them feel as though they were the center of the world.

You thanked him this time, but underneath it, you hoped he could tell that you were thanking him for more than the jacket, more than leaving his blade on your nightstand, more than rubbing away the cold on your back. You held his gaze, trying to see if he understood.

He shook his head, the corner of his lip twitching into a smile. “I know why you threw that snowball,” he said, and your eyes widened.

Could he truly have known that you were trying to keep him from drowning in his thoughts? Did he notice how you studied the passing clouds in his eyes? Did he know that all you ever wanted was to see him smile? That you would take a thousand snowballs to the face just to add a single drop of sunlight to his dark world?

He nudged you with his arm. “Thank you,” he said.

You smiled down at the packed snow concealing the cobblestones, looking up to find that the two of you had somehow fallen behind the pack again. This time, you had a sense that it was not because he was far away in his mind, but because he wanted to savor the moments he got to spend with you.

[novahthecreative]

Withering Hopes and Watering Cans (Ninjago)

Cole x fem!reader

Part of Soulstice Collection (stand-alone one-shots following an overarching plot - can be read separately)

Word count: 1k

Tags: fluff, comfort, slight angst, established relationship

_____

It was your idea, but you weren’t upset to see him run away with it. Endless missions and long nights had made you neglectful of the little bed, and the weeds had started climbing the trellises meant for the tomatoes. Most of the vegetables you’d started were weak and small, tangled in bindweed in dry soil. You’d barely even started the garden this year with all the changes that had happened in his life and yours, but you’d managed to spare a few minutes here and there, and now you were glad that you’d put some seeds down, even if they were struggling.

Cole had grown more attached to the garden than the weeds stealing the sunlight from your peppers, but unlike the weeds, you didn’t want to pull him from the bed. Not when he had his hands– his flesh and blood hands– in the ground, nurturing the soil and coaxing life from the struggling plants.

The first time that you stepped into the courtyard with him, his fingers intertwined with yours (as you always stood these days), you were afraid to take him to the little bed pressed against the monastery wall. Of course, he had seen it, gotten down on his knees to talk to you as you tended your plants. He would wrap his arms around your waist and rest his chin on your shoulder while you popped seeds into the ground, watered, or picked vegetables. But after the ninja went into Yang’s haunted temple… Cole stopped coming out to check on you in those few spare minutes you reserved for gardening. He knew he couldn’t touch you, that it wouldn’t be the same to sit by your side as a phantom of his old self, so he found somewhere else to be. And the moist soil up to your elbows hurt his new body, but not more than watching his hands pass right through you.

And even though he had his body back now, you were still afraid that it would be too much for him. You didn’t want to nudge him if he wasn’t ready for it.

You squeezed his hand as you knelt in front of the garden bed with him and touched the rain-moistened soil. Cole’s hands trembled as they often did now when he was about to touch something, like he was still concentrating on being able to feel with a body of ectoplasm. His fingers landed in the dirt, swirled around, and scooped up a clump of mud, mashing it in his hand.

He had told you that day that he so often molded the earth, but rarely did it with his bare hands. It was always in self-defense or trying to blow past the limits of what he’d ever done before. It had always been in pursuit of potential, but this– his hands in the dirt, feeling, smelling, tasting it– was for him.

The next day, you’d come out to the courtyard to train and found him at the edge of the bed with his hands in the dirt again, and smiled to yourself. You retrieved your trowel and watering can, and lugged them across the garden, making Cole look up from the shapes he was drawing there. You pointed out the plants you had started. The weeds were still taking over, and you delicately unweaved them from around the stalks of your plants. Cole mirrored you, working so gently with his large hands that excelled at destruction.

Day after day, the garden became his baby, and you stood against the pillar of the monastery watching on like a proud parent. You ambled across the garden and kneeled next to him, but didn’t help with the bindweed. Your hand landed on Cole’s thigh, and as he took pleasure in nurturing the plants, you took the same pleasure in nurturing him.

It was a blissful spring.

Then the Hands of Time arrived. And there was not a second to be spared to attend to the tall, budding stalks of summer. The garden had done wonders for his tremors, but as much progress as Cole had made with his new body, he still had a long way to go, a skill that had to be refined in battle under a time crunch.

The garden fell by the wayside. Withered. Half of it had been blown away in battle. Just like your family.

Wu was gone. Kai and Nya returned safely, but they left the monastery straight after the time stream closed, making up lost time with their parents. Lloyd spiraled, trying to solve an equation with too many unknown factors to find his uncle.

A few days after the battle, you slid the door to the courtyard open, hand in hand with Cole, and looked upon the wreckage that you’d been afraid to approach.

Everything was dead, dried, or blown to bits. Wind and storm had scattered soil across the stones of the courtyard.

After all you had gone through, a garden bed seemed like a silly thing to cry about, but the tears trailed down your cheeks anyway. It wasn’t just a garden since Cole had taken it over. It was a new existence for him, for both of you. It was healing and proof that something existed beyond the cusp of struggle. And it was all gone.

But Cole pulled you tight to his chest, infusing you with a warmth you’d been denied for so long while he was a ghost. When he pulled back to cup your face and wipe away your tears, his hands did not tremble. They were steady and grounded.

And though the garden was gone, the healing remained.

- Years later -

Your heart pounded with a secret, one that you could not contain a moment longer. And you knew exactly where to find the person you wanted to tell. The door to the courtyard glided open as you stepped into the sun and let it soak through your eyelids.

Your Yin was where you had guessed, on his knees, hands in the dirt. You crossed the garden with an uncontainable smile, sinking to your knees and kissing him on the cheek. He faced you, the tones of his skin so beautiful in the daylight, and he held you in the depth of his eyes.

You remembered, years ago, when you’d rebuilt the garden together after the Hands of Time had wrecked it. When you slid freshly-sanded slats into place, and Cole hammered them in. Standing back to admire your work, you couldn’t help but think it looked a lot like a crib, waiting for new life to grow in it.

You took his dirt-covered hands in yours and told him the news.

[novahthecreative]

Monster (The Bad Batch)

Crosshair x gn!reader, established relationship on Pabu

Years living on Pabu with the love of his life have helped Crosshair to forgo his defensiveness for peace. But the unfolding of an unfortunate event forces Crosshair to battle the old patterns of his past.

Warnings: some slight graphic depictions of sexual assault, PTSD, death, murder

Note about Crosshair's character: I think after a few years on Pabu, he's let some of his walls down, especially around his partner. So I wrote him a little more emotionally available than I would during the canon events. Also, in real life, murder's a major red flag, but this is Star Wars, so, you know...

Word count: 2.3k

_____

It wasn’t his own nightmare that woke Crosshair, but he knew exactly which one it was. After all, he was there the night it happened, albeit too late to save you from the persistent night terrors that followed for weeks after.

He shouldn’t have left your side for a second. You never should have gotten bruises on your wrists or a knife to the throat. You should never have been—

You moaned in protest, eyes still closed, sweat coating your forehead. You begged for your assailant to stop, crying between your pleas.

Crosshair’s heart, one he used to think was made of durasteel, popped like a balloon at the sight. He reached for your shoulder to wake you up when you pleaded again.

“Cross, stop, please!” You sobbed, still unconscious. “Please! Crosshair!”

He froze. Crosshair. Why were you begging him?

He hurried to wake you from the nightmare.

You shot straight up, heaving air.

Crosshair wrapped an arm around your shoulder as he always did. You practically jumped out of your skin at the touch, falling off the bed in a tangle of sweaty sheets.

He cursed, looking over the side where you were scrambling on the ground, fighting the linens.

“Mesh’la,” he purred, keeping his distance. “It was a dream.”

“A dream?” you panted, stilling your movements. Your head thunked on the ground as you finally realised where you were. In your own time, you bundled up the sheets in your arms and pushed them back on the bed.

Crosshair offered you a hand off the floor and lay down beside you. He stroked your hair as you did for him whenever he had a nightmare. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Same old, same old,” you said, wringing your hands.

Crosshair, stop, please! He should let it go. Dreams are weird and distorted. They don’t mean anything half the time.

He couldn’t let it go. “About that night?”

You nodded.

“He can’t hurt you anymore.” Crosshair had made sure of that.

You stilled.

Crosshair’s heart plummeted. What weren’t you saying? Had his name in your mouth not been a twist of the mind? He removed his hand from your hair, distancing himself from the truth that he was about to ask for.

“You said my name.” He held his face as still as stone as your eyes widened. “You begged me to stop. Is that the ‘same old’ dream you have every night?”

Every second that you didn’t answer, Crosshair’s pulse rose, and his hopes fell.

“I begged you that night,” you finally admitted. “You didn’t hear me.”

Crosshair played back his memories. He had heard you cry out for him once over the bustle of the Pantoran capital, where he tracked the sound to a dark alleyway. The now dead man had been between your knees, with a knife to your throat. Cross didn’t remember much of the next few minutes, and if you had cried for him then, it was drowned out by the insatiable rage coursing through his veins.

When he finished the kill and found you pressed to the brick wall, you were shaking and sobbing. Was Crosshair the cause?

“That man was a monster,” he hissed in his defence.

“But you aren’t. Or at least I thought you weren’t.” The last part was mumbled into your pillow.

The truth crushed him.

He had walked away from the Pantoran male and pulled you into his chest. He’d held you tighter when you had fought back, telling you that you were safe.

“You’re afraid… of me.”

So low he almost missed it, you breathed, “Yes.”

Crosshair’s hand had been chopped off on Tantiss, but this was still the most painful blow he’d ever taken.

You. Afraid of him. The one person who had never shied away from his darkness was now suffocated by it, too.

His flesh and blood hand hovered an inch above your skin with the minutest of tremors as he debated whether or not to touch you. If you flinched away from him now, he thought he might never be whole again.

Crosshair rolled onto his back and folded his arms over his chest, a physical barrier to hide his breaking heart. He already started building that old, crumbling wall around it brick by brick. Every story, every word, and every incident that proved he was the monster you finally believed him to be was another stone stacked.

How had he let his walls fall into such disrepair?

The answer was crying silently beside him. Against everything he’d ever been led to believe, he’d started to see himself as a fraction of the man you told him he was. He’d started to see a person in the mirror, instead of a list of wrongs he could never make right. Instead of the beast who turned on the Jedi, betrayed his brothers, and abandoned you.

Monster.

All along, he’d known it. Now you knew it too.

Good. It was better that way. The quicker he scared you off, the less he could hurt you.

“I didn’t mean that,” you said, cutting through the quiet. Maybe you could feel the wall he was building between your close bodies. Could you feel him trying to figure out how to survive without you?

“Yes, you did.” He didn’t mean it in anger, only in truth.

“I’m afraid, Cross. But you’re not– I shouldn’t have said that you were a monster. I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s true.” His jaw tightened, and it was all he could do to keep his voice even.

You shook your head into the pillow, hair rustling. “No. You’re my husband, and I love you.”

He fought the urge to snicker at your lie. That old mechanism that made him laugh at weakness rose like bile in his throat. Crosshair blinked back the pressure building behind his eyes. Before he met you, he hadn’t shed tears since he was a cadet.

He should leave. Before he made things worse. Before he broke you, or before you broke him.

All along, your night terrors hadn’t been about the Pantoran bastard, but the one sleeping in your bed. His chest clenched so tightly at the thought that it felt like a heart attack.

“I know you’re going to that dark place in your head.”

He kept his eyes firmly on the ceiling, knowing his resolve would crumble if he met your glittering eyes in the moonlight.

“Don’t shut me out,” you whispered.

It’s better this way.

Your fingers brushed his shoulder, and he flinched. You recoiled, as though burned.

He couldn’t stand it a second more. Being cared, loved, and worried about by you– he didn’t deserve any of it. You’d let a monster in. And the only thing he could do to save you from himself was to run. Crosshair swung his legs over the side of the bed, the floor cold under his feet.

“Cross!” You sat up with him, not hesitating this time as you wrapped your arms around his neck from behind, thwarting his escape. You rested your head against his shoulder, feeling his muscles strain. “Don’t do this. Where you question everything that’s happened and spin it in a way that makes you the villain. You have to forgive yourself.”

“Why?” He choked out.

“Because you’re a person and you deserve it.”

“You’re afraid of me.”

You couldn’t deny the truth. Your attacker’s dismembered body followed you into shallow sleep every night, followed by Crosshair’s seething, bloodied expression. You had watched the whole thing from the moment Cross tore him off of you and bashed his head against the wall. You know the sharpshooter could have killed him in seconds, but he took minutes— he took revenge.

The Pantoran male terrified you, but Crosshair, taking something akin to pleasure in torture... it unlocked a new layer of fear you’d never experienced before.

Your teeth chattered. “Then show me that I don’t have to be.”

He bowed his head, a man defeated by his demons.

“There’s no point.” His hands delicately unlatched your arms from around him, and he stood.

He headed for the exit, but you were quicker, darting past to grip both sides of the threshold. Pressing your back to the door, you lifted your chin. You didn’t have the eyes he had, so his face and stooping posture were all one mass of darkness.

“Move,” he growled.

“Make me.”

His eyes narrowed at your heaving chest.

“Make. Me,” you repeated.

He had been conditioned for combat since the moment he left his embryonic chamber (and genetically, before that). He could move you in a second flat.

But he couldn’t lay a hand on you. For whatever reason, he’d never been able to bend you to his will as he used to do so easily with others. Like you altered his very chemistry. Even in the mornings, he struggled to shake your shoulder to wake you up, to bring you unpleasantness or discomfort.

After his rifle, his words were his next best weapon. He could make a list of your insecurities, the things you’d told him while cuddled in the darkness, and fire insult after insult with the precision that earned him his name.

He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t bear to hurt you verbally either. You’d make a weak man of him. Or a strong one, said your voice in his head. He didn’t know anymore what to believe, only that he loved you and would never stop loving you. He would do what was best for you, even if that meant taking the Maurader and disappearing forever.

“I’m not afraid you might hurt me,” you muttered. “You can’t even bear the thought of it.” You gestured to the space between you, to the line he would not cross. “I’m afraid of how many people you’ll hurt for me, and what it will do to you.” Tears trailed down your cheeks. “I love you, Cross. You are loyal, brave, and the best friend I’ve ever had. But I see his body, his face— it makes me sick, Cross. What you did... Promise me that you will never do it again.”

You brushed your cheeks with your wrist, then pressed the control panel. The door opened with a hiss, and you stepped aside.

Waiting.

Crosshair looked between you and the open door. He could make out your face in perfect detail, pain etched all over it.

He stacked another stone on the fortress around his heart.

If he walked out the door, it would be final. It would be goodbye. And if he stayed… how could he stay after what you’d confessed to him? How could he claim to love you and trap you in a marriage with him?

He couldn’t physically hurt you if he tried. But emotionally, it seemed to be all he’d ever done.

The alleyway crept back into his mind. Your screams had turned his blood to fire and his rationality to dust. He’d ripped the bastard off you and beat him to a bloody pulp, and carved the remains with the man’s own knife. He should have just snapped his neck and run to you. He should have done so many things differently.

But the worst part was that he felt nothing for the Pantoran. If you weren’t watching, he might have even done worse. He wished he regretted it, but his only regret was letting you see. No, it was better that you did. Now you knew the monster he was.

You didn’t say anything, but the stream of tears on your face was steadily dripping onto the shirt you borrowed from him. You wouldn’t help him now. He had to choose on his own.

“You were wrong about me, doll,” he breathed. “This is the real deal. I’m a murderer.” Most of him believed it, but there was a single seed of doubt that somehow weathered every torrent of self-loathing.

You swallowed.

“Tell me to stay,” he demanded. If you complied, he would rush out the door and never come back. You could never be safe from him if you were that blind to his darkness.

You wiped your cheeks again.

“Tell me to leave,” he tried. If you did, he would be packed in minutes.

You said nothing.

Why wouldn’t you make this easy for him?

Monster.

Liar.

Betrayer.

He pressed his palms to his temples. He could barely hear your melody in his head, the one that normally drowned out these voices. It was all but lost in the chaos.

Crosshair searched for it, for a hint of your music, finding that seed of doubt. Maybe you’d planted it there, or maybe he had. A tiny voice that he could learn to listen to.

Not a monster. A man. A man who loves you. A man who can forgive himself. A man who can have good things in his life. A man who might not deserve you today, but will fight to become the man who does tomorrow. A man who can change.

He staggered forward.

The door hissed shut as his finger trembled over the panel, and he rested his forehead against the door.

“I promise,” he croaked.

You dove into his arms, fumbling for him without enhanced vision as you pulled his lips down to yours in a searing kiss.

Crosshair knew that he was a shattered man. Even with a fortress of walls around his heart. Somehow, you saw through it all and didn’t baulk.

You nuzzled into his chest as he looked inside himself, braving the carnage that he’d always been ashamed of. And Crosshair was indeed broken, but... all of the pieces were there. Scattered— but none missing.

So that’s what you saw in him. Past all the brokenness, all the sharp edges, he was a man who did everything for love.

If he could cling to that one truth, he would learn to save himself.

[novahthecreative]

Hyperhidrosis Headcannons with The Bad Batch

Hyperhidrosis: excessive sweating. Can occur anywhere on the body, but these headcannons are specifically about palmar hyperhidrosis (sweaty hands).

Tags: fluff, insecurity, comfort

_____

Hunter

Nothing slips past the sergeant’s observation when it comes to your behavior.

He notes that you often wear gloves when you don’t need to, or offer a polite dip of your head instead of a handshake.

When you start seeing each other, he reaches for your hand, only for you to pull it away with a nervous laugh or to suddenly remember you have to do something.

He quickly realizes that it’s not that you don’t want to hold hands (you really do), but that you’re afraid he’ll be disgusted.

Hunter doesn’t care. Period.

He’ll hold your hand anytime, anywhere, no matter how sweaty it is, and smile at you like the lovestruck man he is.

He understands you can’t help it and would never judge you for it.

Crosshair

Not going to lie, he’s a little bit judgey.

But he also has many insecurities of his own and can empathize with you, even if he doesn’t show it at first.

Most of the contact you have is through gloves, but if you are cuddling in his bunk, he’ll take off your gloves with his hands or his teeth to feel your skin.

He’s not a man of many words, so he’ll just squeeze your hand so you know he’s intentional in his actions.

Even though teasing you is his pastime, he would never attack your insecurities.

Once you get further along in your relationship, he can’t comprehend why you are still embarrassed.

He’s shown you the dark parts of himself, and you’ve stood with him through everything; how could he not want to hold your hand?

Echo

He understands better than anyone else.

You told him in a conversation before you even started dating.

Echo just held up his scomp link with a raised eyebrow.

He took your hand right then and there, and though it took both of you a while to admit your feelings, they were definitely there that day.

Echo needs skin-to-skin contact.

When he crawls into bed with you after removing his prosthetics, he puts your hand on his body.

Heart, shoulder, face– wherever he needs the warmth of your touch.

Ever since Skako Minor, Echo has had a whole host of his own insecurities, so mutual reassurance is a must.

Wrecker

He’s a perfect gentleman about it.

At first, he thinks you told him because you don’t want to hold hands without gloves, but when he learns that isn’t the case, he’s thrilled.

It’s hard to be insecure when Wrecker is your boyfriend and hype man.

And he’s the most honest person you’ve ever met, so you know he believes everything he says to be true.

Wrecker’s hand dwarfs yours, so he actually prefers to hold other parts of you, such as your back, your thigh, or your hip, simply because it fits better.

But if you are walking down the street together, he’ll happily intertwine his fingers with yours, dry, damp, or dripping wet.

Tech

He’s noticed, of course.

Nothing gets by the pilot/engineer/soldier that he is.

He’s seen you dry off your hands on your pants before grabbing your blaster, and he catalogs the information for later.

When you start dating, Tech makes no move to take your hand.

You chalk it up to his “Techness,” but one night, when you are lying in bed, you ask him if there’s anything he would like to try with you.

You never expected such a wholesome and romantic request from him.

“Well, yes, cyare. But as I’ve observed your discomfort around your palmar regions, I’ve refrained from initiating contact there. But I would very much like to try holding hands, if you’ll indulge me.”

After that, holding hands becomes a regularity (when he’s not tinkering or researching on his datapad, that is).

Tech is understanding (because his nature is to try to understand everything).

Maybe too understanding– he will make charts and graphs. LOTS of graphs.

All in the interest of loving you better, of course.

[novahthecreative]

Tantra (The Bad Batch)

Hunter x fem!reader, established relationship

Summary: You and Hunter are living a quiet life on Pabu, and you've found fulfillment by starting a massage practice to help others. Hunter is a willing test subject when you read about an interesting technique that stretches your comfort zone and teaches you to slow down.

Disclaimer: Tantric massage is a modality that incorporates areas of the body left out of regular massage for spiritual purposes and liberation of sexual energy. It differs from a 'happy ending' massage, even though it can result in sexual pleasure and orgasm. I am not an expert by any means, and this is purely my interpretation of the practice. Also, note that the characters are in an established relationship, which can make this tantric massage different from a transactional one.

Tags: NSFW (not smut, but does contain full nudity and genital stimulation), handjob, edging, orgasm, hurt/comfort, slight angst

Word count: 2.5k

_____

“There’s something I want to try with you.”

Maybe it was a strange time to bring it up. You and Hunter were finishing breakfast when your piqued interest from the night before resurfaced.

You’d been reading up on new techniques to incorporate in your massage practice when you stumbled down an alleyway of the holonet and ended up reading article after article about tantric massage.

He looked up from his nearly empty plate, attention solely on you. It was one of the things you loved most about him; whenever you were speaking (and many times when you were not), you could feel his presence as tangibly as his fingertips. Hunter smiled, probably sensing the nerves turning your stomach over.

“You know how I always keep my therapeutic touch and my, er, other touch separate?”

He nodded, scraping the last bit of breakfast off the plate. “I do.”

“Well, there’s this type of massage that blurs the lines a little bit. It’s not about sex, but sensuality. It’s more full body, if you know what I mean.”

His lips turned up in a smirk. “I think I catch your meaning. Is this something you want to do to me, or something you want me to do to you?”

Your heart fluttered at such a simple gesture of interest. How you could still be so smitten with this man after years of serving together and serving each other, you didn’t know.

“Both, eventually.” You brushed back a strand of hair from your face, knowing he’d already seen the blush that spread across it. “But I’ve been reading about how to do it, so I’m hoping to try it on you first.”

“I’m game,” he said, reaching across the small breakfast table for your empty plate. He carried them over to the sink but leaned back against the counter before washing them. The light teased the natural highlights in his dark brown locks, setting them aglow like filaments. “Why the change of heart?”

“It’s easier if I keep massage and sex separate,” you answered, sipping your kaf. “But this is sort of like a third, unique thing.”

He nodded. “Is this going to become part of your business?”

“No.” You grinned, crossing the small kitchen to press a kiss to his lips as you set down your mug in the sink. “Only for you.”

***

You meditated before setting up the space, choosing the floor over your table or bed. Tantra seemed too intimate to use the former, and too impractical to use the latter. Your hair was damp from your shower, and the water running in the other room told you your husband was now doing the same.

He stepped out of the bathroom with a towel hung low around his waist, exposing the V of his abdominal muscles. Even after a year on Pabu, he hadn’t lost that muscle tone or his military discipline. You couldn’t say the same for yourself, noticing how you’d filled in every time you walked past a mirror.

“You look beautiful,” Hunter said, dispersing every voice in your head that told you otherwise.

You wore shorts and a cropped tank top; it wasn’t your usual choice for a massage, but it seemed more appropriate today. Returning the compliment, you gestured to the rug adorned with pillows and blankets for comfort.

He took a seat with the white towel still wrapped around his waist. You’d already informed him that the massage would be done with as little draping as he was comfortable with, which, for Hunter, you knew meant buck naked. His eyes trailed you as you crawled around the rug, lighting candles on the nightstands and the dresser. Then you sat back on your knees with a nervous smile on your face.

“Relax,” he purred in that accent you adored. “You’re the one who said the point of this is to be unattached from an outcome.”

Damn his active listening skills.

He held open his arms, and you crawled into them, straddling his hips.

“I did say that, didn’t I?” You mumbled into his neck before kissing it.

“The worst case is that my gorgeous wife touches me for an hour or two, and that’s hardly a worst case. I trust you. Do you trust yourself?”

After a moment’s consideration, you nodded against his neck, then swung your leg so you were seated beside him. “I’m ready. Lie on your back if you are.”

Hunter sprawled back on the pillows, clasping his hands behind his head. His pectorals flexed as he did, and you knew it wasn’t on purpose that he was turning you on, but by sheer nonchalance.

Asking for permission with a look, you slipped the damp towel off his waist, exposing his half-erection.

Seeing how Hunter was already turned on by this– by you– instilled a little courage in your touch. You knew how sensitive your husband could be, how little it took sometimes to reach his climax, and how soon the experience could be unpleasant if he were overstimulated. Hopefully, tantra would both capitalize on and remedy his enhanced senses.

You straddled him again, but did not connect your hips with his. The only contact you shared was via the eyes. His beautiful brown ones searched yours. You let yourself get lost in the hue of his irises, knowing that there were a million other pairs of eyes supposedly just like his, but that you’d recognize his anywhere by a look alone. You matched your inhales and exhales to his and began slowing both of your breathing rates. Without breaking the intense connection of your eyes, you brushed wet strands of hair from his face, scratching his scalp with your nails.

His eyelids fluttered at the first introduction of your touch. You held back a smile at his response, sinking deeper into his eyes with every second. Each breath became an exploration of the space in your body, a search to find a little room for air. And once you met the capacity of your own vessel, you moved into his, first with your mind, and then with your touch.

Your fingers teased his ears, tugging the sensitive tissue, and earning a low hum that sent fire through you. Your fingers dipped down to his pulse point, feeling the relaxed rhythm of his heartbeat.

The stage was set.

You kissed his cheek, hovering there longer than you ever had.

The instinct was to speed up, to rush to the finale, but as Hunter had so deftly reminded you earlier, it wasn’t about the end, but the journey. The moments between. Slow, you reminded yourself. It’s just him and me. We have all the time in the world. Maybe the moments would build to something, or maybe nothing, but none of that mattered.

Hunter was content to lie on the floor for an hour with you hovering over him. And there was no place you’d rather be, no better way to spend the time that you’d fought for together.

The texture of his stubble on your lips wasn’t a sensation you regularly dwelled on, but today, that was the objective. It wasn’t unpleasant, but curious, prickly, and yet soft. Your next kiss landed on his jaw. Hunter’s throat bobbed under your third kiss. His heart beat under your fourth, and his chest rose under your fifth. So on and so forth until you’d worked your way down his legs, alternating kisses from side to side until you reached the top of his feet.

Sitting back, you watched Hunter’s cock twitch, fully erect from your kisses alone. You knew he was sensitive, but you hadn’t expected such a reaction without touching any primary erogenous zones. A note to self that you tucked away for the future.

“How are you doing?” You asked, stroking along the dorsum of his feet with your fingertips.

“Good,” he breathed quietly.

“Let it out, Hunter. Any movement or sound that wants to be released. Okay?”

“‘Kay.”

“I’m going to start now.”

“I thought you already did.” He sounded a little scared. His laugh was airy. “I’m already painfully hard, and you haven’t even started yet. Kriff.”

You giggled. “I’ve started the practice, just not the massage.” Your fingers dipped into warm oil. Rubbing your hands together, slick sounds filled the bedroom, not as obscene as you expected. In fact, the whole experience had felt that way thus far. Normally, having seen Hunter undressed and erect, you’d have already jumped his bones by now, but today, you felt strangely at peace with the heat between your legs.

You had time. All the time in the world.

His skin reflected the candlelight as you slathered him with oil in long strokes up his legs. Underneath your fingertips, his muscles bulged like taut rope, desperately in need of your touch. The low groan that rumbled through him was more evidence of that. You worked his legs thoroughly, slid past the aching erection and glistening precum Hunter sported, and lathered his stomach and chest in oil. His arms and neck received the same treatment until he was breathing softly with his face cradled between your hands. Then you worked back down his chest and the muscular plane of his stomach, brushing your fingers very lightly over his cock.

Hunter’s whole body shuddered.

“Are you alright?” You asked, moving back to his thighs.

His nod was a little strained. “You’re too good at this.”

You snorted, heart pounding in your chest at the praise.

Every now and then, you’d gently tease the areas you’d normally exclude in a massage. His biceps tensed when you teased his nipples, and his breath shortened when you squeezed his balls.

He arrived at the precipice of orgasm over and over again, but you denied him each time. His fists clenched as he neared the edge, and loosened their grip on the blankets each time the pinnacle fell away.

A thin layer of sweat coated his skin as you pulled him away from climax once more.

The analog clock on the wall told you that you’d been at this for an hour and a half now.

“I’m going to go all the way this time,” you muttered. You could go on with this for much longer, and you would never get bored with the sounds he made or the arch of his back. But you had all the time in the world, years to explore his body. Not everything had to happen tonight.

To slow down is not to miss out, you reminded yourself. Peace washed over you as you acknowledged the anxieties of time that constantly hounded you. They caressed your mind like a breeze and went on their way.

Hunter wasn’t normally a beggar, but as you brushed your thumb over the head of his cock, his wordless nod was one of desperation.

You squeezed a little harder around his length, but kept your touch slow and quite soft. He’d nearly orgasmed about ten times already, so it wouldn’t take much at all. With your other hand, you slid over his pecs, feeling his corded muscles tense. His breath became ragged as you twisted your hand on the upstroke in the way that always made him moan your name. Today was no exception. He didn’t just say it once, though. Perhaps because you were the only coherent thought in his head, he repeated your name over and over.

“Hunter,” you breathed, hot under your skin at the sight and sound of your husband coming completely undone at your touch.

Your voice sent him over the edge. His hips bucked into your hand, unable to hold back anymore. Ropes of white covered your fingers and his flexed abs as he finally reached a release after ninety minutes of edging.

Eventually, his hips stuttered to a stop after what was definitely the biggest orgasm you’d ever seen him have. Instead of rushing to clean up, though, you closed your eyes and listened to the silence broken by Hunter’s breathing for a long minute.

He was still a little foggy as you pressed a kiss to his cheek and retreated to the bathroom for a damp towel and to wash your hands in the sink. But when you returned, Hunter was propped up on his elbows, staring at the mess on his stomach.

“Maker, you look pretty like that,” you said, kneeling between his knees and wiping the spoils of your efforts off of him in slow, mindful strokes. You tossed the rag away, meeting his lovestruck gaze. “So you liked it?”

“Kriff yes.” He beckoned you closer.

Kissing his lips softly, you were careful only to touch the places that were the least sensitive, lest you overdo it. The massage had given you a sort of map to his body, where he liked to be touched, where he didn’t, and how much he could handle. Not just in the areas that you visited regularly during sex, but also the ones that you rarely touched.

You’d had years to learn Hunter’s body by heart, but tonight, you’d learned it by mind, body, and soul, too.

“Let’s do that again, mesh’la. Next time, I’ll do you.” Even though his legs must have been shaking, he stood and pulled you to your feet, straight into an even deeper kiss that had you sighing.

“I love you,” Hunter said in a voice like silk as he pressed his forehead to yours, holding both sides of your face. “And I’m not saying that because you’re so kriffing talented. I just love you.”

Your vision swam at the confession. “Hunter…” You swallowed. “I’m so lucky to be married to you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”

He pulled you into his bare chest, drawing on your back below the cut of your shirt. “Likewise, cyare. I’m the lucky one.”

There were words unsaid between you. He didn’t just mean he was lucky to have you in his life—he would also likely never have to live without you. Neither of you talked about the different timelines you were living in. How you were the same age now, but it wouldn’t always be that way.

Silent tears slipped down your face. There was no hiding from him as they met his bare chest. He didn’t need to look at you to know what they were about. His arms wrapped you tighter.

You took a deep breath and let it go. You couldn’t mourn that future, not when he was still with you. Not when there were still billions of moments to be together between now and then. You may not have the most time together, but you would make the most of the time you have.

You leaned into him fully as he stroked your hair.

And to be present meant that you had all the time in the world.

_____

I can't Photoshop for shit, but it's giving this:

[novahthecreative]

So Big, So Empty

George Weasley x fem!reader (The reader was in a polyamorous relationship with Fred and George, but this takes place after the Battle of Hogwarts.)

Word count: 1.3k

Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, canonical character death, drinking, mentions of violence

Summary: George and Y/n are grappling (in very different ways) with grief for their brother and husband, respectively.

______

It was past seven o’clock in the evening when the Ministry owl landed on the windowsill of Fred and George’s office. Though George supposed he would have to stop counting it as his brother’s office now. He hadn’t moved the other desk from the room yet, and it was collecting a layer of dust. Everything in the townhouse was. Neither he nor you had much drive to clean. It felt like too big a project for two people to tackle in a home that had been made for three. Everything got dusty, the plants wilted, and the mail piled up on the desk.

One day, the two of you would have enough energy to do more than fall into bed in each other's arms and cry softly to sleep, but today was not that day.

He’d come a long way with his grief, he thought. At least now he could look in the mirror and see himself, not the person he so desperately wished were here.

And you’d been healing too. His mother had encouraged you to go to a support group for spouses of those lost in the Battle, and once a week, for the last three weeks, you’d departed at six o’clock and returned puffy-eyed and exhausted two hours later. You didn’t say much about it, but George supposed it was helping because you kept going week after week. Or maybe, you were more like him than he thought, and nothing was helping, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing, drowning in grief. Or in George’s case, hard liquor.

George set down his crystal glass on the desk, peering at the owl fluttering its wings, a letter tied around its foot. He debated opening the window at all; if it was another condolence letter, he would rather not. The bird’s beak tapped the glass, and with a groan, George crossed the cold study and unlatched the window.

The bird held its foot out for him to untie the little string. He examined the small roll of parchment sealed with the stamp of the Ministry. He did not dawdle a second more, for the Ministry of Magic was not known for its condolence letters. Nor was news this late in the evening ever good.

Indeed, it was not.

Dear Mr. Weasely,

Y/n L/n is currently in the custody of the Ministry of Magic after an incident of aggravated assault earlier this evening. You may pay bail of one hundred galleons for their immediate release, given they follow all court orders and appear for their trial.

George did not read another sentence before dropping to his knees and tearing open the bottom drawer of his desk, where he kept a lockbox of emergency money. Then he crouched in the bare fireplace and disappeared in green flames.

____

You’d nearly fallen asleep by the time the cell unlocked itself, and George, accompanied by a guard, stood before you. Your husband took you into his arms without a single inquiry. He held you as though he was afraid you might turn to dust if he let go. As of late, it felt like that was the way of things. All that was good slipping away between your fingers. All except for George. Your trembling hands clutched the back of his shirt, praying he would not dissolve.

“Love,” he breathed, pulling back with concern etched into his face. He took in the bruise forming on your cheekbone and the puffy bottom lip you sported. It was cut, but not bleeding. “What happened?”

You sniffed, still gripping the fabric of his jacket, unable to meet his eyes. “I got into a fight. I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back for the bail money.”

George lifted your chin, staring so intensely into your eyes you couldn’t stand it. “Darling, I don’t care about the bail money. We’re married. What do you mean you got into a fight? I was sure you were going to tell me that you were wrongly convicted.”

“I’m not.”

George waited for you to expand, but you said nothing more. His hand slid from your chin down your arm to your hand. “We’ll go home, and then we'll talk about this.”

You nodded, letting him lead you out of the cell and through the Ministry, the whole trip a daze. You faintly recall making it back to your shared bedroom. Your bed looked too big. It felt nearly empty every night with just the two of you sleeping in it, just like your heart. Too big and too empty to ignore.

George sat you down on the edge of the bed, falling to his knees on the floor between yours. Those beautiful eyes stared up at you, in such pain, and you couldn’t bear being the cause of it.

“I’m sorry, Georgie. I really am. I didn’t mean to. It all just happened so fast.”

He brushed your ruffled hair away from your face, exposing the most beautiful creature in the world, according to George. Even with the remnants of an altercation. Your injuries had been worse after the massacre at Hogwarts, but your eyes still had hope in them then. Now it was as if nothing burned. Like when the life was snuffed out of Fred, it had been snuffed out of you, too. And him.

“What happened?” He asked again. “I thought you were at your support group.” His hands traveled along your thighs, as though the touch could keep the beast that hunted you day and night at bay.

“I was,” you said, swallowing. Tears glittered in your eyes, but you did not let them fall. “There’s this man there. He lost his wife in the Battle. He said something vile, and I hardly remember the rest after that.” You pinched your eyes shut.

George wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he asked anyway, “What did he say?”

“He said…” You shook your head, tears rolling down your face as you fought to wipe them away. “He said…”

Your husband lay you back on the bed, falling in next to you, an arm and a leg draped over you. You cried out all that you had been holding back until that roaring in your head quieted enough for you to speak. “He said, ‘You have no right to be here, pretending to empathize with us. Unlike you, none of us has a spare.”

George stilled the stroking of your arm.

“I was so angry,” you seethed through clenched teeth. “So angry that I wanted to kill him, but I knew if I pulled out my wand, I wouldn’t hold back, so I went at him with my fists instead. I don’t regret it, I’m just sorry that it affected you.” You faced your husband, afraid to read his expression.

His gaze was unexpectedly soft. “You have every right to mourn, darling. Every right. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.” He sighed deeply. “It’s hard enough just to get by.”

You nodded. “Some days, I don’t even know if I can get out of bed. I know I have so much to be grateful for, but it still feels like I’ve lost everything. How are we going to survive this, George?”

He pulled you closer. He didn’t have the answer, and you knew that. You just needed him to reassure you that somehow you would. He rolled up enough to press a kiss to your cheek. “Together, and with lots and lots of time. We’re still in this for the long run. Right?”

It was all you could manage to lift a corner of your mouth. The long run was an understatement. You’d follow your husbands into death and whatever lay after that. “I’m pretty sure I’m banned from support group now.”

“Oh, definitely,” he mumbled, pressing a kiss to your lips. “But that’s what families are for. A built-in support group. I’m always here for you, love.” This time, George’s lips lingered on yours. “Just promise me: no more fistfights.”

“I promise,” you mumbled, showing George your knuckles. Blue and black and red all over. “I probably hurt myself more than I hurt him.”

“I love you,” he said, kissing your bruised knuckles.

“I love you too.”

[novahthecreative]

Bad to Worse (ACOTAR)

Cassian x gn!reader (platonic with potential)

Word count: 2.4k

Tags: reader with people-pleasing tendencies and self-esteem issues, hurt/comfort, fluff

Summary: It wasn’t just one thing that made you fall apart like a flaky croissant. And maybe it was more than just a bad-to-worse day that you needed to get off your chest.

______

You fell out of bed. Literally rolled right out in your sleep and were startled awake by the impact, softened only by a thin rug. You gasped as you flailed out of your blanket, thinking you’d been ambushed in your sleep to find the room empty. No injuries– just a racing heart and a rude awakening that left you feeling unbalanced the rest of the day.

That poor balance– mental and physical– ended up with you putting an elbow through one of Feyre’s canvases. She’d had the painting propped on an easel, and as you turned around to answer her question, you accidentally knocked it with your hip, and in a mad scramble to catch it, you and the nearly finished painting ended up on the floor. The painting was punctured in the center, gaping and ruined by your clumsiness. Your pride bore a similar gash.

“Feyre,” you breathed, covering your mouth with your hands, face burning. “I am so sorry.”

She offered you a hand, and you stood, setting the torn painting back on the easel, grimacing at how irreversible the damage was.

Her eyebrows pinched together as she examined the painting.

“Is there any way I can fix it?” You asked, but she was already shaking her head.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to stitch it back together. It’s alright. Don’t worry about it.” She smiled, despite the disappointment radiating off of her like body heat.

“I’m really sorry,” you said again.

“Seriously, it’s okay. Accidents happen.” She patted your shoulder.

Yes, they do.

After apologizing for the tenth time, you left quickly, not wanting to maul any more of her hard work with your body.

Needing a breather from the joyful commotion of Velaris, you collapsed on your bed. Even your eyelids could not shut out the shame you felt.

Accident, you repeated to yourself.

At lunchtime, you were unusually reserved, even as your friends tried to draw you into the conversation around the grand, wooden table. You could barely meet Feyre’s eyes, still seeing how disappointed she looked when you’d toppled the painting. Your answers were clipped and distant, though no one seemed to take much notice of that.

You followed Rhys to his office after the plates were cleared. The two of you sat across from each other, answering letters to concerned citizens, other High Lords, holding a light conversation in between penned words.

You two were talking about Tamlin when you said—well, you don’t actually know what you said that made Rhysand furious. And then he was demanding you out of his office, and you complied like a terrified puppy.

Even though you wanted to disappear, you had training with Cassian scheduled. He was insistent that you learn how to fight, and for the most part, you enjoyed his lessons. Especially the way he grinned when a maneuver finally clicked.

You could defend yourself in a pinch at this point, but the lessons continued, more for Cassian’s sake than yours, you privately realized. Knowing that you could hold your own gave him a little peace of mind in his already stressful position as general. And he normally needed to shave off some energy in the afternoons from his morning meetings.

So you donned your Illyrian leathers, cheeks heating at the memory of Cassian presenting them to you. Knowing how much his heritage meant to him and knowing that they were personally tailored for you was like eating porridge– it warmed you from the inside out.

He had a wide grin on his face when you showed up to train, choosing the tranquility of the forest over the usual sparring ring. Hot air bloomed from his mouth, dissipating into the freezing winter air.

“Thought you weren’t going to show,” he teased. “Afraid I’m going to beat you again?”

“Of course,” you answered dryly, making him laugh and rub his palms together in anticipation. “But maybe I’ll land a hit on you today.”

You warmed up with a slowed-down spar, settling into the flux of offense and defense. Your and Cassian’s punches were light and friendly, and you only took a few soft blows to the body.

But after a short water break, Cassian insisted you train at full speed.

And then it went to hell.

Your punches were uncoordinated. He detected your untucked elbows and met your attacks before you fully extended your arms. He answered with his own onslaught of punches, which you were blocking at the last second possible. Knuckles collided with your face, hard at first, and then softer– he was pulling his punches.

You wanted to crumble, knowing that he was going easy on you. So you channeled all of your frustration into your offense, albeit volatile.

And then you threw possibly the worst kick of your career, sending you completely off balance and almost to the dirt, had Cassian not pinned your leg to his side, holding you up. You hopped, trying to yank your leg back from his grip, but you knew the second that your leg had left the ground, you’d lost the fight.

“Stop, stop,” He commanded, pulling you closer until the arm that wasn’t clenching around your leg could hold your hip. “Out with it. What’s wrong?” His hard stare searched your eyes for the answer, as you held back the well of tears that had been threatening to fall all day.

You swallowed, commanding yourself not to cry. “I didn’t use my core to generate the power for my kick. I didn’t pivot my foot either.”

His grip only tightened. “That’s not what I meant. You’re off your game. What’s going on with you?”

The genuine concern mixed with his disappointment hurt more than his knuckles did.

“Nothing. I’m good. Let me go, please. I’ll do better.”

Cassian set your leg on the ground, but instead of stepping back into his stance, he laid his hands on your shoulders. “Let’s take a break. Ten minutes.”

“No,” you blurted, knowing that if you took a break now, you would fall to pieces. Keeping face in front of the Cassian was the only thing holding you together. “No, I’m okay, really.” You took a deep breath, grounding yourself slightly. You swiveled the balls of your feet, rooting yourself into the ground, trying to find the balance that you’d been without all day.

Cassian nodded. “If you say so. Alright, I want you to take me to the ground using whatever means you can. Get to mount and end the fight. Hide your vulnerabilities and maximize mine. Understand?”

“Yes,” you said through chattering teeth. You trembled with more than the cold as you raised your hands to your face in defense.

You threw a distraction jab at his nose, which he swiftly countered, but you were already hinging at the waist, aiming for his hips. You struck his beltline with the blade of your forearm, your other hand blocking the back of his heel. The opposing forces resulted in a plume of snow coating the air in white magic as his back smacked the frozen earth.

Then you were throwing his legs to the side and sliding your knee over his chest, your cry catching in your throat as he took advantage of your teetering balance. He flipped you over, his knee digging painfully into your sternum as you gasped.

Cassian’s hands pinned your wrists beside your head as you writhed to get out of the hold.

“Relax,” he purred. “You know how to get out of this. Just like I taught you.”

Racking your mind, you found nothing. He had taught you this, but everything was foggy just like the biting air. “I don’t remember,” you whined, still thrashing.

“Yes, you do. Think. Use your leverage. Use my weight to your advantage.”

Even his hints couldn’t help you. You were so far beyond rational thought, just barely keeping your sobs caged behind clenched teeth. And the unrelenting pressure of his knee in your chest wasn’t helping either.

“Cassian, I don’t know! Please, stop!” Your breath puffed erratically from your mouth at the beat of a butterfly’s wings.

“Deep breaths, Y/n. I know you can–”

“I don’t know!” You yelled, and the dam broke.

Tears and ragged, gasping breaths poured out.

You sobbed and shattered at long last.

The tightest, warmest embrace you could remember replaced the uncomfortable pressure on your chest as Cassian cradled you in his arms. Frozen fingers stroked your hair. He said nothing.

But his quiet presence meant everything. Though you were tempted to brush off the first wave of tears and fortify your fallen shields, you didn’t. The barricades remained down, gates open. Vulnerable and held.

When the downpour became a drizzle, Cassian spoke. “You were quiet at lunch today. I should have asked you then if everything was alright. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“You’re sorry?” You asked in disbelief, about to spout your own string of apologies.

Damp, black strands of hair fell from behind his ears, framing his sculpted jaw. “Please don’t think that I don’t care about you, because I do, Y/n. I care deeply. We all do.”

You shook your head, trying to peel yourself out of his firm grip. “I don’t deserve your apology. I’m the one who can’t do anything right. Everything goes wrong when I’m around.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I put an elbow through Feyre’s painting.” You sighed deeply. “And I can’t fix it.”

“Alright. But what if that piece becomes super popular and all of the artists start tearing up their canvases to copy you?”

His attempt at consolation did not cheer you up. “I don’t think it’s that type of accident.”

Cassian patted your head. “Well, that’s not so bad. Feyre’s forgiving.”

“Oh, it gets worse. I messed things up with Rhysand, and he yelled at me.” You smushed your face with your hands. “I don’t blame him. I’m always putting my foot in my mouth.”

“Rhys is under a lot of pressure right now. Don’t take it personally.”

You situated yourself next to him, knees curled into your chest, his arm wrapped around your shoulders.

“You know we’re not just going to abandon you because you put your elbow through a painting or said something wrong.” His brows pinched. “Don’t you?”

“Why shouldn’t you? Seems I’m the only one who fucks up on the regular.”

His laughter was humorless. “That’s so far from the truth. I fuck up all the time. Friendship isn’t just about having fun and teasing each other. Forgiveness is a big part of it. We accept each other and our faults. We love you for who you are, not what you do.”

“And what if who I am is a mistake?”

There it was. The question that you’d never had the vulnerability to voice. The one that kept you awake at night and paralyzed with fear during the day. And now it was floating between the two of you, waiting to be answered.

Snowflakes blurred as Cassian turned your chin to face him. “You are not a mistake. No matter how many things you might mess up, you are always deserving of love.”

Minutes passed in silence. The two of you watched snowflakes touch down on the blanketed earth. After a moment of debate with yourself, you rested your head on Cassian’s shoulder, the frostbitten leather gnawing at your cheek.

Cassian’s head leaned on yours. “This is about more than what happened today.”

You shrugged, even though it was definitely true. “Maybe.”

“I don’t know why you think that everyone holds you to an impossible standard, because we don’t. And maybe someone did hold you to that once, but you never have to be ashamed or afraid that we will hate you for making mistakes. You don’t have to be perfect.”

“I just need to be good enough.”

“You are. Always.”

“Maybe,” you repeated, feeling into his words.

Out of nowhere, he asked, “Why were you in Feyre’s painting studio today?”

Your eyebrows raised. “To bring her some tea because there’s no furnace. At least I didn’t drop the mug.”

“What were you doing when Rhys snapped at you?”

You frowned in confusion. “Answering his mail.”

“So what you’re saying is that you were helping people out all day when a few unfortunate accidents happened. What about all the good you did?”

“Does it even compare to what went wrong?”

“It only matters how you add it up in your head." He squeezed your shoulder, grinning. "I’ve never been good with math, so it's easy for me.”

A cautious smile crept up on your face. “You want me to fudge the numbers in my favor?”

“Yep.”

This time, your sigh was accompanied by a light laugh. “I’ll try.”

“Good,” he said, arm leaving your shoulders in a cool wake. “Because I have a secret ‘bad day’ ritual that I’ve never shared with anybody. And if you’re up for it, you can be the first.”

You brushed off your clothes as you stood. “You’re okay to finish sparring?”

He grinned. “I get the feeling that you were here to help me out, too, huh? I appreciate it, Y/n, but I’d rather show you this.”

A ten-minute flight (clinging to Cassian’s neck like a squirrel) later, you washed away your relentless shivers with the best hot chocolate you’d ever had. Cassian sat across from you at the table, cheeks, nose, and ears red with the cold, chipping off pieces of a peppermint stick with his teeth.

“You feel better already, don’t you?” He asked with a cocky grin on his face. “It’s impossible to be upset when drinking hot chocolate, not to mention the best in Velaris. He took a sip from his steaming mug, replacing it on the table.

You giggled at the chocolate line above his upper lip that he seemed totally unaware of.

“What?”

You smiled, leaning across the table. He met your touch as your thumb swiped the chocolate, pausing despite yourself on his lip. Dark eyes connected to yours across the table as you knew you should remove your thumb from his lips, but were unwilling. The chatter of the little cafe couldn’t break through the still moment, until–

Like a lizard, his tongue shot out and licked your thumb, making you recoil in surprise.

“Gross, Cassian!” You scolded, wiping your hand on your pants.

He laughed at your disgust.

You found yourself laughing easily with him. The magic of the hot cocoa and the magic of a friend were working. But the real magic was in the choice you made.

As Cassian crunched on his peppermint stick, you fudged the numbers.