my infamy loves company
pairing: Azriel x Vampire!Reader
content warnings: blood, parental abuse/neglect/abandonment, mentions of self-starvation (brief), language, self-deprecation
word count: 5.0k
synopsis: A creature like you was destined for solitude. A creature like you was destined to live out your long and wretched life alone. A creature like you could never have a mate.
a/n: title comes from cancelled! by taylor swift, but really no other inspo came from the song except this lyric :)
my masterlist
~ ~ ~
Darkness had followed you since you were a babe.
Onyx whispers dragged kisses across your skin since you took your first breath, reminding you of where you truly belonged—and where you never would.
You were an abomination.
A product of a heinous act between wretched faeries desperate for power. Faeries that wielded tainted magic in the hopes of creating a child more powerful than either of their bloodlines could sire. Two inconsequential lunatics that likely still dwelled in that underworld they called Hewn City.
You wondered if they ever thought about you.
Did they ever ask themselves where you had wandered off to? Did they wonder if you were still alive? Did they regret banishing you from their home at the mere age of fifteen? Did they even care if you were alive?
You knew it was unlikely.
Most days you hoped that they had forgotten your existence entirely, an unsettling version of peace washing over you when you thought about truly being free of the monsters that made you. Some days, though, a sad and pitiful shard stabbed at your heart, reminding you that you were truly all alone, and they were the closest thing you ever knew to a family.
Another sick and twisted part of you hoped that they feared you. They inevitably heard the stories about the creature of the night, the one that lurks amongst the tree tops in the forests of the Night Court, lying in wait for her next victim.
You had certainly created a name for yourself.
Lamia.
The name whispered amongst the Night Court fae, perhaps even across Prythian these days.
The she demon.
Bloodsucker.
All true, you supposed. What else would you call a creature that survived off the blood of the living? A female with fangs so sharp they sliced skin with the slightest nip?
You had tried to live amongst the fae. You technically were a fae—pointed ears and all—but they never saw you as one of them. You were a threat. A monster. A predator.
Above all, you were more powerful than them, and they hated you for it. It didn’t matter that you had never hurt a soul—you lived off the animal blood from a local butcher, much to your parents’ dismay. As if they had not been the architects of your grotesque nature.
Sometimes, as a child, you would starve yourself until the world started spinning and your limbs gave out. Until your nursemaid found you in a hall or the bath or your bed unresponsive, and forced her own blood to your lips.
She was the only one that never feared you.
She was a diamond amongst the roughly carved walls of Hewn City. A flower amongst the thorny and poisonous faeries that occupied it. Talia was likely the reason you survived in that underworld as long as you did—but not even Talia could save you when you wrapped that first tendril of shadow around the throat of another girl in your class.
It didn’t matter that she had held you by your hair, that she had kicked you to the ground so your tights tore on the rocks beneath you—you were the monster. You were supposed to be more powerful. She was threatened by you, and then you tried to kill her.
As if you knew you could control the shadows.
You would never forget the stunned silence that followed, and then the cacophony of frantic murmurs, everyone muttering the same word in fear: shadowsinger.
Your time in Hewn City was limited after that. It was bad enough you could rip their throats out with your teeth (as if they could not do the same to you, should they really want to), but now you wielded the darkness against them as well. Your parents could not let such an abomination live in their home, in their city. So they gave you to Kier, and Kier sneered at the darkness that undulated around you, and then dropped you in the woods.
You were fifteen when your parents abandoned you. You wandered those forests for days before you decided you were still on Night Court territory. Only now there was soil beneath your feet instead of stone. Stars above your head instead of roughly hewn rocks. Clean air moving through your lungs in place of stale and stagnant air.
You were free.
You traveled the Night Court forests with no end in sight, walking through brush and trees for months on end, sleeping on the forest floor with only the stars and crickets as your company—and your shadows, you supposed. You missed Talia. You missed the comfort of a bed that smelled like you, even if it was in such a despicable place.
Then one day you heard a scream. A blood-curdling, terror-stricken scream that turned your stomach inside out, and you ran.
You ran faster than you ever knew was possible.
Some of your peers had the enhanced speed of High Fae, and sometimes you managed to keep pace with them, but this speed was entirely preternatural. One second you were standing beneath an ageing pine tree, and the next you were at a campsite, where a winged male held a female by her hair, a knife at her throat.
The mirth in his eyes when you screamed at him to let her go still played clearly in your head. The satisfaction you felt when that mirth soured into terror as you bared your fangs, your eyes undoubtedly turning bloodshot as you fell into the primal lust that always danced beneath your skin. The taste of his fear on your tongue was bitter and electrifying as you made him feel the way that poor girl felt—the way everyone your entire life had made you feel, just for existing.
The thud of his body on the leaf covered dirt still rang in your head, and the fear mixed with awe on the female’s face beside you still flashed through your mind.
She didn’t wait around to find out if she was next. You didn’t forget the twist in your stomach as you watched her run from you, and as you looked back down at the carnage you had created.
At the names and stories and rumors you had finally lived up to.
That was when you decided if they were going to hate you so much they cast you from society, you would give them something to hate. You would give them a reason to fear you.
You spent the next decade honing your abilities, fine-tuning your strength and speed, learning how to follow scent trails and listen for unnatural rustles of the leaves. You traipsed up and down the forests of the Night Court, sometimes even venturing so far as the Illyrian Steppes, where you learned there were plenty of abusive bastards ripe for the picking.
It was exhilarating. You held the power, and no one even knew who you were. No one had ever truly seen the face of Lamia, except for a few females you had saved along the way. You were certain the denizens of Hewn City remembered you, you were certain some of them had pieced together the loose threads between your time there and your life now, but no one knew for certain.
You liked it that way.
It was better that way.
You may not kill innocent males, but you had blood on your hands nonetheless. You had embraced the nature your younger self had recoiled from, and you knew if she saw you now she would be ashamed. You didn’t belong with the rest of civilization—so you kept to yourself, lurking amongst tree tops and playing vigilante, hopping between abandoned cabins you had claimed for yourself.
No one had seen your face—no one had heard your voice—in a decade and lived to tell the tale.
Of course, until he came along.
What were the odds that an abomination of nature like yourself would have a mate?
It was surely just another consequence of the dark magic your parents had toiled and tinkered with to create you—and yet, it felt a little too arrogant, even for you, to think someone as foolish as your parents could bend the Mother’s will. It also felt foolish to think an abomination like yourself would ever be gifted something as sacred as a mate.
And yet, there he was on the forest floor below, weaving between bushes and trees, undoubtedly searching for you—again.
~ ~ ~
“Lamia, I presume.”
The voice that spoke behind you was silk woven with shadows. A caress chilled by an onyx night, that left goosebumps in its wake.
It had been…so long since you had spoken to another person.
You couldn’t understand how he had crept up on you.
You frantically grasped for your shadows, panic sluicing through you that they might have finally abandoned you too, only for them to curl around you gently. You swallowed hard, taking in a single steadying breath before turning to face the male.
An Illyrian.
His body was decorated in glowing cobalt gemstones, similar to ones you had seen on others when you spent time in their mountains. Their glow cast his face in sharp shadows, a sharp contrast to the dim forest, now that the sun had just sunk beneath the horizon.
“Lamia is a story,” you said slowly, your voice low and smooth. You spoke with a perfect lull, a refined grace and elegance that you had honed over the years to contrast so greatly with the monster inside you.
His chin dipped ever so slightly, his eyes raking down your body, pausing on their way up when he noticed the dark tendrils slithering around your arms. You smirked, your lips curving upward at his surprise—only for you to falter when you saw a perfect stoic mask on the male’s face.
Then another tendril of shadow slithered toward you, this one heavier, more opaque than your own, and your heart stuttered. Your shadows flitted behind you, peering over your shoulders as you hissed at the male, your fangs bared. “Keep your shadows on a leash.”
The male’s lips slowly morphed into a smirk—a self-satisfied, infuriating turn of his lips that made your own clamp shut.
You had just revealed exactly who you were to him.
He took a step closer to you, and then another, his boots crunching the dried leaves scattered across the forest floor. A gentle breeze coasted by you, and that was when you smelled it—he was bleeding.
Your eyes locked onto his thigh, the dark leathers hiding any obvious signs of injury, but you knew it was there. “You have a lot of nerve,” you crooned, taking your own step forward. “Wandering through my forests while blood paints your skin.”
Finally, a flash of surprise in his eyes—but still, there was no hint of fear from the male.
“Trust me,” he murmured, looking you up and down again. “It was not my intention.”
“No?”
“No.”
You hummed, stepping closer and closer to him, until the toes of your boots kicked against his. “Then why, pray tell, are you here?” You reached a hand up, dragging the tips of your fingers over the sharp line of his cheekbone. His skin was warm against your chilled skin, electricity crackling along your hand as your touch dragged against his cheek, crackling and snapping until your thumb reached the edge of his lip, and everything went still.
The electricity sizzling between you exploded, a force so strong it made the word tilt, and you briefly noticed the hand now on your waist, stabilizing you as the ground tried to crumble away. Until it stopped just as suddenly as it started, and you were left standing on solid ground that still felt like it had shifted a few degrees to the right.
And there was now a glowing thread curled around your core, reaching out—directly to the male in front of you. His eyes were wide as he watched you, his hand still rested gently on your hip, and your thumb still grazed his lower lip.
You dropped your hand, staggering backward. You shook your head, raking a shaky hand over your hair. “No,” you muttered to yourself. “This can’t be happening.”
“Lamia,” the male spoke, his voice rough and ragged, as if the shock of the moment had sucked the air from his lungs.
“That is not my name!” you snapped, your eyes burning and your fangs lengthening on instinct. Your shoulders heaved as you took in the male again, his Illyrian wings stretched wide behind him, his shadows slowly circling his feet in trepidation. Mother knows where yours had scampered off to.
Your heart pounded beneath your ribs, every beat reminding you of the golden thread now coiled next to it, a direct tether to this unfamiliar male now entwined with your very soul.
You had long ago come to the conclusion that you didn’t have a soul. You thought mates were a far fetched fairy tale whispered amongst naive children, a gift only those favored by the Mother would ever be granted.
A mate certainly was not in the cards for you, of all the faeries in Prythian. You were not even a true faerie.
The male had not moved an inch, his wide and blinking eyes never leaving your form either. This had to be a mistake. This was not possible.
You shook your head again, taking another step away from him.
Your eyes met his one last time, and you said roughly, “You should leave.”
And then you were gone.
~ ~ ~
It took the male a month before he found you again. In a deserted cabin nestled in the snow-covered Illyrian Steppes of all places. You had thought it would be the last place he would look—which, given you managed to disappear for a month, maybe it was.
You ran as soon as you saw him, knocking him on his ass as you pushed past him on the fragile doorstep. You ran as fast as you could manage in the snow, weaving in and out of the pine trees decorating the mountain.
Unfortunately for you, Illyria had just endured a long and unforgiving snow storm, locking you in your cabin for a week, and now a thick blanket of snow was left in its wake. It was impossible for you to run through the knee-high snow, so you resorted to skipping between tree tops, balancing precariously on snow-ladden tree limbs, praying they would support your additional weight in their already fragile state.
You didn’t hear him following you, but that didn’t mean anything. He had snuck up on you once, he could absolutely do it again. You were fast, but he could fly. He wielded shadows, and if they were anything like yours, they were likely whispering information in his ear at this very moment, trailing after your scent.
You landed hard on the next branch, your weight falling unevenly as you hit the wood, and your palm scraped against the rough bark as you tried to steady yourself. You took a deep breath when you regained your balance, but your heart stopped when you heard a creak beneath you.
The branch gave out beneath you before you could blink, and your body was sent toppling down to the forest floor. You reached for another branch, but the force of your fall only sent more branches and pine needles cascading down to the ground, until your body inevitably joined them in a plume of snow.
Your chest burned from the force of the impact, your entire body stiff. The snow burned against your face, sticking to your lashes and soaking through your clothes. The snow melted against your cheeks, leaving a wet sheen that froze as soon as you pushed yourself up and the wind whipped against you.
“Well done.”
You closed your eyes in defeat, hanging your head for the briefest moment before pushing yourself to your feet. You glanced at him, eyes catching on his wings that were more purple in the sunlight. “I see why your people need wings to survive in these mountains.”
Something shuttered in his eyes. “I don’t live here.” His wings folded in behind his back, and he took a step in the thick snow with practiced precision. “And the Illyrians are not my people.”
He moved through the snow with infuriating grace, easily stepping around fallen branches, until he reached the crater your landing had created. His eyes met yours, his irises a sharp and glowy hazel that you never would have imagined from your first encounter.
A sharp pain in your ankle made you stumble, your breath faltering as the adrenaline faded and the pain from your fall crept in. The male’s hand came out to stabilize you, his glove covered fingers wrapping around your arm. His touch was just as electrifying and addictive as the first time you felt it.
His touch was dangerous.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked, his voice soft. Not arrogant, like the question might have been from another male. It was genuine—almost concerned.
It was unsettling.
You looked him up and down, taking him in slowly, watching his shadows that weaved in and out of the folds of his wings. You wished you had any other answer than, “No.”
His face softened, and his hand slowly fell from your arm. “My name is Azriel.” Then, as if he had to taste the words before saying them, he finally said, “I work for the High Lord.”
You rocked back on your heels, his hand shooting out again to catch you, but this time you shoved his touch away.
Oh gods.
You knew exactly who he was. How could you not have figured it out?
His existence was the very reason the fae around you casted you out when you wielded your first shadow.
He was the Shadowsinger of Prythian.
He was the Spymaster of the Night Court.
He was the only other shadowsinger you had heard of. How could you not have realized?
You wanted to run—but there was no where to go. He would catch you before you could make it to the trees.
It didn’t matter that this male was supposedly your mate. You had heard plenty of stories of soured mating bonds, corrupted by the hands of evil males that forced the females to accept the bond.
You would not be one of those females.
Over your dead body would you become a weapon for the High Lord’s spy to yield.
You were your own weapon, and no one was going to touch you.
You couldn’t run, but you were still faster than him, and you still had your fangs.
You moved in the small space before Azriel could react. You kicked his legs from beneath him, dropping him to his knees, then laced your fingers through his hair to drag his head back. His neck was bared to you, his pulse visible beneath his skin, pounding only slightly faster from the unexpected ambush.
You brought your mouth down to his skin, the tips of your fangs barely grazing his skin, but it was enough to make his breath hitch. One fang pricked his skin, a tiny droplet of blood rolling down the expanse of his neck, melding into the neckline of his leathers.
You had not meant to actually draw blood—not unless you had to—but it made your point all the same. You brought your mouth up to his ear, your lips briefly brushing the outer shell. “You’re going to let me leave,” you said, voice low and steady, despite feeling anything but. Your grip tightened on his hair, pulling his head back further. “Or else, I will kill you.”
The sharp pain that lanced through your chest knocked the breath from your lungs.
You gave yourself a moment to compose yourself, dragging your teeth once more over his pulse. Then you murmured in his ear, “Do you understand?”
Azriel’s jaw clenched, and his chest heaved. Silence hung heavy between you, the sound of snow falling from heavy branches echoing around you. Then, finally, he gritted out, “Yes.”
You held onto him a second longer, inexplicable hesitation making your limbs heavy. You licked your lips, retracting your fangs. “Good,” you murmured.
Then you left him in the snow, speckled with your blood and his.
~ ~ ~
“I thought I told you I would kill you if I ever saw you again.”
Azriel turned around slowly, his wings flaring out. Once again he looked like death incarnate, his face barely illuminated by the light of the full moon. He took a step closer to the tree you were perched in, twigs snapping beneath his boots. “That’s not exactly how I remember it.”
You had migrated to the southern border of the Night Court, the opposite end of the damned court from where he found you last. You watched his eyes scan the forest floor, searching for you. You couldn’t help the upturn of your lips as he turned in a circle, his shadows fanning out around him.
Then he looked up, his eyes immediately locking on you. Your eyes narrowed, frustration muddling your brief amusement. He knew you were there all along.
You dropped down from the branch, landing silently in a crouch. You slowly rose up to face him, indignation and irritation warring with the undeniable relief you felt from seeing him again.
You dragged a finger down his throat, along the artery that pulsed with his blood. “How do you remember it then?”
His throat bobbed, but his voice was steady. “You said,” he spoke softly, “that you would kill me, if I didn’t let you go.”
You hummed, heart pounding against your chest as you remembered those words falling from your lips, as you remembered the agony that lanced through you when you threatened his life, and the guilt that washed over you at the smallest taste of his blood. “My fault for not being more specific.”
“What are you doing here?” he asked, voice low.
Your eyes flicked to his, then quickly fell away. “What do you mean?” you asked quietly, demurely. “This is my home.”
“The forests of the Night Court are not fit to be a home,” he said softly.
You hated the pity in his voice. You pulled your hand away, letting it fall to your side as you took a step back. “Why are you here Azriel?”
His nostrils flared, and a few of his shadows darted out and away from him. He shook his head. “Don’t do that.”
You blinked. “Do what?”
“Act coy. Play dumb. You know exactly why I’m here.”
Your blood turned cold. “I’m not a novelty for you to leave at the feet of your High Lord,” you snapped.
Azriel blinked. “That’s not—” He shook his head, his genuine shock unnerving you. “I’ve never thought that. I would never do that.”
Your mouth was dry, your tongue heavy and rough as you grappled for control of this situation that had been spiraling around you for months. “Then why are you here?” you asked again, tone pitching just a bit higher, your voice just a bit louder.
“Because you are my mate!” he exclaimed, taking the smallest step toward you.
My mate.
The words made you dizzy. You had not—
You had not acknowledged the thread between you for what it was since the moment it snapped into place. You had convinced yourself it wasn’t real—a paranoid delusion, a fool’s dream, a cruel trick by the Mother to punish you for taking lives she had made.
Azriel looked unmoored, despite the darkness dulling his sharpest edges. Your vision in the night was unusually sharp—and you had a feeling his was as well. He could see the barely restrained panic creeping beneath your skin just as well as you could see the frantic pulse of his blood beneath his neck and the clench of his jaw as he took a breath.
“You are my mate,” he said again, his voice softer this time, as if that softened the blow those words delivered to your chest. “I cannot just leave you.”
And why were those words more jarring than his declaration of your bond?
You shook your head, fighting back the unwanted tears burning the back of your throat. “It’s not real,” you rasped.
Azriel looked like you slapped him. “What?” he rasped.
You sniffed, taking a step back. “It’s not real,” you said again, voice trembling. “It—it can’t be. I—I’m not—” You shook your head, eyes darting around the forest as if you could disappear somewhere so as to not face this heartbreaking humiliation.
“I’m an abomination,” you spat, anger washing over you. “I don’t get a mate.”
Azriel’s shoulders fell, and his eyes were impossibly soft. You had never met someone so genuine, so kind—not since Talia. You barely knew him, and yet he was showing you more grace than anyone else ever had before.
The two of you were shrouded in the darkness of the night, each of you moving your own tendrils of that darkness in anticipation of the other's move. You were never scared of the dark. You were never unnerved by it like others seemed to be, so when your shadows first came to you it made sense—it made sense that darkness would come to you if you called, because it had always been there.
Now there was another faerie, who also held darkness at his fingertips, and he didn’t balk at your shadows. Your teeth had been pressed to his neck and he came back for you.
“That’s not true,” he swore, a promise that swirled through the night air and up into the stars. “What is your name?”
A plea. A desperate request to let him know the female in the story of Lamia. To know the name you had not spoken in ten years.
“Y/N.”
His lips twitched ever so slightly, and your stomach did a somersault. “Y/N,” Azriel said, and goosebumps pebbled up your arms. “I know I do not know you,” he murmured, his eyes never leaving yours as he took another step closer. “But I do know this bond between us is very real, and if I, of all fae, was deigned worthy of a mate by the Mother—” Another step closer, close enough that you could smell only the cedar and salt scent of him— “I promise, you are are more than worthy of a mate as well.”
You started shaking your head, your ears buzzing and head spinning. “You were born with your power—”
“Were you not as well?”
“I—” you searched for the words, an explanation, anything to make this make sense. “My parents messed with dark magic, while my mother was pregnant with me.” You swallowed hard, your mouth dry and an old yet familiar shame creeping up your neck. “They made me this way,” you whispered.
You didn’t know you were crying until Azriel brought his thumb to your cheek, wiping away the errant tear with the quickest brush of his thumb. “There is nothing wrong with you,” he promised, voice resolute.
“You don’t know me!” you argued. “You don’t know the things I’ve done, the blood that soaks my hands—my mouth!”
“I know exactly which scum of the earth your parents are,” he volleyed back. “I know you grew up in the Court of Nightmares, until Kier kicked you out per your parents request. I know the stories they spread about you. I know the stories of Lamia—and I know the truth woven between the pages of them.”
He shifted his weight, his wings fluttering, and all the words in your brain seemed to have fallen to the ground. Azriel didn’t stop either. “I came searching for you after an Illyrian female told me another female saved her and her daughter from an abhorrent male in the forest—that Lamia saved her. She spoke the name with reverence, not fear, and I knew then that my suspicions about your actions were true. You were protecting others. You’re not a monster, Y/N. You’re not an abomination.”
He hesitated, then he brought his hand to your mouth—and you noticed for the first time his hands were once again covered with leather like the rest of him. Earlier, when he touched your cheek, you had been so consumed by him it escaped your notice. He brought his thumb to your upper lip, so slowly, as if waiting for you to run or kick him or just bite his finger clean off. Then he lifted your lip, gently, as if admiring, rather than prodding or inspecting, revealing your fangs. You fought the urge to extend them, to show off just how long and sharp they really were.
Then he said, voice so gentle and sure, “A monster would have killed me.”
Your stomach soured. “I hurt you.”
His thumb fell away, and he laughed. “You insult me.”
“I drew blood,” you argued.
He waved a hand. “It was barely a pin prick.”
“What’s your point, Azriel?”
He immediately sobered. “My point,” he said slowly, “Is that I’m not going to let you push this away—I’m not going to let you deny yourself this bond, because you think you're undeserving. If you don’t want me, that’s fine—but I’ll be damned if we both lose this because of the acrid voices of Hewn City scum.”
You bit your lip, digesting his words, considering this impossible fate that had been dropped in your lap. “I’ve been alone my entire life,” you warned him.
“That’s not entirely true,” he said softly, nodding toward the shadows now winding around your wrists.
You watched the dark tendrils with a fondness, and your breath caught when you noticed one of your shadows venturing out to meet his, the two tendrils blending seamlessly together and circling both you and Azriel.
“We’ve both found company in the darkness before, when there was no one else but our solitude.” His voice was warm, and when you met his eyes, your heart thawed just a bit. “I think we’re both capable of finding it again, with each other.”
~ ~ ~
a/n: planning on writing a part 2, let me know if you want to be added to a taglist for this fic!