Bound by Fate pt 9
Summary - When Kaylee Archeron meets Azriel, her world turns upside down. Between balancing her trauma, new powers, a mating bond, and war looming over her new home, Kaylee learns that everything is not as little as it once seemed.
Warnings - Mentions of an assault, sexual tension, one bed, couple trying to find normacy, Kaylee throwing a bit of a fit.
A/n - I'm trying to make myself a fan of the one bed trope. Hopefully, pt 9 and 10 do that for me
✨️Bound by Fate Masterlist✨️
✨️Azriel Masterlist✨️Master Masterlist✨️
The slow folding of clothing was the only noise in the room as Azriel and Kaylee stood packing in silence.
They had not spoken since Azriel told her they were going to Illyria. Kaylee had bruised knuckles, tear stains on her face, and her hair was still a mess from Cassian making her spar until she collapsed.
She shoved a spare blanket into her bag that had been enchanted to fit all of her things. Then glared as Azriel began tossing her female Illyrian Leathers at her, catching them and muttering about how cold those leathers felt in the snow.
She was sure this was a punishment from Rhysand. Sending her to the coldest place in his court due to her own poor behavior. At least that's how it had felt as he sat behind his desk, brow knit as he tried to understand how Kaylee had lost her cool so drastically. “Assault,” he whispered. She had assaulted her sister over words. Words that Rhysand tried nailing into Kaylee's soul as worthless, weightless. But those words felt like arrows to her. Digging to sensitive feelings she'd been fighting since she was born.
Always the last sister. The last to be noticed. The last to be heard. The one no human man glanced at unless an older sister had rejected them. The one tossed into working while Feyre was tossed into the forest.
She was bitter. She was insecure, but deep down she knew Rhysand was correct. Azriel looked at her like she was a precious starlit diamond, sitting and waiting to be the crowning piece in an heirloom to pass through the ages.
Azriel watched as she quickly wiped her tears before putting her otter stuffie into her bag and shutting it. “Windhaven isn't exactly the safest place for a female,” Azriel began as he looked her over, memorizing each little change in her face. “I'm going to need you to stay with me-”
“At all times,” Kaylee interrupted. “Rhysand also informed me of that. Ordered it actually.”
Azriel sighed, hazel eyes shutting for a moment, “Of course he did,” he muttered. Azriel shut his own bag, “Did he warn you it's cold?”
Her eye roll had him taking a breath. But it was her sassy response that reminded him this was her in defensive mode, “It's in the mountains. It doesn't-”
The look he gave her silenced her. A look informing her he was done with her attitude, “Enough.” Azriel moved away from her, strapping a few weapons to himself. “We're going to get there through my shadows. I do not feel flying is our best option. Not with you like this.” Another punishment. Kaylee loved when he'd take her to fly.
He grabbed their bags before taking a tight hold on her arm, walking her from the room to the Illyrian mountains, standing outside of a cabin tucked between two fangs.
The cabin seemed to come to life before them, a fire lighting, faelights flickering, and the door opening. It welcomed them in as if it knew why they were here, as if it was offering Kaylee a safe place to just be. “We used to come here when things became too heavy. It's a place where we all recenter. It will take care of your needs without asking,” Azriel explained to her. “Be warned,” he began walking in, “Rhys said your sister.. painted eyes everywhere.”
Kaylee paused, knowing the story all too well from a drunken night with Rhysand, “So this is where they-”
“Yes. Nothing is sacred,” Azriel sighed. Kaylee followed him in, watching as he set their bags down. He took in the eyes, ignoring the unsettled feeling in his gut before turning to her, “Will you be comfortable staying here or do you want to stay directly in the camps?”
“What would be the difference?”
“No one hears you screaming here,” Azriel said as a dry joke. “And I do not have to kill someone for looking at you.”
Kaylee smiled, “You would do that?”
“Without hesitation,” he moved to her, tilting her chin up with the knuckles of two scarred fingers. “You are my mate. Eris is lucky he is alive. If I were a lesser male, I would have flayed him for touching what is mine.”
“Yours?”
“Mine,” he repeated with finality. “There is no world where we will not get through what has happened. No world where I stop trying to prove my devotion to you and you alone.”
Kaylee looked up at him, grey blue eyes meeting emerald mixed with gold, “I did not think there was,” she confessed. It was the closest their faces had been in months. His thumb traced her bottom lip as he memorized them. The soft dip of her cupid's bow, the plushness of her bottom lip, the soft shade of pink. He could write a symphony about her beauty, about the way her freckles danced the bridge of her nose, about her cheekbones carving her face gently, about the way her hair fell in soft tresses of golden light in his darkest hours, but no musician could capture her the way he'd want.
Azriel knew when all 4 sisters were revealed, there would be debates about their looks and which sister was Mother favored. The fae, petty creatures that they were, would find qualities of each sister they appreciated. Nesta's grace and modesty, Elain's outward appearance, Feyre's power.
Kaylee, though? Kaylee he felt, no, Azriel knew none of them could handle her complexity. Kaylee was a calm ocean. Sparkling at surface value and filled with raging depths of glittering flecks of darkness and light mixing in balanced harmony below.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered to her. “So very beautiful.” A little spark of joy flashed in those eyes of hers, making him smirk. “There's my girl. Let's get to bed.”
Azriel took her hand, pulling her through the hallway as the lights faded to no more than a soft glow. It was clearly for her. She knew because he practically walked the hallway his eyes closed before taking her into a room with a centered bed. “This isn't the room they used, right?”
Azriel let out a rare chuckle at that, “No. I was informed that bed is precious and never touch it. This is a guest room.”
For a guest room, it was still luxurious for a cabin. Spacious and cozy. The bed large enough for his wings with deep grey sheets and a fluffy blanket. There were throw pillows and blankets, a book shelf with a few titles.
Azriel moved into the room and tossed Kaylee her pjs, the shadows providing them to him, “I'll go change in the bathroom.”
“Why,” she asked. “It's not like you haven't seen me naked?”
His eyes shut at that statement, “We are alone, in a cabin, in the middle of nowhere, in the mountain.”
“And?”
“It's different,” he said plainly. “This is going to be the longest weekend of my life. Having you, here, in my home, in the chilly Mountains?”
Kaylee's eyes went wide, a pink flush settling on her face as she realized what he meant, “Oh.”
“Oh,” his tone teased her, the deep timber making her shiver. “Just oh? Nothing else to say about how desperate I ache for you?”
“Do you want me to offer to sleep on the couch?”
Azriel chuckled again, “No. I want you in this bed with me.”
That sentence was going to kill him. Kaylee was deep asleep next to him, her hair braided, her silky dark blue pajamas gliding across his skin as he ran his fingers soothingly up and down her spine, across her lower back and shoulders. He couldn't bring himself to stop touching the soft skin and fabric he had access to and even if he could, he knew he wouldn't want to.
He was in his own personal hell disguised as an escape by his brother.
He knew what Rhys was actually hoping for out of this. Kaylee to come home in Azriel's deep scent of chilled air and Cyprus. A clear warning sign to anyone else that they were one. That she was his and he hers from this day until their last.
A message to Elain.
A message to Nesta.
To Eris.
Rhys underestimated Kaylee's back and forth with Azriel, though. One second she was bare in his lap, letting him touch her as she kissed him, explored him, whispered softly in his ear how much she wanted to cross that line. The next she was terrified. Sleeping on the floor of their room. He understood why Rhysand wanted it to happen, the closure it would bring to their home, but he did not want to rush her. Not when Kaylee was so lovely and so sweet.
He took a deep breath, pulling her closer before resting the weight of one of his wings on her. It was going to be a long 48 hours. But maybe it was what they needed.
Kaylee woke up alone and shivering. The fire had died to embers, barely heating the room. She hugged herself as she stood, stretching sleep from her limbs before going over to the fireplace and adding in a small log to just kindle it enough to bring back a touch of warmth. She even shivered as she walked through the cabin, “Azriel,” she whispered into the cold darkness.
“In here,” a shadow grabbed her wrist at the sound of his voice, leading her to where Azriel stood before a stove shirtless and cooking. Kaylee walked up behind him, hugging him and resting her head on his bare back.
“It's really cold in the bedroom.”
Azriel chuckled, “I warned you that the mountains were cold.”
“But you didn't warn me you'd leave me alone?”
Azriel paused his movements, the sound of eggs popping as the butter became too warm and began to fry them. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
Azriel looked at the ceiling, muttering softly in a tongue Kaylee did not know, his hazel eyes were shut, “Whatever you're thinking about, stop it. I am just a male.”
He felt her smirk against his back, “Sorry. I forgot you could-”
“Don't ever apologize for being turned on by the sight of me,” Azriel interrupted her. “Do not apologize to me for you being attracted to me.”
Kaylee smiled then, taking a deep breath and letting that scent of cedar and chilled air fill her lungs. They continued like that, comfortable silence falling between them as he hummed and cooked.
When he was done, Azriel served Her, eyes lingering on her exposed legs longer than he had intended. He couldn't help but rest his scarred hand on them, the sensation of her skin was one he wished he could enjoy.
He placed a hand on her thigh and he squeezed softly, wishing he could feel how supple it was, how soft it was. Kaylee had learned quickly how Azriel felt things differently with his hands, how soft things felt to her were an assumption for him based on how things appeared. And her legs, that bare skin he was glancing at, was smooth and silky. Her skin seemed to shine from within. His thumb gilded easily across her thigh as she nibbled on her sausage and egg mix.
“So what exactly are we doing today?”
Azriel sighed, relaxing a bit into his chair, “We are going to go into Windhaven. Cassian will be meeting us there. We'll have a meeting with the camp leader, check in on the females, and then eat in the mess hall to make our presence known.” He paused to look at her, his free hand taking her chin and turning her to face him, staring at her grayish blue eyes. “I need you to take staying by my side seriously. There are males here who might hurt you just for being mine.”
There was no possession behind that word. Just a simple fact.
He leaned in, kissing her forehead, “Please, honeybee, let your curiosity go today.”
Kaylee huffed and nodded, “I guess I can be good.”
He smirked, lips still grazing her forehead, “Good Girls get rewards, Kaylee.” He stood then, giving her a playful study before turning to get ready for the day.
They were here for the weekend. 36 more hours spent stuck at each other's side. Stuck in one bed. Stuck in this cabin that Rhysand believed held some magic power over mated pairs now. 36 hours.
And Kaylee didn't think she'd make it without him touching her.
@impossibelle @luvmoo @wallacewillow0773638 @nightless
Bound by Fate:
@cat-or-kitten @knmendiola @holb32
@mis-lil-red @minakay @whatsupb18 @deeshag @justdreamstars @pyrostatic @acourtofmarvels @no1massassin @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @acourtofbatboydreams @mich0731 @thelov3lybookworm @going-through-shit
@coralseacourt @snoopyspace @tothestarsandwhateverend @st4r-girl-official @brieflyclassymortal @nickishadow139 @isa1b2h3 @awkward-mystic-beauty @12358 @throneofsmut @inloveallthetime @throneofsapphics @hnnybee0 @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @vermillionwinter @mybestfriendmademe @mrstepes @darling006 @mich0731 @wallacewillow0773638 @hnyclover @helo1281917 @latinxbipride @rcarbo1 @st4r-girl-official @brieflyclassymortal @nickishadow139 @julesvanslutta @motheroffae @speedytigertraveler @lucyysthings @anuttellaa
