The Heart of a Wanderer VI
Jealousy is a Curse
Read the previous chapter here.
4.1k words. Azriel POV. Language, adult themes.
Azriel paced the foyer of the river manor whilst waiting for Elain to emerge from her rooms before heading off on their mission. He was ready to go, dressed in his Illyrian armour, the metallic scales polished to within an inch of their life. Truth Teller was strapped securely to his thigh, and he had sheathed his Illyrian sword down his spine too, lest anyone get any ideas as he and Elain made their way to the Day Court.
They would be able to winnow to just outside the wards of the capital city of Day— the Central Palace about a thirty-minute journey from there— and then fly in the rest of the way as a courtesy to Helion. Usually, High Lords did not permit outsiders to winnow directly into their palaces or places of residence. So, he was going to take all necessary precautions, particularly with Elain in his care.
Before Azriel had heard her footsteps descending the staircase into the foyer, her melodious voice alerted him to her arrival, the few shadows that had lingered about his shoulders skittering back at the sweet sound.
“Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t find the dress I wanted to wear. I bought it in Day the last time I was there, and I couldn’t remember where I had put it, but its more suitable to their climate in comparison to anything else I have and— is that what you’re wearing?” Elain had halted halfway down the stairs as she interrupted her own sentence, having finally glanced up and taken him all in where he stood several steps below her.
Azriel had to tear his eyes away from her at her sudden question and look down at himself in confusion. Had he forgot to put on pants? Was he missing a chest plate? A quick glance told him his armour was in working order and his pants were definitely on. No one needed another eyeful of his naked fucking ass.
Elain however looked resplendent. He had never seen her in such a dress before, and yet it still felt like her. Her gown was a soft ivory at the top, gradually bleeding into shades of sky blue and then deeper sapphire as it neared the floor. It was long, a small train of fabric trailing behind her, but a high split travelled all the way up her left thigh, almost exposing her hip bone that jutted out lusciously as she walked. Ribbons of delicate fabric wrapped across her torso, hugging her breasts and waist deliciously, crisscrossing in a way that made his mouth water as he thought about slowly unravelling that mass of crepe, exposing inch by inch of her smooth delectable skin. She wore matching gold cuffs around her exposed, slender biceps, veils of the lightest chiffon attached to the back of them that trailed behind her wistfully, as if floating on a phantom wind. He couldn’t help but think they looked like wings.
Elain looked like a Cauldron-damned angel and his mouth had dried up just staring up at her. He could tell it was Day Court fashion, and yet she had made it so unquestioningly Elain. He couldn’t help but stare in awe. Not just in admiration of her undeniable physical beauty, but also in utter marvel at the way Elain was able to fit in so effortlessly almost anywhere. Like a shadow slowly bleeding into the darkness, Elain seemed to seamlessly blend into any surrounding that was required of her.
He also had never seen quite so much of her skin on display.
Is this what she had worn whilst in the Day Court on her travels? Had others been privy to seeing her this exposed? An oily feeling slithered its way into the pit of Azriel’s stomach. It felt oddly similar to jealousy. He tried not to scowl at the thought of other males’ gazes lingering on all her dips and curves, lusting after her attention.
Remembering Elain had asked him a question, he tore his eyes off the swell of her hips and schooled his face back into one of indifference. He hoped she hadn’t noticed his jaw had basically been hanging open.
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Azriel threw back his shoulders and stood with his feet apart, his wings splayed slightly behind him.
As she descended the final few steps, she gave him one more once over, her chocolate brown eyes travelling down and back up his form before landing resolutely on his face. He thought he spotted a glimmer of appreciation in her gaze. He beamed internally, a glimmer of male pride rearing its cocky head. Her view couldn’t be all that bad, then.
“The Day Court days are always rather warm; won’t you feel uncomfortable in all that leather and armour? Also, we’re not going into battle,” she teased with a delicately hitched eyebrow.
Ah. She was questioning his attire, poking fun at his seriousness, and yet something within him preened. He tried to control his idiotic thoughts, the ones that suggested Elain wanted to see more of his skin, that male pride so nauseatingly pleased with itself that he couldn’t help but flare his wings further. Reign it in you bastard, she’s concerned about the weather, not getting an eyeful of your chest.
“I’m used to it. Plus, this armour is for your protection as much as it is for mine,” he answered simply, after clearing his throat and pushing those self-indulgent thoughts from his mind. It wasn’t his first time venturing into Helion’s territory, and certainly wouldn’t be his last.
“Are you anticipating an ambush?” she asked earnestly, staring up at him with those big doe eyes that threatened to send him careening to his knees.
“I like to be prepared, in any case.”
Elain merely shrugged as she approached him, gathering her skirts in one hand and holding out the other to wrap around his neck as he bent to carry her.
“Suit yourself. Just try not to mess up my hair, please,” she replied with a small grin.
Her hair did look lovely, left loose and cascading down her exposed back. Twin gold pins shaped liked serpents held back the hair off her face and he noticed the eyes of the snakes were bejewelled with small sapphires. He liked them.
Hoisting her effortlessly into his arms, he waited until Elain had adjusted her skirts around her legs before he glanced down at her, held aloft in his embrace. They’d winnowed and flown like this many times before— her arm draped around his neck, fingers absently brushing the sensitive skin of his nape, her supple curves pressed against his chest and torso— but it never failed to make his skin hot, make it feel like it was stretched too tight over his bones. She was always just herself, but she never failed to make his breath catch, to force his mind to go wandering…
“I’ll do my best,” he supplemented with a small smile, secretly pleased that the ease between them had started to settle back in. He longed for the days before that Solstice, before he had ruined everything. Before he lost her.
There was hope yet.
~
Azriel winnowed them to the edge of the glittering capital, the many parapets of the city’s libraries dissecting the crisp blue skies above the Day Court. He hadn’t bothered to land, simply appearing mid-air about a thirty-minute flight from Helion’s residence where he held court and trusting his wings to catch the current and carry them the remainder of the way.
The city was set amongst the mountainous elevations on the east coast of the territory, white waterfalls splashing into winding rivers so turquoise they looked like glittering jewels from this height. Grand, bleached, limestone buildings held up by mighty white and gold trimmed columns dotted the mountainside, and the winding stoned streets of the massive city bustled with Day’s occupants.
“I never got to fly in from the north over Helion’s Court. It’s so beautiful,” Elain mused, leaning over his arm as she peered down over their flight path.
“Very beautiful,” Azriel conceded, not taking his eyes off the side of Elain’s face.
Glancing back toward him, Elain noticed his gaze on her and blushed, dipping her eyes demurely to her lap. Seemingly steeling herself, Elain peered into his face again, her bottom lip warrying between her teeth. If he hadn’t been carrying her he would have pulled that lip from her bite with his thumb, feeling the plushness of it, perhaps pressing his own lips to it, tasting her sweet mouth…
“I want to apologise,” Elain started somewhat trepidatiously.
Elain’s unexpected statement knocked him from his torrid fantasies. Did she say she wanted to apologise? To him? Azriel couldn’t think why.
His eyes darted to her open face. “Apologise for what, Elain?”
She blushed; the apples of her cheeks dusted a soft pink he couldn’t help but admire. She bit her lip again and it took every ounce of his strength to tear his eyes away from her lush mouth.
“For the other week. The other morning. When I came back home, and I intruded on your…private time.”
Oh. That. When Elain had winnowed right into his bath, which wouldn’t have been so bad if their entire family hadn’t then come barrelling in one by one, following the sound of chaos only the members of the Court of Dreams could appreciate.
Azriel had never minded his nakedness, not really. After years of training under brutal Illyrian warlords, too many rotations in war camps, and even their yearly tradition of a session in the birchen following the snowball fight with his brothers, there really was no time for bashfulness when it came to his form. Illyrians were trained for combat in any climate, from the freezing temperatures of Winter to the arid heat of Summer.
Their training had included stripping them down to their skin and marching the legions across blisteringly hot desert plains to endure the harsh sun burning their backs. It included shedding them of their combat boots and armour to climatize to the freezing conditions of blizzards and glaciers. Being naked was not a daunting concept to an Illyrian. But for all his fantasies, he had never pictured the first time that Elain would see him naked to be closely followed by her two sisters seeing his bare fucking ass minutes later. Or for Nesta and Feyre to see it ever, for that matter.
He had also prayed to the Mother, or whatever unfortunate deity that was assigned to watch over him, that no one noticed the scent of the jasmine oils he had added to his bath. That no one would make the connection of why he used those particular oils— that particular scent— every morning for months. The only silver lining of Elain winnowing in when she did was that had she appeared even minutes later he was sure she would have seen him in a much more compromising position.
She had been plaguing his thoughts all night as he had tossed and turned, struggling to sleep. In fact, she plagued his thoughts most nights. And try as he might to fight off the allure of her intoxicating appeal, his resolve was thoroughly unravelled come the morning. He was certain that if he had been left alone for a few moments longer— her scent wafting around him deliciously— he would have said to hell with it and succumbed to his basest desires to fist his cock with her image in his mind and her name on his lips.
But sensing Elain’s nervousness in this moment Azriel let loose a small chuckle, his lip quirking up at the corner to ease her concerns. “No harm done, there is no need for an apology.”
“Yes, there is. I… I should not have appeared there unannounced,” she responded somewhat stiffly, clearly needing to air her regrets of the situation.
Azriel smirked, a sly thing that had his eyes lighting up with glee. “So, are you saying that had you first announced yourself, you would have felt better about appearing in my bathtub at that very moment?”
Elain’s face snapped to his, her mouth open in a small O, her lips parted as she floundered for the words to say. She squirmed in his arms. She was flustered. It only made his smirk grow.
“No! I just mean, it was intrusive and an accident. And I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”
Azriel just let his smile stretch further across his face, he wasn’t this open or playful with many people, but Elain seemed to draw it out of him so easily. She was so easy to work up, laugh with. He couldn’t help it.
“You didn’t make me uncomfortable. Although I would have preferred if everyone else hadn’t barged in afterwards,” he muttered.
It was Elain’s turn to grin, a feline smile blooming across her full lips. “But you didn’t mind me barging in? Interesting…” she teased.
“Well, truth be told, it was hard to be cross with you in that moment. You looked like a fawn stumbling, taking its first steps. The way you were rooted there, staring and gaping,” he countered dryly, his lips still quirked up at the corner.
Elain’s face twisted into one of indignation. “I was not gaping!”
“Ah, so you were staring.”
“You’re impossible. I didn’t look at it- at you! I didn’t look at you,” she corrected before groaning and burying her flaming cheeks in her palms.
Azriel laughed as Elain’s hand came up and swatted at his chest in exasperation, her mouth quaking in an effort to suppress the smile he knew she so desperately was trying to not let free.
He silently cursed his armour for suppressing the touch of her hand upon his skin, but he kept up the steady beat of his wings as Helion’s palace drew closer and closer.
~
“Lady Elain, my sweet friend. Welcome back to Persepolis. It seems like only yesterday you were here gracing our halls, entrenching yourself in all its delights,” Helion regaled, a wide grin spread across his handsome face.
“High Lord,” Elain responded with a demure smile, adding a small curtsey as the male in question approached.
“None of that, Lady. As I’ve told you before, Helion. There are no formalities amongst friends.”
“Perhaps so, but this time I visit on official court business, Helion,” Elain responded, indicating with a wave toward him at her back, reminding the High Lord of his presence.
Helion’s amber eyes flashed with mirth as they glanced at him over Elain’s head, seemingly unperturbed by the dark shadow he threw over the scene.
“The feared Shadowsinger is seldom forgotten, dear Elain,” he murmured conspirationally before turning towards him. “How fares my favourite Illyrian warrior?”
Azriel snorted. “Don’t let Cassian hear you say that. His ego may never recover.”
Helion threw his head back and laughed, a deep rough melody ricocheting off the ivory stone pillars of the great hall they were welcomed within.
“He is rather egotistical, isn’t he,” Helion mused.
“He can definitely give you a run for your money.”
Again, Helion’s laugh boomed across the hall, clapping his shoulder in a firm grip.
“You’re lucky my courtiers aren’t around to hear the cruel way you speak to me, Azriel. It may incite their own insolence,” he jested.
Azriel just threw him a crooked smirk, knowing Helion was anything but proper and stuffy. His shadows had also told him the fae that currently scuttered in and out of the great hall were far too busy with their own business to be eavesdropping on theirs, for now.
“You must need some rest, Leto with show you to your rooms,” Helion continued, looking around the great hall for his most trusted aide.
Elain bowed her head graciously before squaring her shoulders and addressing Helion once more.
“Thank you Helion, you are always so courteous toward me. But I do have one request, and it is a matter of urgency. I seek your council at your soonest behest, if you please. It is of utmost importance. Rhysand has sent us to discuss a pressing matter in his steed.”
“Why of course, Lady. Settle into your rooms and I can meet you in an hour, Selene will be up to fetch you both and bring you to my private office.”
Azriel watched her breathe a sigh of relief. Reaching out to grasp Helion’s large golden hand in her own small alabaster one, Azriel couldn’t help but be amazed at her boldness. It wasn’t just anyone that had the nerve to reach out and touch a High Lord.
“Thank you, Helion. Truly,” she implored, clasping his hand in two of hers.
Just then a slightly younger fae came strutting across the great marble hall, his white robes billowing about his muscled legs, the rich olive skin of his chest and arms gleaming as he made a beeline for them. Azriel sensed Elain stiffen beside him, the apples of her cheeks flaming.
“Ah, here he is. Leto, please show our guests to their rooms. Elain, Azriel, Leto will be at your full disposal for the length of your stay,” he gestured as the handsome fae male approached.
Without another word Helion turned and went back to his duties, but not before throwing a knowing grin toward them both.
Elain’s blush deepened as Leto bowed his head. She seemed to have stopped breathing, her eyes glued to his as he bowed, his mouth descending. Reaching for Elain’s hand and bringing it to his mouth, Leto pressed his lips softly to the back of it. The Day Court males’ eyes, in turn, didn’t leave hers. A glint of heady desire glimmered in Leto’s pale green eyes, and Azriel felt as if he was intruding on a deeply intimate moment. He fucking hated it. He was sure his face looked almost murderous, but Leto paid him almost no mind, as if completely entranced by Elain. He couldn’t blame him.
“Lady Elain, it is so lovely to see you again,” Leto purred, rising once more to his full height. Azriel noticed he was a few inches shorter than him, but the male still towered over Elain.
Elain seemed to not know where to look, her wide doe eyes bouncing from himself and back to the Day Court male. Azriel was overcome with the urge to punch Leto in his stupidly handsome face. He was almost certain there was something between them, or there had been. He racked his brain trying to remember how long Elain had spent here on her travels, if Feyre or Nesta had mentioned anything. But he had been stubbornly trying not to pry.
Serves him fucking right. Now this male was here, making Elain blush, wrapping her small palm around his forearm as he led her to their rooms. Azriel could do nothing but trail behind them pathetically, staring daggers into the back of the male’s head, imagining how many ways he could break the arm that dared to touch Elain Archeron.
~
It had been twenty minutes since Leto had showed them to their rooms; separate but side by side and connected by an internal door. The rooms were large, light and lofty. Adorned with a grand canopy bed and plush white sheets, the gauzy curtains fluttered in front of the floor to ceiling windows that opened to a narrow balcony. The rooms were ostentatiously decorated and Azriel expected nothing less of Helion’s palace.
Having removed his Illyrian sword and splashing his face with water in the adjoining bathroom, Azriel heard a knock on the door that connected directly to Elain’s room. Sending a shadow to open it, he dried his face on a fluffy white towel with golden thread and meandered back to his room to meet her.
“I thought we should go over how to address Helion,” Elain begun, striding in, still wearing that devastating sapphire dress, her creamy thigh peeking out with every step she took.
“Sure.”
His answer was clipped but she barely seemed to realise, clearly distracted with the task at hand. Azriel knew he was being pissy, unjustly bothered, but he couldn’t help his sour mood. The insidious thoughts had wormed their way in, and it was proving near impossible to cast them aside.
Taking a seat on the edge of his bed he let his wings drape behind him lazily, his palms resting in the soft covers as he leaned back.
Elain had removed her sandals, pacing barefoot on the intricately designed rug that cushioned the floor before him. She prattled on and on, devising a plan and turning over each point, but despite his efforts to concentrate, Azriel was losing track of the conversation as his mind wandered further and further away from the point of rationality.
What had happened between the two of them? He didn’t need his shadows to discern Leto was interested in Elain, and perhaps she in him. She didn’t often give males her attention. In fact, he had never seen her even blush in front of another male before. Certainly not her mate, nor any other preening high fae that had turned their attentions on her. Before today, he had only ever seen her express any remote interest in…him. Or so he thought.
Jealousy coiled in his gut like a cunning serpent, bidding its time, watching from the shadowy depths until it was ready to strike. But it swelled and swelled, ensuring his mind grew foggy with nothing but the image on those broad olive hands running over Elain’s smooth alabaster skin, lips that weren’t his caressing the delicious flesh of her elegant throat. He glowered at the floor, not realising his shadows had been swirling around him, half-shrouding him in darkness as his incessantly acrimonious thoughts clawed and shredded at his sanity.
“Azriel? What do you think?”
His name uttered from her lips pierced his pitiful little bubble of jealousy, his shadows dispersing quickly as he pinned her with gleaming hazel eyes.
“What happened between you and Leto?” he chocked out, the words tumbling from his lips before any semblance of rational thought could stop them being spoken aloud.
“I beg your pardon?” Elain clearly looked taken aback. Her eyes widening and shoulders straightening at the surprising line of inquiry.
“Leto, why does he look at you like that.”
“Look at me like what?”
“Like you’re his next meal and he can’t wait to devour you,” Azriel spat out.
Elain scoffed. “He does not. We— we’re just friends,” she spluttered.
“Does he know that?”
Azriel knew he was being a bastard. He knew it. But his foul mood had thoroughly taken over his usually calm demeanour. Like a stampede of wild beasts, those relentless images of Elain and Leto could not be stopped.
“What are you getting at? And why do you care?” Elain retorted, growing defensive.
“We are here on Court business Elain—”
“And you are being an ass, Azriel.”
“We are not here to make eyes at pretty fae males.”
“His name is Leto. And at least he never thought of me as a mistake!” she threw back at him, her chest heaving with the weight of her panted breaths.
He startled, not having expected her to react that way. To see the hurt in her eyes. To still think on those abominable words after so many months. They still haunted his thoughts, of course. He cursed his very existence for speaking those words aloud when all he had wanted was to crash his mouth into hers, taste her, touch her, make her feel so fucking good.
But…he had truly thought she had forgotten about him. Moved on. She had travelled for months, never having written to him, barely speaking to him for the months that preceded her departure. He thought she was done. That she had left him behind, and gladly so. He never thought she still harboured any feeling toward him, nor thought anything of that night.
A knocking sounded through the interconnecting door in Elain’s room, drawing their attention.
“That will be Selene. We need to go,” Elain murmured dejectedly, turning in place and stalking back to her room to put her sandals on.
He hated that crestfallen look on her face, hated the slight slump in her shoulders, hated he hadn’t been able to keep his idiotic male ego in check and not be affected by Leto. Elain wasn’t his, she owed him nothing. So why was the thought of her with anyone else so gut wrenchingly painful to even think about? He groaned, cursing himself for not having the control to keep his temper in check.
Raking a scarred hand through his hair, Azriel closed his eyes, exhaling heavily before following Elain and Selene out of their rooms to complete the mission they had come to carry out.
*******
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