The way I could read a whole series about Azriel and his mate after meeting by falling on the ice together omg I loved it
(Photos courtesy of Pinterest)
Summary: The High Lord invited you to dinner after you discover your mate is Azriel, the infamous Shadowsinger. Will it be a disaster, or will it lead to a second date?
Authors Note: This can be read as a standalone, but read part one for further context. The response I had to the first part blew me away! I hope the second part lives up to your expectations. Hopefully you'll find some tooth-rotting fluff and first date shenanigans below!
You took a deep breath.
The house looked just like any other on the street.
You would never have guessed that this particular town house was home to the High Lord and High Lady of the Night Court.
And apparently, your mate now too.
You hesitated at the front gate, nerves churning in your gut.
This was the last chance you had to flee.
You grimaced, replaying your earlier conversation.
-
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"You are absolutely lying."
"Would I lie about something like this?"
Your friend narrowed her eyes at you, assessing.
You waited patiently for several moments.
You jumped when abruptly she slammed her hands down on the table.
"What the fuck!" She screamed.
"I know!"
"No, no, this is insane," she said, half-laughing now. "This is the most ridiculous, romantic, chaotic thing I've ever heard in my life."
"It's not romantic," you groaned. "It was humiliating. I practically tackled him in public. In front of the High Lord."
Your friend just shrieked with laughter.
"He invited me to dinner...Well technically the High Lord did."
Her eyes lit up instantly. "You're going."
"I don't know if I should," you admitted.
"Let me get this straight," she said. "You accidentally meet your mate-who, by the way, is one of the most powerful and mysterious males in Prythian-and your response is to...avoid him?"
"I'm not avoiding him, I just-"
"Just what?"
"I just don't know what to say to him!" You insisted. "What do you even say to someone when that happens? 'Hi, sorry I fell on you, I guess we're bonded forever now?'"
She snorted. "Honestly? Yes."
You groaned.
She leaned forward again, more serious now.
"Listen," she said. "You don't have to have it all figured out tonight. You don't have to decide anything big. You just have to go."
You hesitated.
"You both deserve to see what this is," she added. "Before you run from it."
Dammit, you knew she was right.
-
"I can't believe I'm doing this," you murmured.
You steeled yourself, pushing open the same gate situated at the end of the path. Someone had shovelled the snow away - thank goodness - meaning you made it to the front door in one piece.
You didn't get the opportunity to knock on the door.
It immediately swung open.
And there he was.
Azriel stood in the doorway like he'd been there the entire time, waiting for you.
For a moment, neither of you say anything.
Because seeing him like this - properly, without snow and chaos and limbs everywhere - was different.
It felt like you were seeing him for the first time again.
His hair was slightly tousled, like he'd run a hand through it one too many times. Shadows curled loosely at his shoulders like quiet sentinels. And his gaze settled on you like it with a gentle fierceness that took your breath away.
"Hi," you said, because apparently that was all your brain could manage.
Brilliant. Truly eloquent.
Something in his expression softened.
"Hi," he replied.
His voice was quieter than you remembered. Or maybe everything had just been louder before.
The bond - gods - the bond flared to life now you were within inches of each other. It felt like a steady thread pulling gently between you, encouraging you to remove all distance between you, propriety be damned.
You shift your weight slightly, suddenly very aware that you were just standing there on the doorstep like an idiot.
Azriel remained standing there, almost in a trance. Like he couldn't believe you'd actually shown up.
His gaze flickered briefly over you - not in a way that felt invasive, but like he was taking you in. Confirming you were real, that this was real.
You huffed a small nervous laugh. "So...are you going to invite me in?"
Azriel's lips twitched slightly, a faint blush creeping up his neck that he tried desperately to keep at bay.
Then he stepped back, opening the door wider.
"Come in," he said.
You smiled nervously at him, trying to keep the butterflies at bay as you stepped past him into the warmth of the house.
The shift was immediate.
Soft light. Quiet voices somewhere deeper inside. The faint scent of something warm and comforting drifting through the air.
You hesitated just inside, unsure what to do with yourself.
Behind you, the door clicked shut.
You turned-
And nearly ran into him.
Again.
He'd followed close.
"Sorry," you said quickly, stepping back.
Another pause.
Gods, this was awkward.
You glanced around, then back at him, searching for something - anything - to say that didn't sound completely ridiculous.
"Nice...door," you offered.
You immediately wanted to disappear.
Azriel blinked.
Then, a quiet unexpected huff of laughter escaped him.
And just like that, something eased.
"Strong start," he said, clearly amused and teasing. "I'll be sure to tell Feyre."
You groaned softly, dragging a hand over your face. "I'm sorry, I swear I can normally form actual sentences."
"I believe you."
A beat.
"You don't have to be nervous," he murmured quietly.
"I'm not nervous," you said automatically.
He just looked at you, an eyebrow quirking slightly in disbelief.
His eyes were piercing and the most beautiful shade of hazel you'd ever seen. You could easily get lost in them. They said so much without saying anything.
You exhaled softly.
"...Okay, maybe a little," you admitted. "But it's you who should be nervous, I'm a catch."
"Well that's why I did try to catch you earlier," he said dryly.
You let out a surprised laugh. "More like you fell on me."
"I still caught you."
You bite your lip to keep your grin at bay. "Debatable."
That earned you another quiet huff of laughter - softer this time, easier and lighter.
You felt the air between you loosening by the minute.
You study him for a moment.
This male you barely knew. This male you were somehow tied to in the most permanent way possible.
"...Are you?" You asked quietly.
He tilted his head. "Am I what?"
"Nervous."
A pause.
Then-
"Yes."
The honesty of it caught you off guard.
Another small, quiet moment passed between you.
Less awkward now.
More real.
"Come on," he said after a moment, stepping slightly yo the side, gesturing deeper into the house. "They're waiting."
You made a face immediately.
His mouth twitched faintly.
You hesitate, then add, "I'll try not to tackle anyone to the ground this time."
"I'd appreciate that," he said.
"No promises."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"Good, you should be afraid of me," you retort.
Now it's Azriel's turn to try and keep his grin at bay.
You take a deep breath, steadying yourself, and step forward.
As you pass him, his shadows brush lightly against your arm.
Soft. Curious. Like they were greeting you.
You stilled for half a second, glancing down.
"They like you," he said quietly.
You swallowed.
"...I think I like them too."
That earned you the warmest smile yet.
When you walked further into the house, it didn't feel quite so overwhelming, because he was right there beside you.
Your pulse spikes as you feel the faintest touch to your lower back, guiding you gently through the hallway.
The voices grow louder the further into the house you walked.
You swallowed the nervous lump that formed in your throat, allowing Azriel's presence to comfort you as you reached the dining room.
As first dates went go maybe this won't be so bad after all...
Dinner had been a mistake.
You knew the moment you stepped inside the dining room.
Warm light spilled across polished floors, laughter echoing from somewhere deeper within - and standing there, in the doorway, you had the very distinct feeling of having walked straight into something far bigger than yourself.
"Ah," drawled Cassian, appearing like he'd been waiting for this exact moment, eyes gleaming with mischief. "There she is."
You froze.
Azriel remained at your side.
Not touching anymore, but close enough that you could feel him.
"They're not as bad as they seem," he murmurs quietly.
From across the room, Rhysand barked a laugh. "Don't lie to her on her first night, Az."
You swallowed.
"Welcome," a beautiful fae woman who you knew instantly as Feyre Cursebreaker, your High Lady approached with a warm smile.
You instinctively bowed your head, dropping your knee slightly in a sign of respect.
This instantly earned a bark of laugher from Cassian. "She clearly knows who's really in charge of the Night Court already."
Rhys glowers at Cassian before delivering a swift slap up the back of the head.
Great.
This was going so well already.
"Please, none of that," Feyre smiled warmly. "Make yourself at home."
You're introduced to Feyre, Mor, Amren and reacquainted with Cassian and Rhysand. Feyre's sisters, Nesta and Elain, were unable to join, but Feyre assured you they were looking forward to meeting you.
Azriel's family.
They were all incredibly welcoming, but you still had to resist the urge to turn around and walk straight back out from all the attention.
You didn't even make it to the table before it started.
"So," Cassian said, leaning back in his chair, arms crossed like he was settling in for a show, "Do you usually just go around launching yourself at people in the street, or-"
"...Only the handsome ones."
A beat.
Then Mor barked a laugh. "Oh, I like her."
Heat crept up your neck.
"I'll have you know that people consider me the most handsome out of the three of us," Cassian argued.
"Hello, most handsome High Lord in all of Pythian sitting right here," Rhys piped up.
"They only say that so you don't mist them."
"Ignore them," Azriel mumbles under his breath, as he pulls your chair out for you.
You glance at him.
"Thank you," you said softly.
His fingers brush your shoulder - just barely - before he steps back.
You sit, trying very hard to ignore the fact that he took the seat beside you. His body angled towards you as he wordlessly fills your glass up from a decanter.
Dinner is eventually served.
The conversation resumes around you - not directed at you, not entirely - but circling close enough that you were part of it whether you meant to be or not.
You caught pieces.
"...never seen him move that fast-"
"...should've seen their faces-"
Heat crept up your neck again.
You didn't look at Azriel, but you felt the shift.
The faint tension and exasperation in him.
"Careful," someone - Rhys, you thought - added, voice laced with amusement. "She might take you down if you keep talking."
"I'd like to see her try," Cassian teased, shooting you a wink across the table.
A soft ripple of laughter followed, but you immediately felt the clench in your stomach of a swarm of emotions that weren't your own.
Possessiveness. Jealousy. Annoyance.
You exhaled slowly, forcing yourself to lift your head.
"I don't know," you muse. "You seem like you'd be easy to trip. Bit too much ego, not enough balance."
Cassian's jaw dropped, a hint of a smile despite the jab.
Mor spit out her drink.
Rhys and Feyre burst out laughing.
Azriel sat smugly, looking at you like you'd just handed him the best early Solstice gift.
You could feel an echo of pride travelling down the bond.
"I think you'll fit right in," Amren remarked.
The teasing didn't stop there.
It ebbed and flowed around you - more at Azriel's expense than yours, though you got it by proximity alone.
It should have felt suffocating considering you had just met these people.
It didn't, that was the strange part.
The bond in your chest was a constant low hum beneath everything, offering comfort and a steady presence that you could feel. It was completely foreign to you, but now that it was there you couldn't believe you had ever lived without it.
Still, it was a lot.
Too many voices. Too many eyes.
Too many questions. Too many expectations wrapped up in something that had happened completely out of your control.
You had only met Azriel earlier that day and you had yet to fully process the sudden change in your life.
You tried to keep up, but it was steadily becoming more overwhelming.
You answered when spoken to. Smiled when it felt right. Even managed a few quiet remarks that earned soft laughter.
But it was like treading water, and eventually your arms started to tire.
You set your glass down carefully, finally drained of wine after Mor kept trying to fill it up.
"I think," you said, keeping your voice steady, "I might head off."
The room quieted slightly.
Feyre's expression softened immediately, understanding in her gaze. "Of course."
"No, stay," Cassian said, frowning slightly. "We're just getting started-"
"Cassian," Azriel cuts in, shooting him a glare.
He paused, clearly a silent conversation between the two males before he perked up, "Maybe next time then, eh sweetheart?"
You tried to ignore the low growl that appeared to come from next to you at the term of endearment.
You offered a small, apologetic smile. "I have an early start tomorrow."
That was close enough to the truth.
No one pushed, for which you were grateful.
You stood, soothing your hands down your dress slightly. "Thank you for dinner."
"You're welcome anytime," Feyre said warmly.
"I'll let you know if I need anyone else taken down," Rhys added, shooting you a cheeky grin.
You groaned softly. "I'm never escaping that, am I?"
"Nope," Cassian said immediately.
You shook your head, smiling despite yourself.
"I'll walk you home."
You shouldn't have been surprised when Azriel got to his feet alongside you.
"You don't have to," you said softly.
"I know," he said, shooting you a small smile. "I want to."
The city was quieter at this time of night.
Cool air. Soft lights reflecting off the Sidra. Couples and groups of friends meandering back and forth through the streets enjoying the evening.
You walked a little slower now, your mind more at ease away from the curiosity of Azriel's family.
You didn't want this part to end as Azriel fell into step beside you. He was a head taller than you, his presence a welcoming darkness against the stark white of the surrounding snow.
You had never felt so safe.
Silence settled between you as you walked. Not awkward. Just quiet, but not the kind that needed filling.
"I'm sorry," he said after a moment.
You glanced at him. "For what?"
"Them."
You huffed a small laugh. "They weren't that bad."
"Yes they were."
"Okay, they were a little intense," you admitted.
His mouth twitched faintly.
"They mean well," he said. "They like you."
You blinked. "Already?"
"Yes."
A warmth spreads in your chest at the thought you had made a good enough impression.
"I liked them too," you added.
It was true.
Despite feeling overwhelmed, the warm and familial embrace you'd been welcomed into by each and every one of them made you almost want to cry.
"You're very lucky."
Azriel looked to you as he replied, "I am."
You got the distinct impression he wasn't only talking about his family.
For a moment, neither of you say anything.
"Oh," you blink, coming to a sudden stop. "This is where I was coming to...earlier today."
You blush as you think back to what had transpired only a few hours earlier.
Azriel stops alongside you and looks at the small cafe you had stopped in front of. It was painted a pretty pastel colour, flower baskets hanging from the sign and delicious looking cakes and pastries in the front case.
The wind shifts slightly, brushing your hair back.
Without thinking, Azriel reaches out—
Then pauses, like he’s remembering himself.
You notice.
So you tilt your head just slightly toward him - an invitation.
His hand lifts again, gentler this time. He tucks a loose strand behind your ear, his fingers barely brushing your skin.
It’s such a small touch, but it lingers just a second longer than necessary.
Your breath catches—just a little.
Azriel clears his throat softly and lets his hand fall.
“…Sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
You share a bashful smile before continuing on your journey.
You reach your door sooner than either of you would like.
Of course you do.
You turn to face him, leaning lightly against the frame.
“Well,” you say, a little too casually. “I survived my first dinner with the Inner Circle.”
“You did,” he agrees.
“Would you say that earns me a second date?”
There’s a flicker of surprise in his eyes followed by something warmer “Are you asking me?” he says.
“Maybe.”
A pause.
“I’d like that.”
You beam at him and Azriel thinks his heart may have stopped.
"Good, as I think we may be stuck together for eternity now, so you have no choice."
Azriel huffs a laugh, something deeper flickering in his gaze before saying, "...That doesn't sound like a bad thing."
Another pause. This one is heavier.
Neither of you quite sure what the next step is.
You glance at the door, then back at him.
“Thank you,” you say softly. “For tonight.”
“For them?” he asks.
“For all of it.”
His gaze lingers on you.
You both linger, still not quite moving. Still not quite ready to say goodnight.
So you tilt your head, a hint of mischief returning.
“Are you going to stand there all night, Shadowsinger?”
Azriel raises a brow.
“I could.”
“Tempting,” you admit. “But I do supposedly have that early morning.”
He huffs softly. “Of course you do.”
You smile.
And this time, you step forward first, closing the distance between you and—
You press a soft, quick kiss to his cheek.
Warm. Light. Intentional.
Azriel's freezes, his eyes can't help but flutter closed as the scent of you washes over him at your close proximity.
You pull back just enough to see it — the surprise, the way his breath catches ever so slightly.
You smile, pleased with yourself.
“Goodnight, Azriel.”
“…Goodnight,” he manages.
You turn towards your door, opening it, before pausing and glancing back over your shoulder.
A teasing glint returns to your eyes.
"Try not to fall on the way home."
And then you slip inside before he can respond, the door clicking softly shut behind you.
On the other side—
Azriel stands there. Still frozen. Still staring at the door.
His fingers lift slightly, brushing absently against the place on his cheek where you kissed him.
There's a long, quiet pause. Then, under his breath—
Maybe Azriel but with jealous reader now? With promt 21 “You’re not seriously jealous.” Maybe he doesn’t even realize for a while what’s going on, why reader seems angry/distant cause usually it is him being jealous/overprotective?
(Photos courtesy of Pinterest)
Summary: "You're not seriously jealous."
Authors Note: I hope I did this justice!
It started so subtly that you truly didn't realise when you first started feeling like this.
It wasn't the first time you'd seen them together. Elain had always been kind to Azriel, drawn to his quiet strength and his understanding of darkness that most people couldn't even comprehend due to his experiences in life.
She'd leave an extra cup of tea on the table if he'd been gone on a long mission. Ask after his injuries. Press flowers she'd grown into his hands because they reminded her of him.
Normally, it didn't bother you.
You and Azriel had been together for centuries. Your relationship had survived wars, kingdoms, and enough near-death experiences to last several lifetimes.
You trusted him completely. Which was precisely why this feeling was so irritating.
One afternoon, you found Elain in the garden, quietly braiding tiny wildflowers into the leather wrapping around Truth-Teller's sheath while Azriel sat beside her sharpening the blade.
"It looked a little plain," she said shyly to your inquisitive look.
Azriel looked down at it. A tiny smile tugged at his mouth. "It did."
You smiled too. It was thoughtful and sweet, so you thought nothing more of it.
A few days later, you wandered into the library looking for Azriel.
Instead, you found the pair of them bent over one of Elain's gardening books. She was pointing at a page covered in sketches of herbs.
"This one grows in the mountains."
"It eases pain?"
"So they say."
Azriel nodded thoughtfully. You cleared your throat. Both of them looked up. His entire face brightened the moment he saw you. He was beside you within seconds, kissing your forehead as naturally as breathing.
"Everything alright?"
You smiled. "Just looking for you."
Then came the headaches.
The first time, you'd found Azriel rubbing tiredly at his temples after returning from a mission. You'd quietly pulled him onto the sofa.
"No paperwork tonight."
"I have reports."
"No."
"I have—"
"No."
You'd massaged the knots from his neck until he'd eventually fallen asleep against your shoulder.
The second time, you'd practically dragged him to bed. The third, you'd threatened to tell Rhys if he didn't rest. Azriel jokingly called you a tyrant which you took as a compliment.
Apparently, Elain had noticed too.
You walked into the sitting room on Solstice evening, after you'd disappeared into the kitchen to fetch wine with Mor, to find her handing Azriel a small ceramic pot.
"I made this," she said softly. "Peppermint, lavender... and a few other herbs. It's supposed to help."
Azriel unscrewed the lid. The faint scent drifted through the room. His eyebrows lifted.
"It smells... nice."
Elain smiled. "I hoped it might help."
"Thank you."
Something unpleasant twisted in your stomach. Not because of Elain, she was simply being thoughtful and anything that aided in the care and comfort of your mate you would never argue against.
It was the fact she'd noticed. The fact she'd done something more than encourage him to sleep. She'd gone out of her way to try and fix the problem.
You decided not to retake your seat by his side, not wishing to intrude on the moment, instead you let Mor drag you closer to the fire.
You unconsciously distanced yourself from Azriel for the rest of the evening, allowing your thoughts and insecurities to distract you from meeting his eye from across the room or responding when one of his shadows discreetly nudged you.
By bedtime, you'd convinced yourself you were being ridiculous, but you still couldn't ignore the unsettled feeling in your stomach, which somehow only made you feel worse.
You were halfway through brushing your hair, perched in front of your vanity when Azriel appeared in the doorway.
"You've been avoiding me tonight."
"I haven't."
He didn't look convinced. "Mhm."
He wandered over, coming to a stop behind you, letting his hands rest lightly on your shoulders as he looked at you through the mirror.
"What happened?"
You avoided his eyes, staring stubbornly at your hairbrush instead.
"Nothing."
Silence.
Then—
"It was Elain, wasn't it?"
Damn his perceptiveness.
You groaned. "It sounds so stupid."
His eyebrows rose, but he didn't say anything, instead letting you work your feelings out.
"I know she's just helping."
He nods.
"And I know you've had headaches."
Another nod.
"I just..." You sighed. "I hated that someone else was taking care of you better than I was."
Azriel stared.
Then, completely unexpectedly—
He smiled at you. A proper smile. Warm. Fond. Almost amused.
You frowned. "What?"
He stepped closer, pressing his chest up against your back.
"...You're not seriously jealous?"
Your cheeks heated instantly. "No."
"You are."
"I'm not."
"You absolutely are."
You covered your face with your hands. "This is humiliating."
A quiet laugh escaped him. He moved around to face you better, kneeling before you as he gently pulled your hands away.
"I haven't seen you jealous in centuries."
"I wasn't jealous," you scoffed, trying to pry your hands away.
Azriel held firm, the smile still on his face. "I think the last time, you threatened to hex a diplomat for complimenting my wings."
"He was flirting."
"No he wasn't."
"He could have been with those sexy eyes he was making at you."
Azriel laughed again, shaking his head.
You narrow your eyes at him before muttering, "Besides, you're usually the jealous one."
Azriel looked positively offended.
"Am not."
You gave him a flat look.
"Azriel, you once spent an entire evening attached to my hip because Eris smiled at me twice."
"He smiled three times."
"You counted?"
"...Maybe."
You couldn't help but laugh. Azriel couldn't hide his happiness at hearing the sound, even if it was at his expense.
"I missed this."
You blinked. "You... missed it?"
"Mhm." He slipped an arm around your waist, drawing you against him. "I know you trust me."
"I do."
"Just as I trust you."
"I know."
"And I know you know I love you." His forehead rested against yours. "But every now and then..."
His thumb traced a slow circle against your hip.
"...it's nice to know you still want me all to yourself."
You huffed, trying very hard not to smile. "I always want you all to myself."
Azriel's grin only widened, before he leans down to kiss your forehead.
"For the record, the cream will be Plan B."
You looked up. "Plan B?"
He shook his head. "Plan A is my favourite remedy."
"And what's that?"
"You." His smile turned soft. "A stubborn mate who bullies me into bed and rubs my temples until I fall asleep."
You rolled your eyes. "That's a very specific medical treatment."
"It's been remarkably effective for three hundred years."
You couldn't help laughing. Then you reached up, cupping his face.
"So... no more accepting headache remedies from pretty gardeners."
Azriel's eyes danced with amusement.
"See?"
"What?"
"You are possessive."
You kissed him before he could tease you any further.
And you felt his smile against your lips the entire time.
Summary: you overhear your mate talking to the inner circle about someone being clingy and annoying, and you decide to remove yourself from the court and your mate to avoid further humiliation.
based on this request
Warnings: language, insecurity, eavesdropping, feeling unworthy, court of nightmares, there's a stalker, some random OC, angst, miscommunication, fluff
"Azriel," You sing his name as you walk into your secluded home. A decently sized cottage to fit your tall, broad, wide-winged mate, that you designed and built together, just outside the city of Velaris. "Look at what I brought you."
You walk into the sitting room where you and Azriel enjoy each other's company in peace, however rare the occurrence. He appears troubled in his sleep as you've found him lying on his back with his wings spread open and a hand draped over his eyes. He removes his arm from his face and blinks your way, feeling your presence as you enter the room.
"What do you have there?" His melodic voice makes your stomach flutter in a frenzy as it always does and you hope the bond doesn't translate too much to him, or his shadows, the gossipers that they are.
With a bright grin, you bring the box from behind your back and show him a white box with clear plastic for the perfect view of the treats inside. "Cupcakes," You reply cheerfully, awaiting a grateful response. "Went by the river today and Hilaria was working at the shop you like, did you know she found a job? how great for her!"
Azriel grumbles slightly and your smile falters but you don't let it show, opening the box you move to the couch and sit beside him with the room he gave you tucking in his wings.
"You got my favorite," Az murmurs, carefully taking out the beautifully decorated dessert. You take the statement as a note of appreciation for how well you know him, that much was obvious as you've known each other since birth practically, and in love with each other for half of that time.
He bent his neck down to kiss your cheek and muttering a thank you.
"Don't get too excited now, I heard from Rhys about where you're next assignment is gonna be and I expect a little something when you get back," You tease.
Azriel exhales through his nose and it sounds like a small laugh, "I'll be sure to return the favor if all goes well, love."
"What's wrong?" You ask, the energy in the room has been off since the moment you arrived and you couldn't deny it frightened you a little.
You and Azriel have been going through a rough patch, it happens as often as he overloads himself with work but you have always managed to work through it, it's never too serious mostly the both of you missing each other.
Whenever Azriel was working, you were home, and whenever you were working- he was home. You've spoken to Rhysand about your and Azriel's assignments but it wasn't about when he wanted you both to work, it was simply what needed to be done when it needed to be done.
Both of you being spymasters of the night court, it wasn't ideal to send you both on the same mission unless needed. Most of the time, either one of you or both of you were needed in separate places.
On the days, weeks- if you were lucky- months, that you had 'easy' assignments or days off, you spent it together. You and Azriel would spend time in bed or with your family, going on outings, and trying new things to add to the excitement of life. You loved to be together, your relationship being very sacred to both of you.
"Just tired," Azriel shrugs. You know him better though, something was bothering him that he didn't want to tell you.
You felt his frustration through the bond, you wanted to help him but knowing Az he'd tell you when he was ready.
~~~
"-the fucking shop, I mean honestly how close is she trying to get?"
You didn't mean to eavesdrop. Originally you were coming by to talk to Rhys and Feyre about some of the rumors going around the court of nightmares, nothing too concerning but something that needed to be checked on the next visit. When you heard the muffled voices in the townhouse sitting room.
"Perhaps if you spent less time with her?" Mor suggested.
You couldn't think of anyone else Azriel might be spending time with if not for you. Did Azriel want to spend less time with you?
Your brain immediately jumps to conclusions, Azriel has been in his thoughts as of late, and he hasn't told you what's been bothering him. You thought it had something to do with the distance, perhaps a lack of communication. It was putting a strain on your relationship but you didn't think even more distance was the answer.
Azriel shakes his head insistently, "I don't spend time with her, ever. She finds me somehow, it's maddening and I can't tell Y/n to stay away while I figure out how to solve this, she's always just there."
It was like a dagger in your heart. If you were always there it was because you felt like you never spent time together, how were you supposed to have a relationship if you were never together?
You thought for sure, Azriel felt the same.
"She is a bit clingy," Cassian nods. You felt another pang in your chest, Cassian who was your partner in crime, Mor who was your favorite person to talk to about anything, and your mate had all agreed that you were too much.
"A bit is a bit of an understatement," You heard Feyre chuckle.
You almost couldn't believe what you were hearing, your fault for listening to a conversation you weren't privy to you suppose but you would've never guessed your family felt you smothered them.
Perhaps you were too clingy, you were over at their house every other day. You felt like you were dividing your time between the people you loved, maybe they didn't want you there, and you were an imposition on their daily schedule. You felt embarrassed and humiliated that they were in a meeting to discuss what to do with you.
"I can talk to her if need be, brother," Rhysand gives Azriel a reassuring nod.
Azriel shook his head, "No, no need. I will speak with her, it's my relationship, my responsibility."
Cassian snorted loudly, "Your need to fix things yourself is admirable brother, truly. Let us pray that this will not dig you a deeper grave."
You didn't hear the rest, didn't need to.
Silently, you slipped out the doors of the townhouse. You didn't want to lose your friends so if they wanted space- you'd give them space.
~~~
You disappeared for the rest of the day, and the next. You left a note to Azriel so he wouldn't worry- not that he wouldn't appreciate your shared home now all to himself. You still had your apartment in the city that you rented out when you moved in with Azriel.
There were currently no tenants as there were renovations to be done.
You avoided your room at the townhouse knowing you weren't as welcome as you thought. You didn't show up to training with Cassian and Azriel that morning. Instead, you met informants and did some investigating yourself.
You sent a letter to Rhysand with details on the Hewn City problem, told him that he should look into it as soon as possible, and asked if he wanted you to get a handle on it instead.
He replied with a note giving you thanks and telling you that he'd deal it himself but would call on you with the rest of the inner circle when the visit would happen.
Days passed by until it had officially been a week of no contact. Azriel had sent you letter after letter requesting to see you. You denied them all with sweet words to show that there was nothing wrong, that you didn't overhear what they said about you.
Where'd you go - A
Miss you -A
Come back, our home feels empty without you - Azriel
Are you alright? - Desperately need to see you, Az
Several letters with pleading undertones, each one more than the last.
Then letters from Cassian about training, you reassured him that you were following the usual routine. Mor had invited you to Ritas one night and lunch another day- you declined both with excuses of having too much work to focus on anything else. You didn't realize how much they felt it was an obligation to do things with you.
Eventually, the time came, and Rhysand called on you for the visit to the court of nightmares. You were anxious at the thought of seeing them again, maybe as time passed they would feel better with you around now that you gave them space.
~~~
You dressed appropriately for the setting, your leathers, and weapons strapped to your body. The scowl was natural as you hated being here, glares sent to everyone who looked your way, intimidation being the only way to survive this gods-forsaken place.
Bowing in front of Rhysand to fit the narrative, Feyre sent you a curious as you bowed to her, you felt her stroking the inner walls of your mind- a request to enter. You shut her out with strong mental walls, standing once she allowed you, and took your place next to Azriel, slightly behind him and Cassian.
Azriel's eyes followed you, he tried to brush a finger against your hand as you passed him but you clasped your hands behind your back. Through the bond, you felt a sting in your chest. You spared a glance at your mate, you missed him so much your body craved to be near him but you resisted.
It went as well as it usually did, a dramatically villainous speech from Rhys, with some added threats to those opposed to his reign. The High Fae in attendance got drunk on Faerie wine and danced with the whole night ahead of them.
Azriel attempted to talk to you over his shoulder, "Are you upset with me?" He muttered to you with a crease on his forehead.
You shook your head, "No, why would I be?"
"Where've you been?"
With the few looks you've gotten of his face he looked stressed, circles under his eyes, his hands were clenched and you could tell that it was to keep him from fidgeting.
"Now is not the time," You told him, straightening when you saw a reveler get too close to the High Lady.
"We're done here anyway," Rhysand's voice echoed in your mind. You didn't doubt Azriel heard him as well. You took your leave, Azriel right behind you, he caught up so quickly he held your wrist you didn't notice until you felt the world shift and you realized he traveled you both to your cottage home with his shadows.
Azriel had stood in the same spot he landed while you backed away from him a couple of steps.
"You've been avoiding me," A statement. It was heavy with questions, with want of information you didn't want to divulge.
You asked one of your own, "Have you watered the plants?"
"Have I watered the plants?" He scoffed out the last word. "I've barely been able to function without you, Y/n."
You flinched although he didn't yell but the tone in which he spoke felt like he was scolding you.
He continued, "Yes, I watered the plants."
A weak smile was pulled out of you, he probably loved those plants as much as you. You weren't as much a gardener as Elain but you managed a small garden of your own, they were like yours and Azriel's children, something you both grew together. A garden of both of your favorite flowers and fruits and vegetables.
"Seems like you've been functioning just fine," You responded in a smart tone, it just slipped out.
"Tell me what I did, please, it's driving me mad." He stepped in your direction, shadows reaching to touch you, and you saw Azriel forcefully reigning them in like he wanted to reach for you too.
You softened at the sight, "It's not something you did, Az."
"Something I said, then?" He didn't refrain from fidgeting now, in the comfort of the home, he fidgeted with his fingers. "Something I didn't say, I know I didn't want to talk about what was happening before, but I'll tell you whatever you want me to if you promise not to leave again."
You just about melted, you felt yourself wanting to sway at his beseeching. "What was happening before?" You questioned in barely a whisper.
"Hilaria happened. She- Nothing happened- I swear to you, she grew attached. She grew attached to me," He grimaced as he said it. "She was everywhere I happened to be, it wasn't normal, I've warned her off so many times I was glad you didn't notice. I didn't want you to be uncomfortable with her. The moment she got a job at the sweet shop, she got too close, you went there and I knew it wasn't a coincidence."
Azriel had a fucking stalker and you didn't know about it. That was what he was so stressed about. Hilaria- an Illyrian female who had a shitty life, Azriel had given her refuge, because she had no family left to care for her, and a female alone in that camp was no place to be.
You helped Azriel find her a living space, and gave her safety for her to heal from the traumas, she must've mistook that for something else entirely. You couldn't help but to feel bad for her.
"I went to Rhys, he and the others offered their advice and I tried to talk to her about her behavior. She didn't take it well, so we sent her to Dawn court with the assurance that they would do all they could to help her."
"You talked to the others about this?" It all made more sense now.
He nodded.
"Did Cassian say she was clingy?" You needed to be sure you were getting all the details now.
His brows furrowed, "How did you?"
"Because I was there when you were talking, but I didn't know you were talking about Hilaria." You sat on the couch slowly, forearms on your knees, hands clasped.
You laughed incredulously, slapping your hands to cover your face and running your hands into your hair. "I thought you were all talking about me."
"What?" Azriel's eyes were on you, deciphering your words when he pieced them together. "Why would we ever?"
"You weren't telling me anything about what was going on, I thought I was prying too much, I do spend a good bit of time with everyone, it wouldn't be too far off."
A smile tugged on his lips, one he was trying not to show. He was trying not to make you feel foolish but it was too late. "I love you, but this was not your wisest moment."
You grabbed a pillow from the couch and threw it at him with little force, "Az!"
"You had everyone concerned, they thought they had offended you in some way."
"Of course not!" You shook your head in disbelief, at how easily your insecurity took over.
"Now my family has some attachment issues, you couldn't get rid of them if you tried, you would probably want space from them yourself."
You rolled your eyes knowing them all too well, centuries with them and you still felt undeserving.
Azriel kneeled in front of you taking your hands in his and settling them on your lap then caressed your face in his hands. "I could never not want you near me, you're everything to me, understand?" His hands gave your head a gentle shake in emphasis.
"I don't think you understand where my mind was at the moment," You avoided his gaze. You didn't want him to know, the feeling of not being worthy enough for him, how you compared yourself to everything in his past and it didn't seem plausible for him to accept you. When he did accept the bond, it was the greatest moment you ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
Azriel was the love of your life, with and without a bond. It was hard for you to accept that he loved you without it if it wasn't for the fact that you trusted him to tell you the truth. He came to you and confessed his love and then the bond happened. You would have continued to pretend you weren't in love with him, otherwise.
"Do you not understand," Azriel sighed, "Do you not understand my love for you, at all?"
"It was easier to believe that you needed space from me," You confessed, shutting your eyes tight. Warm lips landed on yours, you were startled for a second before reciprocating the kiss.
He kissed you breathlessly, a minute, two or three- you didn't know how much time passed. Your blood pulsed in your ears, or was it his? it was rapid and created an electric current in your veins.
"I want to drown in your love, to be asphyxiated by it until all I know is you, in this life and after. I could never get enough of you." He whispered the promise on your lips with his eyes closed. You nudged your nose against his to open his eyes.
The warmth of his hazel eyes graced you and you murmur his name, he nudges your nose in response. "I love you."
Hours into the late night, after Azriel insisted on a bath together, you had a late-night snack nuzzled on the couch catching up on the lost time. You whispered sweet nothings to each other in bed with limbs entangled, and long-lasting kisses.
I have literally never read any source material for ACOTAR, I’ve only ever read fanfictions, but I’m obsessed with the soulmate au concept that seems to be a real device in the series. And I’ve got no idea if it’s fannon or cannon but I’ve read a few fics where accepting homemade food from your mate means you accept the bond. (Edit: I’ve been informed it is cannon) And I read fics where Azriel does everything to avoid eating something that Reader makes because he doesn’t want them to accept accidentally without knowing. So it gave me a funny idea where the bond snapped for him but not the reader yet and he’s been doing well to avoid that problem because Reader doesn’t really cook, but then he accidentally eats something Reader made. Like does intent matter if he didn’t know it was made by them? And if Reader doesn’t know about the bond yet? And how he’d react after realizing??
Forgive me if I’m writing the characters wrong but I’m laughing at how it might go down. I wrote this half-assed, it’s mostly crack, some hurt/comfort.
————
You and Elaine are in the kitchen, sharing warm drinks and conversation, a plate of freshly baked cookies rests between you on the counter.
“They came out wonderful, Y/N” Elaine said, eyes bright.
You appreciated her encouragement, but you gripped your mug a little tighter as you fretted. “You don’t think they’re too sweet? Or maybe not sweet enough?”
She shook her head. “They’re perfect. He’s going to love them!”
Elaine knew of your feelings for a particular male and was only too happy to be your confidant. You finally gathered up the courage to tell him, but you wanted to give a gift- a small courting gift if you will. You were worried it might be too childish, not enough, but she squealed in delight when you asked her to teach you how to bake.
“Something homemade with love is the best way to reach a heart,” she reassured, calming your worries.
You both turned upon hearing Cassian’s rowdy laughter and the thuds of a couple sets of feet.
“Something smells good!”
Cassian and Azriel, presumably coming back from training, walked into the kitchen and greeted you both. Cassian had followed his nose and beelined towards the plate on the counter. Azriel trailed behind him, giving Elaine a smile and small hello before shifting his eyes towards you. He nodded in greeting, avoiding eye contact and shifted awkwardly on his feet, much out of character for the usually unperturbed spymaster.
You wanted to frown at the warmer way he greeted Elaine, but the fact of the matter was Azriel had seemed uncomfortable around you lately. Well maybe “uncomfortable” was the wrong word. He didn’t really avoid you, and he spent time with you like always. He sought you out and read with you in the library, and he accompanied you for walks through the market. He held a seat for you at Rita’s and then made sure to shield you from the excitement when all the dancing and bodies and music just got to be a bit too overwhelming- something you’d try to hide but he’d just know somehow. Even with all this and your friendship remaining as it’s always been, there was just something in how he’s been acting that made you think you’d done something to bother him. He was more reserved in his expressions and he chose his words carefully like he was afraid to give too much of himself away. Like now with how it looked like he was making every effort not to make eye contact. You’d noticed the change almost immediately, how he was, not avoidant, just distant. And while you were being honest with yourself, distance was the last thing you wanted when it came to him.
“Great timing! They’re fresh. Would you two like some?” Elaine asked, shooting you a wink. You hid your grin behind your mug.
Both men grabbed a cookie. Cassian groaned like he was eating ambrosia. Azriel hummed in thoughtfulness but it looked like he was also enjoying the treat.
“What do you boys think?” You asked, pleased with their reactions.
“Best thing I’ve eaten all week,” Cassian praised. “Elaine, you make the best cookies.”
“Actually,” Elaine said, “Y/N made them.”
Cassian raised his cookie in a toast to you.
Eliane’s eyes glinted as she watched for the other man’s reaction. However, neither of you expected Azriel to choke and essentially do a spit-take, bits of cookie raining all over Cassian.
Elaine let out a sound of surprise, and Cassian, naturally, shrieked in disgust.
Your heart plummeted.
“Um, wow, okay. So, not good?” You tried to laugh it off and handed Cassian a napkin to wipe off the side of his face.
Azriel was sputtering out a response, wide eyes darting between you and Elaine.
“I- I thought Elaine made them.”
His excuse confused everyone, but you felt like he took a knife to your chest. So it was because they were yours?
You’d been pining over Azriel for so long and finally decided you would take a chance. Here you were hoping they’d be a suitable gift, something that would convey your feelings while you asked him on a date. At Elaine’s approval of how the treats came out, you were ecstatic. But seeing their intended spew them all over the general upon hearing who made them dashed any hopes of that request being fulfilled.
You felt humiliated.
“Ah, I guess I’ll have to practice a bit more.” You gave a weak smile, hoping your expression held the good humor you definitely did not feel. You mumbled an excuse and slinked off to your room.
——
Knock. Knock.
You reluctantly opened your door and found a nervous looking Azriel.
“I need to apologize to you. And explain.”
You didn’t even think he could get nervous, but here was, jaw tight, standing stiffly with his shadows flittering about his shoulders.
“Okay.” You leaned against the doorframe.
“I’m sorry. I’m sure you worked really hard making those cookies. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
You nodded to acknowledge his apology
“It’s fine. It was just something new I wanted to try. I knew I wouldn’t be too good, so I asked Elaine to show me.”
Azriel seemed to deflate even more at that.
“They were good.”
“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better. If they weren’t too your taste-”
“I did like them.”
You were tired of beating around the bush. “Why’d you spit them out when you heard I made them, then?”
Azriel opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It seemed, now given the chance to explain, the words failed to come to him. He shut his mouth and looked around like what he wanted to say would be floating just within reach.
You sighed softly. Whether the cookies tasted bad to him or it was you that was the problem didn’t matter anymore. You felt completely dejected from your attempt to impress him. You just wanted to go back inside your room and wallow. Azriel rushed to speak upon seeing you push yourself off the frame to do just that.
“I only was eating them because I thought Elaine made them,” he frantically said, immediately wincing at how churlish he sounded.
You loved your friend deeply, and even you have admired and praised Elaine. She’s an amazing person, and you’re proud to be her sister and friend. You knew it was hard to hold a candle to her, but his words hurt nonetheless.
“So you- for Elaine-” you cast your eyes down.
“No! No,” Azriel waved his hands, denying the line of thought he was interested in the other middle Archeron sister. “I only meant I wouldn’t have eaten it if I’d known you’d made it.”
You sunk deeper in your embarrassment. Ah. Well that question’s answered.
“You said that already,” you snapped. “I’m not sure how many ways you can say it, Azriel. You would’ve eaten the damn cookie if it was anyone else who made it.”
“Yes, exactly!” Azriel snapped his fingers, excited you understood. Azriel’s look of relief lasted only three seconds before panic overtook at you stepping back and slamming the door.
It was obvious to you he was looking for a way to apologize and let you down gently at the same time. He was a stupid male, you surmised. Terrible with words, but you got the message. Tears sprung to your eyes. Stupid male, you repeated in your head.
——
That could not have gone worse, Azriel decided on the walk back to the kitchen. He pressed his palms to his eyes. So stupid, he chastised himself recalling the watery look of your eyes before you slammed the door in his face.
Rightly so, he thought. Anyone but her? Such an idiot.
As if there could be anyone else. You were his mate. Not that you knew as the bond hadn’t snapped for you yet, but Azriel had felt that tug in his chest and immediately knew what it was. You’d leaned in close to show him something at one of the evening markets, he caught a whiff of your perfume and a warmth filled his chest. You had looked at him waiting for a response to what you’d just said but he could only stare at you in astonishment. You had shrugged it off then, only taking his hand to lead him to the next stall. From then on, Azriel started behaving differently around you, shy, awkward, and he could tell you caught on without knowing why. He’d been torn between waiting for it to snap for you and just outright telling you. He’d adored spending time with you, even from before he knew you were mates and hoped you’d feel the bond snap for you too one of these days. Every time he thought he was ready to tell you, he would get scared for your reaction and ultimately back out of confessing. All of that back and forth was for naught; he’d made a real mess of things now by waiting.
Azriel ran his hand through his hair in frustration as he reentered the kitchen. “She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you,” Elaine said, coming from behind him and setting a fresh mug of tea down. “She likes you enough to learn how to make you cookies.”
“She made them for me?” Azriel felt even worse at causing you distress. Your first attempt at baking, and he literally chewed up your feelings and spit them out.
“She’ll come around, Az.” Cassian interjected, holding a plate covered in crumbs.
“You ate the rest?” Azriel asked in disbelief and anger. Those were his mate’s cookies that she learned to make for him.
Cassian shrugged. “You weren’t going to eat them were you? Maybe spew some more chunks over the house?”
Azriel growled and was about lunge at his oaf of a brother before Elaine put her hand on his shoulder.
“Go apologize and explain. Properly, this time,” she said sternly.
——
Azriel inhaled deeply through his nose, bracing himself before knocking on your door once more. It’d only been a few minutes since you’d slammed the door in his face and he wasn’t too confidant you’d open it to him again.
A few shuffling steps and then a pause.
“I understand you might not want to talk to me again so soon,” he started,” but I’d really like to apologize for being a complete ass.”
He heard a snort and a slight breath of laughter. A light feeling fluttered in his chest.
A moment later, the door slowly opened. Your red-rimmed eyes peeked from behind the wood. “Oh, Sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
You sniffed, but shook your head. “I’m being silly. They’re just cookies.”
“They’re not.” Azriel denied. He’d be damned if any sweet gesture of your went unrecognized or underappreciated. “Elaine said you made them for me.”
You averted your gaze again. “It’s stupid.”
“It’s not,” he repeated firmly. “I’m in love with you.”
You looked up at him in shock, mouth agape. Azriel didn’t exactly mean to blurt it out in that second, either.
He didn’t know how to take your silence, so he kept going. “I’ve been in love with you for a long time. Since you came into my life, I’ve breathed easier, laughed more. It’s like I can feel the sun’s warmth on me when you smile.”
You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. While his words made you happy, you couldn’t help but feel some doubts.
“I thought you were pulling away. There were times you looked like you’d rather be anywhere else. I thought you were, I don’t know, getting bored of me.”
“Never. I look forward to every moment we spend together. My heart races just as fast when we’re dancing at Rita’s as when we’re reading together in the library. And then the bond snapped and I got scared you wouldn’t-”
“Bond? A mating bond?” you asked with a gasp. Was this really why he’d been acting so differently?
He nodded. “I was hoping you would eventually feel it on your own.”
“And if I wasn’t, you were just going to keep it a secret? Why? Did you not want-” You couldn’t bring yourself to finish. If he was serious, and he wanted you to feel the bond, then why would he keep it to himself?
“I want you.” Azriel said it so bluntly, looking into your eyes, a heat creeped up your face, mirroring the blush on his own cheeks. “I was scared you wouldn’t want it.”
“That’s preposterous. How could I not love you?” You said it quickly, so angry at his assumptions, you almost didn’t catch the way his eyes widened.
“You love me?” He was grinning. The heat on your face felt like a full flame. You clicked your tongue.
“I figured the Spymaster would’ve found out by now.”
“Yes, well, we’ve just established how foolish I’ve been lately.” He chuckled, lifting a hand to stroke your cheek. His eyes were filled with adoration. The tension in your shoulders released.
You frowned and crossed your arms. “Then why did you spit out the cookies?
Azriel winced, his other hand rubbed the back of his neck. At least he has the sense to look sheepish, you thought.
“One thing with mating bonds is one way to show you accept them is to eat food prepared by the other. I didn’t want you to accept anything without knowing everything first. I panicked.”
“And poor Cassian paid the price.”
He looked properly embarrassed recalling the way bits of cookie had landed on Cassian. You couldn’t help yourself. You started to laugh and pulled him in for a kiss.
——
“So you liked them?” You asked tucked under his chin.
“Darling, they were delicious. I’m going to maim Cassian for eating the rest of them.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. I put a batch aside. I was going to give them to you as a courting gift.”
Azriel groaned and tugged you up for a kiss. “You’re amazing. God, I love you.”
summary: heart break sucks. Missing your friend sucks even more. It is mind-blowing what a little open communication can do.
words: 4.1k
warnings: angst with happy ending, terrible communication at parts (sorry), mention of alcohol consumption, fluff, just general misery, neutrally described reader/no reader description, no use of y/n, dumb idiots in love
notes: so this got a lot more angsty than first anticipated, but here it is! Not sure how I feel about it, I like some parts, not so sure about others - feedback is greatly appreciated! Enjoy!
part 1
Cold. Your bed was freezing cold. And empty.
Like lying on a frozen slab of stone, utterly alone and undeniably pathetic. Just as alone and pathetic as yesterday, when you woke up on the couch in the living room. No Azriel in sight. Like he wasn’t the one to practically beg you not to leave him alone, and then he went and did that exact thing to you.
It was humiliating. You were humiliated.
And that was why you had avoided him like he was contagious for all of yesterday, burying yourself in paperwork or hiding away in the library. But your plan was far from foolproof, you’d barely made it through yesterday without seeing him, so today had to be different. If being close to you was so shameful he had to sneak away before you had a chance to wake, you would simply remove yourself from the situation and spare yourself some Gods damned dignity.
You had already written to Mor, your excuse of needing to get away from the happily mated couple for a few nights only a half lie. You were in desperate need of a good night’s rest, however that was not the most pressing issue at hand. But there was no need for her to know that. Yet. She would find out eventually, she always did, and you would be stupid to expect otherwise.
Two hours past sunrise should mean that the Valkyrie training would be full and well underway, and thus it would be safe for you to make your escape. You got the things you’d need and made your way up the stairs to one of the smaller balconies overlooking the training ring. You knew you really shouldn’t, because what good would it do? But you had to. Just a quick glance. Quietly you moved towards the railing, scanning the people below.
There he was, a thing of graceful, terrifying beauty. He seemed to be demonstrating a movement with a training sword for some of the priestesses. He moved with such fluidity, wielding the sword in his hand as if it was an extension of himself. He was like death on swift feet. A fallen angel, a dark prince.
He was beautiful.
You must have accidentally made a sound, because his head shot up and his eyes zeroed in on you. Oh Gods. The intensity in his gaze, and the increasing pressure in your chest was too much. He didn’t want you.
You staggered back, one little step and you had winnowed yourself down to the city streets. This was good, you needed to get away. He left you alone. He drew back first. You knew all of this, so why did it hurt such an unreasonable amount?
You rubbed your chest in hopes of getting rid of the tightness that seemed to have moved in there since yesterday morning, and then you set course towards the one stop you had to make before getting to Mor’s.
-
It had been three days since you arrived at Mor’s apartment with a paper bag filled with the sweetest, sugar-powdered pastries your favourite bakery had to offer. It had taken you both approximately 20 minutes to devour them all, after which you no longer had anything to distract your friend from digging up the truth behind your visit.
You were in love with someone who did not harbour the same feelings towards you. And you desperately needed to get away from him, to save what remained of your heart.
You had cried, drank some wine, and then cried a little more. You went back to the bakery for more pastries the next day, and the cycle repeated.
The crisp, early-spring wind was a menace today as you were on your, now daily, pastry run. You were trying to stop your hair from whipping around like a being possessed, cursing up a storm, when you heard him call your name.
You froze to the spot, like his voice was some primal command. That insufferable tightness in your chest was as present as ever as you forced yourself to put on your brave face and turned towards him.
There he was, jogging towards you, his brow furrowed.
“Hey,” Azriel breathed as he came to a stop in front of you. His shadows swirled out in your direction, but retracted before they had a chance to reach you.
“Hi,” you mumbled back, suddenly finding the cobbled street very interesting.
He cleared his throat and took a step closer. You took one backwards. The cobblestone looks different here than in the alley by the bakery.
“I haven’t seen you in a while… you haven’t been home – at the House, I mean,” he coughed lightly. I wonder if it was made with, like, a different technique? Or maybe the stones are just differently shaped or something?
“Yeah, no, I’ve been staying with Mor for a bit.” It’s definitely mossier on the smaller streets, maybe that’s why? It just shifts the perspecti–
“Angel, please look at me.”
You didn’t want to, Gods you didn’t want to. But alas, you seemed to have no power when it came to Azriel.
Any other day, the worry swimming in those hazel eyes would have melted your heart. Today, it just hurt. “Did I do something? Is that why you… haven’t been around?”
You scoff, “No, you didn’t do anything, Azriel. It’s fine.”
“It’s obviously not fine! I haven’t seen you in days, and now you can barely look at me?” He exclaimed, exasperation clear in his voice. “Look, I’m sorry if I overstepped, or made you uncomfortable – but I miss my friend,” his hands twitched where they rested at his sides, shadows swirling around him with unease.
“Oh, please,” his brows furrowed further at the dry laugh that escaped you, “Are you being serious, Az? I fell asleep in your arms, after you pleaded with me to stay with you – and then I woke up alone.” His face fell. “How do you think that feels? I mean, you must know how I feel about you!” You cursed yourself for the way your voice quivered, and that damned burning feeling behind your eyes that you were so sick of.
“What– no, I didn’t– what do you–,” he stuttered. He actually stuttered. The spymaster of the Night court couldn’t even come up with an excuse for being an ass.
“Save it. I get it – you were lonely, we’ve all been there,” you muttered, wrapping your arms around yourself, “I have to go.”
You turned back in the direction of Mor’s apartment, pastries be damned. You just had to get away.
Azriel had other plans though. His fingers wrapped around your wrist, the cool wisps of shadows snaking up your forearm. You couldn’t help the way you recoiled from his touch, how it seemed to ignite every nerve in your arm.
“Wait–,”
“NO!” A sob wracked your body. “No, just leave me alone, Az. Can’t you tell that you’re hurting me?” His face twisted in time with your words, and tears pricked your eyes. “Being around you hurts!”
His shadows were whipping violently around him, but he was as still as death itself. Something like dread and confusion were clouding his eyes.
He called after you as you walked away. But he didn’t stop you, nor did he try to follow you. And you didn’t dare look over your shoulder, too scared you might run back and give him the rest of your heart, shattered as it may be. No, instead you carried the shards in your hands, tears rolling down your cheeks, one after the other.
You weren’t sure how you were ever going to be okay.
-
The bedroom door creaked open, and you pulled the duvet further over your head.
“Hey sleepyhead,” Mor said in a sing-song voice. You weren’t sleeping.
“I’m not asleep,” you muttered, huffing loudly at the giggle that escaped her.
“Yeah, well, calling you a crybaby would be insensitive so I went for the next best thing.”
Her comment made the corners of your lips twitch, and you silently cursed her for always knowing how to cheer you up. You had gotten quite comfortable in your misery.
You pulled the covers down and looked over at where she stood. Your chest grew uncomfortably tight when you saw what was in her hands.
“Another one?” You asked and rolled over to face the window. You had forgotten how stubborn he was. Competitive bastard.
“Yes, and they just seem to get bigger and bigger. I like the daffodils in this one though, very spring-esque. The other ones didn’t have any daffodils,” she mused as she walked in and headed towards the far end of the room, most likely towards the dresser. It was the only surface area not currently taken up by a bouquet.
This was the sixth bouquet he’d sent. In three days. He had turned Mor’s guest room into a damn flower shop. Just being in a ten feet proximity of this room would have sent Cassian into a sneezing frenzy.
“Remember that time in Elain’s garden, when you told me daffodils were your mom’s favourite flower? That she called you her little daffodil when she carried you in her womb? They are very beautiful – just like you.
“Yours, Azriel.” Mor read the note before carefully putting it back with the flowers.
Every set of flowers had come with its own handwritten note. He had apologised in the first one, the rest told you he missed you, recalling memories of moments you’d shared. Each one ended with a heartfelt compliment, one that brought tears to your eyes every time, without fail.
Mor let out a slight sigh. “I am fully on your side here, and I don’t want to pressure you into anything, but… are you sure you don’t want to talk to him? I know you’re hurt, and you have every right to be, but… he’s a good male and he likes you – a lot.”
She’s right. You figured that out two days ago. But your pride was wounded, and your trust had been betrayed, and it stung.
However, somewhere along when the initial pain had started to diminish it had slowly but surely gotten replaced by the agony of missing him. Now you didn’t know what part of the pain came from what, you only knew that it hurt.
But Gods, you really did miss him – more and more by the minute. You missed him in your bones; your best friend, your partner in crime, the male you loved.
“Alright, you don’t have to say anything. I have to visit Rhysand to go over some work though, and I won’t be home until late tonight, probably. There is food and tea in the kitchen, or you can go down to the pub downstairs and ask them to make you something. Just… make sure to go there earlier in the evening to avoid drunken idiots, okay?” You rolled over to look at your friend, who once again proved herself to be way better than you deserved. You nodded.
“Thank you,” you whispered and her lips curved upwards in a soft smile.
“Of course, take care of yourself,” she said, that warm smile still intact as she made her way out of the room, closing the door behind her.
After dragging out your stay in bed a few more minutes, the thought of a warm cup of tea became too enticing to ignore. Chucking on a thick sweater you dragged your feet out of the bedroom.
Once in the kitchen, you put the kettle on the stove and went in search of some tea. Where was the one Mor made you yesterday? The one that felt like drinking a warm, spiced hug – you needed that one right now. You found it in one of the cupboards just in time for the water to start boiling. So you made your cup of tea, drizzled in a little bit of honey, and walked out to the living room. You had just put your tea down and made your way over to the wall of bookshelves to pick out a new story to escape into when there was a knock on the door.
The way your entire body froze, yet seemed to come alive at the same time, signalled you knew who it was. How your body and soul could possibly know it was Azriel on the other side of that door, you weren’t sure. But alas, as you crossed the living room towards the entryway and tugged the front door open, there he was.
He looked tired. His eyes seemed uncharacteristically old, his skin dull and the bags under his eyes were undeniable. Despite this he still managed to look as breath-taking as always.
Those tired eyes met yours, and you swore you felt time stop. He was here. Your Azriel.
Except he wasn’t yours, was he? A truth that only stung worse when your name fell from his lips. But seeing him here, like this… you could live with never having him, you thought. As long as he was in your life, if only as a friend.
That’s why you breathed out a “hi,”, and opened the door wider, a silent invitation to step inside. His shoulders sagged in relief as he stepped over the threshold.
“Hey,” Azriel whispered on a shaky breath, as you closed the door behind him. You stood in silence for a minute, neither of you apparently knowing what to say.
Azriel was the first to break the silence, “so, uh– did you get the…”. Bouquets is what he didn’t say, but he didn’t have to.
“Yeah, yeah I did,” you mumbled, never really meeting his eyes. “Pretty.”
“Yeah? Okay,” you could see him nodding out of the corner of your eye. “Good.”
You raised your gaze to meet his, and your heart clenched. You just wanted things back to the way they were, you wanted your friend back. Because standing here in front of him, not knowing what to say was awful. So you did the only thing you could think of…
“I miss you.” Your voice wavered more than you’d ever care to admit, but there it was – the truth.
Azriel’s shoulders visibly shuddered at your confession. “Oh, angel,” it was your time to shudder. “I’ve missed you too, so much. I’m so sorry,” his eyes glazed over as he continued, “but please believe me when I say that I did not know – about how you felt. And maybe that makes me stupid, and blind, and oblivious–”
“No,” you interrupted him, “you’re not any of those things, Az.” His deprecating words wounded you so deeply, a heavy sadness filling your chest.
“I should have known. I never would have– I wouldn’t have been such a coward if I knew.” You swore you heard the remnants of your heart crack.
“Azzy…” You stepped towards him and reached up to cradle his face in your hands. His own hands flew up to your wrist and you prepared for him to reject your touch.
Only he didn’t.
Instead he gently held your hands in place and leaned into your touch in a manner so tender your breath hitched in your throat. His thumbs swiped across the backs of your wrists.
“I’m sorry, I got all up in my head and I–,” you didn’t let him finish.
“It’s okay Azriel, I forgive you.” His posture straightened a little as you continued, “I’m sorry too.”
You felt a tear roll down your cheek, and before you could even register it happening, Azriel had pulled you into a hug. He wrapped an arm around your waist, his other hand coming up to cradle the back of your head as he held you against his chest. He was so warm, and comfortable, and safe, and one tear became two, became three. All the while, Azriel held you, wings enveloping you in a cocoon as he whispered sweet nothings into your hair.
After what felt like hours, but was merely just minutes, Azriel dropped his wings from around you and as you felt his arms ease their hold on you, you took half a step back. His hand that had cradled the back of your head now cupped your cheek, the other came to rest on your hip.
You dried your tears, ungracefully wiping snot from your nose, and you once again lifted your head in search of those hazel eyes you had grown so in love with. And as your gazes locked – that’s when you felt it.
Like the snap of a bowstring, dead center in the middle of your chest, that glowing, golden thread locked into place – forever connecting your soul with the male across from you.
The impact was so intense you staggered back, knocking into the end table behind you. Your hand flew up to your chest, fingers clutching the fabric of your sweater as you tried to make sense of what just happened.
Azriel is your mate.
Does he know? Does he even want you? A thousand thoughts swarmed your head, but they were all overpowered by one: mate. He was your mate.
Azriel stood, one arm still partially outstretched, eyes wide and brow furrowed. Something like bewilderment filled you to an overwhelming degree, and it took you a moment to realise that the feelings did not belong to you. They were all Azriel, unable to keep his emotions from bleeding across the bond to you.
“You’re my–,” you stuttered.
“Yes,” he breathed in response.
“I– I’m your–”
“Yes,”
“You knew?” His eyes shuttered at your question.
“Yes,”
You had to sit down.
You wobbled over to the couch and dropped down. You didn’t even realise he’d followed you until you felt the seat dip beside you.
He seemed to realise words were not something currently in your possession, and took it upon himself to start to explain.
“You were sleeping, had been for probably an hour at least, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. I have–,” he swallowed and his whole body shook as he professed his next words. “I have been in love with you since the moment I saw you. When Rhysand introduced you to everyone and you were trying to sneak glances at all of us, thinking you were being discreet. You weren’t – quite the opposite actually.” You turned your head to look at him. One of those rare smiles decorated his face as he recalled the memory. “I think everyone noticed, but no one said anything. They were all probably as smitten by you as I was. Not only were you so adorable, you were the most divine female I had ever seen. Your eyes shone so brightly, and you radiated such calmness, such security – like every problem that had ever been wasn’t so bad after all. Like everything was always going to be fine, as long as you were around. You looked heavenly. Like an angel.” He whispered the last part and as his eyes met yours you sucked in a breath at the emotion swimming in them.
Angel. His dedicated pet name for you. What he had been calling you, and only you, since that very first day. Not only were you the only person with that specific pet name – you were the only one of Azriel’s friend to even have a pet name, you realised. Sure, he referred to Rhysand and Cassian as his brothers. But you were his angel.
“You love me?” You croaked, fresh tears filling your eyes.
“Yes, I do.” You hiccupped, face twisting as your chest filled to the brim with so many emotions you could not possibly name them all. He took your hands in his, and gave them a light squeeze as he continued, “When we were on that couch I was just… watching you. Holding you. Realising how perfectly you fit in my arms, when you moved. You snuggled deeper into my chest, like being close to me was an instinctual need, and then you sighed, and you smiled in your sleep – and I couldn’t breathe,” he took a deep breath, “that’s when the bond snapped.” You wanted to reach out and smooth out that crease between his eyebrows. Instead you just moved closer to him, pressed yourself into his side, and when he looked down at you, you gave it your best at pushing some of that endless love you held for him down that glittering bond.
A sharp exhale left his parted lips and he gave your still entwined hands another squeeze. When he looked at you his cheeks were tinged with pink, the tips of his ears flushed.
He loved you.
He was your mate and he loved you.
“I was so shocked. Why would it snap now and not earlier?” He shook his head, his eyes not once leaving yours. “Then I started to… doubt myself,” his brows furrowed deeper, “what if you didn’t want me? I didn’t even know if you knew. Knew and… and decided you didn’t want to be with me. The Gods know I don’t deserve you.”
You couldn’t help the broken whimper that escaped you as you listened to this wonderful male voice how lowly he thought of himself.
“Don’t say that Azriel,” you croaked, your voice thick from crying. “I love you so much. I look at you and my heart fills to a point where I genuinely think it might burst,” you coughed out an attempt at a laugh. “You are a good male, and I could not imagine a greater honour than the Mother choosing you as my mate.”
A single tear rolled down Azriel’s cheek at your confession. You untangled your hands from his, instead crawling into his lap. This wonderful male, and he was all yours. The love that filled your chest felt so secure, so safe. Like the warmth of the morning sun. Like the smell of freshly baked bread, and early morning bird song. It felt like the beginning of something great.
You raked your hands through his hair, and as you leaned in to kiss that lone tear away from his jaw, you watched his eyes shutter closed.
“I love you,” you whispered against his lips, your forehead coming to rest against his, “my mate.”
His hands found your hips and gripped them tightly, and the touch was more than welcomed. If it was up to you to decide, he would never let you go – forever in each other’s embrace.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered once more, breath hot against your lips. “I shouldn’t have–… please don’t leave me again.”
“Never,” you promised, and then, like waves crashing ashore, you leaned in that last bit and pressed your lips to his.
His entire body shook beneath you as he reciprocated the kiss, moulding his lips to yours and you couldn’t help but notice how incredibly right it felt. Like coming home. And as your lips moved together that glowing thread became a wild, real, physical thing between you. His hands gripped you tighter, like you were his lifeline. Pulling you impossibly closer, as if you were the air he needed to breathe. His tongue swiped over your bottom lip and your lips parted, letting your tongues meet in the most delicious of ways.
The kiss was claiming, overpowering and you could not help the whine that escaped you as his fingers dug into your sides. A primal growl rattled deep in his throat, alighting every nerve in your body.
This.
You wanted to stay right here, just like this, forever.
-
You didn’t know how long you actually did stay like that – the two of you seemed to, again, be able to defy the concept of time together. But you were now laying on the couch, Azriel’s heart drumming a steady beat in your ear, a warm, overwhelming comfort overtaking your body.
Slowly, you started to feel yourself drifting off to sleep, and with your head on his chest, his arms around you, the opening and closing of the front door and Mor’s voice that followed, felt so very far away. You almost didn’t apprehend what she said as her voice moved in closer.
“You better not leave her this time,” she ordered, and the rumble of Azriel’s voice, how very safe it made you feel, lulled you deeper and deeper into unconsciousness.
Your body was impossibly heavy, the words he mumbled into your hair the last thing you registered before sleep claimed you.
“I won't,” he pressed a kiss to your head, “never again.”
summary: you meet azriel's family for the first time- well, they meet you, and you're blissfully unaware
Azriel doesn't often pray.
It's not so much a practice that many Fae engage in, but a lifestyle that few adopt and leave the many out of. Azriel is not an extremely religious man, but he's praying to whoever wants to listen to him- be it the Mother, the Cauldron, hell, even a human god - that no one is awake when he gets home.
You're snoozing against his chest, one of his hands under your knees while the other curls around your back to support your weight. You'd dozed off on his shoulder down by the bank of the Sidra and he's sure that he would have had to be a vile, cruel man to wake you. Instead he'd scooped you into his arms, walking at a steady pace and shielding you from the chilly night air with a blanket of his shadows that were all-too delighted to swarm your sleeping figure. They adore you, and Azriel feels a phantom pull at the corner of his mouth that he doesn't indulge in, instead readjusting his hold to tuck you further into his chest.
You let out a sleepy sigh against his neck, face burrowing there like a heat-seeking missile. Your breath fans out over his neck and down his chest, warming him and chilling him all at once. He nearly stumbles in his path, suddenly overcome with the privilege it is to be able to do this- to hold you, to feel you, to love you, to carry you to bed when you doze off on his shoulder like he makes you feel safe.
You're newly mated but taking it slow. You haven't made him food yet, and he doesn't want you to, because he wants to savor moments like these. Moments where you're leaning into his touch not because your body tells you to, but because your heart does. You'd gazed up at him earlier and told him you'd seen a black cat roaming the streets outside of your job earlier, and you'd thought of him. You'd said it so sweetly, 'It made me think of you- I think it was you coming to say hi to me, wasn't it?'
His heart had nearly beat right out of his chest. Your pretty eyes when you'd said it, your pretty voice, the way you'd leaned closer to him until your legs were brushing his were all so much to bear that he'd almost stopped breathing. This tender sweetness isn't slow to him, it's not boring or excruciating or anything else that Cassian has described not bedding Nesta as, and he's more than happy to take his time with you if it means carrying you home after date nights by the river.
The only problem is, he can't take you home. Not to your apartment; you're already starting to shiver despite his shadows which means it's too cold to walk you the length of Velaris, and he'd wake you if he flew. The distance between your apartment and his residences has never been an issue due to his wings, but the last thing he wants to do is wake you, so he carefully treks up towards the River House and prays for an empty foyer.
What he gets, of course, is his entire family awake and alert.
If they'd known he was going out on a date earlier, they hadn't said anything. But Morrigan had looked long and hard at his attire, and Amren had scathed about the cologne he'd chosen, griping about how she hated special occasions because 'the boys switch their stenches'.
He ascends the staircase as steadily and gently as possible, his senses on overdrive as you breathe against him and he tries scoping out the environment simultaneously. It's rather hard to focus and so he takes a deep breath, sending a shadow to open the french doors in the garden and stepping into the seemingly empty space.
Damn his family- they'd been too smart to sit within eyesight.
They're bunched up on couches and chairs to his left and his right, eyes widening and filling with glee as he carries in a sleeping woman. There are shadows clouded around your face that keep you shielded from the bright lights of the foyer, but Rhysand throws out a hand anyways to dim them.
"Well-"
"Don't." Azriel and Cassian speak in unison, two brothers going head to head as Azriel tucks you tighter against him, "She's asleep, and she will stay asleep. We can talk later... I will talk later. Just- let her sleep."
"I'm expecting her for breakfast." Rhys warns, and Azriel will be sure to smuggle you out before the table is set should you wish to escape the chaos.
"She's pretty," Feyre breathes, her eyes glittering, her and Morrigan craning their necks to catch a glimpse of your face, but everyone keeps their voices low and no one protests as he heads for the stairs. Azriel can sense that they very much want to, but he thanks the mother at least for their respect as he stars up the stairs, shoes tracking wet footprints against the carpeting that he's sure will be magically expunged by morning.
He lays you in his bed with reverence. He can't believe he gets to put you there- it doesn't matter to him that your clothes are on or that your hair had gotten frizzy against his shoulder, that your fingers are cold to the touch or that your breathing is starting to thicken in soft snores. You couldn't be more beautiful to him than like this: peaceful and safe in his bed.
He backs away and surveys you like a masterpiece. He nearly forgets to cover you, but his shadows drag his thick duvet up around your shoulder as you turn on your side, nose pressing into the pillow Azriel is sure smells like him. Then he remembers he's getting in with you, and dazedly wanders to his dresser to get changed. He opts for a respectable amount of clothing instead of his usual briefs, and tears prick at his eyes when you roll into his arms the second the bed dips beneath his weight. You let out a hum- a sound so groggy yet satisfied that it thrums in his ribcage, playing at his heartstrings like a harp. He found you. You found him. He gets to do this for the rest of his life.
He's never fallen asleep faster than he has with his arms around you, and it'll be well worth the interrogation he receives from his family tomorrow morning.
updated May 3 2026. I'm separating the dialogue prompts into their respective sections. Went through Anger & Angst Lists the last few days & separated them into smaller lists. Will be working on the horror/Apocalyptic list next!
PLEASE reblog if you use any of these/wanna share with your writer friends!!
cw: heavy angst, shaming, severe injury, mating bond, no use of y/n, not proof read
authors note: …sorry
It doesn’t matter how your love feels anymore;
It’ll never be the cure.
˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥
One year, seven months, seventeen days and six hours had passed since the mating bond had snapped into place.
One year, seven months, ten days and zero hours had passed since the day she walked into his life. Since the last time he had ever touched you.
They were the most agonising nine months of your life, and yet you bloomed through the pain so gracefully because you’d rather he was happy and free than unhappy and yours. You loved him, without a doubt. And there was a time when you thought he loved you too.
But here you sit, in Feyre’s vanity room with a flute of sparkling wine and a throbbing headache as the girls all fawned over Elain in her dazzling gown. She looked beautiful and radiant, the absolute picture of Fae grace, as she should do on her wedding day.
You were happy for her. You truly were. She was kind and caring to the core. She wasn’t ruthless and reckless like you. He deserved somebody to steady him, to make a home for him, a warm one that he never thought he deserved until her; not rile him up and be an everlasting stressor in the back of his mind.
You swayed back and forth on the canapé, taking in how the stark snow white of her gown very subtly faded into a cobalt blue right at the very bottom, like a brush of cornflowers pooled at her feet.
Tears pricked your eyes, and you hated yourself for it.
“You look absolutely breathtaking, Elain.” You swallowed hard, yet gave her the most genuine smile you could muster.
She turned to you, and alarm quickly overtook her beautiful features. “Oh, don’t cry.” She pattered over to you and sat next to you on the canapé, much to Mor’s annoyance who wasn’t finished applying her makeup. Elain draped her arm along your shoulders and rested her head on yours. “Don’t cry, lovely. Your time will come too.” She giggled genuinely.
Oh, how far she had fallen from the real reason for your tears. But you were happy to let her think the way she did. That your tears were as shallow as they seemed.
“I’m not sure it will.” You sniffed, but gave her arm a squeeze. “Go back to your makeup chair, before Mor guts us both.”
She beamed at you, showing off her perfect teeth beneath those blush lips. Lips that would touch him in all the ways you couldn’t. In all the ways that you had dreamed you yourself would cherish and worship your mate for the rest of your days.
Amren left the gaggle of females around the makeup chair, and walked gracefully towards you. Only her and Rhys had ever scented the truth, and you supposed it was somewhat comforting to have one person know the true reason for your tears. Even if it was Amren.
She placed a hand on your shoulder and squeezed hard, yet reassuringly, bringing you out of your thoughts.
“It will be okay, girl.” She murmured quietly.
You smiled sadly up at her. “I’m not so sure.”
She stared down at you, stone faced. “There’s no other option.”
You nodded to humour her, despite how aware you had become of all your other options that did indeed exist. Your head was filled with poison, and you were sure no alternative would be enough to drain it out.
A knock at the door snapped you out of your thoughts. “It’s me.” Rhysand’s smooth voice slid through the gaps in the doorframe. “Am I allowed in? Are you females all decent?”
“Come in!” Elain called out, after they had all giggled at his choice of words.
The door creaked open, and in walked Rhysand, in a midnight blue suit that made his violet eyes sparkle. He walked over to Feyre, pressed a chaste kiss to her lips and then turned to Elain.
“My, my!” He shook his head in disbelief. “You are quite the sight.” He took her hand and twirled her around.
He looked overjoyed for Elain, despite his initial aversion to their pairing. But that was before Lucien had left Prythian for good, satisfied with the life he’d built with his so-called Band of Exiles. Rhys shortly came around after that, mainly thanks to his own mate’s persuasion to ironically ‘let nature run its course’, and her ideology that what’s meant to be will be.
You had almost laughed out loud at her reasoning. Nature had quite literally told you what was meant to be, but that didn’t seem to matter to either party.
No, not to Azriel. And certainly not to Elain with Lucien. So all you could do was sit there and drain glass after glass of wine and wallow in self-pity, watching a beautiful girl get her gown tailored and makeup done for her wedding to the male whose invisible thread was bound to the depths of your very soul.
Not that he seemed to care, not with the way he looked at you with such disdain. Looked at you like your very existence tainted the air that his precious Elain breathed; like you yourself were just vermin he wished to be exterminated.
Gone was the male who kissed you like he couldn’t breathe without you. The male you’d shared your mind, body and soul with. Gone were the hushed whispers and stolen kisses after midnight and the reverent touches in places you’d never even reached yourself. For a short while, you were his religion. But in this case, his faith had long dissipated.
No, that male was long gone. But there was an extraordinary phenomenon that took place, that even he couldn’t explain.
Azriel was always adamant that he controlled his shadows; and that they didn’t control him. But when he had tried to send them to spy on you, not out of concern for you but to ensure you didn’t harm Elain in the early stages of their courtship, they flat out refused.
Like the shadows still knew you, despite what had become of yours and his’ relationship. His shadows would not conduct any surveillance on you, much to his discontent. And this was the first time anyone had seen anything like it.
A few quiet sobs from Feyre broke you out of your poisonous train of thought, and you glanced up in alarm until you realised she was just emotional for her sister.
Something withered inside you. Wilted and broke down and died. Nobody would ever shed such emotion for you. Nobody would ever prepare you for your wedding and cry for you and cheer for you and stand by you as you began the rest of your life, no.
Your heart still belonged to him. And it always will.
After chatting with Elain, Rhysand marched in your direction, taking a seat next to you.
“Unclench your jaw.” He spoke softly. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“Does it matter?” You barely acknowledged him, staring straight into space.
He took the wine glass out of your hand, and placed it on a side table.
“You look like you need air.” He whispered. You just shrugged in response.
He raised his voice slightly, before he said. “I think you should go fetch us some more wine, just to be on the safe side. Can’t let Mor run out before she’s done working her magic.” Rhysand winked at Mor, and then winked subtly at you.
You squeezed his hand gratefully, before hurrying out of his and Feyre’s bedroom door before anyone could say or ask you anything.
Clutching your chest, you practically sprinted in your heels down the hallway until you reached the little terrace balcony opposite the stairs to the main hall in the River House. You shoved open the lattice doors, and immediately gasped for air.
You couldn’t slow your breathing. You swallowed lungful after lungful of air, clawing at your throat and yet nothing was making the tightness, the constriction subside. You braced your hands on the stone balcony fencing, leaning over it and trying to slow your hyperventilating.
Your mate was getting married. Your mate was getting married and not to you. The male who held you like you were his biggest blessing and tasted you like you were his favourite sin, was about to wed another female. He saw what he wanted, saw how her sisters’ lives had panned out and decided he was entitled to complete the pattern; three sisters for three brothers.
Your heart thundered against your ribcage, but finally, your breathing began to slow. Your hair had no doubt been ruined from leaning over the balcony and it blowing freely in the wind, but you didn’t care. You raked your fingers through it and let it tumble down.
Suddenly, you froze as you heard the terrace door behind you creak open.
You didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. His scent was ingrained in every fibre of your being, written into your biology like he was part of you. No, you’d recognise it for eternity.
You held your breath, bracing yourself for the door to slam once he realised who was outside, but no such sound came.
“Are you alright?” Azriel spoke quietly.
Your knees practically buckled in shock as you turned around, glancing at him over your shoulder. “What?”
“How are you doing?” He stared at you with an unreadable expression.
You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat not subsiding. “Since when do you care?” You whispered hoarsely.
“It’s polite to check on a female in distress.” Was all he said.
“Right. I forgot how polite you are.” You turned back around to face the Sidra to conceal the sneer that escaped you.
“I’m trying to be better.” He explained. “For Elain. She makes me better. Less volatile.”
“That’s fantastic.” You clenched your jaw and squeezed your eyes shut.
“Are you being sarcastic?” He asked in disbelief, as if it was ludicrous for you to feel disdain towards him after everything. Of course you were angry, even if your heart still cried for his.
“I’m not trying to.” You spoke through gritted teeth.
“Don’t make this hard for me.” He whispered, and you whipped back around in shock.
“What?” You scoffed in disbelief, pointing at yourself. “Me?”
But there was something unfamiliar in his eyes. Something that resembled remorse.
“Yes, you.” He stood his ground.
You laughed humourlessly. “You have some fucking nerve, Azriel.”
His expression immediately turned sour. “I’m trying to do the right thing here.”
“You had the choice to do the right thing over a year ago.” You seethed. “Don’t come here and play the victim because you want to clear your conscience .”
“I’m not here to clear my conscience.” He thundered, taking a step closer.
“What are you here for, then?” You huffed a shrill laugh. “Enlighten me.”You blinked hard, as the wind quickened and blew some strands of hair into your face.
“You can’t take anything seriously, can you?” He shook his head. “And you wonder why I chose her.”
His words slapped you harder than any palm ever had and would. Even he looked slightly taken aback at his own monologue.
Yet where tears would have usually fallen, all you could feel was the anger thrumming in your veins thanks to the copious amounts of wine that bubbled under the surface and finally reached your system.
“I’m happy for you Azriel.” You stepped closer, so much so that your chests were almost flush. You watched his throat bob as he swallowed hard. “Truly. I hope you live happily ever after and have a plethora of children and she bakes and gardens for you for the rest of your days.”
He misunderstood your tone entirely, and rage bloomed on his face.
“Perhaps the simple life is what I desired all this time, but you only ever cared about yourself to see that.” Azriel crossed his arms.
You looked him up and down. “You can lie to me all you want, but please don’t lie to yourself.” You said quietly. “You never liked simple.” You glanced down once more. “Are you satisfied, Azriel?” you hummed, stepping closer.
You knew that even if he tried to deny it, thanks to the bond his skin would always burn and his blood would always pump harder in close proximity with you.
“Do not ask me such questions.” He seemed like he was almost squirming.
“Does she touch you better than I did?” Your voice sounded gravelly.
No response came from him, so you simply laughed. “I suppose the baking makes up for that, then.”
He grabbed you by the throat, spinning you both and pushing you hard against the lattice doors. Before you moved away, flashbacks of being in similar positions with him ambushed your mind.
Movements that were usually accompanied by whispers and strokes and grasping at each other desperately like you couldn’t breathe had somehow turned into being accompanied by rage and rebuttal and loathing.
“You speak of baking and gardening like it is sin.” His fingers flexed around your throat, and his jaw clenched hard. “I’m rather satisfied that my betrothed takes on such homely tasks, instead of slaughtering and torturing in dungeons and on battlefields for a living and then drinking and soliciting men in her free time.”
He held up his scarred hand for you to see, his speech clearly not over. “I would rather feel this again than to ever be touched by you again. You disgust me.”
This time, hot tears did burn your eyes as you felt your heart crumple from within. Your traitorous, fitful heart.
You struggled to take a deep breath with the hand around your throat, but you tried. “I was by your side on every one of those battlefields.” You rasped softly.
His eyes widened and he loosened his grip slightly, before he suddenly became aware and his face became apathetic again. His grip remained loose, though.
He let go, and pushed off the wall and away from you. “If it were down to me, you wouldn’t even be in the wedding. But Elain wants you there. She’s kinder than we’ll ever be.”
You rubbed your throat gently, grateful to be able to take deep breaths again. He pulled the handle on the lattice doors, clearly deeming it time to end the conversation.
“Congratulations, Azriel.” You said softly, before the door fully closed. And you thought for a moment that you saw him hesitate. Saw him pause in his tracks. But the door closed anyway, and he was gone.
You slid down against the doors and the tears came in full swing. You hugged your knees to your chest as rumbling, sorrowful sobs escaped your throat. The clouds began to darken slightly, as though rain was pending. But at least it was still warm, despite the winds.
You cried for at least twenty minutes, until you wiped your nose and pushed your hair out of your face, and decided it was time to face the music.
But first, you went in pursuit of that wine Rhysand had ‘sent’ you for.
-
Third seat, second row.
That was where you sat amongst the rest of the attendees, all in agonising anticipation of the event to come and to see the bride in her gown, for not everybody had shared the privilege you had of getting ready in the High Lady’s chambers with the bride herself.
Harp strings twinged, and fiddles groaned as the music slowly came to life, and you knew Elain would be walking towards the altar any moment now. The altar you refused to look at, for he was stood there. Tall, proud, and devastatingly beautiful. Elated and anxious and excited to begin this chapter; to start the beginning of the rest of his life.
But you couldn’t help yourself. You glanced up at him once.
And once was enough to notice him staring straight at you with an unreadable expression.
You slowly shook your head, as fury and frustration began to simmer under the surface of your skin once more. What in the Cauldron’s name was he playing at?
You clenched your fists and sank your teeth into your lip to try and send pain to your brain before the tears started. A tactic that never usually failed you. But this time it was no use. Both your lip and your eyes stung, and you looked up again to see him finally look away.
Commotion rustled behind you, and you turned around. And there she was.
Elain. Beautiful, radiant, and a devastating bride in her custom gown. Taking such slow, graceful steps that you could barely see her ballet pumps under the cobalt hem of her white dress. The blue that perfectly matched the siphons that glinted on the male waiting at the end of the aisle.
Rhysand walked beside her, her arm tucked in his as they strolled towards the altar with Feyre and Nesta in tow, both holding beautiful bouquets just like Elain, comprised of white lilies and blue cornflowers, then embraced by twined sprigs of rosemary and thyme from Elain’s garden as a finishing touch.
You hated how much of a bitter taste it left in your mouth. You hated yourself, mostly. Both for feeling this way, and for whatever you had been or done to not be good enough for him to choose his mate. The one the mother had chosen for him. The one he was not supposed to live without, and yet you weren’t good enough. Gods, you loathed yourself. You picked up the nearly empty bottle from where it was hidden under your seat behind your dress, and poured yourself a new glass. Not wine, but whiskey this time.
It’s ironic how the burn of the whiskey soothes you, rather than disgusts you. Soothes your scorned heart and tortured soul; you can’t burn something that has already gone up in flames.
A voice smooth like silk slid into your mind. “Steady on the drinks.”
You looked up towards the front of the aisle, where Rhysand’s head was ever so slightly turned in your direction. He narrowed his eyes so that you’d get the message.
You always listened to him. He was your voice of reason.
Not today. Not anymore. Today you were a woman scorned, and you didn’t care to conceal how much you felt like acting like one. You raised the whiskey to your lips and drained almost all the contents, before dropping the glass on the floor where its fall was cushioned by the tulle near the hem of your dress. It was pink. You fucking hated pink.
A smile crept onto your face as the amber stain began to spread across the pooled material of your dress on the floor.
“What are you doing.” Rhys tried again. This time, you put your shields up and shut him out entirely. You watched his eyes widen as him and Elain reached the altar.
Dealing with him would be a problem for another day. Right now, you didn’t want to feel, and the liquor was helping you achieve just that.
Elain finally reached the altar, and took her place opposite Azriel. You couldn’t bear to look as he reached forwards and took one of her hands away from the bouquet, before lifting it to his lips and pressing a soft kiss against her knuckles.
Your stomach lurched. He had worshipped you like that once. Felt so deeply for you that nature bound you together. And it still wasn’t enough for him.
You felt a genuine ache spread through your chest, and the nausea rose up your throat as they began to read their vows.
The priestess glanced at all the attendees in the pews, and called out; “Does any male or female in this court object to this union?”
Rhysand glanced at you.
Amren glanced at you.
You almost scoffed at them both, but didn’t wish to draw attention.
But then Azriel looked at you. One long, empty look and you could have sworn you watched the rise and fall of an extremely heavy breath on his chest.
And your stomach turned again. You closed your eyes and counted down the minutes until everyone filtered out of the temple towards the festival hall. Once you were sure it was less conspicuous, you launched out of your seat and darted down the aisle to the nearest bathing chamber. You could have sworn somebody called after you, but you didn’t have time to turn back.
The moment you opened the chamber door, you hurtled your body over the toilet and violently deposited the entire contents of your system, your throat burning as the whiskey made its way back up. You heaved over and over again, your respiratory tract on fire and your chest like somebody had stuck a knife into it. You couldn’t fucking breathe.
Several minutes that felt like hours later, you wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and rose, taking one look at yourself in the mirror.
What stared back almost made you laugh hysterically. Mascara streaked down your cheeks, your lipstick smudged and the space under your eyes was so hollow it looked purple.
“Of course he doesn’t want me.” You cackled to your own reflection, holding up the bottle of whiskey you managed to remember. “By the cauldron, who would?”
You wiped your lipstick onto the sleeve of your dress, squealing in delight as you ruined the pink material more and more as the day progressed.
Finally emerging from the bathroom, you threw back the rest of the whiskey and set it down on a nearby maid’s tray, before taking the two flutes of sparkling wine that had sat upon the tray.
One in each hand, you sauntered into the Great Hall, where tables were laid out with elaborate foods and wines and elixirs and petals and gorgeous smelling candles. The cobalt blue theme decorated the entire hall, and you all but sneered at the accents.
Your eyes narrowed in on the central table, where Elain and Azriel sat, gazing into each other’s eyes with what could only be described as absolute contentment and joy. Rhysand and Feyre sat to their left on the circular table, followed by the rest of the inner circle. You drained your first flute, and set it down.
Rhysand missed nothing. His eyes flicked up, and his expression soon became horrified as he took in your drink and your ruined dress. Feyre then looked up, and you struggled to hold her stare as devastation was written all over her face. She no doubt knew now, too.
You ripped your gaze away, tipped your head back, and poured one flute of sparkling wine right down your throat, ignoring the burn of the bubbles.
And then he saw you. And the love and content that was directed at Elain was replaced with pure ire. Disgust. Fury.
You expected him to simply sit there and scowl, but he banged a fist on the table, and stood straight up. Guests all around the room whipped around and stared in confusion as the groom stalked through the room like an apex predator, nothing but bloodlust on his expression.
Azriel grabbed your wrist. Hard.
“What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?” He thundered.
You tipped your glass towards him. “I’m enjoying the party!”
A drop spilled, landing on his leather shoe.
“Oops!” You whispered, covering your mouth.
“Get out.” He said calmly. Too calm.
You pouted up at him, even though your chest burned. It burned with regret, humiliation, any and every form of self loathing that existed. And it burned with the bond, still alive and roaring not to be ignored.
“Get the fuck out.” He repeated. “And don’t show your face around Elain or I again. You’re no longer welcome in our lives.”
You stared at him, as the world suddenly fell silent. The flute slipped from your hand, smashing on the floor. Gasps echoed around the room, the quartet ceased their string work, and you looked behind Azriel. At Elain’s panicked face.
She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve for you to ruin this for her.
“I’m sorry, Elain.” You whispered, and you knew she couldn’t hear it. But the expression on her face after you inclined your head told you she understood.
You backed away, sparing Azriel one last glance. It must have been your inebriation, because you could have sworn that the rage on his face faltered for a split second as you slowly stumbled backwards.
“I’m sorry.” You repeated. But no one could hear you, as the strings resumed, the cutlery touched plates and drinks clinked. Everyone had moved on.
Everyone except you.
“I’m sorry.” You murmured towards the floor, as you slipped through the grand doors.
You slipped off your heels and ran down the stone hallway as a burning pressure began to attack your throat and close it up. Tears stung your eyes and you ran fast, faster, willing your legs to keep up with your mind until you crashed into the double doors leading out into the garden.
You heaved for air, and when you felt your lungs had finally refilled you let out the most harrowing scream you could muster. It registered, it hit you that this was all real. You had lost your mate. Forever.
Your love wasn’t enough. It never would be. You were broken, torn apart and scarred by life but so was he. Yet although he was enough to make you feel complete again, for him you would never be the cure.
You stared at the garden that Elain had so lovingly cultivated. You were sure their happy, half Illyrian children would run through these bushes one day. And you wouldn’t be around to see it, and it was nobody’s fault other than your own.
A few hushed whispers sounded like they came from the hushed rustling behind you, but you assumed it was the alcohol. You were hearing things.
Until they got slightly louder, and you were able to make out a few words.
Big event.
Night Court.
Opportunity.
Final chance.
Before you even had a chance to turn around and inspect it for yourself, you scented it before you felt it. The ash arrow, that ricocheted straight through your gut.
AZRIEL
He had been gazing lovingly at Elain as she chatted happily with her sisters when he felt it.
His stomach lurched, and an excruciatingly sharp pain struck him in the chest. He doubled over, clutching his chest tightly as he felt a metallic liquid run up his throat and coat his tongue. Blood. His blood. But why?
Rhysand and Elain both whipped around in horror as they had scented his blood first.
Azriel spluttered as he tried to explain that he had no idea what was going on, but no sound came out as he choked and coughed. The rest of the inner circle began to turn around, and an unfamiliar expression suddenly dawned on Rhys’s face.
“Azriel.” Rhysand’s voice like smooth, calming silk entered his mind. Azriel simply nodded to him to indicate that he had heard as he tried his best not to heave.
“Azriel,” He repeated. “Search inside yourself for the bond.” Rhysand’s forehead suddenly seemed to be slick with sweat.
Azriel blinked at Rhysand in confusion, before his gaze flickered to Elain, and then back to Rhysand. And then his eyes widened, as it dawned on him. As the realisation hit him, what was running through Rhys’s mind.
Azriel searched. He tugged. Something faint glimmered, but it had dulled tenfold. It had been a long time since he had acknowledged that it was even there, but it still glowed stronger than this recently.
“What’s going on?” Elain murmured, glancing between the two males. “Are you speaking into his mind?”
Azriel couldn’t respond as his chest pain grew with every second, his stomach doing somersaults as he covered his mouth to keep from retching. Elain put a hand on his arm to comfort him as he tried not to vomit. He clutches his chest hard, standing up and doubling over.
“It’s fading.” He choked, out loud this time.
Rhys closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, but Elain and Feyre only looked more bewildered. Nesta and Cassian had returned from their dance hurriedly to check on Azriel as he struggled to keep himself out.
“What’s fading?” Elain screamed, not out of annoyance but out of sheer panic and worry for her new husband.
“Follow it. Follow what’s left of it, NOW, Azriel.” Rhys panted, wiping his forehead.
Azriel used whatever strength he dug up from within him to ignore the pain and sprint towards the double doors. He tried to follow his heart, but all he felt was the hollowness he’d always believed resided in its place. So he followed scent instead.
The dull ache in his chest became one, sharp sensation worse than anything he had ever felt. And then it was gone. And a flicker of relief washed over him.
Until he saw them. Two Autumn Court sentries, darting through the doors to the courtyard and garden.
“Hey.” Azriel shouted, walking towards them with Rhys in tow. “HEY.” He screamed.
Rhys made a swift gesture with his hand, and both of the sentries paused as if time had stopped as the High Lord and his friends caught up to them.
But once they’d made it through the garden doors, Azriel stopped in his tracks.
Azriel froze in shock as he beheld you. Once blushed and bright skin, now sunken and pale. Your expression was permanently fixed into one of despair and…longing. As if you had wished you hadn’t gone through this alone. Your long, lovely hair caked in blood as one arrow was nestled in your neck, and the other in your chest.
The sound that ripped out of Azriel’s throat was one his friends had never heard, and hoped to never hear again as he fell to his knees and pulled your torso towards him.
He’d known how to scent death on a Fae since before he could walk or fly in the Illyrian camps, and yet he still didn’t accept it as he flattened his palms on your chest and pushed, willing your heart to start again.
“Please.” He whispered.
“Azriel.” Rhys placed a hand on his shoulder.
But the Shadowsinger shoved his hand off and grabbed your jaw, making you face him.
“Wake up.” He spoke through gritted teeth, pushing your hair back from your face.
“She’s gone, Azriel.” Rhysand shouted, his tone sterner this time. “You didn’t want her, and now this removes the complication of the mating bond. Isn’t this what you wanted, anyway?” He scoffed.
“Mating bond?” Elain and Feyre said softly in unison from where they had finally caught up.
Azriel looked over his shoulder at his new wife as tears stung his eyes.
What had he done?
He looked back at you. Dead. You were dead.
Rhysand straightened, and turned towards the Archeron sisters.
“They were mates.” He swallowed hard, and gasps resounded from the small crowd that had began to gather following the commotion.
An unwelcome figure walked up from behind the Inner Circle, and stared down at your body with shock and anger.
“I told him not to do anything.” Eris Vanserra shook his head as his voice cracked. “He said a Night Court wedding this level of prestigious would be too good of an opportunity to pass up to send you a message.” He covered his mouth as he turned to Azriel. “I’m so sorry.”
Behind him, Elain had began crying. But the sound didn’t disarm Azriel as it usually did.
“This was Beron?” Rhys thundered.
“I believe so.” Eris muttered. “I rushed here as quick as I could. But I was too late.”
“What have I done?” Azriel whispered.
“Get the fuck out.” He repeated. “And don’t show your face around Elain or I again. You’re no longer welcome in our lives.”
He had well and truly spoken those words into existence, and he shook his head as he stared at your lifeless body. He pulled your head onto his lap and stroked your hair silently, rocking back and forth as he whispered his apology to you over and over again.
His mate had died. He could have prevented it. He could have done literally anything differently, and the outcome would have been better than this.
He looked up at the sky, and let out the most bloodcurdling scream to have been heard in all of Prythian, as he searched for the bond within his chest, finding no light and no familiar hum. Just emptiness.
Summary: You had always been a reader—always drawn to worlds outside of your own. Always seeking more. This world, Azriel's world, was trying to teach you something; you were sure of it. Or, maybe, it was where you were always meant to be.
Word count: 4.7k
Warnings: Confusion, self-harm in desperation/confusion, angst, reference to psychosis and related symptoms
a/n: Here we areee :) The story starts to really pick up (and the romance wink wink) after this. Reminder though that this is slow burnnn BUT I think it's worth it (I'm biased) okay ily ily bye ❤️
Part One, Part Two
Main Masterlist ♡
~~
You had read a book when you were young, though the title escaped you, that felt relevant in your current situation. Children had fallen into a different world, one more dangerous but more enticing. More alluring. You could recall creatures and magic and echoes of the past. The name was on the tip of your tongue, evading your memory each time you got close, but it wasn’t as if remembering would help. That book was not a guide for your life, and if you thought hard enough, you could recall that readers had conjured up theories that the children hadn’t actually gone to that strange fantasy world. Instead, someone had died, or someone had gone crazy, or someone was dreaming, and the story was merely told within that recollection.
It was somewhat comforting to know that even within fiction, there were those looking for a different answer. That you weren’t second-guessing your every sense because you weren’t able to accept reality, but because you were human, and that’s what humans did. They hypothesized and doubted and fact-checked. They looked for logic because the world was mostly run by logic, and so you were human. You were not insane.
But you weren’t human. Not anymore. Even if this were all a dream, or you were going insane, that was something you’d come to accept. You were no longer human.
Your refute of your fae form hung in the air, bed sheets crumpling between your fingers, expression distraught. There was no reason for them to believe you, though they weren’t outright throwing you into the dungeons you knew lurked below. That had to be a good sign. Your lungs felt as if they were going to burst.
“I swear,” you repeated, only because no one had said anything. There was only blinking and dead air. “I don’t even have any magic or special skills that would help me in an uprising. I didn’t have this body a few hours ago. You have to believe me.”
Something flickered on Rhysand’s face as your pleading faded. Another silent conversation then took place. He looked to Azriel—who seemed to flinch—and Azriel gave him one stiff nod. The High Lord ticked his jaw and rubbed his hand along his chin.
“It would be easier for us to believe your story,” Rhysand slowly replied, though his voice was void of the earlier suspicion. He sounded tired. “If you did not sit in this room, emanating power.”
You paused, brows furrowing. You looked within yourself for whatever he was talking about, but everything felt different about you, so it was impossible to pinpoint. You didn’t feel powerful, and you certainly didn’t feel emanating, but you were also interpreting a strange language and seeing colors you never had before, so your judgment was unreliable.
You grimaced. “I… am?”
“It’s quite overwhelming,” Mor gently offered, hands clasped together in front of her waist. She brought her fingers up and pinched them. “Maybe even a little bit suffocating. So you’ll have to forgive the third degree. There are many threats we have to look out for. Especially in recent months.”
“Suffocating,” you whispered under your breath. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s all right,” Azriel interrupted as your fear began to grow once more.
You craned your neck up to look at him, still so close and imposing over the bed. He had a strange smile on his face that looked as if it was meant to be comforting, but it came across as pained and lingering. You blinked at him.
“We could clear most of this up now if you were to let me in,” Rhysand posed, snapping your gaze away from the Spymaster. He tapped his temple and nodded towards you. “It wouldn’t hurt if you allowed me to look.”
“Look?”
“In your mind. I’m Daemati. I can confirm everything you say if you allow me in.”
Right. You’d read about that. You remembered. You’d wanted him to look not too long ago, but that had been before—before the pain and fear and blubbering confession. Before you realized you were even more different than you’d thought.
“How do I do that?” you posed, eagerly straightening on the bed. “Can I just say you can come in, or—”
“No,” Rhysand shook his head. “It’s more contingent on that wall around your mind. The barrier. It’s—very strong. If you get yourself to lower it, or even just find a point for me to see in, that would be helpful.”
You blinked, searching your mind for the offending force. You shifted to sit on your heels, vaguely aware that you’d distanced yourself from the headboard as the conversation had gone on. If anyone were going to believe you, you needed to do this. You needed to remove the barrier and let Rhysand—
You paused, an airy breath escaping you.
Was this real?
It had to be.
You bit hard into your bottom lip and focused, but instead of a barrier, you passed by a thread. The same thread that had led you here, and the same one that elicited such a panic within you when you pulled at it before. You formed your thoughts around it, letting a few brush along its edges. A choking sound caught in the room. You searched harder for the barrier.
Your mind was like a physical space, unusual in its layout. You could see the wall Rhysand was referring to, but it didn’t necessarily look like a wall. It was made up of fractured lines and letters that mixed into words you couldn’t read. Alarmingly, the words were so familiar you almost had the ability to make them out, but the moment you tried, they would warp and become illegible.
Frustrated tears welled in your eyes—frustrated and confused and scared. Each time you got closer to the wall, it would inch away, and you ran and ran until an ache permeated along your temples. You wouldn’t allow yourself to fall into the abyss that panicked over this strange form of your mind. But you had never been able to see inside this way, so—no, this was real. You were going to approach everything as if it were real, because if you didn’t, you would be crazy and in denial. You could only pick one. Could only accept one at a time.
There was a small dent in the wall. You could pick out where the letters wavered there, a small warped outline hovering just above the floor of the space. You were out of breath by the time you had an answer for Rhysand, the act of searching your mind more taxing than you had anticipated.
“I think there is something—a way for you—”
“I see it,” Rhysand quickly responded. He dove in before you were ready, a blinding panic filling you. It didn’t hurt, but something felt wrong. Like he wasn’t supposed to be there, and you supposed he wasn’t, but it was more intrinsic than that. The discrepancy felt ancient.
You sucked in a breath and fell forward slightly, reaching to steady yourself and grasping at the first thing within reach. Fingers wrapped around your wrist and held you steady, and you clenched your eyes shut as the invasion continued.
Memories were tumbling around behind the wall—of New York, the busy streets when you went to the city, a few moments on a train as you scrolled on your phone. You felt each memory being observed by the High Lord, but those weren’t all of your memories. You couldn’t show him everything, even though you willed it. A blurry image of your reflection materialized in your mind—the you from before. You fixed your hair in a floor-length mirror in a fitting room, ears rounded, features plain in the way any human’s were. And then Rhysand was forced from your mind with that same ancient force, a harsh shove sending him stumbling back in the physical space.
You let out a shuddering exhale. The High Lord paled.
~~
You were left alone without much fanfare, though the several baffled looks thrown your way made you feel like a sideshow. Rhysand had been quick to share what he had seen, and the fingers gently holding you in place had let go—slowly, reluctantly but not. Mor had been the last to leave the room, a fleeting smile and a promise to grab you for lunch offered at the threshold of the door—your door, you supposed.
You weren’t quite sure what was in store for you here. Oddities were not uncommon from what you could remember from the books, but this level of oddity was probably uncharted. There was also the frustrating fact that you couldn’t just show Rhysand all of your memories at once, but that frustration was also paired with the harrowing realization that you didn’t know everything that was kept behind that wall in your mind. As you had examined it, you had realized.
You rocked up from the bed for hopefully the last time that day, drifting to the window and then to the door. You’d seen enough of the billowing clouds and unfamiliar foliage, and you wanted to prove more to yourself.
This was real. This was real, and you were left to interpret it, and now that you were not an alleged member of an unknown uprising, you felt more comfortable branching out.
The door to your room clicked open, silk flowing past your calves and the floor seeping a chill into the soles of your feet. Nothing creaked or groaned as you walked past the hulking door, though you could hear other things that you shouldn’t have been able to. A wind whistling in a tree far off, the low murmur of speaking several rooms away, the rhythm of heartbeats all out of cohesion—it was all very overwhelming and rivaled the jarring nature of your sight.
Still, you trekked down the hall.
The House of Wind was similar to how your brain had conjured it up. Sprawling hallways made way for doors with intricate carvings, and you let your fingers trail along the stars and clouds in the wood. You felt the cold marble beneath your bare feet. You focused on just your heartbeat and tried to remember what your apartment looked like back home. Tried to recreate the dull hum of the refrigerator in your ears and pretend you were feeling the worn carpet that came with old apartments.
That all felt distant, somehow, but you knew it was there. You had been there, and now you were here.
You turned down another hallway and the window there was so large, so… revealing, you almost gasped. The city you couldn’t see before was in perfect view from this vantage point, and your fae eyes—you were fae, you had accepted—could make out each billowing chimney and the route of the winding pathways. You approached without meaning to, setting fingers on the window panes and nearly pressing your nose against them as well.
Velaris.
This was Velaris.
You felt yourself spiralling again, but the panic was interrupted. Someone cleared their throat, the sound purposefully gentle, but everything was startling, so you jumped, yelping and covering your mouth. When you spun on your heel, it was Azriel, and he looked pained again. You wondered if that had to do with his harrowing backstory, but you could remember that he was joyful in the books. At times.
“I apologize,” Azriel said with a slight bow of his head. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Everything scares me,” you tried to brush off with a choppy, placating laugh, but Azriel’s expression only became more closed.
“I apologize for that as well.”
Your eyes flicked behind him, taking in the massive wings that seemed glued to his back. They didn’t move as you remembered they had before, the muscle looking stiff.
“It’s not your fault.” You blinked back to meet his eyes and held them for only a second before searching for a nondescript landing place. “I’m usually very good at adjusting to things. I—I think I’m having difficulty coming to terms with this, though, so it may take me some time.”
“You said this wasn’t real,” Azriel stated. You watched his hands flex at his sides. “Do you… still feel that way?”
You nodded jerkily. “Yes.” An audible exhale. “And no.”
You looked off to the side, observing the way the light from the window reflected in broken streams along the wall. You couldn’t tell what season it was here, but the clear skies may have told the story of Spring. There weren’t very many colors in the trees when you had looked down. Perhaps it was Summer. None of that mattered.
“Is there anything I can do—” Azriel started, and when you looked up, he was leaning slightly, eyes ready to meet yours “—to show you that this is real? To help?”
“I don’t—” He didn’t know that you knew things about him. He didn’t know that this was a book, a story, and that this would perhaps never feel real. Something told you to keep that to yourself. Your mind hadn’t let Rhysand see that part. “I think I need time to adjust, maybe.”
Azriel’s brow twitched, but he didn’t give anything else away. He nodded once, eyes fluttering to the ground before pressing his mouth into the whisper of a smile. “Lunch, then?”
Walking beside him involved shadows. They whisked past you and trailed along their master, though he paid them no mind. You, on the other hand, eyed each of their movements, unsure what they were reporting back to him in their brief whispers. You shouldn’t know that they told him things. You shouldn’t know that he commanded them.
“They will not hurt you,” Azriel reassured. He held out his hand and let one pool into the divot of his palm. “They are like extensions of me, but their own beings. They collect information.”
“Should you be telling me that?”
“Perhaps not,” Azriel hummed absent-mindedly. “But you can’t spread secrets to my enemies if I am one of the only three people you know.”
An unexpected laugh bubbled past your lips, the first real bout of humor to find you. You covered your mouth again, this time from pleasant shock, and continued to walk beside the Shadowsinger. He stared at you openly as you did so, only turning back to the hallway when you cleared your throat and pressed your lips together to hide the lingering smile.
“I suppose you’re right,” you agreed. “I’ll have to meet more people.”
“You will regret wanting for that.”
“And what is that supposed to—”
You heard him before you saw him, a low voice asking several questions in the room over. He sounded serious and firm, but his words were trailing and seeking rather than demanding. It wasn’t Rhysand, and the responding female voice was not Mor. You blinked to orient yourself to the onslaught of sounds as those two also spoke up in the conversation. Four—four people in the room and four heartbeats and four paced breaths and—
“Are you all right?” Azriel asked, and you looked to see his eyes searching yours.
“Oh, um, yes.” You glanced at the door where you were sure to enter. “I’m getting used to… hearing things. It's a lot.”
“If you need more time—”
“No!” you rushed out, settling yourself when Azriel’s brow furrowed. “No, I just need a moment. I want to have lunch. I want to see more and see that this is real. My brain couldn’t possibly conjure up something so large. I need to see that it’s big.”
Azriel seemed to contemplate. He glanced at the door and then back at you, tracing the outline of your face as the muscle in his jaw feathered. You had no idea what was running through his mind, so you guessed.
“I promise I’m not a danger to anyone. It really is just the sound. Sometimes the colors and the light. Senses, I guess. But that’s part of all of this—the proving. I don’t have any plans to hurt anyone in there. If that was what—”
“It wasn’t,” Azriel shot down. He moved his hand to the door. “If it… if anything starts to hurt, we can stop. We can introduce you to things more slowly.”
You felt the confusion show on your face. “Hurt?”
“If it’s too much.”
“I don’t think I understand.”
Azriel shifted his weight between his feet. “I only mean that you can leave whenever you might need to. I didn’t understand when you first woke up, but I do know. I understand that this is more than you are used to, but it doesn’t have to be pain that makes things real.”
Oh.
Oh.
Your face heated. “Azriel. Is this about the head thing?”
He cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t—”
“I promise I will not slam my head into any walls or hard surfaces again. That was—”
“Rather terrifying.”
“Right,” you blunted. “I can imagine it wasn’t pleasant watching a strange girl freak out and then try to put her head through a wall. But I’m more settled now. I promise, this will help more than anything.”
He searched your face for a moment longer, his mouth parted as if to say more, but he didn’t.
You gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry for being dramatic.”
The door wrenched open before he could speak to the troubled expression morphing his face. A grinning, much larger Illyrian took up the doorway, his wings on full display and contrasting the small shape Azriel had been trying to shove himself into. This man’s hair was longer, his features more rugged and bright. When you startled, a habit it seemed, a sturdy chest connected with your back.
“Cassian,” the man greeted, raising his brows in an inviting motion. “Heard you’re not where you're supposed to be. Happens a lot around here.”
Your gaze flicked down to his outstretched hand, and the size of it dwarfed yours as you hesitantly reached out to accept the shake. He rattled you with one firm, steady flip of his wrist, and the presence at your back seemed to become more imposing.
“Cassian,” Azriel grumbled out.
Cassian only clicked his tongue. “Yeah, got it.” He gave you a conspiratorial look. “He warned me not to be overwhelming. But you can handle it. And I’m not overwhelming.”
The casual air of his words had you blinking, your hand still connected with his. Everyone else in this world had been so formal with you. You knew the contrast to your world had a lot to do with the speech patterns and lack of modernization, but Cassian almost seemed modern. Like you could pluck him out of Prythian and smack him in the middle of Boston and he would adapt within hours. Maybe even pop onto public transit and yell at a curb-side vendor before asking any questions.
“Right. You have mastered the art of subtly, surely,” Mor spoke from around the door. She peeked her head over. “Now let them actually enter the room, Cassian.”
Another wolfish grin directed at you, and Cassian seemed about ready to tug you into the quaint dining room by your hand, but a low sound at your back halted his almost-tug. Cassian’s grin turned teasing as he stared above your shoulder, and he raised his hands up in surrender, a low whistle humming in the air.
“Oh, enough,” Mor murmured at him, smacking his chest. “Let them in.”
Things were certainly different from when you had first woken up. The suspicion was gone from each look thrown your way, replaced instead with curiosity and knowing gazes that you couldn’t place. The light mood you found in Cassian was contagious as you took in the room. Rhysand sat at a long table beside a woman you knew to be Feyre, the pair sharing a private smile and an even quieter laugh. He hadn’t wanted you to be around Feyre—you could remember him saying that.
You knew fae were territorial and protective of mates, and that plot point had been one of your favorites when you read the books, so for him to allow you near her so quickly—
“Oh, hello,” a light feminine voice chimed out. The tone was similar to yours. Familiar but entirely not. “I’m Feyre.”
You offered a nod. Your name. “Nice to meet you.”
She gave you a sympathetic look as you winced against shimmering light reflecting off the pebbled glass of several shining utensils. The entire dining room was alight. “Would you like to sit down? I’m told you have had quite the journey. I’d like to hear about it, if you would be open to sharing.”
“I don’t have very much to offer,” you replied, following her outstretched hand to the open chair at the table. “In terms of the journey, I mean.”
Mor took up the seat across from you, her gaze pointedly down, allowing you to speak. Feyre sat at your left side and Rhysand at the head of the table. There were people missing, even as Cassian found his own place and Azriel lingered near the opposite end. You wondered where the others were, and then cursed yourself for knowing too much.
On the table, the food was like the language—foreign, but eerily familiar. Everything looked like something you had eaten before, but it also didn’t. The colors were slightly off, the proportions skewed. You felt your brow twitch as you tried to make out the type of meat that rested on a bed of greenery, and then took a breath through your lips as your nose began to burn at the extra attention to scent.
“You just woke up here?” Feyre casually asked. She had begun to eat, and so had the rest of the table. Azriel had sat down at some point, though, not directly beside you. Something about that felt unnatural.
“Um, yes. There was a pain in my stomach—like a pulling. I passed out from it, and then I woke up in this house.”
Feyre briefly flicked her gaze across the table before asking, “Do you still feel the pain?”
“No. No, that’s gone.”
She hummed. Rhysand spoke. “Tell us of New York.”
He said the name with such lavish carefulness you almost snorted. “New York is the state I live in. I guess—within the continent I live on, New York is very small, but many people live there. I moved there for school.”
“Is that where scholars typically go?” Mor inquired.
“There are schools all over the country. I was—or am—getting my degree in library science. I’m going to be a librarian.”
The switch to speaking in the past tense was unnerving, and you corrected yourself quickly. You shifted in your seat and picked up your fork, poking at the resemblance of a tomato.
“Library science,” Mor enunciated. “You have to become educated in the study of the library?”
“Yes. It’s very extensive. Libraries are crucial to conveying knowledge where I’m from. Things are more digital now, which many people think makes libraries archaic, but we actually offer quite a bit in that realm.”
“Digital.” Cassian repeated the word under his breath.
“You are very passionate,” Feyre observed, a smile in her voice.
With a furious heat taking over your face, you replied, “I guess so.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence that you landed in our library, then,” Rhysand hummed, his eyes shining violet over the rim of his glass.
Maybe this would be a good time to tell them; you were talking about books, about libraries, and this would be the time. You weren’t sure how they would react, but it had been almost a full day in this world and no one had really tried to kill you. No, they were being… kind? Less doubtful? You weren’t sure, once again, what any of it meant.
Instead of talking, you shoved a piece of spiced meat in your mouth and chewed.
The flavor of it was unlike anything you had tasted before. Your taste buds reacted neutrally, as if you had whatever this was hundreds of times, but your thoughts were driving the meal, and you couldn’t connect your past to the present.
The meat became ash in your mouth. Your fork dropped unceremoniously on the table, and you pressed your fingers to the polished wood to stop yourself from spitting it out. Casual conversation had begun to flow amongst the group, but it quieted at the sound. Your face heated again. The metal clattering against wood still stung at your sensitive ears.
“That bad?” Cassian jested.
You squeezed your eyes shut tightly and swallowed with considerable effort.
“She doesn’t like boar,” Rhysand drawled back. “Noted.”
Noted. Noted?
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” you coughed. You reached for the intricately gemmed goblet at your seat and sipped at what you hoped was water. It was not. More choking ensued. Droplets of blood-red wine spilled over the lip as you placed the cup down unsteadily. “Is that alcoholic?” you wheezed.
From the other side of the table, Azriel’s chair scraped against the floor. He was moving things away and pulling out your own chair in a few swift movements. You followed him up only because your brain was in too many directions at once, the unfamiliar spices from the meat mingling with wine in the middle of the day, and then there were the concerned questions peppering the air from those around you, and this room was so bright. Why was every window in this damn house open?
“Something plain,” you heard Feyre instruct as you were guided out of the room in a fit of dramatics. “And water. Do you want me to—”
“No,” was all that came from the Shadowsinger beside you. The hallways became darker. Shadows were lining the walls. When you were alone, Azriel said, “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have assumed everything was okay for you.”
“It was a normal lunch,” you argued, fingers curling around nothing as you followed his slow steps. He had to be slowing them down for you. “At least I can attest to the reality of this place even more now. I’ve never eaten anything like that in my life.”
Though even as you said the words, you held a drop of doubt firm within you.
“Feyre had trouble adjusting to the food,” Azriel said. Mostly to himself. “We should have prepared for that.”
“Feyre?”
“She was human. From the human lands here. She became fae, as you did.”
But you already knew that. You nodded and bit into your tongue. “You know, you didn’t have to drag me out. I know everyone wants to ask me more questions.”
“They can ask you another time. You have had a very long—” his eyes flickered to the back of your head and trailed down to your twitching fingers “—stressful day.”
“Another time,” you repeated. If you woke up tomorrow and were still here, maybe. “Does that mean you plan to keep me around?”
“Where else would you go?”
“You could send me away. I don’t… belong here.”
“You are here now. You landed here. You will stay here.”
“Why?”
Azriel hesitated.
You asked again, “Why would you all trust me so quickly?”
“Rhys saw inside your mind—saw that there is truth to where you say you came from,” Azriel finally offered. “And with the state of the continent, there are many unknown variables.”
The taste of the meat was still in the back of your throat and you swallowed hard. “Do you trust me?”
You caught the underlying meaning in Azriel’s words. Maybe they trusted you, trusted that part of you that you were able to share, but you were also an unknown variable. You needed to be where they could monitor you, and you didn’t blame them. If this were truly all real, all their world, you could pose a threat. But they were being nice, accommodating, and you couldn’t parse out what all of the glances and hospitality meant.
“I want to,” Azriel said.
And then he pushed into the kitchen, you close behind within a trail of shadows.
Summary: In the golden shadow of her sisters' post-war happiness, a forgotten Archeron sister slowly fades into the background of the Night Court, entirely unnoticed until she is captured by lingering enemies. When Azriel finally unravels the truth of her disappearance, he faces a family blind to their own negligence and a broken bond that can never be fully mended.
warnings : established rhysand!sister!reader, mention of suffering, torture, kidnapping (sort of implicit) and hurt with almost no comfort. fluff if you squint
The mountain air of Velaris was always crisp, but tonight, it felt entirely devoid of warmth.
In the months following the war with Hybern, the House of Wind had transformed into a sanctuary of recovery and joy. Feyre and Rhysand were inseparable, managing the court with a shared, unspoken language. Nesta and Cassian sparred with an intensity that burned bright, while Elain found a quiet, steady rhythm alongside Lucien. The bonds of mates were a physical force in the house, thick and consuming, anchoring everyone to a new, immortal reality.
Everyone except you.
At first, the isolation was subtle. An invitation to breakfast forgotten because a training session ran late. A conversation cutting off as you stepped into the room, not maliciously, but simply because the space had already filled with the heavy presence of coupled fates. The sisters didn't mean to do it. But the mating bond was a tidal wave, and you were a shorebird being slowly pushed inland, away from the water.
You became an afterthought in the very house you had fought to protect.
One evening, when the weight of the silence became too heavy to bear, you walked out onto the eastern balcony. The wind whipped at your hair, and you bit down on your lower lip, trying desperately to keep the tears from spilling over.
"You look miserable."
The voice came from the shadows near the stone pillar. You didn't flinch. You knew the cadence of that low, steady rumble anywhere.
"Thank you," you whispered, wiping your face quickly.
"It wasn't a compliment," Azriel said, stepping into the moonlight. His dark wings were tucked tightly against his back, his scarred hands resting lightly on the balustrade.
For the first time all week, a genuine laugh broke from your chest. It was small, but it was real. Azriel stared at you for a moment, his hazel eyes tracking the movement of your shoulders, as though he had forgotten what the sound of your laughter felt like.
Without another word, he vanished into the shadows, returning a minute later with a steaming mug of tea. He didn't offer a grand speech. He didn't make promises he couldn't keep. He just stood there, leaning against the stone beside you, letting his silence keep yours company. For someone who had spent weeks feeling invisible, it meant everything.
A few weeks later, the house was entirely empty again. Everyone had vanished into the city or the camps, leaving the halls echoing. You wandered into the library, seeking the comfort of old paper, and found Azriel deep in a stack of reconnaissance reports.
The quiet settled between you comfortably, the only sound the turning of pages. But the question that had been burning in your chest for months finally refused to be contained.
"Do you ever feel unnecessary, Azriel?"
The spymaster froze. The shadows swirling around his shoulders went entirely still, flattening against his skin. He knew that feeling better than anyone in the Night Court; he had lived in its grip for centuries.
He didn't look up from his papers, but his voice was a quiet, piercing truth. "Every day."
You closed your eyes, a strange sense of relief washing over you. You weren't fixed, and you weren't comforted, but for the first time since the Cauldron, you were understood.
But the comfort was short-lived. The next morning, Rhysand ordered Azriel to the Illyrian camps for an extended inspection—an assignment that would take weeks, possibly longer. And just like that, your one anchor was gone.
The weeks that followed didn't hurt because people were cruel. They hurt because people were careless.
You tried to reach out. You went to Feyre first, finding her at her desk in the townhouse, buried under mountains of post-war paperwork.
"Feyre, I don't think I'm doing very well," you said, your voice barely louder than a whisper.
Feyre finally paused, setting her pen down. She looked up at you, her expression softening into something so deeply empathetic that a sudden, fierce spark of hope flared in your chest. For a beautiful, fleeting second, your heart swelled—she was looking at you the way she used to. She was going to open her arms, pull you into her light, and tell you that she saw how hard you were drowning. You thought, Finally. Finally, someone understands.
Then, she spoke.
"It's probably just the adjustment, sweetie. Your Fae body is still settling."
The spark vanished, leaving behind an even deeper, freezing dark. The warmth in her eyes wasn't understanding; it was just a gentle, generalized pity.
"I've been adjusting for months."
"Y/N, you're immortal now," Feyre said, her tone shifting to a patient, slightly distracted murmur as her eyes drifted back toward her documents. "Everything feels overwhelming at first. Just give it some time."
Dismissed.
You tried Nesta next. She was out on the training rings, wiping sweat from her brow as Cassian adjusted her stance.
"Nesta, can we talk?" you asked, standing at the edge of the dust.
"Later," Nesta replied, her focus already shifting back to the wooden blade in her hand.
Later never came.
Desperate, you tried Elain. She was tending to the winter roses in the garden, a serene smile on her face. When you asked if she had a moment, she offered a warm promise: "Let's have tea tomorrow, Y/N. Just the two of us."
But tomorrow became next week. Next week became next month. Eventually, the weight of asking became heavier than the weight of the loneliness, and you stopped trying entirely.
One night, the three Archeron sisters sat in the small parlor, drinking wine while their mates were at a strategy meeting.
"She's having a difficult transition," Feyre noted, staring into her glass as she thought of your brief visit to her office.
"Still?" Nesta asked, leaning back against the cushions.
"She's always been sensitive," Feyre sighed.
"A bit dramatic, honestly," Elain agreed softly, setting down her teacup. "She always finds a way to make the silence feel like an accusation."
And just like that, the narrative was written. You weren't drowning; you were just being dramatic.
The hopelessness settled in like a thick winter fog.
One evening, you walked out of the townhouse, wandering aimlessly through the winding streets of Velaris. You weren't paying attention to the shadows, nor were you listening for footsteps. You hadn't cared about your own safety in weeks. If the world didn't notice you, why should you notice the world?
You turned down a quiet, darkened alleyway near the city's western wall. A heavy canvas hood was thrown over your head before you could even draw breath.
There was no grand struggle. Magic, cold and suffocating, bound your wrists. A sharp pain bloomed at the back of your skull, followed by a heavy, absolute silence. Then, nothing.
When you woke, you were underground. The air tasted of damp earth and old iron. Cold stone pressed against your back, and heavy chains bound your ankles to the wall. There were no windows, no torches—just the dim light of a single faelight sphere, and faces you didn't recognize. Hybern loyalists. Remnants of a broken army looking for a vulnerability to exploit.
The questions began immediately.
"What does the High Lord discuss during war councils?"
"I don't know," you rasped, your throat dry.
"What weaknesses does the Shadowsinger possess?"
"I don't know."
"How many soldiers serve the General in the north?"
"I don't know."
The interrogators didn't believe you. To them, you were an Archeron. You were the sister of the High Lady. Surely, you sat at the right hand of the Inner Circle. Surely, you knew their secrets. They didn't understand that you had been sitting at the edge of the room, invisible.
The days blurred into a singular, agonizing existence. Food arrived randomly, just enough to keep your Fae heart beating. Sleep was impossible in the freezing damp. But the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the quiet realization that grew heavier with every passing hour.
One day. Three days. Five. A week.
Nobody came.
The wards of Velaris hadn't flared. No armies were tearing the continent apart looking for you. The terrifying truth settled deep into your bones: nobody had noticed you were gone. They likely thought you were still in your room, being dramatic.
The interrogators grew frustrated with your silence. Your lack of answers was taken as stubborn defiance rather than genuine ignorance. They began to mock you, throwing words at you that cut deeper than any physical threat.
Worthless. Useless. Disposable. Dead weight.
The terrible part was that you didn't fight the words. You started believing them. They were the exact same phrases you had been whispering to yourself in the empty halls of the House of Wind.
Dead. Dead. Dead
Eventually, you stopped crying. You stopped screaming when they dragged you to the center of the room. When the cold iron bit into your skin, you simply bit down on your tongue, refusing to make a single sound.
Burdens complain. Burdens need saving. Burdens cause problems for the people who matter.
And you refused to be a burden anymore.
Two weeks after he left, Azriel returned to the House of Wind. He was covered in the dust of the Illyrian mountains, his wings aching from the long flight, but his first thought was of the balcony. He wanted to see if you were there, perhaps waiting with another quiet silence to share.
He searched the balcony. The library. The gardens. The riverwalk.
Nowhere. Your scent was completely absent from the common rooms, faded to a ghost of a memory.
He walked into the dining hall where Feyre, Nesta, and Elain were gathering for dinner. "Where is Y/N?" he asked, his voice cutting through the warmth of the room.
Feyre shrugged, adjusting a silverware setting. "Probably wandering. She's been doing that a lot lately."
Nesta didn't look up from her book. "She does that when she wants attention."
Elain let out a soft, dismissive laugh. "She's likely trying to make a point because we've been busy with the winter preparations."
The air in the room instantly turned to ice. Azriel's shadows didn't just rise; they exploded. Dark, suffocating midnight flooded the dining hall, extinguishing the candles and rattling the glass fixtures.
"What do you mean, trying to make a point?" Azriel hissed, his face completely pale, his eyes flashing with a terrifying, lethal light.
Nobody answered. The sisters shrank back, shocked by the sudden violence in his demeanor.
Then Feyre spoke, her tone exasperated. "Azriel, honestly, she's always been dramatic. She'll come back when she's done moping."
In that single second, every strange interaction from the past year clicked into place in Azriel's mind. The exhaustion in your eyes. The way you looked at your sisters as if they were miles away. The desperate, quiet question in the library.
He looked at the three sisters, and a horrifying realization struck him.
Nobody had actually seen you in weeks.
Azriel didn't waste another breath. He slammed through the doors of Rhysand's study, where the High Lord was deep in conversation with Cassian and Lucien.
"Where is she?" Azriel demanded, his hands trembling with a rage that shook the foundations of the room.
Rhysand frowned, standing up. "Azriel, calm down. What are you—"
"Your mate," Azriel snarled, pointing a finger at Rhys, then turning his lethal gaze to Cassian and Lucien. "Your mates. They let her walk out. They let her disappear because they thought she was brooding. They haven't looked for her in weeks."
Cassian immediately stepped forward, his jaw set, his defensive instincts flaring for Nesta. "Watch your tone, Az. Y/N is fine. Nesta said she just needed space."
"She isn't fine!" Azriel roared, the sound tearing from his throat like a wounded animal. "She's gone. Her room is freezing, her scent is dead, and your mates think she's playing a game for attention!"
The room went entirely still.
Lucien looked down at his hands, a sudden, sickening memory hitting him. Every time he had asked Elain where you were over the past fortnight, she had murmured that you were resting, that you didn't want to be disturbed. They haven't told the males anything. They had kept it to themselves, a small domestic annoyance they thought they were managing.
Rhysand's face went completely bloodless as he reached out with his power, sweeping the city's wards. There was no trace of your signature. Anywhere.
"She's gone," Azriel whispered, the absolute finality of the words freezing the room to its core.
The search was an exercise in pure terror.
For three days, the Night Court became a living nightmare. Azriel didn't sleep, his shadows tearing through every alleyway, every border, every whisper in the wind. Rhysand ripped through the minds of every traveler passing through the territory, while Cassian scoured the skies and Lucien tracked the physical borders.
Finally, deep in a forgotten valley near the cracked perimeter of the court, Azriel's shadows caught the faint, metallic scent of blood and old iron.
The assault on the subterranean stronghold was completely merciless. There was no negotiation, no questioning. Cassian and Azriel tore through the heavy stone doors like a thunderstorm, leaving the captors no time to even raise their weapons.
When the dust cleared, Azriel kicked open the final iron door at the end of the corridor.
You were curled into the furthest corner of the damp cell, your knees pulled tight to your chest. Your clothes were ruined, your skin pale and mapped with the physical toll of a two-week confinement. Your eyes were wide, staring unseeingly at the doorway, flinching violently at the sound of the heavy footsteps.
At first, your mind couldn't process the dark wings or the blue siphons. You just saw figures coming into the dark again.
Then, Azriel dropped to his knees in front of you, his hands shaking so violently he couldn't bring himself to touch you. "Y/N," he choked out, his voice cracking. "Y/N, it's me. I've got you."
You didn't cry. You didn't reach for him. Instead, a panicked, desperate expression flooded your face, and you tried to press yourself deeper into the solid stone wall.
"I didn't tell them anything," you whispered, your voice a ragged, broken thing that made Cassian freeze in the doorway. "I swear I didn't."
"Y/N, stop, look at me—"
"I know I'm not useful," you sobbed, the words tumbling out in a terrifying, rushed panic, your eyes wide and pleading. "I know I'm a burden. I know I don't belong here. But I didn't tell them anything. Please... please don't let them take me back. I'll do better. I'll stay in my room. I'll be quiet. I promise."
You looked directly into Azriel's hazel eyes, your lips trembling. "Don't let them do that again."
In that exact, devastating second, something primordial and violent snapped into place inside Azriel's chest. A golden bond of pure, undeniable light flared to life in the darkness, connecting his soul directly to yours.
The mating bond didn't bring warmth or celebration. It brought the collective weight of every single night you had spent believing you were nothing. It brought the echo of every silent tear you had shed on that balcony.
Azriel's shadows completely swallowed the room, turning the space into a void of absolute wrath. He lunged forward, gathering your fragile form against his chest, his wings wrapping around you so tightly that the rest of the world vanished. He buried his face in your hair, a low, terrifying growl vibrating against your skin.
"Never again," he promised against your ear, his voice rough with a lethal vow. "Never again."
They brought you back to the House of Wind, but the home you returned to was dead.
The physical wounds healed under the care of the healers, but the silence remained. Only now, it was a silence born of profound guilt and terror.
You didn't trust anyone. Especially your sisters.
Every time Feyre entered a room, you didn't yell or accuse her. You simply flinched, your shoulders tightening as you quietly stepped away toward the window. It wasn't anger; it was the simple, devastating memory that when you had begged for help, she had looked at a piece of paper instead. You remembered that nobody came.
Nesta tried to apologize one afternoon, standing at the door of your bedroom with her hands clenched at her sides, her eyes red. "Y/N... we didn't know. If we had only realized—"
You looked at her from the bed, your expression entirely hollow. "I know."
Nothing else. No anger, no screaming, no tears. Just an acceptance that cut Nesta deeper than any blade ever could.
When Elain came to your bedside, she broke down, weeping openly into her hands, overwhelmed by the horror of what her carelessness had allowed. You reached out, your pale hand gently patting her shoulder, comforting her out of sheer, ingrained habit.
And that act completely destroyed the house. Because even now, broken and hollowed out by their neglect, you were still the one taking care of them.
Months passed.
The seasons shifted toward winter, and the house remained quiet. But you were never alone. Azriel never left your side. When the nightmares woke you in a cold sweat, he was sitting in the chair by the hearth. When the panic attacks made it impossible to breathe, his shadows gently wrapped around your shoulders, muting the sounds of the world just as he had promised. He said very little, but he stayed. He knew you no longer believed in words.
One night, months after the rescue, you found yourself standing on the balcony where it had all begun. The stars were bright over Velaris, casting a silver glow over the snow-dusted rooftops.
The shadows shifted, and Azriel stepped out beside you, his presence a steady, familiar warmth against the winter chill. Neither of you spoke for a long time, watching the city lights twinkle below.
"Did you know?" you asked quietly, your eyes fixed on the horizon.
Azriel's breath caught in his throat. He turned his head to look at you, his features soft in the moonlight. "Know what?"
You didn't look at him. You just kept staring at the city that had forgotten you. "That I was disappearing."
A long, agonizing silence settled over the balcony. The wind sighed through the chasm of the mountains.
"Yes," Azriel whispered, his voice rough and thick with an old, lingering grief.
You closed your eyes, a single, hot tear slipping down your cheek. For the first time since you had been taken, the tight knot in your chest loosened slightly. You weren't crazy. You hadn't been dramatic. Someone had seen you slipping into the dark.
"I just didn't realize how far you'd fallen," Azriel added, his hand finally reaching out to cover yours on the cold stone.
And there, under the indifferent stars of Velaris, you finally let yourself cry. Not from fear, and not from pain, but because someone had finally admitted the truth. They should have noticed. And sometimes, that is the only apology that can begin to heal the break.
A/N: IM BACKKK Y'ALL, some of you may have noticed that anchor was deleted with the exception of the first part, i am aware of this but this was mainly done because i feel like i have grown a lot from the time i took a break and feel the idea did not do my writing justice, so i present this piece of work!! english is not my first language so please tell me if i made grammar mistakes anywhere. also lmk if you want to be added to the permanent taglist!
content warnings: hangover (nausea, headache, difficulty remembering), unknowing consumption of a recreational drug (mirthroot, past), suggestive themes, language
word count: 9.1k
synopsis: Azriel was always meant to be yours.
trope: childhood friends to lovers
part 1 ~ part 2 ~ part 3
my masterlist
~ ~ ~
Azriel was on the floor.
And he was shirtless.
And drooling.
The light beaming in through the window felt like an axe against your skull, the pain nearly cleaving you in two before you ducked your head under the pillows.
Pillows that were definitely not yours.
You flew up into a sitting position again, leaning over the bed to take in the male below.
Azriel was not wearing pants.
He was wearing underwear, thank the Mother, but it didn’t stop the panic that was rapidly climbing up your chest. Not when you were wearing only a too large shirt that smelled like him, and had nothing underneath.
At least Azriel was on the floor? But that almost made everything worse, because you had shared a bed more times than you could count. You had shared a bed last week. Why would he feel the need to sleep on the floor if—
A flare of pain in your head made you wince, your eyes snapping shut as you tried to take steadying breaths. This was the worst fucking hangover. Your mouth was dry and tasted foul, your hair was a wreck, your head was throbbing, and the light spilling into the room felt like staring into the sun.
You cracked your eyelids open slowly, forming small slits that were just enough to make out Azriel still sprawled on the floor, stomach down and wings splayed haphazardly, with just a single pillow for his head to rest on. Your gaze caught on a glass of water on the night stand, and your eyes widened as you grabbed it. You drank only half of it, your stomach revolting at the first large gulp, and the sudden wave of nausea had you taking deep breaths again.
You blindly reached to set the glass back on the nightstand, but in your lazy effort, you sat it on the edge, and it went clambering to the floor. Or—more specifically—on top of the male asleep on the floor. Thankfully, the glass didn’t shatter, but the water spilled all over Azriel’s face and pillow, causing him to bolt up right.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked, his voice rough with sleep and confusion.
“I’m sorry!” you hurried out, your loud voices making you wince. “I’m so sorry,” you said again, voice softening.
Azriel blinked a few times, pushing wet strands of hair out of his face. His eyes fell to the glass on its side, the wet spot on his pillow—which, in your defense, was also drool—and then they snapped to you.
His eyes were a little bloodshot, and dark circles laid beneath his eyes. It was the most disheveled you had ever seen him outside of fighting in literal wars, and there was something so ironically wholesome about seeing this male hungover and dazed and confused in nothing but his underwear. It was a state you knew very few had ever been privy to seeing Az in, and that sparked a flare of fondness and irrational possessiveness in your chest.
His throat bobbed as he stared at you wide eyed for a few seconds, taking in your own horrendous state. You did not even want to know what the hell you looked like—hell, probably. You probably looked like hell.
His shoulders finally relaxed, and he groaned as he rubbed a hand over his face. “What time is it?” he asked.
You bit your lip, glancing at the window only briefly. “I don’t know,” you groaned, falling back into the pillows. This was fucking absurd. “Early? Late? It’s fucking bright out, I can tell you that.”
At that, Azriel pushed himself up off the floor, walking over to the window to snap the drapes shut, dimming the light in the room. Some of the tension instantly left your body. “Thank you,” you murmured.
Azriel only nodded, his movements almost stiff as he picked up the glass on the floor and disappeared into the bathroom. You closed your eyes, your hands coming up to cover your face as your mind spun to piece together the night before, fragments coming back to you in mortifying flashes. Something cool gently knocked against your arm, and you lowered your hands to peer at a fresh glass of water in Azriel’s hand.
He smiled slightly, but his own weariness was obvious. “Here,” he said, passing you the glass as you pushed yourself up to rest against the headboard. You took a few slow sips before he handed you another vial with a blue liquid that gave you nauseating déjà vu. “Drink this,” he instructed, then went back into the bathroom.
You eyed the vial suspiciously, listening to the water run in the bathroom as you took another sip from your glass. Fuck it. It could only help, surely. Even if it tasted gross.
You popped the vial open and tossed the liquid back, shivering at the bitter taste that coated your tongue. You took another swallow of water to wash it away, and you prayed you didn’t puke it back up as your stomach turned.
Azriel reappeared then, your eyes tracking him as he walked over to the other side of the bed, still in nothing but his underwear. Which made you feel absolutely nothing at all, of course.
He climbed onto the bed, resting his back against the headboard, but he was overly mindful of positioning his wings so that they didn’t bump yours. There was enough space between you that it felt like a chasm, and somehow you felt more separated from him now than when he was passed out on the floor. The air was thick with awkward tension.
You rested your head back on the headboard with a gentle thud. Eventually, you caved and said with a groan, “This is the worst hangover of my life.”
A beat of silence passed, then Azriel said quietly, “I didn’t realize you drank that much.”
“Me neither.” You closed your eyes, letting out a long sigh. “I should know better than to blindly follow Mor.”
More silence followed, and your chest felt a little tighter the longer it stretched, but you kept your eyes closed and focused on keeping your breathing steady.
“How much do you remember?” Azriel finally asks, his tone still soft, but he seemed almost worried.
You opened your eyes, then slowly turned your head to look at him. He was watching you with unfairly clear eyes, sitting up straight against the headboard while you were slowly slumping further down into the pillows again.
Your stomach twisted as you let the memories of last night wash over you. The way Azriel held your hand as he led you through Rita’s. The first shot that quickly blurred into innumerable empty glasses. The way his body felt pressed against yours. The way your hips moved with his. The way his lips were soft and demanding.
It was like squinting through fogged over glass, trying to piece together smudged details that made up sharp fragments.
“How much do you remember?” you ask instead of answering, your voice raspy with both dehydration and embarrassment.
“Everything,” he answered quietly.
Your face warmed. “I remember puking in the alley,” you admitted reluctantly, your arm coming up to cover your eyes. “And pieces leading up to it, but after that—” You shrugged, dropping your arm to meet his eyes warily. “I don’t really know.”
Which…was a problem, now that you really started to think about it. You were in Azriel’s bed, in Azriel’s shirt, and you had no recollection of how that came to be. You couldn’t even remember leaving that alley, let alone climbing into bed.
“After that,” Azriel said gently, “I took you home. You didn’t want to sleep in your room, so I brought you here.”
You nodded once, then glanced down at the black shirt draped across your frame. “And my dress?”
Azriel winced, and your face was growing even hotter in anticipation of the words that might come out of his mouth. “There was vomit on your dress,” he said. “I helped you change. Then you went to bed.”
Unease clawed at your throat as you struggled to remember and still came up blank. You swallowed hard, then took another sip of the water you still had clutched in your hand. You ran your thumb over the lip of the glass once you brought it back down to your lap. Your smile was small and self-deprecating as you asked, half-jokingly, “And my underwear?”
Azriel’s head snapped toward you. “You’re not wearing underwear?”
You blinked, his words dousing you in cold water. Did he not remember everything from last night after all? Your mind started spinning with every possibility, and your face was hot from the thoughts alone. “Gods—Azriel, did we—”
“No! No, I swear. I don’t know where your—” His voice abruptly cut off. His eyes were locked on the foot of the bed, where a scrap of cobalt blue lace was strewn haphazardly.
Everything around you slowed as you both stared at the offending fabric. You slowly sat your glass of water down on the night stand before frantically launching yourself across the bed to grab the lace. You fisted the fabric in your hand as you awkwardly climbed off the bed, staring at Azriel with wide eyes from where you now stood at the foot of his bed. You had half the mind to thank the Mother that he was so large that his shirt was longer than your dress, and you were saved from any further mortification this morning—even if it sounds like he may have seen more than enough from you last night.
You licked your lips, heart pounding as you glanced around his room for any of your belongings, finding none, and then nodded to yourself repeatedly. “I should go,” you rushed out, avoiding Azriel’s eyes as panic flushed away the nausea and headache. You stumbled though when you took the first step toward his door, blinking quickly before the stars faded from your vision.
You heard the bed creak behind you, and you quickly continued your escape as Azriel followed close behind. “Y/N,” he said, but your ears were ringing and your face was burning and you were so embarrassed. You wished the mountain would fissure beneath your feet and swallow you whole.
“Thank you for—” You gestured wildly with no direction, your back still facing Azriel as you reached for the door knob.
“Y/N—”
You flung the door open, and then stopped in your tracks. Azriel’s chest bumped into your back, and his hand landed on your hip to keep you from careening forward.
Cassian stood there in the hall with a bowl of fruit and wild hair, his eyes wide as he stared at the two of you. He blinked once, and then twice, the three of you frozen as Cassian took in the sight before him. His eyes fell to your hand, which was still clutching your lace underwear.
Azriel snatched them from your hand, tossing them out of sight somewhere in his room. You blinked, your already soul-consuming embarrassment reaching horrifying multitudes.
Cassian’s free-hand came up to rub at his eyes, as if the sight of you and Azriel gave him a headache—or maybe he was just hungover—probably both.
His hand fell to his side, and he squinted at the two of you. “I thought the mirthroot shots were making me hallucinate.”
Cassian’s words momentarily cut through your blinding mortification, and you and Azriel both said, “The what?”
Cassian blinked owlishly at the two of you. “The…mirthroot shots?” His gaze darted from you up to Azriel, then back to you. “Mor was giving them to everyone.”
You tilted your head back, only to bump into Azriel’s chest. “I’m going to murder her,” you mumbled. Then you winced when you remembered taking the shots from her, not caring in the slightest what it was before downing it. You were fairly certain you had even said as much.
Cassian looked sheepish. “I don’t think she knew they were mirthroot at first. Then it was too late.”
That explained your hangover from hell.
“So,” Cassian said slowly, and your head snapped back up to look at him. “Are you two—”
“No,” you rushed out at the same time Azriel growled, “Cassian.”
He raised his hand with a shameless smirk on his face. “I’m just asking—”
“I have to go,” you said quickly, stepping away from Azriel, the cool air in the hallway licking away the heat that his body had radiated onto your skin. You glanced once back at Azriel’s room, another piece of your dignity withering away as you decided to leave behind your underwear in the name of escaping to your room as quickly as possible.
Azriel could keep them.
Or burn them.
Ferry them away to some interspace dimension.
You didn’t care.
You flung the door to your room open, slamming the door shut with a thud that echoed through your too still room. There were still clothes strewn around haphazardly from your rush to get ready the night before, and your training leathers laid in a pile by the bathroom. You sank down against the door, your head resting against the heavy wood once you were seated on the floor. Your hands came up to cover your face, and you begged the Mother to put you out of your misery.
~ ~ ~
“You’re up late.”
Your heart skipped a beat as your eyes snapped up to the male in the doorway. You smiled sheepishly as he walked closer, sitting next to you on the sofa. He was in his leathers, and his eyes were tired as he looked at the fire, the flames flickering in his irises.
You laid your book down in your lap, the pages splayed outward. “Are you okay?” you asked.
His throat bobbed, and it took him a few seconds before he turned to look at you. His smile was small, but it seemed genuine. “I’m just tired,” he said. He leaned back on the couch, his wings brushing against yours as they draped over the back. He glanced at you, and you smiled back, intentionally stretching your wing to brush against his again.
Your face was warm, and you weren’t sure it was from the fire. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Azriel sighed. “Now that Rhys is High Lord,” he said, “there is just so much that needs done.” He paused, his hand coming up to run through his hair. “Before, it was not my choice to serve the High Lord.”
You winced, looking down at your lap.
“Hey,” he said, his hand squeezing your wrist. “That is not your fault.”
“You sacrificed your freedom for me, Azriel,” you argued.
“And I would do it again,” he swore. He tugged at your wrist, and you forced your gaze to meet his again. “It was worth it, Y/N. I would have ended up serving on his court one way or another, at least I got to protect you by doing it.”
You nodded, and Azriel relaxed against the couch again. His hand slid down to hold yours, his fingers lazily playing with your own. You weren’t sure if he was even aware that he was doing it. “It’s different now, with Rhys. I chose to serve him. I want to. I’m loyal to him. I believe in him, and I trust his heart. He has plans for this court, and I want to help him bring them to fruition. It’s just…” He bit his lip, as if searching for the right words.
“A lot of pressure?” you asked.
He nodded. “A lot of pressure.”
You leaned against his shoulder, squeezing his hand. “I think that’s good,” you said softly.
Azriel hummed. “What do you mean?”
You shrugged. “It means you care,” you said. “You want to help people, Az. I think it would be bad if you just didn’t care at all.”
Azriel leaned his head against yours. Eventually he said, “Enough about me.” He sat up, and his gaze zeroed in on the book still in your lap. “Tell me about your book.”
Heat flooded your face, and you sat up straight. “Oh,” you laughed nervously. “No—it’s not—it’s pretty boring.”
Azriel frowned. “Tell me why it’s boring then.”
“I don’t—”
“At least let me look at it,” he said at the same time, plucking the book from your lap before you could even register what he was doing.
Your book that was still open to where you had been reading when he walked in. Azriel’s eyes danced as he read over the page, his lips slowly stretching into a smirk.
Mother help you.
“This is boring?” he asked, the taunt clear in his voice. As if the grin on his face wasn’t enough.
You yanked the book from his hands, snapping it shut. “Shut up, Az.”
“I had no idea this is what you read when you holed yourself away up here,” he teased.
You knew he was not being cruel, but embarrassment still made your stomach twist. You shrugged, your thumb running over the corner of the cover.
“Hey,” he said gently, and you forced yourself to meet his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”
You shrugged, your smile thin as you said, “I like it.” Then, maybe a bit foolishly, you added, “It’s safer…than the real thing.”
Azriel went still beside you. “What do you mean?” His voice was tight.
You had to force your mortification down deep to answer him, “I’ve only kissed a few males, and—” you forced out a laugh. “And it was kind of terrible.”
“All of them?”
You nodded. “All of them.” You shrugged, looking at the fire to avoid his eyes. “I don’t know. They were all drunken males at Rita’s, which is probably not the ideal place to meet a male. But I also think it might be me?” Your voice was small with your admission, and you hated the words that were tumbling out of your mouth, unsure why you couldn’t stop them or how your night had suddenly led you here. “I tense up, because I know I don’t want it to go any further. I just—I can’t. I can’t, not with my wings. I don’t—”
You forced yourself to take a breath, forced yourself to recenter in the moment, here, with Azriel. You dragged your gaze back to his, his eyes soft and patient as they watched you diligently. There was not an ounce of judgment in his gaze, and it made your shoulders relax slightly.
“You’ve…been with females. Right?” you asked shyly.
Azriel blinked. “Um,” he choked out, and it was nice to see a tint of red across his cheeks. It made you feel slightly less vulnerable. “Yes,” he said, “I have.”
“Did they touch your wings?”
Azriel’s face twisted briefly, then it quickly softened. “Sweetheart,” he said, and the name made you feel warm all over. “No one should touch your wings without permission.”
“I know that, Azriel,” you grumbled. “That doesn’t mean they won’t.”
He was quiet for a moment, then he said quietly, “It’s okay if you aren’t ready.”
“I hate it, though!” you exclaimed, the book finally sliding off your lap. “I just—I just want to—” Your words died in your throat as your gaze snagged on Azriel’s lips. Your heart pounded against your ribcage, and you were speaking again before you really thought. “Will you kiss me?”
“What?” Azriel choked out, his eyes bewildered.
It was possibly the most insane idea you had ever had, but you wanted to kiss a male and not feel like vomiting immediately after, damn it. Azriel was perfect. In more ways than one. You trusted him. He was, objectively, beautiful. He didn’t smell like a bar—he smelled like cedar and fresh snow, actually. He—he was perfect.
“Kiss me,” you said again. You forced yourself to meet his eyes. “Please.”
His lips parted. “Y/N,” he started to say, but you cut him off.
“Azriel,” you nearly pleaded. Nearly. You had enough pride not to beg him for a damned kiss. But you were not above persuasion. “I am nearly a century old, and I just want to know what it is like to enjoy a kiss without working my way through every washed up drunk at Rita’s—”
His hands were on your face as your words died in your throat, and in the next second his lips were pressed to yours. You froze, but just for a second, and Azriel was not deterred. His lips melded with yours gently, coaxing you to slowly start kissing him back.
Time seemed to stop around you. Everything slowed as Azriel kissed you, and kissed you, and kissed you. His lips were soft, and he tasted like rose tea, and you could devour him, right there on that very couch in the middle of Rhys’s personal library. Your entire body was electrified, every nerve ending came to life as you kissed your best friend.
He started to pull back, but you chased after him, your hands coming up to his neck to guide him back to you. He came easily, his own hands cupping your jaw and tangling in your hair. There was a fire burning in the center of your chest, and it felt like Azriel’s soul was living and breathing inside of you as his lips found yours over and over.
He moaned softly into your mouth, and suddenly the world tilted, and you remembered exactly where you were and who you were with. You pulled back, and Azriel separated from you, his hands slowly falling away as you pushed him back.
You swallowed hard, licking your lips once before wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. Mother above.
You jumped to your feet with fragile composure, your book falling to the floor with a loud thud. Your heart was beating frantically, your pulse pounding in your ears, and your body was hot all over. Azriel was watching you with wide eyes, still sitting on the couch. “That was, um,” you said breathlessly, looking all around until your gaze finally fell back on him. “That was good.”
Azriel’s lips twitched. “Good,” he said, not really a question.
You bit the inside of your cheek, nodding. “Thank you.”
Azriel smiled. “Happy to help.”
“Right,” you whispered, trapped in a daze. You had just kissed your best friend. A lot. And you loved it. “Goodnight,” you rushed out, then made a beeline for the door.
You hurried down the halls, your mind racing as you neared your bedroom, as you opened your door and shut yourself safe inside. Your back fell against the door, your head thumping against the wood as a smile blossomed across your face and a laugh bubbled out of you.
That was better than any damned book.
~ ~ ~
“You have been an incredibly difficult female to find.”
You flinched at the voice behind you, your elbow banging into the wooden desk. You turned to meet Rhysand’s eyes, a smirk teasing his lips. You smiled sheepishly. “Sorry.”
He waved you off, walking closer to lean against the desk, making a show of taking in the dimly lit room of the library. You were deep beneath the main floor, layers of stone between you and everyone else in the world. The books and hushed steps of priestesses had been your sole company for days.
“You would think you were my scholar instead of my spy,” Rhys teased, but you heard the question in his voice.
You swallowed, aimlessly shuffling together some of the papers scattered in front of you. “Would that be a problem?” you asked quietly, avoiding Rhys’s gaze. “If I wanted to be, I mean?”
“Of course not,” Rhys said. He laid his palm down on the papers you were shuffling, your gaze reluctantly dragging up to meet his. His eyebrows raised slightly. “I didn’t realize you were unhappy with your position.”
“I’m not,” you assured him. “I’m just…”
“Not happy?”
You frowned. “Isn’t that the same thing?”
Rhys shrugged, pulling his hand back. “You tell me.”
You bit your bottom lip, looking at all the books and papers scattered around you. You had lost yourself to these walls, these words, for the last few days, and it was the most at peace you had felt in…a really long time. “Maybe,” you whispered. “I just miss it, sometimes. Your mother—” You hesitated, and you hated that the words got caught in your throat.
Rhys hummed in understanding. “My mother was many things,” he said quietly. “Beautifully cunning, was one of them.”
You smiled softly. “She gave me purpose when she brought me here. When she asked me to research childbirth and potions and medicine. When she asked me to help Madja.” You sighed, leaning back in your chair to look up at Rhys. “It’s just a different feeling than being a spy.”
It was all true. You missed the feeling of pages between your fingers and stringing sentences across books together to make a new—to make a discovery that would help others. Knowledge was, at its core, power. It was intoxicating when you first came to Velaris. You had never known such power existed, let alone one that could be at your very fingertips.
“And this has nothing to do with Azriel?”
Your breath hitched.
There was also that small fact that danced in the back of your mind. If you became a scholar again, you would no longer have to answer to Azriel. You had done well at avoiding him when you wanted these past few months, but resigning as a spy—well, that would make it all the more easier.
“That’s insulting,” you said instead.
Rhys held no remorse. “It’s a fair question.”
You rolled your eyes, feigning nonchalance and steeling your mental barriers as Rhys brushed against your mind. You scowled at him, and he only smirked.
“A kiss from a male is not going to decide my future career choices,” you growled.
Rhys' eyes lit up. “A kiss?” he laughed. “Well I wasn’t going to mention it—”
You groaned. “Enough, Rhysand.”
His eyes still danced with mirth, the faelights flickering in his violet irises. He seemed to debate his next words, and your shoulders sank with relief when he asked, “What have you been doing down here?” He picked up one of your notebooks—your personal notebook you realized with horror. “Mating bonds and desire,” he read aloud. “Matings bonds instill intrinsic—”
You snatched the notebook from his hands, your face hot. “Give me that.” You tossed it on the ground beside you. “That’s not what I’m researching.”
His brows raised. “No?” he asked, picking up the book that had The History of Mating Bonds embossed across the front.
“Not for you,” you countered, also taking the book from him.
Rhys pursed his lips, clearly not done tormenting you. “I was glad to see that you and Azriel had made up,” he mused. “Or should I say made out?”
“Rhys,” you pleaded.
“Now he’s back to moping around Velaris because you’ve holed yourself up down here. Researching mating bonds, apparently?”
“I told you that’s not all,” you grumbled, reaching for the much larger stack of papers and books across the desk. You slid them in front of Rhys pointedly.
He furrowed his brow. “The intricacies of mind compulsion?” He read the title of the first book aloud, then looked at your notes. His mouth turned into a frown, and your heart started to beat harder. “Potential targets of Koschei…Illyrians?”
You forced yourself to meet his gaze, nodding slowly.
“You think Koschei is controlling Illyrians?”
Not really, no. But wouldn’t it be nice if every terrible thing that had happened to you and so many others could be blamed on one entity? That the suffering you endured could be explained?
“Y/N,” Rhys said gently. “Sometimes evil is just evil.”
“I know,” you whispered.
Rhys squeezed your shoulder, a beat of silence passing between you before he said, “I wanted to tell you, I removed Freya’s husband from Windhaven.”
Your head snapped toward him. “What? Where is he?”
“Rotting in a cell in Hewn City.” He shrugged. “I haven’t had much time to go rifling through his mind, and I probably shouldn’t kill the male without proof of his crimes.” He grinned at you, his eyes glinting. “Though I can always expedite my investigation—”
“No,” you said. “Let him suffer.”
“As you wish,” Rhys said. “Speaking of Illyrians and Koschei, though,” he added slowly, “I have a mission for you. That is, if you don’t mind postponing the career change.”
You straightened. “Of course.”
Rhys picked up the sheet of paper with your notes detailing every link you could conceptualize between Illyria and Koschei, reading it with a worried frown on his face. “You’re not wrong that certain factions in Illyria would be vulnerable to Koschei’s…overzealous promises. Or would simply jump at the chance to see my head on a platter.”
Your stomach turned, knowing you had thought the same thing.
Rhys glanced at you, then laid the paper back down. “Koschei undoubtedly knows this. He’s already sent whispers into Kier’s court.”
“Kier?”
“Unfortunately,” Rhys grumbled. “Amren has done what she can to protect his mind from Koschei’s compulsion, but—”
“There’s only so much we know about him,” you finished softly.
“Precisely.” Rhys picked at a piece of lint on his arm, then folded them across his chest. “It presents us with an opportunity for a cover though. Azriel has not been able to infiltrate Koschei’s home nor the Mortal Queens’ castle. He’s managed to glean very little about how far Koschei’s influence reaches.”
“He’s mentioned that,” you said quietly.
“The queens are throwing a ball in two days.”
You scrunched your face up. “A ball?”
“Yes.” Rhys smirked. “And you will be attending—on behalf of the Court of Nightmares.”
“Me?” you asked. “How progressive of Keir to send a female liaison.”
Rhysand winced. “Well, not exactly.”
“Rhys.”
“Azriel will be going as the liaison,” he said, looking only slightly guilty. Your heart beat sped up. “You will be going as his wife.”
~ ~ ~
“Will it be weird?” you asked, fastening the last of your belts around your waist.
“What?” Azriel asked, absently cleaning his dagger. Truth-Teller, he called it. You had no idea where he got the obsidian blade, but he treated it like his first-born.
“Going on a mission together.”
Azriel frowned, sheathing Truth-Teller at his side. “Why would it be weird?”
You shrugged, nerves making you shaky as you stood in front of him, and your shakiness only made you more nervous. You felt like a fraud, wrapped in leather and strapped with weapons—like a child pretending they were a warrior. The sheath around your thigh slid down, hitting the floor with a clang that made you flinch.
Azriel kneeled on the ground to pick it up before you could, his fingers deftly undoing the buckle. His legs wrapped around your calf to guide your leg up, settling your boot-clad foot on his thigh. Your breath hitched when his fingers grazed your thigh, wrapping the leather sheath around you and securing it tight.
Then he lifted another thin strap of leather attached to the sheath, smiling softly as he weaved it under your belt. “You forgot to fasten this one,” he murmured quietly.
Your face was warm when his fingers fell away and you brought your foot back to the ground. “Thanks,” you whispered.
Azriel stood up, analyzing the rest of your gear with critical focus.
You bit your lip, anxiety still pushing up far too many inconsequential worries in the face of your first mission from Rhys. “Is it uncomfortable for you, being in charge of me?”
Azriel’s eyes snapped to yours. “No,” he said. “Is it for you?”
You automatically shook your head, then thought better of lying at a time like this, and slowly started to nod. Azriel frowned, and you hurried to explain, “I just—I’m scared of disappointing you.”
Azriel’s entire face went soft, his hazel eyes warm in the dim light of your room. “You could never disappoint me,” he said softly.
You shook your head. “You can’t say that.”
“It’s true,” he argued. “Y/N.” He took your face in his hands, forcing your eyes to meet his. “You could tell me right now that you aren’t ready, and you are not doing this mission, and I would be proud of you for standing up for yourself.”
You started to shake your head again, trying to close your eyes, but Azriel’s grip tightened. “You could go on this mission and decide to turn back at any point, and I would be proud of you for trying. Or we can go on this mission and get what we need, and I’ll be proud of you for doing it.”
Your eyes were burning as you stared at him, your entire body warming from the inside out as he brushed a gentle thumb over your cheek. “Do you want to go on this mission?”
You nodded. “I’m just scared.”
“That’s okay,” he assured. “I would be worried if you weren’t.”
You smiled slightly.
“Rhys trusts you. I trust you. I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I didn’t think you were ready.”
His words were meant to be soothing, but they only twisted your spiral tighter. “Rhys is an untried High Lord now,” you laughed drily. “His faith in me is all the more pressure not to royally fuck this up for him.”
Azriel’s hands dragged down your arms. “It’s going to be fine,” he soothed. “It’s just the Spring Court, anyway,” he grumbled. “Our relationship with them is already shit, and Tamlin is an untried High Lord too. If we get caught,” he shrugs, “oh well.”
You knew it was definitely not as simple as “oh well” if you got caught. Rhys needed these roses. He needed their magic to rebuild and revitalize Velaris. It was also just roses though, which you knew was Azriel’s point.
You nodded, letting out a deep breath.
“Okay?” Azriel asked.
You nodded again, then yanked Azriel down into a hug, your arms circling around his waist. His body curled around yours, his cheek pressing against yours as you held him close.
“It will be okay,” he murmured. “You’re not doing this alone. If anything happens, you’ll have me.”
You nodded your head against his chest, still not letting go as your breathing slowly calmed. You inhaled his scent and listened to his heart beat, and you thought for a moment that your hearts began to beat in tandem.
Azriel squeezed you tighter.
“You will always have me.”
~ ~ ~
Azriel was freaking out.
He had dealt with more nerves in these last few months than he had in all his centuries of life, and he was tired. He knew it was a mess of his own making, really, which made it worse. He felt like he was grasping at cobwebs every time he moved to try and fix this mess he had made after too many fucking drinks at Rita’s. Twice. With every step he made, the ground seemed to just crumble beneath him, and he was terrified that this might be the last chance he had to salvage whatever you were still willing to give him.
He wasn’t sure if he loved or hated Rhys for forcing the two of you on this mission. Maybe both. You had been hiding from him for days, again, and he couldn’t blame you. He never should have kissed you, let alone allowed it to escalate as it did, and every time his mind wandered to how the night might have progressed differently if you had not fallen ill so quickly, his stomach revolted with guilt.
He was drunk. He was—he knew he was—but he was sober enough to take care of you. That was his responsibility. He had promised you. He owed you, after all. It was his fault that he had taken one too many shots blindly from Cassian after relentless begging, and it was his fault he didn’t bother questioning Cassian when he slurred some nonsense about “flying without flying” as he passed him a brightly colored liquid that smelled and tasted overly medicinal.
He should have realized it was the same shot Mor had grown infatuated with throughout the night, and that you had taken with her in solidarity—and with maybe a little desperation, if he was honest with himself. He didn’t know exactly what was bothering with you, but he knew it had to be something he said that night at Rita’s, and fuck knows what else since then. The dinner with Soleil had been particularly terrible, but that was only one night.
He was fairly certain you were unaware of the bond. It was strange, every time he reached for the living, glowing tendril in his chest. He could trace it all the way to you, and it felt alive and intimate in a way he never knew existed, but it was dark. Quiet. Like it was asleep, and he never let himself reach close enough to risk tearing you from that peaceful slumber.
He wanted you more than anything. He had been in love with you since he was a boy, if he was entirely honest with himself, but he didn’t really understand what love was for a very long time. He didn’t know how to recognize it, how to differentiate it from the familial love he had felt toward his brothers. He just knew he would die for you, live for you, do anything for you—and maybe he was a bit foolish, for taking so long to realize.
Then after centuries, in the midst of a war tattered campground, as you yelled at him for being a godsdamned martyr while mending a tear in his wings, he felt the world tilt around him. He thought he was dying at first, when he felt that first tug against his ribcage and the air was yanked from his lungs. Then he sucked in a fresh breath, and grasped at the living thing pulsing inside him, and he followed it directly to you, kneeling before him. You had dirt and blood dried on your face, your leathers were torn, and he loved you—and you were his mate.
It took everything in him to control his face and shadows. He could hardly process that what he had longed for had just been so unceremoniously unveiled in the midst of chaos and carnage, and he knew that the last thing you needed to worry about was a mating bond.
He told Rhys and Cassian not long after, and it was not intentional, but he felt like he was dying hiding this blessing from everyone. He hated feeling like he was hiding you. He almost confessed everything, almost bared his entire soul to his brothers in a too small tent surrounded by exhausted warriors and friends and family after fighting for everything and claiming victory, but he thought better of it, and no one ever brought it up again.
Not until he apparently told you like a drunken fool on the streets of Velaris a year later.
He was just glad he didn’t say it was you. That you were his mate he adored and would eternally serve and pine for from afar if he must.
You had spent your life fighting for a future, for autonomy, and he could not steal that from you in the name of taking something he wanted. You had never spoken of mates. You had never seemed keen on finding a partner or spouse or having children. You always diverted any conversations Azriel had subtly prompted in the past, and he was never one to push you more than you wanted.
He could not—would not—force a mating bond on you. He would rather die.
He still selfishly hoped it would snap for you one day. He could not control fate, after all, and if it did—well, then it would be your choice what to do with it. It wouldn’t be something that he was forcing you to confront.
He could love you from afar. He could love you as a friend. He could love you however you needed him to. He did.
He also thought you might love him, and that was terrifying. He didn’t know how to navigate that possibility. Sometimes, he let himself think that maybe you were jealous of some amorphous mate he had drunkenly poured his heart out for, and maybe that was one of the roots of your shifting demeanor with him. It felt too foolish, though, too egotistical to consider for long. He had known you for centuries and had never seen you envy anyone.
However, he could not deny the signs that you felt something toward him. You had kissed him, even if you were drunk, and he was certain that you would have kissed him that night in Illyria if he had not pulled away. It was confusing, trying to decide the best way to handle such a delicate situation, and every move he made seemed to create a new fracture.
If you loved him, you could choose him for yourself, without the pressure of a mating bond.
But he also knew that you would never let yourself encroach on another person’s happiness, on his happiness, which meant you would protect Azriel’s mating bond with you from yourself if you thought it was with another.
It was a mindfuck.
“Azriel.”
Azriel spun around, his shadows darting behind his wings as he met your glare with wide eyes. You were standing across from him in this too small inn room with your hands clutching your dress to your chest. Waves of onyx fabric fell from your hips, shimmering in the faelights as you stepped closer.
Azriel swallowed hard, his mouth suddenly dry and face warm. “Sorry,” he said, and he hoped he sounded somewhat composed. “What did you say?”
Your lips pursed and your brow crinkled in frustration. He had no idea how long he had been lost in his thoughts, staring at a wall to give you privacy while you dressed.
“I need your help with this dress,” you huffed, and turned around to show him your open back.
It was a corset back, and if you let go of your bodice he was certain the entire dress would fall in a heap at your feet. He could see the hint of black lace lining your lower back, and his pulse thumped loudly in his ears as he stepped closer, allowing himself only another second to drink in the expanse of your bare.
He picked up the silken laces from the bed, his fingers grazing your skin as he threaded the first row and then pulled it taut. Your wings flared outward, and you reached for the desk crammed against the wall to hold yourself steady.
Azriel’s gaze lingered on your wings, then he frowned at the laces in his hands. The top of the dress was maybe a finger’s width away from the base of your wings. “Will this irritate your wings?” he asked.
You shifted impatiently, and he could practically hear you roll your eyes as you said, “According to Mor, no.”
Azriel’s frown deepened. He continued lacing the corset, but said quietly, “Mor does not have wings.”
“Trust me,” you gritted out when he tugged at the dress. “I know.”
“Do you want to wear something else?”
“Of course I do,” you huffed, still leaning over the desk. “But this is what Rhys gave me, and I have a part to play.” You waved at him flippantly, urging him to continue. “I’m meant to be your pretty plaything from the Court of Nightmares.”
Azriel couldn’t help the harsher tug on your laces, a startled oof falling from your lips. “You’re my wife,” he corrected quietly.
You were quiet at that, letting the soft slide of silk laces occupy the room.
If one of his shadows fell away from his grasp to slither down your arm, he didn’t stop them.
Eventually he pulled the final row tight, securing the corset with a bow. He should have stepped away then. He should have given you your space, but instead his hands grabbed you by your waist, and turned you around slowly to face him. Your chest rose and fell with heavy breaths as your eyes met his, and your irises were stunning against the smoky background Mor had crafted before you left—even if you would be unrecognizable to anyone else beneath the glamour.
“You are divine,” he told you, and the words felt like a hymn upon his lips. He forced the rest of the praises down deep into his soul, letting them coast along the bond in glimmering glyphs instead of speaking them aloud.
Your breath hitched.
You took a small step back, looking down at your dress as you smoothed over the fabric with your hands. “This dress is a monstrosity,” you argued, though the words lacked conviction. “And entirely impractical.”
Azriel shook his head, stepping forward to reclaim the space between you. He was a foolish, foolish male. He would do everything in his power to kindle this flame that glowed between you. How could he not? There was never really another option, as much as he might try to delude himself.
“I was not talking about the dress,” he told you quietly, warmth flooding his body as you looked up at him with wide and blinking eyes.
Your throat bobbed as you licked your lips, and Azriel could not help the flare of desire that sparked in his chest. You were ethereal, and powerful, and you were about to walk inside a ballroom full of fools and run circles around them. He loved every fiber of your being.
He reached for your hand, your skin soft against his scars. He lifted it slowly to his lips, his eyes never leaving yours as he left a lingering kiss against your skin. You blinked, and he gently lowered your hand back down, but he didn’t let go. “Let’s go make some friends, wife.”
~ ~ ~
The ball was more akin to a menagerie.
Azriel did not let his hand leave your waist as the two of you weaved through a sea of bodies, an eclectic and seemingly chaotic collection of faeries littering the ballroom floor. There were humans sprinkled throughout too, and Azriel’s chest tightened at the emptiness behind their gazes. The music that filled the room seemed slow and upbeat all at once, a tempo that left his heart beating fast in his chest.
He did not like this at all.
His hand tightened on your waist, and his lips brushed the shell of your ear as he leaned down to say, “Do not leave my side.”
Of course, you glared at him. “I can take care of myself.”
Azriel spun you so you were chest to chest, both of his hands now on your waist as your hands pressed against his chest. He swayed the two of you to the slightly off-beat music that made his skin crawl. His cheek brushed against yours as he leaned down again to speak to you quietly. “For all intents and purposes tonight, you are my wife.” He felt your breath fan out in a warm buff against his neck, and he brought one of his hands up to lace his fingers with yours, the two of you dancing slowly amongst the crowd. “Assume we are being watched.”
You nodded slightly, acquiescing as you leaned into him. “Why do I feel more like an exhibit than a guest?” you murmured.
And that was exactly how Azriel would describe it. The skin on the back of his neck prickled as if there were eyes on him from every direction, but his shadows had scattered to every corner of the room, and there was no one watching the two of you. No one that could be seen.
“There’s too many people here,” he said, eyes scouring the crowded floor. “And none of them seem particularly…noble.” It was not an insult, but no one here was dressed in finery that would be expected at a royal ball. He almost felt like the two of you were overdressed.
There were as many lesser fae as there were high fae, and that made him nervous—for them. He could not imagine that the Mortal Queens had decided to provide charity to the oppressed fae of Pyrthian, and if Koschei had any involvement in this gathering, he hated to think about why these people were gathered here. He also could not ignore that, technically, the two of you were lesser fae as well.
Kier had said the invitation was for his court nobles, who would have been High Fae, but Azriel trusted Kier as far as he could throw him, even with Rhys rifling through his mind.
“Do you think it’s a trap?” you murmured quietly in his ear.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and he hated feeling unsteady. He hated how little information he had been able to collect from Koschei and the Mortal Queens, and how difficult it had been to glean any information from the shadows of the Continent. “No one knows who we are,” he said. “But this is not the crowd I anticipated.”
You went stiff in his arms. He ducked his head to meet your gaze, but your eyes remained glued over his shoulder. He squeezed your waist, pulling your gaze to him. “There are two Illyrians here,” you said quietly.
Azriel blinked. His grip tightened on your hand, and he imperceptibly shifted you closer to his body. “We anticipated this,” he murmured. It didn’t stop the rage from coursing through his veins.
It also meant that Koschei was almost definitely acting as a puppeteer for the Mortal Queens, either knowingly or unknowingly to them. That was expected, though, and that wasn’t why you and him were there. You were there to collect information, to find out who else might be involved. He had anticipated nobility from across courts, though, not a consortium of lesser fae.
“Az,” you said quietly, and he almost reminded you not to say his name, but then you shifted the two of you just enough so that he could see the Illyrians. He recognized them. They were from Windhaven. He was fairly certain one was a male you had spat at just weeks ago.
“They won’t recognize us,” he assured, though even he did not really believe his words. He could still see the sheen of the glamour Rhys had cast around your face, and he could feel the warmth of his on his skin, but it did nothing to hide the fact that you were Illyrians, and if they got close enough, they could recognize your scents. You had likely made an impression.
You bit your lip, your eyes shifting around the ballroom, but your gaze always lingered on them. “Look who they are speaking with.”
Azriel glanced again, careful not to stare. He sucked in a breath as a faerie moved to reveal the High Fae the Illyrians were standing next to. “Autumn Court soldiers.”
“And nobility,” you added. “That’s the first noble I’ve seen.”
“They could be under a thrall,” he said.
You shook your head, forcing your gaze away from the males. Your eyes were sharp when they met his gaze. “No,” you said. “They’re perfectly lucid.” A human bumped into you from behind, sending you careening into Azriel. He steadied you easily, even as you glared at the woman that stumbled away without an apology. “I’m not sure the same can be said of the humans,” you grumbled.
“They might be drunk on faerie wine.”
Your nose scrunched up in distaste. “These Mortal Queens are fools.”
“They could also be in a thrall,” he argued half-heartedly.
“Briallyn wasn’t.”
“No,” he agreed quietly.
“We need to split up,” you said.
Azriel did not agree. His grip on your waist tightened, and you cast a withering glare toward him. “No,” he said.
Your eyes narrowed, and you leaned in close. You hand trailed from his chest to the back of his neck, your nails grazing his hair at the nape of his neck. Your lips brushed the column of his throat as you murmured back, “Yes.”
He knew you were playing into your role. He knew the two of you very well could not argue in the middle of the ballroom, no matter how crowded. He knew you likely felt the same invisible eyes on your back that he did. It did not stop the rush of desire that ran through his veins or the goosebumps that pebbled his skin.
He swallowed hard. Then he tilted his head so his lips grazed your ear. “I do not think that is wise.”
“We are not doing this again,” you argued, your tone a touch harsher. “I can take care of myself, Azriel.” His jaw clenched, and he knew you were right. He hated himself for letting his own selfish fears dictate his decisions, and for trying to dictate yours.
Your eyes were soft when you pulled back to look at him, though. “There are too many people here for us to just stand here and dance in the middle of the floor.”
He was grateful in that moment that Rhys’s glamour did not hide you from him. You were stunning. Beautifully sharp in all the right places, power coursing through your veins and conviction shining in your eyes. You were more than capable. He had never doubted that. He just felt like he was dying every time you were in danger, and he could not fathom what it might feel like if something happened to you.
“Okay,” he whispered. He hated the ripple of shock on your face, but he loved the small smirk that graced your lips.
Azriel could not help himself.
He leaned down, his lips a hairs breadth away from yours as he paused for just a second, then he pressed his lips to the corner of your mouth. Your breath hitched as he pulled back, but he didn’t let either of your wallow in your complicated emotions. “Don’t wander far, wife,” he said, voice cool and detached, loud enough for those around you to hear.
Your eyes narrowed, but you bowed your head slightly, stepping away from Azriel. He forced himself to drop your hand, and he watched you until you disappeared in the throng of faeries.
Az and reader have been in love with each other for a while but they both are too scared to admit it in fear of the other person not reciprocating, one day reader has had enough of it and out of nowhere goes "hey az I've been meaning to do this" or something like that and kisses him panics and leaves the room immediately.
Az looks asks mor and cass if reader just kissed him (he is completely spiraling doesn't know if he dreamed or not) and to mess with him they're like like what?? Dude no that didn't happen you weirdo, fast forward a few days and reader is venting to mor on how she finally made the first step (as mor encouraged her before) and az didn't acknowledge nor comment on the kiss, infact he's acting the same as before, mor is like oh shit he believed us when we messed with him reader is like WHAT,WHY DID YOU DO THAT, and has to confess all over again
(Photos courtesy of Pinterest)
Authors Note: I'm slightly nervous about this one, I hope you guys enjoy! Slight angst and miscommunication below, but there is a happy ending don't you worry.
Rita's was loud, warm, and just dim enough to make bad decisions feel like excellent ones.
You were currently on your third drink.
Which was already becoming a problem.
"Stop staring," Mor said beside you, not even looking up as she leaned against the bar.
"I'm not staring," you muttered, taking a sip of your drink.
"You are," she says flatly. "It's bordering on tragic at this point."
Your eyes flickered - again - across the room.
And there he was.
Azriel sat with Rhysand and Cassian at their usual booth, his shadows almost invisible in the lowlight where they curled lazily around his shoulders, a half-empty glass in his hand. He was dressed effortlessly immaculate in a dark long sleeved shirt, the top few buttons undone so his tattooed chest was starting to peek through, and dark jeans. His curls were messily styled, a few strands lay on his forehead that you ached to brush away.
He wasn't even doing anything particularly interesting - just listening, occasionally speaking - but somehow that made it worse.
Because you knew him.
Knew the quiet, the restraint, the way he observed everything before speaking. Knew the softness he hid so carefully.
Knew how he looked at you when he thought you weren't paying attention in a way that made your chest tighten - like maybe there was a possibility...
You dragged your gaze away when Mor snorted.
"I hate you," you told Mor.
She laughed. "You love him."
You didn't respond. You didn't need to.
You watched as Azriel lifted his glass to his lips, downing the rest of the amber liquid inside, his thumb slowly tracing his bottom lip to catch any excess his mouth didn't swallow.
You bit your lip as your face suddenly heated.
Mor finally turned, studying you properly now, her expression softening slightly. "You know he feels it too, right?"
That got your attention.
Your stomach flipped. "No, he doesn't."
"He does."
"He doesn't," you insisted, a little too quickly. "If he did, something would've happened by now."
Mor hummed, unconvinced. Then - casually, like she was suggesting you try a different wine - "So do something, prove me wrong."
You choked on your drink. "Absolutely not."
"Oh, come on-"
"No," you said, firmly. "Nope. Not happening. I am not risking that. I like...what we have."
Mor arched a brow. "You mean the longing looks and emotional torture?"
"Yes," you snapped. "I mean no-"
She snorted. "Coward."
Your next round finally arrived, bringing an end to the conversation. You grabbed yours like it might anchor you to sanity.
It did not.
Because a few minutes later-
Another drink.
Then another.
And suddenly the warmth in your chest wasn't just nerves anymore.
It was something else. Something bold and reckless.
Mor's suggestion suddenly didn't seem like such a bad idea.
You looked at him again.
Azriel.
He was laughing at something Cassian said.
It had been several months now you had been harbouring feelings for the Shadowsinger and it was becoming harder and harder to keep yourself together in front of him.
You couldn't keep living like this anymore.
A sudden realisation snaps into you.
"Oh gods," you breathed.
Mor glanced at you. "What-"
"Fuck it," you said, more to yourself than her.
You picked up the shot that was waiting for you and tipped your head back as you downed it, slamming it onto the bar as the familiar taste burned the back of your throat.
Her eyes lit up immediately. "Wait, where are you going-"
You were already moving. Across the room. Straight to him.
Every step felt unreal, like you were watching yourself from a distance. You couldn't believe you were doing this - but you didn't stop.
Couldn't.
Azriel noticed you - of course he did.
His attention sharpened instantly, gaze locking onto yours as you approached. He excused himself from the booth, coming to meet you halfway across the dance floor.
"Hey," he said, a small smile forming - soft, just for you. "Everything alri-"
You didn't let him finish.
"Hey, Az," you said, breath a little unsteady. "I've been meaning to do this, for a while now..."
And then-
You grabbed the front of his shirt, hauling him down to your height and raising yourself onto your tiptoes and pressed your lips to his.
This close, you could smell his cologne. His lips were unbelievably soft and tasted of mint, the remnants of whiskey on his breath.
It wasn't graceful.
It was messy, hot - your lips melded against his as you poured everything you could into it. Everything you were too scared to tell him with words.
It only lasted a few seconds.
But it was enough for the world to tilt. For Azriel to go completely, utterly still.
Enough for that spark - that thing between you - to flare into something undeniable.
His lips begin to press back-
And then your brain catches up.
"Oh gods-"
You pulled back.
You stared up at him - wide-eyed, horrified.
He looked just as stunned.
Hazel eyes blown wide. Lips slightly parted. Shadows frozen mid-curl like they'd forgotten how to exist.
He didn't say anything. He didn't move.
You panicked.
"Okay-bye-"
And then you left.
Actually left.
Turned on your heel and disappeared out of Rita's before anyone could stop you.
What had you done?
Azriel continued to stand there in the throngs of dancers as you fled the dance floor.
You had just kissed him.
And walked away before he could do or say anything.
"Hey," Cassian said over the music, suddenly appearing at his side. "Are you okay?"
"...Did she just kiss me?" He asked slowly.
"Who?"
"(Y/N)."
Cassian's grin spread, wide and immediate. "Are you drunk? Not a chance."
Azriel looked between Cassian and the space you just vacated, confusion already creeping in. "She just-"
Cassian clapped a hand on his shoulder and steered him towards the bar. "Okay, lover boy. Time for another drink."
Mor - still at the bar - waved them over.
"What's wrong with him?" Mor asked, taking immediate note of the shell-shocked look on the Shadowsinger's face.
He stared at her. "She just kissed me."
Cassian laughed and boisterously clapped Azriel on the back as he gestured to the barman. "Az here thinks (Y/N) just put the moves on him."
Mor blinked. "Pfft, no way."
"I'm telling you, she did," Azriel protested.
Then - very gently - "No, she didn't. Does that sound like something she would do?"
Silence.
Azriel looked at Cassian.
Cassian shook his head slowly. "Buddy...I think you've had a bit too much to drink."
Azriel's stomach dropped.
"...Right," he said faintly.
Maybe he had imagined it.
Gods.
What was wrong with him?
Was he that helplessly in love with you that he had actually imagined his wildest fantasy coming to life?
According to Cassian and Mor, clearly he had.
Azriel rubbed a hand down his face.
He needed to get a hold of himself.
You woke up the next day feeling sick.
One, from all the alcohol you had consumed.
Secondly, because you had kissed Azriel.
Your mind flashed back to the moment - how soft his lips had been against yours, the taste of him, how hard his chest had felt under your hands.
You couldn't believe you had done that.
You had ruined everything.
And to make matters worse, you had fled before you could explain yourself.
"Cauldron, save me," you practically screamed into your pillow.
There was only so long you could stay holed up, avoiding everything. You had to eventually leave the safety of your room.
Your nerves were strung tight.
The dining room was already full.
Cassian is halfway through a story, hands moving animatedly. Rhysand is laughing into his coffee. Mor is slumped against the table clearly hungover.
And, there he is-
Azriel.
Seated. Calm. Drinking his tea like nothing in the world has changed.
Your stomach flips.
Okay. This is fine.
Maybe he's waiting. Maybe he'll catch your eye. Say something quietly. Subtly. Azriel-style.
You take your seat.
Nothing.
He doesn't even look up.
You wait, eyes nervously flittering to where he sits as you attempt to eat something to settle your stomach.
Cassian finishes his story and glances over you, smirking.
Oh no.
"Morning," he says, far too casually.
"Morning," you reply, equally carefully.
Azriel nods once in your direction.
Just-
A nod.
Like you didn't kiss him last night. Like you didn't run away like an idiot. Like nothing happened at all.
Heat crawls up your neck as his eyes continue to assess you, but he says nothing.
"Where did you go last night?" Mor enquires, her voice muffled from where she still sits slumped on the table.
You almost choke on your juice.
"I, uh...wasn't feeling well," you explain, trying to keep your tone casual.
"Even after all these years, you still can't handle your drink (Y/N)," Cassian teases.
Azriel, meanwhile, reaches for more tea.
Unbothered.
"Azriel had quite a bit to drink last night too, didn't you?" Cassian continues.
Mor snorts.
Your eyes flicker between the pair of them, questioning, before they settle back on Azriel.
You stare at him.
He doesn't even react.
Something in your chest tightens.
Did you imagine it?
No.
No, you didn't.
You felt it. The way he kissed you back-
Your fingers tighten around your fork.
Breakfast continues.
Laughter. Conversation.
You barely hear it.
Every few seconds your gaze drifts back to him.
And every time, there's nothing.
He speaks quietly to Rhys. Responds to Cassian. Listens to Mor.
But to you?
Polite. Neutral. Friendly.
Like always. Just like before.
You try to swallow the lump that continues to grow bigger and bigger in your throat the longer you sit there.
Eventually, one by one, they leave.
Cassian first, with a suspicious grin, dragging Mor with him. She throws a look to Azriel you can't quite decipher. Rhys disappears in a cloud of darkness.
And suddenly, it's just you and Azriel.
Your heart picks up.
Okay. This is it.
Now he'll say something. Now he'll acknowledge it, without the prying eyes of everyone else.
He sets his cup down.
He looks at you.
And says-
"Did you still want to train today?"
You blink.
"...What?"
"Yesterday, you said you wanted me to help you with that new manoeuvre," he explains. "Do you still want to?"
That's it.
You stare at him.
"You don't have anything else to say?"
He frowns slightly, like he's genuinely confused.
"...About?"
Your stomach drops.
About.
About?
You laugh once - short, disbelieving - unable to keep it at bay.
Azriel's brows draw together. "What?"
You push your chair back, standing abruptly.
"It's okay, I think I just need to go back to bed."
"(Y/N), what's wrong-"
"Nothing's wrong," you cut in, a little sharper than you intended. "Clearly I misunderstood something."
You needed to get away. You couldn't even look at him. Embarrassment and hurt threatening to spill over in tears that you couldn't let him see.
Azriel stands with you, confused by your sudden desperation to get away from him.
"Misunderstood what?"
You shake your head, already moving toward the door.
He clearly wanted to pretend it never happened.
You'd made a terrible mistake.
"Don't worry about it."
"(Y/N), please, wait."
You can't help but pause for a half a second, unable to ignore the plea in his voice.
You look back at him. He's stood, partially around the table as if he had made to follow you. His face was neutrally masked, but you could see the flicker of confusion and - anguish? - in his eyes.
"Did I do something?" He asks.
The sincerity in it almost makes it worse.
You swallow.
"...No."
You shoot him a small smile to try and put him at ease. "I drank too much last night, is all."
And then you leave.
Azriel stands there for a long moment after you're gone.
Frowning. Thinking.
His shadows stir uneasily.
Something is wrong.
He just doesn't know what.
He'd spent the remainder of the night before trying to forget what his mind had conjured up.
Your kiss.
Your lips pressed against his, how sweet you tasted, how soft and plump your lips felt.
He decided if it did happen, you would act differently. You would say something to him surely. Look at him differently. Acknowledge it.
He watches you carefully through breakfast, even when you think he isn't looking.
You look completely normal, maybe a little tense.
But not like someone who kissed him. Not like someone who had felt what he'd felt.
Something twists uncomfortably in his chest.
Clearly he had just imagined it then.
His shadows whisper uneasily at his shoulders.
Something is off.
You're too controlled. Too careful. You're not speaking much.
And every time your gaze flickers towards him, it disappears just as quickly. Like you're checking something. Like you're hurt.
That makes his grip tighten slightly on his cup.
Why would you be hurt?
Nothing stands out.
Nothing, except-
No.
If the kiss had been real, you wouldn't be acting like this.
Would you?
Doubt creeps in again.
Cassian glances between you both and smirks into his drink. "Azriel drank quite a bit last night, didn't you?"
Azriel narrows his eyes slightly, but doesn't respond, ignoring the hint towards his supposed drunken imagination.
You look between them, brows furrowed, but thankfully you don't enquire what Cassian meant.
Breakfast continues, but he can't shake the feeling that he's missing something.
His focus is entirely on you as everyone leaves.
You're still seated. Still tense. As if you're waiting for something.
He sets his cup down. And tries to bridge the gap the only way he knows how.
"Do you still want to train today?"
The moment the words leave his mouth, he knows it's wrong.
Your reaction is immediate.
Sharp. Confused. Hurt.
His chest tightens.
"You don't have anything else to say?" You ask.
Azriel frowns.
Because he doesn't know what you want him to say.
"...About?"
The word lands wrong. He sees it happen, sees the shift in your expression. And he doesn't understand why.
You stand abruptly.
Alarm flickers through him.
"It's okay, I think I just need to go back to bed."
It's not okay, that much is obvious.
He gets to his feet, unable to help himself from attempting to follow you.
"(Y/N), what's wrong-"
"Nothing's wrong. Clearly I misunderstood something."
Now he was really confused.
"Misunderstood what?"
But you shake your head and continue to move away.
Panic claws up his throat.
"(Y/N), please, wait," he calls, desperate to keep you in front of him.
You pause.
Hope flickers in his chest.
"Did I do something?" He asks.
Because he needs to know. Because he hates this distance. Because he can't stand that you look devastated right now, despite how much you're trying to hide it.
Your answer is quiet.
"...No."
But it's not true. He knows it isn't. He knows you too well.
But you shoot him a small smile to try and put him at ease anyway. "I drank too much last night, is all."
And then you leave.
Something is wrong. Something important.
A few days has passed since that night in Rita's.
You tell yourself it's nothing. That you can move past this.
People misread things all the time. Moments get bigger in your head than they were in reality. Maybe you'd imagined the way he'd kissed you back. Maybe it had been surprise, instinct.
He was clearly trying to spare your feelings by not bringing it up again.
That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.
You'd kissed him because the drunken part of your brain was convinced that it would be the perfect way to finally confess your feelings for him. He would kiss you back, admit that he was in love with you too and you would live happily ever after.
How idiotic could you be.
You've only seen Azriel a handful of times since breakfast the morning after.
You weren't trying to make it obvious that you were avoiding him.
You walk down the hallway, your steps faltering when you see Azriel coming the other way. His shadows curl lazily around his shoulders. He slows when he spots you.
"There you are," he says, like he's been looking.
Your chest tightens.
"Hi."
You don't stop walking, but he falls into step beside you anway.
"I was hoping to speak to you."
Your pulse jumps.
"Busy," you say quickly, gesturing vaguely ahead. "Rhys needed-something."
You don't even give him time to question it.
"Later," you add over your shoulder, already turning a corner.
You don't look back.
You try to ignore his gaze lingering on your back.
It becomes a pattern.
You're always just leaving. Just busy. Just not available right now.
Azriel is trying, you can see that.
The way he lingers in doorways a second longer. The way he adjusts his path to cross yours. The way his shadows find you before he does.
But you just need some time.
You find sanctuary in Mor's room one afternoon, bursting in unannounced, trying to avoid Azriel once again.
"What is with you lately?" She enquires.
"I kissed him," you said, pacing Mor's room like your life depended on it. "I actually kissed him."
"Kissed who?"
"Azriel. I kissed Azriel."
"You what?!" Mor shrieked. "How? When!?"
You stopped. "You know I did."
"When? That night at Rita's?"
"You saw me!"
"No I didn't! It was crowded and you left me so quick I wasn't sure-"
You could scream. This was her idea after all - you'd potentially ruined your friendship with Azriel all because she'd thought it was a good idea.
"Oh no."
You stopped. "What do you mean oh no?"
Mor winces as she responds. "Cassian and I may have convinced Az that...you didn't actually kiss him."
Your eyes narrowed. "Mor."
Silence.
You stared at her.
"...You what?"
Mor grimaced. "He asked, and we said no, and he believed us, and-"
"Why would you do that?!" You shrieked.
"I didn't think you would actually do it!" She protested. "I can't believe you actually kissed him, I'm so proud of you!"
"No, no, no," you shake your head. "He didn't kiss me back."
"Have you not spoken about it since?"
"N!" You gestured wildly. "He's been acting completely normal. Like nothing happened! I thought he just-didn't care-"
"Oh, he cares," Mor said quickly. "You should have seen how disappointed he was when he thought it was just his drunken imagination that he hallucinated the love of his life kissing him."
You froze.
"...The what of his life?"
Mor slapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh come on, it's so obvious!"
Your heart was pounding now for an entirely different reason.
"You're telling me," you said slowly, "that he thinks he imagined it?"
"Yes."
"And that he-"
"Yes."
"Well-how am I-what do I do now?"
Mor rolled her eyes. "Go and kiss him again. Preferably without running away this time."
You stared at her.
Then groaned, dragging your hands over your face.
You can't believe this is happening.
You find Azriel later that day after Mor practically kicked you out of her room.
He was alone in the training ring.
You hesitated at the edge for half a second.
What if Mor was tricking you?
Maybe you should have taken a shot of liquid courage beforehand to steel your nerves.
"Az."
He turned instantly at the sound of your voice.
And gods, there it was again - that softening in his expression when he saw you.
Like you were something...important.
Your resolve nearly crumbled, especially without the alcohol running through your system.
Too late now.
You marched up to him before you could overthink it.
He watched you carefully. "Is everything alright?"
"No," you said.
Then, before your courage could abandon you again-
You grabbed the front of his leathers, hauled him down to your height again, raised yourself up onto your toes.
And kissed him.
Your heart was pounding so hard you were sure he could feel it.
And for a split second, he froze again.
Like before.
You almost lost your nerve, beginning to pull away.
But then-
His hand comes up to cup your jaw.
Gentle. Certain.
And suddenly, he's kissing you back.
No hesitation.
Like he's been waiting for it.
For you.
With Azriel's supposed reciprocation, you wind your arms around his neck, sinking into the kiss as he winds an arm around your waist and pulls you flush to him. You almost moan when his tongue swipes along your bottom lip.
Ohmygods, this was really happening.
When you finally pulled away, breathless, you don't run this time.
You stay.
"That," you said, trying to sound steadier than you felt, "was not a hallucination."
Azriel stared at you.
You didn't think it would be possible, but his eyes widened even more.
Then - very quietly - "I thought I imagined it."
"I know," you said flatly. "Our wonderful friends told me."
A flicker of understanding - and then mild irritation - crossed his face. "I'm going to kill them."
"Get in line."
A pause.
Then-
"You meant it?" He asked.
There it was.
The fear. The vulnerability he hid from everyone else.
Your chest ached.
"Yes," you said softly. "I meant it."
Something in him shifted and settled.
Like a piece of his had finally clicked into place.
His hand slid from your jaw to your waist, pulling you just a fraction closer.
"I was afraid you didn't," he admitted.
You huffed a small laugh. "I was afraid you didn't'."
He shook his head slightly, like he couldn't quite believe that.
Then, quieter-
"I have for a long time."
Your heart melted on the spot.
"Good," you whispered. "Me too."
And you kissed him again, not intending to let him go anytime soon.
synopsis: Desperate to prove your worth to your overprotective friends, you turn to the one male who never seemed to care whether you lived or died after your first mission goes terribly wrong. As it turns out, he cares very much.
my masterlist
~ ~ ~
“Is it always like this?”
Azriel glanced at you from the corner of his eye as you fell into the wooden chair next to his, the legs scraping slightly against the sticky floor. You lightly fanned your face as you became all too aware of the heat radiating from your cheeks, the hot and stuffy air around you feeling suffocating.
The rest of your table had abandoned their seats, pairs of them scattered across the dance floor, with the exception of Mor who had no trouble finding a new dance partner after you left her.
“Pretty much,” Azriel murmured quietly, taking a sip of his dark drink you were fairly certain he had been nursing all night.
You watched the bodies of faeries move and grind against one another in a messy rhythm, the music from the band practically vibrating through the floor to drive their movements. “We didn’t have this in the Spring Court,” you said absently, your words faint as you watched in disbelief and a little bit of awe.
“You didn’t have taverns?” Azriel asked, not really all that curious, but not entirely disinterested either. You would take that as a win.
Azriel was an enigma that you were desperate to piece apart. Sometimes you caught yourself staring at him for a few seconds too long. Sometimes you would lay awake at night and replay your brief conversations together.
You were almost always searching for a way to befriend him.
He was the one person in the inner circle that still had not opened up to you. Everyone told you not to take it personally. They said that was just Azriel—that he would sooner clip his wings before he shared something personal about himself. You were okay with that—really, it was fine—but would a smile every now and then hurt?
He wasn’t unkind. He was polite beyond measure, actually, which was all the more infuriating when you really thought about it. He was just indifferent. Apathetic to your presence, to your existence, when he had inexplicably taken up residence in your mind for free.
Maybe it was the stories your mother told you as a child. Maybe it was the dreams you used to have of his very shadows. Maybe it was the way the very ground seemed to shift beneath your feet the first time you saw him, and you felt settled for the first time in your life when his shadows brushed against your ankles.
“Y/N.”
His voice dragged your mind back to the present, your surroundings tilting a bit as you refocused on the male beside you. “Yeah?”
You thought his lips might have twitched, but you weren’t certain. You weren’t certain of much at the moment, now that you had removed yourself from the adrenaline of the dance floor and you were left to sift through your thoughts that seemed buried in sand. Gods, his lips looked soft.
“How much have you had to drink?”
You blinked, eyes dragging up to meet his again. “Not sure.” You shrugged. “Whatever Mor gave me.”
“Dangerous,” he murmured, then downed the rest of his drink in one go. He sat the glass down with a small thud, tapping the rim. “Do you need help getting home?”
Your lips parted as you stared at him. Was he offering his help?
“No,” Mor huffed, her arms falling around you from behind. “You can’t take her from me.”
You shifted uncomfortably, suddenly tense from being between Mor and Azriel. Nesta may have spilled far too much personal information about the two of them one wine night in the library. The thought of the two of them together…it made your skin feel slimy. You felt nauseous thinking about it—or maybe that was all of the shots and mixed drinks sloshing around in your stomach.
“I think I want to go,” you mumbled, gently pushing her arms off of you.
Mor pouted, but when she looked at Azriel she shrugged. “Fine. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
You nodded, unsteadily leaning into the quick kiss she pressed on your cheek before pushing her way back into the throng of dancing bodies.
You bit your lip as you looked at Azriel, suddenly nervous about being alone with him when you were this intoxicated—not because you didn’t trust him, but because you didn’t trust yourself. There was no telling what bullshit you might spew when liquor washed away your filter.
Azriel stood, extending his hand to you. You tried not to stare at the scar-mottled skin, tried not to think about just how far they extended up his arm. You had seen them at training, of course. You knew they were there, and you vaguely knew how he got them—yet another thing his family had shared, but not him. You had never touched him, though. Not without gloves covering his skin.
You realized Azriel was waiting after you sat there for too many seconds, and you quickly placed your hand in his to help you stand up. Thank the Mother for Azriel’s hand, because as soon as you stood, the floor started to slide beneath you.
Your grip tightened on Azriel’s hand, clinging to him to stay upright. Panic sluiced through you when he let go, but his arm came around you and he tucked you into his side, letting you lean heavily against his incredibly muscled body.
He was so warm. You could just stay here forever, actually.
“Alright,” Azriel murmured, shifting you once more and snapping you out of your daze—at least sort of. “Let’s get you home.”
You waved to Rhys and Cassian as you passed them at the bar, worried frowns creasing their face. Azriel shook his head, and he kept walking you toward the exit. Azriel might have been indifferent toward you, but at least he didn’t treat you like you were fragile.
You weren’t sure how you had made yourself the object of the entire inner circle’s worry. You were slightly clumsy and didn’t have an ounce of training to your name when you first arrived in Velaris, and maybe there were a few accidents at training that ended with a little spilled blood—but it had been over a year now. Now, you were fairly confident in your body. You knew how to wield it, how to trust it, how to use it as a weapon—you were no longer a floundering Spring fae servant girl.
You just wished your friends would treat you that way.
You stumbled forward as you stepped over the threshold and into the cool night air, Azriel catching you before you could tumble down the stairs. You blinked a few times, watching your feet closely as Azriel slowly led you down and onto the stone street. You loved the smell of the sea. You loved the fresh salt tinged air that covered Velaris, that made you feel more grounded than you ever did in the Spring Court.
Azriel smelled like the sea. He smelled like salt and cedar—a wonderful combination that you wished you could bottle up and sniff whenever you pleased. You tilted your head a little in toward his chest, your nose bumping against the side of his chest as you inhaled his scent.
“Are you sniffing me?”
If your skin wasn’t already burning from the heat of Rita’s and the alcohol rushing through you, you were certain you would be aflame now after being caught. You shrugged, pulling your nose away but leaning just a little more into him, making him huff as he readjusted his grip.
“Do you think I fit?”
“What?” Azriel murmured, entirely focused on guiding the two of you down the street. You wished he would just fly you. You’ve only flown with him a few times, and the feeling of his arms around you, holding you, protecting you—it made your head fuzzy just thinking about it. Or—more fuzzy.
“I just take up space,” you mumbled, words slowly meshing together just a bit. You had never been this drunk. Faerie wine had nothing on Mor’s drinks. You gestured wildly to the space around you. “But I don’t fit. I don’t do anything. Rhys won’t even send me on missions.”
“You’re still learning,” Azriel said softly, his voice almost gentle. “I promise, you fit.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but your throat felt funny and your mouth was starting to water. “Azriel,” you cut him off.
“Yeah?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
~ ~ ~
You were never drinking again.
It would be a cold day in Hell before you ever took another drink from Mor. You still felt slightly detached from your body, and no matter how many times you rinsed your mouth and scraped your tongue, you could still taste the remnants of the night before.
Gods, you were mortified. You definitely owed Azriel an apology. You didn’t remember much after you spilled the contents of your stomach all over the streets of Velaris, but you were certain he was responsible for somehow getting you up to the House of Wind and into your bed. You awoke in your clothes from the night before, but your shoes were off and your hair was miraculously vomit-free, so you would celebrate the small miracles that were likely orchestrated by Azriel.
You found him at the breakfast table, another small miracle this morning. You weren’t sure how you lived in the same home as the male, yet could count on your hands the number of times you have had breakfast with him.
“Azriel,” you said softly, prompting his gaze to drag up from his oatmeal and berries to your slightly disheveled form. You had to force yourself to put on training leathers this morning, and you were certain he could tell that getting ready this morning was a series of haphazard events..
His eyes lingered at your feet briefly for turning his attention back to his meal. “Your shoe is untied,” he mumbled before taking another bite.
Your face flushed, looking down to find your left boot entirely undone. You cursed as you bent down to fix it, your embarrassment making you fumble through the routine movement. You stood back up quickly, brushing your hands on your thighs nervously as you stood there awkwardly, gathering the courage to talk to him.
“I’m sorry about last night,” you blurted.
Azriel’s spoon paused midway to his mouth, his lips falling shut as his eyes snapped toward yours again.
“Really sorry, actually,” you hurried out, stepping closer.
He lowered his spoon slowly, watching you for a few agonizing seconds. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, then resumed eating his breakfast.
You blinked a few times. It was a clear dismissal, but you couldn’t wrap your head around his fucking indifference. “Azriel—”
“Y/N,” he cut you off, his eyes glancing at you, “It’s fine. Stop worrying.”
Stop worrying. Wouldn’t that be nice, if you could just stop worrying. Maybe you were delusional, but you thought you might have defrosted his shell at least a little after stumbling home drunk with him. You didn’t have to be close, but you would have liked to be friends. Last night, you thought maybe—
The sound of his chair screeching across the stone made you jump, and you watched as his food vanished and his back disappeared down the hall to the training room.
Right. You were delusional, and if you were really honest with yourself, you had an even more delusional crush on the very Shadowsinger that didn’t seem to care whether you breathed the same air as him.
~ ~ ~
“Y/N.”
You spun around, your head pounding from the abrupt motion. You winced, rubbing at your temple before meeting Rhys’s gaze.
His eyes were narrowed as he watched you, suspicion clear on his face. “Are you okay?”
As if you were going to tell him you were still suffering from a hangover—a hangover caused by the drinks his cousin had supplied you with the night before, no less.
“I’m fine,” you assured, straightening your posture. You immediately snapped your mental shields into place as soon as you felt Rhys brush against your mind, and you sent the male a glare. “I said I’m fine, Rhysand.”
“Rhysand,” he repeated under his breath as he shook his head. “I need to ask you for a favor.”
You immediately perked up, excitement sparking in your chest. “What can I do?”
“I need you to take a visit to the Spring Court.” To check in on Tamlin, is what he didn’t say.
“What about Azriel?”
“I need him in Windhaven.” He studied you for a moment. “I can ask—”
“When do I leave?”
Rhys blinked at you. Suspicion and apprehension limned his eyes, and you rocked nervously on the balls of your feet. You probably should have asked a few more questions. “Tomorrow night,” he said slowly. “You know you can tell me no.”
You were quietly thanking the Mother he didn’t say tonight, but you would have gone even if he had. You weren’t missing this opportunity.
“No,” you hurried out. “I mean—I want to. I just thought—will me being from the Spring Court make me more of a liability?”
Rhys shook his head. “Azriel thinks it’s the opposite. You should blend in seamlessly since you were born there, and Tamlin…well he hasn’t done much to his wards since the war.”
“Azriel?” you asked quietly, your heart beating a little too hard and your skin feeling a little too warm.
Rhys definitely noticed, his eyes glinting as his lips twitched into a smirk. “Yes,” he said. “Azriel is the one that suggested we start sending you for Spring Court reconnaissance.”
“Oh.”
“Yes,” Rhys hummed. “Oh.”
You glared at him, stepping closer to stab a finger against his chest. “Not a word, Rhysand.”
He laughed as you walked by him, heading back toward your room to pack for your first mission. Rhys’s laugh slowly faded the farther you walked, but you couldn’t stop the grin that stretched across your face as you reached your door. Your first mission, and Azriel had vouched for you.
~ ~ ~
This was a catastrophic failure.
You grew up hearing horror stories about the Naga. The few Spring Court children you knew would taunt each other with threats of sending someone into the woods, serving them up as an offering for the terrifying beasts. Your nursemaid always assured you they only preyed upon mortals, but that never really made you feel much better.
Then Feyre was attacked by the Naga. You saw firsthand how rattled she was by the putrid creatures, and you were content to never venture into the forests lining the border to the mortal realm.
Those were the forests the Naga were meant to live in. They lied there in wait, ready to snatch any poor human soul that fell through the barrier.
They didn’t live in the forests that lined the Spring and Autumn Court border—at least, they weren’t supposed to. It made you question what the hell Tamlin was letting roam elsewhere in his court, and whether Beron was aware just how loose the High Lord of Spring’s grip was on his land.
That’s what you would tell Rhys. It’s all you could tell Rhys, since you had otherwise failed to learn anything else meaningful before one of the wretched creatures grabbed you by your ankle and dragged you through the forest. Their claws had sunk into your flesh, ripping your skin open for a trail of blood to drip down your ankle, now soaking the fabric you had torn from your tunic to tie around it.
Then there was the gash in your side, also staining your tunic and leathers with far too much blood, if you were being honest with yourself. Your head was throbbing too, and you weren’t sure if it was the aftereffects of the hangover from yesterday, the blood loss, or if you hit your head with the fall—likely all of the above.
You should have sensed the Naga.
You should have heard them. You should have been prepared for an ambush from anyone, and instead you were too confident while also too preoccupied by delusional thoughts and fears of fucking up. No wonder Rhys never sent you on a mission, and now that he finally had, per Azriel’s recommendation, you had utterly fucked it.
If any of them saw you like this, you were certain they would swaddle you in a mound of cotton and lock you in the House of Wind for decades before they ever let you step foot in the field again. You needed help, though. Gods, you needed it. Adrenaline was fueling every step, every second you spent running from where you had stabbed the Naga in its eyes, but it was waning, and panic was setting in.
You needed to get out of here. You needed out of these woods, and out of this court, and you needed help.
So you said a prayer to the Mother and winnowed.
~ ~ ~
Azriel had been friends with the ghost of anxiety for his entire life.
For five centuries it had walked behind him, and he had grown to accept its company. He knew how to acknowledge it for the day and then ignore it. He knew how to block out the dull thrum it sometimes sent through his head, begging for his attention, his fear—and yet, today was unusual.
His chest had felt tight the moment he stepped foot in Illyria. At first he thought it might have been because of Illyria and the camp he grew up in, but the band around his lungs kept growing tighter and tighter as the day went on. His heart was racing all day, and by the time he retired from the bullshit political nonsense Rhys had guilted him into handling, the slam of his own front door made him flinch.
Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t place what. His shadows were restless as well, scattering around the living room of the home he and his brothers grew up in as soon as he let them go.
He rubbed at his chest as he sat on the edge of the couch, still clad in his leathers and boots. He watched the faelights around him come to life, his shadows slowly slithering back to hide in the shadows of his wings.
Even the air around him felt heavy and thick—stagnant, as if it was waiting for something before it could move again. His mouth felt dry as he sat and listened to the silence of the house. A sudden gust of wind outside made him jump, and he shook his head. This was ridiculous.
He stood up to head to the bathing room, ready to rid himself of the chill he had harbored all day beneath the sweat that still somehow coated his skin. A shadow curled around his ear as he took his first step up the stairs, and froze.
The woods.
He turned for the back door immediately, checking his weapons as he moved, and he released a shaky breath as he stepped out into the frigid night air.
Rhys’s mother’s house was along the border of the camp. A blessing and a curse growing up. He and his brothers would often complain about walking farther than the other children to training every day, but it also gave them easy access to the forests where they could fuck around without getting caught.
He walked into those very forests now with far more trepidation than he ever did as a boy, his heart racing as he followed his shadows deeper into the dark and snow-covered woods. He hoped they would warn him if he was in imminent danger, if they were leading him into a fucking ambush—but the entire day had been strange, and he couldn’t be sure of what they saw.
He was also fairly certain he didn’t even need them to lead him, because the rope wrapped around his chest grew tighter and tighter with every step, as if pulling him to keep moving.
His steps only faltered once he saw a dark form lying in the snow, a light dusting covering the fae’s body. He moved closer slowly, still unsure why his shadows drew him here or who this figure was.
The world dropped from beneath his feet when he saw your face, when your scent fully hit him, when your blood suffocated him. The rope wrapped around his lungs snapped, a million frayed threads coiling around his ribs and flailing before going taught, twining with new threads that left him gasping. Threads that extended directly from his soul, and gods he couldn’t breathe.
He was crouching over your body before he really knew he was moving, before the world had stopped tilting and his mind had stopped spinning. His shaky hand brushed your damp hair from your face, revealing cuts and scrapes across your skin.
Your chest was slowly moving, air still going in and out of your lungs, and Azriel let out a shuddering breath of relief. He took in your bloodied ankle and your bloody leathers, and he wanted to hurl just thinking about moving you—just thinking about how the hell you had ended up here—but he had to get you out of the snow. He had to take care of you.
His mate.
Azriel shook as he fit his arms under your body. Your skin was cold and damp when your head lolled against his neck, and he probably gripped you a little too tight as he held you close. His shadows swarmed around the two of you, enveloping you in darkness and depositing you in the living room of his childhood.
Everything in him was screaming to get you the hell out of Illyria, but he knew this place had the best medical supplies—it was far more likely to be stabbed in Windhaven than at their cabin in the Steppes. He laid you as gently as he could on the worn and gray sofa, the cushions sinking beneath your weight. Drops of blood fell to the fabric as he let you go, and he inhaled a sharp breath when he noticed you trembling.
His shadows darted toward the fireplace, piling together kindling and wood for Azriel to drop a match in quickly. He didn’t even wait for the flames to catch before he went back to drag the couch in front of the slowly growing fire. He glanced at you once more, his fingers digging into the fabric of the couch with barely restrained anger and anxiety.
He would kill whoever did this—but first, he would take care of his mate.
~ ~ ~
Your face was warm. Too warm, really, to the point you were certain there was heat wafting off of you in waves.
One side of your face was pressed against soft cotton fabric, and your neck was stiff as you tried to move. You whimpered when your core twisted, something tight and hot pulling at your side. You started to shove the heavy wool blanket covering your body off of you, but it was quickly pulled back up, and you flinched when someone’s fingers grazed your bare collarbone—Mother, you had no clothes on under—
“It’s just me,” Azriel murmured softly from above you, circling around to kneel on the floor. His eyes were bright and glossy in the flickering light from the fire, and an inexplicable weight fell from your chest when you saw him.
“Where are my clothes?” you rasped.
He shifted to the side so you could see your clothes and boots draped around the hearth behind him. “I found you in the snow,” he said quietly, leaning back. “And your clothes were in bloody tatters.”
You swallowed, closing your eyes as fresh tears started to burn. You felt one escape from the corner of your eye, falling down the side of your face and into your hair. “Thank you,” you whispered, sniffing slightly. You slowly opened your eyes to meet his patient gaze, and something inside you shifted. “I didn’t know where else to go,” you admitted, your voice cracked and broken.
Visions of the Naga flashed through your mind, the raw pain from when they grabbed your ankle and sliced at your stomach sluicing through you all over again.
You were trembling when Azriel brushed some of your hair behind your ear, the gentle touch making your breath catch and your body freeze, the trembles stopping for a moment. He held a cup to your mouth, gently coaxing your head up slightly to guide your lips to the rim of it. “Drink this,” he murmured.
The water was cool and soothing against your throat, the liquid instantly washing away the sand that had filled your mouth. You took a few gulps before Azriel pulled it away, then helped you lie back down. “I asked one of the camp healers to look at you,” Azriel told you as he set the cup beside him.
Alarm flitted through you, your entire body turning tense.
Azriel glanced at you, as if he could sense your sudden anxiety, and his eyes softened. “It was a female,” he said, “And I was here. You were safe.”
You relaxed slightly, but the anxiety that she might tell Rhysand—that Rhysand might already know how epicly you failed—made your stomach turn.
“Y/N.” You turned to face him, your name on his lips making goosebumps skitter across your skin. His voice was so low, nearly lethal, and you held your breath before he asked, “Who did this to you?”
Mortification flooded your body, a sickly heat washing over you as you thought about just how badly you messed up. “It’s my fault,” you whispered.
His jaw clenched. “How could this possibly be your fault?”
“I didn’t think about the Naga—”
Azriel reeled back. “The Naga? Why were you anywhere near the Naga?”
Confusion swept over you, mixing with the fatigue that was still pinning you down. “Rhys said it was your idea to send me to Spring.”
“Yes—at the Autumn border. Not the Mortal Lands. Why would he send you—”
“I was at the Autumn border,” you hurried out, your heart beating hard in your chest.
Azriel went quiet, his lips parting slightly. His eyes glanced up and down your body as if he could see your injuries through the blanket, and a fresh fury lit behind his irises. “There shouldn’t be Naga anywhere near that border—and if there was, they wouldn’t go after faeries.”
You stared at him for a beat, at a loss for words. “I was unprepared—”
“This was not your fault,” he said, his words holding no room for argument. His hands curled into fists at his side. “I am going to kill Beron before Eris can even—”
“Azriel,” you said softly, hushing his words effectively. You glanced at the door, knowing you were far away from the main camp and his shadows were monitoring the house, but still worried someone might hear him. You came to him because you thought he would be the most calm, the least likely to overreact since he didn’t even really care about you, and yet here you were.
“You think I don’t care?” he rasped.
You blinked. “How did you—”
“Of course I fucking care.” He ran his hands through his hair as he stood up, his wings twitching behind him. “I probably care too much, but now—” He ran a hand over his face shaking his head. “Now it makes sense, I guess,” he said quietly, more to himself now.
He started to walk away, and in a panic, you reached for his hand, your clammy fingers wrapping around his warm and scarred ones.
Something inside you cleaved in two, the pieces falling away to reveal a crackling rope of energy that was connected to the male beside you. His soul was twined with yours, and you pressed your other hand to your chest as you felt him quietly glowing inside you. You scrambled to put the new scattered pieces together, your brain struggling to make sense of what your heart and soul knew.
Azriel squeezed your hand gently, and you slowly dragged your gaze up to meet his. “I’ve always cared,” he whispered.
“You knew?” you rasped.
He shook his head, his own breath shaky now. “Not until I found you in the snow.”
You pulled your hand away. “Then you don’t need to pretend.”
“I’m not pretending,” he argued, his voice pleading with you to hear him. “I promise, I’m not pretending.”
You sat up slowly, your back resting against the arm rest. You clutched the blanket to your chest, suddenly feeling so exposed. “I want a shirt,” you whispered.
Azriel moved in an instant, returning only seconds later with a soft black tee in his hands. He held it to you, and you took the fabric with one hand, then glanced down at your other holding the blanket in place. Azriel crouched beside you, offering his hand. “Let me help?” he asked softly.
You took a second to decide, embarrassment and shame and raw vulnerability making your arms shake as you finally handed him back the shirt. He smiled at you. A small, close-lipped smile, that was so soft and gentle it made you relax just a little.
He pulled the shirt over your head, pulling your hair out from the neckline before guiding one arm through the sleeve. He let the hem fall around you, and only then did you let the blanket drop and pushed your arm through the other sleeve.
You crossed your arms over your body, unease and apprehension still tugging at you. “I don’t understand,” you told him quietly.
Azriel’s throat bobbed. “The day you came here with Feyre,” he started quietly, “I felt something shift.”
You bit your lip, your pulse drumming in your ears as you waited to hear what he had to say.
His eyes shut, and his face screwed up slightly, as if what he was about to say shamed him. “I have a tendency to love what I cannot have,” he admitted quietly. His eyes opened again, and your heart cracked when you saw the sheen in his eyes. “When I saw you, there was a part of me that knew you were special. You were this strong and beautiful female standing in front of me, and I just knew—I knew it would be so easy to fall in love with you.”
He sniffed, and you had to blink a few times to keep your own tears at bay. He called you strong.
“So I kept you at arms length. I thought it would be easier. Fuck, was I wrong.” Azriel let out a self-deprecating laugh. “You are consuming, Y/N. Every smile, every word, every breath of yours sent me spinning. Sometimes, when you looked at me during training with such undiluted pride in yourself for learning something new, I would nearly faint. The way you interact with everyone, the way you treat everyone with kindness—everything about you pulled me in.”
You swallowed, your mouth feeling dry. “I honestly thought you wouldn’t notice if I just disappeared one day,” you admitted nervously.
Azriel looked stricken. “I would notice. Hell, I would tear the world apart until I found you.” He shook his head. “Y/N, everything about you is magnanimous. Every day that passed with you in my life shifted my center of gravity closer and closer to you, and now—” Azriel let out a shuddering breath. “Now I feel like a fool for pushing you away.”
You bit the inside of your cheek, unsure whether you should share this so quickly with him, but he did save your life. He was your mate. “When I was a girl,” you said softly, “My mother would tell me stories about the Shadowsinger of Prythian.”
Azriel went still.
You laughed sadly. “They were meant to scare me. She was never really kind, never actually spent time with me or cared for my happiness. She was cruel, actually,” you added as an afterthought, the words tasting sour in your mouth. You shook your head. “But I would beg her not to tell that story, secretly hoping that she would. It usually worked.” You shrugged weakly.
“Why?” Azriel rasped.
Your lips twitched, more tears starting to burn at your eyes. “They made me feel safe,” you whispered. “They made me feel less alone, knowing that someone out there found friends in the darkness, and that maybe one day, I would too.” You wiped away a tear. “I dreamed about the Night Court my whole life, but sometimes, I would see your shadows.”
As if sensing your attention, one slithered away from Azriel to brush against your neck, its touch cool and comforting. “The first time I saw them, I nearly cried. When I saw you—” You sucked in a breath. “I just knew I was home,” you whispered, your face feeling warm.
Azriel’s hand reached tentatively for your face, his body leaning closer in the small space between him and the couch. His touch was gentle at first, his fingers grazing the side of your face as he watched you closely, until eventually he cupped the underside of your jaw.
You leaned into the touch, electricity sparking all along where his skin met yours. His eyes flicked down to your lips, and you found yourself nodding before he even looked at you again for permission. He leaned forward, his lips meeting yours in the most delicately soul-crushing kiss. His lips were so soft, and he tasted like the rose-hip tea you always saw him drinking, and you were fairly certain this is what heaven felt like.
The kiss was short, but even the brief minute pressed against him left you breathless and your heart racing.
“You are home,” Azriel murmured, pressing one last peck against your lips before pulling away.
His hand slid up to push your hair back, his fingers running along your scalp. You closed your eyes, his touch releasing the tension still lingering in your body. “You should rest,” he murmured, and you followed his guidance to lie back down easily.
You blinked slowly at him, your eyelids growing heavy as he ran his fingers through your tangled hair, but Azriel didn’t seem to care. “You can always come to me,” he whispered, his eyes never leaving yours. “Always. Because I care.”
You smiled softly, your eyes finally falling shut. “Yes, mate,” you mumbled.
You knew the warmth that flooded your chest would still be there when you awoke.
content warnings: alcohol intoxication, vomiting (brief, from the alcohol), reader has some possessive thoughts sue her, some grinding?, language, more angst and yearning I'm sorryyy
word count: 9.6k
synopsis: Azriel was always meant to be yours.
trope: childhood friends to lovers
part 1 ~ part 2
my masterlist
~ ~ ~
“Let me guess,” a low and familiar voice murmured into your ear. You fumbled with the jewel crested knife, nearly slicing your palm in your attempt to catch it. “Not flashy enough?”
You cast a sheepish smile to the merchant glowering at you behind the table before carefully setting the knife down. You twisted around to glare at Azriel, whose eyes danced with mischief. “It’s not for me, you ass,” you grumbled, stepping away from the table to continue weaving through the merchant stalls.
Azriel easily fell into step beside you. “Oh, I know,” he said. “You have a habit of gift shopping at the last minute.”
You merely cast him a sideways glance, knowing you had no defense. You half-heartedly examined a pair of leather gloves on another table, rubbing the fabric between your fingers before placing it back down. Really, how could you find a unique gift for a male that you had spent centuries of birthdays with?
“So, what are you thinking?” Azriel asked, walking beside you as you perused the tables.
You shrugged. “What did you get him?”
Azriel’s silence made you glance up, your eyes narrowing as Azriel toyed with a pair of gloves in a rotten shade of chartreuse. You forced out a disbelieving laugh, indignation licking at your spine. “You have to be kidding me,” you said. Azriel’s ministrations over the fabric paused. “You ignored me for four days, and now you want my help?”
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” he said quietly, still pretending to look at the gloves that neither of you would be buying.
“I have not seen your face since you dropped me on the terrace and then vanished into the night.”
“I did not vanish,” he argued, but his voice wavered. He finally met your eyes, and the wariness in his gaze only made you more exasperated.
You had spent the last four days torturing yourself with all of the possible reasons Azriel had disappeared. You had agonized over the very real possibility that your brief moment of foolishness in Windhaven had sent him right into the arms of his mate—because that was exactly where he should be.
You had nearly kissed him, and you knew he knew. He was the spymaster, for fuck’s sake. He was fluent in the art of body language. He knew you were about to kiss him in the middle of the kitchen of your pseudo-childhood home, and he pulled away from you. He pulled away, then ferried the two of you off to Velaris, and he disappeared. For four days.
Until now.
Because he wanted help buying Cassian’s birthday gift.
The slimy mixture of mortification, humiliation, and jealousy turned your stomach sour and your heart cold as you stared at the male across from you. Maybe it was hypocritical to be mad at him for the very thing you had done to him not long ago, but it felt justifiable at the time. It still did. You were acting out of self-preservation. Azriel—well you didn’t know what Azriel was doing, actually, which made it all the more infuriating.
“Will either of you be buying something today?” the female manning the merchant table asked pointedly, breaking you from your stupor.
You smiled at the female, fighting a wince at the irritation in her gaze. “Sorry, not today. Thank you for your time.” She pursed her lips in disapproval, and you hurried to add, “Your work is lovely.”
Azriel sent his own apologetic glance toward the female as he laid down the unfortunately ugly gloves, then he stepped around the table to grab you by your elbow and guide you away. You pulled away from his touch as soon as you were away from the disgruntled merchant, glaring at him. His hand fell to his side, curling into a fist. “We always buy Cassian a gift together,” he said.
“Not always.”
“Fine, for the last decade.”
“Well,” you said, voice tight, “things are different.”
Azriel reached for you again, pulling you to an abrupt stop in the middle of the market. “What does that mean?”
Sometimes you felt like you were losing your mind. You had been in love with him for over five centuries. You didn’t know it was love for that long—you didn’t really even let yourself consider it until much, much later—but it didn’t change the fact that it was love.
You had spent every night for the last couple of months replaying every memory you had with Azriel, trying to pinpoint when things changed for you. When did you fall for the male that was your closest friend? The soul-crushing truth was that there never was a change, there was never a shift that sent you toppling, because you loved him from the very beginning.
And it did not make sense to you how he could not feel even a fraction of what you felt for him, when you had lived through it all together.
Anger flared deep in your chest, smoking out the words tumbling around inside you before you could think them through. “Because you have a mate,” you snapped. “You should give Cassian a gift from you and your mate.”
Azriel might have tried to say something, but you didn’t stop. “Is that where you disappeared to? To be with her?” you asked, the center of your chest fracturing outward with every word. “Will she be there tomorrow? At Rita’s?”
The ache in your chest was somehow worse than it had ever been, so many clashing sources of heartbreak melding together into one messy and convoluted vat of poison. It was unfair. You should be able to shop with your friend for your other friend’s birthday without having an existential crisis over it, but this was too much. It was all just too much.
Azriel, to his credit, looked bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
Sometimes his oblivion to the heartache he had caused you, unintentionally or not, hurt worse than anything else.
“You have to be fucking kidding me—”
His hands suddenly grabbed your shoulders, his grip firm and unrelenting as his shadows swallowed the two of you whole. As soon as they deposited you on a familiar outcropping of the mountains overlooking the city, you shoved away from him, your fury building irrationally fast.
“Don’t do that,” you gritted through your teeth.
Azriel looked like he was at a loss. “I want to talk to you without the whole of the Velaris market square watching us.”
You stared at him, your arms falling to your sides. “You want to talk to me.”
“Yes!” he exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. “I want to talk to you.” His hand fell to his side, his wings drooping slightly behind him. “I don’t understand what is happening,” he said, and the quiet desolation in his voice made your heart twinge, despite everything.
“What do you mean?” you murmured, looking down at your boots.
“Don’t do that,” he snapped, his eyes wild with more emotion than he usually ever showed. Then his voice softened as he said, “Please. Please just—” He shook his head. “Things have been different,” he finally said, and all you could do was stare at him as your heart thundered against your chest, your mind racing to find a way to protect yourself from any more heartache. “Since that night at Rita’s, things have been different.”
You couldn’t stop the scoff that flew from your lips, though regret sliced through your chest at the wounded look on Azriel’s face. His throat bobbed as he stared off into the forest behind you. “Y/N,” he rasped, “I don’t know what I said.” He looked at you, and Mother, his eyes were glossy. “I don’t know what I did that night. I—I know I told you I have a mate,” he hurried to add, and the words seemed to feel like sandpaper against his throat. “I know that, but my shadows refuse to tell me anything else and, I just, I’m sorry if I said or did something—”
“You did nothing wrong, Azriel,” you cut him off quietly. As angry and hurt as you were, as much as you wished he had done something you could rationally hate him for just so it might dull some of this pain, you could not let him go on thinking he had done something terrible—not when all he had really done was find something everyone could only hope for. “You—” You swallowed hard, shoulders deflating as you forced the words out of your mouth. “You told me you found your mate, and you said nothing but lovely things about her.”
He looked like he didn’t believe you.
“I promise,” you said softly. “You had fun at Rita’s, and I helped you home, and you told your friend about something wonderful. That’s all.”
He stared at you for a moment, blinking slowly. Silence wrapped around you like a stiff blanket, scratching at your skin with every passing second. The sunlight beating down on your face was unseasonably warm. It felt wrong to be illuminated so brightly while Azriel grappled to tear apart the invisible walls you had desperately built between you. There was nowhere to hide.
Azriel stepped closer, and you hated the small hitch in your breath. You hated the way he noticed, and you hated that his steps faltered when he heard. You hated that there were mere feet between you, and he still felt worlds away.
“Why didn’t you visit my mother with me?”
Your eyes snapped to his, guilt sliding down your throat. “I—”
“And don’t lie to me,” Azriel cut you off, near pleading.
And what could you really say? That you were worried his mother would see your broken heart the second she set eyes on you? That you were worried you would have to endure his loving confessions about his long-awaited mate to his mother—his mother you loved and that you had known for centuries? That jealousy so potent and toxic would eat you alive and ruin anything that might still be salvageable of your friendship?
“I couldn’t.”
It wasn’t an answer. It didn’t explain anything, but it was the only thing you could say that was not a lie, and that was not as baring as the truth.
Azriel shook his head, looking up at the sky. “You know,” he said quietly, “I thought maybe things were okay, when you asked me to go to Windhaven.”
Your pulse pounded in your ears, thinking about how there was never any question of who would go with you to Windhaven. You were selfish, and there was never anyone else that could have gone with you to that camp.
“And when you came to me that night,” he continued, his eyes slowly falling back to yours. He looked lost, and you hated it. He huffed out a sad laugh. “I was actually grateful that we were there. That things felt normal.” His nose twitched, and his shadows seemed to spread outward in agitation. “Then you were pissed at me again.”
You shook your head slowly. “It wasn’t you I was angry with,” you said quietly. “Not really.”
Azriel looked at you incredulously.
You looked up to the sky. “Fine,” you admitted. “I was pissed at you for taking over.” You were pissed that he felt the need, that he acted like it was his duty, to protect you from some self-righteous male.
You were not his responsibility.
“I did not take over.” Azriel moved toward you, his boots stopping mere inches from yours, and you had to look up slightly to meet his eyes. “You can be pissed at me all you want, Y/N, I don’t care. No one will speak to you that way and get away with it.”
“I do not need—”
“I am always going to protect you!” His hands came up to cup your face, his gentle touch a startling contrast to the ferocity of his words. You stared at him wide eyed, his own gaze searching yours. “I told you that. You know that,” his voice softened exponentially, but his words were spoken with fervor. “I don’t care how angry you are. I don’t care if it pisses you off. I don’t care. I’m sorry—” He closed his eyes briefly, inhaling deep before letting it out slowly. “You are the most important person in my life,” he said softly. Your eyes burned. “I will always protect you with my life.”
Your hand came up to curl around one of his that was still cradling your cheek. Your mind was racing with his words. It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. A foolish, hopeful part of you wanted to consider that maybe—maybe he did feel the same. Maybe—
But you could not forget the terrible reality that he had a mate.
You loved him so much. It was intertwined with every fiber of your being and every thread of it throbbed with painful longing and hope that it might finally be recognized. Every thread was fraying with dread that it might never be tied off, that this love might be unmoored forever until you completely unraveled.
“Sweetheart,” Azriel murmured, and you closed your eyes as his thumb grazed the top of your cheek. “You’re shaking.”
Your eyes flew open, and you suddenly pulled away, his touch falling away from your face abruptly.
“Y/N—”
“I’m fine.”
You were not fine.
You had to get out of there.
“Wait, Y/N—”
You shook your head, your wings flaring out before you really even thought about flying. “I have to get Cassian a gift,” you muttered. Then you took off into the sky, leaving Azriel and your heart behind.
You shook off the tendril of shadow that clung to your wrist.
~ ~ ~
“And explain to me, Rhysand, why I should take this young female into my court?”
Your heart pounded in your chest as you fought against the urge to lean against Azriel. Your muscles trembled from the weight of your exhaustion and dread that this disillusioned plan would all collapse around you at any moment. You could not appear weak in front of the High Lord, not if you wanted this plan to work.
You could stand on your own two feet.
Azriel’s pinky grazed the back of your hand, a gentle touch that could easily be an accident, but then his wing bumped into yours, and you knew Azriel was far too careful for accidental touches. You let yourself breathe in deep, let the comforting and familiar scent of Azriel wash over you as Rhysand argued with his father.
Rhysand’s mother stood a step back from him, but still in front of you and Az, watching their exchange with pursed lips. Rhysand and his father had been talking in circles, their voices growing louder and the room growing darker with every passing minute.
“I think that’s enough,” Rhysand’s mother cut in, without an ounce of fear in her voice.
Rhysand and his father both went silent. Then his father’s eyes narrowed. “The boy must learn how to advocate for himself, Melina—”
“And he has, my Lord,” she agreed placatingly. She stepped closer, and Rhys fell back to stand beside you. “But this is ultimately my request of you. She is Rhysand’s friend, yes.” She glanced back at you with so much warmth and pity it made your stomach twist. “But she has no one. She is of no use in Illyria, no one who cares for her.”
Your eyes burned as her words lodged in your chest, the truth wrapped around them like barbed wire. Azriel stepped closer to you, his arm now nearly pressed against yours. The High Lord’s eyes fell to the two of you, and maybe you should have stepped away, maybe you should have moved closer to Rhys, but the thought of leaving Azriel made your head spin. So you stayed in place, with your arm pressed against Azriel’s, and his shadows licking against the back of your neck and hands.
“No one but us,” she continued, her voice softening, and it took everything in you to keep your tears at bay. “She is not safe in Illyria. Let her stay in the House of Wind. Let her work for me. I need the help.”
The High Lord was quiet for far too long. You desperately wanted to grab Azriel’s hand, but you didn't move. Instead, you waited, the four of you silent as you prayed to the Mother the High Lord agreed.
“Alright,” he said. “She can stay.” You were going to throw up. “But you are mine.”
He wasn’t looking at you. Your eyes slowly followed his gaze, slowly looking at the male standing still beside you.
“Father—” Rhysand started to protest, taking one step forward, but the High Lord cut him off.
“That’s my condition. You want her to stay here? Fine. She can stay. But so does he.”
“He still has to pass the Blood Rite,” Rhys argued.
“Fine,” the High Lord agreed. “You will finish your training, complete the Blood Rite in Spring, and then you will come work for me, Shadowsinger.”
This was insane. Azriel couldn’t sign his life away to the High Lord just because you asked for help.
“But father—”
“Okay.” Azriel stepped forward, his warmth vanishing from your side. “I agree, on one condition.”
“Azriel—” you and Rhysand both spoke at the same time. He glared at both of you.
The High Lord grinned. “In addition to her sanctuary here, you mean?”
You hated that he had yet to refer to you by your name, but you knew that, really, it was inconsequential compared to what your fate would be in Illyria.
“Yes,” Azriel said.
He was so large, standing in front of you. His leathers were stretched around muscles that lined his body, and his wings were wide behind his back that was ramrod straight, his head held high as he met his High Lord’s eye.
You weren’t children any more.
The High Lord waved his hand at Azriel. “Go on.”
“Y/N keeps her wings.”
You stopped breathing.
The High Lord raised his brows, but said nothing.
“Y/N stays here and works for the Lady of Night, and she keeps her wings.” He spared a brief glance at you, and when his eyes met yours, you finally released the breath trapped in your chest. “And I will work for you.”
An inexplicable warmth washed over you, working outward from the center of your chest, thawing the icy terror that you had been trapped in for the last 48 hours, even as you now feared for Azriel. You worried it was selfish to feel such relief when Azriel was practically signing his life away for you.
The High Lord smiled. “I accept.”
~ ~ ~
“We need to talk.”
You glanced at the male behind you, shaking your head as you focused on the training bag in front of you. You landed another punch, a heavy thud reverberating through the room. “Not now, Cassian.”
You heard his steps draw closer as you continued throwing punches, relishing in the dull ache blooming around your knuckles. The sun was just starting to rise, but you had been here for hours.
Cassian caught your fist before you could land the next punch, his face looking unimpressed. “Yes, now.”
You yanked your hand away, scowling at him as you shook your hand out. “What do you want?”
He raised his brows, a flash of amusement passing through his eyes. “Happy Birthday, Cassian. You're my dearest friend, Cassian. I’m so happy to celebrate another year of life with you, Cassian—”
You grabbed his shoulder quickly, your eyes wide. “I’m sorry. Mother—Cassian—”
Cassian smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “It’s okay, Y/N.” He pushed gently at your shoulder, knocking your hand away from his own. “I’m just messing with you.”
“Still,” you murmured, shame making your face warm. You looked down to start unwrapping the cloth around your hands, then you looked back up at him sheepishly. “Happy Birthday.”
He grinned, tugging you into his side. “Thank you.” Then he turned you toward the terrace, guiding you to lean against the cool stone railing not yet warmed by the morning sun. “Now, we need to talk.”
You fought the urge to roll your eyes. “Fine. What is it?”
He leaned forward on his elbows, looking out over the city before glancing at you. “What’s going on with you and Az?”
You sniffed, rubbing at your nose as you looked out at the city, mirroring his position. “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” he said pointedly, shifting his body so he faced you. “Why are things so damn awkward?”
Your face was hot now, and you wished you could pass it off as the sunlight hitting your cheeks. “They’re not,” you lied, terribly.
Cassian scoffed. “Y/N,” he said, unimpressed. You met his eyes warily. His eyes narrowed. “First, you avoided him for weeks. Then, there was the lovely dinner from Hell—”
Gods.
“—then you refused to visit his Mother—”
“He told you about that?” you interrupted, that same shame from when Azriel confronted you yesterday curdling in your stomach.
Cassian paused, seeming to think over his words before just saying, “Yes.” Then he kept going, “Then there was Windhaven, which we will also be talking about, by the way. Then he avoided you for days—”
So he was avoiding you.
“Then he apparently saw you yesterday, but walked into Rhys’s office like a storm cloud, and has been in a foul mood since.” He studied you quietly, and you knew he was leaving out every ounce of unbearable tension and awkwardness that had infused every minute between the events he laid in front of you. “So tell me,” he said, voice softening, “what happened?”
You could probably tell Cassian. You could probably cry, right now, in front of him on this terrace—on his birthday, no less—and he would not hesitate to try to pick up your broken pieces and find a way to glue them back together. He wouldn’t judge you.
But you felt too fragile to do that right now, and he deserved better than that on his birthday.
But he also deserved something, and maybe it would be nice to hand off just a piece of the weight crushing your soul.
“Do you know who his mate is?” you asked quietly, your voice as small as you felt.
Cassian was quiet for so long that you turned to look at him, and when you saw the painful understanding in his eyes you thought you might actually cry. “He hasn’t told me,” is what he finally says, looking back out over the city.
You chuckled weakly. “That’s not a no.”
His lips twitched. “It’s not a yes.”
“Cassian,” you said, staring at the side of his face until his eyes met yours again.
He sighed, leaning heavily against the balcony now. “I don’t know, no.”
Oh.
You bit your lip, not sure what you were expecting. You weren’t sure what you even wanted to hear. Maybe that he did know, and he hated her? Maybe that she was a terrible match and he didn’t know what the Mother was thinking?
You didn’t know.
“Nothing makes sense, if I’m honest with you,” Cassian said.
“What do you mean?”
He glanced at you. “I mean Azriel and his mate.” He tossed his hand toward you haphazardly, as if that cleared anything up.
“What?”
“I didn’t know he told you he found his mate.”
You blinked. You felt like he was talking in circles.
“Cassian,” you said, voice flat and tired. “We were all at that dinner.”
Cassian shook his head. “I mean before that.”
You swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. “Yeah, well,” you said, “he did.”
His mouth twisted in thought. “Right. Surprising.”
“Cassian, what does this have to do with anything?”
He shrugged. “How long ago did he tell you?”
You threw your arms out. “I don’t know!” You did know. “A couple months ago? After Rita’s.”
He hummed. “Which is when things started to get tense—”
“Cassian,” you cut him off, your heart starting to race. “I’m not in the mood for this.”
Cassian immediately sobered, his expression turning serious. “Azriel found his mate over a year ago.”
You went cold. His words practically shoved you outside of your body, and you were floating just a few inches away from where you stood in front of him, grappling to reorient your already fractured reality to his words. “What?” you rasped.
Cassian shrugged, as if this was an entirely inconsequential detail. “He told me and Rhys a little over a year ago.”
You blinked. “So this entire time he—”
Cassian killed your words with a hard stare. “He what, Y/N?”
“I had no idea,” you said quietly. You had no idea things had changed so much sooner than you were even aware.
Yet they hadn’t, had they? Azriel never acted any different toward you. You were the one that made everything turn sour.
You frowned. “Over a year ago…we were at war,” you said slowly.
Cassian didn’t say anything.
“I thought he must have met her in Velaris, but—” You were going to be sick. “Oh gods, is it Elain?”
Cassian whipped his head to you. “What?” he asked. “Are you insane? Elain is mated to Lucien.”
You shook your head, all logic having been replaced with sick terror. “Mor then—”
“Y/N, for fuck’s sake,” Cassian said, cutting you off quickly. “It’s not Elain, and it’s not Mor.”
“You said you didn’t know—”
“Well I know it’s not them.”
“But—”
“I don’t know where or when he met her,” he said. “He didn’t tell us anything. He just…told us he had a mate. We were pestering him and he snapped, and then made us swear not to say a word because she didn’t know. That’s all, but I’m also not a fool.”
You scowled, recognizing his insinuation that you were a fool.
You were also tired of this conversation, and you were tired of the emotional whiplash. After a long beat of silence, you said, “Is it Nesta?”
Cassian growled, his eyes flashing with brief rage. You smiled, relieved that your jab landed successfully. His nostrils flared. “Enough.”
You rolled your eyes, leaning forward on the balcony again, letting your head droop. The two of you stood in silence for a while, the sun slowly rising higher in the sky as the sounds of the city slowly waking up washed over you.
Velaris had always felt like home.
Even that first night you crossed the city’s borders, clinging to Rhys and Azriel in mild terror, something settled inside you as soon as you were within the city’s limits. The air was cleaner. Fresh. It was still just as cold as Illyria, but it didn’t have that bitter tang that licked at your skin when you crossed the camp’s borders.
The air smelled like salt and jasmine. It was so unlike the stale and rotten air that wafted through Windhaven that, at the time, you could hardly fathom that a whole city full of faeries lived here. Now you were one of them.
“I heard about Windhaven.”
You let out a long breath, your shoulders falling. You were tired. “Cassian,” you said, a warning, but he shook his head.
“I’m done talking about Az.”
You rolled your lip between your teeth and looked out over the city, taking in the soft and joyful life that pulsed through the streets. The stark contrast between here and an Illyrian camp was sometimes so jarring it made your bones ache. “Yeah,” you said quietly, not sure what else to say.
He placed a hand on your shoulder, squeezing once. “You saved that girl.”
You let out a bitter laugh, refusing to meet his eyes. “Right,” you said, “or I just made it worse for her after we left.”
“You didn’t.”
His words held so much certainty, you couldn’t help but turn to meet his gaze. Cassian wasn’t necessarily one for platitudes, but how could he know that for sure? “What?”
“You didn’t make things worse,” he said. “You saved her wings.”
“But how—”
“I’ve been to Windhaven every day since your return,” he explained, his voice unusually soft. Your eyes burned as he stared back at you with overwhelming sincerity. “I’m headed there after this. No one will touch her wings. They all know what will happen if anything happens to that girl—oh.”
You threw yourself into Cassian before he could finish his sentence, your arms circling him in a vice. He let out a soft chuckle before he quickly returned the hug, one hand coming up to rest on the back of your head. “This is much nicer than, What do you want, Cassian? Not now, Cassian—”
You squeezed him harder. “Shut up.”
~ ~ ~
“I want to teach you how to fight.”
You barely glanced at Azriel as you slid another book back onto the shelf. “Me?” you asked, disbelieving.
Azriel followed behind you as you pushed the shelving cart further down the aisle. “Yes.”
“Why?” you asked, pointedly sliding another book back into place.
Why me? Is what you didn’t say. I’m a scholar. I’m the High Lady’s right-hand. I’m not a warrior.
“Why not?”
You ignored him, continuing on with your shelving duties—which, really, were not yours, but there was also no one else willing to voluntarily work in the library. At least, no one that the High Lord had authorized. You liked being here anyway, and the few librarians scattered throughout didn’t mind.
“You are more than capable.”
You hummed. “Yes,” you agreed. “Doesn’t mean I want to.”
Suddenly Azriel’s hand was on your wrist, and he had you twisted around so that your chest was pinned to the book shelf. His point was clearly made, but still he didn’t move away. His body was pressed against yours, his chest grazing the base of your wings with every inhale.
His lips might have briefly brushed the shell of your ear before he said, “I’m serious, Y/N.” His grip on you relaxed, letting go of your arm that he had pinned behind your back, but he didn’t move away. “War is coming.” Which sounded very serious, but all you could think about was how his body was pressed against yours, and his breath was warm against your ear. Goosebumps pebbled along your arms.
Azriel pulled away, and you had to blink yourself back to reality before you slowly turned around to face him.
Your face was warm. Azriel seemed unaffected—serious and stoic as always.
“This city is meant to be impenetrable, I know, but—” He cut himself off, looking away.
“You’re worried,” you said quietly.
He nodded. His shadows slowly curled around your ankles, one gliding up your leg to then curl around your wrist. “If we go to war,” he said, voice hushed, “I won’t be here.”
Your stomach twisted. It had been years since you moved to Velaris, and years since Azriel had become the High Lord’s spy. Your time with Azriel was fleeting as it was. Stolen moments peppered over the years whenever he could slip away, but he has always been around. Sometimes months passed without talking to him, but you knew deep in your bones that if Azriel was worried about this war, it would happen, and he would be gone much longer than a couple of months.
“I just want to know that you’re safe,” he continued, as if he thought he still had to convince you. “I know it might be complicated for you,” he said slowly, gently, as if he was coaxing a timid animal. “Training, I mean. After everything that happened in Windhaven. But it would just be me, and—”
“That was a test,” you cut him off, realization washing over you.
Azriel’s mouth shut, his eyes wide.
“That—” You gestured between him and the bookshelf behind you. “You—you were seeing how I would react?”
Azriel looked only mildly guilty. “Yes.”
Irritation flared in your gut. He was right, of course. You had never spoken about why you never trained. You had never even told him outright that you didn’t want to, but the offer had always been there, unspoken, waiting quietly, and you never took it. Now Azriel was forcing you to confront it, and he knew fully well why you might be hesitant to let someone put their hands on you.
But Azriel had just pinned you to a shelf with his entire body, and not even a flicker of fear arose inside you. Fear was the last thing you felt.
“I’m sorry,” Azriel eventually said. You knew he meant it, but you also knew he didn’t regret it.
“No,” you said, biting the inside of your cheek once as you contemplated his words. “You made your point. And you’re right.”
Azriel’s gaze was a mix of sympathy and worry. “I’m sorry—” he started to say again.
“I want to know how to fight,” you cut him off. His shoulders seemed to visibly relax at the words, and your stomach fluttered at the flash of pride you might have seen in his eyes. You weren’t doing this for him, though. You needed to be able to defend yourself. It was unwise as it was that you had gone this long in the House of Wind without learning.
“But I also want to know how to hide,” you said, and his eyes glinted with excitement. You couldn’t help but grin when you added, “Like a spy.”
~ ~ ~
Your steps faltered as soon as you felt his presence. Your blade wobbled as it came down, losing its clean momentum from your misplaced footing. You growled in frustration, slashing the blade through the air once more before spinning around.
Azriel was standing there in the shadows, watching you quietly.
“What are you doing here, Azriel?”
He walked closer, the moonlight illuminating his face as he stepped into the clearing. He studied you for a moment, his eyes lingering on the sword in your hand. “You’re late for Rita’s.”
You glanced at the sky, your heart dropping when you realized just how far the moon had traveled. You had meant to leave at sunset. “Fuck,” you cursed. Your grip tightened on your sword as you ran a hand through your hair, cursing again when your fingers got caught.
“It’s okay,” Azriel said, voice soft. He moved closer to gently guide your hand away from your face, then smoothed a hand over your hair. He smiled softly when he pulled his hand away, almost hesitant. “Cassian won’t mind.”
You stared at him, taking in the way the moonlight illuminated the hazel of his eyes and glinted off the inky strands of hair that fell over his forehead. He was wearing a black button-up that clung to his body perfectly, molding the contour of his muscles with perfect definition.
You blinked, then shook your head. “It’s not okay,” you grumbled, taking a step back.
Cassian had just spent the morning of his birthday comforting you, letting you lean on him. The least you could do is show up to his birthday party.
“Y/N,” Azriel said, “It’s okay. They were only just leaving the River House when I left to find you. I told them I was picking you up.”
You frowned. “How did you know where I was?”
Azriel’s lips twitched, like the question amused him. “You weren’t hard to find.”
You tried to argue, wanting to point out that you were in a random clearing in the mountains, but Azriel silenced you when he stepped closer again. “You were sloppy,” he said, nodding toward the sword.
“I’m aware,” you snapped.
“You’re fighting angry.”
“I know, Az,” you groaned. “I don’t need the lecture right now.”
“I’m not trying to lecture you,” he said gently. He stepped even closer, the heat from his body pressing against your skin. “Lift the sword.”
“We’re late,” you warned.
“So what’s a few more minutes? Lift it.” He circled around you, moving so that he stood at your back. You waited a moment, but eventually lifted the sword again.
“Good,” he murmured. He was crowding your space now, his body brushing against yours. You could hardly breathe. “Lower your wings for me?” he asked softly, a low hum that reverberated through your body.
Your wings lowered.
Azriel’s arm covered yours, his hand enclosing yours that held the hilt of the sword. “Right now,” he said, practically talking directly into your ear. “You’re angry, and it’s making your movements messy, because that anger is radiating in every direction. Your body doesn’t know what to do with it.”
You swallowed hard, your breaths heavy as you let the truth in his words wash over you. You were angry. You had been angry for months, and sometimes it felt so loud and potent that it might just consume you. It felt like there was nowhere for it to go.
“I always taught you not to fight angry—but, really, that’s shit advice,” he said.
You couldn’t help but smile.
“You care too much to not get angry when you’re fighting,” he continued. You weren’t sure if you should be insulted, but then he said, “That’s not a bad thing, Y/N. Just channel it. Let that anger stabilize you.”
You sucked in a sharp breath when his other hand grazed the membrane of your wing, your body going still when that hand settled on your hip.
“I’m sorry,” Azriel said quietly, his body also going still.
Your heart was beating frantically in your chest, and you were sure he could hear it, but you nodded your head anyway. “It’s okay,” you told him breathlessly.
A beat of silence passed, then Azriel’s hand slid a little closer to your front, his fingers grazing your abdomen. “Direct that anger to your core,” he murmured. His tone had permanently dropped, a low lull in the delicate silence around you. His hand slid back to your hip, then pushed you to step forward with him. “Let that anger guide your movements. Don’t let it force them.”
The two of you stepped back, and his chest was flush with your back. “Now swing. Let your anger extend into your blade. Keep it sharp and defined.”
You closed your eyes for just a moment, taking a deep and steadying breath as you gripped the anger swirling through you. You imagined it as an anchor, locking your mind and body as one. You imagined it as sharp as the blade in your hand. You imagined it washing over your muscles, powering the force of your movements. You swung the blade in one of the most complicated moves you knew, the angles between movements sharp and defined with an elegance you had been reaching for all night.
You grinned as you finished, relief you had been desperate for settling over you. Azriel’s touch fell away, and you turned around to meet his eyes.
He was smiling too. “Now we can go to the party.”
Your grin only widened. “Thank you.”
Azriel’s smile then wavered, his expression suddenly sobering. “Y/N,” he said, “about yesterday—”
“Az—”
“I’m sorry.”
You stared at him. “You’re sorry? Az, you did nothing—”
“I did nothing wrong, so you’ve said,” he brushed you off. “But something is upsetting you,” he went on, voice gentle again. “And Windhaven—it was hard. I know that. And I wasn’t there for you when we got back, and so I’m sorry for that.”
You looked away, eyes falling to your boots, your toes mere inches away from Azriel’s. You shrugged a little, then finally met his eyes again. “I haven’t really been there for you that last couple of months,” you admitted quietly. “So I guess we’re even. Or, really, I still have much to make up—”
“We don’t do that,” Azriel interrupted softly.
“Do what?”
“Keep score,” he said. You felt warm all over as you stood under his gaze, relishing in the comfort of this male you had known and loved your entire life. Just his presence, without worrying about mates or relationships or boundaries that may or may not exist for the first time in months, was enough to quell the fury and despair that had been warring inside your soul for weeks.
You nodded, knowing he was right.
“Whenever you’re ready to talk about whatever is bothering you, I’ll be here to listen,” he promised. “But for tonight,” he said, a smile slowly stretching across his face again, “Let’s have fun and celebrate our friend.”
Your own smile didn’t quite reach your eyes as you half-heartedly joked, “Will you be getting as drunk as our last night at Rita’s?”
Azriel grabbed your hand, jostling it lightly between you before tugging you close again, his shadows already creeping in around you. “No,” he hummed, mirth in his eyes. “I think it’s your turn tonight.”
Your grin was real as you said, “I like the sound of that.”
~ ~ ~
You weren’t kidding when you told Azriel you liked his plan for tonight—specifically, you getting drunk.
He had taken you back to the House of Wind, and he waited for you to bathe and get dressed before taking you to Rita’s. You would like to think that his cheeks were tinged pink as he grabbed your waist because of you—because you were in a silken dress that shimmered in the moonlight and defined every curve of your body, and you felt good, for the first time in a while.
The two of you were silent as he pulled you in close by your hips, his chest lightly brushing yours before his shadows cocooned the two of you in their familiar embrace. Time always seemed to bend when you traveled through the shadows, warping around your body in a way that felt too fast and too slow all at once. The entire time your eyes were glued to his, his own gaze unwavering as he stared back.
You were in front of Rita’s before you could blink, and yet it felt like those seconds with Azriel’s hands on your body and his eyes stuck to yours had stretched into years. Your heart was racing again. It was becoming a problem.
You stepped back, breaking eye contact with an awkward cough. Your body felt far too warm in the chilled night air. Azriel’s hands fell away from your waist, and you took a second to smooth your hands over your dress, recentering yourself before walking into the crowded tavern.
Azriel watched you, and eventually you forced yourself to smile before meeting his gaze again. “Here we go,” you said with a grin that felt too tight on your face.
You didn’t wait for Azriel before you pushed through the door, the dim lighting and cacophony of music and voices disorienting at first. You scanned the room for your friends, and it wasn’t until Azriel placed a gentle hand on the small of your back and pointed toward a corner of the room that you found them.
He laced his fingers with yours before you could even take a step, guiding you through the sea of bodies. His skin was warm against yours, and you relished in the feeling of your hand in his. He pulled you closer to him when an especially tipsy faerie bumped into your shoulder, jostling the two of you.
Eventually you reached the booth everyone was crammed in, Cassian sitting on the end with a wide grin. You expected Azriel to drop your hand, but he only squeezed it tighter when the two of you stopped in front of the table. Your face was hot when Cassian’s gaze dragged up from your hands to your face.
His eyes were already glossy in the dim light, and empty glasses were scattered across the surface of the table. You hoped he kept his questions and observations to himself tonight.
He pushed up from the table, with Nesta stabilizing it frantically as he bumped the corner and glasses clattered together. Cassian didn’t notice, and he pulled you into him for a hug, effectively breaking Azriel’s hold on your hand. “You’re here!” Cassian cheered.
You laughed as your face squished awkwardly against his chest, his arm squeezing your waist on just the verge of too tight. “Happy Birthday, Cass,” you said again, even if you already saw him this morning. This morning felt forever ago anyway.
Cassian pulled back, his gaze set on the male behind you. He kept one arm around your waist before he reached for Azriel, tugging him into a clumsy hug that you were still held hostage in. The three of you were a mess of arms and wings, Azriel’s body half covering your own and Cassian held you both by one arm.
Azriel would deny it, but he was smiling as Cassian hugged him. Even if he didn’t wait long before extricating himself from the messy embrace. You managed to break away too, your hands squeezing Cassian’s forearms once before falling away. “I’ll have to give your gift tomorrow,” you told him.
Cassian’s brow furrowed. “Az already gave me—” His words died as his gaze flicked behind you, and your neck felt hot. Cassian’s smile faltered, but you could tell he fought to keep it on his face, even if the alcohol running through him had eroded his already thin filter. “I can’t wait,” he said.
Your smile was tight, and you were ready to escape the awkward tension that had fallen over you. You locked eyes with Mor on the end of the booth, relief washing over you when she stood up. She grabbed your hand, immediately dragging you toward the bar as she declared it was time for more drinks.
She dropped your hand once you reached the bar, her gaze sympathetic as you gathered your bearings. You didn’t hear what she ordered as you took in the crowd around you, the floor flooded with dancing bodies and loud music. Mor handed you a glass of blue liquid, and you didn’t bother asking what it was before you tossed it back.
Which might have been a mistake, because it was foul.
You gagged, clanking the glass down on the counter. “Mor, what the hell was that?”
She also gagged as she downed her own, her class clinking against yours as she sat it down. “Disgusting,” she said, wiping her mouth. Then her eyes glinted. “But effective.” She waved toward the bartender ordering another round of something that hopefully didn’t taste like acid.
She leaned against the bar while you waited, her gaze flitting up and down before settling back on your eyes. “I figured it was that kind of night.”
You leaned against the bar next to her, your arm brushing hers as someone bumped into you. “Yeah,” you said with a weak laugh. “You could say that.”
Mor glanced toward the table with your friends. You followed her gaze, and your heart skipped a beat when your eyes met Azriel’s, who had taken Mor’s seat at the booth. His shadows were mostly hidden behind his wings, but a few stray ones pulsed to a slow beat. You averted your gaze, your skin feeling even more flushed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Mor asked, and you were fairly certain she knew more than you had ever told her, just like Cassian, and Nesta, and probably everyone else around you.
“Nope.”
The bartender brought your drinks, and Mor handed you another glass, this time with a pink liquid. “This one is better, I promise,” she said, then clinked her glass against yours. “Let’s get drunk.” Then she tossed the liquid back.
You grinned, following her lead, relieved when the liquid was smooth and sweet. “Let’s dance,” you said, grabbing her hand as you sat the glass down, the two of you giggling as you pushed into the sea of bodies.
It was hot. So many bodies brushed against yours, so many faeries overheating the room as you all moved to the music. Song after song drifted over you, and Mor came and went with drinks in hand more times than you could count. Your blood felt fuzzy, your entire body vibrating from the alcohol coursing through your veins and the electric buzz that permeated the air.
At some point Cassian and Nesta joined you, periodically dancing with you and Mor when they weren’t entirely absorbed with each other. Your head was light and hazy, and you almost forgot why you had felt so heavy before.
Then a hand grabbed your waist from behind, familiar scarred fingers curling around the curve of your hip. You leaned back, your body connecting with a warm chest you knew better than your own skin. Your skin was hot and flushed, tingling all over as the scent of salt and cedar and something so uniquely Azriel enveloped you.
Your head lulled against him, your body moving against his in time with the music. His other hand settled on your other hip, and you let him guide your body however he saw fit. Your heart was racing and your stomach was fluttering, and you never wanted this feeling to end. You never wanted Azriel’s grip on your body to fade, and you never wanted another male to touch you like he was now. You wanted him to claim you in this crowd of people. You wanted everyone to know that you were his.
You wanted everyone to know that he was yours.
Azriel had always been yours.
Your hand came up to curl around the back of his neck, pulling his face down to meet your gaze. You had to tilt your head back to see him, but Mother above, he was everything you ever wanted. He was the most beautiful male alive, and you wanted him so much it hurt.
Why did it have to hurt?
You turned around to face him, his hands never leaving your hips. Your chest grazed against his, and you met his eyes as he continued guiding your bodies together in a dance that was for the two of you alone. Your eyes never left his, his own eyes glossy in the lights streaming across the room. He had a lazy smile on his face that made your stomach flutter, and when he tugged your body closer you sucked in a sharp breath.
“Azriel,” you murmured. In the back of your head, you thought it should have been a warning, but really it was a plea.
Your arms looped around his neck as his thigh slotted between yours, and you thought you might die when your core grazed the rough fabric of his pants. The hem of your dress was undoubtedly rucked indecently high, but you didn’t care. You just wanted more. You wanted everything.
Azriel slowly ground your bodies together in a rhythm that you thought might have loosely followed the music, but it was hard to tell. It was hard to think of anything other than the building pleasure low in your belly and Azriel’s hands on your waist and his breath against your cheek. You guided his head up with your hand splayed on his cheek, and when he met your eyes he looked like he might devour you there in the middle of Rita’s.
It was exactly how you had always wanted him to look at you.
You wanted him to want you. You wanted him to forget about anyone else that might think they had a piece of his heart, because Azriel was yours.
Azriel’s tongue briefly wet his lips, and you didn’t think before you pushed yourself up on your toes to capture his lips with yours.
And he kissed you back.
Your head was floating, possibly completely detached from the rest of you. You weren’t entirely sure you were even still inside your own body, except for the feeling of an undeniable warmth that flooded through your chest. Azriel’s hands slid from your hips to the back of your thighs, his fingers curling around the hem of your dress and tugging it down, all while his lips chased yours.
His hands gripped your legs tight, his fingers undoubtedly leaving indents in your flesh as he simultaneously tugged you closer and kept your dress from sliding too far up. Sparks of electricity flew everywhere your body touched his, leaving your entire body vibrating. The sounds of the music and the voices around dulled into a muffled buzz, your entire world view shifting to focus solely on Azriel.
Your skin was hot with want, flamed only by inconceivable stores of repressed emotions and desire breaking through the surface. You wanted to curl inside of Azriel and never leave. You wanted this moment to stretch for an eternity, bottling up the euphoria coursing through you and never letting it fizzle away.
One of his hands had migrated to your face, cupping your jaw in a way that you thought might have been reverence. The touch was so gentle compared to the firm grip his other hand still had on your thigh, guiding your body against his lazily as your lips melded with fervor.
Why had you never done this?
Well, you had once—
His teeth nipped your lower lip, making you gasp at the light sting before his lips latched onto the sensitive skin below your ear. Your stomach flipped, and your heart was pounding as he moved down the column of your throat, the drag of his lips leaving goosebumps in their wake.
Someone bumped into Azriel, and the two of you careened to the side a bit, his grip tightening on you as a low growl rumbled from his throat. The floor still tilted beneath you even as he held you upright, and you blinked once, and then twice, willing the feeling away.
Then you were engulfed in darkness that was cool against your skin, and you were stumbling backward until your back met a wall. Azriel started laughing against your neck, his hands still holding your hips, and he was likely the reason you didn’t completely crash into the wooden wall behind you.
You started laughing too, vaguely recognizing that you were outside of Rita’s now, only the moon lighting the dim alley. The air was cool, but it only made you feel more flushed, more exposed now that you were alone with Azriel.
Azriel resumed his kisses along your neck, trailing down to your collarbone as he slotted his thigh back between your legs. The pressure at your core was consuming, traveling upward in shaky tendrils that stole your breath and twisted your stomach.
There was a cacophony of sensations traveling through your body. Azriel’s hands on your waist. His lips on your neck. His whispers that sounded like “perfect” and “beautiful” but you couldn’t be sure because your ears sort of felt like they had been stuffed with cotton. The tension in your core that felt like a confusing blend of impending euphoria smeared with doom.
Your breaths started to grow faster, and fuck, it was really hot.
The world was spinning.
You gripped Azriel’s shoulders, and at first he sank further into you, his body melting into yours. Then your motions slowed, and your mouth was watering, and you must have pushed him back a bit, because his lips were no longer on your skin, and his hands were cupping your face.
“Hey,” he said, squeezing your face slightly to drag your eyes to him. You blinked, trying to focus, but the high you had been riding was crashing down fast, and your head was no longer blissfully floating. “Y/N,” he said, and you pulled your gaze back to him again. “Are you okay?”
He sounded worried.
Maybe you should be?
Maybe you shouldn’t have drank that last shot Mor gave you, or the one before that.
You might be really drunk.
You might—
You threw up.
Everything came rushing up, and you crumbled to the ground, knees hitting the stone hard with stray pebbles biting at your skin. You heaved, and heaved, expelling the monstrous cocktail of alcohol you had tossed down throughout the night.
Gentle hands brushed your hair away from your face, rubbing your back soothingly as you shook, irrational fear coursing through you. Maybe you were dying.
But eventually the nausea passed, and while your head still spun and your thoughts were covered in mud, you knew you were not, in fact, dying. You were just drunk.
Far drunker than you had ever been, but still just drunk.
You were also crying, but your tears were quiet and quickly wiped away by Azriel with gentle hushes. “You’re okay,” he murmured. “You’re okay, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry,” you said, or maybe it sounded more like a whimper. Your throat hurt. You weren’t sure what exactly you were apologizing for, but you felt like it needed to be said.
“No,” Azriel choked out, wiping his thumb under your eye again. He swayed a bit, or maybe that was you. “My turn to take care of you, right?”
You closed your eyes, smiling a little, leaning your head back against the wall that you somehow had ended up sitting against. Your chest pulsed with warmth again, washing away the chill that had crashed inside you, and replacing the uncomfortable heat you had been washed in moments ago.
Azriel lifted you, your body curling into his chest with ease. You hid your face against his chest, the thump of his heart calming your still racing one.
Azriel would take care of you.
You loved him.
~ ~ ~
a/n: I won't lie this part was a little hard for me to write because it felt it little bit like a filler but I needed it to get to the next part which I'm excited for!!
Art created by: @hornysadfrog who really went above and beyond for this. It took me a long time to take my jaw off the floor!! Her Eris is one of my most favorites. He’s so regal and lovely I could cry. Little frog you are a light in this fandom and I appreciate you so much!
A gift commissioned by me for @pippsmcgee and her word vomit in my DMs over the years about the wonderful stories in her brain. Even if you never write them I will cherish your talent for speaking them into existence anyway.
If it wasn't for you and your tenacious comments on my fics, I would have never gotten back on Tumblr, and I would have never met any of the wonderful people in this tiny corner of the fandom. I will forever be thankful for that and you. Your handle is all over ao3 in all the Azris comment sections passing out love and thoughtfulness that make it worthwhile for writers to post! Your amazing imagination is on my mind all of the time so I hope this gift is a reflection of that. 🖤🖤
Holla at ya boi if you want on or off the Azris tag train:
