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.
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.
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: 3.6k
Warnings: Confusion, self-harm in desperation/confusion, angst, reference to psychosis and related symptoms
a/n: Sorryyy this took so long I wanted it out sooner but life was happening! I hope you enjoy :) Promise romance will come along in time and there are some hints of something already ;) This is def slow burn though which I think is crucial for this trope okay I'm blabbing love you bye <3
Read Part One Here
Main Masterlist ♡
~~
You were alone in a room you had once read about.
Well, maybe you hadn’t read about this room exactly, but you’d read about this house, how it was alive and had agency and had magic. You’d read about the magic that blanketed the entire world, the land of Prythian, and what a magnificent read it had been. You could vaguely remember the stage of life you had been in. You could picture the covers. There was an audiobook downloaded on your phone for one of them—maybe the second—because you’d been on a road trip and you couldn’t put the series down.
The characters had looked a bit different in your mind. Rhysand was more built than you had initially imagined, more imposing and less lean. Azriel was… well, he was more of everything. His shoulders were broader, his jaw sharp and defined. He was frightening, in every sense of the word, but you could also remember how he moved when you were panicked. How he held your head in his hand and spoke low when he asked you questions. Your skull gave a dull throb as you thought back on your run-in with the wall, and you threw a sidelong glance at the disruption in the paint by the window.
That had been real then. There was evidence that you had been there. Your head ached because you had done something to it. You reached your hand up to brush along your hair and had the absent thought to pinch yourself, even though you’d already experienced pain in this strange state, and so the theory that you were dreaming was squashed. You hadn’t been too attached to that one, anyway; everything had been too vivid, too coherent for it to be a figment of a dream.
But that still left psychosis, or maybe a coma. You figured there was a difference between normal dreaming and medically induced dreaming. Given the long duration of typical comas, there were many opportunities for something like this to occur. But you had somewhat of a hard time believing a dream—even a comatose one—could be so clear. Most of your knowledge of comas was from fiction, so what you believed was also not a very reliable source. You cursed yourself for not delving further into the medical textbooks in the campus library when you were on shift.
Frustration nipped at your chest when logic and sense continued to evade you, so you huffed, slapped your palms on the bed, and gave in to the nonsensical. You slid from the bed, finally doing so without watchful eyes, and meandered around the room. You’d taken it in from the bed, mostly, but there was still the chance that you’d go to open a drawer and it would be a cardboard cutout of a desk rather than the real deal. You sighed from your nose when you opened four drawers, and all of them were, unfortunately, very real.
To your continued disappointment, the room was rather empty save for the furniture and the pictures on the wall. It made sense that a flighty stranger would be placed in a barren guest room, but you were hoping for a little more context. For that, you walked over to the window and tried to make sense of something there.
Your breath caught in your throat at the view. You remembered from the books that the House was built into the side of a mountain, but it was surreal to see the plummet. No rock face or landing was keeping this building up, and the sky seemed… endless, clouds and strange-looking birds flying past the walls as if the house were part of the environment, and you supposed it was.
Velaris—the name was dropped into your memory. You peered down and could see speckles of a city, the city, but were too far up to make anything out. The passing clouds were another deterrent, and you gave up with the window after another beat. You turned, and in the vaguest reflection, you startled.
Your hand moved up before you willed it to, tracing over the shell of your ear and then slamming back down to your side. But that wasn’t enough time to properly assess, so you found your ear again, moving it in every direction it would manage, pulling closer to the window to find the point you were sure you were feeling. It was getting you nowhere, the bright sunlight washing out your reflection.
There was a mirror in this room. You remembered how it had made you panic. You spun on your heel, fingers still running over your cartilage, but you looked across the room and found nothing. The wall held a suspicious space where a picture, or a mirror, might hang, and you searched your thoughts for what you had seen before.
Yes, there had been a mirror, and you could picture yourself in it—a blurry image of yourself, tainted by panic. Your limbs had seemed longer. Your skin had seemed to glow.
But then you had bashed your head into the wall, and thus, your mirror privileges were taken away.
You turned back to the window and searched for the outline of your ear.
“Um, hello.”
You gasped, maybe yelped, your back connecting with the wall as you registered that another person had entered the room. You could hear their blood running in their veins and exactly how fast their heart beat; that didn’t seem normal. You ignored it as you took in the effervescent woman before you.
Her hair was golden and sleek, falling in waves along her back and covering her shoulders. She wore casual clothes that seemed out of place on her, a plain shirt tucked into a flowing, draping skirt—not actually casual, not by your standards, but in comparison to what you knew this setting to be, it was quite lax.
This had to be Mor. She clasped her hands together in front of her waist and tipped onto the balls of her feet.
“I’m Mor,” she smiled, and you felt the muscle in your eye twitch. “I know… Well, I know that you have been through a lot, and I didn’t think you’d want to talk to those two buffoons any longer. I heard they didn’t even introduce themselves when you woke up. It’s no wonder you… well—”
Mor seemed to wince at herself, words trailing off. Her head lopped to the side, and you snatched your hand to your side, realizing that you were still clutching the high point of your ear—which was undoubtedly pointed.
“Tried to bash my head in?” you offered. You sounded insane, voice twinkling and light. Was that your voice? It had to be. Perhaps you were depersonalizing along with your psychotic break.
Mor grimaced. “Right. That’s what I meant.” She nodded to the bed, taking a hesitant seat on the edge. “Would you mind talking with me for a little? I just want to know more about where you came from. We don’t—none of us want to hurt you, but the circumstances of your… appearance have been strange.”
Of course they didn’t want to hurt you; you figured that wasn’t their way. You had stopped reading the series a few years ago, too inundated with work and school and trying to figure your life out, but from what you’d heard, the cast of this novel had been acquainted with unexplained figures appearing in their home. You weren’t sure where you were in their timeline, however. That thought struck you as you slowly stepped towards the bed and sat too far away from Mor.
“The men in here before,” you started, once again giving in and leaning into the crazy. “They mentioned something about me landing in the library?”
Mor perked up, obviously eager to have a conversation going. “Yes. We have a library further down the mountain. There have been reports from the priestesses there that a creature living in the depths has been unsettled over the last few days, today being the most unruly. One went down to see if she could speak to him—rather brave for a priestess—and she saw you. You were, well, unclothed. And unconscious. She called for us then. You only woke up that first time when Rhysand and Azriel were in the room. Unfortunately.”
Bryaxis—that was the creature. You also knew of the library, and the priestesses, and were able to pinpoint somewhere in your mind that Cassian, who you had not yet met, was terrified of the very creature living just beneath this house. But you couldn’t say any of that. Couldn’t paint yourself suspicious with too much information.
Of course, if you were imagining this all, that wouldn’t really matter. Unless, of course, you chose to punish yourself in this wild fever dream. That would definitely be something your brain did.
You shook the spiralling thoughts away.
“How long was I out?” you asked, because that was neutral.
“About a day and a half. Rhys had tried to—wait, are you aware of… where you are?”
“Um, Velaris?” you offered, the name sounding bulky as it came out of your mouth.
Mor paused. Her expression twitched.
Wrong answer. Wrong answer. You should have said no. You should have said Night Court, or even Prythian, or anything other than the only secret city in the book.
But could you keep your origins a secret?
You felt a hysterical laugh build at the base of your throat, and the thought to ask the year drifted through your mind because, at least then, maybe you could know where in this delirious fantasy delusion your brain had dropped you off at, but you didn’t know how time was quantified here. You hadn’t the slightest frame of reference, and you couldn’t exactly ask, “Mor, remind me, have you yet killed the King of Hybern, or are we in book two?” and expect to be trusted.
You kept your mouth shut as Mor processes the two words you have spoken.
“Yes,” she eventually replied, the ghost of a confused smile on her face. “Are you from here? A citizen? Or, um—”
She was having trouble finding words. In the books, you remembered Mor as confident, sure of herself, and casually intimidating. Right now, she was none of those things, and it was because of you.
And you had a decision to make.
You could lie, but you’d never been a very good liar, and your lack of context would make it difficult to fit into the time. One wrong move and this would all be over, your fate most likely ending with Azriel’s blade to your throat out of fear you were infiltrating their lands, and you weren’t exactly sure what would happen if you died in this strange figment of your recollection. If you were hallucinating, or even dreaming as a comatose, there could be repercussions.
You were taking too long to answer. Mor’s expression had gone from hesitant to wary, and you were still mulling over your options. Still considering the impossible as if you weren’t already experiencing it.
“I’m not from here,” you landed on. You stared down at the lithe stretch of your fingers and then tucked them beneath your thighs. “I think my home is very, very far away.”
“You think?” Mor pressed.
“I’m not exactly sure where it would be in relation to here. I don’t think I could show you on a map. Or a globe. Do you have planets here?”
“Do we have planets?”
“Right. That feels like a ridiculous question. I’m not quite sure how to explain any of this.”
“Perhaps it should be done all at once.”
~~
It took a few moments for Azriel and Rhysand to return to the room. You had half a mind to ask for the rest of the inner circle to join, simply to get more explaining out of the way, but you still hadn’t decided how much you were planning to share—how much you wanted them to know that you knew.
You startled when Azriel's wings displaced the air in the room. You heard them before you saw them, the sheer size creating a presence that body alone couldn’t replicate. So far, your reflection and the ethereal, larger-than-life qualities of the fae were the most jarring to come to terms with, but you had yet to leave this room, so there were surely other feats you would need to overcome. Unless your brain shook itself loose from this state before then.
When you jumped, Azriel seemed to as well. His feet moved in a small, unsteady pattern, his wings pressing into his back. He had kept his eyes down upon entering, but you must have made a sound, a gasp, and he looked at you with a pinched expression. You tried to avert your gaze, but it got caught on the shadows again. He was so huge, his wings hooked and towering, the inky wisps taking up even more space.
Rhysand had also joined the group, though you found it much easier for your eyes to pass over his form as he settled against the window.
“I apologize for scaring you earlier,” Rhysand offered, a sincere hand over his heart. He didn’t need to apologize; you had scared yourself. The lack of reflective surfaces in the room was a testament to that. “We hadn’t meant to. Truly.”
You shook your head but didn’t reply. Struggled to reply. This felt insane.
“Mor said you aren’t from here?” Rhysand posed.
“I’m not,” you said, taciturn from lack of direction. You hadn’t made up your mind. Hadn’t made sense of your brain and why it was taking you on this strange trip. You could give in, or you could give way to reason and see yourself back to reality from pure spite.
To your dismay, being curt only got you more pressing, gentle looks. Rhysand was looking at you with a tender caution, and that was confusing because before, it was only suspicion. Before, he had stayed by the door and observed you like an animal.
Was this your brain digging in?
The High Lord met you on the bed, sitting on the corner and giving you space, but coming down to your level. "I realize that you may have been through a lot, so I’ll give you some information first, okay?” he enticed. Azriel was still standing by the window, every muscle in his body seemingly on edge. You threw him a glance before nodding at Rhys. “You know you are in Velaris—Mor told me that. And she was also gracious enough to share our names, I’ve heard.”
Mor snorted, crossing her arms as she stood beside Azriel.
Rhysand lowered his brows from the look he threw her. “I am the High Lord of this court. You were discovered in my library. The library is not open to the public, so since you arrived there, seemingly by a magical occurrence, my inner circle and I have had many questions.”
“Why don’t you just look into my mind and answer your questions?” you shouted into your thoughts. “Mind-reading would be the clearest solution, since I’m already going insane.”
“I don’t know how I ended up there,” you said instead, digging your fingers into the plush material of the bed. “I wasn’t feeling well, I passed out, and then I woke up here. I don’t—I don’t even know what your library looks like.”
A partial lie. You had read about the contents of the library and had a general description floating in your mind, but you could only remember the vaguest outline of the space.
Azriel was next to speak. “What do you mean—not feeling well?”
That was simpler to answer; you could handle that. Maybe Azriel was a doctor, and this was reality seeping through. “It was like a pain in my stomach, but more like an excruciating pulling. Something was… strange inside of me. I thought maybe my appendix, but now that I’m thinking back, I’m sure that couldn’t have been it. I got up to get help, but I barely made it to the door before I was out. That’s all I remember before I woke up in this room.”
“Appendix?” Mor murmured as Rhysand paused, let the word simmer in the space, and then leaned his elbows on his knees.
Anxiety spiked as he sat there, contemplating. Your fingers felt glued to the bed, the back of your neck prickling. You gnawed on the inside of your cheek as silence ticked past, and then you were screaming again. You were tired of screaming.
A slinking feeling had inched its way into your mind, rolling along the edges and searching for a weak point. You thrashed back on the bed, pushing yourself against the headboard even though the threat wasn’t physical. The feeling flattened against the surface of your mind, expanding in rolling darkness, and prickled pain across your vision. You held your head in your hands but felt no relief.
“Rhys,” Azriel said, his voice low and strained. “It is not working.”
“Working?” you breathed out, clutching then at your chest. “What’s—”
“Let me—”
“Rhys.” Azriel snapped when you let out another shout. His voice was calm, a measured calm, when he said, “We can ask her. We don’t need to resort to this yet.”
“We tried asking,” Rhysand countered. Your mind was still being invaded. Invaded, but nothing gleaned. Something ached, and something else was a sharp crack.
“I don’t—” you started and failed. “You can ask me. Ask me!”
Shit. Shit. What was this? Were you being lobotomized in real time, unable to find your way back to the present before you were deemed really and truly unfixable? Something in your head knocked, but you were unable to answer with the pressing pain. Unable to even make sense of a knock in your mind.
“Maybe we shouldn’t—”
Mor’s hesitant tone was cut off. Rhysand gritted out, “We don’t have the luxury of waiting for a lie. She wasn’t telling us everything. If she’s working with them—for him—we need to—”
“Need to what?” Azriel spat out, his voice sounding closer. The pain lessened, but the fog in your mind remained.
“Azriel, I don’t want to hurt her, but—”
“And so you won’t.”
A long, pointed pause.
The High Lord spoke once more. “We can’t take any chances.”
“You haven’t given her a chance.”
“No fae has that strong a barrier in their mind without having secrets. We cannot afford secrets.”
“I can’t—”
Your whimper cut Azriel off, the pain building again, and you couldn’t take it. It seemed never-ending. If you could drop whatever barrier they were talking about, you would, but without even the slightest knowledge of what it was, Rhysand would never stop his assault. You cracked your eyes open despite the light blistering your vision, tears brimming from the discomfort.
“I won’t lie,” you promised, heaving out breaths before the pain could take over again. “I won’t. I promise. Please don’t do that again. Please. I don’t know—I didn’t make a barrier.”
Azriel was nearly on the bed, his knees brushing along the mattress where he stood. You would have been startled by the proximity, but the throbbing in your head had lowered the threshold for shock. Still, the hulking Illyrian dwarfed you where you sat, shadows pooling along your lap. If you extended your hand, you could have grabbed his.
The thought quickly extinguished from your mind.
“Are you working for the uprising?”
That threw you. You shook the lingering murkiness from your mind and squinted into the room to find Rhysand, the shadow from Azriel helping immensely. “I don’t know anything about an uprising.”
It didn’t ring a single bell from the books. Maybe it was from one of the newer series you hadn’t read yet? Or a novella? An uprising seemed much too poignant for a novella.
An ache was returning in your brain, and so you panicked. “I swear. I swear! I don’t even know how I’m here! I live in New York! I’m getting my master’s degree, and my student loans barely cover my rent! My upstairs neighbor got a tiny dog that keeps me awake half the night, and I swear I’m hallucinating all of this from chronic lack of sleep, so I’m probably shouting this into a void, but that hurts so bad and I’m begging you to believe me. I know I sound crazy. I just—”
You paused. Took in the room. The pain had ceased, but the looks you were getting weren’t much better. You thought back to the source material these characters came from, and said what you thought might make sense.
“I’m human. I’m not—I’m not supposed to be here. I got so scared when I saw myself because I don’t look like that. I’m not from here, and I meant that. I need to go home. Through a portal or some magic object or through that creature in the library maybe. And I don’t know what uprising you’re talking about because I come from a place where the most exciting things that happen are on my phone so I need to get back home because I have experienced more pain and fear in the last hour than I have in my entire life.”
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.
i love pom but ngl reading it back I’m low key convinced you used AI to write it. 😭
I don’t say this lightly but genuinely fuck you?
This is one of the reasons I find it so hard to write fics anymore, because AI — a fucking LANGUAGE LEARNING MODEL, mind you, that LEARNS LANGUAGE from ACTUAL HUMAN BEINGS — has mimicked genuine writing styles and people’s hard work and it’s ruining it. And yes, those are em-dashes I have input with my own fucking fingers on my own fucking phone.
POM is one of my most favourite things I’ve ever written and I put a lot of hard work into it. A hell of a lot. I spent hours plotting and writing and coming up with ideas. You wanna see my notebooks? Or did I get AI to fill those too?
There were times during the writing of POM that I wasn’t even up to writing it (I have 3 chronic illnesses), but I saw how much people were enjoying it and interacting with it and I pushed through and wrote it for them. No AI needed or wanted. I’ve been reading and writing fics online since 2008. Every bit of work put into it is my own and it is so fucking offensive to be accused otherwise. I’m sick of it. It makes me just not want to bother anymore.
Sorry if this response seems harsh but if you had any genuine worries, you could have messaged me about them and I would happily have quelled them and proved to you — if needed — that all my work is my own. I think to send me this message anonymously is as cowardly as it is mean, to be quite honest.
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: 3k
Warnings: Confusion, self-harm in desperation/confusion, angst, reference to a psychiatric hold
a/n: Okay I love this trope so bad so thank you to those who requested it :) This first part has a lot of... thinking in it so make sure to heed the warnings. Themes may continue, but this fic will also have a lot of humor, pining, and fluff. Happy ending as always <3 I love you okay bye :)
Main Masterlist ♡
~~
There was a humming in your ears—constant enough to be considered ringing, but not quite as sharp. Moments ago, the pull in your gut had you keeling over in bed, and then you had stumbled to your bedroom door, trying to alert your roommates that something was… wrong. Off. Unusual in a bad way, and you had no frame of reference for the feeling. You could remember falling into the hallway as the door swung open, and then the pulling intensified. And then it stopped.
You figured you were in the hospital; that was the only reasonable explanation, unless your roommates had decided to leave you for dead in the hall, but they wouldn’t do that. They had terrible penchants for eating your cereal, leaving dishes in the sink, and having guests over without warning, but they weren’t evil enough to deny you medical attention. Hopefully.
It was probably your appendix. That was the first ailment your brain always went to when you were sick, and the hyperfixation was finally coming to fruition. You couldn’t remember any pain, any fever prior to passing out on the carpeted floor, but you were sure that was it. The heaviness of your eyelids lessened as you worked through the explanation in your mind.
Your body still felt off. It was stiff in a way you hadn’t experienced, but also light and airy in a way that felt preternatural. Sounds had begun to filter through the staunch wall of your brain, and they felt sharp, biting. There was an underlying panic that perhaps you had been out for much longer than you first estimated, but something else soothed that panic each time it rose. It made you feel right, despite every wave of confusion, and you leaned into that feeling rather than giving in to the fear.
Something was buzzing beneath your skin. It flowed in your blood and seemed to zap your veins. Drugs—it was definitely drugs through an IV. Probably pain killers and antibiotics and several other things keeping you alive as your appendix acted against you. There was a chance it had already been taken out, and you preferred that narrative. No time to be anxious about surviving a surgery that already happened.
Low murmuring suddenly ripped past the mundane sounds of whatever room you were in, and then the panic was back in full force.
“Explain it again?”
“The priestesses said it was sudden. Bryaxis was unsettled—and then she was there. Unconscious.”
The content of the conversation was enough to make your breathing shallow, but it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just that there was nothing medical about the words floating above you, or that you were suddenly concerned you had been taken to a… convent? A church?
No, it was that the words sounded so, so foreign, each consonant and vowel weaving together to form echoes of a language you had never heard before, not even in passing. It was unusual, possibly European, but also not in the slightest. You thought it could have been Latin, but even that didn’t sound correct. The worst part, the terrifying part, was that you understood it. You could tell it was different, and still, everything was so clear in your mind. Like it was relayed through a translation app and inputted directly into your brain.
You felt yourself shift as the fear tightened your throat, and to your surprise, nothing was dragging against you—no wires or IVs or tubes helping you stay afloat after a major surgery. You took in a deep breath and smelled no antiseptic or starched linen sheets. Instead, the air held an herbal hint, spices and heady plants alarming your senses.
Were you kidnapped? Had your organs been harvested? You began to second-guess the integrity of your roommates, running through their university housing profiles in your head. Two grad students, quiet, no parties, night-owls—nothing about being part of an underground organ-harvesting ring. But, then again, maybe they had been waiting for the perfect moment, for you to be vulnerable enough to cart off without a fight.
Your breaths became even more difficult to capture.
“She’s waking up,” one of the male voices said.
You choked on the strange scent of the air, and then your eyes opened and adjusted to the dim, humming light in the room. You were in a room that was, as predicted, not in a hospital. Deep, polished wood made up the roof beams, with red rock twining between tiny cracks and fissures. There were pictures on the walls depicting a town with sprawling lights and a rushing river, and mountains with snow-capped peaks and figures outlined upon them. A window was allowing light in from the far side of the room, and you snapped your head up once the rush of consciousness became less novel.
Two men stood by the door, both imposing in their statures, neither looking like the type to steal someone’s organs. They were well-dressed and put together, calm with their attention fixed on you, and you’d never witnessed any organized crime, but the lavish room you were in, paired with the careful, guarded looks you were receiving, didn’t add up to the assumptions in your head. The comparisons didn’t help you feel calm.
Your hands hovered over the plush blanket on your lap, fingers shaking. You let out a sudden gasp of air that quivered in your chest and flinched as the two men reacted to the sound. Neither had moved from their positions by the door, though you knew by their expressions that they would if they had to. The shorter one, his eyes more cunning and knowing, tilted his chin up and began to speak.
“Where did you come from?” he asked, tone clear. “And how did you land in my library?”
The lack of malice in his curiosity told you he was in control of the situation. The taller man behind him, lean but still taking up so much of the doorway, looked on with equally searching eyes, but he was more guarded, more reserved, his brow twitching as you observed him. You had a hard time discerning which of the two was more dangerous.
“Um,” you stammered, still frozen in place. Your voice was more melodic than you had expected. “I don’t—exactly know how I got here. I’m from the—I, um, I’m in grad school on the east coast.”
“The east?” the man in the back echoed. His voice was so low you felt it in your chest. “Of what court?”
You paused. “New York?”
The one with the deep blue eyes squinted. “Where is that?”
Confusion overrode panic. “New York? As in, the state?”
Everyone knew about New York, even if they only conceptualized it in terms of taxi cabs and hot dogs and the Statue of Liberty. It was possible, though highly unlikely, that you had been taken to a remote island, on which no one had a map, or access to the news, or even an internet connection, but these men looked… knowledgeable. You couldn’t exactly pinpoint why, but they didn’t seem the type to be uninformed.
You glanced out the window to get a better concept of your surroundings, but saw only a clouded blue sky. You were high up, then, granting even more evidence against your remote island theory—if they could build a house several stories high, they would know about New York.
You worried your bottom lip as the clouds inched their way across the window, the room silent. Through the corner of your vision, you saw the men looking at each other—furrowing and straightening their brows, squinting and grimacing and huffing out breaths. If there were words accompanying their expressions, it would have made more sense, but as it stood, you were beginning to amount a new fear: that you were kidnapped, and your kidnappers were clinically insane.
The most reasonable avenue would be the escape, but you would need to scope out your surroundings first, and each time you even shifted on the bed, eyes shot to you. Were you not allowed to move? Were you chained to the bed? You took stock of your legs and feet under the blanket, not feeling bound by anything other than the tucked-in sheets. There were no bars on the window, either, and the room itself was rather welcoming. You glanced over at the side table, tinctures and small vials labeled with scrawling text. Your fingers spasmed as you read the words clearly, despite the letters looking foreign.
This could have been a very, very realistic dream.
After another moment of the men staring at each other, you decided to take a chance, feeling resolute in both the dream and the insane kidnapper theory. You slid one leg out from under the blanket, but movement by the door stopped you.
The taller man had turned to you again, expression watchful, feet moving on the plush carpet. You sucked in a breath and stalled your attempt to get to the window. And then you felt yourself scream. Just one scream—an accident, really, your hand coming out to cover your mouth as the men stood at alert. Your breaths were making strange sounds past your fingers, and your shoulders were unintentionally raised.
Wings.
The man had wings, and they didn’t look fake. They moved along with him, membranes allowing light to pass through and highlight the veins tracking back to the roots. And the closer you looked at him, the worse it became. There were glowing, blue… gems—no, sconces of light attached to his body, and they seemed to move with him too. They sparked and swirled as he took you in, responding to him in a way that couldn’t be manufactured.
But what had you jumping from the bed were the shadows emanating from him, wisps of darkness flowing from his shoulders. Some of them seemed to tug at him, others cloaked him in their murky air. You jolted up and got caught on the sheets, tugging your ankle loose until your hands finally met the carpeted ground. Someone was saying something, but you couldn’t hear them, too panicked to make sense of this strange language you suddenly understood. You ended up with your palms flat on the ground and your knees supporting you, vaguely aware that you were wrapped in some sort of silk material that you were positive did not come from your closet.
“Easy,” the winged man warned, but his hands were up in a placating gesture, and he had begun to crouch to meet you at your level. “We don’t want to hurt you.”
Your chest had begun to sting with your quick inhales. The man took the smallest step forward, and you rushed back, your head slamming into a table and making your vision blur.
“Azriel, you are scaring her,” the other man patiently said. He hadn’t moved from the door, but something about him felt more imposing. Your head was throbbing too much to make sense of it.
Azriel looked over his shoulder. “Well, what would you like me to do instead, Rhys?” he quipped out, as if this were some kind of game and you weren’t being held hostage.
Okay.
You were the one going insane. That had to be it. You had fallen into the hall back at your apartment and had some sort of psychotic break, prompting your very appropriately acting roommates to put you on a psych hold. That was it. That was why you were seeing shadows and wings and glowing bulbs. You blinked hard and tried to orient yourself to that truth, hoping that some clarity would come with the revelation, but when you opened your eyes, you were still there.
“This isn’t real,” tumbled from your lips, sounding breathy and light. “You—you aren’t real. And I’m going insane.”
Azriel shook his head. “This is real. You are in the Night Court. Is that where you’re from? Or are you from somewhere else?”
“Night Court?” you mumbled to yourself, gaze falling to your fingers as you fiddled with the hem of the satiny dress. And you focused on them, then, more intently than you had when you first woke up. You flipped your palm over and looked at the length of your fingers, at the elegance that flowed along your wrists and up your arms. They were your hands, but they weren’t. Not at all.
Night Court.
You couldn’t focus on just one thing anymore, your eyes traveling around the room without abandon. They went from Azriel, to the man at the door, to the window, to the paintings along the wall.
Were you from somewhere else? You were from New York. You were getting your master’s in library science, and you were going to be a librarian. You had a tiny, cramped apartment in Syracuse with roommates getting grad degrees in STEM. Night Court—that didn’t make sense.
It didn’t make sense because you were crazy. You had gone crazy. The energy drinks had driven you insane with their promises of copious vitamins and energy and a faster metabolism. This was the price.
At some point, Azriel had dropped to his knees to mirror you on the ground. “I don’t think she’s going to answer us, Rhys,” he quietly called out, eyes never leaving you. “Maybe Feyre would be better.”
“I’m not sending Feyre in when I can’t see if she has… motives.”
Something clicked in your brain. Things lined up, information being shelved in alphabetical order until confusion made way for understanding, and then that understanding lingered.
“Feyre?” you mumbled again. The man, Rhysand, your brain provided for you, perked up in the doorway. “That book.”
“What book?” Rhysand quickly asked.
“The—series. It’s… I read it a few years ago, but I don’t think it’s—” Your next breath was an incredulous laugh. “Oh my god. I am actually going insane. I’m hallucinating, and it’s—I should have gone to law school, oh my god.”
“Law school?” Azriel echoed.
You snapped your gaze up to look at him, finally taking in the hazel of his eyes and the shadows that weaved into his dark hair. Then you found his hands, confirming something to yourself when scarred tissue rested atop his thighs. Rhysand was next, and you located his pointed ears and elongated features almost instantly.
Another disbelieving laugh fell from your lips. Azriel moved again, and you shot back, head connecting with the table for a second time. Pain split down your neck, something rattling on the surface above. You brought your hand up to tame the ache, but Azriel’s hand had raised too, and for a second, the shortest second, your fingers brushed. You tore your hand away, pressing it into the base of your skull, snapping your eyes to his.
Something pulled. The air stagnated.
It felt like the pull from right before all of this happened, before your brain short-circuited and threw you into a fantasy land you’d read about during your gap year. You leaned into it, hopeful that somehow, it would zap you back into reality. That maybe if you honed in on the feeling, you would find that this was all some coma-induced dream you could forget about with time, but always reference when you told the story of your appendix bursting—because you were still holding out hope that it was actually that.
It did the opposite. You gave in to the pull, tugging on the glowing thread, and it made you feel more rooted in the spot. More concrete in the make-believe. Still just ahead of you, Azriel made a gasping sound that echoed each of your panicked breaths from before. You scanned his expression, etched your gaze into the high corners of his face, but he was seemingly frozen. His chest didn’t move. His shadows paused.
“What—”
You didn’t get the chance to finish your question, not that it had ever been formed in your head. Azriel shot to his feet, stumbling back and causing you to flinch again, to cower into the table that you had been trying to inch away from. He looked down at you, and his expression pinched, looking pained, before his hand gripped at his chest, covering his heart as his shadows wove between his fingers. One came down and brushed your cheek, and you screamed, jolting into the light of the window.
Azriel flinched at the sound. He took another step back, and then another. You hadn’t realized you were breathing hard again until your shoulders met the far wall, your bone digging into the wood. Your mind was racing at an impossible speed, all your theories and concerns and all of the confusing sensations melding together. And maybe you could have handled it, maybe you could have collected yourself, but there was a mirror just across the room. You looked at it with your blurry, unfocused vision, and you thought it was another painting. At first. But then you moved, and the figure etched within it moved with you. And it was a mirror, and it was you, but it wasn’t.
You looked like yourself, could recognize yourself, but you were changed.
Made.
The thought sang in your head, unfounded, and your panic turned to terror. Because this entire time, thoughts had all been yours. They had been unorganized and scary and untrue, but they had all come from you. But that one hadn’t been.
So, you did the first thing you could think of on your own, the first thing that truly felt like it could bring you back to yourself. You reared your head forward, and then you let it fall back with force. The pain was similar to before, but it was numbing, almost. And it didn’t bring you back. Someone shouted, panicked, but you thought maybe the numbing was reality, so you edged forward again.
You didn’t have the chance to try a second time.
Your head slammed back, but it hit something soft, something that gathered the momentum and didn’t let it continue. Azriel was in front of you again, no longer edging out of the room, and it was his hand that stopped your assault. He was staring at you with wide, horrified eyes, and then he wasn’t. He yelled something over his shoulder, and then Rhysand was in front of you. The door opened. Footsteps followed.
Warnings: Apocalypse AU and everything involved (injury, angst, scary stuff OOOooOOoO)
a/n: Hi! I haven't been able to write for some time, so I'm having a drabble spree over the next week or so, writing based on prompts from this list. If you send me a category, I'll pick a prompt!!
This fic was based on this prompt in the Apocalyptic category: random objects that remind them of a loved one being delivered like a prized possession
____________________________________________
Azriel was beyond infuriated with you.
His jaw was set in an unwavering clench, the stiff muscle contrasting with his arms gently holding you against his chest. You winced as you tried to look past his tilted chin, desperate to catch any semblance of forgiveness on his face. You knew you wouldn't find any, but there was still hope.
"Az—"
"Don't," he replied lowly, his pace increasing when you winced for the second time within the minute. "I don't need any explanation."
"I wasn't going to try and explain."
Azriel's brows jumped. "Good. Because there isn't anything you could say that would make sense of what you just did."
That stung, but you took it in stride, pressing your lips together and nodding. You were both covered in dirt and blood from the previous scuttle, your hands scraped up and your hair in disarray. But if those had been your only afflictions, the personal escort wouldn't have been necessary. No, it was your broken ribs that called for the carrying and the soft way in which Azriel was holding you. He was angry, enraged, but he held you like he knew it hurt.
And, damn, did it hurt.
But it had been worth it.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?"
You blinked, tearing your focus from counting each tree you passed as a distraction from the pain. "What?"
Azriel looked at you for the first time since the last Undead fell to the ground. He snapped his gaze down, assessing your reorienting eyes and the color still on your cheeks. His brow only furrowed a fraction. "Are you hurt anywhere else? Are you bleeding?"
"Oh. No. It's just the ribs."
His jaw worked again. "Ribs that will take weeks to heal. You will be vulnerable for weeks."
"I know that. I know, Azriel," you quietly affirmed, breathing through your nose to stave off the ache. You were almost to the camp. He could get some distance from you then—cool off a bit.
"Then why?" he probed, going back on his dismissal of an explanation. He looked angry again. "Why would you do that when you know I—"
"I just had to, okay?" you quipped, feeling your eye twitch at your sudden intake of air. "Leave in alone, Az."
Azriel stopped abruptly. You could smell lingering smoke and poorly cooked meat from where you sat in his arms, freedom from this conversation just a few more agonizing steps away. But they were not steps you could take, so you remained in this purgatory.
"Leave it alone?" he seethed, face inches from yours. "I had to watch you run headfirst into a pack of Undead, no weapons, no cover—and you want me to be okay with that? To brush it off? I thought you were dead. Or worse. And your explanation is that you just had to? No. Not good enough."
It was your turn to offer stilted silence. You looked off to the side, unable to meet his gaze, but then sucked in a breath when you turned just a hair too far, your ribs screaming at you. Azriel's face immediately softened at your jolt, hardness melting into a flash of concern. If you hadn't been injured, he would have pressed more. He looked along your body once, shook his head, and then continued on.
It would be torture to continue on like this.
He would avoid you for days, and that would be so annoying.
Even more annoying than a set of cracked ribs.
"I was going to wait until you weren't so mad at me," you started, letting out an uncomfortable whimper as you shifted in his hold.
"What are you—stop moving. Hey, stop, you'll—"
"Here."
With a final pained breath, the necklace was out. You had the braided cord twined between your fingers and the pendant hanging down against the inside of your wrist. It wasn't damaged, thankfully, and the wide expanse of bat wings glinted before intricately designed mountain peaks. You had seen him wear the piece every day since you met him. There was no world in which you could simply leave it to be stomped and gnawed on by a pack of Undead.
Azriel said nothing. He had started walking again after your last flinch, but you were stopped once more as he stared at your fingers, at the token you were offering. It had been his mother's. He had told you that, so many nights ago—maybe it had been a year. Time wasn't always counted correctly.
He gave you silence, and then, "Never do that again."
Your hand fell. Azriel kept walking.
"What?" you choked out.
"If the choice is you or an object—if it's you or anything—get yourself out. Know that. Know that I don't care about anything else."
"I didn't mean—"
"I haven't made myself clear then."
You sank into yourself, feeling chastised and unsure. The necklace was still woven between your fingers, and camp was coming closer, closer, closer. You had second-guessed yourself when you jumped into action, and now it was clear you—
Azriel pressed the slope of his nose to your temple. He breathed in.
I have to get Melos finished before October because as soon as Azriel is paired off it will be over for me I fear-
Nuala is the one who warns him.
He’s at home, in his townhouse, trying to read on reports, scanning pages and pages of documents.
He should be more focused, but his mind strays. It wanders across the city to where you are, wondering what you’re doing, if you’re still working, if you’ve gone for the day, if you’re alright.
You’re a plague in his soul, one he never wishes to be cured of.
So when grey fog floats in from under the door and there’s a small knock, he’s surprised. She floats towards his desk, lips set in a firm line. “What is it?”
“Your brothers.” He sighs. “They’re arguing.”
“About?”
“Coming here. The High Lord is insistent, the General is trying to thwart him.” He groans. She cocks her head, gaze turning distant before she blinks slowly and gives him an apologetic smile. “They’ve decided.” She doesn’t have to tell him what they’ve decided, he can read it on her face.
“Thank you Nuala.” She gives him a nod, and then just as easily as she came, she vanishes.
There’s a knock on his door next, and he nearly laughs out loud.
How estranged they’ve grown. A year ago, Rhys would have winnowed directly into his office.
The shadows open it for him, and he doesn’t bother to get up when their steps echo upstairs and down the hall to his office, staying seated behind his desk as the two of them fill the room.
“Azriel.” Rhys is still, hands in his pockets to mimic a casual stance but the rigidity of his spine betrays him. Azriel inclines his head in greeting.
“Rhys.” Cassian settles into one of the oversized chairs caddy corner to the desk, wings shifting against the high back.
The silence stretches. Shadows crawl up the walls, over the window, pressing into every crack and crevice they can find. Rhys eyes the stack of papers on his desk. “You’ve been busy.”
“That’s generally the nature of my job.” Cassian exhales loudly, and Azriel cuts him a glare. Rhys’s power thrums through the floorboards in a low drone, and he sighs.
“Moonflower.” It’s only a word, but it tells Azriel so much. Rhys has finally pieced it together. Still, he waits for his brother to continue, to expose his hand. “She’s the alchemist.”
“Yes. The one you contracted to make Faebane years ago.” Azriel supplies, confirms, and Rhys nods.
“I didn’t know-”
“Does it matter?” Azriel cuts him off sharply, and shadows tighten at his shoulders. “You’ve realized my mate is the same female that’s been making your poison, my poison, for years and all of the sudden, your tune has changed? No more demands that I bring her to you immediately?”
“I didn’t know it was her.” He snaps, and Azriel scoffs. There’s a fault line in the room, a hairline crack that has been widening for a while now, splitting three brothers apart. “If you had told me, if you had explained-”
“You didn’t trust me.” He lets the words hang heavy in the air. “Me. Your Spymaster. Your torturer. You brother, who has been by your side for five hundred years.” Cassian’s expression is one of pain, and Rhys is frozen, stuck the carpet like he’s been struck by lightning. “You threatened my mate, Rhys. You were willing to drag her in front of you like a criminal, tear through her mind because of what she is, even after I tried to assure you she was not a threat.”
“Azriel-”
“Don’t deny it.” His words are sharp, blades that cut, and shadow twists around his arms, his desk. “If Feyre hadn’t stood between us, you would have winnowed straight into her home and ripped through her head to soothe your paranoia.” Magic cracks, ricochets around the room, Rhys’s power spiking, seeking. Azriel meets it with his own, and Cassian stands.
“Don’t do this.” He urges lowly, but Azriel can’t tear his eyes away from his High Lord. Conflict rages on his face, in his gaze, anger and sadness and stress, all of coming together in a storm of violet.
The tension mounts, rises-
and then falls with the slump of Rhys’s shoulders.
“You’re right.” Cassian whistles, and they both turn to glare at him. He smirks.
“Haven’t heard that out of your mouth in a while.” Rhys blows out a breath.
“I was… out of line.” Understatement. “And I was wrong. I reacted out of fear. What if she had been a threat I failed to see? A danger, living and breathing in my own city?” Azriel can feel his brother’s anguish, his uncertainty. The endless battle he faces, trying to keep his city, his family, safe.
“You’re under a lot of stress,” Azriel says softly, “but I am your brother, not your enemy. This paranoia is driving a wedge between us like I’ve never felt in all our years.” Cassian’s jaw clenches, but he makes no effort to deny it. It has been an unspoken truth for a while now. Rhys is struggling.
“Our world is changing.” He’s thinking of Bryce, of everything she said, of what she and Nesta killed under the Prison. So much uncertainty, so much unknown, it weighs on them all.
“And we are doing everything we can to protect one another as it does. But out of all the threats we face, my mate is not one of them.”
“I know, and I should have known. I should have trusted you. I am sorry, Az. For all of it.” An apology that reaches farther than his mate, all the way to Elain. Azriel nods. It’s enough, for now.
“I know.” He says softly, holding Rhys’s stare.
“So that’s settled then.” Cassian smiles broadly. “You should bring her ‘round for dinner, Az. I’m sure everyone would like to meet her.” He swallows his grimace.
“Maybe.” Rhys’s gaze sweeps over his desk, and he manages a small half crescent smile.
“I’ll leave you to it.” They leave without much else, Cassian shooting him one last mischievous glance over his shoulder, to which Azriel shakes his head. Meddler.
Still, that ache in his heart, the one caused by the strife between himself and his brother, hurts a little less.
content warnings: apathetic parental figure, death of a parent, abuse from a guardian, implied domestic violence, canon-typical violence, menstrual cycle/blood, anxiety/fear, heavy emphasis on (and depiction of) maltreatment of females and misogyny in Illyrian culture, language, angst, more yearning
word count: 9.8k
synopsis: Azriel was always meant to be yours.
trope: childhood friends to lovers
part 1
my masterlist
~ ~ ~
“I need your help.”
Azriel froze, his wings flaring out before turning around to face you. “Hello to you, too.”
You smiled sheepishly, your heart beating hard against your ribs. “Sorry,” you said, slowly closing the distance between you. The faelights lining the hall glinted in his eyes, mirth shining in his irises. There were no real signs of annoyance, and that relieved you more than it should—more than you had any right to feel. “Hi.”
Azriel smiled, his shoulders relaxing. “Hi.”
“Hi,” you said again, warmth creeping up your neck.
Azriel’s smile widened.
You cleared your throat, hating the way the tips of your ears burned under his gaze. “I need your help,” you said again.
Azriel’s smile faded, his expression sobering. “What’s wrong?”
“I have to go to Windhaven.”
Azriel went preternaturally still.
The words made your stomach twist, sharp claws scraping at the inside of your chest. Just thinking of going back there made your heart race and skin prickle. You had only been back a handful of times, only on occasions where it was absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, this was one of those times.
You could not go back alone.
No matter how necessary the trip, you would not step foot inside that camp without someone else with you.
Without Azriel.
“Why.” His voice was cold with little inflection, the question not really a question at all.
You rubbed at your upper arm, shifting under his gaze. “Do you remember my friend, Freya?”
Azriel furrowed his brows, a clear challenge in his gaze. “Your friend.”
You rolled your eyes. “Fine, a girl a few years above me that I ate lunch with.” It was too pitiful to argue that she was your friend—at least, that you considered her one. Even if she barely spoke to you, even if the most communication you held with her was not until after you fled Windhaven, and it was really only a channel of necessity.
She was kind.
And she was a victim of the same toxicity and abuse that you were. The only difference was that you made friends in higher places, and you got out.
Azriel nodded slowly, and you weren’t sure if he remembered her or if he was telling you to continue. It didn’t really matter.
“They found her body in the woods last week.” The words were hollow as they fell from your lips. Clinical and unfeeling. You kept the guilt and pain and anger shoved deep inside, hidden from the surface where they could fester.
Azriel stepped closer, mere inches now between the toes of your boots. His scent wafted over you, and his shadows extended out to curl around your wrists. You didn’t deserve their comfort. It was not yours to take—the same thought had sent you spiraling mere weeks ago in the kitchen above you—but you needed it. You needed the comfort so desperately there was nothing else to do but take it.
“What happened?” Azriel asked.
You shook your head, chest aching as you replayed the conversation with Rhys. “No one is talking. No one reported it. The only reason—” Your voice cracked, and you inhaled sharply, willing your emotions away. “The only reason we know is because I asked Cassian to check on her. It had been too long since I heard from her, and I was worried.”
“You talked with her?” Azriel asked, surprise limning his voice.
You nodded, staring at the floor. “Sporadically. Her, and a few other girls I grew up with. It wasn’t—it’s not friendship—not really. I just, I wanted—” You rubbed a hand over your face, steeling the tremble that was taking hold. “I wanted them to have someone they could turn to if they needed help.” You shook your head. “A lot of good it did.”
Azriel grabbed you by your shoulders, his grip firm and sudden. “Y/N,” he said, forcing your gaze to meet his. “This was not your fault.”
Your nose burned and your eyes started to water. “It feels like it,” you whispered. “I left them there.”
Azriel shook his head. “You survived. You had to leave. Y/N—” he said again, his hand coming up to pull your gaze back to him. “You had no choice.”
You couldn’t stop the trembling of your lip, and Azriel didn’t hesitate to pull you into his chest, your face falling against the familiar leather covering his chest. A sob fell from your lips, and he squeezed you tighter, one arm wrapped beneath your wings while the other hand held your head against his chest. “We’ll find out what happened to her,” he murmured against the top of your head.
You cried.
You cried in the arms of the male you loved and you knew you could never have, but would always want, and who had always been there.
~ ~ ~
“They clipped Lara’s wings today.”
Azriel stopped in his tracks, the crunch of his boots on the snow dusted forest floor falling silent. His shadows flew outward, moving haphazardly all around the two of you, swirling with restless anger that had nowhere to go. He clenched his fist, and slowly they slithered back to pool beneath his wings.
“Is she okay?” he asked softly.
You shrugged, continuing your walk. “I don’t know how any of them survive it,” you said, voice desolate with the inevitable future in front of you. “But her father was angry. She hid two cycles from him,” you said, then swallowed hard. “He did it himself.”
As if losing flight was not torturous enough. As if you were not horrified enough at the prospect of the camp healer stealing your wings power from you, what Lara endured was a new source of terror.
Azriel reclaimed his place beside you, matching his pace to yours despite his height over you. “My mother is terrible,” you murmured. “Cruel at the worst of times, apathetic at best.” You stretched out your hand to let a tendril of shadow weave between your fingers. Your lips twitched, just barely. “But it is hard to hate her when I see what they have done. When I think about what my father must have been like. It is no doubt a mercy that he died when I was just a babe.”
Azriel was watching you when you finally turned to look at him. “It could be me next,” you rasped.
He started shaking his head, but you didn’t let him speak. “I am fourteen, Azriel.” You huffed a sad and pathetic laugh. “I take the herbs Lara gave me, but even those only got her to seventeen—sixteen, really.”
Azriel grabbed your arm, stopping you. “Rhys’s mother was never clipped.”
You scoffed, pulling your arm away. “She is the Lady of the Night Court. Her mate is the High Lord and he stopped them.” You shook your head. “My mother is a widowed laundress that the camp lords look at as a speck of dirt on their boots.”
This time it was you who reached for him, your hand wrapping around his forearm and squeezing tighter than you should. “I can’t lose my wings, Azriel,” you told him, your desperation and fear clear in your voice. “Flying is all I have.”
He nodded, his free hand coming up to grab your shoulder. “I won’t let them take them.”
~ ~ ~
Windhaven was as cold and drab as you remembered. You didn’t understand how Cassian could stomach coming back here all the time. The air was bitter enough to make your lungs burn, and the scowls of the males that watched your every move made your stomach roil.
You hated how much this place still affected you.
Azriel walked beside you, his wings flared wide and with all seven siphons gleaming in the scarce sunlight that pushed through the overcast skies. He didn’t touch you, but his presence was close enough to feel his warmth radiate against you. You willed your spine into a rod of steel, your back straight and head held high, wings wide enough that they occasionally brushed against Azriel’s.
That was a statement in and of itself.
Azriel briefly met your eyes before he pulled open the door to the only tavern in Windhaven, where you would inevitably find Devlon. Azriel gestured for you to enter first. You nodded once, then stepped over the threshold. The air was musty and thick with the scent of sweat and booze, and you suddenly missed the bitter cold of the Illyrian wind. The door swung shut with a loud thud, Azriel’s chest briefly brushing your shoulder as he stepped behind you.
Your eyes scanned the seedy room, ignoring the leers and sneers of the males scattered around worn and decrepit wooden tables. It did not take long to find Devlon hiding in the back, tucked inside a booth in the back corner, his closest men surrounding him.
It did not take long for him to find you.
His eyes widened for a moment before they narrowed into a scowl. He tossed some coins on the table, his hand of cards following as you made your way toward him. “Lord Devlon,” you barked, your voice loud and sharp in the muffled murmur of the tavern. Azriel stayed a mere half a pace behind you. You stopped in front of his table, your eyes never leaving his. “We need to have a talk.”
He scoffed, then reached for his glass of amber liquid. “It’s not bad enough I have to listen to the bastard of a guard dog Rhysand sends every month?”
You felt Azriel bristle behind you. You felt his flare of anger and unbridled rage flare deep inside your own chest. You smirked, your eyes sharp and lips curled back just enough that it might even be considered a snarl. You leaned closer, your hand resting on the disgustingly damp and sticky tabletop as you met his eyes. “Come with me.”
Then you pulled back, and you walked out the back entrance, leaving Devlon and his men to bumble around like idiots in front of Azriel. You didn’t wait to hear the open and slam of the door before walking toward the fighting ring at the center of the camp.
You didn’t fight the self-satisfied smile that bloomed on your face as you heard the sound of two sets of footsteps in the freshly fallen snow. You made a show of looking around, but you did your best not to look in the direction of anywhere that might stab you through the heart. When the footsteps settled, when you felt that familiar grounding presence at your side again, you finally turned around to face Devlon.
“Love what you’ve done with the place,” you drawled, he and you knowing very well the camp looks the same as it did five centuries ago.
“Get on with it,” he snapped, flinging his hand out. “What could Rhysand possibly want now?”
Your face turned stony, all faux amusement dropping from your eyes. “Who murdered Freya?”
“Who?” he had the audacity to sneer.
“You know who,” you snarled, stepping close. “Unless you mean to tell me that you don’t even know who lives and dies in your own camp.”
His eyes flared with undiluted rage, his throat bobbing. He glanced at Azriel behind you, his lip curling in disgust. “She was found in the woods. Stupid bitch wandered away from camp, made herself lunch for some animal.”
A gentle phantom touch brushed the back of your neck, soothing the flare of anger that roared inside you.
“Who found her?” you made yourself ask, voice tight.
“Her husband.”
“And you believed him?”
“You question the integrity of one of my generals?”
The words squeezed the air from your lungs. “A general,” you repeated. “Your general’s wife died, and you forgot who she was?”
Devlon didn’t respond.
You tilted your head back, folding your hands behind your back. “Forgive me if I do not trust your judgement of character,” you sneered. “We will be staying a few days.” You turned to Azriel, whose eyes were cold daggers pointed directly at Devlon. “We will continue this in the morning. Early,” you added, looking him up and down with blatant disgust. “Sober.”
You turned on your heel, heading for the only place you ever once called home in this wretched camp.
~ ~ ~
“Where are you going?”
You turned toward the voice that had appeared beside you, their jovial warmth friendly and unthreatening. Cassian was grinning as he fell into step with you, his hair pulled back with a leather tie he had undoubtedly cut himself. Pieces were falling down and around his face, and he squinted briefly as he pushed one out of his eyes.
You huffed, stopping. “Come here.”
Cassian blinked owlishly, but stepped closer anyway. You twirled your finger. “Turn around, and crouch down.”
He did as you asked, and when your fingers undid the loose knot in his hair his shoulders started shaking with laughter. “You’re a mess,” you grumbled.
“At least I tried to tame it.”
You rolled your eyes. “You could just cut it.”
He lifted a hand to his chest, his cheeks stretching into a grin as you pulled all of his hair back. “You wound me.”
You wound the leather around his hair, tying it in a tight knot, then patted his shoulder. “There,” you said.
Cassian rose to his full height, pulling you into his side with a grin still plastered to his face. “Thank you.”
You shoved him away lightly, continuing on your path. Cassian didn’t leave. “Where are you going?” he asked again.
“Flying,” you huffed.
“With who?”
You cut him a glance. “You are such a busybody,” you mumbled. “I’m meeting Azriel.”
Cassian’s brows raised. “You two spend a lot of time together.”
Your glare was sharper this time. “He’s my friend.”
“I’m your friend,” Cassian countered. “Your first friend.”
You huffed a laugh. “I didn’t know stealing my cookies was your version of friendship.”
He bumped your shoulder. “I did that once. Then gave you two back the next day.”
You smiled softly, then shrugged. You both knew that you really became close friends through Azriel, but it didn’t matter how. You had Az, Cas, and Rhys now. You weren’t alone. That’s all that mattered. “Azriel is my favorite friend.”
“Okay,” he huffed. “That one hurt.”
You glanced at him from the corner of your eye, your grin widening when you found him glaring.
“No, but seriously,” he said, stopping you again with a hand on your arm. “Is there something—”
“Y/N.”
Your head snapped toward the familiar quiet voice, your smile morphing into something softer. The center of your chest warmed when you saw him, your heart racing as he walked closer to you and Cassian. He glanced warily at Cassian, an uncharacteristic uncertainty settling on his face. “I didn’t know Cassian was coming with us.”
Before Cassian could open his fat mouth, you shook your head quickly. “He’s not.” You looked at Cassian, smiling and raising your eyebrows pointedly. “He was just leaving. Right, Cas?”
Cassian looked far from pleased from you evading his interrogation, but acquiesced nonetheless. “Yeah,” he muttered. “I’ll see you at training tomorrow, Az.” He clapped you on the shoulder, firmer than necessary, his eyes flaring with mischief and a promise to resume this conversation later—not that there was anything to talk about. “Thanks for your help, sweetheart.”
Your eyes widened, your cheeks flaring with heat at his stupid pet name, and knowing exactly why he said it.
He grinned, leaving the two of you alone with a half-hearted wave.
You took a deep breath, calming the flush of your cheeks before facing Azriel again. He was still watching Cassian walk back toward the camp. His jaw twitched, and he jumped when you touched his arm.
You smiled softly again when he looked at you. “Ready?” you asked.
He nodded silently, falling into step beside you. The clearing you usually met at wasn’t far.
“Is there something going on with you and Cas?” Azriel asked quietly. His shoulders were tense and his wings were flared, and his shadows were moving around him restlessly.
“What?” you asked. “No! He was just being an ass.” You waved away the notion, grimacing slightly. “As usual.”
“Oh.” Some of the tension visibly fell away from Azriel, his shoulders falling a bit. A small smile pulled at his lips when he looked at you again. It started to grow, and mischief glinted in his eyes the longer he watched you.
“What?” you asked again, growing wary.
He shook his head, looking away for a moment. “Nothing.” He licked his lips, the smile still fighting to stay on his face. “Did I tell you I learned something new?”
“No,” you said slowly. “At training?”
“Not quite.”
His arms reached out to circle your waist, and he pulled your body flush against his, sending your heart into a frenzy. You met his eyes in bewilderment, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement, and suddenly the two of you were engulfed in darkness.
In shadows.
You clung to Azriel as your body fell through some otherworldly ether, his shadows cocooning the two of you in a cool swath of silk as you catapulted through space.
Then light blinded you, and you buried your face in his chest before you started to freefall. You screamed as you plummeted, and Azriel laughed as his wings spread out, catching the two of you in the air with a harsh jolt.
You pulled your head away from his chest, just barely meeting his eyes. “What the hell was that?” you yelled.
Azriel’s eyes were bright as he carried you through the sky, the drag of your own wings against the wind not seeming to bother him in the slightest. He shrugged, meeting your gaze with a relaxed smile. “Rhys called it winnowing, but he said it feels different from when he does it.”
You were smiling as you shook your head. “You’re an asshole.”
Azriel grinned, and giggled when he spun the two of you around, the wind whipping at your face. “Your face was priceless,” he laughed.
“You could hardly even see it,” you scoffed.
Azriel looked lighter than he had in a long time—maybe since you had known him. He looked beautiful. You hated the dagger of worry that stabbed at your chest. “Maybe don’t tell anyone else about this?” you said carefully.
Azriel’s eyes shuttered, his jaw clenching. He nodded, as if he had already decided the same thing. “They already think I’m different enough—a threat.”
You shook your head, pulling one of your hands free from their clutch on his leathers to cup his face. “This is amazing, Az,” you said, voice as gentle as you could make it in the wind around you.
“I had to tell you,” he said.
“I’m glad you did.”
~ ~ ~
Azriel followed behind you silently, his presence warm at your back as you walked past roaming males in the dark of the camp. Only once you enter Rhys’s house—his mother’s house—and the door shut behind the two of you, did Azriel speak.
“I did not know we would be staying.”
You turned around quickly, guilt unfurling rapidly in your chest. “Neither did I.” You swallowed hard, looking around at the achingly familiar furniture covered with only a faint layer of dust. Cassian must come here. “I’m sorry. You can leave. I should never have—”
“I am not leaving you here,” he said quickly, moving close.
“I can’t ask you to stay here, Azriel. It’s unfair. You don’t deserve—”
“I can handle Devlon, and I can handle sleeping on this rancid land.” His voice was smooth and steady, his eyes not leaving yours. “I’m not worried about me,” he said quietly. “I’m worried about you.”
You breathed in deep, the dust floating around you scratching at your throat. “I’ll be fine,” you said, nodding as if that would make it true. “I need to do this for Freya.”
Azriel nodded, his hand coming out to rub your upper arm. “We’re going to find who did this.” His jaw clenched, the muscle in the corner jumping. “We might already know who.”
You let out a hollow, exasperated laugh. “How is it still like this?” you asked. “How are these things still happening? How is Devlon, of all Illyrians, considered the most progressive camp lord?”
“I don’t know,” he murmured, his hand gently coaxing you to fall against his chest, his arms circling around your waste. “I’ve long thought they’re past saving.”
“It’s not fair.”
He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, and you wanted to burrow inside of him. You wanted to cling to him like dew, and never leave. You wanted him. All of him. Forever.
~ ~ ~
“Azriel,” you rasped, leaning over his bed. You reached for him, shaking his shoulders far less gently than you should to wake a sleeping Illyrian male. “Azriel,” you sobbed.
He shot up in bed, his shadows flaring out to wrap around you. Not to protect him—to soothe you. You only cried harder.
“What happened?” he hurried out, sleep slipping from the panicked syllables. “Y/N?” He reached for you, pulling you down onto his bed as he sat up. “Hey—hey, what happened? Are you hurt?”
“She’s dead,” you hiccuped. You collapsed against him, your head falling into his lap as you curled up on your side. “She’s dead. My mother—”
Azriel’s arms held you tight, his wings curling around the two of you, a heavy warmth that dulled the sharpest edges of the cold terror protruding from your chest. You faintly heard the opening of a door. You didn’t care.
“She was the general’s mistress,” you rasped. “She didn’t know I knew, but I did. He—he—” Another sob tore from your throat, agony rippling through you. “What do I do? Where do I go?”
Azriel held you tight, rocking you gently. “We’ll figure it out,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
You fell asleep wrapped in his arms, with your head in his lap and his wings covering your trembling body, and tears slowly drying on your cheeks in the dark of night.
~ ~ ~
The mattress in Cassian’s old room was cold and lumpy, a worn down sack of cotton that was falling apart at the seams. It had surely been replaced in the five centuries since you left here, but it was long past due for another.
You wiggled around, the sheets catching around your feet and causing a flare of irritation in your chest. Eventually you yanked them down over your chest, your arms falling at your sides with a huff. Moonlight streamed in through the single window, no drapes to block it from falling across your skin. Your heart was beating hard in your chest, a half-beat off rhythm as your mind struggled to find rest in this place that had left so many scars on your soul.
Cassian’s scent lingered in the air, on the old shirt you had found shoved inside his wardrobe. It was familiar, at least. It masked all of the other acrid scents that bombarded you the second you stepped foot inside this camp.
You were still left feeling hollow. You ached from the inside out, and every minute that passed without sleep pricked against your skin—a stark reminder that you would be in no shape to confront Devlon in a few mere hours if you spent the night lying awake in the closest place you had to a childhood home.
Even if you were never allowed to live there.
The house was silent, save for your frustrated sighs. A stillness that felt more suffocating than peaceful falling over you. You tried to listen for Azriel, for his heartbeat, his breaths—anything to distract your spiraling mind—but it was utterly silent.
You knew he was still here. You could feel his presence, even if he was lying in the room across the hall. You couldn’t explain it, but you had always been able to feel him when he was near.
A sixth sense that was beginning to feel more like a curse than a blessing. A taunt, rather than a glimmer of hope. He was not yours to keep track of. He was not yours to want.
And yet, you knew the only thing, the only person, that could calm your racing mind and rising anxieties, was him.
It was selfish to take from him what he should be giving to another. It was selfish to hate the female that would one day have him, that had done nothing wrong but be blessed with Azriel as her mate.
He just—he had always been yours, in some twisted, round about way. Ever since you were young and naive and just happy to have a friend, he was yours. And you were his.
It was futile to talk yourself out of going to him. The wooden floors were rough against the soles of your feet as you opened your door, hesitating for only a second as you looked down the empty hallway, then walked toward Azriel’s door.
You fist hovered in front of the door, your heart pounding as you chastised yourself for wanting him—for needing him. You didn’t just want Azriel, you needed him like you needed air. If there was ever any doubt that he was a lifeline to your heart, this impromptu trip to hell had incinerated it.
You knocked. It was just a soft rap on the door, quiet enough that he might not hear it—if he were anyone else.
“Come in,” his muffled voice called.
Something warmed in your chest knowing that at least you had not been lying awake alone. You opened the door slowly, an unusual shyness cloaking you as you met his eyes. He was under his covers, his back resting against the wall at the head of the bed.
His torso was bare.
Your eyes lingered on his chest, on the curve of his pectorals that border the ridges of his abdomen. You watched the movement of a shadow that flitted across his stomach, then hid behind his back. Your eyes snapped up to meet his. Your mouth was dry when you said, “I can’t sleep.”
His cheeks seem flushed in the glow of the candle beside his bed. “Me neither,” he murmured.
You shut the door behind you, your eyes not leaving his. “Can I stay here?” you asked quietly.
Azriel nodded, his lips turning up so softly it melted one of the many icy tendrils curled around your ribs. He shifted closer to the edge of the far too small bed to hold two Illyrians, patting the small space beside him.
Your shoulders relaxed, falling from where they had been pinned close to your ears without you noticing. It was then that you noticed your legs were bare, and nothing but Cassian’s thread bare shirt was covering your skin.
In theory, this was not a big deal.
You and Azriel had been friends for centuries. You had seen each other in various states of undress in the most vulnerable and inopportune times, had cared for each other in moments of distress—this should have been nothing.
It still felt different.
It felt raw and intimate in a way you had never experienced, and you again felt foolish and guilty.
This was wrong. You should leave. You should leave, and not take advantage of your kind and unsuspecting friend when you knew you were only feeding your poor and delusional heart with misplaced hope that would logically never bloom to fruition. However, only your mind had the luxury of logic, and it was doing a piss poor job at protecting your feeble heart from further ruin.
You moved toward his bed, pulling back the covers and nestling down into the edge of the pillow behind him. Your nose was level with his hip with barely an inch between you, and your wings were drooping over the side of the bed, but you were infinitely more comfortable in here, beside Azriel, than you had been alone across the hall.
Azriel leaned over toward the bedside table, blowing the candle out with a small puff of air, then sank down into the bed so he was face to face with you, your heads sharing the lone pillow at the head of his bed. His soft cedar scent wrapped around you, his warmth enveloping you like a second blanket, and your eyes grew tired embarrassingly quickly.
You took in the muted hazel of his eyes, the flecks that glinted in the moon beams cast around the room, and you thought he might have been doing the same, his eyes never wavering from yours. Goosebumps pebbled across your skin, and the smile that pulled at your lips was entirely involuntary, pure content and love consuming your weary and battered mind for the first time in months—the Illyrian hell hole outside these walls be damned.
“Goodnight,” Azriel murmured, his voice growing heavy with his own exhaustion.
You might have moved impossibly closer, you might have let your legs brush his and your arms graze against the warm skin of his chest—it was purely due to the lack of space, of course. Azriel smiled softly at you, and his arms wrapped around your body, pulling you tighter against his chest, forcing your head to rest directly against him.
You melted into him, of course. His arms had always been where you felt safest, even in the darkest and most trying times of your life. There was no fighting it.
Even if that terrible, fleeting stone of guilt ricocheted through your body. Even if it just barely grazed your heart, reminding you of the precarious edge you were standing on, an inevitably agonizing heart break waiting for you below.
Tonight you would ignore it just a little longer. Tonight you would hide from your shredded soul in the arms of the male you loved, and would pretend, for just a few hours, he loved you too.
~ ~ ~
“Augustus makes an attor seem friendly.”
Your words were meant to be joking. They were meant to just be a jeering jab at your horrible cousin who you had never properly met, had not known existed until Devlon thrust you into his care the day after your mother’s funeral. Instead they sounded hollow and aching, entirely too much truth weighing them down.
Azriel noticed.
“Has he done something?” he asked quietly, as if he was afraid too loud a cadence might summon the wretched male to this desolate clearing.
You blinked, staring blankly at the snow below you. You were tired of snow. You were tired of the cold. Sixteen years spent living in eternal winter, and you were prepared to commit an atrocity if it meant you never had to see these snow-covered mountains again.
“Nothing new.”
You felt the tension rippling off of Azriel. His siphons littering his chest and arms flared, his copious stores of power simmering over. “That’s not an answer.”
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s not good enough.”
Your head snapped toward him, your lips pulling back in an instinctive snarl. “It’s all I can give you.”
Azriel blinked, otherwise unflinching against your anger. “You’re keeping things from me,” he said quietly.
It was the truth, and it hurt, no matter how gentle he laid it in front of you.
Your mother was unkind. You even thought her cruel, once. Now you lived with a male who knew the true definition of cruelty. A male so toxic he made your hair stand straight on your arms and a chill ran down your spine every time you stepped foot through the door. A male who yelled instead of spoke, whose anger was a baseline state for him.
He was a male that used violence more than words. Who left bruises in his wake. Who reminded you every day he hated you, and he hated his uncle that impregnated the whore that birthed you, and was stupid enough to get herself killed.
What of his father? you sometimes wanted to ask. Was he stupid too? How did he die?
Speaking those words would be sure to get you killed.
A hand wrapped around your arm, the sudden touch making you flinch, your entire body curving away out of pure instinct. Your body froze when you realized what you did, when you recognized the scarred hand that had immediately fell away from you.
Horror sluiced through you when you met Azriel’s wide, vicious eyes. He was trembling, his shadows stretching out farther than he usually let them these days, his wings twitching behind him. “Let me see your arm.”
“No.”
“Y/N,” he said, your name spoken so low and slowly it forced your mind to slow down. “Let me see.”
“I can’t,” you whispered, your voice cracking.
Azriel’s jaw clenched, a puff of air leaving his nose as his hand squeezed into a fist, then slowly uncurled. “Please,” he asked gently. “I only want to help.”
“You have to promise me you won’t do anything,” you pleaded. Azriel’s throat bobbed as you stared at him. “Promise me, Azriel.”
“I promise,” he whispered.
You nodded, sniffing once to push away the tears that were beginning to burn at the back of your throat. You shrugged out of your jacket, exposing your bare arms to the bitter cold, and revealing the mottled bruises in various colors decorating your skin.
Azriel’s breath hitched when he saw. You couldn’t meet his eyes, and you hated that you still flinched when he touched your arm. He froze, staring at your face. You could only nod.
He continued his inspection, his hands gently grazing over your skin, careful not to hurt you. A tear fell from the corner of your eye, and you quickly wiped it away. Then his fingers curled around the hem of your shirt, squeezing the fabric tight, and when you finally met his gaze, gave him the permission he was seeking, he lifted your shirt.
“Y/N,” he said, his voice broken as he took in the purple blooms across your ribs. His fingers lightly traced the ridges of your ribcage, pulling away only when you sucked in a sharp breath as he passed over a sensitive area. He lowered your shirt slowly, and you could feel him staring at you, even as you stared down at the snow. “He could have killed you,” he whispered.
“He threatened to this morning,” you admittedly quietly, pathetically. “That was a first.”
He helped you slide your coat back on, doing up the wing slats silently with careful fingers.
“You need to report him?”
You laughed mirthlessly. “To who? Devlon?” You shook your head. “I’ll be fine.” You stood up from the boulder the two of you had been perched upon, your boot slipping just a bit before you gained your composure. “I’ve survived a year with him. I can survive more.”
“Y/N—”
“I’ll see you later, Azriel.”
~ ~ ~
“My condolences for the passing of your wife.”
The male leaning against the wall of one of the buildings surrounding the square, watching the young males train, lazily dragged his gaze up to meet yours. His eyes flit to Azriel standing behind you, a flash of contempt shining in his irises before he seemed to force it away. He met your gaze again, his arms still crossed over his chest as he said flatly, “My wife is dead. Your condolences mean nothing.”
“I’m sure,” you answered, forcing sympathy into your tone. “I grew up with Freya,” you said, watching him carefully. “She was my friend.”
The male went rigid, indignation and rage roaring behind his eyes. “She never told me she was friends with one of the High Lord’s whores. Though, it’s unsurprising.”
Azriel stepped forward, but you blocked his path. “What happened to her?” you asked, ignoring his disrespect.
His eyes narrowed, and he finally stood up straight. “She ran off in the middle of the night after letting her delusions mislead her. Guess she wandered too far, made herself a meal.”
You had no idea what he meant by that, but you knew in your bones you were staring into the eyes of the male that ended Freya’s life. And he was a general of one of the most respected legions in the Illyrian army. Rhys would terminate him immediately, with or without concrete proof—he would come and dig through his mind if that was what it took, but you wanted to handle this yourself. You wanted to force them to admit to their atrocities for once, and force them to do something about it.
“It’s just hard to imagine,” you pondered, voice floaty and distant as you turned to look out at the woods in the distance. “Five centuries she’s lived here…” You shook your head. “Do you have any children?”
“No.”
You looked him up and down, making no effort to hide your analysis of him. You pursed your lips, your facade falling away, and your stony armour falling back into place. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
You turned away, but you only made it a few steps toward Devlon’s quarters before an ear splitting scream rang through the camp. You flinched, stumbling back into Azriel, who caught you with steady hands. “What the hell was that?” you asked breathlessly.
The scream rang out again, this time sobs following after. It did not take long to find the source, two males dragging a young girl by her arms to the center of the square, her knees dragging on the snow covered ground. The males fighting in the wing didn’t even look at her.
They threw her to the ground.
Then they grabbed her wings.
“Get off of her!” The words tore out of you, loud and guttural as you took off for the young female lying in the snow, her skin bruised and discolored in a way yours once had been at that very same age. “Get your fucking hands off of her!”
The two males snapped their heads toward you, and only then did the clang of swords die out. Everyone was watching now, even some females coming out of the buildings scattered around. They sneered at you, ready to fire back, then their eyes fell to the presence at your side, to the shadows forming a thick blanket of smoke at your feet. Only then did they let her go, leaving her lying in the cold.
You shoved one of them out of the way, making him stumble, and Azriel was between the two of you before the male could react. You crouched down, gently helping the girl up. Tears streaked her cheeks, her hair damp from the snow and plastered to the side of her face. She was shaking. “Come on,” you said, voice steady. “Come on.”
She sniffed once, her eyes meeting yours, then taking in your leathers, and the way your wings were stretched wide behind your back, the way they were meant to. She nodded, letting you help her up by her arm, but she did most of the work. She glared at the male beside her, watching the two of you with pure disdain.
Then she spat at his boots.
He barely made a move before you shoved her behind you, and you grinned at the male. “You will not touch her,” you ordered, voice low and threatening. Then, looking around at all the males, and females, staring at you, you yelled, “In case you all forgot, wing clipping is banned by the High Lord!”
You stepped closer to the male that she spat at, shoving one finger against his chest. “You will not touch her,” you hissed.
You cast one last glare at the male, then turned around toward the girl. She was on her cycle. Your stomach twisted, too many horrific memories pressing at the edges of your mind. “Where is your mother?” you asked quietly.
She glanced to the side, to where a female was standing in the doorway of a tailor shop. Her hands were curled into tight fists, and her eyes were wide with terror and fury. You nodded toward the woman. “Go.”
The girl did not hesitate, running to her mother who embraced her in her arms, an unusually blatant display of affection in an Illyrian camp. You hoped her mother did not have bruises to match her own, but it was likely.
“What the hell is going on?” a grating male voice bellowed over the square.
You rolled your eyes, turning away from the mother and daughter once they hurried inside their shop to find Devlon, his eyes ablaze.
No one spoke. The general you had spoken to moments ago was gone, unsurprisingly.
“You are all dismissed,” Azriel ordered, his voice cold and lethal.
No one moved.
Azriel swung his gaze around the camp, his wings flaring wide and siphons gleaming. “Go.”
Everyone scattered, a dull murmur filling the square as males gathered their belongings, heading anywhere away from here. Azriel stepped in front of you, his body practically vibrating with rage. “Devlon,” he growled. “Wing clipping is banned in all Illyrian camps.”
Devlon’s eyes narrowed. “It is,” he agreed, begrudgingly.
“And yet, Y/N just stopped two of your males from clipping a girl they had pinned in the snow.”
Devlon said nothing, but the ire burning in his eyes made your blood rush through your head, a dull thump pounding in your ears. You stepped closer to him, the snow crunching beneath your boots with every slow step that brought you inches away from Devlon. You met his eyes, uncaring that he was taller and broader than you. You were not the terrified girl he once threw to the wolves with the flick of his hand five centuries ago.
“I will find out exactly what happened to Freya,” you hissed, venom lacing every syllable. “And I will personally see that any male that so much as thinks—” You stabbed Devlon in the chest with your finger, his nostrils flaring at the disrespect. “—of touching another female’s wings is dealt with appropriately.”
You leaned back, heart pounding as you looked Devlon up and down, your body vibrating with centuries of pent up fury and resentment and hatred for this wretched place filled with wretched men. “You forget your place, Devlon,” you spat.
“You fucking low-life bitch, mewing and preening for—” His words died with an abrupt wheeze, dark tendrils of shadow whipping around his throat and forcing their way inside his mouth, one even curling out of his nose. You stumbled back a step from the shock, Azriel moving in front of you with predatory grace.
“I would be very careful with your words,” he murmured, his voice cold and lethal. Devlon’s face grew redder by the second, his eyes starting to bulge as Azriel leaned down to meet his eyes. “I am not my brothers. I will not hesitate to find a new camp lord.”
The shadows pulled back, tucking beneath Azriel’s wings or wrapping around your ankles. Devlon keeled over just as Azriel stepped back, gasping and wheezing with watery eyes.
The look on Azriel’s face was pure disdain. “We’re done here.”
~ ~ ~
Panic clawed at your spine, sharp and cloying pain chasing after you no matter how far you ran.
You were so foolish. You knew, deep down, that it was only a matter of time before nature inevitably turned on you. It didn’t matter how many herbs and serums you stuffed down your throat day after day. Your cycle was inevitable.
You should have been prepared. You should have thought about its arrival beyond the bone deep dread that flooded your body every time you saw another girl in the mess hall with freshly clipped wings and sallow eyes. You knew you were only delaying the inevitable, and now it was finally here.
Maybe if your mother were still alive you might have hid it. Maybe she would not have cared enough to drag you to a healer, her own disdain for this camp possibly protecting you from its wretched customs. Or maybe she would have dragged you to the healer out of spite.
There was no doubt what Augustus would do.
He wouldn’t even take you to a healer. He would likely slash your wings to shreds himself, going farther than just robbing you of their function. He loathed your mere existence. The only reason you were not dead was his delusional dream of becoming one of Devlon’s prized generals, and Devlon was the one that had dumped you in Augustus’s care.
You knew as soon as he returned from wherever he slinked away to, as soon as walked through that door, he would smell the blood, and it would be over for you.
So you ran.
As soon as the cloying metallic scent hit your nose a.nd the stabbing pain shot through your abdomen, you stuffed your bare feet in your boots and shoved your arms in your coat and you ran. You wore nothing but a thin night gown underneath your leather jacket, your bare calves exposed to the bitter air and sharp cold of the snow-covered forest.
You had nowhere to go. Nowhere to run to. Nothing to help you survive alone in the Illyrian steppes, but all you could think about was that you would not survive the night if you stayed in that house in the center of camp.
You just had to make it far enough away from camp that no one could find you. No one could smell you. You just had to keep moving, even if the tears running down your cheeks were frozen on your skin and your hands were numb. Even if you felt like you were being ripped apart from the inside out and felt an uncomfortable and foreign moisture spread between your thighs. Even if you worried that the farther you fled into the forest, Illyrian males would no longer be your only threat.
Somehow you reached the clearing that you and Azriel would meet in, less frequently now that you were older. The open land that once felt freeing now left you open and exposed, entirely vulnerable. You sniffed once, ignoring the tears that clung to your lashes and stuffing down the slimy terror sluicing through your veins, and you kept running.
You managed to cross the clearing, catapulting into the tree line on the other side, hissing as a branch scraped your cheek. You were so tired, so weak, and you were in so much pain. The ground seemed to shift abruptly before righting itself, the trees spinning as you put one foot in front of the other, desperate to make it out of here. Flying was not an option if you wanted to go undetected, but running was rapidly failing you.
Your ankle twisted with a chilling snap, your foot falling into a snow covered hole. You careened forward, unable to catch yourself before landing sharply on your arm, the snow doing very little to cushion your fall. You bit your lip hard enough to draw blood as you stifled your scream, a sharp gasp leaving your lips as you pushed yourself to sit up and pulled your foot from the sunken in ground.
You were trembling, and your head was spinning as you fought to catch your breath. Terror stabbed your chest as a male materialized in front of you, his wings stretched wide behind him, the moonlight illuminating his silhouette.
You were going to die.
“Y/N.”
You shut your eyes, a pathetic whimper falling from your lips as you shook in the snow, waiting for the inevitable.
“Y/N, it’s me,” he said again, voice soft and familiar.
You forced your eyes open, Azriel’s scent wafting over you as he crouched beside you.
Terror still clung to your skin, your world spinning and reality crashing down around you. You started shaking your head, fresh tears falling from your eyes. “Please,” you rasped. “Please. Please.” Your voice broke around your sobs. “Please don’t—” You coughed, and you leaned forward as another sharp pain stabbed at your abdomen.
“Hey—hey,” Azriel said hurriedly. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you. Y/N, I would never.”
His words sloshed around inside your head, tumbling around and around as you tried to listen. You slumped forward suddenly, and his hands shot out to catch you, but you quickly flinched away.
“No. Y/N, hey.” His hands were still firm on your arms, his warmth radiating into your frozen skin. “You’re safe with me.” He looked you in the eyes, and his muted hazel irises in the dark of night stared back at you, warm and familiar, even if they were laced with panic. “Are you hurt? What—”
He suddenly went rigid, his nostrils flaring as he quickly scanned your body, and you got to watch the realization dawn on his face. A swell of mortification mixed with your fear, even if you were in agony and crumpled in pain on the cold wet ground.
You stared at him, your lip trembling ever so slightly. “Please don’t make me go back,” you whispered.
Azriel’s face fell. “Y/N—”
You were shaking your head again. “I can’t lose my wings.” You gasped for air, fighting the sobs pushing at your throat. “I can’t, Azriel. It’s the only thing I have. Please—”
“No one is going to touch your wings,” he swore, and for a half second, you wanted to believe him. “But you can’t stay here. I have to take you back—”
“No,” you cried, your hand weakly clutching the front of his leathers. “No. Please—”
Azriel’s gloved hands came up to cup your face gently, his warmth a balm to the stinging cold. “I’m going to take you back to my home. Rhysand’s mother won’t be home until morning, but she will help. While we wait, you can bathe, warm up, sleep. You will be safe there.”
You swallowed hard, your throat burning from your cries. “What about Rhysand and Cassian?”
His thumbs gently stroked your cheeks. “They will be there. Hey,” he said, coaxing your face back up to meet his when you looked away, “They would never hurt you. They’re your friends.”
You nodded slowly, your grip on his leathers going lax. Your fingers ached from the cold, and your joints were growing stiff.
“Okay?” he asked.
You nodded again.
“Good,” he murmured. He pulled his hands away, and he slid his leather gloves off. “Here,” he said, then took your hand in his now bare one, his skin hot against yours. He slid the glove over your hand, the material warm from him, and it was a relief so intense you nearly started crying again. He took your other hand in his, doing the same.
“There,” he hummed, then reached up to brush your hair away from your face. “I’m not leaving you,” he promised. “No one is touching your wings.”
You stared at him for a moment, taking in the fuzzy contours of his face that you knew like the back of your hand, even in the dark of night. You slowly fell back inside yourself, slowly came down from the terror and adrenaline that had pushed you through the Illyrian forests, away from Windhaven, and recognized the world around you.
You recognized the gentle stroke of shadows on your exposed calves. You recognized the cedar sent curling around you. You recognized the kernel of warmth in the center of you that came to life every time Azriel was near—even now, when you were panic-stricken and exhausted, it was still there.
You remembered that you trusted him, and you were safe. Maybe you should have ran to him, instead of away from Windhaven. Maybe you would have made things worse if someone had caught you. Maybe he would be angry that you had acted so rash, so foolish, when the sun rose over the horizon. There were a lot of uncertainties, many you would never have the answer to, but you did know Azriel would protect you, and he would never hurt you.
You forgot sometimes how quickly Illyria weathered boys into males, children into adults. Azriel was eighteen now, and while you could still see that eleven year old boy behind the mess hall with rosy cheeks and messy hair, he was entirely male now. He was formidable in every sense of the word. In the spring, he would complete the Blood Rite, likely alongside Rhys and Cass, and there was no question of if they would pass.
Everyone feared them. Everyone whispered about the Shadowsinger, but no one outwardly antagonized him—not anymore. If someone with too much gall challenged him, they learned their lesson quickly. Azriel was undoubtedly fearsome.
But not to you.
You never feared him.
You lunged forward, wrapping your arms around him, and you tucked your head against his chest. His arms quickly circled your body, overly mindful of your wings, but his palm still rubbed soothing circles along your lower back. “Thank you,” you whispered. “I don’t know how you found me, or how you knew to look for me—” Azriel squeezed you a little tighter. “But thank you.”
Suddenly one of his arms was under your legs, and you whimpered as your ankle shifted, which he gently apologized for. Then he lifted you, and you were finally out of the freezing snow that had seeped through your clothes.
You let your head loll against his chest, grateful for the warmth his body radiated and the shield from the wind his shadows had slowly built around you. “Thank you,” you whispered again.
He pressed his lips to the top of your head, a gesture that was so sweet and fond and new that your heart flipped inside your chest, and you wanted to cry for an entirely different reason.
~ ~ ~
As soon as the door shut behind Azriel with a heavy thud, you whirled around to face him. “What the hell was that?”
Azriel blinked, stopping in the entry way. “You know Devlon is a piece of—”
“I’m not talking about Devlon, Azriel. I’m talking about you.”
“What?”
You shook your head, hands balling into fists at your sides. You felt suffocated, angry, and out of control. This house held too many memories. This entire camp was littered with knives sharpened by horrific memories that were ready to stab you at first glance. There would never be any forgetting, even after centuries had passed.
“I was handling Devlon,” you grit out.
“I know.” Azriel stepped closer. “I was there.”
“Then why did you—”
“He does not get to speak to you that way,” Azriel growled.
“I don’t need you to fight my battles!”
Azriel’s mouth opened and then snapped shut, as if he thought better of whatever he was about to say. “I am always going to protect you, Y/N,” he said finally, his voice quieter than before.
You swallowed hard, your nose burning as bile stung the back of your throat. “I don’t need you to.”
Azriel shook his head. “Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do that. Don’t ask me not to—” He tilted his head back, and his shadows broke free from behind his back in shaky tendrils, a rare slip of restraint. “I have protected you since the day I met you,” he rasped. The words sounded strangled and desperate, and they knocked the air from your lungs. “I want to. I need to. Please do not ask me to stop.”
You wanted to spit something vitriolic back, just because you were hurting—for more than one reason—and he was standing directly in your line of fire.
Then you met his eyes, which were glossy in the sunlight streaming in through the kitchen window, and his shadows were vibrating with barely restrained emotion. Your shoulders fell, and then you looked away.
“Let’s go home,” he said quietly.
You nodded, even if your chest was suddenly tight. “You should go.”
“No,” Azriel said, and you looked at him warily. “We are going home. I’m not leaving you here, and if either of us stay in this camp another damned minute we might actually murder someone.”
“But Freya—”
“Rhys will handle it.”
“It’s my responsibility, Azriel.”
“It’s your responsibility to take care of yourself,” he volleyed back. Then he said again, “Rhys will handle it.”
“But the wing clipping—”
“Will not be fixed overnight. Cassian will take care of it.”
You closed your eyes, an all-consuming sense of failure corroding away at your bones. What was the point? What was the point of any of this if you could not help these females? Over five centuries of fighting and arguing and defying and still, nothing had changed. It was not enough. You could never do enough—
“Stop,” Azriel growled, his hands suddenly on your shoulders. “Stop. This is not your burden to bear alone. It’s not yours at all. None of this is your fault.”
You started to protest, but he leaned down closer to meet your eyes. “But you care,” he said softly. “You care about the females in this camp, because you are good. You are kind and compassionate and good, Y/N. You have not failed them, I promise you. You saved that girl today, and we will help the rest of them. I promise you.”
It was too much.
You depended on him too much, because somehow his words had soothed your soul, muting the spiraling stream of toxicity in your mind. Somehow his touch grounded you, and reminded you who you were, and where you were, and who you were with.
You were never really mad at him.
You were angry at the universe, and Illyria, and the Mother, but never him. He had done nothing wrong.
You loved him so much you thought your bones might break from the weight of it.
Your heart might combust from the agony of knowing he belonged to another, because he was yours. He was always meant to be yours. You needed him.
You wanted to hug him.
You wanted to kiss him.
Maybe, this was still salvageable. Maybe Azriel felt this too. Maybe he would understand, and everything he had said about how happy he was to find his mate a few months ago was just the rambling of a drunken male. Maybe he was deflecting, and if you just kissed him—
Azriel stepped away.
His hands fell from your shoulders.
The permanent chill in the air seeped back into your skin.
Lucien carries so many scars. Whether that be emotional, physical, or mental scarring —poor guy has been through a lot.
@amandapearls and I wanted to show him in a sweet moment playing with a baby fox. Trying to show that Lucien is slowly trying to heal from all the scars.
@saintdri /_saintdri you so much for creating this beautiful artwork of Lucien. He looks so soft and untroubled 💛
We love the baby fox and the autumn leaves falling. Everything about this artwork is so lovely 💛
We’re so captivated by Lucien’s facial expression 💛
_saintdri you’ve been so wonderful to work with! Thank you so much for all your kindness during this commission 💛
Commissioned by @amandapearls and myself
Artist is @_saintdri
Character belong to Sarah J Maas & Bloomsbury Publishing
come one, come all; it's happening again. @velarismorningstar - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
