Obsessed and Blessed

You were good at being admired.

You knew how to lean against a balcony railing just so, how to laugh at the right moment, how to hold a male’s gaze long enough to make him think he’d won something. You had perfected the art of almost.

Almost interested. Almost vulnerable. Almost his.

You never gave more than that.

You told yourself it was power. Control. You chose them before they could choose you. You left before they could leave you.

And the males of Velaris? They were more than happy to play along.

Warriors. Scholars. Courtiers twice your age with clever smiles and careful hands. You let them think they were dangerous. Let them think they were the ones playing with fire.

You were the fire.

And you burned clean.

Until the night the bond snapped into place and turned your careful world into ash.

It happened at a dinner you hadn’t even wanted to attend.

The Inner Circle was gathered at the House of Wind—wine flowing, laughter loud, Cassian already halfway through telling a story that would absolutely end in Feyre rolling her eyes.

You were leaning against the stone balcony doors, half-listening, when the air changed.

Not colder.

Heavier.

Like the world had taken a breath and forgotten to exhale.

You turned.

And there he was.

Azriel.

He stood just inside the threshold, shadows curling lazily around his shoulders, wings tucked tight against his back. He didn’t look at you immediately. He rarely did. He observed the room first, cataloging threats, exits, small details no one else noticed.

Then his gaze found yours.

And everything broke.

It wasn’t loud. There was no flash of light. No thunder.

It was quiet. A thread pulling taut. A snap inside your ribs.

A heat that bloomed low and devastating and ancient.

You felt it before you understood it.

Mate.

Your breath stuttered.

Across the room, Azriel went perfectly still.

The world blurred around you. Cassian’s laughter faded. The music dimmed. All you could see was the male staring at you like he’d just been struck through the heart.

His shadows recoiled first. Then surged toward you.

They wrapped around your wrists like curious fingers. Slid up your arms. Brushed along your throat.

A claim. Not forceful. Not demanding.

Just… there. Waiting.

Your wine glass slipped from your fingers and shattered against the stone floor.

No one noticed.

But Azriel did.

His jaw tightened. His chest rose sharply.

He knew.

And for the first time in centuries, you felt something you did not know how to control.

Fear.

You avoided him.

It was pathetic, really.

You, who had danced through political courts and war camps without blinking, who had faced monsters and smiled—

You couldn’t handle one male looking at you like that.

Because he didn’t look at you the way the others did.

There was no hunger sharpened by ego. No smug possession.

Azriel looked at you like you were something sacred and dangerous at once.

Like if he touched you, he might never recover.

And that terrified you.

Because the bond?

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t gentle. It felt like a drug working through your bloodstream.

The more distance you put between you, the worse it got.

You would be halfway through a conversation and suddenly feel restless. You’d wake in the middle of the night with your heart racing.

You’d stand at your bedroom window, staring at the Sidra, and feel like something inside you was clawing toward the dark.

Toward him.

You tried distracting yourself. A dinner here. A flirtation there.

One male—older, charming, infatuated—reached for your hand at a wine bar along the river.

You let him hold it. You let him smile. You let him lean closer.

And the moment his thumb brushed your knuckles—

Something in your chest revolted.

Your magic flared instinctively.

Across the city, shadows exploded into motion.

The male jerked back with a startled curse as darkness flooded the alley beside the bar.

You froze.

Oh.

You knew those shadows.

The male paled. “I think I’ll—”

“Yes,” you said faintly. “You should.”

He fled.

And you stood there, shaking.

Because you hadn’t called for Azriel.

But he had felt it.

And he had responded.

The realization settled into your bones.

You were not the only one unraveling.

He found you a week later. Of course he did.

You were on a rooftop, knees drawn to your chest, staring at the velvet sky. Velaris glittered below, unaware of the war happening inside your body.

His shadows touched you before he did.

A whisper across your shoulder. A curl around your ankle.

You didn’t turn.

“You’re making this harder than it needs to be,” Azriel said quietly.

His voice wasn’t angry.

It was strained.

You swallowed. “Am I?”

He stepped closer. You felt the heat of him before you felt his hand.

“Yes.”

You forced yourself to look at him.

Gods.

He looked worse.

Dark circles beneath his eyes. Jaw clenched too tight. Wings slightly tense.

“You’re avoiding me,” he continued.

“You’re observing me.”

A faint flicker of something almost like amusement passed through his gaze. “I always observe.”

“Exactly.”

Silence stretched between you, thick and electric.

The bond pulsed.

Your heart matched it.

“Do you regret it?” he asked suddenly.

The question hit harder than it should have.

“Regret what?”

His voice dropped. “That it’s me.”

You blinked.

Of all the things you expected, that wasn’t one.

Azriel’s hands flexed at his sides. “You’ve had your pick of the city for centuries. You like charm. Attention. Freedom.”

“And you think you’re none of those things?”

“I think,” he said carefully, “that loving me is not simple.”

Something in you snapped at that.

You stood abruptly.

“Don’t,” you warned.

His brows furrowed.

“Don’t reduce yourself like that.”

The wind picked up around you. Your magic stirred restlessly under your skin.

“You think I’m afraid because you’re difficult?” you demanded softly. “Because you’re quiet? Because you carry darkness?”

You stepped into his space.

His breath hitched.

“I’m afraid,” you admitted, voice lowering, “because I don’t know how to survive this.”

His eyes darkened.

“Survive what?”

You laughed weakly. “This madness.”

The word lingered between you.

“Love shouldn’t feel like this,” you whispered. “It shouldn’t feel like I’m standing at the edge of something that could ruin me.”

Azriel’s hand came up slowly, as if approaching a wounded creature.

When his fingers brushed your jaw, your knees nearly gave out.

“It’s supposed to ruin you,” he murmured.

Your breath caught.

“If it doesn’t make you a little crazy,” he continued quietly, “it isn’t real.”

The bond flared so hot it stole the air from your lungs.

His thumb traced your lower lip.

And for the first time, you didn’t feel powerful.

You felt exposed.

“I don’t want to be one of your almosts,” he said.

The words weren’t jealous.

They were vulnerable.

“I don’t want to be someone you entertain when you’re bored.”

You swallowed.

“You’re not.”

“Then stop pretending I am.”

The city lights flickered below.

Your chest cracked open.

“I don’t know how to do this,” you whispered.

“Neither do I.”

That honesty undid you more than anything else.

Azriel was always controlled. Always steady.

And yet here he stood, shadows restless, breathing uneven, looking at you like he was one wrong word away from falling to his knees.

“For you,” you said slowly, “I would cross lines I swore I never would.”

His pupils flared.

“I would ruin reputations. I would burn bridges. I would beg.”

Your voice broke on the last word.

His hand tightened at your jaw.

“Don’t joke about that.”

“I’m not.”

Silence.

Then, softly, you admitted the truth.

“You make me feel like I’m losing my mind.”

A beat.

“Good.”

You blinked.

He leaned closer, forehead brushing yours.

“Because I’ve been losing mine since the moment that bond snapped.”

His shadows wrapped around your waist, not trapping—holding.

“I wake up feeling you,” he said. “Restless. Pacing. Fighting this.”

Your breath shuddered.

“I don’t want to fight it anymore.”

The admission hovered between you like something holy.

He gave you one last second to pull away.

You didn’t.

Azriel kissed you like a male who had been holding himself together by threads.

Not frantic.

Not careless.

But deep.

Claiming.

His hand slid into your hair, tilting your head back. His other arm wrapped around your waist, anchoring you against him.

The world narrowed to warmth and breath and shadow.

You felt high.

Not dizzy.

Not out of control.

Just… alive.

His wings flared slightly as if instinct demanded he shield you from everything else.

When he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours.

“Say it,” he murmured.

You knew what he meant.

You swallowed.

“I’m yours.”

The words didn’t feel like surrender.

They felt like truth.

His eyes closed briefly.

“And I am yours,” he replied.

Not possession.

Promise.

Later, wrapped in his wings on that rooftop, the city quiet below you, you traced the scars on his hands.

“You don’t scare me,” you told him softly.

“You should be careful.”

“Why?”

“Because I would destroy anything that tried to take you from me.”

There was no hesitation in his voice.

No exaggeration.

Just fact.

Instead of fear, warmth spread through you.

“Good,” you whispered.

His brow furrowed.

You smiled faintly.

“I’m done playing games. I’m done pretending I don’t want something real.”

You leaned into him.

“I was poison ivy,” you admitted. “I hurt people before they could hurt me.”

His lips brushed your temple.

“You’re not poison.”

“No?”

“No,” he said firmly. “You’re just finally choosing someone who won’t run.”

You closed your eyes.

For centuries, you had believed love was a game of control.

But this?

This felt like stepping off a cliff and trusting the dark to catch you.

Maybe it was madness.

Maybe people would whisper that you’d gone too far.

That you’d fallen too hard.

Let them.

If love didn’t make you a little wild—

A little reckless—

A little breathless—

Then what was the point?

Azriel’s shadows curled tighter around you.

And for the first time in your long, careful life—

You didn’t want almost.

You wanted forever.

And gods help anyone who tried to take it from you.

None of it protected him from the way your laughter—bright, unfiltered—sank under his skin like sunlight in a place he’d long since left dark. Or the way you walked into a room with curves that refused to be quiet, hips that swayed like they knew his eyes were on them, thighs that whispered promises in the cradle of his dreams.

You were soft where others were sharp. Loud where others tiptoed around his silence. And you were kind to him. Kind. You looked at him like he wasn’t a weapon. Like he was a man.

And gods, he was fucked.

It started with glances.

One night at the River House, your thigh had brushed against his under the table. Just a second. Just a spark. But Azriel had spent the rest of dinner sitting stone-still, sweat between his shoulder blades, trying not to glance down at where the curve of your legs pressed so innocently against his. Like you didn’t know what you were doing.

He knew. Or hoped.

He went home that night and fucked his hand with your name on his tongue.

Over the following weeks, it only got worse.

His shadows told on him. Whispers of you undressing, fingers brushing lotion over your skin. Your voice, singing softly in your room when you thought no one was listening. The bond—Cauldron, the bond—was growing louder, insistent now, humming in his bones every time you walked by.

He began to crave you like blood. And it made him sloppy.

Sparring with Cassian? He caught a glimpse of you stretching on the sidelines and missed a block, got knocked on his ass. Mission debriefing with Rhys? Azriel didn’t hear a word—because you’d walked in wearing a dress that hugged the dip of your waist and the swell of your hips like a sin.

But he couldn’t touch. Not yet.

He didn’t know if you felt it. The bond. The way it pulled on him like a hook in his ribs, dragging him closer to you with every breath. You deserved more than a man who didn’t know how to be soft. A man who burned and bled and broke.

But then… you smiled at him.

That day in the training ring, your face flushed, thighs trembling from the workout, sweat glistening between your breasts—he snapped.

"You alright?" you asked gently, blinking up at him as he stalked toward you, dark and silent.

"No," he said hoarsely. “No, I’m not.”

You looked up at him with that wide-eyed kindness, a little confused, a little wary. “Az…?”

“I need to show you something.”

He didn’t give you time to overthink. Just took your hand and led you through the House—past the halls where his shadows curled and listened, past the tension thrumming in his chest—to the bathing chamber. Quiet. Private.

Sacred.

When the door shut behind you, you stood very still. “Is something wrong?”

Azriel turned to you, heart in his throat. “I think you’re my mate.”

Silence. Thick. Shocking.

You blinked, once. Twice. “You think—?”

“I know,” he said, stepping forward. “I’ve known for months. Since the moment I saw you. The bond—it’s been screaming at me, and I’ve been pretending I can ignore it. But I can’t anymore. Not when you look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m yours.”

The bath steamed behind him, sweet with oils and magic. And you—beautiful and wide-eyed and so damn soft—stood before him like a vision.

He raised a scarred hand. Let it hover near your cheek. “Say something. Please.”

You stared at him, lips parted, and then whispered: “Why me?”

Azriel exhaled, voice thick. “Because your laugh sounds like something I want to protect. Because when you walk into a room, I don’t see shadows—I see a future. Because your thighs drive me insane, and when you smile at me, it hurts. And because I would burn the world if you asked.”

Your eyes shimmered.

“Let me show you,” he said. “Please.”

And you nodded.

He undressed you slowly.

Azriel had never gone to war with trembling fingers, but he did now—unlacing the front of your tunic, pushing the fabric down your arms, eyes drinking in every glorious inch you revealed.

Your breasts spilled free first, soft and full and gods, he wanted to mouth at them for hours. Then your waist, the slight dip of your belly, the luscious curve of your hips.

You reached to cover yourself, instinctive.

“Don’t,” he rasped. “Don’t you dare hide from me.”

And when you dropped your arms, vulnerable and trembling, Azriel fell to his knees like he’d been commanded by the gods themselves.

You gasped as he kissed the inside of your thigh, his voice shaking with reverence. “I’ve dreamed of this. Every damn night.”

Then his mouth was on you.

Azriel worshipped you like a prayer—his tongue seeking, finding, devouring the sweet bundle of nerves that made you moan and buck against his face. He gripped your thighs with reverent hands, spreading you open wider for him, shadows caressing you like a second touch.

When your thighs clamped around his head, he groaned—groaned—like it was the only place he’d ever belonged.

“That’s it,” he whispered against your slick. “Use me, sweetheart. Let me feel you fall apart.”

You came for him like a breaking wave. Then again. And again. Until your legs shook and your voice was hoarse from moaning his name.

When he finally rose, your eyes were glazed, your lips kiss-bruised from his.

“Bath,” he murmured, lifting you easily into the water.

You curled into him, back to his chest, the warm water cradling you both. His hands never stopped moving—palming your belly under the surface, stroking the curve of your hip, dragging lazy circles along your inner thigh.

“You drive me mad,” he said, lips against your ear.

“I didn’t mean to.”

He smiled. “I think I was waiting for someone like you. Someone who wouldn’t flinch when I said I’m broken. Who would still want me when I got like this—desperate and wild.”

Then he kissed you.

Not fierce. Not possessive. Just full. Devout. Like a man finally drinking water after years of thirst.

Later, as he dried you off with his own hands—slow, careful, utterly in love—he murmured: “You're mine now.”

You smiled up at him. “And you're mine?”

Azriel lowered his head. Rested his brow against your belly.

“I’ve always been yours.”

Taglist: @willowpains, @masbt1218, @antonia002, @bookishcait, @fuckingsimp4azriel, @fanficscuziranout, @buttermilktea11, @lilah-asteria, @lreadsstuff,  @flintthegoodboyo, @saltedcoffeescotch,  @okaytrashpanda, @mariaxliliana, @kksbookstuff, @marina468, @tele86, @raccoonworld, Princesssunderworld, dinosandwaffles, @xadenswhore

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What am I currently working on? 📚

They were. He could feel them curling closer, tight against his skin. Not warning. Not loud.

Just…waiting.

Azriel tightened his grip on her hand. “We’ll just cross, check the outpost, and go home.”

Y/n turned to him, eyes bright like starlight behind stormclouds. “Promise me.”

He kissed her knuckles. “I promise.”

That was the last thing he remembered before the blow came from behind.

The iron stank.

Magic-bound, old as the Hewn City itself, it wrapped around his chest and dragged him down into cold stone.

Azriel came to in darkness.

His arms were chained above him, his wings pinned in an awkward angle. Blood ran down his forearm, soaking into the shackles, and his head throbbed from whatever spell they'd used to keep him unconscious.

He tried to summon his shadows.

Nothing.

Panic flickered—sharp, immediate—but he forced himself to breathe through it.

He shifted, wincing as pain screamed through his shoulder. The chains rattled.

A torch flared in the corner. Flame danced in the gloom, casting warped shapes across the ancient walls.

And then he heard her.

A low moan. Then a cough. Then—

“Azriel?”

The sound of her voice ripped through him.

“Y/n,” he rasped, trying again to move. “I’m here.”

“Az?” Her voice cracked, raw and hoarse. “I— I can’t—”

“I’m here, sweetheart.” The old nickname fell from his mouth like prayer. “I’m right here.”

Her face came into view. They had her slumped against the opposite wall, shackled at the wrists, her wings stretched out cruelly behind her, one of them clearly dislocated.

There was blood. So much blood.

Her lip was split, her cheek bruised, but her eyes—they found his, and she smiled.

That smile wrecked him.

“Didn’t want to wake up,” she murmured. “If you weren’t with me.”

Azriel nearly broke the chains again.

The door groaned open.

Three figures stepped in.

Azriel recognized them all instantly.

Eris Vanserra, with his usual smug disinterest.

Beron—his supposed father. Not dead, apparently, just smarter at hiding than they'd all hoped.

And Devlon.

His half-brother.

Azriel’s teeth bared. “Touch her, and I’ll rip your spine out.”

“Oh, Shadowsinger,” Eris purred. “That’s not how this works.”

He motioned lazily, and Devlon stepped forward.

Y/n flinched, trying to press herself back—but there was nowhere to go. Her wings twitched, muscles straining against the cuffs.

Devlon knelt beside her. In his hand: a branding iron.

Azriel stopped breathing.

“You remember what it felt like, don’t you?” Devlon asked, his voice too calm. “That first time? The way it bubbled, how the skin melted?”

“Stop—” Azriel growled, twisting in his chains. “Please—take me. Take me instead.”

“Ah,” Beron finally spoke, voice like rot. “But she’s the one you love. That’s the point.”

The iron went into the fire.

Azriel screamed as it began to glow.

Y/n looked at him. “Don’t look away,” she whispered.

“Y/n—”

“Please, Az. Stay with me.”

The brand touched her palm.

She didn’t scream.

She bit down on it. Her entire body shuddered, back arched, breath gone. Her other hand clenched into a fist. Her skin sizzled.

Azriel sobbed.

He hadn’t cried since childhood—not since the cellars of his father’s estate—but he cried now.

“Enough!” he roared, voice like thunder. “STOP!”

He pulled against the chains, shadows screaming inside his blood.

Devlon only smiled and reached for her other hand.

Y/n shook her head, lips trembling. “Don’t—don’t give them anything, Az. Don’t let them win.”

The second brand hissed against her skin.

This time she did scream.

And Azriel shattered.

He didn’t remember breaking the chains.

All he knew was heat—raw, molten, otherworldly power—not Illyrian, not even High Fae. Something deeper than that.

His shadows exploded from the walls, from the torch flames themselves. Smoke coiled into blades.

Devlon was the first to fall.

Eris tried to retreat, but Azriel pinned him to the wall with nothing but shadow and wrath.

Beron, smug and slow, began to cast—but Azriel silenced him with a blade of pure night, pressing it to his throat.

“No,” Azriel said quietly. “You don’t get to speak.”

He turned, gathered Y/n into his arms.

She was shivering. Her hands were burned so badly the skin had turned black. Her hair was matted with blood. Her breath came in ragged gasps.

But she looked at him.

And she smiled again.

Then he turned, and with shadows covering them like armor, they vanished.

They arrived at the healing house under cover of night, Azriel’s wings torn and still bleeding, Y/n unconscious against his chest. Madja took her without words, her face pale.

Rhys met him at the door.

Azriel’s voice was hollow. “Don’t ask.”

Rhys only nodded. His eyes followed Y/n, haunted.

She didn’t wake that night.

Azriel sat by her bed, her fingers curled in white bandages, and traced the ridges of her knuckles through the cloth. The shadows hovered close, whispering apologies.

“Why her?” he asked aloud, to no one.

The shadows didn’t answer.

But he knew.

Because she was his light. And monsters always hunt the brightest flames.

She stirred the next evening.

Her lashes fluttered. She whimpered.

Azriel was by her in a heartbeat. “Y/n.”

Her eyes opened.

“Did we… make it?” she croaked.

He smiled through tears. “We made it.”

She blinked down at her hands. Tried to move them. Winced.

Azriel stopped her gently. “Don’t—let them heal.”

She looked at him. “Do they still burn?”

He shook his head. “No. Not anymore.”

Her voice was barely a whisper. “They match yours now.”

Azriel swallowed. “They were never supposed to.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Do you still—?”

He didn’t let her finish.

He kissed her—slow, reverent, careful not to touch what hurt.

“I will love you in flame or ash,” he said against her skin. “You are not ruined. You are mine.”

She wept in his arms.

And this time, Azriel held her together.

Taglist: @willowpains, @masbt1218, @antonia002, @bookishcait, @fuckingsimp4azriel, @fanficscuziranout, @buttermilktea11, @lilah-asteria, @lreadsstuff,  @flintthegoodboyo, @saltedcoffeescotch,  @okaytrashpanda, @mariaxliliana, @kksbookstuff, @marina468, @tele86, @raccoonworld, Princesssunderworld, dinosandwaffles, @xadenswhore

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What am I currently working on? 📚

You pressed your hands to the stone railing, trying not to let the threads of your bond unravel with restlessness. Rhysand was nearby—he always was, even when he thought he wasn’t. You could feel him in the back of your mind, that teasing brush of violet, silk, and shadows. But he was distracted. And worse, the bond was faintly amused.

Which meant he was probably being flirted with again.

Gods.

The thought alone made your nostrils flare. Not because you didn’t trust him—Cauldron, no. But because some girls had the gall to try. The gall to look at your High Lord like he was a game, not the love of your starlit soul.

You turned on your heel, skirts whispering around your legs, and strode inside.

Rhys had said he’d be back after checking in with Cassian and Azriel at the Sidra Lounge. But your feet weren’t taking you back to the bedroom. They were moving fast, decisive.

The lounge was only a ten-minute walk. It took you six.

Even before you stepped inside, you felt the warmth of his laughter ripple down the bond—and that was when your spine straightened. It wasn’t that he was laughing. It was who he was laughing with.

Because you felt it, the subtle sliver of irritation he didn’t even realize he was suppressing. A female voice, sultry and reaching, filled with interest and just enough feigned innocence to make your blood boil.

You pushed open the glass doors.

Your mate stood near the bar in his usual Night Court regalia—deep black pants, a slate-gray shirt rolled at the sleeves, and a leather jacket that clung to him like it knew what it was doing.

The female talking to him was clearly not just asking for directions.

You clocked the way her hands twisted a curl of hair. The faux-surprised giggle she let out. The slight lean in her body—like she didn’t know how damn magnetic the High Lord of the Night Court was.

You didn’t hesitate.

With a smile that could slice diamonds, you stalked across the room and wrapped your arms around Rhysand’s waist from behind, fingers sliding under his jacket to press against the warm skin of his lower back.

“Hey, babe,” you said, voice deliberately sweet as you looked up at him, eyes wide and adoring. “I was looking for you.”

Rhys stiffened for only a second before his hands found you as if they’d been waiting for the excuse. His mouth curved with amusement, those stars in his eyes glinting with the sudden shift in his focus.

“That so, sweetheart?” he murmured, dropping his chin just slightly to brush your forehead with his. “Here I thought you were tucked in like a good little girl”

You barely held back a snort. Good little girl, my ass.

Out of the corner of your eye, the female cleared her throat.

You turned, deliberately staying pressed to Rhys. “And you are?”

The female blinked, clearly thrown. “Oh, uh… no one,” she said quickly, her eyes suddenly glued to Azriel, who sat stoically nearby, as if he weren’t deeply entertained. “I was just asking if he’d seen—Azriel. I mean. If he’d seen Azriel.”

You raised a brow.

Azriel didn’t even look up from his drink.

You smiled at her again, this time sharp as a blade. “Well. He’s seen him. And now you’ve seen him. So.”

The girl flushed and all but stumbled away.

“Gods,” you muttered, resting your head against Rhysand’s chest. “I get gone for fifteen minutes and you’ve got groupies again?”

Rhys chuckled, the sound low and decadent. “Jealous, darling?”

You scowled up at him. “Territorial. There’s a difference.”

He smirked, brushing his lips against your temple. “Noted.”

Behind you, Cassian made a gagging noise. “Could you two maybe not make me want to hurl in public?”

“I think it’s adorable,” Mor said brightly, lounging across from him. “Especially when Y/n goes all feral possessive. It’s giving Night Court.”

You flipped her off over your shoulder and tugged Rhys toward a corner booth.

The moment you were seated beside him, he draped an arm across the back of the velvet bench, eyes glinting with mischief.

“So. How would you have handled that if I had been flirting back?”

You turned to face him, swinging a leg over his lap so you were straddling him, ignoring the whoop from Cassian.

“Easy,” you murmured, dragging your fingers through the dark silk of his hair. “I’d remind you who you belong to.”

Rhys’ breath caught.

“Stars,” he whispered. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

You leaned in, lips brushing his. “Lucky for you, you can resurrect.”

He kissed you then, deep and claiming, and you knew without doubt he’d never flirt back. Not when he had you.

Not when his entire world began and ended with your heartbeat.

The rest of the night passed in a blur of laughter and music. The Inner Circle hummed with warmth and found family, and you tucked yourself against Rhys’ side with a kind of ease that had once felt foreign.

Later, walking back to the River House, Rhys kept you close. One hand at your lower back. The other around your hand, fingers tangled in yours.

The stars above were brighter in Velaris that night. Almost watching.

“You know I’d never let someone touch me like that,” he said quietly.

You stopped walking. Looked at him fully.

“I know,” you said. “But I still like to remind them.”

His smile was soft now. Real. “Do I need to remind you who I belong to?”

“Try me.”

He hauled you against him with a speed that left you breathless, crashing his mouth onto yours with a hunger that could set the sky on fire.

When he pulled back, his eyes were stormy, voice a growl in your ear.

“You are my beginning and my end. The thing that haunts me in dreams and saves me when I wake. I belong to you, Y/n. Body, soul, stars, and shadow.”

Tears pricked your eyes before you could stop them.

You kissed him hard and slow, and somewhere in that kiss, you whispered back:

“And I belong to you.”

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Y/n’s heart stopped.

Not slowed.

Stopped.

She stood there, invisible in the shadows, as the person she loved more than anything exhaled the words like a weight off his chest.

Azriel’s low voice rumbled in reply. “She’s your mate, Cass.”

“I know. I know,” Cassian muttered, the leather of his gloves creaking. “But she’s everywhere. Clinging. And I don’t want to hurt her, but I need space. I feel smothered.”

A sharp, involuntary breath tore out of her lungs. But it was soundless—silent enough to be buried beneath the crack of a punch meeting Azriel’s pads.

Y/n stepped back, the quiet scuff of her heel brushing against stone somehow deafening in the silence that followed. She didn’t hear Azriel’s reply.

She didn’t need to.

She was already walking away.

She didn’t cry that night. Not even when the bond, the mate bond, pulsed low and confused in her chest like it had felt her retreat.

She didn’t show up to breakfast the next morning. Nor lunch. She missed training entirely. When Cassian passed her in the hallway later that evening, she didn’t flinch, didn’t pause—didn’t even look at him.

She might as well have looked through him.

Like he was a stranger.

At first, Cassian barely noticed. She’d vanished for a day before—needed alone time to read, to breathe. He didn’t press it.

By the second day, when he reached for her side of the bed and found cold sheets, he frowned.

By the third, when the bond between them buzzed with distance instead of the warm thrum of affection, he started to feel it.

By the fifth, it hurt.

Gods, it hurt.

Like a phantom limb where she used to be—present in every memory, every instinct, but no longer there. She didn’t laugh at his stupid jokes anymore. She didn’t braid her fingers through his when they passed in the hallway. She didn’t kiss his neck when he sat at his desk, didn’t pull him to bed when he worked too late.

She had disappeared in the loudest, most devastating silence he had ever heard.

And it was only then—only then—that he remembered.

The words. The ring. That one quiet moment of venting when he thought no one could hear.

She’d heard.

Cassian finally snapped when he found her in the gardens, speaking quietly with Elain beneath the wisteria-covered pergola. She looked radiant in the late sunlight, even as her voice carried no joy. Not for him.

She didn’t look at him when he approached. Didn’t turn. Not even when the bond screamed with his presence.

“Elain,” he said stiffly, eyes locked on Y/n’s profile. “Can I borrow her for a minute?”

Elain cast Y/n a glance. Y/n nodded absently.

Cassian waited until Elain walked out of earshot before he tried to speak.

“Have I done something?” he asked.

“No,” Y/n said softly. Then, colder: “It’s fine.”

It wasn’t. Her voice was all wrong. Detached. Hollow. Like he was speaking through glass.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I’ve been giving you space.”

He blinked. “What?”

She turned then, finally meeting his eyes—and it cut more than he thought it could. Because nothing was there. Not anger. Not sorrow. Just… nothing.

“I didn’t realize I was smothering you,” she said. Her voice cracked, just once, but she pushed forward, eyes hard. “But you were right. I’ve been too much. So I’m stepping back.”

The world tilted.

“Y/n—” His voice was a rasp. Raw. “Wait—”

“I’m not mad,” she cut in, a soft, sad smile curving her lips. “You’re allowed to feel how you feel. I just… I didn’t know you felt that way about me.”

And then she turned. Walked away. No tears. No begging. Just cold, quiet finality.

He reached for her, hand brushing her arm—but she pulled away before he could hold on.

Her scent lingered like heartbreak in the air.

Cassian didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

He’d torn the wings from an angel and wondered why she stopped flying back to him.

That night, the bond between them screamed. A painful, aching silence filled his soul. It rattled his bones, echoed through every step he took alone in their—his—bedroom.

Sleep didn’t come. The sheets were still cold. Everything was wrong.

The next morning, he found Azriel with fire behind his eyes.

“She heard us,” he growled.

Az raised a brow. “Clearly.”

“She heard what I said,” Cassian choked. “About her being clingy. That’s why she’s pulling away. That’s why it feels like she doesn’t even—doesn’t even see me anymore.”

Azriel’s expression didn’t soften. “You said it.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Cassian snapped. “It wasn’t about her. It was about… everything else. The war, the pressure, the High Lord’s Council breathing down my neck. I was spiraling, and she was the only light I had—but I twisted that too.”

Az crossed his arms. “Then why haven’t you told her that?”

“She won’t even look at me.” His voice cracked.

Az tilted his head. “Then make her.”

Cassian tried. Gods, he tried.

He brought her flowers the next night—starblossoms, her favorite. He knocked on her door like his life depended on it.

The door opened an inch.

Y/n’s face appeared. Tired. Beautiful. Untouchable.

“Y/n,” he breathed.

“I’m tired, Cass,” she said.

Gentle.

Kind.

Cold.

The door closed again.

And something inside him shattered.

The next week passed in pieces. The scent of her was everywhere, but never close. She was polite in meetings. Present in group settings. But to him, she was a wall.

She didn’t speak to him alone.

Didn’t meet his gaze once.

He tried again—notes, gifts, flowers. Nothing thawed her. The distance felt permanent now. Like she’d severed him at the root and planted herself somewhere else, somewhere he couldn’t follow.

And he deserved it.

He went to Mor.

“I think I broke her,” he said.

Mor looked at him. Eyes full of rage and sorrow. “You didn’t break her, Cassian. She just stopped trying to prove she was enough for you.”

“I never wanted that—”

“No. But you made her feel it. And you don’t fix that with flowers. You fix that by bleeding. So figure out how you’re going to bleed.”

The next morning, Y/n found a note on the training bench. No name. Just a memory.

I missed watching you kick Azriel’s ass. — C

She didn’t take it.

But her hand lingered over it a moment longer than she meant to.

That night, she returned to her chambers and found a bundle of lavender on her bed. Her scent. His memory.

Two nights later: a dagger on her doorstep.

Obsidian blade. Curved Illyrian hilt.

Etched into the handle, in small, nearly invisible script: My mate. My blade. My breath.

She stared at it for a long time.

And then, she sought him out.

She found him at the edge of the Sidra, armor stripped away, eyes cast to the stars.

“Why’d you say it?”

Her voice was quiet. Almost a whisper.

Cassian turned, like her voice alone was enough to break him. “I didn’t mean it,” he said.

“Then why?” she asked again, colder now. “Why say it at all?”

His throat bobbed. “Because I’m a coward. Because I didn’t know how to be held without breaking. You love me in a way I don’t think I deserve—and that scared the hell out of me.”

She folded her arms, nails digging into her skin. Holding herself together.

“I thought I was giving you love,” she said. “Turns out I was just giving you reasons to want space.”

“No,” he said fiercely. “Y/n—you were never too much. Never. I was just too little. And too scared.”

He stepped toward her, close enough to touch—but didn’t. Wouldn’t. Not until she reached back.

“I can’t breathe without you,” he said. “Not because you take the air. But because you are the air. You were never suffocating me. You were keeping me alive.”

She didn’t speak.

But the tears finally came.

She stepped forward.

Curled her fingers into his chest like she was anchoring herself.

Cassian wrapped her in his arms like he was home.

And maybe, finally, he was.

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Across the room, you—curled up on the couch, one leg thrown over the armrest, book forgotten on your lap—burst into laughter. A sound so free and bright it made something in his chest ache.

"It's just a kitten, Eris," you said, voice lazy with amusement. "Surely the mighty High Lord of Autumn isn’t afraid of a little fluff."

He arched a brow at you, eyes glinting with mock offense. "It stared at me while I ate breakfast. Judging me."

"You're being dramatic."

"It sat directly across from me. Didn’t blink once."

You set the book aside, pushing to your feet. Even barefoot and in an oversized sweater, you moved with a surety that captivated him. You crossed the room, every step a slow, deliberate tease.

"Maybe it was admiring you," you said lightly, stopping just short of him. "He does have good taste, after all."

Eris leaned back in his chair, watching you through hooded eyes. "He’s a cat. He admires no one."

"Except me." You grinned. "Because I'm a cat person, and that makes me inherently superior."

He gave a long-suffering sigh, one hand dragging through his hair. "You should have gotten a dog. Loyal. Fierce. Trainable."

"And cats," you countered, tilting your head like you were considering a great philosophical truth, "are independent. Clever. Selective. They don't love you because you command it. They love you because you earn it."

"And you think you've earned that demon’s love?"

"I know I have." You beamed, crossing your arms. "Besides, I got him for us. The Forest House was too quiet without something living here besides us and the ghosts of your bad decisions."

Eris chuckled—a deep, rough sound that made your stomach flutter. "You wound me, darling."

You smiled, stepping between his spread knees. His hands found your hips without thought, like they belonged there. Like you belonged here.

Maybe you did.

The bond thrummed between you—new, wild, humming with a love neither of you had fully spoken aloud yet.

"You love it," you said, voice softer now.

"I love you," Eris said simply.

The words knocked the air from your lungs.

You stared at him, wide-eyed, heart thundering against your ribs.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t take it back. His hands tightened on your waist, anchoring you to him.

"I love you," he repeated, lower, rougher. "Maddening, stubborn woman that you are. I love that you brought chaos into this house. That you fill every corner with your light."

Tears burned behind your eyes, unexpected and overwhelming.

You leaned down and kissed him, slow and deep and a little desperate.

Eris made a low, satisfied noise, one hand sliding up to cup the back of your neck, keeping you exactly where he wanted you. His tongue brushed yours, the kiss turning hotter, hungrier.

You shifted on his lap, feeling the hard line of him through his trousers, and smiled against his mouth.

"Someone missed me," you teased breathlessly.

"You were gone for two hours," he growled. "An eternity."

You laughed, the sound swallowed by his mouth as he kissed you again, more demanding this time. His hands slid under your sweater, thumbs stroking the bare skin at your waist.

Heat unfurled low in your belly.

You rolled your hips once, slow and deliberate. Eris hissed through his teeth, pulling back just enough to shoot you a look that promised retribution.

You barely managed to breathe out, "Bedroom?" when—

A loud, judgmental mrow cut through the room.

Eris froze.

You froze.

Slowly, you turned your head.

Whiskers was perched atop the back of the couch, staring directly at Eris with narrowed golden eyes.

If judgment were a weapon, Eris would be a pile of ashes.

"You have got to be kidding me," Eris said, voice strangled.

You collapsed into helpless laughter, burying your face in his shoulder.

"He's just curious!" you managed between giggles. "He’s never seen...this...before."

Eris let his head fall back with a groan. "He's judging me."

You pressed a kiss to his neck, laughing so hard your sides ached. "You're the High Lord of Autumn. Afraid of a kitten."

"I am not afraid."

"Sure you are." You traced lazy patterns on his chest. "Afraid you’ll get attached."

Eris scowled at the cat. Whiskers yawned pointedly.

"You love him already," you said smugly.

"I tolerate him."

"You love him."

"I love you," Eris corrected, voice low and certain. "The cat is a regrettable consequence of that devotion."

Your heart clenched at the raw honesty in his tone.

You kissed him again, softer this time. Grateful.

The cat meowed again—loud and demanding.

"Come on," you said, grinning wickedly. "Let’s go to bed."

"And let the demon watch?" Eris grumbled.

You waggled your eyebrows. "Consider it revenge for all those times you teased me mercilessly."

Eris lifted you easily into his arms, ignoring your squeal of laughter. "Just remember," he said as he carried you toward the stairs, "what you started."

Behind you, Whiskers gave one last approving chirp—like he had planned the whole thing.

Eris growled low in his throat.

"I am still getting a dog," he muttered.

You just laughed, feeling the bond between you sing, richer and brighter than it had ever been.

BONUS SCENE: THE GREAT NAMING WAR

"You can't be serious."

Eris stared at you like you'd just declared war on the entire Autumn Court.

You sat cross-legged on the floor of the sitting room, the fluffy, orange tabby kitten stretched luxuriously across your lap. Sunlight filtered through the windows, catching the reddish-gold hues of his fur—an almost ridiculous match for the High Lord glowering at you from his armchair.

"I am absolutely serious," you said, scratching the kitten behind the ears. "Look at him! He's the perfect little Pumpkin."

The kitten let out a tiny, satisfied meow, like he agreed wholeheartedly.

Eris pinched the bridge of his nose. "Pumpkin," he repeated flatly. "You want me to rule a court with Pumpkin as my second-in-command?"

"Not your second-in-command," you said brightly. "Your superior, obviously."

Eris lowered his hand just enough to glare at you. "You're enjoying this far too much."

"I could call him something way worse," you said innocently. "Like...Mr. EJ, Eris Jr.."

The look of pure horror on Eris’s face almost sent you into hysterics.

"Absolutely not," he growled. "If I am forced to coexist with this creature, it will have a name that commands respect."

You lifted the kitten into the air dramatically, making him dangle like a floppy little sunbeam. "He commands respect with his cuteness!"

"Cuteness is not a weapon."

"Tell that to your face."

Eris's mouth twitched—almost a smile. Almost. But he crossed his arms and sat back like a king issuing final decrees.

"I propose...Inferno."

You stared at him. Then stared at the kitten, who promptly sneezed and fell off your lap in a tangle of paws and fluff.

"Inferno?" you repeated slowly, voice cracking with suppressed laughter. "You want to name this clumsy little marshmallow Inferno?"

Eris sniffed, dignified. "It suits him. A silent threat."

"He's two pounds of pure dumbassery."

"With potential," Eris said stubbornly. "Look at his spirit."

The kitten attempted to attack his own tail and immediately lost.

You howled with laughter, clutching your stomach. "Oh, yes. Very threatening."

The kitten scrambled back into your lap, purring wildly. You nuzzled him, smirking up at Eris through your lashes.

"Face it, flame boy," you said sweetly. "He's Pumpkin. End of debate."

"I could overrule you," Eris said, voice dangerously low.

You tilted your head in mock innocence. "You could try."

The bond between you tugged—bright, wild, sweet. Eris stared at you for a long, charged moment. His mouth curved into something half-resigned, half-worshipful.

"Fine," he said roughly, rising to his feet with the lethal grace of a predator. He crossed the room, crouched low in front of you. His hand came up, trailing fire-warm fingers along your jaw.

"Pumpkin," he murmured, mouth brushing yours, "is your victory."

Your heart flipped in your chest.

"And what do you get, my lord?" you whispered against his lips.

He smiled—slow and wicked. "You'll find out later," he promised darkly.

Behind you, Pumpkin let out a triumphant chirp. Clearly, he'd won too.

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He saw it every time he unsheathed his blades, every time a child cried in the streets of Velaris, every time he closed his eyes and heard the old ghosts whisper. But he had never understood—never felt—the cruelty of the world so keenly until he watched it shatter you.

You, his mate. His light. His everything.

And the one thing you wanted most, he could not give you.

You didn’t say it at first. At first, it was hope, and laughter, and your hands tracing lazy circles over your stomach while you read in the window seat. Dreams spun in starlight. Azriel had tried—Mother, had he tried—to pretend he didn’t see the longing when you smiled at Nyx toddling past, tiny wings flapping, tiny fists grabbing at the world.

You never pushed. Never begged.

You just looked at him with so much trust, so much love, that it cleaved him open.

He was killing you slowly with his silence, and you didn’t even know it.

And now... it was killing him too.

The Healers had been blunt: Your body, as strong as it was, was not built to bear an Illyrian child. The pregnancy could kill you—no would kill you, more likely than not.

Azriel hadn’t told you the whole of it.

He’d sat through the council of stone-faced healers, through Madja’s weary eyes, through Rhys’s hand on his shoulder and Cassian’s grim silence. He’d listened to every statistic, every warning, every horrible possibility.

And he had made a choice.

He would not risk you.

Never you.

Even if it meant carving himself open every day to see the way your smile dimmed, how your laugh got quieter, how you stopped reaching for the window seat books, stopped dreaming aloud.

It killed him.

More than the scars on his hands, more than all the blood he had ever spilled—it killed him.

"Az," you said one night, curled into his chest while the snow fell thick and silent outside, "do you ever think about... them? Little ones?"

His heart seized so violently he almost stopped breathing.

"I think about you," he whispered hoarsely, pressing his lips to your hair. "Always you."

You smiled, small and sad, and he hated himself.

When Feyre’s pregnancy was announced, the whole Inner Circle had celebrated. Tears, laughter, plans for wings and cribs and godparents.

You’d smiled too. Hugged Feyre and cried with her, even helped plan the naming ceremony.

Azriel saw it—the way your hand drifted unconsciously to your stomach, the way you faltered when no one was looking.

That night, you didn’t come to bed.

He found you sitting in the dark kitchen, your forehead pressed to your knees, shoulders trembling. You didn't even try to hide it when he sank to the floor beside you and pulled you into his lap.

"I'm sorry," you sobbed. "I'm so, so sorry, Az."

He buried his face in your hair, breathing you in, breaking silently.

"You have nothing," he rasped, "to be sorry for."

But the words felt hollow even to him.

It only got worse.

You babysat Nyx one afternoon while Feyre and Rhys were summoned to the Court of Nightmares.

Azriel found you later in the nursery, clutching the sleeping boy against your chest, tears slipping soundlessly down your cheeks.

You hadn’t even noticed him.

You just rocked Nyx slowly, murmuring lullabies into the dim light, and something in Azriel broke—something he knew he could never put back together.

When you finally looked up at him, your eyes were full of such raw, aching pain that he staggered back a step.

"I can't—" you gasped, voice shattering, "I can't keep pretending it doesn't hurt."

And Azriel—Azriel, the shadowsinger, the prince of silence—sank to his knees before you.

"Then don't," he said, voice hoarse and broken. "Don't pretend for me."

He took your hand, pressed it over his heart.

"If this pain is yours," he whispered, "then it's mine too."

You crumpled into him, and he held you while you cried, rocking you gently like you had rocked Nyx. He held you like you were the last thing tethering him to the world.

Maybe you were.

Cassian came by the next morning.

Breezing into your house like a summer storm, arms full of pastries and coffee, his smile just slightly too bright.

Azriel knew—Cassian knew. He always knew.

He pulled you into a bear hug, whispered something that made you laugh wetly against his chest, and Azriel silently thanked the Mother for his brother’s stupid, unbreakable heart.

After you went to lie down, Cassian cornered Azriel by the hearth.

"You can’t fix this by pretending it doesn’t hurt," he said, low and fierce.

Azriel’s hands fisted at his sides.

"I know."

Cassian clapped a hand on his shoulder.

"Then fight for her. With her."

And Azriel—cold, ruthless, silent Azriel—listened.

For once, he listened.

The days that followed were slow and soft.

Azriel started small. Tiny, clumsy things.

Breakfast in bed. Flowers on your pillow. Long walks through Velaris, hand-in-hand, no destination in mind. Late nights where he just listened, letting you cry or rage or sit in silence.

He fought with everything he had—fought the creeping sadness, the bitterness, the despair.

Fought it with love.

And slowly, slowly, you started to come back to him.

Your laughter—bright and sudden—startled him so badly one morning that he dropped his toast.

You laughed harder.

He stared at you like you were a miracle.

Maybe you were.

Maybe you always had been.

It was months later when Madja called them both in.

Azriel nearly refused.

He would not—could not—watch you suffer another loss of hope.

But you squeezed his hand, eyes steady, and he knew he would follow you anywhere.

Madja sat them down with a thick folder of papers and diagrams and words Azriel barely heard because she said, "There are ways. Risks, yes. But there are ways."

And for the first time in a long time, you smiled at him not with sadness but with fierce, blazing hope.

Azriel squeezed your hand so hard you gasped.

"You are my everything," he whispered, forehead pressed to yours.

You smiled through your tears.

"And you are mine."

Maybe the world was cruel to dreamers.

But maybe—just maybe—their dreams weren’t dead yet.

Maybe they were only sleeping, waiting to be woken by something stronger than sorrow.

Something like love.

Something like hope.

Something like you.

And Azriel—battered, broken, healed by your light—vowed he would find a way to wake them.

Together.

Always, together.

-

a/n: a little bonus scene for you all hehe so sorry this took forever

The snow was falling again.

Soft and thick, muffling the world in a cocoon of white as Azriel sat by the window, cradling you carefully against him.

You were exhausted, hair damp with sweat, face pale but glowing with something fierce and luminous.

And in your arms—so tiny, so impossibly perfect—was everything they had fought for.

Your daughter.

Azriel had thought he knew what love was.

Thought he had touched it in the way you smiled at him across a crowded room, in the way you reached for him without thinking, in the way your laughter filled every hollow place inside him.

But this—this was something else entirely.

It was terrifying and exhilarating and raw, a thousand blades and a thousand sunrises all at once.

He couldn't stop looking at her.

At you.

At the life you had made together.

The birth had nearly undone him.

You had screamed, wept, clawed at him while he whispered promises he wasn't sure he could keep, while Cassian and Feyre and Nesta and the entire Circle had waited outside, tense and silent.

And when the last push had torn a ragged sob from your throat—when the world had gone still and the first furious wail had pierced the silence—

Azriel had fallen to his knees beside the bed, weeping so hard he hadn't been able to see.

You had only laughed, watery and tired, cradling the tiny, furious bundle to your chest.

"She's perfect," you had whispered, voice wrecked.

And Azriel had known it was true.

Because she was you.

She was both of you.

Now, hours later, when the rest of the world slept and only the stars kept vigil, Azriel brushed a trembling hand over your hair.

You stirred, lifting your head to meet his gaze.

"She's beautiful, Az," you whispered, and he realized you were crying again—silent, happy tears slipping down your cheeks.

He kissed them away.

"You are beautiful," he rasped. "You are everything."

You smiled, sleepy and radiant.

"Do you want to hold her?"

Azriel froze.

He had been afraid to ask.

Afraid to break the fragile, perfect moment by daring too much.

But you just lifted the tiny bundle, placing her carefully into his arms.

She fit there like she had been made for him.

Azriel stared down at her, at her impossibly small fists and soft, dark hair and the faint shimmer of wings tucked tight against her back.

A lump formed in his throat so thick he could barely breathe.

"Hello, little one," he whispered, shadows curling protectively around the three of you, soft as silk.

Your daughter yawned, a tiny, kittenish sound, and Azriel swore the whole world shifted under his feet.

He looked up at you, barely able to speak.

"Thank you," he said, voice breaking.

You reached for him, threading your fingers through his.

"Thank you for loving me," you murmured. "For fighting for us."

He pressed his forehead to yours, closing his eyes against the overwhelming tide of feeling.

There were no words big enough for this.

For the way he loved you.

For the way he loved her.

For the way you had carved a place for him in a world that had once held no place at all.

And in that quiet room, under the falling snow and the watching stars, Azriel made a silent promise.

He would love you both with everything he was.

He would shield you from every storm.

He would be your light, your sword, your wings, your home.

Always.

Forever.

Outside, somewhere far above, the stars shifted and burned.

And maybe—just maybe—they smiled down on them.

Because for the first time in a long, hard, beautiful life, Azriel was not alone.

He never would be again.

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Not that she minded. Not when the pads of his calloused fingers brushed her cheek like a prayer. Not when his palms cradled her face like he’d crumble if he let go. Not when his lips pressed tiny kisses over every inch of her face—cheeks, chin, nose, brow—like it was instinct.

She was seated cross-legged on their shared bed, hair still damp from a bath he’d drawn for her, the scent of lavender clinging to her skin. Cassian had taken one look at her—soft, flushed, relaxed—and crossed the room like a man starved.

Now she was giggling, helpless under the affection of a war-hardened general who kissed like he didn’t know how to stop.

“Cass,” she laughed, eyes squeezed shut as he pressed yet another peck to her nose, then her cheek, then her jaw. “That’s the fiftieth one.”

“Fifty-first,” he murmured, lips barely brushing hers. “And that’s for calling me Cass.”

“Oh, I’m sorry—Lord Commander General Cassian of the Night Court—”

His groan cut her off as he buried his face in her neck, letting out a dramatic sigh that made her laugh harder.

“You’re going to pay for that,” he murmured into her skin, voice rasped from laughter and love. “In excessive affection.”

“I’m already drowning in it.”

He lifted his head and cupped her cheeks again, his grin boyish and wicked. “Good.”

Another kiss. This one to her temple.

And another. Her eyelid.

And another. The tip of her nose.

She melted in his hands, the kind of love-sick, soul-deep softness that only a mate bond could bring. His thumbs swept gently across her skin, and she looked up at him with stars in her eyes.

“I missed this,” she whispered. “Missed you.”

His expression crumpled with emotion so fast she barely caught it. But she did. Because she knew him. And he hadn’t let himself feel everything that needed to be felt—not yet.

Cassian settled beside her, tugging her into his lap, her legs over his. His wings curled instinctively around her, a shield of warm, powerful muscle and love. He rested his forehead to hers.

“I was so scared,” he said hoarsely, voice barely audible. “That I wouldn’t get to do this again. That I’d never touch you again.”

Her heart cracked open. She wrapped her arms around his broad shoulders, nose tucked under his jaw.

“I know. I felt it too.”

Cassian pulled back just enough to cup her face again. She loved when he did that—how reverently he held her, like his entire world existed between his hands.

“I made a promise,” he said. “Out there. That if I made it home, I’d spend the rest of my life making sure you knew how much I love you. Every damn day. Every moment I get.”

Tears pricked her eyes, and she nodded. “You already do. Every time you look at me like that. Every time you touch me like I’m...everything.”

“You are everything,” he said fiercely.

He kissed her again—quick, soft, sweet—and another giggle bubbled from her throat. He grinned, lips brushing the corner of her mouth.

“You laugh like you were made for me,” he murmured.

She scrunched her nose. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“It does to me.” He kissed her again. “Your laugh is my favorite sound. Second only to your moans.”

“Cassian!”

He smirked, clearly proud of himself, before pressing a kiss just under her ear. “What? I like all your sounds.”

“I swear,” she muttered, cheeks warm, “you are the clingiest, softest Illyrian warrior in history.”

“I almost died. I earned the right to be clingy.” His hand slid around her back, pressing her tighter against him. “Now hush. I’m not done kissing you.”

He tilted her chin up again, and she let him. Let herself fall into him, into the warm hum of their bond that wrapped around her heart like velvet. Kiss after kiss after kiss, until she was breathless and smiling and so, so in love.

She brushed her fingers through his thick hair, letting her other hand rest over his beating heart. Cassian kissed her palm, then nuzzled into it, eyes half-lidded.

“I don’t deserve you,” he whispered.

“You deserve everything,” she whispered back.

His arms tightened around her, his lips brushing her brow.

“And yet, somehow, I got you.”

They sat there for a while in the hush of evening, the world slowed to a heartbeat between them. He didn’t stop touching her. She didn’t want him to. Every brush of his thumb, every lingering kiss, every whispered promise—it was a prayer they both needed.

“You really want to spend the rest of your life kissing me like that?” she teased softly.

Cassian gave her a slow, roguish grin. “Absolutely.”

“What if I get wrinkly?”

“I’ll kiss every wrinkle.”

“What if I snore?”

“I’ll wear earplugs.”

“What if I—”

He kissed her. Full and firm and breathtaking.

“I’ll love you anyway,” he finished for her.

She blinked up at him, tears rising again. And then she laughed—light and unguarded—her cheeks squished in his palms, lips pecked again and again by the male who had given her everything.

“I love you, Cass.”

His eyes glowed. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

Again.

“I love you.”

He kissed her once more, a thousand soft promises in one lingering touch.

And she knew—without question, without fear—that she would never stop hearing those words from him. Never stop being held like that. Never stop being his.

And he—gods help him—would never stop kissing her.

Taglist:@willowpains, @fanficscuziranout, @pham-tastical,  @lilah-asteria, @lreadsstuff, @shylahstarzz, @flintthegoodboyo, @saltedcoffeescotch, @okaytrashpanda, @mariaxliliana, @marina468, @tele86, @raccoonworld

But he didn’t remember any of it.

All he remembered was the way the shadows had gone still.

He hadn’t felt them do that since—

Since his father’s dungeons.

They had led him down, deeper into the rock and blood-soaked silence. Stone stair after stone stair. They had whispered something dark into his mind, something he didn’t want to understand.

She’s still alive.

And Azriel—who had survived war, centuries of torture, betrayal, and heartbreak—began to break before he even found you.

He heard your breathing before he saw you.

Not the soft, sleepy kind that lulled him to peace. Not the rhythmic in-and-out he’d memorized in quiet moments beside you.

This breathing was wet. Labored.

Painful.

Then he turned the corner, and his world ended.

Your body was shackled to the wall, limbs bruised and bloodied, hair matted to your cheeks with sweat and filth. Your knees had buckled long ago, forcing your weight onto your wrists—chained too high, too tight, skin torn. Dried blood caked your temple, trailing from a gash above your eyebrow. But it was your mouth that undid him.

Smeared with blood, swollen from—

He didn’t let himself finish the thought.

Didn’t let himself think of what they had done to you.

What you had endured.

Instead, he moved.

Silent as shadow, swift as death.

The chains fell first, sliced with red-hot siphon-forged steel. You crumpled forward without them. But he caught you.

Gods, he caught you.

And you cried out.

Not a scream. Not a word.

Just a soft, broken whimper—the kind that shattered the breath in his lungs.

“Y/N.” He whispered your name like it was a sacred thing. Like if he said it enough, you’d open your eyes and look at him like you used to. Like he wasn’t a monster. Like he was yours.

You didn’t.

You sagged in his arms, blood still oozing from your ribs.

“Please,” he whispered again, voice cracking, “stay with me.”

You flinched—barely.

But it was enough.

He scooped you into his arms and flew.

He didn’t register the flight back. He wasn’t sure his wings had even carried him. Just that one moment he was holding your battered body in the cold dark, and the next, he was crashing through the balcony doors of the House of Wind, screaming for Madja, for Feyre, for anyone.

Rhys had come first.

Then Cassian.

Then Nesta, her rage a thunderstorm Azriel could only distantly feel.

None of them mattered.

None of them were you.

He didn’t let anyone take you from his arms until Madja forced him to lay you down so she could work. And even then, he knelt beside the bed like a dog, shadows wound tight around his body, breathing like he had no idea how anymore.

They had to sedate you.

You screamed when they touched you.

You screamed until your throat went raw—until Azriel begged them to let him try.

And when he whispered your name and brushed his scarred fingers against your cheek, your sobbing stilled.

That broke him worse than anything.

He stayed.

Three days passed.

He didn’t eat. Didn’t sleep. The others came and went—Rhys bringing food, Feyre forcing water to his lips, Cassian keeping a silent vigil at the door.

But Azriel didn’t leave your side.

Your body had healed. Madja’s magic had closed your wounds, repaired your ribs, cleaned the blood from your skin. But you didn’t wake.

Not really.

Not fully.

You twitched. Moaned in pain. Murmured things in your sleep that made his shadows recoil in horror. And all the while, Azriel held your hand and watched, and broke.

Because you were quiet.

And you had never been quiet with him.

He remembered, in agonizing clarity, the first time you touched him.

That laugh. That warmth. The ease of it.

You’d pressed your thumb to his wrist like it meant nothing.

Like it wasn’t everything.

And now you were here—barely breathing. And he couldn’t even remember what it felt like to be touched by you.

He bent over your bedside, knuckles white where they gripped the sheets.

“Please,” he said, voice cracking apart. “I never asked for you. I didn’t even believe I was allowed to hope for something like you.”

The words poured out, uncontrollable. Vulnerable.

“But you gave it to me anyway. You gave me—” His chest shuddered. “You gave me the kind of touch that didn’t take something from me.”

He looked down at your hand. It was limp. Cold.

“You gave me love like it was sunlight. And I—I let you walk away that day without telling you.”

He dragged in a breath that felt like swallowing knives.

“I thought I had more time.”

And then his voice broke entirely.

“I can’t breathe without you.”

His head dropped to the mattress. His shadows wrapped around your wrist like they were begging too.

“I need you to come back,” he whispered. “You can take everything. Just… come back.”

You woke the next night.

Not gently. Not peacefully.

You bolted upright, gasping, eyes wide and wild.

Azriel was there before you could flinch.

“Y/N,” he breathed, catching your face in his hands. “It’s me. It’s Azriel. You’re safe. You’re home.”

Your eyes found him—and something broke inside you. Your body collapsed into his chest with a sob so deep, so raw, it echoed through the room like thunder.

Azriel wrapped you in his arms.

And he held you.

Not like you were fragile.

But like he was.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered, over and over, like a vow. Like a promise he was afraid to make.

You buried your face in his shoulder, your tears wetting his tunic.

And then—your fingers curled into his hair.

The tiniest touch.

But Azriel stilled.

And then he broke.

He held you tighter, rocked you back and forth, and finally—finally—let himself cry into your hair.

He didn’t ask for more.

He didn’t say another word.

Because this—this touch, this moment—meant you were still here.

And for a male who had never known softness…

That was everything.

Taglist: @willowpains, @masbt1218, @antonia002, @bookishcait, @fuckingsimp4azriel, @fanficscuziranout, @buttermilktea11, @lilah-asteria, @lreadsstuff,  @flintthegoodboyo, @saltedcoffeescotch,  @okaytrashpanda, @mariaxliliana, @kksbookstuff, @marina468, @tele86, @raccoonworld

In the shared pauses between missions. The comfortable rhythm of two souls who didn’t need words to understand each other. It wasn’t dramatic. There were no declarations, no desperate confessions under the stars. Just stolen glances, warm touches, soft brushes of knuckles against arms, until one night, he kissed her.

And when he did, it felt like her whole life had been leading to it.

That first kiss had been slow. Almost reverent. His calloused hand cupping her jaw, his thumb tracing the edge of her mouth before leaning in like he wasn’t sure he deserved it.

“I want this,” he’d whispered against her lips. “I want you.”

Y/n had fallen for him in pieces.

The way he read beside her, silently handing her books he thought she’d like. How he remembered her favorite tea and left it steaming on the counter every morning without being asked. The way his shadows curled protectively around her when she slept, never touching her skin but always near.

It wasn’t just the physical connection—it was the care. The sense that Azriel, for all his brooding silence and brutal strength, handled her like something precious.

It was only natural, then, that when they found each other’s beds, it felt like more than a fling. More than physical.

More.

And even though they’d never said what they were, she thought it was clear in the way he held her. In how he whispered her name like a promise against her skin. In the soft, rare smiles he only gave to her.

So when the curiosity began to creep in—the gentle suspicion, the insecurity born from something buried deep—she’d ignored it. At first.

But one morning, while lying tangled in his sheets, her head on his bare chest and his fingers idly tracing her spine, she found herself asking it anyway.

“Have you… been with anyone else? Since us?”

He went still.

For one sharp moment, her heart climbed into her throat.

“No,” he said, after a pause that was just a little too long. “I haven’t.”

Relief had flooded her chest. She didn’t question it. Didn’t want to question it.

Because she believed him.

Because he was Azriel.

She should’ve known.

The truth came not with thunder, but casually. Offhanded.

She had stopped by the River House one afternoon to drop off documents for Rhys, and Elain had been in the garden with Mor, chatting under the sun. Y/N had lingered with them, smiling, laughing, sipping wine.

It was Mor who said it.

“Do you remember that night Azriel came back late from Adriata?” she mused, plucking a grape from the bowl beside them. “He was with that healer—what was her name? Lira? Liana?”

Y/N stilled.

Elain nodded. “Liana, yes. She was sweet. They weren’t serious, I don’t think. It ended quickly.”

“When was that?” Y/N asked, before she could stop herself.

Mor tilted her head. “I don’t know… two months ago? Right after that mission with Cassian. Az was brooding for days after they ended things.”

Two months ago.

Right after that mission.

Right before she asked him if there had been anyone else, and he’d looked her in the eyes and lied.

The air vanished from her lungs.

Her hands went numb.

“I—sorry,” she mumbled, forcing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I just remembered something I need to take care of.”

And she left. Fast. Before they could ask what was wrong. Before the nausea in her gut turned into something visible.

Back in her room, she stood in front of the mirror for a long time, staring at herself like she might find a version of Y/N who didn’t hurt.

The lie echoed in her head.

“No. I haven’t.”

The pause.

The way he kissed her afterward, like he was trying to bury the truth between her lips.

Coward, she thought. You could’ve told me. I would’ve forgiven you if you’d just told me.

She sat on the floor, numb. A slow, icy sort of pain creeping in—not from the fact that there had been someone else.

But from the fact that he hadn’t trusted her with the truth.

He had chosen her. Chosen to keep sleeping beside her, whispering into her skin, letting her fall deeper and deeper, all while knowing the truth could gut her.

And gods, it had.

She didn’t remember falling asleep that night. Only waking in a cold bed with his scent still clinging to the pillow, and a storm of heartbreak pressing against her chest like a scream.

-

The balcony overlooking Velaris used to feel like a safe place.

It was the kind of spot where the stars felt close enough to touch, where the wind was gentler, wrapping around her like a lullaby. The City of Starlight was quiet tonight, its heartbeat steady and unaware of the chaos that pulsed through Y/N’s chest. Her fingers were clenched around the railing, cold biting into her skin, but the pain was grounding. Real.

Unlike him.

The door opened behind her, soft footsteps padding across the stone. She didn’t need to look to know it was Azriel. She could feel him, like she always could, like her soul had memorized the rhythm of his.

“Y/N.”

Just her name.

But gods, the way he said it—like it hurt him to say it. Like it was the only thing that tethered him to this world.

She didn’t answer right away. She couldn’t. The anger in her chest warred with something softer, something weaker—love. She hated that it hadn’t died the moment she learned the truth.

A lie. One carefully chosen omission that burned brighter than any betrayal could.

She turned, arms wrapped tightly around herself as she faced him.

Azriel looked wrecked. His dark hair was wind-tossed, his jaw tense, his eyes shadowed with something she couldn’t name. Regret, maybe. Guilt, absolutely. His siphons flickered dimly, as if even they were unsure of their welcome.

“I asked you,” she said finally, voice barely above a whisper. “I asked you if there was anyone else. And you looked me in the eye and said no.”

His throat bobbed with the effort it took to speak. “I know.”

“You lied to me.”

“I know.”

A pause. Silence. The kind that stretched painfully between two people who once shared everything—breath, skin, hope.

“We weren’t even official,” she whispered, turning her gaze back to the stars. “That’s what I keep telling myself. That I don’t have a right to be mad. That you didn’t owe me anything.”

“I did owe you the truth,” he said immediately, stepping forward. “Whether we were official or not. I owed you honesty.”

She closed her eyes, pain blooming beneath her ribs. “Then why did you lie?”

There it was. The question that sat in her throat for days, weeks, the question that gnawed at her like rot.

He exhaled slowly. “Because I was afraid.”

She scoffed, stepping away from him. “You keep saying that. Afraid. Of what, Azriel? Of me?”

“Of losing you,” he said, voice shaking. “Of telling you something that would make you look at me differently. That would make you leave.”

“I’m leaving anyway,” she whispered. “Because I don’t know how to trust you anymore.”

His shadows writhed at his feet, agitated and restless.

“I didn’t love her,” he said, his voice breaking. “There was no love there. No meaning. It was before I knew—before I felt the bond. I swear to the Mother, I didn’t understand what you were to me until it was already too late.”

“That doesn’t make the lie better,” she said, her voice cracking.

Azriel flinched.

“I told you about my ex,” she continued, wrapping her arms tighter around herself. “I told you how he smiled and promised me things while sleeping with someone else. How I kept loving him even as he made me question my sanity. How he lied until I didn’t know who I was anymore.”

“I’m not him,” Azriel whispered.

“No,” she said. “You’re worse.”

The words sliced through him, and she saw it. Saw the way his shoulders sagged, how his eyes closed, how his wings dipped like they bore more than just his weight.

Because Azriel wasn’t cruel. He wasn’t careless.

He had lied out of fear, not malice. But that was the thing that broke her.

Because she had loved him so much, and he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her the truth.

She left that night without another word. Flew until her wings ached. Until the wind stole her breath. Until the tears on her cheeks dried from the speed of her escape.

She didn’t go far. She couldn’t. Their bond tethered her to him like a golden thread she wanted to cut but couldn’t bring herself to destroy.

He sent notes. Small, quiet things tucked into her books, her satchel, left at the edge of her bed.

I miss you.

You don’t have to forgive me. But I will spend the rest of my life wishing you could.

I never knew what it was like to need someone until you. And now I don’t know how to stop.

Even if this is the end of us, I will still love you. Always.

She didn’t respond.

Not because she didn’t feel it. But because she felt it too much.

She’d built walls to survive what came before him. And Azriel had scaled them with patience and gentleness and midnight smiles. Only to tear it all down with a single lie.

It was two months before they spoke again.

He found her in the training ring, panting and covered in sweat, the air around her pulsing with rage she hadn’t been able to bleed out.

“You’re angry,” he said from the doorway.

She didn’t turn. Just kept throwing punch after punch at the worn training dummy. “Sharp observation.”

“Y/N—”

She turned then, breath ragged, fury burning in her eyes. “Do you think I wanted this? To still want you? To ache for you even when I hate what you did?”

Azriel stepped forward. “I don’t deserve you.”

“No, you don’t.”

He swallowed, the pain clear on his face.

“But I never stopped loving you,” she said, voice breaking. “That’s the problem.”

His expression crumbled. “Then let me fix it.”

She stared at him for a long moment, chest heaving. “You can’t fix what you broke. But you can try to rebuild it.”

He nodded, slowly, like he didn’t quite believe she meant it.

“But it has to be different this time,” she continued. “No lies. No shadows. Just truth. Even when it’s hard.”

“I can do that,” he whispered.

“Then show me.”

The rebuild was slow.

Painfully slow.

Azriel didn’t push. He showed up. Quietly. Consistently. He brought her tea in the mornings, lingered in the corners of her world like a shadow with a heartbeat. When nightmares found her, he didn’t ask to hold her—but he sat outside her door until dawn.

And little by little, the walls started to crack again.

Not because she was weak, but because he was earning it.

One evening, as the sun dipped low over Velaris, she sat beside him on the same balcony where they’d once shattered.

The air between them hummed with unspoken things.

“I still think about it,” she said quietly. “About what it felt like when I realized you lied.”

Azriel didn’t flinch. “So do I.”

“I still hurt.”

“So do I.”

She looked at him then, and for the first time in weeks, she let herself really see him. The haunted look in his eyes. The exhaustion. The silent ache.

“I forgive you,” she said softly.

He blinked, like he hadn’t heard her.

“I’m not saying I’ll forget,” she clarified. “Or that I’m not still scared. But I forgive you.”

His throat worked around a word that wouldn’t come. His eyes shone.

“I don’t deserve it,” he rasped.

“No,” she said, touching his face. “But you’ve earned it.”

He kissed her then, gently, like a man trying not to break the very thing he loved.

And this time, when she kissed him back, it wasn’t hesitant.

It was home.

Taglist: @willowpains, @masbt1218, @antonia002, @bookishcait, @fuckingsimp4azriel, @fanficscuziranout, @buttermilktea11, @lilah-asteria, @lreadsstuff,  @flintthegoodboyo, @saltedcoffeescotch,  @okaytrashpanda, @mariaxliliana, @kksbookstuff, @marina468, @tele86, @raccoonworld

A whisper of darkness slithered along the edge of the mattress, coiling in the space between you and the emptiness he had left behind. Not touching, not pressing—but there. Watching.

Your breath caught, but not in fear.

Because you knew it. Knew the way it moved, the way it pulsed and trembled like it was breathing. Like it was alive.

Like it belonged to him.

Azriel’s shadow. His favorite one, or so you teased him. And it never left you.

You lifted a hand, letting your fingers brush the air near it. It stilled, almost as if leaning into the phantom touch.

It wasn’t enough.

Azriel was gone. And though he’d promised to return soon, though he had murmured against your lips that he’d be back before you even had the chance to miss him, you had. Gods, you had.

But this shadow…

It stayed. It curled around the bedpost at night, keeping silent vigil over your restless dreams. It hovered at your back in the training ring, tensing whenever Cassian’s strikes got too close, or when another male lingered in your proximity for too long.

It coiled tighter, closer, when you walked through Velaris at night. A soft, slithering promise that if anything, anyone, dared to so much as breathe the wrong way in your direction, they would not live long enough to regret it.

And you had never felt safer.

"You know," Cassian said one evening, perched lazily on the balcony railing, "you might be the first person in history to be shadow-kissed."

You scoffed, tossing a grape at him. "I am not shadow-kissed."

Cassian caught it in his mouth, grinning. "Tell that to the one wrapped around your ankle right now."

You glanced down, and sure enough, a tendril of darkness was coiled there, looping loosely around your skin in a way that felt less like protection and more like possession. Like it needed the contact.

Like it needed you.

Heat licked up your spine.

Cassian smirked, watching the way your expression shifted, how your fingers clenched slightly in the fabric of your dress. He exhaled dramatically, shaking his head. "Gods, he’s so far gone for you, it’s painful to watch."

Your stomach flipped. "He doesn’t even know."

Cassian snorted. "Doesn’t know? You think Azriel doesn’t notice where his shadows go? Pa-lease. That male probably feels every damn movement it makes."

You opened your mouth, ready to argue, but a familiar shift in the wind had your pulse stuttering.

The scent of cedar and cold night air curled around you before you even saw him.

Azriel landed with a predator’s grace, his wings rustling softly as they folded behind him. His gaze, sharp as a blade, golden as molten amber, went straight to you. Then to the shadow coiled at your feet.

Something flickered in his expression.

A quiet storm.

Cassian, ever the instigator, let out a low whistle. "Told you," he muttered, before clapping Azriel on the back and striding inside, leaving the two of you alone beneath the stars.

Silence stretched. Taut. Heavy.

Azriel was still watching. Unmoving.

And then, voice like rough velvet, he murmured, “It won’t leave you alone.”

It wasn’t a question.

You swallowed. "I don’t mind."

His jaw tightened. "It should listen better."

A tremor rolled through the shadow, as if in protest. You glanced at it, then back at him, searching his face for the truth beneath his words. "You told it to stay, didn’t you?"

Azriel’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. He said nothing.

Didn’t need to.

The truth was in the way his hands flexed at his sides, like he was restraining himself. It was in the way his wings tensed, the way his breathing was just a little too controlled.

You took a step forward. His shadow curled tighter around your ankle.

"You knew it was with me," you murmured, "this whole time."

A slow, shallow exhale. "Yes."

Your heart pounded.

"You told it to protect me."

"Yes."

Another step. "Why?"

A muscle in his jaw ticked.

His wings flared just slightly, his control slipping. His shadows twined around his fingers like they, too, were struggling to hold him back.

"You know why," he rasped.

Say it.

The words hung between you, unsaid.

Azriel stared at you like he was already bracing for impact. Like he was preparing for rejection, for the inevitable unraveling of whatever fragile thing had built itself between you.

You reached for him. He stiffened, but didn’t pull away.

Foolish, foolish male.

Your fingers traced the ridges of his scarred knuckles, the calloused tips of fingers that had done unspeakable things. And yet—he trembled beneath your touch like he had never been touched before.

Like you were something sacred.

You lifted his hand. Pressed it to your chest, just above your racing heart. "Say it."

His throat worked around the words. His shadows curled around you like they could say it for him.

But then, barely a whisper, so quiet you almost didn’t hear it—

"You’re mine."

Your breath hitched.

A shuddering exhale left him, his control finally, blessedly breaking. His other hand came up to cup your jaw, tilting your face toward him. His thumb brushed over your cheek, soft. Reverent.

"I will always protect you."

Your lips parted, your hands sliding up the hard planes of his chest, over the rapid thrumming of his own heart.

"You already do," you whispered.

He made a sound, half relief, half something darker, and then his mouth was on yours.

And gods.

It was devastating.

Azriel kissed like a male who had spent centuries wanting and never having. He kissed like he was dying and you were the only thing keeping him tethered to this earth.

His hands mapped the length of your spine, pulling you against him, until there was nothing—nothing—but him. His warmth, his shadows, the soft, quiet tremor of his breath as he whispered your name like a prayer against your lips.

Your fingers tangled in his hair, and he let out a sound that was almost a growl.

"Az," you murmured, tilting your head back, baring your throat to him. An offering.

His lips traced the sensitive skin there, his breath warm, unsteady. "You’re mine," he said again, this time with certainty, with possession. "And I'm yours."

And gods help anyone who ever dared to threaten what was his.

Because Azriel’s shadows had always been an extension of himself. But none more than the one that had never left you. The one that had sworn, just as he had, to keep you safe.

Forever.

Taglist: @willowpains, @masbt1218, @antonia002, @bookishcait, @fuckingsimp4azriel, @fanficscuziranout, @buttermilktea11, @lilah-asteria, @lreadsstuff,  @flintthegoodboyo, @saltedcoffeescotch,  @okaytrashpanda, @mariaxliliana, @kksbookstuff, @marina468, @tele86, @raccoonworld

His thighs bracketed your hips, strong and unmoving, a fortress of warmth around you. One of his arms was thrown lazily over your middle while the other toyed with the frayed edge of the book in your lap, fingers grazing your stomach in a rhythm you were certain was unconscious. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe Eris knew exactly what he was doing.

Because he always did.

“I can hear your thoughts screaming,” you murmured, not looking up from the page.

The tip of his nose brushed against the back of your neck, his breath warm. “I’m contemplating how you look better in my colors than I ever have.”

You turned the page slowly, forcing yourself to ignore the butterflies that comment ignited. It was like this with him—always. Constant, quiet affection. In public, Eris was the untouchable flame, all snarled elegance and too-sharp words. But in private, when the world shrank to just the two of you and a fire lit to soothe his trauma-riddled bones, he became something else entirely.

Yours.

“You’re not even reading, are you?” you teased, glancing down at the book now abandoned in your lap.

Eris shifted behind you, and the arm around your waist tightened. His hand splayed across your abdomen, warm and possessive, while his head dropped to your shoulder.

“I’m reading you,” he said softly.

Your heart fluttered, then stumbled. Even after months of this—months of being mates, of learning the cadence of one another’s breaths and bodies—it never stopped catching you off guard when he said things like that.

“I should be annoyed by how smooth that was,” you said.

“And yet,” Eris hummed, “you’re leaning further into me.”

You hadn’t even realized you were doing it. Your spine had curved, your head now resting just below his jaw. The fire cracked softly behind you both, golden light pooling over the rug, over your bare feet tucked between his calves.

A silence settled. Not the tense kind—the kind you grew up dreading, fearing what came next. No, this was the gentle hush of contentment, where your body could breathe without defense, where your heart no longer had to beat like a war drum just to be heard.

Eris, always attuned to your moods, nuzzled the crown of your head. “Do you remember the first time you let me touch you like this?”

You did.

It had been a stormy night, not unlike this one, but everything had felt raw. New. You hadn’t trusted him yet—not entirely. Not the court, not the idea of soulmates. But he had waited. He’d read beside you with three feet of space between you both. Until, slowly, you’d crept closer. Inching, as if you feared he’d run if you touched him. But it had been him who stilled, holding his breath like a fragile thing when your fingers had brushed his thigh.

“I remember,” you whispered. “I didn’t think you’d let me.”

“You could set me on fire,” Eris said against your skin, “and I’d thank you for the warmth.”

Gods.

You turned then, adjusting until your legs draped over his lap and your body curled into his chest, your cheek pressed to the slow, steady beat of his heart. He welcomed you immediately, wrapping his arms around you and tugging you in like he couldn’t bear even a sliver of space between your souls.

This, you thought. This was who he was.

Not the High Lord’s heir with his biting tongue and crimson court. But the male who held you like he was afraid of waking from a dream.

“I love you like this,” you whispered. “When you let yourself be held.”

“I only ever wanted to be held by you,” he replied, his fingers already tracing the curve of your spine. “No one else ever touched me and made me feel... real.”

You stilled against him.

Because you knew what he meant.

How many years had he worn armor carved from silence? How many centuries had he been touched like a weapon, never a man?

Your hand slipped under his tunic, resting directly over his bare back. His body arched into the contact like it was instinct. Maybe it was.

“I want to kiss you,” he said.

You smiled, lifting your head. “Then kiss me.”

And he did.

It wasn’t rushed. It never was with him. Not in these moments, not when his hands were reverent and his mouth slow and certain. He kissed you like he was studying the pages of a book he never wanted to end. He kissed you like you were ink and starlight.

When he finally pulled back, your foreheads touched.

“You undo me,” he murmured. “Every time.”

You kissed the corner of his mouth. “Then let me put you back together.”

He leaned into your touch, his eyes glowing with something soft and golden. “You already have.”

You could’ve lived in that moment. Would’ve, if the world allowed. But eventually, your limbs tangled, and the fire’s glow dimmed, and you found yourselves stretched out fully on the rug, your head now pillowed on his chest while he read aloud.

His voice was a low, lulling timbre, reading stories of gods and mortals and beasts who found each other in darkness.

You reached for his hand, threading your fingers through his.

He squeezed once. “You make it quiet,” he said, not looking away from the book. “In my head. You make it stop.”

“I know,” you said. “You do the same for me.”

No promises were made.

None needed.

Because this was the promise: the steady touch of his hand in yours. The press of your body against his. The warmth of his fire as it lit the darkness between your ribs.

The quiet of love unspoken, but always understood.

And when you both finally fell asleep on the rug beneath the ember sky, it wasn’t to dreams of courts or war or pain.

It was only each other.

And that was enough.

Taglist: @fanficscuziranout, @willowpains, @lilah-asteria, @lreadsstuff, @flintthegoodboyo, @saltedcoffeescotch, @okaytrashpanda, @marina468, @tele86, @raccoonworld

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So the first time you touched him, it had nearly unraveled him.

It had been so casual. Unthinking. The kind of touch people gave without realizing they were giving it. You had been standing beside him in the House of Wind’s training ring, sweat still damp on your brow, laughing at something Cassian had said. And as you turned toward Azriel, still grinning, you reached out—just a small thing, a fleeting press of your fingers against his wrist, your thumb brushing over his pulse like it was natural, like it was nothing.

It was everything.

Azriel had gone still. So still it was a wonder his body hadn’t shattered from the force of it. His heartbeat had slammed against his ribs, his throat tightening as his mind scrambled to make sense of what had just happened.

You had touched him.

Not because you had to. Not because you needed something from him. Not because he was bleeding out or being dragged from the wreckage of a battlefield.

You had touched him because you wanted to.

And that terrified him.

Because the moment it happened, the moment your fingers met his skin, Azriel knew—he would want more.

It only got worse after that.

Because you kept doing it. And worse, you didn’t seem to realize what you were doing to him.

The way your hand found his forearm when you spoke to him, grounding him in the moment. The way you brushed your fingers over his back when you passed him in the halls. The way you linked your pinky with his beneath the dinner table when the conversation turned too dark.

Azriel wasn’t used to it.

Gods, he wasn’t used to it.

For centuries, he had believed he did not need touch, that it was something other people craved—people who were not made of knives and shadow. He had convinced himself he was fine without it, that his body did not miss something it had never truly had.

He had been wrong.

Because now that he had it, now that he had you, he didn’t know how to go without it.

It was a sickness, the way he hungered for it. The way he would find himself inching closer to you when you were near, his body gravitating toward yours like you were the sun and he was something desperate for warmth. The way his hands would twitch at his sides when you hugged Cassian, when you looped your arm through Feyre’s—jealousy, raw and sharp, at the way they could take your touch for granted, while he still ached at the very idea of asking for more.

Because that was the worst part—he didn’t know how to ask.

He didn’t know how to reach for something he had spent centuries pretending he didn’t want.

So he suffered in silence. Let himself drown in the feeling of your hands against his skin, your fingers brushing his, your body pressed against his when you leaned into him without hesitation.

He let himself starve, even as the feast was right in front of him.

One night, as the city slept and Velaris shimmered beneath the moon, you found him standing alone on the balcony of the House of Wind.

You had been looking for him, he could tell by the way you didn’t hesitate, by the way you stepped into his space as if you belonged there.

"Az," you murmured.

He turned, shadows curling at his feet. "Couldn’t sleep?"

You shook your head. "I could ask you the same."

His lips twitched, but he said nothing.

For a moment, there was only silence. Only the sound of the wind through the cliffs, the distant murmur of the Sidra below. And then—then, you reached for him.

Not just a brush of fingers this time. Not just a fleeting, casual touch.

You placed your hand against his chest, right over his heart, and stayed.

Azriel stopped breathing.

"Az," you whispered, your voice softer now. "Why do you always let me touch you, but you never touch me back?"

His hands clenched at his sides. "Because I don’t know how to stop."

The words left him before he could think better of them. Before he could bury them beneath his usual silence.

You exhaled, something flickering in your eyes. And then, to his utter ruin, you reached for his hand.

Not just to hold it. Not just to offer comfort.

You brought his palm up, pressed it against your own chest, against the steady, steady beat of your heart.

"Then don’t," you said simply.

Azriel made a sound, a broken, desperate thing. His fingers curled against you, his thumb brushing over the fabric of your shirt, as if memorizing the shape of you beneath his touch.

"I don’t know how to ask for it," he admitted, voice barely more than a breath.

You smiled, something unbearably soft. "Then don’t ask."

And you leaned forward, wrapping yourself around him.

Azriel broke.

His arms came around you fast, crushing, as if he was afraid you’d disappear if he didn’t hold on. His face pressed against your hair, his shadows curling around your waist, twining with you like they knew. Like they had been waiting for this moment just as long as he had.

You held him just as tightly, your fingers tracing slow, soothing circles against his back, grounding him, anchoring him.

"I’ve got you," you whispered. "Always."

Azriel squeezed his eyes shut, inhaling the scent of you, the warmth of you, the realness of you in his arms.

And for the first time in his long, long life, he allowed himself to believe it.

Taglist: @willowpains, @masbt1218, @antonia002, @bookishcait, @fuckingsimp4azriel, @fanficscuziranout, @buttermilktea11, @lilah-asteria, @lreadsstuff,  @flintthegoodboyo, @saltedcoffeescotch,  @okaytrashpanda, @mariaxliliana, @kksbookstuff, @marina468, @tele86, @raccoonworld

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