bookworm | farm girl | brown-eyed, tall Latina | empath | cancer baby in july | 23 yrs old | uni kid | future BCBA | INFJ | sports enthusiast | -the battles other's may have aren't always seen at first sight-
“God, Y/N. I’m fine.” Rafe pulls your hand from his collar. But you click your tongue at him.
“Come on, I promise you look better with it folded properly.”
Rafe glances at his watch. “We’re running late.”
“Who cares?” You mutter as you straighten the creases of his shirt.
“I do.” He snaps before grabbing hold of your wrist and dragging you out of his room, not letting go until you are standing right next to his car. He opens the door for you and taps his foot as he waits for you to get inside but your steps are too slow with you checking your bag for necessities.
“Tylenol. Mouthwash. First aid kit.” You look up from your bag. “You still have our extra clothes in your trunk, right?”
“Yes.” He spoke impatiently, his bored stare sharpening.
When you finally get inside, he slams the door extra loud, startling you, but you shrug as you fasten your seatbelt.
Rafe jams the key in and ignites the engine. He’s about to step on the pedal when you place a hand on his chest.
“Seatbelt.” You smile sweetly and he bites back a retort, only choosing to roll his eyes and fix his seatbelt.
“Happy?” He spoke sardonically and you scan your eyes over him and grin.
“Yes. Just remember not to go over the speed limit.”
This is why he didn’t like to invite you to parties. You act like a mother hen, and him, your baby chick.
You are glued to his side the whole time. He understands this behavior back when you were six, but you’re fucking adults now, when are you gonna grow out of this?
With you by his side, he can’t score on some chicks. Them thinking that you’re his girl, thus extending his dry spell.
But there’s that new girl by the punch tables. Standard hot girl, lean, tanned, long legs, and bleached hair. She’s shyly looking at him, but she’s not exactly being discreet either.
“I’ll get us something to drink.” He pries your fingers one by one from his arm.
“I can come with you.” You suggest hopefully but he’s already heading to the punch table. You head to the side, sitting on an old and broken down cobblestone wall as the night breeze nips your skin. Just smiling and nodding at the people you know while watching the rest of them have fun.
The party is in full blast. There’s a lot of Tourons joining the party too.
You wonder what’s taking Rafe so long.
Deciding it was best to go look for him, you get up from your seat. You brush the dust off your shorts as you tighten the button up that you stole from Rafe’s closet around your body.
Just as you start looking for him, you notice hurried footsteps and cheers from one side of the party. A guy bumps into you but he quickly hooks an arm on your waist to keep you from falling.
“Oops.” He laughs. “Sorry, Y/N!” It was JJ and you watched him run with the others.
“What’s going on?” You mutter.
You hear a sigh next to you and you turn to see Sarah and Kie, looking at the gathered crowd in disappointment. Sarah turns to you with a tired face. “Rafe got in a fight with a Touron.”
They look at you in pity as horror crosses your face. As you run to the fight, they shake their heads. You’re too good for this world.
You run as fast as your legs can carry you, hands pushing people away just to get through.
When you finally do, you see Rafe with a busted lip, his chest squared up and heaving as he looks at his opponent who is barely standing, leaning his weight on some girl you don’t recognize. His face was red in certain places, his eyelids swollen, two nostrils bleeding. Is he missing a tooth? Good God.
Rafe was yelling insults, how this is his island, he’s about to march over when you throw yourself on him, arms tightly wrapping around his torso to keep him from moving.
“Y/N! Fucking let go!” He grips your arms tightly, adrenaline clearly coursing through his veins.
“No! That’s enough!” You say sternly as you bunch his shirt on your fist. “We should go. Please!”
Rafe scoffs. “I said, let go!”
When you only tighten your grip, he curses and throws the guy one last glare before dragging you with him back to his car.
“What were you thinking, beating up that guy?” You say in disbelief as you make him lean against the hood of his car while you dig through your purse.
He curses at you when you dab a wet wipe on his lip.
“If you don’t get in stupid fights, I won’t have to clean you up now, will I?” You reply angrily before slapping his hand away and dabbing gently. You play oblivious to his searing glare. Trying to ignore his hisses when you accidentally dab too roughly.
“Why’d you decide to make that guy a punching bag, anyway?” You ask while smearing a disinfectant ointment on his wound. Your heart beating wildly at your close proximity.
Rafe clicks his tongue. “His girl was flirting with me.”
You look at him in disappointment, making his blood boil. He hates receiving that look, it reminds him of how he constantly fails his father.
“You must have encouraged her too.” You really don’t know when to stop.
“Shut up, alright?” He pushes past you. “It’s not like I knew she had a fucking boyfriend.”
You sigh as you tidy up your kit. Rafe opens the door for you and you take your time in getting in.
“Why’d you have to flirt with all the girls at every party? Can you think with your mind next time and not with your dick?” You mutter under your breath as you glare at nothing in particular, upset that he’s got himself into trouble, and upset that it’s because of a girl. Again.
“That’s it.” Rafe slams the door before you can take a step in, the impact makes you gasp, your fingers nearly crushed by the door. Your eyes are wide and afraid as you look at him. He backs you up until your back is flushed against the door. He rests an arm over your head, as he points a finger dangerously close to your face.
“Rafe-”
“I’m fucking done with your bullshit.” He spoke through gritted teeth. “If you think you have the right to speak to me this way, let me tell you something. You don’t.”
You bite your lower lip, eyes turning glassy as you fight the urge to cry. “I’m just concerned.” Whatever immunity you thought you had from his anger crumbles like sand on the palm of your hand. You’re no exemption from his outbursts, apparently. You’re just like everybody to him.
“I didn’t ask for your concern.” He laughs dryly. “And I don’t care about your stupid crush on me, either.”
Your lips part as you blanch, looking at him in embarrassment and frustration. Your palms sweat as your fingers twitch, wanting nothing else but to get swallowed by the earth.
“Yeah. You think I don’t know about your feelings for me?” He laughs at you before he slams a fist on his car, making you scream and cover your ears in fear. “It’s kinda cute, you know. Watching you chase after me, clean after me, do everything I say like a pathetic puppy waiting for a treat.”
Something inside you snaps. “Stop talking.” You hiccup, tears dripping down your cheeks.
Huh, it’s been a while since he saw those tears.
“Why?” He asks in feign concern. “Am I hurting your feelings?”
“Yes.” You say shamelessly, making him scoff. “I just wanna go home, please,”
Mascara has ruined your pretty makeup, tears wetting your cheeks as your hair sticks on your temples, making you look disheveled and wrecked.
Rafe looks at you blankly as he runs a tongue on his tooth. “Fine.” He runs a hand over his face as he attempts to calm his breathing. He’s tired of your bullshit for today, he’ll deal with you tomorrow. “Let’s get you home.”
He opens the door for you and you get in without sparing him a glance, your shaking hands quickly fastening the seat belt. Rafe looks at you in silence but your eyes are dropped to your feet, adamant on not looking at him.
“You crybaby.” He spoke lowly and you closed your eyes. “Get it through your dumb head, alright? I don’t fucking like you.”
You whimper, arms wrapping around yourself as you shrink away from him.
“Stop doting on me like we’re dating.” He continues. “You’re fucking embarrassing.”
“Just take me home, please.” You sob and for a moment he feels the need to wipe your tears but he stops himself, a frown creases in his brows.
“And don’t fucking boss me around. You’re not my mom.” He slams the door and the rest of the drive is filled with nothing but your sniffles.
The thing about Rafe Cameron is that he’s impulsive. Always speaking his mind without thinking of the consequences. He is very quick to anger yet very quick to calm down after the stimulus vanishes from his line of sight.
You can’t keep up with the shift of his emotions throughout the ride. With him honking at every driver in front of him then suddenly nudging you and pointing at something down the street, laughing like he didn’t just murder you inside. He really doesn’t understand what he’s done. He’s a child and you wanna strangle yourself for ever letting yourself love a man like him.
“Shit, Y/N, calm down.” He groans as he parks outside your house.
You attempt to open the door but he clicks the lock in place.
“Let me out.” You whimper.
He rests his elbow against the door and scratches his chin. “Not until you calm down.”
“I’m calm.” You respond in a shaking voice.
“Uhuh.” He hums as he rakes his eyes over your face. “Can’t take a rejection, princess?”
You don’t respond, hands tightening over your bag.
“We’re not in fucking elementary school anymore.” He props his head against his knuckles as he grins at you. “And I’m not Rafey anymore.”
“I know.” You spoke harshly as your bloodshot eyes stared forward.
He chuckles. “Good, that’s good.”
“Yes. The ‘Rafey’ I know would never hurt me like this. You’re not him, not anymore.” You stare at him blankly. “He’s gone and I can see that now.”
Rafe straightens up in his seat, biting his cheek as he nods at you, though his mind is still trying to wrap around your words.
“Right. It’s good that you get it now.” But why does he suddenly regret all this?
He’s been trying to get you to understand this for the longest time. And now that you finally do, all the challenge between you is gone, and he is lying if what is going to happen after this does not make him anxious. Is this another one of your reverse psychology tricks? You know it always worked on him.
You unbuckle your seatbelt and he clears his throat, swiftly opening his door and races to your side but you beat him to it. He swallows thickly as he shoves his sweating palms in his pocket.
Rafe walks you to your gate but you don’t acknowledge him, even if he pushes the gates open for you. He tries to catch your eyes but he starts to bleed with the background around you, no longer relevant enough to be looked at.
When you lock the gates, he leans on it and watches you turn away and head to your house. Leaving without the usual cheek kisses and “see you laters”
He clears his throat. “Uh…so, tomorrow?” A desperate attempt to keep you with him a little longer.
You pause and you turn to look at him with your face cold and hard, so devoid of emotions. He never thought you’d be capable of holding such a look. “What about tomorrow?”
He grips on the thin metal of your gate, the weathered paint chipping and clinging to his palms. “You said you wanted to check out the ice cream parlor that just opened?” He adds the charming smile he knows you like but your face remains blank.
“I changed my mind.” You start to walk away again but he calls your name and you look at him with a small frown on your eyebrows. You really wanted nothing to do with him anymore, huh?
“I’ll call you later?”
“What for?” You cross your arms and for the first time, he is rendered speechless, his tongue heavy as he racked his brain for a response.
You’re right, what for?
Rafe shrugs while he tugs at his collar. “I don’t know. Don’t you like it when we call?”
You sigh. “Goodbye, Rafe.”
He watches you leave and he tightens his grip on the gate, making the metal dig on his palms.
“Goddammit!”
He messed up. He messed up real bad. And he’s not sure he can still fix this.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Warnings: angst, awkward Sidney, nsfw content!!! MUCH longer than part one so strap in.
Summary: your ex is off winning Stanley cups and you’re back home after school for the summer. After an awkward run in at the grocery store you assume that’s the last you’ll see of him. And then Sidney comes knocking on your front door.
Important note!!! I didn’t originally intend to write a pt2 but here we are… so therefore the time line is a bit messed up and confusing. I edited some dates in pt1, but for the sake of my story, we’re pretending Sid brought the cup home early summer of 2009, not September of 09. Four years have elapsed since reader went off to school. You’ll catch on. That’s it :))
More below the cut ⬇️⬇️⬇️
The grocery store run in had done some serious damage to Sidney’s brain. Seeing you out of the blue after so long… it made something in his stomach twist with an emotion he couldn’t name. That was how Sidney ended up scrolling through his contacts, finger pausing on one number. He’d never removed the heart emoji from your name in his phone. You were still ‘y/n 💕’. He couldn’t bring himself to delete the heart after the breakup. It was silly, he wasn’t sure why considering it was for the best. But alas… he sat for a while drafting up messages, deleting them, rewriting, letting out frustrated groans. He finally settled on something simple.
“Hey. Sorry if I seemed a little weird at the grocery store. I guess I just didn’t expect you to be there… caught me a bit off gaurd…”
He sent it, holding his breath, hoping it wasn’t a completely idiotic decision. For all he knew you were in a relationship by now. Happy and completely done with him. His phone pinged and he immediately grabbed it. ‘Message not delivered’
Sidney cursed. You must’ve gotten a new number. Figured. It had been years. Now what? He didn’t have Instagram… maybe if he went back to the grocery store you’d be there again. Or if he just wandered town long enough he’d conveniently bump into you?
Sidney did exactly that. Made sure he was out and about more often. Even if it got a little exhausting constantly greeting fans and old family friends who gave the same ramble about how grown up and talented he was now. Two days and no encounter. He was at a loss.
And then, quite possibly the stupidest idea yet hit him. It was a Wednesday evening, around 7pm when he took a deep breath, and knocked on your front door. Or, at least he hoped it was your front door still. He assumed if you were back in Cole Harbour you were living under your parent’s roof…. Your mom opened the door, the greeting smile on her face quickly morphing into a wide eyed, slack jaw stare as she took in the sight of Sidney.
“Hey Mrs l/n….”
Your mom just blinked. And then she was lurching forward wrapping her arms around Sidney. She quickly pulled away, flustered, letting out a nervous, almost sheepish laugh. “Oh gosh I’m sorry Sid I just- wow!” She looked him up from head to toe. “Wow it’s been… ages.”
Sidney let out a soft, kind chuckle at her reaction, shaking his head at her apology. “S’okay. It has been a while. It’s uh- nice to see you again. You’re doing well?”
“I’m doing just fine, thanks for asking. And you? I imagine you’re doing very well.”
Sidney nodded again, slight flush on his cheeks. Something so oddly… embarrassing… about being some celebrity with people who’d seen him back when he was some sticky fingered thirteen year old punk. “Very well. It’s…. Life is good. But I always miss home. Quieter here.”
Your mom gave him a noise of enthusiastic understanding. “Not a big bustling city like you’re used to hey?”
“Yeah- yeah no. It’s peaceful. Less people staring at me… sorta.” Sidney felt rude as his eyes flicked past your mother into the house, his mind miles away. But your mom caught on immediately.
“Are you… looking for someone?”
He gave a sheepish look, scratching the back of his neck as he shrugged. “I mean, yeah. Uh- is y/n here?”
An unfamiliar emotion flickered through your mom’s eyes as she bobbed her head. “She’s downstairs in her room I think. I can grab her- or… or you can go down and-“
“Maybe… just grab her,” Sidney quickly murmured. The thought of going to your old bedroom- a place he’d spent hours in. Hours talking, snuggling, and… other things. It felt too invasive to just appear unannounced and throw you off kilter. Your mom understood, realizing the suggestion was a little outlandish.
“I’ll be right back.”
He stood there awkwardly, shoving his hands into his pockets as he took a deep breath, willing his heart to slow down. And then there you were. Your mom disappeared, leaving you two alone.
You were quick to step out onto the porch, shutting the door behind you, knowing damn well your mom would be snooping. “Sidney.”
You said his name so simply. So soft. So matter of fact. He almost forgot how to talk. You looked just as beautiful as he remembered. Better than the grocery store. Your hair pulled into two messy little braids, bandana pushing the fly aways back. Bare face, a little tired looking. Cute. You wore shorts and an old band tee that had paint smeared on it. Upon closer inspection, your knees and left cheek also had paint. You smelled like paint.
“Sorry did I interrupt something?” Ever the observant Sidney. He mentally punched himself.
You shrugged, shaking your head. “Naw. Nothing important. I’m repainting my bedroom. The mint green I chose in elementary school isn’t really the vibe anymore.”
He laughed softly, hands still buried in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels. “Yeah. That’s fair.” He glanced at the paint on your body. White. Maybe primer. “What colours it gonna be now?”
“Off white… thinking about doing a nice earthy green or brown accent wall… not sure yet.”
He gave an animatedly enthusiastic nod, the small talk awkward, both of you well aware he wasn’t here to talk about interior design.
“Sounds nice.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
You stared at each other for a few seconds as you cleared your throat, straightening a little. “So… is there a reason….”
“Fuck. Yeah, sorry. I guess I’m just- I don’t know. I don’t even know why I’m here.”
Huh. You frowned slightly, giving him a once over again. His jeans fit well, a basic white tshirt that hugged his broad chest. His hair still damp from what you assumed was the shower. “Okay….”
He let out a small huff of air, shaking his head as he avoided your gaze. “Fuuuckkks sake. Geez I’m sorry y/n this was kinda stupid. I tried to text you but your number didn’t work… just- I figured if you’re in town again, I was wondering if… if maybe like…”
“You wanna grab a coffee?”
You finished his question for him, rescuing him from his fumbling mess of words. Sidney audibly sighed, shoulders slumping with relief. “Yeah. Just to catch up. It’s been a long time.”
You made a small humming noise of agreement. “I’m kind of a mess right now… but how about tomorrow morning?”
“Tomorrow’s great. Like around seven?”
Your nose scrunched in protest. Fuck that was adorable. Sidney had to avoid staring. “Not all of us are on athlete time schedules. How about nine?”
“Yeah. Good point. Nine is great. Wanna go to JJ’s? Or…”
If Sidney was being honest JJ’s was the only coffee shop he knew existed in the small town. A regular location you two often hit when you were dating…. A cute little cafe that served breakfast and lunch as well. “I like JJ’s,” you confirmed. “I’ll meet you there?”
“Yeah. That’d be great.”
“Cool.”
“Cool.”
Sidney tugged his hands from his jeans pockets, brushing off his jeans in a way that made it evident he didn’t know what to do with himself. “Ok. I’ll see you then.”
You began to open your front door, smiling softly at him before he suddenly added. “Can I- get your new number? Just in case… I’m running late or something.”
“Sure. In case you’re running late.”
He handed you his phone. Watched you type in the digits, then give it back to him.
“Congratulations. On the cup by the way. Captain Crosby. When’s it your turn with it?”
Sidney paused. He’d almost forgotten that. Right. He had even more status now. Kind of. “Thanks,” he replied in the most strained tone possible. What was his issue? “Uhm… I already had it.”
You nodded at his words. Your school year went a little later since you were abroad and you hadn’t even been back home when he brought the cup. You’d missed the fanfare. Probably for the best.
“Right. I forgot, my dad… mentioned it. You took it on a jet ski or something.”
He cringed a little, flushing brighter. “Yeah. I did that. Stupid.”
“Eh,” you shrugged. “I’d probably do the same thing. Anyways…”
He cleared his throat a little as you hinted at the conversation coming to an end, moving backwards a little and allowing you to step back into your house. “See you tomorrow.”
“See you.”
He waved goodbye as you softly closed the door catching a glimpse of your mom peeking out the kitchen window.
The next morning Sidney showed up to the cafe fifteen minutes early. He avoided taking a seat, wondering if it would be a stretch to ask you if you wanted to walk along the water. It was a gorgeous morning. Not too hot, not too cold, the sun out, birds chirping. He settled for sitting on the bench outside the cafe, nervously checking his watch, running his fingers through his hair. Behaving like an anxious teenager all over again. He had to remind himself this wasn’t a date. Again, he wasn’t even sure you were single. You were his ex. An old friend he was just catching up with.
He recognized your car. The same beat up Jetta you’d had for only God knew how long. It was more rust than vehicle now. He watched you park, get out of your car, eyes immediately catching his as you gave a soft smile and wiggle of your fingers. You looked even better than last night. Hair loose this time, brushed out, a tanktop and jeans that hugged you nicely paired with a cute cardigan and oodles of shiny bracelets and rings. Always bedazzled. Nothing had changed about you in that way. He liked that. You were always the cooler one out of you two in his opinion.
You made it to the front door of the shop as he stood. He considered hugging you- no. That’s weird. Instead he just opened the door for you. “Hey. Long time no see.”
You laughed a little as you went inside. “Yeah. Been a whole… What, like… fourteen hours? Fifteen?”
“Something like that.”
You smiled vaguely as he watched you look up at the menu boards. Sidney cleared his throat a little. “Did you want to get food or anything? Breakfast?”
You looked back at him.
“It’s ok. I ate at home. I need coffee though. Maybe a muffin…” you contemplated, directing your gaze now to the display case of baked goods.
“I was thinking we could maybe walk… if you wanted. Really nice weather Yknow?”
“Sure. That’d be nice.”
You ordered, Sidney wanted to pay, and though he made a move to, he pulled back last second deciding that was an overstep. Too much. He didn’t want to freak you out. You did end up getting a muffin, Sidney matching you as you made your way out of the shop to the water front. “Mmm. Still the best caramel latte in all of Nova Scotia,” you mused as you sipped your iced drink. Sidney nodded with a smile. Yet another thing thar hadn’t changed about you. Same coffee order.
“I know. That’s why they’re still in business.”
You fell into step with one another, still a little quiet. You spoke first, looking at the water rather than Sidney. “So… how’s life?”
He let out a heaving sigh like that was the most loaded question you could’ve given him. Your brow furrowed as you turned your eyes to him.
“It’s good.”
He didn’t elaborate. Didn’t give you details, and the tone of his voice was far from enthusiastic.
“Just good?” You scoffed a little, kicking a pebble beneath your feet. “Sidney you’re the captain of an NHL team. You’re the face of Canadian hockey. You’re every little athletes hero….oh right, and you won the fucking Stanley cup before you’ve even turned twenty two.”
“It’s not a big deal.”
You paused in your tracks abruptly turning to him, face serious. “Not a big deal? Not a big deal?? Sidney Patrick Crosby can you stop being humble for once in your life?”
Sidney crumpled a little bit like a scolded puppy, staring at the ground before he cautiously peeked up to meet your piercing stare. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize- I just…. I should be the one apologizing. That was aggressive. I just don’t know why you’re acting like your life is nothing special. To be honest it’s kinda annoying.”
“Sorry,” he repeated, a cautious murmur. You raised an eyebrow and he cringed. “I meant- not sorry. I’ll stop apologizing. You’re right. It’s not fair to act like my life is insignificant .”
He realized that it must’ve been a smack in your face. Being so casual about his career when you’d just been in school for years, spending hours studying, writing papers, losing sleep, all while holding a part time job in a country you didn’t know. Out of the two of you his life was definitely easier.
“I’m just genuinely curious. Like… what’s it like?”
“What? Playing hockey?”
“Yeah. That. And being captain. And iconic. And winning the cup. All of it.” You both began walking again, done with your scolding.
If Sidney was honest, you reaming him out made his heart skip a beat. He didn’t like that. Didn’t like how easy it was to be distracted by your mere existence.
“It’s really cool. That’s my honest answer. Like… the fact that my job is just playing the sport I love? They pay me too much.”
“Must be tough.”
Sidney twitched a little, grimacing. “That’s not- sorry-“
“Hey,” you reprimanded him again, reminding him that was enough with the apologies.
“Right. Uhm- but what I meant is that’s not what I meant. I just meant that it’s stupid they pay me so much. It’s not like I’m contributing anything that important to society…. I mean, like what about doctors, and teachers, and stuff…” he was rambling. He was pretty sure he said the word ‘meant’ twenty times in that one explanation. “I just meant…” he faded off, deciding it was better to just shut up.
“It’s not your fault. That’s a societal issue,” you stated simply, Sidney grateful that you didn’t seem to react to his sloppy speech patterns. Somehow talking to you was way harder than any sort of post game interview. “I’m not actually offended by the way. I was just teasing you…”
“Right. I- should’ve gathered that… you were always heavy on the sarcasm.”
“Still am. You act like it’s been decades,” you observed, voice getting quieter. “Like you’re shocked that I’m still me.”
He grunted in acknowledgment, realizing that you were right. He was treating you like you were a whole new person who’d just lived an entire lifetime without him. Four years was a lot, sure, but not to the extent that you’d become boring and lost the personality he remembered.
“I guess I’m just not sure what to say to you. There’s a huge elephant in the room and all-“
“We’re just two people catching up.”
His stomach dropped a little at your words. So abrupt and direct. Maybe you had moved on, matured more than he had. You’d probably met someone… he was reading into everything too much, his hopes too high, his delusions soaring. Why did he even go to your house? What was he trying to gain from talking to you? He was just reopening the same wound that never seemed to fully heal.
“Yeah. I know.”
You both didn’t talk for a long while, the silence uncomfortable rather than natural. And then, like the idiot he was, Sidney blurted out, “are you seeing anyone?”
You felt your mouth physically dry up at the question. You hesitated, glancing sideways at him for a second. “No. You?”
“No,” he almost laughed the word, and you raised an eyebrow.
“That’s not a ridiculous question. I’ve seen the magazine covers. You’re North America’s golden boy heart throb. Sexy Sid the kid, models knocking on your door-”
“Can you not?”
He cut you off, tone a little harsher than intended as you recoiled. He wanted to say sorry again- but that word was banned right now. So he just pursed his lips as you narrowed your eyes at him slightly.
“Why? I’m not wrong.”
“It just…makes me feel weird. I’m not like that, I don’t give a fuck what women want me…I’m not about that lifestyle.” He paused, finding his next words. “I’m still just Sidney, by the way. You’re acting like I’m not.”
You didn’t say anything in response, processing his words. He was right. You were being unfair. You were making him uncomfortable and that wasn’t cool… if you were being perfectly honest with yourself, you were definitely projecting something. Some kind of insecurity or hurt you still hadn’t quite gotten over after all these years.
“It’s my turn to say sorry I guess,” you finally offered up, guilt swallowing your voice as you mumbled the words.
“No. No, you have every right to make those assumptions. I got defensive.”
“A little bit,” you agreed, raising your hand and pinching your fingers at him. Sidney smiled at that. A small smile, but a smile nonetheless. And just like that the uncomfortable tension faded as much as it could when two exes were essentially on a coffee date. Even if you tried to state you were just old friends earlier. Yet another asshole move on your part. Why were you acting like this?
First you snapped at him for his humility, then you borderline insinuated he was a womanizer now. It was like you wanted him to hate you- which obviously you didn’t- but you weren’t sure why you were behaving so self destructively. You annoyed yourself. And yet, he was still patient, and for that your heart skipped a beat. Fuck him. Fuck him and his patience…
“Anyways,” Sidney breathed, moving the conversation along. “You still never fully answered me. How are you? The thirty second check in at the store didn’t really enlighten me about your life at all.”
“Good.” It wasn’t a lie. But seeing him now? It felt like one. “I’ve been good. I’m tired, glad to be back home and see my family…”
“I get that.”
“I guess you would…” You were more similar than you really allowed yourself to believe. Because yes- Sidney was on a whole other sphere of fame and fortune- but at the end of the day you were both still two small town kids who’d spread their wings into the big, busy world. And now here you were. Both of you back in Cole Harbour, winding down and processing life.
“Yeah. I know it’s different, but it’s also not, y’know?” He spoke the exact words you’d been thinking and you nodded in agreement.
“Has Pittsburgh been treating you well at least?”
“Very. I love it. Even if it’s overwhelming sometimes.”
“Understandable,” You snorted a little. You could never be in the limelight like that. You were shocked Sidney could, but then again he’d matured and developed skills, handling stress that a teenager version of himself could never have. “Is it hard to like…exist? I mean, I doubt you can grab a bite to eat without signing fifty autographs.”
He let out an amused huff of air. “It’s hard sometimes, yeah, but some of the guys on the team let me know local places that are more lowkey…where I’m not as likely to get recognized, and if I am, people don’t care. But it’s also a little cool. Mostly the kids that recognize me.”
“They really look up to you, huh?”
He nodded, sheepish in a way, like the fact was embarrassing. “Yeah. I see a lot of mini sized eighty seven jerseys. Some pregnant woman got me to sign a literal infant sized t-shirt once for a baby that hadn’t even been born yet…”
“That’s wild.”
“I know, I know…Hockey fans are wild.”
“Oh I’m aware. Have you met my dad and brother?”
Sidney grinned at that. Gosh he missed your family. Seeing your mom had already made those bittersweet emotions rise up and him, but the mention of the rest of your family? Gone were the days of dinner at your house…street hockey with your brother…Having a second set of parents.
You interrupted Sidney’s racing mind as you pointed towards a bench by the docks that you’d now walked to. The area was relatively empty aside from two or three middle aged men who appeared to be fixing up a rusted out Cape Islander, some soft seventies rock playing from a hidden source as they worked. You assumed they were prepping it for personal use- your town wasn’t exactly a commercial fishing hub. You almost laughed a little bit about how stereotypical the sight was. You missed this. Despite constantly wanting to escape after the initial move when you were younger, now there was nothing more nostalgic and comforting than the town you’d spent some of your most formative years in.
Sidney led the way, wiping the bench a little bit with his hand before you sat down, staring out at the water. You sighed deeply, both of you quiet for a while until you felt his gaze on you. You flicked your eyes to your right, catching him in the act. He had this soft look in his eyes… a look you knew well. A look that eighteen year old Sidney seemed to always be wearing in your presence.
“What?”
You asked the word so softly you were surprised he even heard you. Then he smiled. Just slightly, lip quirking up as he never once broke his stare. “I was just thinking… how much has happened. In less than five years- you’ve lived across the ocean, finished school-“
“For now.”
“For now,” he corrected with a nod. He knew you’d always wanted to get your masters. Maybe more. That was part of the reason you didn’t want to turn down the overseas opportunity. “Anyways. You’ve done so much. And I’ve moved too- I’m a captain of a fucking NHL team which is just,” he shook his head like he was trying to reorient himself. “Anyways. What I’m saying is we’ve both done so much. Changed so much. But you’re still- so you.”
“What does that mean?” You asked, scrunching your nose at him.
“It’s a good thing,” he clarified, gauging your expression as a negative one. He opened his mouth to continue, then paused, letting out an almost choked sound before he broke eye contact for the first time, looking down at the now empty coffee cup in his hand. He placed it on the bench beside him, swallowing thickly. “I don’t know why I broke up with you y/n.”
The words poured out before he could stop them. Raw and honest. You felt winded by the confession, body tensing a little as you waited for him to continue, not wanting to interrupt. You wanted him to keep talking. You wanted to know what was going through his head.
“I don’t know why I couldn’t just- work harder. It literally wouldn’t have been that hard to just pick up my damn phone more. Fly out to visit you a few times…” he finally risked looking up again and you swore you saw a hint of dampness in his eyes before he blinked it away.
“Sidney, we both agreed it was the best decision.”
“But why? Like, be so for real y/n why couldn’t we have just figured something out? It wasn’t that hard, and I thought breaking up was going to fix my anxiety? You were the only thing in my life that didn’t make me anxious, and I didn’t realize that till after- and then it was too late and everything, and I mean everything felt so much worse. Because I didn’t have my person anymore. I didn’t have anyone that understood me like you did.”
He was talking so fast you had a bit of trouble catching up, brow scrunched in concentration as he poured out his heart. He was breathing heavier, enough so that you could hear his shaky inhales. And then the question. “Are we done forever?”
If you thought his first statement about not knowing why you broke up was a gut punch, this was a million times worse. You weren’t sure what to say, your mouth dry, a million and one thoughts swirling in your mind. And then as if on autopilot, without any critical thought, you squeaked out a word. “No.”
“No as in-“
“As in no, we’re not done forever. As in- as in I still think about you. All the time.”
“Are you serious?” His brow was wrinkled so tightly it looked like it hurt.
“Are you?”
“Yeah,” he almost laughed at the words, voice cracking a high pitched noise that made him flush. “Yeah, I’m so fucking serious! I don’t know why I broke up with you and I think about you all the time too. I thought it would get better, I thought I’d finally stop thinking about you…but then I saw you and I could barely function.”
You were overwhelmed. This felt surreal. This moment shouldn’t have been happening, you weren’t supposed to ever be back here with him, feeling all of these emotions that were meant to be burnt away ages ago. You both didn’t know what else to say, the only noises you could hear being your racing heart, the distant water birds, and the music from the docs. The music. Soft drawling voices as you registered the song and nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity.
Wild Horses by the Rolling Stones. It felt like some corny romcom scene you’d make fun of for being unrealistic and cringey. Sidney registered the music too, looking up to the docs where the men working had no clue the significance of their playlist had right now. He looked back at you, shaking his head as a laugh bubbled up from his throat and you broke too. Laughing hard, eyes welling up against your will.
“Fuck y/n.”
There wasn’t anything else to be said as Sidney’s hand moved forward, fingers threading in yours. Warm and calloused, but familiar all the same. You were both still giggling a little bit, almost giddy, your nervous systems malfunctioning from everything that had just happened. You looked up again at the maintenance men, one of them glancing absentmindedly at you as well before he kept working. “You think they think we’re crazy?”
“I don’t care,” He squeezed your hands tightly, pulling your eyes back to him. “I don’t care about anything else right now.” Your eyes lingered on one another, grinning like idiots before Sidney hummed the tune of the song slightly. “Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” he murmured the lyrics, singing along with Mick Jagger’s rough vocals, so bad you keeled over in another fit of laughter.
“Stop it-” you choked. “This is so cringey. Genuinely-”
“You think I’m bad at singing?”
“Yes!”
He scoffed, tugging you closer before his one hand let go of yours, moving to cup your cheek. Your heart stopped, giggles fading. “Can we stop this? The pathetic yearning?”
“S’not pathetic, it’s romantic,” you rebutted, his thumb stroking your cheekbone. “Unnecessary pain and suffering and miscommunication…but romantic.”
“So you’re gonna let me be your boyfriend again, right?”
“Obviously.”
“And we’re going to work through the issues, and communicate, and not give up so easily, right?”
“Obviously.”
Sidney’s smile was so big it hurt, corners of his mouth aching as he leaned forward a bit, his breath hitching as he watched your tongue dart out to wet your glossy lips a little. Then he closed the gap. Somehow over the years you’d become even sweeter. Even warmer, softer… he audibly gasped against your lips before he pulled away, cheeks pink with embarrassment at his noise. It comforted him a bit to see you pink as well and still grinning as widely as before.
“I missed that. A lot.”
“Me too.”
And then he was kissing you again, one hand moving to cup the back of your head, fingers threading in your tangled hair. The kiss deepened, his arms pulling you closer to his chest as you moved in sync. It was muscle memory. Familiar and comfortable. A few minutes passed before you parted again, both breathing heavier than before. You were giggling like an idiot, forehead leaned against his as he matched your laughter, Sidney pulling back to press a soft kiss just above your eyebrow as he tugged you into the crook of his neck, hugging you with a grip that told you he wasn’t ever letting go again.
You nuzzled into him happily, smile never once leaving your face. And then you paused as he shifted against you, that broad smile suddenly dropping. “What is tha- oh….”
Sidney was pink, looking a little guilty as you stared down at his lap, then back to his eyes. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Didn’t mean to ruin a nice moment….”
“Ruin?” You scoffed, tilting your head, hand slowly shifting, fingers creeping up his thigh. “I heard you bought your own place… private. Somewhere that’s not my childhood bedroom.”
Gosh you were going to be the death of him, the way you looked at him through your lashes… he shuddered a little. “Yeah. It’s private.”
You abandoned your car and opted to take Sidney’s, leg bouncing as you rode in the passenger seat, eyes fixed on him. He however, was transfixed on the road ahead, flushed all over, tent in his jeans impossible to conceal. He slapped your hand away as you tried to touch, giving you a disapproving side eye. “I’m driving”
“I’m horny.”
He grunted, voice cracking as he let out a shaky breath. “Yeah. Same. Obviously. Behave.”
“Okay captain Crosby. So… bossy. And in charge.”
He still didn’t fully look at you, his lips pursed as he rolled his eyes. “I’ll stop the car and kick you out right now.”
“Geez sorryyyyy.”
The drive to his house was short despite feeling like hours, and the moment he parked, Sidney was moving to the passenger door, yanking it open, and scooping you up bridal style. You squealed as he smashed his mouth into yours, stumbling into his home (which was crazy to you, but then again he was making a lot of money)
He beelined for his bedroom, kicking off shoes, stumbling with haste as you were thrown on the bed already panting. “You owe me a tour.”
“Later.” A low grunt as he grabbed the bottom of your tanktop, pulling it off, eyes fixated on your chest. “Cute.” He added, looking between your floral lace bra and your eyes. And then your lips were locked again. Somewhere in the makeout session Sidney’s shirt was also removed, the feeling of his much broader and harder chest making your thighs clench as he pulled back after a while, standing fully at the edge of the bed.
He dropped his jeans, belt buckle jangling as he moved forward again, your eyes drinking him in as you grinned. “What?” He chuckled.
“Your ass has gotten bigger,” you commented, causing a noise of surprise to escape Sidney as he scrunched his brow, giving you an unbelieving grin, “is it from all the squats?”
“Oh my gosh,” he mumbled shaking his head before he crawled forward, caging you in. He kissed you for the hundredth time, pulling back to see you still grinning cheekily. “Yes it’s from the squats. You happy?”
“I like it. But I’m a little upset it’s lowkey way bigger than mine. Kinda embarassing.”
“Shut up.”
“Make me.”
Sidney gladly obliged, lips smashing into yours harder this time, hands trailing up your bare torso, sliding behind your back to your bra, unclasping it. He groaned at the sight of your tits. He’d missed them, lips moving down your jaw before they settled just above your breasts, making you gasp. “Sid…”
“What?”
“You know what…” you whispered, voice strained. He just smiled against your skin, before he took your left nipple between his into his mouth making you jolt suddenly. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been this turned on, dick aching in his boxers. It was reminiscent of how he felt losing his virginity (which he did to you). Exciting but nerve wracking. He pulled back, trail of saliva hanging between his puffy lips and your nipple as you nearly came at the sight alone. “I wanna feel you. Right now. Enough foreplay…”
“Greedy.”
“As if you aren’t too,” you mumbled as he moved to undo your bottoms as well, sliding them down your thighs as you lifted your bum to help.
“Look at these pretty legs. Gonna need them wrapped around my face another time.”
Your breath hitched at the comment. Yeah. Yeah you needed that. But now you needed him inside you. His fingers brushed over your damp panties, a smirk on his lips as he cupped your cunt, thumb bumping your clit through the thin fabric as you squealed. “You’re dripping.”
“And you’ve been hard since I kissed you twenty minutes ago.”
“You’re really fucking sexy. So sue me.”
“I just might.”
A low chuckle, and then he was removing your panties next. Sidney paused as he fully pulled the fabric away, taking a moment to sit there on his knees and just stare. His mouth watered at the sight, dick twitched, eyes slowly tracing from head to toe. He couldn’t describe it- how good you looked spread naked in front of him. A sight he’d missed. You’d changed a little bit. Four years did that. ‘Second puberty’ or whatever they called it. You were a little fuller, more womanly. Hotter in Sidney’s opinion. He liked it. Your supple breasts, soft stomach, thick thighs… his thumb slowly moved back between your legs, finger poking experimentally at your hole as you whined. That was enough for him to push in without warning, curling his digit in a way that made you arch off the bed yet again. His grin widened as his thumb moved in sync over your clit, other hand pushing down his boxers to free his dick. You couldn’t lie- it was bigger than you remembered. Dripping and red, evident that he’d been hard a long while. Some other time you’d definitely suck him off and he’d definitely eat you out. Just not now.
“Sidney please,” your voice was a broken whimper as he leaned over you, caging you in as he grasped his cock and grazed it through your wet folds.
“Please what?”
“Don’t do that,” you groaned, frustrated. “No games.”
“Hmph.”
He pulled his other hand away, supporting his weight on one arm and focusing on lining up properly. He looked up to your face, your eyes both locking. And then he slowly, almost hesitantly pushed in. A choked gasp from you, a broken groan from Sidney… your body tight, bracing as he sunk deeper and deeper, bottoming out with a whimper of your name.
“Holy shit you feel so fucking good. I can’t- I- fuck-“
He was a mess. The feeling of you wrapped around him, warm, tight, still fit him like your bodies were made for each other. He looked down where you were connected, panting as he gave an experimental thrust of his hips before he met your eyes again and instantly froze. You were staring at him, fat, hot tears bubbling up and rolling down your cheeks.
“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck baby I’m so sorry did I hurt you? I’m sorry-“ he began to pull out before you reached for his shoulder to stop him.
“No- no you didn’t- it feels amazing I just,” your breath caught a little as you laid beneath his body. “I just- I just missed you so much.” Your last few words got swallowed up by a tiny little sob, your fingers gripping his bicep harder, almost like you were scared if you let go, you’d wake up and this would all have been a dream.
Sidney’s heart ached. His hands moved to your hips, hitching them upwards slightly to get a deeper angle as he pushed your knees to your chest, caging you in and filling you as much as he could as his face hovered above yours, emotion rising and tightening his throat. “Missed you too,” he whispered, raspy, kissing you briefly, moving to wipe a tear away. “Thought about you a lot. Regretted ever cutting it off. Got mad at myself for thinking about hockey so much…”
“No…” you mumbled. “No- I want you to think about hockey. I’m proud of you. It’s not your fault. It’s the timing… it was bad timing.”
“I still shouldn’t have ever broken up with you.”Another lingering kiss as he pulled back again, thrusting slowly back inside you as you both gasped. Another, another, in, out, in, out, breathing growing laboured and heavy as your nails pricked his skin. “I tried to date girls in Pittsburgh,” he confessed between rolls of his hips, your jaw slack as you whimpered below him. “Went on dates, had a few fucking awful hookups. They all looked like you.”
Your stomach twisted at his words. Between the pleasure of his cock moving inside you and jolting nature of what he’d just said, you clenched tightly around him making him moan and pause his movements.
“Sid…”
“No. I’m serious. I was such a fuckin’ idiot. Didn’t even realize I’d just been chasing women I thought would make me happy when you were constantly in the back of my mind. I never felt anything with them. Never ever had that spark. Our fucking spark.” Now he was getting emotional. Eyes growing damp as he hugged you impossibly close. “I love you. I’ve never stopped loving you- you- you idiot,” he broke into a small laugh at the end of his words. The insult that wasn’t really an insult. The bizarre nature of pouring his heart out while he was balls deep inside you… you matched his laugh through your tears, sniffling a little bit.
“I hated the British dudes,” your turn to confess, to which Sidney laughed again, both of you giggling softly. “I missed your fuckass east coast hockey boy accent.”
“I do not have one of those.”
“Do too. And I love it.”
His hands secured themself at the backs of your thighs as he kept you folded in on yourself, pace growing quicker as your conversation faded off and Sidney’s focus turned to feeling you. Feeling how perfect you were, listening to your noises of pleasure, watching your face scrunch up in bliss as you clung to him, soft moans leaving you with each jolt of his cock inside you.
“Don’t stop,” you whimpered the words so quietly he barely caught them. He quickened his face, moving to brace one hand above your pussy, thumb working in circles over your clit as he stuttered at the feeling of you clenching tighter around him.
“Ooooh fuck baby- I’m close…”
“Me too,” the tears were still flowing. “I love you.”
He tried to respond, tried to tell you he loved you back, but suddenly he gasped, you cunt spasming around him as you cried out loudly, sobbing his name as your orgasm hit you in crashing waves. Sidney grew sloppy, movements getting weaker as he chased his own high, finally letting out a deep groan as he jolted forward, spilling inside you, rope after rope of cum that made your eyes roll back and toes curl. He crumpled slightly on top of you, both of you panting heavily before he lifted himself enough to not smush you completely. He pulled out, lying down beside you as you stared at the ceiling, chest rising and falling rapidly. The room smelt of sex and sweat. His arm was draped around you, a heavy silence fell over you two for what felt like an eternity. You rubbed at your eyes and the few stray tears as Sidney finally spoke.
“That was fucking amazing.”
You smiled a little bit as he pulled you closer to him. “It was,” you agreed quietly. “I missed that.”
“Me too. Not just the sex.”
“I know,” your voice was soft as you tilted your head to look at him again. “But the sex is really good,” you gave him a cheeky grin which he matched, finger moving out to poke your nose. He groaned as he finally sat up, eyes tracing over you. A trail of White was already leaking from between your thighs.
“Kinda didn’t ask about if you were on the pill or anything….”
“It’s ok. IUD. Worst case morning after pill.”
He nodded, eyes flickering with something unspoken.
“What?” You asked.
He shook his head a little, shrugging. “Nothing.”
“Don’t lie,” you moved your foot to nudge him with it.
“Just thought about what would happen…”
“What would happen if…?”
“You weren’t- like… on anything. Like if I got you pregnant.”
“Slow down. We just got back together.”
He held his hands up in surrender, chuckling. “Woah woah. Sorry. That’s not what I was implying at all.” He quickly said. “Sorry. Again.”
“You apologize a lot.”
“Just don’t want to freak you out. That was a weird thing to say.”
You narrowed your eyes at him as he said the words so innocently. So genuinely. He was thinking about your future now. A future you both didn’t think you’d ever have. Hasty? Yes. Very. And he acknowledged that. But at the same time, it felt like those four years had never passed. Like you were two high school kids happy and in love again, no time zone issues, no NHL distractions, no breakup. And you couldn’t help but think that maybe he wasn’t crazy. Maybe you would have kids. Maybe not. Maybe you would get married, move in together… maybe you’d find a job in Pittsburgh… or you’d go elsewhere and he’d make sure he kept those FaceTime calls regular.
Sidney’s mind was full of the same things. The maybes. The optimism. The hope that this time he wouldn’t let you go. This time you’d matured more, and you’d push through the difficulties. The hope that he’d never miss that spark ever again. The little sizzle between you two. The butterflies that never wanted to disappear.
He smiled, standing, locating his boxers and sliding them on as he moved into the washroom, returning a moment later with a damp wash cloth, climbing onto the bed and gently parting your legs. Watching you as he cleaned you up, eye contact never once breaking.
“You’re really, really beautiful. In case I didn’t say that.”
“You’ve said it,” you blushed a little.
“I’ll say it over and over.”
“You’re really really handsome. In case I didn’t say that.” You parroted him and Sidney laughed that same warm noise as he rummaged through his drawers, handing you a pair of his boxers and a tshirt. You raised an eyebrow at him, glancing at the bedside clock that was on the nightstand.
“It’s mid day,” you commented. “This is bedtime wear.”
“Your panties are still wet, you really wanna wear them again?”
You rolled your eyes playfully as you slid his clothes on. They smelt the same as you remembered. Soft cotton against your body, wrapped in a piece of him. “My mom’s gonna cry from joy when I tell her we’re back together.”
“Good. I love your mom.”
“I know.”
Sidney made you lunch as you two chatted. Still so much to catch up on… friends both of you had made, stories of your unhinged professors and Sidney’s questionable teammates. Some guy named Geno that you were mildly concerned was your competition.
He was a great cook, happy when you gave his pasta two thumbs up. Happy that you were there next to him in general.
“So…. How’s the job market in Pittsburgh?”
Sidney perked up, pausing mid bite.
“Dunno. But I’ve got enough money now you can do whatever the hell you want. And if you don’t want to live in Pittsburgh or Nova Scotia I’m using that money to make sure I see you as often as we need.”
“Good.”
He nodded. “Good.”
It was a promise, soft and simple. But a promise all the same. In his tone of voice, and the look he was giving you. Sidney was never giving you up again.
Those were the words Azriel had said on the street under the stars, his hand wrapped around mine, his voice so quiet I almost hadn't heard it.
Those were also the words he had meant.
Three weeks had passed since that night, and somewhere in those three weeks, my entire life had changed without me even realising when it happened.
Azriel had quietly, casually, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, moved us into a small cottage he owned on the quieter edge of Velaris.
He hadn't made a big announcement about it. He hadn't asked in some grand, dramatic way.
He had just said, "I have somewhere I think you'd like better," and the next thing I knew, we were standing in front of a small stone cottage with ivy crawling up the walls and smoke curling from the chimney.
I had loved it immediately.
The Townhouse had never really been mine. It had always felt like I was borrowing space in someone else's life, walking through rooms that belonged to other people, living in a place where I was always slightly out of place.
But the cottage... the cottage felt like something that could belong to me. To us.
When I had asked Azriel why he had lived in the Townhouse with me if he had owned this place the entire time, he had looked at me like the answer was obvious.
"I wanted to be where you were," he had said simply.
That had been the end of the conversation, but not the end of the way my heart had reacted to those words.
This morning, I woke slowly, warm and comfortable in a way I wasn't used to.
Golden sunlight filtered through the thin curtains, painting the room in soft light. For a moment, I didn't move, still half-asleep, listening to the quiet sounds of the cottage, birds outside, the faint creak of wood, the steady breathing behind me.
Behind me.
I became aware of the arm draped over my waist, the warmth of a body pressed along my back, the slow rise and fall of Azriel's chest against my shoulder.
Last night had been the first night we had fallen asleep in the same bed.
Not because we had to. Not because of the bond. Not because of anything except that at some point, while talking and laughing quietly under the blankets like teenagers, we had both fallen asleep without meaning to.
He had been very careful with me these past weeks.
Careful in a way that was almost painful to watch. He never pushed, never assumed, never took more space than I offered.
We had separate rooms in the cottage and he had made it very clear from the beginning that nothing between us would be forced just because we were mates.
So this, waking up in his arms felt like a choice. My choice. His choice.
Our choice.
I shifted slightly, and his arm tightened around me immediately, instinctively, like he had been awake longer than I realised.
I turned my head slightly and found hazel eyes already watching me.
He looked softer in the morning. Less like the Night Court's Shadowsinger and more like just... Azriel. Just the male who watched me like I was something fragile and important all at once.
"Good morning," I mumbled, my voice still thick with sleep.
"Morning," Azriel replied quietly, his voice low and rough like he hadn't spoken yet today. His arms tightened around me slightly as he buried his face briefly in my hair.
I closed my eyes for a moment, just feeling it, the warmth, the safety, the steady way he held me like he wasn't afraid of me disappearing.
There was one feeling I had never felt with Azriel.
Forgotten.
With him, I was never forgotten. Never overlooked. Never the extra person in the room. Never the sister that people remembered last.
With him, I felt... chosen. Every day. In small, quiet ways.
"What are you going to do today?" he asked after a moment, his nose brushing lightly against my hair.
I smiled a little. "I was thinking I might go to the market. Maybe get some fruit. Try cooking something again, even though the last time was a disaster."
"It wasn't a disaster," he said immediately.
"It caught on fire, Azriel."
He paused. "A small fire."
I laughed softly, and the sound seemed to make him relax even more behind me. "I might also start that puzzle you brought home," I continued. "The ridiculously hard one."
"The one with all the stars?" he asked.
"Yes. I still think you bought that just to watch me suffer."
"I bought it because you looked at it for ten minutes and didn't realise I was standing next to you," he said. "You only do that when you really like something."
I rolled onto my back slightly so I could look at him properly. "You notice everything, don't you?"
"Everything about you," he said quietly.
There was no hesitation. No embarrassment. Just truth.
I studied his face for a moment, then reached up and brushed a piece of dark hair away from his forehead without really thinking about it. He went very still when I touched him, like even now he wasn't used to casual affection.
"What about you?" I asked. "What are you doing today?"
"I have to go to Windhaven," he said with a small sigh. "Training inspections. Cassian asked me to look at some of the Illyrian camps with him."
"That sounds... violent," I said.
"It usually is," he replied dryly.
I traced a small, absentminded pattern on the back of his hand where it rested on my waist. "Come back early," I said softly.
His eyes shifted to mine immediately at that, something warm and almost surprised flickering across his face.
"I always come back to you," he said.
And for the first time in my life, I believed someone when they said something like that.
I shifted closer to him then, resting my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. His arm tightened around me again automatically, like this was where I was supposed to be.
For once, my mind wasn't racing. I wasn't thinking about the past, or my sisters, or the Cauldron, or the kidnapping, or the years I had felt invisible.
For once, I was just... happy. Quietly, softly, peacefully happy.
That happiness was interrupted by a small bundle of black fur launching onto the bed and meowing loudly directly into our faces.
I laughed immediately, the sound still a little sleepy. "Good morning to you too, Nova."
Azriel huffed a quiet laugh beside me, one hand coming up to pet her as she aggressively pawed at the blankets and then at his arm like she was personally offended by our lack of movement.
"I think someone's a little hungry," he murmured, scratching under her chin. "And a little impatient."
Nova meowed again, louder this time, then stepped directly onto Azriel's chest and sat down like she owned him.
I pushed myself up onto one elbow, grinning. "She likes you more than me now."
"That's because I feed her extra treats," he replied calmly.
"That is betrayal," I said, gasping slightly. "I saved her life and you win her over with food."
Nova meowed again like she was agreeing with him.
Azriel looked at the cat very seriously. "You're causing problems in my relationship."
Nova blinked slowly and then headbutted his chin.
I laughed again, sliding out of bed and stretching slightly, wincing only a little where my injuries were still healing.
"Come on, traitor," I said to Nova. "Let's get you food before you start committing crimes."
Azriel followed me into the small kitchen a moment later, still half-smiling in that quiet way he did now more often than not.
The cottage kitchen was small but warm, sunlight spilling across the wooden counters, a small table by the window, herbs hanging to dry near the back door.
It felt like a real home. Not a palace. Not a townhouse full of important people and important decisions.
Just a home.
I scooped food into Nova's bowl and set it down, and she immediately attacked it like she hadn't eaten in weeks.
"She definitely likes you more," I said, watching her.
Azriel leaned against the counter, arms crossed loosely. "She follows you from room to room. She sleeps on your clothes. She screams when you leave the house. I think I'm just the chef."
"That sounds right," I nodded seriously.
He walked over then, stopping behind me, and I felt his hands settle lightly on my hips, his chin resting briefly on my shoulder. The contact was still new enough that every time he touched me like this, my heart did something stupid and warm in my chest.
"You're happy here," he said quietly.
It wasn't a question.
I nodded slightly. "I am."
His arms tightened just a little around me, like that answer meant more to him than I understood.
Before either of us could say anything else, there was a knock on the front door. We both froze.
Azriel's shadows immediately stirred slightly around the room, reacting before he even moved, and he straightened behind me.
"I'll get it," he said quietly.
Something in his tone made my stomach twist slightly. I didn't know why.
We walked to the door together anyway. When Azriel opened it, I stopped in the hallway.
Feyre, Elain, and Nesta were standing on the small stone path outside the cottage. All three of them looked nervous.
I had never seen Nesta look nervous in my entire life.
For a moment, none of us said anything. The air felt thick and awkward and heavy with everything that had happened at that dinner, everything that had been said that couldn't be unsaid.
Feyre spoke first. "Can we come in?" she asked quietly.
I hesitated, then nodded and stepped back.
They walked into the cottage slowly, looking around like they were trying to understand this new part of my life they had never seen before.
"It's beautiful," Elain said softly, looking at the windows and the flowers outside. "It suits you."
"Thank you," I said quietly.
We all stood awkwardly in the small living room for a moment until Nesta finally spoke, crossing her arms slightly like she was bracing herself.
"We came to apologise," she said bluntly.
I blinked, surprised.
Feyre stepped forward slightly. "We should have come sooner," she said. "After dinner. After everything. But we... we didn't know if you'd want to see us."
"You had every right to say everything you said," Elain added quietly, her eyes already glossy. "We just didn't realise how much you were holding in."
Nesta looked at me directly then, her eyes sharp but not cruel for once. "I was hard on you growing up," she said. "Harder than I should have been. And when we came here... I was so busy surviving, and then rebuilding, and then dealing with my own mess that I didn't see that you were alone."
I didn't say anything. I just listened.
Feyre swallowed slightly. "You were never supposed to feel forgotten. Not by us. Never by us."
"But I did," I said quietly.
"I know," she whispered.
Elain stepped forward then and took my hand gently. "We can't fix the past," she said. "But we want to be better now. If you'll let us."
Nesta nodded once. "We don't expect everything to be fine overnight. But we want to try. If you're willing to give us that chance."
I looked at all three of them, my sisters, who had been my entire world once, then strangers, then something in between.
"I don't know how to fix everything," I admitted quietly.
"We don't either," Feyre said. "We'll figure it out."
I took a slow breath, then nodded slightly. "Okay," I said. "We can try."
Relief visibly washed over all three of them at once.
Feyre stepped forward and hugged me carefully, mindful of my still-healing injuries. Elain hugged me next, lingering like she always did. Nesta hesitated, then pulled me into a quick, tight hug that said more than words ever could.
After a few more quiet words, they left the cottage, promising to visit again soon, promising dinner again but maybe without fighting next time.
When the door closed behind them, the cottage went quiet again.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the door, feeling like something in my life had just quietly shifted back into place.
Then I felt arms slide around my waist from behind. Azriel. He pulled me back gently against his chest, resting his chin on my shoulder.
"You okay?" he asked softly.
I nodded, leaning back into him. "Yeah," I said. "I think I am."
His arms tightened slightly around me, holding me like he always did, like he wasn't afraid of me breaking, but like he would catch me if I did anyway.
For the first time in a long time, everything felt... right. Not perfect. Not magically fixed. But right.
I had a home. I had my sisters. I had Nova. I had him.
And as Azriel pressed a soft kiss against my temple and held me in the quiet little cottage that had somehow become my entire world, I realised this was the perfect ending.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was the beginning of something even better.
Azriel's POV -
Being the Spymaster certainly had its perks.
Information, power, influence, shadows that whispered secrets from across Prythian.
But none of those things compared to this.
I stood quietly in the doorway of the cottage kitchen, watching my mate attempt to cook dinner while Nova committed crimes at her feet and some of my shadows "helped" in the most unhelpful ways possible.
She hadn't noticed me yet.
I hadn't announced my return from Windhaven, I had simply stepped into the house, removed my boots, and followed the sound of her voice into the kitchen.
She was talking. Not to herself. To my shadows.
"Well that's not helpful," she was saying, pointing a wooden spoon at a thin wisp of shadow that was hovering over a bowl. "You can't just knock the flour over and then hide the evidence. That's suspicious behaviour."
The shadow curled in on itself like it was offended.
Another shadow drifted lower and nudged the spoon slightly closer to her hand where she had set it down without realising.
"Oh," she said, noticing. "Thank you. See? You're useful. You can stay."
Nova chose that exact moment to swipe something off the counter and run across the floor with it.
"Nova!" she called, turning quickly. "That's not yours!"
Nova did not listen. Nova never listened.
One of my shadows darted across the floor and blocked Nova's escape route, swirling in front of her like a wall. Nova skidded to a stop, looked at the shadow, then looked deeply offended before dropping the stolen piece of food and meowing loudly.
I leaned against the doorframe, crossing my arms, and just watched for a moment.
This was not a life I had ever imagined for myself.
I had always assumed my life would be quiet, dark, and solitary. Missions, secrets, violence, shadows, silence. That had been enough for me for centuries.
But now there was flour on the counter, a half-burnt loaf of bread, a cat that stole food, and my shadows, my terrifying, whispering shadows were playing with a piece of string on the floor with Nova like children.
And in the middle of all of it was her. Alive. Safe. In my home. In my life. My mate.
She finally turned slightly and froze when she saw me standing there.
"You're back," she said, and her face immediately softened in that way that still made something in my chest feel too tight.
"I'm back," I said quietly.
She wiped her hands quickly on a cloth and walked over to me without hesitation now, like she had gotten used to me being here, like she expected me to come back to her.
She stopped in front of me and looked up. "How was Windhaven?"
"Cold. Loud. Cassian yelled at a lot of people," I replied.
She smiled slightly. "Sounds accurate."
I reached out and brushed a bit of flour off her cheek with my thumb. "You've made a mess."
"I am cooking," she said defensively.
"You are committing a war crime in our kitchen."
She gasped softly. "Rude. After I cooked for you."
"You haven't cooked anything yet," I said, glancing at the counter. "You've created ingredients."
She tried very hard not to smile and failed.
One of my shadows drifted up between us and gently pushed her hand toward mine where it hung at my side. I looked down at it, then at the shadow.
"Traitor," I muttered.
She laughed softly. "They like me more than you."
"They do not."
"They absolutely do."
Nova jumped onto a chair at that exact moment and meowed loudly like she was contributing to the argument.
I shook my head slightly, then looked back at her. Really looked at her.
Three weeks ago she had been hanging from chains, bruised, bleeding, broken.
Now she was standing in my kitchen, covered in flour, arguing with me about cooking while my shadows played with her cat.
The Mother had given me many things in my long life but this, this was the only gift that had ever mattered.
I reached for her then, sliding a hand gently around the back of her neck and pulling her closer. She didn't hesitate. Didn't pull away. She stepped into me like she belonged there.
"Hi," she said softly.
"Hi," I replied.
Then I kissed her. Slowly. Carefully. Like I had all the time in the world.
Her hands came up to rest lightly against my chest, and she leaned into the kiss like she trusted me, like she wasn't afraid anymore, like she knew I would never let anything happen to her again.
When we finally pulled apart, she rested her forehead lightly against mine for a moment.
"You're staring at me," she whispered.
"I do that," I said.
"I know."
We did eventually abandon the cooking. The bread was slightly burnt, the vegetables unevenly cut, and Nova stole at least three pieces of something when we weren't looking.
Later that evening, we curled up on the couch in the small living room, a blanket thrown over us, Nova firmly planted between us like she was the most important member of the household.
My arm was around her shoulders, her head resting against my chest, my fingers absentmindedly tracing slow circles on her arm while my shadows drifted lazily around the room, calm and quiet and content.
"I like this," she said quietly.
"This?" I asked.
"This life," she said. "This house. You. Nova. The shadows. All of it. I like this life."
I tightened my arm around her slightly and pressed a kiss into her hair. "So do I," I said.
And for the first time in my long, violent, secret-filled life, I realised something as I sat there in a quiet cottage, holding the female I loved while a small black cat slept between us and my shadows rested peacefully around the room.
I had spent centuries living in the dark. And somehow, without me even realising when it happened, she had become my light.
And I would spend the rest of my life making sure she never felt forgotten again.
A/N - Final part!! And obviously we had to end on some soft domestic fluff and a little reconciliation moment... because duh!!
I hope you all enjoyed this! It's definitely on the shorter side and not super plot-heavy, but I was really in the mood to write some hurt/comfort and this little story just kind of became that x
The next series is called "Legacies" and the masterlist is already posted for anybody interested—it's Azriel as a (young adult's) dad with chaos and teasing :)
Thank you so much for reading, I'd love to hear what you think <33
Invisible tag list - @sophieliz @azrielblue @whump-loverz @galacticoceans @lilah-asteria @niiickelodeon @justtryingtosurvive02 @rosie-posie08 @mis-lil-red @dnfhascorruptedme @justreadingfanficseveryday @spookypersondinosaur @jugodeshadowsinger @nyxmoretti @karolamurdock @do-nut25 @90s-belladonna @river-of-woe @prettylittlewrites @blueeclipsepaperstudent @chxosangxl @maddybrooke @napzalot @jada-lockwood @acourtofbatboydreams @pinksnowtiger @awkardnerd @throneofem @starinisstuff @alienmotel @chicken-fifi @itsraininghyunebuckets @dreaming-starlet @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @beloveddiary2 @pieceofmyritualexe @livvyluv44 @napzalot @themoonlitquill @pricklepearbloom @kittykaylat1987 @insomniac-astronomer @sinfully-yoursss @immortaliaslane @saamanthaag3 @tanyaherondale @psychiatry-and-poetry @moonlovefairy - tag list continued in comments
This part takes part BEFORE When the Shadowsinger rests (can be read as solo)
Azriel x reader
fluff / pre-relationship / wing sensitivity / mutual pining / teasing / hurt-comfort
(Before the mating bond)
Azriel returns home injured after a mission, and all you want to do is help. You just didn’t know Illyrian wings were quite that sensitive.
Rain had been falling over Velaris for most of the evening, soft and steady against the windows while the fire crackled low in the sitting room and shadows stretched lazily across the walls.
Cassian occupied one end of the couch with all the elegance of a dying warlord, boots planted shamelessly across the table despite Rhys having threatened him over it often enough that the argument had become part of the house itself by now, while you sat curled into the armchair near the fire pretending to read.
Pretending being the important word.
Because every few minutes your attention drifted back toward the front door.
Toward the threshold.
Toward the absence of shadows.
Azriel had been gone for four days now, and Rhys had offered almost no details beyond some vague mention of trouble near the border that needed handling immediately. Which, apparently, meant Azriel once again being sent directly toward danger while everyone else carried on pretending the male was indestructible.
You hated that.
Hated how easily he threw himself into risk without hesitation, how little value he seemed to place on his own wellbeing compared to everyone else’s. Sometimes it felt as though Azriel only existed in pieces for himself, while the rest of him belonged entirely to duty.
And maybe that was why fear had settled so heavily in your chest tonight.
Because you loved him.
The realization itself was no longer frightening. It had lived inside you quietly for too long now, woven into every glance that lingered a second too long, every instinct that drew you toward him before thought could intervene. Everyone around you seemed to know it too. Cassian certainly did, if the looks he gave you whenever Azriel entered a room meant anything. Feyre knew. Rhys definitely knew.
The only person who never said anything about it was Azriel himself.
Azriel, who always stood too close and never close enough.
Azriel, whose shadows curled around your wrists like they already knew you.
Azriel, who looked at you sometimes with something so restrained and aching in his eyes that your chest hurt afterward.
You had spent years circling each other like this.
And tonight, for the first time, the thought of never breaking that distance terrified you.
What if one day he simply did not come home?
What if something happened to him out there before you ever found the courage to tell him?
What if tonight—
The lock clicked.
Your entire body went still.
Shadows slipped beneath the doorway before Azriel even entered, restless and sharp-edged as they spilled silently across the floor.
Then Azriel stepped inside.
Rainwater dripped steadily from his leathers onto the hardwood floor while exhaustion clung visibly to every line of his body, but your eyes snagged instantly on the streak of blood spread across one of his wings.
Not enough to panic.
Enough that something painful twisted low in your chest anyway.
Cassian noticed too, lowering his feet from the table as he straightened slightly. “Mother above,” he muttered, staring openly at Azriel, “you look like shit.”
Azriel shut the front door behind himself with visible effort before unbuckling Truth-Teller from his side and placing it carefully onto the entry table.
“You’re bleeding,” you said immediately, already rising to your feet.
Azriel glanced once toward the injured wing as though he had forgotten it existed entirely. “It’s superficial.”
“You once said that with a knife through your shoulder,” Cassian reminded him lazily. “You were actively hallucinating at the time.”
Azriel ignored him completely.
Your feet were already carrying you across the room before you had fully decided to move. By the time you stopped directly in front of him, close enough to see the exhaustion carved beneath his eyes, concern had entirely overridden any embarrassment you might have felt at standing so near.
“Upstairs,” you told him softly.
Azriel looked at you for a long second. “I can take care of it.”
“I know you can,” you replied. “That doesn’t mean you should.”
For half a heartbeat he only stared at you, something unreadable flickering behind his exhaustion before your fingers wrapped carefully around his wrist.
His shadows stirred instantly around your hand, shadows that usually reacted to strangers with sharp suspicion now curling briefly against your skin before retreating again, not alarmed or defensive in the slightest but strangely curious, almost familiar, as though they already knew you.
Azriel noticed the movement immediately.
So did Cassian.
The grin beginning to spread slowly across Cassian’s face already made you suspicious.
“You are leaving blood on the floor,” you continued while guiding Azriel toward the stairs before either male could say anything else.
“It’s alright,” Azriel said quietly. “I’ll clean it.”
“Of course you will,” Cassian called after you both with a smirk.
You shot him a look over your shoulder.
Cassian only lifted his drink in salute.
Azriel followed you upstairs without resistance.
That worried you more than if he had argued.
Usually helping Azriel required manipulation, threats, or Feyre physically cornering him with bandages while Rhys laughed nearby. Tonight he only looked tired enough not to fight you over it, his shadows trailing sluggishly behind him as you guided him toward the bathing room adjoining his bedroom.
Steam slowly filled the room while you searched beneath the sink for salves and clean cloths. Behind you, leather hit the floor piece by piece before silence settled softly between you.
Your throat bobbed.
This should not have felt different, but somehow it did. Maybe it was the quiet of the room, or the warmth curling through the steam-filled air, or simply the intimacy of standing here alone with him while rain tapped softly against the windows beyond. Whatever the reason, when you finally turned around again, your breath caught slightly.
Azriel sat on the edge of the bathtub now, broad wings partially unfurled behind him to keep the injured one from brushing the walls. Bruises darkened his ribs beneath old scars while several shallow cuts crossed his shoulders and chest, but your attention fixed immediately on the wing.
Several thin tears split through the membrane near the base.
Not severe, but still painful.
“Oh, Azriel.”
His eyes lifted toward you immediately at the softness in your voice.
“It looks worse than it is.”
“That sentence should honestly be banned from your vocabulary.”
A faint twitch touched the corner of his mouth before vanishing again.
You stepped closer carrying the bowl of warm water carefully between your hands before crouching beside the wing.
“Let me see.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Azriel murmured quietly.
Your eyes lifted to his through the mirror above the basin. “I know.”
For one suspended moment neither of you looked away.
Then you forced yourself to focus back on the injury.
Most of the blood had dried by now, dark against the membrane, though the torn areas still looked raw enough to make something unpleasant twist inside you.
Azriel remained completely silent while you inspected the damage, though you were deeply aware of the weight of his gaze lingering on you.
After nearly a minute, he said quietly, “You should see the other male.”
The laugh escaped you before you could stop it, and something in Azriel’s expression softened immediately in response. A small smile tugged briefly at the corner of his mouth, tired but real enough that your breath caught slightly all over again.
“I bet he looks worse,” you said.
Azriel’s quiet hum vibrated low in his chest while his gaze lingered on you for half a heartbeat too long before finally drifting away.
You dipped the cloth into warm water before carefully pressing it against the wing.
The second your fingers brushed the membrane, Azriel went unnaturally still beneath your hands.
Your brows pinched immediately.
“Did that hurt?”
“No.”
The answer came far too quickly.
Suspicion flickered through you, but you focused on the wing instead, carefully cleaning blood from the dark membrane while candlelight flickered gold against it.
Then you noticed his hand.
Azriel’s knuckles had gone nearly white around the edge of the tub, the muscles in his forearm tightening visibly beneath scarred skin before a sharp breath slipped through his nose.
Your hands stilled instantly.
“Okay,” you murmured carefully, “that definitely hurt.”
“It didn’t.”
The answer came a little too fast.
You glanced up at him just in time to catch the tightness lingering in his jaw before he turned his attention firmly toward the opposite wall.
“You sound deeply offended by the experience,” you observed.
Another controlled breath slipped through his nose, though this time the edge of the tub creaked faintly beneath his grip.
You softened your touch instinctively anyway while cleaning another thin line of blood lower along the wing.
Azriel’s fingers tightened harder around the edge of the tub.
Your attention lifted slowly toward him.
“…Azriel.”
“Mhm.”
“You look deeply distressed right now.”
“I’m injured.”
“That is clearly not the problem.”
Something dangerously close to a groan almost escaped him then before he swallowed it back down behind another measured breath.
Azriel closed his eyes briefly before muttering a quiet, strained, “Fuck.”
Your brows lifted immediately.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That definitely sounded like something.”
“It’s fine.”
“You keep saying that while looking like you’re trying to survive an interrogation.”
Azriel tipped his head back slowly against the wall behind him and exhaled through his nose, long and controlled like he was counting through something silently inside his own head.
Then your fingers drifted slightly lower near the base of the wing.
Azriel’s entire body locked.
The rough sound that escaped him this time was unmistakably not pain, low enough that heat rushed instantly into your face while his grip tightened hard around the edge of the tub beneath your hands.
Your mouth fell open slightly.
Azriel closed his eyes harder. “For fuck’s sake.”
“Azriel.”
“Don’t.”
Your eyes narrowed slightly as you stared up at him. “You are reacting very strangely to this.”
“I’m aware.”
Another careful breath slipped through his nose.
Your gaze drifted slowly back toward the wing before lifting toward him again.
“That definitely did something.”
“It’s a wing.”
“Yes,” you replied slowly, still staring openly at him now, “but I don’t think wings are supposed to do that.”
Azriel groaned softly beneath his breath.
The sound sent unexpected warmth rushing instantly into your face.
You could only stare at him in fascinated disbelief while he sat there visibly fighting for every scrap of composure he still had left.
Interesting.
Very interesting.
Carefully now, curiosity overriding common sense entirely, you brushed your fingertips lightly across the base of the wing again.
Azriel’s wing jerked violently.
His grip tightened hard enough around the edge of the tub that the wood groaned beneath his hands while another rough sound escaped him, lower this time, nearly swallowed back immediately afterward.
Your eyes widened slowly.
“Oh my gods.”
Azriel tipped his head back briefly before dragging another careful breath through his nose. “You are enjoying this far too much.”
“I have absolutely no idea what’s happening.”
“That makes one of us.”
The answer came rough enough that heat rose instantly into your face.
You bit the inside of your cheek to stop yourself from laughing, but the moment your gaze lifted toward him again, the sound died somewhere in your throat.
Azriel was already looking at you.
Really looking at you now, with all the careful restraint stripped painfully thin around the edges.
Your breath caught slightly.
Then the bathroom door opened.
Cassian walked in halfway through saying, “Rhys wants to know if you’re done brooding in—”
Then he stopped.
His gaze moved slowly across the room, taking in Azriel sitting rigidly on the edge of the bathtub, the white-knuckled grip he still had on the edge of it, the wing stretched carefully across your lap, and finally your hand resting far too close to the base of the membrane.
Silence settled heavily through the bathroom.
Cassian’s expression did not change immediately.
First came confusion.
Then suspicion.
Then horrifying, dawning understanding.
His eyes snapped back toward Azriel, whose expression now carried the exhausted resignation of a male who already knew exactly what was coming next.
“…Why the fuck,” Cassian asked carefully, “is she cleaning your wing like that?”
“Cassian,” Azriel said immediately, still without opening his eyes, “leave.”
That only made Cassian more suspicious.
Then the wing beneath your fingers twitched again.
Cassian froze.
The corner of Cassian’s mouth twitched.
Then twitched again.
“Oh,” he whispered.
Azriel groaned softly beneath his breath. “Don’t.”
Cassian lasted exactly one more heartbeat before doubling over laughing.
“Oh, no.”
You looked between them in confusion. “What?”
Cassian caught himself against the doorway as another wave of laughter nearly folded him in half.
“Brother,” he choked out, “you are fighting for your fucking life right now.”
“Shut up, Cassian.”
“No, I need confirmation,” Cassian said immediately, pointing toward the wing with horrifying seriousness despite the grin still breaking across his face. “Has she been touching the base of it this entire time?”
Azriel said absolutely nothing.
Which answered the question perfectly.
Cassian made a strangled noise before dragging a hand slowly down his face.
“Oh, you poor fucking bastard.”
Your brows pinched harder. “Will someone explain what’s happening?”
Cassian pointed toward Azriel with the dramatic horror of a male witnessing divine punishment firsthand. “You’ve been stroking the base of his wing for the last twenty minutes while he sits there trying not to completely lose his damn mind.”
Your jaw dropped open.
Heat flooded your face so fast it almost hurt.
Slowly, carefully, you turned back toward Azriel.
He looked like he wanted the floor to open beneath him.
“What?”
“The base of the wing?” Cassian repeated incredulously, another disbelieving laugh escaping him. “You might as well have climbed directly into his lap.”
“I was helping!”
“I know,” Cassian managed, visibly struggling to breathe normally again. “That’s what makes it so funny.”
Heat still burning across your face, you turned immediately toward Azriel. “You let me keep doing it.”
Azriel’s hazel eyes finally shifted toward yours, dark with humiliation and restraint stretched painfully thin around the edges.
“You seemed determined to continue,” he muttered.
Cassian folded against the doorway again with a strangled noise somewhere between laughter and actual pain. “She’s been innocently torturing you for twenty minutes and you just sat here suffering in silence?”
Azriel’s glare could have killed lesser males.
“Get out.”
“I knew I heard the growl of a male dying downstairs.”
Your eyes widened immediately as your gaze snapped back toward Azriel. “I thought I was hurting you.”
Azriel said nothing.
Which, honestly, felt like confirmation all on its own.
He only tipped his head back toward the ceiling again with the exhausted resignation of a male actively reconsidering every life choice that had led him here.
Cassian looked delighted.
“You really sounded feral, brother.”
You covered your burning face with both hands. “Oh my gods.”
“To be fair,” Cassian continued, still entirely too pleased with himself, “you were touching the worst possible place.”
“Cassian,” Azriel said darkly.
“What?” Cassian asked with exaggerated innocence. “I’m trying to educate her since you clearly weren’t going to.”
“You are absolutely not helping,” you muttered behind your hands.
Azriel shifted slightly like he meant to stand, but the moment the wing moved beneath your fingertips, another helpless groan escaped him before he could swallow it back down.
Silence crashed through the room.
Cassian made a strangled noise.
“Oh, Cauldron,” he whispered, staring openly at his brother now. “I cannot believe this.”
You jerked your hand back instantly. “Sorry.”
Azriel tipped his head back with the exhausted expression of a male rapidly losing the will to live.
“Please,” he muttered, dragging one hand slowly down his face. “Please stop talking.”
Cassian, unfortunately, looked physically incapable of stopping.
“You are so done,” he managed between uneven breaths, pointing toward Azriel while another wave of laughter nearly folded him in half again. “Completely done for.”
Azriel finally got to his feet with what remained of his dignity intact, though his shadows now lashed violently through the steam-filled room like they were debating whether murder was a reasonable solution.
You stepped back quickly, mortification still burning across your face. “I really didn’t know.”
Azriel paused.
Then his gaze lifted toward yours.
And just like that, some of the embarrassment softened around the edges, giving way to something quieter beneath all the restraint he had been clinging to with both hands since the moment you touched his wing.
“I know,” he said softly.
The words settled warm somewhere beneath your ribs before either of you could say anything else.
Then Cassian ruined it.
“Oh, no, don’t start looking at her like that now. I’m already traumatized enough.”
Azriel shut his eyes immediately.
You made a horrified sound.
Cassian leaned harder against the doorway, looking genuinely delighted with himself now. “This is the best night of my life.”
Azriel looked at him with lethal calm.
“Run.”
Cassian’s grin widened instantly.
Then he ran.
Silence settled through the steam-filled room almost immediately afterward.
You were still staring at the doorway in horror when Azriel exhaled slowly through his nose behind you.
“He’s never letting this go,” you muttered.
“No,” Azriel said quietly.
When you finally looked back at him, his gaze was already on you.
Not embarrassed anymore.
Just soft.
Warm enough that your chest tightened painfully beneath it.
Then his shadows curled slowly toward your wrists again, gentle this time, and Azriel glanced once toward the wing still stretched between you before dragging a tired hand down his face.
“I would appreciate,” he said carefully, “if we never spoke about this again.”
The laugh escaped you before you could stop it.
Azriel’s mouth twitched slightly in response.
And somehow, impossibly, that felt far more dangerous than the growling had.
---
Main taglist : @sjejejjej @theyouthfullmoon @maplesdapperthoughts @jaziona92 @lilah-asteria @chillinini @itsraininghyunebuckets @xlosttdreamss @nyxmoretti @sunmoonsweets @spookypersondinosaur
The same male I thought avoided me like I was a sickness. The same male I thought barely tolerated my presence in the Townhouse. The same male who I thought only came for me because the bond forced him to.
He had watched me. Protected me. Memorised the small details of my life like they mattered.
It was overwhelming. Dizzying. Terrifying.
And the worst part was, I didn't know what to do with that information. I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know how to respond. I didn't know how to be someone worth that kind of love.
So I said nothing.
After I didn't respond to his confession, he left my room quietly, like he didn't want to pressure me. Like he was giving me space to breathe.
I spent the rest of the day in bed staring at the ceiling, Nova curled against my side, my mind replaying every word he had said over and over again until I felt like I might lose my mind.
Then Feyre sent word. Dinner. At the River House. With everyone.
I stared at the note for a long time.
I didn't want to go. I didn't want the looks, the pity, the careful voices, the hovering. I didn't want them watching me like I might break at any second. I didn't want to sit at that table and pretend everything was normal when nothing felt normal anymore.
I wanted to go back to sleep and stay asleep.
But I knew Feyre. And Nesta. And Elain.
If I didn't go, they would come to me. And somehow that felt worse.
So I got dressed slowly, wincing as fabric brushed against bandages and bruises. I chose a simple black dress, loose enough not to press too hard against the worst of the injuries.
White bandages still showed at my wrists and collarbone, stark against the dark fabric, but I didn't bother trying to hide them.
Let them look. Let them see what happened.
When I stepped into the sitting room, Azriel was already there, waiting to winnow us. He looked up when I entered, his hazel eyes scanning me quickly like he was checking for new injuries, new pain, new signs that I wasn't okay.
He didn't comment on the dress. Or the bandages. Or the fact that I hadn't spoken to him since his confession.
He just nodded once. "Ready?" he asked quietly.
I nodded back.
Just as I him, Nova darted past me and practically threw herself at my legs, meowing loudly.
"No, Nova," I murmured, trying to gently push her back inside. "You can't come."
Nova just stared up at me, green eyes wide and stubborn, and meowed again like she was arguing with me.
I glanced at him and he gave a small shrug like it was obvious.
So I bent down and scooped Nova into my arms. She immediately started purring loudly like she had won some grand battle.
Azriel stepped closer then, a hand lightly brushing my arm as he winnowed us away.
The River House appeared around us in a blur of darkness and wind, and the moment we stepped into the foyer, Feyre was there.
She crossed the room quickly and wrapped her arms around me before I could even say hello. Nova meowed loudly between us, squished between our bodies.
"I was so worried," Feyre whispered, holding me tightly.
I stiffened slightly in her arms. "You were?" I asked before I could stop myself.
She pulled back, frowning slightly. "Of course I was."
Nesta stepped forward next and pulled me into a quick, tight hug. "You scared everyone," she said quietly.
Elain hugged me last, lingering longer than the others, her arms gentle around me like I might break. When she pulled back, her eyes were already glassy with unshed tears.
She led me to a chair beside her at the table.
Dinner started fine. A little awkward. A little quiet. A little too careful.
Everyone kept glancing at me like they were waiting for me to shatter. Cassian tried to tell a story about training, Rhys made some comment about Velaris, Feyre asked Elain about her garden, and I sat there pushing food around my plate while Nova curled in my lap.
It almost felt normal. Almost.
Then Nesta spoke, and it wasn't what she said so much as how normal she sounded when she said it.
"So you brought the cat?" she asked, nodding toward Nova curled in my lap like this was any other dinner, any other night.
"Nova," I replied automatically, running my fingers along her back. "Her name is Nova. And yes... she's a little attached."
Nesta gave a small huff of amusement and Cassian chuckled under his breath. Across the table, Elain smiled softly like the whole thing was harmless, like this was just light conversation.
"Attached?" Elain said gently. "She's just a pet."
It was such a small comment. So small. So normal.
But something about the way she said it—light, dismissive, like Nova didn't matter, like none of this mattered made something inside my chest twist sharply.
I stared down at Nova for a moment, at the way she was curled into me like I was her entire world, like she had followed me into darkness and back without hesitation, like she had been the only one waiting for me every single day in that empty Townhouse.
And before I could stop myself, before I could swallow the words down like I usually did, I spoke.
"At least she fucking cares."
The words fell into the room like glass shattering.
Silence followed immediately. Heavy, stunned silence. I looked up slowly and every single person at the table was staring at me.
Nesta's expression hardened first. "Don't yell at Elain," she said sharply. "You know she's more sensitive."
Something hot and ugly flared in my chest.
"Oh my gods," I said, letting out a short, disbelieving laugh as I dropped my fork onto the plate with a sharp clatter. "You and Elain weren't the only ones who went into that forsaken Cauldron, you know."
"That's not what this is about," Nesta snapped immediately.
"No, Nesta," I said, shaking my head, my voice rising despite myself. "It never is about me, is it? It never has been."
"That's not fair," Feyre said quietly.
"No?" I looked around the table at all of them. "Since we were children, Nesta, you were cruel and mean and I just... I took it. I always took it because that was easier than fighting with you."
Nesta's eyes flashed. "You're not seriously bringing up our childhood right now."
"I'm bringing up my entire life right now," I shot back. "Because I am so tired of pretending none of it mattered."
"Stop yelling," Elain said softly, shrinking slightly in her chair.
I turned toward her, anger spilling over now, years of it, not just tonight.
"You always do that," I said. "You just sit there and act sweet and quiet and innocent and never pick a side unless it benefits you."
Elain looked like I had slapped her. "That's not fair."
"Nothing about this is fair," I said, my voice shaking now but I couldn't stop. "None of this has ever been fair."
"Can everybody please just eat dinner?" Feyre said, her voice tight, like she was trying to hold the entire room together by herself.
I pushed my chair back suddenly and stood up, the legs scraping loudly against the floor.
"No," I said. "We can't just eat dinner. I can't sit here and pretend everything is fine when I was kidnapped and tortured because of you."
Silence fell over the table like a physical thing.
Feyre went pale. "What?"
"Because of you and your mate," I said, my voice shaking now but I couldn't stop. "They wanted revenge on Rhysand, so they took me. Not you. Not Nesta. Not Elain. Me. Because I was the easiest one to take."
"That's not your fault," Feyre said immediately.
"Isn't it?" I laughed bitterly. "I was taken because I'm the extra sister. The unimportant one. The one no one watches as closely. The one no one would notice was gone right away."
"That's not true," Cassian said.
"Isn't it?" I snapped, looking around the table. "How long did it take before you all realised I was gone? How long before someone noticed I wasn't at the Townhouse?"
No one answered. That hurt more than if they had yelled back.
"You all have titles," I continued, breathing hard now. "High Lady. Valkyrie. Seer. Lady Death. Cursebreaker. And I am what? Nothing. I went into the Cauldron too. I lost my human life too. I have nightmares too. But no one ever asks me if I'm okay."
Tears were running down my face now but I didn't stop.
"I was hanging from chains in a dark room for days and I kept thinking, they're not coming," I said, my voice breaking. "They're not coming because I don't matter enough for anyone to come."
"That's not true," Feyre whispered, tears in her own eyes now.
"Then why does it always feel like it is?" I asked quietly.
No one had an answer.
I looked around the table at all of them, my sisters, their mates, this family that I was somehow part of but never quite felt like I belonged to.
"I was forgotten long before I was kidnapped," I said softly.
Then I turned and walked out of the room before anyone could stop me.
Nova jumped down from the chair and ran after me immediately, her small paws tapping quickly against the floor as she followed me out of the River House and into the night.
Azriel's POV -
Dinner had taken a turn for the worst.
That was an understatement. It had detonated, years of silence and hurt and misunderstandings exploding in the middle of the dining room, and I had watched the entire thing unfold knowing there was nothing I could do to stop it.
I heard the front door slam shut behind her, the sound echoing through the house.
The room went completely silent after that, everyone staring at the empty doorway she had just disappeared through.
It was Rhys who moved first, straightening slightly, already opening his mouth, probably to say something diplomatic, something High Lord-like, something about giving her space or how they should handle this carefully.
I looked at him. Really looked at him. Whatever he saw on my face made him stop immediately.
"I am speaking to you as your brother right now," I said quietly, but there was nothing soft in my voice. "Do not even think about saying anything. Not tonight."
Rhys held my stare for a long moment, then slowly closed his mouth. He understood. This wasn't a High Lord situation. This wasn't a court problem.
This was mine.
And then I turned and walked out of the River House after her.
There was no way I was letting her walk home alone tonight. Not after everything she had just said. Not after the way her hands had been shaking. Not after the look on her face when she said she had been forgotten.
I found her halfway across the bridge leading out of the district, walking quickly, arms wrapped around herself, Nova trotting close behind her like a small black shadow.
I didn't call out to her. I didn't want to startle her. I just followed at a distance, silent, my shadows keeping me hidden in the dim light.
She knew I was there.
I could tell by the way her shoulders tensed slightly, by the way she slowed just a fraction like she was listening for footsteps behind her.
Eventually, she stopped walking.
She didn't turn around right away. She just stood there in the middle of the quiet street, Nova sitting beside her feet, looking back and forth between us like she knew this was important.
Finally, she turned. "I know you're there," she said quietly.
I stepped out of the shadows then, letting her see me fully.
For a moment, we just looked at each other in the soft glow of the streetlights. Her eyes were still a little red from crying, her posture tired, like the argument had drained the last of her strength.
"I wasn't going to let you walk home alone," I said.
"I figured," she replied softly.
Silence fell between us again, but it wasn't as heavy as before. Just quiet. Just tired. She looked down at the ground for a moment, then back up at me.
"I don't know how to be someone's first choice," she said suddenly.
The words were so quiet I almost didn't hear them.
I didn't answer right away. I just walked closer to her, slowly, like approaching a frightened animal that might run if I moved too fast.
When I was close enough, I held out my hand toward her, palm up, giving her the choice.
She looked at my hand for a long moment. Then, slowly, she placed her hand in mine.
Her fingers were cold. I closed my hand gently around hers, careful of the bandages around her wrist, and I felt something in my chest settle slightly at the contact.
"You don't have to know how," I said quietly. "You just have to let someone choose you."
She looked up at me then, her eyes searching my face like she was trying to find a lie there.
"I have always chosen you," I continued softly. "Even when you didn't know it. Even when I stayed away. Even when I thought you deserved better than me. It has always been you."
Her grip on my hand tightened slightly.
After a moment, I reached carefully for the bond between us, that invisible thread that had nearly driven me insane when she was gone.
I tugged on it very gently, just a small pull, more curiosity than anything.
She gasped slightly and took a small step forward without meaning to, her body responding before her mind did.
I caught her immediately with my other hand on her arm to steady her.
Her eyes widened slightly. "You did that."
I nodded once. "I can feel you through it. I would never use it to control you. But... I can feel if you're hurt. If you're scared."
She was quiet for a moment, then she did something I didn't expect.
She reached for the bond too.
I felt it immediately, a small, hesitant tug from her side, like she was testing it, like she was making sure it was real. The pull landed somewhere deep in my chest, warm and strange and overwhelming all at once.
I took an involuntary step closer to her this time. She looked up at me, surprised.
We both went very still for a moment.
Then, slowly, she smiled. It was small. Tired. A little sad. But it was real.
And I realised in that moment I would spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of that smile.
A/N - Dinner did not go according to plan. It was a long-overdue explosion of feelings, and honestly? It needed to happen. Even if it hurt :(
On the brighter side, Azriel actually goes after her this time (growth) and we finally get a glimpse of her opening up about her fears instead of just burying them. Progress!!
And that ending... a tiny bit of hope, just a little but we'll take it x
Thank you so much for reading <33
Invisible tag list - @sophieliz @azrielblue @whump-loverz @galacticoceans @lilah-asteria @niiickelodeon @justtryingtosurvive02 @rosie-posie08 @mis-lil-red @dnfhascorruptedme @justreadingfanficseveryday @spookypersondinosaur @jugodeshadowsinger @nyxmoretti @karolamurdock @do-nut25 @90s-belladonna @river-of-woe @prettylittlewrites @blueeclipsepaperstudent @chxosangxl @maddybrooke @napzalot @jada-lockwood @acourtofbatboydreams @pinksnowtiger @awkardnerd @throneofem @starinisstuff @alienmotel @chicken-fifi @itsraininghyunebuckets @dreaming-starlet @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @beloveddiary2 @pieceofmyritualexe @livvyluv44 @napzalot @themoonlitquill @pricklepearbloom @kittykaylat1987 @insomniac-astronomer @sinfully-yoursss @immortaliaslane @saamanthaag3 @tanyaherondale @psychiatry-and-poetry @moonlovefairy - tag list continued in comments
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
There was too much time to think when you were left alone in the dark.
Every time the door to the cold, stone room shut and the lock clicked into place, silence filled the space like something alive. Heavy. Suffocating. Endless. There were no windows, no sense of time, no way to know if it was day or night. Only darkness, stone, chains, and pain.
Dante and his "brothers," as he called them, had not lied about being my worst nightmares.
They were cruel in ways that felt practised. Comfortable. Like they had done this many times before and knew exactly how far to push before someone broke.
They liked the water the most.
Buckets of freezing water dumped over my head again and again until I was gasping and shaking and reliving the Cauldron every single time. Cold water filling my lungs, hands dragging me under, the feeling of falling into darkness and never reaching the bottom.
And they always followed the water with something worse.
The whip. The knife. The slow, deliberate cuts that burned twice as badly when my skin was already frozen and soaked.
I had stopped screaming a long time ago. Now the tears just fell silently, slipping down my face without me even noticing anymore. Crying had become as natural as breathing.
I didn't know how many days I had been there. I didn't know if anyone was looking for me. I didn't know if anyone cared.
I hung from the chains again, my wrists raw and burning, my feet barely touching the ground, my thin white shift torn and stained and clinging to my skin.
Every part of my body hurt. Even breathing hurt.
The door opened again. I didn't even lift my head at first.
"Still alive?" Dante's voice echoed through the room, amused and cruel.
I closed my eyes. "Barely," I whispered.
He laughed at that, the sound echoing off the stone walls. Boots approached slowly until he stood in front of me. I forced myself to look up at him, even though my vision blurred slightly.
"You know," he said casually, spinning a knife between his fingers, "your mate is taking a very long time to find you."
I didn't answer.
He grabbed my chin suddenly, forcing my head up. "I expected more from him. I thought he'd tear the world apart by now."
"It's true," I whispered. "He never wanted me. He avoided me before you even took me."
Dante tilted his head slightly, studying my face like I was something interesting. "You really believe that, don't you?"
I didn't answer because if I spoke, I might cry again. And I was so tired of crying.
Dante stepped back slightly and nodded to one of the others. A moment later, cold water hit me again, stealing the air from my lungs as I gasped and shook violently.
The Cauldron. Cold. Dark. Falling. Hands dragging me under.
I squeezed my eyes shut, breathing hard, trying to remind myself I was not in the Cauldron, I was not drowning, I was not—
Pain exploded across my back as the whip struck.
I cried out despite myself, my body jerking against the chains.
"Maybe this will make him come faster," Dante said casually.
Another strike. And another. And another.
My vision blurred completely now, tears mixing with water and blood and I could barely see anything in front of me.
Then, suddenly something pulled in my chest. Not pain. Not exactly.
A tug. A sharp, sudden pull deep inside my chest, like a thread had just been yanked tight. I gasped slightly, my head lifting a little.
Dante noticed immediately. "What was that?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.
I didn't know.
But the bond—I didn't have a word for it before, but now I knew suddenly felt alive. Awake. Close. Very close.
And then the door exploded inward. Not opened. Not kicked. Exploded.
Wood shattered across the floor, the entire door ripped off its hinges and slammed into the wall so hard the stone cracked.
Everyone in the room turned at once.
Azriel stood in the doorway. I had never seen him look like that before.
His wings were spread wide, his shadows swirling around him like living darkness, his hazel eyes cold and empty and furious in a way that made the entire room feel smaller.
He looked like death. No—worse than death.
He didn't say a word. He just moved.
The first male barely had time to draw his weapon before Azriel was in front of him. Truth-Teller flashed once and the male dropped before he even hit the ground.
Azriel didn't pause, didn't breathe, didn't hesitate. He moved to the next one immediately, shadows pinning the male to the wall before the blade slid across his throat.
Everything happened so fast I could barely follow it.
Screaming. Steel. Shadows. Blood hitting stone.
Dante tried to run. He made it three steps before Azriel caught him, slamming him into the wall so hard the stone cracked again.
"You took what is mine," Azriel said quietly.
I had never heard his voice sound like that before. It was calm. Cold. Empty.
Terrifying.
Dante tried to say something, beg maybe but Azriel didn't let him finish. Truth-Teller slid into his chest slowly, deliberately, and Azriel leaned in slightly.
"You should have killed me instead," he said softly.
Then he pulled the blade out and Dante collapsed to the floor.
The room went silent except for my uneven breathing and the sound of water dripping onto stone.
Azriel stood there for a moment, looking around at the bodies, making sure they were all dead.
Then he turned to me. And the moment he looked at me, his entire expression changed.
The rage was still there, but now there was something else too, horror, guilt, fear, and something that looked a lot like pain.
He crossed the room in three quick steps and reached up immediately, breaking the chains at my wrists like they were nothing. I collapsed forward but he caught me before I could fall, his arms wrapping around me carefully, like I might break if he held me too tightly.
"I've got you," he whispered, his voice completely different now. Softer. Shaking slightly. "I've got you. You're safe."
Safe. The word felt strange.
I rested weakly against his chest, too tired to hold myself up anymore, too tired to think, too tired to do anything but breathe.
"You came," I whispered.
"Of course I came," he said immediately, holding me tighter.
I shook my head weakly. "You came because you had to," I murmured.
He went completely still. I didn't look at his face. I didn't want to see pity there. I didn't want to see obligation. I just felt so tired.
"So you don't have to feel guilty anymore," I whispered softly.
And then everything went dark.
Azriel's POV -
It felt like I could breathe again for the first time in over a week as I watched her sleep.
The room was quiet, lit only by soft evening light filtering through the curtains, and she lay in the large bed looking smaller than I had ever seen her.
Bandages wrapped around her wrists, her shoulders, her ribs. Faint bruising still shadowed her face and collarbone, and every time I looked at those marks something dark and violent stirred in my chest again.
My mate.
The word still felt unreal, even though I had known the truth since the moment she stepped out of the Cauldron.
Even though the bond had been a living thing in my chest ever since. Even though the last week without her had nearly driven me insane.
Madja had tended to her injuries and eventually forced me out of the room so she could work.
Feyre had cried. Nesta had been silent in that terrifying way she had when she was furious. Elain had simply held her hand and whispered to her even while she was unconscious.
They had all hovered like ghosts, like guilty ghosts.
Then, eventually, Rhys had ushered them all out and told me to stay.
So now it was just me and her.
I sat in the chair beside the bed, elbows on my knees, hands clasped loosely, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest like it was the only thing keeping the world in motion.
"I'm sorry," I whispered quietly, even though she was asleep. "I should have told you. I should have protected you better. I should have followed you that day."
The bond in my chest was quiet now. Not gone, not empty just quiet. Like she was resting and the bond was resting with her.
After a long while, she stirred slightly.
Her breathing changed first, then her fingers moved slightly against the blanket. Slowly, her eyes opened, unfocused at first as she stared up at the ceiling like she didn't remember where she was.
Then her eyes shifted. They landed on me.
For a moment, we just looked at each other. Then she looked away. That hurt more than I expected it to.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but a small black blur launched onto the bed before I could speak.
Nova.
The cat meowed loudly, almost angrily, as she climbed onto her chest and started pawing at her carefully like she was scolding her for disappearing.
She looked down at Nova and for the first time since she woke, she smiled, small and tired and sad, but real.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice hoarse as she carefully lifted a hand to pet the cat. "I'm so sorry."
Nova meowed again and curled up against her immediately like she was making sure she wouldn't disappear again.
I stayed quiet, letting her have that moment. Letting Nova curl against her. Letting her stroke the black fur slowly like it grounded her back in the world.
My shadows moved slowly around me, calmer than they had been in days.
Finally, after what felt like forever, I spoke. "I came because it was you," I said quietly.
The words had been sitting in my chest since the moment I carried her out of that room.
Her hand stopped moving on Nova's fur. She looked up at me slowly.
"I know it was because of the bond," she said softly. "I may be new to all of this, but I know enough to know mating bonds make Fae males... intense. Protective. A little crazy."
"That's not why," I said immediately.
"Azriel," she said gently, like she was trying to make this easier for me, "it's okay. You don't have to pretend. We can figure it out. Maybe there's a way to—"
"No," I said, cutting her off more sharply than I intended. "You don't understand."
She went quiet then, watching me carefully. My heart was pounding now, harder than it had in any battle.
"I am in love with you," I said.
The words fell into the room and seemed to stay there, hanging between us.
Her eyes widened slightly but she didn't speak.
"I have been in love with you for a long time," I continued, my voice quieter now. "Long before you knew about the bond. Long before I told anyone. Long before I even admitted it to myself."
She was staring at me now like she couldn't quite believe what she was hearing.
"I know everything about you," I continued slowly. "I know you prefer coffee to tea, but only if there's too much milk in it. I know you like sweet things more than savory but you always pretend you don't so Nesta won't tease you. I know you love puzzles and reading and sitting in the window when it rains. I know you hum when you cook even though you don't realise you're doing it."
She didn't move. Didn't speak. She just listened.
"I know you always feed Nova before you feed yourself. I know you leave the lights on in the hallway at night because you don't like the house being completely dark. I know you reread your favourite books over and over again. I know you bite the inside of your cheek when you're nervous. I know you think no one notices when you leave a room because you think no one would miss you anyway."
Her eyes filled with tears but she still didn't interrupt me.
"I stayed away from you because I thought you deserved better," I said quietly. "Someone kind and warm and whole. Not... me."
I looked down at my scarred hands resting together between my knees.
"I am not a good male," I continued. "I was raised in darkness. I was trained to hurt people. I have done things you will never know about and I will never tell you about. I am not gentle. I am not soft. I am not the kind of male you deserved to be trapped with for eternity because of a bond you didn't choose."
I looked back up at her then.
"I didn't want you to feel like you had to love me," I said. "I didn't want you to feel trapped. So I stayed away. I kept my distance. I tried to let you have a life that didn't revolve around me and my darkness."
My throat felt tight now.
"But I have always watched over you," I admitted quietly. "Always. Since the day we met. Since the day you were turned. I made sure you were safe. I made sure you were never alone when you went into the city. I made sure someone always knew where you were. I listened when you talked even when you thought no one was paying attention."
She was crying now, silent tears sliding down her temples into her hair.
"I didn't come for you because of the bond," I said softly. "I came for you because it was you. And I would have burned this entire world down to find you."
The room went completely silent after that.
She didn't speak. She didn't move. She just looked at me, her expression unreadable, her eyes full of something I couldn't understand.
The silence stretched.
I reached carefully for the bond then, just slightly, just enough to feel her through it. I expected fear. Confusion. Anger. Something.
But when I touched the bond, all I felt from her side was—hollow. Not empty. Not gone.
Just... hollow.
A/N - The rescue!! She really said "he only came because he had to" and then immediately passed out before letting him defend himself... to be fair, she's been THROUGH it, we'll allow it!!
Meanwhile Azriel is like "actually I've been in love with you for ages" and proceeds to emotionally unload EVERYTHING—fears, feelings, all of it, no holding back x
And she hears him. It's clicking. It's landing. But when he reaches through the bond... nothing clear comes back. Just that hollow, unreadable feeling. Make of that what you will... ;)
Thank you so much for reading <33
Invisible tag list - @sophieliz @azrielblue @whump-loverz @galacticoceans @lilah-asteria @niiickelodeon @justtryingtosurvive02 @rosie-posie08 @mis-lil-red @dnfhascorruptedme @justreadingfanficseveryday @spookypersondinosaur @jugodeshadowsinger @nyxmoretti @karolamurdock @do-nut25 @90s-belladonna @river-of-woe @prettylittlewrites @blueeclipsepaperstudent @chxosangxl @maddybrooke @napzalot @jada-lockwood @acourtofbatboydreams @pinksnowtiger @awkardnerd @throneofem @starinisstuff @alienmotel @chicken-fifi @itsraininghyunebuckets @dreaming-starlet @dream-alittlebiggerdarling @beloveddiary2 @pieceofmyritualexe @livvyluv44 @napzalot @themoonlitquill @pricklepearbloom @kittykaylat1987 @insomniac-astronomer @sinfully-yoursss @immortaliaslane @saamanthaag3 @tanyaherondale @psychiatry-and-poetry @moonlovefairy - tag list continued in comments
Summary: It would only ever be you, no matter how much time had passed.
Warnings: fluff, angst, reader described to have the same eyes as Rhys.
A C O T A R M A S T E R L I S T
There had been many times over the course of being chained within the depths of this cave in which you had thought yourself to have officially gone insane but the moment you felt as though the shadows in the corners of this prison began moving was when you had accepted that insanity had taken over you but the moment you began hearing them whispering to you was truly the loss of all hope.
You had long since lost count of time, with nothing but darkness surrounding you and no hope for any light to work its way into this godforsaken pit, days were passing by without your knowledge. It had been years at this point, how many, you didn’t know but long enough for the world outside to be a distant echo and for your presence to have faded into a pitiful whisper.
Years passed by with only the reminders of your old life to keep you company; you often dreamed of those times your brother carved out time in his day to braid your hair or when you would both jump out of the windows late at night to fly over Velaris together. You’d dream of your mother, how she’d let you sit and ‘help’ her make dresses or that time you were so outraged when you were learning how to fly and she pushed you straight from the balcony of the House of Wind so that you had no choice but to fly.
Your days were filled with flashes of them all; your mother, Rhysand, Mor and Cassian.
You wondered how much of life had moved on without you.
Was Rhysand High Lord yet?
If he was, how had your father died?
Had Rhysand found his mate?
Had he made her High Lady like you both always spoke about?
In those extra difficult times that your control slipped even further, those memories of the Shadowsinger would linger the harshest.
You did not like thinking of how much his life had moved on without you.
Rhysand and Feyre stood together in the kitchen of the townhouse, looking through the window into the garden where Elain was tending to the flower garden and Azriel was sprawled out nearby, sunning his wings.
“Do you think the Cauldron can make mistakes with mates?” Feyre asked him, a look of confused anguish on her face.
Rhysand looked towards his mate, surprise dancing in his eyes at her question. “Nobody truly knows what makes the cauldron put two people together. They’re not always perfectly compatible, my own parents were examples of that, they never truly loved each other. Others, like us, are lucky to find love with their mate.”
Feyre continued looking out into the garden. “Why couldn’t the cauldron have made Azriel, Elain’s mate, instead of Lucien. Lucien is good but they look good together,” Feyre pointed out to where the Shadowsinger was still sprawled on the grass.
A pulse of pain pulled through their bond causing Feyre to snap her eyes back to Rhys. She was surprised to see the pain in his eyes, it wasn’t just any pain. It was the sort of pain that lingered and dwelled, a grief that would forever remain no matter how much time passed but there was also a subtle protectiveness in his eyes that could almost be missed.
Feyre was confused.
Rhysand swallowed a lump in his throat before speaking. “Do not mistake Azriel’s kindness towards your sister as affection. He is spending time with her because I ordered him too, to try and understand her powers. You’re reading into something that isn’t there.” His voice was stern but not unkind.
Feyre’s brows furrowed at his words. “It would be an honour for Azriel to find his mate, with anyone.”
“Azriel does not want a mate, Feyre.” The sheer confidence in Rhysand’s words only confused her even more.
“But why would he not want a mate? I thought everyone dreams of having one.” She questioned, looking out at Azriel’s figure in the garden.
She thought Azriel of all people would want a mate.
“Azriel has already had his great love,” Rhysand said. “No mating bond could ever live up to that for him. There are loves that even the cauldron cannot compete with.”
“What?” Feyre asked, shock taking over her face. “Who?”
That pain appeared in Rhys’ eyes again, a quick flash but it was there. “I meant it when I said I have no secrets to keep from you but not all stories are solely mine to tell. I am not going to tell you Azriel’s secrets.”
Feyre nodded silently. She understood, it didn’t diminish her curiosity but she would not pry for answers that weren’t hers to have.
Azriel’s footsteps were silent as always, shadows licking at his heals and fingertips as he walked towards Rhys’ office.
Not bothering to knock, his gloved hand unlatched the handle as he stepped inside. “You called, brother?”
Rhys was sat back in his chair, unsurprisingly dressed in his formals but the conflicted look on his face ruffled his demeanour. “I’d like to preface by saying you haven’t done anything wrong, my mate simply is too nosey for her own good and sees things she hopes are there rather than reality at times.”
Azriel’s face remained at an impasse other than the slight narrowing of his golden, hazel eyes.
Rhysand sighed. “Feyre is under the impression that you and Elain may make for a better match than her and Lucien.”
The control Azriel had on himself immediately slipped as he stepped back, eyes widening in shock, fists clenching by his sides as his shadows fluttered around him. “No. Rhys, I would never-”
“I know” Rhys interrupted. “I am not accusing you of doing anything, Az. I just thought it best to let you know.”
Azriel shifted uncomfortably at his words. “You know there is no one else, there never has been and there will never be anyone else.” He insisted, wanting his brother to believe him.
Rhysand’s gaze softened. “I know. I have never doubted that even though it would be okay if eventually-”
“No!” Azriel’s cut him off, “There will never be another.”
“Okay,” Rhys conceded. “I just wanted to let you know, Azriel.”
Azriel nodded his head, not hesitating in taking his exit, leaving Rhys there in a suffocating silence of loss.
“You’re distracted,” Cassian dropped his stance, looking towards Feyre intently.
His High Lady sighed in frustration, leaning back against the ropes of the sparring ring.
“What’s on your mind?” He asked.
Feyre pursed her lips in contemplation before relenting. “Did you three actually used do things in the same room as each other?”
Cassian barked out a deep laugh at her question. “That’s what’s on your mind?”
Feyre shrugged sheepishly.
Cassian shook his head, a large smirk tugging at his lips. “Well, Rhys and I did. It would be a bit weird and incredibly uncomfortable for us all if Azriel did.”
Feyre tilted her head curiously, “Why?”
“Well, it wouldn’t be very nice for Rhys to see his best friend having his way with the girl he loves more than anything, would it?” He said, as though it was obvious. “Besides, Azriel has way too much respect for him to do that anyways.”
Feyre’s eyes widened in shock but there was also a sickening feeling of jealously bubbling in her stomach. “So, Azriel and Rhys loved the same girl?”
Cassian, way too focused now on stretching to acknowledge how his words had been interpreted. “We all love her but those two always have and always will love her most. She’s their number one girl.”
Number one girl.
Feyre did not like the sound of that at all. She hated it and she hated herself even more because of the jealously that gnawed at her. “They didn’t hate each other for that?” She questioned.
Cassian shook his head, mid lunge. “Azriel had no reason to hate Rhys. It was difficult for Rhys to accept in the beginning and Azriel understood that but Rhys saw how much love was there, it was impossible to miss so who was he to stand in the way of that?”
Feyre stood in thought for a moment. “So, Rhys loved her first?”
Cassian laughed. “Of course he did. It’s not really a competition though, is it?”
She didn’t answer him, she simply stood there, thoughts swirling.
Feyre hated herself, she hated that she could not stop thinking about this girl who must have been something really special for both Rhys and Azriel to both love.
She’s their number one girl.
No matter how hard she had tried to not think about it, she couldn’t help it.
“What’s on your mind, Feyre darling?” Rhys’ smooth voice slipped through the silence of their bedroom.
She looked up at him from her place at the edge of their bed. “It’s nothing,” she stated simply.
Rhys frowned at her dismissal, placing his watch on his bedside table before walking to stand in front of her. He pressed a palm to the side of her face. “Tell me what’s on your mind?”
She sighed, mostly in frustration at herself, partially in his insistence to talk about it. “Where you in love with Azriel’s mate?”
The utter bewilderment that appeared on Rhys’ face made her immediately regret her words and watch to shrink back in on herself. “What!?”
Feyre shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she tried to pull away but Rhys kept his hand on the side of her face, steadying her.
“Azriel doesn’t have a mate,” he told her, utter confusion lacing his words.
Feyre shrugged, “Were you in love with the same girl then?”
“I’m so confused, no?” Rhys said, having absolutely no idea where she could’ve gotten this from. “Where have you gotten this from?”
Feyre looked at him, frustration beginning to build within her. “I asked Cassian about how you used to do things in the same room, he said you and him did but not Azriel because it wouldn’t be nice for him to be pleasuring a girl that you loved! He said she was yours and Azriel’s number one girl.”
Rhys pulled his hand from her face and placed it over his mouth. The confusion in his eyes had faded into a an amusing sparkle as his shoulders began shaking with suppressed laughter.
“What!?” Feyre huffed. “What are you laughing at!?”
Rhysand released a full deep chuckle at her frustrations. “Cassian is an idiot and you are utterly beautiful when you’re jealous.”
“I am not jealous!” She argued.
Rhys simply raised an eyebrow at her, completely unconvinced. “You’ve completely misinterpreted Cassian’s words, Feyre darling. It is still not my story to tell but I can promise you that Azriel and I have never been in love with the same girl.”
It had been five centuries since the disappearance of you and your mother and Azriel had never been the same.
Long before he met you, Azriel had learned what it meant to live in loneliness with nothing but his shadows for company but loneliness in response to your absence was never quite something anyone could become familiar with.
It was an endless void of nothing. Normally the thread of silence would at least end somewhere; a place where you simply got used to the feeling of someone not being there; but not with you.
It had been five centuries since your last laugh and that entire time Azriel has spent sleeping in your room. The room that sat right next to his own where your beds were pushed against the shared wall so even in your own beds you would be sleeping as close as you could get to each other.
It remained exactly how you left it, the same books sat on the nightstands, the same jewellery littered across a dressing table and a beautiful dress of deep blue with glittering silver stars on the bodice hung from the door of the closet, preparing to be worn for a day that never came.
Each morning that Azriel woke and got ready for the day, his last words to the House of Wind always remained the same. Leave it exactly how she left it, please.
The House always listened.
Whilst Azriel no longer slept in his own room, it had changed. The walls that were once a basic white had been transformed into a purple so unique it could only reflect the colour of your eyes.
In those rare moments that Azriel was able to relax away from the world, he would lay in his bed and stare at the walls of his room and whilst they could never reflect the light in a sparkle the way your own eyes could, the paint would simply have to do.
The winter chill of the Illyrian Steppes bit harshly into your cheeks as you ran through the thick snow into the forests surrounding the Windhaven camp.
The males were awful here, brutal even but even they knew to leave the daughter of the High Lord alone and so you were free to wander without the risk of your wings being torn from your back.
The trees created sanctuary for you here, as you weaved in between them you thought of your brother, Rhys and how quickly he would lose his mind once he found you gone.
A deep rooted feeling of being watched suddenly stirred in your stomach causing you to pause. It was the most subtle weight you had ever felt and yet you could not help but feel it as it settled into your bones.
You cast a quick glance up into the branches of the trees above you, where their leaves and twigs clashed and combined with one another, it took a moment for you to spot them but eventually you did.
Within a particular tall tree that was shaped in all groves and turns towards the top, deep within the shadows is where you saw him.
A male.
Sitting, observing.
“Hello,” you greeted softly.
No answer.
“What are you doing up there?” You asked.
The shadows fluttered and twitched at first before melting away into a black mist behind the males shoulders, revealing his face.
“Oh,” you whispered, taking in the hard expression of his face. He had hair of a dark midnight sky, eyebrows just a shade lighter that were furrowed deeply, shadowing his eyes that, against his dark features, seemed to glow golden when they narrowed towards you. He was all sharp lines and tensed muscles.
He shifted slightly in his place against the branches of the tree before stepping forward and allowing himself to gracefully drop down in front of you, merely inches away as he stared down into your eyes.
“How did you see me?” He asked, his voice was rough and deep for his age, possibly a couple years older than you, but his tone was steady.
“I didn’t,” you admitted. “I felt your eyes on me.”
It was then that you took notice of just how tightly his wings were pulled in at his back, a complete contrast to yours that were much more relaxed; pulled in just enough to protect them but let out enough that you didn’t have to consciously hold them in all the time, “you’ll get back pain holding them in like that,” you told him, pointing briefly at his wings.
They twitched in response, shadows fluttering wildly around the tips of his wings. It wasn’t a purposeful movement, that you could tell.
“I can’t control them,” He admitted to you.
Your brows furrowed, “what do you mean?”
“I cannot fly,” he said. “I never learned how to control them.”
You stepped back at his words. “You can’t fly!?” You spluttered in outrage. “Why can’t you fly? Are you injured?”
He shrugged in a way that showed this wasn’t a big deal to him, as though it was normal. “I wasn’t allowed outside,” he stated simply.
You frowned, the idea of not being allowed outside was unfathomable to you. “You weren’t allowed?”
“My father didn’t let me,” his words remained even, unaware of the turmoil that was stirring in your gut the more he spoke, a turmoil that you couldn’t quite explain.
“Why?” You asked.
“Because I am a bastard,” he said, his tone empty and detached, as though he had long since accepted that was all he was reduced to.
You did not like how he seemed to convinced that that’s all he was worth.
“You’re a Shadowsinger,” you pointed out, remembering old tales of myths and legends you had read before. “Those are very rare.”
The shadows clinging to him fluttered and preened at the tips of his wings and over his shoulders as though they understood your words.
Azriel nodded in response, feet scuffing into the dirt often forest uncomfortably at your words.
“That’s so cool!” You whispered in awe, the admiration you felt was completely authentic but you were also hoping it comforted him a bit.
He looked at you, the only hint of confusion on his face was the soft crease between his browns and the subtlest tilt of his head. “You’re not scared?” He asked.
“Of what?” You laughed, as though the idea was absurd.
“Of me,” he raised one of his gloved hands, tapping his index finger into his chest.
“Have you given me a reason to be scared?”
He paused at your question, internally baffled at this entire interaction. “I suppose not,” he muttered to himself, the idea of you not being scared simply just from his presence was beyond him.
“What’s your name?” You abruptly changed the subject.
He was silent for a moment, contemplating whether he should tell you or not. “Azriel.”
“Azriel,” you repeated softly, testing how it sounded. “That’s a beautiful name,” you told him.
His shadows twitched, his wings almost flinched at your complement, Azriel shifted uncomfortably.
“Do you want to be my friend, Azriel?”
“I’ve never had a friend before,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t think I’d be good at it.”
You pursed your lips in response, looking around the forest floor before speaking. “I’ve never really had a friend either, there’s my brother, Rhys, but he doesn’t count. Do you have any siblings?”
Azriel tensed at your question, his entire body stiffening, hands clenching in his gloves. “No, it’s just me.”
“Well,” you began, “I’d be honoured to be your first friend, if you’ll be mine?”
You were beyond confusing to Azriel, the first person besides his mother to not look at him with fear or disgust, to look at him and just see a person.
Azriel did not reply verbally but he didn’t need to, you didn’t mind and so he simply nodded in response earning a beaming smile from you.
“Spread your wings out wide,” you instructed softly.
“They’re heavy,” Azriel muttered, wings spreading in stuttering movements, face twisting slightly as he concentrated on holding them.
Your eyes ran along his wings now that they weren’t tucked in painfully right, taking in the large span of them, they fluttered under your gaze, completely against Azriel’s control.
“That’s because your back muscles aren’t used to holding their weight, we’ll need to strengthen them,” you explained, eyes snapping away from his wings, towards his own hazel eyes instead.
“How do we strengthen them?” He asked.
“Exercises, most are trained from babies to use their wings so it comes a lot more naturally but we can do it together.” You smiled at him encouragingly.
You knew this was hard for him, you knew he thought he wasn’t worth your help and you knew that this entire situation was uncomfortable for him but you wanted to help him and you liked spending time with him.
“I struggled with flying at first,” you admitted, hoping it would comfort him in some way.
His eyes stopped glancing to the trees around you, now focused. “Really?”
You nodded. “Yeah, Rhys was flying before he could walk but I was too scared to do it. I didn’t trust myself. I kept imagining my wings just not working one day and falling to my death.”
Azriel shifted subtly, shadows restless. “How did you do it?”
“I had no choice,” you said. “One day my mother and I were looking at the stars from the balcony of our home and she just pushed me off, I had no choice but to trust my wings or fall and I flew for the first time that day.”
Azriel’s eyes widened. “She pushed you off the balcony!?”
You smiled widely. “Yeah, I was so angry, I didn’t speak to her for a week but it worked. I won’t be pushing you off ledges until you can hold your wings properly though.”
You could detect the subtle relief that reflected in the golden hazel hue of Azriel’s eyes, as though he expected you to be able to push him off of any ledge and force him to command his wings that didn’t seem willing to answer him yet.
At some point, you will take great joy in pushing him off a cliff.
Not yet though.
Only when he was ready.
“Where does my starlight keep running off to?” Your mother’s gentle voice filtered through your ears as she brushed through your hair carefully.
You were silent for a moment, contemplating whether to reveal your secret. “I made a friend.”
You felt the comb pause briefly against your head before it continued. Your mother hummed absentmindedly. “Did you? Do I get to meet this friend?”
You pursed your lips in contemplation, an unexplainable feeling of protectiveness surging through your body. “He’s shy, he doesn’t like being around people,” you told her.
You missed the amused smile that appeared on your mother’s face, no doubt intrigued at the strange protectiveness that you had for your age. “He?” She asked, almost teasingly.
You huffed in response but a smile grew on your face that you couldn’t stop. “Yes,” you said strongly before your tone shifted to pride. “He’s my friend, I’m teaching him to fly.”
Your mother paused entirely, turning your body to face her own causing your eyes to meet her own that held the same violet hue she passed down to you and your brother. “Teaching him to fly? How old is this friend?”
Your shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe Rhys’ age. His father never let him outside so he can’t fly.”
Worry clouded your mother’s face at your words. “Is he a good boy?”
A bright smile overtook your face at her question. “He’s the best! He’s very quiet but he still speaks to me and he listens to all of my complaining and his shadows play with my hair!”
“Shadows?” Your mother’s eyebrows rose in surprise.
“He’s a Shadowsinger,” you whispered. “Those are very rare.”
“They are,” she repeated. “Don’t tell your father about him, starlight.”
“I would never,” you swore, your voice demonstrating the dramatic outrage of a child who couldn’t fathom sharing information like that to your father. “Mama?”
“Yes, starlight?” She asked, turning you back around so she could start braiding your hair.
“Don’t tell Rhys, okay?” You told her, your brother could get way too protective, it was embarrassing.
“I would never tell Rhys, starlight. Or Cassian.” She promised.
“Definitely not Cassian.” You agreed.
“I’m not ready!” Azriel protested, warily looking over the edge of the cliff you had pretty much dragged him too.
“You are ready!” You argued. “You’ve got great control of your wings and your muscles are as strong as can be!”
Azriel shook his head, shadows darting around him, showing his nerves. “What if I fall?”
“Then I’ll catch you!” You replied simply.
“I’m too heavy for you to catch me!” He protested.
“You are not, I’m strong!” You argued, outraged at his accusation. “I’ll hold your hands?” You proposed, already reaching out towards his own gloved hands.
Azriel looked down at your outstretched hands, hesitation clear on his face, he really wasn’t sure about this but he did really want to be able to fly.
He relented, placing his hands in yours, earning himself one of your bright smiles, stars twinkling happily in your eyes.
Your wings fluttered slowly, not enough to lift you off the ground, just enough to encourage Azriel to copy your actions.
You slowly increased the force at which your wings beat, air building with the crevice of each controlled flap of the membrane.
Azriel copied your movements, his own wings much larger in comparison to any you’ve seen on other children your age, your own were quite big for a female Illyrian so young.
Azriel felt the change in gravity, the way his feet were itching to leave the ground on their own accord, as though his body was fully attuned and aware to what was currently happening even if it was unfamiliar.
“You’re doing it,” you whispered proudly, your own feet lifting off the ground before Azriel’s but your hands stayed in his as you remained stationary in the air, feet just slightly off the ground as you waited patiently for his own body to rise into the wind.
“You’re so close, just a bit more.” You encouraged him.
The second the air swept beneath Azriel’s feet for the first time, it felt as though his entire body was about to fall backwards as he had nothing to stand on but your hands tightened on his own, keeping him straight as he unsteadily rose with you, trying to focus on keeping his wings moving.
“It’ll come naturally the more you do it,” you told him. “You won’t even have to think about it.”
Azriel wasn’t so sure about that but as he felt the wind beneath his wings as he became airborne for the first time, with your hands holding his, he chose to believe you anyway.
“You’re flying Azriel!” Sheer joy and pride filled your face as you looked at him, he thought you looked beautiful like this.
The wind causing your hair to flutter around your face, eyes sparkling at the freedom that flying gave you and your smile took up your whole face as it always did.
Distracted by the sight of you in your element, Azriel lost focus of his wings causing him to quickly drop a few feet but your hands tightened on his just as his heart dropped in his chest out of panic.
He concentrated on beating his wings again, fluttering slightly higher than previously.
But even as he concentrated on flying, his mind was also on something else.
You had caught him, just like you said you would.
Wake. Wake. Wake.
Their hissing little whispers nudged you from unconsciousness. The cold concrete of the cave dug uncomfortably into your back. You groaned, shifting as your eyes opened, adjusting to the thick, clouded darkness you had been forced to endure for five centuries.
Another day it remained the same.
A sharp, slithering coldness nudged against your cheek, and again against your fingertips. You looked down in confusion, taking in the grey-black strands of darkness fluttering around your hands.
You raised your hands slightly, it was hard to see clearly but they resembled beings you had not seen in a very long time. The dark strands fluttered around your fingertips as you stared intently at them and in a movement so sharp, one lone sentient being jumped to your shoulder.
Your head snapped to the side as you looked at it, moving around, nestling into your clothes that had long since been reduced to scraps of fabric.
The beating beneath your chest stuttered as you stared at them.
Shadows.
They were shadows.
Master. Master. Master.
She hears us. She hears us.
They fluttered around you in a way that seemed to portray excitement.
Was that them talking?
“Azriel?” You whispered, broken yet that sick part of you still held a bit of hope.
Many years you had locked out memories of the Shadowsinger yet it never worked too well, you could never forget him and you would never forget the sentient beings that obeyed him either.
No.
They almost sounded like hisses.
“Not Azriel then.” You muttered. It did not surprise you, not really.
You didn’t understand.
“Another Shadowsinger?” You asked, it earned that same excited fluttering dance as before. Yes.
But who? You wondered.
It seemed they knew your thoughts too.
You. You.
Your face contorted into confusion. You weren’t a Shadowsinger.
You allowed yourself to think of Azriel again. Not of him exactly or the feeling of his love that had faded long ago but of his story.
Azriel had not been born a Shadowsinger.
How had Azriel become a Shadowsinger?
He had been locked in a dark cell for eleven years and had no choice but to find companionship within the darkness itself.
Oh.
“You’re my shadows.” You did not question this time.
Yes. They hissed again.
“But the faebane chains?” You wondered aloud.
“Shadows are not magic, they’re simply part of me.” Azriel had told you that before.
You studied them again, more intently this time and whilst they resembled the shadows of Azriel’s so very much there was the slightest hint of a difference; they weren’t just a grey-black, they had the slightest underlying tint of purple.
They truly were yours.
Release chains. They muttered, not to you, to themselves, fluttering around frantically.
“I can’t,” you whispered in long accepted defeat. “They won’t come off, someone else needs to do it.”
Your newly acquired shadows ignored you, muttering to themselves.
Shadowsinger will do it. Spymaster will do it.
But your energy was draining again, conscious slipping into darkness, your shadows slipping through the cracks of the cave without you knowing.
Azriel had been born alone and he would die alone.
He had accepted that was all life was made for him, there were those years he had you, moments were he thought he’d have you forever but you were taken, brutally slaughtered along with your mother in the spring court.
He had never and will never forgive himself for not being there to protect you. Truthfully he did not know how Rhysand could go on with life after that, not that his High Lord and brother didn’t deserve to live, he did, but how had grief not taken his sanity Azriel would never know.
He would never know how Rhys could look in the mirror and not see the shadows of his mother and sister, not when some days Azriel could not look into his eyes and see the very reflection of the young woman he lost, his woman.
It would forever just be Azriel and his shadows.
Another night that Azriel slept in your room alone, beneath your sheets, on the pillows you always hid that ridiculous stuffed bat beneath.
When he awoke this time though, it was different.
His shadows, usually fluttering lazily were muttering and batting around recklessly, their unease settling in Azriel’s chest, having the spymaster looking around the room carefully.
The only thing that seemed wrong were his shadows themselves, it was as though they were fighting each other?
Intruder. Intruder. They hissed, flying into each other as though they were in a sort of disorientated state. Azriel had never seen anything like it before.
Deep down, Azriel understood that there was no intruder in the House of Wind but he did not understand what they could be referring to.
The bond between himself and his shadows was strange. They told him things yes, but a lot of their communication came down to feelings, he felt their unease, their frustration, as though they were participating in an internal battle.
But why?
He sat up in your bed and observed them closely. He too, could see that there was something off but couldn’t quite put his mind to it.
Intruder. But where?
The shadows hissed at each other, floating around the room in distress, it was when the golden rays of the morning sunrise shone through the balcony window that he saw it.
His eyes, always so sharp, caught that difference in his shadows. Not his shadows, he concluded. Eyes widening, he reached out to that invisible thread and called his shadows back to him with a snap.
There it was.
A small cluster that did not return to him, a cluster of shadows that looked just the slightest different to his own. That underlying purple tint was not his.
He tried to reach out, tried to find that tether to them.
Nothing.
They did not seem threatening though.
They fluttered and danced around before him, as though they were trying to communicate with him but could not.
Help. His own shadows muttered.
“Help?” He questioned.
They plead help. They hissed into his ears. Another Shadowmaster. Trapped.
Azriel shook his head, he was the only shadowmaster.
No. They hissed, more stern this time, as though telling him he was wrong.
Azriel removed himself from your bed, pulling on his Illyrian leathers as quickly as possible, not even strapping his weapons to himself. Instead he simply grabbed Truthteller alone into its sheath.
He approached the bedroom door, turning to see if those other shadows would follow, they were.
He let himself out of the room, shadows, his and not his following behind closely, he barged into Rhys’ study causing the High Lord to jump, not that he would ever admit.
“Azriel?” Rhys greeted, looking up from his papers in barely concealed surprise. “A knock would be nice.”
“We have a problem.” Azriel simply responded earning Rhys’ full attention.
“What is it?”
Azriel held out a gloved hand and while Azriel had no means to communicate with these shadows, they understood him and gathered into his palm, fluttering into a rounded shape.
Rhys simply looked at them in confusion. “What am I looking at? New party trick?”
Azriel shook his head, face contorting as he studied them. “They’re not mine, I can’t communicate with them.”
“What?” Rhys uttered to himself.
“There’s another Shadowsinger out there,” Azriel responded, mostly to himself. “They communicate with my shadows but I can’t understand them myself.”
“Another Shadowsinger?” His High Lord mumbled, shaking his head. “No, you’re the only Shadowsinger alive.”
“Not anymore,” Azriel argued, his and the guest shadows beginning to flutter wildly in their own disagreement. “Apparently they’re trapped.”
Chained. His shadows corrected. Caved.
“Chained,” he spoke aloud.
“Perhaps for good reason,” Rhys argued, whilst Azriel was his brother and he trusted him beyond measures, he was well aware just how powerful Shadowsingers were, if this other Shadowsinger was locked away then perhaps it was because it was deserved.
Azriel shook his head, a sort of confused anguish taking over his features as he observed the shadows sitting in his palm. “They don’t feel threatening, or evil. They’re scared, pleading for help, for freedom.”
“How do you know they’re not pretending? That this other Shadowsinger hasn’t sent these here to play a ruse just to get their freedom?” Rhys asked.
The guest shadows in his palm shrunk down in defeat whilst his own fluttered in agitation around his shoulders and the tips of his wings.
She doesn’t know they’re here. She can’t control it yet.
Azriel listened to their whispers with widened eyes before looking at Rhys. “She cannot control them, this ability must be newly manifested, they came here on their own. Besides, shadows don’t work like that, they can’t fake feelings or emotions.”
“She?” Rhys sat up straighter in his chair at the newfound information.
“I can’t explain it, Rhys,” Azriel muttered, deep in thought. “I have this feeling that I need to free her, I don’t know why, it just feels right to.”
Those lone little shadows of yours clung to Azriel in the following days, against your knowledge. Azriel spent that time preparing himself for rescuing you, not that he knew it would be you he was rescuing, trying to gain as much information as he could through his own shadows translating messages back and forth with yours.
It was strange for Azriel, not only that there were sentient echoes of darkness that for some reason he could not communicate with but also knowing that somewhere out there, trapped and alone, there was another like him, another who could communicate with the darkness and melt into the shadows, even if it was a new manifestation.
The cave you were imprisoned in, he learned, was located somewhere in The Middle, because of course it was.
What other place would be sick enough to have trapped a person so long that the shadows had sought them out?
Trapped for centuries. The shadows had told him.
Bound by faebane chains, tormented by memories of a time that had long since faded.
Azriel, in all he had been through and in all his grief and terror over the years, could not imagine being trapped within the same four walls for hundreds of years.
He had barely lasted eleven, Rhys had hardly lasted fifty and yet out there, a poor woman had lasted hundreds of years, alone.
A woman of his kind.
The cave, as Azriel stood before it, was hardly a cave. It was more a carved hole in the ground, hidden by overgrown moss and shrubbery that even he, a spymaster, would have overlooked had he passed by without your shadows leading him to it.
He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to squeeze his overgrown body into it.
Your shadows shot forward like whips, diving into the underground cave, no doubt snapping back to you, even though your lack of control, they were drawn to you, desired to be close to your being.
Azriel crouched down, inspecting the gap in the ground, his own shadows fluttering around in agitation, some even darting ahead into the cave. He peeled off his outer layers that he strapped his weapons to, sending them down into the cave before him.
Risky, no doubt, but he felt no threat towards whatever presence was inside this cave, only an innocently, trapped Shadowsinger.
One that meant no harm, only desiring freedom.
He heaved himself through the gap, the concrete lining the underground cave scratching against his arms and shoulders as he dragged himself through, gravity doing most of the work, allowing him to drop down onto solid stone and rock.
It smelled awful; blood, dirt, faebane and a hell of a lot like someone had long since lost the will to live.
He saw the chains, loads of them, hanging from the ceiling, from the walls, even some bound to the ground with bolts.
Even as someone bound by shadows and member of the Night Court, Azriel could not see clearly in the darkness of this pit but his shadows led the way, they led him to your shadows.
Your shadows that covered just about every part of you, hiding you as though attempting to protect your presence from anyone who could possibly mean harm, leaving you just the image of a darkened, fuzzy blur.
“I will not harm her,” Azriel promised. “I only want to free her, take her back to the Night Court, help her heal and gain control.”
He saw the way they hesitated, how they debated whether they had made the right decision in finding him or not.
She trusted you. They whispered, confessed. His own shadows translating. Long time ago.
Azriel did not know what they meant by that. Had he known her once upon a time?
It was when they finally relented and made the decision to fade away from covering your body that Azriel, despite all the gore and torment he had witnessed in his life, felt like he was going to be sick as his eyes fell upon the battered figure of a young, fae woman.
His fae woman.
No. He shook his head, as though it would shake the sick illusion from his mind.
Yet you remained in his sight.
He knew that figure, that hair, those lashes. It has all haunted his every sleep and movement for the last five hundred years. The colour beneath your eyelids that he had drenched his walls in, that he would look upon every morning and every night.
Even unhealthily slimmer than you had been five hundred years ago, there would not be a single moment or a single version of you in which Azriel would not recognise.
The first person who had shown him grace, who had shown him that kindness and love does in fact exist, the person who had given him the family that he still clings to today in hopes of grasping at every last remainder of you that he had believed was long lost.
Your name was a ghost on his lips as he surged forward, shadows following, your own fluttering at his shoulders now as he unsheathed truth-teller and sliced through the chains binding you to this sick prison.
The dagger you had given him.
The first gift he had ever received.
He collapsed to his knees beside your battered, unconscious body.
Your breaths shallow, wrists and ankles raw from centuries of imprisonment, body all but skin and bones.
He smoothed a marred thumb over your cheekbone, hands shaking as he took you in, your body surrendered to his touch as though finally, it had found something safe it could relax itself in.
And though you were unaware, still in the depths of your mind, your eyes had fluttered open, a deep purple hue that he had missed for hundreds of years.
Azriel choked on a sob as he gazed upon you again, his soul shattering open at the sight of the only person he had ever loved in his five hundred years walking the lands of Prythian.
He felt the moment part of his soul tore from his chest and landed straight into yours, a golden thread deep within him keeping it tethered to himself even though it now sat with you.
Because even though Azriel had never needed the confirmation of the Cauldron to know what you were to him, why had it taken him finding you after so long to finally snap into place?
Not a sharp pain. Not one single injury I could focus on and understand. It was everywhere, a deep, throbbing ache that settled into every inch of my body, like I had been beaten, dragged, dropped, and then beaten again for good measure.
My head hung forward and for a moment I couldn't open my eyes. Everything felt heavy. My arms, my legs, even my breathing felt like work.
Then cold water crashed over my head.
I gasped sharply as freezing water soaked through me, shocking my body awake, forcing my eyes open as I choked and coughed, trying to suck in air.
My vision blurred, then slowly cleared. Dark stone walls. A single dim light. Concrete floor.
I tried to move and immediately felt the pull on my arms.
My wrists were shackled above my head, chains bolted into the ceiling. My feet barely touched the ground just the tips of my toes scraping the concrete, forcing my shoulders to take most of my weight.
Every small movement sent pain shooting down my arms.
I was dressed only in my thin white shift, the fabric now completely soaked from the water and clinging uncomfortably to my skin. My hair hung in wet strands around my face, dripping onto the floor below me.
And then I saw him.
Dante stood a few feet in front of me, smiling like this was all some sort of game. His blue eyes looked different now—colder, sharper, crueller.
The charming stranger from Velaris was gone. In his place stood someone else entirely.
Four other males stood around the room, leaning against walls or watching me like I was something they had caught in a trap.
He reached out and patted my cheek lightly, mockingly, like I was a child who had done something amusing.
I flinched away from his touch.
"Who are you?" I breathed, my voice hoarse and weak.
"Your worst nightmare," Dante said dramatically, then immediately laughed at his own joke, looking back at the others like he expected applause.
One of the other males snorted.
Another stepped forward slightly, his face harder, older, eyes filled with open hatred.
"We are soldiers," he said, "that your bastard of a High Lord discarded and destroyed."
I frowned slightly, trying to focus through the pain.
"That... that has nothing to do with me," I said, pulling weakly at the chains around my wrists. The metal bit into my skin but didn't move.
"Doesn't matter," Dante said smoothly, beginning to circle me slowly. "We served the Hewn City for centuries. Did the jobs no one else wanted. Interrogations. Punishments. Keeping everyone in line."
He leaned closer to me. "We were very good at it."
Another one of the males sneered. "But then Rhysand decided he wanted to be a better ruler. Decided we were too cruel. Too brutal. Too unnecessary."
"So we were dismissed," another spat. "Stripped of rank. Stripped of power. Cast aside like we were nothing after centuries of service."
"You can blame your High Lord," Dante said, tilting his head slightly as he studied my face. "Everything that happens to you now is because of him."
My stomach dropped.
"You kidnapped me... because of Rhysand?" I whispered.
"Not just Rhysand," one of them said. "Rhysand and his High Lady. His precious court. His perfect little city."
Dante smiled slowly. "We can't beat Rhysand in war. No one is stupid enough to try that. But we can hurt him."
Cold fear slid down my spine.
"So," Dante continued, spreading his arms slightly like he was presenting something wonderful, "we take the sister of his mate. We make the High Lord and High Lady pay a very large ransom. Consider it reimbursement for our centuries of loyal service."
My heart pounded so hard I could hear it in my ears.
"Why me?" I whispered, my voice barely audible.
Dante stopped in front of me again and looked directly into my eyes. "Because," he said simply, "you were the easiest."
The words hit harder than any slap.
"Feyre is High Lady," he continued, counting on his fingers. "Always surrounded by Rhysand, by power. Untouchable."
"Nesta is a Valkyrie," another one added. "And mated to the Lord of Bloodshed. Also surrounded by warriors at all times."
"Elain has the fox," another said with a small smirk. "The seer power. And she's rarely alone."
Dante shrugged slightly. "But you? You walk around Velaris alone. No guards. No title. No power anyone talks about. No one watching you closely."
He leaned in slightly closer. "You were the weakest link. The easiest target."
I stared at him, my chest rising and falling too fast now. Weakest. Easiest. Target.
I swallowed hard. "They're not going to pay," I said quietly.
Dante blinked. "Oh, I think they will."
I shook my head slowly, the chains rattling softly above me. "No. You don't understand. You picked the wrong sister."
He frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," I said, my voice shaking now but the words coming anyway, "Feyre is the important one. Nesta is powerful. Elain can see the future. They matter. They're loved. They're needed."
I laughed weakly, the sound hollow in the empty room.
"I'm just the extra sister," I said. "The one no one really notices. The one who doesn't have a title or power or a mate or anything important."
I looked up at him, meeting his eyes.
"You kidnapped the wrong Archeron," I whispered. "No one is going to come for me."
For a moment, Dante just stared at me. Then he smiled slowly. "We'll see about that," he said.
One of the other males, the one leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, suddenly straightened slightly. His nose twitched like he smelled something strange, his head tilting slightly as if listening to something no one else could hear.
"Do you smell that?" he asked, looking around the room.
Another one frowned. "Smell what?"
He pushed himself off the wall slowly and took a few steps closer, sniffing the air again, more deliberately this time. His eyes moved over the room, then landed on me. His gaze sharpened.
"Wait," he muttered. "No way."
"What?" Dante asked, slightly annoyed.
The male walked closer until he was standing directly in front of me, far too close, and inhaled slowly again like he was confirming something.
He circled me once, like I was some kind of animal he was inspecting. Then he looked back at the others.
"She doesn't smell unmated."
The room went quiet for a second.
Dante blinked. "What?"
"She smells like him," the male said. "Like the Night Court spymaster."
My stomach dropped slightly. "I live in the same house as him," I said quickly. "That's probably why."
The male shook his head slowly. "No. Not just proximity." He tapped the side of his nose. "I was a tracker in the Hewn City. Interrogator too. They used me to find people who didn't want to be found. I can smell magic, lies, fear... bonds."
He leaned in slightly again, inhaling near my shoulder. "This isn't living-in-the-same-house scent. This is soul-bond scent."
A slow smile spread across his face.
"Oh, this is interesting."
Dante stepped closer now too, grabbing my chin roughly and turning my face slightly as if that would somehow help him smell whatever they were talking about.
I tried to pull away but the chains held me in place, metal biting into my wrists.
"This," the tracker said slowly, "is a mating bond."
I blinked at him. "What?"
The males all looked at each other. Then they started laughing. Not a small laugh. Not a chuckle. Full laughter like this was the funniest thing they had heard all day.
"You didn't know?" one of them said between laughs.
I frowned slightly, confused and suddenly uneasy. "Know what?"
Dante looked absolutely delighted now. "You're telling me," he said slowly, "that you are mated to the Shadowsinger... and you don't even know it?"
My heart started pounding. "That's not funny."
"Oh, it's very funny," one of them said.
"It means," another one added mockingly, "that the Cauldron decided you and the Shadowsinger belong to each other. Soulmates. Two halves of the same bond. Very romantic."
I stared at them, trying to process the words. "No," I said quietly. "No, that's not possible."
"Oh, it is," Dante said, tapping the side of his nose. "He can smell it. Especially strong ones."
Strong.
My mind immediately went to every time Azriel had avoided me. Every time he had left a room when I entered. Every time he spoke to me carefully, politely, distantly. Every time he looked at me like he wanted to say something but didn't.
He knew. He had known. And he never told me.
Of course he hadn't told me.
Why would he want me? The useless Archeron sister. The forgotten one. The one with no power, no title, no importance.
A broken sound escaped my throat before I could stop it, and I realised a second later that tears were sliding down my face.
I turned my head slightly, trying to hide it, but I couldn't wipe them away with my hands chained above me.
"Oh no," one of the males said in a mock-sympathetic voice. "She's crying."
"Did he reject you?" another asked with fake concern. "Is that why you didn't know? He didn't want you?"
I squeezed my eyes shut, more tears slipping down my face.
It made sense now. Why he avoided me. Why he kept his distance. Why he never got too close. Why he was always kind but never warm.
He didn't want me. He was stuck with me. The Cauldron really had ruined his life too.
"Well," Dante said slowly, pacing in front of me again, "this changes things."
I opened my eyes again, my vision blurry. "How?" I whispered.
He smiled, but this time there was nothing charming about it. It was cruel. Sharp. Dangerous.
"Because," he said, "the Shadowsinger killed one of our brothers."
The room seemed to grow colder.
"And now," another one added slowly, "we have his mate."
Dante leaned closer to me, lowering his voice slightly like he was sharing a secret. "I think," he said, "we should make Azriel suffer the same way we did."
My heart dropped into my stomach.
"You were just a ransom before," he continued softly. "Just a way to get money and revenge on Rhysand."
He tilted his head slightly, studying my face, the tears, the fear.
"But now," he said, smiling again, "you are something much more valuable."
I didn't say anything. I couldn't.
"Now," Dante finished, "you are how we break the Shadowsinger."
Azriel's POV -
I could physically feel her pain.
It wasn't constant, not a steady ache I could learn to ignore. It came in waves. Sharp, sudden, unbearable waves that hit my chest so hard I sometimes had to stop what I was doing just to breathe through it.
Fear. Grief. Exhaustion. Pain. So much pain.
The bond in my chest throbbed like a wound that would not close, like a thread being pulled too tight, like somewhere far away she was hurting and I could do nothing but feel echoes of it.
I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I couldn't think about anything else.
I had already dispatched every spy I had. Every contact, every informant, every shadow network I had built over centuries.
My shadows themselves had spread across Velaris, across the Night Court, slipping through alleys and taverns and docks and abandoned buildings, searching for any trace of her.
Nothing.
It had been four days. Four whole days of nothing.
She couldn't be dead. I knew that much with absolute certainty. If she were dead, the bond would have fractured—I would have felt it like my soul being torn in half. I would have known.
She was alive but she was hurting. And I couldn't find her.
I sat in my office in the Townhouse, shoulders hunched forward, staring out the window without really seeing anything.
Velaris moved below like it always did, others walking, laughing, living their lives and it felt wrong that the world kept moving when she was gone.
I should have told her.
The thought came again, like it had a thousand times in the last four days.
I should have told her about the bond. I should have told her she mattered. I should have told her she wasn't invisible to me. I should have told her I loved her.
Instead, the last thing I did was let her walk out of the house angry.
I rubbed a hand over my face, exhaustion pulling at every part of me. I hadn't slept more than an hour at a time since she disappeared. Every time I closed my eyes, the bond would twist again and I would wake immediately, heart racing, convinced she was dying somewhere.
A soft meow pulled my attention away from the window.
I looked down.
Nova stood at my feet, her green eyes looking up at me expectantly, like she thought I could fix this, like I could open the door and her owner would walk back in.
She had barely left my side since that night. She slept in my room now, sat on my desk while I worked, followed me through the house like a small silent shadow.
She missed her. I understood that feeling more than anyone.
I bent down slowly and scooped Nova into my arms. She immediately curled into my chest, purring softly but the sound wasn't her usual happy purr, it was quieter, almost worried.
"I miss her too," I whispered, running a hand gently down her back.
Nova looked up at me and meowed softly, like she was asking where she was.
"I'm trying to find her," I told the small black cat quietly. "I'm trying. I swear I am."
My voice sounded rough even to my own ears.
"I should have stopped her from leaving," I continued quietly, more to myself than to the cat. "I should have gone after her. I should have told her everything."
Nova pressed her head into my hand and I closed my eyes for a moment, resting my forehead lightly against the top of her head.
"I think she believes I didn't want her," I whispered. "I think she thinks I avoided her because I didn't care."
The bond in my chest twisted painfully again, so sharp I sucked in a breath.
"I was trying to protect her," I said quietly. "From me. From this life. From everything I am."
Nova purred softly, completely unaware that she was probably the only thing keeping me remotely sane at this point.
"I will find her," I whispered into the quiet office. "I don't care who took her. I don't care where they took her. I don't care how long it takes."
My shadows curled slowly around my shoulders, restless, angry, ready.
"I will find her," I repeated softly, my voice colder now. "And when I do... they will beg for death before I'm finished with them."
Three more days passed. Three more days of nothing.
Seven days since she disappeared. Seven days since I last saw her standing in the sitting room, angry and hurt and looking at me like I was something she couldn't quite understand. Seven days since I let her walk out that door without following.
Seven days of the bond twisting in my chest like a knife.
I stopped sleeping entirely somewhere around the fifth day. Not intentionally, my body simply refused to rest.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt her again. Fear. Pain. Cold. Loneliness. It would jolt me awake immediately, heart racing, shadows already moving before I was even fully conscious.
I had searched everywhere. Velaris, the Illyrian camps, Hewn City, the borders, the human lands. My spies had turned over every tavern, every dock, every inn, every black market contact we had.
Nothing. It was like she had vanished from the world.
By the seventh night, I was standing in the training ring outside the house and I was no longer training.
I was destroying things.
A straw dummy stood in front of me and I drove Truth-Teller through its chest so hard the wooden post behind it cracked. I ripped the blade free and slashed again, and again, and again, until straw spilt everywhere like guts and the dummy hung in pieces.
I moved to the next one. Strike. Slice. Stab. Again. Again. Again.
I barely registered the sound of wings landing behind me.
"Az," Cassian's voice said carefully. "You're going to break something."
"I already did," I said without turning around, driving the knife into another dummy so hard the entire thing toppled over.
"Azriel," Rhys said, his voice quieter but sharper. "This isn't helping."
I turned then, slowly, breathing hard, shadows writhing around me like smoke in a storm. Cassian and Rhys stood at the edge of the ring, both watching me carefully like I was some kind of wild animal that might attack if they moved too fast.
"I don't remember asking for help," I said flatly.
Cassian crossed his arms. "You haven't slept in days."
"So what?" I replied.
Rhys stepped forward slightly. "We are looking for her. Every court, every contact, every spy network we have—"
"Not fast enough," I snapped.
Silence fell heavily between us.
"You think we don't care?" Cassian asked, his voice starting to edge toward anger now.
I laughed once, but there was no humour in it. "I think you don't understand."
Rhys's eyes narrowed slightly. "Then explain it to us."
I stared at both of them for a long moment, my chest tight, the bond aching, my hands still wrapped around the hilt of my dagger.
"How would you feel," I said slowly, my voice rough from disuse and exhaustion, "if it was Feyre?"
Rhys went completely still.
I looked at Cassian. "How would you feel if it was Nesta?"
Cassian's jaw tightened immediately.
"If they were gone for seven days," I continued, my voice getting quieter and more dangerous, "if you could feel their fear, their pain, their exhaustion, and you had no idea where they were or who had them or if they were being hurt—"
I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly tight.
"How would you feel if the last thing you did was let them walk away from you angry?"
Neither of them said anything. They didn't need to. They understood now. Really understood.
The bond in my chest suddenly pulled hard, not pain this time, but something else. Something sharp and urgent and alive.
At the same moment, one of my shadows shot across the training ring and wrapped around my wrist, cold and insistent.
I froze.
The shadow curled up my arm and across my shoulder, then pressed against my ear, whispering in a voice only I could hear. I went completely still as it spoke.
Location found.
Every part of me went cold and sharp and focused all at once.
Rhys stepped forward immediately. "Azriel?"
I looked up at them slowly, my shadows already gathering, already moving, already preparing.
"I found her," I said quietly.
And then my wings spread wide behind me.
A/N - A little explanation for the abduction and a bond reveal that does not land well for her, she is NOT thriving with the information and who can blame her when her first conclusion is "oh great, I'm unwanted"—painful but very on-brand for her current situation :(
Azriel is doing what Azriel does best, absolutely not coping in any functional way. At least Nova is there acting as his tiny emotional support shadow with paws!
I know the ending is a cliffhanger, I'm aware it's mean but also I regret nothing because storytelling requires a little chaos and emotional damage xx
Summary: When Y/N touches an ancient artifact, she finds herself falling through time.
A/N: It’s not the most thought-through story I’ve ever posted, but we’re here for a good time and not to win a Pulitzer amirite? Also, once again I have rushed the ending because who has the time lol
Word count: 5800
Warnings: mild description of injuries, language, some implications of sexy time
-
“I want to touch it.”
“Don’t you dare.”
Y/N snickered as Rhys’ arm shot forward to slap Cassian’s hand away from the gleaming crystal.
The Lord of Bloodshed rolled his eyes. “It’s a crystal, Rhys. It won’t bite my hand off.”
It was Azriel’s calm tone that now sounded from behind Y/N’s back.
“Given that it was Devlon who discovered it, I would suggest treading carefully, brother.”
Cassian rolled his eyes and crossed bulging arms over his chest in a display of annoyance. He stood tall enough for his head to brush against the roof of the makeshift tent the Illyrians of Windhaven had erected on the edge of their camp. It stood just a few steps away from Rhys’ cabin, shielding a low stump atop which a comically small crystal rested for them to inspect.
“What did he say it was?” Rhys asked as he circled the stump with a pensive expression.
“He thinks it is a relic of the gods that ruled over Prythian before the age of the Fae,” Azriel explained calmly, hands crossed behind his back with his wings neatly folded. He was the picture of professionalism. Ever the spymaster.
Y/N smiled at him and felt her nose crinkle with delight at the smile he gave in return. His lips curled barely noticeable, but the secret lay in the spark that set his eyes aglow. It was the smile he reserved solely for her. It was accompanied by a tug of the bond.
“It could just as well be an ordinary crystal,” Cassian intervened. “I say we take it with us and ask Helion to have his librarians take a look at it.”
“What if it’s an ancient weapon though? We could accidentally set it off,” Y/N said, looking from Azriel to Cassian and back. “Did Devlon say how he got it up on the log without touching it?”
“He used sticks.” Azriel’s face twisted into a grimace as though to express his discomfort with the Illyrian warlord’s simple methods.
Cassian snorted at that. “Elegant.”
Rhys sighed, running a palm down his face. “Azriel, could you try having your shadows lift it? I fear Cassian might be right and Helion’s libraries are our best shot. I don’t want to spend the rest of my day here because of a shiny rock.”
Azriel gave a single nod, and at once, shadows swarmed in from every direction to draw tight around the crystal.
One of the shadowsinger’s brows quirked up. “It’s surprisingly heavy.”
Y/N felt her forehead crease with worry as she watched the shadows begin to rise with the object they’d circled—their movements slow, sluggish even.
“Be careful not to drop—”
But before Rhys could finish his sentence, Azriel’s shadows shuddered as though they’d been hurt, and the crystal fell from its encasing.
Y/N lunged without a second thought, and as her fingers wrapped around the cool, smooth surface of the cylindric crystal, the last thing she heard was her name—twisted with panic as it fell from her mate’s lips in a call to rattle her bones.
-
A low roar rang through Y/N’s head as she pulled open her eyes, squinting against the blinding beams of the setting sun.
Had it not been noon just now?
And had there not been a tent?
There was dirt beneath her palms as she pushed to her knees, sharp pebbles pressing deep into her skin. Every bone in her body was aching, a slight sense of nausea sitting in the very pit of her stomach.
As she lifted her head to look around, everything seemed normal enough. There was Rhys' cabin behind her, sitting right on the border of a war camp that had just moments earlier been bristling with life. She could still hear faint voices, but something seemed ... gloomier than usual.
Turning her head, Y/N found only empty space where Azriel, Rhys and Cassian had stood just a moment ago, and at once, her heart picked up its pace. There was no sign of the tent. No sign of her friends.
No sign of her mate.
"Azriel?" she heard herself call into the eery silence of approaching nightfall.
Had that crystal knocked her out? Surely, her friends wouldn't have just left her there if that had been the case—Azriel wouldn’t have left her. Something had to have happened.
It took a few tries to force her body back on her feet. Her knees were wobbly, dizziness washing over her in waves, and just as she was about to call out for Azriel again, she spotted something gleaming on the muddy mountain ground.
The crystal.
She knew better than to touch it again, pulling the sleeve of her fighting leathers over her hand as she reached out to carefully pick up the crystal to push it into the depths of her pocket.
Whatever was going on, it had started when she touched the crystal—she was sure of it.
The shockwave must've knocked her unconscious somehow, but that did not yet explain what had happened to Azriel and the others.
A lump of worry sat in the pit of her stomach, though she got momentarily distracted as a voice sounded behind her and her heart gave a startled leap.
"Can I help you, girl?"
Turning, she found a large Illyrian male, arms the size of tree trunks crossed over a broad chest, and thick brows tugged deep into his face. He looked grim in the way he scanned her from top to bottom.
"You haven't by any chance seen the Shadowsinger anywhere, have you?" He stared at her, unmoving, unblinking, so she cleared her throat, and continued, "Or perhaps the General? The High Lord?"
His eyebrow quirked at that. "And what business might you have with the High Lord, woman?"
She bristled at his tone. She was used to the Illyrian disregard towards anything female, but ever since she'd been mated to Azriel and frequented the camps accompanying Cassian or the Valkyries, most had gotten used to seeing her around.
"That is none of your concern," she said. "I was merely asking whether you'd seen him. He was here just a moment ago. Along with the General and the Shadowsinger."
"There you go with that word again," the Illyrian said, tilting his head with a mildly condescending glint in his eye. "What might a shadowsinger be?"
She stared at him.
He stared back.
As she turned her head, she assured herself that they were, in fact, in Windhaven. Perhaps she’d been transported to some other camp somehow?
But no, that was definitely Rhys’ cabin behind her.
Had this male spent the last five hundred years in a cave? How was it possible for him to not know of Azriel?
Surely, he was mocking her.
"I shall go look for them myself," she muttered, turning to head for the heart of the camp. "Perhaps Devlon knows where they went."
Suddenly, a large hand wrapped around her arm, its grip tight enough to bruise her skin even through her leathers.
Turning abruptly, she found herself face to face with the stranger.
"Who do you think you are to speak of Lord Devlon in such a way?" the Illyrian growled so close to her face that she could smell meat on his breath. "I don't know how you got into this camp in the first place, but unless you intend to get on your back, spread your legs and work on popping out a few half-breed soldiers, I suggest you hurry back to where you came from. High Fae have no business in Illyria."
She stared at him. "I beg your pard—"
"Galen,” a new voice called from behind the stranger, who in return twisted his neck to see who had called for him. “What do you have there?”
Galen’s face never lost its scowl. “I caught a High Fae female snooping around.”
Laughter rang across the clearing—growing nearer by the second—and it was that moment that Y/N decided that it was best to not stick around.
With a skilled kick of the knee—a move Cassian had taught her—she sent Galen’s body curling into a ball as his hands flew to his loins with a pained groan falling from his lips.
Before his friend had a chance to catch up with her, she turned, and she ran.
-
Breath was tearing in and out of her lungs as Y/N jumped behind a nondescript hut at the corner of the camp, praying to the Mother that her pursuers had lost her trace by now.
It had taken every bit of the knowledge she’d gathered over the past decades to navigate the camp and lose the growing group of angry Illyrians attempting to catch her. She did not want to entertain the thought of being caught, as it had dawned on her by now that for some reason, they had no idea who she was. There was no telling what they would do without the protection of her name.
She held her breath as she observed Galen and his fellow warriors taking a route that led them to the centre of the courtyard and therefore a bit further away from her hiding place. A sigh fell from her lips.
Her relief, however, was short lived, as she soon noticed a figure moving from the corner of her eye—a figure close enough to capture her.
But when Y/N spun around with her dagger lifted in defence, her knee still digging into the dirt, she saw herself faced with a boy no older than eight or nine.
"By the Mother," she hissed, lowering her dagger, though she didn't yet sheathe it entirely, for fear the large Illyrian brutes would return any moment to snatch her. "Don't sneak up on people like that or you will catch an accidental blade to the gut one of these days."
The boy didn't say anything. He observed her with interest flickering in his eyes, though the rest of his face remained perfectly neutral, his arms crossed behind his back.
His hair was as dark as that of most Illyrians, shaggy in the way the strands dangled before his deep brown eyes. But other than most Illyrian children she'd seen over the past few decades, he was smaller, paler, his wings folded neatly behind his back, though somehow ... thinner than she'd come to know.
She cleared her throat. "Listen, I would be immensely grateful if you didn't rat me out."
His eyes flickered to something behind her then, but when she turned, she saw nothing, and when she peeked around the corner of the hut once more, the commotion in the courtyard had cleared, the booming voice of her pursuer growing more and more distant.
"I heard you ask for a shadowsinger," the boy said quietly, and it was the first time she heard him speak. His voice was calm, though there was a rasp to it that suggested disuse.
"Yes," she said, her heart leaping with hope. "Have you seen him?"
The boy looked at her, and for a moment it almost seemed like his eyes carried all the wisdom in the world—wisdom far beyond his age, and grief he shouldn't yet know.
"What is a shadowsinger?"
She sighed, slumping back against the wall of the hut when she concluded that the boy would most likely not slit her throat. This situation was a mess, and she was starting to grow tired of it.
"You'd know if you'd seen him," she muttered. "He commands shadows. They follow him around, circle his limbs, that sort of stuff."
It was silent for a while, but when the boy spoke again, his tone had changed, a note of curiosity bleeding into his words.
"I didn't know that's what they called someone who could do that."
She offered him a small smile, but when she noted a shadowy tendril curling its way up her arm, she bolted upright, her back suddenly straightened from the hunched position she'd kept.
"Are you doing this?" she asked, watching as the shadow detached itself from her to scurry across the muddy ground towards the boy's feet.
When she looked at him, he gave a single nod, his chin now lowered a fraction as though bashful.
"So you are a shadowsinger, too!" she smiled. "That's a rare and powerful gift you have there."
The boy hummed, the tip of his boot kicking at a pebble as he took his eyes from her for a moment. "My father says it's nonsense."
"Then your father is a moron," she said, grimacing when she realised what she'd said. "No offence."
She thought she could see the slightest twitch of his lips, but it was gone faster than it had appeared, and he swiftly slipped back into that seriousness that seemed much too heavy for his age.
"My mate is a shadowsinger as well," she offered. "He's the spymaster, right hand to the High Lord. He's one of the three most powerful males of this court."
The boy tilted his head. "He's who you're looking for?"
She nodded. "I think I ... I might have hit my head and passed out, and now I can't find him anywhere." She cleared her throat as she hugged her knees, the dagger now forgotten on the ground beside her, the mountain wind blowing the hair from her face. "I'm starting to get worried something bad might have happened."
He seemed to contemplate her words for a moment. "I could help you find him."
She looked at him. "You'd do that?"
He gave another single nod. "I could ask the shadows to tell me where he is."
Her shoulders sagged a bit with relief. She knew the power of shadows, knew their infallible ability to locate.
"That would be—" but she didn't get to finish her sentence, as the last of her words got stuck in her throat when the boy lifted his hands to gather a dark cluster of shadow before him.
She stared at him then, at the dark eyes, at the tilt of his mouth, the soft round cheeks, the shaggy black hair covering his forehead. There was a freckle just beneath the corner of his left eye, and as her gaze flickered back down to his bandaged hands, the world seemed to tip to its side.
She noticed his lips moving, a puzzled look on his face when she only stared at him.
She blinked, shook her head.
"I'm sorry," she muttered. "What did you say?"
"I asked if you're okay."
"Oh ... yes, yeah." Running a hand through her hair, Y/N turned to check if they were still alone. "I, uhm," she cleared her throat as she turned back. "I'm sorry ... what happened to your hands?"
At once, the shadows scurried away as the boy moved his hands back behind his back, chin dipping even lower as he avoided her gaze.
For a long while, she thought he wouldn't answer, but finally, "I burned them."
She blinked again, taking a deep breath through her nose against the growing dizziness.
There was no way.
This was a coincidence. It had to be.
"What is your name?"
The boy looked at her as though contemplating whether it was safe to tell her, and when he spoke his name, it felt as though the very ground gave in beneath her feet.
"Azriel."
-
She'd touched the crystal. All she'd done was touch the crystal—there was no way she'd somehow travelled back in time.
Over 500 years back in time.
It explained why that Illyrian had never heard of a shadowsinger. Why he did not know her. Why the tent was gone.
Somehow, she’d fallen out of her time.
Her breathing quickened then. Because what if this was permanent? What if the crystal only worked once, or only worked to send you back in time, not forward? What if she'd be forever stuck in this reality?
What if the only way she’d ever see her mate again was by watching his eight-year-old self grow into the man he’d become?
"Lady?"
She blinked at the boy before her, and her heart gave a painful twist. Those were Azriel's eyes looking at her with mild concern, Azriel's hands that had been burned by cruel brothers not long ago. She was looking at the tortured child version of her beloved mate, knowing everything that had already happened to him, everything that would happen to him before things finally got better, and her heart was breaking.
"Yes," she cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, I was just ... thinking."
He watched her, observing, quiet.
"Did you want me to find your mate?"
"Oh ... no, that's okay. I just felt him tug on the bond, so he's fine." Curiosity entered his eyes at the mention of the mating bond, so she changed the subject before he could ask further questions. "Would you like me to take a look at your hands?" she asked with all the gentleness she could muster. "I'm a healer, you see. Maybe I can help."
He didn't say anything, but something within her face seemed to make her seem trustworthy enough and so after a long while, he hesitantly pulled his hands from behind his back.
"They're ugly," he spoke as though in warning as she began to unwrap the bandages.
Her brows twitched together. "Now, that's nonsense."
Beneath the bandages lay blistering, burned skin—raw flesh torn by flames and twisted into angry red welts.
"They're not ugly," she said quietly, her voice thick as she took gentle hold of his left wrist to steady his hand as she hovered her palm over his without touching the wounds. "They've just been through a lot. You're incredibly brave, you know?"
She met his eye briefly, and she saw then that a part of him wondered whether she knew the true cause of his injuries without him having told her about them.
Sending warm, healing light to glow from the palm of her hand, she focussed on mending his flesh, on soothing his pain and fixing what had been torn so viciously. When she was done, his skin still lay twisted by the scars she knew so well, but at least his open wounds had been healed.
She repeated the procedure with his other hand, and when she was done, she observed his expression.
Baby Azriel stared at his open palms before turning his hands to stare at their backs too, taking in the healed expanse of his injuries.
"Thank you," he finally said, curling his fingers into fists. "They don't hurt anymore."
And yet, she could tell that he still hated the way they looked. She could tell from his face, despite his best efforts to hide his grief behind a well-practiced mask. She could tell because she knew him.
Taking his hands in hers, she offered him a smile. "It'll take some time for you to learn to live with it, Azriel. But it's not impossible. Let your scars be a reminder of your bravery. Let them show all that you have survived."
He looked at her, nodding slowly.
As she held his gaze to properly convey her words, she suddenly realised something.
Of course.
Lifting her hands, she unclasped the locket Azriel had gifted her upon their mating ceremony, and suddenly everything seemed so ... clear.
Baby Azriel's eyes flickered to her hands as she offered him the cobalt blue locket on a chain. He seemed a bit unsure of what to do with it, and so Y/N offered him a smile.
"I want you to have it," she spoke gently. "It's been dipped in magic, bewitched to protect whoever carries it. It will keep you safe."
Baby Azriel hesitated, though she could see in his eyes what those words did to him. How much he longed for protection, for safety. "Won't you miss it?"
She looked at the locket with softening eyes, thumb brushing across the gem.
"Very much," she spoke quietly before lifting her gaze back to him. "But you need it more than I do. I am already protected—my mate protects me every day. I don't need it anymore." She lifted her hands to carefully drape the thin chain around Azriel's neck. "You deserve to be protected, Azriel. You deserved to be loved. Don’t ever forget that."
It was with those words that she slipped her hand into the pocket of her leathers to wrap around the smooth surface of the crystal.
-
Rhys' hut was bright with warm gleaming faelights, laughter and chatter droning from the inside as she approached. She wondered how much time had passed since her accidental excursion to the past.
She thought about knocking, but before she raised her knuckles, she peeked through the window by the door, and her heart promptly sank.
They were all there—Rhys, Cassian, Azriel—and they looked as they did in her time. Broad bodies lounged in cushioned armchairs, fighting leathers covering every inch of their bodies. But there was something different to them, something ... lighter.
Cassian's wings were missing the scars they'd sustained in Hybern, and Rhysand's eyes were brighter. They were missing the heavier undertone they'd taken on during Amarantha's reign. Azriel's fighting leathers were void of Siphons, as were Cassian's, and she could tell even from a distance that he still carried the locket beneath them—the thin silver chain peeking from his leathers on the back of his neck.
And then there was the small but important detail that all three Illyrians carried females on their laps that most certainly weren't their mates.
Cassian was tongue-deep in the throat of a beautiful Illyrian woman, his hands roaming the ample curves of her hips, fingers digging into her flesh to pull her closer while Rhys laughed at something the blonde girl on his lap whispered into his ear.
It was the sight of another's lips on Azriel's throat that had her blood boil with anger despite herself.
She knew this was the past. Knew that this was their youth, that he hadn't even met her yet. But that didn't change the fact that she didn't want to see him with someone else.
The female was Illyrian, too, but from the large gash in her right wing, Y/N could tell that she'd been clipped already. Her hair was as dark as that of most Illyrians, falling in luscious waves almost all the way down to her ass, and when Y/N watched scarred fingers tangle in the strands—scarred fingers she herself had healed—, she finally took a step away from the window.
There was no reason to torture herself, after all.
The bright side was that the crystal actually did allow for her to travel forward in time, though by her own calculations—assuming that the boys were somewhere in their mid to late twenties in this current timeframe—it only allowed jumps of some 15 to 20 years at a time, which promised a tedious process given that she'd still have to skip a little over 500 years to return to her own time.
"Can I help you?"
She spun around at the low voice coming from behind her, and swallowed thickly as she met a familiar pair of dark eyes.
Azriel stood looming before her, his face carefully neutral, his stance casual yet alert. He kept his wings folded neatly, shadows circling their claws.
"Oh, uhm," her eyes flickered to the side in search of an excuse. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I was just ... leaving."
Azriel's eyes flickered to her feet and as she followed his gaze, she spotted shadows gathering beneath her shoes, black puffs of night circling her shins, only visible due to the faelight streaming from the hut's windows.
"Do I know you?" Azriel asked.
When she lifted her head, she found his eyes already on her. She knew him well enough to spot the curiosity in his gaze, no matter how well he'd gotten in hiding his expression since she'd met his eight-year-old self. A mate could tell.
"I doubt it, I'm just visiting from Velaris," she said, smiling.
Azriel gave a hum, eyes flickering to his shadows by her feet again. "It's just that my shadows seem somehow drawn to you. They told me you were standing outside the door."
"Oh, well," she cleared her throat. "That's sweet of them."
This time, when Azriel looked her in the eyes, she felt exposed. Like he'd be able to tell if he were to look too closely. Like he'd be able to recognise the one his soul was tethered to, even if another 300 years would pass before they were destined to meet.
"What's your name?"
Y/N opened her mouth, not knowing what she would say, since she couldn't risk telling him her real name. But she didn't get far, as the door soon opened to flood the night with warm light and reveal the girl with the clipped wings, her lips pouty as she searched the darkness for Azriel.
When she spotted the two, her eyelids lowered considerably, lips curling seductively as she trailed her attention down Y/N's body. "You didn't mention we'd be getting more company, Az. Not that I'm complaining." She tilted her head and offered a smile, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth as she did so. "I'm Willa. Are you going to be joining us?"
"Oh," Y/N gasped, feeling her cheeks heat at Willa's implication. "Oh, no I ... I was just leaving, actually."
The Illyrian shrugged before turning to go back inside, though not without a few last words purred over her shoulder.
"Hurry up, Az. Otherwise Cass and Mel are going to be done before we even start."
Y/N cleared her throat as the door shut, once again dimming the light to a soft glow.
"I'm sorry for interrupting." She had to force the words from her mouth, bile rising in her throat at the thought of what would go down as soon as she left—what Azriel would do, and who he would be doing it with. "It was nice meeting you, Azriel."
Azriel's gaze lay heavy on her—heavy and assuring and so full of interest that part of her wanted to tug on the bond just to see what would happen.
"Likewise," Azriel said, eyes still on her as she turned to leave. "Though I'd be interested to hear how you know my name."
She froze at that. "I think Willa mentioned it."
Azriel tilted his head, eyes narrowing a mere fraction. "Willa called me Az."
"Well, I ... guessed the rest," Y/N said, lifting a shoulder as she carefully began walking backwards. "Like I said, it was nice meeting you."
Before she’d reached the line of trees that bordered on the camp, she shoved her hand into the pocket of her pants, and as her fingers closed around the cool crystal, she hoped that Azriel—whose gaze she could still feel boring into her back—would assume that she'd simply winnowed away.
-
The sun was bright in the sky this time around, and cautious optimism took a hold of Y/N as she once again neared Rhys’ cabin, the soothing weight of the crystal in her pocket.
The state in which she’d find Azriel and the others would determine whether she could truly only jump 20 years at a time. It would determine the effort it would take to return to her own time.
Like the last time, she could hear voices coming from the hut, though they weren’t inside.
It was just as Cassian and Azriel rounded the corner that she managed to jump behind a nearby tree. They looked older than they had last time. Some scars had appeared on both their wings, but with a slow sinking of her heart she noticed the locket dangling from Azriel’s neck.
Still too early then.
She was just about to shove her hand in her pocket to touch the crystal, done with this tedious business, when she heard the mention of her own name.
Looking up, she spotted Cassian now lounging on the stairs leading up to the cabin, rolled up mirth root lodged between his lips as he grinned up at Azriel, who stood with his arms crossed and his feet wide.
“What are you, twelve?” she heard her mate ask, his voice as low as ever, though there was a distinct note of amusement in his tone.
Cassian snickered, taking the mirth root from his lips for smoke to plume before his face. “What? Given that you’re so convinced she’ll turn out to be your mate, I’m just trying to make sure that you don’t have an eternity of sexual frustration ahead of you. Cauldron knows you’ve had enough to last you a lifetime.”
Azriel snorted. “Thanks, brother.”
Cassian grinned. “So?”
Even from her hiding place, Y/N could hear Azriel’s sigh. “So what?”
“So, are you sleeping with her?”
“I’m not talking about this with you.”
“Because you’re suddenly so shy about sex?”
“Because I don’t want her thinking I go around bragging about intimate details.”
The Lord of Bloodshed groaned, tilting his head back to stare at the sky. “I didn’t ask you to draw a picture of the position. It’s a yes or no question.”
Silence settled for a moment, and Y/N watched Azriel’s shoulders growing tense, until—
“No.”
Cassian looked up at that. “No?”
From her position behind the tree, Y/N could only see Azriel’s side profile, but it was enough to see his jaw clench. “No, we haven’t had sex yet.”
Amusement flickered across Cassian’s face. “Well, it seems she might just be the only female in all of Prythian that can withstand your charm, brother.”
Azriel seemed to hesitate. An unusual picture.
“It’s just …” he stopped, clearing his throat as he watched his left foot dig the tip of his boot into the soft earth of the ground. “I’m worried she might be … disappointed.”
Y/N flinched as Cassian threw back his head and barked laughter into the skies.
“The shadowsinger,” Cassian chuckled. “Insecure about his sexual prowess. Who would have thought the day would come.”
“Well, it wasn’t important before,” Azriel snapped, to which Cassian lifted a brow. With a sigh, Az continued, “You know what I mean. I want to spend the rest of my life with her, and so I want it … I need it to be good for her.”
Y/N smiled to herself, well aware of how entirely unfounded Azriel’s worries would turn out to be. She’d never realised her mate had troubled himself with this.
Cassian took a deep breath through his nose. “Well, I’m gonna go ahead and say that—should you truly end up being mates—the bond will probably take care of it.” Face twisting into a grimace, he added, “And even if not, judging by the past 300 years that I’ve had the pleasure to share a bedroom wall with you, I doubt you have any reason to worry.”
Azriel clicked his tongue, an exasperated expression on his face, and before she could stop herself, Y/N snorted a laugh.
At once, Cassian and Azriel’s demeanour changed entirely. Rising to their full height, tension crept into their shoulders, eyes firmly locked on the little cluster of trees she was hiding in.
Her heart dropped as she watched them share a look, and when Azriel sent his shadows rushing for the treeline with only the slightest wave of his hand, she quickly buried her hand in her pocket.
-
This time, when she woke up, there was no headache. There was no dirty ground, but the soft panelled flooring of a makeshift Illyrian tent. There were warm palms cupping her cheeks, a voice calling her name.
“My love,” it said, a distinct note of worry shaking the words. “Please open your eyes.”
She did as he’d asked, and as soon as she met Azriel’s gaze she knew for a fact that she’d made it. She was back.
Before she could open her mouth, Azriel had already scooped her into a tight embrace, palm cupping the back of her head as he pressed her against his body, muttering a quiet thanks to the Cauldron into her hair repeatedly.
As she raised her gaze to look at Cassian and Rhys, she was met with all the more concern.
“By the Cauldron, you gave us a good fright there, sweetheart,” Cassian muttered, the usual ease missing from his tone.
“What happened?” She asked as Azriel loosened his arms to instead focus his attention on scanning her for any obvious injuries. When he did not find any, he took gentle hold of her hand.
“Can you get up?”
She gave a nod.
“What happened?” she asked again.
Cassian and Rhys exchanged a look.
“You vanished,” the High Lord said finally, and as though in reaction to his words, she felt Azriel’s grip tighten on her hand.
“You caught the stone and then you were gone,” Cassian added. “Good thing you’re back now—Az nearly tore down the camp.”
A crease appeared between her brows. “How long was I gone for?”
It was Azriel’s calm voice that spoke now, though she knew that he’d slipped back into his mask of composure. The bond told her of his true emotions—of his rapidly beating heart and the panic he’d endured.
“Three hours.”
She ran a palm down her face.
“Can you tell us where the crystal took you?” Rhys asked as he knelt down next to the crystal she must have dropped upon her arrival.
Y/N gave a gentle scoff. “You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”
It was then that she felt a featherlight touch on the side of her neck—Azriel’s fingers skimming the bare skin that an hour earlier had been adorned with the locket he’d gifted her upon their mating ceremony.
As she met his gaze, she could see the question sitting there, and when she lifted her hand to catch his own between her palms, she offered a soft smile.
“I gave it to someone who needed it more than I did,” she whispered so only he could hear. “He deserved to be protected. He deserved to be loved. And I didn’t want him to ever forget it.”
It took a short while for her words to settle in, but finally the crease between Azriel’s brows softened with realisation, and his eyes flickered to the scarred hand she held safe between hers.
“Of course,” she thought she heard him breathe as he shook his head in mesmerisation. “It was you.”
And when he lowered his lips to hers, she felt the bond glow brighter than the sun.
The last two weeks had been perhaps the most peaceful stretch of time for you and Colston in over a year. There were no classes or games, no presentations or combines, no obligations except the ones owed to each other.
April looked good on the Chicago suburbs. The grass on your lawn had started greening again, and you could see how much brighter the sky looked most days now that winter had loosened its grip. The sectional couch was still a new enough purchase that you hadn’t quite broken it in yet. It was still stiff in some places, still smelling faintly of the warehouse it had come from in others, but you stretched out on it anyway, letting the documentary sweep your attention away from your phone which remained set on the coffee table face-down.
Colston appeared just as you were settling into the rhythm of the first major event of the documentary. His shadow fell over you first, then his weight pressed the cushions down near your hip, lifting the mahogany-colored throw blanket from your body. You didn’t look up, but you did lift an arm, letting him tuck himself against your chest before you draped it over his shoulders. He exhaled heavily against your collarbone, nose brushing the curve of your neck as he nuzzled in with a muffled greeting you couldn’t sparse out beyond the habitual, “mama” nickname he always defaulted to.
He made another noise that sounded like a relieved sigh, something between a groan and a hum, and you finally glanced down at him. Colston had his eyes closed, his lashes dark against his cheekbones, his lips slightly parted against your skin. Your fingers found the hair at the nape of his neck, scratching lightly.
First, his lips moved in slow, warm presses along the dip between your collarbones, exhaling ever so slightly against your skin with each kiss. Your nails grazed his scalp just enough to draw a hum that mirrored your own when he lowered his kisses to the tops of your breasts, pulling at the neckline of the oversized t-shirt you wore with his index finger.
You said nothing, turning your attention back to the TV, letting your boyfriend continue doing whatever it was he wanted to do. Your attention shifted back to him from time to time, watching your manicured fingers drift through the chocolate brown strands of soft hair you’d grown so familiar with. You felt him lift your shirt, cool air flowing up your torso for a brief moment before Colston’s cheek found your skin again, pressing slow, lazy kisses to your ribs.
You couldn’t help the airy giggle that escaped you when he took in a long breath, filling his senses with the smell of you; both the floral, fruity scents you stacked onto your skin and the underlying natural odor that was distinctly yours. His lips parted against your ribcage, dragging upward with slow, wet kisses until he reached the swell of your breast, the short, spiky hairs on his chin scratching lightly against the tender skin just beneath.
He remained hidden and still under your shirt for a long while, breathing you in for nearly ten minutes. Two minutes in, you lifted your shirt from over his head, worried he might suffocate. The action presented the crown of his head to you, and you kissed it without hesitation, curling your fingers in his hair to dance over the strands once again. Every breath he took fluttered over your skin like a humid puff of summer wind.
It didn’t take you by surprise when he moved again, pressing open mouthed kisses to the underside swell of your right breast. Nor did it surprise you when he finally pressed a kiss to the nipple before wrapping his lips around it with a soft hum. You shifted slightly beneath him, not necessarily to encourage him further, but simply to allow him easier access. You knew him, knew that once he’d decided on a course of action, he wasn’t likely to stray from it.
Your attention splintered, your brain wanting to use more its power to focus on the buzz of pleasure radiating from your chest than the documentary. His tongue lapped at your nipple in slow circles, occasionally flicking the peak with just enough pressure to draw a soft gasp from you.
You arched slightly into his touch, your hips shifting unconsciously, thighs pressing together. Colston noticed, lifting away from your chest, letting his teeth ever so slightly scrape against the nipple before letting go to mirror the same treatment to the other.
You didn’t realize you’d stopped breathing until you exhaled sharply when he bit down just enough to make your pulse jump. His lips curved into a smirk against your skin, a silent acknowledgment of the way you shuddered under him. Your hands tightened in his hair, tugging just to hear the way his breath hitched in response. The documentary had long since lost your attention, the voices become a low, distant murmur in the background.
Inevitably, a whispered, “Fuck… I’m so wet,” slipped from your lips, barely audible over the TV. Colston didn’t gloat, just pressed a final kiss to your nipple before sliding his palm down the plane of your stomach, fingers hooking into the waistband of your cotton shorts. He tugged them down in one smooth motion, the fabric catching briefly around your thighs before you lifted your hips to help.
He hummed appreciatively when he found you bare, foregoing underwear—just as he preferred when you were home alone. His fingertips traced slow, teasing circles along your inner thigh, watching the way your breath stuttered when he ventured higher but didn’t quite touch where you wanted him. Your hips twitched impatiently, but Colston only chuckled against your skin, pressing a kiss to the very center of your sternum.
You arched when he finally dragged his fingers through your arousal, circling your clit with just enough pressure to make your toes curl. His breath was warm against your saliva-slicked skin as he worked you unhurriedly, like he had all the time in the world. Your thighs eased open when he dipped lower, teasing your entrance before sliding two fingers inside with a gentle groan.
“Shit...” The word slipped from Colston’s lips in a low, reverent rasp, his fingers curling inside you just the way he knew you loved, just holding the pressure there while his mouth returned to one of your nipples. Your hips rolled instinctively, chasing the delicious friction, your breath hitching at the warmth flooding over your chest.
His fingers withdrew from your pussy before you could glean any real amount of pleasuring friction. Your eyes met his, frustration and a pout marking your features, but you found no sympathy in his face.
“Uh uh. Don’t look at me like that,” he murmured, trying and failing not to smile at your misfortune.
“You always do this teasing shit no one asked for. Like you hate me,” you huffed, your brows knitted together but your fingers didn’t lift from his hair. Colston knew that contradiction well, your complaints even as you pressed into him, your legs parting wider without prompting. He lifted his head, poking out his bottom lip for a kiss you rolled your eyes before giving. The initial kiss was chaste but he chased it, grinning when you softened enough to let him deepen it.
You tasted like cherries and the shared tube of toothpaste sitting on your bathroom countertop, your breath hitching when his fingers circled your clit again. His fingertips caught on your folds with each pass, the wet drag of them obscene enough to make you shudder. Colston murmured something low against your lips, the syllables lost in the press of his mouth on yours, but you felt the vibrations of it and soon processed what he was whispering when he began to shift your positions.
Soon enough you found yourself on top of him, the shirt that once draped over your torso pulled over your head and dumped onto the floor. Colston’s hands slid up the curve of your waist, fingers pressing into the divots beneath your ribs before settling to cup your breasts with rough palms. You rolled your hips, grinding down on his thigh, the ridge of his quad muscle pressing deliciously against your clit. His groan reverberated against your sternum when you leaned forward, your hands threading through his hair to guide his mouth back to your chest.
You gasped when he took a nipple between his teeth again, the sharpness of it melting into pleasure as his tongue soothed the sting. His hands slid lower, gripping the flare of your hips to guide your movements, encouraging you to ride his thigh harder. Your breath came in short, uneven bursts, your thighs straining with the effort of keeping pace.
He pulled back from your chest, his left hand cupping your jaw between his long fingers. With his other hand he reached around, using the pads of his middle and ring fingers to rub at your entrance murmuring a low, “You know I always give you what you want, mama,” before slipping two fingers back inside you.
You gasped at the sudden fullness, your eyelids fluttering shut as Colston’s fingers buried deeper inside your plush walls. “Mmmmph… there, fuck, baby,” you sighed, your hips rolling forward instinctively, chasing the sweet friction of his fingers buried to the last knuckle.
His hand fell away from your jaw once he decided he’d watched your face twitch and contort enough, letting his palm slide down your body to rest on your lower back. The free hand wandered over your backside as he waited for you to give him the green light to move, squeezing softly enough to make you sigh against his lips.
You brushed your lips over his, feeling his exhale fan out from his nostrils and over your face. His fingers stayed still inside you, letting you adjust and tease yourself with shallow rolls of your hips.
He prided himself on his ability to feel you. He had studied your body enough to learn every minute contraction and relaxation and what they indicated about your body; what you needed, what you wanted, what you could handle. He felt your inner walls finally relax around him, then came the first easy, airy moan slipping through your lips when you unwittingly clenched around him.
He moved slowly at first, letting his fingers drag against your inner walls, watching your eyelids flutter and your lips part. “Mmm… I love gettin’ my hands on this pretty ass pussy,” he rumbled. “Stretchin’ so perfectly for me, mama.”
You licked at your drying lips, “Shit… fuck, fuck, baby, yes…”
You reached down, guiding the hand resting on your lower back up your torso until his thumb was within reach of your lips. You sucked it into your mouth, swirling your tongue around the thumb. Your eyes cast downward, watching his fingers working between your thighs. Your hips rolled forward with every press against that sweet spot inside you. Colston groaned at the sight, his hips lifting involuntarily beneath you, the hard ridge of his cock straining against his sweatpants.
His thumb slipped from your lips with a soft pop, and before he could blink you shifted his hand to your own throat, pressing his palm flush against the column of it. He groaned at the feeling of the vibrations of your moans beneath his fingertips. His fingers inside you curled harder, dragging against that spot that made your thighs quake. Your head tipped back as a punched-out moan escaped you, accompanied with a full body shiver.
“That’s my baby,” Colston hummed, his voice rough. He watched the way your throat worked around another moan, felt the flutter of your pulse beneath his palm. “Uh huh… I love that shit.”
His eyes lit up at the sensation of you swallowing a shallow breath. He watched your gaze lose focus before your pupils finally disappeared behind your fluttered lids. A whine cut through your lips as you clenched around his fingers, your hips stuttering forward, chasing the pressure.
“Don’t rush, I got you, mama. You can cum whenever you wanna,” Colston breathed.
You could’ve throttled him for this overwhelming sense of smugness that radiated from his skin and warmed yours. And you would have if your limbs weren’t liquid and your brain wasn’t misfiring between pleasure and frustration. You were so close, teetering on that knife’s edge, and he knew it; even had the audacity to slow his fingers just to watch you squirm.
Your nails dug into his wrist, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to make your point. “Colston,” you warned, voice breaking around his name.
He laughed, breath hot against your collarbone, but mercifully obeyed. His fingers twisted deeper, curling just so, and your focus on his face faded.
You whispered a harsh, "Fuck—" before your hips jerked forward, your thighs clamping around his wrist as pleasure ripped through you in hot, pulsing waves. Colston didn’t let up, his fingers working you through it until you were squirming away with a breathless whine, feeling oversensitive.
Only then did he withdraw, lifting his glistening fingers to his lips with a satisfied hum. You slumped forward with a quiet whimper, tucking your chin against his shoulder as you tried to catch your breath. Colston continued to lick his fingers clean, his free arm wrapping around your waist to hold you steady.
“I love you,” he sighed against your damp skin, pressing a kiss to the pointed joint of your shoulder and delivering a soft tap, and subsequent rub to your ass, when you shivered at the contact.
You laughed lightly, pulling back from his shoulder to kiss the tip of his nose. “You want some head?”
His forehead wrinkled, brows drawing together as he felt you scatter kisses across his face, dusting over the various moles that dotted his skin. “I just said ‘I love you.’”
“I heard you,” you stifled a laugh, playing with his bottom lip. “Doesn’t mean I can’t ask if you want your dick sucked.”
Colston groaned, tilting his head back against the couch cushion, his hips lifting unconsciously. “Just say it back right quick.”
You grinned at his exasperation, your fingers trailing down his chest to hook into the waistband of his sweatpants. Your fingers pulled the fabric from his skin, smiling to yourself at the peek of soft, meticulously groomed, brown hair trailing beneath his navel.
“You need me to say ‘I love you’ before I suck your dick?” you ridiculed lovingly, your fingers creeping lower beneath the waistband of his sweatpants until you grazed the base of his length.
“Yes,” he rasped, sucking in a breath when you reached into his pants and wrapped your fingers around his dick. His skin was already hot beneath your palm. You squeezed experimentally, reveling in the way his breathing paused.
“I can’t be… romanced first?” he questioned. “Give my heart some action too. Damn.”
You rolled your eyes, but the corner of your mouth twitched as you leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips without lingering for too long. You slid off the couch, landing on your knees between his thighs, your fingers still wrapped around him as you pulled his sweatpants down just enough to free his dick.
“Let me give this dick some action first.”
The first touch of your lips to the flushed head of his length drew a sharp inhale from Colston. You kissed the underside of his tip, swirling your tongue briefly over the slit where he was already leaking, tasting salt and musk. You hummed, glancing up through your lashes to watch his throat bob as he swallowed hard.
You dragged your tongue along his shaft from base to tip, pausing at the top to mouth at the head with slow, teasing kitten licks. His breath shuddered out of him in a rough exhale, hips lifting off the couch involuntarily. You smirked up at him before fully taking him into your mouth slowly, your cheeks hollowing as you sucked him down in one smooth, continuous motion.
Colston cursed under his breath, one hand draped over the back of the couch while the other cradled the back of your head. You pulled back slowly, dragging your lips along his length until only the tip remained enveloped, then swallowed him down again with a low hum that vibrated against his skin.
The sounds of you working him with your mouth permeated, louder it seemed, when he squeezed his eyes shut. Gradually, you took him deeper, throat relaxing around the intrusion, your nose brushing the coarse hair at the base of his length.
A groan rumbled from his chest. “Fuck… baby…”
The words dissolved into a ragged exhale as your nails dug lightly into his thighs, your fingers flexing against the muscle there while you worked him with your mouth. You pulled back just enough to swirl your tongue around the head, your lips glossy and parted around him before sinking down again, deeper this time, until the muscles in your throat tensed. You pulled off, stifling a light cough behind your fist.
Your saliva coated his entire length and began to spread over his balls as you repositioned, pressing your tongue flat against the underside of his shaft while one hand worked the rest of him in slow strokes.
“Damn... too good at this,” he murmured, voice thick. His hips rose slightly off the couch cushion, just following the pull of your mouth like he couldn’t help it. You hummed around him in response, the vibration drawing another muttered curse from his lips.
Your head lowered further, giving each of his balls attention with the suctioning of your lips; gentle and experimental at first, then firm enough to make his thighs tense. Colston exhaled sharply through his nose, his fingers tightening in your hair as you traced the seam behind them with the tip of your tongue. “Fuck, baby—that’s—ah—” His words fragmented when you returned to his length, taking him back into your mouth with a heightened intention to unravel him.
The wet heat of your mouth contrasted with the occasional scrape of your teeth giving him just enough pressure to tease without pain. “Chill on me,” he rasped, thumb brushing your cheekbone. “Tryna take my soul.”
You responded with a lift of your eyes. If it wasn’t clear from the way in which you were drawing every action out—slowing your pace just when his hips would lift, or flattening your tongue against the underside of his dick before letting him slip from your lips—the way you looked at him now, dark lashes lifted over darker eyes, would have communicated it well enough.
You let your lips wrap around him again, just the tip. The hand not wrapped around his base lifted, fingers trailing up the inside of his thigh, nails scraping lightly. You watched the muscles in his abdomen twitch, tensing as he muttered a strangled curse under his breath.
It happened suddenly with his voice breaking, body shuddering, and tension snapping all at once. “Holy shit… baby—” Colston’s hand clamped in your hair just as you pulled off to stroke him, presenting your tongue to catch every pulse of his release. His hips jerked against your grip, fingers flexing against your scalp in silent warning, but you didn’t pull back, just hummed gently, coaxing him through the release until he sagged against the couch with a groan.
You caught the last of his cum, swiping the excess from your chin and the corners of your mouth, giggling at the dazed look on his face.
“Dada man feelin’ real good, hmmm?” you teased, crawling up his body before he could answer.
He peeked at you through heavy-lidded eyes, his breath still uneven as you straddled his lap. His hands found your waist, fingers pressing into the soft skin there; half because he wanted to touch you, half because he was still trying to ground himself.
He chose not to speak right away, choosing instead to brush his palms up and down the sides of your waist. He felt you hold his face in your two hands. You gave him a few chaste pecks, grinning when his lips chased yours weakly.
The heat of your thighs pressed against his hips, the weight of you grounding him even as his head swam.
You laughed, low and sweet, tracing the shell of his ear with your fingertip. “I love you.”
Colston blinked slowly, still catching his breath, before his mouth curved into that lazy, satisfied grin you knew all too well. “Took you long enough,” he rolled his eyes, dimples peeking through the feigned annoyance.
You snorted, pressing your thumbs into his dimples like you always did when he preened, as if wanting to physically erase his smugness. “Oh, please. You were two seconds from crying just now, don’t act all high and mighty.”
Colston's hands slid up your sides, fingers spreading wide as if trying to map every inch of skin between your ribs and hips. “I’ll cry behind some crazy head. I don’t care who knows.”
“Mmhmm,” you murmured, leaning in to kiss a slow line up his neck, savoring the salt on his skin. “And who gives you head good enough to make you cry?”
Colston hummed, tilting his head back to give your better access. “Some crazy lil’ girl, I think.”
You nipped at his earlobe. “She handles that, I heard.”
Colston’s chuckle was still breathless when you shifted in his lap, your thighs squeezing his hips as you leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. His hands slid around to your lower back. “Handles it too good,” he murmured against your lips. “Might need to start askin’ questions.”
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Summary: After several years of marriage, the mating bond snapped between you and Azriel. The shadowsinger can't fathom why you still call him your husband in the presence of a destined connection.
Tags: fluff, smitten Azriel, mates, established marriage, non-graphic mention of sex, some of my issues with mating bonds and philosophies about love lol
Word count: 2300
_____
“And this is my husband, Azriel,” you were saying as he approached you and the Dawn Court legislator, drinks in both hands.
Azriel offered you a stemmed glass of faerie wine with as much of a smile as he wore in political appearances such as this. He preferred to cling to the facade of the stone-cold spymaster, but it was your job to make friends– friends in high places that would stand by the Night Court in the future.
But even though he maintained a surly exterior, it didn’t stop him from resting a hand on your low back. You were both on official Night Court business, but he was still your mate, and it was expected for mates to be public about their affection. That, and touching you made him feel bubbly inside like the wine he was sipping.
He exchanged brief introductions with the Dawn Court legislator and then left the rest of the talking to you. The wooing, Azriel called it, because he was quite sure that it was your smile and charm that turned enemies to allies and allies into friends. Not that your prowess as an ambassador didn’t help, but Azriel knew firsthand the effect of your pretty smile, your beautiful laughter.
Even as he stood beside you, running a scarred thumb up and down your exposed midriff, your laughter still sent pleasant warmth through him, smoothing his rough edges.
Since the mating bond had clicked into place, it had become more difficult than ever for him to appear dauntingly enigmatic when you brought out a side of him that smiled without realizing, that laughed easily when you whispered in his ear, that wanted to whisper back sweet things or dirty promises he had every intention of keeping.
It took all of his restraint to keep his shadows leashed to his wings, lest they scamper to your body as they did in private.
Though it was well known that you were mated, he liked keeping his romantic life separate from his work. Sometimes the line blurred, since you were a part of both, hence his fingers splayed on your skin.
Across the sparkling parlour, Rhys was displaying far more affection with Feyre, pressing kisses to her cheeks and lips every so often. Azriel didn’t think he’d ever be comfortable sharing that much of your relationship with other people. In the presence of others, he kept his touches to a hand on your knee, the brush of his knuckles over yours, or, when you decided to sit in his lap rather than the empty chair beside him, he would hold you steady.
But in private, he worshipped. His love for you was an artistic pursuit, a craft that he would refine until the day he died. Every kiss was a stroke of a brush, every caress a splash of color.
Azriel had zoned out for a bit because the next thing he knew, the Dawn Court legislator was mingling across the room, and you were smiling up at him, melting his heart.
“That’ll be great, won’t it?” You asked.
He didn’t know what you were talking about– something about Dawn's foreign policy, maybe– but he nodded, one corner of his lip curving up. He opened his mouth to tell you how beautiful you looked dressed in gold, a halo about you like the corona of the sun, but you were already addressing Thesan’s mate, the Peregryn general. Azriel should probably have known his name, but couldn’t seem to remember, not when you were all that he could seem to think about these days.
The mating bond was still so shiny and new in his chest, only a month old. It made tangible your delicate luminosity, magnified it into a powerful beam, and cast your light on his life.
His sun, his partner, and now his mate. How could he be expected to think about anything other than the person that lived in his very soul?
Then your eyes were on him, your hand brushing his shoulder as you smiled at the Peregryn. “I don’t believe you’ve officially been introduced to my husband, Azriel, Night Court Intelligence.”
Azriel greeted Thesan’s lover– you must have said the Peregryn general’s name twice by now, but it had completely bypassed his brain– and exchanged a few polite words with the male who still seemed rather wary of the Night Court’s reputation, even after going to war together.
It was nothing that a few of your sweet smiles and adorable jokes couldn’t remedy. You soon had the Dawn male smiling into his wine.
But Azriel was still stuck on the word you had chosen to introduce him with. He realized that you had used the same word when you introduced him to the legislator from earlier.
Husband.
He didn’t know why it was bothering him when hearing that word from your mouth had always elated him. He had loved being your husband… but now he was your mate. That was how he referred to you in introductions and as a term of endearment.
He raked through his memories as the conversation rippled around him. Yes, now he was quite sure that he’d never heard you refer to him as your mate, except when directly acknowledging the bond. It really shouldn’t have bothered him. Of course, you felt it as intensely as he did... didn't you?
Maybe you used that term sparingly for the same reasons that he kept his affections to a minimum in public. But then again, you didn’t call him your mate in private either.
It could be a force of habit, he told himself. You’d been calling him your husband for years before the bond snapped. Sure, he never made a mistake, couldn’t with the constant reminder in his chest, but maybe it was ingrained in your mind.
Azriel chewed on it as the party burned into the early hours of the morning. While you built and maintained relationships, he tried to focus on what he was best at: sifting truth from lies. But there wasn’t much valuable information shared at a social event like this one, where the focus was camaraderie and cooperation. His shadows had little of value to report, except what they told him about you toying with your wedding band, a habit that you’d had for years. It was something you did when you were socially drained, when it became harder to have vibrant conversations with stranger after stranger, and your hands fell listlessly at your sides with fatigue.
“Time to go” is what it meant to Azriel. He excused himself from Cassian’s side, where he’d ended up after a few hours, snaking through the crowd until he made it to you. His knuckles brushed your arm, even the smallest contact sending a zing through his body.
Your smile was still bright, but he could see the limit approaching behind your seemingly endless hospitality.
“Shall we?” Azriel asked, arm out for you to take.
Relief washed over your face, and you nodded, taking his offered arm and letting him lead you through the beautiful Dawn palace to your guest lodgings. It was a wordless walk; you had used your breath making political friends, and Azriel savored the quiet times when you just existed together.
In that silence, he sank into the bond, feeling you without touching, knowing you without asking, and loving you without restraint.
And when you made it to your quarters, Azriel worshipped. He took his time in removing your jewelry piece by delicate piece and unclasping your intricate clothes as though he’d designed them. Then he loved your body as though it were his masterpiece in the making.
Only once he’d taken you to that dizzying place twice did he pull you snug against his chest, his chin resting on the top of your head.
Though he’d reached his own release, he couldn’t dissolve into the heady air as you did. There was still a nagging question in his mind. It was that damned word that kept getting lodged in his thoughts. Why did it bother him so much?
“Tell me,” you mumbled, half-consumed by sleep already. The afterglow of your lovemaking honeyed your voice. “I can hear you thinking.”
He was certain that you weren’t a daemati, but you still made him doubt. Somehow, you always knew when he was turning something over in his mind. His stoicism worked on everyone but you, apparently.
“It’s nothing,” he said, making your hair flutter with his breath.
You sighed. “You’re my husband, Azriel. I know when it’s something.”
There it was again. Husband.
His thumb explored the skin of your arm, as though that act would make him feel less exposed in front of you. Azriel was not an insecure male, not usually. But the thought that he might feel leagues more for you than you felt for him made his chest clench painfully.
“You still call me your husband,” he said– a question disguised like a curious observation.
He didn’t really know what he expected from you, but it wasn’t the soft “mhm” you answered with. You didn’t say anything after that, and he thought you might have fallen asleep, so he stayed silent, prepared to lie awake analyzing your little hum for hours.
Then you shifted so that you could look up at him. He could see you quite well, even in the darkness.
“Does it bother you?” You asked.
“No,” he lied. A mistake.
You lightly shoved his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It doesn’t,” he lied again, then decided against digging a deeper hole. He took a deep breath, trying to configure his thoughts. “But we’re mates.”
“We are.”
He had thought he had a point, but now he wasn’t sure. Your sleepy reply was making him doubt why he was even upset. You were in his bed, in his arms, in his life– why did he care what you called him?
Azriel decided to let the issue rest. But he really should have known that you wouldn’t let it go until it was solved, even though you were teetering on sleep’s threshold.
“Would you rather me call you my mate, Az?” You asked, eyes closed.
Yes. No. He didn’t know. If you didn’t want to call him your mate, then it would be worse if you did.
“I was just curious,” he said, evading the question. “Do you dislike it when I call you my mate?”
“I love it,” you said, and everything he thought he knew was new to him again. “I love it because I know what you mean when you say it.”
Azriel didn’t know how to reply. He had no idea what you meant.
Your breathy laughter made his heart hiccup. “Az,” you purred, “You call me your mate because it means the most to you. I call you my husband because it means the most to me.”
The insecurity squeezing Azriel’s heart relaxed its grip at your words.
You nuzzled into the pillow. “Our marriage means more to me than the bond.”
“It does?” He asked.
You nodded, hair brushing his lips. “The Cauldron may have chosen you to be my mate, but I chose you to be my husband. Love– for me, anyhow– is always a choice, not something we fall into by accident.”
The silence that followed was one of perplexity. Azriel’s head was spinning. He’d never thought of it like that. In his mind, to be fated for one another was the highest form of love. But you believed that it was choice– conscious and constant. Love was something you did, rather than something that happened to you.
Azriel loved you because there was no other way to exist. He loved you because he had no choice.
You loved him because you did.
“When I call you my husband,” you continued, a mumbled chain of sleep-ridden words. “It’s because we chose each other as life partners because we believed in each other, not in a force outside of our control. And fated or not, I choose you over and over again.”
Little did you know that Azriel’s world was unraveling before his eyes. He hadn’t known love until Rhys and Cassian came into his life, and now he was realizing that, five centuries later, he’d never really understood it. Not as you did, so sure of yourself as you drifted off to sleep in his arms.
Did you know how profoundly you altered him as you lay there sleeping? He felt that, for the first time, he was really seeing you. For the first time, he truly knew what it was to be loved by you. And Cauldron– he didn’t have the words to describe how it felt. Your sun in his chest chased away the darkness, even in the shadowed corners of his mind.
He pressed his lips to your hair. You didn’t stir.
He couldn’t help loving you. Couldn’t even fathom the choice to do anything else. And he had thought it would destroy him if you didn’t feel the same.
And you didn’t– you had just told him that you didn’t, that for you, loving him was of your own free will, a decision you made over and over again.
And he was still breathing, still alive. Better now than ever. Your love was so vastly different than his, but not any less powerful, any less consuming. It was unique, like you, and magnificent.
Whether or not he understood it, Azriel wouldn't take your love for granted for a single moment.
He was your choice.
You were his destiny.
His forehead dipped to yours. He couldn’t wait for the next time you called him your husband.
Fifty years of silence. Fifty years locked behind iron and fear. When Azriel — the Shadowsinger of the Night Court — lands on your forgotten shore, the world shifts. You were a secret buried by blood and magic, but he looks at you as if you were something worth saving. In his arms, you remember what it means to breathe. In his shadow, something ancient inside you begins to stir — a darkness that knows his name.
After the Silence / 14 chapters / Finished
After feeling the faint tug of a mating bond between you and Azriel, you panic and leave the Night Court without a word, refusing to risk trapping him in something he might not feel. Decades later you return to Velaris and step into the House of Wind to find the world has moved on without you—and Azriel looks like he has, too.
Carved from the Same Edge / 10 chapters / Finished
When the Night Court’s spymaster meets his match, the shadows themselves start to misbehave. You’re a lethal shadowsinger with feral, wild-hearted shadows and a mouth too sharp for your own good. Azriel’s shadows are calm, obedient… until you arrive in Velaris on a long-term assignment and his control starts to crack. Forced proximity. Relentless banter. A threat outside the borders. And one spymaster who can’t decide if he wants to throttle you or kiss you.
What the Shadows Want / 7 chapters / Finished
When a political mission pulls you into dangerous territory, Azriel finds himself unable to keep the careful distance he’s maintained for years. He watches too closely, lingers too long, tries to protect without ever crossing the line — until the line starts to blur, and you finally lose it.
Truths That Don't Speak / Finished / 20 chapters
Azriel returns from a long mission to find you in the House of Wind—as if you’ve always belonged there. Your power allows you to sense emotions and detect truth, but with Azriel, everything goes quiet.
He’s unreadable. It’s unsettling, and strangely refreshing. You’re loud, sassy, and painfully observant; he’s reserved, restrained, and made of shadows.
Azriel is absolutely terrified of you—and of how easily you fit into his home. He doesn’t know who you are or why you’re here, and that uncertainty unsettles him.
But one thing is clear: you’re a mystery he’s already determined to unravel.Yet beneath the banter and unease, you begin to realize that you share far more than either of you expected.
The Day The Spymaster Broke / Finished
You were never meant to be theirs.But they kept you anyway.Raised by the Night Court. Secretly loved by the Shadowsinger. Bound to a darkness older than Prythian itself. When the gate opens and the world begins to fall, you make the ultimate sacrifice — stepping into oblivion to save Velaris.But the darkness was never meant to destroy the city.It was meant to bring you home.
Unraveling the Shadowsinger / Finished / 18 chapters
Solstice morning turns flour-dusted and dangerous when Azriel finds you in his shirt—and by nightfall, the River House reminds you what family truly feels like.
- Not a Damsel in Distress : Action, protective Az, reckless intimacy
Part 1 / Part 2
Reader goes solo on a mission she shouldn’t have. Azriel finds her before she can make it worse. Even with enemies watching, they can’t keep their hands off each other. Fire and shadows turning danger into background noise.
- What Settles between Us : soft angst / hurt comfort
Decades into a quiet, loving bond, you and Azriel have settled into something safe—routine, familiar, unquestioned. But when his missions stretch longer and his presence grows thinner, the silence between you starts to ache. Watching others be chosen loudly forces you to confront what’s been missing. Sometimes love doesn’t disappear—it just needs to be seen again.
- Blinfolded : banter / mates
Part 1 / Part 2
Azriel has been watching you train for weeks, and when he finally steps into the ring, things get a lot more intense.
If you have any request, drop it in my ask ! 🌟
MAIN TAGLIST : @sjejejjej @theyouthfullmoon @maplesdapperthoughts @jaziona92 @lilah-asteria @chillinini @spookypersondinosaur
Azriel x reader
fluff / domestic intimacy / teasing / hurt-comfort
Tired of watching Azriel run himself into the ground, you storm into Rhys’s office and emotionally blackmail the High Lord into giving your mate a week off.
Azriel returns home exhausted, suspicious, and entirely too amused by the chaos you caused for him.
Rhysand was already annoyed before you even slammed the office doors open.
The sound cracked through the river house loudly enough that Cassian glanced up from the couch with immediate interest, the sharpening stone stilling against the dagger in his hand while Amren sighed over her book like your entrance had personally ruined her morning.
Rhys merely leaned back in his chair with the slow patience of a male who already knew he was about to lose an argument.
“No,” you said immediately.
“Good morning to you too,” Rhys replied dryly.
“No,” you repeated, striding across the office. “You are not sending Azriel back out again.”
Cassian’s mouth twitched.
Rhys folded his hands atop the desk. “There are problems at the Illyrian camps that need handling.”
“That’s not true.”
One dark brow lifted.
“You just want to send your best warrior to glare at everyone until they remember how to behave.”
Amren snorted softly into her wineglass.
Rhys pinched the bridge of his nose. “That is, unfortunately, part of handling the problem.”
“He’s exhausted.”
The amusement faded from his face then, if only slightly, because he knew it too.
Azriel had spent weeks flying between camps and borders and meetings, carrying half the Night Court on his shoulders with that same quiet endurance he carried everything else. He came home later now. Spoke less. Slept less. Even Cassian had started looking concerned.
And Azriel, of course, had said absolutely nothing about it.
“He would never ask for a break,” you continued, crossing your arms. “So I’m asking for him.”
Rhys exhaled slowly. “You know the timing is difficult.”
“Oh, spare me,” you said, throwing your arms in the air.
Cassian outright grinned now.
You pointed accusingly at Rhys. “You’ve worked him into the ground.”
“I have not—”
“You absolutely have.”
Rhys opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Cassian coughed into his fist to hide a laugh.
“So,” you said sweetly, “you are giving him a week off.”
“A week,” Rhys repeated flatly.
“A full week.”
Rhys stared at you. “Do you know how much work he handles in a single day?”
“Yes,” you replied without hesitation. “That’s exactly why I’m asking for seven of them.”
Amren smirked over the rim of her glass.
Rhys drummed his fingers once against the desk. “Do you realize the amount of chaos you’re asking me to deal with while you two disappear into domestic bliss?”
You leaned closer across the desk, crossing your arms with all the confidence of someone about to make a truly unreasonable offer.
“I’ll babysit Nyx for a week.”
For a moment, the entire room went silent before Cassian burst into laughter loud enough to echo off the walls.
Rhys blinked once at you. “You want to keep my son during your vacation?”
“No,” you said immediately, sounding genuinely horrified. “After.”
Cassian nearly slid off the couch laughing.
Rhys looked at you for another long second, like he genuinely could not decide whether to be offended or impressed. “You’re trying to barter childcare for my spymaster.”
“Yes.”
For a heartbeat, he simply blinked at you. Then laughter finally broke from him too, rich and disbelieving enough that even Amren looked mildly entertained now.
“You are unbelievable.”
You smiled sweetly. “And yet deeply persuasive.”
“You’re manipulative,” he informed you, though there was no real irritation left in his voice anymore.
“You raised me.”
“That is not remotely true.”
You waved a dismissive hand. “Close enough.”
Rhys shook his head slowly, still laughing under his breath as he leaned back into his chair. “Five days.”
“Seven.”
His eyes narrowed immediately. “You’re impossible.”
“You owe me.”
That finally made him pause.
Cassian’s grin sharpened instantly.
Rhys narrowed his eyes. “What favor?”
Your own smile turned positively wicked.
“Oh, don’t pretend you forgot.”
Rhys already looked wary enough that Cassian immediately sat up straighter, clearly sensing entertainment.
“You were sixteen,” you said casually, “and you broke one of your father’s study windows sneaking back in at night—”
Cassian barked a laugh.
“—so I told your father it was me.”
Rhys groaned loudly enough to throw his head back against the chair. “Mother save me.”
“You said you owed me.”
“I was a child!” Rhys snapped.
“And now you’re High Lord,” you replied smoothly. “Look how beautifully things worked out.”
Amren was openly smirking now.
Rhys threw up a hand in outrage. “You’ve been waiting years to use this against me.”
“Absolutely.”
“I should have let Uncle kill you for that window.”
“You cried. Like a big baby,” you snorted.
Cassian made a strangled sound somewhere between a laugh and choking.
Rhys looked deeply offended. “I was emotional.”
“You were throwing up from fear,” you said through a laugh.
Cassian collapsed back against the couch laughing hard enough that even Amren muttered, “Pathetic,” into her wineglass.
Rhys glared at all of you with the exhausted suffering of a male betrayed by his own court.
“You are all cruel.”
You smiled brightly. “I want Azriel home by tomorrow morning.”
Rhys held your gaze for another long moment before finally waving a hand in surrender.
“Fine.”
Victory surged through you so fast you nearly laughed.
“You’re the best cousin anyone’s ever had,” you declared proudly.
Rhys stared at you over the edge of his desk with the exhausted expression of a male who had ruled an entire court for centuries only to somehow still lose arguments to you specifically.
“I regret every moment of your existence.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“No,” he admitted dryly after a beat, waving a dismissive hand toward the door. “Unfortunately.”
—
Snow drifted softly beyond the balcony the next morning while pale winter light spilled across the river house in silver ribbons.
You were halfway through making tea when shadows curled suddenly across the balcony doors.
Your heart leapt instantly.
Azriel had barely landed before you were moving toward him.
He only had enough time to straighten before you collided into him hard enough to rock him back a step, your arms wrapping tightly around his neck while cold air and cedar and night clung to him.
A soft laugh escaped him the moment you collided into him, warmer than you had heard in weeks.
“There you are, sweetheart,” he murmured, pulling you tightly against him like he could not quite get close enough fast enough.
Gods, you had missed him.
You clung tighter as his arms slid around you automatically, warm and solid and achingly familiar. His wings tucked close behind him while he buried his face briefly against your hair like merely breathing you in eased something inside him.
Then he kissed you.
Slowly at first, his mouth brushing yours softly before he did it again, deeper this time, exhaustion and relief and quiet longing all tangled together.
When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours, one hand firm against your waist while his thumb traced absent circles there.
“What have you done this time?”
You blinked up at him innocently. “Nothing.”
Azriel huffed a quiet laugh. “Sweetheart, that face usually means Rhys is about to develop a headache.”
You gasped softly. “You wound me.”
“I know you,” he replied, warmth threading through his voice in a way that only made your grin worse.
“Rhys said you weren’t needed at the camps anymore,” you said quickly before he could continue interrogating you.
Azriel went still for half a second before one brow lifted slowly. “Oh, did he?”
The amusement in his voice deepened immediately, smooth and deeply skeptical now, but you ignored it completely and grabbed his hand before he could start asking dangerous questions.
“You have a week off.”
That finally made him stop moving altogether.
“A week,” he repeated carefully.
“A full week.”
Now he was openly suspicious, his shadows curling around your shoulders like they too were waiting for an explanation while he studied you with growing amusement.
“You managed to convince Rhysand to give me a full week off,” he said slowly, sounding like he was piecing together evidence at a crime scene, “and I’m supposed to believe you did absolutely nothing.”
“Yes.”
Azriel held your gaze for another long moment before the corner of his mouth finally curved.
“That’s deeply concerning.”
Rhys strode past moments later with a cup of coffee in hand, looking entirely too composed for someone who had been emotionally blackmailed less than twenty-four hours earlier.
“Good to see you home, brother,” he said smoothly as he passed. “Please enjoy your time off with your mate.”
You immediately shot him a warning look that very clearly said shut up.
Rhys’s mouth twitched.
“You’ve been working so hard,” he continued innocently to Azriel, entirely ignoring you now, “I wouldn’t want her to feel neglected.”
Azriel looked between the two of you slowly, suspicion giving way to realization piece by piece.
Then he laughed.
The sound was low and warm and rare enough that your chest tightened painfully at hearing it again, especially when genuine amusement finally softened the exhaustion lingering beneath it.
“You threatened the High Lord for me?”
“I negotiated.”
Rhys snorted loudly into his coffee.
Azriel’s eyes gleamed as he pulled you closer against him, his hand settling more firmly at your waist while his shadows curled lazily around your shoulders like they were just as entertained as he was.
“Remind me,” he murmured near your mouth, “to thank you properly later.”
Behind you, Rhys gagged dramatically.
You didn’t even bother turning around. “Go away.”
Rhys left laughing under his breath, though not before throwing you one deeply entertained look over his shoulder.
The moment Rhys disappeared down the hallway, silence settled softly around the house again, broken only by the crackle of the fireplace and the distant murmur of Velaris waking beyond the windows.
Azriel was still watching you.
He didn’t look suspicious exactly. If anything, the quiet amusement lingering in his eyes was somehow worse, because it meant he already knew you had absolutely caused problems and was simply waiting for you to admit to them voluntarily.
You moved back toward the kitchen with deliberate innocence and reached for the kettle again, though you only got as far as touching the handle before shadows curled around your wrist, gentle and insistent.
You glanced over your shoulder.
Azriel stood a few feet away, snow still dusting the dark shoulders of his leathers while exhaustion lingered beneath the gold and green of his eyes despite the growing amusement there.
“What did Rhys bargain away?” he asked.
You snorted softly. “His dignity, mostly.”
That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth, but he kept watching you in that steady, patient way that made lying to him feel almost impossible.
Almost.
You sighed dramatically before turning fully toward him. “Fine. I may have reminded him that he owed me a favor.”
“And what favor exactly did you use to convince the High Lord of the Night Court to part with his spymaster for an entire week?”
You grinned. “Classified.”
His shadows drifted curiously toward you, brushing around your ankles like smoke.
Azriel stepped closer then, slowly enough that you could have moved away if you wanted to.
You never did.
“How angry were you?” he asked quietly.
The humor faded from your face at the softness of the question.
You looked down briefly, fingers tugging absently at the sleeve of your sweater before muttering, “Pretty angry.”
Azriel said nothing after that, and you hated when he did this—this quiet patience, this unbearable way he simply waited until you gave him the truth willingly because he knew eventually you would.
“I know there are actual problems,” you admitted after a moment. “I know your job matters.”
“It does.”
“But Rhys keeps sending you because everyone listens when Azriel shadowsinger walks into a room looking murderous.”
A quiet exhale left him, not quite a laugh.
“And?”
“And I’m tired of everyone acting like you can endlessly carry things just because you don’t complain.”
The room fell quiet after that.
Outside, wind rattled softly against the balcony railings while Velaris carried on below, distant and glowing beneath the snow.
“You shouldn’t have spent your favor on me,” Azriel said at last, the quietness of his voice making your chest ache instantly.
There it was again.
Not embarrassment. Not annoyance.
Something far worse hidden carefully beneath restraint, wrapped so tightly into his composure most people mistook it for strength.
You crossed the remaining distance between you without hesitation.
“I’d spend worse things for you,” you replied softly.
Azriel’s hand tightened around yours so suddenly it almost hurt.
For a moment, neither of you spoke. He simply looked at you with that terrible quiet intensity of his, like he still never quite knew what to do with being cared for so openly.
Then Azriel looked away first.
Your heart ached at the sight.
“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” you whispered.
Something flickered across his face, quick enough most people would have missed it entirely.
Not you.
Never you.
“I’m alright,” he said automatically.
You stared at him flatly. “You fell asleep standing up last week.”
“That happened one time.”
“Azriel.”
A pause stretched between you before he finally sighed.
“…Maybe twice.”
“You walked into the bedroom door yesterday.”
“It was dark,” he replied with complete seriousness.
“You are literally made of shadows.”
Another pause.
“...It was very dark.”
Despite yourself, you laughed, and the corner of Azriel’s mouth curved faintly at the sound.
Now that he was home, now that the constant tension of duty had loosened even slightly, you could finally see how exhausted he really was. His shoulders remained stiff beneath the leather of his clothes, his wings slower to settle behind him than usual while even his shadows drifted lazily around the room with a strange sluggish softness, like they were tired too.
When your fingers brushed his hair back from his forehead, his eyes closed immediately, his body reacting before his mind could stop it, like gentleness itself had become permission to finally stop holding himself upright through sheer force of will.
That hurt more than anything else.
“You need food before you pass out,” you said quietly.
One eye opened slowly. “I’m not going to pass out.”
“You nearly fell asleep while kissing me on the balcony.”
“That could have been very romantic, my love.”
“It would have been if you weren’t swaying.”
A quiet laugh escaped him then, warm enough to make your chest tighten all over again.
Before he could argue further, you grabbed his hand and started dragging him toward the dining room.
Azriel followed immediately, not even pretending to resist.
Halfway down the hall, you stopped suddenly to grab a blanket abandoned over the back of a chair, and Azriel nearly walked directly into you before catching himself at the last second.
You turned slowly toward him.
“…Are you aware you’re following me around like a particularly dangerous housecat?”
“No,” he replied far too quickly.
“Liar.”
The corner of his mouth twitched while one of his shadows curled smugly around your wrist like it agreed with you entirely.
The dining room was already occupied when you entered, warm light spilling across the long table where Cassian lounged with enough food for six people spread before him, Nesta seated beside him with her coffee while Feyre bounced Nyx lightly on her knee near the far end of the table.
Rhys looked up first, and the moment his gaze landed on the two of you, a deeply entertained smirk spread across his face.
“Oh, this is fascinating.”
You narrowed your eyes immediately. “Shut up.”
Cassian glanced between you and Azriel once before his own grin widened into something outright dangerous.
Azriel had stopped directly behind your chair, close enough that the front of his chest brushed your back when you pulled the seat out for yourself, one hand still loosely holding yours while the other rested absentmindedly against your waist.
He did not seem remotely aware he was doing it.
Cassian absolutely did.
“Did the bond break his survival instincts,” he mused aloud, “or has he always followed you around like that?”
Azriel gave him a flat stare.
Cassian only grinned wider. “You know she’s not going to disappear if you stop touching her for five minutes.”
As though realizing it only because it had been pointed out, Azriel’s hand shifted slightly against your waist, though he still didn’t move away.
You bit the inside of your cheek so you would not smile.
Rhys looked delighted by the entire thing. “Oh, he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.”
“Rhys,” you warned.
Feyre was openly laughing now while Nesta hid a smirk behind the rim of her coffee mug.
Cassian leaned farther back in his chair, looking genuinely fascinated. “This is unbelievable. The terrifying shadowsinger returns from weeks of missions only to become—”
“If you finish that sentence,” Azriel interrupted calmly, “I’ll throw you into the Sidra.”
Cassian pointed triumphantly across the table. “See? He means it now because she’s here.”
Nyx giggled loudly at absolutely nothing.
Traitor.
Before the conversation could devolve further, you shoved a plate toward Azriel. “Eat.”
“I can serve myself,” he replied automatically.
“And yet you aren’t.”
Azriel looked down at the plate for a moment before glancing back at you, and then, to the visible horror of everyone at the table, obediently started eating.
The entire room went silent.
Cassian looked genuinely alarmed.
“Who are you,” he demanded, “and what have you done with our Azriel?”
You smirked quietly into your tea while Rhys leaned back in his chair with the air of someone suddenly remembering far too much childhood blackmail material.
“You know,” he mused lazily, “when we were children, she once chased me through the entire house with a fork because I made fun of her braid.”
“It was a very hurtful comment,” you replied.
“You chased me for twenty minutes.”
“And I’d do it again.” You threatened him with your fork.
Azriel glanced toward Rhys thoughtfully. “I believe that.”
Cassian barked a laugh while Rhys looked scandalized all over again.
“You’re encouraging her.”
“Oh, she doesn't need me at all,” Azriel replied smoothly.
You smiled sweetly at him.
Azriel’s hand settled absently against your thigh beneath the table. Not possessive, not deliberate, just there, like some instinct in him needed the reassurance of contact now that he was finally home.
Your heart softened at the feeling.
The conversation drifted around the table after that, easy and warm and mostly filled with Cassian complaining dramatically about training recruits while Nesta ignored him with the patience of a female who had heard this exact speech twenty times before.
Azriel barely spoke after that.
At first, you assumed he was simply listening while the conversation carried on around him, but then you started noticing the smaller things: the slight delay before he answered whenever someone spoke directly to him, the way his eyes kept drifting half shut whenever the conversation moved away from him for more than a minute, the way his thumb had gone completely still against your leg beneath the table.
Rhys noticed a second later, and you saw it happen in the subtle sharpening of his expression as amusement quietly gave way to assessment while he studied his brother more carefully.
Azriel blinked slowly once, then again, exhaustion finally beginning to win its battle against sheer stubbornness.
Without really thinking about it, your fingers slid gently into his hair and brushed the dark strands back from his forehead.
The reaction was immediate.
Azriel’s eyes closed completely beneath your touch, his body softening for the briefest moment like instinct had overtaken awareness before he could stop it.
Silence settled around the table.
Not awkward silence. Not dramatic silence. Just the sudden stillness of everyone realizing at the same moment how exhausted he truly was, because Azriel never relaxed like that around people and certainly never let himself look tired enough for anyone else to notice it.
Your fingers continued slowly through his hair while his breathing deepened almost imperceptibly beside you, his head tipping the slightest bit toward your touch before realization finally caught up to him.
His eyes opened immediately.
Embarrassment flickered briefly across his face, subtle enough most people would have missed it entirely.
You did not.
And judging by the expressions around the table, neither had anyone else.
Cassian was staring openly now while even Nesta’s expression had softened slightly. Rhys looked like someone had quietly punched him in the ribs.
“He’s exhausted,” you said flatly before anyone could speak, your tone making it very clear that you were not inviting commentary from anyone at this table.
Cassian’s expression lost all humor immediately.
Rhys leaned back slowly in his chair, guilt flickering briefly across his face before he masked it again, while Azriel looked vaguely like he wanted the floor beneath him to split open entirely.
So you squeezed his hand once beneath the table before saying with complete casualness, “Anyway. Bath.”
Feyre immediately choked on her tea.
Cassian looked delighted again within seconds.
Azriel blinked at you slowly. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
Rhys actually laughed into his coffee while Cassian pointed dramatically across the table.
“See? Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying.”
“You’re all exhausting,” Azriel muttered, though the faint color still lingering high on his cheeks ruined any real intimidation.
Feyre smiled brightly. “You love us.”
Azriel looked at her for a long moment before replying in a perfectly deadpan voice, “…Debatable.”
Nyx giggled loudly from Feyre’s lap like he personally found Azriel hilarious.
You stood, taking Azriel’s hand before he could decide to pretend he was fine for another hour. He followed you from the dining room with very little resistance, though Cassian’s voice immediately trailed after you both.
“If she throws you in the bath fully clothed, blink twice.”
Azriel didn’t even bother turning around. “If she decides to kill me, no one here is stopping her anyway.”
“Noted,” Cassian called back. “I’ll start planning your funeral.”
You rolled your eyes, though Azriel’s fingers tightened briefly around yours, faint amusement flickering down the bond before fading again by the time you reached the sitting room.
Without another word, you reached for the siphons strapped across his chest.
Azriel glanced down at you, one brow lifting slightly as your fingers immediately started working at the leather buckles. “What exactly are you doing?”
“Disarming you.”
“I’m not a threat.”
“You are, the second someone mentions work.”
That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth, though he stayed perfectly still while you unbuckled the straps one by one. After a moment, Azriel finally let his arms loosen fully at his sides in silent permission, watching you quietly the entire time.
The siphons glimmered softly as you placed them onto the nearby table beside Truth-Teller.
The second your fingers wrapped around the dagger, his shadows recoiled dramatically like you had personally offended every single one of them.
“Don’t start,” you warned.
One immediately curled possessively around the hilt anyway.
You narrowed your eyes at it. “Oh, so now you care about workplace safety.”
Azriel huffed a tired laugh, low and warm enough that your chest tightened at hearing it again.
You carried the dagger toward the mantel and placed it high enough that he would actually have to make an effort to retrieve it later before turning back toward him with narrowed eyes.
“Upstairs.”
Azriel immediately looked suspicious. “Why do I feel like I should be concerned?”
“Because you should be.”
One of his shadows vanished down the hallway ahead of you both without hesitation, like it had already decided whatever you were planning was an excellent idea.
You pointed after it triumphantly. “See? Even they agree with me.”
A dangerous glint entered Azriel’s tired eyes then, low and warm enough to send heat curling through your stomach despite yourself.
“If your plan involves getting me out of these leathers,” Azriel murmured as he stepped closer, his voice dropping lower while his gaze dragged slowly over your face, “you could have simply climbed into my lap and asked, sweetheart.”
The look in his eyes nearly undid you, but you refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing just how much that voice affected you.
So you rolled your eyes with as much dignity as possible while pushing firmly at his chest toward the staircase.
“Move,” you ordered, even as your face betrayed you completely.
Azriel barely resisted, which honestly worried you more than if he had.
Usually, he would at least pretend to argue.
Instead, he only shot you a slow, lazy grin that said he knew exactly what kind of effect he’d just had on you before allowing you to shove him toward the staircase without further complaint.
His shadows curled lazily around your ankles as you led him upstairs, one occasionally nudging against your heel like it wanted you to hurry up and put their ridiculous male to bed already.
The bathroom slowly filled with steam while you rummaged through cabinets gathering oils, salves, and clean cloths. Behind you, leather hit the floor piece by piece until the room finally fell quiet.
When you turned around, your chest tightened.
Bruises mottled his ribs in deep violet and yellow while thin cuts crossed his shoulders and abdomen, half-healed already thanks to fae healing but still fresh enough to tell their story clearly. His wings hung lower than usual too, not badly injured, only overused in the way muscles looked after being pushed far beyond exhaustion.
Azriel noticed your expression immediately.
“It looks worse than it is,” he said.
“That sentence should be carved onto your grave someday.”
A quiet snort escaped him, though his eyes stayed fixed on you as you crossed the room again, watching the anger flicker briefly across your face before gentleness replaced it entirely.
Your fingers brushed lightly across one of the cuts near his shoulder, the touch so careful it almost hurt to look at.
Azriel inhaled softly at once, his eyes lowering to your face while that familiar look crossed his expression again, the one that always seemed caught somewhere between tenderness and disbelief, as though he knew your softness by heart by now and still could not quite understand how it belonged to him.
You guided him toward the bath with surprising ease for someone handling the Night Court’s deadliest male, and the second he sank into the steaming water, a low exhale escaped him so involuntarily it almost sounded startled, like relief itself had caught him off guard.
“There he is,” you murmured softly.
Azriel opened one eye slightly. “Who?”
“The male I threatened a High Lord for.”
A tired smile tugged at the corner of his mouth before he let his head fall back against the edge of the bath again.
You knelt beside the tub and began gently washing blood from his skin while silence settled comfortably around you, warm and intimate beneath drifting steam and candlelight.
Azriel watched you the entire time, not speaking, just looking at you with that same quiet intensity that always made your chest ache, like some part of him still could not fully understand how someone could love him this gently and mean it.
Your fingers eventually slid through his damp hair, combing the dark strands back from his forehead while tension slowly left him piece by piece beneath your touch.
“You know,” you said quietly, “you’re allowed to rest before you collapse.”
“Mmm.”
A small smile tugged at your mouth. “Use your words, sweetheart,” you teased softly, stealing one of his own favorite lines.
Even exhausted, Azriel cracked one eye open just enough to give you a knowing look, desire flickered low beneath your ribs.
Then, after a small pause, he finally muttered, “I know.”
Something in your chest twisted painfully at the admission.
You moved behind him then, carefully lifting one wing enough to inspect it properly, and Azriel tensed instantly beneath your hands with pure instinct.
Your fingers stilled immediately.
“It’s okay,” you whispered softly.
The tension slowly eased.
Wing membranes shimmered darkly beneath the candlelight, tiny tears and strain visible along the strongest parts from too many hours spent flying without proper rest. Your fingers moved gently while you spread healing salve carefully across the damaged skin, and Azriel’s head tipped back against the edge of the bath, eyes sliding shut again.
The sound that escaped him when your nails lightly scratched near the base of his wing was dangerously close to a groan.
You froze instantly.
Azriel’s eyes opened at once, heat flashing there despite the exhaustion weighing them down.
“That,” he said hoarsely, “is unfair.”
A slow smile curved across your mouth. “Oh? The terrifying shadowsinger finally has a weakness?”
Azriel narrowed his eyes slightly, though the effect was ruined entirely by the way his wings had twitched beneath your hands.
“You know exactly what you’re doing.”
“Maybe,” you admitted lightly before dragging your nails along the sensitive spot again just to watch his breathing hitch.
Azriel swore softly under his breath.
Your smile widened immediately. “Gods, you’re easy.”
His shadows stirred restlessly around the room while Azriel looked back at you over his shoulder, his expression equal parts exhausted and heated.
“You are enjoying this far too much.”
“You make it very enjoyable.”
A rough laugh escaped him then, low enough to send a shiver down your spine.
“You’re cruel.”
“And yet,” you murmured while smoothing more salve carefully across his wing, “you’re still sitting very still for me.”
That earned you another one of those dangerous looks, slower this time, heavier somehow despite how tired he clearly was.
“Love,” Azriel warned softly, “if I wasn’t half asleep already, this conversation would be going very differently.”
Heat climbed immediately into your face, which only seemed to amuse him more.
Barely.
Because a moment later his eyes drifted shut again almost helplessly, exhaustion finally dragging him under faster than he could fight it.
Your heart cracked quietly at the sight.
So you kept tending his wings while snow drifted softly beyond the windows and the rest of the world faded farther and farther away.
At some point, your wrist began to ache from holding his wing at the careful angle you needed, and you shifted your grip so slightly you barely noticed it yourself.
Azriel noticed anyway.
His eyes opened halfway, heavy and unfocused, but his hand still found your wrist beneath the steam. He drew it gently away from his wing and pressed his mouth to the inside of it, a slow, absent kiss that felt more instinct than thought.
“You’re straining your wrist baby” he murmured.
You blinked at him. “Azriel.”
His eyes were already drifting shut again.
“I’m allowed to take care of you too.”
“You’re barely conscious.”
A faint hum escaped him. “Didn’t stop me noticing.”
The words were so soft, so entirely him, that you had to swallow around the ache rising in your throat before carefully returning your hand to his wing.
“Ridiculous male,” you whispered.
His mouth curved faintly, but a breath later he was gone again, sinking deeper beneath exhaustion as your fingers continued their slow, careful work.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer.
Eventually, you realized Azriel had gone completely still.
You leaned slightly around his shoulder and found him asleep.
Actually asleep.
Your throat tightened instantly.
Even then, even unconscious, his brows faintly furrowed when you shifted beside him, like some stubborn part of him still resisted rest on instinct alone.
Gently, you brushed damp hair from his forehead.
“Finally,” you whispered.
Azriel slept through drying off only halfway gracefully and absolutely refused to fully wake when you guided him toward bed afterward. He leaned heavily into you the entire time, one arm wrapped loosely around your waist while his wings dragged tiredly behind him.
“You’re bossy,” he murmured sleepily against your shoulder.
“You love it.”
“Mmm,” he hummed, eyes still closed. “Unfortunately.”
You laughed softly as he collapsed face-first onto the mattress moments later, wings spreading across nearly half the bed while one arm immediately reached toward where you stood beside him, like even half asleep he was still searching for you automatically.
Beautiful male.
You only meant to grab an extra blanket from the nearby chair, but the second you stepped away, Azriel made a quiet dissatisfied sound in his sleep and reached blindly across the bed after you, brows pulling together faintly when he found empty sheets instead.
Your heart nearly stopped.
“Alright, alright,” you whispered, climbing back beside him immediately.
The moment you settled beneath the blankets, instinct took over completely.
Azriel moved toward you at once, one powerful arm wrapping tightly around your waist before dragging you flush against his chest with surprising strength for someone barely awake. His face buried automatically against your throat while his hand spread across your back, fingertips flexing once against your spine like he needed to physically reassure himself you were there.
Even asleep, he kept pulling you closer.
One leg tangled with yours beneath the blankets while his wings shifted instinctively around the bed, curling slightly toward your side like they, too, were trying to keep you near.
The bond between you pulsed warm and drowsy beneath your skin while snow drifted quietly beyond the windows.
Then, already half asleep again, Azriel pressed a slow kiss against the sensitive spot beneath your jaw before murmuring softly against your throat, “You make me forget I’m tired.”
The words hit like a bruise straight to the heart.
You turned carefully within his arms just enough to press a kiss against his temple.
“Good,” you whispered.
A sleepy hum vibrated against your skin while his fingers slowly traced once along your spine, more instinct than conscious movement now.
Then, voice low and rough with exhaustion, Azriel brushed his mouth slowly against your throat before murmuring against your skin—
“Tomorrow,” he promised softly, “I’m going to pin you beneath me and remind you what happens when you spend an entire evening teasing my wings, sweetheart.”
---
a/n : this piece was so fucking funny to write because i’ve had this exact vision of exhausted azriel for MONTHS 🤭
i don’t know if they’ll become a full series necessarily, but i definitely want to keep writing little glimpses of them because their dynamic has completely taken over my brain at this point.
LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANNA JOIN THE TAGLIST 💙
Main taglist : @sjejejjej @theyouthfullmoon @maplesdapperthoughts @jaziona92 @lilah-asteria @chillinini
I shouldn't have been lying awake at night thinking about the way she said my name—soft, careful, like she wasn't sure she was allowed to.
I shouldn't have been replaying the warmth of her arms around my waist on the bike, the way her cheek rested against my back like she trusted me not to break her.
I shouldn't have been imagining what it would feel like to kiss her. Or what she looked like first thing in the morning. Or how beautiful she'd be holding a bouquet she'd arranged herself.
But I was. And I couldn't stop.
Every damn time I closed my eyes, she was there. Her shy smiles. Her bright, hopeful eyes. Her voice, gentle, sweet, impossibly kind in a world that rarely deserved that kind of softness.
It was intoxicating. Dizzying. A little maddening.
I'd never been like this over a woman. Not once. Not even close. And that truth alone had me pacing mental circles, trying to force myself to be sensible.
She was shy. She was good. She was soft in places I was all steel and scars.
I wasn't supposed to want something this gentle. I sure as hell wasn't supposed to reach for it.
But I did. God, I did.
I wanted that next step, something real, something deeper. Wanted to stop just "running into each other," stop pretending the universe wasn't shoving us together. Wanted to call her mine.
Except... she'd been hurt. And I didn't want to push. Didn't want to do anything that made her retreat from me.
So I waited. Or tried to. And thought about her far, far too damn much.
Eventually the doorbell went off like someone was leaning on it with their full weight.
Which, unfortunately, meant one thing. I opened the door with a long-suffering sigh.
Rhysand stood there dressed like he'd stepped out of a men's magazine, button-up shirt fitted to his chest, tailored trousers, hair gelled within an inch of its life. There was enough cologne radiating off him to fumigate the hallway.
"I have a date," he announced, strolling past me without invitation as usual.
"So what?" I said flatly. "You want my approval on your outfit? Because no."
Rhys scowled. "I wasn't asking for fashion advice from a man who owns exactly three shirts."
"I think you look arrogant and egotistical as ever," I said with a grin.
"Perfect," he said. "That's the look I was going for."
I lifted a brow. "Must be some date."
"It is," he said. Then dramatically, smugly, obnoxiously he added, "I have a date with Feyre."
The grin died on my face. Rhys's eyes lit up like he'd just won something.
"So you came here to rub it in," I gritted out.
"Precisely," he said breezily, smoothing his already perfect hair. "I know just how much you've been pining over Feyre's friend—what's her name again? The one who clings to you on your motorcycle—"
"Don't," I warned.
He only smirked wider.
"I just thought I'd let you know that I have scored," Rhys continued in a sing-song voice, "and you, dear brother, have not."
"You are evil," I snapped, shoving him backwards out my apartment.
He cackled, actually cackled like a villain in a children's movie.
"Oh, Az," he laughed, straightening his shirt, "I'll make sure to tell Feyre what a lovely, jealous mess you've become. Maybe she can pass the message along to your girl."
"She's not—" I started, but he was already walking away, waving over his shoulder.
"Not yet!" he called back. "But keep staring at her like that and she will be!"
I slammed the door before he could see the heat that hit my face. Something inside me snarled at the thought.
It should've been me going out. Me knocking on her door. Me seeing that shy blush when she opened it. Me making sure she got home safe. Me getting to hear her talk about her flowers and her dreams and the little things that light up her eyes.
It should've been me.
Instead, I was pacing my damn apartment like a possessive idiot while Rhys strutted off on his perfectly acceptable date with a perfectly kind girl and I was the one alone, thinking about the woman I couldn't stop falling for.
I needed air.
Not the stale, recycled kind inside my apartment, filled with thoughts I couldn't outrun. Real air. Cold air.
The kind that stung your lungs and made you forget for a moment that you were losing your mind over a girl who didn't even realise the effect she had on you.
So I took the bike out.
Maybe I was speeding. Maybe I was trying to outrun the image of her smile. Maybe I was trying to burn out this gnawing jealousy Rhys had lit in my chest.
Didn't matter.
The city blurred past in streaks of neon, wind cutting sharp across my jaw, engine vibrating through me like a pulse.
Riding always cleared my head—until her, apparently.
Because every damn turn, every corner, every red light... I was imagining her arms around me again. The way she'd rested her cheek between my shoulder blades like she belonged there.
Pathetic. Pathetic and completely, irrevocably gone.
I told myself I was heading to the mechanic to get the scratched panel from the "accident" fixed though calling our collision an accident always felt wrong. Accident made it sound like something unfortunate.
It wasn't. It was the best thing that had ever blindsided me.
Still, the bike needed work. At least that was an excuse to leave the apartment before I drove myself insane.
The ride took ten minutes. I pulled into the cracked asphalt lot, engine cutting off with a low growl.
And then the air punched right out of my lungs.
Because somehow—impossibly, she was there.
Standing in front of the grease-stained counter, hands wrung nervously in front of her, chewing her lip like she did when she was unsure of something.
My girl. The universe really had a sick sense of humour.
I froze, helmet in hand, watching the scene unfold from ten feet away.
She looked worried. The mechanic, old Theo, who'd been trying to overcharge people since the dawn of time was giving her a smug smile I recognised far too well.
"I'm telling you," Theo said, tapping his clipboard with fake authority, "you need a full engine diagnostic. This kind of sound? Could be serious. Might even need a new belt."
"That sounds... expensive," she murmured, frowning.
Of course it did. He was upselling her by at least five hundred. Probably more.
My jaw flexed. Heat crawled up my spine, possessiveness, protectiveness, something primal and immediate.
I walked over. Calmly. Too calmly.
Her head turned at the sound of my boots on the concrete. And when her eyes found mine, gods. That shy smile. Small. Surprised. Soft. Enough to knock the air out of me all over again.
"A–Azriel?" she breathed.
"Hey," I said, voice coming out deeper, rougher than intended. "Didn't expect to see you here."
She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, nervous habit. "My car started making this weird clicking noise and Feyre said this place was cheap so... here I am."
Cheap? Yes. Honest? Absolutely not.
I plastered on a polite smile and looked at Theo. "What kind of diagnostic are you trying to sell her?"
Theo blinked. "This is between me and the customer—"
"No," I said quietly, stepping just a little closer to her. "It's not."
He swallowed. Hard. Good. "Let me see the car," I told her gently.
She blinked up at me. "You... know cars?"
I almost smiled. "I know when someone's trying to scam you."
Her cheeks warmed a shade I could feel even from here.
I moved around to the car, had her pop the hood. Listened. Checked a few things. Took my time because she was standing beside me, watching with wide eyes like I'd just parted the damn seas.
Finally, I shut the hood and handed her the keys.
"You don't need a diagnostic," I said. "It's your heat shield rattling. A loose bracket. Thirty bucks, max."
Her brows lifted. "Really?"
"Really." I glared at Theo. "Which I'm sure is exactly what he was about to tell you."
Theo muttered something under his breath and shuffled off, pretending to look busy. She laughed, soft, relieved. And it did something violent to my chest.
"Thank you," she whispered. "I seriously think he was about to charge me half my rent."
"He was," I said bluntly. "He does that."
She shook her head, still smiling. "You always show up right when I need saving, don't you?"
I swallowed. Hard. "I don't mind," I said, because the truth was much worse than minding. "You okay?"
"Yes," she said, then hesitated like she wanted to say more. "I just... keep running into you."
"Maybe fate's trying to tell you something."
The words slipped out before I could stop them.
Her breath caught. Just a fraction. Just enough for me to notice.
And—I wanted to kiss her. Right there in the garage with the smell of grease and asphalt and coincidence thick in the air.
But she wasn't mine. Not yet. Not in the ways that mattered.
So instead, I stepped back, forcing space between us, even though every instinct screamed to close it.
"Do you, uh... want me to stay?" I asked. "Until they're done?"
She looked up at me, soft, hopeful, a little shy. "I'd like that," she said quietly.
And just like that, the day felt brighter. The world felt cleaner. My heart felt heavier and lighter all at once.
Because I was falling and fate, apparently, wasn't done throwing her at me.
Reader's POV -
"Do you want to go for a walk?" Azriel asked.
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him.
This man who kept showing up in the strangest, most inconveniently perfect moments of my life. This man who had seen me cry, seen me terrified, seen me hurt... and somehow stayed gentle. Stayed patient. Stayed Azriel.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as if he'd caught the hesitation in my eyes.
"Just while they're working on your car and my bike," he added, shrugging one shoulder. "There are a few shops around. And it beats standing in this—" he made a face at the grease-stained floor "—oily hellscape."
I laughed under my breath. "Yeah. Yeah, sure."
His smile deepened. Subtle, but warm. Like sun filtering through clouds.
We stepped out of the mechanic's lot and onto the sidewalk, the afternoon light soft and slightly golden, the breeze carrying the smell of bakeries and coffee shops from the nearby strip.
He walked close enough that our arms brushed occasionally. Just a whisper of contact.
But every time it happened, my stomach did this stupid fluttering thing I absolutely refused to analyse.
Azriel cleared his throat softly, like he had something on his mind, and then— "I uh... didn't expect to run into you today."
"Me neither," I admitted, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. "But... I'm glad we did."
His eyes flicked toward mine. A long look. Too long. And then he looked away, just barely, as if the intensity surprised even him.
We walked in quiet for a moment. Comfortable, easy quiet, the kind that felt soft instead of awkward.
Then his low voice rumbled beside me.
"There's this place up here," he said, nodding toward a brightly colored shop. "I've been meaning to check it out, but Rhys always says it makes me look 'too soft.'"
I laughed. "Coming from him? Please."
Azriel chuckled. "I know."
And just like that, we were stepping into the cutest little candy shop I'd ever seen. The air smelled like sugar and childhood.
Shelves of glass jars lined the walls, rainbow gummy bears, pastel marshmallows, glossy sweets wrapped in shiny foil. An entire counter of chocolates. And along the back wall, an old-fashioned display of lollipops in every flavour imaginable.
My face must've lit up like a kid's, because Azriel's expression softened almost immediately.
"You like this place?" he asked quietly.
"I love it," I breathed.
He watched me with something warm, something dangerously close to fondness.
Without warning, he moved ahead of me, stopping at a shelf and picking up something bright blue.
"You ever have these?" he asked, holding up a small pack of sherbet powder. "The ones you dip the little candy stick into?"
My jaw dropped. "Oh my god, yes. I used to beg my mom for them at the corner store."
"Then you're getting one," he said simply, grabbing a pack and placing it into my hand before I could protest.
"...Azriel—"
"Nope," he cut in, straight-faced. "It's non-negotiable."
Before I could argue, he turned to the lollipop rack and reached for one in my direction. "Pick a colour," he said.
I blinked. "Are we getting lollipops too?"
"Yes." No hesitation. None. As if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Blue," I said before my brain could catch up.
He selected a bright blue one and handed it to me. Then he took a red one for himself. The two colours looked absurdly good together.
Like a stupidly cute matching pair.
I swallowed, suddenly warm.
Azriel didn't seem to notice, he was at the register already, tapping his card before I could even think about stopping him.
"You didn't have to—"
He shot me a look. "I wanted to."
And just like that, any argument I had dissolved.
We stepped back outside, candy in hand, the sunlight catching in his hair. He unwrapped his lollipop first, slowly, methodically, like he was handling something delicate.
I unwrapped mine too, and as we walked down the street, the two of us quietly sucking on our lollipops while city life buzzed around us... it felt bizarrely intimate.
Not romantic, technically. Not a date.
Just... something warm. Something soft. Something that filled my ribs with a gentle ache I didn't know how to deal with.
"So," he said after a minute, tongue grazing the red candy before he tucked it back between his lips. "Tell me something real."
My steps faltered. "...Real?"
"Yeah." He glanced at me sideways. "Something about you. Something that matters."
Something that matters. My pulse kicked. "I, um..." I hesitated. "I think I'm still figuring out what 'real' is right now."
His eyebrows pulled together, concern, not pity. "That's okay," he said quietly. "You don't have to know everything today."
I swallowed around the sudden thickness in my throat. "And you?" I asked. "Tell me something real about you."
He considered that for a moment, the red candy clicking softly against his teeth.
Then "I'm not nearly as intimidating as people think."
I smiled. "Okay, well, that's debatable."
"No, really," he said, almost shyly. "I know people assume I'm... quiet. Broody. Cold. But I'm not." He paused. "Not with the right people."
Something tightened in my chest at that. We walked. We talked. We laughed.
If this was a date... I'd be falling for him. And maybe I already was.
We were halfway down the sidewalk, passing a mural of cherry blossoms painted across the side of a bookstore, when Azriel suddenly stopped walking. Stopped dead.
I blinked up at him, lollipop still in my mouth. "Everything okay?"
He stared directly at my lips. "...Your tongue is blue," he said quietly, like it was the most serious news imaginable.
I laughed, pulling the lollipop from my mouth. "Well, yours is red."
He rolled the red candy between his teeth, eyes flicking between my mouth and his own for a fraction of a second.
And then—
"If we kissed," he murmured, low and unthinking, "they could be purple.
The world froze. Absolutely. Froze.
His own eyes widened a fraction right after he said it like his brain caught up a second too late and a faint wince crossed his face. Not quite embarrassment. More like he was mentally kicking himself for letting the thought escape.
But the damage was done. Between us, the air snapped tight like stretched silk.
My heartbeat thudded so hard I felt it in my fingertips. I could hear the blood in my ears. I could hear the soft hum of traffic and the distant music from the candy store behind us.
But mostly?
I could hear him. His breathing. The faint shift of his boots as he adjusted his stance. The subtle drop of his gaze back to my lips.
And God help me I thought about it. Just for a second. Just long enough to feel the heat coil low in my stomach.
I should've laughed it off. Should've teased him. Should've changed the subject. Instead, something braver, something reckless and new rose in me like a challenge.
"...Okay," I whispered.
Azriel's head snapped toward me so fast I swore I heard the air move. "Okay?" he echoed, voice a shade deeper than before.
I swallowed. "If you want. If... if you meant it."
For a heartbeat, one perfect, suspended heartbeat he simply stared at me.
And then something shifted in him. Something dark. Something hungry. Something he'd been holding back for far too long.
The corner of his mouth lifted in the slowest, most devastating smirk I'd ever seen.
"Oh, sweetheart," he murmured, stepping closer until the heat of him wrapped around me like a breath. "I always mean it."
I didn't have time to respond.
One second we were standing under the afternoon sun and the next my back hit the brick wall behind me, gentle but firm, his hand warm against my hip as he crowded in just enough to cage me without touching anything he didn't have permission to.
"Tell me no," he breathed, giving me every chance to back out.
But I was already leaning up toward him. Already dizzy from the way he looked at me. Already gone.
"I won't," I whispered. His breath hitched.
And then he kissed me. Not softly. Not hesitantly.
Azriel kissed me like he'd been waiting for it, aching for it since the night I crashed into him.
His hand slid to the back of my neck, fingers threading through my hair as his mouth claimed mine, warm and insistent and utterly consuming. The taste of sugared sherbet and cherry-red candy and something wholly, dangerously Azriel flooded my senses.
I made a tiny, involuntary sound, something between a gasp and a sigh and that was all it took.
He kissed me harder.
The blue and red flavours mingled between us, warm and electric, staining both our tongues a darker shade. Maybe purple. Maybe something deeper.
But I didn't care.
All I could think of was the press of his lips. The heat of his body. The way he kissed like he was trying not to ruin me but couldn't quite help himself.
When he finally pulled back, it was only by a breath. Forehead resting against mine. Chest rising and falling in a slow, stunned rhythm.
His voice was a whisper against my lips. "...Definitely purple."
I laughed breathless, overwhelmed, unbelievably warm and he smiled softly, thumb brushing my cheek as if he wasn't sure I was real.
And in that moment?
I knew nothing would ever be the same again.
A/N - Azriel literally cannot stop thinking about her like, ALL. THE. TIME. And then Rhys shows up just to flex about his perfect little date, because of course he would x
Azriel's also not about to let his girl get scammed. He's got it handled and yes, that does lead to a little walk... nothing suspicious, nothing shady, just two people enjoying the day and each other's company :)
Their first kiss is sweet, soft, and ridiculously fruity!!
Thanks so much for reading <33
Crash Course in Love tag list - @sophieliz @azrielblue @whump-loverz @galacticoceans @lilah-asteria @niiickelodeon @justtryingtosurvive02 @rosie-posie08 @mis-lil-red @dnfhascorruptedme @justreadingfanficseveryday @spookypersondinosaur @jugodeshadowsinger @nyxmoretti @imjustagirl324 @gemini-196 @katarina1224 @beautiful-creatures-xo-blog @fuckingsimp4azriel @kindaslightlyacidic @ivy-34 @ericacharles514 @alienmotel
background: you've always had a crush on colston in high school, but with a 2 year age difference, you being a sophomore and colston being a senior, it never worked out, boys never looked at you because you were 'ugly' but someone has always had a secret crush on you, and it shows in college. series linked here
(all pics from pinterest, all rights reserved)
word count: 9.6K
notes: this will be split up into 2 parts. this is the SECOND part, the first part is linked here.. i apologize but tumblr is acting like a b!
warning: this is a alternative universe, keep this in mind! angst, depiction of medical emergency, potental fighting
Rain had started falling sometime after Y/N left Colston’s house.
At first it was just a mist, the kind that hung in the Michigan air like a cold breath, but by the time she reached the end of the street it had turned into a steady drizzle that soaked through her hoodie and clung to her hair.
The alcohol in her system made the world feel slower and heavier.
Streetlights blurred slightly as she walked down the sidewalk with her arms wrapped around herself. Her shoes splashed quietly through shallow puddles forming along the curb.
Her head was spinning.
Not just from the drinks.
From everything.
Colston’s words replayed in her head over and over like a cruel echo.
So damn annoying.
I see why nobody wanted you in high school.
The words hurt more now than they had when he said them.
Because the adrenaline was gone.
The anger was gone.
All that was left was the sting of humiliation sitting deep in her chest.
Her throat tightened as she walked, blinking away tears she refused to let fall.
The quiet neighborhood felt almost eerie compared to the chaos of the party earlier.
No music.
No voices.
Just the sound of rain tapping against pavement.
Her phone buzzed faintly in her pocket, probably Maddie texting asking where she was, but she didn’t check it.
Right now she just wanted to get back to the dorm.
To her bed.
To somewhere safe where she could just disappear under the blankets and pretend this entire night had never happened.
The road she was walking along curved slightly near an intersection.
Her vision blurred for a moment as she wiped rain from her face.
And that’s when the headlights appeared.
Too fast.
Too bright.
The sound came first.
An engine revving.
Tires cutting through wet pavement.
The car swerved slightly as it came around the corner.
Inside the vehicle, the driver’s movements were sloppy.
Unsteady.
Drunk.
Y/N barely had time to look up.
For a split second she froze in the road, disoriented from the rain and the alcohol.
Then the horn blared.
The headlights swallowed her vision.
And everything went black.
The Michigan football locker room was loud that Saturday afternoon.
Pads slammed into lockers. Guys shouted across the room. Music blasted faintly from someone’s speaker while a few players were still finishing up lifting.
It was a normal day.
At least it had been until Malik walked in.
The energy shifted almost immediately.
Malik wasn’t someone people ignored. He carried himself with the quiet authority of someone who had been around the program long enough to command respect without saying much. Broad shoulders, long arms, the kind of presence that made conversations lower when he walked by.
But today?
Today there was something different about him.
His jaw was tight.
His steps were heavy.
And in his hand was his phone, screen lit up with a social media post that had already started spreading around campus.
Across the locker room, Colston sat at his locker, elbows resting on his knees as he stared down at the floor between his shoes.
He hadn’t said much to anyone that day.
Not to JJ, not to the other tight ends, not even to the guys who usually joked with him nonstop.
His mind had been somewhere else.
Somewhere stuck between the memory of the fight with his girlfriend.
The moment he told Y/N to leave.
And the news he’d gotten that morning.
She got hit by a car.
He hadn’t even known what to do with that information yet.
Before he could fully process it, a shadow fell across him.
Colston slowly looked up.
And immediately knew this conversation was coming.
Because standing in front of him was Malik.
And Malik looked furious.
The locker room noise began to fade as nearby players subtly quieted down, sensing tension building.
Malik held up his phone.
“You hooked up with my sister, didn’t you.”
It wasn’t a question.
It was an accusation.
Colston’s stomach tightened.
He didn’t answer right away.
Which was answer enough.
Malik’s nostrils flared.
“Yeah,” he muttered darkly, shaking his head. “That’s what I thought.”
He turned the phone screen toward Colston for half a second.
A screenshot.
Colston’s ex-girlfriend had posted something messy online.
Nothing subtle.
Nothing private.
Just enough information and nasty comments that anyone who knew the situation could piece it together.
Names weren’t even necessary.
People were already talking.
Malik’s voice dropped lower.
“You’ve been coming to my house since we were kids,” he said.
His words came slow.
Controlled.
But barely.
“You played video games in my living room. Ate my mom’s food.”
The muscles in his jaw tightened harder.
“And the whole time you’re messing with my little sister?”
Colston’s gaze fell back to the floor.
He looked… ashamed.
Genuinely ashamed.
“I wasn’t messing with her,” he muttered quietly.
Malik scoffed.
“You think I’m stupid?”
His voice rose now.
“You think I didn’t see the way she used to look at you in high school?”
Colston rubbed his face with both hands.
“Malik-”
But Malik stepped closer.
Too close.
“You knew she had a crush on you,” he snapped.
“And you still did that?”
A few players across the room stood up slowly now, sensing things might turn physical.
JJ glanced nervously between them.
Colston still hadn’t stood up.
Which only made Malik angrier.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Malik growled.
Colston finally looked up.
His eyes were tired.
Regretful.
And quiet.
“Is it true?” Malik demanded.
“Did you sleep with her?”
Colston hesitated.
For just a second.
Then he said something that made the entire locker room go silent.
“I didn’t mean to take your sister’s virginity.”
The words landed like a grenade.
Malik’s expression changed instantly.
The restraint he’d been barely holding onto snapped.
“You WHAT?”
The next second he lunged forward, grabbing Colston by the front of his shirt and yanking him up off the bench.
Lockers rattled from the sudden movement.
“Yo, yo, chill!” someone shouted.
But Malik was already shoving him back against the metal lockers.
“You think that’s something you just casually say?” he barked.
Colston didn’t fight back.
Didn’t swing.
Didn’t shove him away.
Which honestly made the situation look even worse.
JJ rushed over quickly.
“Malik bro-”
Another teammate grabbed Malik’s arm.
“Let him go!”
But Malik was shaking with anger now.
“My sister is in the hospital right now,” he snapped.
The words hit harder than the shove.
Colston’s face went pale.
“What?”
Malik stared at him like he wanted to tear him apart.
“She got hit by a car last night,” he said coldly.
The locker room went dead quiet.
Even the music had stopped.
Colston blinked.
“What do you mean-”
“Drunk driver,” Malik cut in.
“And you know where she was walking from?”
The silence answered that question.
Malik shoved him one last time before teammates finally pulled him back.
“If she got hurt because of that mess you dragged her into…”
His voice dropped into something dangerous.
“I swear to God, Colston.”
For the first time since the confrontation started, Colston looked completely shaken.
Not defensive.
Not angry.
Just… stunned.
Because the weight of everything he’d said to Y/N the night before suddenly came crashing down on him all at once.
And the realization hit him like a punch to the chest.
The last thing he’d ever said to her was that nobody wanted her.
And now she was lying in a hospital bed.
And he didn’t even know if she was okay.
The hospital hallways were quiet in that strange, sterile way that made every sound echo.
Shoes against tile.
The faint hum of fluorescent lights.
Machines beeping from rooms behind closed doors.
Colston walked through the corridor slowly, hands shoved into the pockets of his hoodie like he didn’t quite know what to do with them.
The confrontation in the locker room with Malik still rang in his ears.
My sister is in the hospital right now.
Drunk driver.
The words had been sitting heavy in his chest ever since.
He shouldn’t have come.
That thought repeated in his mind with every step.
But something stronger had pulled him there anyway.
Guilt.
Fear.
Regret.
A nurse had pointed him toward the ICU wing after he awkwardly asked for Y/N’s room. She’d told him visiting hours were technically limited, but the floor was quiet at the moment.
Now he stood outside the door.
Room 214.
His hand hovered near the handle.
For a moment, he considered turning around.
Just leaving.
Because after everything he had said to her…
What right did he have to show up now?
But the door was already slightly cracked open.
And through that gap, he could see her.
So he stepped inside.
The room was dim.
Most of the overhead lights were off, leaving only the soft glow of monitors and a small lamp near the wall.
Y/N lay in the hospital bed, almost swallowed by white blankets and medical equipment.
Her hair was pushed back from her face.
Bandages wrapped around one side of her head.
Thin wires ran from her scalp to a monitor beside the bed, little colored lines flickering across the screen in quiet rhythms.
An IV dripped slowly beside her arm.
Her leg was elevated and wrapped thickly in gauze and braces.
She looked so… small.
Nothing like the confident dancer who commanded attention at practice.
Nothing like the girl who had stood up to his girlfriend the night before.
Just fragile.
Still.
The steady beep… beep… beep of the monitor filled the room.
Colston stepped closer to the bed slowly, his chest tightening.
For a moment he just stood there.
Looking at her.
The guilt crept up his throat like something suffocating.
“You look like crap,” he muttered quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.
It was a weak attempt at humor.
But his throat tightened anyway.
He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“I heard what happened.”
No response.
Of course.
She was asleep.
Or maybe sedated.
He shifted his weight slightly.
“I… uh…”
He exhaled slowly.
“I didn’t mean what I said.”
The words came out rough.
Quiet.
“I was pissed. My girl.. well… ex now, she was going crazy, and I just…”
He shook his head.
“You didn’t deserve that.”
His eyes dropped to the floor.
“I know you liked me back in high school,” he admitted quietly.
“And I…”
He paused.
Because the truth was something he’d never really said out loud before.
“I liked you too.”
The confession sat heavy in the room.
“But you were Malik’s little sister,” he continued.
“And I didn’t want to be that guy.”
His voice softened even more.
“So I just… acted like I didn’t notice.”
The machine beside her bed beeped steadily.
Colston leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on the rail of the hospital bed.
“You didn’t deserve any of this,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry.”
The silence lingered for several seconds.
Then suddenly something changed.
At first it was small.
Y/N’s fingers twitched slightly against the blanket.
Colston noticed immediately.
“Hey…”
He leaned closer.
“You awake?”
But then her body jerked.
Sharp.
Sudden.
The monitor beside her bed began beeping faster.
Colston’s eyebrows knit together in confusion.
“Y/N?”
Her arms started shaking.
Not a small tremble.
A violent movement.
Her entire body stiffened suddenly as the wires connected to her scalp shifted against her skin.
The monitor began shrieking loudly.
“Oh.. holy crap,” Colston breathed.
Her head tilted slightly as her body convulsed against the mattress.
Her hands clenched.
Her jaw tightened.
And her entire body began seizing.
“HEY!”
Colston jumped back from the bed in panic.
“Hey! Somebody!”
He ran to the door and threw it open.
“HEY! SHE’S-”
His voice echoed down the hallway.
“She’s shaking!”
Within seconds nurses came running.
One.
Then two.
Then suddenly an entire medical team flooded into the room.
“Seizure!”
“Move!”
“Get the medication!”
Colston stumbled backward into the hallway as doctors and nurses surrounded the bed.
Machines beeped rapidly.
Commands were shouted quickly between staff members.
“Hold her arms-”
“Vitals rising-”
“Get the IV ready!”
The scene inside the room became chaos.
Medical professionals moving quickly around the bed as Y/N’s body continued convulsing under their hands.
Colston stood frozen in the hallway.
His chest rising and falling rapidly.
His hands trembled slightly at his sides.
The entire moment replayed in his mind like a nightmare.
I’m sorry.
I liked you too.
Then.
The seizure.
The chaos.
The doctors rushing in.
His stomach twisted.
Because the thought creeping into his head was one he had carried for years.
One that started all the way back in high school.
A quiet, ugly voice that always came back whenever something went wrong.
Everything you touch gets messed up.
He swallowed hard.
Looking through the doorway at the medical team surrounding her.
At the machines screaming.
At the chaos he had been standing in the middle of just seconds earlier.
His chest tightened painfully.
“Yeah,” he muttered under his breath.
“I should go.”
No one stopped him.
No one even noticed him leaving.
He turned and walked slowly down the hallway.
Past the waiting chairs.
Past the nurses’ station.
Out through the hospital doors into the cold Michigan air.
And as the door closed behind him, the thought echoed again in the back of his mind.
Everything you touch… you ruin.
So for the first time since arriving, Colston walked away.
Because somewhere deep down he had convinced himself that maybe… Y/N would be better off if he stayed far away from her.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Four | Gold Light and Fast Rides | Crash Course in Love
Pairing - Azriel x reader
Word count - 2.3k
Warnings - None
<- prev || series masterlist || next ->
Morning arrived like it was trying to tiptoe around me.
Thin gold light spilt between my curtains, brushing gently across my pillow, my cheek, the mess of tissues still scattered on the floor beside my bed. My head pounded dully, the kind of ache that comes after crying harder than you meant to, longer than you should have.
God. Last night. I exhaled shakily, rubbing my eyes before reaching blindly for my phone. The screen blinked awake.
A text. From him.
Azriel: Hey good morning. I was just wondering if you're awake and how you're feeling? Maybe if you're up for it, we could go for a ride on my bike and talk a little?
I sat straight up so fast my blankets tangled around my legs. I reread it once. Twice. Three times.
Azriel. Checking on me. Inviting me... somewhere.
My heart shouldn't have flipped. Not after everything. Not after last night. But it did anyway.
Before I could even begin processing it, my bedroom door slammed open. Feyre marched in like a caffeinated general.
"I brought offerings," she declared, thrusting a steaming mug into my hands. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I want to commit a homicide," I muttered into the rim of the cup.
She gasped dramatically, clutching her chest. "Oh my god. That asshole has finally corrupted you. My sweet, innocent friend is turning villain."
"Fey," I groaned.
She plopped down beside me, still scandalised but trying not to laugh. "I'm kidding. If anyone's murdering him, it's me. I'll make it look like an accident."
I laughed despite myself.
Another text chimed on my phone. I reached for it but Feyre was faster. She snatched the phone, scanned the notification, and squealed so loudly I nearly spilt my coffee.
"Oh. My. God. Azriel just asked you out! You have to go!"
"It's not a date," I snapped, lunging to reclaim my phone. "He's just being polite after witnessing... whatever last night was."
"A tragedy," Feyre corrected. "An opera. Very dramatic. Lots of tears." She wagged her brows. "Ask him if it's a date."
I stared at her. "No."
"Ask."
"No."
"ASK."
She bounced on the mattress like a toddler on sugar, shaking the whole bed until I caved. I typed it quickly, before I could lose my nerve.
Me: Is it a date?
The reply came almost immediately.
Azriel: No I promise, all I want is to check on you.
I showed Feyre with a flat, unimpressed expression. "See? Not a date."
She pouted so hard her lower lip practically hit her chin.
I didn't want to admit it, not even to myself, but a tiny, foolish part of me felt disappointed too.
Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous.
"It doesn't matter." Feyre clapped, all brightness again. "You're still going."
"No I'm not," I protested. "I just got out of a relationship."
"Andddd?" she drawled. "You broke up with an asshole. You didn't take a vow of celibacy."
"But—"
"If something happens, it happens," she said, suddenly serious in that older-sister way she had sometimes. "If nothing happens, then nothing happens. But stop acting like your life is over because of one man. He doesn't get to take everything from you."
I stared at her. She was right. Annoyingly. Painfully. Right.
I let out a long breath. "Fine. Find me an outfit."
Feyre squealed, actually squealed nearly spilling her own coffee as she jumped off the bed. She dove into my closet like a soldier charging into battle.
"Something appropriate," I warned. "Nothing too... revealing. Nothing that shows off any 'assets,' as you call them."
"Yeah, yeah," she said, arm already buried up to the elbow in my clothing racks. "But I make no promises."
I fell back against my pillows, clutching my mug to my chest, heart pounding with a confusing mix of dread and nervous excitement.
A ride with Azriel. Not a date... right?
Feyre selected an outfit that was technically appropriate but somehow still managed to emphasise every feature I'd hoped would remain subtle.
She tossed it onto the bed with a satisfied hum. Nothing scandalous... but absolutely Feyre-approved.
And when I came out of the bathroom dressed, she clasped her hands dramatically.
"There she is," she whispered reverently, "the woman who's going on a date with a very hot man."
"Not. A. Date."
"Sure, sure," she said, waving me off as she fussed with my hair. "Just two attractive people spending time together alone on a motorcycle. In broad daylight. With chemistry. Totally nothing."
I groaned. "Why am I friends with you?"
"Because I'm pretty," she announced.
Before I could retort, a low rumble echoed from outside. My heart leapt into my throat.
A motorcycle. His motorcycle.
Feyre shrieked into her hands like she was witnessing the season finale of her favourite show.
I swatted her arm and rushed to the window, peeking through the blinds.
Azriel was astride the bike, head tilted up toward the building, sunlight hitting the dark leather stretched over broad shoulders. His hair was wind-tousled, his posture relaxed, and he somehow managed to look both dangerous and... gentle.
Like he was waiting for me.
My stomach squeezed.
"Oh my god," Feyre hissed at my shoulder. "I take back what I said before. He doesn't look like a Greek god. He looks like the Greek god."
"Stop," I muttered, blushing.
"I'm just saying," she whispered conspiratorially, "if you don't climb that man like a tree—"
"Feyre!"
"I support women's rights," she continued loudly, "but more importantly, I support women's wrongs."
I slapped a hand over her mouth. And then—a knock on the door. Everything in me froze.
Feyre shoved me forward like she was kicking a baby bird out of a nest. "Go."
"Don't make it weird," I warned her.
"I would never," Feyre said, eyes sparkling with mischief. Which absolutely meant she would.
I opened the door. Azriel stood there, helmet in hand, the faintest respectful smile touching his lips. Not cocky. Not presumptuous. Just... warm. Careful.
"Hi," he said softly.
My knees nearly liquefied. "Hi," I breathed.
"You look..." He hesitated not out of uncertainty, but almost like giving a compliment required precision. "Nice. Really nice."
Heat flooded my face.
Feyre popped into view behind me. "And you look like you do crossfit for fun," she declared.
Azriel blinked, surprised and then a slow chuckle worked its way out of him. I wanted the floor to swallow me whole.
"Feyre was just leaving," I blurted.
"No I wasn't," she chirped, beaming at Azriel. "I would just like you to know that if you break her heart I will replace the sugar in your home with salt."
Azriel nodded solemnly. "Reasonable."
Feyre looked smug. "Have her back by curfew."
"We don't have a curfew," I hissed.
"We do now," she whispered fiercely before disappearing into her room.
Azriel turned back to me with a tiny smile. "Ready?"
As I stepped into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind me, he offered me the helmet. And just like last night, something about the way he held it, carefully, patiently made my chest tighten.
The moment I climbed onto the bike, my nerves fluttered wildly. My hands hovered awkwardly, unsure where to go.
Azriel glanced over his shoulder. "You're allowed to hold on," he said, voice low and warm and barely hiding his amusement.
"I know, I just—"
He reached back, took my hands gently, so gently it startled me and placed them around his waist. His body was solid under my palms. Warm through the leather. Safe.
"There," he murmured. "Don't worry about anything. I've got you."
And somehow... I believed him.
The engine rumbled beneath us. The city blurred into colour and motion. Wind tangled through my hair, cool against my cheeks.
And for a moment, for the first time in days my chest didn't ache. The world felt wide. Possible. Alive. And I held onto him tighter without realising it.
Azriel's hand brushed my knee once, almost reassuringly, before he returned it to the handlebar.
He took me up winding roads I'd never noticed before, quiet, bordered by tall pines and shadows. The air grew cooler with every turn, crisp with the scent of earth and distant water.
When we finally slowed to a stop at a scenic overlook, the view stunned me.
The entire city sprawled below, glittering, humming, soft in the morning light. A river snaked through the buildings. Clouds drifted lazily across the sun.
It was beautiful. Breathtaking. And we were completely alone.
Azriel dismounted smoothly, offering me his hand to help me off. I took it before I could think. His fingers wrapped around mine, steadying me as my legs adjusted from the ride.
"You okay?" he asked, searching my face.
"I... yeah," I whispered. "That was... amazing."
He smiled, small and real. "Good."
We stood side by side at the railing for a while, neither of us speaking. The wind brushed my cheeks, the sun warmed my hands.
Finally, I exhaled. "I didn't know this place existed."
"Most people don't," he said. "It's where I go when things get too loud."
I looked at him. Azriel, dark, intimidating, unreadable Azriel looked almost shy. "Things get loud for you?" I asked softly.
His jaw shifted. "More than people think."
And he said it like a confession. Something inside me loosened.
As we leaned against the railing, the conversation unfurled slowly, gently, like we were both learning each other's languages.
I told him about the flower shop. How I'd dreamed of it since I was little. How my grandmother taught me which blooms meant what. How I'd saved every spare penny for years.
He listened like people rarely did, quiet but focused, as if every word mattered.
"You talk about flowers like they're alive," he murmured.
"They are," I said simply. "Not in the way people mean, but... they have stories. Personalities. Emotions."
He nodded, thoughtful. "That makes sense."
"You think so?"
He shrugged slightly. "You should see the way I feel about my bike."
I laughed, a real, unguarded sound. His eyes softened.
I learned he lived alone. That he liked late-night drives. That he worked with his hands but didn't elaborate doing what. That he was the kind of person who carried other people's burdens quietly, even when they crushed him.
He wasn't cold. He wasn't distant. He was... gentle. Careful. And surprisingly honest in his silences.
Then softly, cautiously, I told him about my ex. About Asher.
Azriel's expression darkened like a storm passing through. "You don't have to explain anything," he said quietly.
"No," I murmured. "I... think I want to."
I told him how it ended. How blindsided I'd been. How pathetic I felt for crying over it.
Azriel shook his head. "You're not pathetic." The conviction in his voice made my chest tighten. "You cared about someone. That's not weakness."
I swallowed. "He made me feel like it was."
Azriel's jaw clenched. "Then he didn't deserve you," he said simply.
Something fluttered in my stomach, warm and fragile and terrifying. For the first time since the breakup, I felt myself breathe fully.
When we finally headed back toward his bike, the atmosphere felt different. Lighter. Softer. Charged with something unspoken.
He handed me the helmet again, fingers brushing mine, lingering for a heartbeat too long. "Ready?" he asked.
I nodded but as I climbed on, he looked over his shoulder again.
"Hold on," he murmured. "Tighter this time."
And I did.
Maybe because I wasn't scared anymore. Maybe because I wanted to. Maybe because everything in me was beginning just barely, to trust him.
Azriel's POV -
The plan wasn't to fall further than I already had. It wasn't even supposed to be complicated.
All I'd wanted, the only thing I'd meant to do was check on her.
Make sure she was alright after last night. Make sure the shaking in her voice had settled. Make sure the tears had stopped. Make sure that asshole hadn't come back.
And maybe... maybe see her smile again. Just once. That was it. Simple.
But nothing about her ended up being simple.
From the second she opened the door, hair styled, clothes hugging her just right, eyes tired but so damn bright something in my chest tightened. Too fast. Too hard. Too much.
Like gravity had suddenly shifted and now everything in the world dropped toward her.
Hell. I wasn't built for this. I wasn't built for softness. I wasn't built for... whatever the hell this feeling was.
And when her friend Feyre leaned in the doorway giving me threats disguised as friendly conversation, I almost smiled. Because even through the jokes, there was protectiveness there.
And I understood it.
She deserved people who protected her.
As she stepped out, shutting the apartment door behind her, she looked up at me like she wasn't sure she should be doing this. Like she was still half in the shadows of heartbreak, half in the unknown of something new.
And I should've kept this casual. I should've kept my distance. But then she smiled, small and cautious like it slipped out before she could stop it.
And I was done. Completely done.
When it was time to return, when we reached her street and she climbed off the bike, she wobbled a little, sleepy legs, soft laughter slipping out of her like she was embarrassed.
And God, she was beautiful.
The sunlight hit her hair. Her lips parted as she caught her breath. Her eyes lifted to mine with something warm and shy and hopeful.
And I—I wanted to kiss her.
I shouldn't. It wasn't a date. She'd just gotten out of something terrible. She needed time. Space. Healing.
But fuck, I wanted to.
I wanted to bend my head down and press my mouth to hers and taste the warmth I'd felt against my back.
I wanted to hold her by the hips and pull her close and whisper that she deserved so much more than the shit she'd been given.
I wanted to memorise the way her breath hitched when I touched her.
But I didn't because this wasn't a date. And because she deserved to choose that moment, not have it taken from her.
So I just said softly, "Text me when you're inside, okay?"
And she nodded. Blushing. Beautiful. And unaware of how close I'd come to losing my damn self over her.
As she walked away, I sat on my bike, hands tight on the handlebars, heart pounding like an idiot.
I had come here to check on her. I left wanting her.
And I knew deep in my bones, deep in the places I never let anyone touch that I was already falling. Too fast. Too hard.
And maybe... maybe I wished it had been a real date.
Because if it were, I could've kissed her goodbye.
A/N - Okay, so yes... technically this wasn't a "date" but let's be real, we all know it totally was x
I needed to add this filler moment to make sure their connection doesn't feel abrupt and show that their relationship isn't just instant sparks and swoony glances!!
Second motorcycle ride, and yes, Azriel has to prove that underneath the whole broody, biker exterior, he's actually... caring. Gentle. Thoughtful. The kind of guy who makes you feel safe even when the wind is whipping through your hair and your stomach is doing somersaults :)
Also, Feyre is still chaos incarnate, because some things just can't change, and honestly, she makes everything more fun.
Thank you for reading <33
Crash Course in Love tag list - @sophieliz @azrielblue @whump-loverz @galacticoceans @lilah-asteria @niiickelodeon @justtryingtosurvive02 @rosie-posie08 @mis-lil-red @dnfhascorruptedme @justreadingfanficseveryday @spookypersondinosaur @jugodeshadowsinger @nyxmoretti @imjustagirl324 @gemini-196 @katarina1224 @beautiful-creatures-xo-blog @fuckingsimp4azriel @kindaslightlyacidic @ivy-34
Summary - A rare discovery changes everything—another shadowsinger, her. Found young and frightened, she's brought to Azriel, and the moment their shadows touch, something soul-deep sparks between them.
As she grows into her power, their connection deepens—shadows entwining, protective, playful, and increasingly intimate.
What begins as mentorship, becomes undeniable affection, desire, and love. They find home in each other and in the shadows that first brought them together.
Azriel softens for her. She finds safety in him. Their bond isn't just shadow-deep—it's fate.
Tags - friends turned lovers, healing through love, mutual pining, unspoken feelings, "it was always you" realisations
Contents -
༄ One | Recognition | 2k words
༄ Two | Tangled Together | 2.6k words
༄ Three | Sugary Sweet | 2.4k words
༄ Four | A Place to Fall | 2.3k words
༄ Five | Echoes in the Dark | 2.2k words
༄ Six | Devotion | 2.9k words
༄ Seven | The Beauty of Choice | 2.9k words
༄ Eight | Threads of You | 2.9k words
ACOTAR Masterlist
A/n - As always content warnings will be at the start of each chapter, so please be sure to read them before continuing.
This story was actually sparked by a fun little comment on "Eclipsed" about how cool the idea of another Shadowsinger was... and well, my brain ran with it. So here we are—second Shadowsinger but for Azriel!
I've had so much fun imagining what it would be like if there was someone else like Azriel and what would happen when their shadows met for the first time. I mean... fate, right?
I hope you enjoy the chaos, fluff, tension, and shadowy nonsense as much as I do :)
Please don't hesitate to vote or comment along the way, it truly means the world to me <3