#rhysand

Contents -

⋆ One | Forgotten | 2.6k words

⋆ Two | The Unravelling | 2.9k words

⋆ Three | The Price of Secrets | 3k words

⋆ Four | After the Silence | 2.3k words

⋆ Five | Everything Overdue | 2.4k words

⋆ Six | Seen | 3.1k 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 is my very first Archeron sister fic! For the sake of the story, I've had to make the sisters a little harsh at times but that's purely for plot reasons, not an invitation to throw shade at them x

Expect healing, found family vibes, and basically an overlooked girl x quiet boy kind of story. There will be heartbreak, angst and eventually fluff :)

If the dying fire in the hearth was any indication of how much time had passed, the Inner Circle spent the entire night drinking. The sun would rise in just a few drowsy hours, dousing Velaris with its buttery light, wrapping the sitting room of the townhouse in ribbons of pale gold. 

Velaris’ hardest working citizens would be awake early enough to see it– the farmers, the bakers, the teachers and the rubbish collectors– while their High Lord and his Lord of Bloodshed would be passed out like a pair of bums on the couch in last night’s clothes until lunchtime. 

The thought made Azriel laugh. 

She sat beside him, leaning against his side as the vibrations of his laugh went straight to her lower belly. She leaned back to look up at him and he met her gaze instantly. The thin strap of her top slipped off her shoulder with the movement, and without removing his eyes from hers, his nimble fingers slid the strap back up her shoulder but made no further move to leave her skin. 

Her skin pebbled in response like she was the static to his looming lightning strike. Every touch between them was like standing on the precipice of a story so damning, so wild, it terrified her to let it exist unbound. All it took was a single push of courage. A single breath of wind toward an already wavering resolve.

But it never came. These boundaries that defined their relationship were elastic. Azriel pushed the line, she shoved it, but it never snapped. It was a delicate little art, but they were so profound at this dance that it was all they knew. As treacherous as their will-they-won’t-they was, they had to have derived some pleasure, even a little bit, to be able to sit there, in a room filled with their closest friends, drunk, flushed, knee to knee, skin to skin, and still call themselves the best of friends. 

A tale as old as time. A game they’ve played for years. A song whose words they could sing in their sleep. It was all of it and none of it. 

With as many drinks as she’d had, definitely three or four ahead of Azriel, she slanted into his warmth like a cat bowing its head into a tender palm. His arm draped against the back of the couch, allowing her body to nestle into his in the most casual, most friendliest, most normal of ways. The back of her hand rested on his thigh as she threw her head back in laughter at something Cassian said. 

If he was any more sober, his senses would have snapped to attention at the contact, but he couldn’t bring himself to be so skittish now. He savored the touch, the weight of her hand against his strong thigh, and had to reach for his glass just to take away the thought of holding her hand there with his own. 

“You’re staring,” She looked up at him to find his gaze already locked on her features, assessing, admiring.

“I am?” His eyes were dark, shimmering with reflection of the licking flames in the hearth. “You’ll have to forgive me if I can’t help myself.”

He couldn’t explain where he found the audacity to be so bold with a woman so beautiful. But her eyelids fluttered as she regarded him through her eyelashes, and her smile was so damning he suddenly couldn’t even remember what he’d said. 

“You’ll give our friends the wrong idea.” 

He lowered his drink to his other thigh, tightening his grip around the thick crystal-cut glass to contain himself, to contain the heat racing up and down his spine like a bucking racehorse. “What’s so wrong about it?” The side of his full lips curved upward into a playful smile but he was sincere. 

Azriel was fanning the flames of a dangerous fire. Again, they were standing at the brink of something so dangerous, so perfect, either of them could simply push a little farther and everything could finally be different. 

But no. They both enjoyed the strain for it was its own type of pleasure. 

She tried to steady herself, but with the heat of the fire, the multiple drinks, Azriel’s body heat, and mostly her own fluster, she was burning up. 

To break the intense stare neither of them could pinpoint how much time they’d spent locked in, he volunteered to refill her drink in the kitchen. As soon as his broad, black-clad frame disappeared behind the threshold of the sitting room, her shoulders drooped and she ran her palms over her face in frustration. 

It was such a tease, this whole situation. Like a cruel little joke, even if they did find some sick indulgence in it. 

When she thought about it– which she tried not to do too often– it was downright treacherous what they were doing to each other. All of this had to mean something, right? Two people don’t just touch each other on purpose, hold each other's heavy gazes in crowded rooms, for no reason, right?

“Where’d your boyfriend go?” Mor demanded, plopping down beside her where Azriel had just sat. The tequila sloshed over the lip of her glass with the heavy landing. 

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she replied with little conviction. As much as it was the truth, it felt ridiculous to say it. 

“Everyone sees the way he looks at you. The way you look at him. He can hardly breathe right if you aren’t in the room. It’s not a secret, if you both are keeping it one,” she took a sip of her drink, repainting the bright red lipstick mark on the rim that became her signature. Sometimes she envied Mor’s effortless femininity, her languid sensuality, that poised her at the receiving end of many amorous advances and escapades. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t be as casual as Mor was. She needed commitment, stability, and unconditionality from the one person she would give her everything to. 

Which is why, as much as she loved Azriel, he bothered her. It was more than obvious they were more than friends– the way they touched each other, the things they told each other, the time they spent together– there was no logical way to deny it. But they’d never talked about putting a name to whatever this was or committing themselves to each other. She was lucky enough to find herself in that god-awful middle ground, the foggy, gray, no-man’s-land that every non-committal male sought refuge in when things got even mildly serious. She couldn’t understand why it was so hard to move past this purgatory when it was clear enough to her that she wanted no male more deeply, more dangerously, than she wanted Azriel. 

“We haven’t talked about it,” was all she said, suddenly uncomfortable. She loved Azriel, but it would destroy her if all this was to him was a “good time.” There was nothing inherently wrong with one night stands or friends with benefits, but there was when her heart was a part of it too. Suddenly, the thought that his might not be stirred the alcohol in her stomach. 

“But you are having sex?” Mor asked, a little louder than necessary. She was no longer lounging into the couch– she was fully sat up, legs tucked under her body, and spine rod-straight with attention. 

“Mor!”

“Okay, you’re right I didn’t need to ask that. For such a big, beautiful house, the walls are quite thin,” she chuckled to herself. 

“What, do you think he’s using me?” She couldn’t be bothered to feign mortification at the revelation that apparently the entire house could hear the two of them sharing beds. 

Mor’s face softened immediately, sobering slightly at the sight of her friend in visible distress. “Oh, darling. Azriel is a good man–”

“He’s very kind.”

“The kindest,” Mor pursed her lips, pausing for a beat, before setting her glass down on the floor beside the couch. She took both of her friends’ hands in her own, forcing their gazes to align. “But he is a male, at the end of the day. And they often think with their dicks first, brains second.”

“Azriel is sensible…” she reasoned, not sure where Mor was going with this. 

That was a terrible lie, though. She knew exactly what Mor was insinuating because she thought about it every day too. Every time he left her bed, every time he touched her, every time he said something that just-friends don’t say to each other, she wondered what his intentions were. 

In her reckless need for him, she’d abandoned all expectations, all reservations, and given herself to Azriel wholly. She’d closed her eyes and leaped. When it came to Azriel, there was no thinking, no calculating, and she hadn’t registered how foolish that might be until now. 

—-

Speaking of foolishness. 

That train of thought crashed and burned, a smoking pile of faraway fears, when his hot lips bit at the soft spot behind her ear.

“Azriel,” his name was a breathless sigh on her tongue. 

“Tell me to leave, and I will,” he murmured, his voice a deep husk of what it usually was, the pitch reaching so deep into her that it pulled and twisted her gut into a tangle of nerves, raw and fervent, like matchsticks ready to light from the mere breath of fire alone. 

This was so bad. She should’ve been embarrassed how easy it was to get here. Azriel brought her back a drink but she couldn’t finish it when the conversation with Mor suddenly left her sick to her stomach (but no less sober). She tried to get away– tried to remove herself from his proximity for the night by feigning exhaustion– but of course she couldn’t deny him when he offered to walk her upstairs, a hand on her lower back. Of course she couldn’t deny him when he followed her into the room, sat next to her on the bed, then looked at her with those deep, conversational eyes that said so much more than he ever did, a man of few words that he was. 

“Stay.” she heard herself say before her mind could even understand what her heart had demanded first.

And it was all he needed to hear before pushing his body on hers and slanting his perfect lips over her own. The way they came together, the way their bodies fit, was otherworldly. Each time their bodies meshed it was so good it almost felt instinctual, like they’d done this in a previous lifetime. 

He savored the feeling of their chests pressed against each other and his heart palpitated like uneven footsteps, frantically searching for hers to match. Sobered from the alcohol and now drunk off her taste, there wasn’t one part of him that would not give anything to have her like this forever.

She could have floated between worlds with how weightless she felt as Azriel’s plush lips moved against hers, tasting her and taking his time. It was sweet, and admiring, and a little desperate, the way they exchanged breaths and looked for each other through touch and taste alone. 

Azriel clutched the back of her neck to support her as he slowly pushed her down into the mattress, never once coming up for a breath. She was the air he breathed, the oxygen in his lungs, what else did he need?

He anchored himself above her with a knee between her legs and a strong hand at her hips. One of her hands flew to the nape of his neck and tangled in his mess of curls there while the other hooked onto the front of his shirt, trying to pull him closer, but popping open a few more buttons instead. 

She sighed as he shifted peppering kisses from the corner of her mouth to the soft skin behind her ear again, arching into his body against her better judgment, feeling his strong thigh against her. Like a wave in the ocean curling up towards the moon, she sought to be swept up into his gravity. Governed solely by the intoxicating scent of the crook of his neck, she lifted her hips to feel his strong thigh again, to touch her chest to his. She needed more friction and he groaned with the knowledge of it, shifting one hand under her hips to prop her up against the thigh he moved closer. 

Any inhibitions that reappeared between her sobering up after the conversation with Mor and Azriel kissing her tonight were discarded like dirty laundry somewhere far, far away. 

This is right, she told herself over and over again, the mantra chiming like worship bells in her mind. Nothing wrong could feel this good. 

“I can never get enough of you,” he murmured against her flushed skin, taking in her scent as if he’d run out of breath without it. 

“Are you saying–” she pushed the words out between breaths of hot air, too afraid to waste time talking and miss even a second of this. “– you think of me? Even when we aren’t in the same room?” It was a teasing tone, but she meant every word. She needed to know. 

“All the fucking time. I thought that was obvious.”

It was as if the confession ignited a second fire within him. Azriel carried the kiss from behind her ear, down the side of her neck, to her exposed shoulder and collarbone, daring to bite, as if to test her willingness. 

She sighed as she felt his low groan against her skin, the vibration piercing down to her very bones, searching for his lips until they found each other again. His thumb found the strip of bare skin between the hem of her shirt and the waistband of her pants. The feeling of his skin there sent a jolt through her system. Azriel slowly pushed his hand upwards, bunching her shirt between his thumb and forefinger as he went. As his hands slid her shirt up her torso, he kissed the skin as it revealed itself to him, warm and soft like the petals of a summer flower. 

With feverish need, Azriel brought his lips back to hers as his hand slipped completely under her shirt, softly grabbing her, wanting to feel her moan into his mouth as she always did when he touched her there. He held her like no one else could ever manage.

A brush of his thumb sent a jolt of awareness through her, like a splash of ice cold water to the face. 

“Wait,” she breathed out, as if it took every ounce of willpower to stop him. It did. She didn’t want him to stop, but she knew he should. 

Azriel’s hand slid out of her shirt immediately, and he lifted his head just enough to read her eyes. They were darkened with something he couldn’t place, and her eyebrows knitted so low on her forehead, it took everything in him not to reach out and smooth the crease between them.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry, I just–” 

“Don’t,” he shook his head, fixing the strap of her right shoulder as he smiled ever so softly. “Don’t apologize.”

“What is this?” She blurted out.

Azriel paused, unable to follow. “What is…this?”

“I mean,” she sighed, frustrated at her sudden inability to source words and form coherent thoughts. She was doing this now, it seemed. “What do you want from this? You and I?”

“I want you.” Azriel replied incredulously, as if it was painfully obvious. He dipped his head to place a kiss on the edge of her lips and his hand slid up the plane of her exposed belly. Methodically, he pressed his thigh between her legs again, as if to remind her. As if she could forget, underneath him like this. 

The sigh that escaped her lips was involuntary, but as quickly as she felt her need overtake, she tamped it back down.

Impatiently, she swatted his hand off and pushed her blouse down. “Azriel, listen to me. I mean, where do you see this going?” After some initial hesitation- “What do you see us becoming?”

Azriel shouldn’t have laughed. He knew that as soon as it escaped his lips and her eyebrows furrowed in response, but it was too late. He didn’t even mean to, his body only reacted to the panic it felt when she asked such a question, and Mother above, was he incredibly dense for that. 

“Get off of me.” She deadpanned, pushing her hand against his chest. 

She’d never felt more vulnerable. Underneath this man she loved like she hadn’t loved anyone else, to have him laugh in her face when she tried to bear her heart to him was like a terrible dream come true. One she’d convinced herself many times impossible of materializing.

“I didn’t mean to laugh–“

“Azriel, get off of me.”

She pushed against his chest again and he sat up immediately. He flexed his hands, suddenly cold from the loss of her skin against his. 

She sat up as well, adjusting her top. “Azriel, I need to know if you’re serious about me. I feel like we always tiptoe around whatever this is between us, but I can’t keep doing it if this isn’t serious to you.” 

She needed to know that he felt the same, or everything had to stop. Even if she could never love another male the same ever again. That’s the price she had to pay, she supposed, for loving so wholly, so stupidly, before she even knew if he was ready to do the same. 

It was everything he’d been waiting to hear. Dreaming of, praying for, almost convincing himself that her loving him was only a fairy tale that existed for his indulgence, and nothing more. But fear was taking over him as well. 

“Of course I enjoy being with you.” 

“That’s not what I asked.”

Azriel ran a hand through his disheveled curls, shaking his head. Say the right thing. Say the right thing. Say what you’ve been waiting to say. But no.  “Where is this coming from?”

“Why can’t you answer my question?”

“Because I don’t understand what’s changed for you, all of a sudden. You know how I feel about you, isn’t that enough?” He didn’t mean it- the question or the accusatory tone it carried. It was a valid question– he was wondering when she’d put an end to this. She needed more than just a physical connection to be truly fulfilled- she needed him to be the emotionally available male she deserved. 

“I–,” she bit her tongue before the word love could follow. “I just need to know if you’re serious about me because Azriel– fuck I just can’t ever seem to stop thinking of you. The thought that I just might be a ‘good time’ and nothing more to you makes me fucking sick, because I’ve never felt like this about anyone else. So I need to be sure… I need to be sure you’re not fucking around with me before I let you have me. All of me.”

Azriel was stunned into silence. Completely mute. Words failed him. Grammar failed him. He could barely get a syllable out and he’d never felt more foolish in his life. The sight of her vulnerability dried his throat and shallowed his breathing. An absolutely terrible time to go completely dumb, he recognized that, but she had this effect on him– made him lose touch with himself, lose his grasp on reality. 

Everything he’d ever dreamed of– really, it was only her he dreamed of– flashed before his eyes like a moving picture. The love of his life, the very same one he’d convinced himself would never love him back just confessed that she did. That she wants for no other male but him. All those years he’d spent dreaming of her, awake or asleep, of sharing a life were not so self-indulgent after all. Even with this revelation that filled him with such a happiness it made him nauseous, he felt it all wrong. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong. 

She was wrong. There was no way someone like her– as intelligent, independent, and kind-hearted as her– could truly desire someone like him. 

Perhaps it was only a phase. They shared every single thought, and occasionally beds, with each other- she could easily confuse those feelings with something else. It was the only thing that made sense to Azriel, for the man could not fathom someone loving him of their own volition, with their own sound mind. He felt the need to protect her from the evil in the world, and in his mind, that included him. He would not ruin her, would not deprive her of the things he couldn’t give her. The Mother knew there was nothing in this world she wouldn’t have if she asked Azriel for it, but he just couldn’t give her this one thing. 

But even that thought filled him with a newer rage. The thought of another male holding her, touching her, listening to her thoughts and secrets, another man protecting her, providing for her, loving her and waking up everyday with the privilege of getting to share this life with her. It made him want to crush the mountains that surrounded this house with his bare hands until they were nothing but powder on the ground. 

Azriel couldn’t think about that right now, though. She could be much happier without his burdens, and he resolved a long time ago that this was the way he would love her. From afar. Even if it hurt him, that’s what you do for the people you love, he told himself. 

He knew what he had to do. 

So he shook his head, slowly stretching one leg at a time over the edge of her bed until he was standing next to it, leaving her sitting there with her shoulders slouched forward, eyes never leaving his. They pleaded for him to say something she wanted to hear, to confirm that everything they’d been doing these past years meant something. That he hadn’t led her on. It never came. 

“You don’t mean that.” was all he said. It tore him in two to say it, serrated his irregular heart into messy, darkened halves. 

She deserved better than what he had to offer. If it meant that he had to hurt her to protect her, he would do it. Azriel never claimed to be a hero or a villain, something in between better suited him, but he would gladly become the villain in her story to protect her. To make hating him easier. He saw the way she looked at him, noted how she told him things she never told anyone else. The details of her childhood, her day, asking for his opinion on things even though they had different tastes. He saw it now– she really was in love. 

“I don’t know if she’s just being kind,” Azriel shrugged one day a few months ago, lounging in the chair opposite from Rhys’ desk. 

“When a woman like that loves someone, she can’t hide it,” It was all Rhys had to say to confirm what Azriel already knew. Rhys knew as much as any of their friends did how she felt. Azriel did too. But his self-loathing was a cruel thing. 

Her eyebrows furrowed and she sat up straighter. “Of course I do, Az. I wouldn’t make that up.” She reached her arm out, intending to take his hand in her own, but he pulled back and she too yanked her arm back in response, as if burned at the fingertips by his sudden aversion. 

“It’s understandable to want more when we’ve already bared so much ourselves to each other,” He stepped backward. “But I see now that we aren’t on the same page.” 

She saw the lie in his eyes like she could see stars in the sky. A bright, blinking lie. Of course she could, she knew him like she knew the sun rose in the east and set in the west. She just didn’t understand why he was pushing her away. But more than that, his rejection burned like acid in her gut, eating her from the inside out. The pit in her stomach grew deeper, hotter, as he backed up. 

If she asked for the moon, Azriel wouldn’t think twice to grab it with his bare hands and pull it down to earth. If she asked for the stars he’d spend centuries collecting each of them one by one. But if she asked for him, all of him, his pain, his joy, his trauma, his hopes, he couldn’t promise it to her. He would not allow her to shoulder his burdens, to feel the pain he did. Because she would truly feel all of it. That’s the person she was and he could not let her put herself through that.

There was no easy way to break her heart, but perhaps making her hate him would be one last kindness he could afford her. This disappointment would just be one of many if he allowed her to love him, and she’d be unhappy soon enough. 

“Azriel,” her voice cracked and she bunched up the fabric of the duvet in her fist to ease the burning in her throat. A telltale precursor of a breakdown, he knew. “I don’t understand. You said–”

“We both said a lot of things,” Azriel said simply, unable to meet her eyes. “But at the end of the day, they’re all just words, are they not?”

“Just words?” She furrowed her eyebrows, pushing the tears to her waterline as she did. “I pour my heart out to you every day for years, and they’re just words to you?”

“That’s not what I meant–” Fuck. It was coming out all wrong. Or maybe it was coming out perfectly– the more Azriel could fuck this up, the easier it would be for her to forget him. 

“You are my best friend. But we’ve done things and told each other things best friends don’t. Why are you denying all these years of our relationship, Azriel? What are you running from?” She pleaded. Her voice was raw, throat hoarse. Azriel had kept her closer than the rest but still struggled with shutting her out when she got too close. In hindsight, knowing this about him, she didn’t understand how she could’ve thought this conversation could’ve gone any differently than this. “Just talk to me.”

Those four words were a last ditch effort, a final rap of her knuckles against his tightly shut doors, to be let in. They could just talk about this. 

He couldn’t bring himself to say what he wanted to say, even if she asked for it. So he resorted to hurt once again. 

“I care about you very much, but … we are not on the same fucking page.”

Azriel watched her face crumple and she turned her head away, unable to keep the single tear at her waterline from trickling over. Angrily, she wiped it away. 

“You’re an asshole for lying to yourself. To me.” The words were gritty and edged with grief. No one’s dead, but something that was once very much alive here is gone. 

So maybe he did love her. But his decision, the resolve in his eyes, to live and make peace with the cowardice that told him to walk away from something so beautiful, she realized, he did not love her enough. 

The conclusion hit her as if she’d flown straight into the side of Ramiel, ramming into the rock and tumbling down the face of the mountain uselessly until she was a pile of heartbreak at the bottom. 

“I just need some time.”

“Get out.”

Azriel was silent, but made no move to leave. Suddenly he was rethinking everything, wondering if he made a grave mistake. In an instant, she was changed. The light in her eyes was gone, the glow in her skin had dulled, and she looked so very tired. When her gaze held his, there was no warmth, no recognition, no love. He felt like a stranger under her watch, and he suddenly had the feeling that he was intruding. 

Azriel told himself that he was doing it out of love. That these are things you do, sacrifices you make, when you love as hard as he loved her. 

“Get out!”

Azriel stayed for a few more seconds, as if he wanted to memorize her as much as he could. The sight of her hair slightly disheveled, looking absolutely flushed from his doing, with eyes and skin so unbelievably soft only inches away from his reach, would haunt him asleep or awake, dead or alive. 

Then he was gone, closing her door softly behind him. The click of the latch solidified the finality of his actions. His regret would live within him– a living, breathing, hideous thing– forever. 

If he couldn't have her, he could never love anyone else again.

She wanted nothing else in this world more than she wanted him to stay, to say he had made a stupid mistake and meant none of what he said, to get under her blankets, and hold her until the sun stopped rising, the moon stopped setting, and the rest of the world fell away. 

If she couldn't have Azriel, she could never love anyone else again.

——- 

Breakfast was quiet. Everyone was hungover and exhausted. Rhys sat at his chair, quietly making conversation with Feyre who kept going for another cup of coffee. Cassian slumped over his plate of eggs, but still made the most conversation. Whether anyone was actually listening was another story. Mor pretended to nod but she couldn’t care less. 

Elain sat beside Feyre quietly, breaking apart a piece of toast. She spent the night in her room reading so she was far from hungover, but she refused to make eye contact with anyone at the table. It was strange, considering how much progress she was making with everyone, but bad dreams happened and the Mother knew she was probably having her fair share of them recently.

Amren was the only one sitting rod-straight, a book in her hands, sipping her special little drink from her cup. Rhys was more than kind to let her drink it at breakfast when there were more than one queasy stomachs at the table. Not that she needed his permission anyway. 

The only person missing was Azriel. She felt his absence heavy in her chest. Not just from the table, but from her life, now, it seemed. She didn’t even realize Feyre was calling her name until the fourth time she said it.

“Hmm?” She forced herself back into the present, eyes darting to Feyre’s.

“Are you okay?” Feyre asked, holding her gaze.

Azriel’s husky voice asking the same question filled her head without warning, invading her memories and her reality once again. 

She was not fine. She felt the ghost of his touch and breath, his familiar warmth, wash over her body. The way he looked at her as if she was the first time he saw anything in color.  

She remembered his rejection, too.

Feyre called her name again and she snapped to attention, shaking her head. “I’m fine.”

“Some night you must have had,” Feyre chuckled.

“I told you Winter Court wine will fuck you up. You don’t know it’s working until it’s too late,” Rhys laughed, pouring her a glass of water and handing it to her from across the table. “Drink up everyone, we’re due at the Day Court by sundown.”

“Kallias has a very acquired taste, I’ll give him that,” she sighed, gratefully accepting the cold glass and downing half of it in a second. 

“They need to stay warm up there somehow,” Cassian chimed in, ever the selective academic he was. 

As the water cooled her nerves slightly, Azriel appeared in the doorway to the dining room and she was damned to hell all over again.

Everyone greeted him and even though he replied to them all, his eyes only sat on hers. The only open spot at the table was the one directly across from her and he sat, rigid and unflinching, unable to meet her gaze anymore from such a close proximity.

“Good morning,” his voice was low and aimed only at her. If she had any more energy, she would’ve laughed that that’s the first thing he chose to say after their conversation last night. She broke apart her toast with no acknowledgement of his attempt to break their stalemate.  

“What the fuck is that?” Cassian’s loud voice broke her from her trance.

Rhys winced, holding his head. “Not so loud, we talked about this.” 

“Az, you cheeky bastard, what did you crazy kids get up to last night?” Cassian’s eyes darted between her and Azriel, pointing out the dark mark on his neck.

“What are you on about?”  

Azriel started, as if remembering it was there all of a sudden, pulling his shirt collar tighter around his neck and clearing his throat.

Rhys whistled upon realization and Feyre and Mor’s eyes darted to hers in silent awe. 

She squinted at the mark, assessing. Did she do that? It was a dark, angry little spot that sat at the base of his neck, fresh enough that it was obvious it was made only a few hours ago. 

With frigid realization, she knew she hadn’t done that. He’d kissed her neck last night, but she hadn’t kissed his. 

She slowly looked up at Azriel for the first time that morning. His eyes were downcast as he poured his cup of tea. If she blinked, she would’ve missed his fleeting glance in Elain’s direction. But she didn’t miss it, and she quickly looked to Elain, who was red as a beet and hiding behind a curtain of her unbound, chestnut hair. 

Cassian didn’t miss a beat either– he had a sixth sense for this kind of thing. “No way,” he whispered.

“What?” Feyre demanded.

Her eyes focused on the mark on his neck again. Maybe she did do it. She had a lot to drink. But no. They never left marks where others could see them. The angry little thing on his skin was amateur at best. 

Small giggles sprouted from different ends of the table, but it was all a blur to her. 

“No fucking way.” Cassian repeated himself, louder. 

“Spit it out.” Amren demanded, but Amren’s eyes were on her, clocking the silent horror that molded her features rather than the surprise or amusement that defined everyone else’s 

“Nothing. Mind your own business,” Azriel’s voice was thick and stern and nowhere as warm as it was last night.

“You and Elain??” Cassian cried in disbelief. 

Forks clattered clumsily on their plates. The laughter stopped like someone sucked the air clean out of the room. No one moved, but she couldn’t even breathe. Elain? 

Feyre snapped her head toward her sister, eyes wide. “What?”

“What?” Rhys echoed through bitten teeth, clenching his jaw, his gaze burning holes in the side of Azriel’s face who suddenly did not have the balls to return the look. 

Elain shrugged sheepishly in her seat, gripping her teacup hard enough that her knuckles turned white. “When you feel that attraction, you can’t deny it. You understand that.” She watched as Elain finally lifted her head, staring doe-eyed at Azriel. A small smile graced her lips, shy and soft. 

“Attraction?” She whispered in disbelief. 

“Oh my god.” Cassian breathed.

“Cassian, shut the fuck up.” Azriel snarled. 

She felt her heart stutter before it burst, like a glass vessel under pressure. Delicate, fragile, irreparable. Nothing could calm the wave of nausea that rose and fell in her stomach- if she was going to throw up, it would be straight bile and vodka, and it would be all over this breakfast table. 

Breathe. She pleaded with herself to get a grip but she just couldn’t do it. Azriel sat in front of her, shoulders wound up tight, this time staring directly at her. His eyes were pleading as he tried to lock their gazes but she wouldn’t meet his. 

Him and Elain was a mistake, one he made when he wasn’t thinking clearly at all, and one he regretted as he started and ended the night in her bed. But most of all, one he never meant for her to know of. He wanted to make their break as clean as possible, but this was more than he bargained for. This was just plain cruel. 

He spoke her name once, desperately, but she barely registered it. The room fell away for both of them. He just wanted to get through to her, and she just needed to get out of there. 

The flashbacks from all of their days and night that gave her butterflies at one point suddenly turned into moths– unwelcome, fluttering pests that tainted her memories of the years they spent so close, years building something so entirely untrue that it hurt her heart to reminisce for too long. 

For him to open up to her and get her to open up to him, to then push her away, throw away everything she thought they had, to finally fuck another female right after, she decided she probably never knew him. Disgust flooded her and she felt like she needed to shower his touch from last night off of her instantly. She’d never felt so used in her life. 

“Fuck.” Cassian muttered. Nesta and Feyre would not take their eyes off Elain, and Rhys’ eyes bore holes in the side of Azriel’s head. Cassian was the only one who looked at her. He watched her face fall, her mind turn, as the events unfolded. The regret that gripped his heart was crushing. He reached out a hand to her knee in a show of support but she flinched involuntarily at the contact and he quickly retracted his hand to a fist against his chest.

It was embarrassing. Mor was right, everyone knew how Azriel and her had felt about each other, otherwise this wouldn’t be so tense. And as much as she knew it wasn't pity that her friends felt for her, it was something pretty damn close because how could they not feel bad for her in such a fucked up situation? That sickened her more. 

“Excuse me,” she muttered, standing up from the table and leaving the room as quickly as she could. The eyes of everyone at the table followed her out and she felt the familiar yanking in her throat before the tears pushed against her waterline. Last night already left her feeling so raw. To know Azriel had kissed her like a male deprived then gone off and fucked another woman– not just any woman, but Elain– made it hard to breathe. 

The loud screech of a skidding chair came from the dining room and heavy footsteps caught up with her in the hallway. In a moment of desperation, Azriel grabbed her arm to stop her but she whirled around, yanking her arm out of the hands that had sent her to heaven and then straight to hell all in one night. 

“Don’t fucking touch me,” she churned the words out through gritted teeth. 

“I can explain,” Azriel replied lamely, immediately feeling as dense and useless as he sounded. 

“I don’t care, Azriel. You’re a grown man, you’re free to kiss and fuck as many women in the same night as you want,” She didn’t mean it though, not after she laid her heart bare to him just a few hours ago. 

“It didn’t mean anything, I– I don’t know why–” 

“You don’t know why you went and fucked another woman after I told you you are all I can think of last night?” 

“That’s not- I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t mean to fuck her?” She laughed, but there was no humor or joy to be found in her eyes.  “Did you not mean to fuck me the countless times you did, then? Did you not mean to get so close to me, allow you to see me at my worst and my best? Did you not mean to just tell me those things you haven't even told Rhys and Cas? It was all a happy accident?”

“That’s not-”

“No! It’s not, you’re right, you did just say last night, more or less, all of those years we spent together, it was all just a good time to you. Right? Well, I guess you got everything you’ve ever wanted.”

She couldn’t be further from the truth. This was so much worse than what Azriel bargained for when he’d decided her hatred was easier to swallow than her disappointment. But now, regarding her sleepless face, beautiful as ever of course because it was her, he faced both her hatred and her disappointment. And now he’d hurt her in a way he never ever meant to. 

“I’m sorry.” It was all he could say. 

“Not just any woman, Azriel. Elain.” She cried incredulously. She didn’t even realize the tears were coming until her voice gave out on the sister’s name. “Three sisters for three brothers, right? You never did let that go.”

“It would’ve been easier if you told me you didn’t love me and left it at that.”

“It’s not my responsibility to make this easy for you when it hasn’t been easy for me all this time. I’ve loved you for so long and I continued to even when I wasn’t sure if you felt the same. Because that’s what you do for the people you love, you’re there for them and you continue to love them especially when it isn’t easy.”

“I never meant to hurt you, I just thought I… I wanted to believe I-” he carded his hands through his thick black hair in frustration, searching her eyes for anything other than hurt and anger, but that’s all he could find. “I thought I was doing you a favor.”

“You were being a coward. You are a coward.” She spat. “You may not have meant to, but you used me, and you of all people know how I feel about that.”

He nodded. He’d turned himself into an amalgamation of everything that had ever hurt her before, landing his blow square into her chest when she’d come so far.

“You don’t deserve this. You don’t deserve me.”

“That was never for you to decide, Azriel. These years should have been proof to you that I’d loved you exactly as you were, and it’s not your job to protect me from whatever it is you think I need protection from. I can handle it. I can handle you.”

“You can. I know you can. I’ve fucked up, truly and honestly, I don’t know how to make it up to you. Please tell me how I can make it up to you.” 

He made a step toward her out of instinct when the tears rolled down her cheeks but she stepped back as if he’d shoved a torch in her face.

“Just leave me be. You said it yourself, we aren’t on the same page. We never were, it seems.”

He took her name gently, pleadingly. She dared to look up at him once more, but he still couldn’t meet her gaze head on. It was no use talking to him when he couldn’t even look at her.

With the new wave of tears she felt coming on, she turned in her heels and took the stairs two at a time to her room before he could see anything more.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. It’s what she’s known all along. It’s exactly as she’d told herself all these years. It was never going to be you. 

That did not make it any easier though. If anything, it was a worse pain to be proven right. 

Anyway, there was no time to self-pity. 

On the fourth day of aimlessly wandering, you returned home. You winnowed into the clinic first, unwilling to make a grand entrance anywhere that Rhys could be. Of course, he would know the moment you had returned. A slinking shadow had been your sole companion for the duration of your trip, and it quickly whisked back to its master the moment you landed in the room smelling of herbs and antiseptic. 

That was fine; with the bond still airtight, Rhys would know that you weren’t exactly returning home with open arms. 

Feeling awkward and stiff, you did what you knew. You donned an apron and began muddling herbs and pinching salts in the correct doses. You swept past interns and apprentices and looked at the patient list, taking in a sprained wrist and an inconsolable child. When your limbs began to loosen, you realized you had been working for half the day, the sun burning amber on the far side of the horizon. You still felt reproach, but there was more ease in your step as you set for the townhouse—a reminder that you were good at something, that something was yours, settling in your bones. 

And even still, resignation remained. 

You didn’t winnow in, opting for the door that creaked at the hinges to feel the familiar sound reverberate against your eardrums. You always used to take the door. Before you were mated to Rhys and became his family. 

Pressing your lips together, you listened for your mate. He delivered rather quickly, your first step inside met with the sound of rushed feet on the stairs. Something hit the ground as he hurried, maybe a pen rolling from a desk, a book airborne from his quick departure. He didn’t notice the sound. 

Rhysand stood at the base of the stairs, his hair in disarray, his shirt unbuttoned just a bit too far down. He took you in as he remained tense, eyes trailing down your form and back up to search your eyes. Some of your stiffness returned, a feeling you didn’t associate with your mate. You’d always felt so at ease with him, so in love. The love remained, but it felt off in this moment. His words echoed in your mind. 

“I wanted to find you when I heard you returned,” Rhysand shared, voice rough. “But—I didn’t… I didn’t know if—” 

“It was better that you didn’t,” you replied in an almost whisper. 

A hint of pain flashed across his face, quickly rectified. “Did you—Are you alright?” 

It was unusual to hear him so unsure. He was stumbling over his words, heading in one direction and then thinking better of it. As a High Lord, he needed to be assured of his next move, but he was at a loss now, it seemed. 

You let out a breath. “I’m okay. I was glad to have the space and to… work in the clinic again. It had been a while. I was doing so much administrative work before, and, you know…” 

Your words trailed off and you bit into your cheek when you caught how intently Rhys was watching you. He was taking in each word as if he’d never heard you speak before, eyes glued to your mouth. When you stopped talking, he snapped his gaze up to yours, looking almost forlorn at the new quiet. 

“And you enjoyed it?” 

“Yes,” you replied, feeling a little dumb at the topic. Things felt more serious than this, and he was making small talk. You opened your mouth to broach the source of the tension, but Rhys beat you to it, sounding ruined in the scratch of his voice. 

“Are you leaving me?” 

You were left in a stunned silence for several moments. Truthfully, that thought had never crossed your mind. You still loved Rhys, adored him and every sacrifice he made for you and his court and his family. Leaving him and this mateship hadn’t been the source of your strife. Abandoning the love wasn’t something you thought of. 

It was everything else—the job, the expectations, the inability to feel competent, especially after his cruel words, even if they were said in anger. 

You winced slightly and shook your head. “Of course not, Rhys.” 

A stuttering breath left him, and he stepped forward without pause. He gathered you into his arms and you let him, clutching at his bicep where it curled your face into his chest. He pressed his nose against your hair, kissing wherever he could find. He breathed you in. You closed your eyes. 

“I am so sorry,” he muttered against your skin. “I-I don’t even remember what I said. I’ve been so tense lately and that is no excuse. The treaty is brilliant. You are brilliant. If I had been there, I would have been too stuck in my own head to negotiate for this court.” 

Something inside of you uncoiled at his words, and you glued yourself to his front. You considered that this could last, maybe. That he didn’t need to remember what he said—how he had hurt you so much with just a few words. He was calling you brilliant, and you were good at something, and maybe that was enough. 

You squeezed your eyes shut until they started to hurt and melted into his embrace. 

~~

It was not enough. That was clear to you, and to Rhys. The latter couldn’t parse out exactly what was wrong, however, and you still hadn’t let him in to figure it out. 

There was a simple, self-preserving part of you that wanted to keep it this way. If Rhys didn’t know what was wrong, you never had to be a victim, to be a burden when you already felt less than what he needed you to be. A High Lord’s mate shouldn’t complain or struggle, shouldn’t ask for less of a load simply because she couldn't bear it. 

And he had made it clear that you couldn’t be equals. 

Rhysand held you closer than usual at night, but only when you evened out your breath and feigned sleep. He would curl you against him and you could feel the way he stared at you, analyzing your features as if rest would reveal something you wouldn’t tell him. The bond remained closed, and this was his way of exploring. 

His touches felt more desperate, more searching, and he honed his attention on you in an unabashed way. But he never asked why you remained closed off. He never pointed out how you went through your day with a languidness that didn’t feel quite you, but refused to shake from your being. 

You figured it would pass, so you didn’t bring it up. And you refused to let the bond flow freely until you had it managed. You didn’t need the High Lord worried over petty feelings, agonizing over an unequal mate who couldn’t handle a few choice words. Words that had apparently been forgotten, anyways. 

So, you steeled yourself and got work done. You barricaded yourself in your study and the central clinic’s office and resumed the roles you had taken up. Nothing was different from before, not really. You weren’t High Lady, but you wouldn’t let your inabilities drag Rhys down. The routine was good. This was good. 

It was good, until you slipped. 

Rhys had woken you from the cushions of your office sofa gently, his fingers threaded along the crown of your head. He was crouching beside you, and you found consciousness before he said anything, keeping your eyes shut as he ran his thumb across your temple in small strokes. You felt the intensity of his gaze once again, a common occurrence in the passing weeks. He let out a wretched-sounding sigh and leaned forward, pressing his lips to the high point of our cheek. 

You stirred, blinking your eyes open to catch the sad smile he offered. “Dinner, my love,” he whispered, thumb still moving in rhythmic strokes. “I was looking for you everywhere. I didn’t think you’d still be working.” 

As you sat, rubbing at your eyes, Rhysand moved his hand to your lap, covering your knee with his palm. “I needed to figure a few things out with the correspondence from Spring. It’s still rather messy.” 

“I thought we had settled everything.” 

“I wanted to double check,” you brushed off, rising from the couch. 

Rhysand stood with you, but he did not move. Instead, he clutched both sides of your face in his hands, bringing you forward to kiss your head once more. He lingered there, eyes focused on the wall behind you. “I wish you would tell me how to fix this,” he murmured, words brushing past your skin. “How to get you back.” 

You fisted his sweater at the waist, pulling yourself back to find his gaze. He kept you locked in the cradle of his hands, seeming to flinch when he finally saw you. “I’m right here,” you whispered back. 

“And how beautiful you are.” He still sounded so sad, his thumb now moving to your cheek. “You won’t tell me?” 

“There’s nothing to tell.” 

“Would you show me?” 

You twisted your mouth to the side and fiddled with a fraying thread on his sweater’s hem. Gaze downcast, you shook your head. “There’s nothing, Rhys.” 

Another lacking sigh. 

“Will you eat with me, then?” 

Eating with him tonight meant eating with everyone, and that would take some of the pressure off of you. It would make his eyes linger on his family and not wonder so much. So you agreed, and Rhysand flew you up to the House. Amren was missing, par for the course, but Azriel, Cassian, and Mor sat at a smaller table than usual, two seats by the head empty for you. Mor perked up as she saw you, dragging you out of Rhysand’s hold on your waist. 

His hands lingered, trying to follow you as his cousin pried you away.

The room was alight with friendly splendor, something you recognized immediately. It made you feel out of place, and you slapped a happy smile on your face to curtail that. Conversation flowed. Rhysand’s eyes often trailed to you—in your silence, in the small laughs you offered, in your attention on the others. 

Azriel’s shadow—the one you knew to be following you recently—inched up from behind your shoulder and beelined to its master, whispering into his ear and causing the spymaster to appraise you. It was a different look from the one you found in your mate’s eyes, but it made you feel watched. Like you were being called out for the show you were putting on. 

It snapped you out of the momentary distraction of dinner. You cleared your throat and reached for your cup, gazing at Rhys instead. It was always enrapturing to look at him, the beauty he held undeniable and yours. He smiled brightly at a tease from Cassian, rolling his eyes and finding you as he laughed. He lit up the room in a subtle way, not like Helion or a light from Day, but intrinsically, privately. Like he hid it for others, but found the best times to share it. 

He was yours, and that was enough. 

With the burst of love you felt for him, the bond slipped. It had been easy to keep it under lock with the damper on your mood and worth, but when things were good, when you were reminded of the reasons you loved Rhys, it was almost instinctual to open it up. 

You noticed your mistake too late. 

Rhysand’s laughter abruptly ceased, his eyes locking on you in an instant. His hands came to press at his chest again, as they had when you closed the bond weeks prior, and he flinched at your slip-up.

You knew what he felt—the amalgamation of confusion, sadness, desperation, and every other conflicting emotion warring with your self-worth flowing along the bond. He let out a stuttering breath, so reminiscent of each sigh he had breathed, and let so much hurt wash over his face. It was unclear if he felt the hurt or if it was your hurt washing over him. 

At your surprise, you slipped even further, lowering your mental shields with the memory most present in this moment. You hadn’t meant to, but your vulnerability echoed the thought like a loudspeaker into Rhysand’s mind. 

You couldn’t handle it. Not as I do. Not equally.

Not equally.

He saw himself through your eyes. He heard the words reverberate in his own head. 

And you felt scared, for a moment, the table falling silent. You were caught, ensnared, every feeling becoming topical as he looked at you and realized. And understood. 

When tears welled up in your waterline, you thought he might’ve asked the others in the room to leave. He hadn’t moved his eyes from yours, but you saw his mouth move, heard some murmur of his voice under the ringing in your ears. You tried to blink away your tears, but it just caused them to trail down your cheeks. 

Rhysand moved slowly, like approaching a timid animal. He left his chair and kneeled before yours, finding a place by your knees. At some point, he must have pulled you away from the table, but your mind wasn’t keeping up with the day, and you felt frozen. 

He didn’t speak at first. He looked more ruined than before, any semblance of joy erased from his expression. How quickly things turned. 

“I have no apology that could equate,” your mate began, words shaky, effortful. “I knew something was wrong, but I had no idea how much pain I had caused you. How much—I did not mean those words in the way you think. I have never—” 

His words caught in his throat, and you surged into action—as much action as your stunned state could allow. Your jaw trembled slightly as you went to speak. “You don’t have to say something you don’t mean. You don’t have to lie just because the truth upset me.” 

“The truth—” Rhys stopped himself, the word burning his tongue. He reached out and held both of your hands in his. “I was trying to agree with you, my love. That the roles I have put you in are not the ones you were Made to do. When you came back and worked in the clinic, I thought that was us starting over. I thought… I’m so foolish, I thought you had left understanding my words and needed time to consider the future. But then you resumed all other work. You worked harder in roles I had meant for you to abandon.” 

You were shaking your head as he spoke, primed with an argument you had cemented in your head. “I can’t abandon them, Rhys. I am your mate. I have to—to be your equal. There are things I must take on—” 

“You are my equal.” He brought your hands to his lips, staring up at you with wet eyes. “You are. I said you couldn’t handle it equally because you are a healer first. You are a healer, darling, not—not any of the other things I pushed you into. I have been careless, not considering your plight, and I cannot apologize enough.”

He was saying all of the right things, the panic in you melting. But other unwrapped wounds lingered, and you wanted them all laid bare. You wanted the full picture of your hurt on display. 

“And what of your court?” you whispered. Tears were still falling. “Your people?”

Rhysand’s eyes fluttered shut in shame. His jaw worked and he connected one of your hands to his heart, still on his knees before you. “Everything I have is yours. Nothing is mine alone. I said those words, and I never meant them. I will spend the rest of my life making up for that, if you will let me.” 

“It’s not just that,” you quickly shot out, pulling your hands from him, standing from the chair. Rhysand followed after you, some of your panic now present in his features. 

“What is it, then? I’ll fix it.” 

“You can’t—you can’t fix everything, Rhys. You don’t even see it. You say that I’m a healer and that’s… It’s wonderful to feel heard, but everything is the same. At any point, you could throw it all back in my face—your people, your court. I don’t even have friends of my own.” 

“Mor—” 

You stopped pacing around the room, staring at Rhys as he remained rooted in your path, hands useless at his sides. “They are all yours. They would always pick you. I-I love them, but you had Azriel tracking me when I was gone.” 

“I just wanted to make sure you were safe.” 

You let out an exasperated breath, brows coming together as you pressed your fingers to your temples. This really was all becoming bare. At some point, your tears had stopped, leaving sticky trails on your skin. Rhys wasn’t crying, but he was at a tipping point, eyes panicky and wide and rimmed in wetness. 

“When you said those things to me, it made me reconsider everything,” you began, staring off at the walls rather than at his desperate picture. “I thought about how overwhelmed I’d been feeling and how—how perhaps being your mate just didn’t come naturally to me.” 

“Don’t say that,” Rhysand begged. 

“It’s true. I-I love you, Rhys. I love you so much. But it’s the rest of it I don’t understand. I’m not sure how to do this anymore.” 

Something cracked in the air, unseen but so vivid it sent your mate into action. He met you in the room again, hands coming to your shoulders, thumbs caressing the bone. His own cheeks were wet now, his breath coming out in short bursts. 

“We do this however you want. However slow or fast. In any way you’ll have me. I can’t—I can’t lose you.” 

“I feel like I’m losing myself,” you revealed. “I feel like I can’t lose you either, but that I don’t know how to have both.” 

Rhys looked to be at a loss—devastated and empty-handed. His head tilted as he looked at you, brows coming together and fingers desperately brushing your skin. “Tell me what to do.” 

When you looked at him with such a mirrored emotion, he bit into his trembling lip, offering more. “Anything. We can try anything. I meant what I said—that you can go back to only healing. Being head healer. Nothing else.” 

“Would that even be enough?”

Rhys shattered, somewhat. You felt it through the bond—how it seemed to cave in on itself. He pressed his forehead to yours. “That is who I fell in love with. Even without the bond. And even if you wanted to stop that, as well. You are everything. Every part of me. I have never once doubted that.” 

There was quiet, only mingling breaths and the heavy thump of two heartbeats. Rhysand squeezed his eyes shut as you had when he held you all those weeks ago, and you felt his desperate love for you through the mending bond. He was right; love had always been what was sure between you. At some point, politics and conflicting goals had muddled that. 

“You have to mean it,” you whispered. “I have to have my own life too.” 

Rhys nodded slightly against you. “Anything.” 

“I’m serious, Rhys.” 

“As am I, my love.” He brushed his nose with yours, tracking his hands up to frame your face. “I won’t lose you. Won’t let you lose yourself.” 

Hope sprang alight in your chest. You tugged from his grasp and placed your head beneath his chin, and he was quick to hold you close, to fit you perfectly in that space. He held the back of your neck in one hand, the other clutching at your back, still desperate, still raw. Things were calming, but there was still so much in the air. His chest hummed against yours when he spoke next, words almost too quiet to catch. 

“You are my life.”