i wanna brainwash you into loving me forever

If you can’t get your mind out from between her legs, then you could at least pretend to have a shred of respect for her position.

Clenching his jaw against the fury gathering in his throat, Azriel tucked his wings, angling for the ground. Nosediving through the air was reckless, thoughtless—a move that would have gotten him whipped as a novice if any war camp commander had seen—but he savored the wind that stung his eyes and tore at his hair.

This rush of adrenaline felt better than the vicious, lung-shredding unworthiness clawing at his insides. That feeling had sunk its talons into him in his cell beneath his sire’s keep and held on all his life, through wars won and promotions earned and centuries of pining for a female who never wanted him back. 

And just when he thought he might have shaken it…

Now that Nesta has publicly accepted her bond with Cassian, Elain is the closest thing the Night Court has to a princess. And I won’t let you ruin the opportunity in front of us with your cock.

It was back.

In an instant, Az was just a nameless bastard again, clothed in rags and kept secret behind a door locked from the outside. A small, weak boy who had only scarred, ravaged hands and shadows that drove him near to madness to his name. 

He burned to think of the way Rhys’s cold eyes had pinned him to his seat in his heavily warded study in the House of Wind—black, empty pits of night void of any trace of stars. Though Azriel put everything he had into reinforcing the walls of ice around his mind, a ravenous, beastly feeling had stirred at the sight of the disdain in his brother’s expression.

Hell, he’d almost had to rustle his wings just to remind himself that they were no longer two emaciated, useless things hanging limply off his back for well over five centuries.

He had held off though—barely. If only so Rhys didn’t witness that moment of insecurity.

You know better than anyone how many eyes are on her. I won’t have her dragged through the scandal sheets every week like Cresseida and the Vanserra brothers. I expect you can respect that, at the very least?

Azriel could. The gossipmongers of Prythian had better spies than most governments. He could only imagine the malicious horse shit they would sell on every newsstand and street corner if they got the faintest hint of a rumor about the High Lady of Night’s quiet, reclusive sister.

The ground rushed toward him, but he waited until his shadows cried out in fright to snap open his wings. Every muscle and tendon in his back screamed with agony as he caught the wind, pulling out of his dive with a low groan.

While you were gone, Elain expressed a desire to take a more active role in the politics of this court. She cannot do that if she is embroiled in a fucking feud between my spymaster and the gods-damned Autumn Court.

Azriel, stupid with rage, had opened his mouth then. Can’t she? Feyre’s reputation hardly suffered after being caught between two High L—

Even now, with the wind roaring in his ears and his own wingbeats defeaning him, Azriel could hear the ear-splitting CRACK! as Rhysand’s hands slammed onto the desk he so rarely used.

The desk he only used when he wanted to speak to Azriel alone these days. 

Keep your hands off of my fucking princess.

The snarling command played on a loop in Azriel’s head.

And here he was, soaring low over the rooftops of the city, so easily identifiable in his leathers and Siphons. 

Reckless. 

Stupid. 

Everyone would see him.

People would talk.

He didn’t give a single shit.

He glided over the theater district, the Rainbow. The shadows whispered of shady dealings at the Palaces as they quickly passed beneath him—more insider trading from the governors, apparently, and Azriel tucked the information away for later—and gave way to the Sidra, which snaked down to the grander estates on the river’s eastern banks…

Neat, manicured hedgerows and alabaster stone crept into view.

Azriel hadn’t originally planned to go back to the River House at all after Rhysand summoned him out of the city for a meeting in the House of Wind. It was too risky, knowing Feyre would be home from her evening stroll to put the baby to bed by then. But his head went quiet at the sight of freshly trimmed rose bushes and clean-swept gravel paths. 

His feet touched down between the dahlias and the petunias.

And there she was, wielding a spade against the weeds that had terrorized her rhododendrons since the spring. It was undoubtedly hard work; as he watched, she sat back on her heels and swept the back of her hand over her glistening forehead, leaving a smudge of dirt on her smooth brow.

Elain, the shadows sighed fondly, forgetting the hell Azriel had just put them through.

One, a bold ribbon of utmost darkness, cooed, Princess.

As if Elain could hear the damned things calling to her, she turned her eyes toward him, squinting into the sun. Azriel’s chest squeezed with tenderness as her full lips formed a smile for him. Just for him.

“Azr— Oh!”

Azriel was upon her in three steps, falling to his knees in the cool patch of dirt beside her and hooking an arm around her waist. With his other hand, he took hold of her wrist, disarmed her in a swift, gentle twist of his. He tossed her spade into a bed across the gravel path. 

Better not to have sharp objects anywhere near her right now.

Her tinkling laughter trickled over him like water, a moment of cool relief from the sweltering day. ”Azriel, what in the world brought this on?”

He didn’t say a word. 

He wound the thick length of her hair around his fist and kissed her. It wasn’t a gentle kiss—it was clashing teeth and bruised lips and sharp, possessive nips until he tasted precious metal on his tongue.