#not surprising because of the setting. the inner court...

[miningforheart]

i actually got invested in apothecary diaries... both surprising and not

[enchanted-by-fae]

One Day - Azriel x Reader

Part 1

Paring: Azriel x Hewn City! Reader

Summary: You knew that you’d be forced into an arranged marriage one day, you just didn’t expect it to be now… or to the Shadowsinger

Warnings: Arranged marriage, angst?, idk me trying to set up the plot, don’t worry there will be one (and fluff and romance)

1.5k words (I meant to make it longer, oops)

A/N: This is my first fic so I don’t really have any clue as to what I’m doing. The title is from the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack because I think it just sounds really pretty and romantic.

Part 2 Part 3

“You wanted to see me father?” you asked, walking into your fathers office. You never liked coming into this part of your family's apartments. It always felt so damp and cold, you could practically taste the mildew embedded inside the walls.

Your family was by no means poor, at least by Hewn City standards. Your father was currently the right hand to Keir. You had a long family tree which went back to the first high lord of the Night Court. This made you a distant relative of your current High Lord, Rhysand, though you never called him by his name. You didn’t know much about him despite the distant relation. All you knew was that he seemed awfully cunning, but in a way that made you distrustful. Whenever he, along with his Inner Circle, showed up you always made sure to obey perfectly when in his presence and to make yourself sparse otherwise.

You had been summoned to your fathers office on what seemed to be rather “urgent matters”. You usually were never asked to meet with him, and this sudden request frightened you.

“Yes, my daughter,” your father said, gesturing for you to take a seat facing the desk where he was already seated. “I have something I’d like to discuss with you,” you moved to take the seat closest, sitting gracefully. You sat there waiting for your father to continue.

“Right,” he began with a curt nod, “it would seem the High Lord has come to me with a proposition” disdain filling his voice. Nobody dared speak a negative word of the mysterious High Lord in fear of it coming back to him, but they made their feelings known in other ways. For your father, he liked to show his dislike with the inflection of his voice.

“And I’m involved in this proposition?” your voice came out meekly. You knew the question was stupid. Of course you’re involved with this somehow, why else would your father call you here. Disgust filling his voice, “yes, it would seem that the High Lord would like to arrange a marriage.” you shot up out of the seat with a surprised expression that bordered anger. “What of his mate?” you argued.

“You wouldn’t be marrying the High Lord, Y/N” your father never addressed you by name. It was always “daughter” or “child”. The fact that he used your actual name now unsettled you.

“Who would I be marrying then?” you asked as worry flooded your senses. The only reasonable matches the High Lord would set you up with would be a male from his Inner Circle, it would be foolish otherwise.

As far as you knew, he only had two males in his little group. They were Cassian, his general and “lovingly” referred to as the Lord of Bloodshed, and Azriel. Not much was known of Azriel, he didn’t speak much during visits. All you knew of him was his station in the High Lords Inner Circle, his spymaster and the Shadowsinger.

Frankly, the male terrified you. Whenever the High Lord brought him along on his few and far between trips to the Hewn City, he would just stand in the farthest corner, watching. It always left you with a disturbed feeling. The Shadowsinger was a known weapon. The former High Lord had used his talents for torturing during the war 500 years ago. That fact alone was enough to send you running.

The other one, Cassian, was deadly too. He was a natural killing machine, or so you’ve heard from Keirs Darkbringers. You knew it wasn’t likely for a marriage, however, between yourself and the Lord of Bloodshed. The last you had heard, he was already mated. This left you with the lethal spymaster. You return to your seat as you feel your heart begin to plummet quickly to your stomach as you await your fathers answer.

“Based on the look on your face,” you tend to show every thought in your head on your face, “you already know the answer,” your father said, not really answering the question.

“Just tell me, please.” softly pleading with your father to confirm your fate.

“It’s the Shadowsinger,” he sighed. Even though you knew that would be his answer already, you can’t help but deflate at the confirmation of it.

“So, that’s it then? I’m being shipped off to marry the Shadowsinger?’ You were typically soft-spoken, as most females in the Hewn City are taught to be, but the idea of marrying someone you were also taught to fear wasn’t something you could treat softly.

Your father let out another sigh, this one filled with exasperation, “it’s not that simple, my daughter.”

“Then simplify it for me,” you need a reason. If you were to marry the, potentially, most dangerous male in Prythian then you’d need answers. Now. “I’m not a child anymore, father,” you remind him.

“It would seem the High Lord is looking to unify his two courts,” your father begins to explain. You nod as he continues, “he asked for the spymaster to wed you, specifically. I am the highest ranking official in this court, next to Keir and I happen to have a daughter eligible for marriage,” he gives a slight nod towards you.

“The High Lord has also promised me that you will be taken care of by him,” his expression turns serious “no harm is to come to you.”

A frown takes over your face as you learn of the High Lord's reasoning. Luckily relief floods as well, knowing you have your safety has been promised. You begin to just nod your head, processing it all.

Finally, you take a deep breath, exhale, and give your response, “okay.”

“Okay?” your father askes, surprised at how accepting you sound.

“Okay,” I defeatedly nod, “he’s the high lord, I should follow his command,” I reason. You could learn to live with the Shadowsinger you supposed. How bad could he honestly be?

“I’ll inform the High Lord of your decision,” your father begins to finish the conversation, “thank you for doing this, my child. Your people thank you.”

You give him a sad smile before removing yourself from your seat and make towards his door to leave.

As you enter the hallway, alone at last, you are left with nothing but your own thoughts. The thought that you will be helping to bring these two feuding courts together at last. A slight smile blooms on your lips with the hope of being remembered as an immortal legend to your people.

—

“Are you being fucking serious Rhys?” Azriel fumes to his brother.

“Az,” Rhys pinches the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes tightly, “please. You’ll be helping with bringing peace between my two courts.”

Azriel shakes his head in disbelief. When Rhysand told him that he found a bride for him he thought it was a joke. He was the Night Courts spymaster and he couldn’t figure out his own brother was planning to get him engaged.

“Can’t you find peace without a marriage?” Az exclaims. It’s not often he finds himself yelling at Rhys.

Rhysand lets out a deep sigh that he’s been holding in for far too long, “we’ve tried Az. Maybe this way the courts can find a common ground.” Azriel can’t help but scoff at this entire situation, which sends Rhys into a fit. “Look, I know this isn’t ideal. Alright? I’m well aware. But I’m at my wits end here already Az and you throwing a tantrum isn’t helping,” Rhysand grows dark. “You’re marrying her next week, end of fucking conversation,” he adds.

Azriel rolls his eyes “this is unbelievable,” he mutters.

“Would you like to repeat that for the rest of the class Az?” Rhys eggs him.

“I said that this is fucking unbelievable,” Az snapped, “You and Cassian are allowed your mates but I’m not allowed to find mine?”

Rhysand begins to soften, feeling bad at the mention of his brothers lack of mate. He didn’t want to do this to Az but he wouldn’t be asking if there was no other option. “I want you to find your mate Az, I do,” this is when an idea sparks in Rhys’ mind.

Az catches the new look on Rhysands face. He’s seen it many times over their long friendship, it the look he gets when he has another bargain up his sleeve. “What is it now?” Azriel grits.

Rhysand just gives his usual devilish smile, “I’ll let you out of your marriage, if you meet your mate,” he bargains.

Azriel looks at him with widened eyes, “really? I just get to leave if I meet my mate?”

The High Lord nods, “yes. I still expect you to marry Y/N but, let's say you meet your mate later on, I give you permission to be with them. You just can’t be cruel about it to your wife,” Rhys explains his conditions.

Azriel feels relief wash over him at the bargain. He understands that it’s entirely possible he’ll never meet his mate but “if”.

He agrees that it’s a fair deal and reaches out his hand for Rhys to shake, “it’s a bargain.” Rhysand takes his brother's hand and as the deal is sealed they both feel the new tattoos inked upon their bodies. Azriel wonders where and what his new tattoo is, but that's something to be answered later.

“You’re still getting married next week,” Rhysand reminds.

“Yeah, yeah whatever,” Azriel rolls his eyes but says the words with a playful manner. For the first time since hearing of his arranged marriage, he feels hope. Hope that his mate is out there and still waiting for him.

—

A/N part 2: if you made it this far I really hope you enjoyed the story! I’m hopefully going to be starting the next part soon! Thank you so so much for reading

[faithisyours]

Can’t Imagine Losing You

Azriel x Fem!reader

Summary: Azriel’s been acting moody lately, and you've had enough.

Warnings: ANGST! but also fluff. Smut, smut, SMUT! possessive Az, whimpering whiny Az, sort of a switch dynamic between the two, P in V, coming inside, oral both receiving, some ass stuff, i think that's it, not proof read

Word Count: 4.5k

A/N: Hey y’all! Sorry for being MIA. Here’s another fic as a peace offering. I wanted to try some angst so hopefully I did it right. This whole thing took so many turns. Hope it's comprehensible. If you have any requests for fics you'd like me to write, I'm all ears (i need ideas, please I’m begging). As always, minors go away. Majors, enjoy!

“I have some work I need to do at the House of Wind today. It shouldn't take long.”

You were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast, enjoying the warm summer breeze coming in through the open window when Azriel informed you he had to leave. You were disappointed, but not at all surprised. It seemed like there was always something to do, some report needing finished or some training schedule needing tweaked. And it was always your mate who needed to do it, especially on his off days, it seemed.

“Can you stay for breakfast at least?” you asked, infusing your words with hope to mask the disappointment.

“I’m sorry, my love, I can’t. I’ll see you later.” He pressed a swift kiss to the top of your head before practically running out the door. There was no, “I’ll make it up to you later,” or, “How about breakfast tomorrow?” or even an, “I love you,” before he had disappeared.

Instances like this had been happening more frequently over the past couple years, but recently it had gotten out of hand for you. You had been mated to Azriel for over a century at this point, and had known each other far longer than that. You originally assumed that these instances were caused by Azriel being distracted by his work. Being the spymaster for the Night Court was a lot to manage. But more recently you had begun to wonder if the spark had dimmed for Azriel. If he had started to feel differently than he had when you two were first mated.

You decided that tonight you would bring up your concerns with him. You prayed to the Mother it was only because he was so busy and not because he had begun to feel differently about being mated to you. For now, though, you finished your breakfast, put away the extra food you had made for Azriel, and got ready for your day.

Since Azriel wasn’t going to be home until later, you figured you could get some errands done while he was away. Azriel had been running low on his sleep tonic for a while now, so you decided to stop by your favorite apothecary and pick him up another one. While you were out, you figured you could stop by the market and get some more wine to replenish the stash you and the other ladies of the Inner Circle had drained not too long ago. You also picked up some ingredients you would need for dinner tonight.

It was nearing noon when you decided to head back home, but as you were making your way back, you passed the shop you had gotten your favorite lingerie set from. It couldn’t hurt, you thought, to go in and look around. It had been a while since you got a new set, and you thought you should treat yourself. If you found something you liked, of course. And as soon as you walked in, a rich purple satin set caught your attention. It was perfect; simple yet sexy, and looked rather comfortable as well. It had criss-cross straps that circled around the back and waist, to connect to the bottoms, which were detailed with black lace on the hips. You didn’t have a purple set yet, and you thought maybe Azriel would like it too. Maybe if things went well tonight you would let him see it.

You made your way home, purchases in hand, including that satin set, and hoped by the time you got there that Azriel would be home. But he wasn’t. You entered an empty home, warm yet breezy from the window you had left open, and started unloading your purchases. You put the wine on the rack, the ingredients for dinner on the kitchen table, and Azriel’s sleep tonic on his bedside table. Lastly, you fished that purple satin set out of its bag and tried it on.

You didn’t bother trying it on in the store because you already knew your measurements and didn’t want to bother anyone anyway. Just like you suspected, it was incredibly comfortable, and it fit you like a glove. Exhaustion washed over you then, even though it was a little past noon. Going out to run errands always seemed to suck the energy right out of you.

You didn’t bother taking off the set, but instead rifled through Az’s shirt drawer to find your favorite one of his, a flowy black cotton button down, and threw it on. Even though Az wasn’t here right now, you still wanted to feel close to him, hence the shirt. You curled yourself up on his side of the bed, enveloped in the comfort of his scent, and closed your eyes. The last thought you had before falling asleep was hoping this whole thing was a misunderstanding.

–

You awoke to the sound of a door slamming. You sat up, wiped the sleep from your eyes, and made your way towards the kitchen, the most likely source of the noise. You saw Azriel, leaning over the kitchen sink looking out the window. You glanced at the clock above the hearth, noting you had been asleep for about 4 hours.

“Hey Az,” you said groggily, “Sorry I didn’t meet you at the door, I was taking a nap. Did you just get home?” you asked, walking closer to him. He gave you a grunt in response. You noticed his shadows swirling agitatedly around him, making you stop in your tracks. “Az, are you okay? Did something happen?” A million thoughts cycled through your head in seconds. Did something happen at work? Are Cassian and Rhys okay? Is he mad at you? Did you forget something he asked you to get at the market?

“I’m fine. I don’t want to talk about it.” His answers were clipped, monotone. “I'll be in our room.” he pushed off from the sink and brushed right past you, not even bothering to look you in the eye, give you a kiss, or look even the slightest bit apologetic for his attitude.

“I got you more sleeping tonic. It’s on your bedside table,” you informed him. You got a closing bedroom door in response.

You had a lot of patience. You prided yourself on the amount of patience you had. But it was warring paper thin for your mate. You decided to make dinner to take your mind off it, and to hopefully give him time to calm down. It’s not like he’d never been moody before, but this was a little much. He was starting to act like a teenage son, not your mate.

–

Thirty minutes later dinner was done and on the table. You went over to your bedroom door, still closed, and knocked, then poked your head in.

“Dinner is done. I made one of your favorites,” you informed Azriel, who was just walking out of the connected bathing room when you had poked your head in. He had changed into something more comfortable since the last time you saw him.

“Be right out,” he responded, glancing at you as he said it.

You walked back out to the kitchen table and began to load up both your plates with food. Azriel joined you just as you sat down. He immediately started eating, seemingly not concerned that the food was still hot enough to burn his mouth. And it looked like you would be carrying the conversation this evening.

“Was everything alright at the House of Wind today?” you pried, hoping the question came off as inconspicuous.

“Everything is fine. It’s handled now,” he offered, still shoveling food into his mouth.

“Alright. Good. I just wanted to -”

He cut you off. “Can we just eat in silence please? It's been a long day.” The words were stern, but his tone was soft, tired. You paused at his words, letting them sink in. Maybe this was just a bad day for him. Maybe he would be better tomorrow. Maybe this conversation should wait, if he’s pretty tired already. But how long had this gone on? How long have you wanted to say something about it?

“No,” you said simply. He paused, a fork-full stopped midway between his plate and mouth. Finally, he looked at you. “No, we’re not going to sit in silence. I have something I want to talk about. And I realize you may have had a shitty day, but I also had a day. I did things I want to talk with you about. I’ve wanted to have a conversation with you since this morning. So, no, actually. I’m not going to sit here in silence. Okay?” You stayed staring into his hazel eyes until you got a nod, but you wanted his answer in words. So you kept gazing into those hazel eyes until you got one.

“Okay. Alright,” he said, lowering his fork and pushing away from the table slightly, keeping his eyes on you. “What did you want to talk about, Love?”

His use of that endearment almost makes you reconsider this conversation. Almost. “I wanted to talk about your workload. And how it’s affecting me. And your treatment of me.” He only nodded, encouraging you to continue. “I feel like your workload doesn’t leave time for us anymore. It seems like the amount of stuff you have to do on a daily basis is way more than it used to be. You barely get any time off, and even on your days off you still have to do something. Like today. And I want to know if that’s how you feel, too.” You gave him time to consider.

He cleared his throat. “I like to stay busy. You know that. I haven’t noticed an increase in my duties, but even if there has been, I’m not sure if there is anything I could do about it. Everyone’s plate is already full. I can talk to Rhys about allocating jobs, but I can’t make any promises.”

You nodded, if only to give you something to do. That was not the answer you wanted to hear, but you could work with it. You wanted to broach your next point, but you were scared he wouldn’t take it well. You took a deep breath. “This… this leads me into my next point. I feel like…I feel as though you haven't been treating me how I want to be treated recently. Like sometimes I get my mate Az, and other days I get Azriel the shadowsinger. Or I get moody, likes-to-slam-doors Az who can’t bother to answer his mate in full sentences because he's too pissed off at something he doesn’t even want to tell me, his mate, who he should be able to tell everything to, even if it “doesn’t concern me.”” Your voice had started to rise, but you couldn’t help it. You were angry. “And this was why I wanted to talk about your workload. It feels like you’re getting upset more because you have more to do, which in turn makes you unintentionally take it out on me. you regard me as a permanent fixture in this house, but I am not. I will leave if I am not treated the way I deserve. And Gods, Azriel, I hope that this is the only reason, that it is only because of you working too much, because if it’s something else, if it has to do with your feelings towards me changing, I don’t…I don’t even…” you trailed off, holding back a sob that had started climbing your throat.

Azriel was now standing, making his way over to you. He knelt down right in front of you, taking your hand in his, his eyes, full of worry and confusion, searched yours for answers. “Okay, alright, you’re right. I have been acting like a jerk to you recently. And I’m so sorry for that. Truly. Work has been a lot to deal with recently, but that’s no excuse. I'll talk to Rhys about getting more time off. So I can spend it with you, alright? But how could you think my feelings have changed? How could you even think that?” His look was incredulous.

You swallowed the lump in your throat, or rather, tried to. “We’ve been mated for a century. A lot can happen in that amount of time. I thought maybe…maybe the spark was dimming for you. Maybe you changed your mind. About me. About us. And if you did, that would be alright. I would live with that, if it made you happy.” You work your confession out between sobs. “I just…I guess I just got scared. I don't want to lose you.”

His eyes were still on yours, but the emotion in them had shifted. Now they were full of anger. Not anger for you, but rather anger at himself. How could he treat you like this? In a way that made you think he did not love you anymore. He had failed, he realized. He was failing you, your relationship, your trust in him. He had to fix this, had to try harder. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said with conviction, no room left for argument. “I love you. So much. More now than I did a century ago. Every day I love you more. I didn’t even think that was possible, but with you it is. You’re not getting rid of me even if you wanted to, okay? I’m staying, and I’m going to try harder, get more days off, spend them all with you. You’re the love of my life, ya? Nothing will change that.” He pulled you into a hug, kissed away your tears, and kept kissing you until your cheeks were dry.

He kissed you one more time, hard, on the cheek, then went back to his side of the table and sat down. He thanked you for dinner, asked about your day, what all you did, and in turn told you what had happened at the House of Wind. Apparently one of the Illarian camps had started some fights with another camp over space and resources. Rhys had thought it was taken care of, but there was another fight today, which resulted in Azriel having to go over there, break it up, and be the peacekeeper longer than he wanted. Hence him coming home late and in a pissy mood.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he stated, cutting off your story of you in the market today. It wasn’t a conscious thought to cut you off. He had only just now realized you were wearing his shirt, and basically nothing else. He had been so distracted by what had happened today and you bringing up your concerns that he hadn’t even noticed. Possession coiled in his stomach like a serpent strangling its prey. Seeing you in his clothes, even though it was a rare occurrence, always made him hard. He couldn’t help it. Your strong, soft body wrapped in his shirt, the sleeves rolled up to your elbows, exposing all that lickable skin. It made his knees buckle.

“Is that okay?” you asked tentatively. He was looking at you now like a starved man, which you knew he wasn't, given the finished plate of food before him. You rarely wore his clothes, mainly because you swam in them due to how big they were on you. You guessed he was just surprised to see you in something of his, but that didn’t explain the heat in his gaze. “I put it on after I got home from running errands. I wanted to take a nap and I figured you weren’t using it so…” you explained, trailing off.

“You’ve been wearing my shirt all day. Only my shirt.” It wasn’t a question. More like a repetition of the fact in order to understand. But it wasn’t just his shirt you were wearing. As he said it he noticed the purple strap poking out by your shoulder. A purple strap. You didn’t own any purple undergarments. “What is that?” he asked, his gaze burning a hole in your shoulder.

Before you could even answer him he said, “Purple. You don’t own anything purple.” His gaze was lighting you on fire, his eyes full of slow understanding, pupils blown wide with lust.

You got up from your chair, pushing your empty dinner plate slightly forward, and walked around the kitchen table to his side to stand right in front of him. “Well, while I was out,” you started, your voice low and seductive, “I passed by that shop, you know, the one I got that royal blue set from.” Azriel knew exactly what you were talking about. Remembered your squirming form underneath him while you were in that set. He was starting to feel lightheaded from how much of his blood had gone to his crotch. “And I figured it wouldn’t hurt to go in and see if they had anything as good as that royal blue set.” You were teasing him now, you knew it. But it was so fun, you couldn’t help yourself.

“Please, my love. Please let me see it. Let me see you,” he begged, winned. It was music to your ears. He was so hard it looked like it hurt. He had started slipping off his chair onto his knees in front of you, his scarred hands coming up to grip your hips. He was actually begging.

“You want to see it?” you taunted. He nodded, swallowing audibly. “Alright, but no touching. Not yet.” You pushed his hands off your hips, which was more difficult than you thought it would be, and began unbuttoning the shirt. Each button you worked to undo made Azriel’s breathing heavier, until he was practically panting. His hands were clenched so tightly at his sides you were sure his fingernails would leave marks on his palms.

You felt like a goddess; the man you adored more than anything knelt at your feet, completely enraptured by you, in awe of all you are. You reached the last button, undoing it achingly slowly, just to see your mate break out in a sweat. His hands were clenching his thighs hard enough to bruise, his chest heaved like a dying man, and the only thing shining in his eyes was need. Need for you, need to touch you, need to be buried in you until neither of you could tell where one ended and the next began. Azriel was a gentleman, but right now, here in front of you, he was the embodiment of pure animalistic lust. One word from you and he would snap. Just how you liked him.

You let the shirt part, giving him a nice view of the valley between your breasts, as well as the crossing straps and lower, to where those straps connected. You dragged one side of the shirt down off your shoulder, then repeated the movement on the other side. Finally, you let the shirt drop off of you, leaving you only in that purple set. You stepped closer to him, and caressed his face with your hand.

“Please.” It was barely a whisper, but you heard it, saw his lips part to form the word. His eyes were pleading with yours. He needed you. Now.

“Okay,” was all you said before he was on you, standing, gripping your hips, kissing you, running his hands over all that satin. He was everywhere all at once, biting your lips, coaxing moans from your throat, groaning over the feel of you, and you reveled in it all. His hands came around the back of your thighs, and suddenly you were being picked up and carried down the hall, towards your shared bedroom.

You were placed gently onto the bed, which was still rumpled from your nap earlier. Azriel leaned over you, taking you all in. “I love the purple, but I need you naked,” he said, peppering your jaw with kisses. You reached down to your hips and unhooked the straps from the panties. Azriel quickly figured out how to get your top off, and in a matter of seconds he was dragging the purple satin down your breasts just so his hands and lips could cover them again.

He took one of your nipples into his mouth, rolled the other between his fingers, and sucked and licked and pinched and bit till your chest was littered with marks from him. All the while, moans and whimpers poured out of you. Azriel reveled in the divine sounds you made, the sounds he made you make.

He made his way down your body, drawing closer and closer to where you needed him most.

“Please, baby. Please let me taste you,” he whispered, pleaded, begged. You gave him confirmation, that one word he needed to hear, then he was dragging those purple satin panties down your legs and throwing them across the room. He parted your legs, exposing your glistening core to him. The look in his eyes was that of absolute hunger. He didn’t bother with teasing you. He put his tongue right on your cunt, giving you no time to adjust or think before he licked a stripe from your entrance to your clit, spreading your arousal across his tongue.

You propped yourself up on your elbows so you could watch him; watch as he devoured you, drank from you, absolutely consumed you. He licked and sucked at your clit, brought it between his teeth, and eased the bite with more licks. Your head fell back as you moaned his name, lost in the pleasure he was giving you. Sooner than you even thought possible, you were on the edge of release, that coil in your belly drawing tighter and tighter. Without warning, Azriel slid a finger into you, curling it in a way that had you falling apart. He added a second, and it was your undoing.

You came with Azriel’s name on your lips. He worked you through your pleasure, continued to lick and suck till you were shaking from overstimulation. You pushed his head away, but he wouldn’t budge. He kept on licking you, drinking every drop of your release straight from the source. You were boneless, soar from overstimulation, but you could feel another orgasm rising within you.

Azriel moaned from the taste of you, the vibration making your hips buck. He continued to work his fingers into you, curling perfectly to reach that spot that made you scream. Profanities and pleads and promises poured from your mouth, but Azriel didn’t stop until you were coming again, on his fingers, on his face, on his tongue. Finally, after drinking every last drop of your essence, he worked his way back up to your mouth.

He kissed you until you came back to reality, until your limbs regained function. You kissed him back, moaning from the taste of yourself on his tongue. And then you were pushing him onto his back, straddling his hips to keep him there. He struggled a bit, pointing to his pinned wings, but you only smiled at him. “Is the Illarian baby pinned?” you taunted him. He stopped struggling, but instead glared at you. So you dragged a finger down one of the veins in his wings, and a moan slipped past his lips.

“That's what I thought,” you muttered. He was still fully clothed, and the contrast of your nakedness only spurred you on further. You kissed him, long and deep and unhurried, while you unbuttoned the length of his shirt. He broke the kiss to shed his shirt, so you turned your attention to unlacing his pants. While you worked, he kissed and nipped your neck, working marks into your soft flesh. You worked his pants down his legs, aided with Azriel’s help, and eventually he was naked underneath you.

You pressed him down to lay flat on the bed, then started your journey down towards his hard length. As you worked your way down, you liked and sucked and bit until his skin was littered with marks, just like yours was. You scraped your nails down his arms, down his sides, till he was shivering from your touch.

Kneeling now between his legs, guided a hand towards his length while you kissed his hips and rolled the skin between your teeth. His hips bucked at the fist fell of your hands on him, which made you smile. “So responsive,” you purred, then licked him from base to tip. He let out a moan that had your thighs rubbing together. With your tongue, you licked up the bead of precum that had frond, then promptly took as much of him into your mouth as you could.

Azriel speared his fingers through your hair, not to control your head but to steady himself. Your mouth was a dream to him; warm and wet and perfect. Second best only to your cunt. You hollowed your cheeks, taking him deeper and deeper into your mouth until he was hitting the back of your throat. Az was panting at this point, his skin covered in a thin sheen of sweat. Your mouth felt so good, but he needed to be inside you.

“I’m gonna…please…I need to be inside you,” he panted out. You pulled your mouth off him with a pop, then gave him one last lick before you climbed your way back up to him. You kissed him, mainly just so he could taste himself on you. Then you positioned your hips just above his, readying yourself to sink onto his length.

Using his hand, he parted you, spreading your slick on you and on his hand. He eased you onto his cock slowly, letting you adjust to him. Every time you took him, it was an adjustment. You hoped that would never change. You both made an obscene noise when he was finally, completely in you.

“You want to be filled, baby?” he asked as he ran the fingers he had parted you with down between your ass cheeks. Yes, you wanted to be full of him, wanted to be overwhelmed by him, wanted to feel him everywhere. You nodded. “Words, love,” he chided softly.

“Yes, please Az,” you wined. That was all you had to say before he worked his fingers into you, using your slick on his fingers as lube. He gripped your hips with the rest of that hand and the other, a bruising grip that was sure to leave bruises.

Azriel was sitting up slightly now, and even though you were on top of him, he set the pace. Slow rolls of your hips guided by his hands started you off. All you could think about was how full of him you were, how overwhelming the feeling of him everywhere was. Your pace quickens, spurred on by your whimpers and his moans. Your eyes were locked with eachothers, and within Azriel’s you saw his bottomless pool of love for you. His pupils were blown wide, and so were yours.

You kissed him, hard, and he returned it even harder. You’re moaning into eachothers mouths, the only goal being to guide each other to your peaks. You could feel that ache building, that need for release drawing closer and closer. Azriel could feel it too, reveling in the way your walls gripped him. He shifted his free hand around to play with your clit, and then you were coming, harder than you had in a while, cresting on a silent scream.

Azriel was right behind you, fucking sloppily into you until you were gripping him so tightly he could barely move. He came, chanting your name like a prayer, until his voice went hoarse.

You both laid there, panting and boneless, for minutes or hours or days, you couldn't tell. Eventually he guided you off of him, pulling out of you with a hiss, to lay you next to him. He gave you a kiss on the cheek before getting up to go to the bathing room. You heard the sound of water rushing into the tub, and in the next minute Azriel came back in, picked you up bridal style, and whisked you into the bathing room.

He set you down gently into the warm water then joined you, settling in right behind you. He pulled you back so your back was against his chest, then proceeded to wash you with a soapy cloth. When he was done you returned the favor, batting his hand away when he tried to protest. You finished up in the bath, dried each other off, then slipped into some sleeping clothes and then bed.

“We’re okay, right?” he asked, pulling you closer to him. Your heart melted, warmed by the idea that he wanted to make sure.

Yes, Az. We’re all good,” you replied, giving him a kiss on the nose.

“Okay. good,” was all he said before he tucked you tighter into him and you both fell asleep.

[imagine-darksiders]

Old Habits.

Nick Valentine X Sole Survivor. Set during Get a Clue.

--------------------------------

There are a lot of things Nick Valentine can’t help about himself.

He can’t help the way he looks, all peeled apart at the seams, and full of holes like a cadaver stuck in a state of perpetual decomposition.

He can’t help the way people react to him when they get their first glimpse of his big, ugly mug, be it with contempt, aggression, or simple curiosity.

And perhaps above all else, he can’t help but worry.

Ellie says it’ll be the death of him, that he’ll worry about the wrong person one day and wind up six feet under. And Hell, she was half right, wasn’t she? Went and worried himself straight into an ambush, and an Overseer’s office with a shoddy lock that he couldn’t pick from the inside.

And now, here he is, doing it all over again as if he’s never been burned a day in his life.

But the woman sitting across from him on the other side of his desk - all beleaguered and owly-eyed – is currently stoking whatever mechanisms cause his brow to furl and his empty chest to give a slow, hollow squeeze.

Belatedly, he realises he’s lifted his metal hand to prod a few, curious fingertips against the front of his shirt, as if he might find something there that’s amiss.

Echoes, he supposes, from a bygone life he never technically lived.

Ah well.

Maybe he’s softer than he realises, softer than Ellie accuses him of being all the damn time. Then again, maybe he wouldn’t be so worried if his fresh-faced new friend wasn’t giving him every reason to be.  

---------

The warm inner wall of your cheek tastes like iron between clenched teeth, and you realise distractedly that there’s going to be a nasty ulcer there in a few days if you don’t stop chewing on it. But worrying at the spongey flesh is currently the subtlest way you can think of to distract yourself from that old, familiar sting building behind your eyelids.

You have to be subtle. Because there’s a luminous, golden gaze scrutinising you from beneath the brim of a tattered fedora, and you’d really rather not let on that you’re teetering on the World’s thinnest tight-rope – composure if you fall one way, hysteria the other.

With rigid fingertips, you’ve been clinging to that pre-war poise you used to pride yourself on, actively benumbing yourself to the tragedy of losing far more than your family. You very much abhor the notion of letting your guard down now, all too aware that even the smallest slip might cause a crack in the dam that’s been keeping you upright and placing one foot in front of the other for the last few days.

And so, here you sit, perched politely in the hard, plastic chair on one side of an untidy desk, whilst on the other, leaning forwards attentively in his own seat, is Diamond City’s resident Detective. Nick Valentine.

He had been…. a surprise.

A synth. Strange and uncanny and human and alien all at the same time.

You’d damn near let out an undignified shriek when he stepped from the shadows of his makeshift cell in Vault 114, and it was only thanks to years of practicing how to most effectively bite your own tongue in the court room that you managed to wrestle the sound back down your throat.

Awkwardly, you even thrust a hand out at him in greeting to try and cover your almost faux-pax, and he’d blinked those inhuman eyes at you, uttered the gentlest chuckle you’ve ever heard from a man, and taken your hand in his.

For a synth who seemed only too pleased to trade quips during your escape from the vault, he’s been awfully quiet since he brought you to the agency, evidently content to sit back and allow you some time to gather your thoughts.

Save for the near-undetectable ‘clicks’ and ‘whirs’ of his internal mechanisms, and the ceiling fan whooshing overhead, the office is deafeningly silent.

The girl – Ellie, you seem to recall – has opted to stand at his side, a clipboard tucked against her stomach and a pen balanced delicately at the top of the page. She’s very pointedly trying to keep her eyes on the paper, a direct contrast to Mr Valentine, whose stare is as dogged as a bloodhound’s nose, searching your face for… something.

You’re making a concerted effort to level your expression so that it mirrors his.

Neutral. Safe.

You’re concentrating so hard on controlling the rise and fall of your chest that you flinch when he finally shifts in the chair. Privately, you reprimand yourself for jumping. He’d only raised an arm, moving it from his lap to drape it on top of the desk, but he pauses at your response, holding the limb perfectly still in the air as he studies you, the strange, malleable ‘skin’ on his forrid creasing little by little.

Finally, for the first time since you entered his agency, you clear your bone-dry throat and speak.

“Sorry,” you croak, offering him the sheepish tilt of cracked lips, “Suppose I’m still a bit jumpy.”

An easy hum rumbles up from somewhere deep inside his chest, and you wonder if whoever made him took the time to fashion synthetic lungs in there, or if they just stuck a couple of speakers in his gullet and called it a day. You don’t miss the way those eerie, amber eyes wander down to the collar of your blue jumpsuit either, as if he knows only too well how jumpy you’re bound to be.

Ellie is the first to come to your defence.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she soothes, her voice light and friendly, breaking through the room’s stagnant atmosphere, “Heck, anyone would be in your situation.”

Situation…

That’s one word for it.

The smile pulling at your lips is starting to strain the muscles.

“Speaking of….”

At the sound of his voice, your gaze drifts back over to the mechanical man.

Beneath the rim of his tatty fedora, he meets your eye and ducks to give you a searching look. “You sure you’re feeling up to this?” he asks, reading between the lines of your reticence. Before you can reply, he raises his metal hand and pinches the brim of his hat, tugging it down to half cover his eyes.

It only occurs to you later that he might have done so to try and offer you some reprieve from his unnatural stare.

“Look, if you need another few minutes to collect yourself-“

“-No!”

Now it’s his turn to recoil, and Ellie’s.

The pair of them tilt backwards at your outburst, the latter’s eyes wide and uncertain while Nick simply cocks a brow, and you’re immediately mortified to find that you’ve risen halfway from the chair, not angry, but desperate.

“Sorry!” you blurt, blinking in surprise at yourself, “Sorry – I… I’m just-“

Sucking in a deep breath, you let yourself sink down to the seat beneath you once more, making a show of folding your hands neatly over one another on the desk. “I just… can’t afford to waste any more time coming to terms with what’s happened,” you explain diplomatically, avoiding the piercing stare of the Detective as it bears down on you all over again.

Instead, you try to focus on the faded, black tie dangling from his neck. It’s obviously been tugged loose by his idle hands, sloppily folded to hang below the open collar of his shirt. Your fingers twitch at the memory of helping Nate with his own tie, sliding it up to fit snugly against his throat so as to avoid a reprimand from old Mrs Parker at the neighbourhood parties.

A mist starts to descend over your eyes, so you give them a harsh blink and force your head up again, aiming another smile at Mr Valentine whose downturned mouth is halfway open, on the cusp of saying something before you bulldoze over his response.

“Please,” you gesture loosely towards him, “Ask away. I’m all right.”

You’re not the most convincing liar, and if the Detective’s ever-deepening frown is any indication, you’re not fooling anyone.

But if he has sniffed out what might be the biggest exaggeration of the century, he’s at least decent enough to keep it to himself.

“Well… If you say so,” he concedes, giving you a final once over before he sighs, leaning his elbows on the desk and subjecting you to a businesslike stare, “Now then, why don’t you start from the beginning. Back at the Vault, you said you’re looking for a missing kid?”

“My kid,” you nod solemnly, fighting to keep your voice even, “My baby boy, Shaun. He was… kidnapped right in front of me. I… couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”

“Oh, Hon,” Ellie utters, her tone soft even as she scribbles something down on the clipboard.

Nick’s gaze wanders to the side, and he lets out a gentle sigh, or what constitutes for a sigh from someone without lungs. Then, roving his eyes back to yours, he murmurs something that causes your breath to hitch.

“I’m sorry, Doll.”

A chip in the dam… Your lip starts to quiver, so you stuff the flesh of your cheek back between your teeth and clamp down. Hard.

“I just… don’t understand,” you breathe after a moment, slowly releasing the tender sore, “He’s barely a year old. Why would someone steal him?”

“Good question,” Mr Valentine appraises, “They’d be taking on all of his care. And a baby needs a lot of it… Were they after anything else?”

With a shake of your head, you reply, “No, I… I’m pretty sure they were only there for him… We were, um, in a vault when it happened.” Letting out a humourless laugh, you gesture at yourself, more specifically at the suit you’re wearing – have been wearing for centuries. “Obviously.”

Ellie purses her lips, another note scribbled on the clipboard.

“Yeah, figured as much,” the Detective says, “Even without the suit, you got that fish-out-of-water look about you.” Catching himself, he shoots you an apologetic grimace. “Ah, hope you don’t mind me saying. Kept staring at the world around you like it was your first time seeing it.”

“First time seeing it like this,” you admit, waving his apology aside with a flap of your hand.

At that, both he and Ellie perk up, undoubtedly curious.

Seeing the shift, you rub your temple and blow a noisy breath through puckered lips. “Wanna know what year it was when we went into the Vault?” you ask flatly

The Detective’s eyes narrow as he starts to survey your face, calculating your age through looks alone. Deciding to spare him the effort, you heave a worn sigh and say, “Twenty-seventy-seven.”

“……”

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that ensues.

“Excuse me?” Ellie blurts out at last, forgetting about the notes on her clipboard in favour of gawking openly at you instead.

“The year the bombs fell…” Nick realises as his expression opens up in awe. The glow of his eyes seems brighter when he darts them all over what he can see of you, giving his head a slow shake. “But how is that possible?”

It’s remarkably touching that he doesn’t call your claim into doubt straight away.

“Vault Tec,” you try not to spit the name from your lips, “They were running some kind of experiment down there… They had these… cryo pods ready for us all, told us we had to go in them to get ‘decontaminated.”

Huffing out a breath, you give a hard sniff and snatch your eyes from the Detective’s, hoping he hadn’t seen the tell-tale gleam of tears behind your lashes. “I was so stupid… I didn’t even....Huh. Guess they were banking that we’d be too shocked about the bombs to ask questions.”

“Bombs?” Ellie pipes up, swallowing roughly, “You mean they’d only just…?”

Neither she nor Nick miss the haunted shadow that passes across your face.

“Skin of our teeth doesn’t even begin to describe how close it was,” you whisper.

“That’s…” Unable to come up with a suitable word, her mouth opens and closes like a goldfish for a moment before her expression turns grim and she finally settles on, “That’s awful.”

“It is,” Nick agrees distastefully, “Everyone knows Vault Tec's hands ain't exactly squeaky clean but that's.... Well. It explains a few things. Twenty-seventy-seven, huh?”

A gear in his neck spins audibly as he leans more weight against the desk, propping his chin on sharp knuckles and giving a thoughtful hum. “So, you’ve been on ice for over two centuries-"

A pill that never gets easier to swallow, no matter how often you hear it.

"But more importantly," he continues, "You were underground. Most vaults’re sealed up tight. It’s hard enough breaking out of one.” He nods at you indicatively. “Let alone breaking in. That’s a lot of obstacles to go through just to take one person. What else can you tell us about the kidnappers?”

“They weren’t just kidnappers,” you croak, “They were murderers.”

There’s a catch in your voice on the last word, and while you try to swallow, Ellie once again steps in to fill the silence.

“Take your time,” she says, prompting an agreeable nod from the Detective.

It’s hard not to scoff at that. You’ve been taking your time. Every second spent ‘taking your time’ is another second that Shaun isn’t safe at home in your arms. Once you’ve found him, then you can worry about taking your time to breathe, to start building a life here in the Commonwealth. But trying to build that life without your son, without Nate…?

“My husband…” you utter, idly picking at a loose bit of skin on the side of your thumb, “Nate. He was holding Shaun when we were put in the pods. He was the one still holding him when that… that man came in and opened it. Nate tried to stop them from taking our baby, and they… they just…”

A gunshot echoes somewhere at the back of your mind, so clearly that you dart a glance between Nick and Ellie, wondering if they’d heard it too. You know it’s in your head when the latter only pinches her eyebrows together and cuts in, “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything else…”

Catching her lip between her teeth, she worries at it for a second, looking you up and down before she adds, “You’ve really been through the ringer, huh?”

Your gaze lingers on her, then moves over to Nick, then up at the room around you, taking in the cracks in the walls and the general rundown state of things that seems to be so par for the course in this wild new Commonwealth you've woken up in.

“No more than anyone else has in this place, I’m sure,” you reply quietly.

The Detective’s amber stare hardens, though you’re too busy looking at the empty mug on his desk to notice.

‘Downplayer, huh?’ he muses, ‘Oh, kid.’

“So,” he says out loud, “We’re talking about a group of cold-blooded killers, but they waited until something went wrong to resort to violence.”

Placing the tip of her pen back on the clipboard, Ellie asks, “What’re you thinking, Nick?”

For a few moments, he just sits in contemplative silence, mulling over the information you’ve been all too forthcoming with. Until at last, he gives his head a tiny nod and glances up, meeting your gaze across the desk and holding it tightly, unwilling to let it go.

“I’m thinking…” he starts, “That this wasn’t just a random kidnapping. Whoever took your baby had an agenda. And I don’t want to jump to any conclusions yet, but my caps are on the Institute.”

The tiniest flicker of recognition sparks in your eyes, a far more subdued reaction than he’s used to when people are brave or blasé enough to bring up the Institute.

“I’ve heard them mentioned,” you say, “Uh, the news lady… Piper? She said if people go missing, it’s because of the Institute.”

“Well, they are the Boogeyman of the Commonwealth,” Nick responds darkly, “Something goes wrong, everyone blames them.”

Suddenly, your stomach flips, and for a split second, you dare to let yourself hope.

A name. You have a name, and a new lead. It isn’t much, but it’s a Hell of a lot more than you had to go on five minutes ago.

“Do you know where I can find them?” you bleat, eagerly lifting yourself halfway out of your seat again. A little too eagerly, judging by Valentine’s grunt of disapproval and the very pointed way he flicks his chin down at the chair, wordlessly asking you to sit.

“Now, just hold your horses, Doll,” he tells you sternly, eyeing you until you’re seated once more, “I’m afraid it’s not that easy.”

“Nobody knows where they are,” Ellie chimes in, “I don’t think anyone has ever found their headquarters. We don’t know who’s running things, why they’re doing it, or what they do with the people they… take.”

“Well, somebody must know something,” you stress, trying so hard to ignore the uninvited burn in your chest where the flutter of hope had just gone to die, “The trail can’t go cold here! I need to find Shaun.”

That’s all there is. That’s all you have. Anything beyond that is so hard to think about, you’ll probably have an aneurism if you let your mind stray from the Goal.

Mr Valentine is staring at you again with those ever-probing eyes, yet his tone maintains its low and easing lilt as he nods and says, “You’re right. Someone knows where they are, and I’m betting that if we can identify the perps you saw, we’ll be one step closer to finding your kid.”

You don’t pick up on the emphasis he packs behind the word ‘we,’ but he sure as shit took note that you’ve been using ‘I’ far too much for his liking.

It’s a tough job to toe the line between being patronising and being rational, and Nick has learned to walk that line with the grace of a seasoned acrobat. He learned fairly quickly after catching hell from Ellie when she realised he'd been doing background checks on the men she’d taken an interest in.

But he’s not about to outright tell you that he doesn’t want you doing this alone, so he simply won’t present it as an option. He’d have to be some kind of cad to turn a wet-behind-the-ears, prewar woman out into the Wasteland all alone to hunt down the shadiest, most unscrupulous organisation the Commonwealth has ever churned out.

He already figured you weren’t a fighter, even before you managed to sweet-talk Darla into going home. By your own admission, you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with any type of firearm, so you have no choice but to be an up-close-and-personal kind of gal.

The old, mahogany baseball bat normally slung over your shoulder now rests on its end at your side, leaning against Nick’s desk within easy grabbing distance. There’s dried blood seeped into much of the wood, harder to see against the darker grain.

And yet despite the amount of crimson liquid you knocked from the skulls of Malone's goons, Nick had instantly noticed something quite peculiar as he watched you fight.

You’d pulled every single one of your punches, even when the thugs tried to swing their submachine guns around in time to riddle you with bullets.

It seemed only by sheer, dumb luck that you beat them to the kill every time with one hard crack across the cranium, sending them all down like sacks of bricks.

And yet, he also noted that you never did it, not once, without a frantic grimace tugging the muscles of your face back, like you hated doing it. Hated having to hurt someone who wouldn’t think twice about killing you.

He remembers the heaving sigh you let out when Skinny gave the pair of you ten seconds to walk, remembers the way you’d all but shoved Nick in front of yourself to get him moving, not harshly, but urgently, your warm palm trembling against his back for those brief seconds before you withdrew it, and he lead you from the vault’s entrance and back through the station.

He knew then that you weren’t built for the Commonwealth Wasteland, even had the suit not been a dead giveaway, he’d have known. So, why then, he’d asked himself, was this frazzled young dame cavorting through a subterranean vault to rescue him?

Seems the answer just became obvious.

You’re a woman quite literally out of time, fixated on one noble yet do-or-die goal.

To save your boy, you’ll dive into ominous vaults to follow a lead, you’ll take on raiders, super mutants and feral ghouls, you’ll face the wasteland and all of its horrors. And the tragedy, he realises, is that you’ll do it because right now, you think it’s all you have left to live for. He doesn’t need to be a detective to work that out.

Guilty recognises guilty, and all that.

But he’s beginning to wonder if you’re not going to dig yourself into an early grave before you even get to see Shaun again.

You’ve been so focused on finding the kid that you haven’t done much of anything else. Don’t even have a cap to your name.

Nick only discovered that sad fact when you both got back to Diamond City and he asked if you wanted to grab some noodles from Takahashi before going to the agency. He didn’t say anything at the time, but he’d noticed the quaver of your hands, your unsteady footfalls and, more pressingly, the numerous gurgles from your stomach that had been complaining at you all the way back from the vault.

‘When was the last time you ate, kid?’ he’d fretted privately, uncertain whether voicing the question aloud would be received well by a near total stranger.

He watched as you stood there and turned out the shallow pockets of your jumpsuit in search of something of value. He saw your carefully placid expression quiver for just a second before you clenched your jaw and looked up at him, offering him a shrug and a half-cocked smile. Then he saw that smile vanish from your face when he marched over to Takahashi and tried to buy the noodles for you.

‘Tried’ being the optimum word.

Short of slapping the caps out of his hand, you did everything you could to deter him, nearly screamed in his face when he waved Takahashi over. And it was that crack in your frightened voice that gave him pause. Were you afraid of owing someone? An understandable concern in this world. Owing a favour to the wrong sort can get a person killed out here.

Nick knows he isn’t the wrong sort, but you don’t. Not yet anyway.

He can’t be sure why you’d rather stay hungry than take his caps, but he’s damned determined to find out. So, against his better judgement, he pocketed the measly change and elected to try again at a later date, perhaps after you’ve had a moment to collect yourself in his office and get your head clear enough to remember that you need to eat.

And sleep, now that he thinks about it. Those eyelids of yours have been drooping more and more with each passing minute, lashes fluttering against your cheeks only to spring open again as if you've been startled.

Right, back to business then, before you conk out on him and he has to find a way to get you horizontal without Ellie waggling her eyebrows at him.

“Really, Nick?” he can already hear her sly teasing, “Always been a sucker for a damsel, haven’t’chya?”

With a grunt, he scrubs the image of her smirking face from the forefront of his processor and zeroes in on the face right in front of him instead.

“Okay,” he begins, “Let’s talk about those kidnappers. Is there anything you can tell us about ‘em? Distinguishing features? Even if you don’t think it’s important, the smallest detail can crack a case wide open.”

It’s like watching a radstorm sweep in and smother lovely, clear skies, the way your eyes darken underneath testily-furrowed eyebrows.

If he had flesh, he might have shuddered at the out-of-place glower aimed at him by a woman like you, but he doesn’t and he knows the expression isn’t meant for him anyway.

If he had to guess, you’ve got the faces of those villains seared like a brand in your mind’s eye.

And sure enough…

“One of them came right up to me,” you bristle, mouth twisting at the edges, “A man. Middle-aged, I guess. Had some stubble but was otherwise bald, and there was this scar - big and nasty – went right down through one of his eyes.”

Recognition sparks like a bolt of lightening through Nick’s wires. He sits up straight, hands moving to brace against the edge of his desk like he means to push himself away from it.

From the corner of an eye, he sees Ellie twist quickly to face him.

“Couldn’t be…” he murmurs softly, raising his voice to ask, “You didn’t happen to hear the name ‘Kellogg’ at all, did you?”

In the blink of an eye, that overcast storm swirling around your face suddenly lifts, and you’re back to looking lost.

“I… don’t think so?” you say, screwing up your face in a way that reminds him of little Natalie when he nags her to wear a coat, “Everything was so muffled after the gunshot…”

Nick pretends he doesn’t see those soft, uncalloused hands of yours curl into fists on top of his desk.

Once again, he mumbles under his breath before addressing his assistant directly. “Say, we still have those notes on Kellogg?”

Ellie has already spun around and marched for the old filing cabinet sitting flush against the far wall, her clipboard abandoned on top of it. With practiced ease, she rifles through the middle drawer, muttering, “Kellogg… Kellogg… Ah! Here.”

Almost of its own accord, Nick’s gaze drifts back towards you, and he finds you suddenly looking far more awake. Alert even, staring hard at the back of Ellie’s head with sharp, unblinking eyes, not unlike a shark that’s just smelled blood in the water.

‘Easy, kid,’ he tries to convey through a slight furl of his brows, tapping a fingertip on the desk, but there’s no pulling those eyes of yours off his assistant’s hands when she finally extracts a worn, manilla folder from the drawers and turns back, leafing through the flimsy papers with her index finger.

“Well, the description certainly fits,” she hums, pulling one from the bunch, “Bald... Scar... Reputation for dangerous mercenary work. But nobody knows who his employer is.”

“He bought a house here in town, right?” Nick ponders aloud, “And he had a kid with him? Quiet, never let ‘im outside to play with the others.”

The last word is barely out of his mouth when there’s the screeching scrape of chair legs against the floor, and before he can even turn towards you, you’re already out of your seat again and slinging your bat over a shoulder.

“Where?” is all you ask in a surprisingly even voice despite how you teeter sideways as the blood rushes to your head.

Nick hardly registers that he’s vacated his own seat and is halfway around the desk with his arms held aloft to steady you by the time his words catch up to him.

“Now, just hang on a second,” he reprimands gently, pulling up short of grabbing your elbow, “I can tell you right now, he hasn’t lived in that house for about months now, and the kid wasn’t an infant. Gotta’ve been at least ten years old.”

“So he kidnapped someone else’s kid!” you exclaim, letting your carefully curated composure slip a few inches, “All the more reason for me to get out there and find this place!”

Snapping your gaze to Ellie, you only manage to keep yourself from barking sharply at her when you see the conflict in her expression. You have to make yourself take a breath that doesn’t feel like it’s enough to fill even half of your lungs.

“Please, Miss Perkins,” you implore, sad eyes drooping with exhaustion as you tip one palm up towards the ceiling, “… Where do I go from here…?”

Valentine tries not to read too much into that, how such a simple question can make a person sound so lost, adrift, unwittingly sending an SOS and wondering if there’s anyone out there who will receive the signal.

Christ. Maybe he is a sucker.

Conflicted, Ellie presses her lips into a thin line and shoots him a look.

And ‘okay,’ he nods to her. He’ll take the helm, try and steer this wayward ship safely back into port.

Because from the looks of things, you’re going out there whether he’s with you or not, and you’re going now. And Nick would much rather be with you when you do.

“Alright,” he appeases, garnering your attention again as he jerks his head towards the door, “Alright. Why don’t you and I take a walk over to Kellogg’s last known address? See if we can't snoop out where he went.”

There’s the tiniest huff from his assistant, who regards him knowingly as he leans past you and pushes the agency’s door open, gesturing for you to go ahead with a sweep of his arm.

“Security doesn’t really go to that part of town,” Ellie calls after him, biting back a comment about ‘old men’ and ‘chivalry,’ “But still… you should be careful.”

And Nick, ever concerned with everyone’s safety except his own, turns to flash her that signature smile over his shoulder, the same one he gave her two weeks ago before he up and vanished on her and made her sick with worry.

“I always am,” he tells her gently.

And then he’s gone, chasing after the footfalls of the unlucky lady with a kind face but eyes that are plagued by seeing too much, too quickly.

Shit, at least the pre-war ghouls had two hundred years to adapt to the world as it shifted around them.

Thankfully for Ellie, the door has already swung shut, deafening the grizzled synth to her muttered, “My ass you are.”

She doesn’t think he’d really wash her mouth out with soap, precious as that resource is, but… well….

She wouldn’t put it past him.

[queenofterrasen418]

Cruel Fates (Part 4- Final)

Pairing: Azriel x f!Reader, little Eris x f!Reader

Summary: Azriel is your mate but only you know it. You are very aware that he has eyes for someone else and thus you decide not to hide it forever. After all, what could go wrong right?

Warnings: Angst (Not the usual kind), heartbreak, bad decision-making by the reader (personally, at least.)

5.3K words

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

You’re not nervous, not even the tiniest. It was not like there was any room to be so because today was the Midnight Solistice ball. It has been a fortnight since you wrote that letter to Eris, he had sent one back confirming his attendance. When you told the rest of the inner court of your decision things had gone… well it went as you expected. Rhys supported your decision while Feyre was disappointed. Amren gave you a look that seemed to say ‘Is that so?’ to which you just gave a firm nod. Cassian had been less vocal, but the silent disapproval in his stance spoke volumes and when you looked for Mor, she merely raised an eyebrow, an unreadable expression on his face. As for Azriel, he was sent out on a mission a few days back so thankfully you escaped from the awkwardness that seemed to linger wherever your path crossed.

But today, none of that mattered. Tonight, the ball was about more than just diplomacy or expectations; it was a chance to make your mark, to reclaim a piece of yourself that had been lost in the shuffle of responsibilities and politics. The Midnight Solstice ball, with its glimmering chandeliers and whispering silk curtains, was the perfect backdrop for what you hoped would be a turning point.

You glanced at your reflection in the mirror. The gown, a deep, rich blood red with intricate gold embroidery that mimicked the flickering embers of a fire, hugged your figure perfectly. A gold and ruby tiara sat atop your head, the gemstones catching the light and casting a warm glow over your skin. Your hair, elegantly pinned back, let the tiara shine like a crown of flames. You were a vision of grace and strength, the embodiment of confidence you needed to exude tonight.

Just as you reached the ballroom in Hewn City, the clock struck the hour of midnight, the anticipation crackled in the air. The first notes of the orchestra began to play, a soft and enchanting melody that set the mood for the evening. You took a deep breath, steadying yourself for what was to come. Eris would be arriving soon, and with him, a new chapter of intrigue and possibility.

You joined the rest of the court at the dias standing beside Cassian. As much as you hated it your eyes searched for Azriel as soon as you set foot in here but he was nowhere to be found.

Rhys must have noticed you searching because his voice softly whispered in your her, “He'll arrive a little late.”

Stars, you hated waiting. It had been only a few minutes before the giant doors opened to reveal the Autumn Prince prowling towards you like a predator but it felt like an eternity had passed.

In the periphery of your eyes, you noticed the movement of smokey Shadows to know Azriel was behind you.

Eris approached with that ever-present smirk, his amber eyes gleaming with mischief as he bowed slightly, offering his hand. “I must admit, you wear the autumn colours well, Y/N, you look glorious. Careful—if you keep looking this tempting, I might forget we're here to talk business.”

He straightened, his gaze flickering over the ruby tiara, lingering as though assessing not just her appearance, but her entire being. “Though I’m beginning to think this alliance will be far more enjoyable than I first anticipated.”

You couldn’t help but smile at that, “Hello to you too, Prince.”

The smile Eris gave you in reply could only be described as… sweet. Odd, but lovely. He began to greet the rest of the court but that was more tense than a tightrope. No surprise there.

The music played softly in the background, and your eyes drifted to the ballroom, watching the swirl of colours and movement before you. The anticipation had been building all evening, and though you had expected it, the flutter of nerves in your chest hadn’t entirely subsided.

Then, your vision shifted back to Eris. His amber eyes gleamed as his focus locked on you, but something about his expression was softer than you had anticipated. He extended his hands towards you, his gaze unwavering.

“Dance with me,” Eris said, his voice quieter than usual. There was no teasing, no smirk—just a simple request.

For a brief moment, you hesitated. It wasn’t because you didn’t want to—there was a pull between you, undeniable and magnetic—but because stepping onto that dance floor felt like crossing a threshold you weren’t sure you were ready for. You were here for diplomacy, for alliances, and yet, the weight of what this dance might mean had your heart beating faster than you liked to admit. You also took note of the heavy silence around you, the inner court was observing every single interaction, and you would indeed give anything to get away from this awkwardness too.

So despite the million reasons not to, you took his hand anyway. His fingers were warm against your skin, steady and sure, and as he led you onto the floor, you reminded yourself to breathe. The room around you seemed to quiet, the conversations and glances fading into the background, though you were keenly aware of the eyes that followed your every move.

The music shifted to something slower, more intimate. Eris’s hand settled at your waist, his other holding yours gently, and though his grip was firm, there was a subtle hesitation in how he held you, as though giving you the chance to step back if you wanted. But you didn’t.

“I wasn’t sure you’d even consider agreeing to this,” Eris said, his voice just above a whisper as he guided you into the first steps of the dance.

You glanced up at him, your eyes meeting his, searching for any sign of the usual arrogance. But there was none. Instead, there was something almost uncertain, like he, too, was navigating unfamiliar ground. The urge to use your powers to make sure you were right about your assumptions was tempting but tonight you refused to use them. Whatever relationship you are about to form with Eris heavily depends on trust and your powers would only be an invasion of that.

“Neither was I,” you admitted, your tone softer than you intended. Your steps were fluid, your bodies moving in sync, but you couldn’t shake the quiet wariness that lingered at the edges of your mind. This felt too personal, too close for something that was supposed to be about strategy. A part of you inside, you realised, did not mind it. There is no harm in genuinely enjoying each other’s company, right? “But we’re here.”

He gave a slight nod, his gaze not leaving yours. “We are.”

For a few moments, the only sound was the music and the soft rustle of your movements. The way Eris moved with you, not leading too aggressively but not holding back either, felt like a delicate balance—one that required trust. And that trust was what made you hesitate, even as you followed his lead.

“You’re different than I expected,” you said quietly, your voice barely carrying over the music.

Eris raised an eyebrow, amusement filled his gaze, but the small smile on his lips didn’t hold its usual edge. “Different, how?”

You bit your lip, searching for the right words. “Less… calculated,” you said after a moment. “More… real.”

He chuckled softly, though it wasn’t mocking. “Is that a compliment or an insult?”

“I’m not sure yet,” you replied, the hint of a smile tugging at your lips despite the uncertainty in your heart. “But it’s unexpected.”

Eris’s expression shifted, something thoughtful passing over his features. “I suppose I’m full of surprises, then.”

The dance carried on, each step a little more sure than the last, the tension between you slowly dissolving into something else—something neither of you had anticipated. But even as the chemistry between you became palpable, there was still a part of you that remained guarded, your thoughts caught between what you were feeling and what this meant for everything else.

“You’re still hesitating,” Eris said after a beat, his voice low, though there was no judgment in his tone. “I can feel it.”

Your breath caught for a second, surprised by how easily he read you. But then, this was Eris—sharp, perceptive, always watching. “I’m not sure what to make of this,” you admitted softly. “Of us.”

His grip on your waist tightened slightly, just enough to ground you. “Neither am I,” he said quietly. “But maybe that’s part of it.”

The honesty in his voice startled you, and for a moment, you faltered in your steps. He caught you without hesitation, his hand steadying you as he pulled you back into the rhythm of the dance. His scent filled you as you got close to him again, crackling fire, smoky with a surprising touch of sweetness and a cosy blend of spices. It was intoxicating. His eyes searched yours, as though he was trying to figure out what you were thinking, trying to piece together the puzzle that was you.

“You don’t need to give me an answer tonight, you know?” Eris said softly, his thumb brushing against the back of your hand in a barely-there gesture. “Sometimes it’s okay not to know.”

The simplicity of his words made something in your chest loosen, even if just a little. You weren’t sure how much you trusted him yet, or what this dance would mean for the future, but in this moment, the weight of your decisions seemed to lighten.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” you murmured, your voice quieter than before.

The music slowed, signalling the end of the dance, and as you pulled away, you noticed the lingering warmth of his hand in yours. You didn’t say anything else, and neither did he. There was no need for more words, not yet. But in the stillness that followed, with Eris watching you, not as a prince or a suitor, but as someone trying to understand you, you realized something important:

You weren’t entirely sure what was happening between you, but whatever it was, it wasn’t a game. Not anymore.

Azriel’s POV

Azriel watched from the shadows, his chest tightening with each passing second as you and Eris glided across the dance floor. The elegant way your bodies moved together was undeniable, but it was the way you smiled, that soft, hesitant smile, that made something in him twist uncomfortably. He couldn’t explain the feeling gnawing at him, but he knew one thing: this wasn’t just about diplomacy.

It was more than that.

He had been watching you for weeks now, ever since you’d first spoken to him at a meeting that seemed so insignificant at the time. But now, in this dimly lit ballroom, he could recall every detail of those moments, ever since you both first met, like a collection of memories he hadn’t even realized he’d stored away. Once he was aware of its existence he couldn’t stop noticing every little thing about you.

It started small. At first, he noticed how you carried yourself—calm and composed, yet always with a hint of mischief in your eyes. He remembered how you’d touch your lips absentmindedly when you were lost in thought or how you’d tuck a stray hair behind your ear without thinking twice about it. He’d caught himself staring more than once, admiring the little things about you—the delicate way you handled a blade, the way you always seemed to know when someone needed a kind word or a sharp one. And, by the mother, the times you wielded your powers had to be his favourite, the most lethal poisons indeed did come in the prettiest forms.

But then there were other moments—deeper, quieter ones. Like when you stood beside him, your shoulder brushing his for the briefest second, and he’d felt something stir within him, something he couldn’t name. Or the way you’d throw him a fleeting glance during those Inner Court meetings, where your eyes would catch his for just a second longer than necessary, and he’d be left wondering what lay beneath that look.

He never thought much of it at the time. It was all so subtle, so easy to ignore until it wasn’t.

He remembered one particular evening, only a week ago, when you had laughed at something Feyre had said during dinner. That laugh—it was rare to hear you laugh like that, full and genuine—and it had struck him in a way that made his chest feel uncomfortably tight. He’d found himself watching you for the rest of the evening, his attention constantly drifting toward you, but he brushed it off as nothing more than curiosity.

But now, watching you dance with Eris, all those subtle moments came crashing down on him. The way he’d been noticing the smallest things about you, how he’d been admiring them without truly registering why. How his thoughts would drift to you even when you weren’t in the room, and how lately, he found himself lingering near you whenever he could as if drawn by something he couldn’t quite grasp.

It wasn’t until now—until he saw you in someone else’s arms—that the realization hit him with the force of a tidal wave.

He was falling for you. Maybe he had been for a while. He didn’t even know when it started, but it had crept up on him, subtle and silent like his shadows.

And now, seeing you with Eris, something primal inside him screamed at the thought of losing you, of letting someone else see those small, beautiful things about you that he had come to cherish in secret.

Azriel’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, the tension rolling through his body like a storm. He couldn’t let this happen. Not without speaking to you. Not without making you rethink whatever it was you were about to do.

Y/N’s POV

As the music quieted, Eris kept your hand in his, guiding you away from the centre of the ballroom. There was a quiet elegance to your movements, a shared understanding that you both needed space from the watching eyes, if only for a moment. Together, you wandered aimlessly, threading your way through clusters of guests without a destination in mind. It wasn’t uncomfortable—more like the kind of aimlessness that made sense, where words weren’t always necessary.

Eris tilted his head toward you, a playful gleam lighting his amber eyes. “I have to admit,” he began, his voice low but teasing, “this might be the first ball where I’m not the sole subject of the whispers.”

You glanced up at him with a smirk, your lips curving just enough to show your amusement. “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t live for the scandal. You practically swim in it.”

He chuckled softly. “I’d never deny it. But tonight’s gossip is far juicier than I’d anticipated.”

That flicker of curiosity sparked to life inside you. “Go on, then. Don’t hold out on me.”

Eris leaned in just a bit closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. “Word around the ballroom is that Lady Soralyn’s sudden disappearance from her estate last week wasn’t for the usual reasons.”

You raised a brow, intrigued. “Usual reasons? You mean like her terrible taste in lovers?”

His grin was wicked. “Oh, it’s much worse this time. She’s apparently been caught in a rather… delicate situation with Tarquin’s advisors, yes, advisors, in plural”

Your eyes widened as you barely held back a laugh. “No. She wouldn’t.”

“Oh, she would,” he replied, his gaze gleaming with mischief. “But that’s not even the best part. The advisors? Married. Their wives showed up mid-rendezvous.”

You couldn’t help it—you laughed softly, your hand coming up to cover your mouth. “How do you always manage to be privy to the worst scandals?”

Eris shrugged, that self-satisfied smirk dancing on his lips. “What can I say? People like to talk when they think no one’s listening. I simply… listen better than most.”

“Or people just assume you’re too arrogant to care,” you teased back, your tone light.

“Ah, but that’s the trick. Let them think what they want.” He paused, his grin taking on a wicked edge. “Besides, it’s always the ones who look disinterested who end up knowing everything.”

You shook your head, still chuckling at the absurdity of it all. “You must have enough blackmail material on half of Prythian by now.”

“More than half, if we’re being honest,” he replied smoothly, his playful tone fading into something more thoughtful. 

For a while, you walked in comfortable silence, the sounds of the ballroom fading into the background. It was nice, the quiet between you, thick with shared understanding but without the need to fill the space with words. 

“I have to admit, Y/N,” he began, breaking the silence, glancing at her with that ever-present smirk, “there are some rather interesting rumours swirling around about you.”

You tilted your head, intrigued but wary. “Oh? I’m sure they’re all incredibly dignified and respectful.”

Eris let out a short laugh, shaking his head. “Oh, very. One of the rumours is that you’re the one to fear more than anyone in your court. They speak of how you can practically stop a person’s heart with a look, maybe even… slow their pulse to a crawl.”

You scoffed lightly, but there was a trace of amusement in your voice. “I can’t help it if people are easily intimidated.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Easily? Y/N, I’ve seen battle-hardened generals flinch when you enter a room.”

“Well,” you shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant, though the flicker of a smile betrayed you, “alright, I have nothing to say to that.”

“Exactly.” Eris teased, but then his expression softened into something more genuine. “Though, truth be told, it’s what made me curious about you in the first place.”

You glanced up at him, taken aback. “Curious?”

Eris nodded, his amber eyes lingering on hers. “While others were whispering in fear, I wondered if there wasn’t more to the story. Something they were too blind or too intimidated to see.” His voice lowered, holding a trace of warmth that caught her off guard. “Turns out, I was right.”

You simply blinked, momentarily lost for words, the vulnerability in his tone throwing her slightly off balance. But Eris, never one to let a moment linger too long, cleared his throat and switched to a lighter tone.

Of course, there’s one piece of gossip about you that’s been making the rounds lately—something very scandalous.”

You shot him a wary look, already preparing for whatever teasing remark he was about to throw her way. “Oh? And here I thought I’d been behaving.”

Eris chuckled, low and dangerous. “Apparently, at a certain high-society dinner a few months back, there was a rather loud—and, shall we say, descriptive—comment made about you.”

A frown formed on your face, curiosity piqued despite the sinking feeling in your stomach. “Descriptive? Of what, exactly?”

Eris leaned in, his voice dropping into a mock whisper as he delivered the punchline. “Some lord from the Dawn Court—inebriated beyond saving, of course—remarked that he had it on good authority that you could literally make a man drop dead between the sheets. And not literally, if you catch my drift.”

Your mouth dropped open, blood rushing to your face, flushing with embarrassment. “You’re joking.”

“Dead serious.” Eris grinned wickedly, savouring the look of horror that spread across your face. “He claimed you had some very specific talents when it came to manipulating…certain bodily functions.”

You groaned, running a hand over your face as if to hide from the mortifying thought. “Stars, please tell me you’re making this up.”

“Wish I was.” Eris smirked, clearly enjoying her discomfort. “The entire room fell silent. A few looked horrified, but others were—let’s say—intrigued. I distinctly remember someone asking if there were any volunteers for you to demonstrate your ‘gifts’ after dinner.”

You swatted his arm in exasperation, mortified. “You’re disgusting, Eris.”

He laughed, completely unbothered. “I’m disgusting? You should’ve seen the way half the room was staring at you afterwards. They were probably wondering if they’d survive the night in your bed or if they’d drop dead with a smile on their face.”

Y/N shot him a glare, though she couldn’t stop the embarrassed laugh that slipped out. “I can’t believe people talk about me like that. How vulgar. Though that is a nice idea, never tried that before.”

Eris’s eyes darkened at that comment, not giving him a chance to reply to that you sighed, shaking your head in disbelief. “Well, I’m thrilled to know I’m the subject of such flattering gossip.”

Eris caught on and just smirked, a spark of admiration shining beneath his teasing gaze. “You might hate it, but it’s true. They don’t know what to make of you, Y/N. They’re either terrified of you or—”

“—or want to sleep with me, apparently,” she cut in, her tone dry.

Eris chuckled again, but this time there was a note of sincerity in his voice. “Some of us fall into neither category, you know? Not that I’ll object to the latter but only if you are up to it .”

Your teasing expression softened slightly as you glanced up at him, sensing something deeper beneath the banter. But before you could respond, a familiar shadowy presence loomed behind.

Azriel.

He stepped forward, his gaze sharp and focused, cutting through the playful atmosphere like a knife. “Y/N,” he said quietly, his voice steady but tense. “We need to talk.”

His expression was calm, but his hazel eyes were burning with something else—something you hadn’t seen before. The sight of him so close, after days of him being absent, sent your heart into overdrive.

You glanced at Eris, who raised an eyebrow but stepped back graciously. “I’ll wait for you by the balcony,” he said smoothly, leaving you and Azriel alone in the crowd.

Azriel wasted no time, pulling you aside to a quieter corner of the room. His grip on your arm was firm, his shadows swirling anxiously around his feet.

“Azriel, what—?”

“Why are you doing this?” His voice was low, almost a growl. “Why are you letting him... How are you so sure that you don’t have a mate? Did he die? Is that it?”

The shock hit you like a physical blow. You had never seen Azriel this... shaken. The calm, collected Spymaster seemed to be unravelling before you. “Azriel, what are you talking about?”

His eyes flicked over your face, searching for something—an answer, a sign, anything. “Y/N, I know what I’m saying sounds ridiculous. But you can’t go through with this. I can’t let you marry him.”

You blinked, taken aback. “Yes, I do have a mate and he is very much alive, Azriel.”

The words hung in the air, heavy with meaning. Azriel’s expression shifted, confusion and something darker clouding his features. “Then why are you doing this? Why are you... with Eris?”

You couldn’t help but raise your voice, “Because mating bonds are complicated! Trust me, my mate isn’t interested. The cauldron makes mistakes.” 

“Y/n, rejecting a mating bond is so painful, it’s worse than death.” He says in a matter-of-fact tone.

You felt a flicker of something like hope stir inside you, but it was quickly drowned out by the weight of reality. “Why does it matter to you, Azriel?” you asked softly. “Why are you so bothered by this?”

His response was immediate, but it wasn’t what you wanted to hear. “Eris isn’t good enough for you.”

A bitter laugh escaped your lips. Of course. Of course, it would be about Eris, not about him realising he was your mate. You stepped back, the disappointment settling like a stone in your chest.

“I need to go,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. “Eris is waiting for me.”

You found Eris on the balcony, staring out into the night. He turned when you approached, his smirk softening into something more genuine.

“Well?” he asked, his tone light but his eyes searching yours.

“I’ve been thinking,” you began, leaning against the railing. “Prythian needs this. And maybe... maybe I do, too.”

Eris’s brow lifted, but the teasing was gone from his expression. “You’re really considering it, then?”

You nodded, exhaling softly. “We both know this alliance is necessary. And... who knows? Maybe we’ll be good for each other.”

Eris studied you for a long moment before stepping closer, his hand resting over yours on the railing. “I never thought I’d hear you say that. But... I’m glad.”

You exchanged a look, one filled with an understanding that ran deeper than words. It wasn’t love, but it was something. And maybe that was enough.

“I accept your proposal,” you said softly.

The ceremony was held later that evening, under the cover of moonlight at a temple just beyond the court. Everything was ready—the vows, the magic that would bind you and Eris together in an alliance sealed by more than just words.

But as the moment to seal the bond drew closer, you felt it. A  pull deep within your chest.

Azriel stormed into the temple, his wings outstretched, his shadows wild around him. His eyes locked onto you, fury and desperation swirling within them.

“You said your mate wasn’t interested,” he ground out, his voice like shattered glass. “Well, I am fucking interested.”

Time seemed to stop.

Azriel’s voice rose, a tremor in his tone. “I wish the bond had snapped earlier, before all this. But I’ll be damned if I watch you marry another male when I’m standing right here.”

The world seemed to tilt beneath your feet as Azriel’s words hung in the air. You stared at him, unable to breathe, unable to move. His wings, the embodiment of his fury, flared behind him as his gaze bore into you, wild and unrelenting. He was waiting for you to say something, to react, but your mind was spinning.

You heard Eris shift beside you, but your eyes were still locked on Azriel’s. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be. After all this time, after all the signals you thought you had misread, he was standing here, confessing... what? That he was your mate? That he had known?

“I... I don’t understand,” you finally managed to choke out, your voice trembling.

Azriel took a step closer, his shadows curling anxiously around his feet. “The bond, Y/N. It snapped. Just now. I didn’t know... I didn’t realize... but I can’t let this happen. I can’t let you marry him.”

Your heart was pounding in your chest, the weight of everything pressing down on you, making it hard to think. Your mate. Azriel was your mate. A part of you wanted to feel relief, to feel joy, but all you could feel was fear. Fear for Prythian, fear for the consequences this revelation would bring.

“You said your mate wasn’t interested,” Azriel repeated, his voice breaking slightly. “But I am. I’ve always been. And now that I know... I can’t lose you.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but no words came. Instead, your eyes flickered to Eris. He stood there, expression unreadable, though his amber eyes held a strange mix of emotions. There was no anger, no fury—just a quiet understanding, and perhaps a trace of sadness.

“I have to do this,” you whispered, more to yourself than to Azriel.

“No,” Azriel said, his voice hot, desperate. “No, Y/N. Fuck Prythian, fuck this alliance. I don’t care if the entire world burns down—none of it matters if it means losing you.”

The force of his words knocked the air out of your lungs, and before you could stop yourself, you were surging forward, crashing into him. His arms were around you in an instant, pulling you close, and his lips met yours in a kiss that was all fire and fury and desperation. It was as if the world had indeed stopped, and at that moment, all that mattered was the feeling of his mouth on yours, the taste of him, the bond snapping into place so forcefully that it left you both breathless.

When you finally broke apart, you stared up at him, your heart racing. This... this was real. The bond was real.

But as the haze of the kiss faded, reality came crashing back in. You could feel the weight of the court’s eyes on you, feel Eris’s presence behind you. Slowly, you turned to face him.

Eris stood tall, his expression carefully neutral, but there was no mistaking the sadness in his gaze. He let out a soft breath, his lips quirking into a wry smile. “Well... I’ll be damned.”

You took a step toward him, guilt twisting in your chest. “Eris, I am so sorry—”

He held up a hand, cutting you off gently. “Don’t. You don’t need to apologize. I knew something was off, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I just... I had hoped, for once, that I could have something for myself.”

Your throat tightened as you watched him. He was still so composed, still so regal, but there was a depth of pain in his eyes that made your heartache.

“I saw a future with you,” Eris continued, his voice quiet. “A good one. Even now, I selfishly wish that Azriel would have realized his bond too late, but...” He shook his head, giving you a sad, lopsided smile. “But  I want you to be happy and clearly, you are.”

You took another step closer, your heart aching with the weight of what could have been. “I’m sorry, Eris. I never wanted this to happen... not like this.”

He nodded, the smile still lingering on his lips, though it was tinged with bitterness. “I know. But it’s not your fault. Mating bonds work in strange ways.” His eyes flicked to Azriel, who was watching the exchange with a guarded expression. “Leave it to the Illyrians to always steal my bride.”

The comment was meant to be lighthearted, but the pain laced in his tone was unmistakable. And then, with a final glance at you, Eris gave a small, respectful bow. “Maybe in another lifetime,” he murmured, before winnowing away, leaving you standing there with a strange emptiness in your chest.

The court had dispersed by the time you and Azriel returned to your apartment, the weight of the night settling over you both. The silence was thick between you, the bond still thrumming with energy, still raw and new.

Azriel was the first to break it, his voice soft but full of unspoken emotion. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You met his gaze, your heart aching. “Because I didn’t think... I didn’t think you’d want this. You’ve always been so close to Elain, and I didn’t want to come between that.”

A flicker of something dark passed over his features. “Elain and I... that was never real. It was just... a projection, a fantasy of something I thought I wanted. But you...” His voice softened, his fingers brushing against your cheek. “You are what’s real. And I was too blind to see it.”

Your breath hitched at the tenderness in his touch, the intensity in his eyes. “Azriel...”

“I love you,” he said, the words falling from his lips like a vow. “I love you, Y/N. I have for a long time, and I’m not going to waste another second.”

You surged forward, capturing his lips in a kiss that was softer this time, but no less powerful. The bond flared between you, stronger now, more certain, and as you melted into each other, you knew—this was where you were meant to be.

The rest of the night was spent in a blur of whispered confessions, stolen kisses, and the quiet realization that, despite everything, this was your future.

Azriel was your future.

And as the stars twinkled outside your window, you knew you wouldn’t have it any other way.

A little note from me, kind of an acknowledgement too:

First and foremost, I am so sorry for taking this long to finish this. Apparently thinking of the story alone isn't enough. I can't believe I actually finished it, despite it being short (I don't think these characters could handle any more angst).

Thank you for all the love I've gotten for this fic, especially because this is the first fic I've made public. It means so much to me!!

And finally, my thoughts on Y/n and how the story ended.

This is a fanfic I've been thinking of ever since I read the ACOTAR series and it has been years since then. So yeah, I am a bit disappointed to see the reader making shitty, impulsive decisions, I am sorry if it gave you the ick.

I fell for Eris even more if that was even possible while writing this part. He deserves everything and more. My poor baby, I am so sorry for what I did to you. I wish I could make it better, I actually thought of making Y/n use her powers to lessen Eris's pain or at least make it a bit more tolerable but I felt it would be wrong to him.

I really hoped I could write an ending where Eris would not be hurt but I don't think this story could end in any other way. A tragedy, really. Eris and Y/n would have been the bestest of friends before anything. I'd like to believe it could still happen, platonically at least.

Anyway, I'll leave this to you now, again, thank you so much for reading!!

Taglist: @sidthedollface2,  @a-courtof-azriel,  @whyonearthisyourusernamethi-blog ,  @acourtofsmutandstarlight ,  @katherinejess , @landofpetrichor , @isa1b2h3 , @anuttellaa , @cherryinsalemverse , @i-am-infinite , @myromanempiree , @sheblogs , @impossibelle , @fuckthatfeeling , @lilah-asteria , @rinpoststhings , @rcarbo1 , @t0uch-starved-h0e , @olive-main , @crossfandomslut , @melmo567 , @crazylokonugget , @sinfully-yoursss , @oucereeng , @annedub , @evangeline-xo , @sspookz , @thecraziestcrayon , @tele86 , @mal-adaptive-dreams , @mybestfriendmademe , @hannzoaks , @x1305 , @vanserrasimp , @whyshouldihaveanam3 , @smutslut05, @theravenphoenix26 , @moonlwghts , @noisyinfluencerstrawberry , @saltedcoffeescotch , @laughterafter , @lazypostfandomer , @weekendlusting , @feiwelinchen, @ivy-34 , @littlepippilongstocking , @iluvyewman-blog , @badgerstorms-art , @agirlwithwifiandalaptop , @the1harmony , @mp-littlebit , @xtreme-shipper , @knittedchapters

[thornsinwinter]

Day 4: Hair

Lucien found the silver-backed brush in what remained of Tamlin's chambers. Five days since his arrival, and this was the longest Tamlin had maintained his fae form: nearly six hours now. The meeting with the other Courts had bought them time: one week to show that something was being done, to prove Spring could be contained. Progress was essential.

"Sit," he said, gesturing to a fallen column that now served as a makeshift bench in the room Lucien had claimed as his own.

Tamlin growled low in his throat but complied, perching awkwardly on the stone as if his body no longer remembered how to sit properly as a fae. His hair hung past his shoulders in matted golden tangles, untouched for years. 

"This will probably hurt a little," Lucien warned. He circled behind Tamlin, moving slowly. The antlers complicated things—they'd grown larger over the years, branching like the twisted oaks around the manor but Lucien was nothing if not optimistic. 

He started at the ends, working through the tangles. Tamlin flinched at the first contact, muscles tensing, but Lucien simply kept his movements as gentle as he could.

"When was the last time you cut it?" Lucien asked, keeping his tone casual.

"Years," Tamlin answered, voice rough. "Maybe five. Maybe more. It’s hard to keep track of time."

Lucien worked in silence after that, methodically separating snarls and smoothing them with the brush. The hair was different than he remembered. Coarser, with strands that seemed to shimmer with an inner light when caught in the right angle of what little light filtering through the broken ceiling.

As the tangles gave way, Tamlin's posture relaxed. His breathing slowed and eventually, a low rumbling sound came from his chest.

"You're enjoying this," Lucien said with a smile, surprised and oddly moved. The sound stirred something in Lucien that he'd tried to ignore since arriving.

Tamlin didn't answer, but the purring grew louder. Lucien continued, moving closer to the scalp, careful around the base of the antlers where skin met bone. The purring stopped when Lucien's fingers brushed that junction and Tamlin went rigid.

"Does that hurt?" Lucien paused.

"No," Tamlin said, voice strained. "It's sensitive."

Lucien hesitated, then deliberately ran his fingers along the base of one antler. Tamlin shuddered, the purr returning deeper than before. A small thrill rushed through Lucien at the other male’s response.

Lucien set the brush aside and used his fingers to work through the remaining tangles, allowing himself more contact with the altered High Lord. The golden hair smoothed out under his touch. He found himself enjoying the quiet intimacy, the trust implicit in Tamlin allowing him this close.

"Why are you really here?" Tamlin asked suddenly.

"I told you already."

"After ten years?"

Lucien's hands stilled. The truth caught in his throat, too vulnerable to voice fully, "I needed to be the one to see if there was anything left to save, I couldn’t trust anyone else to get it right."

"And is there? Something to be saved?"

"I think so," Lucien said softly, the admission feeling like a confession.

Tamlin moved with unexpected speed, one clawed hand capturing Lucien's wrist as he turned to face him. His eyes were still more feline than fae, the vertical pupils dilating in the dim light. "But why?"

"Because I remember," Lucien finally said, ignoring how Tamlin’s voice had broken on the question. "I remember who we were. Friends. Brothers."

"Brothers," Tamlin repeated flatly. His grip on Lucien's wrist loosened, becoming something gentler. His other hand reached up, tracing the edge of Lucien's scars. “Is that really how you see me?”

The touch sent a shiver through Lucien. They had never been this way before—had never crossed this line in centuries of friendship despite dancing around it. He knew he should pull away, maintain the boundary between them, but the words came unbidden, honest in a way he hadn't allowed himself to be in years.

“No. No, that’s not how I see you.”

Lucien remained still as Tamlin leaned forward, his breath caught in his chest, a lifetime of caution warring with what he truly wanted.

The kiss, when it came, was surprisingly gentle. Tamlin's lips were warm against his, hesitant at first, then more insistent. The purr rumbled between them, vibrating where their chests pressed together.

"This isn't why I came," Lucien murmured.

"Does it matter?" Tamlin's voice was rough. "You're here now."

Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled—a storm brewing over the wild heart of Spring. 

Lucien knew he was crossing a threshold from which there might be no return. The Tamlin who kissed him now wasn't the High Lord he had once served, wasn't the friend he had once known. This was something new, something wild and unpredictable.

Yet as Tamlin pulled him closer, hands tangling in Lucien's hair, he couldn't bring himself to care. Ten years of absence, of wondering, of regret, all of it dissolved under Tamlin's touch. For the first time since arriving in Spring, Lucien felt certain he was exactly where he needed to be.

.......

Here's the next installment for @tamlinweek!

Look, I know it gets clowned on but I personally loved the fact that Tamlin canonically purrs when he's happy. Maybe its the decades of reading smutty werewolf fic, who knows? I find it delightful.

Anyways, thank you to everyone who is joining me on this ride!

[booklover41802]

The Fox and The Fawn

Summary: When Elain Archeron begins to have visions of Lucien, she sees a side of him that was unbeknownst to her before. Slowly, she starts to gain an understanding of the male who is her mate, and she wants to do something special for him. With his birthday on the Summer Solstice fast approaching, Elain organizes a surprise party for Lucien. When they lay eyes on each other at the party, Elain starts to recognize that her future may not look like what she once thought but knows that she wants him in it.

Word Count: 8,356

It had begun when Elain started having visions of Lucien with the Band of Exiles, laughing, joking, and seemingly so… human. Perhaps what she craved after everything was her humanity. As a fae, and the sister of the High Lady of the Night Court, anything she could ever want was at her fingertips. 

Except mortality. 

Her human heart had started to freeze with the stretch of an immortal lifespan looming over her. The one thing she could trace back to her roots now too was unfamiliar to her.

As unfamiliar as her mate, whom Elain had pushed away at every opportunity, frightened of what it would mean to say yes to him, to give away the last piece of her humanity to the otherworldly faerie. But now… she saw something in him that she couldn’t see in herself. Perhaps it was the influence of Jurian who had softened the hard edges or Vassa, a fiery Queen who matched Lucien’s passion.

Sometimes her visions were just flashes of Lucien’s red hair, other times she saw him gazing at a bed of roses–her favorite flower. But there were moments she glimpsed his private life with his Band of Exiles. Whether it was Jurian bringing Lucien a cup of coffee, or Vassa teasing him, those were the times he looked most content. Oftentimes these visions came to her while she slept and when she woke in the morning, she’d reach over to the other side of the bed, half expecting him to be beside her, only for her fingers to meet a cold bedsheet.

Elain ignored the twinge of jealousy as she imagined Lucien and Vassa together. 

Out of curiosity, she had tugged ever so slightly on their bond. Nothing. No answer returned her tug. 

Sighing, Elain lowered her teacup, resting it in her lap, and directed her gaze to the garden. Of course she couldn’t expect him to answer, not when she’d pushed him away at every opportunity and he waited for her for so long. He’d been kind and she’d been passively cruel. She might have continued this charade if it hadn’t been for Nesta, and reflecting upon what had been done to her.

The Inner Circle had demanded she accept her mating bond with Cassian and though they never pushed Elain to accept hers, she worried upon her fate. Then, she thought about the injustice of it all and wanted to make her own choice. Lucien was kind, gentle, and most of all: patient. His patience with her when Elain had been nothing but a ghost. His patience with her on the Winter Solstice…

Then, almost as if in hesitation, she felt a small tug in bond. Elain startled, spilling tea onto her dress. Despite the mess she’d made, she couldn’t help the glow of eagerness steadily growing in her chest.

The napkin did little for her stain, so she set it aside and waited for Nesta to return from her search for a book. Elain spent most of her days in the library because they had the best view of the gardens. And she knew that Nesta also preferred the quiet here, over the other rooms in the House of Wind. Best of all, no one bothered them here.

The two of them had formed a tentative camaraderie of sorts in the wake of the Blood Rite. They didn’t ask each other questions they didn’t want answered nor did they speak of their mates. It was if they knew in the silence they could simply be. They didn’t have to be what anybody wanted them to be, they were sisters and that was enough.

As she sat and waited, she felt hollow from her most recent vision she’d had that night. Peering between the folds of the Cauldron, she let herself remember as she lifted a teacup to her lips. Lucien’s shining hair and russet eye almost seeming to glow as he sat in the parlor of his manor, drinking a cup of coffee, seemingly so mundane. Even Vassa, in all her beauty, had paled in comparison to the male. 

Her male.

Each time the Cauldron gave her a vision, she felt it wake from slumber and look at her. When the Cauldron looked at her, she felt invisible vines creeping over her arms, tightening ever so slightly. Elain hadn’t told anyone of these visions yet, but she worried they would consume her one day until she was swallowed whole.

Though perhaps if she glimpsed Lucien one more time, it wouldn’t be so bad to be devoured.

“I found a book for you as well, Elain,” Nesta said as she came around the corner, holding two thick tomes in her hand. 

Nesta handed Elain a dusty book entitled A Gardener’s Guide to Growing Greens. “Thank you,” she answered quietly, running her hand over the cover and flipping open the book to the table of contents. The first flower her eyes snagged on was foxglove. 

Foxes. Lucien. Would Lucien like it if she grew flowers that reminded her of him? Then again, Vassa could probably give him more than Elain ever could.

Nesta raised a brow at her as Elain shut the book harder than she meant to. “You don’t have to read it. I just thought you might enjoy the book.”

“I have interests outside of flowers, you know,” Elain said sharply. Too sharp. She was the quiet sister, the one who didn’t snap, and remained peaceful. She didn’t raise her voice.

To her surprise, Nesta let out a quiet chuckle. “I wondered when you’d show your fangs. So, tell me, what other hobbies do you enjoy outside of gardening?” Nesta intently peered at her, genuinely interested in who Elain was outside of flowers.

“I like embroidery, baking, and…” she hesitated, almost embarrassed to share with her sister. But Nesta was so earnest in her desire to learn more. “Poetry.” Elain looked down in her lap, toying with a thread on her dress, waiting for the ridicule that would accompany her words. Graysen had always teased her about it. Had always said it wasn’t befitting of a noble lady.

“Then I shall be sure to find you a book on poetry next time I go to the bookstore. Would you like to come with me?”

There was no ridicule, no sneer, no jeering at her expense. No, Nesta had offered her a hand instead. Something she had never done for her when she needed it. Guilt chipped away at her heart as if someone had taken a chisel to it and was slowly taking chunks out, bit by bit. 

Elain flicked her gaze up to meet her sister’s steady, blue-gray eyes. “Yes, I would like that,” she murmured quietly.

Nesta nodded and sat down in a plush armchair to read her own book. Elain caught a glimpse of the title and blushed fiercely. Though she didn’t say anything, Elain caught the smirk on Nesta’s face.

Elain instead focused once more on the gardens, tapping her fingers against the armrest of the chair. She didn’t know why she couldn’t get Lucien off her mind as of late. For a while, Azriel had lingered in her thoughts, but now… she saw how the shadowsinger looked at Gwyn, how his shadows played with her. She wasn’t disappointed his attention had moved elsewhere. It was a moment or two there, nothing to base a relationship around.

But Elain didn’t want Lucien to feel as though she’d chosen him just because she couldn’t have Azriel. What could she do for him? She couldn’t very well find Vassa or Jurian to inquire into Lucien.

Maybe she could bake something for him…

Then it struck her. Feyre. Feyre was once well acquainted with him.

Excusing herself, Elain rose out of her chair, taking care to bring the book Nesta had brought her, and began the search for her sister. These days, Feyre was often at her house down by the river taking care of Nyx. She hoped that Feyre wasn’t too busy to spare a few moments to answer her questions. 

As she stepped over the threshold of the door to exit the House of Wind, she heard the faint rustle of wings behind her, but she didn’t turn around. Not as she might once have. Instead, Elain continued forward with her head held high to find out what Lucien liked. This was something she needed to do for herself and for Lucien. She owed it to him after all he’d done for her.

A footstep behind her. Then another. Elain ignored it and let the door shut behind her. Let all of the things that had been left unsaid seal away in the frame of the door. The House of Wind demanded something of her, expected her to fit in, but it had never truly been home to her, even with all of its gardens. The expectation of who she should be, and who she wanted to be, didn’t fit in with Feyre’s idea of a perfect family.

Even so, as she walked through Velaris, the quiet of the city was alluring in all its beauty. From the sea lapping against the shore, the quiet chatter of the residents, and the general bustle of the city, lulled her into a sense of safety. Though Elain knew it was a lovely place to live, she had never truly felt at home in this place that was sealed away from the world. She was at peace, but she wasn’t happy. She was a child of the sun, not of the night.

Her thoughts returned once more to Lucien, who always seemed to carry a piece of sunshine with him wherever he went. Even in the dark, light emanated from him. It was unlike Azriel, whom the shadows clung to, and that was not the sort of life she wanted for herself.

“Elain?” she heard Feyre call. “What are you doing here?”

Elain jerked her head up, unaware her feet had carried her to the river house already, too lost in her thoughts. Feyre stood in the frame of the door; Nyx balanced on one hip as she rocked her body back and forth.

“Oh, I just came to see you and to… ask you about Lucien.” Elain felt her cheeks warm at her request. It wasn’t unusual for one to be curious about their mate, but she knew it sounded odd coming from her. She knew how they whispered about her when they thought she wasn’t listening. The pity they expressed for the male who loved with his heart on his sleeve, only to face rejection again and again.

Feyre’s face split into a grin and opened the door wider. “Sure! Nyx will go down for his nap soon so we can chat once he’s asleep. There’s some cookies and tea on the stove if you want anything while you wait.”

Elain entered the home behind Feyre, her eyes taking in all the paintings that adorned the home. Her eyes snagged on the most recent addition to the collection. Nesta, proud and regal in Illyiran leathers, stood beside Cassian with the Dread Trove. Lady Death.

She couldn’t help but feel a pang for what the Inner Circle had turned Nesta into. Her sister never wanted to be a warrior, and yet, it was demanded of her, as if there was no other sort of strength. Elain turned away and wandered into the kitchen for the treats Feyre had mentioned.

In another room, she heard Nyx cooing and Feyre soothing him to sleep. Elain often wondered if she was too distant with her nephew, if there was more she could do to bond with him. Still, when they were in the same room, she found it hard to connect with him, as if she was missing a maternal instinct. Perhaps it was also that she never felt solid enough, like her feet weren’t touching the ground, and everything was a dream. This… nothingness had clung to her like a second skin after she had been turned to fae. For a while, it consumed her, and some days, she felt as if she were teetering on the edge.

Sometimes she felt as if she didn’t deserve a connection with the innocence of her nephew when she had blood on her hands. If she squinted hard enough, she could almost imagine it was dripping off her fingertips.

She did not deserve the comfort of family.

“Nyx is asleep if you want to come into the living room,” Feyre said, coming up behind her, and pouring herself a cup of tea.

It was enough to snap Elain out of her reverie. She realized she’d been standing stone-still in the kitchen, grasping a cookie in her hands. Elain nodded and followed Feyre out of the kitchen, pretending she couldn’t hear a faint drip, drip, drip , from the imagined blood of the King of Hybern.

The pair of them settled into plush couches that Elain felt as if she was practically sinking into. Scattered around the living room were Nyx’s toys that seemed to increase in size every time she visited. His uncles and aunts were generous with their gifts.

Elain fidgeted with her hands, nervous now that she was face-to-face with Feyre, and worried what her sister must think of her. All of the questions she wanted to ask felt stuck in her throat, as if they glued in her esophagus.

As Feyre raised her teacup to her lips, she peered at Elain over the rim. “What was it you wanted to ask?” she asked, taking a sip of a hibiscus blend Elain knew she favored.

Elain swallowed once, her gaze falling to her lap. “Well… I wanted to do something for Lucien, but I realized that I don’t know anything about him. Which I know is my own fault but...” she replied quickly, her words jumbling together as she trailed off, unsure exactly what to ask.

Feyre only gave her a soft smile, ever the image of a perfect sister. “It has been some time since Lucien and I were close, but his tastes haven’t changed. He has a bit of a sweet tooth, though he tries to deny it. I remember seeing him sneak into the kitchen on more than one occasion back at the…” The smile slipped off her face as her eyes turned shadowed at the thought of the court that held an array of bad memories.

“Do you know the sorts of baked goods he liked?” Elain asked, hoping to direct the conversation away from Feyre’s past.

Feyre plastered a smile back on her face, but it didn’t contain the same ease as it did before. “Why don’t you keep it simple with chocolate chip cookies? But just so you know, giving your mate food is a sign you’ve accepted the mating bond. Are you planning to accept it?”

“I… I’m not sure. But I do know that I want to get to know him.” Elain hadn’t known what it meant to accept the bond. The topic was tossed around so casually that no one had bothered to explain what it would mean to accept it. Would Lucien even want the bond after repeated passive rejection?

“Why don’t you get him a book on poetry? I recall that he liked to read and write it, though he was always shy about sharing it. There are plenty of bookshops in Velaris to find him a good gift. Oh!” Feyre’s eyes were suddenly aglow as she bounced excitedly in her seat. “His birthday is the Summer Solstice and it’s coming up soon.”

That’s right. Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, was approaching in a matter of days. It seemed so perfect that Lucien had been born that day, and that they both were interested in poetry. “Could we have a party for him?” Elain asked softly, running her fingers across the fabric of her dress.

“I think that’s a lovely idea, Elain. I’ll get to planning-”

“No,” Elain said firmly. “I want to plan his party. I enjoy planning events. And… I want it to be a surprise party. Does he like surprises?”

Feyre blinked at her, her teacup raised halfway to her mouth, before deciding to set it aside. “I don’t think he dislikes them. Are you sure-”

“Yes,” she answered quickly. Too eagerly. “I want to do this for him after all he’s done for me. I need to do this.”

Feyre studied her for a few moments and in the beats of silence, the tick of the clock on the wall felt like a countdown to her doom. Would she agree? Would Lucien even want something like this from her? What if he turned away? What if-

“Okay,” Feyre said, nodding her head slightly. “I’ll send out the invitations and make sure Lucien will come to Velaris. And then you’ll-”

Elain sprung to her feet, eager to get started on planning. “Yes, I’ll do the rest of the planning, don’t worry!” Elain rushed out the door, barely sparing a glance as she hurried past Feyre. On the threshold of the door, she turned back. “Thank you, Feyre, for your help.” She shut the door behind her carefully, making sure it was quiet enough to not wake Nyx.

She knew Feyre was bewildered at her actions, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. She wanted her mate to feel appreciated and now she had a plan of action to do just that. The sun was starting to dip below the horizon in the late afternoon. Elain shivered from the breeze of the sea dancing across her skin. She’d left in such a rush, she’d forgotten to grab something to cover her arms. Thankfully, the warmth of the summer air balanced it out.

Elain began to make her way to the nearest bookstore with a spring in her step. Humming softly under her breath, she felt a sense of purpose for the first time in a long time. Although the leisure was nice, the days felt monotonous, blurring together in a hazy fog. She hadn’t felt something real in a long time.

A little voice whispered in mind that Lucien was real. That he had brought her back from the brink of nothingness when no one else had.

For once, she didn’t clamp down on those thoughts and lock them away somewhere. She embraced it, finally ready to explore the bond. It wasn’t always what she had in mind for her future, but regardless of what the Mother said, it would be Elain’s choice, not some unseen cosmic force that would decide her future.

Elain’s feet carried her across the cobbled streets until she stood before a tiny bookstore squished between buildings. She wouldn’t have known it was here, if it weren’t for Nesta’s penchant for seeking out the stores that almost seemed forgotten by the bustling city. A tiny sign that was practically invisible read: Starlight Books .

This was it. This was the place. Suddenly nervous, Elain bit her lip as she stepped into the store, instantly greeted with the familiar smell of leather-bound books with the faintest undertones of cedar. A little bell chimed as she entered.

“Hello, welcome to Starlight Books. My name is Beau and if you need help finding anything, please don’t hesitate to ask,” Beau chirped behind the counter. He had rounded glasses, an oversized cardigan, and long, wavy brown hair that reached his waist. He looked exactly like a librarian.

Before she answered his request, she pondered that she didn’t know exactly what sort of poetry books Lucien would like to read. Elain had left Feyre’s so quickly that she hadn’t thought to ask the specifics. She felt her cheeks warm ever so slightly at her error.

“Well…I’m buying a gift for a…,” Elain hesitated, not quite sure what she and Lucien were. “A friend,” she finally said, deciding on something neutral. “And I know he likes poetry books, but I confess I don’t know where to start.”

Beau nodded contemplatively. “We might be a small store, but we have books on nearly any subject, and anything we don’t, we keep hidden in a pocket of space for easy storage.” Beau winked at her and Elain couldn’t tell if he was being serious.

Elain gave him a quick smile and turned her attention to the shelves. Based on what she knew of him; she crossed out several options. She didn’t think he’d want sappy poems nor melancholy poems. Although… maybe he would? She didn’t even know him. Oh, why did she think it would be a good idea to buy him a gift without ever having a proper conversation with him, and instead relying on Feyre’s limited knowledge? Mother help her.

Beau noticed she was struggling and came out from behind the counter. Standing next to her he reached up to grab a book entitled The Horror and The Wild . “This book of poems is from one of my favorite poets of this age. The author is a former soldier, and beautifully alludes to culture, mythology, religion, and history. He can get a little wordy at times, but if your friend is an experienced reader of poetry, this would be a good fit for something unique.”

Elain took the book from him, running her fingers down the golden script. It was simply bound in leather, but from the feel of it, it was well crafted and well loved. For a moment, Elain allowed herself a fantasy of Lucien reading the poems aloud to her as they sat beside a crackling fire, hands clasped together. But she was getting ahead of herself. It was just a book. And right now, they only had mere embers of a relationship.

“I’ll take it.” Elain nodded fervently, clutching the book close to her chest.

“Wonderful! I’m so pleased you like my recommendation.” Beau continued to chatter on as he rang her up, but Elain was focused on the book in her hands. A tiny speck of light formed in her chest at the surprise on Lucien’s face when he would get the book. She hoped the topic would be something he liked.

Elain exited the store, thanking Beau as she left, happier than she had felt in a long time. There was a slight skip in her step as she made her way back to the House of Wind.

The next few days were a whirlwind of planning. Everything from the food, the decorations and the invites were taken care of. All she had wanted Feyre to do was invite Lucien. It would seem more natural for Feyre to request his presence over Elain sending him a letter. Elain had made Feyre write and rewrite the letter multiple times before giving her approval to send it out in the mail.

By the time the Summer Solstice rolled around, Elain was exhausted from the planning she had done for Lucien’s party. But everything was done and perfect. With Nesta’s help, the pair of them had decorated the House of the Wind to be reminiscent of the woods of the Autumn Court. The color scheme was a latticework of vibrant reds, golds, browns, and greens. As a last-minute addition, Elain also made tiny flames she put on the fireplace as a nod to his power. She’d even made sure to wear the pearl earrings he had gifted her for the Winter Solstice.

Everything was complete. Now all they needed was-

“Feyre, what was it that was so urgent you needed me to come here on my birthday?” Lucien’s voice rang out from the foyer of the House.

Elain gestured to the Inner Circle and Nesta to get into position. She had also requested that the Band of Exiles be invited secretly too. Vassa and Jurian had happily agreed to come to celebrate Lucien’s birthday. Everyone crouched down behind the furniture. Cassian cursed softly as someone stepped on his foot. 

“Shhh,” Elain warned before she ducked down too. Her heartbeat felt as if it was going to beat out of her chest, each thrum knocking against her bones.

“Well, I wanted to give you your present, of course,” Feyre trilled, trying-and failing-to sound casual.

“Feyre-” Lucien started, suspicion lacing his words.

He stepped into the living room then and they all jumped up and shouted, “Surprise! Happy birthday, Lucien,” everyone repeated in unison. Cassian shot confetti out of a tube, releasing little bits of red and gold paper to explode throughout the room. Elain didn’t know where he found it.

Lucien was flabbergasted in the doorway, his mouth agape slightly before a smile burst forth on his face, as brilliant as the sun. “Is this all for me?” His gaze searched the room, noting the color scheme, before it landed on the tiny flames. “I-I don’t know what to say. I’m speechless.”

Jurian came around the furniture and clapped a hand on Lucien’s shoulder. “That’s a first from you. Happy birthday, Lucien.”

Lucien leaned forward and embraced the male in a hug. “Thank you, this is all so wonderful.”

“Don’t thank me, thank Elain. She’s the one that organized the party.”

Lucien’s russet eye swiveled to her then. Immediately, his gaze dipped to the earrings she wore. A mix of emotions crossed his face, and Elain wasn’t sure what they were. Was he pleased? Would he have rather had a party thrown by Jurian and Vassa? She looked down, picking at the skin around her nail beds.

Maybe it was all just a foolish idea.

Maybe-

Suddenly, Lucien’s boots were in front of her. “Elain,” Lucien said softly. She saw his fingers twitch slightly, as if he was going to grab her hand, but decided against it. “Did you organize all of this for me?”

Elain slowly lifted her head to meet his gaze. Up close, Lucien’s face held a certain softness with a slight hesitancy, as if he didn’t want to hope for too much. His golden eye whirred while his russet eye steadily looked at her. This was what she wanted. The steadiest she always found within him.

“Yes, I did,” she answered just as softly. 

Although the room was filled with people, all she could see was Lucien. Lucien, dressed not in Night Court black, but instead, he chose a white long sleeve shirt overlaid with a bright green vest that had been stitched with gold leaves and vines. And no matter where he went, he always wore knee high black boots, scuffed slightly from use. His red hair he’d also pulled back in a ponytail with tiny braids on the side.

Lucien nodded to her, always careful not to touch her. “Thank you, Elain. You’ve made my birthday very special.”

“I-I got you a present, Lucien.”

Lucien’s breath caught in his throat both from Elain getting him a gift and at the sound of his name on her lips. A small part of her urged her to say it more, to let the syllables roll off her tongue and caress his name. Just as she wanted him to roll off her tongue.

Blushing, Elain pushed away the thought and hurried to where she had stashed his gift. Mother, she was spending too much time around Nesta if these were the thoughts she was having. Elain gingerly picked up Lucien’s gift, wrapped carefully in bottle green paper with a gold bow resting on top. 

Walking back over to where Lucien stood frozen, as if any movement from him would scare her away. She was also aware that everyone in the room wasn't talking. They were all fixated on the two of them. Nosy faeries that they were. And humans, Elain amended, taking Vassa and Jurian into account.

She thrust out the gift to him. “Happy birthday.” His name was on the tip of her tongue once more, but she didn’t want to wear it out. She wanted to savor it. Savor him and all that he was.

He took the gift from her carefully and unwrapped it as if he were handling something precious. Once he got through the wrapping paper and beheld the book, his eyes widened ever so slightly. “Elain…,” he breathed. “Where did you find this? I’ve been looking all over for this book.”

A little glow of pride bloomed in her chest that he liked his gift. “Starlight Books. You’d miss the store if you didn’t know it was there.”

Lucien smiled at her. She hadn’t noticed it before but when he smiled, little creases formed at his eyes. It was endearing to see what she thought of as a human characteristic.

“Thank you,” he said. Hesitantly, he stretched out his hand and lightly brushed his fingertips with her own.

Goosebumps immediately rose on her skin from his touch. Immediately, she wanted more. It seemed he did too, from the way his eyelids fluttered.

“Okay, love birds, share the birthday boy!” Cassian teased. Everyone gave a nervous chuckle at his joke. Lucien and Elain sprang apart at Cassian’s declaration.

“We-we’re not-,” Lucien stammered, his cheeks reddening.

Cassian laughed uproariously as Lucien ducked his head and wandered off from Elain, flexing his hand as he went. Was her skin that horrible to touch? Was there something wrong with the gift? What if he was just pretending to like his gift? Elain began to pick at her nail beds once more, anxiety building up inside of her.

Everyone began to laugh and chat then, giving their gifts to Lucien. Feyre gave him a monogrammed handkerchief with his initials in the corner. Jurian and Vassa gifted him a gleaming dagger with a jeweled hilt. The gem embedded into the hilt reminded Elain of the color of Lucien’s eyes. The Inner Circle all pitched together for a gift too and gave him an expensive firebrand whiskey that had been aging for centuries. Nesta quietly handed over a cologne that smelled faintly of vanilla, leather, and cedar. Just like the bookstore she’d been in earlier. 

With so many people here, Lucien’s attention was constantly caught between people, but she often caught him sneaking glances at her, just as she was sneaking glances at him. 

“Are you going to tell him how you feel?” Nesta asked as she came up behind her and began to help Elain set out the cake she had made for him. The frosting was white buttercream, and she’d added little emblems of flame on the side. On top, she had added a fox head with a russet and golden eye with tiny scars.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Elain said, feigning ignorance as she busied her hands with setting out the plates.

Nesta scoffed. Not unkindly but it was clear she didn’t believe what Elain said. “Everyone could see how you two were interacting.”

“I simply wish to get to know him before I make any decisions,” Elain answered, politely but with enough bite for Nesta to back off. This was her choice, her decision, no matter what the Cauldron demanded. Elain wouldn’t deny that there was a certain draw towards him, but she wanted to be sure she was drawn to him and not solely just some mating bond bringing them together.

Thankfully, Feyre seemed to sense the tension between the two of them and announced, “Let’s all sing happy birthday!” Feyre was a lot of things, but she could be a good mediator when she listened. And Elain was very grateful for it at this moment.

Everyone burst into song, some with more exaggerated words and gestures, but the same song, nonetheless. Lucien appeared uncomfortable with all of the attention on him, as if he would rather slip into a corner and be unnoticed. He looked very relieved once the song was over.

Elain quietly began to cut the cake and without being asked, Nesta dispersed the pieces amongst the party. The conversation had started to lull and in one of the breaks in conversation, Elain peeked over at Lucien to see him already looking at her with an expression she couldn’t read. She wanted nothing more than to walk over and sit down next to him, but she didn’t want to interfere. After all, he had Jurian and Vassa. Why would he want her after everything?

She pulled her gaze away and instead engaged in conversation with Mor, chatting brightly, trying to pretend she didn’t feel Lucien’s gaze on her. The party continued for another hour. The moon had only just made an appearance, signaling the end of the longest day of the year and the end of Lucien’s birthday. 

As the guests began to leave, Elain started to feel more and more nervous about being alone with Lucien. This was what she had wanted, but she worried she’d say the wrong things, or that her words would fail her.

Finally, everyone except Nesta had dispersed to their various living spaces. Her sister only gave her a knowing look before walking up the staircase and shutting her bedroom door behind her. With the close of the door, Elain and Lucien were alone. Together. In the House of Wind with no one around. Elain threw a glance at the clock. It was half past eleven.

Lucien almost appeared similarly uncomfortable, bouncing his leg as he tapped a finger against his thigh. To her relief, Lucien was the first to bridge the gap between them. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

Elain nodded, biting her lip as she stood. Elain crossed the room, drawing closer, and closer until they were sharing breath. She looked away first, still unsure where they stood. “Let’s go before Cassian and Rhys decide to return.”

They awkwardly walked together to the door. Elain reached out for the door handle the same time that Lucien did. They fingers touched briefly before they both drew back as if they’d been burned. 

“Allow me,” Lucien murmured as he opened the door for her.

“Thank you.” Elain stiffly walked out the door and waited for Lucien as he shut the door behind him. The door creaked behind as it closed and Elain couldn’t help the wince. It seemed as if everyone in Velaris could hear it and would know that she was alone with her mate on the streets of Velaris. Unfortunately, Lucien saw her wince.

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” he asked softly. Though he tried to hide it, Elain saw the briefest flash of panic.

She shook her head vigorously, waving her arms. “No, no no no, that’s not why I-” she sighed, putting a hand to her forehead. “This wasn’t how I wanted this to go. I really am a fool.”

“And how did you want this to go?”

Elain flicked her eyes up to him and saw how the moon seemed to illuminate him in a silvery glow, as if the Mother herself had blessed him. “I… I wanted to go on a walk with you and tell you I feel,” Elain blurted out before she lost her courage. She was utterly inexperienced with this, and she was sure Lucien, in all his centuries, had met far more interesting females than her.

But to her surprise, Lucien didn’t seem to mind her awkwardness. He graciously extended an arm to her. “My lady, if I could have this walk.” Elain let out a small chuckle, hoping it wasn’t too awkward. Cautiously, she took his arm and underneath his shirt, Elain felt the hard muscle of his arms. Elain furiously blushed at the thoughts and images that invaded her mind.

She tried to look anywhere but him to distract herself. Looking up, the night sky was alive with life. Brilliant stars, looking for all the world like gems waiting to be plucked, shimmered softly against the ink-black sky. In Prythian, the constellations moved. A hunter drew back a bow and shot an arrow into the night. It was a sight she didn’t think she’d ever tire of, and it was the one thing she’d miss most about the Night Court.

“What are you thinking about?”

You, Elain wanted to say. But she couldn’t. Not when she didn’t even truly know how he felt. And she didn’t want to impose her feelings on him if he didn’t feel the same. She’d heard the stories of Jesminda and Elain didn’t want to feel as if she was replacing his former love. Or maybe he still loved her, Elain didn’t know.

She tightened her grip slightly, both to feel his muscles more acutely and to ground herself. “I…,” she began before trailing off, not knowing where to start.

Lucien also tilted his gaze toward the sky, strands from his ponytail hair slipping out. It would be so lovely to braid his hair, to touch him in a way that was intimately familiar. “How about we exchange a question for a question? I’ll say one thing that’s honest and real, and you’ll tell me one.”

“Okay,” Elain said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Despite the hour, Velaris had a bustling nightlife and there were a few others like themselves who simply wanted to enjoy the night. They passed by a couple, laughing and joking, tightly pressed together. Could this be their future? Did Elain deserve such a thing?

Lucien tapped a light finger against her stomach. She ignored the rush of butterflies she felt at his touch. “You go first. Ask me anything.”

A hundred thoughts swirled at the forefront of her mind, but she would stick with one for now. “Are you still in love with Jesminda?”

Lucien’s foot caught on the cobbled streets, stumbling slightly. “I-No, no I don’t. She was someone very special to me and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive my father for what he did to her, but I have moved on. I grieve that her life was taken so soon, but… she is my past.” Lucien took a breath, swallowing slightly. “Do you still love Graysen?”

“No,” she answered without hesitation. “When I needed him most, he looked down on me, my family, and… you. I could never be in love with someone like that.”

Elain caught the smirk that flashed across his face. “So, he said something bad about me, did he?” Elain knew he was teasing, but even just the thought of what Graysen had said threw her into a rage. Lucien was kind, patient, and loyal. He didn’t deserve to be talked down to by someone whose actions and words were fueled by generational hatred.

“He did. But I at least made sure he knew your name. If you insult someone without knowing their name, are you really insulting them? It seems pointless if you ask me.”

Laughter burst forth from Lucien’s lips, loudly and without restraint. She’d never heard him laugh like that in real life, only in her visions with his friends. “What? Did I say something amusing?”

Amusement still lingering in his eyes, Lucien stopped walking and turned to face her, grasping her forearms. “You did. You did, Elain.” Lucien’s gaze flickered down to her lips before he forced himself to look back up at her face. “I-”

“I like you,” Elain said quickly, cutting off what he was going to say.

Silence. Every sound from the city now seemed amplified as Elain waited for the rejection, like an axe coming down on her neck. She knew it was coming, but it seemed inevitable. Even if he wasn’t in love with Jesminda anymore, what could she possibly offer him that would be enough?

She hadn’t been enough for Graysen, a human, so who was to say that she, a young fae, would be enough for him.

Elain started to pull away, tears lining her eyes from the endless silence. But she found she couldn’t move. Lucien was holding onto her tightly so she could hardly move an inch. Daring to peek up at his face, she found awe and wonderment coating his features, as if she were a fairy godmother granting him a wish.

“Tell me again,” Lucien breathed, his chest hardly rising.

“Lucien, I want to get to know you. I want to explore our mating bond.”

Lucien closed his eyes, as if in throes of ecstasy. When he opened them again, Elain was surprised by the sheen of tears lining his eyes. “I’d like that, I’d like that a lot.” He hesitated then, before cautiously asking, “Can I hug you?”

Elain nodded, afraid if she said something she’d ruin the moment. Slowly, he released her arms and drew her in for a gentle hug. He rested his chin on the top of her head, slightly swaying back and forth. Velaris had always created peace and safety, but within Lucien’s arms, Elain felt warm for the first time in a long time. She hadn’t realized how much the city drained her, in spite of everything it offered. Wrapped tightly against him, breathing in his woodsy smell, Elain felt at home.

She buried her fingers against his back, ever so carefully digging her nails in. Lucien inhaled sharply at her movement. “Is this, okay?” she asked softly. Was it too much? All of this was so new to her that she wasn’t sure what was acceptable.

To her delight, Lucien moved his head down, his breath tickling her ear. “Yes, it is okay. This is wonderful and I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday. You’ve made it truly special this year.”

For a few moments longer, they held each other, framed by the moonlight in the city of starlight, and finally felt a true sense of peace. Lucien was the first to break apart but brought his hand down to hers and carefully interlaced their fingers together.

Elain was reminded of the image she had of Lucien reading the poetry book to her while they held hands in front of a fire. She really wanted that to come true. Before she lost her nerve she looked up at him through lowered lashes. “Could you read me poems from the book I got you? I'd like to listen to your voice while I fall asleep.”

Lucien’s lips quirked into a smile. “Are you asking to spend the night at my apartment, Elain Archeron? How scandalous,” he said, as he brought a hand to rest over his heart. Elain almost took back her request before she saw the teasing glint in Lucien’s eyes.

“Yes, I suppose I am. Would that be alright?”

Lucien gently squeezed her hand. “I think it’s a fine idea.”

As they began to make their way to his apartment, hand in hand, the clock tower chimed midnight, signaling the end of the Summer Solstice and the end of Lucien’s birthday. “How old are you now, Lucien? Six hundred?”

He sharply turned his head towards her in bafflement. “How old do you-”

Elain started to giggle at the real expression on his face.  Normally, he didn’t let his emotions slip through, but she’d caught him off guard, just as she’d hoped. She found that she enjoyed teasing him and that she didn’t mind being teased back. It had been a long time since she’d laughed like this, since she’d been truly happy.

Lucien joined in her on her laughter. “Very funny, Elain,” he said, once more saying her name as if he couldn’t get enough of it. She loved the way he drew out her name, caressing each letter with his tongue.

They continued to joke with each other the rest of the way to his apartment, now less awkward around each other. Elain was almost disappointed when they reached the door and went inside.

He unlocked the door and ushered her in first. “Well, home sweet home,” he said as he scratched his head. “I confess I’m not here very often…”

The apartment itself was relatively bare with no decorations on the wall. There were couches and chairs and a bed, but the air was stale from his absence. It was sparse, but Elain found she didn’t mind. Velaris had never truly been home to him, as it had never been hers. Perhaps it was their curse to bear, to forever be wanderers seeking a place to call home.

Elain found herself reaching for Lucien’s hand, knowing that as long as he was in her life, she wouldn’t be lost or alone.

“Let’s go to bed,” Elain said, turning to Lucien. As soon as she said it, she felt a blush creeping up her cheeks. “I-I didn’t mean-”

“Are you sure?” Lucien asked at the same time, extremely startled by what she’d said. “Oh, of course, to read the book.” He awkwardly straightened his vest and began to walk stiffly towards the bedroom with his hands clenched.

“Idiot,” she mumbled under her breath, palming a hand to her forehead. Of course he would think she was asking something else. 

As Elain sighed, she realized she hadn’t brought any extra clothes to wear to bed. She would have to ask Lucien to wear something of his. Perhaps she hadn’t quite thought this through. Elain stood uncomfortably by the door, not sure if she was supposed to follow him. Would it be weird if she stood by the door? It wasn’t as if she was going to stay here all night.

Steeling herself, she squared her shoulders and pushed open the door to the bedroom to see Lucien in the middle of changing. Lucien hurriedly pulled his pants back up, but not before Elain had caught a glimpse of his bare backside. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were changing. I-I’ll wait out there,” she stammered out. If her cheeks got any redder, she was sure she’d look like a tomato. 

“Wait, I’ll finish changing in the bathroom, you can stay in here and make yourself comfortable.”

Elain dared a glance back at him to find him standing there with his white tunic unbuttoned, revealing some rather impressive muscle, leaving little to the imagination. She didn’t trust herself to say anything that wouldn’t further embarrass her, so she just nodded eagerly and sat on the edge of the bed, trying not to think about Lucien in… that way. It wasn’t proper.

Still, she couldn’t help but think about the bare skin she saw of him as she heard the rustle of clothing behind the bathroom door. Part of her wanted to interrupt again, but she wanted to do things right. She’d been raised as a noble lady, but that was human societal standards. Was it different for the nobles of Prythian? Could they do as they pleased without worry of scandal? She tried to imagine what such a life would be like and felt a twinge of envy at the freedom faeries had.

Lucien exited the bathroom then in some rather tight fitting pants and a loose t-shirt. He’d taken his hair down and his auburn hair spilled over his shoulders with a slight wave. Elain fought to focus on his face and not… other things.

“Do… you have anything I could borrow to sleep in? I confess I didn’t bring any sleep clothes?”

Thankfully, Lucien also seemed to be as awkward as she was and fumbled through his drawers. He handed her a similar shirt to the one he had on and a pair of shorts. “If it’ll make you more comfortable to wear longer pants, I can wear the shorts.”

The thought of wearing the pants Lucien currently had on that would still be warm from his body was too much for Elain. “This is fine,” she answered quickly and rushed into the bathroom, hoping she hadn’t shut the bathroom door too hard.

She hurriedly switched out of her clothes, not wanting Lucien to wait long for her. As she finished dressing and took out her braids, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Pale skin, flushed from her earlier interaction. Golden-brown hair tumbling forward, unbound as few people saw it. And her eyes, wide with the thought of what awaited her beyond the door.

Lucien’s clothing was big enough that it adequately covered her chest, but her legs were bare, and she fought the urge to cover up. She never wore anything that exposed her legs, even her nightgowns were floor length. Elain bit her lip at what Lucien would think of her. What if he didn’t consider her attractive? What if-

She took a breath to calm herself. They were just reading poetry. They weren’t even together. She was reading too much into this night.

Slowly, she opened the door and found Lucien already tucked into bed with the book held open. As soon as he saw her, Elain saw desire flash across his eyes. For once, she didn’t look away and held his gaze and let him look, let him see her as she was.

“Beautiful,” he whispered.

He didn’t take his eyes off her as she made her way around to the other side of the bed, setting her clothes down in a corner before sliding under the covers. She ignored the frantic beat of her heart as she settled into the bed.

“Do you have a favorite poem in the book?” Elain asked, trying to pretend that she was keeping her cool.

Lucien only smiled at her, softly and reverently. “I do. I’ll start with it.”

And so, he cracked open the spine, flipped to the page the poem was on and began to read in his melodic voice. As they drew further into the night, Elain’s eyelids felt heavy from the day’s events and before she knew it, she was falling into sleep.

Just before sleep took her, she heard the bed shift and Lucien lean over to press a soft kiss to her brow. “Sweet dreams, Elain. Thank you for the party,” he murmured before turning off the lamp and turning in to sleep himself.

And Elain found that she didn’t mind the kiss. She was glad that Lucien Vanserra was her mate, even if she didn’t know what it meant yet. She was happy and that was all that mattered.

[hazyange1s]

the process of detonation (g.w. x f!mc)

summary: Garreth has a bit of a crisis when the reality of growing up starts to hit hard. While trying to overcome self-doubt and bottle up the explosion waiting to happen, she’s there to show him that there’s nothing wrong with a little chaos.

tags: allusions to adhd, alcohol use, seventh year, awkwardness and fluff, literal fireworks, too many food metaphors?, friends to lovers, gryffindor!reader, garreth is an ace at pining, beater!Garreth because yes obviously, the “wearing his sweater” trope, seniors and their existential crises, mc only referred to by she/her pronouns

word count: 5.6 k

rating: T

a/n: my entry for @garrethweasleyfest ! the prompt I used was “explosion” (kind of got inspired by explode - mother mother)

read on ao3

Garreth wasn’t all that good at really explaining the inner workings of his mind, but perhaps he could give it a go.

He might be biased, but in a way; he thought people could be compared to potions. They’re messy, complex, and each have their own set of ingredients that make them what they are — and change how they react. Some people have a little extra rose petals to them, some a sprinkle of stardust, and others are just…pure poison.

In Garreth’s case, his brewing tended to say a lot about his own concoction of self.

Of course, for most of his life, he never really considered that there might be something fundamentally wrong with whatever recipe God or whoever had used to create him. It wasn’t until seventh year when he was finally considered a grown wizard that Garreth began to suspect… and to wonder if there was any leaf or powder out there that could be thrown in to stabilize him.

̶̶̶̶ ̶«̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶̶ ̶«̶ ̶̶̶  ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶̶ ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶

In Garreth’s defense, he had a lot on his mind that day.

Between his growing stack of homework assignments, early morning Quidditch practices three days a week, and the NEWT study group he’d been strong-armed into joining by Natsai and his Aunt, it was a wonder he had any working brain cells left at all. And that didn’t even count the time he spent on his own, er… creative projects.

So it wasn’t all that surprising that he’d accidentally broken a golden rule of potion-making in his sleepy endeavor at a cure for ague. Not once as his knife rocked against the cutting board did he consider that everybody else was flattening the blades and pressing down instead, and the rest of his friends were too oblivious to, either.

“— But then, he tried to kiss me! No request, no warning, nothing! One second I’m mid-conversation about centaurs’ rights, and the next his tongue is two inches from my face! All of that time wasted when I could have been doing any of the million other; more important things I have going on!”

Oddly enough, hearing about his friend’s failed attempts at courting (which were rather numerous) was the best part of his day so far.

Garreth nodded along politely, offering a vague “mhmm” and “you can’t be serious” at appropriate intervals, gaze flickering between his workstation and the witch in the midst of a passionate rant while turning her ladle idly in her own cauldron. He’d never been good at strictly keeping his eyes on his own work, and it was that much harder with her directly beside him; her vest unbuttoned and cheeks fairy floss pink from the vapors surrounding them.

She gave a resounding huff, dropping the ladle to rest her elbows on the textbook open in front of her. “All that is to say; I’ve come to the conclusion that men are incorrigible.”

“Sounds fairly accurate,” Garreth snorted. He gently nudged her off of the book (they often shared his, as it was filled with helpful notes) to double check a measurement.

Even if some little voice whispered that reasonable was boring and she should keep her — ahem — mind open to other possibilities, he dutifully ignored it.

“Although, we’re not all pigs, you know. Some of us have a spot of…well. Class, I suppose.” He grumbled.

“I hope you’re not referring to yourself,” her laughter rang out like the peal of a bell. “You’re a lot of things, Garreth, but you’re not exactly the epitome of a gentleman.”

His face pinched, and again she chuckled, which was a small consolation.

It stung because it was true. Garreth wasn’t exactly a rake by most standards, but he flirted with too many witches and wizards and had snogged half that number besides to be much else. He was a terrible dancer, didn’t have a fortune to inherit (even if he had been the eldest Weasley), and flaunted most rules and regulations.

So, no, he wasn’t winning any awards in Witch Weekly for Bachelor of the Year.

To spite her, he did the gentlemanly thing and conceded, albeit not so gracefully. “I’m only trying to say…you shouldn’t lump us all in with a few bad apples. I certainly wouldn’t have disappointed you like that.”

“How comforting to know. I’m still sticking with my hypothesis, but thanks for trying.”

Well, now he was thinking about how he would kiss her, if given the chance.

(This was purely for scientific reasons, of course.)

Garreth, eager to salvage what remained of his pride, readied another reply as he sprinkled the flakes of dittany into his lightly smoking cauldron. It would have been a good one, too, if not for —

“Garreth!”

There was only a hair of a second between her shouting his name in warning and what was possibly one of his most impressive explosions to date. Even though she lunged for him, she was too late to stop the blast from sending him reeling backwards with a hand over his burning-hot face and a very unbecoming cry of surprise.

Having expected him to be closer, she stumbled in her attempt at pushing him out of the way, and thus they collided like two atoms — tumbling to the stone floor in a jumble of limbs and hissed curses.

“Come on, seriously, Garreth?” Sebastian groaned from an adjacent potions station. He, along with a few others who’d been close to the blast, were coughing and waving away billowing clouds of smoke.

Natty sighed. “That’ll be another ten points from Gryffindor.”

But their protestations fell to the wayside once he was peering up at the sheepish face of his savior; no more than a few inches away. Within kissing distance, even.

Wait. What?

“Fuck. Ow. Sorry,” she groaned, trying to untangle their aching limbs as she lay half-splayed across Garreth’s chest.

It was then that his traitorous mind started paying attention to how warm she was, how bright that ring of pure gold in her eyes was, how infuriatingly good the blend of mallowsweet and smoke clinging to her like a second skin smelled…

Shiiiiittt. Shit, shit, shit.

“No, it’s, uh, it’s my fault. Totally my fault, I wasn’t, er…paying attention,” he panted. The wind had been thoroughly knocked out of him — and it wasn’t just because her elbow had struck him right in the stomach when they’d fallen.

When she managed to sort herself out and hastily climb to her feet, that stinging feeling from before returned, and Garreth didn’t notice the developing bruise on his tailbone one bit.

“Are you alright?” She asked.

“Oh, er, I think so,” he stood up, legs wobbling like a newborn thestral, and dusted off his robes. “My pride took the biggest blow. Though I suppose I should count myself lucky I had the Hero of Hogwarts to save me.”

He waggled his brows, and her jaw went slack before she was doubled over in a fit of raucous laughter.

“What?! It wasn’t that funny.“

“No, you —“ she can hardly get the words out between breathless giggles. “Garreth, your eyebrows.”

Reaching up, his fingers found the ridge just above his eyes — where, indeed, great chunks of what was once thick ginger hair are missing. “Bollocks. That’s the third time in six months.”

The unfortunate loss of his eyebrows (and dignity) became yesterday’s news when she traversed the newly formed space between them to rub what he assumed was soot off of his nose, still chuckling to herself. He resisted the urge to brush away the wayward hairs sticking to her forehead in kind.

“I’ll give you this — you’re definitely not most men,” she grinned.

It was probably an insult, but all Garreth heard was a ringing endorsement. Against the odds, he cracked a lopsided smile of his own.

Maybe he’d even call it a victory.

Professor Sharp waved his wand, and the thick fumes disappeared, allowing them all a good glimpse of his signature long-suffering scowl.

“Ten points from Gryffindor. Shocking, I know,” the ex-Auror sighed, resigned. “And I expect that cauldron to be replaced within the fortnight.”

Well. A bittersweet victory, to be sure.

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Everything tumbled downhill from there.

In the spirit of further self-reflection, Garreth knew that their unceremonious meeting on the dirty floor of the Potions classroom wasn’t some hit-him-over-the-head moment of recognition — even if most of his revelations came in that form. This one had been creeping up on him since fifth year, like a wily sort of poison; disguised with a sweet scent to throw him off.

But just how massively fucked was he, you may ask?

That became clear one rainy afternoon. Not just any rainy afternoon, mind you, because those were a galleon a dozen during autumn in the Scottish Highlands; but the afternoon of their first Quidditch game of the year against Slytherin.

Which didn’t help the fact that his head was already so not in the game.

It started out well enough, with Gryffindor managing to make several goals in a row that had their swaths of supporters in the stands crowing with pride. Garreth did his best to keep up as he weaved and dodged and looped around the field, trying to focus solely on the hunt for Bludgers. Of course, this required him to pay equally close attention to his teammates lest they fall victim to one of the bloodthirsty balls.

One teammate in particular more than the others, perhaps.

Flying was made all the more difficult by the sheets of icy rain pelting his face. Not even the goggles – with the assistance of an Impervious Charm – were helping him distinguish much more than vague blobs of color streaking through the cloudy sky. This, he justified, was why he started to miss more swings than he made and almost dropped his bat (twice). It wasn’t Garreth’s fault the elements were working against them.

Despite that, they were still forty points up when the conniving snakes switched tactics and started going after Gryffindors’ three female Chasers. Natty was an expert at evasion, and Nellie tended to fly high to avoid them… but not her.

She always had to be in the bloody thick of it, didn’t she?

It might have been annoying, if it wasn’t so damn impressive. Garreth couldn’t help but admire the way she moved; how she’d feint and crack a little smile each time someone fell for the trick. The way her red sweater clung, dripping, from her frame and strands of hair curled around her wet forehead were particularly distracting, too.

For the first time in his career, Garreth found himself wishing he was in the crowd – just so he could watch her.

Sebastian tossed the Quaffle to Imelda over Natty’s head – only for his face to contort with rage when it was snatched from the air between them. Garreth whooped proudly when she took off towards the goal posts. The first Bludger was hot on her tail, but so was he, maneuvering between her and the ball. He spent the next few minutes as her guardian until having to turn tail at the last minute to rescue Lucan.

The next events happened so quickly he couldn’t quite recall much but this: a familiar, feminine cry of alarm from behind him, the brown blur of a Bludger streaking towards him, and the reverberation in his arm when his bat connected with it. There was a thunderous crack, and then another scream.

What he’d meant to do was send it towards any of the three Slytherins trying to overtake her, but instead…

Garreth’s entire world narrowed down to the moment when she just barely managed to duck out of the Bludger’s path. He’d come to a screeching halt on his broom, hovering mere feet away from her with his eyes wide as saucers behind his foggy goggles, something sinking inside him as the Slytherins flew off with the Quaffle. The stadium erupted into cheers for them seconds later.

“What the hell was that?” She panted, her indignant scowl apparent even through the downpour. “You almost took my bloody head off, Garreth!”

“It — it was an accident. And you’re fine, right, so no harm, no foul?” He had to shout to be heard over the spectators and the wind.

“An inch to the left and I wouldn’t have been fine at all! I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you need to get it together!”

“I just –”

She sped off so fast the resulting wind made him shiver. Either Garreth was simply losing his touch, or there was something seriously wrong with him lately. Cursing to himself, he shook off the chill her anger had left him with and the shame that followed, and threw himself back into the game comforted by the knowledge that he’d be able to get roaring drunk at the after party.

̶̶̶̶ ̶«̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶̶ ̶«̶ ̶̶̶  ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶̶ ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶

Drunk might be an understatement, actually.

By the time the party was in full swing, Garreth had already downed more than his share of the sneakily procured liquor (courtesy of yours truly, Sirona’s unrelenting generosity, and several bribes to the house elves in the kitchens). Someone had enchanted a few of the lamps to change color occasionally, throwing red and green and blue lights around Gryffindor’s common room, which teemed with House members in Quidditch jumpers and all other manner of memorabilia. Even little Doge and Dumbledore had emerged briefly to shyly congratulate the team.

Not even the jubilant music pouring from the gramophone or the well-earned laughter of the partygoers could drown out what was going on inside Garreth’s head.

He’d never embarrassed himself so profoundly at a match before. Quidditch, like potion-making, was one of the few areas Garreth excelled in, and he couldn’t even do that right. Ever since school had started up again, he’d been a mess. Exploding cauldrons, racking up more detentions than ever, always saying the wrong thing…

It was seventh year, for Merlin’s sake, and he was a grown wizard now. But while everyone else was coming into themselves, it seemed like he was just coming apart.

So instead of enjoying the victory, Garreth had taken to drowning his sorrows in drink while watching from the sidelines; neck-deep in an early quarter life crisis while slumped in one of the armchairs. Leander found him there eventually, his freckled face a mask of concern as he leaned against the wall beside him.

“What’s with the sour face?” Leander raised a brow. “We just beat Slytherin! I thought you’d be dancing on the tables or something.”

“I’m not really in the dancing mood. Go on, I’ll live vicariously through you.” Garreth grumbled.

“As much as everyone would probably love to see that, I’d rather find out what’s got your wand all knotted up.”

Garreth sighed, raking the hand not currently clutching a glass of Firewhiskey through his still-damp curls. “You saw what happened, Lee. The team’s probably pissed at me for being a massive disappointment, especially…”

He gestured vaguely to the hero of the hour (the hero of every hour of every day as far as he was concerned, and she’d earned the title several times over) across the room. She was talking with Natty, Nellie, and Cressida by the fireplace, her smile brighter than the flames’ glow that lit her from behind. A clawed hand squeezed at his heart.

“Oh, that? That was…I mean, you made a minor miscalculation. Most of them have forgotten already, I reckon.” Leander’s eyes darted to the side — as they always did when he was lying horribly.

“A minor miscalculation that could have led to the untimely death of one of my best friends.”

“You’re being even more dramatic than usual…are you tossed already?”

”I dunno, mum; am I?”

There was a quiet rumble around him, like thunder. At first he thought it was just his stomach informing him of how much he’d indeed had to drink, but then a fat drop of rain landed on his nose.

Leander’s big, dark eyes rolled to the ceiling, and he dragged Garreth onto his slightly unsteady feet with an arm in his. “Alright, you’re being bloody insufferable, and you’ve quite literally got a dark cloud hanging over you. Come on, up you get — go talk to her and apologize.”

“No, Lee, please!” Garreth whined. “I’ve suffered enough humiliation today.”

”Don’t be a coward, you’ll be fine.”

The taller boy weaved through the crowd easily, pulling a stumbling Garreth along beside him until they came face-to-face with the very group of girls he had been avoiding all night. They all went quiet immediately — which was not a good sign.

Garreth scratched the back of his head, glancing between Leander and the witch with the suspicious scowl in front of him, feeling for all the world like he’d never been less of a Gryffindor than in that moment. Surely the alcohol was supposed to help with these things, right?

”Er…would you like to dance?” He blurted.

Well, that wasn’t what he’d meant to say at all. But having to talk to her at all in his clumsy state seemed even more daunting with all eyes on him, and getting her alone was a simple solution.

“You sure you’ll be able to without tripping over your feet?” Nellie snorted.

“‘M perfectly cohabitated — uh, coordinated, I mean,” Garreth argued.

Natty shook her head, hiding her laughter behind a hand. “Oh, dear.”

His favorite witch turned a familiar shade of pink, and for a moment Garreth feared that she’d laugh in his face, but eventually she sighed and handed her bottle of Butterbeer to Natty.

“If you step on my toes, I’ll jinx you,” she warned, leading him to the center of the room where groups of friends and cozy couples were scattered to dance to the magically amplified music (it was a miracle none of the professors had come to complain about it, really).

“No promises.”

Garreth wrestled with what to do when they got there. Was he supposed to take her hand? Her waist? Or, rather, should he keep it friendly and avoid touching her at all? The latter option seemed much less risky, and yet he found himself longing to feel her hand in his and the heat of her body. He’d been hooked ever since that day in Potions.

Deciding it would be better to keep his distance for now, Garreth went with swaying awkwardly on the spot instead, but she had other ideas — her hand sought out his, and she threw him into a dizzying little turn that evoked both laughter and a slight wave of nausea.

“Oh, are you leading?” He chuckled, suddenly thankful for the ballroom lessons they’d all received the year prior as he mimicked her move, twirling her playfully with ease that surprised even him.

“That might be safer,” she said. “Although you’re not doing half bad so far.”

“Always the tone of surprise,” Garreth grinned proudly.

He spent the better part of five minutes praying he wouldn’t step on her toes while simultaneously working up the courage to acknowledge the erupment in the room. And, because the universe didn’t like to make anything easy for him, Garreth had to compete with the little flutters in his stomach that beat their furious wings each time she laughed or squeezed his hand.

Merlin, just pull your wand out of your ass.

“Hey, so, about earlier. You know, during the game… you’re right, I wasn’t…I don’t know where my head’s been lately. I didn’t mean to muck things up.”

His breath held until she shrugged, her easy smile fading into something edged with concern. “Don’t worry about it. We won, and my head’s still attached to my body, so no hard feelings.”

She drew back, the impish grin back as she spun him again — which wasn’t very easy considering he had to duck under her arm. The room seemed to be moving with him, and Garreth had to right himself as subtly as possible when he came to a stop as colors that didn’t belong to the lights danced in his vision.

“You alright?” She chuckled, her hands braced on his biceps to steady him. “I think Nellie might have had a point about you tripping.”

“No, no, I’m good, just waiting for the room to stop spinning so I can look at you again.”

That hadn’t quite come out right. In place of the eye roll he was expecting, she giggled, adding fuel to his liquid confidence.

“Gods, you’re cute when you laugh,” Garreth found himself saying. He realized she was leading him away from the crowd, and soon he sank into a squashy cushion beside her. “I mean, you’re a bit blurry right now, but…still cute.”

“Okay, what’s gotten into you lately? Not that I mind the flirting… but you’ve been a right mess for weeks. I don’t think I’ve seen you this drunk before; not even when you saw your OWL results.”

A low groan rumbled in the back of his throat. “I’m peachy, pinkie promise.” Did she just say she didn’t mind his flirting?

Giggling at how absurd the words sounded together, he stuck his pinkie out to her and waited. “Come on, these are sacred!”

She did actually roll her eyes this time, but then her smallest finger hooked around his, and it didn’t pull away even when they were certainly exceeding the normal amount of time for a handshake. Garreth could smell the sweetness of Butterbeer on her breath.

It wasn’t enough to convince her, though. “Are you stressed about NEWTs? Who am I kidding, everyone and their grandmothers are. But if it’s really getting to you, then —“

Apparently, she wasn’t giving up, so Garreth sighed and rested his head against the back of the couch.

“Yes, I’m a bit strung out over the exams that will decide our entire career, what d’you think? I’m not going to have a fit over it.”

“Sorry,” her hands raised in surrender. “Just trying to figure out why you haven’t quite been yourself since the term started because I bloody care.”

“I would argue that blowing things up and making stupid decisions is very much on brand for me.”

Releasing a heavy sigh (more like an impatient huff, really), she wrested her pinkie from his, leaving Garreth more than a bit disappointed. But then again, what had he expected? That she’d sit there and hold his hand?

He hadn’t earned that. Somehow, he had earned her friendship from the very first day of their fifth year, but in no way did he reserve the right to even hope of something more. She was, well… extraordinary, and Garreth was an extraordinary disaster.

Maybe it was time he rectified that.

“Wait,” he tugged pathetically on her sleeve when she rose from the couch. “Sit with me for a little bit longer? I might need someone to Accio a rubbish bin over here soon.”

To his great relief, she sat down again, shaking her head to disguise a little chuckle. “You’re something else, y’know?”

”I’ve been told once or twice.”

̶̶̶̶ ̶«̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶̶ ̶«̶ ̶̶̶  ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶ ̶̶̶ ̶»̶ ̶̶̶ ̶ ̶

Bonfire Nights had been sparse the past couple of years around Hogwarts, as many of the residents had feared drawing attention to themselves with the looming threat of Ashwinders and goblins and the like. This year, Garreth had had the pleasure of seeing pyres built weeks beforehand, and by the end of October Zonko’s had sold out of Filibuster’s Fireworks.

As night settled over the Highlands, bonfires began to flare to life all along the rolling hills, appearing like flaming stars from the view at the castle. Garreth, alongside a group of fellow seventh years carrying sparklers and mini-fireworks, spent the brisk walk to the hill above Hogsmeade village lost in uncharacteristic melancholy. He’d never been the sort to reminisce; preferring to live in the here and now whenever possible, but for some reason the knowledge that this would be his last Bonfire Night at Hogwarts made it all a bit bittersweet (the flavor of the month, it seemed).

They drank hot chocolate in ceramic mugs provided by Sirona, surrounded by the body heat of the villages’ residents as they talked and laughed and chased their children away from the forest at the edge of the plateau. Hogsmeade’s lights had been dimmed for the occasion, glowing softly below them to allow the six foot pyre they gathered around to shine.

“I can’t believe next month is Christmas already,” Leander was saying between greedy sips of the drink cupped in his blue-tinged hands. “Then it’ll be the New Year, then Spring Break, and before we know it we’ll be taking our NEWTs and graduating…”

“Breathe, Lee,” Garreth chuckled. At least he wasn’t the only one getting hit with the terrifying reality of time all at once.

”I know, is it not amazing? The last few years have gone by so quickly. I will miss this place come summer, though,” Natty sighed wistfully.

Nellie snorted. “Speak for yourself. If I never have to open a textbook again after school is over, it’ll be too soon.”

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Leander?” His favorite Gryffindor (don’t tell Nats or Leander) joined their little circle, her frame wrapped in a thick red scarf and one of his old Christmas sweaters she’d stolen from him in fifth year and never given back — not that he minded, as it didn’t fit him anymore and looked far better on her, anyway.

The lanky redhead grumbled a reply, “Easy for you to say. Half of my job will be desk work.”

“No shame in that,” she shrugged. “Garreth’s going to be behind a cauldron, after all.”

“Hey, Potioneers do other things besides just… brew. I’ll still forage for my own ingredients, travel to sell them… hell, one day, I might just have my own shop.” Garreth said with pride.

“So long as you don’t blow it up,” her cheeks dimpled when she smiled.

As if on cue, a loud boom shook the ground beneath them. Everyone’s eyes shot to the sky, cheers swelling amongst the crowd as the first firework exploded in a shower of golden sparks, dissolving back towards the earth like falling stars. Despite all their talk of the future, Garreth felt like a first-year again as a smile broke out on his slightly chapped lips, apparently not immune to the childlike wonder the fireworks always seemed to bring.

The next one was even louder and brighter. Garreth nearly jumped out of his skin when an iron grip closed around his arm and a body pressed into his left side. She had buried her face in his shoulder, too, and a warm feeling unrelated to the cocoa spread from his stomach.

“Aww, is the big, bad Gryffindor afraid of fireworks?” he teased, trying not to enjoy the smell of her shampoo or the color in her cheeks too much as she looked up at him sheepishly.

“Shut up!” The shivering witch hissed. “Am not. I’m just…cold, and you’re a damn furnace, as usual.”

“Oh, you’re cold,” Garreth pouted just for the drama of it. Then, before he could convince himself it was a bad idea, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders to pull her closer still. “I suppose I’ll have to keep you warm, then.”

”And they say chivalry is dead.”

She flinched after the third blast, leading him to rub her shoulder in a subtle attempt at comfort, his heart thumping almost as loud as the fireworks now going off in quick succession when she curled into him. It was then that his Neanderthal brain concluded why she might have been so terrified; after fighting in a bloody war just two years ago.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Don’t be. I don’t mind.” At all. Garreth laughed to himself and set down his mug in the grass so he could cover the ear she didn’t have pressed to his chest with his hand.

“You know, you’re really sweet when you want to be,” he thought he heard her say over the explosions echoing throughout the valleys.

He lowered his head to speak into the ear closest to him, lips brushing the flyaways from her hair, rubbing her arm again when he noticed her shiver. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a reputation to uphold; can’t have everyone think I’ve gone soft.”

Truth be told, his limbs always felt like melted taffy around her — he was practically a puddle at her feet.

They were quiet for a few minutes. Eventually, her head lifted partially from his shoulder, and with a sidelong glance he caught her peering up at the sky with a look best described as wonder. Each burst of sparks was reflected in her wide eyes, and Garreth felt tiny pricks of electricity along every nerve in his body at the sight.

“So, um…” he scrambled for something to say so he wouldn’t think about how close her lips would be if she turned to the side a bit. “Are you still going to write to me after school’s over? Or will you forget all about us little people when you’re off traveling the world in search of ancient relics and having daring adventures?”

“Of course I’m going to write, you moonmind,” she looked up at him, then, and his hand fell from the side of her head. “And I’ll come visit, too, so I can see that shop of yours.”

Perhaps she was just humoring him, but Garreth found nothing but sincerity in her soft smile, and his own crooked grin widened at the thought that she might be one of the first to genuinely believe in him.

“What’s got you so pensive all of a sudden?”

He shrugged, absentmindedly playing with the frayed edges of her cashmere scarf. “Maybe it’s just the old age catching up to me. It pairs well with my bum hip, I think.”

”Come on, I’m serious. I won’t tell anyone and ruin your sterling reputation, I swear.”

“I don’t know,” Garreth let out a sigh, his breath clouding in the air between them. “Just realized how much I’m gonna miss you.”

“And here I thought you’d be sick of my face after seeing it every day for three years,” her eyes darted away from him to watch a spray of green and red fill the starry sky. She wasn’t shaking anymore.

Never, he almost said. Garreth knew, as he gazed hopelessly at her perfect profile, that he would never be tired of her face — well, of all of her, really. In fact, he wouldn’t mind seeing her every day for the rest of his life.

“If you’re going to miss me so desperately… Perhaps you could join me on one of my so-called ‘daring adventures’ sometime; on the off chance Pippin gives you a holiday.”

His brows shot up as she met his stare. “Really? You’d want me to tag along?”

Their classmates and the villagers burst into raucous whistles and hollering as the finale began, fireworks filling the air with the smell of gunpowder and a rainbow of light that flashed on everyone’s uplifted faces. Garreth held her tightly lest she start to panic again, but the witch in his arms just laughed jubilantly at the crowd’s infectious excitement, nodding in response to his question.

“Sure. Never know when you might need a talented Potioneer to back you up. Fair warning that we’re bound to run into some trouble now and again, naturally.”

The thump of his heart became something wild and frantic, beating away beneath the hand she’d placed on his chest until he feared it, too, would simply explode. Gods, if they weren’t careful, he would wind up doing something massively stupid… or massively genius, depending on the results.

“As long as you’re there, I say bring it on,” Garreth beamed.

He could hardly believe his luck. She’d asked him to accompany her on her travels! That had to mean something, right?

Only one way to find out for sure…

“And would it be…er, just the two of us, or would Sebastian and Ominis and the rest of the crew be joining as well?”

Her eyes sparkled with recognition. “That depends on how you would feel about us traveling alone.”

”Would it be rather selfish of me to say that I’d love to have you to myself for a bit?”

“Probably…” her breath warmed his cheeks, though they were already burning hotter than a cauldron flame as Garreth became hypnotized by the way her teeth worried at her reddened lower lip. “But then I’d have to admit that I’m selfish, too.”

Now, that was a sign.

The last round of fireworks were utterly deafening, so Garreth had to lean in once again until the cold tips of their noses brushed to say, “Could I be even more of a self-serving bastard and ask you for one more thing?”

”Yes, you can — and yes to anything you want,” her lashes fluttered as her gaze dropped down to his slightly parted mouth.

“Anything?”

Garreth wasn’t one to ignore an opportunity when it arose. He took it and ran, gently placing his hand beneath her chin at the same moment his eyes slid shut and their lips brushed together with such a delicate touch that he shuddered. Then she took the lead, deepening the kiss with a wispy little sigh that had him weak at the knees and left him unable to form any solid thought but for how fucking incredible she tasted with the remnants of rich chocolate on her tongue.

When the two of them disconnected, the last sparks were fading from the sky, but they lived on in Garreth’s veins, popping and crackling like Fizzing Whizbees.

“See?” He murmured while still trying to catch his breath. “Didn’t disappoint you, did I?”

Her laughter bubbled up between them, brighter than any display. “You never disappoint, Garreth Weasley.”

Garreth had wondered before if he’d been made wrong; like one of his failed experiments with just a splash too much of the wrong thing. But perhaps — especially with someone like her to help keep him stable — some of the best things could come from the unpredictable and the unexpected.

He didn’t exactly find the missing ingredient…it had been there all along.

[himeofshyness]

𝙰𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝙵𝚒𝚎𝚕𝚍𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝙼𝚒𝚜𝚝𝚛𝚒𝚊 𝚄𝚙𝚍𝚊𝚝𝚎

[After countless side quests—gathering rare relics, artifacts, and questionable items,—casting complicated spells (including accidentally turning their cow blue for a week and setting a tree on fire), the Farmer finally frees Caldarus from his statue prison.]

Caldarus: *stands before them, now in human form, his dragon wings unfurled, horns glinting in the sunlight, and a tail lazily swishing behind him. The air practically hums with power.*

Farmer: *gawking, inner thoughts* Oh no. He’s hot. Like, "burn-down-my-crops" hot.

Caldarus: *stretching his wings, glancing at his hands with a satisfied grin* I’m finally free… after a thousand years. I can feel the wind again. *breathes deeply* No more being a glorified lawn ornament.

Farmer: *still staring* Uh-huh. Majestic. Totally majestic.

Caldarus: *turning to them with a charming smile* Truly, I owe you a debt I cannot hope to repay. Tell me, Farmer. What reward would suffice for freeing me?

Farmer: *already holding out a bouquet, a ring, and a chest full of their finest gold and jewels* Simple. Marry me.

Caldarus: *blinking, wings twitching in surprise* ...Pardon?

Farmer: Look, you’re tall, you have wings, horns and you practically radiate ‘mysterious ancient power.’ You expect me not to shoot my shot?

Caldarus: *staring at the offerings, then at the Farmer, tail flicking in amusement* You freed me from an ancient curse and your first thought was marriage?

Farmer: *nodding enthusiastically* Yup. Right here, right now. We can skip the long courting phase. I’ve got the ring, the flowers, and enough wealth to fund a honeymoon in every region of Mistria. Let’s go.

Caldarus: *crossing his arms, smirking* I see you’ve also conveniently ignored the thousand-year gap in life experience. I don’t even know what a 'honeymoon' is.

Farmer: Don’t worry, I’ll teach you. Lesson one: It involves a lot of cake and maybe—just maybe, romantic walks under the moonlight. Lesson two: you looking like that means I have no self-control.

Caldarus: *chuckling, wings rustling* Hmm. So bold. I do admire confidence in a mortal. But tell me, are you proposing because of my power… or my devastatingly good looks?

Farmer: *deadpan*...Yes.

Caldarus: *sighing, rubbing his temples as his tail sways* I suppose I should have expected this. You were always talking to my statue about your tragic love life.

Farmer: *shrugging* Hey, you gave great advice! Plus, you could’ve warned me that you were this attractive.

Caldarus: As a statue? Should I have etched a warning plaque? ‘Caution: Restoring this relic may result in intense attraction.’

Farmer: Honestly? It would’ve saved me a lot of emotional turmoil right now.

Caldarus: *snorts, wings twitching with amusement* And you believe a mere proposal is enough? Have you considered the implications? I am an immortal dragon guardian. Marriage is a… complicated matter.

Farmer: Pfft. You sound like you’re overthinking it. I mean, you’ve been stuck as a statue for a thousand years. Surely you’ve had time to think about settling down.

Caldarus: *deadpan* Yes. Clearly, I spent every waking moment contemplating wedding registries and floral arrangements.

Farmer: See? You’re a natural. I’ll handle the registry; you just show up looking majestic and vaguely dangerous.

Caldarus: *exasperated but amused, pacing with his tail flicking* Do you always leap into life-altering decisions without thought?

Farmer: Absolutely. Did you not hear the part where I accidentally turned my cow blue? Commitment issues? Never heard of them.

Caldarus: *pauses, glancing back with a raised brow* That… explains a great deal.

Farmer: Come on. We already have a history. Remember when I told your statue self about that embarrassing date with the cute blacksmith?

Caldarus: *groans dramatically, covering his face with one hand* Unfortunately, I do recall. You spoke for three hours.

Farmer: And yet you didn’t turn to dust. Clearly, we’re meant to be.

Caldarus: *peeking through his fingers, giving them a look* You are infuriating.

Farmer: But charmingly persistent.

Caldarus: *sighing, wings drooping slightly as he gives a reluctant smile* Persistent is one word for it.

Farmer: *grinning, stepping closer* So… is that a ‘yes’?

Caldarus: *arching a brow, giving them a slow, teasing look* Hmm. Tempting. But I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than showing up with shiny trinkets and reckless confidence.

Farmer: Wow. Harsh. After everything I did to free you?

Caldarus: *smirking, wings giving a playful flick* I am grateful. Truly. But I’ve been sealed for a thousand years. I’m hardly rushing into a binding contract with a mortal who once confessed they tried to romance a merchant for discount prices.

Farmer: *groans* Okay, first off, it was a strategic decision. Second, it didn’t work anyway. Third—!

Caldarus: *laughing now, warm and rich, shaking his head* Enough. Your desperation is amusing, but I need time to explore this world again. Perhaps if you prove yourself more… convincingly, we’ll revisit this conversation.

Farmer: *grinning smugly* Oh, you’re so into me.

Caldarus: *turning away, tail flicking with mock indifference* Keep telling yourself that, mortal.

Farmer: *calling after him* Don’t worry, I will! You will be mine!

Caldarus: *under his breath, smiling* ...Infuriating mortal indeed.

[mcuamerica]

The Shadowsinger: Seventeen

Warnings: 18+. Minors DNI. angst, Az is a bit of an asshole in this, mentions of parental abuse, mentions of death/grieving, fluff, canon level violence, ACOTAR series spoilers. If I forgot anything, please let me know!

Pairing: Azriel x Fem!Reader

Summary: You join the IC in their visit to Hewn City.

Disclaimer: I do not own SJM’s characters or plot lines, only the ones I create for the purpose of this story. This is a work of fiction. I do not give permission to repost my work on any other platform or medium. Please be respectful.

My graphics are my own. If you wish to use them, please give credit!

Series Masterlist

Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen - Sixteen

“Rhys wants you to join us at the Court of Nightmares.” Azriel said the next day during your breakfast. 

You looked up from your meal, glancing around at the Illyrians sitting around you. “You’re going to the Court of Nightmares?” You asked. 

“Yes… unfortunately. We’ll need to call in the Darkbringers soon… and we need something for the Queens.” He said. 

“Why does Rhys want me there?” You asked, moving around your food. The thought of going to the Court of Nightmares didn’t sit well with you. You might be able to handle the Illyrians… but the residents of Hewn City were different. You remember being stuck Under the Mountain, fashioned after the city. Your thoughts drifted to the horrors you went through there. If Under the Mountain was fashioned after it… 

Azriel rested a hand on your knee, low enough under the table the other Illyrians couldn’t see. He and the shadows sensed the direction of your thoughts. “Because you’re part of the Inner Circle now.” He said. “And you’re one of us. We would never let anything happen to you.” 

Your eyes shifted to his hand, the gentle squeeze he gave you grounding you back to reality. “I’m part of the Inner Circle?” You asked. 

“I’m pretty sure Rhys thinks of you as his sister, so yes.” He said, pursing his lips to hide his smile. 

“And what do you think of me as…” You asked, leaning closer to him. To hell with what the Illyrians thought. You were falling hard for the male next to you and if that made you weak… then so be it. 

Azriel studied your eyes, the smile finally slipping from his lips. “So much more.” He whispered, then leaned back. “Finish your meal. I have a surprise for you.” He said and stood up, squeezing your shoulder. “Meet me at the Far East training ring in ten minutes.” He said before walking out of the mess hall. 

You took a deep breath, shaking the thought of him from your mind as you finished your meal. In five minutes, you appeared at the training ring, seeing a smaller version of the qualifying course set up. “This is where the males practice before they officially try the course.” Azriel said. “Five laps for warm up, stretches, and then you’ll run this until you finish in under ten minutes.” He said. 

You bit your lips. “Powers at all?” You asked and he shook his head. “Only training weapons.” He said, nodding to the weapons rack. 

“When did you set this up?” You asked and started stretching out your arms and legs for the day. A flash of his head between your legs went through your mind and you turned away, studying the course. You couldn’t be distracted. 

“When you were still sleeping this morning.” He answered. 

He made you run the course all day, only breaking for lunch. By the end of it, you had finished it in 15 minutes. You couldn’t get past the large rock wall that was set up. How in the Cauldron Azriel dragged that over here, you couldn’t figure it out. Unless Rhys came over and transported it with his magic. 

You were sore and exhausted by the time night fall came, just in time for Rhys to walk into the cabin. Azriel looked up from where he was rubbing your shoulders. Your felt heat rise to your face, hoping Rhys wouldn’t say anything. Friends could give each other massages… 

“I see you two are on speaking terms now.” Rhys said and leaned against the table next to the door. “Did Azriel tell you about Hewn City?” He asked. 

You shifted and faced him, Azriel’s hands falling from your shoulders. His shadows came and swirled around your back instead, the cool sensations relaxing you further. “Yes… I’ll go.” You said. “He also told me you had Feyre go to the Weaver’s Cottage to retrieve a ring? Please don’t tell me you plan on proposing to her with it.” 

Rhys only smirked in response. “How’s training? You’re using your Siphon properly? Don’t need two?” He asked. 

You shook your head. “As powerful as I am, one training Siphon is enough. I can’t imagine what it was like when you and Cass were trying to use them.” You said, turning to face Azriel. 

Azriel shrugged, putting on that cool mask he wore almost all the time. “Anyway, I’m doing fine. When do we go to Hewn City?” You asked. 

“Tomorrow… you’ll be there so I can introduce you as the emissary to the Illyrians. It may come in handy when we’re in battle with the Darkbringers.” Rhys said. 

You hummed and took a shaky breath. “I don’t have anything to wear.” You said. You remembered what they wore in Hewn City and you definitely didn’t have anything close to their fashion. You weren’t sure you even wanted to wear that. If you were being shown as an emissary, you would need to be dressed as one of his court, not a warrior like Az or Cassian. 

“Amren will find you something… it might be revealing.” He said, looking at you for a few moments. You simply shrugged, knowing exactly what he meant. 

“I can handle it.” You said and smiled. “You want me back at the House tonight, I assume?” You asked. 

“Only if you want to come.” He said and you nodded, looking at Azriel as he stood up and held out a scarred hand. You took it and stood up slowly. “This one here had me running all day…” you said and nudged Azriel’s shoulder. Your wings were even sore. He refused to let you use them in the course. 

Rhys chuckled and held out a hand for both of you, quickly winnowing you above the house. You all glided into the balcony and you grabbed Azriel’s bicep to steady yourself. 

Amren did find a dress for you to wear. Well… dress was a strong word for the fabric. It had a tight fitting bodice, only covering your breasts, abdomen, and your underside, thankfully covering your rear. Other than that, it was completely sheer black material, with swirling designs that complimented your shadows. Mor helped you curl your hair and put some kohl on your eyelids. You knew it wasn’t as much as most of Hewn City, but you would fit in well enough. You were representing Rhysand’s Court. And you would do as good of a job as you could. 

You were glad to see Feyre, and she actually pulled you in for a hug. She had filled in all of her curves, you could tell she was sleeping better. She told you about her trip to the Weaver’s Cottage. And that she went to the Bone Carver in the Prison. Az hadn’t mentioned that. 

“Training with Cassian going well?” You asked as you slipped on the heels Mor gave to you. Her outfit for the Court was much more revealing than yours, but you knew she was playing a certain part. You may not agree with it, but you knew Rhys had a plan. You knew Feyre was meant to play a part while they went to get the Orb to show to the Queens. You were glad Rhys didn’t ask you to join them in the Mortal Lands.

“He really doesn’t let up.” Feyre said and you laughed. 

“You should try training with Az… he’s even worse. But I’ve heard Mor is the worst.” You said and smiled, standing up. “You need anything in Hewn City today… you let me know.” You said and squeezed her shoulder. 

She nodded and gave you a small smile. You went down to the living room and waited for the boys to come down. Instead, you saw Azriel step out from the shadows, staring intently at you. You were very aware of the lack of clothes. It was much different than your leathers. 

You couldn’t help but shift under his gaze, watching as he slowly stalked over to you. “You look… perfect.” He said, stopping so close to you that you had to look up. 

“Perfect for Hewn City or just perfect?” You asked, eyes wide as you stared into his own. 

“Both.” He rasped. 

You weren’t sure you could stand next to him this entire night if he was staring at you like that the whole time. Luckily he would slip in between the shadows to grab the Orb while you stayed with Cassian. You were also to be there as another distraction, similar to Feyre, but to serve as another female in the court. With you, hopefully they wouldn’t notice Az.

“I have a mission for you,” Rhys chipped in. He most definitely was in your mind. 

“Yes?” You asked, turning towards your High Lord. 

“I’m introducing Feyre and you… but Feyre has a different kind of job. Your job tonight is to show you are one of my warriors as well… so if anyone gets out of line… I’m going to give you permission to test out your new Siphon on them.” He said. 

Your eyes widened slightly. “You- you want me to hurt someone?” You asked. 

“You will have to do it eventually…” Rhys said. 

“They’ll deserve it.” Azriel said and you glanced towards him. 

“So I get to be your guard dog? A lackey?” You asked. “No… Rhys no. I was Amarantha’s Shadowsinger for too long. I- I can’t take orders… not like that. Not to hurt someone.” You said and shook his head. He always gave you a choice. He wouldn’t make you do it if you didn’t want to. 

“You can’t seriously think that someone in the Court of Nightmares is as innocent as the ones you hurt under her.” Azriel spoke up. It struck something in you. What did he know of the people you hurt… killed for her? Did he understand that at some point, you enjoyed it? When you were slowly torturing Illyrians that turned their backs on the Night Court, on their own families? Like that one male had done to you? Did he know that Amarantha made you stand and watch as she killed hundreds of children in the Winter Court? That you were the one to help the daemati slip in between the shadows? He didn’t know any of it. He couldn’t possibly understand.

You turned towards him, narrowing your eyes. “I will not be someone’s lackey. I will not hurt someone under another’s orders.” 

“Rhys is your High Lord. You will have to do it eventually.” He said. “What happens when someone threatens him? Or Feyre? Will you just stand by?” 

“That’s different.” You growled out. How could he expect you to just.. follow Rhys blindly. What if he asked you to harm someone that you didn’t want to hurt. What if he thought they were guilty when they weren’t? You trusted Rhys with your life. And he’s never led you wrong before. But that doesn’t mean you’ll follow him to no end. 

“Is it?” 

“I don’t take orders to harm others anymore.” You said firmly. 

“Some Illyrian you’re going to be…” He growled. 

Your heart dropped, looking at him for a moment. “What’s your problem?” You asked, narrowing your eyes. It was like all the progress you made these past two months went out the window. 

“Ready?” Feyre called from the stairs. You all turned towards her. You could smell the arousal that came from Rhys and you shoved him to the side. 

“Let’s go.” You ground out, watching as Mor and Cassian came down. The simmering rage that subsided these past few weeks was about to boil over. You took Mor’s hand, staying away from Azriel. Your skin was crawling at what he said. Some Illyrian… as if you can’t be a strong Illyrian and have your own principles. 

Mor glanced between the two of you and winnowed you to the Moonstone Palace atop Hewn City. 

Soon enough, you were waiting before the throne room with the rest of them. Rhys wanted to make a certain entrance. 

“Don’t be upset with him. Trips to Hewn City puts everyone on edge.” Rhys said in your mind. 

You glanced over to him and didn’t answer, but let the irritation show on your face. When he didn’t say anything, you shifted. “You’re my High Lord, I have to protect you.” You snapped back to him, still sensing him in your mind.  

“I’m your brother,” he said and you looked over to him. “By bond. Like Az and Cass are my brothers. You’re my sister. And you have no obligation to defend me if I don’t deserve it.” 

You looked at him for a few moments, frowning slightly. Flashes of Oran ran through your thoughts. He was your brother by bond… and he was dead. You couldn’t save him. What made you think you could save Rhysand, the most powerful High Lord you’ve ever heard of. But Rhys deserved you defending him. He’s given you a new life and you owed him everything. More than everything. 

“I’ll speak with you mind to mind if something happens. You tell me if you want to handle it or not.” He said, most likely seeing the same thing. You nodded to him as you watched the doors open. 

Once Rhys was seated with Feyre on his lap, Az disappeared to go get the Orb and you waited with Cassian. Your wings were stretched out as much as his, and your official Siphon was displayed on your left hand. It was a dark purple, your killing power swirling inside of it. Your shadows swirled around you, as if protecting you from the eyes of the people. You almost wished you were in ironclad armor like Cassian was. It would make you look a lot less like a side piece and more like the warrior Rhys wanted you to seem. Why did he have you dress like this when he also wanted you to be his warrior? You know it was for distraction, but you wondered if it would’ve caused too much uproar to have a female here in armor. 

You stood next to Rhys and Feyre once they got up. You heard what Keir said to Feyre: you’ll get what’s coming to you, whore. 

At that moment, Rhys asked you mind-to-mind to restrain Keir. You didn’t need another moment to think about it. Maybe it was Hewn City indeed putting you on edge. But you knew it was to protect Feyre. She was your friend. She saved you. And you wouldn’t let someone like Keir get away with calling her a whore. 

You put out your hand, your power swirling around him until he was on his knees. Your shadows did the rest and held his hands behind him. You might have instructed them to go just a little tighter than necessary. He wasn’t getting out but that didn’t mean you wouldn’t inflict a little pain. Did he not understand that Feyre was the one who saved all of you?

Rhys ordered Keir to apologize, and when he didn’t, he began breaking bones. You were happy to watch. Mor told you what he did to her. And insulting Feyre… you would’ve gladly broken his bones. But this was Rhys’s right. This was his mate he was defending. 

You saw Feyre sink closer to Azriel and Cassian while you kept Keir restrained. You let go, watching as he fell to the ground. 

You walked over to Az, Cass, and Mor. You took Mor’s hand, letting her winnow you and Cassian back to the House. 

You changed into your fighting leathers quickly, not wanting to stay in the dress much longer. You didn’t want to even think about Azriel coming to see you in your bedroom. In that dress. Especially after what he said to you. 

You needed to let off some steam, especially after seeing the Court of Nightmares. So much of it reminded you of Under the Mountain. It was much worse, but the memories it dragged up… you couldn’t just go to sleep. 

You ran a few laps around the ring, then started using the weights to do warm ups. As you worked, your thoughts drifted to your family in Valorworth, how your father used to beat you. How you were never good enough for him. You thought of Sirona and Igna, how you knew they would have protected Oran that final night when the fire roared through the camp. You eventually picked up a training sword, letting out all your thoughts into the wooden post. 

Your shadows told you that Azriel was in the stairwell before you heard his feet. The fact that you heard him made you aware that he wanted you to know he was there. “What?” You asked, striking the post with your training sword again. 

“Are you okay?” He asked. 

“I don’t know. Would a real Illyrian be okay after that?” You ground out, dropping your sword to the ground as you looked over to him. “Because I clearly am not. I guess you were right. I’m not a real Illyrian. I have emotions and principles and I won’t just blindly kill and hurt if it isn’t right.” You said, stalking over to him. “I won’t allow another high powered person to tell me to kill. To force me to tell them secrets. And I certainly won’t let anyone else let me feel smaller because of it.” You said, stopping not even a foot away from him. Your chests were almost touching. 

“Sounds like a real Illyrian to me.” He said and you pushed him back. His eyes widened and you clenched your fists. 

“I’m glad that you think so. Because I don’t care.” You did care. A lot. “Because your opinion means nothing to me.” It did. “Not when you insult me for standing up for myself.” That was true. 

“I-“

“No, you don’t get to talk. You don’t get to apologize. You doubted me.” You said, arms dropping to your sides. “You didn’t think that I would defend Rhys. Feyre. You- Do you have such little faith in me?” You asked. You failed your family before. You weren’t going to let it happen again. 

Azriel stayed silent, only walking over to you slowly. “I’m sorry.” He whispered. “I won’t justify what I said. I have some issues I clearly need to work out… but (Y/N)….” He tilted your head up. Tears were welling in your eyes. Why did his opinion mean so much to you? Why were you so frustrated? “You are the strongest female I know. And I have all the faith in the world in you. You’d go to any end to protect your family. To protect us…” he said, wiping away a stray tear. 

“I couldn’t protect them.” You whispered, your throat catching. 

“You did everything you could.” He replied, knowing exactly who you were talking about. You fell apart, a sob releasing as you cried into his chest. His arms wrapped around you, both of your shadows swirling to comfort you as well. He repeated himself, rubbing your back just under your wings as you cried. You couldn’t save your mother. You couldn’t save Sirona, Igna, or Oran. And the one person you thought would understand that doubted you today. If anything, you thought Azriel would understand that you didn’t want to keep doing the dirty work of a High Lord. Even if it was Rhys. 

Azriel promised himself to never doubt you again. He knew you would do whatever you could to keep them safe. Above all else, he knew that you would have more trouble forgiving yourself than you would anyone else. But Azriel would always be there to pick you back up, and put you back together.

A/N: Moving the story along...

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[acourtofthought]

It really bothers me in ACOWAR how Feyre is near constantly looking for an underlying motivation when it comes to Lucien and his behavior towards Elain.

When she reads his mind in the library, she is genuinely surprised that he's actually concerned for Elain's well-being and isn't secretly concocting a plan.

She herself is mated. She fully understands how the mating bond can make you feel in regard to your mates well-being yet she has trouble believing that Lucien could feel that way towards Elain? It's ridiculous.

Also, the fact that everyone is constantly eyeing Lucien, waiting for a betrayal. Now, I'm not saying Lucien isn't capable of being cunning/sneaky. As Rhys said, he chose that fox mask for a reason, but the double standard of it all drives me insane! Rhys tells Lucien that he and the Inner Circle aren't exactly as rumors suggest, yet they are all consistently judging Lucien as a Vanserra even when he has proved over and over again that he's rejected his family/their ways and mindset.

This is not meant to sound Anti Feyre because I do like Feyre, I just don't think everything necessarily revolves around Feyre so in regards to what you're talking about, I agree.

In much of ACOWAR, Feyre was projecting her anger at Tamlin onto Lucien. Even if you're someone who thinks Lucien should have done more for Feyre at the start of ACOMAF (something I personally disagree with), none of it meant Lucien was a bad guy. He was never out to manipulate Feyre, in fact it was the other way around. Rhys manipulated every single court into believing he was a villain, that anyone who stepped foot into his territory would either be tortured and lose their mind, or killed and that drove much of Lucien and Tamlin's behavior when it came to trying to help free Feyre from Rhys. Then when Feyre returned to Spring, she continued pushing that narrative, even alluding to the fact that Rhys may have sexually assaulted her. She purposely used Lucien in her schemes to make Tamlin jealous knowing that Tamlin mistreated Lucien. She purposely used Lucien in her schemes to make Ianthe jealous knowing that Ianthe had sexually assaulted him. There is a HUGE difference between someone who struggled to stand up to someone in power on behalf of another because they themselves are also being abused and someone who actively plots to use someone in their revenge (which Feyre did with Lucien). So her being untrusting of Lucien's motivations toward Elain are almost laughable when Lucien has never purposely set out to hurt any female in his life whereas Feyre has set out to hurt others. I also think Feyre held Lucien to unfair expectations after UTM (and an unfair grudge toward him once she left for the NC) as she failed to realize that there were bigger things going on than her being locked in a house by Tamlin. That is NOT to say it wasn't a big deal that he stuck her in there and didn't want her to train, of course those things were determinantal to her mental health and well being but when you look at the things that were actually going on in Prythian? How Springs people were struggling to figure out how to live again after being locked away for 50 years? When there were really dangerous monsters threatening the safety of those people? When Lucien himself was also tortured UTM yet was still expected to be Tamlin's right hand man while also trying to keep Tamlin from falling apart? While he himself was being threatened by Tamlin while Feyre also expected him to do more for her? Feyre was struggling so she pinned it on Lucien to be the one to make it better for her with Tamlin and I don't agree with that when Lucien had way too much on his plate already. Feyre was Tamlin's fiance for goodness sakes, she should have been the one to stand up to him and if that didn't work than she should have told him she didn't want to marry him. She should not have expected Lucien to fight her battles for her. Rhys could focus on Feyre because he didn't need to worry about helping his people find their footing again after being locked away for 50 years as Velaris was protected during that time. He didn't need to worry that Feyre was being held captive by another HL who was notorious for torturing innocents. While Feyre was busy healing and falling in love, this is what Lucien was going through:

Lucien: “You don’t understand the mess we’re in, Feyre. We—I need you home. Now.”

Feyre: I didn’t want to hear it

Lucien: “You have no idea how volatile those first few months were,” Lucien snapped. “We needed to present a unified, obedient front, and I was supposed to be the example to which all others in our court were held.”

Lucien: “He was frantic. The scholars at the Day Court worked too slowly. I begged him for more time, but you’d already been gone for months. He wanted to act, not wait—despite that letter you sent. Because of that letter you sent. I finally told him to go ahead with it after—after that day in the forest.”

Lucien: “You saw your room. He trashed it, the study, his bedroom. He—he killed the sentries who’d been on guard. After he got the last bit of information from them. He executed them in front of everyone in the manor.”

Feyre: My blood chilled. “You didn’t stop him.”

Lucien: “I tried. I begged him for mercy. He didn’t listen. He couldn’t listen.”

Lucien was dealing with some major things in Spring while Feyre was falling in love. Yet when she returned to Spring for her revenge, she chose only to focus on how she felt wronged and not what Lucien had gone through, had been going through. She felt Lucien should have done more for her instead of acknowledging that Lucien was doing a lot for a lot of people and nobody was doing anything to help him. So rather than respecting that he was also struggling with everything that had happened in Spring, rather than caring that he was shocked by the reveal that Elain was his mate, rather than remembering that he had been sexually assaulted and was extremely embarrassed by it, she chose to believe he had bad intentions when it came to Elain, treated him like he did at first and that's pretty disappointing.

[fuckyeselucien]

Creator Highlight #19 - @infinitefolklore

Welcome back to Elucien Creator Highlights!! We want to take a moment to recognize the amazing individuals in our fandom who kindly use up so much of their free time and creative energy to share their work with us! 

Today we'd like to highlight @infinitefolklore! This author has blessed us with so much incredible Elucien content, with a talent for exploring their relationship in a number of different canon settings. From daring rescues in the Continent to heated flirting in a Dawn Court ballroom, it's easy to say that infinitefolklore has added so much depth to the world of Prythian and the ways Elucien's story could fit into it!

Below are some of our favorite ofinfinitefolklore's Elucien works, but you’ll want to read all their fics on AO3, HERE!

Solstice Traditions

Lucien comes to the River House on Winter Solstice eve with another gift for Elain. He is pleasantly surprised by her reaction.

A Little Bit of Light Reading

Elain is all alone at the Town House and Lucien makes a surprise appearance. They decide to "explore the mating bond," but for how long can they keep it a secret? And what happens when the Inner Circle starts meddling in their business?

Okay so this fic has been going on for much longer than I intended, but I love the drama! It was MEANT to be very little plot, mostly fluff, smut, angst, drama, shenanigans, and banter. But now its getting a little heavier with plot and angst because the characters are in charge not me.

In The Darkness Before the Dawn, Leave a Light On

Elain is sent to the Mortal Lands to live with Lucien, Jurian, and Vassa to work on her Seer abilities, find a way to break Vassa's curse, and try to discover information about Koschei. Elain and Lucien are forced to live and work together, and get to know one another along the way.

Want to nominate someone? Fill out the form HERE.

[vraisetzen]

Can I make a request on kokushibo? I would like a headcanon about his ideal partner or romantic/sexual setting. Your writing is beautiful and inspiring! Take your time and rest well, have a good day!

𝑲𝒐𝒌𝒖𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒃𝒐: 𝑯𝒊𝒔 𝑰𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒍 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒏𝒆𝒓; 𝑹𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒆𝒙

Author's Note: Thanks for the request, Anon! This was really fun to write — I've always had personal headcanons about Kokushibo and his ideal partner, and how he would behave in a romantic/sexual setting, so it's nice to finally write them down!

Tags: NSFW, 18+, Descriptions of sex (but not PWP)

Kokushibo's Ideal Partner

A dignified, fearsome, and authoritative demon of few words, Kokushibo is shrouded in mystery, and even when he chooses to speak, his words and actions are careful and deliberate, betraying nothing personal.

Bearing this in mind, it can be easy for many to assume that Kokushibo — tall, dark, handsome — would seek a partner similar to him. A femme fatale type, if you will; someone confident, alluring, and radiating as much mystique and sex appeal as he does. After all, we are drawn to those most like us, and Kokushibo is attracted to power and ambition.

But it is worth remembering that the human parts of Kokushibo informed his psyche as much as his demon self. A charming, glamorous lover might pique his interest for a night or two, but as a former samurai of the Sengoku period, what Kokushibo desires is someone stitched along a more traditional cut of cloth: a quiet, gentle soul who belies a firm determination and resilience.

Still, Kokushibo is not merely looking for a Yamato Nadeshiko — he does not seek subservience in a partner, nor does he want them to blindly follow his words. In fact, Kokushibo would very much prefer someone who can stand up for themselves, even to him. Because dominant though he may be, Kokushibo enjoys the push-and-pull of proving himself and his place in a relationship, the hard-sought feeling of satisfaction when he knows he has won over his dearest's heart — and this will not be possible if they were too soft on him.

In that vein, Kokushibo's ideal partner should also be someone who is his intellectual equal. They need not share the same interests, but they need to be competent in their knowledge of the arts — from classical literature and poetry, to history, and painting. At the very least, they should express a curosity for the traditional arts and its refinement, for there is nothing more he finds disagreeable than superficiality, or an unwillingness to better oneself.

At the same time, Kokushibo recognises hard work and determination; consider the respect he had for Akaza, or the other Hashiras he fought — while they may not possess his strength and abilities, he finds their resolve remarkable. It should thus follow that he would desire a partner who is uncompromising and displays an inner steadfastness.

And he finds beauty in the tiniest of details too; Kokushibo's dearest may not be the most attractive (though it would certainly be a positive if they were so), but a certain features of theirs: the creases in the corners of their eyes when they smiled, the gasp they made when they are pleasantly surprised, or the softness in their gaze as they watched children gathering around a candy vendor during the summer festival.

It is precisely for these moments of rare beauty that Kokushibo enjoys making his dearest happy through small gestures of affection: it could be a quick peck on the cheek in public when no one else is looking, or perhaps a surprise gift of books, kanzashi, or hand-spun candy when he passes a store and imagines the look of surprise and the gleam in their eyes when his dearest receives them.

Romance and Sex:

In all, Kokushibo isn't prone to grand gestures of affection; this was how he courted you too. Quiet though he may be, Kokushibo was not easily daunted. The moment he was certain of his affection for you, all he did was seek the right moment to tell you how he felt. He would not go about the cliched manner of declaring his feelings beneath a cherry blossom tree, or wax lyrical in a long-winded letter. Rather, he would be quite composed and formal — after all, he had already done this before as a human — preferring to confessing his feelings while you sat across him, expressing his desire for courting you in the clearest terms.

(And you, so besotted by his intensity, the uncompromising manner with which he carried himself — there was no mistaking his sincerity for a fling or dalliance; while he cannot, and would not promise you the world or its wordly riches, what he would give you in its stead would be himself).

Once your courtship began, he would prefer to show his love through simple deeds: a quiet night spent beneath the stars, long walks along winding paths where there is no one else save for the rustling of trees and the skitter of nocturnal creatures. He could spend hours in silence, basking in the joy of being by your side, or if you wished, a long, meandering conversation about the songbirds of the season, and how they complemented the blossoms that dotted the branches of the trees that hung above you.

Occasionally, he may enjoy a picture show with you; you may grab his hand in fright at a thrilling action sequence, which brings him amusement and a slight hint of pleasure, for he enjoys returning the gesture in reassurance, his palm resting softly on your arm. Wasn't it exciting! you would exclaim, after the film was over and you two had streamed out of the theatre. Kokushibo had little to comment, for he had been too distracted by the sights of those lights flickering across your features, eyes alit with wonder.

At the very beginning, Kokushibo would take things slowly — a soft cradle of your cheek here, a hand on your lower back to guide you down the streets. He did not wish to frighten you by going in too strongly; although if you showed a desire for something more, he would not hesitate to give you everything. Afterall, the push and pull of romance was very much akin to the footwork of swordsmanship — one needed to know when to charge forth and when to pull back; and in that arena, Kokushibo was a master.

But when you did show him that you were ready for something heavier and darker, Koksuhibo would be more than happy to show you what it was exactly he had amassed in those four hundreds years: between the sheets, Kokushibo would be a dominant partner, proud of his experience and the pleasures he could give you. If you were inexperienced, he would be a generous teacher, guiding you to understand the joys of the flesh; if you were experienced, he would delight in surpassing every lover you had before him through skill alone.

Ever a traditionalist, Kokushibo would be partial towards a missionary position; he enjoyed, most of all, the expressions you made as he made love to you. The flush which radiated across your cheeks and suffused your neck and chest, the tense grip of your fingers on his shoulders, the tremble of your thighs while he moved inside you — here, he would have a front row seat to your performance; a much more riveting cinema than the picture shows that you enjoyed. He would remember the manner you called out his name, the breathless hitch of your voice as he railed inside you, coaxing himself deeper with every thrust; in the privacy of your coupling he cherished each response you gave him into memory — one he would revisit with his hand should you be unable to fulfil his needs at the present moment (though he would always seek to find you first).

On the occasion you decide to hold the reins, Kokushibo would not mind you straddling him either; he need not move much while he laid below you, observing the wanton pleasure glazing over your eyes while you rode him, head thrown back as your hips found his again and again. His hand would find rest on waist, caressing the soft flesh of your body and cupping your breast in his palm. The impatient stuttering of your hips would grow erratic as you neared your climax, your cries long since incoherent and more akin to the mewls of a helpless creature. Your knees would lock around his sides, hands finding purchase on his chest when you finally hit your peak, your sex throbbing along his length as you rode out your pleasure — persistently at first, before becoming clumsier as your body sparked with oversensitivity. Spent, you would lie supine against him, your breath shallow as exhausten overtook you, hair clinging to the slick sheen of sweat over your forehead.

Still, Kokushibo was not someone with a lot of kinks; he would indulge in something a little different once in a while — a bit of choking, a bit of bondage (mainly tying you up by the wrists and watching you struggle as he teased you little by little with his hands and tongue, going from your pert nipples and down between your legs), a bit of degradation — especially if his dearest asked for it, but he would loathe to see her in distress, even if it were consensual. To him, sex was something sacred and profound, to be partaken with utmost respect; and your body, to that end, was a temple of pleasure to which he devoted himself with conscientious duty.

And that was the philosophy in which Kokushibo carried himself in regard to love — with firm conviction and uncompromising devotion. In the same manner that he dedicated himself to the ways of the sword, he treated the affairs of the heart and flesh with care and precision; indeed, to be Kokushibo's better half (and he would not shy away from the use of this term, because he truly believed that his dearest would complete him in aspects where he was imperfect) would be to share his heart, body, and soul — inasmuch as he would have certainly stolen yours.

[vivi-snow]

PLEASE LET ME GO

Gojo Satoru x f! reader

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧••Summary: You had enough of Satoru’s teasing antics. He didn’t realize that you were actually hurting.

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧••Reminders: teasing, high school setting, popular student! Gojo,

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧••a/n: this is a complete draft. No edits, no proofing. Sorry in advance for the mistakes and for the terrible English since it’s not my first language. Also, this is my first time writing emotionally so idk if it’s good.

Word count: 1.5k

╚⏤⏤⏤╗🌺╔⏤⏤⏤╝╚⏤⏤⏤╗🌺╔⏤⏤⏤╝╚⏤⏤⏤╗🌺╔⏤⏤⏤╝

It has always been like this. Whenever yours and Satoru’s paths cross, he would seize the opportunity to make fun of everything you have.

Over time, your insecurities become more severe. Every outfit you wear, every book you read, every activity you do, he always has something negative to say about it. Every time you report his behaviors to the teachers, he would act all innocent and insist it was a joke.

     “hey!” his voice pierced through your ears the moment you heard it. You paid no attention as you read your book on the basketball court trying not to retaliate.

“Hey!!!” his voice sounded closer than it was before. His footsteps echoed throughout the court, even though your whole class was there, he just had to pick you to annoy.

“Watcha’ readin’?” he yanked the book from you and decided to look at it. He’s not even reading the book. He’s just flipping through the pages as he’s trying to get a reaction from you.

You rolled your eyes in irritation and took the book from him. You gathered up your belongings and prepared to leave the court when he gripped your wrist tightly, stopping you from your tracks and almost making you fall from imbalance.

“What’s the rush? I’m just trying to communicate with you.” He lowered his sunglasses a bit and anticipated your reaction.

You noticed your whole class has been staring at the both of you- some even whispering. If there’s one thing you hate the most, it’s gossip and rumors spreading. You can’t even defend yourself with it because people see it as an excuse, and this very situation you’re in, is a perfect breeding ground for it.

You tried pulling your hand, you tried shaking it, you even tried loosening his grip by using your other hand. He won’t budge, and he is still looking at you with those eyes.

Those damn blue eyes.

He started walking towards the exit door, his hand still gripping your wrist, you were forced to follow him since you had no escape.

     “Satoru!!!” a voice called. “Where are you going?” Suguru asked from a distance.

“On a date!” Satoru answered with a mischievous smile.

Suguru replied with the same smile and continued his dribbling. It seemed he couldn’t care less about the situation.

     Satoru walked outside the court and into the hallways of the school, his hand still gripping your wrist. The whispers of your class slowly faded as you went farther from the court. As you both were walking around the empty halls of the school, he found an empty classroom and you both entered there. He placed you on one of the chairs and he closed both doors, ensuring that no one is able to hear from the outside.

As you were stuck in the room with the most annoying person in the class, he was walking in circles around you, his hands in his pockets, his shirt unbuttoned, revealing his inner garment.

You didn’t look up at him, you already knew he was grinning at you as he walked around, so why bother?

He was laughing the whole time. He wanted to know how long you could put up with your silent treatment.

     “I’m surprised you made it this long princess.” He stated. “It kinda hurts me if I don’t get to hear your sweet voice.”

he heard you sobbing after that and decided to provoke you even more.

“You cryin’?” he teased.

You shook your head in response. Annoyance was expected, but an unwelcome emotion- fear, was added to the turmoil of emotions within you.

You were crying, you just didn’t wanna show him. But that sob earlier gave him a clue.

You spoke something to him that he didn’t quite understand.

     “Huh? What was that?” He cupped his hand behind his ear. “Speak clearly princess.” He ordered.

     “What” you paused. “Did I do to deserve this?”

You stood up and wiped your tears with your forearm, looking up at him as the tears didn’t seem to stop rolling down your face.

 ‘Stop crying… please…’ you reminded yourself.

Your shaking breaths are loud enough for him to hear. You pushed him away as you wiped your tears again.

     “Please Gojo… Stop this…” “Please let me go…” “I’ve had enough…” “It hurts… so much…”

This is when he realized it’s actually a serious matter.

     “You… didn’t like it?” He asked, genuinely this time.

You shook your head in response as you turned around, avoiding eye contact with him.

     “I’m…sorry” He responded.

It was too late of an apology now, he had already ruined your self-image. You can hear his footsteps walking toward you.

A wave of dizziness washed over you, everything seemed to spin. You gasped for air as your lungs were strained from the invisible weight that pressed down on your chest. Your legs were wobbling like jelly, unstable and unreliable. The whole room was like a ship deck rolling on a strong current.

     “Hey, are you okay?” he asked.

 You tried to balance yourself by holding on to a table, you felt suffocated. And then, you collapsed. You fell to a somewhat hard surface, and even hear a sound that resembles a heartbeat. Everything was pitch-black. All you can hear is a faint sound of him panicking, a voice whose words aren’t clear enough for you.

     After what seemed like an eternity of catching your breath, you were finally able to open your eyes and breathe in a stable way.

The first thing you notice is that the room is surrounded by curtains. You flickered your eyes to see clearly, and you weren’t dreaming, you ended up in one of the clinic beds. You got up, and there he was.

Satoru Gojo, resting by the edge of your bed facing down with his forearm below his forehead.

He seemed to be sleeping, and you tried not to disturb him as you tried to find out how much time had passed since, but he felt your feet move and immediately grabbed your ankle.

He raised his head and turned towards you, eyes flickering as he cleared his vision.

“Oh… you’re awake,” he stated, his hand still gripping your ankle.

You gently shook your ankle to remind him to let go, to which he did.

     “How long has it been?” you asked him.

     “Hmmmmm,” he checked his phone. “Four hours since you were taken here.” He replied. “Class ended twelve minutes ago.”

“Oh, What’s it about? The class I mean,”

“I didn’t take it. Someone had to watch you.”

“Oh. I’m… sorry,”

Satoru chuckled at your response.

“I had Suguru record the lecture. I’ll send it to you later.”

You smiled in response.

It was the first time he saw you smile. His face was warm and red as if he was inflated with blood.

After you had recovered, he took you home. As your parents waited outside to see you, they noticed a car stopping at your house.

After they confirmed it was you stepping out, they quickly ran towards you and gave you a big, warm hug.

They bombarded you with questions. “Are you okay now?” “Do you need some water?” “Do you need to rest?”

     They notice Satoru standing outside the car. Your parents went towards him and bowed down in gratitude.

     “Thank you, child,” They spoke in unison.

     “Oh, it was nothing Ma’am, Sir,” He responded.

You went to see him again to thank him.

“Thanks for the ride,” you smiled. “Get home safe,”

He waved goodbye to you and went on his way.

Ever since that encounter, he never teased you again.

     At a school party, everyone tried to get close to the duo. You can see from a distance just how much their presence alone made the room filled with fun noises.

You were enjoying your alone time when screaming noises slowly filled the area you were in. A hand grabbed your book, but it didn’t yank it out of you.

  “Hey,” a voice spoke.

It was Satoru, and behind him were the other students looking at you.

You looked at the students, then you looked at him. understanding the message, he turned around to look at the students. He then grabbed your hands and intertwined them with his.

The students saw this and immediately backed away. He laughed in response.

He then glanced at you with a sweet smile, not letting go of your hand.

     “Come with me to the school park,” he stated.

Suguru noticed the both of you holding hands and heading outside.

“Hey, Satoru!!!” He yelled. “Where are you guys goin’?” He asked.

“On a date!” Satoru yelled back.

He took you to one of the parks with high tables that you can’t even sit on.

He noticed your struggle and placed his hands on your waist as he lifted you to the table to sit on.

He looked up at you with puppy eyes, anticipating a reaction.

Your face was red as his hands were still gripping your waist. You ruffled his hair as you smiled at him.

“Hey,” He called.

“Hmmm?”

“I kinda like you,” He confessed.

You didn’t expect this at all. Your heart starts to beat faster as you try to make sure you hear those words right.

You cupped your hands on his face and slowly lowered your head. You kissed his forehead in response.

“Is that another way of teasing?” you asked.

He smirked at you in response. He quickly kissed your cheek.

“Maybe.”

[littlest-w01f]

Lady Bloodshed

Cassian x Assasin!OC (Kiera)

CASSIAN MASTERLIST

MAIN MASTERLIST

Summary: She was the deadliest assassin in the Night Court, someone who could do anything for the right amount. Her newest mission was to take down the general of Night Court, but something held her back once she was face-to-face with him

Cw: Suggestive MDNI

part one - part two - part three

The Court of Nightmares was silent, hushed whispers flowed in the air, the clicks of heels sounded, and the owner of those heels smiled at the people who skittered away at the closeness with her, she stood in front of the diaz where the High Lord sat, his inner circle surrounding him.

"Happy winter solstice, My lord." Kiera bowed in greeting, her red glittering dress flowing perfectly down her toned body, the bodice sticking to her upper body like a second skin, gold and diamonds decorating her neck, shoulders and arms, a tiara on her head, a deep blood red siphons on the back of both her hands, her hair was half up in a bun and the rest flowed down to her hips.

"Kiera," The High Lord said strained, "It is a surprise to see you here, lady."

Lady. Lady Bloodshed. The subtle title made her smirk, "It usually is, my lord. Can't a female enjoy a party?" She raised her brow at him, Rhysand knew she wouldn't cower to him, he had stopped trying years ago.

"Of course, you can." His voice didn't match his words, she could see the gears in his head turning, trying to figure out what she was up to. She took that as her leave and moved to the table set up with different types of wine, taking a chalice and drinking deep.

She felt someone approach her before they could even get within arms reach of her. She spun around a knife that was in her bodice now that the male's throat.

Cassian raised his hands in surrender, his own glass of wine in hand, a deep chuckle leaving his lips, "Now, now, my lady, I'm just here to introduce myself to the female called my darker half."

Introduce, because they weren't the same people they were while they were faelings.

"Of course," Kiera smiled, setting her knife back to her bodice in a way that Cassian couldn't figure out, "Lord of bloodshed."

"In the flesh," Cassian smirked, his siphons glowing red with a slight pride in them.

Kiera turned away from him to walk but Cassian followed, "Did Rhysand ask you to babysit me? I think we stopped that years ago."

The four of them had been friends, her, Rhysand, Cassian and Azriel, they had been close, but now they were merely familiars. She had taken the counterpart of his title after she had left the adoptive brothers, as an insult or to use as an extension, she couldn't decide.

Cassian gave her a grin, "Well, Rhysand thinks whoever you are here to kill might just be under out noses."

Right under your nose. She didn't say. She was here to assassinate him, Cassian, the general of Rhysand's armies, Lord of bloodshed. But he bathed in blood during war, she had grown up around it.

"Well, whoever poor sod it is, should feel lucky they are under the High Lord's protection." Kiera chuckled, letting him walk with her.

"So, would you like to dance, my lady?" Cassian asked curiously, a smile still playing on his lips as he offered her his hand.

She looked at his hand, she needed him vulnerable if she were to take his life, so she agreed.

Perhaps it was a mistake, to accept his offer. Kiera thought as he twirled her the music, the rest of the inner circle had also joined in on the drinking and dancing under the eyes of their High lord.

Cassian and Kiera were shamelessly using the dancing as an excuse to feel each other up, two hundred years, it had been two hundred years since the last time they had met. Cassian had changed a lot physically, a lot more than she had, and she did not pass up the opportunity to feel his biceps from over his clothes.

They danced in the middle of the halls, Cassian's hands held her tightly, feeling up her waist and hands, a smirk on his lips as he couldn't help but note how much smaller her hand was in his.

She tried to ignore the feeling of his hands feeling up her body, the teasing smile that formed on his face as he brought her in closer, "For someone with such a feared background, I thought you would've gotten taller. At least you are a little more muscular."

"Oh, Cassian, you know what they say about small packages..." Kiera rolled her eyes at that, trying to not let the fact that she had to tilt her chin up to even see him get to her. "We carry more of a punch."

Cassian twirled her around so she was pressed chest to back to him, his hands feeling on her waist, then she realised, he was looking for where she hid her knives. "Well, this package here isn't small in any sense. Never really has been. Still has the same punch though."

"Is it always sexual innuendos with you, Cassian?" She inhales sharply, feeling something poke her at the base of her spine.

"Not just innuendo, my sweetheart." She could feel his hands inching towards her breasts as he leaned down to whisper. "I could show it to you really well."

Hours. It had been hours of them simply dancing and having their back and forth. Teasing touches all over, Kiera found her hands playing with the base of his wings, teasing the membranous wings that he carried, hence the hardness she felt pressed against her now.

She turned around to look at him, her hand once again tracing the thick membrane of his wing, both their eyes dark in lust as Cassian growled, "I'm taking you home, my sweetheart, sorry, my lady bloodshed."

Kiera smirked, he had given her a chance to pull away, but she reached up on her tiptoes, licking across his lips when something in him snapped as he gripped her tightly in his arms and flew her up and out of Hewn City, the scent of their arousal making the other crazy as it coated the air.

{Cassian Taglist: @novalovi}

[emmaofnormandy]

~A Medieval Tale: The Rogue & His Lady. Part II~

Plot: Y/N is a damsel who captures the heart of a rogue, misunderstood prince named Aegon Targaryen in 14th century England… with no civil war to disarray the family.

It’s fluffy, very mediæval like; smut; long post.

(+21)

***

Even sun sets in paradise.

Clouds rumble in the skies, a sign of storm, a bad omen to all those who fear the ire of the divine. Many were the peaceful years of King Viserys’s reign. Some would incline to judge this monarch as fool, others, wise, good even.

Whatever epithet this king deserves, it goes to wind, blown away by the first evidences that peace is yet to be supplanted by something worse. What might that be… is yet to be found out.

With the sun eclipsed, new events are setting stage. Aegon and you are forced to be apart by these circumstances and you fear to remain a shadow in his memory, praying to the divine that he does not forsake you .

On his part, this redeemed prince has renewed his vows to you. But he’d come to find that easier is said than done for his attentions are required elsewhere. Demons are coming out to reclaim his soul and he’s the target of evil again.

Indeed, to be surrounded by such creatures requires an inner strength that a fragile faith cannot knock down. Here, Aegon finds difficult to shake ‘em off.

Oh why Lord hast thou forsaken me?

Masking his pain, his porcelain skin turns to ivory. Sweet Prince is now a king… who faces the opposition of partisans who threaten to replace him with Rhaenyra.

Where there is smoke, there is flame. And someone might get burnt.

You, despite yourself, feel inclined to let be consumed by these unnatural flames.

Already pained by how politics are preventing one to find the other, you swallow your pride and discreetly search for him.

Aegon is found in secretive talks to Lord Daeron, his brother and councilor, who thinks best to marry off his sister in order to prevent political troubles that could arise in her state— and none seems to suspect, though, that the Lady Rhaenyra is holding the reigns of her life by taking her own uncle, Lord Daemon Targaryen, as her husband.

How bold, the scandalized court would whisper.

Part of shadows, you are invisible to the eyes of men—and to those of the women, too. For who are you if not part of a nobility that few are familiar with? Your family possessions may give them some credit, but no name, no blood, nothing… could commend you to His Grace.

The tentacles of the Devil hereby try to persuade you of your insignificance, thus trying to work against the designs of the Cupid by pushing you away from him, the one your heart desires.

To the most pious, though, this is read as an announcement of a heavenly battle for two lost souls. Which one is going to be the victor?

One could only pray to fight away such impertinent demons…

But a soul when linked to the other is prompted to recognize its other significant half… regardless the crowd that tries to part them.

Which means to say that His Grace’s lilac eyes find the y/c eyes of yours. So lost. Plagued by this intermittent chaos.

In silence, screaming for the lover stolen.

“Lady Y/N!”

The stunned group of councillors, and here his relatives are included, follow the cause of the king’s disrupted distress.

To many, the evident surprise in their faces when seeing it is you the very reason why Aegon II is more concerned to a damsel than politics may lead to that old superstition, understood as a sort of common sense, which places the blame of wrongs in women… simply because they are not obeying the natural orders.

Regardless, spotlight is on. The Cupid dances, the Devil threatens. Fate is about to play deadly its cards.

“I could not reach out for you. I pray you forgive me for being…”

Even if staying at the center of this stage is something you do not wish for, it is too late to storm out. Your destiny escapes your hands, it’s been woven by the divine. This is all you know.

“Do not apologize, lord. There is nothing to be forgiven for”, you smile, but Aegon sees sadness in your irises. “What can we do before duty? Should be me the one to ask you forgiveness for my meekness, my spirit so prompted to be passional…”

“I see nothing in you to be faulted for. Reason cannot conceive it. Lady Y/N, I aim to reclaim not your body, even if it arises the desires of my flesh, but your soul, so only I before it can be whole.” He cups your face with his hands, in complete ignorance of his mother’s baffled countenance. “Even so, unworthy of thee as I am, take me not as king, but as a man.”

“Poet of mine heart”, you sigh, to the delight of the Goddess of Love who claps before this chaotic profession of most profound sentiments. “I could not refuse you, whether as a beggar, whether as a king. Likewise, my heart is yours to be commanded… despite my most inappropriate station.”

Aegon smiles and it is as if sun shines the brightest. To a general astonishment, the king loves. And such a love is above mortal, fable laws; above lust, inferior desires that have made no other victims than himself.

“I care naught about the laws of men, for I stand before them. My wife you will be, lady of this court, mistress of the realm”, says he in a tone that leaves no argument to it.

Devil is finally fought off. Victory is placed in the hands of Cupid. Heaven smiles below… even if skies remain grey still.

***

Nothing evokes a greater scandal than unexpected unions. Disregarding reason and every sensible advise, the king intends to make his word law of the realm.

All of this is suffice to say that making you his queen attracted great disapproval of the court. Something unseen since the days of Maegor the cruel.

But Aegon may be many things. Cruel he is not. And you are unlike any of his consorts.

Despite the gleefulness of finally being tied to Aegon, you know that working for peace is part of your queenship.

Therefore, days before the wedding you come after the dowager queen, lady Alicent Hightower. You hope to be as convincing as possible in arranging domestic peace, for you do this overall for the man you love—never forgetting, however, how uncommon this union is, out of the Targaryen inbred and hierarchically mismatched.

The redhaired lady, once praised for her piety and discreetion, who once possessed a crown over her head, welcomed you with distrust in her eyes—even if you see how queenly she is in manners. That is to reinforce the regal obligations one has… out of habit, perhaps, when dealing with others she is less… inclined to like.

“Madame the Queen”, you address her accordingly. “I thank you for welcoming your humble servant.”

Your speech definitely surprises the dowager queen. The lady Alicent has judged you as some sort of gold digger, who craved your nails in her son and whose manners were most undignified of Aegon—even if he is not, as she knows well, the great moral of her house.

However, when studying you, your modesty and meek speech, she realizes she’s been wrong. Not many could surprise Alicent Hightower, but you, Y/N Y/LN did.

“Please rise, child”, she softens towards you. “I am not a queen… not anymore.”

“One never ceases to be a queen, even if the crown is legated to another. You are the force behind this house, my lady. I would do harm to all of us if I only followed my heart.”

Wise move. Oh, this lady possesses a sharp wit. Certainly not like any of the mistresses Aegon had conquered to warm his bed.

And yet… hasn’t Lady Alicent been remembered of that heroine whom she admired, Isolde being the character’s name?

Though the dowager queen envied you for being who she aimed to be since the days of her girlhood, she is not unreasonable where you are concerned.

“I appreciate you come after me for that. I admit all of this caught me out of surprise, for little I expected seeing my son so besotted.”

You try smiling, charmingly if you dare.

“Indeed it has baffled me as well that the king considered me in high esteem. Unworthy as I am, I, however, feel likewise.”

“But you surely must be aware of his flaws”, the dowager queen could not help herself. You remind her of sweet Helaena, who, however, even in her sweetness had a driven force that led her elope with Aemond, her brother.

“I am, my queen. I do not love for the king he is, but for the man he is becoming. I too have my flaws.” The final card is yet to come… “Before the divine, we are inferior beings, all longing for redemption.”

The Queen smiles. You’ve succeeded in captivating her.

“This is very true. Sometimes… when we least expect, we come to learn that love sent from above is yet to redeem us all.”

From this day on, you and the dowager queen become close, perhaps occupying the vacant position left by the princess Helaena.

***

It is the ceremony day. Here you and Aegon are, lawfully married. A banquet is held on your honor, as well as tournaments are drawing high and low born men alike who spots in the jousts an opportunity to write their names in history.

Most want to be the lady Y/N’s champion, but you’ve already granted your favour to Lord Daeron, the king’s youngest brother, who used to be your childhood playmate.

As wine is poured in your silver glass, you and your lord husband speak as if there is just the two of you in a gold and green salon.

“I espoused you”, says he with his typical smug.

“Indeed”, you side smirk. “But I pray you are reminded daily that I was not any conquest of yours.”

“No”, he agrees, looking deep into your eyes as he takes your hand to his lips in a lingering kiss. “You are the redemption of a lost sinner, my lady.”

But this sweet, intimate moment is interrupted by Aemond’s boast.

“It appears”, he announces in his own way, “this is the moment we have all been waiting for. The bedding ceremony.”

You look away, crimson pink painting your cheeks all the whilst Aegon raises his eyebrows at his brother—though he’d indulge in lies if he didn’t admit he’d been looking to it. Perhaps too much for a man who until recently was slaved by his flesh.

*

A path of flowers follows your steps as the gentlewomen remove every piece of your green gown. Your carefully embroidered hair is now loose in your back and every jewel that embellished your skin is carefully removed.

Never before you felt so nude, so exposed. Specially under the cries and giggles of the ladies, some of which behave in what you judge to be somewhat in the old ways.

“Be merry, my dear. Today is the day your queenly duties begin”, someone tells you.

You smirk at them, but pay little attention to their sayings, detesting this exhibition. Until your mind suddenly goes blank before the view of perfection that stands right under your eyes.

Aegon Targaryen hasn’t seen you yet. Perhaps to drink away his nervousness, he downs his glass of wine. His hair is somewhat a mess, falling short down to his neck; but your eyes scan his muscles, perfectly shaped after years of sword training.

The lines of his body that reinforce his shape awake something different in you. And when he turns at you….

Your face goes instantly red.

“My queen”, and it doesn’t help you that he scans you with the eyes of a predator.

And you like it how he smirks and moves all the way to welcome you properly.

“You look beautiful like always”, his whisper is like a summer breeze, warming and cozy; his arms are like a fortress, strong and safe. “Do not shy away from me, my dear.”

He is right behind you, his arms snaking around your waist, thus involving you in between. His chin is resting over your shoulder, his lilac eyes staring at your heart-shaped face as he uses one hand to play with your hair all the whilst the other is resting over your belly.

“You are gifted with a beautiful out of this world. As a sinner, I should not dare to look at you, but because of my weakness, I have my feebleness exposed.”

“Oh Aegon, you are no man, nor king, nor something in between. You are above all, and as your subject I boldly commend myself to you.”

Speeches are silent from the moment his lips meet your skin and your mouth drops in an “o” right as you give in under his touch. His slender fingers caressing your belly, squeezing gently your waist before cupping your breasts make you experiment—truthfully this time—this dragon fire.

And you want to get burnt so desperately.

“Aegon…”, you moan softly, dropping your head at shoulders.

Sinful has never been so tempting. Where there is a flame someone is about to get burnt, and you place yourself willingly in this position, notwithstanding the morals of the Church against lust and the dangerous of having pleasure in marital bed—everything must be balanced.

You certainly do not feel condemned by any means when he’s kissing your neck and cupping your breasts; nor guilty when his tongue paces slowly towards your neck.

Aegon too revives his old self, though he is now controlling his lust, not the other way around. As when he lowers his right hand and through forest he finds waterfall in you, diving in you and together finding pleasure in sin.

“Oh yes”, he groans in your ear, pleased to please you. “Give yourself to me, my dear”.

When your gazes meet, you know it’s your end. You are doomed.

And Aegon, has truthfully been tamed.

***

As when sun and moon meet, so it occurs a significant event the moment your body meets his. When he holds your thighs and pushes within you, when he looks at you with a mix of love and lust… you know it’s nothing regular.

It’s supernatural.

Divine.

Like when Mars met Venus and in her he planted his seeds, so the king plants his in you.

When does profanity begin? When does sacred end? A line so fragile between extremes is yet to be traced.

But one gaze, one kiss… one bliss is enough to bring altogether what has ever been apart.

Victory thus falls upon the hands of the Cupid, and Heavens will too bless this unique match. No one could have foretold the plans of the divine… as no one could have fought them either.

***

• Epilogue.

The king sits on his throne, eyes glued on his dancing queen. A smile dances over his lips, some might say Lady Y/N is a witch.

A love for a crown?

A crown for love?

When all eyes are set on their offspring, doubts are quietened. A pair of twins is seen dancing with their mother, whilst another, the elder and heir, is found by his father’s side.

All is well that ends up well… with you.

Aegon smiles. Against all wishes, the peace he provides. And he rises, uncontestedly victorious.

Their family is yet to grow further, with Lady Y/N, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, mothering at least ten more children. Their lives will last… until spring comes and summer passes.

During the autumn of life, when marriages thrive, you outlive your husband only to see Jaehaerys II with Jaehaera by his side.

Thus it is how this Targaryen line survives…