#elain archeron x lucien vanserra

[clockwork-ashes]

All You Have Is Your Fire - Part XII

Find Part I here :)

Summary: 'I can hear your heart beating through the stone.' For the briefest of moments, Lucien wondered if his mate would know exactly when his heart’s steady rhythm came to a sudden stop.

Note: A huge thank you to the lovely @bettdraws who deserves all the credit for the post that inspired me to start writing this :) Another huge thank you to everyone reading! ALSO please look at this post, I gasped it's so lovely. All of @teddyhoneybear's moodboards are stunning <3

Tag List: @anishake / @nocasdatsgay / @mybestfriendmademe / @talibunny30 / @halfbutneverwhole / @wishfulimaginings / @goldenmagnolias / @emmers-bens123 / @cauldronblssd / @xirose / @rarephloxes / @thehighlordishere /

Elain held onto Lucien as he led her to the dance floor, their hands a perfect fit, shards of glass whose broken edges showed no crack when put together. 

Lucien’s steady presence was a comfort to Elain, especially as she felt the captivated looks of countless nobles fall on them. As though he could sense her unease, he traced his thumb along the knuckles of her fingers. 

Days before, Elain was certain she would have found the genuine gesture bothersome, but she was surprised as she felt a nervous weight slip off her shoulders. 

Elain was grateful, had come to the realisation as the two of them had entered the hall that no matter how many negative thoughts plagued her, Lucien and her were on the same side in this. Like allies in battle, Elain had no choice but to place all her trust in the man she had spent years avoiding. 

Elain had been the one to come for Lucien, after all. She had been the one to believe Eris’s words, had been the one to make the decision of travelling to Autumn, had then faced Beron and told him they were to be married. Each choice was her own, and Elain would stand by them stubbornly despite what anyone else might say.  

Elain bit her bottom lip as she looked to the edge of the dance floor, hoping she would spot Cora or even Eris, any familiar face would have been welcome in the sea of nobles. When her eyes instead fell on Lethe, beautiful and dangerous, Elain had to fight her sudden urge to scowl. 

Elain had not liked the way the other woman had touched Lucien’s shoulders, and while she could acknowledge her reaction was ridiculous, probably the pull of their bond, Elain decided that it might be best to keep Lethe away from her mate for the time being. 

She wanted to continue her search for Cora, but Elain knew the importance of remaining focused on the task at hand. Much depended on their performance, and Elain was determined to give everyone watching a show worth their while.

Lucien stopped, Elain’s steps halting as he raised her hand in a prompt for her to turn his way. Elain looked up at Lucien, breathing in sharply as he placed his broad hand on her waist. 

There were layers of fabric between them, and yet Elain felt the warmth of his skin seeping through her dress. She arched into him, hoping the onlookers spotted the subtle movement as she gave Lucien her undivided attention. 

The musicians played a note, letting it ring through the large space as all the couples prepared to dance.  

Elain felt herself blush, speaking to Lucien in a low voice so that no else could catch her words. Her cheeks heated under his gaze, “I hope you’re a good lead,” she clipped, offering him one of her friendliest smiles.  

Both of Lucien’s brows lifted as he flashed her a grin. “The best,” he reassured her, tone serious, but she felt the playfulness behind the statement through the bridge between their souls.

Elain had to fight back a giggle. Lucien was undeniably charming, and also unfairly handsome, especially so when he smiled. 

Elain usually pushed such thoughts aside, not allowing the quiet voice in her head that insisted Lucien was lovely to be heard. If she had considered the mating bond simply based on looks, Elain would already be married to him. Drawn to him like a moth to a flame, Elain let herself feel some of that desire, let it show on her face so that anyone might see it.

Elain kept her gaze on Lucien as he spoke, his golden eye whirring softly. “I trust you’ll be able to keep up?” He was so very fae, his russet eye almost seemed to glow in the dim firelight, hair wine red and looking soft as silk. 

“Definitely,” she said with a confident nod. 

Elain’s lips curled up in a knowing smile as she remembered how Nesta had dragged her to dancing lessons in Velaris. She had spent many evenings a handful of months before with Cassian, Azriel, and her older sister learning about all the popular dances in every court. She promised to herself as Lucien tightened his grip on her hand that she would have to thank Nesta for it when she returned to Night.   

The music rose around them, the beat so fast that despite how familiar Elain was with the traditional Autumn dance, she was still taken off guard as Lucien stepped back. 

Elain followed, laughing, hoping the sound of her genuine joy carried over the instruments, that the couples around her had heard. Beron had been convinced in the throne room, had believed they loved each other, but something in Elain’s gut told her the nobles in the ball room would be just as hard to convince.

Elain moved her feet quickly, hoping that she was dancing to match Lucien’s easy rhythm. He raised his hand elegantly, and Elain readied herself for the turns. 

Lucien spun Elain effortlessly, her skirts flaring around her. Elain gasped at the way the green fabric glimmered in the flames of the chandeliers, making it seem as though it was grass blowing in the wind. 

As Lucien once again pulled her towards him, Elain clumsily missed a few of the steps, his firm grip on her waist the only thing stopping her from crashing into his chest. “Did you see that?” She breathed, still marvelling at the talent Autumn court seamstresses must possess. 

“Breathtaking,” Lucien said, his eye dark with what could only be desire. The way the word fell from his tongue was enough to make Elain swoon, to make her believe he was not talking about the dress at all. 

Elain had to remind herself that he was simply acting the part of her betrothed, that he could not long for her in such a way. They were strangers.

He is mine. 

The thought crashed through her, and perhaps it was because she knew many were watching them, but she let it show on her features. 

Lucien pulled her closer still as the final notes of the song played, they shared the same air, the scent of sweet apples overwhelming her senses. Elain kept her steady gaze on him as the music came to a stop, as clapping could be heard for the orchestra. 

“That was fun,” Elain laughed, feeling awkward now that they were no longer dancing and Lucien still held her. She had always enjoyed dancing, especially when she had been a young girl in the human lands. 

Before Lucien could respond, the next song started, and many moved around them to stand by the dance floor’s edge. Even Lucien furrowed his brow, tucking Elain to his chest as the song continued. 

Elain recognized the music, knew it was a Night Court dance reserved only for lovers. She had seen Rhysand pull Feyre into his arms, humming the now familiar tune countless times so they could dance around the living room. 

She felt a sudden ache deep within her at the thought of her family, missing them all and wishing they were with her. 

Elain was grateful as Lucien spoke and dragged her from such thoughts. “Beron must have been very impressed by you, Lady Elain Archeron.” 

She almost snorted, doubting his words. “How can you say that?” They were nearly chest to chest, hardly any space between them, but Elain was glad that they could at least talk during this dance. 

Hearing her disbelief, Lucien continued. “Night Court music at an Autumn Court ball? That’s practically unheard of.” 

She turned her head to look at him, catching the sharp line of his jaw. They were so close, Elain could only see his profile, and was tempted to rest her cheek against him. Instead, she said, “That’s good, it must mean that I’m endearing myself to your family.” She watched as Lucien could not hold back a wince, understanding that perhaps the topic of his family was not a good one, Elain asked him a question. “Lethe and Kai, they’re old friends of yours?”

Elain was curious, wanted to know more about them and hoped Lucien would share some of his thoughts. She heard his scoff before he replied. “More like Eris’s friends who I spent an unusual amount of time with.”

“Feyre was like that,” Elain offered, the little bit of common ground they shared between them. Younger siblings, Elain had noticed, tended to do that sort of thing, often reminding her of sprouts growing in the shade of larger trees.

She felt him shrug, muscles moving beneath the fingers of her one hand. “It was hard making friends as the son of a High Lord, at least in Autumn.” He added with a short laugh. 

“Poor you,” Elain joked, hoping he would take no offence to it. 

Surprise was like a flash of lightning along the bond, but Lucien’s amused expression remained the same as he responded. “I’m still so upset over it.” 

The song’s final notes played as Elain asked, “Do we keep dancing?” 

“I’ll be expected to, at least for the next couple of songs.” Elain felt a strange possessiveness rush over, but she pushed the feeling down, hoping Lucien did not notice. “Go to Eris, and I’ll come in a bit.” 

Elain hummed in understanding and Lucien pulled away from her, already missing his warmth. 

One hand gripping her emerald skirts, the other still in Lucien’s, she dipped into a small curtsy. Lucien raised Elain’s hand slightly as he bowed at the waist and although he did not kiss her knuckles, as would have been common on the other side of the wall, Elain found herself wishing that he had.

With startling clarity, Elain could imagine Lucien’s lips pressed to her skin and had to suppress a shudder. Elain forced herself to turn away from her mate, taking elegant steps but still feeling the weight of his gaze on her. 

Unsettled by her own desire, Elain was surprised at how quickly she spotted Eris in the crowd of nobles. His auburn hair seemed to flicker in the flames of the fireplace he was standing by, a glass of wine in his hand. 

The musicians began to play the next song, an Autumn Court dance once more, as Elain made her way to the far end of the ballroom. 

She felt as someone came up from behind her, making her pause. “I was promised an introduction,” the voice of the man was low and thick with the accent of those in the Forest House. “Seems as though my little brother has gone back on his word.” For a moment Elain thought she had been mistaken, that Eris had instead come to her, especially when she turned around to face the person who had approached. 

Felix or Ronan, a voice reminded her, one of the two brothers Lucien had already mentioned to her. His long red hair was in a braid that fell past his shoulders, contrasting with his well-tailored jacket, the deep brown of tree trunks. He had a scattering of freckles on his cheeks, and although his dimpled smile seemed genuine, Elain was glad Eris had given her a weapon. 

“Lucien likes to keep me all to himself,” her fingers tightened around the fabric of her skirts. Remembering Lethe’s attitude, Elain raised her chin and flashed the man a sharp smile.  

Elain jumped at the chuckle that came from her other side, as another one of Lucien’s brothers clapped a broad hand on the man still in front of her. “Leave her be, Felix, I can see Eris burning holes in the back of your head.” She felt like a fawn surrounded by wolves, like she was wounded prey and they were simply taunting her before striking with a killing blow. 

Felix shrugged, the gesture elegant, reminding her once more of Eris. “I suppose we still have much time before the wedding to become better acquainted.” 

Elain wanted to take the comb from her hair, to warn them to keep away. Instead, she hoped confidence leaked from her words as she spoke. “I look forward to it, now if you’ll excuse me, my lords.” 

“No need for such formalities, sister.” Ronan added. 

Elain had to fight the urge to frown, but she merely bowed her head in a show of respect and tried to make her way as quickly as possible to Eris. He looked serious, and was left entirely alone, save for Cora who stood several feet away from him. Elain nearly sighed in relief, going to the space between them. 

“What did they say to you?” Eris asked, voice low and unbothered. He hardly seemed concerned, and Elain wondered if he actually cared about what his brothers wanted from her. 

Elain ignored his question to ask one of her own, remembering suddenly both his and Cora’s absence when Lucien and her had first arrived. “Where were you?” 

“I hardly think that should be any of your business,” he said simply while he passed her a glass of red wine. 

With gentle hands, Elain took the glass, looking up at Eris with a raised brow. “Not poisoned, is it?” 

Cora laughed, moving closer to Elain. “He wouldn’t dare.” 

Eris shrugged, amusement flashing in his eyes. “Suppose you’ll just have to trust me.” 

Elain raised the glass to her lips, surprised that she did trust Eris, at least when it came to him protecting her from physical harm. 

Before she could take a sip, Elain paused, feeling someone’s heavy gaze on her. She turned her attention to that burning feeling, almost like a warning, her new fae senses catching a watchful predator. 

Elain’s heart nearly stopped as she looked at the High Lord, surrounded by nobles, arm around his wife. 

Beron Vanserra raised his glass in a small salute as he held her gaze, and Elain raised her own, mirroring him and hoping he could not spot the nervous shaking of her hand.

[animezinglife]

The Fires of Eventide

A quiet evening. A secluded cottage in Spring.

Genre: Romance/Smut-but-Sweet Post-canon Elucien fic. Elucien Masterlist | AO3 Please do not copy or re-post this anywhere. Special thanks to @lucienarcheron, @zenkindoflove, @crazy-ache, and @teddyhoneybear for their continued support of these posts. If you would like to be added to the taglist for any future works, please let me know.

Elain doesn’t immediately acknowledge his presence. She can feel it though: through the bond, and in the way her skin warms at the feeling of his mismatched gaze falling over her. No doubt he’s wearing his trademark smirk, too–amused by her struggle or her stubbornness, though she’s not sure which to call it yet. 

It’s not a comfortable position to be caught in: though her Fae body is tougher than her human one, her knees still dig into the hard countertop as she slides her pan to the top shelf of the cottage kitchen’s cabinet. It was a mutual idea of theirs to have a private place to stay in Spring, and when they’d stumbled upon the little cottage crawling with vines tucked neatly against the woods with plenty of space for gardening, Elain had known they’d found their getaway.

Read the rest on AO3!

[teddyhoneybear]

And finally, Elain learned why Autumn Court males are said to have fire in their blood.

[elucienweekofficial]

💕 Are you as desperate for sunshine and summer as much as we are? Happy Valentines Day pals! We'll see you all in July 🥰💕

-

🎨: @laxibbeb

[ervotica]

pairings; tamlin x reader, tamlin x lucien vanserra, tamlin x elain archeron, lucien vanserra x reader, lucien vanserra x elain archeron, elain archeron x reader. tamlin x lucien x elain x reader. this is a poly fic!

a/n; my first tidbit of these four! still undecided on whether it will stay x reader or i’ll create an oc (leaning towards oc atm but let me know!) any thoughts or discussions for this dynamic and these four are open! my inbox is always open for them <3

warnings; none really just fluff, suggestiveness, established relationship dynamic, polycule

thinking about how hard elain would blush if you started calling her lainy.

she hides her face and muffles her giggles with the palm of her hand as you coo over her, the nickname falling from your honeyed lips in a way that has her skin prickling with heat, subtly fanning at the white-hot flush that seizes hold of her every nerve ending.

lucien positively roars with amusement at the effect you have on her, his willowy stature drifting over to the pair of you where you’re sat in the grass, hair tousled and windswept with the breeze of the spring morning. he presses a kiss to each of your cheeks and snorts at the residue of heat that emanates from elian’s milky skin, flushing her a soft shade of pink.

the way tamlin follows the redhead’s lilting laughter always amuses you, as though he has a sixth sense for the three of you, drawn to you like a magnet. he drops a kiss atop elain’s head fondly before he’s hooking his arms beneath your shoulders and hiking you up and into his lap to whisper tauntingly in your ear.

“teasing, are we, my flower?”

“never!” you gasp, swatting indignantly at his chest; he only tightens those thick corded arms in response, nudging at your jugular with the bridge of his nose. a deep hum seeps through his chest when you go limp and pliant, a content smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. he presses a kiss there, too— right at the crease of your lips, the lines carved into your face from years of laughter.

lucien’s lithe fingers are pushing at elain, ushering her into tamlin’s arms right beside you so he can cage the pair of you in, his arms easily finding purchase splayed over you both, sandwiching the four of you together in a mismatched sort of embrace. elain has gone soft against tamlin, mirroring you, ever the epitome of tranquility: eyes closed, a placid smile on your face as your mate nips and kisses at your bare neck.

lucien crowds your space some more, a fervent kiss pressed to each pair of lips in turn; he lingers on tamlin, his tongue darting out to probe further into the high lord’s mouth, jostling both you and elain slightly until you’re pressed chest to chest, trapped between the males as the sounds of wet kissing and deep, gravelly moans encase you. elain tugs you forward by means of her fingers curled around the bodice of your dress.

“c’mon,” you guide her out of the tangle of limbs, coming to rest only a few feet away from the males, who are now tearing at each other’s clothes. “animals…” you muse, eyes bright with laughter as you press a hand to her ribcage and nibble at her bottom lip. she gasps, instinctively arching to press more of her body to yours. she’s docile and receptive as you lay her down in the lawn and crawl on top of her.

you grin and it’s wicked, alight with mischief.

“come on, lainy. we don’t need those brutes to have fun.” her responding giggle is muffled by your mouth slanting over her own, soft hands - so unlike that of your mated males’ - threaded through her hair.

she thinks she’d do anything you’d ask her as long as you keep talking to her in that sweet voice.

[shadowisles-writes]

I'm With You (Chapter 1) [Elucien]

Summary: Without the urgency of war looming over Prythian, Elain begins to question if the Night Court is where she belongs. Her mate travelling at will between courts and the human lands fills her with the longing to accompany him. Except being alone with Lucien in the Day Court means confronting conflicting feelings, which only get more complicated as secrets and threats to her safety emerge.

Or: the one time the lyrics "And if you need a light, I’ll be the match to your candle, my darling," made me daydream about Day Court Elucien for weeks.

Chapter 1

And if you need a light I’ll be the match to your candle, my darling, I’m ready To burst into flames for you

I'm With You - Vance Joy

[velidewrites]

Sarah J Maas Couples for @sjmromanceweek

➴ ELAIN ARCHERON & LUCIEN VANSERRA

“You could come to Velaris.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

[labellefleur-sauvage]

Tempests and Urges

Slowly, Lucien turned his head and his gaze found hers. Everything quieted. The house’s inhabitants were gathered around Lucien, talking about what he could expect, but Elain focused only on the male in front of her. She tried to convey her apology and sorrow and want with her eyes, frozen with indecision and unable to say what she wanted.

Lucien stared back at her, and while she could so clearly see his own sadness and longing reflected in his brilliant russet eye, he gave her a small, slow bow and turned away. Elain’s stomach dropped. He was going to leave her, and Elain would be stuck in this house like a neglected piece of furniture, without the one being who had a hope of truly understanding and listening to her. She took a half step down the stairs at the same time Lucien turned to Rhys and nodded his head…

“Wait!”

...

"Take me with you."

Chapter II of my gift for @stickyelectrons for the @acotargiftexchange! Thank you for your patience (the holidays were busy!) but I'm excited to share this next chapter with you! Wishing everyone a happy new year!

Read on AO3

XXX

II.

When Lucien rose that morning, never in his wildest dreams could he have imagined how the day would turn out: interrupted by Elain Archeron when he was seconds away from being sent to the Continent, and the same woman insisting on joining him on his quest to find the lost mortal queen. Secretly, when Elain announced her intentions and Nesta questioned if she had been placed under a spell, Lucien had the same thought as the eldest Archeron. But as Elain made her case to her sisters, her eyes had filled with the eerily familiar fight and stubbornness he’d seen countless times in Feyre’s eyes. Perhaps that was just an Archeron trait, he thought. 

Another apparent Archeron trait: sheer willpower. Lucien thought that this particular characteristic may have skipped over Elain, but as they came to at the base of a tremendous mountain range and Rhys vanished with a nod and a wisp of smoke, Elain simply took a look around at their surroundings then looked to Lucien with a determined look on her face. “So, which way?”

Lucien took out his map and showed Elain their approximate location. Montesere occupied the northwestern corner of the Continent, bordered by the sea on its northern and western shores, with rolling hills that grew to rocky mountains along its eastern edges. In an ideal world, they would be able to walk in a southeasterly direction to Koschei’s lake from their current location, without worrying about the Continent’s marauding thieves and criminals. In an ideal world, they wouldn’t be making this journey at all, Lucien thought, so any wishes for an easier route seemed a bit pointless. 

“How far are we from the western ports?” Elain asked, studying the map dotted with notes and diagrams. 

“About three days. There are some forests we can camp in each night.”

“Right. Let’s go.”

That was two days ago, and the pair hadn’t exchanged more than a few words since. Not that Lucien hadn’t tried to make conversation. He asked Elain about her hobbies–”What else do you enjoy growing in your garden?” or “Do you enjoy dancing?” even “Any other interests?”—and all he received were one word answers or an unimpressed ‘hmph’ that even Lucien, master flirt and wordsmith that he was, didn’t know how to expand upon to further their conversations. Elain never asked him anything other than confirmation that they were on track to the port, so Lucien took the hint. 

Lucien thought he and Elain would finally discuss what tied them together. Clearly, Elain insisted on joining him for reasons other than being alone with him for an extended period of time, working together towards a common cause and getting to know each other.

Mates. Cauldron, even months after the bond snapped into place, Lucien was still winded by the knowledge that he had a mate. No, that perhaps didn’t surprise him; who his mate was, and wasn’t, was what he still couldn’t wrap his head around. 

He had thought it before and he thought it now: Jesminda was the exact opposite of Elain. Jesminda, full of life and laughter, fearless, confident and secure in herself and what she stood for. She always had a smile for Lucien, and matched his fire with her own unique warmth. 

Elain held no warmth or happiness for Lucien. Not that she needed any, he thought. She owed him nothing, even as his inner beast wanted to grab her shoulders, make her look at him, make her listen to him as he begged and pleaded his case for why he was a worthy male for her. 

Guilt over Jesminda and his newfound happiness at discovering his mate still warred within him. Much of Lucien’s time and thoughts since discovering the mating bond had been devoted to reconciling his feelings towards the female he had once loved so fiercely. 

He had moved on from Jesminda, or, as moved on as one could be after watching the female he thought was his mate murdered before his own eyes. He hadn’t been…unhappy, for some time, per se, but had been merely existing for the past several hundred years. Some decades were better than others, but Lucien had long ago lost the wonder and excitement that rising each day once brought him. Lucien had accepted Jesminda’s death and the inevitability that he would never know such love and happiness again.

But then Hybern happened. The Cauldron happened.

And now here, right in front of him, was the most breathtaking female he had ever seen. His heart called out to hers, even as his head cautioned him to slow down, to stop these dangerous and near traitorous thoughts. A small part of him still loved Jesminda, and most likely always would; was it wrong of him to one day move on, to want to feel the love and desire that he’d once had, but with someone else?

Did he even deserve this love? He had done so much wrong in his life, and for the Mother to still bless him with the most beautiful female he’d ever seen… 

“Will you stop sighing back there? Whatever it is you’re thinking about, you’re being more dramatic than Nesta when Feyre wouldn’t give her money for a new pair of shoes.”

Lucien raised an eyebrow. They had formed an unspoken walking pattern: one ten feet in front of the other, never talking except for directions, and always looking ahead. At first it bothered him, but as Lucien began walking behind Elain, getting a generous view of her bottom and legs in the tight Illyrian leathers everyone in the Night Court insisted on wearing, he decided to keep his mouth shut. 

Not now, though. “I’m being dramatic? You’re the one who started a public family fight after you had barely spoken anything for weeks because you wanted to accompany me in finding this mortal queen. I’d love to know why exactly you’re here, by the way, because it clearly wasn’t to get to know me.” Lucien paused. “Why did Nesta need money from Feyre?”

Elain turned to face him, a pretty pink blush staining her cheeks. “It’s really none of your business–”

“It seems you’ve forgotten I already know quite a bit about your family business, thanks to you.”

“But before, when we were humans, Feyre, er, hunted and supplied our family with most of our money,” Elain rushed out, looking back ahead. Lucien could have sworn she started walking faster as well. 

“Feyre said you all wouldn’t last a month after she came to the Spring Court, but I didn’t think she was being serious.” Lucien stuffed his hands in his pockets as best he could with his heavy pack on his back and raised a condescending eyebrow, despite the fact that Elain wasn’t looking at him. “So you willingly let Feyre hunt and starve herself to provide everything for your family?” 

Elain stopped and turned to face him, her face red, legs wide and clenched fists by her side. The stance of someone getting ready for a fight. “Right, because as the son of a High Lord, you know everything about doing any sort of hard work to survive?”

Lucien sneered. If Elain knew what being the son of Beron Vanserra truly entailed, she’d wipe that leer off her pink lips. Lucien could tell her of the times he’d been struck or hit for any perceived slight towards his father, or the time he’d been plied with liquor until he passed out and his father’s cronies winnowed his unconscious body to a desolate forest on the other side of Autumn Court with nothing on him except his clothes and a note, telling him to find his way back to the Forest House in time for dinner, all because Lucien had made a few too many jokes with a visiting nobleman. 

Lucien could easily have told Elain all this and more, and how each and every instance of cruelty and malice prepared Lucien for a hard life of doing anything to survive. But she wouldn’t be able to comprehend or truly understand what he’d gone through, how truly monstrous the fae were. Or perhaps worse, those big brown eyes of hers would fill with pity. 

He’d received enough pitying looks to last him a lifetime. Instead, Lucien took a step towards her. “I at least know how to fish, so I guess you could say I do. More than you, at least.”

“Wonderful,” Elain spat. “If anything should happen to us, we can call upon your supposedly superb ability to catch a fish to save us.”

“You forget I’m also a skilled warrior.” Another step closer to his mate. “In fact, I’m very comfortable with all manner of swords in different lengths,” he purred, raising a single eyebrow suggestively and smirking. 

Most females needed very little convincing to lay down and raise their skirts whenever Lucien used that tone of voice and moved his lips like that. The female in front of him, however, wasn’t like that, Lucien realized a second later.

Elain laughed mockingly. “Well, Feyre gave me a knife the size of my pinky–I’m assuming that’s the length you’re the most familiar with?”

Lucien frowned. “I know Feyre has an attitude, but I incorrectly assumed you were better than your younger sister in that regard.”

“I do not have an attitude!”

“Feyre also single-handedly saved all of Prythian while she was Under the Mountain, and is working tirelessly to save us all again, so I suppose the attitude is warranted,” Lucien said loudly, ignoring Elain.

“And you almost destroyed all of Prythian, and my life, when you allied with Hybern and turned me into…this, so I think my attitude is justified as well!” 

Lucien bit his tongue. He’d apologized for that, and deeply regretted not being more assertive with Tamlin when things with Hybern progressed, even when Lucien’s conscious screamed at him day after day that what they were doing was wrong, that nothing, not even Feyre, was worth betraying everyone and sullying themselves by allying with Hybern. The guaranteed abuse from Tamlin would have been preferable to what transpired. 

“As I said, Lady, I apologize,” Lucien gritted. “It was never my intention to cause you or anyone harm.”

Elain scoffed. “Is that the best apology you can make? I thought there would be more groveling from the male who took everything from me.”

“Do you want me to get on my knees and beg for your forgiveness?”

This time it was Elain who took a step towards him. She planted her hands on her hips. “Would you even know what to do if you went on your knees before me?”

Cauldron help him. Maybe the Mother knew exactly what she was doing when she decided the two of them should be mates. The fire dancing in her eyes called out to his own warmth, and the blood pulsing through his body called out to her. He wondered if Elain could hear how fast his heart was beating at that moment, in sheer excitement and want. 

It had been some time since he’d wanted anyone this desperately.

Lucien took the final step towards Elain. He glanced down at her flushed face, his gaze lingering on her lips when her tongue peeked out to wet them. She was breathing fast, and her eyes looked slightly glazed. “I will gladly get on my knees–”

Elain gasped and her body went stiff. “The crow will strike with bloody wings,” she mumbled, staring at something over his shoulder. “Its children will turn the sky black as night.”

“Oh hell,” Lucien muttered as Elain swayed on the spot. He eyed her nervously as her hazy eyes continued staring off into the distance. This was obviously a vision, and like her previous ones, frustratingly vague and cryptic. “Elain?” he called softly after a few moments. 

Nothing. It was like she had fallen asleep standing up. Lucien snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Elain?” Still no response. He gave her a few more moments and looked around. There was nothing of interest behind him that she could be staring at. He sighed, unsure what to do. Would she simply…come to, on her own? Did she need to be forcefully brought back to the present?

Clearly, standing stock still in the middle of nowhere wasn’t conducive to breaking her out of her trance, so more immediate action needed to be taken. Tentatively, Lucien reached out and wrapped his hands gently around her upper arms and gave her just the smallest shake. “Elain?”

Cauldron, what was going on inside her mind that couldn’t be broken? “I hope you remember more about your vision than I do, because I wasn’t paying attention to the first part,” he grumbled. 

Enough of this–they had to keep moving, and if he had to be the one to move both of them, so be it. Lucien bent down below Elain to wrap his hands around her knees right as she gasped.

“What are you doing down there?! I wasn’t serious about you getting on your knees! Get away!”

“Ah, stop it!” Lucien threw up his arms to protect his face from Elain’s swinging hands. “You had a vision and were just standing there like a statue, I was going to carry you so we could keep moving! Stop trying to hit me!”

“I lose myself for a few seconds and you try to make a move on me! I thought you’d be more of a gentleman!” Elain stepped away from Lucien and smoothed her hands over her unruly hair and clothes, shooting him a suspicious glare. 

“Who told you I was a gentleman?”

Elain blushed, and Lucien decided he very much enjoyed how the color elevated her pretty face. “I just assumed, being the son of a High Lord, that you would have manners and courtesy becoming of your station.”

Lucien barked a laugh. “Fae nobility doesn’t operate under the same ideals of goodness as humans, Elain. Me being the son of a High Lord means nothing to me, and I am by no means a gentleman, as you will soon come to find out,” he promised, grinning at her with all his teeth exposed.

Elain inhaled sharply. “And I think,” Lucien continued, stepping back into her personal space, “that you don’t really want a gentleman, do you?”

From this close up, Lucien could smell her sweet honey and jasmine scent, along with an altogether new and entirely different scent. Faint, so faint, but the burgeoning scent of her excitement danced across his tongue. He nearly groaned. 

Lucien knew just enough about Elain’s former betrothed to get the measure of him: the son of a general from a safe, respectable, predictable family that probably considered organizing their vast weapons collection as the highlight of their year. Looking at Elain now, her breath quick and scent excited, Lucien knew she’d be permanently bored and miserable should she have married that mortal. No, Elain perhaps didn’t have the same fire as her sisters, but she was intense in her own ways and needed someone to challenge her all the same. She needed excitement. She needed an adventure.

It could certainly just be the mating bond riding them, making them feel this way, but he didn’t think it was just that. This close to her, he could have sworn he saw a flicker of anticipation and surprise in the way her eyes searched his face. Trust me, Lucien pleaded with his eyes. He reached out to their bond, the string connecting them, and slowly moved along it. Give me a chance…

She turned her nose up at him. “You’re wrong–I would very much appreciate a gentleman, someone kind and who doesn’t make untoward advances on me, specially right now.” Without another word, Elain turned around and began marching away, her boots stomping so hard into the ground small puffs of dirt arose with each step. 

He counted to ten in his head, feeling cold and frustrated in the aftermath of her rebuttal. “You’re going the wrong way!” Lucien called after her retreating form. 

Elain turned back and gave Lucien a glare filled with so much heat it could melt the icicles off the palace in the Winter Court. She stuck her middle finger up at him as she passed.

Another Archeron family trait. Lucien couldn’t help but chuckle. 

As much as he would like to follow Elain from a distance–annoyance did wonderful things to her bottom–they needed to discuss what just happened. Lucien jogged to catch up to Elain and matched her pace. “So, what was your vision about?”

Elain gave him a look from the corner of her eyes but relented with a frustrated sigh. “It was…blurry, even by what I normally experience,” she admitted. “Normally, I have an idea of what the vision is about–I’ve seen Vassa transform into a bird more times than I can count by now, and saw Hybern’s ravens in the Library. But this time, it was like trying to watch a play through a thick fog.”

“Why was this vision different?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice with thick with frustration. “It also may explain why I was unresponsive for several minutes. I tried to…follow the vision, get closer to what was happening in the hopes that I could see it better.”

Lucien paused. “That seems dangerous. I know very little about Seers, but I know the mind can be a very dangerous place to be stuck whenever powerful magic is around, even for the most proficient of fae.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I? The only real skill I bring to this small operation are my visions, and that’s only if they’re actually useful to us,” she muttered irritably. 

Lucien didn’t agree–their earlier witty argument was already the highlight of his month, and they’d only been together for two days. He changed tactics. “Perhaps this vision is going to happen so far in the future that its details aren’t set in stone yet. Maybe it can still change, depending on what happens in the present, and that’s why you couldn’t see anything clearly.”

Elain sighed. “Perhaps. But why show it to me now, for me to worry over?”

“Then don’t worry about it.”

“I just can’t not worry about it now,” Elain scoffed. 

“Then worry about it with me. I’m not here to fight with you, Elain,” Lucien said gently. “Regardless of how you feel about us, we need to work together, at least until we find Vassa. Can you do that?”

She bit her lip. “Of course, you’re right. We’re a team–” Lucien couldn’t help his smile, his heart soaring– “just until we find Vassa,” Elain ended. 

“Right,” Lucien muttered, his heart sinking back into the pit of his stomach. “Just until we find Vassa.”

But Lucien knew, as they continued walking in silence the rest of the day, that he wanted to try to be more with Elain than just temporary teammates. He’d experienced her wit and fire first hand, knew she was flawed like him and on some level desired him, and suspected, under her biting remarks, that she was kind and generous and good. The fact that she was utterly beautiful didn’t even factor in to his initial reasons of why he wanted to spend more time by her side.

Lucien now had two very pressing missions: find the last mortal queen who had been transformed into a firebird, and learn all he could about Elain Archeron.

“Did you care for any birds growing up?” Lucien asked conversationally later, after they had found a small copse of trees to shelter under during the night. Dinner had yielded an awkward conversation about the weather, along with their dried meats, bread and fruit. They were each laying on their respective bedrolls, staring at the night sky through the branches of the trees. 

Elain furrowed her brows and frowned. “What?”

“Well, this is the third time you’ve had a vision concerning birds; an odd coincidence, I wasn’t sure if you kept any birds as pets in your youth.”

“None at all.”

“Ah.” Lucien lightly drummed his fingers on the ground beneath him. “Do you like birds?”

“I’ve never thought about birds in any capacity until very recently,” Elain said blankly.

“Something we have in common. I, too, don’t care for birds, and after tonight, I never want to think about the flying pests ever again.”

To his delight, Elain gave a short laugh. “Finally, one thing we can agree on. Good night, Lucien.”

Lucien had charmed plenty of females before to know that getting them to laugh was one of the hardest obstacles to overcome in wooing. The fact that they had gone from arguing, to a tentative trust, to laughing, all in the space of one day was a very good sign, Lucien thought with a grin.

One step down, he thought happily as he drifted off to sleep, and only a million more to go.

[areyoudreaminof]

WIP Wednesday: Fools Errand or How the Pink Sofa was Broken

The loud knocks and sobs from behind the door wretched Lucien from a deep sleep.

He awoke with a start, momentarily forgetting where he was as the knocking continued. The stirring next to him reminded him where he was.

He was in his bed in the manor, Elain sleeping next to him, sitting up in confusion, with the sheet covering her bare body. “What’s going on?” she asked groggily as they both shot out of bed, throwing on whatever clothing they could find. Lucien slept naked, and he had gotten Elain into the habit. While it was usually the best thing that had ever happened to Lucien, he regretted it slightly as he hopped into a pair of breeches.

Lucien flung the door open, positioning his body in front of Elain’s, but it was only Vassa standing in the hallway.

The queen's red hair looked frazzled and her cheeks were streaked with tears. “You have to come downstairs,” she stammered, “it’s terrible.”

Lucien grabbed a dagger off of the dresser, while Elain wrapped her arms around Vassa. Flying down the stairs, they were met with a rather empty looking parlor, Jurian standing away from them, hands behind his back. He looked over his shoulder, “Sofa’s broken.” He grunted, stepping aside.

The bright pink sofa was teetering to one side, a thick wooden foot clearly cracked, and the bottom frame teetering out of the linen underside. Whipping his head back, Lucien caught Vassa’s eye.

“You woke us up for the sofa.” He stated, trying to string the words together. “No one is hurt, we’re not under attack-“

“The sofa is broken, Lucien!” Vassa snapped, gesturing wildly towards the hot pink piece of furniture. “I want to know who did this! Sofas don’t break just like that!” Elain met Lucien’s eye with a wide eyed look, sending pure confusion down the bond. Jurian sighed as he stomped over, “Vassa, we don’t know how old the sofa was. We sit on it at all hours, we nap on it-“

“No, sitting and napping do not destroy a sofa like that!” Vassa growled. She rounded onto Lucien pointing a finger in his face, “Someone jumped on it! Confess your crimes!” Lucien crossed his eyes as she waved a pale hand in his face.

“I haven’t done anything, bird brain!” Lucien exclaimed, pushing her hand away. “You’re jumping to conclusions for no-“

“Someone broke the sofa and it certainly wasn’t me-“

“Vassa! That’s enough!”

Lucien, still reeling with shock and utter confusion, turned to Elain, whose voice silenced the squawking bird queen. Tightening the robe around her, Elain sighed deeply as she pulled Lucien back.

“Vassa, Jurian is right. It’s an old style sofa and we’re always on it because it’s the most comfortable. Tomorrow, the boys will try and fix it,” she eyed Lucien and Jurian sternly, “and you and I will look for one in the catalogs and send an order if they can’t. Now, we have had a long few days with all of the negotiating with humans and Spring Court interpersonal drama we can hear all the way down here, so can we please get some rest?”

Lucien threw his arms around Elain and pressed a kiss to her wild curls, if only to get himself to stop laughing. Jurian had the same problem, his eyes wide as he sucked his cheeks in to keep from bursting.

Only Vassa had the composure to reply with a hissing, “Fine.” as the merry band retreated to their rooms.

Lucien and Elain and stripped the moment the door shut behind them, flopping back into bed. Glancing at the clock, Lucien calculated he could try and get a few more hours of sleep and negotiate a mid morning start to the sofa, when he suddenly remembered-

“That sofa is not old at all, is it?”

Elain shrugged as she nestled deeper into the sheets, hitching her leg over his. “Probably a few years old. Sitting parlors usually get newer furniture. It’s the most comfortable one in the house. So of course it wore out.”

Lucien snorted with laughter as his hand crept down her spine, ever so slowly. “Oh, of course. We certainly didn’t have anything to do with it, did we?”

His hand reached her plump ass as he gave it a squeeze. They’d made love earlier in the evening and in the afternoon, but they were awake again, Lucien thought to himself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lucien.” Elain said with indifference, though she flipped over to straddle him, having gotten the same notion he had. “The two of us couldn’t have possibly broken that couch.”

Before he could answer her, Elain caught Lucien’s bottom lip with her teeth. Lucien grasped her hips, as she ever so slowly lowered herself onto his cock. He hissed as she began to ride him in a hypnotic rhythm.

“This is much more fun on the sofa.” Elain gasped as she kissed Lucien again. They both came as quickly and quietly as they could, hyper aware of their housemates down the hall.

[octobers-veryown]

@elucienweekofficial

Day 1: Mates 💫

Happy Elucien Week y'all!

I hope you can enjoy this little playlist too, with the one that my dear friend @areyoudreaminof did 💗

[melonsfantasyworld]

Part 2

Surprise! I was working on a Part 2 for months and can finally share now!

Summary: The day after Lady's Night Elain is not avoiding the River House or Lucien. She really isn't. She's a busy woman. But when she does stumble into him, well, she just can't seem to get the night before out of her mind.

Read here on ao3 and below for a snippet.

Elain Archeron is a busy woman with quite an active life, and she wasn’t avoiding the River House just because Lucien seemed reluctant to leave after Lady’s Night.

“Lady Elain.” A sensual voice greets her as she is sneaking back into the house. No, walking into the house. Elain was certainly not trying to evade detection by the red-headed male in front of her. That would mean she had been thinking about him, about his presence in her house, which she had not.

Elain does her best to keep her expression neutral as she turns to face Lucien. He looks amused, one golden eye and one amber eye trained onto her, taking in her pink dress, the middle of which dives daringly down her chest. She rids her mind of the memory of when she picked it out this morning, wondering if Lucien would like it. Elain instead reasons she picked it out for herself, loving the color and style. If Lucien happened to like it, well that was his business, not hers.

Lucien is dressed only in a white shirt half tucked into brown trousers, and brown riding boots. His shirt hangs indecently low, as if someone commanded him to cover up and he’s protesting with the most revealing shirt possible. Elain’s eyes absolutely do not get stuck on the golden-brown skin peeking out at her. She doesn’t wonder for even a moment if his hair is as soft as it looks. Her once over is purely perfunctory, something she would do to anyone who has caught her off guard.

“Lord Lucien.” Elain greets cordially. She fights a blush when Lucien’s foxlike grin starts making an appearance.

[clockwork-ashes]

All You Have Is Your Fire - Part VI

Find Part I here :)

Summary: 'I can hear your heart beating through the stone.' For the briefest of moments, Lucien wondered if his mate would know exactly when his heart’s steady rhythm came to a sudden stop.

Note: A huge, huge thank you to the lovely @bettdraws who literally deserves all the credit and whose post inspired me to start writing this. I could not stop thinking about this head canon, and it was so kind of you to let me try and make a story from it :)

And a huge thank you to everyone reading!

Tag List: @anishake / @nocasdatsgay / @mybestfriendmademe / @talibunny30 / @halfbutneverwhole

Part VII >>

Elain held tightly to Lucien’s arm, her fingers linked with his, her other hand clutching at his wrist. An anchor, his heartbeat a comfort as they were led down the winding halls of the ancient Forest House. 

Lucien looked entirely unbothered, hardly troubled now that he was no longer in the presence of his family. Elain asked herself how, considering she very much felt as though she had woken from a nightmare. Her thoughts were foggy, her knees shaking in relief with every one of her steps. Elain wanted to sob. 

Lucien’s thumb traced the curve of her knuckle and Elain breathed in deeply to calm her nerves. 

It was almost humiliating, being paraded past the Autumn guards stationed at every corner as she clung to Lucien. She had to remind herself that it was expected of mated couples to behave so attached, that she was not amongst human nobles that would judge her for any open affection that was displayed. 

Elain briefly wondered what Cora had done in her absence, and whether the other woman had been made aware of the change in their plans. Elain’s thoughts turned quickly, though, to what her sisters would say. Elain was sure that Nesta, more than Feyre, would be furious. 

Elain assumed she would have the Inner Circle’s complete support, but she could only guess at their displeasure with how the night had unfolded. 

Elain had told a High Lord that she was marrying his son, and she was only just beginning to realise the weight of such a promise. Elain felt her stomach flip, panic starting to creep along her spine. 

Just when Elain’s anxiety started to take root, Lucien’s hand gripped hers more tightly. Elain felt as he tried to reassure her through the bond, and her annoyance was enough to redirect her thoughts. 

The Forest House was strange and unlike any place she had ever been to. The rough stone walls were a warm grey, closer to the colour of sheep’s wool than to the cool toned rock she had become used to in Night. 

Elain was surprised to see all the wooden furniture considering all the torches, flames dancing and sparks falling but never setting anything alight. She walked by a couple elegant fireplaces set into the walls, but she saw no chimneys, no soot or ashes. 

Like the roots of an ancient tree, hallways connected and split off into different directions, an unnavigable maze. Elain wondered how anyone was able to find their way around. 

One of the guards shoved Lucien towards a flight of stone steps, urging him to turn. Elain frowned when she felt him tense, thinking perhaps he had been offended by the gesture. It was only as a voice rang out beside them that Elain guessed Lucien had scented someone’s presence. 

“Your services are no longer needed,” the words were rough, a demand. “I can take the prince and his lady to their shared suite from here.” 

Much to Elain’s surprise, the guards obeyed. In the time it took for them to leave, Elain had turned her attention to the new arrival.  

The man was handsome, Elain could admit. His short hair a more copper shade of red, his eyes a bright hazel. He was pale, like most of the people she had seen in Autumn, and he looked battle-worn. A slashing scar cut across his throat, just visible above the fabric of his jacket. 

Even if Elain had not just been in a room with Beron Vanserra, she would have still been able to see the resemblance between the High Lord and the man who so obviously was another one of his sons. She took a step beck, knocking into Lucien’s side. 

The man raised a brow, but other than a passing glance, he paid her no mind. His focus was on Lucien, the torches on the wall flared. Elain wondered if that always happened, if flames simply responded to those in Autumn, a reflection of their emotions.

“Where’s Eris?” He snapped, like he had no patience for either her or Lucien. 

Her mate’s shoulders were stiff. “Is the loyal dog looking for its master?” Lucien’s drawl was taunting, as though he was expecting a reaction from his brother. His words were obviously meant to offend.

Elain could feel Lucien’s shock flooding the bond between them when his brother merely shook his head. 

“You always did cause so much trouble, Lucien,” he frowned, looking very much like Eris. With a sigh, he angled his chin to the flight of stairs in front of them. “Follow me.” 

Not like they had a choice, Elain thought. She could feel as Lucien turned to look at her, to check in, but she stared at his brother as he led them to a pair of thick oak doors. His attempt to comfort her was appreciated, but Elain truly thought she could not look at him without her anxiety once more taking hold. With a wave of his brother’s beringed hand, the doors opened to reveal a cosy space. 

The fireplace was already lit, comfortable carpets covered the stone floor, and by the arched window on the room’s other side was a large bed, fit for two. Elain blushed, forgetting for a moment that Lucien and her were to be married, of course their shared suite would have only one bed. 

Elain watched as Lucien’s brother waved his hand once again, this time lighting the candles littered on some of the wooden tables and nightstands. “I hope the rooms have been set to your liking. Should you need anything, let one of the guards know.”

Elain spoke for the first time since having left the throne room, “My lady’s maid was with me, I was wondering…” She trailed off, unsure of what to say next. 

“I’ll let Eris know,” the Autumn prince offered. “I’m sure he’s thought of everything.” There was no bitterness to his words, only an acknowledgement of his eldest brother’s very thorough planning.

Elain dipped her head in thanks, but he had already begun to leave. Elain looked to Lucien as he watched his brother warily, and he hardly seemed surprised when the other man paused at the room’s threshold. 

“Congratulations to the both of you on your engagement,” he said flippantly, over his shoulder. Elain could hear a flicker of doubt in his tone, perhaps a suggestion that he was not entirely convinced by their act. She wondered if Eris had mentioned it to him, if they were close enough to have shared such information. 

Elain noticed the irritation that flashed in Lucien’s eye, how the other one whirred. “Thank you, Callum.” 

It was clear to Elain that there was bad blood between the brothers, and while she was curious, Elain also knew that it would probably be very rude to ask Lucien about it. She watched as Callum left, glad that she no longer needed to play the role she had given herself.  

The doors slammed shut behind the Autumn prince, and Elain promptly let go of Lucien’s hand. She already missed the feeling, but to reach for him would be like an admission of how she so often longed for his touch when he was near. She put distance between them, almost tripping on the edge of the carpet in her rush. 

“Gods,” she mumbled, running her fingers through her curls. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. Lucien’s scent, apples and summer mornings, lingered in the air. 

What have I done? 

Elain decided that she was a fool for coming to Autumn. She had no idea what she had gotten herself into, had been so desperate to save Lucien’s life that she had doomed them both. 

When Elain opened her eyes, she saw Lucien flexing his fingers, like the memory of her hand in his was enough to unsettle him. He had dark bruises along his jaw, clenched in what she thought was concern. There were blood stains, brown and aged, along the collar of his white shirt. A smear of dirt was on his temple and Elain could tell he had been treated poorly until she had come. 

Lucien was still the loveliest man Elain had ever seen, and she hated herself for believing it.  

“How in the hell did Feyre convince you to come for me?” Lucien asked, voice tired, like his own thoughts were weighing him down. 

Elain furrowed her brow, frowning at him. “Feyre?” She echoed, incredulous. 

At her question Lucien seemed to anger, only for a moment, before he spoke once more. “Rhysand, then, made you do this?” 

“No one made me do anything,” Elain hissed, keeping her voice down, remembering how careful Eris was with his words even when they had been alone. “I came for you because I chose to.” She was frustrated, angry that everyone assumed she could not make decisions for herself. It was with great effort that she kept her hands at her sides, that she did not begin pointing at Lucien with an accusing finger. 

“Why would you do such a thing?” Confusion and disbelief lingering in his words. 

“Because I felt like it,” she snapped, feeling very much like a child. Elain did not share with him that after so much death, so much change in the last few years, she did not think she could bear more. “And you should be thanking me, not questioning my motives.” 

Elain watched as he bent ever so slightly at the waist, the smallest of bows. He did not take his eyes off her as he said, “You have my thanks, Elain.” 

At the sound of her name falling from Lucien’s lips, Elain took a step towards him, the movement almost involuntary. “You shouldn’t call me that,” the impropriety of it all had Elain blushing, she attempted to tell herself that was why she could feel her heartbeat quicken. “You don’t have the right—”

“I think I do,” Lucien said with a shrug, “considering we’re about to be married.” 

It looked like he wanted to say more, but Elain interrupted. “It means nothing,” she was shocked at how snarled the last word was. “Nothing has changed between us,” her words held a finality to them.

Lucien ran a hand through his hair, “Not for one moment did I believe otherwise.” He sounded exhausted, Elain noticed. 

Briefly, Elain felt guilty for being upset with him.

Lucien shook his head, and as he spoke he did not look at her. “You shouldn’t have come to Autumn.” Elain could not say it with certainty, but she could have sworn fear leaked slowly down their shared bond. 

“Next time I’ll let you be killed,” Elain waved her hand dismissively. “What’s done is done, I can hardly tell your father I’ve changed my mind.” 

“I think we’re well past that,” Lucien confirmed. The silence between them was awkward, and Elain wished they had separate rooms, despite knowing it was for the best that they were together.

She could feel Lucien’s gaze on her, but Elain was looking at the comfortable armchair by the fireplace. She cleared her throat, “You take the bed.” 

Lucien did not argue with her, a testament to how utterly drained he must have been, Elain concluded. 

“Thank you, Elain,” he said softly, sincerely.

Elain was left with the impression that Lucien was thanking her for more than just the bed.

[animezinglife]

What's in the Rain

Lucien finds Elain alone watching the rain.

Genre: Romance/Fluff/Mild Angst Post-canon Elucien ficlet. Read below or on AO3.

Author's Note: I want to give a special shout-out to @lucienarcheron for her unyielding support of my Elucien headcanons (and who's probably laughing at me right now since I told her I wouldn't write a fic). This one's for you!

______________________________________________________________

At first, Lucien thinks she's forgotten to close the window. He takes in the stream of water pouring from the awning over the glass; the sound of distant thunder as it fills the home. The breeze that floods into the room carries with it the scent of rain and dampened earth–and the honey and jasmine he’s come to know well. 

Her scent. 

Elain.

He finds her perched on the cushioned banquette of their nook where he often reads, her legs pulled against her chest and skirt draping over the side and brushing the floor. At first, he wonders if she’s having one of her visions, though he hasn’t felt any sign of it through the bond: nothing of that confusion, fear, or turmoil. Instead, she looks completely at ease, and he takes one quiet step into the room before she glances over her shoulder at him, a faint flush of color on her cheeks as she takes him in.

Their mating bond is still new, but Lucien wonders if there will ever come a day when his heart doesn’t jolt at the sight of that flush; quicken at her fawn-brown eyes lingering on him. 

He doubts it.

A small smile crosses her lips in quiet understanding, and she extends a hand.

“Join me?” she asks, and he doesn’t give it a second thought. He crosses the room slowly and takes her hand in his. He gives it a light squeeze–one he tells himself is merely an acknowledgement to her and an understanding. Though it’s every bit as much for him: to feel her touch and to ground himself–the two of them–here together. 

That this isn’t a dream he’ll wake from, even if there are still times he feels like it. 

“I know,” she says, and he wonders if he’d sent that feeling down the bond. He opens his mouth to ask–Mother, his words still evade him sometimes when they’re alone–and she shakes her head. “You didn’t…tell me, if that’s what you’re wondering. I felt it too, and I’ve wondered the same thing.”

He takes a seat near her feet and doesn’t release her hand. His eyes stay on her even as he’s met with a cool, misty breeze; one that blends the scents of those beautiful, blooming flowers with that rain and his mate. Not one of those blooms compares, he thinks, as he takes in those warm eyes, that delicate, full mouth, those small, golden freckles the warmer weather has gifted her. Subtly–and almost shyly–she sends a caress down the bond, one that sends warmth through his core and that he sends back to her in response. She smiles again and turns to the window. 

“I’ve always loved the sun,” she says, her voice growing quieter. “Long, sunny days out in the garden or letting the light stream in while I baked. I didn’t like rainy days so much back when I was…” her voice trails, the unspoken “human” lingering in the air between them. 

“What changed?” 

She seems to consider his question for a moment, letting another breeze and distant roll of thunder wash over them. “I remembered rain was necessary,” she says finally. “For the flowers to grow and for their roots to take hold. It…” she pauses for a moment, and he swears her blush deepens ever so slightly. He feels the shift in her, too–between them. She takes a small breath and turns to face him, lacing her fingers through his. That subtle smile crosses her face again. “It makes us appreciate the light more. Makes me appreciate it more.” 

His breath catches then as her meaning sinks in–that they’re no longer just talking about the rain.

“I could hear yours too, you know. Back then,” he tells her, and her eyes flicker with something he’s still learning to read. “When you told me you could hear my heart beating through the stone, I could hear yours, too. Feel it whether I was in the same room or on the other side of the city.” 

“I sensed as much,” she says, that flicker turning into a curious gleam. “And I think I know why you didn’t say it. I wasn’t ready to hear it then.” She tugs on his hand and shifts, letting her legs fall over the side of the nook. Leaning forward, she extends her other hand, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. The touch is delicate, but sends a wave of heat through him from where her fingertips touched his skin. “I didn’t know what to make of you.” 

“First impressions haven’t always been my strong suit,” he says, and to his surprise, she snorts. 

“Oh, I doubt even the most charming emissaries fare much better when they’re greeted with captives being dunked into the Cauldron.” She doesn’t miss his shudder at that, and rests a hand gently on his face. Her thumb traces where his scar lines his cheekbone. 

It isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation. Elain has told him of how Rhys reacted when he’d realized Feyre was his mate, and he’d witnessed too much of Cassian and Nesta’s bond to know the realization didn’t always go over smoothly. Even still, he wonders how things might’ve played out had he and Elain met differently; had time to be properly acquainted before the mating bond had snapped.

Had she not had her former life taken from her.

We’re still here, he reminds himself. It’s a reminder he’s made a habit every time his mind starts to wander down that path, and not even the Cauldron could take her from him now.

He still remembers the first time they discussed it; the surprise he’d felt when Elain had brought it up and let him know she was ready to face that day in her memory. Yet even now, her words that echo in his mind sound like something more out of a fantasy; the type of knights-and-gallantry tale parents tell their children before they go to sleep. 

I saw you, she had said.

From what she’d sent down the bond to him then, he’d understood. I saw you. Felt you. In ways I couldn’t understand and couldn’t ignore even when I’d wanted to.

Instinctively, he presses a kiss to her inner wrist, and she releases his hand to slide her own to the back of his neck. She pulls him close, resting her forehead against his before her lips find his own. They’re soft; coaxing. He matches her kiss, gently tracing her lower lip with his tongue as she responds. Her arms snake around him as she pulls him against her then, and she lowers them both onto the cushions. They separate briefly, and Lucien uses the moment to take her in.

This incredible female; the most beautiful he’s ever seen, and all the warmth and fire and thorns she possesses. He’d seen all of those traits even in the brief, terrible moments he’d known her as a human. Traits that had only been amplified into something both ethereal and formidable; familiar, kind, strong, and gentle.

His mate. And he was hers, in every way, in every world, and every life.

She pulls him close again, placing small kisses on his forehead, his cheek, and the corners of his mouth. When his mouth finds hers again, he senses it; feels it: that rising heat and question in her kiss that calls to every heartbeat, every breath, every fiber of his being.

She murmurs something against his mouth, and he lowers to her neck, relishing the sweetness of her scent and softness.

“Stay,” she says again, her voice slightly breathless and barely above a whisper. He leaves a long, lingering kiss at the base of her throat before resting over her and meeting her gaze.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

[thesistersarcheron]

Pairing: Elucien Rating: E Tags: Strangers to Lovers, Temper Tantrums, Oral Sex, Face-Fucking, Little Black Dress, Lucien finally learns why he bothers Elain so much and lets her hatefuck his face to apologize --- Find more on my masterlist or read this fic on AO3!

"Above all, manners are a sensitive awareness of the needs of others—sincerity and good intentions always matter more than knowing which fork to use." - Emily Post's Etiquette, 19th Edition: Manners for Today

Feyre said Lucien Vanserra was the finest emissary she knew. That he was raised a prince. But all Elain could see was the awkward small talk and the graceless manners.

“Do you ever shut up?”

The words were out before Elain could think them through. She was just so sick of it—the lukewarm tea and holding her tongue and the awkward, graceless, one-sided small talk.

She glared at the man, at the male, beside her. He straightened, his golden eye wide and shimmering in the sunlight.

Perhaps she was a bit on edge. Perhaps entertaining Rhys and Feyre’s guests during a summit held in the palace over the Hewn City grated on her nerves. Perhaps she had wanted to throw her teapot at Feyre’s head when Lucien had winnowed into the grand main hall without notice, a fiery human queen on his arm.

Feyre was quick enough to disappear with Vassa, at the very least. Elain had still wanted to throw the teapot when she didn't take Lucien, too.

And perhaps her dress was itchy. The black tulle was pretty enough, laid as it was over a stunning amethyst silk jacquard, but the frills beneath her arms were so poorly stitched that Elain wanted to shred them.

But Elain had better manners than dress-shredding and teapot-throwing, so she sat, staring out at the vast mountains before her and fuming that the first fine week of spring in Velaris had to be wasted on this… this nonsense. And Lucien had eventually scuffed his feet, cleared his throat, and taken the seat across from her.

He had whistled as he poured his tea, putting entirely too much sugar into it, and then tilted his head back to stare too pointedly at the carved corbels and floating glass lanterns.

Stupidly.

Elain counted herself lucky that he hadn't tapped the tea off his spoon against the rim of his cup or, worse, licked it off.

Now he was staring at her, his lips parted. Also stupidly. “Excuse me?”

“Feyre said,” Elain told him in a fit of temper. “That you were the finest emissary she’s ever known. Raised a prince! But…”

Elain snapped her mouth shut. She could feel her nose wrinkling and knew she was making that awful face Nesta and Feyre made whenever they went on a tirade.

Lucien’s face did something strange. He sat back in his chair, one booted ankle rising to rest on the opposite knee, and tilted his head.

“But… what?”

That damned bond pulled at her ribs.

Once again, she ignored the urge to start shattering Rhys's fine porcelain.

Instead, Elain buried her face in her palms and shrieked.

-----

Elain's dress discourse is back, and I'm a firm believer in letting Elain wear black. Somewhere along the way, I wrote "Lucien the exiled-prince-turned-emissary eats Night Court princess pussy while she's in a skimpy little black dress? After hearing she tricked Eris?" and it has haunted me since. Enjoy!

[separatist-apologist]

Throw Me To The Flames

You could drag me through hell if it meant I could hold your hand

Summary: Elain only ever meant to deliver a message to Vassa on behalf of her sister's court. She never intended to see Lucien.

And she CERTAINLY didn't mean to get in the way of a knife that was only ever meant for his chest.

Kidnapped, and dragged helpless to the continent, the two will have to work together if they want to survive.

Note: HAPPY HOLIDAYS to my BEST @acotargiftexchange, @fieldofdaisiies

I hope you enjoy this as much as I have enjoyed hanging out with you!!!

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6

Read More AO3

In all Elain’s life, she never expected to find herself standing in a human manor, fussing over a pot of tea again. She could hear rustling wings and the tapping disapproval of Azriel’s impatient boot. They were waiting on Lord Graysen and she knew it irritated him. There were other things he needed to be doing, and while he certainly didn’t have to chaperone this meeting, she appreciated it all the same.

He wasn't the only one out there monitoring for good behavior. Arina, who had declared she and Elain were now inseparable, had taken one distrustful look at Azriel and said she’d come, too. A representative, she’d added when Azriel had sighed with exasperation, of Day Court.

And Jurian was there, simmering with quiet anger at the entire thing. He’d begun raising the human armies and Elain had heard the bitter argument between him and Azriel—why did Nolan get the final say?

Because Nolan had the capital and Scythia was still divided. They needed the men loyal to Grayen to rally the rest of the humans if they wanted an army at least the size they’d utilized with Hybern. 

Elain swept into the living room she’d stood in once before, the memory of that argument with Lucien replaying before her eyes. It was like watching the ghost of two people she barely knew, face off and ready for combat. Now Azriel was perched on that pink couch, his discomfort evident. Jurian stood in the doorframe, eyes trained on the door while Arina paced by a window.

“Are you sure—”

A knock interrupted Jurian’s angry words, drawing him into the hall. Azriel glanced at the steaming tear before nodding for Elain to sit, too. 

“Don’t serve him,” Azriel murmured. It was the sort of thing Lucien would say, too. Still, the urge to do things right overwhelmed her. She knew every step to this dance—play her part immaculately to get what she needed. Fall on her knees to beg the man she’d sworn to always love to help her rescue the man she currently did. 

He was not as she remembered. Time had settled into the fine lines of his once youthful face, marking him older. Gray peppered at his warm brown hair and teased against a mustache he hadn’t always had.

Her chest ached at the sight. So many years had passed, seemingly as quick as a breath. She had never once considered what that passage truly meant. That one day she might wake and Graysen would merely be gone, passing like memory over the earth. 

Graysen, who’d been staring at her with open-mouthed surprise, closed his lips into a firm line. “Elain.”

She looked at Azriel, who’d told her that Graysen would only speak to her. Was it to express his disapproval one last time? To humiliate her all over again, having found the first time so wildly satisfactory.

“I said I would speak with her, not with an audience,” Graysen continued in clipped tones. Dressed in the familiar cobalt blue of his family crest, he was a peek into a life she might have had, if things had worked out even a little differently. 

He wore a band of iron around his ring finger, resting casually—who had he married, she wondered? Who had replaced her in his home, his heart? He didn’t notice how her eyes traveled, his gaze burning on Azriel. As if anything he could say, anything he might do would frighten the ancient, winged male behind her.

“You’ll take what I offer,” was Azriel’s cold response. He punctuated it by sitting himself on that garish couch, flaring his wings for effect. Graysen’s distaste was apparent, made worse when

Arina stepped forward and with a revealing, pointed smile, asked, “Tea?”

They needed him. Elain turned to him, wanting just once to touch him. Instead, she kept her hands curled to fists at her sides. “You asked to speak with me?”

“I wanted to see you,” he admitted, taking one careful step towards her. “You haven’t changed—”

“She’s immortal,” Jurian snapped, earning twin looks of amusement from Arina and Azriel. “She will outlive you.”

Graysen’s mood darkened all over again. Elain was burning with humiliation, warring with the same impatience that seemed to have infected Jurian. They were wasting time. Azriel could be helping Cassian gather troops while Rhysand prepared to winnow them in. She and Arina could have begun planning how Elain would get herself close enough to the fortress so she could find that hidden box. 

“What do you want, Gray?” she asked, her voice wearier than she’d meant to sound. “It’s been so long and you said…”

You said you didn’t want me.

“Are you happy?” he asked her, something flickering in his eyes. Elain felt unmoored for a moment, adrift in his question, his gaze, and the realization that he wanted her to tell him no. That though he’d rejected her and cast her aside, and even though they both knew he would never be brave enough to claim her like he should have all those years ago, he still hoped she was miserable.

Because he was miserable. 

“Yes, Gray. I am.”

It was the truth. Maybe if he’d asked her a year before she might have told him she was. Graysen’s disappointment was rippled for only a moment before it vanished subtle enough that had she not known him so well, she never would have caught it. Elain didn’t ask if he was happy, given the truth so stark before her.

She simply did not care.

“Will you help us?” she asked, ready to be done. The answer was simple. Yes or no.

“And if I don’t?”

“We’ll do it without you,” Elain replied, turning her back to look at Jurian, Azriel, and Azrina. It was dismissive and casual, the graceful boredom of true-born, fae nobility. She saw the corner of Azriel’s lips twitch, as if it amused him to see her so callously dismiss a man that clearly held himself in such high esteem. 

“Where will you gather the forces?”

“Scythia,” Jurian said with more confidence than anyone in the room felt. But Elain turned again, drinking him in one last time. He had haunted her for so long, his face the only thing she thought of more times than not. Had he always seemed so severe? So cowardly? Tucked behind his high walls, in a grove of ash? A ring of iron he knew was useless gripping a finger meant to symbolize love and fidelity? She’d come to him in the worst moments of her life and he’d never spared her a second glance.

Hadn’t cared if she’d lived or died. He’d merely cast her aside, as though she’d wanted this life. It had always burned her, and for years Elain had written and re-written speeches in her mind of what she’d say to convince him otherwise. How she’d make him see that what she’d wanted was him, for as much time as she was allotted.

And never once had it ever occurred to her that perhaps that sentiment was not returned. That Graysen was too scared, too cowardly to ever love her the way she’d loved him. What was love, without bravery? He wouldn’t have gone to war for her—Elain knew that with certainty, because he could have. He could have fought to have her, could have defied society and convention and their very customs and prejudices to have her, and he’d cast her aside. Even when she’d gone to him and confessed he had her heart—always—he’d tossed her aside like a cheap, replaceable thing.

Only now did he understand that perhaps it hadn’t been true, and still he stood here with his cold eyes, demanding she beg, if only to soothe his wounded ego. Elain would beg for Lucien. She would get on her knees and ask for his help if nothing else would save him. There was still enough hope that Elain could maintain her dignity. 

She thought Lucien would understand if she told him she couldn’t muster this one last humiliation. 

“We have enough,” Azriel finally said, filling the silence with his gruff voice. “If you wish to sit on the sidelines—”

“Like a coward!”Arina interjected, rising on her tiptoes to look menacing over one of Azriel’s flared wings. A ghost of a smile whispered over his face, as if she’d said the very thing he’d been thinking.

“You asked to speak with Elain, you know what she wants. Grant it—or don’t. We’re done wasting time.”

Elain was grateful when Arina grabbed her wrist, pulling her towards the door. She felt like she’d lived a thousand lives in the last day—they’d executed Beron the morning before, and now she stood before Graysen, pleading with him to help her get Lucien back. It was more than just the threat that Lucien would be forced to free Koschei, of which Elain suspected he might have to in order for her to truly damage the box so he was mortal—and killable. 

Jurian yanked open the door, clearly disappointed Graysen would leave humans out of the fight in favor of the fae. Face hidden in shadow, Elain understood how important it was to the human General that humanity be well represented when the stories were told. 

“Wait–!” Graysen’s voice echoed off the walls, following them into the narrowed foyer. “Your High Lord will winnow us in?”

Azriel assessed him coolly. “He will.”

“We’ll be ready at dawn.”

And that was that. Graysen shoved past them without a second glance, the first one to step into the cool summer night. The four of them watched him go, their displeasure surely burning a hole in his back.

“Is that all the time we have?” Arina whispered once Graysen was out of earshot. “A night?”

“Any more would be a waste,” Azriel replied, guiding them out onto the porch. Jurian seemed to agree.

And so did Elain.

LUCIEN: 

Lucien waited for Vassa to slip through the bedroom door, his leg jangling nervously. She’d been pacing the world just above the lake all morning, dragging a trail of fire through the sky as they waited. Time was against them—Lucien had his power back and could, as he’d proven when he’d taken a turret off the far end of the fortress, unspell the magic of his ancestors. 

Blood was all that was required, the very same coursing his veins. He could have undone Koschei right that moment had he felt like it. The only thing sparing Lucien the inevitable was Koschei’s distinct lack of knowledge regarding the ancestor who’d bound him.

Vassa slipped in, exhausted like she always did. Neither of them slept, waiting for the day their lives were so casually wiped from the world. 

“Something is happening,” she whispered, ignoring Lucien on the bed for the window just behind him. “He’s gathering forces.”

“Forces?” Lucien asked. He hadn’t seen another living creature outside of the three of them. 

“His magic,” she breathed, as if it should be obvious. “He’s pulling more of it, reshaping for a fight.”

“Then it’s over,” he said dully, gripping the blankets as the realization washed over him. He’d free Koschei, damning the world and perhaps worst of all, he would never see his mate again.

It was such a selfish thought, a self-pitying feeling to know that he would have given anything to just tell her what he’d been trying for so long to say.

Elain, I—

And she’d politely let him off the hook, each time agreeing, “I know.”But she didn’t, because he hadn’t said so. He’d kept the words leashed behind his teeth, certain she’d never want to hear him say those words. 

“I don’t think so,” Vassa interrupted, primed for a fight. Vassa would go down swinging, and Lucien suspected she intended to take her with him. “If his escape was an assured thing, he wouldn’t be fortifying. He rebuilt the tower you wrecked, wrapping it in his slimy magic.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think something unplanned is happening, and he’s reacting,” she said, turning to look at Lucien. “Someone—or something—is coming, and he didn’t expect that. I know he always meant to fight a war in Prythian, where there were more factors he could control.”

Lucien forced himself to think carefully. To be logical. High Lords would move to defend their own territories and people, breaking lines and abandoning alliances if it meant seeing their own power laid to ruin. Koschei could play them off one another—separate them and force them to fight seven wars on seven different fronts.

“Beron is dead,” Lucien reminded her, the wheels spinning in his mind. “He’ll expect Autumn to be weakened, pulling them from the fight.”

“Are they?”

Lucien scoffed. “Eris is young, perhaps, to a death lord, but he’s hardly unseasoned. He’d rally. He’d–”

Lucien swallowed the words he’d been about to say with such confidence. He’d come. 

“What if they coming?” she whispered, daring to look out at the dark sky again. Her fingers gripped the stone, scanning as if she’d see a terrifying, winged army just beyond. “He has no more moves left to play, at least not in secret.” 

“That doesn’t mean he couldn’t play them well,” Lucien reminded her. After all, Vassa was only a pawn in his bid to get to Lucien. The two turned to look at each other, and he wondered if Vassa had realized what he had only just.

“When I break his spell, you’ll be freed, too.”

“I won’t leave you here,” she said, courageous until the very last. Lucien shook his head, because the humans needed someone just. Someone fair, who put them above everything else.

“You must.”

She opened her mouth as if she might respond, only to close it as that same realization swept over her. There were other things to consider besides their time in captivity and their shared friendship. Vassa could not think like that—and neither could Lucien.

“Well,” he finally said, his voice ringing with hollow finality. He pulled at the bond in his chest, wishing Elain was awake.

She pulled back with an immediacy that made his blood sing. Somewhere in the world, his mate was safe. She was free. Lucien needed her to stay that way, even as creeping realization wormed its way against the back of his neck. Elain was unlikely to keep to the sidelines—was likely the driving force, in her stubborn, unyielding way, of the whole affront to start with.

It should have scared him. Lucien wanted to be angry. 

He felt nothing but relief. He trusted her sisters and her friends to temper the worst of her impulses and remind her that dying served no purpose, and deprived the world of her very presence.

And still.

And still.

Knowing she would come at all, that she would try and claw her way back to him made Lucien feel alive in a way he hadn’t in centuries. Finally, after riddled with his despair, his self-loathing, his insecurities, Lucien felt like he had some divine purpose. As though the suffering had all been for something, had been dragging him kicking and screaming directly to her. 

As someone worthy.

Lucien rose to his feet, joining Vassa at the window. “It doesn’t seem possible he’s left anything to chance.”

“He can’t control everything. Only himself,” Vassa murmured in response. “There are too many of us now—he can’t hold that many strings.”

“He can’t fight a war on every front,” Lucien said in response. “Surely even he has a weakness. Some very killable heart, perhaps?”

“Maybe that’s what he keeps touching under his cloak,” Vassa joked. “It’s just an open hole in his chest.”

Their eyes met, a silent question passing between them. Lucien didn’t have to speak a word to send Vassa scurrying away—watchful, as she was so good at. It was desperate—one last attempt at thwarting what was almost certainly their inevitable conclusion. Lucien would die and Vassa freed, only to succumb to the dark reign of Koschei. 

They wouldn’t let history say they hadn’t tried. And when Lucien left his bedroom in the keep just before dawn, pulled by the shadowed whisperings of the Death Lord himself, Vassa waited just in the hall, her lips forming two silent words. 

Spelled box. 

She inclined her head in a familiar direction, to the once ruined portion of the castle Lucien had once been caged in. Vassa slipped away, fierce determination warring with what looked almost like an apology. Lucien didn’t stick around to let her vocalize it. They all had their parts to play—his was this.

Koschei sat rigid in the same high-backed chair at the long table, laden still with too much food. Unnecessary, given what was coming. Bone-white hands laid calmly on the stone, framing an empty plate with skin stretched unbearably tight over his joints.

“An army gathers just outside the mist,” Koschei told Lucien, his words lacking the usual emotion. It was merely a statement, those Lucien thought there was some puzzlement to his expression, as if for all his meticulous calculations, he had not foreseen this. “They do not accept death as readily as you do.” Lucien heaved a sigh as he fell into his chair, pulling whatever he could reach towards him. It was a last meal, even as his mind turned over Vassa’s words.

Spelled box. 

Containing what? And if he managed to unbind it, would he make things better or worse? 

“I realize your education is incomplete,” Koschei continued, leaning forward as Lucien began to eat. “Raised wrong, you do not understand your significance.”

“Does it matter?” Lucien asked, certain it made little difference here at the end of things. 

Koschei cocked his head. “Of course it matters. Why you, instead of another? Generations of Spell-Cleavers have existed since the first…any might have done. I have waited for you.”

Lucien forced himself to swallow. “Because my line spelled you the first time.”

“Your line spelled me the first time,” he agreed, reclining back in his chair. It was as if Lucien’s willingness to play along, to listen to this story, had settled him. “Bound me to this lake, to this fortress as punishment and…perhaps…as a joke. I have never truly known why Apollion spared me when so many others did not. His magic, drained from him in his ultimately foolish endeavor, spared me the fate of so many other of my siblings. Trapped, yes…but dead, no.”

A thrum in Lucien’s blood made Lucien think that somewhere, he’d heard this all before. 

Koschei, unaware of how Lucien’s senses were awakening, continued to speak. Lost in memory, he paid Lucien little mind. “We knew the fae were getting stronger—harnessing the magic of the land, the sea, the sky much like we had once done. We’d grown greedy and were bored with unchecked rule. Your kind was little more than a sea floating rat—able to see and untangle spells, we thought. A little trick and little more.”

Lucien’s heart pounded in his chest, steady like a drum. “Apollion was guided by a prophecy–by love.” There was no disgust, no derision to the word. Only distaste, and perhaps confusion. Koschei, who was not a creature with a true soul as far as Lucien could tell, didn’t understand the lengths a person might be willing to go for such a potent emotion. And he understood, right then, why the gathering army confused him. Why hadn’t they chosen to stay and protect themselves, forsaking their kinsman? Beron had been willing to do so, after all. Beron had handed over a child he’d raised with no feeling at all—surely they were all like him.

But they were like Elain. Burning with feeling, with the willingness to try if for no other reason than loving the world and each other was all they really had. All they could cling to, could steady themselves again. 

“Seers are rare—and Apollion let one convince him to bind me. Swore there was a way.”

“She was right, it seems,” Lucien replied, abandoning his food entirely to hear this story. A Seer and a Spell-Cleaver had begun this.

And Lucien knew why his blood was humming. It was her. Outside in that waiting army, coming back for him to finish what their ancestors had begun thousands of years before. He had to force himself not to react, to retain his mask of boredom. 

Koschei didn’t smile. “She was. And so they came—Apollion and his Cassandra. She promised me knowledge of the world, promised to tell me all she knew if I would spare her family from my hunger. I had such an appetite back then. Your magical little souls make the finest of meals.”

“You agreed?”

Koschei nodded, ignoring the way the sky began to slip from violet to cerulean as the sun broke through the haze. “How could I resist? I agreed, and she came with her lover, who cursed me to this lake for eternity—and lost his life doing so. She’d thought she could save him. She didn’t realize…as I’m sure you’ve come to—you cannot have it all.”

Their eyes met, Koschei’s words a warning. Lucien discarded it, unwilling to trust that Koschei would be honest with him when so much was riding on everything going exactly as he planned.

“So, what? You’ve been here?”

“I’ve been here,” Koschei agreed. “Heartbroken Cassandra settled among the humans, passing her line through them in an effort to prevent another tragedy. Humans do not feel the magic as your kind do. No mating bonds, as she and Apollion had. No prophecy. The architect of her own ruined legacy as a speaker of false prophecies. She was so afraid I might need another…but not so afraid she didn’t wind that thread through generations of ignorant humans.”

Feyre. Cursebreaker, destined to save them from Amarantha. Her sisters, able to withstand the Cauldron, and Elain—

“I’ve been pulling those threads since before you were born,” Koschei murmured, watching Lucien piece it all together. “Your mating bond has been thrumming through the world far longer than your own father has lived. Waiting for just the right fingers to pluck at it, to draw you near. Little Cassandra, for all her ploys, never imagined her once children, so far removed, might one day become fae again. Destiny is a tricky thing—your kind has never truly understood it.”

“You don’t need her,” Lucien said quickly, betraying himself. 

Koschei nodded. “No. I only ever needed you. She merely put you in place.”

“You’ll spare her,” Lucien said. It wasn’t a question. 

“And what will you give me in return?”

The board was set. Lucien knew Koschei was primed for his words, for the promise, and so he chose his words as carefully as he could.

“I will give you an end to all of this.”

Koschei only smiled. “Let's begin.”

ELAIN:

Dawn broke just over the horizon when he went to find him. Dressed in golden sandals laced up to her knees, and a leather-skirted pteruges embroidered in gold, Elain felt like a princess of Day Court. Her hair had been carefully pulled from her face in equal rows to create a pretty ponytail more ceremonial than functional. The white leathered breastplate, etched with a rising sun over her chest, and the band of gold over her arms, spoke of Elain’s allegiance. 

And who shielded her from all accountability when it came to the brazen slaughter of a High Lord. Helion Spell-Cleaver had taken one look at the furious Eris Vanserra and with a wry smile, said, “High Lord.”

He’d gotten an answering snarl in response. Elain wondered if Eris’s reasons for hating Helion extended to Arina, left behind in Day as a last defense of the city, should they fail here. Elain could untangle the complicated history of those two once she had Lucien back—once they were safe. 

“You didn’t want me to see that crown,” Elain said by way of greeting, standing beside Helion as they waited for the mist to fall. It would be Nesta, with the remnants of the death power still clinging to her veins, that pulled it down. Elain could see her eldest sister in the dark leathers of the Valkyries, flanked on either side by Gwyn and Emerie as she stood against it. Head cocked, studying it like a long-forgotten friend.

“No,” Helion agreed, gold eyes coming to rest on her. “I wanted to see if the blade would call to you.”

Cassandra’s dagger was strapped to her belt, the only weapon Elain carried.

“Why not just say that?” she asked with more than a little frustration. “Why the secrets?”

“Killing Beron still serves my purposes,” Helion told her, shadows flickering over his expression. “And I can’t be caught sending assassins into neighboring territories. That had to be all you.”

“I would have kept your secret,” Elain told him, as if there weren’t creatures who could read minds. As if Helion needed just enough plausible deniability to keep his home safe. He only nodded, a silent thank you, even if it no longer mattered. 

“Will it work now?” she asked, her insides roiling. Just beyond that heavy curtain was Lucien, still alive even if he’d stopped pulling back on their bond. Something like resignation was hanging between them—he’d made a choice.

She hated to think what choice he’d made, likely on her behalf, without even consulting her first. If Lucien had decided on self-sacrificial bullshit, she’d dig him right back up just so she could kill him all over again. 

“They say Cassandra was mad,” Helion told her, his eyes far away. “She said so too, at the end. The journals they recovered were the scribblings of someone lost—she claimed to have lied about it all, that her visions were little more than the wishes of a female trying to achieve greatness.”

Elain felt her stomach sink. “Was she?”

He exhaled. “She had enough presence of mind to leave behind documents, even if they prevented anyone from looking too closely for wherever she vanished. They say it was her prophecy that led to Koschei being bound to begin with. One of the first Spell-Cleavers, if you believe the stories. Guided here on fragments and hope.”

Elain’s heart pounded. A Seer and a Spell-Cleaver had begun this? She blinked away the urge to cry, to push away that golden thread of fate that clung so tight to her ribcage. It was a war and it always had been—but it was a meeting of two souls looking for each other across time and space. Elain’s body ached at the thought. Even if it hadn’t been them, they were always meant to find each other. All the suffering, the misery, it was all worth it to bring her to him. 

“I’ll winnow you to the front,” Helion told her, watching as silver flames danced over Nesta’s palms. “And destroy the wards. After that…”

Elain swallowed. After that, she’d have to hope she understood enough—that her visions on how to end this were right. “I won’t fail.” She had to believe that, needed blind faith to get her through the fear racing through her. So much could go wrong, especially know that Elain knew that it was wildly believed Cassandra, the person whose dagger she held, was a liar. It occurred to Elain just as the mist fell, that this might be one last trick. Koschei, luring her in for some piece of his plan she hadn’t considered.

Reckless. The whole thing was reckless and still Elain didn’t care. As the warm winnow pushed at her ribs, Elain felt relief that her separation from Lucien was nearly over. Whatever happened next, they would greet it together.

Just as they’d always been meant to.

A terrible roaring filled the silence before she or Helion ever touched the sandy bank of the lake. He’d clearly been ripped from the air too early, eyes wild as the pair tumbled backwards. He shielded her as something blasted around them, drawing a pained moan from his throat. It wasn’t the sound Elain wanted to hear erupt from a male that exuded the sort of raw power Helion did.

“He’s free,” Helion panted, twisting to look overhead. The sky was blotted in endless, unrelenting dark, broken only from the frazzled static of magics pent up too long. Neither of them moved, staring at the ancient magic unleashed on a new world. She could feel it like oil balancing atop water, too heavy to fully sink into the soil. 

Helion reached around Elain, ripping at the wards keeping Elain out—if they even existed anymore.

“Go,” Helion ordered, pulling her to her feet. Neither of them spoke the truth, though the solid second they held the others gaze, the same fear washed through them.

Lucien had freed Koschei. 

Elain’s stomach twisted as she scrambled, running for the iron doors blown open when Koschei had escaped. She wasn’t supposed to be looking for Lucien. She was supposed to be looking for that box, but all Elain could think of was Lucien. He was the whole point—everything she’d done had been for him. 

The bond was still there, drowned by the roaring and the resulting screams and singing metal of a battle that would be ultimately futile. The combined power of all seven courts might hold him off—might keep him from immediately sweeping through the continent, but eventually Rhys and Feyre would flicker, drained entirely. The rest would fall like dominoes. Koschei only had to batter against them like waves against rocks, weathering each new attack until they were exhausted and unable to continue on.

Time was against her. 

Elain ran through dark halls, guided by only flickering torches blowing in a phantom breeze. Occasionally they flickered out, leaving her blind in the dark. She skidded into an open dining hall, the only furniture a long, stone carved table filled with rotting food. Flies buzzed, picking at the carcass of what had once been a chicken, while maggots crawled over plates and cups.

Elain stared in horror, her stomach turning. Where was Lucien? She tried to scream his name, but her voice was lost to the world, drowned in an endless roar. Elain twisted, her panic making her reckless and foolish. She was afraid, so deeply afraid that she no longer cared about anything or anyone. Not as she turned, guided by the gold glowing in her veins. It took her to a spiraling tower and stairs slick with a copper scented substance. Blood, it was blood—

“Lucien,” Elain cried, throwing herself through the door to the iron bars of a cage. She’d seen this—seen him, curled just inside. His once vibrant, warm skin was ashen, too pale to belong to the male she loved. For a moment, Elain thought he was dead, eyes squeezed tight as they were. His hair spilled around a pulsating wound, caked in the same substance dripping down the spiraling stairs.

His golden eye opened. “Elain?” he whispered. 

Elain gripped the bars, tugging uselessly. She watched him pull himself towards her, wrapping a callused hand over her own as he forced himself to sit.

“You’re hurt,” she said, not giving him a chance to speak. He was dying. Elain could see the inevitable conclusion to the slashes carved against Lucien’s chest—like a hundred lashes. Elain crushed her mouth against his own, tasting the salt and metal dried against his mouth.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” she said, some part of her settled now that they were together. “I’m going—”

“Elain,” Lucien managed, a heavy finality to his words. He reached just behind, and pulled the thing she’d been looking for. The box from her visions, thudding to the floor when Lucien could no longer stand to touch it.

“It's his soul,” Lucien said, each word thicker than the last. “Without it, he can’t die. Apollion he…” Lucien took a deep, shuddering breath. “He gave us an out. He knew he was going to die, he—”

It didn’t matter. Elain didn’t care, not as she wrenched at the bars, twisting with all her immortal strength until she could force herself between them. Elain squeezed herself in, sucking in a heavy breath before collapsing just beside him. 

“As long as he has it, he can’t die,” Lucien told her, his face inches from her own. “Take it to—”

“To me,” Elain interrupted gently, rising on her knees as she pulled Cassandra’s dagger from her belt. “To us,” she added, not daring to look at the flesh hanging from Lucien’s chest. He would survive. They all would. The battle was early and everyone was still strong. 

“When this is all over,” Elain told him, her hands shaking in fear as she used one to lift the latch of the box and the other to raise the dagger, “I want that time you promised. Decades in Summer, in Day, in Dawn.”

“You can have anything,” Lucien told her, pressing his forehead to her temple. “I am yours and I always have been. I always will be.”

“You are mine,” she repeated as a sharpened awareness clawed at her neck. “And I am yours.”

“He’s coming, Elain. You have to do it now—”

The lid opened, revealing a mass of swirling silver flickering against a writhing mass of inky black. The world around them ripped, like a yawning mouth looking to devour them. She could feel what Lucien had, the thundering steps of a creature newly freed only to realize its death was close at hand.

“Now,” Lucien whispered, lips to her cheek.

“Together,” she added, wishing she was less afraid. His fingers closer around her own, holding her while Elain p

lunged the dagger into the center of the box. 

A deafening, brutal scream rang around them, the agony of a long-held life ripping through Elain’s very sanity. Blood poured from the box, drenching her legs and still Elain twisted, digging that knife viciously through the box until she’d split the wood in two. Arms wrapped around Elain’s body, pulling her against Lucien as the tower began to shake.

“He’s going to pull the fortress apart,” Lucien yelled, his voice drowned by the screams. Lucien pulled her down, his body bracing itself for that first crash as a stone clipped the cage they were both cowering in. Elain swore she felt warmth—the smell of crisp air and crunching leaves so reminiscent of Autumn. A memory she couldn’t quite place, and a time she’d just only lost.

Something struck her, and Elain was grateful to lose herself to the dark.

[shadowisles-writes]

Guys I was hunting for art references on Pinterest and I found Elain and Lucien’s daughter!! 🥹🥰