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captainsophiestark · 2 months

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The Hard Call

Azriel x Reader

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Requeted by Anon! Nonnie, thank you for enabling me to write about Az and Flynn, I absolutely love you for it ❤️ Feel free to drop by any time you want to talk anything SJM-related! Hope you like this, and good news, I have a Flynn fic coming in the next couple days too!

Fandom: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Summary: Azriel made the hard call when he had to, but he's feeling pretty guilty about it.

Word Count: 1,610

Category: Angst, Fluff

WARNING: House of Flame and Shadow spoilers below the cut!

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

I swore under my breath as Nesta jammed Ataraxia into the back of the Daglan, the Asteri, whatever it was called. Black blood spurted out of its mouth, but a moment later, the thing—Vesperus—pushed back against the tip of the blade and removed it from her chest. It shouldn't have been possible for something to survive a direct hit like that from Nesta and that sword, but a lot of things from the past few days shouldn't have been possible.

When a fae female had landed in a heap on the River House lawn in front of my mate, I knew we were in for some strange new challenges. But never in a million years could I have predicted the journey she'd led us on through tunnels apparently running all under the Night Court, straight into the heart of the Prison. And now we were facing down one of the most dangerous creatures in the universe, just me, Az, and Nesta, with the female Bryce as an unreliable additional ally.

I tightened my grip on my sword and tried to calm my racing heart as I stood shoulder to shoulder with Azriel. We'd gotten through countless life and death situations together before, but for the first time in a long time, I wasn't sure we'd be able to get out of this one.

Vesperus gave Nesta a horrifying smile as the wound in her chest quickly healed. I glanced to Az, but he kept his eyes locked on the monster before us.

"Ataraxia didn't work," Nesta breathed. "The Trove-"

"Do not summon the Trove," barked my mate. Based on what we knew about this thing before us, I immediately agreed. "Don't bring it near her."

"But-"

"Not even for our lives," he snarled, leaving no room for argument. The same harsh resolve solidified itself in my mind, and I braced myself for the possibility of a last stand. At least if we went down, it would be fighting side by side with my mate.

A flicker of shadows floating softly over my shoulders was the only indication that my mate felt the same. The Daglan grinned, and I got ready to pounce.

****************

Hours later, I sat slumped in my favorite chair in the Velaris townhouse, trying to recover from everything that had happened under the prison. We'd managed to kill the Daglan-Asteri, despite Bryce trying to question it, no matter the risk to our world. But she had gotten away in an impressive display of power, which meant her world's Asteri might have a chance at using her to find us.

Needless to say, when Az, Nesta, and I had made it out of the Prison, we'd had a lot to debrief about with the rest of the Inner Circle.

Nobody was happy about the situation we now found ourselves in, but for the time being, there was also nothing we could do about it. So once we made a basic plan to try to gather information and prepare in case something from that other world came back, we all split off for our separate tasks. Az still had a few things to go over with Rhys, but I was free for the time being, so I'd come to my favorite cozy spot in Velaris to try to come down from the insane adrenaline that had been pumping since Bryce got here.

One perk of Rhys and Feyre building the River House and Nesta keeping Cassian at the House of Wind more often was that the townhouse, my personal favorite location, was often free for Az and I to use as our own. I closed my eyes in my favorite armchair by the fire, still in my fighting leathers, and focused on taking deep breaths to try to get the tension out of my shoulders.

I'd actually almost managed to drift off to sleep when I heard the front door open and shut heavily. I didn't need to look to know Az had just arrived, so with a deep sigh to drag me back from the edge of sleep, I raised my head and turned to look at my mate.

"Everything figured out with Rhys?" I asked. He nodded once, moving into the room with a face like stone. I frowned, sitting up and paying a little better attention as he took a seat on the couch, his gorgeous hazel eyes never leaving mine. "What's wrong?"

A muscle in Az's jaw ticked, and I knew he was mustering a response to my words. Despite his reputation as the unreadable spymaster, all our time together as friends and then as mates had given me a leg up on everyone else who tried to read his expressions.

I stood from my seat in the armchair and moved to sit before Az on the couch instead, taking his hands in mine. His eyes searched my face, and I let a small smile work its way through the exhaustion, trying to put him at ease. He could take however long he needed to, and I'd be ready to listen when he wanted to talk.

"I'm... sorry."

I raised an eyebrow. "For what, exactly?"

That muscle in his jaw was working over time, the rest of his face the same inscrutable mask he'd worked so hard to perfect.

"For what happened in the Prison. For... being willing to let you die down there, rather than risk Nesta summoning the Trove. You deserve a better mate than that."

My jaw dropped, shock preventing me from responding for a few small moments. Az just kept staring at me, and even though his face didn't show it, I could feel the guilt eating him up at his core.

"Az, you have nothing to apologize for!" I finally managed. One of his eyebrows quirked up and he frowned, expressing doubt at my words without speaking one of his own. I huffed and squeezed his hands tighter.

"Listen to me, Azriel. The reason you are my mate is because you made that decision in the Prison. We both know that letting something like that into the world with a weapon like the Mask is an unacceptable option, as long as there is anything in this world we can do to prevent it. If the Daglan or the Asteri or whatever she was had gotten her hands on the mask, it probably would've cost the lives of everyone we've ever cared about, and the rest of this world along with it. Nothing is worth allowing that to happen."

Az ground his jaw, his gaze softening and his eyebrows furrowing as he continued to scan my face.

"Are you... sure? Cassian and Rhys... I think they'd tear the world to shreds for their mates."

I just shrugged. "For what? If the world is gone, if the cost of that choice is absolutely everything else, then what's the point of saving each other in the first place? We'd have nothing left, other than the blood of the world on our hands."

Az grunted, and I shifted closer to him, bringing one hand up to cup his cheek.

"Az. I love you, so much, and a part of that love is because you're not so selfish as to risk throwing the world away for me. Especially since, more likely than not, we'd be dead anyway not long after she got that mask. Neither of us is selfish enough to make a call like that, and I love that about us. The only thing that matters is that we stand together as long as we can, and I knew damn well in the cave that if either of us was going down, we were going down side by side, fighting to our last breath. Obviously I'm happy we both made it out of there, and I'm not saying we shouldn't fight for each other, but that call you made today? I'd be pissed if you'd made a different one."

Az studied me for another second, and I let him see every truth and emotion written in my face. Finally, he sighed, the tension going out of his shoulders as he reached out and pulled me closer to him, arms around my waist. I smiled, wrapping my arms around his neck and tangling my hands in his hair. We'd almost died today, and I wasn't about to take the fact that we were both still here together for granted.

"Have I mentioned lately how happy I am to have you as my mate?" Az asked, his voice a little gravelly as he leaned in closer to me. I smiled, leaning forward and letting my lips ghost over his own.

"Yeah, actually, you have. But I'll never complain about hearing it again."

Az smirked, then gently closed the last of that distance between us, his lips brushing softly against mine. I leaned into the kiss, eager for more contact, and I could feel Az's smirk widening right before I deepened the kiss. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me as tight to his body as possible, and I tangled my hands in his hair, letting myself get swept up in him.

I'd meant every word I'd said to my mate, about the choice he'd made and how I felt about it. But I was also incredibly happy it hadn't come down to the cost of our lives, and that we'd made it out of there together. And now that Official Night Court Business had been taken care of, I intended to fully celebrate and appreciate Azriel, and the fact that we were still here together. And I knew he intended to do the same.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989

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roselensedeyes · 9 months

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my house of stone, your ivy grows

Hello everyone!

I thought I'd share with you some of my writings, but also as an archive in case ao3 stops working like a couple of weeks ago! You can read it on ao3 here.

This is the first elriel fanfiction I've ever written, criticism is welcomed but please be kind! You can read it under the cut. Enjoy!

Elain Archeron was listening passively to the discussion between her brother-in-law, and the Nigh Court High Lord, Rhysand, and their unexpected visitor.

Well, not entirely unexpected, she had seen her coming a few weeks prior. Perhaps strange was a better word to describe her. The girl, whose name was Bryce Quinlan, had landed a couple of weeks ago on her younger sister’s, Feyre, front lawn, fallen through a portal meant to take her to Hel. Instead, it’d brought her to Prythian.

Elain had seen it a few hours before, while she was baking bread in the Town House she had recently moved into. After the birth of her nephew, Nyx, she’d decided she needed to let them have their own personal space, allow them to grow their bond with their son.

Said nephew was now sitting on her knees, bouncing while looking around with wide, curious eyes. His small fist was in his mouth, and Elain gently took it away. His first teeth would come in soon, Madja had said, which meant he might feel the urge to chew on everything he’d come across. Elain tried to focus back on the conversation taking place before her. In the past days, the Inner Circle and Bryce had tried to put together the pieces of knowledge they possessed, to understand their worlds’ histories and lore. Of what the Asteri—the Daglan, as they were known in Prythian—had been doing throughout the millennia. Of the worlds they had conquered and destroyed, of those people they had used until they had exhausted their purpose. Of what they were planning on doing to Elain’s world again, this time leaving no chances of losing. Of what they were already doing to Bryce’s world, Midgard, and the torture they were putting her mate and brother and loved ones through. Elain suppressed the shudder that threatened to overtake her as she thought of the agony in Bryce’s voice when she explained what the Asteri were most likely doing to her brother and mate in their dungeon, of those flashes she had seen in her vision.

She had never mastered her seer powers, not yet at least.

At first, they reminded her of what was done to her, of those months of suffering and heartache following that fateful day when she was turned into Fae. And that day when her fiancé, the man she thought was her soulmate and who she was going to spend the rest of her life with. But the life she knew had ended the night she and her older sister Nesta were kidnapped, no matter how hard she fought against it. In those months in which she would not, could not leave her room, she pretended all was well, as it was supposed to be. But one look in the mirror, a those pointed ears that replaced her rounded ones, shattered those pretenses. And then the visions came, and that was when she knew nothing would ever be the same again, that she would never go back to being the same person she’d been for her entire life.

So with the help of her family and her two friends, Nuala and Cerridwen, she had tried to find some normalcy in her new life. She’d learned how to grow vegetables and fruit, now that the soil allowed the seeds to grow, she had the shadow twins teach her how to bake and cook, and she’d even found a job to pay back her sister and her husband for all that they had done for her over the years. Helping the elderly by tending their gardens filled her with such sense of fulfillment that she had never thought possible.

Yet, Elain had never tapped into her powers again. At times, images would pop into her mind, but she’d always ignored them, pushing them to the back of her mind. Those visions would bring forward too many things she’d rather not face. Elain knew it also pained her sister Nesta, not being able to help her. That those flashes she’d see would also be a reminder to her of her failure in not protecting her, even though Elain also knew there was nothing Nesta could have done to prevent the attack. To avoid what had happened to them both. They had been betrayed, by Feyre’s captor and his friend, Lucien. Who happened to be Elain’s mate too. Another thing she would rather not face yet.

So Elain had avoided her powers, of the truth they would whisper to her.

Yet when she was baking bread for her family weeks ago and the vision hit her, there was nothing she could have done to block out the images, the sounds of despair and agony that filled her ears. She had heard a woman—a female— with red hair sob as she hugged a male who murmured words of comfort to her, telling her he was going to find her, as another male, who looked eerily similar to Rhysand slipped something in her pockets. And then she saw that same female jump through a portal and land on a front lawn Elain knew well. Her breath had been knocked out of her lungs and she knew that what she had seen was too important to ignore.

Now, Bryce and Rhysand were discussing how to contact the former’s friends in Midgard. Bryce insisted that the information they came about was of great value, that her friends needed to be aware of it to be better prepared while she was stuck in this world. That she needed to tell them, to help them however she could.

Rhysand, on his part, argued that it was too risky to establish contact with the world where the parasites that were trying to conquer and enslave them again resided. That they needed more time to collect insights on how to defeat them before risking opening the gates between their worlds. Elain could understand both points of view.

“I’m telling you, I know a way to communicate with them that does not require opening the gates,” Bryce said in frustration.

The sole fact that Elain could now understand her was a feat on its own. Rhysand and Amren, his second-in-command, had conjured a sort of translation machine, allowing them to talk freely. Bryce used some terms they all didn’t understand, like gun or motorcycle, but they could still communicate and understand the other with little to no issue.

“If only I had brought the bloodsalt with me,” Bryce muttered under her breath. Rhysand stilled and exchanged a look with Amren.

“Bloodsalt?” He asked quietly, too quietly.

The female’s head whipped up. “You know what it is?” Her voice sounded so hopeful.

Elain’s heart squeezed a bit. For her sake, she sent a prayer to the Mother that it meant something positive.

“I’m not sure. The word does remind me of...” Rhys stopped talking, as if he was unsure on what to reveal to that strange, modern female standing before him. Although she had proved to not be deceiving them, it was still hard for them to trust her entirely. Especially for Rhysand, who had a mate, a son, and a Court to think about. “I don’t think it was ever used how you mean it.”

Bryce seemed to deflate a bit at that, but still took a deep breath before explaining how it was used on her planet.

“In Midgard there are… individuals who have been granted a great, yet terrible power. They’re called mystics, and they always work in a set of three. One female, one male, and one who is both. They can see the present—and other worlds.” She swallowed, as if talking about these creatures brought her great pain. “They’re usually born to poor families, and their parents sell them to another person, the Astronomer, he calls himself, and their lives are forfeited for the use of their abilities.” She shook her head, and Elain could feel the shift in the room, the horror everyone must be feeling. “They can travel to other worlds, understand and speak other languages. Thanks to a mind-reading machine, what they witness, what they say with other… people is transcribed and then analyzed by the Astronomer. Bloodsalt helps pinpoint their search.”

Silence had descended on the room. Elain’s blood had turned into ice in her veins. She shifted her focus on the babbling baby sitting on her knees, swiping a hand through his soft hair and pressing a kiss to his temple. She refused to look at anyone else.

“I believe in our world it’s called bloodbane. But nothing of the sorts has ever been attempted, not like how you described it. How does bloodsalt exactly help them?” Rhysand inquired.

Bryce shook her head once more. “I don’t know the logistics of it, not in detail, but what I do know is that the mystics live in a bathtub, filled with water and white salt. I once saw the Astronomer add the bloodsalt and they reached the intended location within seconds.”

Elain had to suppress another shudder.

She felt Rhysand’s gaze on her, and she knew before he even opened his mouth what he was going to say. “Are you sure this won’t open a gate into your world?”

Bryce nodded. “I’m positive. The mystics have been traveling through worlds without opening any gates for centuries.”

“And you’re sure this won’t help the Asteri gain entrance in Prythian.” Rhysand asked as a matter of fact, as though he already know the answer.

“I don’t see why it would.” Bryce replied honestly.

Elain took a deep breath. Rhysand’s next words sounded loud and clear, “Then I think we should attempt it.”

Elain’s gaze landed on her brother-in-law, though she did a quick sweep of the room. She set her shoulders and began to nod when two voices interrupted her. “Absolutely not!” one barked, while the other growled a simple “No.”

She knew who those voices belonged to. Her older sister Nesta, and Azriel, Rhysand’s brother and the male who had rejected her months ago. She ignored both of them, instead kept her eyes on her brother-in-law, who had always encouraged her in her acceptance of her new life and body. She knew he’d come to love her as a sister, which she supposed she was for him. Growing up, Elain had never felt as though she had someone in her corner, silently cheering for her. Yes, Feyre had provided food and shelter for her, and Nesta would fight to the death for her safety, and for that she would always be grateful to her sisters. Yet she had never felt she could be her true self, only the version that would be most convenient to her family. To not be in their way, while they were starving and cold and mocked by people they thought friends. So she’d learned to be what they wanted, needed her to be, and stuck with it until everything she had come to know had changed so radically that she was forced to become another version. This time, she’d chosen something was similar to her true self. She wondered if the day ever came where she was allowed to be completely who she wanted to be, disregarding others’ expectations of her.

“I will do it.” She had never sounded so clear. She was certain of the decision she’d made.

Shadows flickered to the corner on her left, where that deep voice came from. Where Azriel stood. She looked his way, and when she found his stare already on herself, she glanced away. She didn’t have the time for this, not now.

As if he could sense his aunt had agreed to something reckless, Nyx turned around in her laps and grabbed her cheeks, before bursting into tears. Elain hugged him to her, murmuring words of comfort and laying her cheek on his head. She rubbed his tiny back, mindful of his even tinier wings, but his cries turned into sobs. She looked towards Feyre, who got up from the other end of the sofa and took him, soothing her son. Feyre was a great mother, watching her with Nyx always sent a pang through her chest. It reminded her too much of her father, who had always doted on her.

“Are you sure?” Feyre asked her.

Elain looked her in the eyes and nodded, willing the anxiety away. Feyre seemed to asses her, and when she deemed her to be truthful she nodded and turned toward Nesta.

“It’s her choice,” was all she said.

Nesta snarled. “I will not stand by while she’s throwing herself into harm’s way”.

“We cannot forbid her from doing the things she wants to do. She’s her own person. She can make her own choices.” Feyre replied calmly.

“I’m here, you know.” Elain said quietly. Apparently not as quiet as she thought, as several heads turned her way. Elain hunched her shoulders.

“Is anyone going to explain to me what the Hel is going on?” Bryce asked.

“I’m a seer. I can see future events— but I can also see the present.”

Bryce looked stunned, rightly so. They’d agreed not to tell her that she had seen her coming, not until they knew for certain that she was not a threat.

“We’ll work on finding a transcriber, or conjuring one, and then we’ll get you started on it.” Amren nodded to her. Then, she turned to Azriel. “Boy, you will need to retrieve the bloodbane. You know where to find it.”

Azriel’s face was dark, almost hidden in the shadows that swarmed him. It was clear as day he was not happy with this decision. Elain couldn’t phantom why. He had no right to act as though her safety mattered so dearly to him, when he had no qualms with breaking her heart months ago.

So she turned her gaze away from him and got up. She inclined her head toward the High Lord of the Night Court and his second-in-command. “You know where to find me when the time is right.” With that, she breezed past them, plopping a kiss on Nyx’ soft hair, ignoring Nesta’s sounds of protest and the lone shadow following her.

It took them a week to figure out how to create a transcriber without all the technology available in Midgard. Elain could still remember everyone’s reaction to the device Bryce had brought with herself, which she called smartphone. The males had drawn out their weapons, but the redhead had only rolled her eyes and showed them what it could do. It stored pictures, but it could also make calls and write to the digits stored in the phone, which belonged to friends and family members and anyone who you shared your own number with.

Her mind couldn’t wrap around it. Elain had always thought Velaris was the most magical, advanced place she’d ever been in, yet the single proof Bryce had brought with her made her wonder if such progress could be had in her world too.

Elain was sitting in the garden of the Town House, basking in the sun after a long day of tending to the flowers and vegetables. She felt something poke her shoulder, and she cracked an eye open to see a shadow in the process of curling itself around her arm. She smiled slightly, before raising her head and searching for its owner, for if the shadow was here, it meant Azriel had to be near.

Sure enough, he was leaning against the backdoor, silently watching her. She felt her cheeks grow warm and hated herself for it, for showing him that her feelings had not changed since that fateful Solstice night. She had no doubts he could hear her heartbeat picking up, or smell her nervousness.

He moved to her, his steps silent.

She swallowed, hard, but remained seated. Until he was standing directly in front of her and she had to crane her neck to look him in the face.

She made to stand, but he gripped her hand with the preternaturally speed of Faes and helped her up. Elain knew her blush had deepened. The last time they had touched they had almost kissed.

She forced the painful reminder away, and looked him in the eyes.

“Rhys has sent me to summon you. They’re ready,” Azriel’s voice was tight, telling her he had still not come around to this plan.

Her heart started beating faster for another reason this time, anxiety pouring over her like ice. She had volunteered for this, but she wasn’t foolish enough to pretend she wasn’t about to do the most dangerous thing she’d ever done in her life.

“I see,” she said, lamely. She shook her head and took a deep breath, and nodded. “Alright, I’m ready. Take me to him.”

Azriel scanned her face, searching for anything that told him she was rethinking the whole thing. But he wasn’t going to. Despite her unease, she was going through with it. The disappointed look on his face told her he’d read that on her face, too.

She had avoided her powers for so long, but she no longer could. It was now a matter of life or death, quite literally. Bryce’s friends needed to know what threat they were facing, but they needed to be told so they could help Elain’s family and world too. So many things had changed in her life so quickly, she was not ready for yet another change. She would not allow it. With that newfound conviction, she draped her arms around Azriel’s neck. He stilled, his shadows peeking from his shoulders. She smiled at them, right as Azriel scooped her up and began their flight to the House of Wind, where the Inner Circle and Bryce were waiting for them.

They arrived shortly after, and Elain’s breath caught as her eyes took in the large bathtub standing in front of her.

She had not taken that into account. How she would feel to submerge herself under the water, so similar to how she had been forced under it to turn her into Fae. Her baths since that day had been fast, and she had never gone underwater with her head.

Azriel stiffened at her side, his hand inching toward hers. As if he might offer her that kind of comfort. She almost caved in, but Amren’s curt voice made her forget about all that. “Come here, girl. Bryce will explain to you what will happen.”

Elain nodded, but her gaze remained fixed on that bathtub.

She took a step forward.

She almost turned around and fled.

No, she refused to let that fear win.

Her mind threatened to replay her those moments in which she was forever changed, but she forced them away.

She took a deep breath, and another, and another.

She could feel everyone’s eyes on her, but she ignored them and forced a foot in front of the other, then did the same again.

And again, and again, and again.

Until she had covered the distance to the bathtub.

Her head was roaring with panic, her hands shaking and clammy.

“I don’t know how well this will work. As I said, there’s usually a set of three. You’re only one,” Bryce cautioned. “You will need to wear this mask,” Bryce said, handing her a carefully crafted mask. “And go all the way under the water. I will add the bloodsalt— or bloodbane, however you want to call it. It should take you to my world.” Bryce said, her voice breaking.

“If we see you’re struggling or not being able to reach them, we’ll get you out,” Azriel said, his voice too soft. From the look on Rhys’ face, Elain knew it wasn’t part of the plan. Still, her traitorous heart squeezed at his words. She put on the mask, it not being too constrictive.

Elain looked at her family, their anxious but supportive gazes telling her she was making the right decision, and finally glanced at Azriel. He had a dark look on his face, his jaw clenched tight, but when their eyes made contact it softened. The corners of his mouth tipped up, his smile tight, yet the pressure on her chest lessened, as though a weight had been lifted from it.

She went into the bathtub still looking at him.

At first, she couldn’t see anything.

She could hear the sound of the water, yet everything was as black as the bottom of the bathtub. She tried to relax her muscles, to trick her mind into thinking nothing was amiss. If Nesta had battled her fears, then so could she.

Slowly, Elain started seeing things better.

She was floating in a starry sky. So many stars and so many… worlds. She was seeing worlds!

Excitement threatened to burst over, but she did her best to contain it.

A strange sensation spilled over her skin, and she realized they must have put the bloodbane in the water.

Suddenly, she was being propelled forward, spinning so fast she became dizzy. She struggled against this invisible force, but just as it had begun, it stopped. She took a few moments to make sure the contents of her stomach wouldn’t spill over, and then opened her eyes that she did not remember closing.

Dark eyes were staring right into hers.

Elain suppressed a scream, her heart beating loudly.

She saw that those eyes belonged on gaunt, pale skin, framed by chestnut-brown hair. A female.

“Who-Who are you?” Elain asked, stumbling over her words.

“I’m a mystic,” the female simply said. Elain could have cried from joy. She could understand her, and the mystic could understand her.

Elain tried again. “What’s your name?”

The female blinked. “Who asks?”

Elain tried to assess the risks of revealing her name. But before she could come to a decision, the mystic spoke again. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

Her voice didn’t sound mocking, only curious. Still, Elain blushed deeply. “I haven’t, no. I didn’t know I could do this. I’m only a seer, where I come from.”

When the mystic didn’t say anything, Elain said, “I need to send a warning to someone. To a certain Ithan Holstrom.” That was the name Bryce had given her.

The female seemed to freeze. Elain gasped. “You know him.”

The mystic assessed her, and then gave a tiny nod Elain might have missed if she hadn’t been looking for it.

“Tell him his friend, Bryce, has landed in the world I come from— we call it Prythian, but in your world it might have a different name.” She relayed all the necessary information in a succinct way, the female paling even more with each word she pronounced.

“Tell Bryce that he’s listening right now, that we’ll try whatever we can to help her from here.”

“Elain nodded. “I will.” She promised.

“Well, I better—” The mystic’s voice suddenly cut off, and her eyes started rolling in the back of her head, her body thrashing. Elain screamed then. Then a cruel, cold face came between them, a sinister smile painting it.

Elain’s breath was stolen from her lungs.

She needed to go back, back back.

She made to float away, but a freezing hand grabbed her wrist. It was squeezing her to the point of pain, and she tried to shake it off but his grip would not budge. Her thrashing became frantic, desperate to get away from this—this—

“Tell Bryce Quinlan that we’re coming for her. And that there’s nothing she can do to stop us,” said the deceivingly soft voice.

It was an Asteri. A Daglan.

Agitation overtook her and tried to break free from the grip of this parasite, but instead it squeezed harder, making it impossible for her to break free from it.

She started sobbing, and she tried to scream, but she couldn’t.

No matter how hard she tried, her lungs would not suck in any air.

She needed to get out, out, out of here—

She couldn’t breathe anymore, and black spots appeared in her line of vision.

She was crying as she started losing consciousness.

Elain opened her eyes again as she was being lifted by strong arms.

Blinding light made them close again.

She could hear raised voices, though she couldn’t make out what they were saying.

She took in a big gasp of air, savoring every moment of it.

Her wet clothes clung to her, her hair matted against the sides of her face. Someone was passing a hand through it, freeing her face. The feel of the air against her skin was the most beautiful feeling she’d ever had.

Soft lips pressed to her temple, leaving kisses and soothing words against it.

She took another steadying breath and opened her eyes again.

This time, the light wasn’t nearly as painful, and she managed to keep them open.

The first thing she saw was Cassian, her sister Nesta’s mate. She had on a worried face, and let out a small sigh of relief at seeing her sister breathe and alert. Her reaction seemed to lessen her other sister’s, Feyre, panic too, whose shoulders slumped as she leaned against her mate, Rhysand.

She couldn’t see Amren or Bryce, but she knew for certain the male holding her was Azriel.

“I’m fine,” she let out, her voice breathy, yet Azriel didn’t let her go.

No, he held her tighter to him.

He murmured something again, and this time she could make out “you’re alright you’re alright you’re alright” as though the words were a prayer.

She laid a hand on his big arm, and he laid his head on hers.

Her heart gave a squeeze.

Elain realized then that he needed to know she was okay. That nothing had befallen her.

So she caressed his arm, and nuzzled his cheek.

He gave a sigh of contentment.

She smiled.

“I’m fine, Azriel.” She said again, and this time he seemed to hear her. Still, he didn’t move.

She tried to shift, to catch his eyes, but he wouldn’t let her move, his hands gripping her waist as though she might disappear if he let go of her.

So she repeated, again and again, those three words, until at last he seemed to come back to the present and she was able to turn in his arms.

Elain pressed a kiss to his left cheek, then another on the other, and then met his eyes. And held onto them to convey that she was thoroughly alright.

He nodded, and shifted his gaze on Rhysand.

But it wasn’t the latter who spoke.

“Holy shit, you’re mates,” was all Bryce said.

Elain’s eyes widened as they landed on the redhead, but something in her chest shifted, a sense of rightness settling over her for the first time, and she could swear she heard a voice sing in her ear, finally, things are right.

Nothing had ever made more sense to her than those words.

With a smile, Elain leaned back against the chest of her mate.

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