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“She's gorgeous, isn't she?”
Hadn't Azriel schooled himself to showing little to no physical reaction all his life, he would have recoiled in surprise, not having noticed his brother suddenly standing next to him. He tightened his grip on his shadows – they had shaken out of their dizzy slumber just the same – and glanced at Rhys. “What?”
“Elain,” the High Lord indicated his head where the flower-grower knelt on her garden bed, cutting at the wilted leaves of her plants. “She's something else, isn't she? Nothing like her sisters,” Rhys mused, now those knowing eyes focused on Az and a little, content grin playing at his lips.
“Fuck off,” Azriel uttered, turning his back to the female he had been watching for the past half an hour, standing in the shadows of a giant tree in the backyard of the High Lord's estate. Color crept up on his neck. He couldn't help but feeling caught doing something forbidden.
No one could bring out the insecurity in him as much as Rhys. Well, except for Elain maybe. But Rhys's damaeti powers had always been irritating as hell to Az; he never really understood how much his brother already knew about him. But with Elain … he had no excuses about feeling insecure in her presence. He just did. And he knew damn well she was something entirely else. He didn't need to be reminded.
“Instead of watching her from afar, why don't you just go and talk to her? You know, opening up a little,” Rhys suggested as if talking about the weather or Feyre's lacking cooking skills.
Azriel rubbed his temple, trying to hide the startled trembling of his hand. Wretched, hideous thing. “Spare me your pep talk today. I've had Cassian nagging my ears off about his mate during training. He didn't do me the courtesy of sparing any details,” he felt the need to shudder while remembering said details. Intimate details. “I can't put up with your musings right now,” he concluded, arms crossing against his chest in a defensive gesture. Rhys seemed to read right through him and smiled, somewhat sadly now.
“What do you think would happen if you went there and just told her how you feel? She likes you, Az. She trusts you like no one else,” he said ignoring Az’s plea altogether.
The shadowsinger snarled, his temper and thumping heart getting the better of him. “What do you think would happen? Just cut it, Rhysand.”
“Tell me one good reason why you shouldn't talk to her,” his brother demanded, yet Rhys's tone was soft.
Az squeezed his neck. “As if you didn't well fucking know. Look closer, Rhys. Who's she spending time with right now? She has a mate, for Mother’s sake. I couldn't even compare.” Shit. Rhys and his goddamn insistence had him admitting what Az didn't even want to think through. He couldn't compare. He couldn't fucking compete with her mate.
His brother wasn't smiling anymore, having gone serious. Stupid prick. He didn't want to talk about this. He hadn't asked to feel like this.
“You expect as you always do when it comes to your happiness, Az,” Rhys said. “The worst.”
Azriel experienced a strange, sinking feeling hearing the words of his brother – striking true. Like a rock sinking through water and settling at the bottom weighing twice its actual weight, Rhys's words settled into the pit of Azriel's stomach. He swallowed. “That's what I do, Rhys. That's why I'm your Spymaster. I expect the worst. I plan for the it. I succeed.”
Rhys sighed, sounding like the wiser brother Azriel had always seen in him. He hated seeing his High Lord concerned like this.
“This is not a job, Az.” Rhys's eyes strayed shortly over the shadowsinger’s shoulder before they returned more firmly to his eyes. “Take a chance, brother. If you don't, you won't find what you're looking for.” And with that, he strolled off, hands buried in his dark pants, wings tucked loosely at his back.
Azriel stood there, watching the path where Rhys had disappeared. Take a chance. And what? Lose all the progress he had made? Him taking a chance could mean losing the most wonderful, light-filled part of his life.
“Are you okay?” that part suddenly resonated from behind him. Azriel froze. Had his thoughts lured her in somehow? Was he dreaming? Gods, he needed to get a grip.
“Az?” He could feel her move closer, and a warm hand came to rest against his arm. Azriel turned around, and there she was in all her sun-kissed, freckled glory. He had to school his face into its usual impassiveness so he didn't stand there, the twinkle in his eyes giving away the deeply rooted admiration for the female in front of him. He was a damn goner. And he was once more too late to fight against it.
“Yes,” he rasped. And after clearing his throat, “I'm fine.”
Elain watched him in concern and damn his heart for thundering in his chest like that. He would surely humiliate himself with these physical tells of his.
“Why don't you come and help me with the garden,” the flower-grower asked, her plump lips lifting into that sweet smile of hers. The sun shone through the canopy of leaves above their heads, sprinkling her face with little patches of gold. One caught her eye and the caramel softness of it spoke to Azriel in the most alluring of ways. He pictured the ice-cold fangs around his heart thawing under her warm glances.
Az forced his eyes off her and let it fall on the red-headed male already sitting on the wet earth in Elain's garden. He had been sitting there since before Azriel came to visit his gardener friend. Gods knew Azriel had wanted to step back and disappear into his shadows once laying eyes on the two of them. But something about the way they worked together had kept him frozen in place. He apparently liked to torture himself.
“You don't seem to need my help there,” he found himself saying. Elain frowned.
“I don't need you,” she said, breaking his heart in two clean parts without even noticing. “But I want you with me.” And there. His heart was fixed. She had him, had him wrapped around her fingers completely.
But still, he let his eyes wander to Lucien again. He was her mate. Azriel had told this himself dozen times before. Lucien was Elain's Cauldron chosen mate. Azriel had no business spending time with the two of them. Mates. They were mates. He felt sick thinking about it.
“You're making that face again,” Elain pulled him out of his self-deprecating thoughts. She didn't smile at him, didn't say she wanted him anymore. She was frowning – no worse: Elain seemed angry with him.
“What do you mean?” he asked though he wasn't sure he wanted to indulge in the knowledge of her creased brow and tightened lips.
“You're looking at him as if he makes you sick.”
She knew him, or she could read his damned thoughts. And the way she stared at him now, Elain wouldn't be putting up with anyone treating her mate with hostility.
“He doesn't.” That wasn't a lie. After all, it was the bond between the seer and the fox that made him sick.
Elain sighed, frustrated. “Why are you looking at him?” she questioned, brows still furrowed. He wished he had the audacity to reach out and stroke it away.
“I don't–” Az tried but Elain cut him off. “I'm telling you that I want you there, and you're looking at him.”
His chest squeezed. He couldn't handle her anger, especially not when it was targeted at himself.
“I can't help it,” he said because he could handle lying to her even less. “He's your mate.” Even as he mumbled it, Azriel knew it was the wrong thing to say. But he couldn't help himself. Just like he couldn't help feeling what he felt for Elain, he couldn't help his words when she was close. Something about her made him want to spill all of his secrets. Well, every secret but one, concerning his raw, twisted feelings for the gentle female. And still, he was sure even if he didn't speak them, everything about him screamed I'm in love with you when he was with Elain.
That was why Rhys had tried to talk him into confessing to her. Why Cassian was grinning from ear to ear whenever he spotted them together – same with Feyre. That was why Nesta looked at him just like she looked at Rhys – as if both of them were not worth a single glance coming from her sisters.
And he still couldn't help himself.
The shadow-wielder presumed that was the exact reason why he was so scared about admitting his feelings to himself and anyone else.
With Mor, he had always had a tight leash on himself – on his desire for her. He had been so damn proud of his control, proud to have yielded the pull as he did. It always seemed like his strength – denying himself what he truly wanted. He had never guessed that his feelings toward Mor weren't what he assumed them to be.
Meeting Elain had felt like leaking the air out of a balloon – he found himself gravitating toward the soft female like a moth drawn to a flame, like anything and anyone felt the pull toward her. She was life and light. Everything he wasn't. And damn, he couldn't help himself.
Elain's brow furrowed, she crossed her arms across her chest, lifting her bosom. Azriel averted his eyes.
“I hate that you just said that,” she admitted without thinking twice.
Az tried to relieve the stress in his body; closing his palms to fists and stretching them open again.
“You know, you were the first person to accept me as I was,” his friend began. “You were the only one assuring me I didn't have to accept the mating bond. You told me I didn't have to bind myself to him, that I had a will of my own and needn't be told what to do.” She was looking him into the eyes, and Mother help him if she hadn't become one of the fiercest females he had ever met. “Now you're acting like I am mated. As if my decisions were bound to him. But they're not.”
He had hurt her. It was all there to see in her eyes. He had gone and hurt her with his pathetic words. He took a step closer to the female.
“Of course not, Elain. You're free to decide who to spend your time with,” he assured. But the crease between Elain's brows remained.
“Then why don't you just come with me? I don't want you to stand here and watch us like you don't belong. Like I wouldn't want you there.”
Azriel reddened against his will. She'd been aware of how he watched her like the spy he was. Like a damned stalker breathing down her neck. Pathetic.
“I – I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't bother you two …” he began, still reeling from the fact that she had known about his presence – watching and brooding – all along.
He was met with a frustrated noise coming from the seer. “Fine,” Elain muttered bitterly and whirled around in agitation, walking back to the garden – to her mate – leaving him standing there in the shadows by himself.
…
The wind was lashing against his wings – the air tasting of salt and sea when it met his mouth. Despite the effort it took him, Azriel flapped even harder, trying to release the tension within himself into the skies.
Flying always helped him when he felt like being shackled to the ground, to his life, to his fate. In the centuries whenever his desire for Mor had become unbearable, the Illyrian had found himself in the whiplash of the cold wind above the Velarisian sea, and immediately cooled off. It always helped. Just not today. The tightness remained within his chest, and he quite intensely felt the lack of relief his flights usually brought him.
But he still couldn't forget the look in Elain's eyes when she had dismissed him. The disappointment. The frustration. He feared he had already lost Elain's trust without even taking a chance and confessing to her.
He cursed Rhys once more for planting these thoughts into his head. She trusts you like no one else. And he had managed to lose this one peaceful part of his life within two minutes. He was such a damn failure.
Still, when his feet finally found purchase on the ground, it was across the backyard of the river estate, right under Elain's balcony.
“I wish you were mine,” he whispered into the safety of the surrounding darkness, staring up at her black windows. She was probably asleep. He shouldn't have come here.
Like the spy he was, he didn't dare to step out of the darkness, out of the shadows of his heart and his well-hidden secrets. Azriel didn't dare to step into Elain's light – literally and metaphorically. Since when had he become such a coward? You were never anything else, the darkness whispered within. That was the voice he had battled for the 500 years he loved Mor. Strangely enough, it fled in Elain's presence. His feelings for the Archeron were the strongest source of light in his heart, and darkness never lingered in the presence of light. It couldn't.
“Azriel.”
The shadowsinger stiffened, hearing that soft voice sometimes sweetening his dreams. Those were his most peaceful nights.
He deliberately turned around, wondering if his thoughts really did summon the seer. If so, she had to be glued to his side permanently.
And there she was, faint light highlighting her face, making him think that it found her wherever she went, even during the night. Her normally tanned skin seemed to have taken on a porcelain-like complexion in the moonlight.
“I knew you would come,” the seer whispered, standing there between her flowers, a relieved expression in the set of her features, and a beautiful gleam in her eyes.
Az was struck to the ground, frozen into place, wondering how deeply one could fall for another. It was like the tightness in his chest eased off as soon as he laid his eyes on her. She was more than light and life. Elain was his peace.
“Now, why are you standing there like that?” Elain asked, lips curving up sweetly. “Come here.” She held up a delicate hand, and Azriel might have just been a mindless fool; his wings flared wide as if wanting to take off, while he simultaneously stepped through the shadows to get to her. In his haste to taste her sweet touch with his own, wretched fingers he practically unraveled in front of her, losing his composure, confusing his very own ways.
And sure enough, once her hand had found purchase in his, the words spilled from his tongue. “Elain, I'm so sorry.”
The female laid her other hand over his. “What for?”
Azriel looked her in the eyes, hoping she'd see the truth in his words. “I hurt you. You are bound to no one, because you belong to yourself only. I'm sorry I made false assumptions.”
Elain's eyes softened even further. He did not know how that was possible. “I know you're sorry. I know, Azriel. I wish you'd just come with me.”
Az swallowed. But he's your mate. He didn't say it.
Elain sighed, tightening her grip on his hand.
“I also know what you're thinking. But I want you to realize that I have not chosen him. Lucien might be my mate, but I have not chosen him.” The intensity in her eyes made it the harder for him to see anything but her. He hadn't had eyes for anything but Elain for a while. In this moment relief flooded his body in waves and his heart pulsated in colors of hope.
“But the Cauldron–” he still tried, just to be cut off by the fierce female.
“Forget the Cauldron. That is not what I want to talk about.” Elain exhaled a shaky but decided breath, before stepping closer to him. “I could have chosen him, you know. Not because of the Cauldron or the bond. I could have chosen Lucien for myself.”
His brows lifted in understanding. If she had chosen Lucien, it would have been out of her own free will. Not because of some mate bond. Out of love. But … she didn't choose Lucien. So that implied she didn't love him? Azriel was left wondering what that meant. If it meant anything for him.
He didn't dare asking – he still couldn't find a way out of his shadows. What if he took the leap only to end up bared open and alone? He wouldn't survive her pitiful eyes while she rejected him.
“Why not?” Az found himself asking tonelessly instead. “You seem to be getting along pretty well.” He was a damn sadist, that's what he was.
Elain deflated, letting go of his hand and averting her eyes from his. Too late, he had seen the disappointment. Again. He hated himself for saying the wrong things all the time. But what did she expect from him? He would die to know what she truly wanted.
“You're right,” Elain murmured after a moment, looking up at him once more. There was once again decisiveness in them. “We get along greatly. He is my friend and I love him as such.
“I don't have to mate him to want to protect him from any harm. I know most mates end up being lovers, but that's not how it is with us.” Elain fixated him with her caramel eyes. “We don't need to be lovers to care for each other,” she explained.
A tide of jealousy and relief flooded his body in equal parts. He didn't know what to think of this, but he was sure as hell ecstatic about the fact that Elain wasn't with Lucien. At least not like he had feared her to be. They were friends. He could live with that, despite his jealousy.
“I'm happy you found an arrangement that fits you both,” he said earnestly. He knew how much this bond had burdened Elain in the earlier months of its existence. Azriel was beyond happy she had found peace within her situation.
But she seemed conflicted now.
“Is that all you have to say to me, Az?” she murmured lowly. Her eyes searched his face, making him gulp in return.
“I'm sorry I made you uncomfortable, Elain, it was not my intention to …” he stopped mid-apology – because the female had begun shaking her head.
“I don't want apologies.”
Azriel shuffled on his feet, tucking in his wings tightly to his back.
“What do you want then?” he requested. He had a strange gut feeling he knew what she meant.
“Don't you understand, Azriel? What I'm trying to tell you?” There was a new note to Elain's voice. Something akin to desperation. “Can't you see?”
He stayed silent. Take the leap, you goddamn fool.
“I care about Lucien. But not like I care about you,” Elain breathed, trying to get him to understand. The words struck his chest like arrows. Azriel's brows furrowed, words lingering on his tongue but his mouth was locked. No way out for the pleas of his heart.
“Just ask me,” Elain took a step closer, searching his eyes. She glanced at his lips as if she knew there were words hiding from her ears.
“What?” he uttered, dizzy beneath her insisting expression.
“You need to know how much I care about you,” Elain whispered with doubtless clarity. As if it was a given. “As much as you try not to, you need to know, don't you?”
Azriel gulped. She knew him. She truly did. “Yes,” he admitted, voice raw.
“So. Ask me.” He had never seen such honest eyes like Elain's. Honest and innocent and eager.
Az stared at her for a few moments, and felt like swallowing raw gravel. Take a chance.
“How much do you care about me?” he rasped, voice close to breaking with emotion bearing it down.
Elain rubbed her arms, trying to ease off the shiver his words had evoked. His chest tingled. He saw her throat bobbing.
“Very much, Azriel. So very much,” she whispered, relief and another strong emotion swirling within her eyes.
Azriel exhaled. He couldn't help himself, the need to touch her, to smell her faint rose scent, overwhelmed him. He stepped closer to her, closer than before and closer than a friend should have been.
Elain reacted, as if naturally, tilting her chin up and reaching out to put her hand gently onto his arm. Her hand felt so soft against his skin; she was always so gentle with him. With her touches, her words. He felt like a little boy all over again, desperate and yearning for love and care when he was with Elain.
When he lowered his brow against hers and she moved even closer, his heart nearly burst out of his chest, its cage of ice melting away once and for all. She cared about him. So very much.
“I need you to say something,” the flower-grower mumbled, her breath caressing his lips. “I need you to take the leap with me.”
Azriel swallowed. “What if I fail you? I fear I'm not good enough and you're better off without me.” To say that felt like jumping off a cliff already. Then again, the words went smoothly over his lips with Elain. It didn't feel like he was clawing himself open.
“Fears, Azriel, are only conquered by enduring them. You have to face your shadows, my light-bearer,” the seer spoke in soft words, gently stroking his cheek. There was an ancient wisdom in her words that Azriel knew it had to be truth. And he couldn't deny her if he wanted.
“You want to know how much I care for you then?” he asked, bringing his scarred hands to her perfect ones and slowly wandering up her arms until he was cupping her shoulders. She was delicate. Exquisite.
“Yes, please,” Elain breathed, head tilted up to his and eyes longing for his hidden truths. If the walls around his heart weren’t already molten, they would have been destroyed by that look of hers alone.
Azriel swallowed hard. This was his moment of truth, and there would be no going back for him. If Elain decided it was too much – that he was too much – it would be too late for him. But the words had already queued on his tongue; it was time for him to get over his fear of missing his shot at love and try to catch it for once.
“I've never known what real happiness was like, Elain. How peace truly felt. Not until I met you.” How come this was the easiest and most difficult thing to do at the same time?
“I love you,” Azriel said, finally. The inevitable truth. “And it's still not enough to describe how much I care for you. What you mean to me.” He gently stroked her shoulders up to her neck, his palms fit there just perfectly. Just like he had imagined.
“You mean life, Elain. Whenever I'm near you, I feel at ease. Like my bones have been rattling and my soul has been restless forever. You make me enjoy the moment instead of living in the past or the future. You let me have my own chance at happiness. You make me hope.” Once he started, Azriel couldn't seem to stop telling her all the things he had held onto for so long. “I've been wandering this world for almost 600 years, and I've finally found where I belong.
“I know, you belong to yourself and no one else. But please, let me have your heart, a little piece of it, and I will be the happiest male on earth.” His thump slid over Elain's cheeks, caressing her moonlight skin. “A little piece of your heart is all I want to make mine.”
Elain, tears tracing her face in silver lines, took a final step closer, and pressed a delicate hand to his chest – right where his heart beat furiously under a set of tight skin and rattled bones. She brought his to rest above her own heart.
“You can have all of it,” she whispered, eyes still drowning in tears. “All of my heart, as long as I get yours. As long as I get to have your words, your thoughts, your everything.”
A choked sob left Azriel's mouth, and they were crashing against each other like two planets colliding; the dips and ridges of his body a perfect fit for the curves of her own. As if they belonged together. Like they were pieces of a puzzle and there was no one else who could fit, no one else who would compare.
Her arms around him felt like home, her heartbeat against his chest the answer to all of his prayers. Az knew this was where he belonged.
And he finally belonged.