Work Text:
“Shadowsinger… I think you may want to sit down.”
Azriel sat up straight in his chair as Gwyn entered his office in the House Wind. He wasn’t sure when she had walked in, but here she was. Striding over to his desk and perching herself on the edge closest to him.
He couldn’t quite define the look on her face. Both nervous and excited. Her cheeks were pink and a faint but wary smile played on her lips.
Azriel angled his head. “I regret to inform you that I am already sitting.”
“Congratulations. You’re a single step ahead,” she said flatly.
He pivoted his chair to face her, folding his hands over his abdomen. He watched as Gwyn’s eyes landed on his fingers. Azriel grinned to himself as he recognized the glimmer in her gaze. Undressing him with her eyes.
“How can I help you, my love?” he asked, delighting in the way the shade of pink in her cheeks deepened.
He was aware, thanks to her admission, that the pet names “love” or “my love” were, quote: “swoon worthy.” She’d said it made her feel like one of the girls in her smutty novels. That was all the shadowsinger needed to hear.
Gwyn fiddled with her fingers in her lap and inhaled deeply through her nose. “I suppose I should just come out with it, so for context… let’s start at the beginning.”
Brows furrowing, Azriel nodded, urging her to continue.
“My… interest in you sparked the moment you saved me in Sangravah. And it wasn’t just that with everything that was happening, you paused to wrap an injured, trembling priestess you didn’t even know in your cloak. It was because the second our eyes met, I felt something in my chest…” Gwyn trailed off and placed a delicate hand over her heart, her eyes intent. “And then you were gone. Morrigan healed me and whisked me away. I forgot about that feeling after that…”
At the somber look on her face, Azriel frowned and reached out for her fingers. She surrendered them to him with a wry smile. Azriel tugged her off the edge of the desk and into his lap.
She settled against his legs and Azriel draped one arm across her thighs, his free hand lifted to the small of her back and began rubbing slow, comforting circles.
Gwyn was in possession of a strength he couldn’t fathom. One that gave her the courage to speak of the horrors of her past without fear. If he didn’t care for her so much he would probably be envious. Instead he was just proud.
Gwyn inhaled and continued. “When you came to that first training session I became… distracted. I couldn’t take my eyes off of you. And not just because you were devilishly attractive,” she said with grimace, “but also because that sensation I had felt in my chest returned. It made me think about you. Endlessly. I wanted to speak to you, to thank you. But I couldn’t. For once I was… shy.”
He knew exactly the sensation that she was talking about. He knew that vague sparking he felt whenever he thought of her or whenever she walked into a room. He loved that feeling.
“So I was interested in training and I was interested in you. And I asked for private lessons. And then after that…” a wry grin. “After that it was just falling and falling. You know?”
Azriel nodded and lifted a hand, tucking a lock of coppery hair behind her ear.
Yes, she had crept up on him. He had fallen for her fast. Faster than he had realized. So fast that he didn’t recognize what he’d felt until she had been ripped away from him and thrown into the Blood Rite. Till his stomach had sank at the idea of not seeing her smile again. Till his heart had wrenched at the possibility that they had already had their final private lesson. The agony of realizing how empty he would feel without Gwyn struck him that day that Cassian had confirmed she’d been taken and his siphons had flickered with alarm.
“We’ve been together… we’ve been together for some time,” Gwyn added in a quiet voice he did not recognize.
He smiled crookedly in an attempt to coax her back into their easy rhythm. “Do you remember the day we showed up to the training ring together? When Cassian and Nesta could barely speak when they saw my arm around you.”
It worked. She laughed. “Yes, and they thought themselves entirely responsible for our relationship.”
No, the truth had been that not long after Cassian and Nesta’s mating ceremony Gwyn and Azriel had held a serious conversation outside the river house on the banks of the Sidra. One where they both admitted to their growing feelings and decided that they would take things slow. That they would wait for each other to grow.
Truth be told, Azriel had wanted to seize Gwyn’s hand and dive right into the waters of romance.
But Gwyn had asked that they take their time, and so he had agreed. He had agreed wholeheartedly. And they had slowly, slowly tested those waters he had been so impatient to submerge himself in. All the while his friends and family had snickered and whispered about how “oblivious” the two were.
Azriel ran his fingers through Gwyn’s hair once more, then cupped her cheek. “Where is this going, my love?”
Gwyn swallowed hard and Azriel’s brows furrowed with concern. She seemed so nervous. His Gwyn cowered at nothing… so what had her so upset?
“Do you remember,” she began, “when we were at the river house Wednesday… and you caught me staring at you and then you asked if I was okay?”
“And you nodded,” Azriel replied. His thumb ran over her cheekbone. “What’s wrong?”
She released a shuddering exhale, smiling warily. “Nothing is wrong, I suppose, but…” a nervous laugh. “Gods, I feel like there’s a better way to tell you this.
Azriel’s heart pounded as she averted her eyes. He wanted her to look at him. He wanted to see that teal stare brighten.
And then their gazes locked and he saw that her eyes were lined with silver. She lifted a hand to touch his cheek this time.
“That night… the bond snapped into place for me, Az.”
Azriel’s stomach dropped, his brows knitted together. Gwyn. The bond had snapped into place with his Gwyn. His beautiful, wonderful, funny, charming partner had found her mate. And she was so happy. He wanted her to be happy. To be happy with him .
But what if the only way to make her happy… was to let her go?
In spite of Azriel’s racing mind, the only words that came out of his mouth were: “With who?”
Gwyn sniffed, a tear rolling down her cheek.
But then she smiled. “With you,” she said, both her hands moving to cup his neck. “ You’re my mate, Azriel.”
The heart that had dropped into his stomach rose back up in his chest and expanded. Expanded. Expanded . Till he was nearly bursting with the news.
Azriel’s breathing became ragged and his hands began to shake.
His mate. His mate. His mate.
It was Gwyn. It had always been Gwyn. He had been waiting on Gwyn for a lifetime.
He could think of no words. He could fathom nothing beyond the fact that Gwyn was his mate. That he wasn’t losing her.
And judging by her teary smile, she was happy to be his mate.
Azriel’s arms wrapped around her and he wordlessly pulled Gwyn to his chest. She embraced him back.
For a few moments the only sounds in the room were their heaving breaths. He felt her shoulders shake and his chest shuddered.
It all made so much sense now.
Gwyn was his mate.
That kernel of warmth he’d felt spark in his chest on Solstice.
The way his shadows always sang whenever she was near.
The panic he’d felt when she had been ripped away from him and tossed into the Blood Rite.
All along it had been her.
He clutched Gwyn a little tighter to his chest and breathed in her scent of willows and water lilies. The scent of his mate.
Gwyneth Berdara. Priestess. Valkyrie. Carynthian.
Azriel’s mate.
The very night he’d decided “who cares about mates” the bond had snapped into place for her.
Azriel buried his head in the crook of her shoulder.
“Of course,” he breathed against her skin. “Of course it’s you.”
Gwyn pulled away and when their eyes met she was smiling. Smiling that beautiful smile that took his breath away. Those teal eyes were swimming with tears and he found that his were too. They spilled down his cheeks.
A knot formed in his throat. Azriel swallowed hard and cupped her face in his hands. “My-my mate.”
Gwyn nodded, laughing wetly. “Hi, Shadowsinger.”
He chuckled, sniffing. “Hello, love.”
Her fingers wove in his hair and she pulled his face to hers for a bruising kiss.
Azriel deepened it as his shadows chorused. They’d known the whole time. They’d been waiting for him to catch up.
They separated and Gwyn inclined her head again, this time, her mouth brushed his ear. “Let the record show… that the bond snapped for me first. ”
Azriel laughed, a deep bellied noise. Gwyn echoed him, throwing her head back and cackling like he loved. It was his favorite song.
“Am I to understand that’s a victory on me?” Azriel asked, wiping away his tears.
“Oh, absolutely it is,” grinned Gwyn. “It’s your turn.”
“How will I know when it happens?”
“Trust me. You’ll know,” she said, rolling her eyes. “It’s… it’s not something you can mistake as anything but what it is.”
“What’s it like?”
Gwyn’s lips parted to explain, but then they twisted in a sly smile. “No, I don’t think I’ll say, Shadowsinger.”
“What if I ask nicely?”
She shook her head.
Azriel dragged a hand down her front, then hooked a finger in the waistline of her leggings. “I have ways of making you talk, Berdara.”
She leaned in and fisted a hand in the fabric of his tunic. “So do, I,” she said huskily. Gwyn looked at him through her lashes, the corner of her lip twitching, “ mate.”
With a deep growl Azriel hooked his arms under her thighs, stood and sat her down on the edge of his desk. He felt the crotch of his pants tighten as his length hardened against it.
“You think you got the treatment when we were lovers,” he said, voice hoarse with need. Azriel braced his hands on either side of her hips, ducking his head so their faces were just inches apart. “Let me show you how mates ravish each other.”
Gwyn giggled and the sound made his shadows dance.
He made love to her that night no different than he always had. She had always been his mate after all. The only difference now was that he knew.
Azriel didn’t know when the bond would snap for him - didn’t care. What he’d decided at the river house still stood: he didn’t give a damn about mating bonds.
But he did give a damn about Gwyneth Berdara.