Archive of Our Own

For A Taste Of You (I Will Do Anything)

'But he could have this. This one moment, and maybe a taste, and that would be it.'

Dappled with the faint flicker of faelight, Elain has been pacing back and forth across the span of her spacious bedroom at the House of Wind for the past thirty minutes.

She'd felt nervous and on edge all evening, wondering when she'd see him – if she'd see him – wondering if he'd come at all. He'd been away for the majority of the week, Nesta had said, on a mission somewhere on the continent. She couldn't help worrying about him, even though she hated herself for doing so.

It's not as though he was worried about her.

But with Starfall being such an important night of the year for the citizens of Velaris, Elain had assumed that he would show up eventually…and she'd been right.

There had always been something so devastatingly beautiful about him: dark and mysterious in a way that was so undeniably alluring, coaxing her in like the Angel of Death himself with those burning hazel eyes (a burning that was cold, somehow, like Nesta's fire was), and those beautiful hands that she'd spent so much of her time yearning to feel all over her body. Even though Azriel so often – and not-so-subtly – attempted to hide his burned, scarred hands from view, she knew they were beautiful. Had always thought so, from the moment she'd met him.

She misses those hands now – even just looking at them – though she'd never truly been given the chance to hold them. So many times, especially while in the garden, she had considered it, even if only in a friendly way. Yet she had stopped herself short, worried that he'd snatch his hand away far too quickly for her to ever recover from the rejection. The last time they'd spoken – really spoken – she'd been so close to having those hands all to herself, to having those hazel eyes upon her with such unyielding want and desire.

Want and desire: that's what Elain had sworn she'd seen burning in his eyes that night, but perhaps she'd been utterly mistaken.

Regardless of her ability (or apparent inability) to properly read Azriel, they haven't spoken just the two of them for weeks now, and Elain can't decide which hurts worse: the fact that he'd disappeared with little more than a regretful, wordless goodbye of mist and shadows that night, or the fact that he's been avoiding her so plainly ever since.

Sure, he'd nod to her briefly at family gatherings – when he was actually there, that is, which had been less and less frequent as of late. They would share quick looks which Elain would just as swiftly shy away from, making some grand excuse that the bread was done baking or that Nuala and Cerridwen needed her help elsewhere, announcing her departure to the entire room so that no one would be suspicious of the way her eyes had suddenly turned downcast or her cheeks had grown pink. So often were her excuses fabricated, but nonetheless, they effectively helped her to escape from his cold stare.

She'd missed Greysen terribly when he'd broken off the engagement. In the deepest throes of her excruciating heartbreak, Elain had felt as though she might never have the ability to truly recover, or to truly love again. Greysen had left a hole in her heart which had slowly, so slowly, mended itself. With time, it had mended itself.

But being away from Azriel feels different. In hindsight, Greysen had perhaps been more in love with the idea of her than actually in love with her, thick layers of generational hate toward the Fae a hard shell around his well-intentioned heart – proving that even love isn't always capable of conquering all odds.

No matter how desperately she'd wanted that young, naïve love to be enough. How desperately she'd wanted to be enough for him, though she'd only fallen short in the end, against her own wishes.

But Azriel…Azriel had been her friend when she'd so badly needed one, when Greysen had left her crying there in that guard's shack on the outskirts of his estate, cruel words spit from his mouth like cold iron piercing her skin. When she'd been so lonely after arriving in Velaris that her depression was sure to swallow her whole and never spit her back out, and when that hole in her heart had still been a gaping, bleeding wound, he'd been there.

It was Azriel who'd accompanied her in the garden at the townhouse on so many warm afternoons – it was Azriel who'd shown her the garden for the first time – sunning his wings and enjoying the peaceful quiet with her when no one else had truly understood why she'd needed that quiet so badly.

When everyone else had been afraid that something was terribly wrong with her, Azriel had understood what even she couldn't.

It was Azriel who'd been the one to realize what her gift was – that she could see things the others couldn't – and it was Azriel who'd made some sense of the seemingly-ridiculous riddles she'd wielded, talking absolute nonsense for days upon days. It was as though he'd understood her suffering, had understood that her gift wasn't obvious, nor easy to make sense of, but that it was special. Important.

In that moment, when Azriel had realized what her gift was before anyone else could've, it had felt as though he'd known her far better than she'd even known herself. Like she'd been meant to meet him.

Since that moment, Elain has always wondered if, in his youth, the solitary shadowsinger had been misunderstood for his own gifts so deeply that he'd found a way to understand hers when everyone else saw nothing more than a broken girl, gone mad from heartbreak and rejection.

Gone mad for the loss of the girl she'd once been before being thrown into the Cauldron.

It was Azriel who'd come for her. When the Cauldron had taken her during the war with Hybern, he'd come for her. He'd insisted on going after her, even when Nesta had warned him of the foreseeable dangers of entering that camp, her sister had later told her. He hadn't cared if it might kill him, so long as he went to find her. So long as he tried.

Not only had he tried, but he'd gotten her back. He'd taken her into his arms in that war camp, and hadn't trusted anyone else with her until they were back with Rhys at their own camp. And that night, Azriel had taken a part of her heart that had slowly, so slowly, been trying to heal – a part of her heart which Elain suspects no one else will ever have again.

Not even her mate, no matter how plainly Lucien had once wanted to explore their mating bond, even if that journey was destined to lead to a dead-end road.

Despite his recent disappearance to spend ample time with Vassa and Jurian in light of the recent war – and in light of the second war which is soon likely to erupt – it was clear that Lucien still felt as though they owed it to themselves to at least try to invoke the mating bond more deeply. He'd not-so-subtly expressed such desires on this very night, perhaps a last-ditch effort, politely asking her if she'd like to dance with him.

Sheerly out of her own politeness, Elain had accepted Lucien's outstretched hand, had returned his strained smile, and her heart had ached at the sight of the hope still gleaming there in his good, russet eye, though he hadn't been spending much time in the Night Court as of late anyway. Despite her reclusiveness from the start where he was concerned, Lucien still hoped for them, if only a little.

Her heart ached for him, because there was no hope to be had. Not for them. Much as she doesn't want to hurt Lucien, Elain knows deep down that it's true. There's no one else for her – not when the Night Court's spymaster had seen her, and had understood, and had helped her to realize that perhaps Graysen wasn't the true love of her life after all.

Not of her immortal life, at least.

Azriel hadn't bothered to change out of his black fighting leathers, cobalt siphons still gleaming with his power amongst the flickering chandeliers and golden faelight. He'd shown up to the exuberant Starfall celebration in those tight, Illyrian leathers, and despite the many good-looking males surrounding Elain, all dressed to the nines, he was the only male who mattered. The only male she wanted to matter to.

She'd swiveled in Lucien's arms while they'd waltzed to better face the doorway when Azriel had walked in, as though she'd felt him coming. Elain knew that Lucien had caught her staring – knew that Lucien likely felt her breath catch in her chest at the simple sight of Az, pressed so closely against his own chest.

She couldn't help it, her body's natural response to him. The shadowsinger was so beautiful that Elain didn't even know what to do with herself whenever she was looking at him, whenever she was around him – aside from imagining what it might feel like to have him buried deep inside her, perhaps – and the High Lord's son in her arms could never compare. Not that she would ever ask him to, nor expect him to.

There were times when Elain felt absolutely guilty for the filthy thoughts which Azriel so often evoked from deep within her – thoughts which even Graysen hadn't stirred – but she simply couldn't help herself. She'd fall to her knees like a sorry beggar for just one chance to right whatever she'd done wrong on Solstice, for just one night with him. Just one.

That's all she would need: just one night. Just one night is all she would need to finally satiate the warm desire which pools between her legs every time she sees him, to satisfy the feelings of unworthiness which prick and prod at her subconscious every night when she replays the last time they'd been alone together in her mind over and over again.

When she agonizes over why he'd disappeared like he had. Why he'd walked away after giving her such a lovely, thoughtful gift, as though that gift had meant nothing to him at all.

Just one night. That's all she wants from him. Just one night, so she can finally try to move on from how in love with him she is, and how she continually denies herself of that blindingly-obvious fact. How she lies to herself that it isn't love that she feels, that it isn't his face that she pictures in her mind every time she touches herself late at night, wishing it was him.

Dying for it to be him.

One night would be enough. If she could have just one night with him, she would finally have the strength to move on. She'd finally have the strength to accept what's happened between them: to accept this emptiness, this void which he's left within her. A void that, unlike the one Greysen had left, isn't even healing slowly, because it's not healing at all. Moving on from Azriel is merely a pretty illusion, but one that Elain is willing to buy into, if only to prolong her sanity a bit longer.

So, despite the little voice in her head that's telling her otherwise, Elain knows that just one night with him would have to be enough, if he'd only give it to her.

But Azriel had made it so painfully clear on Solstice – 'This was a mistake,' he'd said – that he didn't feel the same. That he didn't long for that one night with her in return. And Elain had never felt so pathetic, yearning after him like a sad, little fawn for so many months, when Azriel had made it perfectly evident that he didn't want her like she'd wanted him that night.

Like she still wants him.

It had been a mistake: the necklace, the almost-kiss. To him, it had only been a mistake. Whether it was Mor, or Gwyn, or some other factor entirely that Elain couldn't even begin to comprehend, Azriel had made it obvious that she wasn't what he wanted. That the necklace hadn't meant to him what she'd thought it had; that it hadn't meant to him what it'd meant to her.

And forever…forever those words will haunt her. Forever will the ghost of his calloused fingers caress the side of her neck after clasping that rose-shaped necklace around it, bury themselves in her hair, and tilt her head to the side. Forever will she feel that aching warmth pooling between her legs, terrified that he could smell it, desperate for his hands and his mouth upon her. Forever will she hear that gorgeous, deep voice filling the charged, minimal space between them: 'Don't apologize. Never apologize.'

But she'd been sorry. She'd been so sorry, for whatever she'd done that night to make him see her as a mistake. Whatever she'd done to push him away like this, and for so long. For too long.

Had she been too forward, giving him a Solstice gift? No, it surely couldn't be that. She'd gotten him a gift the previous year, too, and he'd had a gift for her this year, even though they hadn't talked about it previously. He'd laughed at her gift last year in pure delight, the sound so joyous and so unlike him.

The gift that Azriel had in turn given to her, had been precious and lovely, so perfect for her. She'd been anxious to wear it immediately, and she hadn't been afraid to request that he put it on her himself. Lucien had given her Solstice gifts before, as well: a pair of enchanted gloves for gardening and a set of pearl earrings, both of which Elain has given little thought to since receiving them.

The necklace, to Elain's chagrin, has been on her mind every single day since Azriel had given it to her, and every single day since she'd regretfully given it back.

But perhaps their exchange of gifts – their time spent together in the garden, the way he'd come for her at the Hybern war camp – had been completely friendly, and nothing more. Perhaps he saw her merely as a friend, or even worse, a little sister of sorts.

Perhaps she'd read him all wrong.

As confused and self-deprecating as Elain had felt after the most recent Solstice fiasco – as confused as she still feels sometimes – she hadn't said anything about that night, not even to Nuala or Cerridwen. They are her dearest friends, but they still answer to Azriel, were still trained by him as spies. And it wasn't that she didn't trust the lovely, twin wraiths which had become such wonderful companions to her, but some secrets were better kept in the heart.

Better protected there.

But it'd eaten away at her little by little, not saying anything to anyone about the detrimental aftermath of that night – especially with Azriel's obvious avoidance of her since then. Still, Elain hasn't breathed a word of what happened between them, not even to her sisters, for fear of looking like a fool for even considering that he'd feel the same way about her. So, what had happened between them on that fateful Solstice night was kept safe in her heart, locked and tucked away forever.

Or, more accurately, what hadn't happened.

It didn't matter how she felt about it, though, so long as he was happy. And tonight, it had appeared like he was – at least when taking into account the rare, broad smile Az had donned when he'd joined Cassian, Nesta, and Morrigan beside the buffet table when he'd first entered the ballroom, taking from Cassian's offering hand a sparkling glass of celebratory champagne.

Then again, Elain hadn't had the chance to actually ask him how he's been doing lately, what with his obvious avoidance of her and his workaholic tendencies. Azriel was always near-unreadable, even for her, and a complex male to even begin to try to understand. All things considered, asking him how he's been doing seems out of the question.

But she'd wanted to – wants to. She wants to truly understand him, all of him – had been so close to finally having the chance to – but he'd snatched that chance away right after dangling it in front of her face like he'd dangled that necklace in front of her, only for that to be taken away, as well.

The whole thing felt a sick, cruel joke, and Elain was utterly tired of being the punchline. Utterly tired of never having a choice, of having everything in her life chosen for her and everything good taken away.

Starfall was a celebration which her sister held in such high, dear regard. Starfall, Feyre had once explained with a dazzling, reminiscent grin, not only held personally significant meaning where her relationship with Rhysand was concerned, but was special for all of those living in Velaris. Special, even, to those in the Hewn City, who felt and looked like Elain's deepest fears and nightmares come to life.

But even then, when Feyre had painted Starfall in such a lovely, incandescent light, Elain still wasn't sure how to feel about the entire thing. It was an incredibly beautiful celebration, but a quite lonely one, at least for someone like her; someone who preferred quiet and solitude over drinking and dancing until the sun came up.

Literal star-spirits were falling from the sky, inhabiting the earth with so many lost souls all at once, clinging to the hope of their final destination. And yet, everyone had someone to celebrate with: Feyre with Rhys and baby Nyx – a precious little family of her own – Nesta with Cassian, and she with no one in particular. Elain didn't especially desire to celebrate with Lucien, and aside from asking her for a singular dance, the Autumn Court native hadn't made any blinding attempts to celebrate intimately with her.

She couldn't blame him. Elain hadn't given Lucien a good reason to want her or her company beyond the most primal instincts of their mating bond, what with all the avoiding she'd been doing to him.

A fair taste of her own medicine, she'd supposed.

So, well after one o'clock in the morning and after several glasses of sparkling white wine, Elain had bid her goodnights' to her friends and family with the excuse of feeling tired and tipsy – not entirely a lie, as the wine had gone straight to her head – and had wandered alone to her bedroom, ready to give in to the loneliness.

Ready to miss him in her sleep, maybe, though she didn't dare dream about him anymore.

She hadn't bothered to determine if Azriel had stayed behind at the crowded party, hadn't even looked for him as she'd left, assuming that he'd be dancing and drinking with his family into the earliest hours of the morning, as he so deserved. The entire city – the entire court, really – would be tired-eyed and finally tumbling into their beds when the sun came up. And they'd be exhausted, but they'd be happy. And she wanted that for him.

The hallways had been utterly empty and quiet as she'd wandered, the red, mountainous walls flickering with the ambiance of littered, golden faelight, leading the way to Elain's bedroom door several levels below the celebration. There, Elain had found a warming fire already crackling in the marble fireplace, and had felt a strange twinge of sad nostalgia in her heart. This was the very room she'd stayed in when she'd first arrived at the House of Wind – when she'd first become Fae, and had felt as though she might never be whole again.

And while the river house felt much more like home to her now, a small, twisted part of her had missed this mysterious place, though it was marked by heartbreak.

The House, Nesta had once claimed, has the magical ability to converse with her as though it had thoughts and feelings of its very own. How strange, for a house to have a heart, but not impossible – not in this even stranger Fae world. Restlessly pacing the length of her bedroom now, Elain wonders if the House has ever felt as lonely and underestimated as she. As forgotten, as desperate for someone to love.

As desperate for a certain someone to love her back.

She'd made sacrifices. She'd experienced loss, and grief, and death. There was a time when she'd been deserving of love. She'd endured horrible trauma, hadn't she, just like everyone else? And yet, because she was soft and quiet – because she kept to herself and so often wore a mask of content indifference, if only to protect her true feelings and the feelings of others – everyone had seemed to forget what she'd endured; had seemed to subtly push her away when they'd found a better, more interesting companion.

Even him.

Perhaps that's what it was. Perhaps that's why Azriel had disappeared that Solstice night, and why he's been steering clear of her ever since. Perhaps, as Nesta had once suggested, she simply wasn't interesting enough for a mysterious, riveting male like Azriel – for anyone. Nesta had spoken such words in the heat of anger, Elain knew. She knows that her sister's words shoot to kill when she's mad, and that everything Nesta says can't be taken personally.

But nonetheless, those words had hurt – had shot to kill, indeed – and Elain has always wondered if her older sister's harsh statement had held some deep, sharp truth within it. Perhaps she simply wasn't interesting enough to be loved, to be fought for. Interesting enough for Graysen, for Azriel…for anyone in this strange Fae world, for that matter. She was still human at heart, after all.

Perhaps that's it. She simply needs to be more interesting. She could return to the party, walk right up to him, and…and…what? What would she do then, in front of Lucien, in front of everyone? Declare her undying love for Azriel, when he so clearly doesn't feel the same? No, she wouldn't make a fool of herself, wouldn't evoke such feelings of making a mistake within him.

Not again.

If that were the case – if she'd in fact bored him into disappearing and keeping himself at arm's length – Elain can't say that she could blame him, and that in itself should've been reason enough to just stay away.

But with wine in her gut and such a flimsy plan of action in mind – with such little self-restraint where Azriel was apparently concerned – Elain's slender fingers are already at the doorknob, as though they were moving of their own accord, yanking it open. To Elain's surprise, inky black shadows pool and swirl around her feet, as though they'd just been about to creep beneath her door when she'd opened it.

The shadows seem to whisper in her ear, begging for her. Beckoning for her.

'Come,' they seem to say. 'Come, come, come. Follow us. The dark needs light, the dark needs light. The darkness gets lonely, too –'

His shadows were here, beckoning for her, lingering at her bedroom door and pulling her toward them like a sinking ship to a lighthouse. Or was she only imagining it, them? Their coaxing words, were they only in her head? Was she losing her mind again, like she had been when she'd first come here all those months ago? Was she simply seeing what she wanted to see, hearing what she wanted to hear?

No, she couldn't be imagining it. The wispy, black shadows are right here, twisting and swirling at her ankles, tugging her to the end of the hallway and along the stairwell to a singular, closed doorway.

'Come. Darkness and light pool together and bridge the space between. Like doesn't always call to like –'

With the shadows still dancing at her feet, Elain grips the doorknob and quietly wanders inside – something she wouldn't normally do at a foreign door. But she feels enchanted by the shadows, somehow, as though they were tugging upon her with an invisible string. As though they'd hypnotized her.

The first thing that Elain immediately notices upon entering the exceptionally dark, eerily quiet bedroom is the small, glass bottle sitting on the nightstand beside the massive bed: a bed fit for huge, Illyrian wings. And when she notices that bottle – the headache powder, to be more precise – she knows exactly who this room belongs to, though she hadn't dared to hope. Because there, on the nightstand, is the gift she'd given to him two Solstices prior…

He'd kept it. All this time, he'd kept it, right there on his bedside table. Perhaps to use, or perhaps to simply admire. Perhaps to look at and think of her, maybe even as often as she thought of him.

Beside the glass bottle lies a singular hunting knife, similar to the ones her sisters often had strapped at their thighs, and a mostly-empty liquor glass – all things of moderate importance to him – though Elain notes that the gifted bottle is situated closest to his pillow, resting on the very edge of the nightstand.

Like he'd put it there so he could reach out and touch it, easily and whenever he wanted.

So why…why has he been avoiding her, if he'd cared enough to keep her gift from over a year ago? If he still cared enough now to so much as sleep beside it? Perhaps he simply hasn't had the time to remove it, to throw it away, considering he's gone on spy missions so often. He's a very busy male, after all.

Yes, that's it. That must be it. Their gifts had been simple, meaningless even, and perhaps it was really for the best that he'd placed this strange barrier between them, before her heart would be inevitably broken. Perhaps she doesn't love him after all, and he surely doesn't love her, and they can finally move on –

'Like doesn't always call to like. There can be good in opposites, too, don't you see? Come…come.'

And yet, though Elain could continue lying to herself – doubting him – in this way, she finds her footsteps tracing closer and closer to the darkly-dressed, shadow-enthralled figure before her, knowing that moving on is too tall an order to bear; too tall an order to bear when he looks like he does, makes her feel like he does.

Too tall an order to bear when his shadows are wrapping themselves around her ankles, begging her to stay. Giving her hope, no matter how small.

Standing there on the balcony, back to her, is a lonely male which Elain could identify anywhere, no matter how obvious the bedroom and its contents had made the room's owner. On silent, doe-like feet, Elain moves toward the glass, balcony doors – lilac skirts whispering against the cool marble behind her – doors which had been left open just a crack behind him, and allow a thin, refreshing night breeze into the dark bedroom.

The ancient, blasted handle, though, unforeseeably jiggles in her hand as Elain attempts to widen the doorway, creating an unintended racket which has her biting down on the inside of her cheek and cursing the Mother under her breath.

"You're not nearly as stealthy as you think you are, you know," The spymaster himself muses flatly, hands stuffed in his pockets, though Azriel doesn't turn around to look at her right away. "Perhaps you're due for some lessons on proper spying."

Despite his attempt at a straight-faced joke, his humor as dry as Elain remembers, Azriel only continues to stare out at the bright city below, as though he'd been anticipating her approach all along and hadn't been the least bit surprised by her arrival.

If his playful shadows, which have since disappeared from the moment she'd stepped toward the balcony, were any indication, then he probably had. They were always whispering in his ear, it seemed, as they'd just been whispering in hers.

It felt so intimate, somehow, to indirectly converse with him in such a way. Elain – admittedly, but only to herself – likes it; likes how close to him it makes her feel.

The sudden thought of his shadows wrapping themselves around her naked body flashes through Elain's head, but only for a moment, as she quickly scolds herself to get a grip.

"You're all alone." Elain cocks her head, curiously lingering at the balcony doors, not sure whether to cross the threshold to him – not sure if he'd want her here at all, guiltily invading his private quarters like this. "Why are you alone? You didn't stay at the party very long."

So she had noticed when he'd arrived then, just as Azriel had wondered if she would: when he'd held his breath as he'd walked into the ballroom, eyes scanning the crowd for her. Secretly, he'd wanted her to notice, and she had, when he'd found her dancing with Lucien upon his arrival.

To see her in another male's arms, to smell the strong scent of their mating bond when they were pressed so close together like that…it was nearly unbearable. It was the very reason Azriel had been visiting the river house less and less as of late – unless he knew for certain that she was away for the afternoon – and why he'd been avoiding her for so long, primarily staying up at the House.

Azriel shrugs, knuckles turning white around the metal railing at the lovely sight of her, though he only allows himself to admire her for a quick moment before turning back to the city below, not trusting himself to look at her for too long.

"Wasn't in a very festive mood, I guess."

Elain slowly – tentatively – wanders up beside him, tilting her gaze to catch the strong planes of his face in the moonlight as his hazel eyes watch the glistening fall of star-spirit after star-spirit from the night sky.

"I noticed that you got back late, that you've been gone for a while." She'd noticed. She'd noticed his absence in her life, as Elain had hoped that he'd felt hers. Like a gaping, bleeding wound in their hearts. "Were you on a mission?"

Azriel only nods in response, obviously not wanting to talk about it right now – or, at the very least, not with her. Nonetheless, he turns to her suddenly, finally addressing Elain directly, meeting her eyes.

"Why are you wandering around all alone so late at night? Shouldn't you be celebrating with your sisters, with –"

Lucien. Shouldn't she be with Lucien? Wouldn't that be the right thing to do? Perhaps it would, Elain muses, but the right thing is so often arbitrary, and she's growing a bit tired of always doing the so-called 'right' thing. Much as he should, her mate doesn't feel right, and has never felt right to her – for her.

Elain swears that Azriel's eyes burn with that cold fire of his at the empty ending of his question where Lucien's name should be, but those slight, nearly-unnoticeable twinges of jealousy wink out just as quickly as they'd been lit – as though he were too afraid to reveal his deepest self to her. His deepest fears, his deepest desires.

She couldn't mean that much to him, Elain assumes to herself, to actually evoke jealousy within him.

At his open-ended question, Elain only shrugs, wondering if Azriel had noticed the way she'd been dancing with Lucien when he'd first entered the party. Likely, he had, if Az's tight-lipped expression was to speak for him now. She'd sworn that they'd made fleeting eye-contact when she'd been in Lucien's arms, if only for a longing moment, but Azriel had been so far away that she couldn't have been sure.

Again, she could've simply been seeing what she wanted to see.

"I was tired, and my head was starting to hurt from the wine. I went to my room to lie down, and…" Elain trails off, not sure what else to say.

It was a believable enough excuse: one that both Feyre and Nesta had seemingly bought. Nevermind that staying awake and partying through the night wasn't exactly Elain's thing – at least, less than it was her sisters' thing.

And really, I just couldn't stop thinking about you – how much I've missed you and your company lately. I couldn't stop thinking about what I did wrong that night, and I found myself at your bedroom door instead.

"Your shadows. I saw your shadows lingering at my door, so I followed them here," Elain quickly explains, horrified by the hot blush which blooms upon her cheeks at the rushed confession, terrified that she'd been imagining the whole thing and realizing now how silly it all truly sounds. "I'm sorry if…I'm sorry if I shouldn't have done that. They probably weren't meant for me, anyway."

Azriel's strong jaw clenches at that, as though he were roughly biting down on his tongue. His face remains difficult to read, though, his eyes as unyielding as always. She'd expected nothing less.

They were! Azriel wants to yell, wants to scream. Gods, they were meant for you, even if it was only subconscious on my part! Even my fucking shadows are willing to admit the things I'm too afraid to say out loud to you, Elain…Even they can admit how badly I want you here with me, even though I can't!

"Sometimes they have a mind of their own," Azriel explains with a ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Usually I have a decent understanding of what they're up to, but…Don't apologize. You don't need to apologize to me. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to beckon you here."

There he goes again. Asking her not to apologize to him, when 'sorry' feels like the only right thing left for her to say – as though that one, flimsy word could somehow protect her heart and it's imminent breaking at his unknowing hands.

"Oh." Elain nods disappointedly, immediately averting her eyes and turning away suddenly, skirts fluttering around her feet, fully intending to swiftly retreat back to the balcony doors and to her own bedroom – if only to save herself from the embarrassment, from the inevitable, repeatable let-down. "Well, I'll just…I guess I'll just be going then. I'm sorry for bothering you."

Stupid, stupid girl! What made you think that he would want you here, when the deafening silence of the past few months has clearly shown that he doesn't? When he's clearly  shown  you that he doesn't want you at  all?  Why do you insist on making a fool of yourself in front of him, time and time again? Why would an interesting, beautiful male like him want someone so meek, so  forgettable  like you –

"Elain…Elain, wait." Elain turns to find Azriel reaching a hand out toward her, which he quickly drops to his side again, hiding the hand from view against his leg. "I didn't mean it like that. I didn't mean to make it seem like you're bothering me. You're not. I just meant that…well, my shadows can be fickle, nosy things. I'm sorry if they bothered you."

I'm sorry that I'm not male enough to admit what's truly in my heart, to admit that I'd beg on my knees for you to stay if it came to that, if I knew for sure that you'd have me.

"Not at all. I like your company." Elain shrugs with a soft smile, edging closer to him again, albeit tentative in her steps: a frightened doe caught in the light. "It's been a while since we've really…talked."

"I know." Azriel blinks, his face stony and unyielding to how their time apart has been making him feel, while Elain's emotions toward the circumstance are written so plainly on her face. "I know. That's my fault."

"It's like you've been…avoiding me or something." Elain wrings her fingers as she nears even closer to him, surprised by her own forwardness and terrified of his response.

"I'm sorry."

There's an aching moment of silence as she lingers at his side, as she considers his apology, and as Azriel swivels away from the balcony railing to fully face her. They simply stare at one another, long and hard, and Azriel is quite certain that something actually breaks behind Elain's chocolate eyes as she surveys him. Elain looks as though she were made of glass, and he'd just dropped her on the balcony, shattering her at their feet.

"Why didn't you kiss me?" Elain abruptly pleads, voice thick, tears lining her big, brown eyes as she grabs for the front of his leathers in her emotional state, fisting the heavy material between shaking fingers the best that she can with the thick leather's little give. "That night, with the necklace, why didn't…why didn't you kiss me? Did I do something wrong, did you – did you suddenly realize that you weren't attracted to me or something?"

Azriel shakes his head and maintains a mostly flat expression, straight-mouthed and unreadable as ever, despite her slight shaking of him and how surprised he is by her sudden outburst. But for the first time, her hands are finally upon him, and even though she's upset…even though she's upset, Azriel can't help but feel some twisted kind of relief in that – in her touch. Like it's always been meant to be upon him.

"You have no idea how badly I wanted to, Elain."

"But you didn't! You didn't," Elain argues, shaking her own head, as if to shake away the devastating memory as her loose, golden-brown curls bounce around her face. "You didn't kiss me, you disappeared, you…you gave the necklace to someone else."

There it is. What he's been fearing for weeks and weeks now.

"I know." Azriel swallows hard, unsure of whether to look away or stare her down, her tears enough to make him want to torture himself for causing them.

"Why?"

Why wasn't I good enough? Why was I such a mistake to you?

Elain wants to scream the words at him, hurl the questions in his face which have eaten away at her heart bit by agonizing bit, until there was nothing left of her.

"I didn't…I didn't know what else to do with it," Azriel explains flatly, and Elain swears that his hazel eyes look sad, somehow. So very sad. "All it did was remind me of you, of how you returned it, and I just got tired of staring at it. I wouldn't stare at it anymore, I couldn't –"

"So you gave it to another woman instead?" Elain questions softly, her eyes completely devoid of the jealousy that Azriel had honestly expected – but rather, filled with immense pain and longing, lined with genuine misunderstanding. "I gave it back because you left, not because I didn't want it!"

She didn't hate Gwyn, as some females might feel inclined to do where matters of the heart were concerned. She didn't hate Gwyn for having the necklace that was meant to be hers, and she would never be angry with another woman for something that wasn't said woman's fault in the first place.

Actually, Elain quite likes Gwyn – likes her for the friend she'd been to Nesta when her sister had so badly needed one. She very well couldn't blame the pretty priestess for likely wanting him, because who in their right mind wouldn't want the beautiful shadowsinger standing before her now?

Who wouldn't?

But it had hurt, to see Gwyn wearing the necklace which Azriel had placed around Elain's own neck on that fateful Solstice night, and as much is clear to him now, that hurt so prominent in her tear-lined eyes: her eyes, which unknowingly mirror the longing and sadness of his own.

"I didn't say it was smart," Azriel reasons quietly, looking away from her, not sure if he can bear the weeks-worth of despair dwelling on Elain's beautiful face; not sure if he can bear knowing that look of sadness is all his fault. "I just wanted to get rid of it."

She'd seen Gwyn with the necklace. She'd seen – of course she had. Had he really expected anything less, had he really expected Elain not to see it eventually, if Clotho indeed had passed the gift on like he'd asked her to? Gwyn is dear friends with Nesta, for Cauldron's sake! How thoughtless, how reckless with their hearts could he possibly be, these two females who just might care for him?

How reckless with his own heart could he possibly be?

But that night…that night! It was true! He was making no excuses now! After what had happened with Rhys that night – after what had happened with her – Azriel truly couldn't bear to look at that necklace any longer, couldn't bear to picture his scarred fingers clasping it around her beautiful, perfect neck again and again. He'd laid awake for the rest of that night, so angry with his brother, so mournful of what could've been, and so, so horny for her.

He wasn't lying about that: about the way that he'd quite literally agonized over that damn necklace when he'd found it returned upon his pile of gifts early the next morning, and when he'd allowed it to sit for several days too long beside the precious headache powder on his nightstand.

The way that damn necklace had mocked him for hoping.

"Why did you disappear that night?" Elain demands of him, still clutching his chest by the leathers. "Why have you been avoiding me every night since then? We used to spend time together, we used to talk! We used to be quiet together. Did that mean nothing to you? You haven't visited me in my garden or in the kitchen for weeks! No, months –"

"Elain –"

"I deserve to know! I thought…I thought you wanted me, I thought there was…there was something between us, I don't know! And maybe I was wrong!" Elain exclaims, so unlike herself in tone and expression as her hands flail between them, that Azriel reels back just a step, causing her fists to fall limp at her sides. "But I deserve to know what happened that night. Because I was there, Azriel, and I know that I didn't just imagine you trying to kiss me. I deserve to know what I did that was so wrong to make you want nothing to do with me anymore!"

"I want too much to do with you!" Azriel cries as his own emotional dam is destroyed and overflowed, his voice carried to the crowded balconies above and effectively drowned out by the loud, lively music and laughter of the celebrating citizens. "That's the problem, okay? That's why I disappeared that night, and that's why I need to stay away from you. Why I didn't kiss you!"

Because I want to bury my head between your legs, because I want to taste you on my tongue until you're sobbing my name as you cum over and over again, because I want my name to be the  only  name upon your lips, and because I want my cock so deep inside –

"I don't understand," Elain whispers, shaking her head with wide, tearful eyes looking up at him.

Filthy. He was a filthy, undeserving male and she was far too sweet, far too perfect for someone like him. Someone who was full of lust and thoughts of the dirtiest kind of sex, someone who so desperately wants to love and to be loved, but knows he doesn't deserve it. Someone broken. He'd probably been horribly mistaken that night, when he'd thought that he'd caught the scent of her arousal, but…Oh, to hell with it!

"I want you too much, Elain!" Azriel haphazardly blurts, watching the subtle changes in Elain's face as she looks surprised, then understanding, then…heartbroken. Utterly heartbroken as he quietly repeats himself, as though the words were so unbearably foreign on his tongue. "I want you too much."

"And that's really such a bad thing, so embarrassing for you to admit, to feel?" Elain murmurs softly, eyes welling with tears all over again as she subtly backs away and wrings her fingers in front of her, Azriel's unexpected confession sending both a lustful warmth pooling at her core and a deep sense of panic churning in her heart. "Is it really so bad to want me?"

"No! Gods, no. I just…Rhys…" Azriel's eyes darken, his jaw clenching as he looks away, staring at Velaris below and the many citizens celebrating the glistening fall of glowing spirits in the cobblestoned streets. "Fuck it. He saw us, okay? Rhys saw us that night, and he was pissed. He told me to stay away from you. No, he ordered me to stay away. He said that you already have a mate, that your mate has every right to interfere in whatever way he sees fit if I were to continue to pursue you."

Azriel shakes his head, gaze averting to the stone balcony floor, unable to bear her devastated expression; unable to bear disappointing her like this, over and over again. He's never cared so much about disappointing someone, has never allowed himself to care, and he's reminded now as to why that is.

"And Elain, he's right –"

"And what did you say?" Elain demands, ducking her head in an attempt to catch his downcast gaze. "To Rhys, what did you say?"

Azriel heavily lifts his head then, his gaze so dark and so piercing that Elain wonders if she'll ever be able to stand the thought of being with anyone else. The thought of anyone else looking at her like that – with such longing, such desire.

Such regret.

"That he couldn't order me to stay away from you."

Elain only stares at him, quietly and patiently registering his confession. What it meant, what he'd meant by it. The possibility that she hadn't been crazy after all, that he had indeed felt the same, but –

"But that's all you've done. All you've done is stay away," Elain murmurs as her chest deflates, her shoulders sagging with her saddened breath as she whispers softly into the star-showered night. "And re-gift my Solstice present, like giving it to me hadn't meant anything to you at all."

"I didn't say it meant anything to me." Realizing how that sounded, Azriel quickly tries again. "Giving it to Gwyn, I mean. I didn't say it meant anything. I just needed someone to give it to."

"Well you sure haven't said that it didn't mean anything to you." Elain furrows her eyebrows, months-worth of hidden confusion and pain finally materializing upon her face.

"Elain, don't you understand? You are the one who I wanted to give that necklace to! The one who I bought it for, went out of my way to pick it out for! Just you." Azriel grinds as he takes a step closer to Elain, this new level of vulnerability so foreign and terrifying, and yet, so right with her. "You think I wanted to sit and stare at it, knowing that it was simply a reminder that I could never have you?"

His words hit Elain with the weight of one-thousand bricks, somehow hurting even worse than Greysen's harsh breakoff of their engagement all those many, many months ago.

A reminder that I could  never  have you.

And why couldn't he? What was stopping them, really, aside from their own silly, stubborn selves?

"To hell with Rhys, then!" Elain throws her arms out, gesturing toward the above balcony where Rhys himself surely continues to celebrate with his High Lady, unless Feyre had joined Nyx in their bedroom. "I am a grown woman, and I'm so tired of everyone coddling and protecting me! I'm tired of everyone telling me that the Cauldron knows best, that my fate has already been decided for me, because I got on just fine before! I don't need a Cauldron or the Fates to tell me who to love! Not when the one that I've wanted for months now…not when the one that I want is standing right in front of me!"

Azriel blinks, utterly taken aback as Elain suddenly reaches between them, enveloping his hands in her own. It's an effort not to yank them away, an effort not to be embarrassed by those hands – an effort not to think about the horrible things which those hands have done, how they could never deserve to touch her – but he doesn't. He doesn't pull away, because he wants to allow himself this one thing, just this one time.

"When I first became Fae, when every last shred of choice was ripped away from me without my consent…" Elain shakily confides, bottom lip trembling at the horrid recollection of such a dark time in her young life. "I felt as though my heart would never heal. That part of it would always be stuck in the human realm, aching. That I would never, ever belong here. Not really. Feyre had adjusted so well, had found her place here so beautifully, and I was just…lost. I had no understandable gift, no reason…"

Elain heaves a deep breath, stepping closer to the railing and tugging him along with her, gazing out at the city with a faint smile playing upon her lips at the vision of so many people staring up at the sky with wonder, crowded together along the Sidra.

"And I thought that I had at last found my footing here, if only a little. I thought that maybe I could heal, even if it might take forever. But then, the war with Hybern happened, and everything changed all over again. I didn't even have the time to truly process what I'd gone through. What I'd lost." Elain turns to him fully then, that faint smile of hers growing wider yet. "But one afternoon, in the garden at the townhouse, you were there with me. You didn't say anything, you were just…always there, just in case I needed someone. You were sunning your wings, reading some reports or something."

Elain shrugs, huffing a gentle laugh at the memory.

"And for the first time…for the first time since coming here, for the first time after I'd accepted that this was my world now, my home, I felt like…like I actually belonged in it. Like I could have some purpose here, even if it was only something as simple as planting flowers for those who might need it and giving back to the earth. I realized that day how much I enjoyed your company, no matter how quiet it was. I felt like I belonged with someone, in the way that my sister had found her place with Rhys."

Deeply touched by Elain's unexpected confession, Azriel finds himself smiling back at her now, his heart fluttering at the thought of her thinking of him so highly, at the thought of her enjoying his company so much – as much as he's always enjoyed hers.

"I like watching you garden very much," Azriel admits softly, chuckling a bit to himself at the memory of the many hours they'd spent together in the garden at the townhouse, him indeed reading over spy reports, and her covered in dirt, still finding a way to look effortlessly pretty.

Even if they hadn't spoken much in those initial visits to the garden together, he'd found such a strange peace in them; a peace which he hadn't fully understood until now.

Elain grins even wider at that, as if the sound of his deep chuckle might've lit her up from the inside, leaving her glowing like one of the falling star-spirits. The smile quickly fades, though, her expression growing serious in the present moment as she steps even closer to him on the balcony, brown eyes wide with gratitude and hope.

"You saw me. When Graysen pushed me away, when he left me to fight alone against something that was so beyond my control, you stayed. You spent time with me when I was lonely…when I was too broken to actually admit that I was lonely. Not only did you stay, but you came for me when I needed you most. When Lucien saw the person that he wanted to see in me, someone that he felt like he deserved because the Fates told him so, you saw me for who I really was. For who I am."

"I've always seen you." Azriel reassures her, and he means it. Even though he'd still been in love with Mor back then, he means it. "From the first time that I met you, when you were clenching a fork of all things at the dinner table, as if that was going to do anything to save you…I saw you. Just you."

Elain nods, tears welling in her eyes in spite of the joyful laugh which bubbles deep in her chest at his mention of the poorly-wielded fork.

"You can't blame me for being a bit terrified of you at first." Elain giggles at the memory, though soon falls morose once more. "You were this big, Illyrian warrior, you…you were devastating. I had never seen someone who looked like you before, had never imagined such a thing. You were so…so…"

She struggles to find the proper words, wanting so badly to just call it what it was: what she'd felt the first time she'd seen him. Beautiful. He'd been beautiful, even then. Terrifying, yes, but utterly gorgeous in that dark, cold way of his – cold in the way that she'd wanted to know everything about him, wanted to know what the mystery behind those eyes was, and why it was there. She'd wanted to warm him up, somehow, wanted to take that barren, rigid cold right out of him, and wanted to be the reason that coldness he'd become so accustomed to wasn't quite so inviting anymore.

"Devastating, huh?" Azriel questions with the quirk of a dark eyebrow, strangely flattered by her word choice.

"I don't know what other word to use that feels right." Elain blushes, ducking her head and closely examining her fingers between them.

"You're quite devastating yourself, Elain Archeron, Seer and King Slayer Extraordinaire." Azriel reaches forward to tuck a fallen strand of hair behind her ear, pleased by the obvious blush blooming upon her cheeks in the falling starlight.

"Oh, no. I didn't do that. Not really." Elain smiles bashfully, quickly shaking her head and dropping her gaze even lower to her feet as his fingers linger in her hair for a moment too long. "I just stuck the blade in – your blade – and Nesta did the rest. Nesta always does the rest."

"That's not true," Azriel argues, gently taking her chin between his fingers so she'll look up at him, convinced that devastating is more accurately the correct word to describe her – convinced that the mention of his beloved blade, his Truth-teller, upon her lips couldn't be any lovelier, nor any more arousing to him. "You did it, Elain, and you deserve to be seen for it. You deserve to be proud."

"I don't…I don't feel as though I have much to be proud of here. Not like everyone else," Elain reasons with a crestfallen shrug. "I have my gardens, and I enjoy helping people in the city with rebuilding theirs, but I'm not…I'm not like Feyre. Or even Nesta, for that matter. I'm not…brave like them. I'm not even necessary."

"Elain, you are –"

"Rhys has died for his people, for Feyre, to ensure that she would have a future, even if it meant that his own future was taken from him," Elain suddenly cuts him off, finally meeting Azriel's hard gaze. "Feyre would do so for him, and I have no doubts that Cassian would do the same for Nesta if needed, and she for him. And I'm so happy for them, that they've found that love. That my sisters have found their mates."

Elain takes a weathering breath, her chest heaving with the weight of her heavy heart.

"But all the while…I've wondered what my purpose is, why I've been given this chance at immortality. Wondering if I even deserve it. I've wondered why I feel nothing at all for my own mate, like the bond was broken from the beginning, somehow." Elain gnaws at her bottom lip, hesitant to admit her wildest fantasies out loud to him. To anyone. "I mean, what if…what if the Cauldron just…got it wrong this time? That's possible, isn't it? Rare, but possible?"

Azriel clears his throat, wondering how far into this dangerous territory they might dare to wander before getting so lost they'll never be able to find their way out again.

He doesn't care. He doesn't care anymore.

Get lost. Get lost in her, his shadows whisper into his ear. Get lost in her, with her, and never come back.

"I've wondered the same thing," Azriel quietly admits, never breaking Elain's teary stare; never wanting to look away again.

And he has. He's wondered – so many times has he wondered, wide awake at night – why those two sisters were given to his two brothers. Why the third sister was given to another, as though he were really that unworthy. That undeserving of her.

"I've wondered the same thing for a long while now."

Elain nods in quiet agreement with her brows furrowed, appearing both satisfied with and angered by such a response – as if she, too, had agonized over the Cauldron's attempt at a seemingly cruel joke.

"You realized what I was, even when I couldn't see it. What…gifts I had. What gifts I may still have…I don't know." Elain appears to be completely awestruck as she speaks, as though she were realizing such things for herself for the very first time. "You realized what was going on with me back then, when everyone else thought that I was losing my mind. You. Only a true mate could do that, sense that, don't you think? And my own mate, he couldn't…He didn't understand –"

"Seers are incredibly rare, Elain. It's not anyone's fault for not understanding sooner what was going on with you, for not putting the pieces together before I did." Don't explain it away, Azriel wants to scream at himself. Don't explain her away. You can't. Let yourself have this, this one thing! "I just understand what it feels like to have a gift that no one else really…gets."

True. That was true. His shadows, no one has ever really understood him because of them, and that lifelong misunderstanding had brought the two of them to some common ground. But this – this thing between them, this unresolved thing – it runs so much deeper, and he knows it. He knows that she knows it, even if he can't admit it yet.

Because admitting it…admitting it will make it hurt so much worse when he loses her to someone else.

"It's more than that, though," Elain presses with a denying shake of her head, seeing right through him, and beginning to pace stressfully before the railing. "Yes, there was a mutual understanding there, but…For so long, I didn't know what I wanted. I didn't know…I didn't know how I could possibly fit here, especially beside my sisters, who've both conquered so much. But you…"

Elain trails off as she halts before him, voice catching in her throat as Azriel dares to reach out and touch the side of her neck, gently tugging her closer to him. How his hands, his fingers have ached to touch her neck again, to bury themselves in her hair and tilt that gorgeous face toward him…

"And what is it that you want now, Elain?" Azriel asks, harshly holding her gaze as one hand white-knuckles the railing, anxious for her response, the other hand burning on contact with her skin.

"I want your hands, your fingers, your…" Elain whispers, drifting unbearably close to him once more, unwittingly staring at his lips as she moves. Your everything, she wants to say. I want your everything. Everything you're willing to give to me, I'll have it. "Those beautiful, beautiful hands…"

No one has ever called his fingers, his hands – those scarred, unworthy hands – beautiful before. No one.

"You think…you think they're beautiful?" Azriel breathes, quickly snatching the hand away and subtly searching her neck, as if to determine if he'd soiled her skin somehow with just one, soft touch.

"I think every part of you is beautiful." Elain smiles slightly, eyes searching his face as she reaches forward to draw along his bottom lip with the tip of her thumb. "I always have. You're the most beautiful male I've ever seen. From the moment that I first saw you…"

She allows her train of thought to be whooshed off its tracks, retracting her hand from his mouth when he speaks again.

"But they don't deserve you. Don't you see that? Don't you see that they don't deserve –" Azriel whispers, staring down at his hands which are open to the starry sky, palm-up between them, as though the blood of those he'd tortured might still be stained there, incapable of being washed clean. "They've done…"

My hands have done horrible, unspeakable things for their High Lord, to protect this court and its people, and they don't deserve to touch someone as perfect as you.

"I don't care," Elain murmurs, taking one of his hands into her own, guiding the other to rest upon the side of her neck once more. Someone simply touching her neck, Elain had never realized before he'd done it, could be so very erotic. "I don't care what you think your hands have or haven't done. I know what's in here. That's all I need to know."

Elain releases his hand on her neck to place her own hand over Az's heart, feeling its rapid beat beneath her palm, giving away his deep-rooted desire to please her – betraying the emotion his face so often hides.

"But you're…" Don't say it, don't ruin this! This perfect, perfect moment that you've dreamed of for so long! Allow yourself just this one, small thing! But it's not that simple, never will be – "Elain, you're mated."

Azriel takes a singular, devastating step back, the sudden distance causing Elain's heart to sink in her chest like a wooden ship caught on fire, her hand resting upon his heart falling limp between them.

"This is wrong –"

Likely, poor Lucien is still only several levels above their heads, right this very moment, totally unknowing to their desperate longing, partying with their family and friends. And here they are, secretly pining and yearning and repeating Solstice's mistakes all over again, like they hadn't learned from them the first time.

Like they'd never learn.

But Azriel couldn't possibly handle another several months of having to agonizingly avoid her like this, forced to pretend like what had happened that night hadn't happened…but what choice does he really have? She doesn't belong to him, she never would, but would always belong to another male entirely!

"I don't care. I don't care! When I look at him, I don't feel –" Elain blatantly insists, choked up by her own emotional words. "But when I look at you…I feel it. I feel it in here."

Grabbing for his hand again, not even so much as flinching at the feeling of his rough scars against her soft, warm hands, Elain hastily places it over her own rapid-beating heart.

"I can feel it."

Elain ducks her head in an attempt to catch his diverted, downcast eyes – voice so timid, yet so hopeful.

"Can't you?"

She stares up at him with those big, brown eyes of hers, full lips slightly parted, waiting. Waiting so patiently that Azriel can't help but stare back, completely wonderstruck by her and her instant yielding to him: Solstice's repeated mistakes.

Anything for a taste. He would do anything for just one taste of her. He'd told himself as much before, when he'd clasped that necklace around her neck. Perhaps they could have this, really have this. It wouldn't be like last time, out in the open where anyone could easily catch them – where Rhys could easily catch them.

Here, in the privacy of his bedroom, they could have just this one night, to remedy the agony of the past weeks: weeks filled with troubled, horny avoidance. They could have this one night, to finally get it out of their systems, so they could move on with the awkwardness from Solstice and move on with their lives.

After this one night, she would realize that these scarred, torturous hands of his don't deserve her – that they're capable of such unspeakable things, hurting her clearly being one of them, which is exactly what he's never wanted to do – and she would be able to move on. She would realize that he's no good for her. She would finally be able to be happy with her mate, would finally be able to accept the mating bond, and he would be able to move on then, too.

If he knew for a fact that she was truly happy, Azriel would find a way to somehow move on. For her, he would do it. He'd moved on from Mor after hundreds of years, after all, and what he felt for Elain now was somehow even more unbearable than what Mor had been to him. But for Elain, he would do it.

"Yes, I feel it. Gods, Elain, I always feel it," Azriel breathlessly confesses. "But –"

"Then what're we doing?" Elain whimpers, using the hand placed over his to guide Az's fingers up the side of her neck, as though she'd known what he'd wanted – as though she'd known how he'd fantasized about touching her there again since Solstice. "What're we doing, avoiding one another like this? Lying to ourselves?"

"I don't know," Azriel admits, nearly groaning as the soft skin of her warm, delicate neck pulses beneath his fingertips. "I don't know, I don't…I don't want to anymore. I don't want to pretend."

I don't want to keep pretending that I don't want to pound my cock deep inside you, that I'm not so pathetically in  love  with you –

"No more pretending then," Elain quietly promises, tilting her head to the side and lingering even closer to him, her breath warming the night air between them. "No more avoiding, no more…Kiss me. Just kiss me, please. I've wanted so long…for you to just kiss me."

Using his free hand to gingerly reach between them – and forcing himself to bite back another deep groan at her begged words – Azriel cups her chin, drawing her gently-heaving chest against his. The pad of his thumb finds itself upon her full, bottom lip, tracing it softly as Elain stands upon the tips of her toes, pushing herself flush against him and wordlessly urging him on – just as she had on Solstice.

It hadn't been all in his head that night, Azriel realizes with a sigh of relief. She'd wanted him, too. And yet, his fingers still loiter and linger; still wasting time, still holding back. Still afraid that he'll somehow fall short where being worthy of her is concerned, that she'll realize what a monster he truly is.

How irreversibly broken he is, and how susceptible she is to being cut by his jagged edges.

"Elain, I just don't want you to regret –"

"What on earth could I possibly regret?" Elain cocks her head in genuine curiosity and whispers gently to him, as though her voice could soothe his deepest fears and insecurities – and, if he let her, it probably could. "This? Is that what you think I could regret? You? Because I couldn't. The only thing I've regretted is not kissing you before Rhys saw us that night."

Azriel nods in agreement, wishing the same; wishing that he'd just kissed her that night, damn the rest. "And I've regretted not explaining everything to you sooner."

More so, even, I regret not seeking you out that night after talking with Rhys, not getting back the kiss that was stolen away from us so much sooner than tonight. I regret not keeping that necklace for myself, even when you'd returned it, and I regret  lying  to myself that giving it away was the right thing to do.

Giving that necklace away had saved him from the temporary heartbreak of having to stare at it, but in the process, had broken her heart instead, and Azriel has never felt so regretful in his entire life.

But tonight will be enough. Tonight, he'll make it up to her, they'll make up for that lost time. They'll make up for the awkward avoidance, for weeks-worth of missing one another's company so desperately.

"If I'm being honest…" Elain purses her lips, fiddling idly with the ends of her hair. "It's you that I'm worried about where regretting things is concerned. On Solstice, you said that…that it had been a mistake. That the gift, that almost kissing me, had been a mistake."

"I've wanted this for so long," Azriel murmurs, gently shaking his head and taking her cheeks into his hands, his touch so featherlight, as though he were trying the best he could to avoid his scars from actually making full contact with her precious skin. "I've wanted you. Please, Elain, please believe that. I only said what I said that night because Rhysand saw us, because…"

Because I'm terrified of not being good enough for you.

"Because I don't want to hurt you. And because I'm terrified of doing just that."

"And I've wanted you," Elain softly whines with an encouraging nod, inching her head closer to his. "Please believe that. So long as you really mean it, so long as your heart really wants me, you won't hurt me."

"I've done horrible things. Things that you can't even imagine, things that you wouldn't like," Azriel bluntly blurts out. "My job is –"

"You're afraid that the enemies your job produces might harm me if they find out about us?" Elain asks, realization veiling her pretty face as she finally understands his apprehension with her.

Azriel nods ashamedly, having been too afraid before to put his darkest fears into words.

"Listen to me. I liked the spymaster that I met when I was still human. Wanted to know him, wanted to understand him. Admired him, even." Elain smiles gently, covering his wrists with her hands as his own fingers remain on her cheekbones, holding her chin high to look right at him. "But it's Azriel who I care for most. Spymaster or no, shadowsinger or no…it's you that I care about. And I'm not afraid. Whatever horrible things you think you've done, I'm not afraid of you."

That beautiful, unexpected affirmation – 'I'm not afraid of you' – Azriel hadn't realized until she'd said it how badly he'd needed to hear those exact words from Elain's lips: lips which, with each word she speaks, edge so close and finally brush against his.

"I trust you. I trust you more than I've trusted anyone since I've come here." Elain shrugs delicately, as though she's confessed something as unimportant as predicting the weather. "I don't exactly know why, but I always have. So please…"

Just like they had during their almost-kiss on Solstice night, her lips part in wordless permission as they stare intently at one another, nose to nose, the clear scent of her arousal once again drifting between them and causing a groan to catch in Azriel's throat.

Permission and hopeful trust, a silent offering as her lips fall apart just for him. And although they usually tend to disappear around her – always sucked in by her undeniable, magnetic light – his shadows are dancing at their feet, whispering to them both:

'Darkness and light pool together and bridge the space between. Like doesn't always call to like.'

Perhaps, just this once, the Cauldron had been wrong. Perhaps, just this once, they were equally matched in a way that was different from the conventional mating relationship. Perhaps opposites, indeed, truly do attract, and perhaps like things – as determined by the Cauldron, that is – aren't always the only things meant to be.

It had never gone as far as it had on Solstice night when they'd almost kissed, and it surely has never gone as far as it is right now, their lips actually brushing. But it needs to go farther, and farther yet, before Azriel positively loses his mind with the need of her.

'Kiss me. Just kiss me, please,' she'd asked of him; she'd begged of him.

He'd do anything to make her beg for him for the rest of time.

And Azriel will be damned if he messes up this second chance which she's given to him; this chance to rewrite Solstice's detrimental faults, the only real mistake of that night being the fact that he'd made her feel like she was the mistake – when, in fact, his greatest fault had been not kissing her at all.

Elain moans into the long-awaited kiss when their lips finally mesh together, causing Azriel to groan right along with her, no longer feeling the need to muffle themselves in the privacy of his room as the beautiful sound of her fills each of his senses. The stars somehow seem to shine a bit brighter overhead, and so many of them are falling now, like an age-old revival of star-spirits had been awakened by the singular meeting of two, desperate mouths. Like they'd been fated, perhaps.

Velvet tongues brush, slow and tentative, patiently tasting one another for the very first time. A small, delicate whimper releases itself from her throat and into his mouth, causing Azriel to open wider yet and sweep his tongue softly against hers, his cock twitching in his pants at the simple sound of her moan.

He suddenly lifts her up then, wrapping her slender legs around his waist, taking Elain inside and closing the balcony doors behind them with a booted foot. There was no point in waiting, no point in dragging this out any longer than they already had. Once inside, Azriel gingerly lays her down on the edge of the bed, horizontal to the nightstand. Elain's fingers reach out toward the table, softly tracing the cap of the headache powder sitting there with a gentle smile playing upon her lips.

"You kept it," Elain murmurs, her pleased, lusty gaze fixated upon the bottle.

"Of course I did," Azriel breathes, snatching her hand from the bottle and kissing her open palm, earning himself a small giggle. "It's from you. Why wouldn't I keep it?"

'Because I didn't keep the necklace. Because I gave back an even lovelier gift than this,' Elain guiltily thinks to herself, though the matter of the necklace quickly slips from her mind as Azriel's strong hands are once again upon her, pushing the heavy, lilac skirts of her dress up to her hips before he joins Elain on the bed, settling contentedly between her legs.

Azriel hurriedly tugs at the uppermost part of her dress, leaving the silken straps to hang around Elain's biceps and gently tugging the corset-top as far down as it'll go in order to bare her to him. Her breasts are on the smaller side, pert and quaint, but lovely and round and so perfect, her pink nipples peaked and exemplary of her desire for him — as though the arousing scent dripping from between her legs hadn't made that desire obvious enough.

In the overwhelming realization that he's finally seeing her and seeing her like this, Azriel's shadows suddenly reappear all around them, restless and yearning and dying to touch her – almost as much as his physical hands have been dying to – caressing the inside of her thighs, causing her legs to fall completely open against the mattress in spite of herself, ghosting over her nipples with their gentle, misted touch.

His shadows, it seems, are appreciating and admiring her beauty no less than Azriel himself is, and he lets them. Unlike Nesta, who was all sharp lines and jagged edges, and unlike Feyre, who was equally moderate in both gentleness and firmness, Elain is so unbearably supple and soft, in every foreseeable way. She's everything he'd imagined she would be, and yet, so much more.

If he was Death himself, she was his lovely fawn: gentle, so soft, and so sought after. A thing of secret, lovely beauty. He didn't want to have to keep secrets to have her – to keep her – but he would.

"Those eyes…How many nights I've spent dreaming of those eyes. Looking at me. Staring at me," Azriel confesses, staring contradictorily at her lips instead as he speaks. "Wanting me."

"I do want you," Elain quickly confirms, restless as his swarming shadows as her hands struggle to touch him everywhere, running themselves over his cool leathers again and again. "I've wanted you so badly, for so long. Please, just…Please, Azriel. Let me have you. Just…just this once…"

"Your voice is so pretty when you beg for me, Elain," Azriel breathes, using the pad of his thumb to trace her bottom lip, staring at her mouth all the while as he tilts his head at her last statement and brings their mouths dangerously close. "But maybe I don't want it to be just this once."

"Oh, I don't either!" Elain whimpers in spite of herself, so happy to hear him say that.

Perhaps it wouldn't have to be just this one night, after all. Perhaps, now that they'd been honest with one another, they could find a way to make this work. They could perhaps find a way to nullify the mating bond with Lucien, could find a way to get around Rhys's ridiculously selfish, political agenda –

The shadowsinger was getting ahead of himself; way ahead. Azriel respects Rhys – loves Rhys – but this…her. He shakes his head slightly, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to Elain's waiting lips, willing himself to forget about his brother and the potential fallout of this rampant desire burning between them if Rhys were to find out about Azriel's giving in to her.

"Can I taste you?" Azriel murmurs softly, so eager for her response that he actually feels a little pathetic – giving in to her, indeed. "Please?"

"Yes." Elain breathes against his mouth, kissing him deeply enough to seemingly send more star-spirits flying to the ground, nodding her head vigorously as she registers what he's asking. "Yes."

At her eager response, Azriel gently hooks her legs over his shoulders, his shadows happily dancing around and around them, caressing her dripping center with their teasing, invisible fingers. At the strange sensation of being touched by him without actually being touched by him, Elain moans and writhes beneath him, causing Azriel to smirk as her heavy, lilac skirts are pushed further up around her hips.

"Just try to relax." Azriel suggests, kissing her calf once. "I haven't even done anything yet."

"You know exactly what you're doing." Elain huffs, playfully pouting her lip. "Or not doing."

"I've wanted to…" Azriel pauses as his mocking shadows once again disappear and leave them to their own playing, gripping the inside of Elain's thighs to widen her to him, eyes nearly rolling back in his head at the simple scent of her so close. "For so long, I've wanted to do this with you and to you. I've dreamed of…"

He quietly trails off, shaking his head as though he were in complete awe of her, eyes still fixated upon that warm place between her long, slender legs.

"I know." Elain nods, understanding, reaching forward to gingerly caress his jaw between her thighs. "I know."

"You're shaking." Azriel notices when she touches his face, softly running his own fingers along Elain's bare arms in an attempt to calm her as she wiggles around, adjusting her legs upon his shoulders.

"No one's ever…" Elain bashfully starts, threading an indeed shaking hand through his hair and sucking in a nervous breath, slightly embarrassed to admit it in front of someone with such obvious sexual prowess, while she was still relatively learning. Though, Azriel's sexuality had always been quiet and mysterious, not outwardly boastful and arrogant as his brothers tended to sometimes be. "No one's ever been between my legs before. Not like this, I mean. And I don't know if I'll taste right, or –"

Azriel suddenly lifts his head to look directly at her, eyebrows furrowed and hazel eyes gone lustfully dark, as though she'd said something to personally offend him.

"You've never been eaten before?" His question isn't judgmental or demeaning in the slightest, but almost upset for her. Appalled, even.

It was true that Greysen had never…had never pleasured her in this particular way. They'd made love before she'd been turned immortal and before the engagement had ultimately been broken off, yes, but he'd never put his head between her legs in this manner. She'd never asked him to, Elain supposed. But both Feyre and Nesta had separately claimed that, when a male knows what he's doing, the feeling is absolutely breathtaking, and Elain couldn't deny that she was growing very curious.

Especially where Azriel was concerned.

She was growing curious about how soft and warm his tongue might be, how her taste might transfer from his tongue and into her mouth when they kissed. She'd wanted for so long now for it to be him to do this to her for the first time, but had assumed that – after what had happened on Solstice, and the subsequent months of awkwardness that had followed – she'd never be given that chance with him.

So Elain merely shakes her head, the blushing nervousness etched upon her beautiful, awaiting face. In response, Azriel reaches over to take her free hand into one of his, threading their fingers together.

"You deserve for a male to properly eat you, Elain. So please, allow me to have the pleasure of being the first." Azriel squeezes her hand, mumbling against Elain's trembling thigh as he lowers his head once more. "And I already know that you're going to taste amazing, so don't you even worry about that."

But he doesn't taste her – at least, not right away. Rather, he toys with her with his tongue, just as his shadows had, instead of running its warm self along her wet center in the way that she's willing to beg him for. To his own pleasure, Azriel licks up and down the inside of each soft thigh, his teeth gently biting at the creamy flesh there. At the first bite, Elain quietly cries out, fisting at his dark hair and panting in spite of herself, unable to catch her breath already.

His own chest heaving in spite of their minimal activity, Azriel splays a single hand over her ribcage to feel her heart rapidly beating beneath it, using the other hand to grip one of her thighs hard enough to leave a bruise on the inside, ensuring that she stays wide open to him.

"Az…" Elain croaks out as he licks dangerously close to where she so badly wants him, her fingers winding around tendrils of silky, near-black hair, moaning his name once more as his shadows reappear just long enough to ever-so-gently twist and tweak her aching nipples. "Azriel –"

"What did I tell you about begging?" Azriel smirks against her thigh, running a single, scarred finger along her dripping opening, knowingly playing with her wet folds.

"I recall something about it being pretty…" Elain giggles, though the breathy laugh quickly transforms into a desperate, weepy moan as those damn shadows lick and play with her nipples again, and she suddenly understands the many valuable uses of such misty, sneaky companions. "Azriel, please!"

"There's that begging I like so much." Azriel takes both of her thighs into his hands again, opening her even wider to him, somehow. "Almost as pretty as you."

Deciding that he – and his friendly shadows – have tortured her long enough, Azriel dips his head deeper between her legs, finally allowing himself a shallow taste of her. The first stroke of his tongue against her sweet, warm wetness has his knees nearly buckling on the mattress, a wayward groan escaping his throat in time with Elain's own moaning. Their voices seem to sing together, a secret song of their own.

No one had ever tasted this good. Not once – not in hundreds of years. She was better, so much better than anyone else, and so much better than he'd ever been able to imagine. All those nights he'd pumped his cock dry in his own hand to the thought of her – to the idea that it was her warm tightness around his cock, rather than his fingers…when he'd imagined what she might taste like, it hadn't been this good.

This fucking perfect.

How many times had he imagined this moment, right here in this very bed? How many times had he made himself sweat between his sheets to the thought of her, how many times had he needed to step onto the balcony for air? How many times had he come into his hand, mumbling her name so quietly that even his sleeping shadows hadn't heard him calling for her under his ragged breath?

How many times had he awoken with a start from a cruel dream of her naked body thrashing in release between these very sheets, his shadows aiding him in her pleasure as they were now, only for him to awaken and realize that she already belongs to another male entirely? How many times had he imagined that she'd chosen him over her mate, over everyone?

So many times had he imagined this very moment, that's how many.

"What can I do?" Azriel breathes desperately, lifting his head from between her thighs to look Elain in the eye, so ready to admit his undying love and darkest desires that it was honestly a bit embarrassing. "What can I do so you'll make those sounds for me forever?"

Those pretty, pretty sounds –

"Just keep…eating me like that." It sounds funny, requesting that he eat her, as Elain has never used such language with a man before. She's been intimate with one, with Greysen, but not…not this intimate. Then again, Azriel is not just a man. He's a beautiful, devastating Illyrian. "Just like that…"

But she likes it – loves it, even. Elain loves the freedom of being so blunt, so lustful with another person, with someone who she trusts so deeply. So undeniably and so thoroughly, she likes it; so undeniably she wants to keep making those sounds for him, so long as it makes Azriel happy.

And the sounds that he's been making…the sounds of his panting and deep moaning between their kisses, all for her, like he's really been waiting for her all this time…being with Graysen had been nothing like this. Nothing like this.

Nothing like him.

Nothing like those beautiful hands and fingers, sliding inside of her and rubbing gently at her clit, causing her to cry out for him, which only causes Azriel to pump those fingers deeper and harder.

"Cum for me, my pretty Lainy," Azriel demands, dark and deep, sensing that she's close to the edge – close to her end as his fingers and tongue work in tandem, coaxing her to simply give in to them.

And she does, always so eager to please – so eager to please him – cumming onto and around his fingers, cumming into his mouth. Oh, how long he's dreamed about this, how he'd ached for her to release her desire upon his lips on Solstice night! How he'd yearned for what should've been that next morning…

Panting and whining beneath him, Elain has never looked so gorgeous, and her trembling legs fall suddenly limp as she comes down around his hand. Worth it – the wait had been so worth it.

"Open your mouth." Azriel climbs up her body and gently pushes both of his drenched fingers between her lips. She tentatively takes them, sucking them clean and staring up at him all the while, eyes wide with trust. "Good. You're so good, Elain, you listen…so well."

Those melty brown eyes of hers are surely going to be the death of him as she sucks at his scarred fingers, surprisingly loving the way she tastes upon her own tongue when he's the one feeding her.

"Say it again," Elain shakily requests as she drops his fingers from her mouth, and he knows what part she means – what words she's yearned to hear from his lips for so long, and from his lips alone.

"You're so good, Elain." Azriel happily repeats himself as he cups her face, breathless from the reality of finally having her so close; the reality of finally watching her fall apart in his hands.

"I want to be good for you. That's all I want," Elain whispers, reaching up to tenderly trace the length of his nose, his eyebrows, his cheekbones. "I want to be your good."

'The dark needs light, the dark needs light,' his tricky shadows seem to whisper, over and over again.

And suddenly, his shadow's whispered words – the ones that coaxed her to his bedroom tonight in the first place – make so much sense. He needs her, and she needs him, and they need that bridge of glowing light in the darkness to intertwine them. The dark cannot heal without the light, and the light cannot shine without the dark, and she needs him. He needs her, in a way that goes so far beyond this sexual need.

"You are," Azriel promises, brushing Elain's thick hair from her flushed face. "You are."

"I'll be your good," Elain softly starts, bringing herself onto still-trembling legs, kneeling on the bed before him and gently pushing him toward the edge. "If you'll be mine, and if you'll stand right there for me."

"To be your good, Elain…to be your good would be an honor." Azriel admits, and he means it – means it as he follows her request, getting up from the bed and standing before her as she continues to kneel at the edge. "But what, might I ask, are you up to?"

"Hold my hair, would you?" Elain wraps her fingers around her hair in a makeshift ponytail, handing the bundled strands over to him, which Azriel giddily and gingerly takes, maintaining the ponytail shape. "You're not the only one who's spent their nights alone dreaming about this, you know. Wondering what sex between us might be like."

"You have?" Azriel blinks, suddenly wondering if she's a mind-reader of sorts like Rhys and Feyre – wondering if Elain had, with her powers as proclaimed Seer, somehow looked into his mind and seen for herself those endless fantasies he'd conjured up, alone in this very room in the dead of night.

"I have," Elain confirms, adjusting her position and gently pulling at the stays of his leather pants with slightly shaking fingers. "And so often, late at night, and far more often than I'm willing to admit…" She blushes, dropping her voice to a shy whisper. "I would pleasure myself to the thought of you."

Azriel's eyebrows shoot up at that, even more surprised now, having never dared to hope that she might imagine him in the same way he'd so frequently imagined her, let alone assume that she'd pleasured herself while thinking of him.

"Is that ridiculous?" Elain winces when he doesn't respond right away, her hands dropping suddenly from their work at his pants.

"No! No, not ridiculous at all. I…" Azriel leans down to lovingly cup her face with his free hand, gently brushing his nose against hers in an almost-kiss. "I've done the same thing while thinking about you. While imagining this."

"You touched yourself." Elain tilts her chin upward to look at him, licking her lips, as if to prepare herself. "To the thought of me?"

"So much, yes," Azriel admits breathlessly, thinking about all those nights he'd wrapped his hand around his cock and just pictured her. Her face, her neck, her gentle mind. Every gorgeous part of her.

"Show me," Elain requests under her breath, hastily returning to the stays on his pants, working them undone. "Show me, please."

Suddenly – far more quickly than Azriel's seemingly-broken brain can register – his aching dick is released from his pants, met with the cool, refreshing night air. Before he can protest – not that he would dare do such a thing – his pants are around his ankles, his cock in the soft palm of her tentative hand.

She stares. Stares, and stares, and stares. And finally, for the first time, Elain truly understands why her sisters are always giggling about 'wingspan this' and 'wingspan that.' Why they've always teased their grumbling mates about Azriel having the largest wingspan of the three brothers, and why it mattered.

That large 'wingspan' is staring back at her now, twitching and hardened all for her, a drop of pre-cum already dripping from its tip. How many times she'd imagined how it might feel to have him so deep within her, fucking her so hard that it might be difficult to walk the following morning…How she'd known that he would be so beautiful. And he was! Oh, he was…

Never wanting to disappoint her again – eager to show Elain exactly what she'd requested and exactly what he'd done to himself when he'd laid in this very bed, his half-asleep shadows whispering her name back to him over and over – Azriel takes his cock into his hand. His rough scars around him aren't even remotely comparable to the softness of her hands, but to please her…

"I would lie right there," Azriel begins, nodding to the very place where she's kneeling before him now, his voice so gentle and quiet: a secret to always keep between just the two of them. "I would touch myself, and I would picture your face, and I would think…I would think that if I could just – if I could do this with you someday, just once…I might be okay."

As he confesses such lovely thoughts to her, leaving her blushing profusely, Elain allows Azriel to reach out with his free hand, taking her fingers into his and using them to cover the hand slowly pumping his cock. Elain is sure now, if she hadn't been before, that she's never felt anything so erotic with anyone.

"I didn't know Illyrian males were so prone to self-pleasure." Elain teasingly watches as Azriel removes his hand from his dick, replacing it only with her own now, trusting her to keep the rhythm.

"They are when the only woman they're yearning for is so hard to get." Azriel laughs, head falling forward in pleasure, causing strands of dark hair to fall into his handsome face as he takes her chin into his hand, tilting it up toward him. "And so easy to want."

Easy to want, he was, too. And so, mustering her courage, Elain wordlessly leans forward to take the length of him into her mouth, knowing enough about such an action to feel at least somewhat prepared – Greysen, though, had not been nearly as well-endowed as an Illyrian warrior. Nevertheless, Elain finds herself moaning around his cock, eyes fluttering shut at the taste of him, just as he'd groaned at the simple taste of her.

"Open your eyes, pretty Elain." Though his words are so sweet, so endearing, Azriel's voice is dark and demanding as she once again opens her eyes to him, laving her tongue around the tip of him as his own eyes darken, and darken further yet. "Look at me when I'm down your throat."

And she does, because Elain wants so badly to make him happy, to live by whatever demand he might suggest.

"Oh, Gods, you've never looked so perfect." Eyes watering, cheeks pink with exasperation, cheekbones framed by his hands, it's true. She's never looked as perfect to him as she does right now.

Further and further down her warm throat he goes, until Elain is gagging on his cock and Azriel is trying so very hard not to fuck her mouth until she's gripping at him or the sheets beneath her fists and crying for breath, tears running down her gorgeous face.

One precious night together they may have, but even one night as perfect as this unfortunately isn't enough to do it all, so such a thing will just have to wait until next time – if there can even be a next time.

"Lie down," Azriel gently commands with only minimal regret as he leaves her mouth, guiding Elain to fully lie upon the bed once more, tucking herself against the soft pillows as he hovers over her. "I don't want to cum too soon, and if you keep sucking me like that, I'm definitely going to."

Elain giggles, pleased, if only because Greysen had never complimented her so bluntly before.

"Do you remember when I let you use this?" Azriel ponders, reaching for the invaluable dagger lying beside her head, which had been thrown haphazardly upon the bed when his pants had come off.

"I remember." Elain smiles mischievously, recalling the way he'd pressed Truth-teller into her palm, promising that it had never failed him, and would never fail her.

Promising that, without actually saying so, he would never fail her. And he hadn't.

"Do you trust me?" Azriel asks darkly, causing Elain's smile to fade altogether, the lustful look on his face forcing her thighs to tremble all over again, as they had when he'd been between her legs.

This wasn't just Azriel before her, not anymore. This wasn't just the gentle shadowsinger she'd met all those months ago, the quiet male who'd offered to show her the garden at the townhouse when she'd been so scared and quieter than even him, following him like a lost puppy. This…this male before her now, this beautiful and mysterious thing, was the ever-feared Spymaster of the Night Court: secret-keeper, cold-blooded torturer of liars and thieves. His huge, black wings encase them, protecting her from the badness of the world, and coaxing her toward his objective badness, all at once. 

Devastating, yes. Elain had been entirely right to describe him as such.

And yet, she was not afraid. Still, as she'd promised him on the balcony, she would never be afraid of him.

"More…more than anyone." Elain swallows hard, never breaking the passionate eye contact as Azriel closely watches her throat bob, and she means it. She stutters under his dominating gaze, but she means it. She trusts him more than anyone else – likely always will, especially now.

"I've never let anyone use this before, you know. Or even touch it," Azriel admits, twisting the familiar dagger – his longtime friend of sorts – in his hand, watching it's silver blade glint in the moonlight as he leans over her. "Only you. In five hundred years, only you and I have touched this dagger."

Gently – so gently – he settles between her legs on his knees, dragging the dull side of the cold blade down the inside of her open thigh, causing Elain's legs to subtly fall even further open, and causing her to moan so delicately that Azriel wishes he could lick inside her mouth and swallow that beautiful sound.

"Fuck…"

Azriel's eyes glow wide in the dim room at her surprising use of such a foul word – something Elain so often doesn't use – despite their inner circle being so versed at using such filthy language on the regular.

"You like that," Azriel breathes in an almost-question, as though he were slightly surprised. Repeating the motion, his eyes suddenly fill with worry and he snatches the blade abruptly back, causing Elain to quickly prop herself onto her elbows and huff frustratedly. "Is this too much for you, Elain?"

There he is. That sweet shadowsinger is still there inside him, and always would be.

"Oh, please don't stop!" Elain begs without shame, frantically shaking her head at his worried question, grabbing for the wrist of his hand which holds the dagger, tugging it closer again. "It's not too much, it's…You're perfect. I like it, I like it so much…"

Too much. How was she ever going to move on from this night, from him? How had she convinced herself that one night with him was all she'd need, that one night would be enough to move on? When it felt like this, when he was doing these things to her, things she never even could've dreamed of –

"Look at me," Azriel whispers, needing her eyes upon him as the blade gently touches her once more – the blade which had bridged the dark and light between them in the deepest throes of heartbreaking battle. "Look at me…"

He'd dreamed of this, though, even if she hadn't imagined it before this blade upon her skin had so effortlessly blown her mind. So many nights he'd dreamed of this: what it might feel like to so delicately, so softly, touch this very blade to her impossibly soft skin – the dagger he'd trusted her with when he'd never trusted anyone else with it in the many, many years that he's been its sole owner.

He'd dreamed of what that gorgeous face might look like while he eats her, what she might sound like when his cock finally buries itself inside her for the very first time.

"My beautiful Lainy." Azriel quickly abandons Truth-teller when she looks up at him, setting it upon the bedside table with the headache powder she'd given him, mind racing. "I can't wait…"

"So don't," Elain whispers, tugging at the collar of his leather top and pulling him back over her, desperate to see all of him at once. "Don't. No more waiting."

"No more waiting," Azriel agrees, settling himself over her, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to her awaiting lips, then to her forehead. "Never again do I want to wait so long for you. To have you."

"I don't want to either…" Elain sniffles, tears twinkling upon her brown irises in the dimly-glowing faelight. "I've waited far too long, and I've missed you far too much."

"I've missed you, too," Azriel groans, finally lining his aching cock with her entrance, brushing her hot wetness and causing the both of them to moan breathlessly at the forbidden contact.

"But Az, I don't know if I can –"

Eyes wide, legs trembling like a fawn just learning to walk, Azriel understands what she means; understands that slight burning of nerves behind her lust-filled eyes.

"You can," Azriel gently reassures, caressing both of her cheekbones with ginger hands. "You can take it."

His eyes soften when a singular tear falls upon Elain's flushed cheeks, quickly wiping it away.

"I'll go really slow at first, okay? I promise," Azriel murmurs against her cheek, kissing the place where the tear had fallen. "And we can stop at any time. Just say the word, and we'll stop right away. If it hurts too much, we'll stop. If you don't want this for whatever reason, we'll stop. Okay?"

But please,  please  want this…please want this as much as I do.

"I want this. I do." Elain takes a deep breath as her eyes flutter shut, biting her lip and gripping his biceps to brace herself. "Okay." She nods, letting him know that it's alright to move. "I'm ready."

"Look at me, though," Azriel softly requests, so gentle and tender as he tucks a fallen strand of hair behind her delicately-pointed ear. "Please just look at me."

Elain's eyes heavily blink open at his request, eyelids so weighty in the throes of her desire, staring up at him with such undeniable trust in those eyes. The tip of his cock nudges against her once more, causing her lips to part just slightly and her chest to heave with an involuntary breath.

"That's it. That's my good girl," Azriel pants as his fingers delicately frame her cheekbones, as he talks her through it, nearly on the verge of sobbing himself at the sight of her gorgeous face as he finally, finally enters her; a sight which he's been desperate to see for far, far too long now. A sight that's haunted both his dreams and the moments he'd spent wide awake before succumbing to them. "My good, beautiful Elain."

Slowly – so agonizingly slowly – does he bury himself inside her, so slowly does she soak his dick with the desire between her legs. So quickly does his entire world tear apart and come together, all at once.

"Just like that." Azriel guides her along, burying himself inch by inch in her warm wetness. "That's it…you're doing so well, sweetheart."

He's going to rip her apart. With his sweet words, with his cock…he's going to rip her absolutely down the middle. And yet…yet, she still wants more; needs more. Needs all of him.

"Oh, Gods –" Elain moans loudly, eyes fluttering shut as he slowly but steadily sheaths the entire length of him inside her, so painfully gentle in his movements. "Fuck…"

He's never seen her so wild, so unfiltered, so…free. He's never seen her so free. He's never loved such a look on her face more than this.

When he's finally fully seated, the tip of his cock nudging at the very deepest part of her, Azriel finally allows his gaze to rip from her as he tucks his face into the comforting crook of Elain's beautiful neck, needing a moment to simply breathe her in – to know this is real, to know that she's real.

"See?" Azriel coos into her ear, smirking slightly as his hands rest on either side of her face, lovingly brushing her hair back again and again. "I knew you could take it. You underestimate yourself."

"I wasn't sure at first, if I'm being honest." Elain giggles gently, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and burying a hand into the hair at his nape, tucking her nose against his neck to breathe him in, as well – to relish in this precious moment.

"How do you feel?" Azriel asks, wanting her to know that he cares, because he does. He cares so much – too much. Much more than he'd ever care to admit out loud, lest the Cauldron hear and take her away from him all over again.

"I feel good, I feel…" Elain laughs again, louder this time, wrapping her arms even more tightly around his neck, like he was her anchor in the crashing, stormy sea. "You feel good."

"You're so…Elain, you're so soft." He doesn't know what other word could properly encompass how she feels. How no one else has ever – in five hundred whole years – felt this way. Never. "You're so warm, so…so perfect, Elain. You're so, so perfect."

"Do you really think so?" She asks with a blush, like she might not believe him.

Like she wants to, though.

"I don't just think so," Azriel whispers, lovingly kissing her bare shoulder. "I know so."

"I know that I want to feel you," Elain breathes, gently grasping her ankles in her own hands behind his back, opening herself to him as fully as possible in their current position. "I want…I want your cock to pound me harder than I've ever been."

Never – never in a thousand lifetimes – had Azriel assumed that he'd be able to hear his sweet Elain speak to him in this way. But oh, had he dreamed of it. How he, selfishly – so selfishly – wants to make her feel what that bastard Graysen had never even come close to being able to.

How stupid he'd been to let her go, Fae or not. How stupid Greysen had been to lose her.

"I'm going to pound you." Azriel pulls back from the crook of her neck — that soft neck which he loves so much — very gently placing a hand around the front of it instead, and Elain watches as his eyes darken with utter lust as he looks down at her. "I'm going to fuck you like you've never been fucked, and I'm going to worship you like you've never been worshipped, and I'm going to make your pretty little pussy all mine."

"It already is," Elain whimpers at his blunt promises, never understanding until this moment how lewd it could be to simply belong to the right person; to feel wanted, to be dominated in such a freeing, safe way. When it was Greysen…when it was Greysen, it hadn't felt like this. It hadn't felt like this to belong to him. "I am. Azriel, I'm all yours –"

Elain gasps suddenly, cut off by the way his cock is quickly pulled from deep within her, edging along her dripping entrance, teasing.

"Tell me, Elain, how are you mine?" Az demands, ever-so-subtly tightening his fingers around the side of her gorgeous neck, but never enough to cause any real pain. "Why are you mine?"

He abruptly thrusts back inside, though he quickly removes himself again, intently awaiting her response and refusing to move another inch until she gives him one.

"Because I always ache for you," Elain sobs, the overstimulation of it all almost becoming too much, too fast, and she can't help but fall in love with this feeling of delicious torture.

Torture: that's what he does for a living, isn't it? No wonder he was so good at it – even here, even in bed. Especially in bed. She couldn't help but admire his quiet, stubborn restraint.

"Because when we're apart, all I do is think about you, and when we're not, I get so wet, I can barely stand to be around the others –"

"It's a miracle they don't smell you." Azriel smirks devilishly at that, though his heart jumps at her confession as he rewards Elain with another deep stroke of his cock, only to return to her entrance once more, torturing himself all the while. "When you're around me, if you're as aroused as you so claim, it's a miracle they don't smell it wafting from between your pretty thighs."

Torture, though, has always been a bittersweet aspect of his job, of his life; one that he's never been afraid to exercise in the bedroom, too, under the right circumstances. And Gods, is she ever the right circumstances – more right than it's ever been.

"They don't smell me because I can never stay around you for very long," Elain reminds him, and her anxious flitting about the townhouse or river house when he's there suddenly makes so much more sense. "I always have to disappear to the garden, or to the kitchen, or…or…"

Azriel pounds extra deep and extra hard into her as he waits for Elain to finish her strung out thought, not even a hint of a smile glimmering upon his face in the moonlight any longer.

Sweet. Azriel was so sweet, so kind and thoughtful. So gentle with her, he's always been, like he'd been afraid to break her once. But this, undoubtedly, was the Night Court Spymaster fucking her now, dipped in darkness and ruthless as they come. Still kind, still thoughtful, but…but in control. He has her in his control, has her dancing in the palm of his hand, and Elain doesn't mind at all. Likes it here, in his palm.

Would gladly stay in the palm of his hand forever, scars and all.

"Have you forgotten your words, Elain?" Azriel darkly toys with her, using the tip of a single, scarred finger to gently trace the curve of her jaw, her chin. "Need I ask you to show me what those hands of yours do when you're alone, thinking about me?"

"No, I just…I want –"

"Tell me, what else makes you mine?"

"You came for me when no one else would!" Elain blurts, eyebrows drawn together as though she were holding back tears as his cock hits that perfect, deep spot within her. "You saw me, understood me, you…you devastated me. You devastated me the first time I saw you, and now I know it's because I thought that you were just so beautiful. And now I know that even then, even when I intended to marry someone else, I just wanted to know you. I just wanted to understand you back, wanted to…wanted to feel you! Wanted to feel what it might be like to be cared for by you!"

"And now that you are?" Azriel questions, hazel eyes gone nearly black with lust and maybe even love, star-spirits falling and falling out the balcony window behind them. "Now that you're feeling me?"

"You're even more beautiful than I ever could've imagined."

"It's funny, Elain," Azriel grins, the terrifying spymaster again replaced with the sweet boy she'd come to know and respect; the male she'd come to love. "That I feel the exact same way about you."

"I need you deeper," Elain admits, panting around the request, around his dick. "I need all of you. Tell me what I need to do to have all of you."

"Get on your knees with your ass in the air," Azriel quietly commands, secretly pleased by her desire to be told what to do, to be directed. Taking Elain by the hips and helping her to rise before him, Azriel swiftly shifts their position on the bed as he kneels behind her now. "That's it…good girl."

"What now?" Elain whispers over her shoulder as Azriel takes a fistful of her hair into his free hand, allowing the other one to plant itself palm-down on the bed beside them to keep him steady.

"Now," Azriel hisses, leaning down to mutter against her ear, gently yanking her back by the hair so their cheeks brush as he speaks. "Now, you're going to stay right there, you're going to learn what it means to be properly fucked by an Illyrian, and you're never going to want another cock ever again."

Maybe he wasn't always proud of his lineage, of his kind, but he would be. Right now, he would be.

"Oh –" Elain sighs, both shocked and utterly turned on by his words as Azriel promptly prepares to keep that promise, powerfully entering her once more, filling her up to the point of satisfying pain.

Like she could've. Like after Solstice – after this – she ever could've wanted anyone else. To Elain, the notion is entirely ridiculous and completely impossible.

Pleased, Azriel watches his cock plunge in and out of her, over and over again as he fucks her from behind, the notion of ever wanting anyone else again becoming as equally as ridiculous to him.

"You're all I've ever wanted, all I've dreamed about for months now!" Elain shakily confesses, wanting him to know – needing him to know. "I feel sick to my stomach when I even just think about being mated to him –"

"Don't. Don't you dare say his name in my bed, don't you dare say his name with my cock buried inside you. Don't you dare," Azriel whimpers in spite of himself and in spite of his attempt to sound firm, even though the demand is sure and true, his words causing a pleased whimper to fall from Elain's own lips. "You're mine, Cauldron be damned."

"It's only you that I want!" Elain reassures, promises as she sobs. "Only your cock inside me, only your heart…"

"And it's only you that I want." Azriel returns the sweet sentiment, moaning as he watches his dick disappear and reappear again, soaked in the warm wetness that seems to glitter around him like starlight. "Forget the necklace, forget Rhys, forget how stupid I've been, just…just fucking forget all of it. Can you do that for me, Elain? Can you just forget it all?"

"Done," Elain immediately whispers, his actions long forgiven. "All of it, consider it forgotten."

"The only thing I'm never going to forget is how perfect you feel." Azriel slows his pace just enough to lean around Elain's shoulder and nuzzle her nose, gingerly brushing their cheeks together. "How you make my cock ache just by looking at me from across the room, just by working in your garden or helping someone else work in theirs. By how sweet you are."

"And the only thing I'm never going to forget is how perfectly your cock fits between my legs, like you were meant for me. I'll never forget…" Elain chokes on her waning breath, biting her lip in a pleasured, shy grin. "How much I love you."

"Love?" Azriel repeats, utterly dazed as his pace instantly picks back up, because no one's ever…Not really.

"Yes. Yes. Cum inside me, Azriel. Make me yours for real," Elain begs, again confirming the three little words he'd never dared to hope she'd say to him. "Make me yours, make me yours!"

"But Elain, what if –"

As Fae, the likelihood of her falling pregnant was much less likely now than when she'd been human. Unlikely, but not impossible –

And he'd been a bastard, in a way – in the eyes of so many – and still is a bastard. Not in the same way that Cass was considered one, but…still, Azriel knows how it feels to not be wanted, to not be cared for. Not really. He knows how it feels to be forgotten, even by one's own family – family, of course, being a loose term where his own blood relations are concerned. And he couldn't risk doing that, wouldn't risk inflicting upon Elain what his mother had been forced to go through. He couldn't do that, not to her…

"I don't care! I don't care, I don't care," Elain frantically insists, grabbing for his hand to interlace their fingers in a last-ditch effort to hold onto him and never let go again, even when this moment has long passed. "I want to belong to you. I do belong to you! With my entire heart, I belong only to you. So please, just…please just make me yours."

How could he say no? How the fuck could he say no to that, to her?

He couldn't. So Azriel, despite his own worries, releases himself inside her, his cum leaking down the inside of her thighs. And really, she's right. Who cares? He loves her, and he knows that now. Knows it deep in his bones, knows it as he kneels behind her, blurrily registering everything that's just happened and trying so hard to catch his breath as she does the same. He knows it, because this feels so right.

Cumming inside her feels so right, even though it's every freaking shade of wrong.

Azriel blinks dazedly, wading through the thick, post-cum mind fog to stare down at Elain from his perched position behind her. The star-shaped pins which had been clipped in various positions throughout her thick, curled hair to pull it away from her face, have fallen from their careful placements. Now, the shimmering pins are either hanging by a thread in her hair or scattered on the mattress around them.

Squinting in the near-dark, Azriel can see the way his cum is still gleaming between her legs in the dim faelight, providing the sense that he's marked her forever. She's panting, fists ever twisting the sheets before her, forehead pressed to the mattress in an attempt to re-ground herself and steady her breathing.

It's the most beautiful sight he's ever seen, and the spymaster has seen many equally beautiful and unspeakable things in his many hundreds-of-years of life.

Rhys had been wrong. Much as Azriel loves his High Lord and brother – much as he respects him – Rhys had been so fucking wrong. This thing with Elain…it hadn't been just an infatuation, it hadn't been the simple need to get his dick wet. It's her. It's her that he'd wanted, only her, and while he hadn't needed to have sex with her to know that deep down in his gut, the erotic image before him now definitely helps.

Perhaps they weren't mates declared by the holy Cauldron itself, but they were much more than friends, and certainly much more than two faeries simply crossing paths. They were still fated, somehow, destined in a different way. Meant. Still good, and still right.

Good. He could be good for her. His scarred hands were sullied beyond belief, capable of such horrific things. And yet, they'd touched her softness and threaded themselves through the radiant edges of her ever-glowing light, and they hadn't broken her as he'd so desperately feared they would on Solstice – as he'd feared for long before that. Because here she was, perfect and whole and not broken. Not by him.

Maybe he'd never truly be good enough for her, but maybe he wouldn't always have to live in fear of breaking her, either.

'Elain, who is more than capable of defending herself against the darkness, if she chooses to. Don't underestimate her.'

Wrong as Rhys had perhaps been to try to keep them apart, Amren had been right when she'd spoken such words on Elain's behalf. Maybe Azriel had been wrong, too, had coddled her too much. Elain was soft, gentle, and lovely. But she was also strong-willed, capable, and a force of light – a force, yet to be unveiled. And while Feyre and Nesta had eventually accepted the mates the Fates had offered to them, perhaps Elain was more strong-willed in her sense of choice than anyone had ever given her credit for.

That's what she's always deserved: to have a choice.

And it wasn't that Lucien was a bad male, per say, or unworthy of having the opportunity to make his own choices, too. But if he was lucky enough to be the choice that she made, then Azriel such as hell wasn't going to sully that chance. Not when he'd waited so long for it.

"Stay right there," Azriel gently commands, running a hand through her long hair before rising from the bed and padding into the bedroom's adjoining bathroom to damp a washcloth with warm water.

Quickly returning to the bed, already missing her, Azriel gingerly takes one of Elain's hips into his hand to keep her anchored, carefully beginning to clean her up.

"Oh, you really don't have to –" Elain starts, twisting her neck to look over her shoulder at him, attempting to wiggle out of his firm grasp.

"I know," Azriel murmurs as he grips her hip a bit tighter to keep Elain in place, smiling softly at her before resuming his work, appalled to find himself actually blushing. "But I want to. I want to take care of you."

"I knew there was a big, gooey heart in the midst of all that brooding," Elain teases, reaching a hand back to poke him in the shoulder as he lovingly wipes the remnants of their desire from her thighs.

"For you, yes."

When he's finished cleaning her up, Azriel uses the other washcloth he'd grabbed from the bathroom to do the same for himself. Elain wordlessly rolls over onto her back, lying her head against the fluffy pillows and gingerly tucking a hand beneath her face, watching him intently with those impossibly innocent, slightly misleading brown eyes of hers – if their recent activities were to contend.

"No one's ever done that for me before," Elain quietly admits, nodding to the washcloth in his hand. "Granted, I've only ever been with one…"

Elain shakes her head, smiling a small, bashful smile as she trails off.

"No one's ever done that for me before," She simply repeats, content to leave her thanks at that.

Something in his chest tightens at the look on her still-flushed face, and Azriel finds himself leaning down on his elbows on the bed's edge, wanting to be at eye-level with her as he looks Elain directly in the face.

"You deserve someone who will take care of you, Elain. Not someone who will claim you, not someone who feels like they have a right to you simply because Fate told them so. But someone who will take care of you. Protect you, even though I know that you can protect yourself. Do you understand?"

And in the end, even if she decides that he isn't the one for her, that's all Azriel has ever wanted: for her to be with someone who cared, someone who would protect her endlessly. For it to be her choice.

"I know," Elain whispers, touched by his concern, by his showcase of pure love without having to say the word itself. "You've protected me. When no one else would, you've protected me."

Azriel only nods in silent understanding, momentarily turning away from her to discard the washcloths on the floor beside the bed. He'd pick them up later. But for now –

"What now?" Elain murmurs so quietly that Az almost doesn't hear her, swiftly turning back around to face her again as she voices his own lingering question. "I mean…what do we do now? After –"

After this. After venturing to the point of no return, exactly where Rhys warned me to  never  go with you.

"What do you want to do?" Azriel asks, because it would be her choice – only her choice.

Always her choice.

"I think…I think I just want to be with you," Elain softly admits, albeit looking a bit embarrassed as she does so, as though she were afraid that – despite everything they'd been through together tonight – he still wouldn't feel the same. "And I think I've known that for some time now."

"You think, or you know?" Azriel teases as he climbs onto the bed and lies down beside her, though she interprets his dry tone and straight-faced expression as having taken offense to her wording.

"I know!" Elain quickly reassures, rising onto her knees to straddle him and place her hands upon his bare shoulders, looking him in the eye. "Deep down, I've known what I want for a long while now."

"So have I."

"But what about Rhysand?" Elain probes, almost sad that she won't be able to gush to even her younger sister about this special, perfect night, lest Feyre tell her mate about it. "What he said –"

"I'll take care of Rhys," Azriel responds darkly, furrowing his eyebrows at the memory of his brother's Solstice night orders. "Don't you worry your pretty head about that. He doesn't scare me, but I do have to figure out the right way to go about this with him. Until then, if it'll make you feel better, we can lay low for a while. Keep things between just the two of us."

He likes things better that way, Azriel must admit. Personal, private. He always has.

"I'd like that." Elain nods, smiling softly before chewing on her bottom lip, her expression quickly turned worrisome again. "And Lucien –"

Now that he's no longer pounding into her, Azriel can actually bear to hear Lucien's name from her lips…barely.

"Whether we like it or not…" Azriel sighs deeply, running a stressed hand through his mussed-up hair. "Whether we like it or not, Lucien is still your mate, Elain, and he does have the right to react in whatever way he sees fit if he finds out about us, if he smells me on you. And he deserves to know if you have no intention of pursuing the bond. But we'll find a way to deal with that, too, together. We don't have to figure it all out tonight."

"You're right." Elain sighs as well, though her own sigh is thankfully less stressed after hearing his comforting words, breathier and more contended as she tugs at Azriel's shoulder, guiding him to lie down behind her and tucking her back flush against his firm, tattooed chest. "I don't want to think about that anymore, at least not today. I just…wanted to make sure we were on the same page. That you want the same things I do moving forward."

"I do, trust me. So just don't worry about it right now, alright? Save your worries for tomorrow," Azriel suggests gently, leaning forward to press a kiss to the top of Elain's head, wrapping his arms tightly around her middle. "It's late. You should get some sleep."

"I think I'll just…watch the stars for a while," Elain whispers dreamily, sounding far away, though she happily wraps her own arms over Azriel's and sinks deeper against him. Not realizing how tired she's become, Elain drowsily watches the star-spirits as they continually shoot across the sky from beyond the clear balcony doors.

"I'll be here when you wake up," Azriel murmurs into her ear, placing another kiss there, too. "I'll be right here."

"I know." And she does.

And when they awake in the early, golden hours of dawn the next morning, bleary-eyed and smiling lazily at one another, the Velaris sun will shine brightly through those balcony doors, and there will be no shadows there to haunt them, to chase the sunlight away. They'll quietly trace one another's lips, jaws, and eyebrows, and for a singular moment, the Fates will promise forever to them.

For a singular moment, they will know what it would be to choose.

AN: To my fellow Elriel lovers, I hope you've enjoyed this angsty-turned-sweet fic! Honestly, I personally like the theory that Gwyn doesn't receive the necklace from Solstice at all, and that it was simply a misdirect – that Clotho saw the sadness in his eyes, and knew that the gift was only a product of that sadness, not truly meant for someone else. But in the name of angst…well, if you're already a longtime reader of mine, you know that I'll do just about  anything  for the angst. ;)

I hope to see you all again soon with another ACOTAR fic, though I do have to get back to my Tangled works first. Next on my ACOTAR list, though…Feysand! I have an anniversary trip to the cabin on my mind! But regardless, please let me know if this one-shot deserves a continuation! I have some ideas…