Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You’re inadvertently spread out before him when he arrives: by the fireside in the library, the thick, velvet cushions of the settee offering your form up for slow, languid perusal. 

Your turquoise caftan whispers against the divan as you shift slightly; mouth soft; wine-drunk and swollen; eyelids heavy as the warmth of the fire seeps into your exhausted bones. 

You’d stayed up all night finishing the High Lord’s latest commission — a map of Velaris that is to be a solstice present for his wife. With reconstruction nearly complete in the Hidden City, Rhysand wants to ensure all quarters are accounted for, and so he’d summoned the family scribe to re-chart the vast land of the Night Court in detail: no small feat of cartography for a team of drafters, let alone an office of one. 

So you’d launched yourself into the task. Cloistered yourself in Rhysand’s study for weeks, up to the elbows in inks and trident and pencils until the graphite had turned your fingertips silver and even Nuala and Cerridwen had taken pity, silently pushing morsels of cheese and wine at you between the rolling stacks of parchment that litter every surface of your organized chaos. 

This last re-draft has murdered your hands. Cramped fingers had rebelled around midnight, forcing the pencil to clatter as they’d ached in protest. It had taken only a tipple of sherry to push you into complete surrender then, eyes blurring with exhaustion as you’d settled onto the divan, promising yourself you’d only shut your eyes for a moment.

And this is how Azriel finds you now: half-drunk, soporific, and utterly, mercifully oblivious to his presence. 

He’s not visible at first. Hidden, as is his wont, by those clever shadows, relieved you remain unaware. The intensity of your stare is blissfully muted; unable to assess him in that piercing way that always leaves him feeling exposed as a bat in sunlight. 

Not tonight, though.

Tonight, Azriel takes his time perusing you. He follows the glimmer of the firelight as it kisses your heels; the glint of your shins, your calves, your marvelous thighs, and over the rest of your somnolent form. Your robe is parted at the throat; just enough for the delicate arch of a collarbone to peek through; the hint of full breasts he could easily palm hidden beneath. 

If you were awake, you’d catch a rare glimpse of satisfaction in the Shadowsinger’s gaze. It’s not often you let your guard down around him. You’re all too aware of what he knows; what information he could glean through those uncontainable shadows. You despise the idea that you’re like a book; your every secret written upon a page he could discover with a mere flick of his fingers; a soft order to those gossipy umbras. So you hunker. Obfuscate. Politely deny him at every turn, anticipating his curiosity and deflecting it with a grace and ease he finds utterly unnerving. 

Compelling, if he were being honest.

His gaze continues to devour you with unexpected ferocity. Impulsively, he wonders how the spot between your neck and shoulder tastes. What scent the surface of your skin holds; how warm the heat of your neck feels. Wildly, an image of removing one of your dangling pearl earrings with his teeth invades his senses; a gentle suckle to slide it off, slow and hot and wet. Would you recoil in disgust? Or pull him in to undo the other?

He represses a curse and shifts against his growing hardness. 

Detach, he reminds himself. It’s a necessary habit. Hard-won and inconvenient, sure — especially during moments like this — but it’s what Rhys and the family depend on. What he’s been molded for in this court of dreams and nightmares, this place he’s known as home for five centuries; that took him in when all others forsook him as bastard-born; unworthy. 

He’s not like Cassian, who fucks just as easily as he fights; not like Rhys, who preens and pounces in a calculated dance of seduction. He’s taken lovers, sure; momentary indulgences that he never allows to blossom into full distraction. For Cauldron’s sake, you’re not even awake. It's just ogling at this point.

Don't be an ass.

He shifts against the seam of his pants, cursing his restless cock. What would you say if you were to wake up and see him like this, his need so brazen, so raw?

You shift, muttering something, and drift deeper into sleep.

Instinct roars at him to leave. Some other force, one he can’t quite name, compels him closer.

He drinks in the arch of your neck; the pulse that throbs beneath. What would it be like to lick you there? To close his teeth gently over those tendons, nudging you awake with soft, torturous pressure? 

He knows the brutal kind of pressure that makes men break during interrogations; what tools to use to extract information without leaving a mark. Would all that tactical skill amount to anything at the altar of your body? Would any level of precision grant him access to all the hallowed places within you he seeks?

To touch you would be…criminal. You’re impossibly soft. He won’t mar all that beauty with his scars.

So he tells himself to tuck his burn-riddled, pock-marked hands behind his back, even as he reaches for you. 

The silk of your robe is like gossamer as it flows through his fingers. He knows beneath that you’re softer; warmer; more supple, responsive. But he won’t touch you unless you give him permission; unless you open those gorgeous orbs and pin him with a look of surefire want. He wants to hear you say yes; hear his name in your mouth, so he knows it’s real. 

His hand lingers a fraction too long.

Bleary eyes open, meeting his. 

“Az?” The request is soft, sleep-muddled. You reach a hand up, too tired to do more than gesture vaguely. “Stay.”

He’s caught off guard. Stay where? Stay here? Surely, you can’t mean —

“Keep me company,” you whisper. 

It’s slurred by sleep and drink, and he thinks you don’t know what you’re saying. But you do. 

The Shadowsinger is elusive at best; impenetrable at worse. You suspect that even if he harbored any feelings beyond the confines of friendship, they'd remain so deeply buried within him that it would take Cassian’s bloody sword to pry them out; like shucking a stubborn oyster from its shell.

You’ve noticed the way he falls silent in your presence. How his shadows snap back and disappear when you're approaching. On the few occasions you've asked for his opinion while charting, he defers to Rhys, even though he could re-draw the city with his eyes closed. For some reason, he assumes that you view him as less than. You’ve never asked him why, sensing it would trample the fragile boundaries of the friendship you’ve just begun to build. 

And sure, it wasn’t quite your plan to get drunk on the settee and spread yourself out like a feast for him. It just sort of happened that way. 

But now that he’s here, and you’re warm, and the barriers are low because of the wine you’ve been drinking and the late-night hour, you figure he can’t refuse this request. Won’t want to. 

Through half-lidded eyes, you watch as he slides to the floor next to the couch. Quietly plants himself beside you. 

But it’s not good enough. It’s frustrating. Yet another way in which he makes himself less. 

“Az.” Your hand drifts over his shoulder, a gentle squeeze. You want him beside you. If you had your druthers, he’d be enfolding you in his embrace, a comforting wall of solid darkness to bolster you against the real shadows that plague you at night; whispers of a deep and profound emptiness that you suspect he harbors as well.

But you know that’s too much. To ask anything so bold would shatter the moment; have him beating a hasty retreat. So you squeeze his shoulder and he reluctantly folds himself up until he’s gingerly perched on the couch, unsettled by your proximity and unsure of what to do. 

You make it easy for him. Grabbing a large pillow, you prop it against his side. It’s a thin but passable barrier between your bodies, and not nearly enough to staunch the heat coming off of his large frame as you rest your head against his stock-still form. The scent of him washes over you, strong and comforting and familiar, and you find yourself gently lulled back into sleep by the fire and that unmistakable Ilyrian warmth. 

At length, his breathing slows. His rigid spine gradually softens. After what seems like eons, you at last feel the gentle pressure of his scarred hands: one curving around your shoulder; the other settling gently on your head. 

Azriel exhales shallowly, as if one wrong breath will shatter the illusion.

Mor, for all her years of camaraderie and loyalty, has never been this open with him. And you…for all that sharp wit, discerning eye, and quick tongue, have never once aimed any of those weapons at him. Come to think of it, you’ve only ever had nothing but praise for the spymaster; always a kind word, a soft smile.

It’s…well, he doesn’t quite know what it is. 

He’d always interpreted your demeanor as courteous; mere politesse befitting a figure in Rhysand’s court. But in this moment, as he caresses your hair and feels your even breath echo through his stuttering lungs, he finally allows the shadow that urged him to the study this night to curl around his ear, and listens as it whispers of untold possibilities in the dark. 

Chapter Text

It’s hot.

Stifling in that way late-night dinner parties can be: too much liquor in a too-small room with overheated bodies.

Hulking, Illyrian male bodies to boot.

You can practically see the steam rising off of Cassian’s wide shoulders as he downs another glass of wine, his body eating the space as he guffaws at something crass Amren’s lobbed his way.

Mor’s knee is casually draped across the general’s lap — almost, but not quite, touching Azriel, who’s sprawled in an armchair across from them, wearing the kind of soft smile that comes from too much drink. Even relaxed, his tall form swallows the room, and you force your eyes away from all that warrior’s lank to really take in the trio. 

Mor on Cass; Cass next to Az…It’s a tableau of casual intimacy that stirs a pang of jealousy. A longing for a familial bond of loyalty and trust, acquired through centuries of…what? Companionship? Battle? 

Or perhaps it’s something more. Perhaps the rumors of the Morrigan bedding both brothers long ago runs true; certainly, Azriel seems all too content to watch the slow, unconscious brush of Cassian’s fingers against Mor’s leg; his shadows draped lightly around him, as if they, too, have been enraptured by her presence.

You can’t blame him, really. Mor is Rhys’s third in command; a force unto herself; radiant and magnetic as Azriel is reticent and dark. The two complement each other in status and rank; would likely strengthen the Court if they — 

Your eyes drift to Azriel’s hand, his long fingers idly tracing the rim of his glass. Those fingers had felt like a revelation last night: both maddening and soothing in their gentility; all that raw, primal power normally used to interrogate and kill yielding a delicate, almost sacred caress. You haven’t spoken about last night together; hadn’t had a moment all day before you’d been asked to this dinner. But all you can think of now is the heat of those palms as they’d burned over you; how they would feel sliding over your shoulders; your thighs, deep between your — 

Air. You need air. 

Murmuring an excuse, you quietly make your way to the end of the hall, shoving the double doors open that lead to the large upper balcony. You sigh as a blast of cool air hits you, and gaze down upon the city with muted relief. It’s gorgeous tonight in Velaris: the skyline is ablaze with faelight, and you can’t help but rest your head against the cool stone of the railing, willing the burn in your skin to subside as you gaze at the lazy Sidra below. 

You really should go home. It almost feels intrusive at this point, lying around watching Rhys’s inner circle trade barbs and jokes. You’re not one of them; not really. 

It's only your duty to the court that had inadvertently placed you in Azriel’s path last night; a task that had Feyre inviting you to this late-night dinner after she’d taken one look at your blunted fingernails and wan complexion. You’re not here to share in the closeness. You’re just a bystander who happened to need a meal; a casualty of court protocol. 

You straighten, preparing to leave, when a quiet voice stops you. 

“In need of some air?”

The low vibrato of Azriel’s voice hits you, and you repress a shiver as the spymaster comes to stand beside you. He’s somehow managed to bring the heat of the room with him, and your stomach does a strange flop as you feel his warmth and size and sheer presence overtake the cool night. 

It’s infuriating. Intoxicating. 

You wipe at your brow, unable to hide your irritation. “You Illyrians are unbearably warm.”

“Blame Cassian,” he responds dryly. “Since he’s full of hot air, he can’t help but fill the room with it.”

A small laugh gusts out of you. There’s a dry wit to the Shadowsinger most don’t see; a powder keg that sparks in rare moments with those he trusts. You’ve seen it when Rhys and he trade barbs in the study as they argue over the map; during training sessions when he's got nothing but words to defend against Cassian's blows; and once, when you’d inadvertently happened upon him and Mor after dinner.

You’d idiotically hidden behind some curtain, embarrassed at interrupting a private conversation and praying you wouldn’t catch something you didn’t want to hear. He’d been polite, if not slightly acerbic; and she’d been evasive, if not downright aloof, and you’d focused on calming the heat in your face as he’d appeared moments later in the study, producing the aerial measurements of the city for you that he’d insisted on flying up to take himself.

A part of you preens at the thought of belonging to Az's Circle of Wit. It feels...intimate. It makes you, in moments of reckless daydreaming, believe that there might be something more to his kind assistance; something that makes him linger well after normal working hours, and well beyond the few weeks that Rhys had initially requisitioned him. 

It’s why you’d felt comfortable calling on him last night; liquid courage daring you to take it one step further. It was a private interlude you’d thought uniquely yours, until you’d seen the way he looked at Mor tonight, and realized you’d never be able to bridge that chasm. She had centuries on you; and you had — what? A few nights in a library? A drunken request for physical comfort fulfilled out of obligation? Pity, even?

Chilled, you straighten. You really should be going. 

But then his voice hits you, soft and searching. “Why are you really out here?”

A wry smile. “Haven’t your shadows told you already?”

“I’m not asking them,” he rumbles. “I’m asking you.”

You cast him a glance. His eyes are on you, clocking every expression, every movement. 

The place was getting too clogged with memory. I couldn’t bear watching how you looked at Mor; how she casually dismissed you; how your hands on me last night had felt — 

You swallow, certain he can hear the thunder of your thoughts, but he saves you the embarrassment of answering. “Cassian knows war,” he says, tone reflective. “He’s comfortable reliving those stories. He didn’t mean to exclude.”

You nod, grateful he’s given you a way out. After a moment, he adds: “Neither did I.”

Your eyes shoot to his. He’s still staring at you with that same intensity. As if a twitch of your brow or mouth holds the answer to the question in his gaze; a question you realize he’s been silently asking all night. 

“I…uh…” You swallow. “I haven’t — "

The wind switches direction, and you’re hit with a sudden blast of steam.

One you haven’t felt in ages. 

Delight seizes you, all other thoughts fleeing as you feel the warmth of water that recalls a primal childhood memory. “Cauldron, do you feel that? The onsen is still working!”

Abruptly, you turn on your heel, heedless of Azriel’s bewildered expression, and patter down the steps, rounding the corner to the hidden pools below. 

_____________________

Long ago, the House of the Wind wasn't merely a place for Rhys’s small inner circle; it was a gathering place for all citizens of Velaris. The large, outdoor bathing pools were used by various communities: warriors soaking after a grueling training session; school field trips; families from the mountains without bathing houses. You remember spending long, lazy days here as a child with your mother and her kin, wrapped in billows of steam and quietude.

Much to your surprise, the onsen is still in pristine condition — the magic of the house likely keeping it that way. The pools look as new as the day you last saw them: thin, narrow bamboo shoots forming a delicate ring around the water itself; artfully placed stone creating small, clustered pools to bathe in; and the long, sloped bath house that forms and “L” around the space still glimmers a brilliant crimson, gold and black. 

A tendril of steam brushes your face. Warm. Inviting. “Come bathe,” it purrs seductively. “Enjoy.”

And so because you’re a little heady from the wine you’ve been drinking, and not at all because you’re trying to wash away the discomfort still buzzing within you, you reach for the sash on your dress. 

You’re wearing nothing more than an embellished robe of silk patterned with birds and flowers; a simulacra of the bountiful nature around you. It slips easily enough down your shoulders; and you’re halfway to sliding it down your back when you feel eyes on you.

You turn. The Shadowsinger stands several feet away, partly obscured by the space, as well as his own darkness, only the glimmer of his eyes visible. He’s staring — whether in disapproval, or something else, you can’t quite tell. 

“You don’t need to be here, Az.” 

You can tell he’s uncomfortable by the way he holds himself; posture stiff, shoulders slightly hunched, as if he could somehow leverage his tactical skills to dissuade you. When Normal Situations Go Awry, Chapter 14: How to Herd an Unpredictable Female from an Unvetted Water Feature.

Aware that the wrong move will send him winnowing you straight back to the house, you tilt your head slightly, forcing as much calmness into your voice as you can muster. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you back inside.”

On impulse, you turn, heart pounding. “Or you can join me, if you like.”

And with that, you slip your robe off and glide into the welcoming water. 

Chapter Text

Cauldron boil me, what the hell is she doing?

Azriel stills at the sound of silk hitting the floor, eyes glued to the spot where your dress has fallen. Every fiber of him longs to trace the lithe steps of your feet as you approach the water; drink in the shadows that hug your calves and knees, cup the bare skin of your thighs and hips, and dip into the molded crevice of your — 

He drags his eyes away, affixing them to the sky. Mother help me. 

A soft splash alerts him to the fact that you’ve entered the water, and he darts a glance in your direction, eyes instinctively scanning the horizon. The shadows of the night are quiet here; but centuries have taught him that even the most tranquil spaces hold elements of surprise. 

There are no guards, no night watch — nothing save him protecting you against…

“The perils of bathing?” you quip. 

He eyes dart to yours, and he shrugs, unapologetic, telegraphing his disapproval even across the billowing steam. But you won’t be dissuaded. Not when the water feels this good. Already, you feel your limbs relaxing. The tension of dinner fading into a soft-edged memory as the onsen submerges your senses and fond memories rise to the surface.

"We found a wyrm in here, once," he says mildly, interrupting your reverie. "It ate its way through the piping system. Took four Ilyrians to wrestle it down. You can still see its teeth marks on the rock there."

"Charming," you deadpan. And then, because the tick in his jaw tells you just how unsettled he actually is, you hasten to placate. "The house is warded. Cassian tells me you check the wards yourself. I'll be fine, Az."

He suppresses an irritated sigh. Fine? You can’t even manage to tie your hair back, for fuck’s sake. Even as you calmly assure him, you’re fumbling with a small tie that keeps popping back into the water every time you try to corral your voluminous mane. Your eyes are soft; fingers chopping through the water as you try to snag the band each time it kamikazes, and he's unaware he's staring until you glance up.

“Care to help?”

He averts his gaze, chagrined. “I — “

“Then bugger off.”

It’s said mildly, but he still bristles at the casual dismissal, even as he's unable to turn away at the sight of you dipping below the water for a brief moment.

You pop back up, droplets clinging to your mouth and brow, fully aware of his gaze on you as you continue to fuss with your hair. “As far as I’m concerned, I am an off-the-clock, slightly buzzed female casually consorting with an off-the-clock, albeit stick-in-the-ass, male. What happens here is no one's business but our own.”

You pin him with a steady gaze. “Unless you tattle.”

Azriel attempts a half-smile. “You’re free to do as you wish. There are no spaces that are off limits to you in this House. But my business…”

He meets your gaze, regret within them. “My business is never solely my own.”

Ah. So it was his duty to the court, to Rhysand, that made him hesitate.

“I see.” There is no judgment in your voice, but Az feels it all the same: it’s the same recrimination he lays on himself: that no matter how much he wills it, he can never quite manage to separate himself from his role. His duty as the eyes and ears of the High Lord; of the court they’ve fought and bled for, always the insistent, demanding obligation foremost in his mind. 

“Would your brother begrudge you a moment of escape, Az?” 

You say it softly, not wanting to spook him. For all his age and ferocity, the spymaster feels skittish as a gelding in this moment; his flickering shadows snapping and rolling, telegraphing his unease even as he stands stock still. 

He gives you a long, steady look. Weighing. Calculating.

He steps forward suddenly, eyes impossibly dark. “For a moment of escape…I’d imagine not.”

And then you feel the balloon that’s been building in your stomach suddenly pop as he disappears in a flash of shadows and reappears in the steaming water a few feet away, completely and utterly naked. 

Chapter Text

For a moment, neither one of you dare breathe. Dare look away. 

As if doing so will break the unspoken pact that you’re actually doing this. 

A tendril of water flicks at your hair, as if the House is reminding you breathe, and you ignore Azriel’s gaze as you sink into the pool with a sigh of contentment. “Nice, isn’t it?”

Azriel curses silently. It’s not nice. It’s dark. And too quiet. The faelights above don’t provide nearly enough light, to say nothing of the awkward position that blocks his ability to see potential intruders. Nevermind that the house is warded; if Rhys, or Feyre, or gods forbid, Cassian were to wander down here — a dull thud takes up residence at the base of his skull at the thought of having to explain himself. He’d never hear the end of it. 

“Az.”

“Hm?”

“If you’re going to think so loudly, do it somewhere else.”

He mutters a low curse, and you repress a smile. Through half-lidded eyes, you glimpse at slick wings, a bare forearm, and the sharp curve of a bicep as he shifts, maneuvering to another corner of the onsen, no doubt trying to find the perfect vantage point from which to surveil while simultaneously pretending to relax. 

When had he last relaxed? Az wonders, settling back against the rocks. The last time he’d steamed in the birchin at Solstice, Rhys’s cock had ruined it for everyone. He still remembers his High Lord’s look of betrayal as he and Cassian had tossed Rhys out on his naked ass after one too many lusty mental exchanges with his mate. 

He lets out a soft chuckle, prompting you to open your eyes, and — oh.

The Shadowsinger is content. He’s slumped in a corner, broad chest half-sunk in the churning water; long arms slung atop the rocks. His head is tilted back, eyes at half-mast, and when your eyes meet, his mouth lifts in a small half-smile. 

Not for the first time, you contemplate the perils of launching yourself at him. Would you win a few delicious seconds of shock in his arms before you’d be catapulted into the ether, never to return? Or would you receive a long-winded lecture about propriety and decorum and whatever the fuck else maintains his torturous level of self-denial?

You’d rather not end tits up in the Sidra. So you merely offer him an inquisitive look. 

“Last time I tried to enjoy a steam, Rhys ruined it for everyone,” he explains. “The mating bond had just kicked in for him and Feyre, and, well.” He looks away for a moment. “He wasn’t exactly subtle about it.”

You straighten slightly. “Oh. Was he — ”

“Very.”

“Oh.” You swallow. “Well, did you — ” How did you voice get this high? “Did you, um, get to relax? After?”

He’s all lank and bravado with his arms slung out; wings loose behind him and water just above his pecs. You can’t see much in the dim light — even less now that he’s sequestered himself — but his body language has shifted; all that unease now gone. This isn’t Azriel the hyper vigilant spymaster; this is Az the Ilyrian; every inch of him broadcasting pure, masculine arrogance.

“Depends on your definition of relax,” he says mildly. He’s toying with you. Enjoying it. Mischief alighting his eyes as he takes in your flushed cheeks. You’ve turned three shades brighter, and it’s a lovely look. Briefly, he indulges in an image of you spread beneath him, flushed, gasping, the same expression on your face as he drives into you —

“Do you remember Quinus?”

The name douses the fire in his gaze. Clearing his throat, Azriel straightens. 

“Of course I remember your late husband,” he murmurs. 

The name instantly conjures old, but sharp, guilt. Quinus had been one of the first to die at Amarantha’s hand when the first lines had fallen. He’d been a good male; a loyal soldier. For all of Az’s vaunted skill as the spymaster who was supposed to detect and eliminate existential threats to the Court, this was yet another death he hadn’t been able to prevent. Another inescapable failure. 

“We were married for decades,” you say softly, interrupting his dark thoughts. “Not mates; but a companionable match all the same. Seeing the three of you tonight…” You pause, hesitant. “It reminded me that even while married, we didn’t share a fraction of the closeness you have with them.” 

Azriel considers you carefully. Is that why you had called him to you last night? Because you coveted what he had? Or is that why you’re deflecting now — unsure of where, exactly, you stand in relation to the inner circle?

Not all of them. Only one, his shadows whisper. He tilts his head, waiting for them to tell him more, but they fall silent. That secret is apparently yours, and yours alone to tell. 

He’s silent for a long moment. Then: “I was jailed and tortured during my childhood.”

Your eyes snap to him, heart thundering. “What?”

“Bastard-born son of an Illyrian mother, two cruel half-brothers. They burned my hands, beat me. Rhys and Cassian found me in the camps. Taught me how to fly. How to —” He pauses, searching for the right words. “Find myself again.” He leans in with an earnestness that borders on pleading. “You see closeness; I see duty. I owe them everything. There are days I wish…” His gaze grows distant. “It doesn’t matter what I wish. Today, tomorrow, a century from now, Rhys enters my mind with a command, and I obey. It’s who I am to them. For them.”

You trace the water’s eddy, reflective. At length, you look up, pinning him with large, luminous eyes. “And who are you for yourself, Azriel?”

His voice is dangerously soft. “Why did you call me to you last night?”

There, in his eyes. The question you’ve been avoiding all evening. 

You roll your head, attempting to relieve the tension of his burning gaze. “Why did you answer?”

His eyes drop to your neck; your shoulder. Gaze turning speculative as he roams over you, searching for a chink in your armor; a way to pry out your true thoughts despite your impenetrable deflection.

Something nudges your arm — a small shadow, unfurling in the dark, stretching all the way across the onsen to coil tentatively around your wrist. The caress turns soft, inquisitive. “I heard you whisper my name in your sleep.”

Embarrassed heat prickles over your body. Is that why he’d come to you last night?

“Do you know what that’s like? To hear your name in someone’s thoughts, only to be denied at every turn?”

Delicate as smoke, the shadows spread, feather-light touches skittering across your exposed skin. Heat curls low inside your belly as goosebumps break out along your neck, your shoulders, and Azriel notes the reaction impassively before returning his gaze to yours. 

“It’s a very particular type of torture.”

One small tendril curls around your ear. 

You shudder as the shadows dip, growing more insistent, bold. They dive beneath the water, swirling around your ribs, your stomach. You gasp, arching, the movement enough to push your breasts to the surface, and Azriel growls as the taut peaks glitter like diamonds in the darkness before you’re under again, writhing against his phantom touch.

“Az,” you plead.

“I need to hear it,” he says softly.

But you’re robbed of breath. There’s too much happening — his shadows coalescing, your body aching, writhing with need as the water churns, parting for his insistent exploration. Something glides down your back; another shadow, tracing the stiff edge of your spine until you’re shuddering beneath its indulgent caress. 

“They hear it,” he grinds out, frustration edging his tone. “They hear you begging for me.”

Suddenly, the shadows tighten, wrapping around your wrists and thighs. You’re lifted, water sluicing off your heated skin as you’re abruptly deposited onto the large, smooth stone behind you. You sputter with disbelief.

“What the fuck are you doing?” you snarl, desperate to distract from the ache in your nipples and the throb in your sex. 

You can barely see him. Just a whisper in the blackness, eyes glittering, features taut. “Do you know what I do when I can’t extract the information I need during an interrogation?”

You can feel his darkness coalescing around you; obsidian night and a rush of wind that smells like embers, ash, and unmistakably him, cataloging every square inch of your body — your mind. It’s thrilling; it’s terrifying. The darkness becomes so thick that you lose sight of the onsen and the Shadowsinger entirely as his inky shadows creep over you, a devouring presence as he searches, prods, and unwinds you completely. 

You’re drowning; drowning in him. 

“Az.” A plea. For less, for more, you can't tell, but instantly, the shadows vanish, and you’re left sitting on the rock, breathing hard as you stare at the spymaster, who’s gripping the stone beneath him with shaking fingers. His eyes are blown wide, as if he, too hadn’t realized just how far he’d let himself go. 

You watch each other for a moment.

Then, his voice, slightly ragged and hoarse: “Say it.”

You can’t. The way he looked at Mor at dinner still burns in your memory. Whatever you’re doing here is a distraction, at best. He can learn your every tell through those Cauldron-boiled umbras, but you won’t give him the satisfaction of admitting your need; you absolutely can’t.

A slow smile that doesn’t reach his eyes spreads across his face as he reads your defiance. “Alright,” he says softly. “We’ll do you it your way.”

His eyes deliberately drag down your body, to where your arms and legs are crossed over your sex.

You’ve been wet since dinner; ever since you’d taken one look at his fingers around that glass and imagined how they’d feel inside you. But now, with his eyes on you, his hunger a palpable thing that hovers in the air, your body launches into overdrive. 

Another burst of slick coats your thighs, and his nostrils flare, a low growl emanating as he catches your scent.

“Tell me where you want me.”

His gaze is hard — a dark king assessing the battlefield before he begins his conquest, and his low growl weaves its own sort of magic. Pulled by something that you don’t quite understand, you find your demurely crossed ankles sliding against each other as you part for him, tilting your hips up in silent invitation. 

His shades tighten around you for a moment — a gentle squeeze of triumph. Then, you feel a shadow uncurl from your wrist, wend its way up your arm, softly stirring across your skin as it glides across your breasts.

“Here?"

His voice is soft, curious. You squirm, a protest at the back of your throat, but his shadows merely slide down and around your ribs, holding you in place as several more curl and cover your breasts. Soft and feather-light, just outside your nipples. Enough to tease, but not touch; cupping and swirling around the aching mounds. You know on some level that Azriel is reserving that touch for himself; for taking your breast into his own mouth and tongue, and it makes the agony of his absence that much stronger. 

“Or here?”

One shade uncoils itself from your foot and winds up your leg, grasping your thigh to brush gently over your pelvis. It’s a tentative touch; a meandering caress that soon turns decisive as it suddenly careens between your thighs. 

“Cauldron boil you, Az, I — shit!”

It’s a sharp, sudden sensation: airy silk rubbing against your sensitive flesh, the hint of stubble and tongue grazing your senses. You gasp, thighs parting as the brush of a cool, feather-light touch slicks up the center of your slit and dives into the wet, swollen flesh. 

Your elbows hit the rock as you arch up, body instinctively searching for him. Involuntarily, your hands move towards your breasts, your thighs, desperate to relieve the growing pressure, but two shadows wrap around your wrists, wrenching your hands up and back. 

Shadows slide down your ankles to anchor you there, and you’re suddenly spread out and panting before him, clenching inadvertently as his eyes drink in your swollen, glistening sex. A dark tendril wends over your thigh; brushes at the straining nub at your apex. You gasp, tilting your hips in silent offering as the invisible caress swipes over you slowly, languidly. Again and again, until you’re panting with need; trembling, writhing, a string of soft curses whispered in the night as you wrench your head up to catch Azriel’s gaze, his body deceptively lax as his laser-sharp focus sears in between your thighs.

“I'm close," you whimper.

“Say it,” he repeats, voice so soft you almost don’t hear it. 

But you’re writhing, clenching down on nothingness, desperate for the hard, heated, solid warmth of him over you, in you, and all it takes is one more delicate brush of a shadow against your wet, overripe sex —

“Fuck.” You come suddenly, without warning, a sharp cry piercing the silence as you clamp down, empty and shuddering, his name a whimper in the darkness as your swollen sheath sucks at nothing, desperate for that hard, unyielding length you know he's palming beneath the water. You hear a soft sigh of victory from across the onsen, and you snap your mouth shut, cursing yourself silently.

The Shadowsinger's finally wrested the confession he's been so desperately seeking, without laying one Cauldron-damned finger on you. 

_____________

Az shifts, his cock a heavy nuisance in the heated water as he watches you recover.

You're still writhing languidly in the aftermath, small exhales a sweet melody to his ear as you push against his shadows. He's loosed them, but not entirely. He's not done with you yet. Not for the first time, he digs into the stone with his fingers, fighting back the insistent urge to haul you over and shove himself inside you.

He’s about a millisecond away from making good on that thought when Rhys’s voice interrupts him. 

Enjoying the night, brother? There’s amusement, and a note of curiosity beneath it, as if the High Lord is wondering where, exactly, his spymaster’s disappeared to this late. 

I’m outside, comes Azriel’s smooth response. Everything alright?

Depends on your definition. Feyre’s been asleep on my arm so long I can’t feel it. Cassian broke the last vintage wine bottle. And Mor and Amren are heading down to the onsen. There’s talk of reminiscing over some battle during a late-night soak.

Azriel’s eyes drift over you, possession coiling low in his belly. He doesn’t want them to see you like this. Want anyone seeing you like this. Wildly, he realizes that he’s covetous of you; of this moment you’ve shared together.  

Good to know, he responds swiftly, and as an afterthought, unable to contain the gratitude he knows Rhys can sense: thank you. 

For what? Rhys replies, and Az rolls his eyes at the feigned innocence in his brother’s tone. He doesn’t know how much Rhys has gleaned about what the two of you are up to, but he sure as hell isn’t sticking around for anyone to find out.

He’s halfway to you when Rhys's voice slides back into his head. Oh, and Az? Go easy on her. I still need my commission finished by tomorrow morning. 

Prick. 

Rhys’s responding laugh is infectious enough that Azriel huffs out a chuckle, and you roll your head towards him, eyes at half-mast. “What?”

Hunger leaps through him as you continue to hold his gaze, something subtle shifting between you. Where hardness once scored your gaze, there's now careful consideration. Not total capitulation. But...an opening. A tacit detente.

Amusement glints his dark gaze as he reaches for you. “Hold on.”

A swirl of black night encases you, and you’re suddenly above the onsen, frigid wind snapping around your body as you’re winnowed into darkness.

—

Chapter Text

“Ooof.” 

You land on a small desk, solid wood sliding beneath the delicate skin of your ass and still-wet sex. Your eyes dart to Azriel’s bed — a large, comfortable four poster currently occupied by a dozen swords that are half-polished — and he shoots you an apologetic look. 

“Cleaning day,” he explains, before he disentangles himself and disappears into the bathroom. 

“We weren’t done out there,” you call out. 

You’ve been scheming, in the scant few moments it’s taken him to winnow, how to make the Shadowsinger pay for the confessional orgasm he’s just forced out of you. You’re currently debating between sucking his cock or making a clean run for it, when he re-emerges from the bathroom, towel slung low around his waist, dripping wet. 

A quick eyeful of lean muscle stretched over broad shoulder fills your vision before he steps forward, extending a robe. “We weren’t,” he agrees. “We had company.”

“Oh?”

You pull the robe tight around your shoulders. It smells of him — of soap and shadow and pure, indecipherable Az, and it’s enough to set your blood boiling. Mouth tilting into a small smile, he steps in between your legs — as if he belongs there, as if this is a normal part of his daily routine — and starts a gentle, methodical rhythm along your skin as he dries your shoulders and arms. A fullness blossoms in your chest; no one, since perhaps your mother, has done this for you. 

“Mor and the others wanted a swim.”

“Oh.”

You deflate; the words out before you can stop them. “Perhaps you should have stayed, then.”

His fingers still. Head slowly lifting, neutral gaze settling on you. “Why should I have stayed?”

A light tone. Deceptively light. 

You lick your lips, wariness growing the longer he stares. “I would assume…with Mor…”

Azriel goes very still then. Shadows retreating so far that you can see every taut line on his face.

“You assume what with Mor?”

“I…” You’re at a loss for words. 

But he reads it in your expression. The reason you’ve been hesitating, why you’ve deflected at every turn. His shadows snap and straighten as it finally clicks into place. Not the whole inner circle, they whisper. Just one. 

“Mor is not the one I went to last night,” he says carefully. “Not the one whose head I held. Not the one whose breath I felt as my own. And she’s definitely not the one I thought about as I took myself in hand when I returned here, alone, in my bed, only my thoughts to keep me company.” 

Oh.

His voice lowers. “And her name wasn’t in my mouth when I came."

“Oh.” You suck in a sharp breath. The thought of Az in this room alone; long fingers wrapping around his length as he’d stuttered out your name… 

“Are you still in love with her?” It’s said quietly, and you almost hope he hasn’t heard you. It’s a terribly vulnerable hand you’re showing, demanding so personal a confession. But you need to know if this is more than just a distraction for him, because it’s quickly becoming more than that for you, and you won’t allow yourself to give in to…whatever this is becoming, without some capitulation.

His eyes search yours, equally serious. “Are you still in love with Quinus?”

“Unfair. And you’re deflecting.”

“As are you."

“It seems we’re at a stalemate, then.” 

His expression shifts. Voice thickening. “I have a method for breaking those, too.”

Of course he does. 

You’re suddenly very aware of your bodies. How close he is as he looms over you, wingspan cocooning your still-wet form as his arms cage you on the small desk. His nose falls to your neck, glides up the trembling column, close enough to nudge the sensitive shell of your ear.

A small nip; enough to make you gasp, lands on your skin, and then his lips are tracing the tendons of your neck with devastating leisure. A soft suckle that starts at the hollow of your throat and ends at your jaw, sending your head tipping back, boneless desire shuddering through you at every soft point of pressure.

A light sweep of his sensuous mouth against your bottom lip — a brush, really — and then he’s traveling down.

Light, torturous pressure against your collarbone, your sternum. His nose nudges the robe aside, inhaling your scent, and then he's latching onto a straining nipple, sucking the sensitive tip into his hot, eager mouth. 

“Shit,” you gasp, fingers inadvertently twining into his damp hair. 

A hard suck, demanding and total, nearly lifts you off the desk, and when he swipes his tongue over the too-sensitive bud, once, twice, you’re twisting him away as your body protests the untenable assault. But he only clamps down harder, assaulting the other nipple, and you shudder with embarrassment as you feel another trail of slick coat your thighs, your dripping sex sliding against the hardness of the desk. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs against your breast, and the words, coupled with the physical assault on your senses, send you reeling. Blindly, your thrust your hips forward, silently demanding, and he obligingly kneels in front of you, arms braced on either side of your thighs as the spymaster stares up at your half-gone expression.

“Open wide for me,” he says. Soft. Commanding. 

Briefly, you wonder why he doesn’t open you himself; why he won’t grasp your hips and hold you down as he devours you. But then you realize his hands are fisted on either of the towel, arms spread wide to quell the tremor that wracks through him as he stares at your glistening, throbbing sex. Tentatively, you brush a hand over his knuckles, but he only withdraws, digging them further into the cloth.

Oh. The scars. 

A light frisson shivers down your back at the thought of those burned, scarred hands on you. You know he despises them; doesn’t want to be reminded of the horrors they conjure. But Cauldron, the texture of them alone…

You open your mouth, prepared to beg that he touch you, maul you, do whatever he pleases, but he looks up — like he’s still not quite sure you want this — and it’s that soft hesitation that makes you sit up a little straighter. Push yourself a little closer to the desk’s edge. 

Slowly, you part your thighs, towel falling to your waist, and Az lets out an unintelligible curse before he’s fisting the fabric and hauling you to him, mouth descending on the swollen, ripe skin of your pussy. 

His tongue delves. A slow, languorous lick from slit to tip that sends you moaning and clutching at the desk. He’s methodical in his torture — you wouldn’t expect anything less — and the way he’s alternating between tonguing your entrance and wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking you — gods —  has you gasping for air, already on the edge. 

“Az,” you whimper. Fingers thread through his hair, scrape his skull.

“Come for me,” he rumbles, and the vibration shoots straight to your clit. You squirm, impatient, but he merely leans forward, broad shoulders spreading your thighs up and over, and you’re panting non-stop as you fold backward, legs wrapped around the Shadowsinger’s head as he thrusts his tongue into your soaked channel in a slow, unhurried rhythm that mimics exactly what he’ll do with his cock.

“Please — ” You writhe, the pleasure tightening, twisting, spiraling —

And then he wraps his lips around your clit and sucks the turgid little bud into his mouth, mauling it with sharp, unrelenting precision, over and over —

“Gods!” You come with a small scream, legs trembling as you scrape into his hair and bury his face against you. He catches each tremor; tongue eagerly lapping the slick that pours out as you clench, empty, shamelessly grinding out your orgasm against him. 

Azriel gets only a moment more of your delicious taste — slick and heady as he presses his tongue to your shuddering entrance — before you haul him up to meet your mouth in an open, panting clash of tongue and teeth. He lets you taste yourself on him. A slow, languid perusal as you spear into his mouth, sucking, licking, moaning with heightened need as his flavor mixes with yours, dark and smoky and shadow laden.

The kiss turns softer. You cup his face as you let him take command; and he plunders your mouth in slow, easy licks and thrusts that tell you he’s going to fuck you with the same lazy rhythm. It makes you go all soft and needy again; hips arching towards the large bulge beneath his towel; your sex rubbing against the soft cloth in a poor, desperate imitation of the real thing. 

And it’s maybe that realization — that you’re barreling towards the point of no return—that has you wrenching away suddenly, hesitation seizing you as you place a halting palm on his chest, panting. “I can’t do this.”

Azriel freezes, his lips still glistening with your arousal as he pulls back, gaze shuttering.  

“What?”

You bury your head against his shoulder. Unwilling to voice the confession you’ve been holding back, because telling him will finally relinquish control over this…need that only seems to grow with each passing moment.

“I want you.” It’s a muffled whisper, vibrating along his skin. “But not just for one night. I can’t do that.”

He chuffs your name softly; chastising. As if that were even an option. Fingertips graze your chin as he tilts your face to meet his somber expression. “This isn’t that.”

Then what is it? You desperately want to ask. What’s this clawing, desperate, hounding sensation that only seems to grow the more time you spend together? What is this ache that never seems to subside, but only seems to swell with each passing moment?

“I don’t know what this is,” you confess at length. Lost. Unsure. 

“Neither do I,” he rumbles. It’s said with such simple honesty, such a searching candor, that it causes some final barrier to cave inside you. Emboldens you to push your hand against his chest; over the scarred, wounded skin that throbs over his steady heartbeat.

“I want you,” you say again. Stronger. Certain.

You trail your fingers down to his hands—his final barrier of acquiescence— and press them against your bare chest. “All of you,” you clarify. 

Azriel flinches, averting his gaze. He hates the way his scars look against your flawless skin. But you only bring his knuckles to your lips, letting your teeth graze them lightly. “I don’t like them,” he says at length, and there’s a lot behind that. What they make him remember, how he feels, how they telegraph a reminder to him every day of how undeserving he is.

“I do,” you say. The decades spent in battle are evident over his palms and digits; scores of nicks overlay flesh at once unnaturally smooth and colloidal in the places the scar tissue’s gathered. Slowly, you drag those clever fingers down, pushing them over the mounds of your breasts; your taut nipples, and gasping, lower, over your ribs and stomach, sighing as they at last mold over the swelling wetness of your mound. 

“Do you know, Az,” you stutter, “That women buy devices like this? Ridged and marked and scarred, for — oh,” you shudder as a callused finger slides over your clit. “For the p-purpose of…mmm….” 

His sensuous mouth lifts. “Of?”

“P - pleasure.” 

His mouth tilts. “Are you suggesting that my hands are better or worse than these devices?”

“I’m suggesting —“  You guide his fingers down, gritting as you push them against your sex. “That you actually put them to use." He hesitates only a moment; eyes flicking to the scars on his fingers against your delicate flesh. And then, all rational thought flees as he deliberately slides one of those long, tapered digits inside. 

You groan, shocked at the exquisite feel of that rough, battle-worn texture against soft, swollen flesh. “Gods.”

Az curses, growling. You’re unbearably tight and wet. His slow, careful movements have you clenching around him reflexively, a fresh wave of wetness slicking your thighs as he delves deeper, marveling at how greedily you take him; how open and eager your are. He adds another finger, and you can barely think. You can’t remember anything; feel anything that’s happened before now. All there is is him — his fingers, his voice, his intense stare, all focused on you. His thumb slips over your clit in slow, rough circles, as two fingers slowly start to pump in and out.

“When was the last time?” he asks softly.

“What? I — gods,” you moan, burying your head against his shoulder.

He pushes in, slow, steady, testing. “When was the last time you had someone?”

Your hazy eyes meet his, lust-filled, confused. 

Az grimaces, feeling the tight wrap of your sheath clench around him. You’re too fucking tight, and he’s not sure he can be gentle; not when his cock has been leaking since the onsen and it’s only 500 years of warrior's discipline that prevent him from shoving himself as deep as you’ll take him. Although, in this case, that won’t be very far, he thinks wryly.

He twists his fingers, coaxing. “Can you take a third?” he asks softly. You moan. Az already has two digits buried into the knuckle, and you feel so full. His thumb resumes the pace around your clit; slow, rough, rhythmic, and he curls his fingers upwards, finding that spot within you that makes your eyes roll to the back of your head.

Fingers dig into his shoulders. You’re close. So close.

“Come with me,” you gasp, reaching for the towel. But he easily bats your hand away and pins it behind you, using the momentum to tilt you back. One scarred hand pushes at your thigh; holds you open. The other continues to pump in and out of your sex. Slowly, gently, he inserts a third finger. 

You cry out a little as another rush of wetness drenches his hand, and you clench inadvertently around him, body shuddering towards a violent release. You’re so fucking full. So stretched. 

Az growls softly. “Good,” he encourages. “That’s good.”

His gaze drops deliberately to your pussy; back up to your eyes. Watching his fingers pump in and out of you. There’s revulsion there as he looks at his marred fingers, clutched by your sweet, perfect sheath, but then you moan, shuddering, bucking around him suddenly, and you’re sucking his digits back in with such pleasure and abandon that a burst of male pride fills him — he’s the one who’s done this to you; his hands, his scars, his wounds.

“Please,” you whimper. 

His tongue darts out, tracing the shell of an ear — gods you’re unbelievably responsive — and that’s it.

You cry out, muscles clenching around him as you crash, frantic, pulsing, riding his hand through yet another shattering orgasm. You think you shout out his name; you’re not sure. All you can do is pant against his shoulder as you ride out the sharp, clenching rhythm, helpless to control anything save your stuttering breath as your reel from the intensity of the Shadowsinger’s touch.

Sweet Mother and all the gods. 

You’re plastered against his shoulder, mouth open, panting, soft pulses still clutching his buried fingers, disbelief slamming through you. Quinus had never touched you like this — made you feel like this. You’d loved him. But he’d never made you burn. Cauldron, Az had made you come from his shadows alone. And you want to tell him all this, you really do, but your body’s clamping down again, pressure building as his long digits start to once again rasp in and out of your delicate flesh. 

“Stop,” you protest, attempting your best look of defiance despite trembling legs and a hazy expression. You won’t come again — not unless he’s sharing the pleasure. “Need you inside.” 

It’s a soft but intractable demand, and Azriel’s large wings tighten at your words, coiling with need. Instinctively, you reach for one, fingers dying to stroke the leathery skin. He grabs your hand mid-air, callused palms curling around the wrist. “No wing play,” he growls. Then, softening: “Not yet.”

“Why?”

Because it's reserved for mates, he wants to stay. But he stamps it down, eyes darkening. “Because I want to be deep inside you when you touch me.”

You suck in a breath, shuddering. “That. Now.”

A slow, lazy grin. This time, he doesn’t stop you as you attack the towel, hands desperately undoing the knot to let it drop, and —

Shit.

You’d heard an offhanded remark, once. Az is different in a lot of ways. It might have been Cassian who said it, you can’t remember. At the time, you’d thought he meant in experience, or attitude. But now, gazing at the large, impossible cock you can barely get your hand around, you understand what he’d meant. Az was different…in all the ways. 

It’s not only that he’s large. Base to tip, he sits nearly to your ribs, and you can barely wrap your fingers around him. You make a mental note that Ilyrian wingspan does indeed correlate with other things, as Feyre had once mentioned, but your eyes are glued to something else. A sort of swelling around his base. Tentatively, you trail the bulbous thing with your finger, and Az shudders, clamping his hand over your wrist, a tortured expression on his face.

“What is that?”

“A vestige,” he says roughly. “An Ilyrian trait some of the older tribes still carry.” 

Oh. You shift slightly, alternately aroused and intimidated by the possibility of fitting it inside you. “Are you —”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says haltingly, gently guiding your hand away. “You won’t need to take it.” Only mates do, he silently adds, and that’s not what this is. Not by a long shot.

He pushes the thought away, watching you, and the damn thing seems to swell as you continue to stare at it. As if preening at your attention. “What is it?” you finally ask.

“A knot,” he says curtly. “We used to have…seasons. For mating. It would help to ensure conception of the young.”

His tone tells you he’s done talking about it. But it’s still fascinating, and exciting, and your chest squeezes painfully at the thought of how much has been taken from the Shadowsinger; how his own traumatic childhood has primed him for an aversion to any sort of thought around children. Wanting them. Making them. 

Two large, callused palms knock you out of your thoughts as they slide down your thighs and haul you up, preparing to lift you. Your hand goes to his chest, halting him. “Where are we going?”

“Bed,” he answers. “Might make things…easier.”

Oh. He wants you on your back. Spread beneath him. An easy, if not somewhat prosaic approach. But you want him the way you’ve wanted him from the moment you’d first laid eyes on him. You bite your lip, suddenly shy. “I’d like to stay here.”

One eyebrow silently cocks up.

“I’ve thought about it,” you confess. “On the desk in the library.”

A sly smile. Cock bobbing against the soft skin of your belly as he leans back. “You mean to tell me that when Rhys and Amren were in there charting the city, you were thinking about having me on the table?”

“Yes,” you answer gravely.

He draws back to look at you for a moment. Stunned. Delighted. His gaze positively vulpine as he leans in to nip at your neck. “We can do that. We will,” he corrects, and the promise of that — the certainty that there will be more times like this — fills you with a sudden expansive feeling in your chest — hope is too grand a word; but something buoyant, still — that has you leaning back and widening your thighs to welcome him. 

Fingers tentatively curl around his cock, learning the heft and weight of him. Gods, he’s warm. Pulsing. A small, pained moan escapes his throat, and you look up to see him staring down at you, every ounce of restraint evident in the trembling arms caging your hips, the bunch of his broad shoulders; the way his leaking cock seems to shudder and throb in your palm. 

You want to tell him that you don’t remember how to do this; how sex with your husband had been a pleasant, if not somewhat routine affair, but that you’re not quite sure he’ll fit, and it’s been decades that you’ve been out of practice —

His thumb brushes your cheek. “Tell me no,” Azriel says softly, reading your hesitation. “And we walk away. Right now. No apologies, no regrets.”

You swallow reflexively, palming him. Hot silk. Pulsing with need. Straining even as your feather-light touch skims its impossible length, rounds the bulbous head, the slit weeping in the center…

“Tell me no now,” he says roughly, thrusting into your hand, desperate. He’s reached his limit, the last threads of sanity snapping with each swipe of your thumb over his leaking tip. In a few scant breaths, he won’t be able to stop himself, and Azriel gathers his shadows, preparing to winnow into the cold night in mere seconds to escape the burn of your caress —

“We…need to go slow,” you say finally.

“Then guide me,” he commands softly, and it’s all you can do to not keel over as you grasp the hot, velvet thickness of him, and eyes on each other, slowly push him in. 

“Fuck, Az,” you shudder, both watching as inch by inch, he slowly sinks inside you.

Exquisite. A groan rips from the Shadowsinger’s throat. You’re already stretched and he’s barely breached your entrance, but you’re determined, and he has eons of torture-hewn patience, and you part your legs a little wider as you squeeze your hand around his shaft encouragingly.

Hot, wet walls parting reluctantly around solid, thick flesh. Eager. Tight.

You moan; he curses. A slight pull, the suction of withdrawal, and he’s at your entrance again, positively dripping as he pulls out, his laser gaze focused on the obscene sound his glistening cock makes as it withdraws from you. 

Your arms find his biceps; nails digging in, helpless.

His mouth is at your ear. “Is this what you thought of? In the library?” His breaths are harsh, big palms cupping your ass, guiding the gentle movement of your hips as he slides in deeper. 

“Uh-huh,” you manage to gulp.

“Did you think about it every day?” He growls, and you inadvertently clamp down around him as he begins to gently rock within you. 

“Uh-huh,” you moan again, mindless, unable to string a sentence together to save your life. Only the half of him is lodged inside you, splitting you. But you need him, sure as your next breath, sure as the hammering in your chest against his own, so you tilt up, knees so wide they nearly breach the edge of his wings. 

“Az,” you whimper. An encouragement. A plea. 

“OK,” he utters, voice strained. “OK,” he says again, as if permitting himself, and you’re too far gone between the taut string of pain and pleasure to do much more than latch onto his mouth, your moan swallowed as he seals your mouth and slowly, methodically, begins to fuck you. 

A long, indecently loud curse bursts from your throat at the burn of him; deeper and thicker than anything you’ve ever felt. It’s an invasion; a complete conquest, and you shudder around him, the delicate nerves of your swollen walls rocketing towards sudden an unexpected release. 

You clamp around him. “I’m gonna come,” you gasp into his mouth. 

“Good,” he says roughly. 

“Not yet,” you gasp, digging into his shoulders. 

You want this to be together, to feel him swell and spill within you; take him over the edge the way he’s taken you. But even as his tongue plunders yours, hips moving in slow, excruciating tandem to his mouth, you’re already losing the edge, shuddering around him as your body prepares to come apart once again. 

He breaks the kiss to watch the indecent glide of his cock against your unyielding pussy. It’s his own little special torture chamber; a relentless vice that none of his usual skill or methods can master. With a sudden swell of possession, Az groans and pushes deeper, determined to unravel you; flay you out and conquer your body the way he does his enemies; tease and unhinge every last secret and defense until you’re trembling around him, surrendering completely. 

He tilts, changing the angle. Cock moving deeper, dragging against your swollen walls. 

His mouth plunders. Tongue invading. 

Hips grinding, searching, until he pushes against that spongy, soft area inside —

“Fuck!” You scream into his mouth, pulsing wildly around his unyielding cock, hips a frenzy of short, taut thrusts as you come, muscles clamping to draw him in further even as your pussy protests against the unforgiving steel of him inside you, utterly destructive and devastating.

You break the kiss as you shudder against him, embarrassment flaming your cheeks. You bury your head in the crook of his neck, silently cursing. You’ve come four times now. He must think you some desperate, depraved woman; some pathetic widow whose husband was such a shitty lay that you can’t even manage to control yourself for even one Cauldron-boiled moment. Even now, he's still hard and utterly controlled as you continue to pulse softly around him.

“Sorry,” you mumble into his shoulder.

“For what?” he asks. 

Below, he’s still hot and thick inside you, and you give his cock an apologetic little clench as you sigh, gazing up. “Me: four. You: zero.”

A corner of his mouth tilts up. A muttered command to the House has all the swords on the bed disappearing back into the large armoire where he stores his weaponry, and then Azriel is sliding his hands beneath you, lifting you up as he aims for the bed. 

He lowers you down to the center, keeping your legs wrapped tight around him. “I love feeling you come around me,” he growls, and it’s enough to make you go hot and needy all over again. “But when I come, I want you like this.” His cock, still buried halfway inside you, twitches, as if emphasizing his point, and realization dawns as the Shadowsinger looms over you, dark and determined. 

You inhale sharply as he holds your stare. This isn’t about keeping score, or extracting confessions, or any of the games you’ve used to circle each other. This — this— is about claiming. Pure and simple. 

Instinctively, your knees raise, opening yourself even more. The new angle lets him slide in more easily, and with a small flick of his hips, he’s sinking into you, pushing through the last few inches of resistance until the broad head of him is nestled fully against your womb. 

"Az,” you exclaim softly, eyes flying up to meet his. You’re so fucking full with him, and his hooded eyes drop to your mouth, flaring with possession as he stakes his claim. 

“Say my name again.” He gathers you beneath him, thumb against your jaw. 

”Azriel,” you say again, a soft, helpless whimper, because Gods, that’s all you can feel, all you can think—only him, inside you, around you, buried in the deepest parts of you, demanding everything. 

His name escapes you again as he withdraws; plunges back in. Again and again, as he proceeds to fuck you with slow, unhurried reverence; his focus so singular and instinctual that it's not until minutes later that you realize you’ve been keening his name softly the entire time; a primal encouragement as he claims you deeply, fully, without haste or reservation.

The swollen base of him hits you, stretches you, not quite fitting inside, but torturous enough that it sets your nerves afire; makes each deep, thundering thrust of his echo through your too-tight channel, until he’s pounding dully at the entrance of your womb. 

“Oh!” You cry out softly—pained, overcome, and he stills immediately, dark eyes searching yours. 

“What’s wrong?”

Nothing, you want to tell him. Nothing except for the fact that he’s too deep; too far; that no man has breached you like this, has ever claimed you like this, because you’ve never allowed them to.

His lips brush yours; a nudging question.

And the you’re canting up, compelled by an instinct that overrides all logic, that begs for his heat and weight and the strong battering ram of his cock driving deep inside you, and he obliges, sinking hard and deep.

Another cry breaks from you; helpless, unraveled, and Azriel shudders with deep satisfaction as your desperate eyes meet his unbreakable gaze. You’re so fucking tight around him, so hot and perfectly molded to every inch and ridge that he swears you’re made for his cock, each tremulous clench of your sheath forcing an instinctive possession to roar from his chest. 

Your breath stutters as his shadows gather and coalesce around your rocking forms; telegraphing need and possession, eyes a blazing ebony as he holds your gaze, and you gasp at the intensity you see there. 

The Shadowsinger wants every inch of you; every unsaid word, every deep secret, every small moan and gasp; every shift of your hips and dig of your trembling nails into his shoulders that tell him you’re his.

“Say my name,” he demands, words barely audible as he feels release gathering at the base of his cock. 

“Az,” you whimper, pussy tight, battered. 

“Again,” he commands, quickening, his body taut above you, wings coiled and ready for release. 

“Azriel,” you cry out again, voice soft, breaking with desire as his girth forces your glistening sheath apart, splitting you with his unrelenting need. You feel him swell; and your pussy involuntarily clenches as you cant your hips up, clit searching to brush the hard length of him as your body ripples around him in anticipation.

Your name is falling from his lips constantly, a litany, a prayer, as beneath, his cock drives into you relentlessly, demanding you surrender.

Your hips lift, eyes drifting to the thickness of him pistoning inside you, dripping and leaking with your slick—

“Fuck!” And you’re gone, clamping violently around his impossible girth as you collapse around him and scream, his cock drawing another orgasm so powerful that your abdomen clenches painfully as you try to accommodate the swelling steel of him pummeling into your delicate, shuddering muscles. 

Above, Az feels himself thicken, his focused gaze never leaving yours as he suddenly thrusts deep and groans your name, cry muffled in your neck as he finally comes.

Scarred hands lift your hips, thrusting you up and off the bed as he impales you on his pulsating cock; thick, lazy spurts of pent-up release spilling deep into you; and you shudder out a breath as your pussy involuntarily clenches, eagerly milking his essence as you ride out his climax. 

”Fuck,” he groans, your name wrenched from his lips as you draw him in deep, body grinding over the hard, pulsing heat of him as your clit brushes his length—

“Fu—Az, mm—no,” you moan suddenly. Somehow, you’re coming again — moan tearing from your throat as your hips helplessly rise up to meet his; those big, scarred palms cupping your ass as he holds you down over his pulsing length.

Gods. There’s so much come. Spilling into you; outside of you; until you can’t take anymore; until you feel the warm heat of him running over your thighs, down your legs, drenching the sheets, until you’re drowning in him; in shadow and wetness and moans and darkness.

“Fuck,” you whisper shakily. You’re still trembling as you ride out the last of your climax; hands digging into the Shadowsinger’s frame as you slowly come down, your sheath is still pulsing softly around him as he continues to empty himself inside you.

There’s little you can do as he rolls you over, limbs trembling as he pulls you into the cocoon of his embrace.

Oblivion beckons as exhaustion sweeps through you. His name is a question on your lips; a reckoning you know you should rise up and meet—because this, whatever it is—this wasn’t just some claim. This was an entire fucking paradigm shift.

But before you can examine it too closely, before that shuddering thing in your chest threatens to explode and collapse from the force of the emotion you’re feeling, you slump over him, tipping into the abyss. 

And that’s how you fall asleep: your body splayed atop the Shadowsinger, his cock still seated within you, the ring of his swollen knot gently teasing your weeping entrance as his wings enfold your somnolent form, protecting you from the lingering shadows of the night, and the reckoning that awaits in the morning.

Chapter Text

No reckoning arrives in the morning. Only a realization that instead of completing the High Lord’s map as planned last night, you’d been fucking his spymaster instead. 

Shit. The map.

You dart up, hair matted, eyes wild, and scramble for your clothes. Where are your clothes? Probably at the onsen, where you’d taken them off before — 

Strong arms wrap around your waist, hauling you back against a bare, solid form.

“Good morning,” Azriel rumbles. 

“Let go,” you protest, struggling against that Ilyrian steel grip, oblivious to the indulgent smile the spymaster hides behind your shoulder as he watches you squirm. 

Adorable. 

“The High Lord is away for the morning,” he says, reading your panic. “The day, actually.”

You turn to meet Azriel’s amused gaze. “You’re joking.”

He holds his hands up in surrender — a gesture that’s utterly beguiling as you realize he’s exposing his scars so easily to you — and smiles. “On my honor. There was a matter in one of the camps that required his attention. He winnowed with Cassian early this morning.”

“And you’re not required?”

His thigh wedges itself between yours. “I needed to take care of some things here."

“Oh.” You let him pull you back down, shivering as his scarred fingertips brush your waist. “Such as?”

His fingers skim your hip, wander lower. “Inspections,” he rumbles. 

“Uh-huh.” You’d both slept remarkably well — Az, especially, for the first time in as long as he can remember — but you’re still sore; so you bat his wandering fingers away and lean down to grasp his hardened length instead. “What else?”

“Daily reports.” His voice catches as your thumb rolls over his silky, weeping head.

“Very important,” you murmur. “And?”

He’s momentarily robbed of thought; enough so that his eyes are still cast skyward when you slide down his thighs and take him into your mouth. 

“Shit.”

Cauldron and all the saints. Your mouth is hot and wet, and that tongue — Azriel hazards a glance down, knowing that the image alone might be enough to undo him. Your perfect lips take him in and out in smooth, languid strokes, each lazy swallow an attempt to inch him deeper towards your throat. Your mouth is tight and slick around him; the length of him glistening, and you don’t even realize you’re circling the base of his swollen knot until your hand is suddenly wrenched up, wrist crushed in a vice grip as his eyes flash.

“Not that,” he says softly.

You lick your lips, gaze hooded. “I want to taste all of you.”

You bend, swallowing him once again, and Az closes his eyes.

Of all the gods-forsaken tortures. 

The spymaster had had many lovers over the centuries. Some Ilyrian; some Fae. The ones who knew his limits knew well enough to stay within the guidelines he’d give them; the others learned soon enough. It wasn’t that he wasn’t generous or tender — if anything, he thought himself the most considerate of his brothers — but the females he brought to bed usually didn’t…push. Didn’t demand so much. 

His fingers sink into your hair, the need for control overriding his pleasure. Gathering your hair up, Az tilts his hips, and after a pause — a moment to reign in his quickly spiraling need — he begins fucking your mouth gently in short, small strokes. 

You repress a moan. Beneath, you’re wet and swollen, and instinctively, you shove a hand between your legs to try and ease your burning need. One look at your hand has Az barking out a warning, hips rising off the bed precariously as your tongue works circles around him, lips diving back to suck him deep —

“Fuck.” He thrusts up, cock thickening, and groans suddenly, fingers clenching your hair as he comes with a sudden, sharp tremor that wracks his entire form. The bittersweet salt of him hits your tongue, thick and hot and unrelenting, and you do your best to swallow, drawing out every shuddering pulse with gentle suction. You drink him down, and down, until you can’t take anymore; until the taste and feel of him beneath your touch is enough to lower all inhibitions, and instinctively, your fingers wander, circling that swollen base of his — 

Azriel shouts, shoving you off of him roughly, a rope of come shooting between you, bathing your chest and neck. You barely have a moment to breathe before you’re thrust up against the headboard, a large, scarred hand wrapped around your throat in a gentle hold. “I told you,” his voice is soft. “That was off limits.”

“I want to take it,” you respond. Quiet. Determined.  

“It’s not for you,” the Shadowsinger bites out, patience finally snapping. “It’s for a mate. An Ilyrian mate whose womb is designed to push out Ilyrian offspring, and that is the last thing I’ll contribute to, since their entire race deserves to burn.”

He holds your gaze a moment before letting go. You slide down to the mattress slowly, watching his stiff form retreat to the other side of the bed.

His cock is still hard, leaking. You can still taste him in your mouth. 

“Coward.”

He blinks; fury momentarily usurped by shock, and turns, eyes wide with disbelief. “What?”

Your vision swims; your head light with the half-cocked accusation. “It’s not Ilyria in this room. It’s only you and me. Using them as an excuse is — ”

“Is what?”

You swallow at the cold rage in his gaze. If you were one of his subjects, you’d be flayed out by now; strung up and bled out by one of the many daggers he’d had laid out on the bed. 

Instead, you feel cold tendrils wrap around your wrists, pulling you up. Your back hits the headboard, and you hiss are your thighs are pushed apart by those writhing, angry shadows. 

Az looms over you, gaze predatory as he rakes up and down your form. Your eyes are wide with surprise and indignation; mouth still swollen from having sucked him. Cum spatters across your neck, your chest; and below, you’re practically dripping onto the sheets, the room filled with the scent of your desperate arousal even as it’s tinged with a sliver of fear. 

His fists his swollen base, sliding it between your soaked folds. “Take what I can give you,” he says. 

“No,” you whimper, even as your hips tilt, attempting to draw him in. 

The shadows around you squeeze, tightening painfully. He draws back, something like regret in his eyes.

And then he’s gone. 

___________________

Time passes. 

You’re not sure if it’s minutes, or hours. You think you fall asleep at some point; you’re not sure. Your arms are numb, suspended against the tall wooden frame of his bed, and your thighs are beginning to grow sore from being splayed apart by those unrelenting shadows. 

The slickness has cooled between them, but is no less embarrassing as you shift, attempting to fruitlessly hide your residual need for him, and a clatter in the hallway has you tugging at your binds in vain. Nuala and Cerridwen could come in at any moment and discover you like this. Was that Az’s endgame — utter humiliation? Or is he still waiting to exact some sort of unknown, torturous vengeance? 

You sigh. 

Prior to this, you had found the male’s appetite for violence somewhat enticing.

Once, during a very late night in the study, you’d seen the spymaster emerge from one of his interrogations: a tall, smooth shadow moving soundlessly in the night, Truth-teller grasped in those scarred fingers; angular face stony and ruthless. He was wearing the same look he’d had when he cornered you in the onsen, taking what he needed without question or hesitation. The thought of all that emotionless precision turned on you…

You shudder. It had been unnerving. Electrifying.

But now…

Now, as your arms feel like they’re slowly disconnecting from your body and your vision dims from lightheadedness, you curse yourself. What had you been thinking, calling the spymaster of the Night Court a coward? Had his cock driven all manner of sense from your mind? Or had you deliberately set out to punish yourself? 

“I’ve been wondering the same thing.”

You nearly jump out of your skin when his voice drifts into the room, and Azriel strolls out from a darkened corner, arms crossed.

Fruitlessly, you tug against your binds. “How long have you been there?”

He only clicks his tongue, expression unreadable, and despite your rage, you feel your body clench at his nearness. Az’s gaze flicks between your legs, where your traitorous pussy clenches with desire, and his mouth curves.

“I was giving you time to rethink your prior course of action,” he says at length. 

You attempt to rattle the shadows coiled around you. “Tied up?”

He ignores you, eyes plastered between your weeping thighs. “You don’t seem particularly distraught.”

“Fuck you,” you spit, and he merely smiles.

“Deflection,” he murmurs. “Interesting.” 

But then he’s clambering over the bed, a smooth, deadly shadow stretching over your form. His fingers skim your thighs, brushing at the glistening wetness smeared across them; scars rasping at your delicate flesh. 

“So wet,” he mutters. A finger curls at your entrance, dips into the weeping channel. “So wet and tight.” He grunts as you clench around him. “You’re not built for me,” he murmurs. He sinks deeper, penetrating, and you gasp. “Never for me.” 

His words are quiet, uttered to himself, and your entire being protests at the self-loathing in them. He still thinks himself beneath you; his anatomy an extension of that rejection he’s felt his entire life; exacerbated by the violent thrill that sings in his veins every time he picks up an instrument of torture.

He thinks himself tainted. To give himself completely over would be to taint you.

Agony fills your chest, squeezing tight. “Az… “

But he’s somewhere else, gaze distant. You’ve seen that look before. It lurks behind his blank expression when he watches Rhys and Feyre; beneath the affected boredom with Cassian and Nesta. The naked hunger, the palpable need, that speaks of resentment and longing and all the things he’ll never allow himself to admit he wants. 

You’ll do anything to take away that look. 

Anything to let the male in front of you know that he matters.

So you square your shoulders, raise your leg, and kick him square in his chest. 

It’s like hitting granite. Solid and ungiving. But it’s enough to make him still, surprise alighting his darkened features as he reads your anger.

“Coward,” you seethe, goading him with as much fire as you can muster. You want him to fight; want his rage, his attention anywhere besides than that bleak void.

Be angry with me. Punish me. Use me, you plead silently.

His gaze narrows. And then his mouth curves in understanding.

You’re in his lap before you can blink; hands tied behind you, legs hanging over his thighs as he hauls you over him with those dark, unyielding ropes. Your ass wriggles uselessly in his lap as you attempt to squirm away, and then a scar-riddled hand is grasping a round globe, callused fingers plumping and kneading the flesh thoughtfully.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. 

A sharp, sudden crack echoes hard against your flesh. 

You try to whip your head around; fail. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Correcting you.” Another sharp sting. You can feel the welts already forming, but Azriel merely grunts, soothing the burn away with those raised fingers. “You don’t want all of me.” His voice is low, cajoling. As if trying to influence an unwilling subject. “Say it.”

“Don’t be an idio—shit!”

Another smack. And another. Each swifter and more devastating than the last, until you’re keening softly, a silent tear escaping down your flushed cheek. “Az. Please.”

“There are parts of me I don’t even want.” His voice is rough, filled with self-recrimination. “How can you want this?”  His scars squeeze your flesh, digging painfully. “You don’t know what I’ve done for this court, for this family.” Another smack; another soft caress. “No idea.”

“Tell me,” you gasp, ragged. “I want to know. I want —”

“You don’t,” he grouses, digging hard enough to leave bruises. “You need someone who can face the day with you; not live in the shadows.”

You bury your face in the sheets, your body on fire even as your pussy rockets towards a sudden, sharp release.

“Please,” you whisper. 

“Please, what?”

Stop? Continue? Harder? More?

“I don’t — I don’t know,” you confess brokenly. You grind helplessly into his lap, your flesh tender and raw. 

Above, Az’s mouth curves as he takes in your squirming form; the perfectly arched line of your back as you struggle against your stays. Your rounded, soft ass is red from his blows; and your arousal is practically a river between your thighs, dripping over and onto the sheets. 

Scarred fingers skate down to your center; to where you’re hot and wet and aching. “Take what I can give you,” he murmurs.

Az watches you crumble beneath him; shoulders bowing in defeat. He readies himself for your accession; for that moment that all his lovers eventually reach when they realize he can’t be moved. Instead, you raise up on shaking limbs, enough so that you’re able to hold his gaze. Curiosity fills your features. “What happens if a non-illyrian takes it? Your knot, I mean?”

“It would hurt you,” he says after a moment. His dark gaze falls on your reddened skin; eyes tracing the swollen folds of your pussy. “Tear you apart.”

You know he means more than that — that there are parts of himself that are shattered and torn; deeds that have haunted him for centuries.

“I’m not afraid of you.” It's said quietly, an attempt to calm the rage you feel beneath his skin.

But he only growls, low and dangerous, and then you’re suddenly flipped over, thighs dragging over his until you’re seated in his lap, your tender bottom suspended above him. His gaze drops; drinks in the swollen peaks of your nipples; your stuttering breath; your thighs splayed wide across his lap.  “Rhys would have my head if I broke his prized cartographer.”

“Your brother would be happy you’d found a suitable distraction,” you say, breathless. And then, before you can stop yourself: “I think he would be relieved you no longer chased shadows.”

His eyes snap to yours. “What shadows?”

You swallow. Azriel considers you a moment before lashing your wrists together, bringing your hands tight to your chest. “What shadows?” he asks again.

Your voice is barely a stuttered whisper. “Stolen glances. Affections that slide away like shadows in the night.” He freezes, his mind racing back to Solstice; his hand on Elain’s nape; the almost-kiss. Had you seen him? Or had his affections been so obvious for the Archeron sister — hell, for her, for Mor — that you’d been able to glean it from observation alone?

You assess him far too cleverly. Know his secrets too well. 

And because of that — because some dark, vengeful, indignant part of him refuses to recognize the difference between them and you — he snarls, hand snaking once again between your thighs. 

“You want all of me?” A finger delves between your folds, pushing at your soaked entrance, and your hips jerk away involuntarily, even as you nod.  You suddenly feel yourself being lifted, shadows hovering you up and over, and then you’re being lowered. Slowly, inexorably, onto his cock. 

“Oh, gods —“ 

He drives you down, your battered, sore flesh reluctantly parting around his thickness, and you can’t help but twinge as the battering steel of him works inside your delicate flesh. 

“You’re still sore,” he mutters darkly.

“I’m - I’m fine,” you manage to stutter. 

“Liar,” he chastises, even as he teases your aching flesh with his blunt head. You gasp, but even as you squirm, attempting to push him away, he’s driving deeper, opening and stretching you.

“Safe word,” the Shadowsinger commands. You’re too entranced watching him move between the apex of your thighs, and a sharp smack on your still-swollen rear wrenches your gaze back up. He slides two fingers, still slick with your arousal, along the edge of your mouth. “Safe word,” he commands again. 

You open your mouth to respond, only for him to slide those scarred digits inside, groaning softly as you take them in and obediently suck on your own flavor. He lets you suckle for a few moments, eyes tracking the slow movement of your tongue. And then he’s pulling out his fingers and replacing them with his mouth; a punishing, invasive kiss that robs you of breath and demands your utter subjugation. 

“I can’t do this without limits,” he breathes against your mouth. Those big hands are on your ass, cupping your cheeks, squeezing and pulling enough to wrench a gasping protest out of you. 
Before you can answer, his mouth dips, latching onto a straining nipple, and you claw at his hair, moaning. The sensation is heady, electric. His mouth swirls, indolent, lazy, as it sucks on a nipple; his cock splitting you apart  with torturous pressure as he prods in and out. 

“Chart,” you gasp. Breathless. Desperate. A strangled plea comes out of you, but he only smiles around a mouthful of breast, taking extra time to lave it slowly and mercilessly until it’s chafed and raw, before releasing it with a wet pop and sucking the other one in.

“Chart,” he murmurs approvingly.

Hands grip your hips — rough, callused palms brushing your waist as they lift you up — and then you’re pushed back down, harder, deeper, your pussy slowly impaling onto his unyielding length. 

“F-Fuck,” you stutter. Slickness coats your thighs; runs over his. You meet his gaze, the only trace of emotion the tilt of his mouth. 

“Soaked,” he mutters; hoarse and raw, his thumb dipping between your legs to trace your straining clit. “How are you always so soaked for me?”

You squirm, fighting his hold. But he only grips you tighter, hands digging into your flesh sure enough to leave bruises as he lifts you up, and begins to slowly fuck you. 

You gasp, pussy clenching. He’s so big, and it hurts, the way he pushes into you without a moment’s pause; the way he batters at your tight, swollen walls without giving you any reprieve. He’d been so good last night, allowing your unused channel the time it needed to recover from him. 

But now…now, there’s only his cold, stony expression as he digs his hands in your hips, the painful rasp of his cock as he forces open your walls; and the unrelenting throb of his release you can feel already gathering, ready to spill deep. 

“Az,” you gasp. He pulls you up, slams you back down. A slow, relentless, pounding rhythm.  

“This is all you need,” he grinds out.

“Az,” you keen, pussy clenching around his thickening cock. 

“All you need.” Shadows pull at your arms, your thighs, causing you to arch back as he tilts your hips, forcing you to take more of him as his length brushes your straining clit on the downstroke.

Thighs tremble around his waist. Fingers aching to hold onto something — anything, as your body arches in flight, careening towards climax. 

“I want — everything,” you protest stubbornly.

He swears, cock pushing deep as his arms band around you. “Fuck.”

“Give me everything, Az,” you manage between punishing thrusts. He rises to his knees, bringing you with him. Shadows grip your knees, locking your ankles around his hips. “Everything.” You’re airborne; helpless; completely at his mercy as the Shadowsinger works you over his pistoning cock; shades suspending you mid-air above him, hands gripping your waist, hips pummeling into you with merciless thrusts —

Azriel. 

His gaze shutters. He’s so close, so close — 

Azriel, Rhys says again, the thunderous command in his tone forcing the spymaster to freeze. A string of unintelligible curses erupts from Az, every fiber of his being screaming as he stills you over his cock; hands like bands of iron around your hips.

What? Az bites. He’s hard and pulsing inside you; the throb of his cock so loud he can hear it in his ears. You’re keening against his shoulder, mouth trailing saliva across his neck as you grind uselessly against him, frantically attempting to squeeze out a climax against his stilled form.

Rhys pauses, as if sensing what he’s interrupted. I wouldn’t interrupt unless it was urgent. 

Az finds your gaze; a silent moment of understanding passing between you two. You nod, breath leaving you in a great gust of disappointment, and you let him gently slide you off of him as his gaze goes slack.

What is it?

Mutiny. Devlon is threatening invasion of the neighboring camps with several allied battalions. 

Cassian can’t handle it?

Cassian is handling it. I need you for reconnaissance. Otherwise, I’ll mist everyone last one of these pig-headed bastards.

Why don’t you? Az says darkly. You know I’d be the last to object.

I’d gladly do it if we didn’t need them.

Where do I start?

I need a map, Rhys supplies, a smile in his voice. You wouldn’t happen to know if my latest one is finished, do you?

Az dips his head, catching your gaze. Your eyebrow quirks up in question.

I can find out.

And like that, you’re both dressing in the spymaster’s bedroom, slickness still running down your thighs as you adjust your skirts over the reddened welts forming over your tender ass. 

That blank look of his has slipped back into place — what it’s disguising this time, you’re not quite sure. You can still feel his hunger, his need; but beneath that, there’s a dark swirl of emotion you can’t quite place; anger, and fear, and something else that you're afraid to look too closely at.

He pauses at the door, his eyes sliding over you. The outline of his cock is hard and insistent against his leathers — the only sign he’s still just as affected as you. 

“This isn’t over,” Azriel says softly; a promise. A warning. 

And then you’re breaking apart, smoothing your dress as you ready yourself for the inner circle. 

Chapter Text

If he touches her one more time…

Azriel bites back a growl as he watches Cassian crowd your space once again. 

It’s been nearly an hour since you’d all been summoned to the study, and the oblivious bastard hasn’t left your side for one gods-damned minute. 

The rest of the Inner Circle has managed well enough, spread out around the large, circular table housing the maps you’d created. But Cassian seems incapable of uttering one word without crowding you: a gentle bump here, a small prod there; a casual lean that puts his body entirely too close to yours. 

The only thing saving Cass from Azriel’s unmitigated wrath is that he’s mated; and that small knowledge — that he isn’t doing anything intentionally, other than being an oblivious ass — makes Az shove the rage deep, deep down, to where he keeps the rest of his unchecked emotions buried, and it’s only after Rhys shoots him a pointed look that the Spymaster realizes he’s been quietly growling. Rolling his shoulders, he curses at the unintended slip and retreats further into his shadows.

Easy, comes Rhys’s voice. I didn’t glamour you just so you could prowl around like a rabid dog.

Rhysand had glamoured both your scents when you’d entered the study; the one concession the Spymaster had asked after the High Lord had interrupted what could have been quite possibly the most sublime sexual moment of your lives. Besides, this thing between you is too new, and the last thing Az wants to do is subject you to Mor or Amren’s scrutiny; let alone the Archeron sisters.

I’m not rabid, Azriel responds, attempting to hide his ire. I’m ensuring the lady isn’t subjected to unwanted advances. 

Is that why my wall is shredded? Rhys asks. Az looks. Truth-teller is buried in a nearby wall, the edge of the blade slicing through centuries-old wallpaper. 

Azriel shoves his dagger back into its holster, grimacing. I stayed out of your way when you bonded. And Cassian’s. 

Is that what this is? Rhysand interrupts, voice deceptively light. Mating jealousy?

No, Azriel quickly replies, shadows snapping back.

His gaze draws back to Cassian, who’s leaning over you once again. He’s asking something about the mountains; your measurements — whatever the fuck you’re supposed to be talking about. Az knows he should care; should be listening. But he’s suddenly so gods-damned wearied by all of it.

One thing — he wants only one thing in his life to not belong to the Inner Circle; to Rhys; to the Cauldrons-damned Court. And certainly not to Cassian.

Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s stepping in between you and his brother. “I'll do whatever it is you need.”

“No,” Rhys interjects, voice hardening. “I need you and your spies in the camps. Tally who’s defecting, who’s still with us.” 

Cassian casually loops an arm around you. “What’s the matter, Az? Worried our Court scribe can’t handle a little flyover?”

Azriel looms over his brother. “She’s not one of your soldiers to command.”

Cassian gives him a shit-eating grin and tugs you closer. “She’s not one of your spies, either.”

Rhys slides his hands into his pockets. “Azriel.”

“The scribe should stay here,” you say diplomatically, cutting into their pissing contest. “If you want the defecting camps charted out, I need to finish the map as soon as possible.”

The High Lord nods, continuing to speak; but the sounds fade for Az. He can see only the line of your body; the way it bends beneath him; can only hear the hoarse sound of your voice as you come against his shoulder; can only feel the give of your thighs as he shoves himself between them, the soft clasp of your sheath clutching him tight as he buries himself inside you. You’re the one who belongs to him; claims him as he claims you; the only one who — 

Out, Azriel commands to Rhys, suddenly unable to breathe. I need them all out. 

Rhysand doesn’t even pause to question the Shadowsinger. The room is cleared within several breaths; the urgency of the mutiny on everyone’s mind. But Cassian, fucking Cassian — is the last one to leave, pausing to rest his hand on your shoulder as he leans in to whisper something. 

Those wide, sparkling eyes of yours meet the general's. And you laugh. 

“Leave, Cassian.”

The threat is uttered so quietly; with such venom, that Cassian doesn’t even pause to look back. He knows the violence he’s stirred within his brother; violence so profoundly unhinged that if Cassian dares even look at his brother for a moment, he’ll be swallowed in a maelstrom of shadow and blood. 

So he exits without a glance, and Azriel is eating the room in several strides, gaze bordering on manic. 

“Lock the doors.” The guttural command issues from him without thought; and immediately the House’s magic obeys, closing the study doors with a definitive lock; and as if sensing where things are about to go, draws the curtains along the large, wide windows.

He’s suddenly behind you, pressed against the delicate curves of your ass and thighs. “Bend over.”

“What are you doing?” Your voice is low, breathless.

He hikes up your skirts and grinds you against his swollen cock, fingers drawing up and reveling in the wetness he finds there. “Isn’t this what you fantasized about? You, here, bent over the table?”

“Az, wait —“

But he’s already unleashing himself, hard length in hand. He pushes you over, one large hand against the small of your back, trapping you. 

It’s uncomfortable. And not…him. 

“Az, wait, please — ”

“You laughed for him,” he mutters, unable to contain the jealousy in his voice as he reaches beneath his stays to palm his heavy cock. Scarred hands shove beneath your skirt, running up the impossibly soft skin of your thighs, and you squirm against his unyielding grip as his cock slides through your folds, prodding.

“Az,” you stutter, wanting to stop him, needing to explain. But any explanation is eclipsed by a loud moan as the Shadowsinger rears back, cock slipping through your soaked slit, pushing past the protesting barrier of your tight entrance. With a harsh, deep growl, he tilts his hips forward and slowly drives into you.

Your head hits the table, delirious. “Shit.”

Az swears as the delicate walls of your sheath clamp around him, adjusting to his size despite having had him mere hours ago. He drags himself out with deliberate lassitude, swearing as your swollen walls shudder as he withdraws. “Do you want to fuck him?” he says softly.

You can do nothing but let out a short huff as he plunges back in. Another wave of wetness rushes around his cock, coating him, and he groans, sliding until he’s buried deep. “Do you?”

You can’t help but push back against him, spearing him inside you as a thumb brushes against your jaw, pulling you up so that you’re trapped against the solid, broad heat of him. You can feel his rage, his jealousy, sure as if it were your own.

“At least he wouldn’t hold back,” you moan, Az’s thumb sliding across your lips, your jaw. “Wouldn’t deny me anything.”

A callused hand swivels to your neck, squeezing. His voice is soft. “I’m not denying you.”

He thrusts; long and slow and deep, pinning your hips to the table. It’s painful; the way the wood digs into your hipbone; the way his cock splays your delicate sheath obscenely wide and tight around him; wetness seeping between you so that it’s practically dripping down your thighs and his leathers. 

“You don’t — “ The fingers of his other hand against your abdomen slide down, working your center, and you shudder against him as he finds your clit.

“You don’t — ” You buck against him, clenching on the hard length of him still impaled inside you. “Gods damn you, Az — you don’t let me laugh for you, either.”

And then the rough pads of his fingers graze your swollen little clit, and he grunts approvingly as you shudder, suddenly pulsing, wound up, wet and ready, hips grinding shamelessly against him and —

“AZ!”

You come suddenly, quickly, clamping down on that hard length lodged deep inside you, and moan as Az merely presses you into the table, letting you ride out the sharp climax as he holds still against you, trapping your writhing hips against his stock-still frame. You shudder and buck against him; relief coursing through you at the sharp orgasm that’s finally crashed after hours of having been denied; hours of poring over charts and maps with the Inner Circle when all you could feel was him, devouring you silently.

You ride out your climax on him, moaning even as his fingers continue to circle your too-sensitive clit, wringing out the last of your pleasure on his thickened cock. He’s still so fucking big and hard; the stretch uncomfortable even as you soften around him; and it takes the Shadowsinger every ounce of willpower to not slam deep inside you; not work you over the table until you’re wet and panting and screaming beneath him again. 

A part of him loves the torture; the exquisite agony of holding himself hard and aching as you clamp down; your tight sheath begging him to yield and surrender.

And something about that — how you surrender to him, trust him — has him glancing at the map, to where your hand is splayed over the Ilyrian Steppes.

“The Steppes,” he says, voice rough.

“What about them?”

“It’s where I first trained with Cass and Rhys.” 

He withdraws, throbbing as he sucks a breath in to steady himself.

“We’d spend months in the ring, training. Only for some bastard to shove us into different camps, so that we’d have to find our way back to each other. We always did, though. Especially with Cassian’s gods-damned scent.” Az smiles fondly at the memory. When his brother wasn’t fighting; he was fucking all over Ilyria, tupping barmaids and local village females and anyone he could get his hands on. “You could practically taste the scent trail of females leading into his tent. He got a whipping for it one time. A local chieftain’s daughter. It was a miracle he escaped with both his balls in tact.”

“And you?” You rear back, attempting to impale him back inside you. “You weren’t tupping all the young lasses in the village?”

He stills. Entire body taut as he hovers at your entrance. “I was preoccupied,” he says at length.

You look down, then, and realize you’re splayed atop Ilyria. The camps he fought in. Bled in. Was tortured in. 

Determination grips you; unfazed, you roll back, hips pushing flush against his. “With what?”

“I love feeling you like this,” he says instead, hand anchoring in your hair, pulling you against him. He sinks into you, a hard, relentless battering ram, hand tracing a line across your spine as you moan; across your ass, and down to the delicate ring of flesh that grips his thick cock. “I could look at this forever,” he mutters. “The way you grip me.” He shivers despite himself, the call of your flesh irresistible. “The way you shudder around me.” 

“Stop deflecting,” you protest, voice throaty with need, and roll back against him, clenching. You’re ready again, so ready to climax around him, but you grit your teeth and bear down, determined to wrest a confession from the laconic warrior in any way possible, including squeezing the life out of his cock, if necessary.

He thrusts back; hard and slow, driving you deep against the table’s heavy grain — as if giving himself a moment to gather his thoughts. 

“Do you know why some tribes still have a knot?” He asks at length.

You bite your bottom lip as he pushes against you, teasing you with the base of his. 

“No,” you manage to bite out.

“It was because mating was not by choice,” he says quietly. He’s gripping your hands now, leaning over you as you both look at the map, his mouth against your ear as his big body encases you from above, hips grinding against yours slowly in a sweet, torturous rhythm. “Females did all they could do to avoid it. Fight it. And when the season came, the knot would lock a couple into place, ensuring conception.” He buries his face in your hair, inhaling raggedly. “I wanted no part of that. No part of making more Ilyrian warriors.”

“What did you want, Az?”

A hand spears into your hair, dragging your face back. Dark, cold eyes meet yours, and you see it there — beneath the lust, the desire for you — the unrelenting rage. “I wanted to kill every last one of them.”

The confession unleashes something inside him. Gripping your hips hard enough to bruise, he knocks your thighs wide, so wide you’re practically on your toes to take him, and tilts your hips up so you’re spread out at another angle. Deeper. 

His mouth finds your spine; an apologetic warning. 

And then he’s slamming into you mercilessly. Hard and brutal with a force you haven’t felt; so hard you’re lifted off the table; nothing save his cock and hands keeping you in place as he moves you on him; limp and ragged, a sail caught in the wind of a relentless storm. 

“I need the wars. The fight,” he confesses, low and guttural, slamming into you so hard your teeth rattle. “Need enemies to slaughter so I don’t kill my own.” A gasp leaves him at this, as if the admission has escaped without his permission, and he pounds harder, deeper. “Rhys knows I need it. To get lost in it. To focus on something other than everything — everything I remember.”

He’s slamming against your womb, now. Dull, hard thrusts that urge a sudden rush of slick around him again; muscles cramping as your body rockets towards another sharp release. Your hands are entwined on the map; to the village of his birth, he realizes. He could take you there; back to where it all started before his prick of a father tossed him in the dungeons; to where he and his mother shared rare, blissful moments of peace in his early years. And there, beyond — the Ilyrian mountains. Where Rhys and Cass had patiently taught him how to stretch his wings — gods, it had been painful, after years in a cage — and shown him how to fly. Never mocking him; never making him feel less. 

And yet, the humiliation, the rage, at what he had been kept from doing, from becoming —

He snarls, cock pummeling deeper, harder, as if he can exorcise his demons inside you; pound through the memories as easily as he pounds and thrusts through your body; and you’re so open for him, so willingly submitting to the violence crawling beneath his skin that it makes his rage double. How dare you submit yourself to him like this? Let him own you like this? You’re not one of them — something lesser; like him.

You belong high above Ilyria. In a studio all your own; surrounded by paints and charts and tridents and whatever else your clever mind desires; high above the war and shit and piss that makes up his life. You deserve evenings in the tall meadows at the foot of the Steppes; the laughter and mockery at the dinner table with the Inner Circle; nights at the onsen, quiet and private, and days in his bed, writhing, screaming under him as he makes you his, over and over. 

And there — fuck, there — beneath the palms of you entwined hands gripping the map, Az sees it. 

A future. With you. 

His shadows skitter down his arms, not of his own volition, to twine around your wrists; binding you. He swears he can almost see a faint light around them, as if silver threads are winding from somewhere in between you, a song calling to him even as your mouth chants his name; a song ancient and familiar as it is strange and unrecognizable; a song that shouldn’t be his — never was his — a song of —

“Gods!”

He bellows your name as his orgasm slams you both down against the desk, and you freeze, your climax slamming into you as you feel Az thicken and explode; his cock pummeling mercilessly as he spills and spills; the rough stubble of his cheek hitting your shoulder as he slams against your spine, the full weight of his Ilyrian strength crushing and enfolding you. 

He grips your hips, shoving them up, and then he’s pounding deeper, still impossibly hard, still coming, and he shouts again, helpless as he feels himself sucked in, every last drop milked by your insistent sheath that shudders and pulses around him; taking his seed, his confessions, his guilt, his shame. 

“Az!” His name tears from your throat, tears springing to your eyes as the pleasure crashes down around you, relentless and utterly consuming. Shaking, you clench mercilessly around him, each thrust driving another wave of your climax as he continues to pound within you, hard and slow and deep, until your delicate sheath is rippling in protest at the onslaught. 

It’s too much — too much. Your inner muscles squeeze down on his thickening shaft, sharp, quick pulses milking him as he grunts and spills; every thick spurt of his cock wrenching a high moan from you and a curse from him. He continues to spill and spill, large hands splaying your thighs open as he watches his cock throb inside you; each shuddering pulse forcing a tight, responsive squeeze from your pussy.

You come down in a heap of moans and pants; his head buried in your hair; hands gripping the now-torn map beneath your fingers. He pushes his seed inside you with a few more thrusts; an ancient primal part of him reveling in the fact that you’re filled; so filled with him.

You meet his eyes, then, hazy and spent, and lean in for a soft kiss — 

He feels something snap just as your lips brush.

Ice coats his veins. 

He can’t breathe. 

Panic shoves him backward, his cocking wrenching away with an obscene sound that sends an arc of come flying between you; and you turn, feeling his sudden, overwhelming panic.

“Az? What’s wrong?”

But he can’t speak. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but stare blankly between you; to your concerned eyes; your mauled breasts; the redness of your hips dug into the table; to the trail of his seed coating your thighs; dripping to the floor. 

“No,” is all he says, tone hushed. Disbelieving. 

And then his shadows swirl around him in a protective whirlwind, obfuscating, denying.

And like that, the Shadowsinger is gone.

Chapter Text

It’s been 10 days since the Shadowsinger winnowed out of your life. 

10 days of sleeping in his bed; writhing in his phantom scent; feeling the empty space beside you for the body that once occupied it. You hope with each passing night that the need for him lessens; that breathing in his scent mollifies that sharp hunger; curbs the baffling ache in your belly and breasts that throbs with an incessant song that chants only his name. 

The House’s inhabitants are, for the most part, understanding, if not somewhat evasive. 

Feyre says nothing about the torn map the next morning. Merely brings down new paints to replace the ones splattered all over the library, and asks when you think a new draft will be done. 

The few times you caution to ask Rhys about the spymaster’s whereabouts, the High Lord assures you he’s still in the camps, but avoids your gaze when you ask how long he’ll be gone. Nuala and Cerridwen are tight-lipped as ever; the wraiths refusing to reveal a word about their master’s whereabouts; and Cassian, well — the general is downright avoiding you. He gives such you wide berth when you cross paths that you swear he’s holding his breath, as if terrified he’ll breath a whisper of his scent onto you. 

Cauldron’s blood. 

It’s with this growing frustration that you find yourself in his room one night, packing your bags. It’s been humiliating, hanging around the House like a besotted mooncalf. Feeling the silent pity levied at you by its inhabitants; waiting on a male who had disappeared without barely a word after days of —

“Fire.”

The word slams into you. With it, ash and smoke. The pull is so strong that you double over, a tug in your chest pulling you to the window, as if you can see beyond the mountains, to the place that burns. 

Fire, you hear again. A whisper of a shadow.

Panic seizes your chest as you stumble to the bedroom next door. You know only one male whose shadows speak; who trail you like whispers on the wind. You bang on the door until Cassian yanks it open, wide-eyed, already donning his fighting leathers. 

“It’s Azriel,” you pant. 

__________________

Fire and death. Screams beneath smoke so acrid that it’s blinding.

Azriel crouches low to the ground and forces himself to move.

He’d been in the village all of an hour before they’d set fire to it. Cowardly pieces of shit — an insult to the Illyrian name — setting fire to huts in an attempt to distract him while they’d escaped. He’d had a choice: go after Devlon’s defectors, or divert resources to the rescue. 

It hadn’t even been a question.

But now, watching rows upon rows of thatch huts burn; hearing the screams of those who couldn’t escape in time…Azriel rolls his neck at the bloodlust coursing through his veins.

Gone is the promise to Rhys to not kill. Gone is his restraint. He’s going to hunt down every one of these fucking traitors down.

A weak cry distracts him: a young girl stumbles from a nearby home, clothing tattered, shell-shocked. Azriel swoops down, large wings creating an air vent as he scoops her up, flying high over the wreckage to set her down amid a group of other children they’ve managed to coral.

“It’s alright,” he says softly, running a hand over the girl’s singed hair. Memories filter in: a darkened cell; hot oil; burns over his fingers. He’d only been a child like her when he’d been caged; a child like her when he’d had his world destroyed.

Hatred vibrates through him, strong and resolute. Finding a blanket, he wraps the girl in it, and after ensuring she’ll be looked after, turns back to the village. 

Scarred fingers snag one of his passing spies, shadows curling around him. “Bring me Devlon.”

__________________

It’s hours later — he’s not even sure — when Azriel at last surfaces for air. 

Blood cakes his leathers, or what’s left of them. He’d lost nearly all of his gear and weapons when five of Devlon’s commanders had shown up, their leader nowhere in sight, and had torn into Az like lions to a kill. 

It had been five against one.

Az could’ve winnowed; could’ve asked for Rhys and Cassian. 

But he had reveled in the fight. Needed to punish those he could work his hatred out on; carve his rage into.

“Coordinates,” Az asks again, calmly flicking Truth-teller, an arc of blood slashing against the dark wall. 

“Go fuck yerself,” the Illyrian beneath his boot snarls. 

Beloch, Devlon’s second-in-command, is the last of them standing; the piece of shit who had started the fire. He claimed he’d only been following orders; but when pressed, had let slip that the homes belonged to “lesser Fae and half-breed whores”. 

Whores like Azriel’s mother. 

That had all but sealed the male’s fate. 

Azriel brings the blade down, triumph gleaming in his gaze as the male beneath him shrieks. Blood, viscous and darkly sweet, drips from his carved back, seeping from the crude letters the Shadowsinger had spent the last hour cutting into his flesh. 

Exili. Exile. 

Azriel preferred killing to banishment, if he was being honest. It was swift; easy; no lingering threads to tie up or vendettas to guard against. But Rhysand had long outlawed death as a punishment for mutiny; and so Azriel had become creative in his endeavors; meting out sentences as he saw fit. 

The asshole beneath his boot had clipped several females in the village. He’d boasted about it upon capture; even bragged about how he’d taken one unwillingly after her first bleed. It had made Azriel see red; so much red that he’d taken joy carving into the man’s flesh; watching him writhe beneath the clever flick of the blade.

“Sick fuck,” the male spits out.

“Coordinates to your warriors,” Azriel intones again, almost bored. “Or I work on your front next.”

The male manages to jerk to a kneeling position, head swimming as he regards Az. “What’s 'er name, Shadowsinger?”

Az barely pauses as he cleans his dagger.

The male only grins, showing blackened, tar-stained teeth. “I can smell ‘er on ye. Sweet as a flower, that cunt. A whore from a pleasure hall? Or a lass all too eager to get on her knees and suck the cock of the great spyma—“

A gurgle interrupts his tirade. Az has buried Truth-teller into the male’s trachea, cutting off his air supply.

He watches the male impassively, somewhat surprised by his visceral reaction. Normally, Azriel wouldn’t given a shit about a subject mouthing off. Devlon’s second was just like the rest of the Illyrians he knew: backwater warmongers, abusive to the weak, cruel to those they punished. He usually tuned out their prattle during interrogations. It distracted from the work. 

But something inside him had snapped when the man had caught your scent. It had provoked a swift, involuntary possessiveness. That a male would have your scent in his nostrils, glean such an intimate thing, when your mating bond hadn’t even —

No. That’s not what this is. What happened with you was — something else. This is…this is…

“Exili,” Az murmurs, eyes moving over the male’s raw flesh. Beloch is no warrior. No noble bearer of a great cause. He belongs elsewhere; cast outside. Alone. Undeserving of the comforts of home or family. Of one who would dare see him like this and still accept him. 

Azriel wrenches the blade out of the male’s throat, reveling as its serrated edge catches flesh on its withdrawal.

He turns, preparing to call out for a healer so he can patch the male up to interrogate him tomorrow, when a scuffle in the background draws his attention, and the voice accompanying it sets his hairs on end. 

“Let me through —  let me — Cassian, I swear on your mate’s life — ”

And then the general is suddenly there, landing with a hard enough thump to shake the building’s foundation as you stumble out of his grasp, and your furious gaze lands on the scene before you.

Azriel feels himself pale. A torrent of emotion slicing through him. 

Shock, at you seeing him here, like this — the darkest of his sins flayed out in the open to your sharp, discerning eye. There’s fear — that you’ll balk; crumple beneath the weight of the eager violence that pours forth from him; pure bloodlust. And beneath it all, shame: that he welcome it all; needs it all, to feed the darkness nestled into the deep, cracked fissures inside him, hard and immovable as the scars on his hands. 

You take a moment to look at him, all of him —  the blood caked across his torso; the ash and dirt smeared across his skin; the roiling emotions he’s telegraphing plain as day  — but you push past all of it as you march right up to the man writhing on the floor and kick him square in the face. 

“Beloch, you piece of shit,” you roar as the male beneath you howls in pain. “They were children. Children in those homes, you fucking — ”

A stone wall blocks you from Beloch’s sight. You’re pulled up and back. Az’s cool gaze meets yours, his shadows encasing you in a warning caress. Careful, scribe, they warn gently. This is not your fight.

“Like hell it isn’t,” you seethe. This is the male who had clipped your sister-in-law’s wings decades ago. Who had now set fire to the home of her family. Flying over the familiar village, feeling Cassian’s own rage at the fires beneath, hearing how Devlon’s commanders had started in the center of the city, where the poorest lived, so that the blaze would take lives they deemed expendable…

“Finish him,” you spit at the Shadowsinger, molten eyes locked on the man. “Or I will.”

Azriel can’t help it. Deep, dark amusement slithers up from inside him at your rage. A shadow brushes down your side in a soothing caress. A promise. 

But it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. Not for what Beloch has done to Quinus’s family. The memory spears in your chest, hard enough to crack something. Adrenaline is the sole thing that propels you forward as you feint left, grab Truth-teller from Az’s hand, and charge at the gasping Illyrian on the ground. 

You’re nearly to his throat — 

When shadows wrap around you, winnowing you abruptly into darkness. 

__________________

It takes several flights through ash and smoke and mountain, but Azriel winnows you home.

Straight into the onsen. 

You both land in the water, diving below the surface before you sputter up, enraged. “What the fuck, Az!”

The Illyrian straightens, wings flicking the water off with deft grace as he slumps onto a nearby rock. He pauses for a moment. Lifts his bloody hands to his face, as if trying to wipe away what he’d been doing; what you’d just witnessed. Willing his roaring hunger for the kill to calm. To wane and fold back in on itself, like a prowling beast beating a necessary retreat after the hunt was over. 

Rhys, he telegraphs to his brother. One commander lives. Tell Cassian to keep him alive. I’ll interrogate him again tomorrow.

Everything alright? his High Lord automatically responds.

Azriel eyes you. You’re still braced in the water for a fight, eyes glowering. Your scribe is too bloodthirsty, Rhysand.

The best females are, his brother croons, before laughing softly and disappearing;

Az meets your gaze at length. “Beloch will be dealt with.”

“You should have let me finish him.”

He regards you warily as he begins to strip his leathers down. “I won’t let your first kill be on my watch.” 

Fury courses through you. “You have no right!”

“I have every right,” he says, meeting you gaze with infuriating calm. 

“Why?” you challenge. 

He only stares at you as he rolls down his tattered leathers, and you have to look away when the sharp outline of his hipbones comes into view; the taut muscles of his thighs.

In the ensuing silence, you take a moment to collect yourself. When you’d felt the tug, the pull of Azriel’s shadows, you’d gone mad with fear and panic. Worried that all those nights alone had finally culminated in the thing you’d feared most: that he’d been caught. Killed. It had always been your fear with Quinus whenever he was called up to fight. Whether he’d return carrying his shield or be laid out upon it. 

Rage still simmers in your chest at the Shadowsinger’s absence — and uncertainty, if you’re being honest — that he hadn’t communicated because he hadn’t wanted…whatever had been building between the two of you.

But seeing him bloodied and exhausted in the keep, a look of such utter despair mingled with the desperate hunger you could feel from him, lusting for the hunt, for the kill — a hunger that became your own as you saw Beloch splayed out beneath his boot — 

Your eyes meet Az’s in realization. He didn’t leave because he wanted to remove you; he’d needed to remove himself from your own rage, which had fueled and magnified his own. Not just for Beloch, but for all the things left unspoken between you. 

He says nothing as he dives into the water, turning the pool red and black, and bursts up moments later, water sluicing off him in a cruel, delectable way that shouldn’t look the way it does, not moments after he’d been carving into a man.

You’re still panting with rage, bloodlust roaring as he wades towards you.

“What is Beloch to you?” Water runs down in rivulets along his pectorals, his abdomen. You watch the droplets break and meet on the water’s surface, ignoring the way his muscles flex beneath your gaze. 

“He clipped my sister’s wings years ago,” you say, mouth going dry.

“Quinus’s sister,” he asserts.

You can only nod as he at last comes to stand a hair’s breath away from you. A hand reaches out. Carefully dislodges Truth-teller from your palm. You hadn’t realized you’d still been gripping it. 

“It has been an age since I visited Serai and her children. When I heard Beloch started the fires in her village…”

“Do you think of them often?” he asks softly.

“I still see them,” you admit. You hadn’t purposefully omitted that you still see your late husband’s family. It had just…felt like a piece you hadn't wanted to share yet. “I send money when I can. After — ” You have a hard time saying ‘husband’ the way Azriel’s looking at you. “After Quinus died, they were all I had for a long time. Serai still has trouble walking because of her wings. I still feel…tied to her. To all of them."

A hand cups your cheek, smearing ash across it. “Tied.”

“Yes,” you say, a bit too breathlessly. 

His hand moves from your cheek to your neck, squeezing lightly. ‘Do you like being tied, lady scribe?”

Mother and all the gods, how had they suddenly gotten here? 

“I…” 

“Do you wish to be tied only to your past? To a memory?”

He grips your hip, squeezing lightly. You wince in pain. 

“What?” he says instantly, clocking it. 

You shift away. Your hip still has a black and blue from where he’d bent you over that damn table in the library, fucking you until he’d pushed so much seed inside you that it had dripped to the floor. But the physical pain had been secondary to his silence; deadly and sharp as any dagger; and his absence, which you’d felt with growing despair every night as you’d laid in his empty bed.

“It’s fine,” you grit out.

“Show me,” he commands.

Your head snaps back then, meeting his hard gaze. “Fuck off.”

But Az — Az, who always defers, who always considers; who never takes without permission because he knows what that feels like — merely hauls your skirt up, pushing discretion aside as he searches for the source of your pain.  You fight him; desperate to avoid the heat of those palms that still feel like a brand. He merely shoves the fabric aside, and what he sees enrages him. 

He’s marked you. Everywhere. Small bruises along the delicate flesh of your knees; larger welts on your thighs; and there, on your hip — the telltale black-and-blue of where he’d pushed you into the table as he’d ground out his claim.

A low, possessive growl emanates from his chest before he can repress it. “Majda should look at this.”

“It’s fine, Az,” you sigh. 

His eyes finally catch yours, silent and calculating. “Is it?”

Scarred fingers trace your sore flesh as he kneels in the waist-deep water, wings flattening, eyes tinged with remorse and something deeper — something that makes you ache. 

You shove him back, heart thundering. “Don’t do that,” you seethe. 

He merely runs those rough fingers up your legs, his heat and scent enveloping you as he continues to stare up, the very picture of penitence. Your nipples instinctively tighten, sex growing swollen as his scent washes over you, familiar and primal. You’d slept in his empty, cold bed so many nights surrounded by that scent. That longing and need for home so sharp a dagger it had woken you in a panic.

“You’re wet for me,” he says, voice a low rumble. 

No male should have the right to sound like that. None.

“Fuck you,” you whisper back vehemently.

But he’s already nuzzling between your thighs; pushing fabric aside with deft, long fingers as he presses a kiss to your hip; then square against the heat of you; tongue dipping, searching. You whimper inadvertently, hips arching against his hot mouth, and when he dips his tongue in to graze lightly over your clit, you shudder and slam your knees shut.

Too much — it’s too much. You can’t. You won’t — 

But then he’s sliding those deliciously scarred fingers around your ass, squeezing, pulling, and he takes one moment to drink in the sight of you splayed above him before burying his face between your legs. 

His tongue slides in, rough and steady. Stubble meets your thigh; teeth biting the soft flesh, and when he licks you straight down the center, thrusting his tongue into your shuddering entrance, your arms scramble against the rocks for purchase as you nearly topple over. 

“I woke up every morning wanting this,” he rumbles. “Aching for this.”

“Bullshit,” you pant, struggling against his iron-wrought grip. “You would’ve — ”  

A finger circles your clit. “I would’ve what?” he asks, harsh breaths belying his casual tone.

“Stayed.” You bite back a gasp. “If you’d really wanted me, you would have stayed, Az.”

He growls in denial once again, and he’s on you in an instant, rough hands pulling up your skirts as his tongue descends once again. Scarred fingers dance over your flesh; one sliding in. You shift, mewling as you’re stretched around him. You’re tight; from days of stress and worry; and he mutters a curse as he circles your clit, fingers curling up to find that soft, swollen patch of flesh within.

“Come for me,” he coaxes.

“No.” Indignation courses through you even as your body rockets towards release. “I don’t —”

“Come,” he commands again. You feel his smug triumph as he swirls his tongue, your body fluttering  — 

“Az. Let me go.”

Azriel merely grunts, too caught up between your thighs to muster a denial. The shadows that have been swirling around you squeeze, trapping you against him. 

“Let me go,” you whisper again, and for a moment, the shades seem to loosen, obeying your command, but then Azriel growls, low and feral, and they abruptly snap back into place as he stands, crowding you against a small outcropping of rock.

“Traitor,” you mutter at one. The shade dances over your skin in subtle, amused apology. 

But Az isn’t amused at all. Az is watching you through narrow eyes; observing the way his shades lope and band about you. “Don’t talk to them,” he grinds out. 

“Why?” you challenge, gasping as he ruchs your skirts up, fumbling beneath to hook your soaked underwear aside. Palming his cock, he runs it through your folds. Wetness and heat coat the broad tip as he grazes your clit, again and again, until you’re gasping, writhing against his solid form. 

“No shadows,” he grunts, hoisting you up against him. “No darkness.” And with that, he pushes you against the rock, hips wedging between your thighs as he spreads you wide to slowly, inexorably, sink into you.

“Shit.”  Your head hits the rock, body awash in pain and pleasure. You’d forgotten how big he is; how inescapable; and even with his big palms spreading you wide, it’s a tight fit. You wriggle at the steel length of him, and you can’t help let out but let a moan of discomfort as he hikes your legs up higher, his shadows angling your hips up as he drives deep.

You bite back a moan. You’re angry — enraged, really, at how easily you submit to him; how willingly your traitorous body accepts him even as your heart shatters. He’d left; abandoned you without a word; and even now, as he struggles to bury himself within you, he refuses you the most intrinsic piece of himself that’s wrapped up in those dancing layers of darkness. 

Scrambling for purchase, you grasp at another shadow, attempting to loosen the grip it has over your body. Az merely utters a dark command, and the shade coils tighter, feathering across your skin apologetically. 

“I can’t,” you gasp.

“Can’t…?” He punctuates the question with a thrust.

“Can’t do this…if I — gods, if I don’t have all of you.” You grasp at another shade. It eludes you. Az merely shifts his position, and you grip his back, anchoring yourself as he lifts you over his length and begins fucking you onto him in a slow, torturous rhythm. 

“You — have — every  — inch — of me,” he grunts, thrusting with each word, triggering another wave of wetness. 

You clench tight, moaning.

“Ask me why,” he grunts.

You’re beyond words; beyond thought. Awash in rage and need as he continues to slowly drive into you; twisting in a volatile mix of heat and ice as you clench down on him vengefully, nails tearing into his biceps even as you tilt your hips up, greedy for more.

His mouth nips at your ear. “Ask me.”

“Fuck you,” you shoot back, enraged.

“Ask me.”

And then his shadows surround you, swirling, coiling, a veil of dark night that whispers like gossamer strands along your skin. And what they whisper makes your hair raise and your pupils dilate and your heart drop, because it’s something you suspected, but never hoped — never dared. 

The shades coil next to your ear, chanting an impossible song. 

Mate. Mate. Mate. 

“F-f-fuck,” you gasp. Disbelief and longing and sheer terror slam into you in time with your orgasm, and you come on a screech, shock mingling in a twisted collision of desperation and elation. This is why he’s been crawling under your skin, a phantom melody singing in your bones — burning you from the inside out. A sob escapes before you can stop it; a deep cry of despair and relief and pure bliss as the ecstasy mingles with lingering anger. You clench down, tight enough that he grunts as you squeeze down on his buried shaft, his shadows snapping up and back as you flutter around his immovable length. 

How dare he not tell you — how dare he, how dare your — 

Mate. 

Gods-damned mate.

Your gaze finds his, wild, unfocused. 

“Mate?” you pant. 

He merely holds your gaze, expression unreadable. As if he’s still trying to puzzle it out, too. 

“I am no mate of yours, Shadowsinger,” you gasp, still clenching around him softly. “I already had one. Quinus was — ”

“Did you feel him?” His voice is low, unsteady. Big palm moving to cover your chest. “Could you feel the pull of him, inside you, like you did with me today?”

You can only stare at him as his hand sweeps from your chest to your abdomen, curling around your belly. “Did you feel his emotions, here, as if they were your own, like the rage we shared?”

And down to the place where you’re still connected. A thumb circles your clit lightly, his voice so low you can barely hear it. “Did he make you come like I do?” His voice drops lower, quieter. “Fill you like I do?”

“He never left me,” you snap, voice far unsteadier than you’d like. Not an ounce of self-preservation as your grief finally bursts to the surface. “Without word. Without explanation, and I —“

His mouth invades before you can draw another breath. Hungry. Desperate. Like he’s never drawn breath before; like your mouth is the only place he finds purpose; salvation. 

Heat and regret. Lust and remorse. Every emotion he’s unable to convey thrust into the power of that kiss.

“I didn’t leave because I wanted to,” he says against your mouth. “All I’ve wanted to do for the past 10 days is claim you until you scream my name so loud that all of Prythian hears it."

You clench inadvertently at that, and he growls, thrusting. He’s still buried deep; hard, throbbing, and your hips grind involuntarily against him, answering a deep, primal call that sweeps through your body.

Your hands slide around his neck, anchoring you against him. “Gods, Az, I feel…” Your forehead falls against his. You can’t think. Can’t speak. All thought boiled down to the base need clawing within you. All your focus on the cool torture of his shadows against your wrists; the friction of his thighs beneath yours; the hard glide of his thick, glistening cock within you.

There’s a need, now — an inescapable hunger crawling through your veins, singeing your arteries — a relentless chant for him, him, him, and he grunts in approval as your ankles lock behind his back, leveraging his powerful thighs as you begin riding him anew.

“Come,” he grinds out, rough as sandpaper, eyes affixed to the space where you‘re joined.

“No,” you moan in frustration, and Az chuckles. He feels the indignation, the resentment; the stubbornness to yield to him because you’ve already surrendered. He can feel your refusal even as you piston over him; thighs drenched; hips flexing; body pressed tight and hot against his.

Smiling indulgently, his thumb circles your clit, electricity dancing over every nerve as he catches your gaze, his need and desire welling sharp within you, mixing with your own liquid ache. 

“Come,” he says again, voice soft and cajoling. 

And you do. Cauldron be damned, you do: on a sharp, desperate cry, and your mouth finds his neck as you moan, teeth sinking into his shoulder as you shatter. You come wildly, sucking his throbbing cock, a sudden spurt of liquid drenching your thighs and his; and he groans approvingly, working your swollen clit with his thumb as he encourages the liquid that continues to spill down your thighs. 

“Fuck, yes,” he groans, eyes roaming you. “Beautiful.” His thumb is still working you, coaxing another shuddering tremor from your too-sensitive clit. 

You moan, writhing away — it’s too much. 

But Az merely presses down, trapping your sensitive bud beneath his thumb. 

“Can’t,” you gasp.

“You can,” he says.

His own trembling knees give way, and you slide to the water in a heap. Your skirts billow up around you like an unruly cloud, and you’re both fumbling with buttons and stays and shucking off wet material so that when you’re finally, blessedly, naked at last, you find yourself shoved over a nearby boulder, your back and ass pressed along all the solid, hard, wet heat of him. 

One hand flattens over your spine. The other grips your hair as he positions himself behind and thrusts deep, burying you into the solid, granite rock beneath. 

“Shit.” 

Your nipples graze the rough surface, scraping as he pumps, your knees bruised where he has you spread out beneath him. His head falls to your shoulder, buries itself in your hair as his fingers curl into your locks, pulling you tight against him. 

“I’ve wanted to be with you, like this, every day. Every night.” You can’t resist rocking against him as he continues to talk, the need to consume him now a living thing that prowls under your skin.  “Wanted to — fuck,” he shudders against you as you rock back, seating yourself hard. The angle is deeper; fuller; and your body trembles as you feel him throb, base to tip, practically buzzing inside you with unfulfilled need.

“Wanted to.…?” 

“Fuck you until you can’t remember your own name.” It’s utter torture, feeling his cock squeezed by that relentlessly tight sheath of yours; feeling your pleasure grip him as you lose yourself to it. You’re all heat and anger, and he revels in it; wants to lose himself in the fire that he’s so desperately missed. 

“I need all of you, Az,” you say, reaching back. You can feel him; full and aching; teetering on that knife’s edge between oblivion and destruction. You circle his knot, hard and aching, and he grunts, slamming you down, trapping you between the solid rock beneath you and his immovable form above. 

“No.”

You reach back again, insistent, and he growls in disapproval, rearing back. A sudden, sharp crack lands on your ass.

“Not — like — this,” he grunts, landing a blow with each word. There’s no buildup; no spike of pleasure after the initial pain. This is punishment, pure and simple. Red, heated welts quickly form as he continues to land blow after blow on the rounded curves of your ass, fingers rough and unyielding as they torture your soft flesh. 

Your gasps soon turns to real whimpers of pain. He’s relentless, and cold, and you can feel the distance he’s desperately trying to place between you. No shadows, no knot, no darkness. Fragmented pieces he’s still trying to keep at bay. 

You twist around, catching his determined gaze. “I’m not afraid,” you say softly. 

The only response is a resounding slap, hard enough to rock you forward. He follows it with a hard, punishing thrust. You moan, inviting the bruising crush of his hands, his aching thrusts as he pummels you, and it’s with a surprised gasp that you find him sliding deep, because you’ve somehow managed to grow even wetter. 

“I’m not afraid, Az,” you whimper again.

Nothing save the slap of flesh answers your question. Hard, and deep, and relentless. 

A shadow wends its way around your ribs, circling your breast to squeeze it softly. Then, to Az’s utter shock, it dislodges itself to creep around his neck, obeying some silent command of yours.

Yield, Shadowsinger. 

Deceptive little beast, Azriel snarls at it, another crack of frustration landing on your ass. You cry out, clenching around him, and he tightens his grip in your hair, gathering his shadows tighter. You answer to me, and me alone. 

To his astonishment and utter irritation, the shades wend their way around you, draping themselves about your shoulders. Not anymore.

He crushes your beneath him, pummeling you harder. 

Yield, they coax gently.  

“No,” he grinds out.

“Yes,” you gasp. You hear them, too. Heard them the instant they began tugging on that chord in your chest. That place that whispered a quiet song in all the nights he’d been gone. 

Yes, you find yourself saying to the shadows. Yes, yes, yes —

And then the darkness invades, sliding down and around you. Shadows dig into your wrists, wrap around your jaw, his shoulders, your hair, his neck — and begin to whisper softly. Confessions spilling like a thousand unleashed tongues, coiling around you as his shadows at last begin to spill everything that has been guarded within the Shadowsinger's heart.

Az opens and lets you feel everything, pounding relentlessly until you’re flayed apart, sobbing and shuddering beneath him at the roil of emotion coursing between the both of you. 

“Say it,” he growls. Shadows wrap around your waist, pinning you back against him.

“Az.” 

The shadows coil tighter, winging you in the ropes of his possession.

“Say it.” 

“I’m yours,” you whimper at last.

He groans, thrusting into you so hard that it hurts; his blunt head notching against your womb. 

“I’m yours," you say again. Your soul sings it, silver threads wending their way between you, coiling and mixing with the darkness until you’re a brilliant mix of shadow and light, moving as one. I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours —

“Fuck.”

He gasps involuntarily, the overwhelm of emotion sending him over. He spurts inside you with a sudden shout of agony and triumph as he at last comes; every thrust inside you a victorious claim, an unknown future, a burgeoning hope. 

His teeth sink into your shoulder; piercing the soft flesh. You smell the slick tang of blood in the air and you come, clamping down around him, crying out his name as he slams against you; spilling hard and deep. 

You clench down around him so hard that you can feel his come spurt out of you, sliding down your thighs; over his; and he groans, pushing back inside you; opening to the melody that wends its way between you; twisting in the shades that swirl around you, gathering the both of you together as you come down, cocooned by your mutual darkness. 

At length, the shadowy ropes around you loosen; recede, and the Shadowsinger shudders behind you, breath hot as he drags his mouth up against your neck to press a kiss to your thundering brow. 

Your face scrapes against the rock, barely able to move. “When did you know?” you ask hoarsely. 

“That day in the study. As we were —” He can still see you spread before him, writhing as he’d pounding into you over that Cauldron-damned map. “I remember looking at Velaris. At the new city and what that meant for everyone. And then you, beneath me —” He lets out a growl of lust and possession that rocks straight to your core. You pulse softly around him, and he groans, twitching involuntarily, and has to band his arms around you to keep from driving into you again. “I saw a future for myself. For us. And that’s when I felt it snap. I didn’t —” He closes his eyes. “Wouldn’t take your choice away in the matter. But I didn’t know what to do. So I left.”

His wings are coiled tight around the both of you; vibrating with need, and you tentatively reach out; delicately running your fingers along that leathery, soft membrane.

He shudders. Large, long body trembling over you. 

You crane up and back, catching his eyes. They’re clear. Unencumbered. 

“How’s your back?” you murmur. 

“My back?”

“Mm.” You shift, wriggling beneath him as you test out your sore limbs. “It was completely stripped in the keep.”

Az flexes his shoulders, feels the weight of his wings, his spine. The water and the mating bond have been hard at work, repairing deep cuts and lacerations.

Everything feels new. Solid. Strong. 

“Why?” he says, suddenly wary of the feline gleam in your eye.

You twist in his arms, a look of pure mischief on your face as you push him, forcing him down against a small enclave of rocks.

You wind your hands around his neck as his shadows — his shadows — curl themselves around his wrists, immobilizing him at your silent command.

You smile is positively wicked as your voice shuttles across his skin. “My turn, Shadowsinger.”

Chapter Text

Azriel eyes you warily as you assess him: sharp, cunning gaze trailing from his chiseled mouth to his sweat-slicked throat; across the ink-stained breadth of his collarbones; and down over his broad shoulders, where his shadows hover patiently as they await your next order. 

Traitors.

A shade trails up your arm, twining about your wrist.  “It took me years to command them,” he mutters, eyes slitted in resentment. “And you do it in mere days.”

“You command. I ask,” you point out, letting the imp trail through your fingers. 

A snort rumbles up from him, enough to push your breasts against his broad chest. You inhale sharply; startled, hungry eyes turning to consider the male — mate, you now have to remind yourself — that you’re currently straddling. 

“I think I’ll have you inside the House,” you say at length.

Amusement ghosts his eyes. “The onsen not to your liking?”

“Oh, I like it just fine.” You shift over him purposefully. “But I’d rather not drown in it when I suck your cock.”

His gaze darkens. Large wings stretch out, enfolding you. “Hold tight, lady scribe,” he murmurs. 

___________

You’re winnowed back to his room, landing in his bed with a sudden oomph.

Azriel inhales the mussed sheets, nearly groaning at the need that spears through him. Your scent is everywhere. An unmistakable mark that you’d slept here —  that his mate had slept here. Surprise and hunger alight his features as pure male satisfaction surges through the bond. “You stayed here.”

“Every night.”

Alone, is left unsaid. 

Regret fills him. You didn’t deserve that — don’t deserve this. Even if you’re — even if the bond is — 

“Don’t do that,” you soothe, fingers carding through his hair. “Don’t do that, Az.”

“You deserve more,” he murmurs, leaning into your hand. Seeking absolution in your touch. “I’m sorry.”

The self-loathing in his voice won’t do. You’re mated, for Cauldron’s sake. Sadness has no place here. Nor regret. Eager to banish the heaviness in his gaze, you lean over him, cocking a brow. “How sorry?”

His gaze darkens, voice dipping entirely too low. “How sorry do you need me to be?”

Your fingers brush his cheek, hesitating. Unsure how he’ll react to what you’re about to suggest. “Do you  — is ‘chart’ still a good word?”

A safe word, you mean.

Oh. 

Azriel shifts. It’s been an age since he’s let a lover take control. He hasn’t wanted to cede that power. Afraid to unleash the rage, the blinding need that comes alive in him when he surrenders.

But he can’t remember the last time he’s experienced the thrill of uncertainty. His shadows have all but sucked that novelty away. There’s never a movement he doesn’t know about; a plan he doesn’t see unfolding. The delight of surprise, of simply not knowing, yet another casualty of his role. 

He drinks in the way his shadows curl about your sensuous form; snapping and whirling in time to some silent, chaotic symphony; a torrential wave of dark need slowly cresting. They trust you. He trusts you. And if there’s ever been a time or a place to come undone…

He levels you with a quiet gaze. “Chart will do.”

“Okay,” you gust out.

“Okay,” he echoes. 

Slowly, you climb off the warrior stretched across the bed. 

“Stand,” you command softly. 

Azriel rolls to his feet, pupils dilating as he watches that clever little mind of yours spin. A part of him balks at the gleam in your eye. Another part can’t wait to see what you’ll do. 

You summon his shadows with a twirl of your fingers, and he feels his arms being slowly lifted, spread between the two tall posts on either side of the bed. Two more unyielding shades wrap around his ankles, and then he’s standing, bound, spread-eagle.

You tug a shadow around his wrist, testing its give. “OK?” you ask. 

He nods, hunger edging his gaze. He’s hard; painfully so, and every nerve in his body stands at attention, aching for the next tactile sensation. Only his eyes are able to move as they follow your delicious body rounding him, working out where to begin.

“Rule one.” You run the hard cut of his abdomen beneath your fingers. “No talking unless you’re given permission.” 

“Rule two.” You scrape down the sharp crest of his hipbone, and it has him swallowing a moan. “No demands.”

His eyes snap up, narrowing, but he says nothing. It’s a testament to how wound up he is that he doesn’t protest; doesn’t even try and argue the point as you murmur “tighter”, and his shadows wrench his arms up forcefully.

His sharp intake of breath tells you he’s reluctantly enjoying this, even as he grunts in displeasure.

Despite this delicious little game, Az is pissed. Never once, in 500 years, have his shadows disobeyed him like this.

Betrayed him so easily. 

Traitors.

Loyal, they respond, writhing indignantly. Loyal to our mate. 

Our mate? He curses. They’re definitely going to have a talk about that — 

And then your tongue is on his neck, and Azriel forgets words. All his focus is on you licking a clean line from the tendon pulsing beneath his ear to the hollow of his throat. He tastes of salt, of sweat, of need, and you can’t help but hum lightly as you graze his skin, delighting in how every lick elicits a small, low groan. He’s arrested by your touch; every fiber of his being trained on the sensation of your soft little tongue rasping along the grooves and ridges of his battle-worn body.

A finger traces the hard lines of muscle that bisect his chest; and when your tongue finds a flat nipple and swirls around it experimentally, he gasps, arching against his ties.

“Cauldron,” he rasps.

“Rule one,” you remind him lightly, closing your mouth around that nipple. Azriel swears, unable to do much more than bow beneath your tongue as you graze over and over in lazy circles. You do the same thing to the other side, teasing lightly with tongue and teeth and lips until he’s groaning, cock practically standing as he strains against his bonds.

“Do that again,” he grits out.

“Rule two,” you hum lightly, and just for that, you purposefully deny him, wandering up his neck and arms, tracing the strong tendons that shift beneath your curious fingers.

There are scars, everywhere: some nicks and flecks from smaller battle wounds; some larger welts and slashes made by heavier artillery. You stop at a piece of unnaturally raised skin; flicking your eyes to him in question. “The first war,” he says hoarsely. Fingers trace a whorl beneath one pec. “The Blood Rite,” he rasps, fondness in his voice. “Right before we reached Ramiel.”

You trail lower, down to the taught muscles of his abdomen — obscene in how defined they are — over the sculpted crest of his hips; and down the sharp vee that cradles the length rising proudly between them. 

You grasp him at last; velvet thickness pulsing in welcome at your touch, and you lean up to cover his panting mouth with your own. Your tongue dips in, soft and curious, and he’s pliant and willing as you plunder, letting you lead, memorizing his flavor. There’s smoke and ash, leftover from the fires; the faint whiskey that always seems to lurk on his tongue; and beneath that, pure Az; dark and seductive and utterly at your mercy. 

You break the kiss before he can command it, wrenching a reluctant protest from the back of his throat; but then you’re traveling down, over his straining arms; his shuddering abdomen, his thighs splayed out before you; until you’re kneeling before him, and all protest dies on his lips as you stare up at him, hungry and eager. 

“Beautiful,” you murmur. A surprised little trill flutters down the bond. That anyone would take the time to explore him like this: so thoroughly, so gently…as if he’s a thing to be cherished, protected…

It makes Azriel feel uncomfortably fragile. Delicate. As if one touch will utterly shatter him.

And you want him shattered.

So you instruct his shadows to hold tighter as you lean up and swallow his straining cock into your mouth.

“Fuck.”

The curse vibrates down his cock and around your lips, enough so that you moan around the hard length of him, swirling his head with your tongue in approval. You love taking him in like this. Controlling his pleasure, forcing him to bow to your achingly slow pace, rendering him utterly speechless with mere flicks of your tongue.  

Above, Az groans appreciatively. The sight of your swollen lips wrapped tight around him, his girth stretching you, the barest tip of him pushing at your throat — 

He moans reflexively, hips slamming against your mouth as he inadvertently shoves his cock down your throat. The stretch of it burns, and you pull back abruptly, the length of him leaving you in a messy, glistening slide.

You sit back on your heels and stare up at him indignantly. 

“Sorry,” he pants. 

You lean back, eyeing him for a moment. Then flick your eyes downwards, promptly dismissing him. 

Above you, Az growls as you examine your nails, ignoring him completely. 

Idly, you wonder if there’s some sort of nail service in the House. Your hands had been completely ruined by that Cauldron-damned map, fingers practically bruised with — 

“Suck me,” you hear, low and insistent.

“No demands,” you remind him, stretching your nails up to the light. Perhaps the House’s magic could do something about those blunt ends — or Nuala and Cerridwen could — 

“Now,” he seethes. He’s throbbing in agony. You can feel his strangled need; practically taste it as he heaves against his swirling shades.

“Are you ready to behave?” 

You repress the smile that threatens to form at the pure murder in his eyes. But he refuses to answer; too stubborn and proud to beg.

So you continue to blithely ignore him until he’s writhing above you, limbs straining in a futile attempt to ease the ache.

”Yes,” he bites out at length. 

“Yes, what, Shadowsinger?” 

“Yes, I’ll behave,” he grinds out, uncertain why his cock gives a deceitful little twitch at the accession. Why the longer he waits for you to acknowledge him, the harder he seems to get.

You make a show of sighing as you consider him. A part of you is inclined to leave him here — the way he left you tied up against the headboard so many nights ago, aching and lonely and wanting.

But because you’re generous, and kind, and you don’t want the bed destroyed by that terrible strength you can already hear already cracking the beams as he flexes his arms against the restraints, you kneel up and suck him back inside.

Azriel stutters. The sudden feel of your hot mouth and tongue on him after your sharp denial is almost too much, sending a rush of boiling pleasure rocketing through him. Shit. He shouldn't even be this close, so fucking close — 

He shoves himself back inside you.

You slide him back out again.

He nearly breaks the bedposts. 

On and on it goes; his frustration eclipsed by sudden pleasure as you suck him in; long body bowing as he inadvertently cants into you; you withdrawing until he stills, until he’s muttering nonsensically, eyes rolled into the back of his head; cock angry and dark and throbbing with unmet release.

“This is your plan?” he gasps after what feels like the hundredth time you’ve denied him. “Death by edging?”

“I said,” you eye him vindictively. “No talking.” 

And with that, you circle his swollen knot with your fingers.

Blinding release, sharp and unexpected, rips through him. Azriel bellows, thrusting savagely into your hand. His shadows snap to catch his weight as he arches into the air; spurting with mindless abandon, and you can only sit back, arrested by the sight of his bowed hips and back, cock twitching with each aching throb as it spills, desperate for a friction it knows it won’t find. You think maybe a tear slips down the corner of his cheek, but he doesn’t care. All he can think of is your touch, your mouth, your hands, fuck, anything  —

“What do you need, Az?” you murmur. 

A pained sound escapes him. He’s fighting himself. “Please,” he gasps at length. 

You can’t deny him. Ever. So you lean over, eyes locking onto his, and suck him back into your mouth.

Az moans in aching relief. You’re drinking him down, soft little tongue working over his still-throbbing length. There’s so much cum — on your face, his thighs, his stomach — and you take the time; patient and attentive as you lap up each musky drop, cleaning every dip and plane of muscle, every inch of skin. 

You sit back, licking down the last dregs of him. He tastes delicious. Addictive. It’s a taste you want to spend hours exploring; want to coax from him again and again. Without meaning to, your hand slips between your legs, slickness coating your thighs on a moan as you realize how obscenely wet you are. 

“Come here,” he rumbles.

“No demands,” you chastise, squeezing your thighs at that commanding tone. His low voice makes you want to do things; terrible, filthy things; and your fingers work their way around your clit, the slick sound obscene in the stillness. His glittering eyes scrape down your body hungrily. 

“Give me that little cunt,” he utters. “Now.”

Something wild and untamed beats through the bond; so perfectly wicked that you find yourself leaning back onto your elbows as you spread your legs before him. You pulse emptily, craving that length, needing it buried in you, splitting you —

“No,” you breathe out.

Azriel curses. He can already taste you in his mouth; feel those delicate fingers brushing over your clit as if they were his own. All that needy flesh to be devoured, completely claimed…

Let me go, he growls to his shadows. 

And for the first time that night, they obey.

He’s on you before you can draw a gasp; long fingers prying your thighs wide as he dives onto the floor and shoves his head between your legs. You stutter out a protest as you feel his shadows moving — deceitful little things propelling you upward; winding around your hips as they shove you up and over his face; your thighs bracketing his head.

You try to maintain a modicum of control as you gaze down; but all you can manage is a loud, strangled moan as he lunges up and feasts; tongue and lips and teeth delving into each soaked corner of your tender flesh; licking, sucking, biting. Your fingers dig into his scalp; hold him steady as your thighs grind over him, smearing your wetness over his chin, his neck.

Dark satisfaction gleams up as he looks up at you. “Soaked,” he rumbles. 

And then he’s diving back in, tongue thrusting between your tight, agitated clit and the clenching give of your entrance. You still drip with him, and he groans as he tastes himself; your pussy positively leaking with his seed, and he sends that feeling down the bond: a low, eager possession that he’s filled you so thoroughly with his taste, his essence.

He sets a slow, languorous rhythm that soon has you shuddering and keening above him; grinding helplessly as you ride his plundering mouth. Two scarred fingers sink without resistance into you; pumping and scissoring as his tongue flicks sharply over you once, twice, and you wail as you keel over, climax tearing through you as his hands dig into your hips, locking you into to the impossible and relentless rhythm of his tongue.

You’re a sobbing mess as another climax crashes into the first, and you flail, desperate to move, escape the burning pain of his persistent tongue. But he merely smiles and continues to lap at you, cock jumping as you dig your nails into him, pulsing wildly as you ride out the last, wracking drops of pleasure.

You collapse onto the floor, body still trembling, pulsing.

“Az,” you moan softly, chastising.

“Ride me,” he says, still rolling the taste of you on his tongue. “Need to feel you come around me.”

“I was—shit.” You crawl away from him on trembling elbows and legs, cursing him silently. Even with the tables turned, he’s still able to dominate your body; possess you so thoroughly that you’re utterly wrecked. You drop to the floor, defeated, head against your flattened palms. “I was…’posed to…lead,” you pant. 

Az smiles indulgently as he rolls towards you, propping his head up on a still-tied up wrist. 

“You did, little scribe. Admirably.” He runs his gaze over you, grin wolfish. “Now come here so I can fuck you.”

“No,” you breathe out, enjoying the way it feels, the power to deny him.

His gaze narrows. Voice dangerously soft. “Do you want me to punish you? Is that it?”

The image comes unbidden: Az, towering behind you, hands rough and brutal, your arms locked behind your back as he slams into you; Truth-teller scoring a bloodied line from neck to shoulder, the blood mingling with your sweat, his taste, his seed as he spurts into you, filling you — 

Need throbs through you; shooting through the bond with such force that he growls.

But your mate has already broken your first rule: no talking. And compounded it by the second: no demands. 

So you merely rake your eyes over his form as you issue another command.

“Cover him,” you say softly, and watch as his shadows swarm without warning, covering Az’s face and plunging the Shadowsinger into utter darkness. 

Azriel goes completely still, then. The taut lines of his frame bowing with an unwelcome anticipation at the flooding darkness — one he can’t control. One that reminds him of —

“I’m here,” you remind him, grounding him. One hand smoothes down his ink-stained shoulders. The other trails down his abdomen. You bite your lip as you watch him shift uncomfortably, unsure if this is the right move; if this will end the game. But you need to take back control. Need to push him where you know he wants to be. 

“Are you with me?” you murmur. 

A long pause. 

“Az?” you ask.

It’s fine, Az breaths shallowly, reminding himself who he’s with. His shadows rise up as a soothing chorus, echoing. Our mate, our mate, our mate. But even as he tells himself he’s safe, muscle memory he thought he’d beaten out of himself through centuries of training rages to the surface: the caged boy, left alone and scared, surviving on pure instinct. You see it the moment fear takes over: the spymaster’s wings pull in, shoulders drawing close as he braces himself, prepared for the assault, the moment that this fantasy crumbles and he awakens from this impossible dream — back there. Alone in that fucking cage.

“Chart,” you whisper gently, offering him a lifeline. 

Azriel exhales, long and slow. Reminds himself it’s you. His mate. Not there. Never there again. 

“Continue,” he answers at length. The fear and trepidation linger, but beneath it — buried deeply within the bond so that you can feel it tug at you — is a trembling need, trilling through him like a private melody.

And so you guide him until he’s resting against the bed, chest leaning over the side, head on his arms, those glorious wings splayed out behind him. “Relax for me,” you whisper, brushing back his raven locks, and Az shudders as he finds himself growing pliant despite the fear inside him; letting you touch him wherever you please despite the voice screaming to defend himself at all costs.

This, he thinks fleetingly, liquid warmth pooling in the spaces where your hands are touching him; anticipation curling in his stomach, saturating his limbs. This is what he needs. To be left utterly exposed, trembling in the dark — and be held within it. 

He’s already begun gyrating against the bed, hungry for your next move, but when you at last lean over and blow softly over his outstretched wings, Az lets out a strangled groan of realization.

Wingplay. You’re attempting wingplay for him.

“Tie me,” he grinds out, low and pained.

“What?”

“Tie me,” he grinds out again, jaw working against the mattress.

Every Illyrian male is violently protective of his wings. You know this. Have seen the consequences of an unwanted touch. Beneath you, Az groans in a feral tone that you’ve never heard, fingers shredding the bedspread as he attempts to keep his hands to himself. Your fingers still, concern mounting. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. You’ve been trained to protect yourself — ”

“Tie me, or I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll break,” he grits out. 

Oh. 

Quickly, you instruct his shades to tighten, hard enough to constrict his breath, tight enough so that when he gasps and arches against them, they’re able to take his full weight, bulging around his straining thighs and calves; pinning his broad shoulders and shuddering back. 

“Better?” you breathe out, squeezing your thighs against the throb between them. He’s so fucking gorgeous, the way he arches up, allowing his powerful frame to fall into his shadows’ embrace, his glorious wings uncoiling as they stretch out in surrender.

Your heart squeezes at the sheer vulnerability of his bent frame, his expression. This Illyrian male, with wings that were broken and beaten, tied down and tortured, is now offering them to you, and you alone. 

You can’t help but run a finger lightly over the velvet bridge of a wing, and he snarls. You fumble, unsure of whether it feels good, but then he’s grinding his hips, his face a harsh profile of need. “Harder,” he grits out. A shadow quickly wends its way around your wrist, tugging you towards the leathery membrane. It places your fingernails against him, and when you run them down experimentally, he curses, hips bucking hard enough against the bed to shove the whole frame a few inches.

You scratch up a particularly large vein that runs through the middle, and Az nearly comes right there and then; moaning and bucking and growling with encouragement as you score him again and again; fingernails grinding over the hard grooves of his claw-tipped wings; down over the sensitive undersides; and across the wide expanse of scar-thickened tissue, where a simple touch of each nick and fleck has him biting down on the mattress in low, canting moans. 

“Mouth,” he stutters, voice muffled by the blankets.

You lean in tentatively, your tongue touching the leathery skin, and Az groans. The feel is at once foreign and familiar; soothing and grating; each gentle swipe of your tongue an irritating itch and a soothing caress. He wants none of it; he wants all of it. Writhing against his shadows, he twists, angling towards you.

“More,” he gasps.

Then your hands and mouth are everywhere; licking, touching, scratching. Fingers sooth over his impossibly large wingspan, running over the grooves where his bones meld into his spine; your mouth trailing kisses along his shoulders; tongue tracing the thin, delicate veins that catch the light with each twitch. He arches, bows, writhes beneath you; and a quick peek over his shoulder shows his cock straining; pulsing with need as it throbs with unmet release. 

Your hand slides over his length; squeezing rhythmically in time to his hips, your mouth opening over a raised tendon, teeth gently scraping the membraneous skin — 

He comes on a roar, body snapping up and back as his cock pulses between your fingers; arms shooting out to grab you. But his shadows are faster and stronger, gripping him like a vice as he throws every ounce of his strength against them; the mating instinct screaming within him to conquer, to possess. Reams of thick fluid pump out over your hand, over the bed; his thighs, down your fingers, and there’s only darkness he can cling to, darkness and void and a liquid slide of need that he rides into oblivion. 

Around him, his shades writhe, singing a battle cry, shouting for their mate, mate —

And then you’re suddenly in his grasp; long, battle-scarred fingers crushing your waist as the Shadowsinger’s shades disperse on his silent command. You have only a moment to throw a hand up in a silent plea to have mercy, but it’s too late; the need riding him too rough. Az drags you over his lap, spreads your thighs wide, and shoves you onto his cock without so much as a warning. 

“Fuck, Az.” You wince as you clench, nails digging into his shoulders. He’s still coming; cock twitching with with release as he pulses inside, and he spears his fingers into your hair, tugging you down with savage pull, mouth meeting yours in a clash of teeth and tongue and unrelenting demand. 

“Need to fill you up,” he rumbles. “Fill up my mate.” You can do little but gasp into the kiss as he invades, a small moan of protest sliding out of you as he tilts your hips and shoves deep, eyes dark and focused on one driving, burning command.

“So good,” he murmurs. “Taking my cock so good, sweetheart.”

You clench around him, admonishing. “I thought I said—oh, sod it,” you mutter, and Az swallows a smile as you let out a little huff. Despite his flagrant violation of every rule you’ve set up, he has really tried giving in; wants you to have the control he promised you.

So he leans back on his elbows, tamps down his roaring instinct, and encourages you with a small thrust. “Go on, sweetheart. Take what you need.” 

You grin, grinding your hips down hard as you slow the pace, and plant your hands on his chest as you proceed to take him in and out at a torturously lazy pace. He moans in frustration, and you greedily drink in the devastating portrait he presents. He’s a tableau of need: body glistening, hips straining, full lower lip biting down as he struggles against the innate need to roll you beneath him and claim.

His eyes are glued between your sex and your face; as if he can’t decide what he wants to watch more, and every time he bottoms out, he lets out a sharp, quick breath, as if hitting the deepest part of you is somehow chipping away at the last of his defenses. 

With a wicked smile, you spread your thighs wider, ensuring he has a full, unobstructed view, and whisper a command.

And then Az lets out a string of curses as he watches a shade slither down to slowly drift over your clit. 

Traitorous fucking fiends.

His expression is murderous, and you can’t help but gust out a small laugh. “They’re a part of you, aren’t they?”

“They have no business touching you like this,” he grinds out. Not even shadows, it seems, are immune to the mating bond jealousy.

He snaps up, body bowing as he hauls you tight against him, yanking out the shadow between your thighs as he crushes your writhing form against his.

”What happened to taking what I need?” you whine, struggling futilely against him.

“You only come for me,” he utters darkly, sliding you tight against him.

“What?” You’re distracted, a little hazy as as his fingers slip between your thighs. 

“You come on my fingers, my mouth, my cock,” he utters savagely. “And only my shadows when I say.”

“Uh-hng…I…Shit.” Every thought filters out of your head as he lunges without warning, biting down on your breast with a satisfied groan as he lays claim to your straining body.

You gasp, stuttering out a curse, unwelcome pleasure lancing straight from your breast to your pussy as you clench involuntarily around him. It’s too much, far too much, and a stifled sob escapes as his mouth clamps down again, fingers working your swollen clit, cock stretching and splitting you open —

“AZ!” You’re coming on a wail, every muscle arrested in frozen pleasure as he shoves you deep onto his cock, holding you steady as you pulse wordlessly around every impossible inch.

”Good girl,” he groans around your breast, your neck, your shoulder. “Come on my cock, sweetheart.” 

Twisted, desperate satisfaction hits you at his praise, and your fingers claw into his hair, burying themselves into a wing hard enough to draw blood. Az curses, bellowing his own release, and then he’s grabbing you in a savage, punishing hold as he thrusts you over his length in brutal strokes, spurting into you with hard, rhythmic pulses, and the feel of him so deep like this, murmuring “that’s it” and “good girl” and “come for me” is enough to set you off again until you’re screaming his name, half delirious; becoming utterly undone as you feel him fill you, drip out around you; and some base part of you relishes the feel; to hoard as much of him as you can; take everything he’ll give you.

You collapse against his sweat-slicked neck, boneless, unmoving. A thumb ghosts across your jaw, and you feel yourself being rearranged over his form as he lays you both across the bed.

You stay like that for a while; him idly touching you; your body splayed over his; reveling in the feel of each other. 

“For all your discipline, you’re terrible at following rules,” you mutter at length. 

“Blame the mating bond,” he replies, not an ounce of apology in him. “It’s hard to deny the instinct when you’ve waited 500 years for it.” Then, quietly: “Thank you. For letting me try.”

“Anything,” you confess into his shoulder. “Anything you need.” You feel flayed by the admission; embarrassed you’re willing to give so much, so easily, when you’ve only known him for such a short time. 

But then his hand is cupping your head, his gaze tender as he draws you back. “Anything,” he echoes, voice laden with such grave promise that it makes you feel foolishly reckless, like you can voice any wretched desire without consequence. 

You prop your elbows on his chest, the confession tumbling out before you can stop it. “I asked Madja, you know.” 

A raised brow. “About?”

You idly trace his collarbone. “Taking an Ilyrian knot.”

He sucks in a breath over your head. Eyes dilating, though you don’t see it. “And?”

You dig your fingers into his chest, second-guessing yourself. You’ve only just discovered your bond; are still navigating your way around each other. You know he despises his heritage. Wants nothing to do with it. Perhaps all this sex is making you stupid. This isn’t the right time to discuss this. Perhaps—

Az pulls you back, hand squeezing around your throat gently as his dark eyes meet yours. “You want to take my knot, little scribe?” 

You tilt your head up, meeting his cautious gaze. “Would you let me?”

Fingers still in your hair as something silently roars within him. “It depends,” he says at length.

“On?”

He tugs you down so that you’re face to face, expression a blank mask as his voice vibrates across your sternum, sending chills skittering across you skin. “On how ready you are to permanently ruin that sweet little cunt of yours.” 

Chapter Text

Your mind empties. A deceitful ache rushing through you at the prospect. “I… — ” You lick your lips, mouth suddenly dry. “What level of ruin are we talking, exactly?”

Fingers card through your hair gently. So gently. “I’m not sure,” he murmurs. "But it would require…adjustment.”

Your hips shift; inadvertently grind down over his semi-hard cock. An embarrassed flush over your skin as you slide against him, wetness already gathering between your thighs. You can’t possibly be ready for him again; can’t want him so soon, so desperately —

“What sort of adjustment?”

Abashed, you struggle to sit upright, put some distance between you to have a serious conversation. 

Amused, he merely presses you back down. “Determined little scribe,” he murmurs.

“Az,” you warn, noting his deflection. “What sort of adjustment?”

His thumb presses against your mouth. You draw it in, sucking on his scarred pad. Perfect, he thinks morosely, taking in your too-bright eyes, the unfettered trust in them with a sinking resignation. Too fucking perfect for me.

“Az,” you prompt again.

He exhales on a sigh. “I don’t know what an Ilyrian mating cycle is like. I never grew up around anyone who had one, and never had the balls to ask in the camps.” He pauses, reflecting. “I’m not sure I trust myself, if I’m being honest.” 

“I trust you.” There’s no question. No hesitation.

His eyes search yours carefully. How can you possibly want this? Have him shove inside you, force you to take something so wholly deformed? Backwards? Before he can object, you’re reaching up to cup his face as you feel his uncertainty swell. “I want everything from you,” you say, feeling as though it’s the hundredth time you’ve told him; will probably have to tell him a hundred times more. 

He allows you to pull him close. Head resting against your neck, he inhales your scent.

A beat. Two.

“We’ll need to drink a tea,” he finds himself murmuring at length.

“I already take a contraceptive tonic.”

Two cups appear beside the bed. He hands one to you, fingers brushing yours. “This isn’t that.”

You eye it warily, but he merely tilts the cup towards your mouth in silent request. Even his shadows, normally so animated around you, still, as if they too sense the gravity of this request.

“A bargain,” he cajoles. “One drink for an Ilyrian mating cycle.”
 
“That’s it?” It’s a suspiciously simple bargain. Too simple. Especially for the spymaster of the Night Court. 

He nods. “That’s it.”

Against your better judgment, you sip the bitter liquid, the taste an echo of something you’ve had before, but can’t quite remember. He combs through your hair as you drink, his touch so light; so gentle; calm expression masking the anxiety you can feel dancing beneath his skin.

You tip over the empty cup, lips quirking. “There. Satisfied?”

He merely picks up his own cup, and you settle against the bed, eyes at a half-mast, cataloguing Azriel as he drinks, his eyes on you the entire time.

The bargain instantly singes into your skin as twin tattoos appear: two crescents stretching across your wrists to form the shape of a moon. It would be adorable, if it didn’t feel ominous.

He catches your hand, placing a kiss on the newly formed mark. “We’ll have to go slow,” he murmurs. “You’ll need to be…well used.”

“As if I haven’t been already?” you chide lightly, sinking against him. You’re hypersensitive to his touch, each caress forcing a sizzle of pleasure across your skin, and you can’t help but slump down further, offering yourself up as he continues his gentle assault; the weight of your arms and head unbearably heavy as you sink against his solid form. 

You attempt loop your arms around him, clumsily bat at his face instead. You chuckle, shaking your head. Too sluggish. What has the mating bond done to you?

You feel him press your hands back, arms over your head. They’re like lead. 

“Az?” You smile against his warm neck. So, very, very warm.

“Mm?”

“What was in that tea?”

A long, sucking kiss to your throat. “You’ll have to ask Madja.” 

“No, I — ” Your eyelids are like molasses, but you strain to keep them open. Slowly, you crane your neck, the feeling like concrete grinding, and a jolt of panic races through you when you realize you no longer can move anything. 

“It’s OK,” he murmurs, reading your panic.

“What the fuck was in that tea?”

His eyes rake over you. “Muscle relaxant,” he says at length.

“You drugged me?”

“Us,” he corrects. He stumbles over the bed. Catches himself as he turns towards you, callused fingers running up the length of your hip. “‘The heaviness will pass.”

You manage to snap your eyes to his accusingly, breathing labored. “You..used…before.”

A kiss to your shoulder. “Helps during interrogations.”

Bastard, you seethe inwardly. If your mouth could hang open, it would. But even your jaw is too heavy, so you settle for a murderous expression. “It’s milder than the usual dose,” he states. “You’ll be fully responsive — ”

Rage surges through the bond. The utter fucking gall — 

A big hand suddenly snakes around the back of your neck, tugging your face towards his in response to your ire. Your own rage reflected in his glassy expression. “You are my mate,” he grits out. “And I won’t risk you — us — over…” He closes his eyes, but not before you catch a glimpse of the despair in them. “You can ask anything of me. Anything. But not this. Not to hurt you. Force you to…”

He stumbles, head knocking into yours. “Shit,” he mutters.

“Stupid…fucking…Ilyrian.” You can barely breathe.

“I make good on my word,” he rumbles. “You drank the tea. I’ll fill you the way you need.” Panting, he palms himself. “But you’ll take my cock the way I want you to, or not at all.”

Your eyes burn with fury. “Wasn’t…the bargain,” you manage to push out.

“I never said how I’d fulfill our bargain,” he notes. He straightens, big, idiotic warrior’s body towering over yours, and dimly, you realize he must be metabolizing the drug faster.

He straightens, a fiendish grin arresting his face as he looms over you.“Only that I would.”

He’s smug as he drags his fingertips down your skin, hands gliding luxuriously down your sides. You can only stare up at him, enraged, as he traces idle patterns over flesh that responds instantly to his touch. 

His lips meet your ear, hand stilling at your neck. “Safe word?” he murmurs. 

You stare at him a moment. Overwhelmed by the urge to slap the shit out of him. 

Another part — a very small part — is grudgingly impressed by his subterfuge.

“Chart,” you huff out.

Dark eyes meet yours; something like relief there. And then he’s sucking your nipple into his mouth with alarming lassitude. 

You gasp, unable to arch. It’s torture. His mouth grazes over your stomach, licking down your sternum, and you ache to squirm, to rise up to meet him, but your limbs are stone. 

You’re trapped, utterly frozen. Helpless. 

Then, he’s flipping you over. Spreading your legs wide as he licks a wicked line from the base of your neck all the way down your spine, and in between the soft mounds of your ass. He pauses there a moment, moaning, muttering about taking you there eventually too, and then his tongue is slipping into your slit, moving slowly and experimentally, as if his mouth can’t quite work right…

“Fuck,” he mutters mildly. His head is half buried, but you can still make out the strain in his tone. 

“Hng?” You test your tongue. It’s still sticky, but working. Your neck follows; just moveable enough to crane to the side, taking in the sweeping length of your mate as he groans into your sopping core.

“I think—shit." A shudder ripples through him, and this time you’re certain that you hear Az moan, hips grinding reflexively into the mattress. You wonder what the hell has gotten into him, when suddenly a damning heat sears through your body, pooling in your abdomen with such a mighty punch that you gasp, speechless. 

It’s need. A need so great that you’d double over from the force of it — if you could move. 

“Wha — ” your swallow the cotton in your mouth, forcing your lips to work. “What is it?”

Azriel groans, fisting his cock reflexively as another wave of need rides him. It strains as it pulses over his abdomen, and your body gives a deceitful little clench even as you watch him suffer silently. “Faeroot,” he says, as if that explains everything.

He rolls you onto your side, and you shudder at the delicious scratch of the sheets against your skin. You preen a moment, luxuriating in that delicious friction — 

Another tremor of need wracks him, and he gasps, the head of his cock dark purple from the pressure as he pulls you back against him, the mating bond sharp and urgent.

“Aphrodisiac,” he breathes, cock sliding between your legs. 

Shit. There was aphrodisiac in the tea.

A dull, aching throb takes up residence in your abdomen, spreading tendrils of need from deep within your belly to your core. You’re already drenched; slickness pooling in your thighs with unexpected urgency, the need thrumming through your veins a blinding, driving forces that demands completion.

His cock slides against you clumsily as he attempts to spear himself inside you, and you both let out moans of frustration as he misses his mark. 

Big hands paw at you, trying to arrange your limbs, but he only manages to send you sprawling onto him. You fall, undignified, onto his lap. Az lets out a wheeze of pain as your frozen limbs dig into him. 

Inwardly, you smile. Serves you right. 

But your smugness quickly dissipates when your mate stirs. Slowly sits up, flexing his limbs experimentally. He can move, albeit it slowly, and you curse, for the thousandth time, the cruel speed of Ilyrian healing.

The damned relaxant's completely worn off on him, and he looks like he wants to eat you alive. 

There’s an unmistakable glimmer in his eye as he turns you over, arranging you in his lap. There’s a full-length mirror across the room, and he invites you to watch as he leans you back against his chest, spreading your limp thighs open with his widened legs. 

Nostrils flared, pupils dilated, every inch of him primed to claim, he palms your breast with one hand as he spreads you wider, opening you to his lustful gaze. 

“So wet,” he rumbles in approval, raking in the sight of you. Possessively, he cups you, pushing you back against his stiff length. A growl escapes him as he dips two fingers in, harsh scars worrying the delicate, soft flesh at your entrance.

A damning shudder rolls through you, and you can’t muster so much as a nod before he’s thumbing your breasts in his large hands, his head tucked into the crook of your neck.“I love these,” he mutters, looking down as he expertly rolls your nipples until they’re chafed, puffed. “Could suck on them all day.”

He twists you — you’re so pliant, you go easily — and sucks one into his mouth. Arms banded about your waist, locking you in place as he feasts; the only sign of your response the slickness on his belly as your slit weeps for him, spreading over his thighs, dripping onto his cock.

“Gonna fuck you so good, sweetheart,” he mutters around your breast, fumbling beneath to grab hold of himself. “Nice and deep.” With a pop, he’s releasing your nipple, pulling you back against him as he positions you over his cock. He slides the broad head between your swollen flesh, rubbing, teasing. “Want you to see who fucks you like this. Owns you like this.”

He slides the tip of himself at your entrance, eyes meeting yours in the mirror. And with that, he tilts, hands steady on your hips as he slowly feeds himself inside you, impaling you onto his thick length in a slow, unhurried glide. 

You think you moan; you’re not sure. Too far gone, everything rearranging inside you to make room for him, even though only half of him manages to fit in this position. You still feel so full, so utterly crowded, and it’s obscene, the way your head lolls against his shoulder, unable to move; your eyes, half-glazed as they watch his cock splitting you open.

Your cunt, seeping around him, dripping to the floor…

…And you can’t move a gods-damned muscle.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he says, thrusting in shallow, short strokes.  

“Fuck you,” you seethe, managing to get your mouth working again. He glides in, slow and measured, and you clench around him vindictively, trying to halt his mind-melting rhythm. 

“Vengeful,” he murmurs. 

“You lied.”

“Mmm. And you didn’t?” He punctuates the question with a thrust. “Nuala and Cerridwen told me they saw you leaving Madja’s office.” Your breathe stutters. Undeterred, he thrusts again, sharp and hard, like he’s trying to plow the truth out of you. “You didn’t ask her how to take a knot. You asked to train for it.”

Shit. 

Despite your immobility, the guilt in your eyes says it all. Sharp embarrassment lances through you, that he knows about your many talks with the healer; how eagerly you’d wanted to learn about ancient Ilyrian anatomy; the types of things Ilyrian females had used over the centuries to acclimate to their mates. 

“Did she give you a trainer?”

His mouth is next to your ear; the low, vibrating tone ricocheting from neck to pussy as you think about the phallic-shaped rod with the bulbous knot you’d managed to procure. Nesta had one just like it; had given you a wry look of knowing as she’d seen you slip out of Madja’s rooms with it and had told you the various ways it had enhanced her and her mate's pleasure. 

“If I knew you’d wanted to be trained, I would have just given you my cock every night, little scribe,” he murmurs. He punctuates it with a particularly hard thrust, so opposite his gentle, soft tone. “Would you like that?” he murmurs. “Do you want me to hold you open every night, stretch you until you’re used to me?”

Oh, gods. That…that would be…

You whimper, his thrusts continuing. Below, you’re already sore, can’t help but moan uncomfortably as his thrusts continue, harder and harder…

His thumb pushing down on your clit — 

You come, inhuman grunts emanating from your vocal chords as you strain to move against him, unable to do much but sit still as he spills inside you. To your great horror, with each thick spurt, you find yourself melting, softening even more. Relaxing as you feel him slide deeper, gravity forcing him to the dull spot of pressure at your womb.

“That’s it,” he encourages, thrusting slow, indulgent. “Need to open you.” A goal; a promise. 

And then you feel yourself being lifted, cradled. He places you gently onto the bed, large body looming as he considers his next move. He lays his cock over your mound, the thick, wide tip of him resting against your abdomen, and though he says nothing, you somehow feel it. The hunger; the possession; like he’s measuring just how deeply he fits inside you; how much of your body he’ll claim. 

“Fuck,” he says, struggling to breath. 

He palms himself and runs the wide head of himself through your folds, wetness and heat coating the broad tip as he grazes your hard little clit, again, and again, until you’re grinding against him, teetering on the verge of orgasm as he works your over with his thick head. 

“Az.” You whimper, delirious. “Now,” you let slip, unable to contain it; the burning need, the roaring hunger. A triumphant smile; and then his tongue plunders; demanding, as below, he slides to your aching entrance and slowly pushes in. Hands smooth over your ass; squeezing gently. Holding as he lifts you to his hips and slowly begins to grind into you. 

He growls, head falling to your shoulder as he loses himself to the rhythm, and soon, he’s pounding deep and relentless, pushing through that wet, eager heat always so ready for him.

“Now?” you whine, ankles locked around his waist. 

His eyes meet yours; lust-addled, but hesitant. He shutters his gaze. “Not yet."

And then he’s flipping you, hands crushing your hips as he props you up on all fours and surges into you; dragging his cock through your wet, overheated channel; the pace punishing, brutal. A hand grips your hair, pulling your back onto his mouth; lips curling into a satisfied smile as he pummels you from behind, reveling in the way your body eagerly submits to him. You’re babbling, ass tilted high in the air as he angles deeper, and you sob as another swift, devastating orgasm ripples through you so hard that your abdominal muscles clench in pain.

“Now,” you demand. He watches you clench around him; the desperate pulse of your sweet little cunt milking him rhythmically, coaxing in the swelling you can feel at his base, but only silence reigns as he merely begins to pound into you once again, hard and unrelenting as the mating fever rages.

By midnight, you’ve lost count of the number of times he’s made you come. Of how much seed he's poured into you; so much it’s drenched the sheets, your thighs; spilled down the crack of your ass. Dimly, you recall his finger breaching the entrance there; another delicate pull of your flesh as he'd worked his come inside that sensitive space.

But you don’t want that. You want that one thing hanging heavy between his thighs as he rolls you over. 

“Now, Az. Please."

Az chuckles, biting your ear. “What was that, little scribe?”

“I’m gonna kill you,” you whine, voice hoarse with need, still raw from the elixir.

“Hum,” he rolls your clit between his fingers. “Before or after you take my knot?”

“Changed my mind,” you mutter. 

He laughs, deep and throaty, and merely presses you back down. “Too late.”

Slowly, you feel one knee lifted. Placed gently over his shoulder. And then the other, until you’re bent so far back that you’re almost practically lifted off of the bed, your cunt achingly open to his hungry gaze. Shadows coil at your wrists, locking your hands above as they eagerly hold you in place; and fingers wrap around your throat; tilting your gaze back so that you’re looking at him upside down in the mirror. 

His cock hangs heavy between you, thick and needy, but your gaze is arrested by that curious bulge at his base. Normally only a slightly raised ring, it’s now swollen to twice the size. Angry, pulsing. And aimed right at your entrance. 

Panic seizes you, but you can’t move. Can’t escape. 

“Az…”

“Shh, sweetheart,” he murmurs. The small rise in swollen flesh you’d seen before — that, you could take. But this hellion of a thing, inflated, engorged — this is actually going to make you break. 

“Can’t,” you whimper. Swallowing nervously you gaze up at the dark shadow above you, legs straining from their stretch around his broad shoulders.

“You can.”

He slides into you in one long, singular pull that has him spearing himself all the way to your womb. You will yourself to clench, but you can’t. Whimpering in defeat as your swollen walls merely relax around him, and he sighs in satisfaction at the lack of resistance.

“Good little mate,” he purrs, thrusting deeply. Languidly. You stay like that for a while; docile; limp, allowing him to batter your bruised little cunt, until you feel the edge of that swollen ring, pressing, testing. 

“Fuck, Az — gods,” you whimper. The pressure is delicious, unbearable.

“Ah, sweetheart, let me — just —” And then he shoves deep, hard, and there’s a resounding squelch as the impossible fullness of him slides past your swollen entrance; locking beneath your hip bone with mind-numbing fullness. You scream; womb convulsing. It fucking hurts. You arch against it; against him, involuntarily clamping down, and your name tears out of him, low and ragged, an echo to his own low moans, his mouth clamping down on your neck.

His wings coil tight, cocooning you protectively as he shoves deep, nails practically shredding the mattress by your head, and Az lets out a sound you’ve never heard from him: a loud, guttural moan that shakes the bed, and then he’s coming.

His entire body shuddering in great, trembling waves as his frame collapses atop yours, centuries of primal instinct igniting as he empties his very soul into you. A wash of deep, unrelenting bliss hits you; a quiet joy that sings from him as he shudders, helplessly spurting within you, giving you the thing he’s denied all others, and it has you sobbing his name as you come once again, fluttering around him in an attempt to welcome the uncontrollable amount of seed he’s spilling.

You’re utterly invaded; conquered. Ruined by his overwhelming need and relentless possession; his fierce, unyielding love. Something snaps within you; a piece of the puzzle that hadn’t quite fit; a chorus to the melody between you, vibrant and clear and sharp as a plucked string.

Trembling, your fingers trace along his wings, feeling the leathery-paper skin beneath your touch, and it’s enough to set his hips moving once again, pounding you hard and deep into the mattress; so that you’re nothing but a writhing mass of shuddering limbs and liquid need as he continues to spill, and spill and spill — so deep he’s past your womb, pushing there like a dull, heavy drum beating a relentless rhythm; so deep, so inextricable, that you can’t help the possessive, gratified snarl that rips from your throat.

Your mate; filling you. Your womb, accepting every spurt; every aching pulse. 

Glazed eyes meet yours. He’s locked inside; hipbone to hipbone.

“Fuck, sweetheart.” He rocks his hips involuntarily, a pained grunt escaping. “I can’t —” he shifts, and you whimper, the ache of it searing. He’ll rip you apart if he withdraws, but his cock is relentless, bruising as it pulses inside you. 

“Too much,” you whimper, writhing, attempting to make some space, any space inside you. But he just presses deeper, a dull, wide ache at your womb that refuses to give. 

“We stay like this until it softens,” he pants. He cups your cheek. Drops his forehead to yours. His gaze is wild, roving; as if he can’t bear to look at you; this primal part of him too savage, too barbaric to be acknowledged.

His head falls to your chest; listening to the frantic beat of your heart. It cuts deep; this sudden ability to feel you; know your every thought and emotion with sudden, startling clarity. It’s a song he’s longed to hear since he can remember. A song that now joins the darkness; mixing and blending with it; impossible to untangle.  

A wave of exhaustion overtakes you and you collapse at last, content that the Shadowsinger is buried where he’s always meant to be. 

______

You’re roused by the feeling of heaviness some time later. Casting your eyes down, you see that Az has his hand possessively splayed across you. Rival emotions war within you; ire at how utterly unrepentant this male who you’ve only known scant weeks is in asserting his claim over you; acceptance at how savagely the bond has torn through both of you; fear at how much he’d feared risking, losing. 

Mother above, he’d drugged you.

Your body is still twinging as you slide off of him, the bruises and marks your mate has now left all over your body slowly blossoming to bright purples and greens — a testament to his possession. And there, between your legs…you reach between them, brow furrowing in confusion — 

“What’s wrong?” Azriel feels your pulse of apprehension down the bond. He rolls over, concern marring his perfect features in the dim light. “Are you hurt?” Self-loathing laces his tone. If it was too much, too rough —

“No.” You shift, confusion sliding over your features as you trail your hands over your thighs, between them. He’d spent his seed everywhere last night, marking you; you’re covered in it. But there, in between your thighs, where it should be leaking out...it’s thicker. Sticky.

“Ah.” He clears his throat. You think you see a tinge of red stain his cheeks. “That.”

“That, what?”

You’re now absolutely sure he’s blushing. “In the older tribes, sometimes females would mate with more than one male to ensure conception. Over time, ejaculate from the knot became thicker, to ensure that no other male would impregnate the same female.”

Oh. “So…” You reach between your legs again. Your fingers can’t make it past the entrance; held back by a thick, impenetrable barrier. “It…stays like this?”

“Until the female conceives.” He plants a kiss on your shoulder. “That’s also what the tea is for — to provide, um…contraception for this particular...mating.”

You shift. “And if I forget to drink the tea?”

He’s silent for a long while. Then: “Seed from the knot almost always ensures conception. I don’t know one Illyrian male who doesn’t have offspring when mating that way.”

“If that happens, then what?”

When his gaze darkens, you pull his chin up, forcing his eyes to meet yours. “I don’t mean for us to decide now,” you say gently. “Only to think through the possibilities. In case something were to happen.” 

His gaze narrows. “Why would something happen?”

You cock an eyebrow, repressing a smile. “Do you know how much sex we’ve had? It’s highly likely that we’ll continue. For days. Weeks, even. I don’t want us to be…caught off guard, is all.”

His hands slide to your hips. “You’re not Illyrian,” he says softly. “The babe would kill you if it had wings.”

“And if it does not?”

His eyes drop; momentarily imagining your belly swelling with his child. He tears his gaze away, shaking himself from the fantasy. After what had happened with Feyre…

“It can’t happen. Won’t." He cups your cheek. “I need only you,” he promises. “Only us, for the remainder of our lives.”

You twist; digging out a piece of fruit from a nearby platter. “Then here,” you say. 

His eyes soften. “You’re offering me food?”

“Isn’t that how I formally accept the bond?”

He covers your fingers with his mouth, drawing the fruit onto his tongue. Chases it with a long, slow, drugging kiss that has you melting beneath him. 

Only this. Only us.

————

Epilogue

7 years later…

“Shh,” you pant, clamping a hand over Azriel’s mouth. You’re straddled over his thighs, riding him, thighs peeking between the slits of his long tunic that you’ve taken wearing to bed as your nightshirt. 

He thrusts up; you moan, and it’s his turn to clamp a palm over your mouth. “You’re louder,” he whispers.

You look over to the corner of the bedroom, two small heads barely moving as they lay bundled amid a mound of quilts in their crib, finally silent after a night of endless fussing and diaper changes. 

Mother above, the Cauldron had given you twins.

You barely have time for sleep or much else; the normal course of life thrown out the window ever since they’d arrived. Az has managed to finally put them down in the late hour, and now and you’re ravenous for each other in the scant moments before their next feeding.

“Did you drink the tea?” he pants against your open mouth. 

“Twice what I should have,” you mutter, arching against him. “No twins. Ever again.”

“How about just one?” he coaxes, clamping that full, soft mouth over your breast. You arch, shocked, as a dribble of milk pours forth.The babes hadn’t wanted to latch tonight; and you’d been swollen, uncomfortable with the unspent milk your body’s been making to nourish them. 

He hums, suckling your swollen nipple, groaning at the taste of you. He takes his time with your other breast; paying it the same, slow, arduous attention, and soon you’re keening as he continue to suckle, turning your head into the sheets to stifle your frantic moans. 

“Where’s the male who wanted nothing to do with children?” you gasp.

Azriel smiles around your nipple, swallowing deeply before he meets your gaze. “That idiot didn’t know about these,” he says fondly, cupping your full breasts. “Or this.”

He thrusts, a satisfied grin spreading, and you climax suddenly, cursing. An inexplicable rush of hormones had inundated your body in recent months, as if the mating bond had somehow reawakened in the aftermath of the birth; as if the Mother herself had been urging you to reclaim your mate. You’d wanted nothing but Az these past weeks, in you, on you, for hours, days at a time. 

He stills until you finish clenching, then flips you over, spreading your thighs wide as he settles himself and renews his thrusts. “So tight,” he grunts, sinking deep. “Gods above.”

You flex around him experimentally. “Same as ever,” you pant.

“Liar,” he grunts, hitting deep. “What have you been doing?”

You’d needed a long time to heal after what was considered a miraculous birth by any standard; a nearly impossible one by Illyrians. The only saving grace had been that Az, being different than his brothers, had somehow given you children with pliable wings that had eased through the birth canal. 

Still, it had been laborious; and still, you’d needed time. In the depths of that healing process, Madja had quietly slipped some supplies and exercises to you, which you’d diligently followed, the result of which now has Az groaning, eyes nearly rolling into the back of his head as you clench around him wickedly. 

“Trade secret,” you whisper smugly. 

“Ruthless,” he mutters.

You squeeze him, amused, and he grunts, your body surging against his, accepting each punishing thrust as you look down to see the impossible width of him disappearing inside you; glistening and soaked; perfect. His wings are coiled tight around the both of you; vibrating with need, and you tentatively reach out to touch one; delicately running your fingers along that leathery, soft membrane. Your trembling fingertips graze them, once, twice — and then his shadows are lashing out, harder, pinning you back, immobile.

“Az,” you shudder, clamping tight, racing towards your peak. 

“No more tea,” he mutters, driving deep.

You huff out a laugh. He can’t possibly be serious. The Inner Court’s couples had been busy birthing these past few seasons: Nesta and Cassian had recently had their first, while Rhys and Feyre — defying all odds and expectation — were waiting on a second. It never ceases to amaze you that even in this, Azriel still remains the most dogged competitor; the relentless strategist who needs the triumphant win.

“Already want to best your brothers,” you joke.

“No more tea,” he says again. Your smile fades at the conviction in his gaze; the certainty.

You cup his cheek, searching his gaze. “You really want more?” 

Darkened eyes meet yours, parroting the words you once said to him that now feel like a lifetime ago. “I want everything you’re willing to give me.”

You dig your fingernails into his back; the tight muscles of his ass. Encouraging him to spill within you once again; fill you the way a mate is supposed to. And as his hand slides between your bodies to find the spot that will make you soar; you gather him tight, realizing that you don’t mind giving him this victory; not at all. 

It’s a course that you’ve been charting since the beginning, together.