#a court of silver flames fic | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thesistersarcheron · 2 years

Text

Relationships: Nesta & Nyx, Nesta & Rhysand, Nesta & Feyre, Nessian, Feysand, minor Elriel Ratings: T Words: ~2.2k Summary: During an afternoon in the garden with her sisters and her nephew, Nesta learns more about the consequences of her sacrifice at the end of Silver Flames. Somehow, the thought of co-parenting with her brother-in-law is not entirely unwelcome. (The Nesta & Nyx Accidental Baby Acquisition fic.)

----- Find more on my masterlist or read here on AO3!

Nesta lifts Nyx into the air, scooping him through the breeze rolling in off the Sidra. His wings flutter, and his sweet baby’s laugh fills her ears when they fill with air. She checks to make sure Elain isn’t kneeling in any of the patches of flowers behind her and then runs backwards a few yards, letting her nephew get a small, safe taste of flight.

“There he is!” Nesta hears herself say. “So strong!”

It’s mortifying, the way her mouth takes over and coos every sickeningly sweet thought she has whenever she’s around Nyx. Rhys and Cassian had thought it hilarious until she proved just how sharp her tongue could still be.

“An! An!”

“That’s me, sweetheart,” she agrees. She looks at the house, where she can see her sister’s mate watching through the open window. “Aunt Nesta. Can you say Aunt Nesta?”

Nyx claps his tiny hands and reaches down to tangle little fingers in her braid. “An Essa!”

If Nesta had a little less self-control, she would crow with delight. Instead, she swoops Nyx in a little circle, bringing him in to kiss his cheek.

“Yes!”

A dark, star-flecked breeze slides the window shut.

Big Illyrian baby. Nesta cuddles the little Illyrian baby in her arms close, grinning.

“He’ll say it soon,” Elain prophecies beside a rosebush, her gaze distant. She glances toward the window when her eyes clear, and Nesta sees a smug smile tilt up the corners of her lips. “Just not today.”

Secretly, Nesta hopes Nyx waits a little while. The smug satisfaction she had felt when his second word had been Aunt—uttered just minutes after his first, Mama—had been unmatched.

In the weeks since, he’s started to learn how to tack Elain and Nesta’s names to it also, and all before learning to say Papa.

“Lay!” Nyx’s wings flap harder. “An!”

“Hello, Nyxie,” Elain sings, wiggling her fingers at him. “That’s right. Can you say Aunt Elain?”

“An! Lay!”

“Exactly, precious boy.”

Little wings flap as Nesta settles the baby on her hip, and together she and Elain make for a picturesque gazebo on the edge of the gardens, just beside the Sidra. Beneath its shade, Feyre sits behind an easel, a spread of tea, lemonade, and pastries on a low iron table beside her.

She beams when her son catches her eye as he grasps Elain’s sleeve, pointing at a smudge of dirt on her cheek for his mother to see, and shouts, “An!”

Feyre smiles indulgently. “I see her, baby.”

Nyx folds himself forward in Nesta’s arms, reaching for her. “Mama!”

Feyre holds up fingers covered in splotches of wet paint, crooning apologies at her son, and Nesta rolls her eyes. She sits beside her sister, perching Nyx carefully in her lap while Elain hovers over them and gently adjusts his wings, and picks up the first soft toy she can find to recapture his attention.

A bit of insistent darkness curls around the toy, drawing it closer to Nyx’s open mouth. Nesta glances back up at the window, where her brother-in-law still watches. His chin is lifted, equally as smug as she was moments ago.

She rolls her eyes at him, too.

“You know, I’ll never feel sorry for Rhys…” she starts, and now Feyre is the sister rolling her eyes. “But I do feel… very slightly bad.”

“Only very slightly?” A little grin is playing about her sister’s lips.

Nesta bounces Nyx’s toy in the air in front of his eyes and takes a sip of her lemonade. “Indeed.”

Feyre hums thoughtfully. She daubs a few more strokes of paint onto her canvas and then considers her son for a moment while he finally gums the little plush animal Nesta has handed him.

And then she shrugs.

“I suppose it serves him right.”

To Nesta’s left, Elain concurs with a nod, her mouth pressed into a tight line to hide her own smile. A tendril of shadow caresses her temple, attracted by the mirth shining in her eyes. “It’s about time he learned the price of keeping secrets.”

“Oh, I’ve already made sure that lesson stuck,” Feyre says. A pang seizes Nesta’s heart—they joke about it so easily now that Feyre and her babe are healthy, happy—but she remembers the mind-numbing terror of they day they both died. Her nightmares sometimes recall it with such clarity that she makes Cassian fly her down to the River House in the middle of the night just to check on them.

Elain inspects the table, humming thoughtfully, and then lifts an entire plate of delicately decorated tarts for the shadow’s inspection. When it curls around her wrist and pulls, Elain flits away on nimble feet, following the trail it cuts toward the greenhouse.

“Mother above,” Feyre groans, watching Elain go. “Do you think they’ll remember the walls are transparent this time?”

“They’ll get over it eventually.” At least, Nesta hopes so. She’s not too certain. Regardless of any sort of Mother-blessed bond between them, Azriel and Elain have certainly had the worst frenzy of them all.

Nevertheless, Feyre shouts after their sister, pointing at Nyx, “Little eyes!”

The shadow unlatches the door and holds it open for her as Elain waves her warning off.

Nesta snorts.

Her little sister’s attention whips to her, wide-eyed, still unused to seeing her so at ease. She blinks for a moment at Nyx and Nesta, as if just now seeing them clearly. Nesta stares back, amused and lightly insulted, until Feyre turns her attention back to her paints, firmly intent on mixing a hideous vomit-green color.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, you know,” Feyre says when Nesta doesn’t fill the silence for her. Nesta doubts Feyre is interested in more tales of the Valkyries, anyway, who fill her days more often than note. Her little sister makes a vague gesture at Nyx without looking up. “Why?”

Nesta’s hands go still on Nyx’s tiny shoulders.

“What do you mean, ‘why?’” She tries to dilute the venom in her voice, tickling Nyx’s shoulders before he can feel the tension drawing up her spine.

“Why did you…” Feyre gestures again to Nyx.

Nesta stares.

And stares.

“Why did I save a helpless infant?” Each word is bitten out, sharp and clear. Surely Feyre can’t think… Not after all this time—

“No!” Feyre’s eyes are wide, horrified, a bit of paint dripping onto her leggings. “I mean… You gave up so much…”

“I thought I told you,” Nesta finally says when Feyre silences herself, her throat suddenly tight. Hadn’t she? Hadn’t she said those three impossible words the moment Feyre opened her eyes?

“Well, yes, but…” Feyre rolls her eyes again. Rolls her eyes. The petty, vicious big sister in Nesta briefly wants to kick sand in them or gouge them out. She waits until Feyre has fixed her keen, maternal attention on Nyx as he gnaws on the cookie he stole from Nesta’s plate. She points to him again, as if to say, See, he’s cute now, but he was just a squishy, red-faced stranger when you saved him. “I understand me, but… Why?”

Nesta can’t even begin to tell Feyre that she’s looking at the wrong baby. She can’t open her mouth to say she gave up the lion’s share of her power for him, because she didn’t. She had, at the moment when Feyre laid bloody and frozen in death and the entire world began to crack apart beneath Nesta’s feet, absolutely fucking loathed the precious little boy in her arms.

And when she lifted her finger to pluck the string on the Harp, she fully considered removing him from the equation entirely. She considered reversing all the damage he did to her sister by ensuring Feyre had never even been pregnant at all.

She didn’t, because Feyre loved her baby enough to die for him, and Rhys probably would have obliterated her on the spot for taking away something Feyre loves.

But she doesn’t feel guilty about considering it. She never has. No matter how much she loves him now, how willing she would be to die for him herself, she knows she would consider it again.

“You’re my sister, Feyre.”

Feyre waves a painted, tattooed hand. “I know that, but—”

“No. You are my fucking sister, Feyre,” Nesta repeats. Her eyes are stinging, the damned traitors. “You are my little fucking sister.”

Oh, if only their mother could hear her now. Which would horrify her more, Nesta’s foul language or her devotion to the beautiful, feral little beast that was once growing up to become her strongest competition on the marriage market?

Why risk herself? Why sell her power? For skinny, wild Feyre?

But Nesta remembers the first baby she held with eyes that matched her own. She remembers holding sticky, paint-splattered hands and helping little feet learn to walk before Mother and Grandmama chose which daughter to cultivate into a horrible miniature of them both.

“But all that time…”

In the cottage, Nesta knows Feyre wants to say. It’s an old conversation now. She knows how unseen, how unappreciated Feyre was, and Feyre knows how furious and paralyzed Nesta felt. Feyre knows Nesta bartered and fought with every merchant in their village until they spit at the sight of her, and Nesta knows how Feyre froze and ached in the forest every winter.

And, like any good sister, Feyre likes to drag up their hateful, contentious past every so often. Nesta and Elain also do it, sometimes.

(But Gwyn was right about sisters, too. The second Feyre died, every argument, every shred of resentment and jealousy died with her, the same as it had with Elain when she was thrown into the Cauldron first. And all Nesta had left in each moment was a gaping wound in her soul where one third of her most fundamental self had vanished.)

“You’re my little sister, Feyre,” Nesta is helpless to say anything else.

Frustration etches itself into the furrow between Feyre’s brows. “I know—”

"You went into that camp to save Elain. Why can't I save you?" Nesta cuts in, fierce and pissed. “I don’t know why Mother told you to take care of us instead of Father. Instead of me. The old bitch was hateful and feverish and dying. But you’re my little sister. Mine.”

She doesn’t look, but Nesta can tell Feyre is staring with wide eyes. So is Nyx. She hugs the baby as tightly as she can without upsetting him and drops a kiss into his night-dark hair.

It’s not even some bizarre, animalistic Fae possessiveness. It’s just Nesta.

She thinks about beasts and splintered doors and walking for days in the snow to an invisible wall she can’t climb.

“You’re mine, Feyre. Just like Elain is. That makes Nyx mine too. I’m sorry I didn’t make that clearer for you.”

“I didn’t make it easy.” Feyre’s voice is soft, gentle. When Nesta opens her mouth to argue, not bothering to lift her nose away from Nyx’s baby-sweet scent, she cuts her off, “He is yours, you know.”

“Oh?” Nesta keeps her face buried in Nyx’s waves, the pattern a perfect match to hers and Feyre’s.

“Rhys says he can feel it on him,” Feyre says. “Some sort of imprint a parent’s magic leaves on their young. Subtle enough that I can’t even tell yet.”

“An imprint?” That is Fae, and the choking, painful feeling in her throat abates at Nesta’s nose-wrinkling bemusement.

“Mhmm. Apparently Nyxie has three magical signatures instead of two, thanks to whatever you did that day.”

That day.

Nesta tries not to snap, Oh, you mean the day your fool mate killed you?

“And what does Rhys have to say about me—” She coughs instead. “—co-mothering his child?”

Feyre laughs. “Oh, he’s delighted. I think he dreaded having to be the strict parent, or having to find a reliable sitter now that Elain is moving out, but with Aunt Essa involved…”

“Please.” Nesta scoffs, discomfort forgotten. “Get Nesta Out of My Sight Before I Fucking Kill Her isn’t going to be the strict parent?”

“Well,” Feyre says. She looks like she regrets helping Cassian share that memory with her.

“And let’s not talk about you, Feyre Archeron,” she says. “I remember all the dried deer tripe we could have sold for chickens.”

She hears Feyre swallow back a gag. Victory.

“Chickens might not lay in the winter,” Feyre tells her weakly. She probably has a point, and fuzzy-headed starvation certainly didn’t help any of them make the most logical decisions, but Nesta knows they all would have preferred meal after meal of pickled eggs rather than jaw-destroying jerky. Hindsight, and all that.

(The one good thing that damned Cauldron had done for her, Nesta can admit now, was fixing her ruined molars.)

Little hands reach up for her, and Nesta bounces Nyx on her lap. “You see, Uncle Cassian and Aunt Essa are a package deal, Nyx. And what does Uncle Cassian do?”

“Nesta, please…” Feyre says, but it’s too late.

Nesta claps Nyx’s little hands together, as if he really has answered her question. “Yes! Uncle Cassian gives babies little baby swords for Solstice!”

She leans down, forsaking all of her primness to blow a messy raspberry on Nyx’s crumb-covered cheek. She blows all of her anger out with it, until all that's left is the chest-cracking feeling of the love she can barely contain for her family.

When she lifts the cookie away to wipe Nyx's mouth with a corner of the tablecloth, a bit of icy, silver power tickles her finger.

#nesta archeron #nyx #feyre archeron #rhysand #elain archeron #a court of thorns and roses #acotar #the story where nyx gets a little bit of nesta's unholy power #feysand #nessian #my fics #feyre #nesta #elain #(sorry i'm tagging for my own messed up tag system now)#rhys #a court of silver flames fic

80 notes · View notes

assriels · 10 days

Text

lessons in touch

pairing: azriel x f!reader

summary: azriel’s curiosity and penchant for spying reveals exactly why you’ve been more…enthusiastic in bed lately

word count: 5.8k :0

warnings: smut (not super detailed)!! 18+ mdni pls, az being nosy

a/n: this is one of my faves so far :’) i have this persistent silly headcanon that az is the biggest busybody of them all and that’s why he’s so good at his job

masterlist

banners by @/cafekitsune <3

Sex between you and Azriel was far from boring. It was a well known secret that Azriel had a predilection towards kink and experimentation, so your adventures with him between the sheets never left either of you dissatisfied. Far from it, actually.

Being with him was always pleasurable, wonderful, and unrivaled by any you’d had before him. During girls night, you had always attested to his prowess, said that his skills of observation extended past the battlefield and very much into the bedroom. And his wingspan…you would neither confirm nor deny whether the theory around Illyrian males and their wingspan was true, much to their chagrin, but the mischievous smirk that curled your lips was all they needed to confirm their suspicions.

Azriel was a skilled lover; he knew your ins and outs, understood almost innately how to coax pleasure from you with a simple, well placed brush of his fingers. More often than not, Azriel had you in a puddle on the floor before he could even take his pants off. Which, ordinarily, was a more than welcome skill — you loved how well he knew you, adored how he loved you so much that his brain was like a file cabinet of information about things you liked.

But you’d grown frustrated lately, more and more desiring to reduce Azriel to the same pleasure filled putty that he so often did with you. His composure was infuriatingly ironclad; you knew he felt the same primal, overwhelming desire that you did — such was the nature of the mating bond — but he was much better at masking it.

In short, you wanted to know what made him tick, what made him beg and whimper and plead with you to touch him. You’d been mated for a year now, and while his desire for you never waned, you had yet to find the one thing that made him sink to his knees and beg the way he so easily coaxed you to do for him.

It was no secret that your mate had a bold competitive streak. But your own stubbornness rivaled his own, leading to long, long card game nights and sparring matches — much to everyone else’s entertainment.

Though you knew you had no reason to feel such competitiveness when matters of the bedroom were concerned, you couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance that Azriel had so easily figured out how to make you squirm in a multitude of ways — with all your cards on the table — while you were still somewhat in the dark about his most favored bedroom inclinations. Azriel kept the secrets of his hand close to his chest.

So you vowed to yourself that you’d figure it out, test his composure to see how exactly to make that beautiful, calm countenance crack. It was like a game, but one you were more than willing to play and even more determined to win.

Ever the observer however, Azriel caught on to the changes in your excitement beneath the sheets, amusement and adoration coursing through his veins as he reveled in your sudden vigor, never shying away from a challenge.

You had been more experimental in your bedroom endeavors as of late, asking him to bend you this way and that, introducing things that he never thought you’d be interested in — not that he was complaining in the slightest. Though your differences were strikingly obvious, Azriel would be lying if he said he wasn’t curious about where your sudden interest in various sexual niches had sprung from.

Initially, it was all fun and games; if you wanted to explore then so be it — he’d match you stroke for stroke every time. But eventually, his nosiness had wedged its way deep into each crevice of his mind until he was all-consumed, curiosity devolving into a burgeoning anxiety.

Was something wrong?

Azriel was positive that if you were bored you would tell him. Had you heard something from one of the others that spurred you to want to explore more? Had you felt as though you had to introduce novelty every time to please him?

You had to have known that was far from the truth; no matter your state, Azriel had always made it clear to you that you were the most exquisite creature he’d ever had the privilege of knowing, let alone laying with. He didn’t think there was anything wrong…at least not for him. Maybe you felt like something was missing.

“Penny for your thoughts, brother?”

Rhys’s voice snapped him out of his anxious musings. Azriel hadn’t realized that he was pacing so furiously he could have worn a hole through the floor. Both Rhysand and Cassian had been watching with amusement glinting in their eyes. After all, it was a rare sight to see their ordinarily calm and stoic shadowsinger so worked up.

The same poker face Azriel had worn to win countless games of cards against his brothers masked his features now, but the twitch in his brow and the near missable ruffling of his wings were tells that Cassian and Rhysand were well acquainted with.

The shadowsinger had never perfected his stone faced indifference when he was thinking of you.

Cassian ventured a guess, “Have you upset Y/N?”

Cassian had meant to tease, but the way Azriel stayed silent had his eyebrow arching in question. Azriel ignored the curious glance from his brother as his mind ran in circles once more.

Had he upset you? Was your sudden experimentation in bed some roundabout way of telling him that he had done something to hurt you? No, no…that didn’t make sense, he was being illogical.

Or…Had he somehow missed picking up on something that you liked?

Your sudden interest in sexual exploration was far from a problem, but he got the niggling sense that you were up to something, playing a game that he wasn’t privy to. And he wanted in.

Azriel was private by nature, never revealing more of his relationship with you than absolutely necessary to his brothers, not wanting to overshare in fear that he’d fall victim to their incessant teasing. But this…maybe it would be useful to get their opinions about your sudden change in interests? Cassian and Rhys were both mated males afterall, and maybe there was something Azriel was missing. He would never admit it to anyone but himself, but he fell victim to his crippling neuroticism more times than he’d like to. Curiosity and anxiety were two sides of the same coin.

So he indulged and told his brothers of your sudden vigor in bed, enthusiasm to try something new every single time. You’d been insatiable as of late and he didn’t know why; nothing had changed that he knew of and it was concerning him, he couldn’t stand not knowing.

“So,” Rhys started tentatively, narrowing his eyes in confusion, not quite grasping the issue that Azriel was so hesitant to endorse. “Y/N is trying new things in bed.”

And elsewhere, Azriel thought with a ghost of a smile on his lips. He’d leave that part out, though; Rhys probably wouldn’t appreciate knowing the details about the going-ons in the dining room of the townhouse. And the gardens. And the hallways.

“And you’re complaining?” Cassian asked, incredulous, similarly at a loss for his brother’s concern.

“I’m not complaining, Cass,” Azriel groaned and slumped unceremoniously into a chair (much like an irritated school child who’d been caught doing something they weren’t supposed to), immediately regretting his poorly thought out decision to confide in his brothers. “I’m just confused. I don’t know what she wants.”

“Have you considered asking her?” Rhys inquired, infuriatingly teasing smile curving his lips.

Azriel deadpanned and clicked his tongue, not believing that Rhys would assume he was so inept at communicating with his lover, “Of course I’ve asked. She just says nothing’s changed. I believe her, but it’s still bothering me and I don’t know why.”

Both Cassian and Rhys resisted the urge to laugh, mentally conversing about how Azriel’s affections for you often reduced him to an adolescent-like lovesickness, begging and willing to please. Az had been this way since they were children; fiercely competitive and subsequently pouty if he didn’t have the upper hand, always wanting to know and learn everything he could.

This side of the shadowsinger was one that did not make an appearance often, reserving itself until he was around the few he trusted wholeheartedly.

The past couple of centuries saw even less of this endearingly childish and competitive Azriel – even around his closest friends – as Night Court duties and his identity as Spymaster overshadowed most opportunities to be vulnerable in his relationships.

But when you came around, light began to spark beneath the shadowy depths of Azriel’s countenance as you slowly coaxed him to trust and love as fiercely as everyone knew he was capable of, with the reckless abandon that his childhood self so easily embodied.

“Maybe check her nightstand,” Cassian teased with a wink, only half joking, as a quiet happiness bubbled within him at the small glimpses of Azriel’s vulnerability. “Some of Nesta’s best kept secrets are hidden there.”

Before Azriel could furrow his brow and chastise his brother for snooping through his mate’s belongings, a realization hit him.

Nesta.

You had been spending an awfully large amount of time with the eldest Archeron sister in the library lately, choosing to hole up there in lieu of your other hobbies when you weren’t training or engaging in your various other Night Court duties.

But Nesta would be a dead end. There was no way he could approach her without tipping you off to his secret sleuthing. Though he and Nesta were friends, her loyalties laid with you; there was an unexplainable female camaraderie between you – a chosen sisterhood, if you will – and if he asked if she knew anything about what was going on, she’d go running to you, mischievous twinkle in her eyes.

The conversation with his brothers was about as helpful as he initially thought it would be, and he let himself succumb to their jokes about how wrapped around your finger he was. Azriel had endured it graciously, knowing better than anyone that they were right, that he was indeed wrapped so tightly around your little finger that he was unsure of where he ended and you began. That he would gratefully stay in the palm of your hand for as long as you would allow.

But that night, after you had told him not to wait up for you because you’d be having drinks with Feyre and Mor, Cassian’s voice reverberated insistently in his mind.

Check her nightstand…best kept secrets…

Azriel resisted the urge to snoop for all of ten minutes before his inherent nosiness clouded his judgment and got the better of him; afterall, his love for secrets is what made him such an effective spymaster. Before he knew it, he was rolling onto your side of the bed, inquisitive hands pulling open your bedside drawer.

Hidden among the small stack of books he had given you was a thick novel with a cover he recognized, but gave no second thought.

It was a book you said Nesta had lent you. When he asked if you liked it you said it was “only okay” and that you’d let him know if he should read it when you were finished. Despite your lukewarm review, however, it had never left your side, and he had found you on more than one occasion cozied up with it in your hands, cheeks dusted with a heat he knew all too well.

Azriel was well aware of the content of the books Nesta favored, often lending a reluctant ear to a whiny Cassian whenever she paid more attention to her books than him.

But there was no way your sudden excitement for novelty in the bedroom could be inspired by Nesta’s smutty recommendations…right? He leafed through, assessing hazel eyes quickly skimming the paragraphs, catching glimpses of the prose that had you so enraptured.

Azriel felt the back of his neck heat.

It was smut, as he assumed. But this was truly…filth. Pure, unadulterated, filthy smut.

Azriel was a lover of all books, never having been one to categorize or judge them by popular opinion. And, to be completely fair, he had read a decent amount of books filled with sex and romance.

But…he was sure that the acts detailed in this one would make even the Court of Nightmares’s debauchery look saintly. Even Azriel, who had been correctly assumed to be the kinkiest of the Inner Circle, felt tame in comparison to the words flickering across the pages of your book. How did you read this with such impassivity on your face?

Azriel snapped the book shut with such force the pages blew a cool, gentle breeze onto his heating face. He tried – and failed – to not picture you in the position the main character in your book was described in, unintentionally sending a soft hum of his burgeoning arousal down your bond. He was beginning to understand your desire to replicate the more salacious scenes detailed in your novels.

Having fun without me, Az? Came your teasing inquiry in his mind, as he meticulously replaced all of your belongings into your nightstand.

Don’t be nosy, he quipped back, extremely aware of the irony of his statement. And then after a beat he added, answering your question with a sincerity that never failed to grip your heart, Never without you, love.

You left him waiting for a response a little bit longer than you normally would as you attempted to control the thundering beat of your heart in your chest. You were convinced that no amount of time could ever diminish the effects that Azriel’s blatant display of love had on your composure. As much as he was wrapped around your little finger, you were just as tightly wrapped around his.

I take back what I said earlier, wait up for me.

Azriel smirked to himself, feeling a flare of triumph, It’s a date, then. Maybe I’ll find something interesting to read in the meantime.

If you caught on to his sly insinuation, you did not let on, just continued bantering with him for a few moments before returning your full attention to your friends, who were no doubt attempting to extract morsels of information from your obviously lascivious exchange with your lover.

But that night – even after Azriel had promptly fucked you into a blissful oblivion – had yielded no more information about your recent proclivity for finding a new kink, so Azriel did what he did best and spied.

He kept a watchful eye on the books you read, and tracked the times you asked him to try something new. He spent more time in the library than necessary under the guise that Rhys had put him up to some research.

Which was only half of a lie. He was in there to do reconnaissance, yes, just not for Rhys.

Azriel scanned the bookshelves for anything that seemed like it had been recently replaced, pages still clinging to the sweet scent of your skin. A title he recognized caught his eye and he slotted it out of place, flipping through the pages to confirm his suspicions.

This book was shorter than the others he’d seen you carry around, but certainly no less obscene. A smirk pulled at Azriel’s lips as he read a dog eared chapter that you had clearly marked for inspiration, recollections of your most recent tryst in his office flooding his awareness.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

You had sauntered into his small, private study at the House of Wind, short dress skimming the curves of your thighs as you bent to greet him with a kiss to his cheek. He’d been distracted at the time — surveying maps and cross referencing with ancient textbooks — and barely tore his attention away from his work long enough to squeeze your hand in greeting.

But you didn’t seem to mind, opting to make yourself comfortable and purveying the books neatly organized on his shelves. When you’d found a book you thought would be interesting enough — though probably not quite as interesting as the one you’d just finished, per Nesta’s recommendation — you settled into the armchair across Azriel’s desk, shoulders against one armrest as your legs draped over the other.

Azriel looked up at you then, soft smile curving his lips. He loved when you kept him company while he worked; somehow, whenever you were around, work never seemed nearly as daunting or overwhelming.

You met his gaze with your own grin, silently communicating your support of him in the way that only mates could, tugging gently on the bond before winking at him and resettling your attention back to the book in your lap.

The both of you worked in that wonderfully comfortable silence for a while before Azriel caught you fidgeting out of the corner of his eye. The sun had begun its routine descent below the horizon, cool breeze stirring the sheer curtains framing his windows. Though summer had plagued the days with heat and humidity, the nights were still cool as the last dregs of spring eked away.

He looked up, intending on asking if you needed anything — a blanket, maybe — but the words died swiftly in his throat when he eyed a flash of bare skin as you swung your legs to stand, showcasing just enough for him to clue in to the fact that you were indeed not wearing underwear. Or anything else under your dress, if the peak of your nipples beneath the silk was anything to go by.

Selfishly, for a brief moment, Azriel decided that maybe keeping the windows open wouldn’t be so bad.

He pried his eyes away from your form making its way back to his bookcase, and instead attempted to tamp down the raging lust stirring in his belly so he could focus. But the mental picture of what he knew lay beneath the barely there fabric of your dress coupled with your scent made the lines on the map he was studying blur into nonsense.

Though intelligent and compassionate at heart, Azriel often found himself a slave to his baser male instincts when it came to you. There was little – if anything – you could do to quell the raging need to touch you, kiss you, be near you at all hours of the day; his desire for you was a constant hum belying his daily routine. He had not one iota of self control when you were involved, much to his simultaneous thrill and chagrin.

Inwardly, he cursed himself as he stole another glance at you as you stretched onto your toes to reach a book on the top shelf.

Beauty incarnate, truly, he thought. Azriel’s eyes tracked each slope and valley of the lines of your body, taking his time to commit each curve to memory, the way he should have been doing with the maps sitting now uselessly on his desk.

You looked at him over your shoulder, small pout on your lips, “Az, can you help me? I can’t reach.”

Azriel’s heart leapt. It’s like you were doing it on purpose, and in hindsight you definitely were. But despite the gnawing adoration encouraging him to fall to his knees and worship at your feet, he stood with the cool grace of someone unperturbed by their mate’s subtle seduction.

Azriel obliged you, coming up behind you, one hand curling around your hip to steady himself as the other reached easily to the top shelf to grab the book your fingertips skimmed. As he leaned forward, you could feel the hard planes of his chest against your back and you wanted to abandon all your plans to slowly seduce Azriel into a puddle on the floor, but you remained steadfast in your decision. Nesta had pushed a book into your hands and said she tried this once with Cassian and that the resulting hours were pure heaven, and you wanted to test the theory, curiosity rivaling that of your mate’s.

You barely registered Azriel putting the book in your hands, too lost in the warmth of his familiar touch. But you composed yourself quickly, leaning back into him to kiss him in thanks, not so subtly pushing your ass back into his hips. A feeling of revelry settled in your chest when you felt him already half hard beneath his pants, his fingers curling tighter around your hip.

Oh so reluctantly, you pulled away, perfect picture of obliviousness as you plopped back down on the armchair you were occupying previously.

Azriel thought he would collapse in on himself when you went to sit back down. You had him so tightly ensnared it was like he was still in the midst of the initial mating frenzy. He briefly wondered if the mind-boggling need for you would ever go away, though part of him knew hoped it never would.

He took a moment to compose himself — if that was even possible when one’s mate was clearly playing a dangerous game of seduction — bracing himself with one arm steady against the bookshelf.

Despite how much Azriel so greatly wanted to shirk his responsibilities to bend you over his desk, he wouldn’t. Not yet anyway. The work day wasn’t quite over, and the plans he was making for you would surely last too long to finish his research afterwards. So he steeled himself and took a deep, steadying breath, willing his blood to fill his head again so he could think with some semblance of clarity.

Though at baseline, he always found it difficult to think rationally when you were around.

While Azriel was trying — and failing — to regain his composure, you were feigning extreme interest in the book you had selected at random: The History and Systems of Fae War Treaties.

If Azriel had been paying any attention to what you were reaching for, he’d have caught on to your ploy, but luckily for you the mere sight of you was enough to render him at least somewhat incapacitated.

You took a peek at him over the back of the chair, triumphant satisfaction crooking your lips into a mischievous smile. Maybe this would be the day he finally cracks, you think to yourself.

But as the sun dipped lower beneath the skyline of Velaris below, and as Azriel stubbornly worked away at his desk, you felt the tiredness of the day settle into your bones, pull you deeper into the plush leather of Azriel’s loveseat. Cassian had run you ragged with training this morning, and Rhys and Amren had your mind working tirelessly as the three of you attempted to draft a peace treaty in a meager four hours.

But you wouldn’t sleep, not yet, not until you had reduced Azriel to a beautiful, orgasmic mess in his chair. Not until the hazel of his eyes were blown dark with desire and pleading as you straddled his hips.

The next hour was a fight to stay awake as the words on the pages in your lap began to blur into obscurity, mind muddling with theories and questions — though the book was an off handed choice, you couldn’t deny that the information was coincidentally incredibly pertinent to the discussion you were having with Rhys and Amren earlier in the day.

The telltale sigh of a day’s work completed pulled your attention away from your book, gaze settling on your mate. His hair was mused in a way that told you he had spent the last however long skating his fingers through it, but as always it fell perfectly across his forehead in defiance of the tiredness creeping up his neck.

Azriel’s eyes met yours and apparently your coy seduction earlier still held his body in a vice, evident in the way he stood and stalked to you. There was a cool, domineering edge to his movements and you knew your plan had worked to a degree, but the determination you had to break him down had leeched out of you the same way the night had stolen the day’s heat.

You hummed in satisfaction as he leaned down to kiss you, the pressure gentle and so, so sweet. A stark contrast to the dark and tempting storm of desire Azriel flooded your senses with down the bond.

Never once breaking the contact of your kiss, he’d wedged a knee between your legs as one hand braced against the arm of the loveseat while the other danced at the hem of your dress, endearingly asking for permission.

Your mouth curved against his and you guided his hand up to your hip, gasping delightedly when his hand tracked further up your waist, bringing the hem of your dress up with it as he slotted your hips more comfortably against his leg.

His lips traced a scalding trail of open mouthed kisses against your jaw, your neck, a chuckle rumbling deep in his chest that had your hips rolling against him.

“So bold for me,” he said, his hand skating across your unclothed skin while he urged your hips to grind a little harder against his thigh. You gasped, the pressure so wonderfully perfect against your cunt.

Though your initial intention was to get Azriel all hot and bothered, you couldn’t deny that the game you had set yourself up in had the same effect on you; the lingering, almost lazy path his eyes swept over your body every time you shifted across from him left heat singing between your legs, untamed longing for you dancing down the golden thread between you.

“Az…” you rasped, arching your hips up to meet his still clothed body, the top of your dress pushed languidly down to your waist as Azriel played slow music on the skin of your breasts. The loveseat was a cramped fit at best, but Azriel’s surprising flexibility and dexterity made it work despite the general largeness of his wings and frame. He’d made even the smallest corners of the House work for your sexual escapades.

The memories of all the scandalous little happenings you two have been partaking in the past few months flitted across your mind’s eye like an erotic slideshow, and you groaned. Legs tightening around his in desperate search for more friction, more contact, more of him. His name on your lips again was a wanton plea, a sound so wonderfully obscene Azriel almost came in his pants.

“Hmm?” He hummed, closing his lips around your nipple, teeth gently tugging before his tongue was quick to soothe the ache. The way your hips were grinding so shamelessly against him had his head spinning with a swirling mix of lust and love, and he clung to the last shreds of self discipline he had. It was all he could do to not tear both of your clothes off and sink himself deep into your brilliant warmth.

Azriel had always been patient, mastery over his desire was a skill he’d honed meticulously over the past few centuries — though you had a way of quickly unraveling his self control with one flutter of your eyelashes. But he wanted to make this last for you, wanted to draw out your pleasure for as long as possible. So he pressed his thigh more firmly between your legs, his own hips slotting against the side of your body.

You gasped at the feel of him, of how hard he was against your hip, and you tried to reach him, tried to get him to release some of the tension you knew coiled in his belly. He groaned deep and breathless when you pressed insistently against him, his eyes fluttering shut for a moment before he continued his ministrations on your body.

Azriel’s hands were everywhere, trailing paths around your breasts, up your neck, into your hair, and between your legs the way he no doubt was doing with the maps on his desk earlier.

It was infuriating how close you were already, how swiftly the tables had turned (though you half blamed the sudden onset of your fatigue the day had cursed you with), how with one well placed touch you were on the brink of collapse at Azriel’s mercy yet again.

He was urging your hips faster now, his fingers and lips making quick work of all the places he knew would have you keening. And before you could even register that he was still fully clothed, hard cock still straining against the confines of his pants, you were falling, breathless and dizzy with release.

The night had been far from over. You came twice more in that godsdamned loveseat – once with his fingers buried inside you and another time with his head between your legs – before he whisked you away to your bedroom where you finally, finally felt the delicious stretch of him inside you.

By the time the sun was making its appearance over the horizon once more, you had lost count of how many times Azriel had you begging.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Though your spicy little rendezvous in his office – and encore in the bedroom – wasn’t quite an exact replica of what played out in the book you had apparently just read, Azriel had thought your coy seduction had its intended effect. He’d been so fucking desperate for you that he couldn’t wait until you were out of his study to have you coming for him.

But, as he skimmed the pages of the chapter you marked, he couldn’t help but think that maybe he wouldn’t mind being fully at the mercy of your whims, wouldn’t mind submitting to the pleasure that you so easily coaxed from him. He was already always so eager to please you, so willing to crawl to the ends of the earth for you if you had so much as suggested you wanted him to.

“Azriel?” Nesta’s voice dripped with wicked amusement, effectively pulling him from his erotic reverie. “I never thought I’d see you in this section of the library.”

Fuck.

He hadn’t anticipated that he’d run into Nesta, a severely idiotic oversight on his part considering the House’s library was something akin to her own personal sanctuary. Azriel turned slowly on his heels to face her, mind working in overdrive to come up with a viable excuse for him being there.

“Nesta,” was all he came up with. Pathetic.

Her smirk turned deadly when she realized he was floundering. Arms crossed over her chest, chin tilted ever so slightly upwards, she looked the very portrait of smug amusement; he would expect nothing less of his friend who moonlighted as Lady Death.

Nesta’s eyes dropped to the book he forgot he was holding, and her eyebrows shot up in understanding, “Ah, I just recommended that one to Y/N. She gave it a hefty five stars. Said it was…intriguing.”

Nesta’s sly comments were enough to confirm Azriel’s suspicions that you were taking bedroom inspiration from the arsenal of smutty books the House stocked. And, with the way Nesta was biting her tongue, he could tell that she knew exactly why he was there.

Cassian, that fucking mouthy bastard.

Before Azriel could open his mouth to tell her that it wasn’t what it looked like – even though they both knew it was exactly what it looked like – Nesta stalked past him, pulling books off the shelf with striking precision. With a stack of five books balanced on one hand, she took the one Azriel was holding and reshelved it.

“These are Y/N’s favorite,” she said, this time with a little bit more softness and understanding as she placed them gingerly in his arms. “I’m sure she’d love if you read them.”

Azriel scanned each cover, a fond smile working to tilt the corners of his lips. You did love these; he had been familiar with these covers long before you were even mated, always keeping a lovingly watchful eye on the things you enjoyed, filing the knowledge away in his mind for later.

“Thanks, Nesta,” he said sincerely, adoration for you filling his chest with warmth as he remembered the excitement lighting your eyes while you read these books, cute flush radiating off your cheeks.

Nesta only nodded, giving his shoulder an encouraging few pats as she stalked off to another aisle, no doubt scouring the shelves for a new read.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

Azriel told himself that he’d only read a few chapters — for research — but he hadn’t realized that he’d spent the better half of his day off lounging on the loveseat in his study.

Despite his previous reservations around the smutty books you’d so lovingly treasured, he found he was enjoying them — and not just for the well written, detailed sex scenes that you were pulling ideas from. He was two-thirds of the way through the second book, in the midst of the big climax, when you snuck up on him.

“It seems you’ve discovered my dirty little secret,” you said coyly, arms coming up behind him to snake around his shoulders.

Azriel jumped at your sudden appearance, inwardly cursing himself for teaching you how to sneak up on someone so effectively. He closed the book swiftly, feeling a flustered blush creep up his neck.

You pouted and rested your chin on his shoulder, “Aw, you were just getting to the best part! Don’t stop reading on my account.”

Azriel groaned but gave in, leaning back into your touch, “Don’t tease me.”

“I would never tease you, my love,” you said mockingly before kissing his cheek. “It is really the best part, though. The paint scene—“

Before you could regale the details of the main characters’ sexual escapades, Azriel took your chin in his fingers and slotted his lips over yours in a silent plea to stop your innocent tormenting. He reveled in the way you kissed him back without pause; he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the way you loved him as eagerly as he did you.

“Dirty little secret, huh?” He quipped, lips brushing yours as a bemused smirk lifted the corners of his mouth. You rolled your eyes as you made your way around the back of the chair, gesturing for him to uncross his legs so you could settle yourself on his lap.

Your weight was a welcome comfort as he continued prodding you, “Is this why you’ve been so…eager lately?”

“I didn’t think you’d notice,” you admitted, winding your arms around his neck as he scoffed in mock disbelief.

“Give me some credit love, I notice everything when it comes to you.” Came his quick response.

You pursed your lips, half in childish dissatisfaction that your little game was over, “I just wanted to know how to get you to beg for me. I needed ideas.”

Your nonchalance belied the wicked sensuality of your words and he chuckled, wrapping his wings around you both before mapping a scathing trail of kisses up your neck. The pillowy feel of his lips brushing your ear made you shudder, his teeth nibbling playfully at your earlobe as he hummed deep in his chest, “We have a lifetime together, there’s no rush. But since you want it so badly, shall I show you how well I can beg for you?”

Azriel’s offer sent an exhilarating shiver down your spine, and you so desperately wanted to give in, wanted to watch him come undone beneath you as he pleaded with you to touch him. But you shook your head despite yourself, competitive stubbornness the only barrier between you and what you wanted.

“I want to earn it, make you want me so bad you can’t help yourself.”

Your words were a breathy murmur that nearly had Azriel flipping you over right there on the too small lounge chair, but he resisted, prioritizing his assurances that you were the only thing he wanted every second of every day.

“That’s the thing, beloved,” he whispered in your ear, deep voice doused in honey reverberating in your bones as your desire flared so wildly it made you lightheaded. His hand, calloused palms rough against your skin, skated beneath the hem of your dress to grab hold of your hip and move you so you were straddling him.

This was the image you played over and over in your mind. The unbridled, unrestrained look of pleading in his eyes that blew his pupils wide, that had his hips shifting against yours in a display of just how much he wanted you.

“I always want you,” he continued. “I’d beg for you like I am dying of dehydration and you are my oasis. Just ask, and I’ll do exactly as you say.”

You were mesmerized, finger tracing the sharp contours of his jawline before ending at his chin, tilting his gaze up with the same practiced dominance you’d seen him slip into countless times before. You savored the way he shuddered at your touch, pretty lips parting as his chest heaved.

The corner of your mouth quirked, your breath a ghost over his lips, “Show me, then.”

2K notes · View notes

homeslices · 3 months

Text

Euphoria (Azriel x pregnant!reader part one)

Summary: You and Azriel find out you’re pregnant.

A/N: Thought his idea was cute and I’m thinking about making this an entire series of dad!Azriel. Also I’m sorry if this isn’t good, it’s my first time writing anything for acotar, but I do really like it so I plan on writing more in the future.

Pairings: Azriel x pregnant!Reader

Warnings: suggests smut, slight angst about not being able to conceive a baby (fluff to make up)

Word Count: 1.0k

Azriel and you had been trying to have a babe for a while. While the only people in the Inner Circle who had a child was Rhys and Feyre, you have been mated for hundreds of years and were beyond ready.

Having children was something you had to have many lengthy discussions about first. Azriel’s trauma with his family as a child and your own trauma being an Illyrian women whose wings got clipped before being cast out of your home only too be found and taken in by Rhys’s his mother, were all things you both had to think about before even considering bringing a babe in this world. That’s not even mentioning the war you and all of your loved ones fought in and somehow survived. However, seeing Feyre and Rhy being amazing parents to their son, and just seeing Nyx in general, has confirmed what you both have wanted for a while.

But, as much as you both wanted a child, it just did not happen. It’s been years since you started trying, and as much as you love to be with Azriel intimately, it started to feel more like a task rather than something fun. There have been a few nights that Azriel has woken up because you forgot to close the bond and was flooded with your feelings of self-loathing. All he could do was cup your tearstained face and whisper reassuring and loving words to you. You blamed yourself and as much as Azriel denied it, those thoughts just didn’t go away.

After the third night of that happening, both you and Azriel decided to just stop trying. Of course you both would continue to not take the tonic, but your goal while being intimate was no longer having a baby, it was to enjoy each other. After a time, sex was pleasurable again, your mindset improved, and while you did have moments of self doubt, Azriel was always there for you as you were for him. Similarly, your family was amazing the entire time. While Azriel and you were fairly private about the situation, you didn’t hide what was going on with them. Their support helped you heal, both of you. It’s been a few years since then, Nyx was now six and it is true that time heals all wounds.

Azriel was the one who noticed it first. The sun was starting to rise, light beginning to stream through the window of Azriel and your shared bedroom. It was one of those rare occasions that neither of you had to go anywhere that morning, however, Azriel was so used to being up before the sun that he was already awake. Your face was peaceful as you slept, your bare figure tangled in the sheets, and the only noise heard was your soft breathing. His hazel eyes watched your calm face, all the while having his shadows watch both of your surroundings. Weirdly enough, his shadows also kept brushing over you, almost like they were scared to let you out of their grip. It reminded him of when you first mated, at least one of his shadows had to be with you at all times once both of you got out of the frenzy.

There was something different, something unusual that Azriel could sense that made him feel uneasy, but not on edge. It bothered him, however, as your eyes fluttered open and you shifted your body to face your mate, it hit him. Well, your scent hit him. Before, the room smelled of the previous night’s activities, but with your change in position, he could now make out that your scent has changed. It was subtle, but the slight sweetness in the air was all that was needed to figure out what was so strange.

Azriel’s face was the first thing you saw as you woke up. Despite being able to mask how he’s feeling extremely well, his slightly widened eyes, along with the millions of thoughts running rampant behind them, were all telltale signs that he was in shock.

You hum curiously before speaking.

“What is it?” you question while reaching up to cup the side of his face, rubbing your thumb along his cheek. You could feel the coolness of his shadows brushing all over your body, it was comforting yet slightly unusual to wake up to.

“You're pregnant.”

Sitting up suddenly, as if a bucket of ice water had been spilt on you, you look at him bewildered.

“I’m sorry, what?”

A grin filled with pure joy took over his face as he answered you once again.

“You’re pregnant.”

All you could feel was disbelief and elation. You could now tell that your scent was different and all you could do was look at your husband, your mate, incredulously. His deep laugh fills the room, only further showing his happiness. You beam at him as he lifts you in his arms and settles you on his lap. His bare skin felt warm against yours, and the chill that continued to brush over you from the shadows felt perfect against you. The only time you’ve felt this overjoyed was when you found out you were mated to Azriel. You brush your lips against his as he cups your face, brushing away the tears you didn’t know were falling.

You knew things were going to change from that point on. You knew how male got when their mate was pregnant, how protective they became. You saw first hand when Feyre was pregnant with Nyx, she could never move more than a few feet away before Rhys was next to her once again, and if a stranger came up to her, everyone could feel the power he unleashed to get them away. Rhys had mentioned it was similar to how males are after first being mated, but also said that that is nothing compared to how protective he felt of his mate carrying his child.

You knew that this was only the beginning of troubles you would face. But at this point in time, wrapped in one another’s embrace, tenderly kissing tears of joy off each other's face while the morning light poured in, all you could feel was euphoria.

633 notes · View notes

azrielslightintheshadows · 5 months

Note

Hello! ☺️ Can I request for reader x Azriel? Where reader never had a partner because she firmly believed that her love is for her mate and her mate only. They are mates and the bond snapped immediately for reader when they first met but it didn't for Az. So for centuries reader kept on confessing her love for Az while watching him date countless women and kept on pushing reader's feelings aside. Reader slowly fell into an abysmal darkness where she constantly saw everyone had a partner for them and reader is all alone. Az, after all these years, finally felt that someone was wrong with reader and she's not her usual self anymore so he went to check on her and boom the bond snapped for him then and there. Angst here, there, everywhere please 🥺 TYSM 💖

I fell for you.

Azriel x f!Reader.

Masterlist.

Warnings; angst

She was dead. The female you used to be was dead, love burned her and her mate blew the ashes away. The empty cell you had become went unnoticed by anyone, and how could they notice when they all had their mates and were starting their own families. Everything started 200 years ago when you were offered a place in the inner circle as a healer, you were a cheerful young female raised in a preservative family. Ever since you could understand how the mating bond worked you dreamed about meeting your mate, falling in love and creating a family. That was the reason why you never took any male in your bed, you wanted your first time to be with your mate. Everyone kept saying that they forgot all the times they had laid with someone after laying with their mates so why should you bother to do it? And then you met the inner circle and the shadowsinger of the night court -your mate. The moment your eyes fell on him the bond snapped, but it didn’t snap for him too. You tried to approach him and you managed to become friends with him, but soon regretted it. Being his friend meant him talking to you about the females he met, talking about the feelings he had towards them and telling you about their dates. That was until one day… the day you snapped and told him about your feelings, and even though you believed he could love you too, he didn’t. He just became distant and kept pursuing other females. You could handle that, deep down you hoped everything would change and Azriel would love you one day, so you managed to handle the whole situation… until the past year, when the Archeron sisters burst into your life and changed everything. Rhysand was with Feyre, Cassian with Nesta and Azriel was courting Elain. Mor found Emerie and Amren had Varian… and you? You were completely alone. You stopped eating, stopped smiling, stopped talking and most importantly you stopped trying. You hadn’t even been to training with Cassian for months and he didn’t notice because he was training Nesta. So yeah it’s safe to say that you became an empty cell.

You were currently hanging with your friends in the river house, Rhysand had something to announce so he invited all of you there. You were sitting on the floor next to the fireplace, Mor was sitting next to you with Emerie. Rhysand was on the armchair to your other side with Feyre on his lap. Amren and Varian were sitting on the sofa -Amren’s legs on Varian’s lap. Cassian and Nesta were on the other armchair, and Azriel was sitting on the floor in front of them with Elain between his legs. You were on the verge of tears, seeing them all together brought so much pain to you.

Mor was telling a funny story about one of her missions making everyone burst into laughter -everyone except you. You just stared. Azriel seemed to notice this and sent you a questioning look, you just snorted excused yourself and left the room.

You found one of the guest rooms and walked inside, sitting on the bed and getting lost in your thoughts. Azriel walked in a few minutes later.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

You didn’t have time to reply because when you lifted your head and he saw your tears he gasped and his hand went to his chest, clenching his shirt.

“You’re my mate” he whispered. You only nodded.

“You knew?” He asked

“Yes” you croaked.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He was hurt.

“Because I wanted you to love me for being me not for being your mate.” You replied. It was true, you knew how obsessed Azriel was about finding his mate and you didn’t want to be with him because of a bond. You wanted him to love you for being yourself not his mate. And let’s face it you were obsessed with finding your mate too, but you didn’t fall for him because of that. You fell in love with him because he was soft and caring. You fell in love with him because he brought light into your life, because despite all the shadows around him he was brighter than the sun, his smile could light up every corner of Velaris. You fell for his intoxicating scent and for that deep raspy voice that sent shivers down your spine. And let’s not get started about those hazel eyes, those eyes held all the stars of the world inside them.

“You know I love you” he replied.

“As a friend” you added and he sighed.

“Yes as a friend but that means nothing, you are my mate I can fall for you. That’s how it is meant to be”

“Well that’s not how it was meant to be for me” your tone was harsh and your face cold.

“Y/n don’t do this, we can work this out… let me try” he pleaded.

“No, I think I’m done here”

“What do you mean by that?” He teared up.

“I mean that I won’t spend the rest of my life wondering if my mate really loves me”

“No that’s unfair. You knew we were mates… and you didn’t say anything it’s unfair” his voice was breaking.

“Yeah I knew from the moment I saw you… but I didn’t fall for you because of that…” you whispered.

“You knew though before you fell for me you knew, so give me a chance… please.” He cried.

“I’m sorry Az… I can’t do this anymore.” You got up and headed for the door, Azriel stood in front of you.

“Please angel… one chance… I will do anything in my power to make it worth it.” He sobbed.

You were crying too. Could you live a life where you would never be sure of your mate’s love for you? Was the mating bond enough for a happy life? Could you create a family based on the bond?

“I’m sorry…” you whispered and pushed him to the side. He didn’t follow you, you heard him breaking down and screaming as you left the house

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

With a last glance at Velaris you picked up your bags and left… tears streaming down your face as you whispered “goodbye”.

Goodbye to your home… goodbye to your friends and goodbye to the female that died there, your old self. And as you glanced at the road in front of you… you whispered “hello” to the new female you became.

Hope you enjoy it! If you don’t like the ending and you want an alternative one please tell me!

Requests are open but delayed!

534 notes · View notes

chichikoi · 29 days

Text

hiraeth.

part II. synopsis: she watches as cassian falls for another, grappling with her own hidden affections and their newly snapped mating bond in the process. pairing: cassian x fem!reader fandom: a court of thorns and roses (book series by sarah j maas) genre: angst warnings: none a/n: house of balloons/glass table girls, this is his song... i love him. fluff part two coming up OBVIOUSLY, im not fucking ending it like this i cant do this to my #1 loverboy babygirl kitty princess beloved. @joyseuphoria hi <3

Cassian had always been the beacon of power and resolve, with a demeanor rugged and unyielding. But beneath the surface was vulnerability, and she knew that it was written in the stars for her to remain by his side as his closest friend and confidante, never to become one to uncover that side of him.

But it didn’t make it easier. Watching him as he fell for Nesta’s every glance, every touch, every word that escaped her mouth seemed to throw him deeper and deeper into a trance. And she was fine with that, and accepted it. Accepted that she would never be the object of his softened glances, his featherlight touches, his-

Her thoughts halted as Cassian stormed into the room, frustration radiating off him in waves. She glanced up from her book, her eyes immediately catching the tension etched onto his features. Without a word, she closed her book and shifted, making room for him on the couch.

Cassian collapsed beside her, his movements rough yet familiar. He stretched out, his feet finding their place on her lap almost instinctively. Y/N didn't flinch; instead, she settled into the comfortable silence, waiting for Cassian to speak.

"It's Nesta," he finally muttered, his voice heavy with frustration. "Training with her…it was like walking on eggshells. One wrong move, and she was tearing into me with those ice-cold eyes."

She listened attentively, her gaze soft as she absorbed his words. "It was like she was always testing me," Cassian continued, his voice growing softer with each word. "Pushing me to my limits, making me question everything I thought I knew about myself."

Her fingers instinctively started to massage his feet as he spoke. It was a small gesture, one born out of years of friendship and trust. Cassian didn't protest; instead, he leaned back against the cushions, allowing the soothing touch to ease the tension from his muscles.

As the minutes stretched on, their conversation ebbed and flowed, the weight of Cassian's burdens slowly lifting with each passing moment. Y/N listened, offering words of comfort when needed, but mostly content to provide silent support.

Cassian's breathing eventually evened out, his body relaxing against the cushions. Y/N glanced down to find him fast asleep, his features softened by the serenity of slumber. She smiled softly, her heart swelling with affection.

Suddenly, chains, bolts, and locks shifted, loosening, their weight growing just a little more tolerable. A soul peeked through. Broken, scarred, and trembling — with fear, she realized, but it stretched further and further. Yearning, searching.

It was as though a tether had snapped into place, an invisible thread binding her to Cassian in a way she had never felt before. Confusion flickered as she processed the intensity of the connection, the undeniable pull drawing her closer to him.

She was aware that this was not happening in the slightest. A mind trick. A dream, she thought. betraying once, the jolt of real-time that pushed through her. Burning her cheeks and stealing her breath. How the waking world slipped past the knobby parts of her fingers like a whisper, barely there, because dreaming was just a fancier word for getting lost. It held her there, suspended in imagination and for every second, it felt real. Like she could grasp the outlines and the textures. Like she could touch the weather, drink the clouds, and taste the sunlight.

The gods who had her in a chokehold withdrew.

Death feared her too, it seemed.

He was soaring in the air, and she was on the ground. She tried to reach him but he was far, far out of her reach. Seconds ticked by, and then minutes, and every thought that tried to sneak its way in, through this thick veil, bounced off and dissipated into thin air.

Because she then remembered… that beautiful things shouldn’t be broken. And she had a knack for breaking things.

The soft rays of dawn streamed through the windows of the House of Wind, casting a warm glow over the sitting room where she and Cassian had fallen asleep. As she stirred from her slumber, she found herself alone on the couch, the imprint of Cassian's presence still lingering in the air. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, her mind foggy with the remnants of… dreams? Visions? She felt as though the very fabric of her existence had been torn asunder, leaving her adrift in a sea of uncertainty, but when has that ever stopped her?

So she stood on the ground and longed.

part II here >>

278 notes · View notes

taymartiart · 2 months

Text

Another super fun Azris commission for @witch-and-her-witcher based off her incredible fanfic Decode This Case ✨

265 notes · View notes

illyrianbitch · 2 months

Text

A Hobby for Two

Pairing: Reader x Cassian

Summary: Cassian surprises you with a small gift. You spend the night teaching him how to properly enjoy it.

Warnings: drug use, just more lil high times, fluff!!!

Word Count: 3k

An installment of the Mirthroot Mini-Series

✹ ✶ 𖧷 ✶✹

“There you are, sweetheart.”

You smiled at your mate's words as he stretched out a hand, beckoning you to him. You closed the door behind you before making your way to where he sat on the edge of the bed, a deep sense of ease settling over you as you situated yourself to stand between his legs. You reached out, hands finding their way to his face, gently tracing his features before lacing your hands through his hair and running them down his scalp.

Cassian's eyes fluttered closed, a happy hum escaping his lips at the tender touch. His arms enveloped you in a tight embrace, wrapping around your waist and pulling you closer to him with a gentle squeeze. He leaned his head forward, smothering himself into your chest. You could practically feel his grin as he let out another content sigh.

“When we die, I want us to be buried like this so I can rest forever as a happy male.”

You let out a snort. “In between my boobs?”

Cassian nodded, the movement causing friction along the material of your shirt. You shook your head in disbelief, a smile on your lips. You tugged yourself out of his grip slightly, watching as he emerged from his self-declared safe space and looked up at you with gentle eyes. Your heart fluttered.

“You’re dumb.”

Cassian grinned at that, pulling you forward slightly to place a quick, chaste kiss on your sternum. “Only for you.”

Your smile widened, a small heat traveling to your cheeks.

“I have a surprise for you,” Cass said after a moment, the grin still plastered on his face.

You frowned slightly, narrowing your eyes. “What kind of surprise?”

There was a glint in his eyes.

“A good one.”

Your smile changed into a smirk, your mouth falling open slightly as your eyebrows raised. "Oh?"

“Mhm,” Cassian nodded eagerly. His eyes ran over your face before a look of realization painted his features, his eyes widening slightly. "Wait, no, not that kind," he quickly corrected himself.

Your brows furrowed in confusion. Cassian wasn’t one for surprises— mostly because he could never keep secrets. Not properly, at least. The only surprises of his that worked were ones about sex– and that was because he could reveal the surprises as soon as he’d gotten them.

“Oh,” you finally replied, “So, not sex?”

"I mean, if you want, obviously that's on the table." Cassian reassured with a playful smirk, hand traveling from your waist to give your ass a playful squeeze. “That’s always on the table. But that isn't my surprise."

"Okay, so what is it?"

Without missing a beat, Cassian pulled you down to sit on his knee, a hand settling around your back. "Close your eyes," he instructed, his voice soft and inviting.

He was too excited. It was suspicious.

"Cassian," you stated, your eyes narrowing.

He frowned slightly, his expression morphing into one of puppy dog eyes as he pleaded, "Pleaseeeee."

Despite your resolve, you let out a soft sigh. "Fine," you conceded, a small smile playing at the corners of your lips. You let your eyes fall closed.

You felt as Cassian leaned to the side– towards the bedside table, you assumed, both of your bodies responding to his movements. A few more sounds followed, the opening and closing of a drawer and Cassian’s barely audible sounds of anticipation, ones that almost mirrored the excited giggles of a school boy. You squeezed your eyes together tighter now, preparing yourself to flee if needed, slightly flinching at every new sound.

You loved Cassian. You trusted him with your life. But that trust didn’t extend to mundane “surprises”. If it wasn’t a random alleycat brought into your shared home at 2 am, it was him showing up with broken bones because he lost a bet and wanted you to hear the weird sound his arms made when he jumped.

“Cassian, I swear to the Mother if this is another weird bug, so help m-”

Cass chuckled, the sound reverberating through his chest and against your body.

“Sweetheart, trust me.”

You let out an impatient breath.

“You’re making it real hard to.”

He let out another small chuckle, his thumb rubbing circles against your skin where his hand held you.

"Put your hands out.”

You listened, tentatively extending your palms up. Within seconds, you felt something light being placed in your hands, the edges of the object pressing gently against your skin.

"Okay, open those beautiful eyes.”

With a quick inhale, you complied, slowly parting your eyelids to reveal the surprise he had prepared for you.

“A box?”

Cassian nodded with a smile.

“Yup.”

"I'm assuming my gift isn't the box?" you teased, a playful smile tugging at your lips.

Cassian shook his head, his grin widening. "Not this time.”

He was giddy. Too giddy, you would say.

“Cass, what's in this box?”

"Open it."

Your eyes narrowed slightly as you regarded him skeptically.

"Cassian. If I open this and there's a bug, I—" you started, your tone laced with a hint of warning.

“You’ll kill me and dump me in the Sidra, yeah, yeah I know,” Cass interrupted with a wave of his other hand. He gave you a pointed look. “It's not. I promise.”

Reluctantly, you took a deep breath, pushing aside your apprehension as you carefully untied the ribbon and lifted the lid of the box.

The smell hit you immediately as the lid was lifted, the familiar earthy aroma wafting from the box and enveloping you in its comforting embrace. With a soft gasp, you brought the box closer to your face, inhaling deeply, the scent of mirthroot filling your senses.

Your eyes widened in delight as you beheld the small pile of mirthroot nestled inside the box, a smile spreading across your face. Cassian watched you intently as he waited for your reaction.

Without hesitation, you reached out, gently picking up a piece of the mirthroot, looking at him with parted lips.

“You got me some mirthroot?”

He nodded, the hand that was once holding the box now settling on your thigh.

You smiled, breathing in the smell once more as you placed the small nugget of mirthroot back into the box. Then, you frowned slightly.

“Why is it in a box,” you thought out loud. Usually mirth was placed in airtight containers, small plastic things that made it easy to carry with no smell. Almost everyone you knew that sold their mirthroot put it in such containers for ease of access and transportation. You’d never seen it in a box before.

Cassian laughed, mouth dropped open as he stared at you. “When did you become so pretentious about your mirthroot, huh?” His voice was light, a teasing tone that made you want to roll your eyes– lovingly, of course. “Are my boxed drugs not good enough for you, sweetheart?”

You let out an amused scoff.

“They’re more than enough,” you said as you placed the box in your lap, pulling Cassian into a small kiss. “I just ran out of my stash, too, so this is perfect timing.”

“I know.”

Cassian smiled and you gave his cheek a gentle pat with your hand before pushing yourself off his knee and making your way towards your bookshelves. You usually tucked away your mirthroot in a small wooden box, one delicately painted by Feyre as a Solstice gift and bound by Rhysand’s magic to be odorless. Though, you were sure that the last aspect of the gift was more for himself than it was for you. You quite liked the smell of Mirthroot– something natural and calming. Rhysand said it made your home smell like a skunk's ass.

You picked the box up gently as Cassian’s voice ran out from behind you.

"I was thinking maybe we could smoke together tonight? If you'd want."

You turned to face him, hands still holding the two boxes. You stared at him, a frown creasing your brow as you processed his suggestion. "Really?"

Cassian's expression fell at your hesitation. "Well, not if you don't want to, I just thought—"

"No, no," you interjected quickly, your frown softening as you started walking back towards him. "I'd love to. I'm just surprised, that's all."

While he was a man of many talents, Cassian wasn’t great when it came to mirthroot. He’d tried multiple times, buying the best quality mirthroot to surprise you or joining the small circles at events you’d host. But he either ended up completely faded– vomiting and unable to move– or wasting half of your stash when smoking because he couldn't figure out how to inhale properly as the mirthroot quickly burned away. Either way, it never worked. So, slowly, it became a solo hobby of yours, a time to cool down and forget about the worries of your daily life, joined by the occasional company of Azriel or Amren. You never minded.

Cassian let out an exasperated sigh, his shoulders slumping slightly as he spoke. "Is this about last time? Because I know it wasn't great but it wasn’t that bad."

"You vomited all over me," you interrupted, a wry smile playing on your lips as you recalled the less-than-ideal outcome of your previous attempt at getting high together. “And Rhysand. And the couch.”

Cassian winced at the reminder, but then he nodded earnestly. "Okay, not my finest moment. But,” he said, as he reached out and pulled you closer to him with a hand around your waist, “That was a gummy. Tonight we’re just smoking. It’ll be great.”

His words sparked a glimmer of hope within you. Despite your lingering doubts, you felt a sense of excitement at the idea of sharing the night with your mate, doing one of your favorite hobbies.

“Y/n,” Cassian said once more, “I got it.”

You grinned and nodded.

“Fuck yeah, you do.”

✹ ✶ 𖧷 ✶✹

Cassian, in fact, did not get it.

You'd spent the last few minutes delicately grinding your mirthroot and packing it in the beautiful pipe Azriel had gifted you a few birthdays back. You carefully explained to your mate exactly what he should do, and where he possibly went wrong the times before. Now, you both sat on your balcony, the gentle night breeze enveloping you in a softness that stood in stark contrast to the ragged sounds Cassian was emitting as he struggled.

"Cass, my love, you have to inhale it.”

"Baby, I am,” he said, breaking apart from the pipe with a heavy cough.

Your gaze shifted to the pipe in his hand, the mirthroot dwindling with each failed attempt. You couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment at the thought of burning through your new stash so quickly.

"No, you're holding it in your mouth and killing your throat.”

Cassian scowled. “This isn’t working and it tastes like ass.”

“Well let's hope not,” you murmured with a slight chuckle as you leaned forward. “Let’s try again. Watch me.”

You took the small pipe from his hands, feeling the weight of it in your own as you prepared to demonstrate. You lit it with a spill, the flame flickering briefly in the night breeze as you took a deep breath, the fragrant smoke filling your lungs.

As you pulled the pipe away from your face, you gestured with your free hand towards your chest, demonstrating the movement required to properly inhale. The action was deliberate and slow as you aimed to guide Cassian through the process. The mirthroot smoke swirled around you, its earthy aroma mingling with the cool night air as you held the breath for a moment, allowing the soothing effects of the herb to wash over you. Then, you exhaled slowly, letting the smoke slowly filter from your parted lips.

"I literally did that," Cassian grumbled.

He was growing frustrated, something that often happened when he failed to enjoy this particular hobby properly. You knew Cassian was easily bothered by things he felt lacking in, skills that he thought he should be good at. You gave him a small gentle smile.

"C'mon," you encouraged gently, scooting closer to him on the cushioned chair, offering him the pipe. "It's still lit, just take a deep breath," you urged, your voice a soft murmur in the night air.

Reluctantly, Cassian reached for the pipe once more, his fingers wrapping around it with determination. With a resigned sigh, he brought the pipe to his lips, inhaling deeply as he attempted to follow your instructions.

As he did so, you placed a hand on his chest and another on your own, guiding him through the motion with gentle reassurance. Together, you took a deep breath. You watched as Cassian’s eyes fluttered closed and he properly inhaled for the first time that night.

A surge of excitement passed through you, a smile spreading across your face as you watched him. As if registering the moment, Cassian’s eyes lit up with excitement, smoke escaping his mouth as he let out a cough.

“Sweetheart,” he said with a grin, “Did I do it?”

You nodded, pulling your lip in between your teeth. Cassian’s grin grew and he leaned forward to kiss you, briefly pulling apart to stare at the pipe in his hands as if it was the Cauldron itself.

"That was fun," he said, his grin growing more infectious as he looked at you with newfound enthusiasm. “Again.”

He brought the pipe to his lips once more and you gently lit it. His hand tenderly grabbed yours and held it against his chest as he took a long draw. You felt the deep breath beneath underneath your fingertips. He pulled back with a violent spurt of coughs, a smile still evident on his lips.

"Okay, big boy, don't get too overconfident," you teased as you squeezed his hand playfully.

✹ ✶ 𖧷 ✶✹

Half an hour later, the pipe, now cold and empty, lay on the glass table as you and Cassian laid on the couch, his arms wrapped around you as you leaned against his chest. Above you, the stars shone brighter than before, the night air now wrapping around your body in a way that felt alive. Cassian let out a sigh.

“It feels like someone traced my body and is now running ice along the outline.”

You laughed, your cheeks straining from the smile on your face. A shiver ran through your body, rolling down your skin in waves. You let your head fall back onto Cassian’s chest. “I know exactly what you mean.”

A moment passed, and then Cass leaned down, placing a kiss on your head.

“The first time I realized I loved you was when you were smoking.”

You let out a breath, maneuvering your body to lean your side against his chest so that you were able to meet his eyes— a deep, rich brown now staring at you through heavy, puffy lids. Your movements felt languid and fluid, your body suspended in a floating sensation.

“Really?”

Cassian gave you a small smile and nodded slowly.

“Yeah,” he responded, his voice low. His head lolled to the side slightly and he looked up at the sky as he pulled the memory from his mind. “Up at the cabin, the winter that Mo-”

“Mor got those horrible bangs,” you finished for him, letting out a small laugh at the memory. “It was just you and I that night.”

You didn’t remember much about that night. After all, it was centuries ago and all of you weren’t sober for the majority of the trip. Something about being young and reckless, the feeling of having the world at your feet. But you did remember that it was just you and Cassian. Mostly because you had the biggest crush on him. That version of you would be beyond happy to see herself now— a powerful warrior, mated to Cassian, still getting high under a clear night sky.

Cassian looked down at you once more.

“I felt like a creep, couldn’t stop starin’ at you,” Cassian said eyes scanned your face, “Good thing you were so gone your eyes were practically closed the whole night.”

Your cheeks were hurting even more now, your smile stretching your muscles to a point of strain.

“You were so calm, just making all these jokes. It made me realize I’d do anything to see that again, to see you safe and happy, at ease.”

A warmth filled your chest as a strong tug pulled at you through the bond. You slowly pulled yourself up to give Cassian a kiss, the sensation of his lips against yours sending a wave of electricity through your body, the fuzzy feeling spreading through your face.

“I still would,” Cassian whispered, “Even if that means heckling some of the street youths for drugs.”

You blinked, pulling back to furrow your brows with an incredulous smile.

“Is that where you got it from?” You quietly asked, now letting out a sound of shock and amusement, “I knew it being in a box was sketchy!”

Cassian grinned in response, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he glanced to the side and rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. "Hey, did it work or not?"

You shook your head, unable to suppress your smile as another laugh bubbled from your throat.

"Yeah, that's what I thought.”

You leaned your head against his chest, feeling a sense of ease as you were enveloped in the warmth of his embrace. His hands wrapped around you, pulling you into his embrace.

"Thank you for extorting teenagers for me,” you whispered, “I love you.”

You made a mental note to ask Cassian who exactly he tracked down for future reference-- whether to apologize or ask for more, you weren't sure yet. But for now, you closed your eyes and melted into the touch of your mate as the stars watched over you, scattered across the night sky like diamonds on velvet.

✹ ✶ 𖧷 ✶✹

An installment of the Mirthroot Mini-Series

a/n: just to let yall know these one-shots r super authentic cause i only write then when i am, too, on mirthroot

i’ve reuploaded this like 3 times because it kept posting weird (or i might’ve just been high idk) so i hope you w enjoyed!!!

#cassian x reader #cassian x you #cassian x y/n #cassian x reader fluff #cassian fluff #cassian #cassian acotar #cassian fanfiction #cassian fanfic #cassian fic #acotar fanfic #acotar #acotar fanfiction #acotar fluff #acotar fandom #a court of thorns and roses #a court of silver flames #mirthrootseries #cassian imagine

241 notes · View notes

invisibleanonymousmonsters · 1 year

Text

gust & flame - masterlist

Eris Vanserra has been a prisoner in his own home since the day he was born. He has done what he had to in order to survive and protect the few he loves. And he is playing the long game. Waiting, waiting, and waiting for the right time to make his move, to usurp his wicked father and become High Lord of Autumn Court. But things become even more complicated when a human girl drops into his life. Perhaps Eris can wait no longer to take his throne.

--- takes place after the events in A Court of Silver Flames

🍁 Eris Vanserra x Reader

Chapter I || Chapter II || Chapter III || Chapter IV || Chapter V || Chapter VI || Chapter VII || Chapter VIII || Chapter IX || Chapter X || Chapter XI || Chapter XII || Chapter XIII || Chapter XIV || Chapter XV || Chapter XVI || Chapter XVII || Chapter XVIII || Chapter XIX || Chapter XX || Chapter XXI || Chapter XXII || Chapter XXIII || Chapter XXIV

1K notes · View notes

acourtofwhatthefuck · 10 months

Note

Hello, I'm so sorry that you're having a mopey day today :(( But honestly I'm having one today too... I would love to read some fluffy fic, maybe some teenage!Rhys×reader where they are acting like stupid teenagers in love. Or maybe something with Az where reader is a shadowsinger too and they are fooling around and using their shadows to prank the IC. I don't know, these are just some ideas that popped randomly in my head so don't feel pressured to write anything. Anyway wish you best and I hope you will feel better soon 💗

Thanks, lovie! 💕Hope this is okay and cheers you up a little! I feel like I’m not very good at fluff but I did my best 🤣 thank you for sending it in! Enjoy 💕

Forget Me Not — (Rhysand x Reader)

"You'll be High Lord someday."

"I will."

Rhysand rested his chin on your leg, violet eyes peering up at you. In the balmy evening light, he looked resplendent, the sun offsetting the golden hue of his skin. You found your fingers absentmindedly tracing the shape of his lips, the brush of his lashes.

"Things will change when you're High Lord." You brushed his floppy hair from his eyes. "We will change. Our relationship."

At just nineteen, it was hard enough to navigate such a serious, intense relationship. You hadn't expected to fall so madly in love a year earlier, when your court — the Summer Court — had received the High Lord of the Night Court and his son as guests; a plan, you'd learned, to strengthen the relations between the Solar Courts and Seasonal Courts. The High Lord's son, Rhysand, had been nothing but charming and chivalrous. But you hadn't expected him to so much as notice you, as a mere a servant to the High Lord of Summer. When you'd served Rhysand a drink, and those violet eyes had met yours like they were staring into your soul, you knew immediately — you would never want anybody as fiercely as you wanted him.

Too bad that he was a future High Lord, and you a nobody.

It had been unexpected, to say the least, that he'd sought you out. Asked you to show him around the court whilst his father and your High Lord engaged in dull meetings. He'd made you laugh and seemed genuinely interested in knowing you. And when he'd returned to the Night Court, he'd promised to come back and see you again.

Which he had. And thus had begun a year of secret meetings and the thrilling adventure of falling in love. You knew Rhysand's father would never approve. You knew Rhys would one day be in a charge of his court, and not have the luxury of sneaking off to see you for a few hours, sometimes an entire night.

There was a time limit on your relationship, and that thought had begun to plague you more and more recently.

Rhys reached out, pressing your hand against his cheek. "Change doesn't always have to be bad."

"It will be the worst kind of change if we can't see each other anymore."

Rhys sighed softly, rolling onto his back. You knew he didn't want to spend your precious time together talking about such things; neither did you. You wished you could stay like this forever, sprawled out in the sweet-smelling meadow that had become your place to meet him. The thought of this place being empty of your love, your laughter, your conversation, made you teary.

"Please don't cry, my love." Rhys scooted closer. He tugged you until you were slotting between his legs, his front pressed to your back. "Why are you letting this bother you now?

Tears dropped onto your lap as you glanced down. "This past year is the happiest I've ever been."

A kiss was pressed to your shoulder. "Me, too."

"But you will be a High Lord. And of a court I don't even live in. You will be the most important member of your court, and I'm nothing but a servant. I feel like soon enough, you're just going to forget me. That you ever loved me."

You felt the way his body went rigid against you. After a pause, his warm arms slid around your waist, his face burying into the crook of your neck. He seemed to inhale your scent slowly. Desperately.

"Do you truly think I could ever forget you?" He murmured. "I remember the first second I caught a glimpse of you. You were the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. Still are."

You gave a watery laugh. "So beautiful in my old, ratty clothes."

"Your hair was in a loose braid, and when you leaned down to serve me my drink, a strand came free of the plait. I felt so compelled to reach out and tuck it behind your ear. And I thought your eyes could give this court's sunrise a run for its money. So bright and brilliant. Your cheeks were flushed, and you smiled at every single person, despite most of them straight up ignoring you. You were the most exquisite person in that room, and I couldn't look away from you."

You turned slightly in his arms, just enough to meet his gaze. "You noticed all of those things?"

A lopsided smile tugged at his lips. "Why do you think I tried so hard to get a message to you that I wanted to meet with you? I couldn't let you walk away. At least not without learning your name first. I certainly didn't think I'd ever be lucky enough to have you love me back."

You studied his remarkable face, noting every emotion, every thought, that he wore freely. For nobody other than you. You'd memorised that face as much as you possibly could so that when he wasn't around, you could close your eyes and picture him. His brilliant smile. The way his eyes roved happily over you. Sometimes, you could lay in bed and hear his laugh.

"Just...just promise me." You pressed your forehead against his. "Promise me that one day, when you're High Lord...even if you can't be with me anymore, you won't forget me. I couldn't bear you forgetting me."

Rhys's strong hand moved up to cup your jaw. There was no chance to read the look in his eyes before he was leaning in and pressing his lips to yours.

The kiss started out gentle. Soft. The kind of tentative kisses you first shared in the early days of your relationship. Rhys's thumb brushed the line of your cheekbone, his mouth caressing yours.

But then his tongue was parting the seam of your lips and sliding into your mouth to intertwine with yours. Your mingling tastes had you sighing softly in satisfaction and angling yourself towards him further, one of your hands naturally reaching up to twine within the strands of his hair.

Somehow, you ended up in his lap, his lips working feverishly against yours in a hungry kiss. It was just the two of you in that meadow — the two of you and your love, that nobody — not even the High Lord of the Night Court — could take away from you. You would love him forever and always, no matter the distance, the social standing, the outside opinions.

Only when you were both panting for breath did Rhys tear his mouth from yours. You breathed heavily against each other's lips, your foreheads pressed together.

"Here." Rhys murmured deeply, quietly. "This is for you."

You pulled back just enough to glance down at the hand he held between you. You frowned down at the two tiny, blue flowers he pinched between his fingers. When he'd picked them, you weren't sure.

"A flower?" You were still battling to catch your breaths. "For me?"

"One for you and one for me." Rhys said. "They're Forget-Me-Nots. I'll spell them to forever stay fresh. And as long as we both have these, we know we'll never forget one another."

You blinked away tears as he tucked the flower into the strands of your hair, before leaning in to kiss you again.

"Always and forever, my heart." He whispered.

You nodded vigorously, cupping his cheek. "Always and forever."

393 notes · View notes

thesistersarcheron · 2 years

Text

Pairings: poly!Cassian/Nesta/Azriel, minor Feyre/Rhysand Ratings: E Words: ~4.3k Summary: It is well known across Prythian that High Fae mating bonds are a sacred union between two souls. Lesser fae mating bonds, more common yet less studied than their High Fae counterparts, are bound by an entirely different set of rules. After the ball in the Hewn City, Nesta and Cassian swore to each other that there would be no one else. Ever. They didn’t account for Azriel. ----- Catch up on my masterlist or read here on AO3!

For several long minutes, Nesta’s mind bleated with panic at the thought of whatever Cassian must have found in the mountains to warrant such a reaction—whatever Azriel seemed to think might not leave him in one piece. It faded, slowly but surely, but she remained incapable of focusing in the hours that followed.

The first thing she did was locate a scrap of that enchanted paper; she carried it and the fine pen Azriel had handed her in her pocket all afternoon. They were an unwelcome weight dragging her down, and she caught herself patting her pocket whenever she dared to glance at the empty sky—would Rhys even come if she called? If something happened?

Her favored distractions didn’t work to pass the time. Reading was impossible when all the words blurred together. Listening to the Symphonia drove her nearly mad, since the tempo of the measured waltzes and symphonies was too slow to match her racing thoughts. Playing solitaire with a deck of cards she found in the reading room only settled her mind until the silence pressed in, oppressive and thick.

Eventually, after pacing up and down stairs for far too long, Nesta stripped the bed in a fit of irritation, filled the tub, and scrubbed the sheets, desperate for something physical to quiet her thoughts. By the time she wrung them out and hung them over the bath, remaking the bed with fresh linens she found in a closet on the second floor, she was resigned to weathering the directionless, worried churning in her gut.

Cassian and Azriel returned just as dusk faded into night, each carrying half a dozen enormous canvas sacks full of weapons.

Azriel entered first, grim-faced and cloaked in shadow. He dropped the bags he carried on one of the couches and took up a place beside her. Nesta felt his eyes on her and turned, assessing him in return. Save for a slight sheen of sweat and the tired way he held his wings, he appeared untouched. Still, Nesta didn’t resist the compulsion to brush the tangle of black hair off his brow, running her fingers through it until she manipulated it into some semblance of neatness and the firm line of his mouth softened.

And then Cassian was there, filling the room with thick, silent fury.

His eyes were sharp as splinters as he and Azriel upended the contents of bag after bag onto the low table between the couches until it overflowed with weapons. Nesta watched with a morbid sort of curiosity as Cassian sorted them with lightning-quick efficiency. Bows and knives, swords and ropes, even small packs of darts bound in leather and twine, weapons she couldn’t begin to name—it never seemed to end.

She struggled to discern how he decided which weapons belonged in which piles until he extended a wing, wordlessly ushering her back, and upended the final bag onto the floor in front of the coffee table. This one, Nesta could tell at a glance, was already sorted: thick daggers made of ash wood, swords of iron inlaid with long strips of it, and thick, expensive arrows identical to the one Feyre once shot through the side of a faerie wolf.

Human weapons.

“Where did you find those?” she breathed, staring in growing horror at the armory in the middle of the sitting room.

The other piles started making sense. She could pick out the long, brutal Illyrian swords, massive bows nearly as tall as Nesta herself, and slippery steel throwing knives identical to the ones Azriel wore, meant to puncture the wings of flying warriors. The plated armor and spears she recognized from Hybern’s forces; she had watched as Cassian once picked one up off a muddy battlefield and threw it with such deadly force and accuracy at one of Hybern’s commanders that he ended a battle. Ready-made torches and thick wooden staffs crafted of Autumn Court redwood gleamed in the low light.

Cassian didn’t answer her, too busy dragging a trunk across the room. He tossed the assortment of pillows and blankets inside to the ground and replaced them with the ash weapons, dropping the lid with a horrible clash. His jaw clenched until she heard his teeth creaking, the Siphons atop his hands flaring.

It was Azriel who lifted his shadowed eyes to her. As quickly as Cassian had sorted the trove of weapons, Azriel was examining them, pulling knives from sheaths and arrows from quivers.

“The Blood Rite grounds.”

Nesta stepped forward, nudging a crudely forged short sword with the toe of her sock-clad foot. The blade was sheathed in a ragged, half-eaten leather scabbard.

Azriel jerked his chin at that pile, but didn’t look up again. “Hungry beasts dug them out of the snow for the leather. Cass spotted them during his inspection, and I shadow-walked down to collect them.”

Nesta grimaced. There had been a couple of long winters where they had ended up cutting away at bits of the hides they used as blankets; her jaw ached with the memory of the tough hide, her stomach roiling at the thought of the rancid, gelatinous broths that she and Elain had never been able to make palatable. Whatever the beasts were, she didn’t envy them.

Azriel came to the end of the piles in a matter of minutes and twirled the final arrow between his fingers, a stack of several more full quivers discarded beside him.

“Brand new. No maker’s marks.”

Uneasy silence reigned, and then Cassian kicked the trunk full of ash weapons hard enough to send it scraping across the floor. The crash when it hit the wall was deafening, and Nesta flinched back on instinct. Azriel’s hand was already behind her, steadying her, as if he’d anticipated Cassian’s outburst and her reaction to it.

“Shit!” Cassian snarled, running his hands through his hair.

Nesta looked back to Azriel. “I thought outside weapons were forbidden during the Blood Rite?”

“They are,” he muttered darkly. He threw down the arrow he was holding and shifted his attention to Cassian, who had begun to pace the narrow aisle between the Illyrian weapons and the spears from Hybern. “Go outside and calm down.”

“We need—”

Azriel shook his head just once, pure, hard authority in his voice when he said, “Go.”

Cassian glanced at Nesta, then at Azriel’s hand on her shoulder. Regret shone in his eyes, but Nesta tilted her head toward Azriel.

Listen to him, she tried to say, stroking the burning tether between them.

He made a low sound, but spun on his heel. He stalked from the cabin, closing the door behind him with enough force to knock a few glittering icicles from the roof.

Nesta and Azriel watched them fall in silence.

“Are you going to tell me what that was about?”

“Devlon’s concerns were just proven right, and Cassian’s pride took a hit,” Azriel said with a too-casual shrug.

Nesta leveled her sharpest look at him. The molten rage seeping into her from where Cassian stood just outside the door, testily stretching his wings, was not caused by anything as petty as pride.

“And?”

A roiling, agitated mass of shadow snuffed out the nearest faelights.

“The Blood Rite…” Azriel blew out a breath through his nose. “It’s a week of barbaric bloodshed, but it does cull the more hotheaded fools from the ranks of the incoming legions before they can be fully instated as Illyrian warriors with all the rights that entails. The only mercy granted to the other recruits is the fact that they all have to craft their own weapons, catch their own food, find their own shelter… The smart ones band together and focus on surviving the elements, and the cruel, weak, and reckless die at each other’s hands before they can become their commander’s problem.”

Nesta’s thoughts halted, horrified.

The concept of the Blood Rite was not new to her; Cassian spent most of his time preparing to deal with the aftermath of it when they weren’t training, and he had told her enough about his own Rite for her to form some picture of the week-long fight to survive. But the simple, impersonal way Azriel described a week of culling the ranks, completely devoid of the passion that infused Cassian’s voice when he spoke of it…

When she glanced at him, Azriel nodded at her. It was exactly as horrible as it sounded, exactly as horrible as she must imagine it, if not worse.

And if the novices had the stockpile of weapons crowding the sitting room…

Azriel folded his hands together in front of himself in the careful, practiced way that hid his scars behind his gauntlets. Thick shadows ringed his wrists.

“Some will occasionally band together to kill off enemies and settle grudges. Last spring, for example, a rebel leader and some of his cronies were killed during the Rite over a blood feud with another clan, and his death essentially ended the rebellion. It took a load off of Cassian’s shoulders, and he was able to focus on maintaining the peace and training the new recruits that came back from the Rite to rebuild the ranks we lost during the war.”

Nesta traced a finger down the smooth arch of one of the Illyrian bows closest to her. How many of his cohort could one foolish young male trying to make a name for himself kill in one week with one bow and a handful of arrows?

“And he’s so upset only because it’s unfair? Because of the death toll during a Rite with weapons like this?” she asked.

When she turned back to look at him, Azriel was gone.

No, not gone. Hidden.

The vague shape of him was nothing more than a smear of darkness against the wall. The shadowy figure was stretched and warped by the low faelight, the talons of his wings scraping the high ceiling.

Her heart thundered beneath her breast. This was the shadowsinger that Prythian feared.

Azriel’s voice was cold, lifeless, when he said, “Because bastards and the lords’ sons are favored targets. With weapons like this, none of them would survive the Rite.”

Oh.

Feyre had told Nesta and Elain what she knew of Azriel’s past when she returned from the Spring Court before the war—not much, but enough so they wouldn’t make any grievous missteps or offend the stoic, secretive male by asking. A bastard, confined inside his father’s keep and tormented by his half-brothers before he was left in Windhaven to train. They gave him the scars, so don’t ask and don’t stare and don’t embarrass him.

But now, staring into the sea of shadows in the corner of the room, slick dread dripped down Nesta’s throat and pooled, cold and nauseating, in her stomach.

His reaction to the camp lords in Windhaven had been his tell, hadn’t it? She assumed the way he disappeared into the shadows then and the cool, hateful disdain in his voice were just carried over from the humiliating walk through the camp, but…

She blew out a breath.

The exchange she’d witnessed between Cassian and Azriel afterward told her everything. The careful way Cassian had spoken about the camp lords for Azriel, the way Azriel hadn’t looked back as they left, that terrible, suffocating silence that always accompanied the worst of his moods…

Her mind reverted to her mother’s most basic lessons. What sort of man was rich enough to own a keep? To humiliate his wife by housing and feeding his bastards, to test otherwise unwanted children and see if they grew to be of any value, rather than cast an expectant mistress out to the wolves?

Nesta’s eyes slid shut. If rich Illyrian males were anything like rich human men…

“Azriel,” she murmured, but he continued speaking as if he hadn’t heard her at all.

“The Blood Rite is the only Illyrian ritual that places everyone on even ground. It’s the only chance bastards get to prove themselves and earn some semblance of a place in society,” Azriel’s silhouette sank deeper into its surroundings, the shape of him dissipating like smoke, and when he spoke, the words seemed to seep out of all of the shadows in the room, surrounding her. “Cassian and Rhys think that makes the slaughter worth it, but I think it’s a black fucking stain on Illyria.”

Nesta shook her head. “It can’t be that simple.”

“It’s not.” Icy wind blew in from the doorway, and Cassian stepped back into the cabin.

His mouth was drawn into a severe, stern line, and his hair had been scraped into a messy knot to protect it from tangling in the howling wind. His teeth chattered—but that was better than grinding and cracking them, Nesta thought.

He shut the door quickly before she could truly feel the chill. He nodded at her raised brow, sending a soft caress across the room on their tether, and Nesta felt the smallest bit of tension melt out of her shoulders.

When she turned back around, Azriel was seated on the arm of one of the couches, his shadows banished. He was studiously examining the fletching on a dart.

“But that’s not important right now,” Cassian said tightly before she could open her mouth to ask, walking past the sitting room to the small, open kitchen. He was calm once more, but no less dangerous, his sharp strides purposeful and predatory. His wings snapped with each and every step. “What was the endgame here, now? Leave the weapons in the snow and hope it melted in time to reveal them during the Rite this year?”

A dip of Azriel’s dark head indicated his agreement. “And then what? A blood bath? For what purpose?”

“You said it. Lord Pollux was furious and humiliated when Kallon died.” Nesta settled herself on the opposite end of the couch and watched Cassian shuffle through the reports and papers stacked atop one of the counters. With a quiet, annoyed grunt, he produced the leather folio. “And someone is falsifying the Qualifiers in a handful of camps. Devlon caught it and his aerial patrols alerted him to something strange happening in the Rite grounds, and he sent it to Rhys. Novices who are too young and too stupid are being waved through to run the Rite this year. Ironcrest isn’t listed among the suspect camps, but they had enough time to relocate a handful of their novices and pass them through a rigged Qualifier somewhere else if that’s their goal. The rebels could be stirring again.”

“If Pollux was going to fix any year, he would have fixed his son’s,” Azriel volleyed back.

There was no sign of the dark, menacing creature that had loomed large against the wall in the calm male next to her, save for the fact that he would not look up and meet Nesta’s eyes.

“Then see what you can make of it.” From behind the couch, Cassian dropped the folio into Azriel’s lap.

“I’m amazed that Devlon managed to put two and two together and come up with four,” Azriel said, laying the dart carefully back in the roll with its brethren. “Does Rhys know?”

“Not unless he read the report before I took it,” Cassian said. He took a sharp breath inward. “Speaking of...”

“Then he doesn’t need to know,” Azriel cut in curtly, flipping through the papers. A glance upward through his dark lashes, still avoiding Nesta, and he caught the way Cassian’s nostrils flared, the way his muscles flexed in his crossed arms, and amended, “Not yet.”

Like Azriel had cupped it between his hands and blown on its last, dying embers, Nesta felt Cassian’s rage flare and catch.

“So, what, then? Wait until the Rite is over and we have to tally the corpses for the official report?” he snapped. “How many weapons are still out there? How many have to die in a rigged Rite before we tell Rhys, Az?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

Cassian scoffed. “Like it would be any surprise if it was.”

Azriel bared his teeth, and Nesta scrambled as the embers flared again, reaching behind her to grip Cassian’s arm when he lurched forward.

“What are we going to tell him, Cassian? The Qualifier is being falsified for what purpose? We found weapons on the Blood Rite grounds, but who put them there? Why? We have no answers . If Rhys isn’t paying attention to this, then what else—”

Cassian scoffed. “So we get Mor to come evaluate the novices, see who actually qualified, and then—”

Nesta couldn’t contain the way her nose wrinkled at the thought of Mor coming to Illyria, coming to intrude on the quiet and calm inside the cabin. Azriel’s gaze finally flickered to her before he locked his sights on Cassian again.

“All of them? Every novice from each camp and village?” he asked, hard and doubtful. “And the weapons? Who is putting them on the fields? Why? How the fuck did Illyrians get—” Azriel set the folio aside and stood, pointing out weapons as he spoke. “Autumn Court bo staffs, poison darts from Dawn, human ash blades?”

Irritated, writhing shadows curled up through the floorboards to follow Azriel’s finger, curling around each pile and rattling them as if to illustrate his point.

“War trophies,” Cassian said, but the annoyed curl of his lip seemed unconvinced. “They could have been picked up off of any battlefield in the last year and a half.”

“This many? In this condition, with no maker’s marks?” Azriel scoffed. The shadows moved, blanketing three more piles of weapons. “And what about these? Rask, Vallahan, mortal Scythia? If Mor sees this, if any officials from Vallahan supplied this while she’s been over there working out the terms of the new treaty...”

Around and around Cassian and Azriel debated and planned and fought, talking through the night as Nesta tried to contain her growing anxiety. Eventually, when it became clear they were arguing in circles, they descended into silence with her.

At some point, they each took turns bathing and changing into soft clothes before returning to the sitting room, and Cassian fixed a pot of strong, bitter coffee for himself and Azriel and an herbal tea for Nesta. Once, he gathered Nesta onto his lap and dozed off with her while Azriel sorted the weapons into new piles; when she woke, Azriel had still been alert, sitting in a heavy armchair with his head tilted back and his wings twitching with pure agitation.

The first rays of dawn were breaking over the mountains when Cassian sighed.

“We can’t lose any of our legions to a rebellion. We don’t have the numbers for it.”

“They would really fight their own people?” Nesta asked, daring a glance at the village just beginning to wake up beyond the darkened windows. There had been so many children ringing the small schoolhouse yesterday morning...

Azriel pressed his fingers into his temples. “Rhys won’t let them live long enough to try if he hears a whisper of defiance.”

Nesta had nothing to say to that—or she was simply too tired to have anything to say that wasn't laced with biting condemnation, so she kept her mouth shut.

Silence fell again, and Azriel stood to prepare a more substantial breakfast that went mostly uneaten. Nesta ripped apart a few slices of toast while Cassian and Azriel only stood and stretched.

“If whoever dropped these finds out we know…” Cassian started.

Azriel hummed in tired agreement. “We need to go back out to see if any other caches surfaced in the night and make sure our tracks are covered.”

“And then?” Cassian asked. “How do we find out who is tampering with the Blood Rite?”

"I can try to recall some agents from Dawn," Azriel said. The tired way he smoothed a finger over the crease in his brow said it wouldn't be easy. "And Mor should probably station herself in Windhaven if Amren can manage the Hewn City."

Privately, Nesta hated the thought of them leaving again. Yesterday had been nerve-wracking and mind-numbingly dull enough.

And all those months of training, of coaxing priestesses up to lessons and learning the trick of shelving books, of stepping back into some sort of role as an ambassador of the Night Court, of slowly but surely finding her footing with Cassian again… They felt pointless when she was stuck in the cabin waiting for them to return.

Rationally, she knew she wasn’t equipped to fly over the Illyrian Steppes and dig clandestine weapons out of the snow. But now, surrounded by talk of qualifiers and rituals and names she only recognized from maps and cold, petty Mor…

She felt useless.

Nesta didn’t like feeling useless.

“I could scry for the weapons and whoever had a part in placing them on the grounds.”

Shock slackened Cassian’s tight expression. “What?”

“I scried for the Trove, didn’t I?” she asked, glancing between them. "You said you could teach me to use my powers, Azriel."

“That is not what I meant when I offered,” Azriel said, his eyes narrowed on her.

Cassian’s steady anger faded, the dangerous gleam in his eyes finally snuffing out. “You offered to train her powers? When?”

“I mentioned practicing with them yesterday. Honing her ability to work with them.” Azriel crossed his arms and turned back to Nesta. “Quashing an Illyrian rebellion isn’t worth the trouble we invite every time you attempt a scrying—”

“That’s why I would train,” Nesta snapped, impatient.

Cassian cast an uneasy glance at the shadows wending their way up Azriel’s legs and then a more pointed look at the weapons. “Az, you said it yourself. There’s no way the Illyrians could manage all of this without outside aid.”

“So we subject Nesta to untold dangers? The last time you tried to scry, you were trapped in the vision, Nesta. Before that, you nearly destroyed the House with your night terror. And before that—”

“Subject,” Nesta sniffed. “I’m offering. Teach me to understand my powers, and maybe the dangers won’t be untold the next time I attempt a scrying.”

Quick and poisonous as one of those darts, Azriel asked in his soft, cold voice, “Why?”

Nesta didn’t bother to answer him.

“We’d need Rhys and Amren anyway if you’re going to scry,” Cassian smoothed his hands over her shoulders. “And they’ll want to know why.”

Nesta shrugged him off. “I won’t need them. Not if you two are there.”

“Are you sure?” Cassian let out a sharp exhale, and something that felt light and warm traveled the length of the tether to her.

Azriel made a low, furious sound in the back of his throat. “You are not considering this.”

“I am considering this," Nesta said, lifting her chin. "He has nothing to do with it."

Azriel turned away. “Well I’m not. I can't even scry, so it’s not possible. It's not up for discussion."

"You can't scry, but you might be able to teach me to communicate with my powers. Those powers include scrying, which requires communication. I have to ask for what I want to see," Nesta said, ticking off each point on her fingers.

"Nes—"

She leaned forward, and Azriel pinned her with a glance. "Shall we sit here for another twelve hours and fight it out?”

“If that’s what it takes," he said. His eyes glimmered.

Nesta's chest tugged for a moment, though whether it was regret or frustration or triumph, she didn't know.

”Fine.”

Cassian simply sighed and tried to break Nesta and Azriel’s stalemate with a fresh round of bacon and eggs that went untouched.

-----

Dawn had barely come and gone when it arrived.

A letter in an envelope bearing her name blinked into existence in the air above her hand. It startled her hard enough to make her yelp, which pulled a snort from Azriel who was still ignoring her and cleaning each panel of his leathers with a soft cloth before affixing them to his body. Nesta bit her tongue to kill the juvenile temptation to stick it out at him and tore it open.

Inside, on creamy parchment stamped with the Night Court’s official seal and folded around another letter, Rhysand had written:

Cherished sister,

A month has passed, and the Autumn princeling awaits an answer. As I said when I shared his proposal with you, the choice is yours.

Do try not to break his heart or start any wars. We still need him.

—R

She did her best to contain her short of derision; she didn’t know what her expectations were for a missive written by Rhys, but he had exceeded them, from the overfond address to the pompous, presumptuous sign off of just his initial.

The enclosed letter from Eris had already been opened and read by someone, likely her busybody sister. It was penned on thick parchment with tasteful, gilded letterhead, if gilded letterhead could ever be considered so. A stark, minimal monogram at the top bore the entwined initials EV as the tinder for a stylized flame.

And a shadow so cold it burned Nesta's fingertips snatched them away.

The letters reappeared across the room a second later in Azriel’s scarred hands. He was so still and so cold as he read that he resembled one of the carved marble antiquities that had once crowded the Archeron estate for a month before moving into some museum or collector's trove when Nesta was a girl. She remembered them still—beautiful men in vicious armor with vacant faces and empty eye sockets. She especially remembered the way Elain shrieked one night when she woke to fetch a glass of water and ran into the fierce, sculpted warrior guarding her door.

And like the sculptures, nothing of Azriel seemed to be warm, to be alive, as his dark eyes found her. Even his shadows were frozen like black ice on his wings.

"What’s this?" he asked with cool, deadly wrath.

#nessriel #nezriel #nessian #azriel shadowsinger #nesta archeron #cassian #nesta #azriel #my fics #viciousnessintelligencefic #a court of thorns and roses fic #a court of silver flames fic #acosf #acotar #the one where the plot finally thickens and azriel is a stubborn nosy bastard

33 notes · View notes

redheadspark · 5 months

Note

Hello!! Could I possibly request Rhys from ACOTAR with prompts #6 and #8?

Hope you’re doing well and taking care of yourself💜💜

A/N - This is cute for Rhsyand! Thanks for requesting this, anon!

Carry

Summary - Rhsyand would do anything to make you happy, including scaring your ex.

Warnings - a mix of angst and fluff

“Let me guess…..the meeting went well?”

You glare at your mate as he leans against the open doorframe into your personal study, watching you nurse a glass of wine and rest your elbows on the desk as you were rubbing your temples in both tiredness and frustration from earlier in the day. With the moon hanging high in the night sky and the upcoming snow threatening to come from the mountains, River House was ready for winter. Most of the house was already decorated for Winter Solstice, though you weren’t in the best of spirits thanks to your ex. You had to have a meeting with him, you being the High Lady in Night Court and your ex being the Head of Security from Winter Court. High Lord Kallias, though firm as a ruler and yet kind, wished to have his Head of Security accompany your meeting with his mate Viviane. You and Viviane were on the best of terms, which was surprising to see your ex as the new hire. Of course, Viviane knew nothing about your old relationship, and you never showed it throughout your meeting and the scheduling of upcoming events.

It was when Vivian left the room when your ex decided to open his mouth. That did it.

“No one was informed that Damon was the new hire, my dear,” Rhsyand reassured you as he walked into your office, grabbing a chair to pull behind him to sit next to you while you were looking over some of the documents that were perched on the desk, “it was only after you left that Kallias told me, and he sends his apologies for bringing you discomfort.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” You hummed, your eyes still scanning over the words to mostly distract yourself, “He had no clue that Damon and I used to be a couple, nor did he know that Damon was the one who broke it off with me,”

“His loss then,” Rhysand said with a shrug and a smirk on his lips, you looking over at him as he cocked his own head at you and his signature grin was evident, “I wished to see the look on his face when he saw you, the High Lady of Night Court,”

“I’d rather go through training with Cassian blindfolded than ever encounter him again,” You grumbled, Rhsyand tutted as he scooted a bit closer to where you were at your desk. Breathing in the musky scent that was along his shirt, feeling his body heat along your own skin, it was already calming to you as he reached over to lace your fingers gently together on top of the desk. He knew how to ground you when you were stressed out or not in the best headspace, he read you like a book and knew exactly how to take care of you. Far before you were mates, which happened instantly after meeting each other when you fled Winter Court to Night Court, Rhysand knew your soul was beyond tender from past heartbreak and betrayal.

“I’ll come with you next time if he’s there,” Rhysand reassured you as you glared at him.

“I can face my ex on my own,” You started to argue with him as he shook his head.

“That is not what I meant,” he hummed, you scanning his violet eyes as he squeezed your hands a bit tighter, “I merely wish to be there to take on some of the load that you carry, merely because you already have a lot on your plate as it is,”

“Rhys, I can handle it,” You reasoned, seeing him sigh and he leaned his shoulder against yours. A small peck of his lips on your nose made him smile.

“Why do you always think you have to do everything on your own?” He asked you with a hint of coyness, “You know I’m here to help carry the load, both the light and the heavy load.”

“I know, my love,” You replied wholeheartedly, “I’m just….not used to letting someone else care of me,”

Rhysand knew of your past, being raised by your single mother and then living on your own for a good amount of time. Food barely on the table and working long hours in the farm fields, then working just as hard on relationships that were only half fulfilled by your ex-partners. Damon included, who was infatuated with a far prettier fae and left you for her because of it. You always felt as though you had to carry heavy loads on your own, needing to face your own burdens and not have others take them on.

But being married to the High Lord of Night Court meant that your burden and work load instantly evaporated. Rhysand made sure of that, from the moment you two were mates he made sure you never had to lift a single finger when it came to getting what you wanted or needed. You were waited on hand and foot, much to your dismay, but that was Rhysand’s way of taking care of you and loving you.

Even after 600 years of marriage, he still loved you fiercely.

“You’ve always been strong for me,” Rhysand reminded you as he tucked a stray hair behind your hair with a simple bush of his finger, “Let me return the favor,”

That alone made you raise your brow at him, knowing fully well that your husband and mate must have had something up his sleeve. If there was one thing you knew about Rhysand, it was his great knack for brewing up a plan that could stir up a bit of drama. Mostly for fun and for his amusement, but also for a purpose. And if there was another thing that you knew about the High Lord of Night Court, it was his devotion to you.

If anyone crossed his mate, it was a death sentence.

“What did you have in mind?” You asked him, seeing him shrug simply as he took your wine glass to take a small sip.

“Leave it to your mate,” He replied as he handed you his glass again and gave you a small kiss on the lips.

“I’m glad we’re meeting again, Kallias. We have much to discuss,”

“Of course, Rhsyand.”

You were sitting next to your husband as you were both in the meeting room at River House, the first snowfall hitting Velaris while the High Lord and Lady of Winter Court were on the opposite side of the table from you. It was a few days after your talk to Rhysand. In fact, he called the meeting with Winter Court the morning after when he made sure you were going to sleep in for the morning, clearing your schedule for the entire day, and then wishing to dote on you after he quick message to Kallias.

You were wondering why he would wish to meet at your home, though he gave a brief explanation to debriefing the new Court negotiations and safety protocol, not to mention the Community Centers you and Viviane were in charge of in your respected Courts.

But that also meant Damon would be in attendance. You were already not looking forward to the meeting because of that, even though you loved the company of the High Lord and Lady of Winter Court and the details you were going to go over. But your mate, always a step ahead, had something up his sleeve.

You were sporting a more casual dress for the meeting, one of the ones Rhysand gifted you for your birthday a century ago that showed off your curves and the highlights in your hair. He matched in a dark suit himself, lacing your fingers together on top of the table with the stacked papers that were going to be discussed over while Kallias and Viviane were in their own Winter Court Tavel clothes.

Damon in his leathers was right behind them, his hands folded behind him as he was perched in the corner and eyeing both yourself and Rhsyand. You could sense the tensity in the room from his eyes going a bit wide at the appearance of Rhysand, there were whispers of his disbelief and slight discomfort years back when you and Rhysand became mates. Viviane even said to you at your wedding ceremony that Damon seemed rather mad at the thought of you two being together, but that was merely the past.

You knew at that table that Rhysand had a motive with Damon, mostly because he crossed a line with his wife.

“I think we should go over safety with our borders,” Rhysand explained, you looked over at him as he was gesturing to the top of the stack of papers with his signature smile on his lips, “Although a lot of the Courts are at peace now since the war, there is always a slim chance of our safety being compromised. With the allegiance that we have, I think we should stay a step ahead,”

“I have no problem with that,” Kallias hummed in reply, gesturing to Damon behind him, “Damon has recruited plenty more soldiers for our patrols,”

Damon gave a small tilt of his head as a friendly gesture to Rhysand, though he briefly looked over at you before he looked ahead again. You felt Rhysand squeeze your hand gently, no one else noticing but you as your husband spoke up again.

“We are more than willing to have some of the Illyrian soldiers that are ready from our camps to come help with the training,” Rhysand suggested, “In fact, our Spymaster himself has some great ideas that he would love to talk over with Damon,”

As if on cue, you heard the door opening to the left, you all looked over to see Azriel coming into the room swiftly with his shadows attached to his tucked wings. You felt the sense of tension heighten in the room, mostly from the Winter Court side of the table and from Damon himself. HIs body langue alone was stiffer than a few seconds before, his eyes drilled on the Spymaster as Azriel walked over to stand right behind you in your chair.

You almost felt a lick of his shadows along your shoulder as his intense hazel eyes were on Damon, giving you a small sense of comfort as he was showing no sign of mercy to your ex. Even Rhysand smiled widely, then talked to Kallias to start the meeting while Azriel and Damon were staring at each other with the table in the middle. Perhaps Rhysand was using this point now as a distraction for him and Kallias to start their meeting, your eyes drifting back and forth from him to Damon.

You saw it instantly, Damon was sweating bullets.

Azriel was a friend to you, being your escort on court visits in the past and he had helped train you in some self defense skills. But the one thing you loved about Azriel was his loyalty to Night Court, specifically to Rhysand. They both had history since they were mere children, Azriel willing to go to the ends of the world for him.

Which meant he would do the same for you.

You were half listening to the meeting at hand, yet your mind was occupied elsewhere . Although you couldn’t see him since he was still standing right behind your chair, Azriel must have been giving Damon his infamous stare. The stare of intimidation, of power, of distinct knowledge he could kill him with a snap of the neck if he tried anything with his High Lady

Damon gulped. He got the message loud and clear

You had to smile, knowing fully well this was Rhysand’s doing. You loved him ten times more.

The End.

#rhysand x reader #rhysand #rhysand x y/n #rhysand x you #rhysand x oc #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #a court of mist and fury #a court of silver flames #a court of wings and ruin #acomaf #acotar fanfiction #acotar fic #acosf #acowar

188 notes · View notes

bearbluebooks · 7 months

Text

Below Deck: Prythian Commission

Captain Azriel and chief stew Gwyn. I commissioned this beautiful piece by @sophielouisedraws (find her on instagram) for my fan fiction Below Deck: Prythian. She is such an extremely talented and incredibly kind artist.

Repost allowed after two days (19/10/2023) with credit to the artist and permission by me.

I’m obsessed with the reality tv show and who doesn’t want captain Azriel in their life?

Read if you like: age gap, enemies to lovers, forbidden romance, forced proximity, second chance romance.

✨excerpt from chapter three:

Two scarred hands held her tight.

Wind softly blew through Azriel’s obsidian strands and Gwyn couldn’t help herself, as her hands moved to join the wind.

Time seemed to still as their eyes found each other.

Breaking the silence, Azriel declared “I’m here now.

And somehow those words were missing in her soul.

I’m here now.

A breath of connection swept throughout her body, cleansing everything that was, to make space for all that was meant to be.

Him and her.

A smile as big as the setting sun illuminated her face.

Home.

#gwynriel #gwyn x azriel #acotar fanfiction #gwynriel fanart #gwynriel fic #gwynrielcommission #azriel shadowsinger #gwyn acosf #gwyneth berdara #acotar #a court of silver flames #acotar alternate universe #ao3 fanfic

185 notes · View notes

shadowdaddies · 6 months

Note

Hello! I want to tell you that I just discovered your blog and I love the stories you write. Can I please request something?

Helion and the reader are on the battlefield, and the reader takes a hit meant for Helion, and then the bond snaps for him, the reader survives and declares her love for Helion, telling him that she has long known that he is her mate, but wasn't sure that he might have feelings for her. Thank you!

thank you! I really enjoyed writing this, thanks for the request love💜

My Only Sunshine

Helion x Valkyrie!Reader

Warnings: canon-typical violence, blood/injury, death, not proofread

Flying over the battlefield on your pegasus, you had taken to the skies along with the rest of the Valkyries to battle Koschei’s baitals. He’d sent the vampiric creatures as reinforcements among his air forces, the bony monsters searching the grounds below for dying bodies to possess on the battlegrounds.

An ear-piercing shriek echoed through the air as you cut down a baital, watching as its lifeless body fell to the ground. What you saw below caused you to do a double-take - Helion was battling off four soldiers as he clutched a wound on his side, another baital circling above him, waiting for him to be struck dead. The scene shot horror through you, and without thinking you steered your pegasus toward the ground.

You leapt off the steed to allow it time to swoop back up to the skies, and you rolled gracefully to land on the ground. Your eyes scanned the line of soldiers ahead of you as you drew up your sword in defense. Charging through the battlefield, your focus was only on getting to Helion by whatever means necessary.

You could not afford the time to think of what might happen to your mate - the beautiful and kind male fighting bravely ahead of you - if he did not make it out of this battle before you confessed your feelings for him. You had known that Helion was your mate since the first time you met him, when the Valkyries began training with his pegasus.

You fell for him quickly, his playful and joyous nature bringing a light to your life you didn’t realize you had needed - and you watched as the sun to your moon began to fade.

With a scream of fury, you unleashed yourself upon the soldiers, leaping into the air with a supernatural strength to cut down the baital that was circling overhead. You landed in front of Helion, his shocked eyes focused on you as you checked his wound. You panted out, “we have to get you to a healer, Li,” just in time for him to look behind you, pure fear flashing across his features.

You turned, seeing only a blur of a creature aiming an ash arrow at Helion before you dove in front of him, a searing pain permeating through your body as though it coursed through every vein. A single tear fell from your cheek as Helion caught you, his eyes lining with tears while he held your head in his broad hand and whispered, “why?”

The last words you were able to breathe out as you held your hand to Helion’s cheek were, “my mate,” before the world faded to black.

~~~

Your pegasus had never kicked you in the head, but you imagined that how you currently felt would be quite a similar feeling. Overcome with thirst and an aching body all over, you groaned at the pain that accompanied merely attempting to open your eyes.

You could feel the soft mattress beneath you, silk sheets cool against your stiff muscles as you further awoke from what must have been a deep sleep. Shock overtook your system as you recalled your latest memories of the battlefield and Helion being in danger, and you jolted upright with panic.

Your body did not respond well to the sudden movement, and you yelled out in pain as a blinding pain in your ribs took your breath away. The sound of someone fumbling awake accompanied your gasps for air, and suddenly familiar warm hands were on your back and chest, easing you to lay back down on the mattress.

You looked up to see Helion in a state of disarray you could never have imagined for him, and your heart ached seeing him in pain. You tried to croak out words, choking on the dryness of your throat. Helion quickly grabbed you water, gently propping you up against the pillows as he helped you drink until you were satisfied.

Before you could attempt to get out the words you wanted to, however, Helion took your hand in his and squeezed, taking a deep breath as he seemed to struggle for words since the first time you had met him. Without words from him, you felt his emotions as though they were your own, and you realized - you were feeling him through the bond.

He must have sensed your emotions as well, his eyes showing a glimmer of hope that had been missing since you’d awoken. He brought your hand to his lips and kissed it. “My mate,” Helion whispered as he stared at you in adoration. “I’ve always been awed by you, but I wouldn’t have dreamed to have been blessed to have a female like you as my mate until the bond snapped for me, when you-“

His voice broke off then, the unspoken weight of your sacrifice hanging in the air. You tilted Helion’s face to look at you as you admired his beauty. “Li, I would give my life for yours a thousand times over. I was lucky to be blessed with you as my mate, but you are so much more than that to me. You are a great male, a great leader, and you make the world a better place. I love you, not because you are my mate, but because you are you, Li.”

A tear made its way down Helion’s cheek at your words, and he laughed as he leaned down to kiss you gently, mindful of your injuries. Bending down to nip at your ear, Helion practically growled as he whispered, “heal quickly, my love, because I have a list of ways I will replace your pain with pleasure... for the rest of our lives.” You giggled at that, happy that your mate was feeling his flirtatious self again, and that you would spend the rest of your days with the one person who brought you the most joy.

202 notes · View notes

azrielslightintheshadows · 5 months

Note

You've got me on an Eris kick now oml

Could I request an Eris brat tamer fic please?

Reader is a healer coming into his court to serve him now that he is high lord. But she is also kind of chaotic and free spirited which gets under his skin but he loves it none the less. Reader is just a feral little wood herbalist that steals his heart but he needs to tame her 😂 honestly just have fun with it, throw in some sexual tension and flirting in and I'll be happy as a clam

Thank you for all you do! I hope everything in your world is a bit brighter from your last update 🩷

-leaf anon 🌿

Sucker for a brat.

Eris x f!Reader

Masterlist.

Warnings; smut (18+) , brat taming. The smut is towards the end and I've marked where it starts.

Hello leaf anon!!! I'm so happy you're back! I was thinking about you the other day and suddenly you requested this and I was like "Omg I summoned the leaf anon". Hope you enjoy this!

It was the second time that Helion begged you to go to the Autumn court as a healer. The first time you immediately told him no, saying that you had way too much respect for yourself to serve Beron, and Helion accepted that and didn’t press the matter. Now though that Beron is dead, and his eldest son Eris became High Lord you couldn’t find any excuse to deny. So, you packed your few stuff and left for the Autumn court hoping that Eris is nothing like his late father.

The moment you stepped into the Forest House you cursed under your breath. The house more like palace was huge, and you were sure that you would get lost at some point. A maid approached you with a kind smile on her face.

“Welcome to the Autumn Court” she said, “The High Lord is waiting for you in the throne room”.

You snorted and mumbled “Of course” before following her.

You entered the throne room and glanced around, everything was covered with red and brown ornaments, five huge chandeliers were hanging from the ceilings, decorated with rubies and sapphires. A red narrow carpet covered the path between the door and the huge throne on the dais. Your breath hitched at the sight of the High Lord sprawled on his throne, his thighs spread wide, and his head cocked to the side, his eyes were scanning you and a smirk appeared on his face.

“Hello little fox” he purred.

You scowled and stood in front of him, bowing your head in a mocking way. Amusement filled his eyes and the smirk turned to a mischievous grin.

“Oh I see, we’re going to have way too much fun” he said.

“I’m here to do my job, you can have fun on your own… my lord”. You replied.

The maid gasped at your reply and hurried off with her head bowed.

“Y/n my dear is this the way to speak to your high lord? I can have your tongue for that.” He purred.

His attitude and the velvet in his voice made your insides burn, and you hoped he didn’t notice your arousal.

“My apologies my lord I didn’t mean to bruise your ego.” You smirked.

The smile left his face, and he cleared his throat.

“Nissa is going to show you to your room and infirmary” He spoke and pointed at the door, an old female was standing there, her tired honey eyes fell on you, and she smiled.

“Enjoy the rest of your night” you smiled and left, not missing the glare he sent your way.

You winked at Nissa and strolled past her to the big hall.

“So where is my room?” You chirped.

“Follow me my lady” she chuckled “it seems like the high lord found a perfect match”

You snorted at that.

“I just don’t really like the authority… all those high lords are so cocky and demanding. Why can’t we all appreciate the magic in us without all those laws and regulations” you huffed.

“Those laws are what keeps us from being savages” she smiled, and you shrugged.

It’s not that you didn’t appreciate the system that Prythian has, you just wanted to be free to make your own choices and create a life you enjoyed.

She stopped in front of a wooden door and looked at you.

“This is your room, the infirmary is on the other side of the house. I will come get you in the morning and take you there.” She said and bowed her head before turning around and leaving.

“Good night” you shouted and opened the door.

The room was slightly smaller than the one in Helion’s palace, but you didn’t mind it, it looked cozy, and you didn’t even have that much stuff to fill it.

All the furniture were made from wood, a big bed was set in the middle of the room, the headboard against a chestnut-colored wall and a small coffee table was placed next to the big window across the door. You walked inside and hummed when you noticed a door that led into a bathroom. You placed your bags on the bed and started unpacking. The closet was full of clothes, their style and color screamed autumn court making you roll your eyes.

After you were done unpacking you took a hot bath and then laid on the bed, you knew you had a long day ahead and you needed to rest.

To your mortification your dreams were filled with a certain high lord bending you over his throne and wrecking your body.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 🍁 🍂 ☁️˙✧˖°

Eris was sitting on his throne, his hands shaking with annoyance. He couldn’t believe the way the small female spoke to him, she has a fire in her that’s for sure and he knew that being around her would challenge his own fire until he exploded. He thought about all the ways he could make you shut up and each one of them made his cock harden. The way you looked didn’t really help with his arousal, you were a sight for sore eyes and Eris felt a primal need to claim you even though he only saw you once.

He rubbed his face and started walking towards his room stopping in front of your door for a moment. Your sweet scent filled his nostrils, and he clenched his fists. He shook his head and hurried off to his room. The moment he walked inside he stripped his clothes and grabbed himself pumping fast and hard, letting all the annoyance out as he came on his stomach with a groan.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 🍁 🍂 ☁️˙✧˖°

You woke up frustrated, your dreams flashing in your eyes making you groan. You got dressed in one of your day court dresses not wanting to give him the satisfaction of seeing you in Autumn colors. As if on cue Nissa knocked on your door.

“Good morning my lady, I’m here to take you to the infirmary” she smiled when you opened.

“Good morning Nissa, please call me y/n I don’t like the titles” you snorted.

“Of course” she smirked and started walking.

“What are you smirking about?” You asked.

“Our high lord likes females with strong spirits”.

“Well too bad those females don’t like him” you chuckled.

Nissa shook her head and grinned.

You walked past the throne room, and you peeked inside, no one was there.

“He is out on a hunt” Nissa said.

“I don’t care”.

“Okay”

You really wanted to slap the smug look off her face but she seemed like a nice person, so you just clicked your tongue.

You reached a room without a door and walked inside, a large table was set in the middle, the wall across the door was made of glass, offering a view of the forest bellow and a counter filled with bowls and tools was placed against it. You hummed with excitement and approached the counter. You examined the jars filled with different types of herbs and picked a piece of paper and a quill. You wrote down what else you needed and gave it to Nissa.

“I will need those things”.

“Okay I will send someone to get them. Do you need me for anything else?” She asked.

“No, I’m okay, I will make some basic ointments in case something happens and we don’t have enough time” you smiled and picked an apron.

“If you need any help just give a shout” she said and left.

You grabbed two plantain leaves and placed them in the mortar and began squashing them with the pestle, adding some oil now and then and humming a song your mother used to sing to you. You were so lost in the rhythm and in the healing power that was flowing out of you into the ointment that you jumped when you heard the barking of hounds. You peeked outside and saw around 8 hounds running towards the gates of the house, they kept spinning around and barking towards the woods. You furrowed your eyebrows and moved closer to the glass, trying to see what had them so excited, and there he was… Eris emerged from the trees, dressed in a maroon tunic decorated with rubies and tight pants. His red hair a mess from the wind and his face flushed and filled with mischief.

He lifted his gaze and his eyes fell on you, a predatory smile taking over. You rolled your eyes ignoring the shivers and returned to your herbs.

As you stirred the ointment adding more oil you felt his presence in the room.

“High lord” you greeted without looking at him.

He came next to you and sat on the counter.

“What’s this?” He nodded to the mortar.

“I’m making an ointment, this is used to address infections and heal both burns and wounds, it also helps with insect bites.” You explained and opened a small container to pour the substance in.

Eris hummed and gripped the container keeping it still to help you.

“Thank you” you said once you were done.

“Any particular reason why you decided to make an ointment for burns?” He smirked.

You gave him a questioning look and he placed his finger beneath your chin pushing your head up and exposing your neck more.

“Are you afraid that I’m going to burn you little fox?” He purred.

You huffed and smacked his hand away.

“I’m not afraid of you my lord”.

“You should be” his voice was even deeper and raspier than before.

“I doubt that” you rolled your eyes.

In a blink he had you bent over the counter, his hand hovered above your ass and his face rested against your shoulder. You bit back a moan and grabbed the edges of the counter.

“Careful how you use your tongue little fox, you won’t like the consequences” he growled.

Your brain stopped working and you arched your back.

“Who said I won’t like it” your voice was low and sensual as you spoke making him groan.

“Don’t play with this fire, even your ointment won’t be able to save you afterwards” and with that he was gone.

You stayed bent over the counter for a few minutes trying to process what just happened. You only met him last night and the need to have him was already making you mad, you couldn’t imagine surviving here forever or at least until he found another healer and released you from your duty. You couldn’t focus on making any more salves or ointments, your power felt uncontrollable and with a sigh you removed your apron and left the room.

Nissa was fixing some paintings on the walls of the big hall, she took a step back and smiled when she saw you approaching.

“Are you done with your herbs?” She asked.

“Yes couldn’t really focus, so I only made one” you shrugged.

Nissa smirked and nodded knowingly.

“Do you usually pry into your high lord’s life or you just want to get on my nerves?” You huffed.

“I raised him child, I know him since the day he was born. I just want him to be happy.” She spoke.

“Aren’t you afraid that he is going to punish you if he finds out what you’ve been saying to me?” Your question was genuine and Nissa could tell.

She sighed.

“Eris is nothing like his father, he respects his people, and he is trying to make his court a better place. Most of us speak freely without any fear from the moment Beron let his last breath. Others are a bit skeptical about Eris, but they are slowly trusting him.”

“You really believe in him huh?” You quirked a brow.

“He is the savior of this court.” She said and turned back to the paintings.

“Where is lady autumn?”

Nissa smiled lovingly “at the day court, she left the day you came.”

“She went to Helion?” You gaped at her.

“Yes Eris told her that he didn’t mind, that he wants her to be happy so she left” Nissa looked at you again “close your mouth child you’ll catch a fly”

You scowled at her and left with a huff ignoring her soft giggles.

This time you didn’t peek into the throne room, you just marched into your bedroom lost deep in thought. Eris’ scent was still on you, making your thighs clench and your heart skip a beat.

Just when you thought he couldn’t get any hotter, Nissa proved you wrong.

With a groan you fell on the bed and pressed your face against the pillow.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 🍁 🍂 ☁️˙✧˖°

Eris was sitting on his throne watching as his advisors bickered with each other about taxes and how they could make more money. They didn’t say that clearly, but Eris could tell this was all they cared about. He caught your scent as you passed the throne room and his breath hitched. His mind going back to the moment he had you bent over the counter, he noticed how you bit back a moan and how your waist arched lifting your ass further for him. He had met strong females before, but they never crossed the line that would make them brats. You on the other hand were way past that line and his body ached to tame you. His cock hardened at the thought, and he huffed interrupting his advisors, the older males stared at him in question.

“The taxes are fine, we don’t need that much money anyway and my people won’t be able to survive another raise. Meeting’s over” he announced and got up, fixing his crown to make a statement and leaving the room.

As he was walking towards his room, he heard a door opening and then a snort. He turned around and his eyes narrowed as he spotted you.

“Nice crown my lord” you mocked and started walking the other way. To be honest you didn’t know why you mocked him, he looked extremely hot with that crown on his head.

In a blink his strong hand gripped your elbow, and he turned you around pressing your body against him.

“I would believe your mockery if you weren’t drooling” he smirked and leaned closer, his nose almost touching yours.

“You wish” you challenged him with a matching smirk.

He grabbed your jaw and squeezed your cheeks.

“Do I need to fuck the brat out of you?” He growled. Your whole body wanted you to scream yes and fall on your knees for him but the wicked side of you took over and you gripped his neck squeezing lightly.

“You couldn’t even if you tried” your words muffled by his grip on your jaw.

His eyes flashed with dominance and a wicked smile appeared on his face, he moved his free hand and grabbed your wrist removing your hand from his neck and pinning it above your head. Ropes of fire kept your hand in place, and he grabbed your other hand too, giving it the same fate. He kicked your legs open and placed himself between, his strong body pressed against you and his bulge grinding on your thigh.

“I’m going to ruin you little fox” he purred and started biting and sucking the soft skin on your neck.

You let out a soft moan, and clenched your eyes shut.

Eris picked a dagger from his belt and cut the bottom of your dress in one swift move, he pushed the sides behind you gaining access to your needy heat. You were clenching onto nothing, and whines left your lips.

“Stop whining little brat, do you think that you deserve to be touched?” he growled and knelt in front of you, his fire keeping you in place as he grabbed your legs and placed them on his shoulders. He darted his tongue over your swollen clit.

“Please Eris, I’ll be good” you cried out.

He removed his face from your heat and lifted his eyebrow.

“How did you call me?” he asked, and you gulped. You fucked up and you knew it.

“I’m sorry my lord” your voice barely above a whisper and filled with need. You usually wouldn’t act like that, but his dominance made you want to be a good girl for him, and the predatory glint he had in his eyes promised you a good time.

He latched on your clit again, adding pressure with his teeth and making your whole body tremble, his tongue moved between your folds and started fucking you.

You were a moaning mess, the sloppy sounds of his mouth on your cunt and the cold touch of his crown on your thigh only added to your pleasure.

“Please my lord” you cried out not sure what you were pleading him for. You ground your hips on his face and he let out a growl, his strong hands moving to your hips to keep you steady. The growl sent the perfect amount of vibrations to your nerves and you felt your release approaching.

“You wanna cum on my face little fox?” he hummed.

“Yes yes oh please yes” you screamed and the moment your pleasure reached its peak he stopped. The ghost of his touch still there as he watched your eyes filling with tears. His wicked grin was back.

“I’m going to ruin you” he purred as he got up and grabbed your thighs, wrapping them around his waist. He untied the laces of his pants and took himself out giving a few slow pumps before lining up to your entrance.

Your mouth watered at the sight of him, he was huge and leaking.

“Red means stop” he informed you and slammed his hips on yours. You felt like he was cutting you in half and you let out a scream.

“That’s it, keep screaming for me” he breathed and began snapping his hips at a punishing pace. The hall was filled with your cries and the sound of skin slapping. Your cries could be heard everywhere in the palace and especially in the throne room where his advisors were gathering their stuff. The sounds made them furrow their eyebrows and exit the room to see what was happening.

One of the males gasped at the sight of you making Eris whip his heard in their direction never stopping his thrusts. They started walking to the other side where the gates were. Eris lifted his pointer finger at them.

“No. Stay and watch as I punish the little brat” he growled, and the males froze. They gaped at the two of you.

The whole scene if front of you made your blood boil in pleasure.

“I’m gonna cum my lord” you moaned.

“Hold it” he gritted his teeth and began thrusting harder and deeper.

One rope of fire moved in the top of your dress and slithered around your nipple while another one toyed with your clit. You were seeing stars, your screams were even louder. Making two of the advisors moan as they palmed themselves.

“Leave. Now” Eris snarled, possessiveness taking over.

“Mine” he growled in your ear making the bond snap and that was your undoing.

“Let me cum my lord please” you begged. “Cum” he ordered, and your body trembled.

“Oh Eris” you cried and arched your back, your head pushing against the wall as the pleasure took over, you felt like you were floating.

His thrusts flattered and small grunts left his throat.

He snapped his hips once, twice and then buried himself deep inside you, warm ropes of cum painting your walls as his cock throbbed.

“Fuck” he growled and pressed his forehead on your shoulder.

You were breathing heavily. Exhaustion taking over and you closed your eyes to calm down.

“I’m not done with you my sweet little mate, this was for my own pleasure that’s why you enjoyed it. Now I’m going to fucking punish you.” He growled and carried you to his room.

“Oh boy” you sighed.

Third time writing smut. What do you think?

290 notes · View notes