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bluelancess · 3 months

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Midnight Blooms | Elriel AU part 1/?

Sports romance, college AU.

Summary: When Elain is told by her father, a ruthless politician, that she is to marry the son of one of his closest friends, Lucien Vanserra, to assure her father’s win on the next election, she has no other choice but to agree. What she never expected was her convictions being tested by a tall, devastatingly beautiful black-haired hockey player who moved in right next door. And if there was one thing Elain was certain of, was that Azriel posed a dangerous threat to the previously dormant desires roaming inside her. And she needed to stay far, far away from him.

Tags: forbidden love, arranged marriage, forced proximity, modern setting, slow burn

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Read on AO3.

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Chapter 1

I never saw you coming

ELAIN

I never thought the house where I’ve only lived for a year would become the place I’d end up calling home, but here we are.

It’s a two story brick structure, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The kitchen is big enough for me to spend dead moments baking, and discovering new recipes, the living room is open, and gorgeous, with a somewhat high ceiling, a chimney and big windows that showcase the back patio beautifully. My favorite thing, no doubt, is the garden. The one in the back to be more exact. It is the main reason why I fell in love with this property last year when my sister Nesta, and I were hunting for a place to live during the school year.

The big patch of land was pretty much dead.

The landlord said he didn’t have time to waste planting flowers or trees, and laughed at me when I mentioned the immense potencial this place has. Right now, is unrecognizable from how it was when we moved in. I have a little vegetable garden at the far right corner, the newest addition, it has been a pain on my butt to get the flimsy vegetables to grow, but I think I’m going in a good direction.

Right below the windows, there are planters with my favorite flowers, when some of them get to big to share the space I move them into either the soil along the sides of the wooden walls separating this property from the ones beside it, or I give them their own special little planter and distribute them along the backyard's sitting area. It depends on my mood, really.

Anyway, I haven’t been here in two months, since last semester ended, and summer break began. Father has us stay with him during vacations, and holidays, and although I wanted to sneak out and come check and make sure my flowers were nice and watered, he didn’t allow it. Good thing I decided to ask Mrs. Wade to help me during the months I’d be away. Being the sweet old lady she is, she agreed in a heartbeat, only demanding I bake her some of my special chocolate chip cookies once I returned.

I’ve been anticipating coming back here so much, that feeling absolutely nothing when I do, wasn’t really what I was expecting.

Guess it has everything to do with the silly, little fact, that I’m getting married in six months.

Twenty-six weeks.

A blink of an eye, in wedding planning time.

Even worse considering I don’t even know the man I’m supposed to marry and spend the rest of my life with.

Father and his dreadful ideas you can't refuse.

“We should call the police,” Nesta says, sitting angrily at my side by the breakfast table, although her eyes remain glued to the little kitchen window, it has an excellent view to the house on the other side of the street. “Look at them! They totally sell drugs.”

She crosses her arms, and furrows her thin brows, her mouth is slanted on a grim pout. I blink, rapidly, trying to make sense of her words. I have no idea what she might be referring to, but Nesta has a reputation of hating everyone and everything that crosses her path, so I don’t take her words very seriously.

“Sure,” I reply, bringing my cup of tea to my lips for a sip. It’s cold, and doesn’t taste as good as it usually does.

How long have we been sitting here in the kitchen? We got back here at lunch time, and we've been cleaning and setting things up all afternoon. It feels like just seconds since I boiled water to have a nice cup of tea and relax a little, but considering my cup is still full, and mostly cold... I have a habit of drifting too far into my thoughts and having trouble coming back.

“I’m serious, Elain.” She insists. “It would be just our luck to end up being neighbors with…” she points at them with a firm and accusing finger, “jerks like that.”

I look out the window, and my lips part when I see the reason of my sister's fury.

Three guys. All tremendously tall, broad shoulders, dark hair, tattoos covering their tan skin. All of them, shirtless, wearing low rise sweat pants, laughing and playing around like little kids on the front yard, bottles of beer in their hands.

“Who was the owner of that house, again?” Nesta asks, still not turning around to look at me. “Didn’t our landlord mention he knew them? Maybe he can get me their number, I’m sure a call would solve this.”

“I don’t see the problem,” I say and she lets out a tiny, frustrated groan. “They’re just guys. It might be nice to have someone our age living near us, for the first time in forever.”

“You say that now, but when you can’t sleep because of the noise they’ll make throwing parties… then you’ll agree with me.”

“You like parties.” I point out.

“Not when I want to rest.” Nesta points out. "You're so unbothered because your bedroom isn't the one looking out into the street."

Her bad mood makes me smile a little. What can possibly be bothering her so much? She loves male company most of the time.

“Are you sure that’s really the problem here?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Now she looks at me, with liquid fire in her eyes at the accusation. I giggle. She might think she is hiding her true feelings well, but I know her better than she’d like to admit. She's spent all summer away from men because father would be furious if he found out one of his daughters is sleeping around, the tabloids would go crazy if it got leaked to the press, and he'd probably cut her allowance off. Which is why she behaved.

But father is not here. And if some guy is stupid enough to not recognize my sister as the eldest daughter of our soon to be governor, then it is fair game for her.

“What are you guys talking about?” Feyre asks, coming into the kitchen wearing a knitted sweater and denim shorts.

“Nesta is drooling over those guys.”

“I'm absolutely not!” Nesta says, standing up to point towards the window, moving the think, embroidered curtain to a side, to show Feyre the show. “I’m just saying that they don’t look like the kind of guys you want to have as your neighbors. They probably cook meth in the basement.”

Feyre’s mouth opens and her eyes follows the three muscled man like a hungry beast following their prey. When she notices this, she shakes her head and takes a step back, awkwardly walking towards the fridge to retrieve a chilled bottle of water.

“They’re fine… I mean, they don’t look like meth dealers,” she says, and clears her throat. “How come you guys never mentioned you had such hot guys living only a couple feet away, huh?”

“Because we didn’t.” Nesta says, looking out of the window again, I’m pretty sure she’s giving them her signature death stare. “The house was empty last semester.”

Feyre shrugs.

“I don’t see the problem.” She brings the bottle water to her lips, peeking through the window once more.

“That’s what I said.”

“You two are too naive.” Nesta says, and then in a flash, her back straightens, and her shoulders tense. “Motherfucker.” She mutters, shaking her head from once side to the other so violently, the braid on the top of her hair looses a bit. “I know who these idiots are!”

“What?” I ask, standing up from the table, to peek at the window with them. Feyre is pretending not to be as intrigued as she is, and Nesta is just spewing curses. “Who are they?”

“The fucking hockey players, you know, the Night Beasts. Won the hockey tournament last year, or whatever it is called.” She says, and right as the words come out of her mouth, one of the guys, the tallest one, with shoulder length dark brown hair, half of it put up on a messy man bun, looks straight at us, the mischievous smile in his face only growing. “Is he looking at us?” Nesta lowers her voice as if she spoke a little louder he might listen, and the three of us freeze in place.

“Can he even see us?” Feyre asks.

“The window is glass, of course he can see us, Feyre.”

"I meant from that far."

And then, after a beat, the guy blows us a kiss and Nesta seems to me fuming at the ears.

“Cocky bastard,” she says, closing the curtain and grabbing our arms to get us away from the scene of the crime. “That’s it. I’m kicking them out.”

“You can’t kick them out, it’s not your house.” Feyre says, leaving the water bottle on top of the breakfast table, looking at me with concern. Neither of us really understands exactly what has Nesta so riled up, but she’s not listening to reason right now, and she most definitely won’t stop until all the anger boiling inside her disappears.

“What are you going to do?” I ask, following her with quick steps towards the main entry of our house. She rapidly puts on some shoes, fixes her braid, and storms out the house with a very scary aura surrounding her.

“Should we go too?” Feyre asks at my right. “She might kill them.”

“She won’t kill them,” I assure her, not sounding sure at all.

“Hey, you assholes! This is a family neighborhood.” We both hear her scream, and come to the silent agreement that yes, we should probably go stop her. Feyre moves faster than I do, crossing the threshold in three long, clean steps.

“Hey, there!” The tall guy says, waving a hand at us. “Maybe you should get binoculars next time, my abs are more impressive up close. That is, if you don’t have the balls to actually cross the street, our door is always open.”

“Don’t be a jerk, Cassian.” One of the guys say, he’s the shortest of the three, not less handsome, his torso also covered in dark ink, hair short, and perfectly combed. He looks friendlier than his friend. As soon as I join my sisters, I notice that Feyre’s feet are glued to the floor, her stare unmoving from the new guy’s face, and when he notices my sister, his eyes glisten at the attention, his smirk grows, and then he has the audacity to wink at her.

Feyre’s cheeks turn rosy pink, but she rolls her eyes.

“This is me being polite, Rhys,” Cassian replies, not breaking the eye contact with my sister, and hey, props to him for having the balls to face Nesta, not many have survived.

“Ladies, I’m sorry my brother here has the manners of a brute,” Rhys says, walking slowly to the side of the street, right where their front yard ends.

“I couldn’t care less about your brothers manners,” Nesta says. “This is a residential street, parties or loud noises after ten p.m are not allowed. And you don’t look like the kind of guys that live a very… quiet life. So, pack your shit up, and find somewhere else to live.”

“Nesta…” Feyre warns.

“Wait,” The Cassian guy says, pointing at my sister with one of his fingers. “I remember you.”

“What?” Nesta says, and I approach my sister until I’m standing next to Feyre.

Cassian laughs, throwing his head back as he does, like he can’t really contain it. “Don’t play dumb, now.”

“You don’t know me.” Nesta states as a fact.

“Oh, I know you,” he shoots back. “Very well, I might add.”

Nesta arches a brow. And the tension between them is so strong, it’d probably give you whiplash if it cut in half.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The alley behind Elysian the last week of February? Ring any bells?” He teases her, and I chew the inside of my cheeks, watching their word war is like waiting for a grenade to explode.

Now it makes more sense why Nesta was so riled up by the presence of these men. She would’ve never admitted it to us, though. Not if we tried to pry the truth out of her with the worst kind of torture. She’s closed off like that when it comes to the men she dates, or sleeps with. Dating is not really on her dictionary.

“Seems like you have it committed to memory,” She teases him back, and Feyre looks at me surprised, biting her lower lip to keep herself from laughing. “Can’t say the same, I don’t waste time remembering guys who are… underwhelming, to say the least.”

Cassian’s confident smile disappears in a blink.

“You gave me a fake phone number, you know?” He tells her, like he’s wanted to say that to her for months, but never had the chance.

“Oh, I did?” Nesta feigns innocence. “Guess I couldn’t be bothered to remember my real one.”

Feyre chuckles beside me, then clears her throat. “We should go back inside.”

“I’m done here, anyway,” Nesta says, turning around on her heels. But before she can fully go back to the house, she says to them, lifting a single finger in the air: “One transgression to my rules, and I’m calling the police.”

“You’ll be joining in on the fun soon, gorgeous, don’t worry,” Cassian tells her, his confidence is back in place, like Nesta never gave a life threatening punch to his ego.

“In your dreams, asshole.”

“Believe it or not, my dreams come true all the time,” he tells her. “Mostly the dirty ones.”

Nesta rolls her eyes, and goes back inside of the house, closing the door with a bang.

“Sorry about that, my sister can be… a little intense.” Feyre says.

Cassian looks over Feyre's shoulder, like he's hoping to get one final glimpse of Nesta. “Just how I like them.”

“Cass,” Rhys warns and Cassian shuts his mouth, then Rhys turns his attention to feyre. “We won’t bother you. Much.”

“Oh, don’t worry about us,” Feyre says, also turning back around to go inside the house. “It’s Nesta the one you want to keep… content.”

“Will do,” Cassian replies, fast as lighting, like he’s accepting a challenge and he hasn’t even realized it yet.

“Good luck with that.”

Feyre takes a couple steps towards the porche, and knocks on the door. Nesta completely forgot we were outside with her when she decided to do her grand exit.

I’m about to follow my sister, when a new, rich, and velvety voice that we hadn’t heard before reaches my ears.

“We are throwing a little get-together tomorrow night,” he says. I look up at the sound, and my mouth dries at the sight of the man in front of us, my breath catches and my heart pounds so fast, all I can hear is the frantic heartbeats. High cheekbones, and a boyish grin on his face. Short dark hair like his friends, but a little messier. I hadn’t noticed him before, standing on the porche, like hidden by the shadows. Now, he’s all I can see. “You should come.”

“Azriel is right, you should come. It’ll be something small, I promise,” Rhys says, also walking back towards the house, putting one hand on top of the shoulder of his friend. “A one time thing, even. To kick start the year. I’m sure your sister won’t mind if it’s a Friday, correct?”

Azriel.

He looks down at his sneakers, but there’s a tiny smirk on his lips, the right side of his mouth lifting up slightly more than the left. Then his eyes look up again, directly at me, and my knees buckle, like they want to give in at the heavy weight of my body. God, he’s beautiful.

Beautiful, like it should be forbidden, illegal, to be.

Men like him don’t exist in real life. They just don’t.

And it is so unfair, so unfair, that he happens to live so close.

“Will there be booze?” Feyre asks, and Rhys smiles at her.

“What kind of booze do you prefer?”

She takes a couple seconds to answer, chewing on her lower lip, gloating at the way the guy can’t keep his eyes off of her.

“I really like wine.” She replies. “Good wine, though.”

“I’ll get you the best.”

She smiles even broadly.

“Great,” Feyre knocks on the door one more time, and it opens with an angry force, I chuckle when I see Nesta walking away with heavy and furious steps towards the stairs. “I’ll bring my boyfriend.”

And then Rhys is not smiling anymore.

“Come on, Elain.” She tells me and I giggle. “Wanna order pizza for dinner?”

“Sure.” I turn around and wave at them. “Goodnight.”

Rhys and Cassian grunt, twin annoyed grimaces in their faces.

But Azriel... he smiles at me.

And then waves back softly.

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hi! thank you so much for reading! I've been wanting to write an ACOTAR fanfic in a modern setting for so long, and i finally have the time (and the ideas) to do it, so i really appreciate you taking the time to read it! I will be updating it as i go, i hope to post regularly, so we'll see!

i´m also posting this on AO3, so it'd be great if you guys could go support me there as well! <3

ps. i always say this, but english isn't my first language, so i apologize if there are any mistakes<3

#elriel #elriel AU #elriel fanfic #pro elain #pro elriel #pro azriel #acotar #a court of thorns and roses #azriel x elain #elain x azriel #feysand #elriel college sport romance AU

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bluelancess · 3 months

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Midnight Blooms | Elriel AU chapter 2/?

Sports romance, college AU.

Tags: forbidden love, arranged marriage, forced proximity, modern setting, slow burn

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Read on AO3.

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Chapter 2

I notice everything you do or don't do

AZRIEL

Cassian hits my shoulder hard with one of his huge hands as soon as the main door to the girl’s house closes, and none of them are looking at us anymore. He has probably been waiting to punch me since the invite for the party escaped my lips.

Good thing he didn’t aim for the jaw or cheekbone, although we do have a no-face-punching rule, but Cassian tends to forget it pretty often. Or at least that’s how he excuses himself every fucking time.

“What the fuck was that, Az?” He grunts my way. “You want to kill our party before it even starts?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” I tell him, taking a couple steps back, I’m holding my third bottle of beer in my right hand, it’s almost over, the liquid pretty much room temperature.

Last semester, when we lived in that awful one bedroom apartment near campus, parties were one hundred percent off limits. We didn’t even have a living room, for fuck’s sake. The kitchen consisted of the tiniest little oven ever, and a sink that barely fit two plates and a mug. Granted, the rent was cheap. So cheap, we could spend the rest of our money on take-out, liquor and WiFi, which is pretty much all you need to survive college.

But a couple weeks before finals, the whole building was infested with the fattest, and ugliest rats I’ve ever seen, Cassian even made a sport out of getting the little fuckers out of the apartment, and I guess it was a silent agreement that we couldn’t stay there for another year. No fucking way.

So I saved every penny I got from all the jobs my boss assigned me during the summer. Yes, maybe not all of them were entirely legal, but they payed generously and in cash, how was I supposed to pass the opportunity when it got us this amazing house? It is only a bonus that we have three, hot as fuck neighbors. Almost like the universe is rewarding us for all the shit it made us go through when we were children.

About fucking time.

“Dramatic? I’ve been planning this thing for weeks,” Cassian says, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand. “It’s the last time I can get properly drunk before practice starts. Coach is a pain in the ass with his no-drinking-during-the-season-or-get-the-fuck-out rule, and you know it.”

“Let’s go inside,” Rhys says, leaving the end of the sentence hanging unsaid in the air, but I imagine it would go as something like: you uncivilized brutes.

“You’re just proving my point, Cass,” I say, hiding a smile, looking over my shoulder one last time at the house on the other side of the street, I stop on my tracks when I see the curtain of the kitchen window rustle. Are they still watching us?

Is she still watching us?

The pretty, quiet one. Fuck, I couldn’t look away from those big, sweet eyes and those full, pink lips. I’d die to just give them a little taste, a tiny bite until she’s melting and moaning against me. I remember her from last year. We took a class together, I’m pretty sure she never really noticed me. She sat at the front, I sat on the back. She was quiet, so shy, did all the group assignments on her own, and always got the highest grade. The professor used to be a jerk and tease her because she was so smart, but so damn quiet she never showed how fucking intelligent she was to the rest of the class. I had to fight the urge to kick his ugly ass whenever he started his shit with her.

It made the whole class laugh at her expense, the fucking asshole.

I admit my reasons for inviting them to the party were completely selfish. I saw an opportunity and took it. Now, the real surprise would be if she actually shows up tomorrow night.

“I also think it is a good idea to have them over for the party,” Rhysand says, putting one hand on my left shoulder, and the other on Cassian’s, guiding us inside the house. “They won’t call the cops if they’re having a good time. Right, Az?”

I shrug. “Sure.”

“Oh, come on, you two,” Cassian shakes his head like his disappointed. “Always thinking with your dicks.”

“Not my problem that girl is giving you blue balls.” I say, walking a bit faster to get away from him before he decides to punch something other than my shoulder.

Cassian grunts.

“Is that why you’ve been so moody all summer?” Rhys asks lifting a brow, and Cass shoots him a death glare. “Wait, don’t tell me you fell in love with this girl after just one night, Cassian. We’re not fifteen anymore”

“Shut up, asshole.”

“I’m just saying.” Rhys lifts both hands in the air, innocently.

I smile, watching them. We’ve been together, the three of us, since we were little kids. Pretty much fending for ourselves in a world that doesn’t like people like us. Alone, but never really lonely. From foster home to foster home. By some miracle, we were always placed together in different families. Five to be exact. Most kicked us out after a couple months, claimed we were too much to handle, or whatever the fuck that means.

We were children, noisy, curious, maybe a little too energetic, but they wanted us to behave like robots, follow orders to a tee, never complain, and of course, they wanted the government’s money. Turns out, dealing with us wasn’t worth the little compensation they were receiving, so ultimately all of them ended up throwing us back into the black whole we came from.

Everything changed when we got to Gramps and Nana’s house. Recently retired, house empty after their biological kids were all grown up and left, they decided to take us in. Treated us like their own. It was so unlike every single other house we’d been at, the we contemplated running away the first two weeks. It felt too good to be true. Almost like a trap.

Nana won us over with her killer brownies and Gramps taught us everything he knew about hockey.

We wouldn’t be here without them.

“Well, don’t ask,” Cassian starts walking up the stairs, like the subject actually bothers him, which is completely unusual for him. “I’m telling you guys, those girls are going to be nothing but trouble.”

Rhys eyes gleam like he’s visualizing exactly what Cassian is referring to, and he’s up for the challenge.

“Isn’t that the fun of it, Cass?” Rhys teases him.

“When you’re the one walking around with blue balls over that girl, Rhys, we’ll talk.”

“Oh, but I won’t.” Rhys’ voice is laced in arrogant confidence.

“She has a boyfriend,” I remind him, nearing our brand new couch in the living room. It’s dark blue, almost black, and it’s huge. It had to be, if it wants to fit the three of us at the same time. Gramps gifted it to us before we moved here, said he couldn’t bare the thought of us sitting on the floor on such a big house. Is pretty much the only piece of decent furniture we own.

“Not for long.” Rhys shrugs, opening the fridge we have in the living room and grabbing another beer. It seemed like a better place than the kitchen, considering that if we’re watching sports we don’t have to walk all the way there to grab something to drink.

Cassian barks a laugh. “You’re too cocky, is going to bite you in the ass.”

“I happen to enjoy ass bites.” Rhys laughs again, and I’m silently glad we’re not fighting.

We hardly ever do.

We’ve been through so much already, always sticking together, and having each other’s back, that there doesn’t seem to be anything that would be important enough for us to fight over.

Cassian shakes his head, and climbs the stairs like he has so much pent up energy he’d like to release. A couple seconds later, he’s blasting music in his bedroom and to probably hide the annoying noise his rusty-ass treadmill makes. It’s so old the damn thing is practically falling apart by just looking at it.

“If I’d known those three lived here, I would’ve moved out from that rat hell a lot sooner,” Rhys says, sitting next to me, and turning on the television, none of us really pay attention to it. I don’t have to look at my brother to know his eyes are also glued to the window right beside the screen, the one that gives us a front row seat to the house in front.

“They moved in last year,” I tell him, taking the beer from his grip to steal a sip.

“You know them?” He asks me, a curious look in his eyes. I know almost everyone. I like to watch people. Listen when they think I’m not paying attention. I happened to learn at a very young age, that information is the real currency of the world. It can get you pretty much anywhere you want to go if you know how to use it correctly.

“Just two of them.” I tell him, giving his beer back. “The third one is probably a freshman. I’d never seen her around here before.”

“I hadn’t seen any of them around here before.”

“Nesta’s pre-law,” I begin to explain. “Has every loser in campus either shitting their pants on her presence or trying to get into her pants.”

“That’s Cassian’s?” Rhys asks, as if it needs confirmation.

“Yup,” I nod. “And Elain… No idea what her major is. She’s pretty reserved, keeps to herself, doesn’t go out much.” I shrug, pretending she doesn’t pique my interest in the slightest, which couldn’t be further from the truth. “I took a class with her last year, I’m guessing she’s maybe an art major.”

Rhys takes a big gulp from his beer. “That leaves us the third sister.”

“Right, the one with the boyfriend.”

“Love it that you keep reminding me,” Rhys shoots me a not so friendly glare.

“There’s a thousand girls on campus that would pretty much give up their first born to sleep with you, Rhys,” I remind him. “No need to want one that’s unavailable.”

“I happen to like challenges.” His shoulders go tense when the door of the house in front of ours opens, and the girl whose name we don’t know yet walks out, some cash on her hand. There’s a bike in the street, some skinny guy pulling handing her two boxes of pizza.

She thanks him with a wide smile, and Rhys takes a long gulp from his beer.

“Yeah, but you’re a sore loser.”

He smiles wickedly at me. “Which only means I have to make sure I don’t lose.”

I roll my eyes, and he simply lets out a dark chuckle. I’m not joking when I say any of us could get literally any girl on campus we wanted. They’re practically drooling at our feet, mostly after games, and the quota of girls drastically increases if we win it. But, after a couple years playing for the Night Beasts, and getting used to the attention, it has only made it… boring. Predictable.

Too easy.

Rhysand grabs the keys of his pick-up truck that were laying on top of the fridge and hands me his half empty beer bottle.

“Where are you going?”

“To buy the best fucking wine I can get my hands on.”

He leaves before I can stop him, and I’m left on my own in the big, dark first floor of the house, surrounded by nothing but shadows, peeking trough the window like a complete stalker, at the way they’re sitting in the kitchen table, eating pizza and laughing. My eyes glued to one of the sisters in particular, her soft smiles, the curve of her neck, her lips wrapping around the straw of her drink, putting such filthy images in my head I force myself to look away, adjust the bulge on my pants and go take a cold shower.

Fuck.

It’s going to be a long year.

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in honor of time magazine softlaunching elriel i decided to post another chapter! I actually never thought people would read it so i'm glad you guys are liking it<333

#elriel #pro elriel #elain x azriel #pro elain #azriel x elain #acotar #azriel #elain archeron #elriel AU #elriel fanfiction

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