A Court of Shadows and Rage (Azriel x OC)

Only Darkness, Nothing More

trigger warnings: violence, s/a, blood, suicide

Song is Roslyn-Bon Iver slowed with reverb. Works played at any point if music is your thing. 

The best part about shutting herself in that dark whole was the ability to float in that nothingness until it drowned her in sleep. Brinna wasn't sure how long she'd been out on the chaise downstairs before she was jerked awake, but it couldn't have been more than an hour, barely midnight.

Maddox grabbed her hair in a fist to wake her up as she whimpered, ignorant to the shadows that had wrapped around her in sleep, slithering back to their master.

He dragged her begging, towards the bed, throwing her down.

"Why do the General Commander and Spymaster believe they have some claim over you?" Maddox asked, grabbing her throat and slamming her down into the sheets and crude pillows.

"I don't know!" She gargled, thrashing, kicking and trying desperately to scream. Her words were barely audible from her lack of breath. "I don't know them! They just found me!"

"Liar," he smirked, squeezing to hold off her air for a few moments before releasing her and smacking her clean across the face instantly. Brinna raged - she angled her knee and jabbed it up, hooking a leg around him and flipping him below as she reached for the knife Azriel had gifted her, under her dress on her thigh.

"I will kill you," she whispered. Nothing echoed but the sound of their breathing. No fear lay in Maddox's eyes, and smiled at her, reaching his hand out to caress her cheek. She flinched.

"You know what will happen if you do, Brinna."

His hand fell towards where the tattoo of their deal lay beneath fabric.

Tears of anger and determination dropped from her cheeks as she gritted her teeth and pushed the blade into his cheek, slicing just lightly. But her hand pulsed and she released the dagger, clanging to the ground. This was useless, it would always be this, nothing more.

His hand curled into her hair gently as he cooed up at her while she cried so quietly it was like whispered tears. 

"You know what's better than your fight, Brinna," he seethed into her ear. "When you lose."

Maddox gripped a mass of her hair and flipped her unmoving body onto her stomach. She barely moved, her mind swirling into that grey familiar darkness. He took that same blade and sliced into the marked spot of her neck, leaning down to kiss her cheek. A fourth scar, another strike to her soul. 

This one was different. It felt like grief and she imagined Azriel's hands gliding over the skin to tell her that no matter how many of Maddox's marks she wore, she would always be beautiful. 

"You are so beautiful when you bleed for me, dear Brinna," he whispered, shattering the near perfect re-creation of the shadowsinger in her mind. "I love to see you break."

Her eyes were glassy and hazed as he threw her dress up to her waist and buried himself deep inside her, pressing a hand to the wound on her neck until she was crying harder, louder for him. 

Brinna felt like she couldn't breath, that maybe she would be sick across the bed as he thrust crudely behind her. She tugged on something that was pulsing in her chest, some rope tied to smoke and shadow and begged, someone - anyone. Please, I can't do it anymore. End this. End me - please.

Blackness swept through her vision.

*****

When she woke, this time it was to a cold press on her neck. It had only been a few hours, the sky was dark outside and the scent of whoever was in the room was not Maddox.