Healer

Chapter 24

If Talia slept at all, she was unaware of it. She had listened to his steps as he retreated from her room and each of them felt like a blow. He had asked her permission and she had given it, because in her heart, she wanted him. She wanted him so badly it seemed unnatural. She swallowed. It was unnatural, wasn't it? Like the spark he lit in her when she returned from day court, it couldn't be ignored. But her mind....her mind only felt every dirty, cowardly Hybern male that had bent over her in the same way. Every human man before them. Azriel had asked permission, but on her back, threatening exposure, she lost sight of him. In the kitchen, pressed against him, she had only seen him and the way he caressed her, the way he hesitated like he thought he was too much, too dark. When he carried her to his room, wrapped around his body, she had only seen him and how controlled, how steady he was. But when he untied her nightgown, when he went to expose her, she only saw herself. She saw herself and every second she had spent at the mercy of some other male. She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. He was not another male. He was far, far from being just another male. She let some tears escape, those she deemed purely frustration. She didn't want to hurt him, she didn't want him to think he had done something wrong. He had only done right by her. I've never had a negative thought about you, Talia. She had fixed that, she was sure.

Azriel had left her alone but fought uncertainty the entire way back to his bed. His bed where he had laid her down like she was his to own. He wasn't sure he should have left her, he wanted to stay, to hold her like he had in the ring that day, like they were the only two creatures that existed and she could find her refuge with him. In him. But this wasn't some nightmare he could hold her through or wake her from, this was her past and her reality. He knew full well that it was a response to trauma and not a response to him, that every breath leading up to it had been shared in want. He laid his hand over his heart where hers had been, so sure as he wavered in himself. He had wanted her so badly, he had let himself have a taste, a glimpse, and in that moment he wanted all of it. She knew that. She had felt it and she had leaned into it. She had wrapped around him, kissed his neck. She had wanted it too, but in her vulnerability she had simply reacted.

He knew, no matter what he said or did, she would feel shame in that and cold rage filled him at every single hand that had touched her, every eye laid on her out of turn. He let himself lay down where her scent still lingered. This didn't matter, the bed, the sex, it was only an aside to how greatly he cared for her and there was nothing she could do, or be, to change that. I know who you are. I've seen it. 

He knew she had, he had felt her there. When he awoke and was told she was there, in his house, it had confirmed the warm calming presence he had felt in his darkest moment. And that presence had stayed beside him through his fight to the surface, his blindness, even his possession, and it still existed. He still felt it. They had time, he told himself. All the time in the world to work through this, to get to that place where he could show her what a treasure she was, and how nothing could change the way he needed her. He didn't own her, she owned herself and they had time to bring that forward, into the light. They had time. Over and over again he told himself until it was a prayer, a demand. They had time.

Talia rose with the sun, wide awake. She wondered if her heart could sustain its pounding for an entire day or if it would eventually tire. Cassian would take her and Nesta to Velaris to get ready in Rhysand and Feyre's house and to meet with friends who had come for the meeting. The high lords would be put up in the city but many had brought family or court members with them. It was a relatively short notice affair, so there wouldn't be much time to mingle which she was thankful for. She dressed, careful not to look at herself for too long lest she see the demons rise up in her like they had the night before. She just needed to get through this day and then she could process it like she knew she had to. She ate alone, barely tasting and paced her room until Nesta came and got her.