Shadows Whisper | | Azriel

22

Azriel wished he could have spent days slowly torturing Killan, but Cassian was waiting with Astryn and she was hurt and he didn't have days to do this. So, he took as much time as he could, succeeded in getting Killan to beg for his life, and then he killed him.

Azriel made his way out after that, killing a few more guards along the way. He killed one more of Beron's sons on the way out, but Beron himself fled the moment he realized Azriel had come for his mate. He was on his way out when he saw Eris with his mother and the youngest of the brothers. The child looked at Azriel with fear.

"I won't hurt any of you," Azriel said, looking Eris in the eyes. "I was asked by Astryn to leave you alive, Eris. Don't ever forget that she's the only reason you're not dead."

"Give her my thanks," Eris replied dryly, pausing briefly. His eyes flicked to Lucien before he looked back to Azriel. There was a touch of sincerity when he spoke this time, "I hope she recovers well."

Azriel scoffed, not believing there was anything genuine about it at all. He left after that and found where Cassian was waiting with Astryn for him. She was unconscious in Cassian's arms and Azriel felt a bolt of fear strike through him.

"Did something happen?" Azriel asked quietly, resisting the urge to reach out and touch her.

"Nothing more than what already did," Cassian answered with a frown. "Being moved was painful for her. She just...she passed out from the pain."

"I should have made that prick suffer more," Azriel muttered, shaking his head. His fingers ghosted feather light over her bruised cheek. "Death is too kind for someone like him."

"We should get out of here," Cassian suggested, "everything you've done so far would be considered justified because of the bond but if we linger too long, Beron would have the right to retaliate for us being on his land."

"We won't make it home in one shot but we'll make it to the Day Court. Perhaps Helion will give us shelter," Azriel told him, carefully taking  Astryn from him. Cassian almost questioned him on it. They had saved enough of their strength that they could make it back to the Night Court and they both knew that. Why bother stopping at the Day Court? Cassian came to the answer himself though—Azriel wasn't ready to see Rhys. After everything that had happened between the pair, after the order Rhys had given and the beating Azriel had handed him in return, the shadowsinger wasn't ready to see the High Lord again so soon. Everything had happened so fast, and Cassian understood why Azriel needed that extra day. So, he nodded in agreement to the suggestion.

Astryn groaned softly in Azriel's arms, drawing the attention to herself unintentionally. Looking at her, Azriel felt a stab of pain in his chest. He felt dirty and wrong for cradling her in his arms while he was covered in blood. But he wouldn't hand her over to Cassian again. Maybe it was selfish of him. Maybe it was wrong, letting someone so soft and kind get stained with the blood that was on his hands, the blood that he spilled in her name. Maybe he didn't deserve her.

But, Cauldron, when she opened her eye—she could still only open just one eye and it killed him to think about—there was a shine to that pretty violet and her lips tugged up into a smile that looked like it was painful. And her hand reached up to brush over his cheek as if his face wasn't dirtied with the blood of others. She caressed his cheek like he was someone who deserved that gentle, lovely touch. She was his opposite in every way and he knew it. But when she looked at him like that and smiled at him like that and touched him like that, it took every ounce of strength he had not to abandon everything else he had ever known and make his life something that belonged to her and her alone.

So many people looked at him with nothing but fear. Others looked at him with hatred. Some looked at him with a mix of both of those things. Some of the people he had shared a bed—a bed, but never his bed—with over the years looked at him with an almost detached desire, like they wanted him just to be able to tell the story of having him. His friends looked at him with a certain type of love and respect. But no one looked at him the way Astryn looked at him.

He doubted she even knew what a mate was, and he doubted she could feel much at all from the bond with all the faebane running through her system, but she still looked at him in that way he felt so unworthy of. She still touched him with that gentle touch he felt he could never earn.

He knew right then and there that he would do anything to be worthy of her.