Shadows Whisper | | Azriel

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Azriel got Astryn back to the house as quickly as possible, mostly because he hated her being anywhere near the Court of Nightmares.

She was quiet the whole trip and Azriel didn't try to make her talk. He didn't have much he wanted to say either—not after seeing that place she had been kept in for so long. It made him sick to think about her in that cave in the dark, chained up and starved and miserable and alone. It killed him.

When they got back, Rhys was rather frenzied. He visibly relaxed at the sight of Astryn though, and gathered her up in his arms in a tight hug that she didn't return. Looking at him, Azriel finally realized just how difficult this has been for him. Rhys never really talked about the way losing his sister and mother had hurt him, about how he still grieved the loss every single day and lost sleep wallowing in the guilt of not having saved them. As much as Azriel didn't like the way Rhys had behaved, he knew it was fear-driven—fear of losing another sister, fear of failing to protect family again.

He also felt a pang of sadness in his own chest when he saw the brief flicker of devastation pass over Rhys's face when Astryn didn't hug him back. He released her quickly and took a step back and mumbled an apology as she drifted back to Azriel's side. She apologized too, more out of a feeling of obligation than anything else.

"Where did you go?" Rhys asked, his tone giving away nothing about how he was feeling at the moment.

"Back...the place you found me, we were there," she muttered, feeling a little sick with herself for what she almost said. Back home, she had almost told him, as if that cell was ever a home. But it was the only thing she knew. For years and years, that place was all she had known. But it wasn't a home and she hated that she almost called it that.

Rhys and Azriel both seemed to somehow know what she was going to say, and Rhys visibly flinched. He still hated himself for how he had gone to that place intending to kill her—despite knowing nothing about her except that she was somehow related to him and was, as far as he was concerned, responsible for the torment Azriel had been suffering. He hated himself so deeply for it, felt such shame for it. But, in some twisted way, worse than that he hated that she almost called that place he had taken her from home.

He so vividly remembered the way she had thrown herself at his feet and choked herself with the collar tight around her throat but refused to stop straining towards him and begging to be saved. He remembered how frantically he had told her to stop because she was hurting herself, he remembered how he had tried to maintain a mask of calmness despite the way his heart raced as he realized the beaten, starved girl in chains in that cell was, in fact, his sister. He remembered the way something inside of him felt like it was shattering when he picked her up and her fingers gripped his shoulders so tightly that he wondered if it was more to keep him from putting her down than it was to make sure she didn't fall by mistake.

And then he brought her here—to what was supposed to be freedom. It was supposed to be freedom, but he was controlling and he knew he had scared her despite his attempts to stay calm and collected. He wouldn't ever forget the fear that flickered in her eyes any time he got the slightest bit angry.

He scared her and he went behind her back to keep her away from Azriel—her mate. Then she was taken, before he even got to know her, she was stolen away. He wasn't the one who rescued her that time, instead he sat at home feeling useless and guilty.

And here she was now. He couldn't believe he had had the audacity to hug her as if she saw him as family at all. Madja had told him she asked her to stop referring to him as her brother. He hoped he could fix things and find a way to make her okay with him being her brother, but it would take time.

Especially if she would still sooner call that cave home than call here home.

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short little chapter but also real quick idk if i'll be updating again this week i only get 1 day off work this week instead of 2 and it already passed </3