A Court of Broken Darkness

Chapter VII

Azriel

Azriel is trying his best not to go Court to Court and kill each of the High Lords.

Truth-Teller and the promise of the black blade slicing across the necks of those pricks who had the nerve to tell, demand, that his mate host them all in two days has never felt so tempting. No one would know. He could get in and out before anyone knew he had even been there. But his family would know. Gwyn would know. And she would never forgive him. Azriel has endured hardships and torture that would make even the strongest Illyrian warrior piss his pants. But having Gwyn angry with him - his mate, the female who saved him - that's something he wouldn't be able to survive.

So here is where he will stay, helping where he can.

The shadows that always cling to him flutter about restlessly, reacting to his sour mood. They whisper things in his ear, trying to calm him, as they've done since they found him, alone in that dark cell beneath his father's keep. The shadows whisper. They sing. They never stop.

They've been his companions for centuries. His friends, if he dares call them that. But it wasn't until that first time Azriel and Gwyn had been alone, that one Winter Solstice years ago, that the shadows had reacted to another as they did him. They had stretched out and wanted to touch her. To feel her. To be near her. They wanted to sing for her.

Azriel thinks they had known, even before he did, what she was. Who she was to him.

His mate.

It wasn't until years later, that he felt it - the bond. It had snapped into place so suddenly that Azriel was struck immovable. Barely able to breathe. Gwyn had kissed him, and it had all made sense. Some unspoken question whose answer he had been searching for all his life. He saw the moment it clicked for her, too. Azriel had gazed into those gorgeous teal eyes of her's and known that she knew who he  was to her. Gwyn had smiled up at him. Azriel had never seen a more beautiful sight than his mate's smile.

That night was the best night he had ever spent with a female in all of his nearly six-hundred years on this earth.

And Azriel would do anything  to ensure his mate's safety and happiness.

Right now, that meant briefing his trusted spies on what was happening with the other High Lords and Ladies. What their jobs would be when they all came to the Spring Court. When his spies left, off to wherever he sent them, Azriel starts walking back to the manor. He usually meets with his spies amid the trees and brush of the thick forest on the west side of the property. He's the only one who knows their true identities - had trained most of them himself - and it was better to keep it that way.

Gwyn had wanted to meet them, but even as it killed Azriel to deny his mate anything, he told her it was too risky to have anyone else know who they were. Gwyn understood.

Azriel walks past the blooming flower gardens and up to the back door to the manor, the sun warming his wings. He enters the manor that used to belong to the male who had locked up his brother's mate. Who had kidnapped his niece and nephew. But that male was also his mate's father. Azriel still hasn't fully wrapped his mind around that fact. How could a male like Tamlin, father someone as wonderful as Gwyneth Berdara? 

He travels the wide, open hallways, following the mating bond to wherever Gwyn is within the manor. He finds her in the kitchen, talking with a few of the servants that decided to stay and work here after Tamlin died and the glamour he put on them disappeared. The sunlight streaming in through the window makes her red hair look like a river of fire. 

"And we'll need nine plates for the High Lords and Ladies," Gwyn is telling them as he creeps up on silent feet. "I don't know how many more people each will be bringing with them, so we'll have to keep more ready and dish them out once everyone arrives."