A Delicate Darkness | AZRIEL (ACOTAR)

xvii. the silence of limbo

THE SILENCE OF LIMBO

"I don't like this," Cassian growled. "Not one bit."

"Care to say it again? I don't think anyone heard the last million times you've said this," quipped Feyre. She ducked to avoid the light swat that came her way. "It's part of the bargain, Cass."

"We have to respect it, for Az and Rhys' sakes, fools that are for making it," Mor muttered. She kept herself in the corner, far far away from the Vanserra siblings — any further and she'd be out of the tower within which they settled the Vanserras.

Azriel didn't so much as bestow Mor with a glance, her words bouncing off him like a rubber pellet. No, he kept positioned at the windowsill, allowing the mountain breeze to flow through the aperture, to clear his mind. To clear the goddamned scent invading his senses, of cinnamon and warm vanilla.

To think.

"Unless there's been a new update to the bargain, it only protects the sister and the mother! So why in the Cauldron did we risk our hinds — specifically, my beautiful hind — to bring them in?" Cass jutted a sharp arm at Malachi and Nostrus Vanserra. The two princes lay down on beds either side of their sister.

Despite the Autumn males being unconscious and, really, so worse-for-wear and beaten that even lifting a fork would be a strenuous task, Cassian kept a noticeably watchful eye on them, a hand perpetually positioned over the pommel of his sheathed sword.

Likewise, Azriel couldn't tear his gaze away, but it wasn't the fox princes who captivated his attention. However much he hated it — and oh, how he did despise it — he was drawn to Auroria Vanserra more than he'd care to admit.

He idly twirled Truth-Teller in his hands, pressing his head back against the arched window. He'd done a damned good job pushing away every thought of her, pushing very debased, depraved thought that came alight the moment that Truth-Teller touched her. That night in Dawn, the spark that ignited in his core had yearned for her. Wanted her. Wanted to taste the plump petals of her smirking lips. Wanted to draw the most sinful of sounds from her. Wanted to wrap his scarred hand around her neck again, not to hurt her, but to feel the vibrations of her mewling beneath his palm, to feel the pleads, to feel the pleasure that poisoned his own mind.

But then it all... vanished. Like a severed link. He'd drawn back in a daze, confused as to what enchantment came over him.

And the thing that scared him most was how desperate he was to feel it again. To touch her again just to reignite that spark, that warmth, one such euphoria that it almost hurt.

But he'd stopped himself.

He'd forced himself to listen to the emptiness that followed — that should follow where Auroria Vanserra was concerned.

For if it had been the mating bond — he reasoned later — it wouldn't have extinguished in a blip. It must have been some sort of manipulation. Some trickery. These foxes weren't to be trusted — no matter how bewitching.

He'd felt no such tug since and he was more than content to keep it that way...

...If it hadn't been for his damned shadows, who were terribly sweet on her. A Vanserra.

The second that Raven slashed her throat, his shadows had screamed so harrowingly in his ears that it was all he heard. Their sorrow-soaked shrieks had been the ninth symphony that haunted Azriel as he descended the Autumn skies. He heard echoes of it now, even though his shadows had already silenced, pooling beneath the bed that Auroria Vanserra laid upon.