A Court of Wind and Song (Bonus Version)

Crush

During the Time Skip Between Chapter 71: Snow and Chapter 72: The Plan

Tamlin

It didn't take me long to figure out the true reason that Azriel brought me here.

Of course, the blood bargain did exist as a threat. Leur had always been so careful with it, even as pissed as she was that it existed in the first place. I'd given her complete power over me, and she never wanted to take advantage of that or take away my autonomy.

What she hadn't realized, or perhaps hadn't admitted to herself, was that I had not given away anything that hadn't always belonged to her anyways.

I'd have done anything she asked, even if the bargain did not make it so. I always had. I always would.

I knew it probably was unhealthy, to love a mated female in such a way, but I never could find it within myself to care. She was too important to me, and I would take any ounce of her company and care that she offered. I would be anything she needed me to be, just as I told her all those years ago. I might have broken other promises, but never that one.

Friend.

Lover.

Supporter.

Protector.

Distraction.

And now, I was a guardian to her child.

Because that was what Ruhn was, wasn't he?

Not in the way he had been before, where she had claimed this strange boy from another planet as her own. Trained him, raised him, been there for him. No, it was clear that it went far deeper than that.

And as I stood there, my eyes flicking between Ruhn and Azriel- I wondered how I had never seen it before.

Perhaps because it should not have been possible.

The baby died when Leur did. I had failed in my vow to protect them both, and that was the end of it. But then, Leur had survived, had been resurrected by liquid starlight- why had I never considered that the babe in her womb had met the same fate?

Perhaps I hadn't failed as deeply as I thought.

It was that realization that had me reeling. The realization that in putting her into that pool of starlight, begging the Mother to save her- I had fulfilled my promise in its entirety. To not just save her, but her babe as well.

And Ruhn Danaan had always looked unnaturally familiar. From the moment that she first brought me to meet him all those years ago, I had seen it. In fact, my first thought upon seeing the boy was that Leur had somehow birthed a child and kept it a secret. The boy looked so much like her that it was uncanny.

Funny, that my instinct had been correct.

Though, Azriel had explained that this hadn't been another one of her many secrets. I'll admit that when I first heard him say that their child was alive, it was my assumption. I had thought that I had finally been on the other side of it, been a person that she kept a secret from instead of someone who was always in on it with her.

But Leur hadn't known, hadn't remembered.

It was unsurprising that Acantha's treachery went farther than we'd known. I'd never had the displeasure of meeting the female, but I'd heard enough from Leur to know that I had no desire to. Leur hated her and that was enough reason for me to as well, even aside from all of the vile things she had done.

There was no doubt in my mind that despite all of that, ripping Leur's child from her had to be the most egregious sin of them all.

Undoubtably, Acantha would pay.