Chapter 117
The sound of the knife slicing through fresh mushrooms, the chaffing of the blade on the wooden cutting board, filled the kitchen.
"Only one meal was required, you know."
Azriel turned into the kitchen, wearing nothing but a pair of loose pants that were meant for bedwear. If she hadn't shoved them in his chest that morning, many hours ago, he probably would have elected to not wear anything at all. The thought had her smiling. "I like cooking. I always helped Mother," she said, using the blunt side of the knife to push the mushrooms to one edge. "Can't say I'm all that caught up on the spices and the techniques, but I liked... the feeling of it. I'm glad I can start cooking you meals now."
As she spoke, he moved around the kitchen until he stood behind her. Large, tanned arms snaked around her midsection, a chin hooking over her shoulder. Dark hair tickled her cheek. One hand reached beyond her towards the small bowl she had left aside filled with a gravy sauce. She watched as his hand lifted back towards him, keen to see whether he liked it or not. Butâ
But he wiped his finger down her cheek.
Arwen squealed and lurched away, but his other arm kept her trapped between him and the bench. She made way to clean it off with a rag, but a tongue beat her to it. The hot wetness stroked from her jaw to her cheekbone. Azriel laughed in her ear as she gagged and twisted her face. "You are disgusting."
After sucking his finger clean, he flicked her nose. "I was contemplating whether you would enjoy being eaten off of. I am thinking perhaps not but there are far more suitable foods. Jams, for instance."
Her palms lay flat against the cold, marble benchâa stark contrast to the heat against all other parts of her. "No, no foods. I don't even like food on the bed."
"Fair enough." He kissed the slope of her bare shoulder. "Would you like me to help with dinner?"
They had been locked away in the town house for three days now and every moment had been spent entangled in some way. It was not something they had spoken of aloud, but Arwen knew that her forms of affection were different from his, yet he was the one who clung to her now. The one who followed her and held her even when she was busy.
"If I let you help," she murmured in a soft purr, looking at him over her shoulder. "Dinner will never be ready." Especially if he continued with the way he pressed against her. His sly smile grew. "But you canâ"
A sudden knock cut her off. It was a softer knock, calm and paced. They both looked towards the main hall. Until now, they hadn't been disturbed. Rhysand hadn't even checked in through her mind (which was a bit insulting). They figured that since neither of them had immediate work, the others would either guess on account of their absence, or they would answer the question when it came.
"Mor?" Arwen guessed.
Azriel squinted and shook his head. Straightened, a part of his warmth disappeared but he kept his arms around her. "Cassian," he said. His shadows encircled his arms, more stretching out past their feet towards the hall, no doubt whispering what they saw into his ear.
The knock was unusual for Cassian.
"Can you answer it?" she asked.
His hands tightened on her, fingers making individual indents into her skin. "Arwen, I shouldn't be around anyone else right now. Especially not a male."
And she certainly didn't want to see what would happen if he was around Cassian. While she liked to think that his new attachment to her was out of pure affection, and perhaps most of it was, it was also in possessiveness. A possessiveness that would diminish over the coming days, but one that he wasn't used to and didn't know how to curb.
"Just let him leave then," she muttered. "I have no desire to talk with him."
But the knocking only grew heavier. Arwen, stubborn, remained where she was and continued cooking. But Azriel's nerves grew thinner until he snapped away from her and marched out into the hall. She listened keenly but there were no voices to be heard after he opened the door. The house shook when he slammed it shut. When Azriel returned, fire blazed in his eyes. She barely got a word of question out before he spun her and stole her words with his lips. Her hand flew back, knocking the bowl of gravy, spilling it across the bench.
Dinner took a bit longer than expected that night.
~
Azriel had been in one of his rare, deep nights of sleep when a scream awoke him. The blankets flew off his legs not by his own accord. He couldn't see properly with tired eyes against the darkness, but his heart knew the scream before his mind could even speak her name.
"Arwen," he croaked and leant across the bed, reaching for her.
Her silhouetted form thrashed against the sheets entangling her and he was unable to tell limb from limb. His hand skimmed across the soft fabric of their blanket, trying to grasp gently onto her arm and get her to calm but she moved too unpredictably for him to hold her.
The weight of her flailing form tipped away from him, over the side of the bed. He heard the sickening sound of bone colliding with woodâthe nightstandâfollowed by the heavy thump of her landing against the floor, taking the bedsheets with her. Arwen had gone silent.
Azriel shot across the large bed. He slid off the edge of the mattress, landing on his knees against the wooden floor next to her crumpled form. His stomach twisted into a painful knot and he thought he might lose his dinner, the hard crack of bone and wood echoing in his ears.
Arwen was a mess of raven hair of mauve fabric. She faced away from him, toward the side of the bed but she was moving. "Arwen, my love," he murmured, taking her shoulders gently. He turned her and her face struck some deep fear that he never knew existed; something morbid that may have haunted his own sleep once.
Blood trickled down the side of her face, splitting into two streams over her cheek, leading from her hair. Her eyes were wide open, as was her mouth. A silent scream. Her hands clutched at her thin nightdress, nearing tearing it at the neckline. Azriel reigned in the way it unsettled him and moved his hands from her shoulders to her wrists, hoping to pry them free. But as soon as his fingers wrapped around her skin, the silence cracked.
"No! No!"
He released her immediately, fearing that she would pull away and hit her head on the bed's sideboard. Azriel realised his mistake as she sobbed, running her fingers over the mangled scarring on her wrist. He knew what her nightmare had been. He kept the link their eyes made and slowly worked to unravel the sheet from around her. By the time he finished, her sobs had dried to silent tears.
He sat in front of her and opened both his hands towards her. "When you're ready," he told her. It took her a good minute, but eventually her small hands fit in both of his. Azriel rubbed his thumb over her knuckles. "I need to look at your head. Do you feel dizzy?"
"Not anymore." Her voice was hoarse, broken.
He nodded and shuffled closer, laying her hands on his legs where she clutched the material of his pants. Lightly taking her chin, he turned her head and inspected the wound. He had to move hair out of the way but he found it amidst the strands an inch above her temple. It wouldn't need stitches, he concluded, but a good clean and a mix of pressure and drainage. First, however, she needed him. He could sense it from the way her hands were crawling higher upon his thighs, the flats of her palms next against his stomach then his chest.
Azriel pulled her closer, guiding the uninjured side of her head against his shoulder. Arwen shuddered in a way that he could only read as relief, like the shedding of bloodstained armour after a battle. They stayed that way, droplets of blood falling from her jaw and landing on his lap. "I need to tend to it," he eventually whispered, pressing his thumb lightly against her skull an inch away from the wound's opening.
It still brought a wince to her face but he took her lack of resistance as acceptance and pulled her weight into his arms. He stood with her gathered to his chest and headed to the washroom. Azriel placed her on the countertop. "I need to get some things," he said, unravelling her hand from his hair.
Through the moonlight that managed to make its way through the fogged glass, he saw her pondwater eyes searching his. It wasn't until Arwen nodded that he took his leave and went on the hunt for the supplies he needed.
Returning, he lit the small lights, embracing the room in a warm yellow. Arwen was not on the counter where he had left her, but he had guessed that already by the sound of running water in the bathtub. She sat in it, her still clothed back directly under the heavy stream. He flicked his hand under it, making sure that it was warm.
In the light he saw the new tattoo that had appeared six days ago. Their mating bond, solidified in permanent ink for all to see. His own was similar, but not an exact match. It took up most of the left side of her neck, the whorls as thick as his finger in most places, as thick as two in others. One tendril stretched along the underside of her jaw, curling slightly at the end before reaching her chin. Another branched up behind her ear, snaking around it before splitting off into two thin vines. One hooked around the front of her earâexactly as his shadows would when they whispered to him. The other flicked up towards her temple, nearly joining with her brow of the same dark shade.
Azriel's own spanned across his jaw and temple too although the whorls and curls and flicks were less delicate but just as thick.
It was a strange thought to pass, but he was secretly glad that that blood painted her other side. He might have taken it as some omen if it had covered the new marking.
The tiles were cold against his knees even through the fabric of his pants as he rested against the side of the clawed tub. Head wounds bled a lot and knowing as such curbed his urgency in favour of her comfort. Azriel took a nearby washcloth and ran it under the faucet. He wiped it gently across her face, leaving marks of washed-out pink on his first pass and the skin clear on his second.
"Why the bath?" he asked as he wrung out the washcloth.
"I can feel it," she said. Azriel turned the tap to lower the pressure before guiding the side of her head under the softer flow. Red-tainted water flowed down over her shoulder. "I can feel the water against me. The pressure. The temperature. It reminds me that every part of me is here. That I'm not... Lost."
Azriel nodded silently, parting her wet hair so he could inspect the wound again as she spoke. It was the length of his pinkie and jagged but only deep on one end. With the balm he intended to put on it, it would heal almost seamlessly in less than a week. "That's what I like about my shadows. I can feel them and listen to them. I'm never alone."
She looked at him, eyes wandering along where he assumed his shadows were. "I feel them too, when they're with me. I know you send them."
"Not always," he admitted, reaching for the balm he left on the counter. "They like being around you."
"Well they're a part of you so I consider it that way."
Azriel smiled and urged her head from underneath the stream of water. He tilted her head to the side and thumbed a spread of the cream along the cleaned wound. "What did that nightstand ever do to you? I'm going to have to check up on it after this, make sure it's not too insulted by being disturbed."
"It was in my way," she replied, adamant in tone.
"It hasn't moved in centuries." He clicked his tongue. "Might need an apology before it ever lets you stack all your books on it again."
Arwen gave him a sour expression. "I'm not saying sorry to wood."
"So very rude of you."
There is one more chapter to go.
I will mark this story complete after tomorrow's update, however I will likely publish a teaser chapter after for the mini-prequel. Check out my profile for any other stories you might like (just don't touch the Merlin ones because they were my first attempts at writing in years and I hate seeing people read them lmao. But they're relatively popular so I keep them up XD)