elriel bot

Lucien’s attention went right to the hallway toward the back, his nostrils flaring as he scented Elain’s direction. And who she’d gone with. A low snarl slipped out of him— “Relax,” Rhys said. “Azriel isn’t the ravishing type.”

Then Azriel, gently taking Elain’s hand in his own, as if afraid his scars would hurt her.

Elain just linked her arm through Nesta’s and led her toward the family room, where Azriel stood in the doorway, monitoring them. As if he’d heard Elain’s sharp laugh and wondered what had caused it.

Azriel stilled. “What happened to Elain?” Cassian waved a hand. “A fight with Nesta. Don’t bring it up,” he warned when Azriel’s eyes darkened.

“My shadows don’t like the flames so much.” A pretty lie. She’d seen Azriel before the fire plenty. But she looked at who sat close to it and knew the answer. “Why did you come if it torments you so much?”

Then his gaze shifted to Elain, and though it was utterly neutral, something charged went through it. Between them. Elain’s breath caught slightly.

Already dressed for the Hewn City—the brutal, beautiful armor so at odds with the lovely garden. And my sister sitting within it. “Why not make them mates?” I mused. “Why Lucien?”

"I’m talking about you, about to kiss Elain, in the middle of a hall where anyone could see you," he snarled. "Including her mate."   Azriel stiffened. Let his cold rage rise to the surface, the rage he only ever let Rhysand see, because he knew his brother could match it.

“What if the Cauldron was wrong?”

before entering somewhere… nice-smelling. Roses? Bread? They ate bread in Hel? Had flowers?

Elain just linked her arm through Nesta’s and led her toward the family room, where Azriel stood in the doorway, monitoring them. As if he’d heard Elain’s sharp laugh and wondered what had caused it.

Feyre said, “We won’t allow any harm to come to Elain. Rhys warded her this morning, and we have eyes on her at all times.” “Eyes can be blinded,” Nesta said. “Not the ones under my command,” Azriel said with soft menace.

Azriel tucked in his wings and left without another word, stalking through the house and onto the front lawn to sit in the frigid starlight. To let the frost in his veins match the air around him.   Until he felt nothing. Was again nothing at all.

Elain say to Azriel, “Hello.” Az said nothing. No, he just moved toward her. Mor tensed beside me. But Azriel only took Elain’s heavy dish of potatoes from her hands, his voice soft as night as he said, “Sit. I’ll take care of it.”

“You don't-- Don't apologize,” he managed to say. "Never apologize. It's I who should…” He shook his head, unable to stand the bleakness he'd brought to her expression.

Azriel stiffened, an outright sign of temper from him as he said quietly, “There is an innate darkness to the Dread Trove that Elain should not be exposed to.”

It made sense, I supposed, that Azriel alone had listened to her. The male who heard things others could not... Perhaps he, too, had suffered as Elain had before he understood what gift he possessed.

Nesta saw the blow land, like a physical impact, in Elain’s face, her posture. No one spoke, though shadows gathered in the corners of the room, like snakes preparing to strike.