"Help! Someone help me!" Azriel was running down a dark hallway, sprinting to catch up with the voice. The fear leaking into the wails, the screams for help. Whoever she was, whoever that poor person was, she was being tortured. He had to save her – he had to save the woman. He turned a corner abruptly and then halted. A man loomed in front of him – rich, tan skin with emerald green eyes. Azriel skidded to a stop. He knew that man…he knew him well….

It had been centuries, but he still recognized him. Rhys had told him that he shattered his legs centuries ago, but here he was in front of him. Standing perfectly, shining a lethal smile. It was one of his half-brothers – Raphael. One out of the two who had tortured him with fire as a child. Someone who had made him stop, for just a moment, in utter fear. Childish fear. Behind his brother, a thick iron door was slammed shut. He was guarding it.

"Nice to see you again, Azzie," Raphael cooed, "Are you here to save her?"

"What are you doing here?" Azriel let out, pure shock filling him. Before his brother could answer, he lunged towards him, but his body was like lead. He couldn't move. He was frozen. His eyes turned to saucers as he looked up at Raphael. Rage, pure rage, erupted through his body. He let out his arms but the blue rays meaning to shoot out didn't occur. His breathing began to pace, looking down at his body. Why couldn't he move? Why couldn't he fight? He looked back up at his step-brother, who was cackling madly.

"What did you do to me?" Azriel meant to roar, but instead it came out a choked whisper. His half-brother shook his head, pointing at him mockingly.

"It's not me, Azzie, it's you. You don't care, do you? About your friends, that is. If so, you'd help them. Protect them." And his Raphael was right – his hands were shaking. The red scars that swirled around his hand was widening, moving, consuming his body. He wanted to wipe them off as if that would stop the madness, but he couldn't do it. Something, something inside him, stopped him from doing it. Just like when he was a child, when he was a helpless, little boy. The years he had imagined destroying his brother, and yet he couldn't do a single thing to him. Because you're weak, a voice in his head said, you're too weak to stop it. And then he heard it again – the screaming. The wailing in pain. He looked at his brother, tears forming in his eyes. Tears, something he hadn't had in centuries. Since he was a child.

"I do protect them, I protect them every-"

"Why won't someone help me?" The voice cried from behind the iron door. In response, his half-brother laughed.

There were so many things on his lips, so many things he wanted to say and let out but instead he whispered, like a little boy, "Who is that?" Who is that, he thought again in his head. The voice….it was so familiar…

"Does it matter?" Raphael responded. "What can you do, Azriel? Hide into the shadows?" Azriel gritted his teeth. He was still frozen, frozen in place. His eyes kept going towards the door behind them, the screeching consuming his thoughts.

"What are they doing to her? What's going on?" Azriel asked desperately, his voice cracking. Raphael's eyes was gleaming.

"Go and look," his brother said. Suddenly, Azriel's feet began to move and he walked towards the iron door. As he walked, the girl's wailing became clearer, more real.

"Help! Azriel! Help me!" He put his hands on the iron door, pushing it open and then jumped back in surprise.

When he opened it – he felt like he was going to puke. It was the cell he had been put in when he was a child, except ten times bigger. How did he get here? How did it get here? He cringed back, about to run out the door, run and hide from the madness, until he saw the fire blazing in front of him. His other half-brother, Petyr. He was shoving a girl's hands into a bin full of fire. She was screaming.

"Help!" She roared, "Help! Azriel, help!" And then she turned around, looking at him with tears streaming down her face. He exhaled.

Elain.

He tried running towards her but he couldn't get his legs to work. He was solid – frozen, unable to move once again. Petyr was laughing and behind him, he could hear Raphael laughing as well. He wasn't the man his friend's believed he was – he was a coward. He couldn't even fight his own half-brothers. He couldn't even save Elain.

"Azriel, why won't you help me?" She turned around, and he saw her hand full of scars already. "Don't you care about me? Why are you…are you…" Tears were streaming down his own face now. Her face filled with pure anger, disgust as she looked at him. And the next thing she said felt like a million bricks had fallen on him.

"Such a monster?"

He woke up with a jolt. He was wet – a pellet of sweat dripping off his brow. As he leaned up into his bed, revealing a body-length crease of sweat under him, he took a deep breath. Though his breath was even, he could feel the fire in his veins. The anger whirled in his stomach and at the edge of his fingertips there was an urgency. An itching. Slowly, he looked down at his shaking hands and letting his eyes fall across the red blots that were etched against his skin. And while he knew the incident was only a dream – just a nightmare, he leapt to his feet and swiftly put on his pants. He went towards the door, opening it silently. He first put his head out, analyzing the surroundings.

There was a faint light seeping under the door, small but evident. Quietly, he creeped down the hallway. While normally he would have melted into the shadows and would have gotten there far quicker, he had done this a million times before and knew that he would not get caught. But still, when he reached the door he paused. Even from outside the door, he could hear her breaths. Her sweet, rhythmic breaths. Inhaling, he slowly twisted the doorknob.

And she was there. He didn't let out his breath until he took every part of her in – her loose knot that was spilling over her forehead, the pink cotton gown that made her look like a porcelain doll. Her skin – white and without any scars, aside from the brown birthmark under her chin, looked like moon light. Next to her bed, there were books scattered across the floor, all of them open on a random page. He dissected every bit of the room from where he stood – from each shadow that loomed above her to the flickering light that was on the desk next to the door. She was safe, she was okay. At least, for now. A part of him knew it was bad that he did this, for him to walk into her room once, maybe twice, a night. But what was he supposed to do? The nightmares were so vivid, so real. If something were to happen to her, even in the middle of the night, he would never be able to forgive himself. Not now, not ever. Because a beast inside him, an enraged beast that his adoptive brothers chose not to acknowledge, loomed when darkness neared. He could keep the beast contained for weeks, sometimes months, at a time, but that did not erase the fact that it was still there. That the beast was waiting, waiting for something to happen so that it could consume him. And Elain would be that reason. Elain would always be that reason.

Before letting himself out, he blew out the burning candle on her desk and quietly shut the door before he tested his luck any longer. He finally let out the breath inside him, exhaling deeply. He only had a few hours to sleep before he had to wake again due to Rhys's orders. It had been three weeks since the battle officially ended and majority of the group calmed down but Azriel knew that nothing, nothing in this world, would ever cause Rhys to relax. A part of him believed that it was possibly Amarantha and Hybern who had done that – as soon as he was released from her grasp, another war took him by surprise, leaving Rhys to never feel safe. So Azriel did his bidding so that nobody else would have to. He would spy and wait and harass every living being before he let his friend's paranoia consume him. He did not want Rhys turning into him. He did not want-

"What are you doing?" In one swift movement, Azriel turned around. Mor was leaning outside her door, rubbing her eyes with a yawn. Her blonde hair was twisted and tangled up and her thin nightgown was slipping down her chest.

Azriel only had to blink once before he replied, "I was sweeping the grounds." He turned back on his heel but Mor – sweet Mor – knew better.

"Even I know you aren't that obsessive. We have guards, guards that you trained, to do that," Mor scolded. "What are you really doing, Az?" And then, just like that, he was gridlocked. He turned around once more, just to hold her gaze. It was near impossible to tongue-tie Azriel but, just rarely, Mor was able to do it.

"What are you doing up?" He asked after a beat, with the same exact tone. "Aren't you supposed to be asleep?" Mor's face twitched. She wasn't used to that tone from him, not at all. She let out a low growl underneath her breath.

"I would be if somebody hadn't woken me up," Mor snarled back. "Cauldron, Az, what time is it? Three, four in the morning?" He let out a breath.

"I'm sorry for waking you," He managed to say, though he wasn't sure if he meant it, "Just go back to bed, Mor." He started walking but she snagged his arm. This time, he didn't turn around.

"You have nightmares too, don't you?" She said, her voice breaking. "Where do you go in the middle of the night, Az? I've heard you do it every single night this week." At first he was silent. But when he replied, he didn't bother to hide the shakiness in his voice. He didn't want to hide anymore – he didn't want to keep it inside himself.

"It's my job to make sure they're okay," He said quietly. And when he looked behind his shoulder, falling deeply into her brown eyes, he saw something flicker. She opened her mouth in confusion. Because who would he feel like he needed to protect? Though Nesta would never admit it, everybody knew that Cassian snuck into her room in the late hours of the night and Rhys always slept with Feyre. And then she looked down the opposite side of the hallway, her eyes falling to the only door that he could have gone into. Elain's.

No flash of surprise, no look of disappointment or pain or sadness. Instead, she just said, "Oh." Yeah, he thought. Oh.

(three dashes here)

Usually I try to make the first chapter longer but before I begin the plot, I want to see who is interested in this style of POV I have for Azriel. If you like it, please review