Gwyn was still awake when Azriel silently slipped into his room, she was waiting for him, gods, she must be exhausted, it had been dark for hours. Azriel couldn't move from the doorway, couldn't quite believe his eyes, she was right there, in his room, waiting for him, she must be looking for him in the night sky. Every moment that he stood there, completely enraptured by the female before him, his heart cracked, and broke, then reforged, then broke again before he finally stepped into the room. He moved almost silently, there was something about her, something that he couldn't place, but whatever it was, it drew him in, he couldn't stay away.

"Gwyn," he breathed, alerting her to his presence before he risked touching her, and she sighed in relief,

"You were gone so long," she muttered, still gazing out of the window, and Azriel slowly wrapped his arms around her waist, resting his chin on the top of her head, her little sigh of contentment soothing his racing nerves.

"I'm sorry, I had a few more things to do than I'd expected, but I'm fine." Gwyn leaned back into his touch, and closed her eyes,

"But you're here, that's all that matters." All that matters. Her voice rang through Azriel's mind again and again, until she squeezed his arm, and turned to face him, concern glittering in her eyes, "What is it?" Azriel blinked in surprise, "Something's bothering you. What?" Mother above, she was going to be the death of him,

"Just thinking,"

"About?"

"You. You waited for me, you should have gone to bed, but you didn't."

"How could I not wait?" She breathed, slowly lifting her arms to encircle his neck, leaning fully into him, and Azriel braced against her weight, letting her slowly push him backwards, and something in her eyes changed somehow. If it were possible, the silvery tones in her eyes shone brighter, the teal color shining in the dim light. She smiled gleefully for a moment before shoving him backwards, and Azriel allowed her to push him onto the bed, sitting at the edge as she traced the shape of his jaw with one finger, drawing all his attention. He hadn't noticed her move, only noticed once she was sitting sideways in his lap, her arms around his neck, leaning into his shoulder. He tentatively rested a hand on her waist, the other slipping under her knees to hold her up. "How could I not wait?" She repeated, "You were out there trying to do some good, trying to save lives, how could I not wait? How could I be so stupid to allow this selfless," she pressed a kiss to the edge of his jaw, "Brave," another kiss, one for each word she continued to speak, "Intelligent, kind, compassionate male to come back alone?" she looked him dead in the eyes, tears mirroring his own starting to form in her eyes, "I will never leave you to do anything alone. I can't, Az, I can't do that to someone I love, I can't, I won't, ever."

"Say it again," he whispered, not quite trusting his ears, and Gwyn quieted, as if realizing what she'd said, then smiled,

"I love you, Azriel." Blood roared in his ears, and everything around him faded, everything except this beautiful, wild female in his lap. He didn't hear himself speak, but knew he was saying those words back to her, and more besides, but for once, the shadows had fallen silent, not bothering him with their incessant whispers and advice. The way his mind was racing, perhaps he just didn't hear them as Gwyn's mouth crashed into his, her hands immediately diving into his hair, and tugging, hard. Azriel moaned through the kiss, and Gwyn pressed closer. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. He tried to shift her on his lap, so that she wouldn't feel the growing hardness through his leathers. He gently nudged her to the side, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss, even as she let out a moan that had his heart racing, Gwyn moved again, her hands still in his hair, oh shit, she was definitely going to notice, "Az?"

"I'm sorry,"

"You - what? Why are you sorry? I was just going to ask if I hurt you, you flinched when I grabbed your hair just now."

"Oh," he chuckled softly, "No, I liked that," Gwyn arched an eyebrow, and did it again, pulling his head back with the force of her tug, then kissed his jaw, working her way along it,

"Like that?"

"Exactly like that, Gwyn, gods you're perfect." Azriel didn't quite know what he was saying, but he knew it was true, she was perfect, and the way her eyes had changed again woke an entirely different sort of feeling inside him. The silver was there, but it was different, less shiny, and more, more like a different depth to the color, a depth he'd happily drown in, if it weren't for the way his traitorous body reacted to her. By some great stroke of luck, Gwyn seemed not to notice, and finally crawled off him, leaving him feeling suddenly lighter, and he narrowed his eyes, "Gwyn," he complained, but she just laughed,

"Feyre was right, you are Illyrian babies," she teased, and Azriel couldn't help but laugh at the way she was smiling, the way her lips were slightly swollen, her hair messy, falling out of the braid it had been in, her cheeks flushed with color. He had done that, she had trusted him with this side of her, and the trust and love in her eyes as she stared down at him had his mind wandering. Images flashed before his eyes, a little house on the Sidra, with a little garden that the sky was visible from, a little child, hazel eyes, dark auburn hair, flapping his wings as Gwyn held him off the ground.

Azriel blinked back to reality, trying to dispel that image, the future he hadn't realized that he wanted, that he could have with Gwyn. Gwyn grinned again, and he automatically squeezed his eyes shut when she went for the first button on her shirt,

"What are you doing?"

"Not looking." Gwyn snorted with laughter,

"If I was worried about you looking, I wouldn't have been sleeping in your bed for the last week, and I certainly wouldn't have expected you to close your eyes, I don't want you to." Azriel slowly cracked open an eye,

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I won't pretend that I'm not nervous about stuff like this, but I want to start being able to do things around you, I'm okay, I promise," she'd only managed one button, and Azriel made a point to get ready for bed at the same time so that he wasn't stuck staring at her, but made sure to smile when she slowly put her shirt to the side.

"Beautiful," he whispered, he didn't even notice that he was only in his pants as she met his gaze, clearly fighting the instinct to hide, but she smiled,

"You think so?"

"I know so. You are, by far, the most beautiful, most intelligent, most badass female I've ever met." Gwyn snorted,

"I know a few who might contest that claim," she muttered,

"They can contest it all they like, it won't stop it being true." Gwyn offered him another tiny smile, and the tension in her muscles slowly disappeared as she helped Azriel tidy the room, leaving her shirt off, before asking him to look away so that she could change fully into her nightgown.

Gwyn sighed in contentment as she snuggled into Azriel's chest, and he could almost hear her thoughts racing,

"Az?" She finally said,

"Yeah?"

"I - uh, never mind,"

"What?" He turned her face towards him,

"I just - you know the kind of books that Nesta and Emerie read, right?"

"Oh yes, I'm well aware, but it's not just them reading those books, is it?"

"No. And, well, it's always written to be so different to, you know."

"It is different, very. But I don't want you to worry about anything you don't want."

"But that's the thing, I do want it, want you, not all the time, and I'm still not sure what exactly I want, but I know I want something more." Gwyn immediately hid her face in the crook of Azriel's neck, as if she were hiding from him, but lifted her head at the sound of his voice,

"All you have to do is ask, you don't have to be ready for everything."

"Oh, I'm not, I'm not going to be comfortable with sex, not yet." Azriel brushed a lock of hair behind her ear as she blushed beet red.

"That's okay, besides," he chuckled, "There's plenty I can do, even with all your clothes on."

"You can?"

"Mhhmmm, you just talk to me, and let me know when you want something, okay?"

"Okay," Gwyn rested her head back on his shoulder, her breathing slowing as Azriel slowly rubbed her back, his own eyes falling shut as she unconsciously wriggled closer to him.

Gwyn wasn't sure when she'd fallen asleep, but she didn't want to wake Azriel, the dawn light was barely showing through the curtains, and she closed her eyes again, her mind immediately running through last night's events, what she had told him before falling asleep. She smiled to herself, she'd been foolish to think he'd react in any other way. She had surprised herself with the admission, but he seemed to already know it, to have expected it. He knew, but the fear that she had expected after telling him didn't chase down that realization, just the slightly nervous excitement that she found whenever one of those thoughts found its way into her mind. She was ready, for something at least, maybe just a little step, but she wanted to take that first step, to take that step with Azriel.

She almost giggled out loud as she remembered the way he had looked at her, the way those words had started falling from his lips, I love you, Gwyn, gods you have no idea how much I really do love you, a slight movement had Azriel pulling her closer, his arm around her waist squeezing tighter as she remembered the way his voice had almost broken when he'd admitted that, apart from his mother, she was the only female who'd ever said she loved him, the only one in five and a half centuries of searching. Gwyn squeezed her eyes shut to avoid letting the tears fall again, he'd called her the one, he'd said that she was who he'd been searching for, that he couldn't imagine loving anyone else as much, that he had never imagined such love was possible for him. Somehow, the feeling of Azriel's chest rising and falling underneath her head managed to destroy all of her fears, somehow his very presence made it seem like everything would be okay. Gwyn had just allowed her eyes to fall closed when a shadow twined its way into her hair, and she stifled a giggle, somehow finding the familiar darkness safe, nothing like the darkness that had frightened her, nothing like the darkness she needed her sleeping potion to escape. Her sleeping potion, it was still at the library, she hadn't taken it, not for a while, not since, she blinked in surprise, not since she'd started sharing Azriel's bed, but neither had she had a nightmare since then. She squeezed her eyes shut again, but a couple of tears still forced their way out, and Gwyn buried her face in Azriel's chest, he really had saved her from the fear, showed her the way out, and let her find her own escape from it.

"Are you crying?" Gwyn almost leapt out of her skin at the sound of Azriel's voice, still half sleepy, deeper than usual, and she lifted her head off his chest,

"I love you." She said, "You're the only person I ever want to love like this, the only one." She didn't care that she was crying now, she didn't care, not when Azriel held her close, his wings, his beautiful wings, gently wrapping around her, despite her love, she could still see the shadow of doubt in his eyes, "Oh, I know you don't think you're perfect, no-one is, but you are perfect for me." No words could encompass what she was feeling, the way her heart leapt whenever he entered a room, when anyone even mentioned his name,

"I thought I'd dreamed it," he practically whispered, then met her gaze, "I love you." Oh gods, that voice, that face, that look in his eyes, she'd died and gone to heaven. There was no way she could love anyone this much, no way anyone could make her feel so special, like she was the only female in the world, the only one who deserved his love. She tried to speak, but someone pounded on the door,

"C'mon, Az!" Azriel rolled his eyes,

"I'll murder him," he muttered, then shouted as much as Cassian laughed,

"Get up, there's a letter for you, looks important."

"Shit. It's probably from Maddy," he muttered, Gwyn hid a laugh at his complaints as she rolled out of bed, "Don't side with him! You traitor!" She laughed again,

"We do have to get up,"

"I know, I just don't want to. There's all sorts of bullshit going on out there, I don't want to deal with that, I want to just deal with you."

"Deal with me? I'm not paperwork," she huffed, trying and failing to keep a straight face, "I'll be with you all day anyway, just not in here. That bullshit won't go away unless we make it." Azriel was staring at her, and Gwyn glanced around, was her hair a mess? "What?"

"You're adorable when you curse." He didn't give Gwyn a chance to respond before darting into the bathroom, leaving her with space to change on her own. Still, she flipped him off through the door, it didn't matter if he couldn't see her, it still counted.

The letter was from Maddy, a report spelled so that only he could read it, she said that no-one had been able to get into the mortal palace, that the queens were holed up inside, and that some of the Illyrians were there, not all of them she didn't think, but that was definitely their next target. Azriel sighed as he finished reading the letter, and explained to Gwyn what it meant, what they had to do next. Still, he couldn't just tell the others, tell Rhys, that they had no eyes or ears in the mortal palace, he had to plan for a way to get in. Once that plan was in place, then he'd tell Rhys. Gwyn was still sitting patiently beside him, pouring over a map of the palace, noting entrances, exits, likely guard posts, and marking them on with an expert eye, the kind of points it had taken him a while to get used to finding, she'd done it instinctively.

"Did I miss any?" She asked when she noticed his gaze on her, and Azriel quickly checked the map,

"Just here, with buildings like this, the way the balconies are designed, they'll overlook this whole courtyard, if I were planning defense, I'd put at least two guards up there. If they were to see an intruder, me, they would have easy access to this top floor to sound an alarm," Azriel ran a finger along the corridor, all the way to the nearest guard tower, where an alarm could be sounded from, "It would take any decent guard about twenty seconds to get there, so I'd be fucked if they saw me, or noticed that I wasn't where I should be." Gwyn nodded, and memorized the look of that balcony, the way the cartographer had drawn it, and Azriel knew instinctively that she'd recognize that style of balcony whether she saw it tomorrow or a hundred years from now.

"One thing," Gwyn said, finally looking away from the map, and Azriel raised an eyebrow, "You keep saying 'I', and not 'we', I don't like that."

"You can't seriously be expecting me to take you into the heart of enemy territory? Not yet, Gwyn. I know you can move dead silently, and your instincts are top level, but you still haven't had much training, if something happened to you in there," he trailed off, the words unable to from, he couldn't even face that possibility, he would never forgive himself if she got hurt.

"Have you ever been in a mortal palace before?"

"No, have you?"

"No, but I have been in temple for many years, and the library, and, whilst I was at Sangravah, we would occasionally be sent to the continent, to visit other temples, and dwellings, so I do have friends in the mortal realm, friends who work in the palace," Azriel must have been gaping because she rolled her eyes and told him to close his mouth, "So, you need me, I can get us in much more easily than you can alone. And you said yourself, I can look after myself if I need to, not that I will need to with you right there, but that's beside the point. Either I come with you, or it's too dangerous on your own and you're not going." Azriel couldn't help the quiet laugh from escaping,

"Or I'm not going?"

"I mean it. I will," she pursed her lips, "I'll tell your mother." Azriel gasped in feigned horror,

"You wouldn't!"

"I would, you can't disobey Mama now can you, Azzy?" She teased, and Azriel grinned,

"I should have known she'd pounce the moment I left, she's been dying to meet you, ever since the first time I mentioned you in a letter."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I hardly told her anything, but she seems to think that you're now the only decent topic of conversation," Gwyn snorted, and nodded,

"She does seem that way, but I'm hardly surprised, by the sound of it, you haven't mentioned anyone to her before."

"I haven't. I didn't realize you knew that, I only mentioned you because it felt wrong to have talked about what was going on here without talking about you, you were basically the only thing happening in my life. I did try not to talk too much about you, but I think I did mention how excited you were when you landed your first hit on me when we were sparring a while back." Gwyn chuckled at the memory,

"You just wait, shadowsinger, soon I'll knock you on your ass with one blow." He raised an eyebrow,

"We'll see about that." He muttered as Gwyn pretended to stab him with her pencil, laughing at his retaliation with his own pencil. She narrowed her eyes and stabbed at him again, not relenting until he'd disarmed her after a furious pencil duel, sending them both into fits of laughter as they finalized the map of the palace.