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Chapter 6: Better than revenge✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
It's the High Lord.
Azriel felt the wards shudder and then snap closed, his mouth ceasing to make sounds in the middle of his conversation with Cassian.
"Oh no," he breathed when he felt the ice-cold fury pour over their mating bond.
That was all he needed before he forced himself to get out of bed and snap at the shadows that tried to hold him down. For once they listened to him, probably because they knew that he was too fucking furious to be held down.
"You are supposed to stay in bed!" Cassian protested. Azriel ignored that as he hobbled to the door.
"My mate is going head to head with the fucking High Lord of the Night Court, I am not staying in the fucking bed!" He snapped. There was to hope that they wouldn't outright kill each other but somehow he didn't think that Oriana, in all her righteous fury, would be in a very forgiving mood.
Cassian finally acquiesced, fitting himself under a shoulder and dragging him outside onto the porch where Nesta stood, staring at the spectacle before them.
Rhys was trussed up like a turkey, suspended midair, merrily swinging in the wind, wings unable to move much in the golden bubble Oriana had him in.
And Oriana…Oriana stood in front of him, hands on her hips and glaring at Rhys.
"Oh for fuck's sake, Rhysand! I told you to stay away," Cassian snapped. "How? Is that your magic?" He asked Oriana, who just shrugged.
"It's an enchantment. I reworked my warding net. That you broke," she answered, her voice even.
"When the fuck did you even do this?" Azriel demanded.
"Last night when you were sleeping, Sweetling. I was bored," Oriana answered. "And you are supposed to be in bed. I got this well in hand." Of course. Sometimes she slid out of the bed in the middle of the night because she had an idea for something and needed to write it down before she could forget it. These days she kept a notebookonn on her bedside table, though the sound of a pen scratching over parchment had oftentimes woken him up, only to reach out and pull her against his chest. "It's like a mouse trap. Just for High Lords. Who stick their nose into things that are absolutely none of their business," she said brightly.
Oh for cauldron's sake.
"I realise that I may have misstepped," Rhys dared to say, still dangling head down in the air.
Oriana's head snapped towards him. Azriel held back a grimace while Nesta started to outright grin.
"Misstepped?" Oriana repeated voice light. The magical bindings jerked Rhys up. "Is that what we call that now?"
In his defence, Rhys didn't even tried to get out of it of his magical prison. He probably realised that trying anyway wouldn't be a good idea. Who knew what else Oriana had worked into her enchantment when she had been working in it?
"I am surprised you haven't set me on fire yet," Rhys said drily. "Like last time." Last time?"
"Oh, all in good time," Oriana said brightly. "I enjoy your fear too much to cut this short."
Azriel probably… definitely shouldn't find this attractive. But he did.
He really, really did. It was the pure magical power that poured from her, the intelligence that it must have taken to make a ward like that, her mind at work, protecting herself, protecting him.
"There won't be a repeat of last time, if you worry about that…" last time? What did she mean by last time?
And then his attention was pulled towards Feyre twholanded a few feet before the golden dome that surrounded the Lakehouse and jogged the rest of the way, until she came to a stop in front of the ward.
"If you wouldn't maim him for life, you would do me a favour!" Feyre called out.
Oriana inclined her head. "High Lady." There actually was respect in her voice that hadn't been there before for Rhys.
"Oh, just Feyre is fine!" Feyre assured her. "It's so nice to meet you!"
"Oriana. But I think you already know that," Oriana said. "It's nice to meet you too."
"She's very pretty. I can see why you wanted to marry her sister," Feyre told Rhys drily. Cassian next to him choked on nothing.
"You wanted to marry her sister?" Cassian asked, sounding incredulously. "What exactly did you do to his favourite jacket, Oriana?" he asked her, a grin stretching over his features.
"I put it on fire," Oriana answered easily. "And then I started with the rest of him. He had it coming though. He tried to flirt with Enya and when she turned him down, he tried it with me, but I was already engaged."
Oh. Well.
"You were engaged?" Cassian asked, surprised.
Oriana shrugged. "Yes. I got engaged to get Enya out of marrying and being miserable for the rest of her life, an then this one shows up and wants a bride. Which would already be bad enough but to decide that if one wouldn't suffice, the next was an option? Yeah, I made my displeasure known. My sister is much happier in the infirmary than she ever would be as anybody's wife," she ranted. A fireball appeared with a dainty little flick of her wrist, flying across their yard near the bubble that still held Rhys. He was eyeing it with no small amount of trepidation.
Azriel had no clue what to think about all of this.
"Don't worry, your jacket is safe from my wrath," Oriana quipped.
"Could you maybe not kill him? I kinda want my son to know his father," Feyre asked with a grimace
"Thanks, Feyre darling," Rhys said drily. She just shrugged
"Sorry, you had this coming, Rhys," Feyre said, crossing her arms.
"Don't worry, he won't die," Oriana promised. "I have only killed one person in my life and that wasn't even on purpose."
"Who did she kill?" Cassian asked him in a hiss.
"Her husband," Azriel said with a shrug. At Cassian's stare, he added, "He had it coming. It was self-defense."
Quite frankly, Wynstan had it coming. It could have been much worse. Oriana's magic had onlyburneds him to death. For what he had done to her and taken from her, that kind of death could probably still be considered to be merciful as far as Azriel was concerned.
"You can walk through the ward. It's intent-basedd," Oriana told Feyre at that moment. Feyre watched it carefully for a moment but then stepped through the ward that did nothing but glow brighter in response for a moment.
"So what exactly was Rhysands intent if he triggered it?" Cassian asked the question that Azriel was also having.
"No small amount of self-loathing, I imagine," Oriana said drily just as Feyre reached them, pulling Azriel into a hug.
"You look better than I thought you would," she told him, a smile on her face. "She won't burn him, will she?" she muttered under her breath and Azriel just shrugged. His guess was as good as any.
"We are going to talk about consequences," Oriana said at that moment, flicking her wrist a second time, another fireball joining the first, hovering in the air. A third time. It spoke of so much control over her magic that Azriel was slightly awed. "And about what exactly constitutes appropriate behaviour towards my mate."
The last thing he had expected was the words that left Rhys' mouth next: "I am sorry."
Azriel's eyes widened. This wasn't…This was the last thing he had expected. Especially because Rhys sounded like he really was sorry.
"I wasn't aware that you even knew that word existed. For what are you sorry?" Oriana prodded sharply, arms still crossed, clearly not willing to let a single thing go.
Azriel couldn't remember ever having anybody in his life who came down this harshly on anybody who did anything to disrespect thim. Even Rhys and Cassian thought that he could deal with it himself. Oriana…Oriana was seemingly glowing with righteous fury, thinly concealed magic sparking at his fingertips.
"I was…out of line," Rhys struggled to bring out the words.
"Were you?" she questioned lightly. Her tone of voice was in a very sharp contrast to seemingly everything else she was doing. From Rhys dangling in the middle of their garden to the fireballs that surrounded him glowingly.
"I was," Rhys agreed. "I thought that…I tried to do what was best for the Night Court," Rhys said quietly.
"Correction. You tried to do what you thought was best for the Night Court," Oriana cut him off. "Without even talking to anybody else or asking for advice. But then you aren'particularlyar smart, so maybe I shouldn't have expected any differently."
Ouch.
"Excuse me," Rhys complained, but she ignored that. Nesta bit back a laugh, while Feyre watched that whole thing with ill-concealed fascination. Cassian had crossed his arms, while Azriel himself was leaning harshly against the porch railing, as he watched his mate rail against Rhys.
Oriana wasn't even close to done, was she?
He could feel it pour all over their bond, her fury, her anger, burning brightly as she concentrated it on who she clearly felt deserved all of it.
Azriel wondered how she had put all the pieces together, but then maybe he shouldn't. She knew him better than anybody else. And she was smarter than anybody he knew. She had probably overheard his conversation with Cassian and that had felt in all the blanks that she had been missing.
"You know, I kept a list," Oriana said suddenly. "A list of political decisions you made that I thought were unwise. But quite frankly, it didn't really matter to me. If Velaris turned out to be unsustainable, I was just going to go back into the mountain," she told him. "But some decisions you made were about Azriel. And these…they pertain to me. They matter to me."
"If I didn't do what I did you would have probably never even met him," Rhys pointed out, his voice hoarsely. The fireballs burned brighter in response, flames appearing at Oriana's fingertips as she uncrossed her arms and held her hands to her side, clearly used to not burn the clothing she was wearing.
"Is that supposed to make me be on your side?" she hissed. "You think that makes it any better? I love Azriel! I would rather not have him feel any pain at all than even spend a moment in my presence!" He flinched at her words because he had very different thoughts about that. He would rather walk through fire and burn alive than be even a moment without Oriana.
"When I met him, he was a fucking shell of a being! He expected me to turn him away at every corner, to tell him to leave me alone! You hurt him. So much so that for close to two years, he lived in a house without any furniture! Where he slept on the floor. And I quote *I grew up in a cell, at least this has windows!*" He couldn't help but flinch at her words.
"Oh Az…" Cassian whispered and he held tighter to the railing. Oriana wasn't finished though.
"You hurt him! With your words, and with your actions! I could argue against why you did what you did. I could pull apart your reasoning like plucking feathers from a chicken! But that doesn't matter because you actually believed that you did the right thing!"
It was so quiet after her outburst, that the only thing that could be heard was Oriana's harsh breathing.
"I…I just wanted to protect him," Rhys finally whispered, his eyes closed, anguish clear on his face.
"Who, Lucien?" Oriana snapped.
"Azriel," Rhys disagreed. "My brother." His eyes opened and violet eyes searched out Azriel's even over the distance between them.
"I am sorry," Rhyapologiseded. "I am so sorry. I thought that it was infatuation. I didn't think that you really loved her. I…I wanted to protect you. I know how strong the mating bond can be. I know that. And I…I thought that the chances that she was going to choose him were slim. Not because of you. But because of that bond. I wanted to protect you and I wanted to protect this Court. I thought I was doing the right thing."
The words stood between them, quiet but heartfelt.
And maybe if Rhys had actually told him that…if he actually told him that he was worried about him that he loved him but that Elain was mated and that even when she made any appearance that she wasn't interested in Lucien, that could change when she actually settled into being a High Fae and didn't just grief after the humanity that she had lost…
He could have understood that. He could have been reasoned with that.
"Why didn't you tell him that?" Oriana questioned quietly. "You could have just told him that."
"I could have. But I didn't. And that wasn't even the worst thing I said," Rhys admitted. "I said something even worse than that. I said to go to the pleasure hall if he wanted sex."
Azriel flinched at the words that had haunted him.
Reasonably he could understand how Rhys must have meant it. But they felt like something truly different to him, meant something very different to him.
"I am sorry for that," Rhys said quietly. "I…thought that you didn't love her. But it wasn't on me to make that determination. And I shouldn't have ever even thought about telling you that." He swallowed. "I am sorry, Azriel. You are my brother. And I am so sorry for how treated yoItt's will haunt me for the rest of my life."
He knew that Rhys meant every word and he was really not looking forward to hashing this out for much longer.
"You're gonna let him down?" he asked Oriana, who turned towards him. He pushed forgiveness at contentedness and he saw the moment she softened.
"Do you want me to?" she asked and he just nodded. She turned to Rhys.
"Have you learned your lesson?" She asked him pointedly.
"Don't cross you," he answered. Fire burst out of her hands at that.
"Wrong answer," she hissed at him.
"Don't stick my nose into things that are none of my business?" he tried again.
"Closer."
"Don't treat my brother like that again."
"You ever even think about doing anything like that to Azriel again, this is going to look like children's play. Do you understand?" She asked, every word burning with intensity. Rhys swallowed. Azriel watched with some amusement that he actually was scared if the look in violet eyes was anything to go by.
"Crystal."
"Good."
"We should keep her. The psychological warfare would be unparalleled," Cassian whispered to him. Azriel just snorted.
It took nothing more than another flick of her wrist, and the fireballs rushed into the ward, the golden bubble that kept Rhys let him go and he unceremoniously plummeted to the ground until his wings could wildly flap and save him from landing face first into the mud.
He finally let go of the porch railing, managing to hobble down the two steps down onto the wide expanse of grass. Rhys crossed the distance to him and yanked him into a tight hug.
Something inside him eased at that, as his hands fisted into his brother's jacket, his face pressing against his shoulder.
"I am sorry."
"Don't do it again."
"Never."
"You are two idiots, but I love you," Cassian said drily, suddenly next to him and Azriel snorted as Cassian pounced on both of them in a hug. "Are you finally gonna come to family dinners again now?"
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They were his brothers.
Even when she had never seen all three together before that moment, she could easily see that.
She pushed any remaining anger she felt away because quite frankly, her own anger didn't really matter. Azriel was the one who had deserved an apology. Azriel was the one who needed to hear that from his brother.
She crossed the yard and, back to the porch, finding Nesta and Feyre both watching the three of them just like she had done.
"I think you could have at least put him on fire a little bit," Nesta told her drily and Oriana snorted in amusement, while Feyre rolled her eyes.
"Ah, you know…there is always a next time," Oriana said, shaking her hands, sending the last few sparks of fire flying into the evening air.
"Are you finally gonna come to family dinners again now?" she heard Cassian ask and watched him as half-carried, half-dragged Azriel up the steps to the house.
"I will," he agreed.
"And you are going to share some of your toys?" Cassian prodded.
"He will," Oriana agreed for him. "I'll even make you your own when that is possible."
"You know what, I like her," Cassian said with a grin as he poured Azriel into the old rocking chair they kept on the porch.
"You can't really say any differently, because you are still waiting for Azriel to rip out your throat," she shot back.
"Shh, don't remind him," Cassian shushed her wide-eye, making her snort. Azriel wasn't going to rip out his throat. They both knew. Give him a few bruises...once he felt better though, definitely.
"You were supposed to stay in bed, Sweetling," she told Azriel drily as she took in the way his skin was ashen, sweat beading at his hairline. This really wasn't good for him.
"How about I sit right here, does that count?" he offered and she snorted. It was probably the best she could hope for.
"You do that, and you take your pain position without argument," she told him pointedly. He just inclined his head.
"You know Mor is going to be so sad that she didn't see it," Cassian commented at that moment to Rhys, who just glowered at him in response. "Or Amren."
"Oh don't worry, I'll show them the whole thing," Feyre said with a shrug, looking at her fingernails.
"Feyre Darling," Rhys sighed.
"Nah, I agree, show them, Feyre," Cassian said with a grin. "It's not every day that you get to see Rhys dangling head down and apologising. So about family dinners…" he started once again.
"Well, we are already all here. If you want to get Amren and…Mor? You could," she suggested, looking at Azriel who looked anxious but hopeful. Hopeful that she was going to meet his family, and that she would get along with them. "Though you'll all be subjected to my cooking."
"The meatballs were definitely smelling mostly edible," Nesta said with a grin and she shrugged.
"Just for that you can help me make bread," she suggested, Nesta laughed but inclined her head.
"I'll go fetch them," Feyre suggested brightly "Do you have an anti-winnowing ward on here?" she asked, but Oriana shook her head, opening it up with a turn of her bracelet.
"Not anymore," she said easily as she walked in. "One of you, get Azriel inside and put him somewhere to sit down!" she called over her shoulder. "And whoever else can help prepare a rabbit to roast, can help me in the kitchen!"
Cassian ended up being the one following along in the kitchen, while Rhys got Azriel to sit at the dining table, fussing over him much to Azriel's and her own chagrin.
"Did I break the winnowing ward?" Cassian asked her, sounding apologetic.
"No, she just lifted it," Azriel answered. "I could feel that," he told her drily and she shrugged.
"I tied it to a bracelet," she explained. "Makes it easier to change."
"You can do that?" Rhysand asked and she just raised an eyebrow at him.
"I can do nearly anything I put my mind to," she told him pointedly. He inclined his head at that, and she pulled out the rabbit from the stasis cabinet she put it on, as Azriel had hunted it a week or so ago.
Nesta and Rhys ended up helping with the bread, while Cassian cleaned and spitted the rabbit that ended up in the oven.
Even Azriel got in on it, cleaning the potatoes she gave him, though she used an enchanted knife to peel them…making it much quicker than it would be to do it by hand.
Feyre came back, a winged boy on her hip, Amren in two and a beautiful blonde female with her that Oriana had seen before.
"Amren," Oriana said with a smile, greeting one of her grandmother's oldest friends.
"Oriana," Amren responded, inclining her head. "And our very own Shadowsinger. Your grandmother did mention that you always made the most interesting choices." Oriana couldn't help but laugh.
"What can I say, normal is boring," Oriana responded, much to the amusement of Nesta who snorted.
"It's so nice to meet you properly. I am Mor," the blonde female burst out with, pulling her into a hug. "So, out of pure interest, what did Azriel do when he saw what you bought on you?" she teased her but Oriana just laughed.
"He hasn't yet," she answered. "I am keeping it for a special occasion." It made Mor grin and wink at her. Azriel watched the exchange with wide eyes.
"Nothing that you need to worry about, sweetling," she teased him and he just rolled his eyes at her.
"And whose that?" Oriana asked turning to the little boy still in his mother's arms that looked at her with bright blue eyes, the ball she had made him clutched in his hands.
"That's Nyx," Feyre said with a grin. "Can you say hello to Oriana, Nyxie?"
He gave her a toothy grin and then held out his arms for her, demandingly.
"I think you got competition, Az," Cassian muttered, making Azriel roll his eyes once again. Oriana just shook her head but offered her hands to the little boy who happily wrapped his fingers around hers.
He looked like a perfect mix between his parents, with black, fluttering tiny wings that were absolutely adorable.
She couldn't help but wish that this was something that Azriel and she could have one day, that it was an option they had. They didn't. But maybe that was okay. As long as she had AZriel, she was going to be happy.
Anything else…that would just be the icing on an already perfect cake.
"So who wants something to eat?" she asked brightly.