A Court of Sunlight and Shadows

Right where you left me

The story takes place right after acosf bonus chapter and contains spoilers for it. English isn't my first language so if you notice any mistakes and want to point it out you're welcome ❤️

A mistake.

It had been a mistake.

Those were his words, echoing in Elain's mind in the darkness of her bedroom.  It was not the rejection, she knew, that made her feel this uncomfortable burning sensation inside her chest.

When Grayesen had rejected her, it had been as if a chasm had been dug right where her heart was now beating at a different rhythm than she was normally used to.

The pain had subsided with time. Was there any wound that did not heal with it?

However, deep inside, a small part of her still continued to hope, to dream of the life that had been ripped away from her.

When she was alone in the darkness of her bedroom, she closed her eyes and imagined what could have been.

She used her powers to try to glimpse a future where what she wished was still possible, but she had never been able to find it.

From time to time she saw Graysen. Whether in the future, or in the present, she could not say.

She hadn't spoken to anyone about what her abilities really were since the battle against Hybern, and she preferred it that way. She hid out of shame at the use she made of her power.

Watching Graysen caused her both pleasure and pain, and for months it had consumed her. While her sisters fought in the war, she had isolated herself, silent, without eating, mourning for what she had lost. But then, slowly, something had changed. And she did not care what Feyre said to her. It was not her 'mate' who had slowly begun to fill the black hole inside her chest and the gaps in her mind.

And now he said it was a mistake.

She should have expected it. Although her body had never really felt anything so right when his hands had grazed her, caressing her neck and wrapping around her hair.

She stared at the dark ceiling of her bedroom, sighing. Part of her knew that if it hadn't been for that stupid connection with a male she didn't even know, Azriel wouldn't have hesitated to kiss her. For months now, since they had first met, when she was still human, she had never been able to take her eyes off him. Even when there was only room in her heart and in her future for Greysen, she couldn't help her thoughts from wandering around that winged male who had barged into their home.

She understood, and would have understood even without Feyre's thousands of explanations, that the bond between mates was something extraordinarily rare and precious, and that if she had given him a chance, perhaps, she would have felt...

She didn't even want to think about it.

Lucien didn't really know her, and she didn't know him. Although she felt a physical attraction to him, there was nothing else that drove her to approach him. And given the way he had collaborated with Tamlin to betray her family... The revulsion she felt at the mere memory of that day was strong enough to extinguish any kind of attraction that resurfaced from time to time. He didn't deserve her affection, and the fact that he seemed to demand it made her feel even worse.

When the blood began to boil in her veins, as it often did when she thought of Lucien, she took a deep breath and turned her mind away from those thoughts.

She could still feel the sensation of Azriel's fingers on her neck.

The glances they were secretly exchanging, the light touch of their fingers, the feeling of his eyes on her, of his shadows watching her when he seemed not to. All of this had rekindled in her sensations that she had only felt with Greysen before, in a body that now no longer belonged to her.