Rules for Spies

12

It only takes a few minutes to return to the House of Wind, including the short and terrifying flight to land, and Azriel feels as if it passes in a blink. Gwyn presses a kiss to his lips and then she takes her bag to her room, and he realizes that he'll spend the night alone in his bed again. It's enough to take her back to Illyria.

But instead he passes a report to Cassian, who informs him that his father came to Velaris in a rage yesterday, and that resolving the ensuing shitshow has taken up all of Rhys' time since.

When Cassian hears that his step-brother went hunting him in the Illyrian wilds, he groans bone-deep, pressing his face into his hands.

"Rhys was trying to stall him, to give you both time."

"We don't need it," Azriel says, not knowing how much of Gwyn's power to reveal after seeing her dance around it with Mor the other day, but not wanting to speak any more about his father. Even the thought of his winged figure descending on them in the clearing makes the hair rise on the back of his neck, as though he is still being hunted. "We -- I think we're ready. For Merrill, at least. We'll see what information she gives us."

Cassian only nods. Waiting, as usual, for Azriel to say more. And though he feels so far from that sunlit kitchen of only a few days before, he's not going to break his promise to Gwyn.

"Gwyn and I started something together," he says, and before he can say anything else, Cassian whoops and his arms are a crushing weight around Azriel's shoulders.

"Nesta and I may have placed bets on when you would finally admit that it was happening. After all that touching in the dining room, it was only a matter of time," his brother says when he's calmed down slightly, and Azriel is too happy at this particular moment to point out that nothing he and Gwyn have ever done in the dining room could compare to what he's caught Nesta and Cassian doing on the table. "The two of you... I could always see it, Az. I saw how you looked at her when she cut the ribbon."

Azriel thinks back to that day a year ago, when he'd known that Gwyn would cut the ribbon even before she did it. How happy he was that she'd triumphed, at the look of joy in her eyes. He should have known then that they were mates.

Instead he and Cassian talk in the sitting room about what has happened in Velaris over the past week, how training is progressing, until Gwyn and Nesta and Emerie emerge, laughing about something that, they say, would take an hour to explain properly.

Mor appears in time for dinner, a box from her favorite pastry shop in her hands, and when Emerie kisses her cheek, the only reaction is a low whistle from Cassian and a corresponding glare from Nesta, a sure sign that the news has spread.

"Rhys wants to see the two of you in the morning," Mor says to him and Gwyn as they all serve themselves, and Gwyn's face is instantly a little more somber.

But she brightens quickly enough with the food and the wine and the torte that Mor brought for dessert, and when Emerie suggests a game that she and Mor are fond of playing, it's not long before he and Gwyn are winning and she's letting out a pretty scoff at a scowling Nesta.

He's nearly settled himself into bed when there's a knock at the door. He knows, just from the weight of her hand, that Gwyn will be standing there, and it makes him happy to be here, at home.

This time, she's wearing a silk nightgown that reveals her collarbones, her freckled shoulders, the long lengths of her pale, muscled legs. And what isn't covered by the nightgown is caressed by the soft fabric: her breasts, the flare of her hips. The fabric matches her teal eyes exactly. He wants to rip it off her, replace the clinging fabric with his mouth, his hands. If she were willing, he would kiss his way from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet.