𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑 | Comfort
My only escape from my overbearing parents, and now my mate who wanted to talk to me, was the Hewn City and as much as I despised the foul place, I found myself disappearing there for weeks at a time to get away from the tensions on the top. Some would say that I was running from my problems, but it was necessary to keep the peace.
If something went wrong and Azriel was hurt in the process, then I don't think I'd be able to control my anger.
"I was starting to wonder when you were going to be back," I paused at the sound of the cold voice, looking over my shoulder as my father joined my side. "You've been in the Hewn City for a while."
"I thought that was what you wanted?" I muttered back at him.
"Your mother wants you back here more often,"
"And?" I cocked an eyebrow. My father hummed, before looking out across the kingdom below us with a disinterested expression. "I was going to head back to the Hewn City tonight, is there any messages you need me to take?"
"No. I have Mendax for that," My father spat to the side and I sighed, but kept my head high. "I need you to look through some strategies. Your brother is playing at soldier to the north, which means I need you to do more work on the battle plans."
"Can he not do that? I have my own legion to run for the Dark Bringers and the election coming up for the new head of the Hewn City, I don't exactly have time,"
"And you want me to waste your brother's time on this?"
"Rhysand is a soldier, not a leader like I am, he has more time. I don't," I growled in response, not wanting this to be dumped on me when I was already swamped with work and trying to plan how to deal with Azriel. "Get him to do it."
"What did you say to me?"
"Get him to do it. I don't have time," I spat out, before hissing in pain as my father grabbed onto my arm tightly, pushing me down so that my knees buckled and I was kneeling behind him. My anger flared, darkness wreathing my heart as I tried to push against him, but it was of little use. My powers were far weaker than his was.
He made sure that mine would be at birth, clipping my wings and putting a dampener onto my magic.
"You will go through those strategies and you will make decisions on them. That's an order,"
"My Lord," A voice broke my father's glare on me and he released my arm to turn and look behind me. I knew who it was before he came into vision, my soul already calling for his. Azriel was here and I had no plan for how I was going to deal with this. "I needed to report a matter from the Illyrians to you. Would you rather I do it now or later?"
"Later, boy," My father glared, before stomping away. A scarred hand came into my vision, but I batted it away and stood up.
"Are you alright, Princess?"
"I didn't need your help," I shot him a glare, rubbing my arm. My best bet to dealing with Azriel was going to be to push him as far from me as possible and hope that it didn't backfire in my face. "I could have dealt with that myself. You shouldn't have got involved."
"I was trying to help. A thank you would be nice." Azriel's eyebrows furrowed, but I glared at him darkly. I knew that if I let him in even an inch, he would be stuck in my heart and I'd have the burden of a mate that didn't live up to my parent's expectations. They would banish me forever.
"Next time, just don't bother," I brushed past him, slamming against his shoulder, as I grabbed my sword from where it leant against the wall and headed for the library to pick up the strategies.
Footsteps sounded behind me, and I turned to glare at Azriel, who was following me with a determined look on his face.
"You've been avoiding me since we trained together," He pointed out, nodding his head as I rolled my eyes.
"You say that like there's anything between us. I've had work," I rolled my eyes, throwing out harsh words as I tried to get Azriel to back off and leave things unsaid between us.
"Fine. You're busy, so I'll ask one question then," He towered over me, cocking one eyebrow.
"What?" I refused to back down, glaring up at him with cold eyes.
"When were you going to talk to me about the fact we're mates?"
"We're not,"
"We are,"
"You're delusional," I turned to walk off.
"I'm not," He grabbed my wrist, pulling me back to him as the electricity crackled across my skin and seemed to bring my cold, dead heart back to life, but I couldn't let it.
"We're not mates, Azriel. Stop trying to see things that aren't there," I yanked my wrist free. "You're just saying that to try and get into bed with the princess or to win a bet with Rhysand. Whatever signs you think you saw, you made up in your head to justify your actions. We're not mates. We're not even friend. We're barely acquaintances so don't test your luck with me."
His eyes grew cold and, maybe if I had feelings for him, I would have felt sad but self-preservation was my main goal. Maybe, one day, he'd see that I was doing all of this to protect both of us from my father's wrath. For now, I just needed Azriel to back off with the mates thing.
"You're trying to push me away by being as much like your father as possible, but I'll let you in on a little secret," Azriel crossed his arms across his chest. "It's not going to work. I know that we're mates, just as I think you do, even though you're trying your best to convince both of us that we're not. You might be a daemati and supposedly good at hiding your emotions, but you have the same ticks as your brother. Your left eye twitched, so I know that you're lying."
"I am nothing like my brother," I stepped closer, grabbing his collar to bring him down to my level, "and I'm not convincing myself we're not mates, Azriel, I know we're not, so why don't you do us both a favour and stop entertaining this delusional idea that we are."
"Fine, you want to pretend that we're not mates, I'll let you," Azriel shot me an infuriating smile that made me want to both kiss him and punch him simultaneously. "But I know the truth, Princess, and when you're ready to accept that, I'll be waiting."
"You'll be waiting an awful long time then," I shoved him back from my grip, turning and stalking away from him as his chuckle bounced along the corridor. Every instinct in me told me to turn around and run back to my mate, to wrap my arms around him and kiss him so that I could hear him laughter everyday for the rest of eternity, but my rational side said no. No good came of me and Azriel being mates.
No good at all.
"Fucking Illyrians," I cursed, grabbing the strategies and winnowing back to the Hewn City before I had the other misfortune of running into my mother. That would just make my day far worse.
Hiya,
So, Maiya's plan of action is either to avoid her problems or be as rude as possible so that her problems leave her alone. Let me know what you think of Maiya's treatment of Azriel. Was she in the right?
Let me know what you think,
Love Li xx