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6
Azrail watched Maia closely as she grunted at the weight of a cardboard box, dumping it on the floorboards and wrapping her injured wing carefully around herself. He'd warned her to be careful, but his stubborn mate had refused to listen. Not that Az had any high ground when it came to stubbornness.
"Let me see it," he gently ordered, crossing the cluttered storage room to inspect the dark veins of iron poisoning in her wing. She might have ripped out the cuff they'd used to crucify her, but the damage had already got into her flesh and blood, turning the luminous silver-teal membrane to a dark ink at the top of her injured wing.
"I'm fine," Maia snapped, but she shot him an apologetic look the next second. He let her biting words flow over him; Ev had warned the deeper the poison spread, the more corrupt it would make Maia’s soul.
"What she did to Zamanya is just the beginning," Ev had sighed, raking a hand down her dark braid. "The further it gets into her soul, the more she's going to be affected. Iron poisoning is no joke, Az, it rots a person from the inside out. Makes them do things they'd never normally do. If we're lucky, Maia's magic sparking every now and then will beallthat happens."
"And if we're not?" he'd asked, his stomach like the twisted roots of an ancient tree.
Ev shook her head, worry darkening her eyes to blue-black. "Not even her mates will be able to bring her back from that edge."
Now, Azrail carefully brushed Maia's wing with his fingertips, making sure to avoid the places dark veins spread. She shuddered, grabbing his bicep and squeezing punishingly hard. He knew very well how sensitive her wings were, and watched her cheeks turn pink, her eyes dilated.
"I'm fine," she repeated. "Stop making such a fuss."
Az caught her chin with his other hand, his brows lowering over his eyes. "You are definitely not fine, sweetheart, so stop deluding yourself."
Maia rolled her eyes.
"And don't lie to me when you're in pain," he went on seriously.
She made a sound in her throat. "All you overprotective mother hens. You're going to drive me crazy."
Az ducked his head to kiss an undamaged part of her wing, lips lingering. Maia made a quiet, sinful sound, and Azrail's power surged in response, smoke dancing over her wing and down her body.
"Speaking of not being fine and deluding yourself," Maia said with a crooked grin that turned Az all the way on. Heat boiled inside him, and he tightened his fingers on her chin. "How's your smoke control, Knight?"
"Better thanyourcontrol," he retorted, voice sinking lower as Maia pressed against him, lining up her body with his. His eyes dropped to half-mast when she tangled fingers in his hair. "Stop trying to distract me, Mai."
She smirked, and a groan formed in his throat when she tightened her fingers in his hair, sending a delicious rush of sensation down his spine. "Nope."
Azrail let out a helpless sound and ducked to catch her behind her thighs, lifting her and fuckingdelightedwhen her legs instantly wrapped around his waist. Azrail shoved a tower of paper-filled boxes aside and carried his mate to the battered mahogany desk, setting her down gently and already calculating how to give her so much pleasure that all her brain function shut down—
A quiet but determined knock came from the door across the room, followed by Siofra's high voice. "Can you stop whatever you're doing so I can come inside, please? Zamanya's trying to make me do drills again."
Az snorted, but Maia let out a long groan of frustration.
"Can I get laid today, for saints' sakes?" she said under her breath.
Az kissed her neck, giving her a look heavy with promise.Later. They'd resume this, and he'd make sure his mate was satisfied.
A tendril of smoke brushed her cheek as he stepped out of the cradle of her thighs and opened the door. Her disgruntlement sat in his chest, and he swore he felt a flicker of unruly magic cross the bond between them as Azrail opened the door and smiled at Sio.
She'd been distrustful and angry since his and Maia's argument, rightly blaming him for the princess's capture. Az liked to think he was earning Siofra’s trust back, but he knew it would be a long, long road, and that damn near killed him.
"Hey, you," he said, as gently as he could. "Fancy helping us go through these boxes?"
Sio's purple eyes swept over the mess of cardboard boxes, the junk and furniture crammed into the room, and the pale-haired princess sitting primly on the big desk in front of the warped window. She shrugged and entered the room.
"Whatisall this stuff?" she asked, edging around a precarious tower and squinting at the scrawled words on its side. "Trade, 1200-1350."
"My parents' files," he explained, shutting the door and following her meandering path through what used to be the contents of a personal office. He wouldn't have had any of this if his mum hadn't sensed something bad coming and shipped everything to Mida, her best friend. "Everything that's left of their belongings, actually."
Maia's gaze landed on him, softer than he'd seen it in a long time. He ignored the way his heart tightened, and grabbed a box at random.Ongoing Contractswas scribbled on the side in his dad's messy handwriting, and the sight of it compacted the hurt in Azrail’s chest until every breath was like a shard of glass in his lungs.
When Maia's palace guard had come to him asking for a library, this was the closest Az had been able to conjure on short notice. It would hurt, going through their files, but he'd been meaning to do it for years anyway, and if it soothed Maia to have something to set her mind to, he'd endure the ache.
