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“Well, it wasn’t for the massages.” I replied, offering half a smile in warm sarcasm. It was a discernable lie, one apparent by the impossible groans of pleasure my body betrayed. Once the amusement in my heart had settled, I steered the conversation back to the topic at hand, not letting him get off easy. “Why were you so mean to me before? Did I do something to upset you?”
He sighed and sat back on his knees, letting the bare skin of my calves slip through his fingers. “A few of my comrades noticed I was a bit…devoted to you the night you were attacked by Adzehate. When they saw the way I reacted, they told the council, who warned me about getting involved with a mortal. I said what I did in hopes of scaring you off, and then you went and made me feel horrible for it.”
“Good, you should have felt bad.” I smiled, feeling satisfied for his guilt. “Are there consequences for your kind beinginvolvedwith mortals, whatever that means?” I assumed the notion wasn’t as innocent as it sounded.
“Not anymore, no. There is a long, complicated history of watchers messing around with humans, even starting families. Some of the citizens on Estelles are the descendants of watchers, actually, along with the original dishonored.”
I raised my brows, definitely not expecting to hear that. “Then what’s their problem?”
“The problem is we are on the brink of a revolution, Arya. One wrong move, one self-serving mistake, and all of humanity could be doomed. If you really are the huntress, I can’t get in your way.” The fire grew lower and cast dark shadows across his face as he spoke. “We don’t have the luxury of the easy choices those before us had.”
I nodded, not quite understanding why I felt so disappointed. My upper teeth dragged across the edge of my lower lip, considering my next question momentarily. “Did you ever… you know?”
“Did I ever what?” he asked, clarifying.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, heat spreading in my cheeks despite the chill. “Did you ever getinvolvedwith a mortal?”
A mocking grin crossed his face, delighted I asked such a thing. “Are you asking if I have any great-grandchildren running around Estelles? No, darling, I’ve never settled down with a human.”
I shrugged one shoulder, feeling slightly silly for the question. “It’s not a completely outrageous thought. I was just wondering.”
He wrapped his hands around my injured ankle again, and I tensed in anticipation. “About what? My love life? I vow to you it’s about as nonexistent as the sun.” He muttered the last part beneath a breath.
“Don’t tell me,” I gasped, “you’re a millennium-year-old virgin?”
His eyes glared up at me, but his smirk betrayed his amusement. “Heavens no, darling. I’m a watcher, not a saint.”
There was no warning as he chilled my ankle again, but the pain was more manageable this time—either that, or my foot was still numb from the first. He spoke again above the grinding of my teeth. “What about you? How did you ever find time to train with guys like Loren roaming the mountain? He told us a bit about the runner lifestyle, and there seemed to be a great lack of chaperones—or privacy.”
I snorted. “Aye, Lorenwouldboast about the freedom we had off the track. I had a few flings to ease the pressure of it all. I’m not pious by any means, but training was always my priority. I knew I had to be a Chosen or my entire life would have been for nothing. I never let a boy distract me from what I really wanted.” I relaxed as the coolness started to feel therapeutic against the ache in my ankle, and I rested my head on my shoulder as I watched Azriel work. “Not to mention, they didn’t really care if we all slept with each other. It’s not like we can reproduce anyway. That would have been a major inconvenience for them.”
“What do you mean?”
“They removed those parts of me once I started training at ten years old. I can’t have children.” The words slipped off my tongue carelessly, a passive reality I learned to live with.
The ice in my leg warmed immediately, the mood shifting just as quickly. Azriel slowly dragged his gaze to my hips, then to my face, his expression still, as frozen as the blood in my ankle. “They sterilized you?”
I realized I had never actually talked about what happened ten years ago out loud. It was a silent understanding among the other female runners—we just didn’t discuss it. We had all been through the process. It was normal—expected even. But the older I became, the more it bothered me, like they had stolen something precious without me realizing. Something I didn’t know I would want until it was far too late. My hands skimmed my lower abdomen absentmindedly, along the scar crudely torn across my skin.
The instinctual movement caught his attention, but I quickly shrugged it off and blinked away the tears, along with any other evidence of my inner struggle. “Aye, I didn’t understand at the time. I mean, how could I? I was just a kid and they told me all these lies about life as a runner, made it seem like it was honor to give my body for a cause so worthy. But looking back, I realize now it was selfish of them. They just wanted to destroy any dream I might have one day that wouldn’t align with theirs.” I cleared my throat, hoping it was enough to conceal the emotions suddenly surging through the cracks of my walls. But when I met Azriel’s gaze once more, his eyes smashed right through my barriers, looking straight into the ugliness of my past, and yet the sight never made him flinch.
“I mean, it’s fine,” I rambled with another shrug of my shoulder, desiring to make light of the subject before the floodgates broke and swamped my cheeks. “I wouldn’t want to bring a child into this horrible world anyway. But I can at least try to make it better for someone else’s.”
Azriel stood from where he crouched and approached the spot next to me, sitting close by my side as my stoic composure began to crumble. I coughed again to settle the tremors in my throat, but he had already seen the wreckage I was failing to hide. After a lifetime of dissecting deceptions and looking through illusions, I had become one.
His hand traveled across my back and clutched my opposite shoulder, and he pulled me closer to his chest—the place I felt the most vulnerable, and yet the place I felt the safest to be. “You deserve so much more than what this life has offered you, darling.” His tone whispered a type of affection I’d never heard before, words like a balm to my pain.
“And yet, I feel as though I’ve done nothing to warrant anything more.”
He placed a hand under my chin and tilted it towards his own, and I was unable to escape the expanse of his gaze or fight the gravity pulling my eyes to his. He licked his lips before replying, and I noticed his tongue wasn’t forked but as smooth as the voice behind it. “That is because you have been taught you have to earn someone’s love, that you have to compete against others to win affection, that you have to be chosen to be happy.” His thumb fingered my lower lip, skimming the tip over the curve as he continued to speak. “But love only requires to be given, then received. No perquisites, no obligations, no risk for its reward.”
“Then perhaps I’m too messed up in the head to be loved,” I whispered, not trusting my voice to speak boldly, too afraid I’d splinter this fleeting bond between us.
“Would you believe me if I said you were perfect, just as you are?” he said, quite breathless, dragging his touch across my cheek and catching a tear fallen astray. “You could ask me to take you back tomorrow, throw those stones back in the ocean where they belong, forget the responsibility you claimed as your own, and let your people rot under a blanket of stars and darkness. You could do all these things, and I’d still look at you exactly how I am now.”
“Az…” I breathed. “You don’t even know me.” I wasn’t ready for this, wasn’t prepared for the kindness pouring out of his lips and into my heart. I trained my entire life to anticipate my opponents next move, but Azriel was strange and wildly unpredictable. I never knew someone who could challenge my intuition, make me wonder what he would do next. Under the mountain, I was ruthless, I was dominant, but in him, I’d finally found my match. I’d finally met an adversary who threatened to take me down permanently.
“But I want to.” His head lowered ever so slightly, and our lips brushed, discovering the other’s desire in the uncharted territory of a kiss. Behind parted lips, I sensed the longing, the question of what awaited us beyond this point of no return. His graze was so gentle, so affectionate and sweet, but the moment was brief as he ducked his face away.
