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A Taste of the Divine (ao3)

@nestaarcheronweek day 4. Returning from a mission, the Night Court’s spymaster arrives back in Velaris in need of a stiff drink above all else, but after seeking out Velaris’ seediest tavern, Azriel gets more than what he bargained for when he finds Nesta inside. Post-ACOWAR, pre-ACOSF. Title taken from The Summoning by Sleep Token.

Even after a week away, the cobbles beneath his feet did not yet beckon Azriel home when he returned to Velaris.

With the dust of the Continent still clinging to his boots, the Shadowsinger looked up at the horizon, finding the distant lights of the House of Wind against the darkening sky— slices of golden light piercing the rock of the mountain, and though Azriel ought to have glimpsed the light shining from those windows and rushed forward, he remained exactly where he was; standing a thousand feet below, finding no desire at all to go home just yet. At Rhys’ behest, he’d spent the past week observing the human queens on the Continent, his mind fixed towards schemes and plots with nothing but his shadows for company. And now…

It took a while, after a mission, to remember what it was to live outside of the dark.

So he didn’t want home. Didn’t want the welcome he knew would be waiting as soon as he stepped over that threshold. He was too accustomed to the dark, to the hidden corners and the silence, and what he wanted more than anything right now was a fucking drink.

He needed to feel the burn of whiskey sliding down his throat, blurring the edges of his mind. But he didn’t want the shiny, polished bars he frequented with Rhys. He didn’t want Rita’s. Azriel wanted grit and dust, wanted the back alleys and the dim bars lit by candlelight.

A place where his shadows could melt into the darkness, one and the same.

And so he found himself ten minutes later standing at a worn and chipped wooden bar top, a coin laid on the counter to pay for the liquor the barkeep poured into a short glass. There were no faelights here to bathe the place in a pleasant glow. Only candles, flickering flames few and far between that illuminated the gaming tables and left the corners swathed in shadow. It was run down and sub-par, and yet, Azriel thought dryly as he nodded his thanks to the bar tender, wasn’t that exactly how he felt? Wasn’t this exactly what he needed?

The whiskey burned his throat as he drank— cheap and sharp, scraping its way down through his chest, setting a fire behind his ribs. He grimaced as he took a large sip, baring his teeth with a soft hiss as he set down his glass.

Before the burn had subsided, his shadows tittered. Whispered.

Even above the din of the bar, Azriel heard the footsteps approaching. Heard the heels slamming against the wooden floorboards as his shadows skated along his arms, coiling around his wrists. He didn’t turn; didn’t bother to see who had dared draw near.

“Did my sister send you?”

The voice was cold and flat and resolutely furious— and above all else, familiar. Azriel turned his head to find Nesta standing beside him at the bar, with her arms folded over her chest and her eyes alight with anger. Silver swirled in those eyes, churned like a riptide, and her jaw was clenched so tight it made him wonder if she was physically biting her tongue to keep it behind her teeth. Her hair was swept up in her usual braid, leaving the long column of her neck exposed, and as the candlelight danced across her bare skin, it dragged golden fingers across her collarbone, illuminated the planes of her that would have most men begging for the chance to touch her.

Azriel wasn’t most men— but still, it was an effort to pull his eyes away.

He let his gaze skim her face, raising one eyebrow as he barked a dry, sardonic laugh. Downing his whiskey, he ordered another with a flick of his wrist, a twist of his fingers.

“No,” he answered, sliding another coin across the bar in exchange for another double measure. “Nobody sent me.”

“Then what are you doing here,” she gritted out; not a question but a demand.

Azriel merely lifted his glass, watching the candlelight set fire to the whiskey. “Same as you.”

The silver in her eyes burned as she lifted her chin, met his eye with every ounce of irascible hauteur she could muster. “And are you planning on being my nursemaid all night?”

A sigh slipped between his lips, quiet and resigned. The spymaster shook his head, too tired to argue, and blinked flatly as he answered her with a simple, “No.”

The furrow in her brow smoothed, her dark lashes fluttering as she blinked once, twice. She didn’t argue either, and as she leaned forward, elbows braced against the bar’s surface, Azriel caught the scent of her— something sweet beneath the sharp, something cool beneath the heat of the bar. He swallowed, tilting the glass in his hand, and forced himself to watch the whiskey clinging to the clouded glass instead of studying the way the heat gently curled the strands of hair that had escaped the braid at the nape of her neck. She said nothing, but silently Nesta lifted herself onto the seat beside him, a damn near perplexed expression on her face as she watched him drown his sorrows. Slowly, Azriel lifted his gaze to hers. Ignored the way his shadows shivered. Almost lazily, Azriel quirked a brow and slid the glass towards her, nodding wordlessly; a silent go on, then.

Nesta curled her fingers around the glass in silent understanding, didn’t hesitate in bringing it to her lips and knocking the whiskey back. She drained half before returning him the glass, and when it passed from her grip and into his their fingers brushed. He stilled, the air frozen in his lungs. It was the barest of touches, so slight, and yet one that felt far too much like a spark against touch-paper, almost begging to burst into flame.

Azriel didn’t think about the way that simple touch had his skin feeling suddenly tight.

Didn’t think about the way her lipstick lingered around the edge of his glass.

Nesta looked at him in the dim light, lifting her face until the candlelight glanced across her jaw and—

Gods, she was beautiful.

Azriel didn’t know why he’d never let himself truly notice before, why he’d never let himself fall down the well that was those mercury-blue eyes. Why he’d never given more than a passing thought to her beauty, to the lines of her face that could reduce a man to nothing with the right tilt of her head.

Cassian, a voice inside his head whispered, one he tried too hard to ignore. Cassian is why you never let yourself notice before.

But Cassian wasn’t here, and from what the Spymaster had gathered from his brother’s ranting, he hadn’t been at Nesta’s side for a while now. Had left her seeking companionship in the dark and shadowed corners of Velaris, where the starlight didn’t reach. Anyone with eyes could see that Nesta was hurting and yet— it had been Azriel to find her, entirely by accident, alone in a dive bar.

He didn’t believe in fate. It had fucked him over too many times, and yet—

There was something serendipitous in it, something providential about this chance meeting that made him feel… bold.

“What are you doing here, Nesta?” he asked a moment later.

The question was soft— tentative and half-hidden in the shadows that glided as one along the worn edge of the bar, slinking towards her like they might seek to hide the pitfalls of such an inquiry. Nesta shook her head, strands of hair slipping free from her meticulous braid, and maybe the alcohol made her bold too, because she met his eyes with purpose and didn’t look away as she said,

“I want to feel something.”

She shifted her shoulders back, the silver in her eyes catching in the light of the bar. Azriel’s shadows seemed to shiver, and he couldn’t hide the low laugh that scraped along his throat as his eyes dipped to the hollow of her neck.

“Don’t we all,” he said dryly.

His fingers dragged around the edge of his glass, and Nesta’s eyes tracked the movement, following each circle he made with his fingertips. She pressed her lips together, her sharp eyes dark, and fucking hell— this was new. A kind of uncharted territory he knew he shouldn’t want to map, shouldn’t want to explore with his hands, his teeth, his tongue. And yet he heard her heart pounding behind her ribs, its steady beat kicking when he caught her eye and pulled his gaze down to her mouth, lingering at her lips, and he couldn’t help himself.

Didn’t want to help himself.

I want to feel something.

It echoed in his mind, settling into him like a stone dropped down a well.

Nesta leaned against the old wooden bar; a thing of beauty in place so tragically dim. She tilted her head, and the movement stirred something in him that he knew he ought to ignore.

“You never answered my question,” she said bluntly. “If you’re not here to spy on me, then what are you doing here?”

Azriel sighed, sipping his whiskey and leaving a finger-worth behind. He nudged the remainder towards her, let her finish it.

“Had a shit day,” he shrugged. “Didn’t want to go home just yet.”

Wordless, Nesta lifted the glass to her mouth in an echo of the way she had before— like they were two old friends, sharing a drink together. Yet she finished his whiskey and something beneath his skin tightened as he watched her lips part, glimpsed the liquor glistening on her mouth. He wanted to taste it— wanted to taste it on her tongue, and he swore softly, cursing everything that had brought him to this threshold, so close to tipping over. There was a line he shouldn’t cross, a boundary that he knew shouldn’t be broken.

And yet.

Nesta set the glass back down on the bar. “Care to talk about it, Shadowsinger?”

“Would you care to listen, Lady Death?”

Her eyes shuttered, her face tightening in a way that had Azriel clawing at the past few moments, like a thread unspooling in his hands. “Don’t call me that.”

With a dip of his chin, Azriel nodded. “My apologies.”

Nesta shrugged it off, the stiff set to her shoulders melting as she leaned a half-inch closer, blinking slowly as her heart thumped once in her chest. “Buy me a drink and perhaps I’ll forgive you.”

He pretended not to notice how her voice had dropped, how there was an edge to it that hadn’t been there before. Pretended, too, not to see her eyes darken, shining with intent. He wasn’t fool enough to pretend that his hadn’t done the same, that he wasn’t still thinking of her mouth. His shadows slipped down his arms, begging to go to her, desperate to touch, and it took effort to keep them restrained, to keep them in check. Still, he motioned for another drink. Another two.

And when the barkeep presented him with two short glasses, Azriel slid the first towards her, but kept his hand closed over the rim, the candlelight throwing his scars into relief as he kept his palm flat above her glass.

“Shall we sit properly, then?” he asked, nodding to the booths that lined the back wall. “And stop pretending we’re strangers in a bar?”

Nesta only blinked, amusement threading through those silver eyes like vines through an iron gate. Idly, she hummed. “I’ve never seen you like this, Spymaster, free of your High Lord’s influence. You may as well be a stranger to me right now.”

Azriel rolled his eyes, but lifted his hand from her glass nonetheless. A smirk lingered on her lips even as a kind of surprise swept swiftly across her face— some kind of pleasant shock that he didn’t berate her for daring to mention Rhys at all. Cassian, he knew, was far too sensitive when Nesta criticised Rhys; his brother had frowned and scowled about it too many times for Azriel to be unaware. But it didn’t rankle him the way it did Cassian. After all, what difference did it make to him, if Rhys and Nesta never found a way to get along?

Silently, he gestured to the back of the bar again, ignoring her comment and nodding once more to the tables shrouded in shadow, so far from the soft glow of the candles.

In answer Nesta slipped from the bar stool and led the way, leaving Azriel to follow, a shadow at her heels. He kept his eyes up, refusing to notice the movement of her hips, or the way her dress dipped low at her back, exposing her spine. His shadows thrummed, jerking as if they would reach out to caress the length of that spine, and he cleared his throat around the desire to pepper it with kisses, to trace a line of fire down her back with his tongue. He swallowed around the surge of pure want rising in his blood, making his every nerve feel charged. Unaware, Nesta slid into the booth, her dress whispering across the worn leather that covered the seats, and when she reclined, crossing one leg over the other, Azriel was reminded starkly of a queen in her own realm.

She was, he supposed.

The dive bars of Velaris had never really been all that popular with Rhys or the rest of the Inner Circle. They were wholly in Nesta’s domain, now.

For a moment there was quiet.

And then Nesta dragged a finger idle along the rim of her glass, an echo of Azriel’s earlier move, making it sing beneath her touch. He wondered what else might sing beneath her hands, what else she could do.

“So,” she began airily, “what is it that has the brooding spymaster brooding so much more than usual?”

Azriel laughed into his whiskey. “Brooding?”

“Brooding.” She raised a brow, stained lips pursed as she nodded. “Stop avoiding the question.”

He raised a hand in surrender. “I had a mission on the continent. Surveillance on—“ He hesitated a moment. Not because he didn’t want to share or because she couldn’t know, but because he didn’t want to shatter this moment, to bring the darkness back to her eyes. “—the human queens,” he finished quietly.

Nesta said nothing, but knocked her drink back.

In the back of his mind, Azriel knew what Rhys would say. That he was being irresponsible, feeding Nesta’s vices.

But when he looked at her, he didn’t see a woman lost to the alcohol. He saw a soul struggling to cope, leaning on the only thing that could bring her a little bit of warmth. He’d spent enough time after the first war drinking his own way through Velaris to know, and besides… When Nesta glanced at him and dragged her eyes over his chest, he thought that this was one vice he was more than willing to feed tonight.

“I see,” she said at last. “No wonder you needed a drink.”

Azriel hummed in agreement. Emboldened, he leaned his head closer to hers, dropping his voice to a murmur as he cast his eyes across the bar.

“Tell me. Which one were you taking home with you tonight?”

Nesta stilled, a frown creeping into her brow as silver eyes narrowed.

Azriel shrugged, shaking his head with an idle smile tilting his lips. “Not that I’m judging. I’m just curious.”

She pulled back, curiosity a wildfire in her eyes.

“The one by the gaming table,” she said flatly, without turning to look at the mark she’d had an eye on. “He has pretty eyes.”

Azriel cut a look across the bar to find the fae in question. The male was tall, dark haired, but willowy and thin, and there was a look in his eyes that Azriel didn’t like as Nesta’s intended watched the two of them together in that booth— it was something petulant and spoiled, like he was a child and Azriel had just stolen his new favourite toy. Even his shadows shuddered, whispering their disapproval in a language only he could understand. In answer the spymaster raised a brow and looked at Nesta wryly.

“He looks like one who doesn’t like the word no,” Azriel said, directing a dark look in the direction of the fae by the gaming table. If he made his eyes darken, if he made his face more threatening than usual… well.

“You don’t approve?” Nesta asked, her voice like syrup.

He barked a laugh. “Not really, no.”

“And here I thought you weren’t judging,” she said smoothly, her head shifting to the side as she blinked, saccharine. She shifted infinitesimally closer, just a half inch that had Azriel clinging so tightly to his restraint that it was a wonder it didn’t break entirely. “Perhaps you should tell me who I should take home instead.”

Me, he thought, shifting in his seat. The answer had risen to his tongue without missing a beat, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It had taken even Azriel by surprise, how easy it was to let even his boldest thoughts bloom around her. His shadows slid along the edge of the table, trailing towards her like they were pulled by some kind of gravity, and when Nesta glanced down at them, a smile curved her lips. When she looked back up and met his eyes, there was something searing in her gaze that had Azriel’s mouth turning dry. He cleared his throat, shrugged, and yet couldn’t bring himself to say it— to give her the answer that ricocheted inside his mind.

But mother above, Cassian was a fucking fool.

Nesta was sitting there, alone, seeking connection with any that would let her find it, and all Azriel could think was—

Me.

Me, me, me.

He couldn’t do it.

“You won’t like the answer,” he said at last.

The amusement winked out of her eyes.

“Let me guess, you think I should be here with your General instead.”

His shadows slinked closer, like even they could see the sting behind her words. And in another world, maybe Cassian would have been there with her. Maybe he would have been the one in her bed. But Cassian was nowhere to be found, and didn’t seem to have any intention of cutting in and finding out what, exactly, had Nesta seeking solace in a place like this. So Azriel blinked slowly, eyes like flint when they caught hers, hazel colliding with silver-blue and igniting in the dim light. His shadows shivered.

“No, actually,” he said flatly. “I wasn’t thinking of him at all.”

Liar— liar. He’d hardly done anything but think of Cassian ever since Nesta had sidled up to him at the bar— hardly been spared a second where some part of him wasn’t thinking of how much of a fool his brother was. After all, if Nesta was Azriel’s—

He didn’t let himself think it.

Nesta’s breath caught audibly. He’d taken her by surprise, and it had a small smile taking root at the corner of his lips. She noted it, tracked the curve of his mouth. She tilted her head, the loose strands of hair that had escaped her braid brushing her shoulder. He wondered what it would be like to plunge his hands into her hair, to pull those braids loose strand by strand. There was a flame in her eyes when she met his gaze again.

“Then why won’t I like your answer, Shadowsinger?”

Gods— was he imagining the husk in her voice? The way it had dropped so impossibly low, edged with some kind of promise, something so damned seductive it had him thinking of all the things she could do with that mouth— all the things he could do with his.

Azriel downed what remained of his whiskey.

“Tell me what you’re looking for Nesta, and maybe I’ll answer.”

She rolled her eyes, and there was a moment where she looked him in the eyes, unflinching. She shook her head, and sat back, changing the subject.

“Has anybody here caught your eye, shadowsinger?”

Azriel scoffed, a low noise in his throat that seemed to make her eyes impossibly darker. It made his skin feel too tight, made his pulse thrum with anticipation so thick he could taste it on his tongue.

Around them, he noted, the atmosphere had shifted. The night had grown deeper, the hour later, and all those who had come to find someone to warm their bed had either left with their quarry already, or was closing in. Azriel glanced around the bar, saw the fae Nesta had thought of taking home sitting at a table with another fae woman draped over his lap, her fingers toying with the collar of his shirt. Beneath the din and the smell of liquor, hands began to wander and eyes began to roam, and in the corner where the candlelight couldn’t quite reach, Azriel felt the darkness masking them and leaned into it— leaned into every piece of the thrill that was building in his chest.

“What if they did?” he asked, looking at her from beneath his eyelashes.

Nesta leaned forward, daring to drag her finger around the rim of his glass. His shadows practically vibrated, the scent of her intoxicating.

“Maybe I’m looking for someone who isn’t afraid of your big bad general,” she shrugged, lifting her finger to her lips, tasting the drop of whiskey she’d collected from the rim of his glass. Azriel felt a slashing smile bloom across his lips, one that was knife-sharp and deadly.

“And that’s your only criteria?”

Nesta huffed a laugh. “You’d be surprised how many run a mile when they realise who, exactly, I am.”

Fools, he thought— all of them, fools who didn’t deserve the chance to kneel before her, to take up space in her bed.

He tilted his head back, resting against the back of the booth and looking down at her. “And that’s it, is it? You want someone who can go toe to toe with Cass and make it out unscathed?”

Nesta hummed, her eyes dipping to his chest, his hands, his shadows. He didn’t think he imagined the way she looked… interested. Maybe it was the whiskey, or the intoxicating look in her eyes, but he smirked, letting arrogance take over.

“Seems to me like there’s only really two people in this entire city that fit that bill, love.” The endearment came out smoothly, without thought. Nesta’s eyes heated. “One is Rhys.”

She smirked. “And the other?”

Azriel laughed, the sound low in his throat. “Do you need me to say it?”

Nesta bit her lip to mask a smile. “I didn’t know you could be cocky, Spymaster.”

He barked another laugh. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Nesta.”

She blinked, leaned closer. “How about I find out, then?”

She was so close now, her thigh almost brushing his. It would take nothing, no effort at all, for him to reach out and brush a hand along her leg, beneath the table where none could see. Her eyes were molten, and Azriel couldn’t resist the urge to touch her— to feel her skin beneath his palms. Slowly, he moved his hand, letting it drift until it landed on her knee. His shadows tittered, and when she made no move to escape his touch, slowly Azriel traced a path upwards.

“And what happens when we’re next at the river house together?” he made himself ask, even as his fingers travelled north. They skated over the fabric of her dress, finding the split in the fabric and slipping beneath, his hands finding bare skin as a groan gathered in his throat. “When we have to sit at the same dining table and pretend none of this ever happened.”

Nesta shifted, taking his hand even higher. “I don’t see how it’s any of their business.”

Her own hand darted out, began to trace circles over his knee. His blood pulsed, raced through his veins as his entire body seemed to tremble with need, and fuck— he wanted her. Her breathing grew shallow, the beating of her heart the drum he was marching to, and when his fingers skated over the very top of her thigh, Nesta tilted her head back. A woman almost begging to be kissed.

Azriel cursed his lack of self-restraint; thanked the Mother for it, too.

She blinked up at him. “I answered your question. Now answer mine.” Her fingers gripped his knee tight above his leathers. “Who do you think I should go home with, Azriel?”

Fucking Mother above, this woman.

The sound of his name on her lips was heady, and he couldn’t help it as he leaned in, found his lips bushing her hair. Lower, dragging a slow kiss down to the shell of her ear.

“Are you sure you want to know?” he murmured. Her hand flattened, her palm dragging up his thigh even as his own fingers lingered on hers. Silent, she nodded. His lips were still at her ear, and he longed to graze his teeth over the skin there. Her eyelashes fluttered.

“Me,” he breathed.

Nesta bit her lip again, even as a smirk travelled over her mouth.

“I thought you’d never admit it,” she whispered.

His hand moved from her thigh, up and up, palming over her arm until he reached her neck, rounded it, brought her closer. She twisted in his embrace, and in one easy movement Azriel took her leg and draped it over his own, until she was all but sitting in his lap. The bar was dark already, but he bid his shadows to embrace them a little more, to hide this little corner from prying eyes, and in the darkness Nesta leaned into his touch, dragging the heel of her foot down his calf as she pressed herself into him.

His hands wandered to her waist, gripping her so tightly he wondered if she’d bruise. If he’d leave a mark behind.

Nesta arched into him, her lips close to his neck as she breathed his name.

“We shouldn’t,” he breathed, even though every nerve he possessed cursed the words.

“No,” she shrugged. “We shouldn’t.” She looked at him boldly, her fingers trailing along his arms, across his shoulders. “But is that going to stop you, Shadowsinger?”

He laughed, acerbic. “It should.”

“Not an answer.”

He couldn’t fight the grin that spread his lips, predatory and vicious, and when an echoing smile spread across Nesta’s own face, the laugh that left his chest was dry and heated, heavy with want. He dipped his head, his lips lingering a breath from her neck, from the point where, beneath her skin, her pulse was racing.

“Do you want it to stop me, Nesta?”

She shivered, her eyes closing as he said her name.

She likes that, he thought, feeling his head begin to empty, his thoughts narrowed on her and only her— on the pleasure he wanted to give to her, what he knew she wanted to take. She likes it when you say her name.

He breathed her in, daring to drag a hand down the side of her ribs, feeling her shudder again. He leaned in, his nose against her neck. His body was a continuation of hers; no end and no beginning, like they were two strands so irrevocably tangled there was no telling them apart. Her hands were at his shoulders, her fingers drifting to his neck, and his wandered from her waist to her thighs, feeling the heat of her and relishing in it. He could have drowned in her.

Wanted to drown in her.

“Nesta,” he whispered, teeth scraping against her jaw.

“Azriel,” she breathed, her chest rising beneath his straying hands. He dragged his touch up from her middle, his palm resting at the bottom of her throat.

“Stop avoiding the question,” he said, lips against the shell of her ear as he parroted back her earlier words. In his embrace, she shivered. “Do you want it to stop me?”

She shook her head as his shadows skimmed her ankle, winding around her calf like ivy. “No.”

His heart thudded in his chest, and suddenly he felt like he was falling— like the ground had opened up beneath him. He wanted this, wanted her, and it didn’t matter that she could never be his, didn’t matter that if Cassian ever found out—

Her nails, sharp on his collarbone, dragged him back to her. Cut the thought off before it could bloom.

Fuck everything else— fuck it all to hell and back.

Nesta was in his arms, his hand on her thigh beneath her dress and fucking hell, he could barely find two words to string together in a sentence, so he did the only other thing he could think of— the only thing that made sense.

In the darkest corner of the dingiest bar Velaris had to offer, Azriel lowered his lips and kissed Nesta Archeron senseless.

It wasn’t soft or gentle; they came together like a wave crashing against the shore, all lips and teeth and shared breath that tasted like whiskey. Her hands were around his neck, fingertips brushing his wings, and as his hand splayed flat against her spine, Azriel brought her closer and kissed her with a hunger that spoke to centuries of control finally, finally, beginning to slip. For so long he had kept himself in check— never allowing himself to take what he wanted.

He wanted now— he wanted her.

And Nesta wanted him. He felt it in the way she gasped his name, in the way she tipped her head back to grant him access to her neck. He groaned against her as his tongue tasted the skin beneath her jaw, because—

Divine.

She was divine, something so decadent and heady that his mind was beginning to spin.

They moved in tandem, like this was a dance they both knew the steps to. When her heart skipped a beat, Azriel’s surrendered too; when the tips of his wings shivered with anticipation, a shudder racked through her that began in her chest and ended in her fingers. They were one and the same, the kiss bringing them together, setting them alight, letting them burn like a bonfire.

Azriel never wanted it to end.

Nesta turned in his arms, lifted herself up so that it wasn’t just her legs slung over his knees now. She straddled his hips and claimed his mouth, like she had forgotten where they were, forgotten who they were— they weren’t the High Lord’s brother and the High Lady’s sister anymore, just two souls who had collided in a darkened bar and found their mirror in one another.

Azriel’s hands smoothed down Nesta’s sides as his palms came to rest on her hips. She sat back, putting distance between them as she took a breath. Her lips were swollen, the skin at her neck marked by his kisses. He squeezed her hip once, heard her heart skip in response.

“Let’s get out of here,” Nesta breathed.

She came back for one more kiss, slow this time— lingering. Azriel obliged her. He kissed her sweetly, like they had all the time in the world, his hands rising to cup her face in his palms. When Nesta’s teeth sunk into his lip, he didn’t mask the curse that slipped from him, all at once low and desperate and edged with ecstasy.

“Yeah,” he said, feeling the sting in his lips left behind by her bite. It was the most decadent thing he’d ever tasted, and as he pulled away from her mouth and pressed another kiss to her jaw, he felt the heat in his veins stirring, his blood thrumming and his need for her more potent than anything. One hand dropped to hers, and Azriel linked their fingers together as he rose, pulling Nesta to her feet. He leaned close, breathed her in, let his free hand wind around her waist and pull her into him as he nipped lightly at the edge of her jaw.

“Let’s get out of here,” he echoed.

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