Shadows and Scars

Chapter. 41

Azriel

He called me Dada...

It took every ounce in me not to react the way I felt. I wanted to pick him up and hear him say it again. I have come to love Cyrus as my own and to hear him call me, to name me as his father... My eyes threatened to well at the memory of it. I gently closed to door to Cyrus' room now that he was asleep and headed downstairs. He should wake up an hour or so before dinner. And now I was left with my thoughts.

Adria hesitated. Perhaps she didn't want Cyrus to call me as his father. No, she was giving me an out, an opportunity to decline. I felt it. If she only knew...

I should have told her... I chastise myself. I should have told her she is my Mate. I don't know how that old woman knew but Adria's reaction was...

Enough.

I'm telling her tonight.

It may be selfish, but she has to know, I can't hold this in any longer. I need her to know who she is to me. What she means to me.

I'll tell her tonight. After dinner, that way she has time to process if she needs it. The woman's comment affected her. She laughed at the idea of us being Mates and called it strange. What if she rejects me? Like Elain has Lucien. I see how the sad male lingers around Elain, waiting, wishing for some sort of reaction.

Like I am. I am waiting for her to realize how I feel. I live for the moments we share, just as I'm sure Lucien does as well.

I looked out the window into the garden and see Elain sitting in the sun. Like a cat sunbathing, her eyes are closed, but still alert. I leaned against the doorframe noting Lucien looking down from his bedroom window. His teeth bared at my proximity to his mate.

"They has been silenced" Elain opened her eyes and slowly turned her head in my direction. I pushed off the wall and walked over to Elain. "You cannot hear them."

I crouched in front of her. "Who Elain?" Elain looked directly into my eyes and her voice colder than a winter breeze.

"They have silenced her, and they want her." Elain's voice shuddered.

"Who?" I tried to ease out information gently, but I felt a muffled calling before it died out among the whispers. The shadows each trying to sense out who Elain was talking about.

"The Mother favored her, saw what she needed and gifted it to her. Yet she fought too hard." Elain's eyes were empty as she spoke. "She stole too much, and now they will take her." Elain's cold hand gripped tightly on to my own. "He seeks her now. He will take her... You cannot let him take her."

As if she screamed it into my mind Adria's name appeared, and an alarm was activated. An alarm from the Library. I said nothing else as my wings beat harder than I've ever forced. Adria was in trouble and Hybern was here. Here to take her. I was on the balcony in seconds and received word that Cassian was already there. He was dragging Feyre out, before he could say anything I flew deeper into the darkness following the teether that connected us through the shadows.

Screaming enveloped the library and stopped just as I found her. Before me a sight I would have never dreamed of. My mind would have never allowed this image before to materialize, yet... Adria stood behind a white-haired High Fae male pulling his head back and holding a blade at his throat. She was bloodied. I could see the swelling of her lip and blood drip from her temple and nose.

She looked like death. This woman in front of me embodied death. Yet with her talons nowhere in sight, her presence was cold and voracious.

"Do you have everything?" She spoke to Rhys in a voice I had never heard. My brother's anger surged from him like a pulse.