𝒜 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝑅𝑒𝓈𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒮𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓈 | ᴀᴢʀɪᴇʟ

Chapter 109

Chapter 109
*Fair warning, this is shit. I've had a very long day and for some reason, Azriel's POV just doesn't work with my brain on a good day let alone this one. I rewrote most of the chapter because I wanted to change an element in it but slightly regret that now.*

Azriel returned with her brother and Feyre on his heels, his molars grinding to his gums. He'd barely gotten a word out to Rhys before her brother was moving and Azriel was glad for it, because he didn't have many. There was a clamminess at the back of his neck and a painful twist in his chest, which he was sure was a result of not breathing properly. Feyre put a hand to the back of his arm, but he couldn't tears his eyes away from the corridor ahead to look at her.

When he shouldered the bedroom door open a second time, Arwen was not where he left her. His eyes fell to the pool of blood on the floor where she had been sitting, then followed the trail leading from it, all the way to the bed. Rhysand, who hadn't been frightened into momentary stillness, was already striding past Azriel for her.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Rhysand called in a soft voice, gently placing his fingers under her jaw to lift them to where he stood over her. Arwen blinked up at him, her lips parted.

Azriel swore under his breath as he spied the fabric he had made into a tourniquet now lying on the floor near the foot of the bed. The blanket and sheets were smeared crimson, a story of her climb onto it. He snatched the bandage up and pushed past Rhysand to tie it on her arm again, laying that web of magic over the wound.

"Can I see that?" Rhysand asked her, gesturing to her arm that Azriel had grabbed without a second thought. Arwen looked down at it, her brows twitching when she found the tourniquet replaced. Taking her lack of an answer for as much permission as he was going to get, Rhysand gently lifted her arm and inspected the wound for himself. He swore. "I shouldn't have let her come."

"She would have hated you for keeping her at home," Azriel brushed off.

Rhysand snarled. "Let her. Better me be hated than her hurt. I'm used to it."

"I think her head is the more immediate matter," Feyre whispered from behind him.

Rhysand, not taking his eye off the wound, muttered back, "I'm making sure it's not poisoned."

That word, that damned word, panged around his stomach like an explosion had been set off. Even Feyre put a hand to her stomach, paling at the thought. "You think it could be?"

"I'm not ruling out the possibility."

But Azriel knew the language of the High Lord. No, Rhysand did not think that she had been poisoned, but at least that would be an answer to what was happening.

"Don't forget my blood can heal most things," Feyre offered and Azriel had it in himself enough to nod in thanks.

Arwen turned away from them, her eyes returning to that glaze where she did not even seem to see them. She leant her good hand on the pillow behind her, using it as an anchor to turn around. Rhysand wrestled her back as gently as he could. "What is going on with you?" he whispered, kneeling down in front of her.

Azriel slipped further onto the mattress, resting a hand at the low of her neck.

"Dizzy," she said. "Dizzy in my head."

"She said that earlier," Azriel told them.

Rhysand frowned and lifted his fingers to her cheek, ignoring the blood smeared there too from whatever struggle she had getting onto the bed. The lines between his eyes deepened. A grave expression. Azriel stiffened, leaning so close he was almost over her legs.