Olethros

twenty five - freyja

I didn't expect to wake with Azriel against me. I assumed he would disappear, like he did each time I fell asleep around him. He surprised me, because I woke to him against my back. His chest pressed into me, his face in my hair, his arms around me like I was a lifeline.

I adored it.

It felt real. After living in a sickening world of imaginary things, I felt real. As I shifted, feeling an ache between my thighs, I couldn't help but smile. He'd trusted me enough to care for him, and I trusted him enough to be my first real sense of pleasure. It scared me the night before, when he first dropped down and put his mouth on me. I hadn't known what he was doing. From what I understood, it was similar to what I had done for him.

I shivered at the cool morning air against my legs. Azriel surprised me once more by taking his arm from me and grabbing the blanket, tugging it to my chin and placing his arm over my waist again. I took his hand in mine, pulling it up to my lips like I had the night before. I understood now, why he wore those gloves. His large hands were indented with gnarled scars up to his wrists, some reaching his forearm. The skin wasn't as smooth as the rest of him, but full of ridges, pink and silver skin.

I could see why he'd be afraid to show it, but I wasn't concerned. His hands were not disgusting. These hands had only ever cared for me, pleasured me, comforted me. They were not terrifying, they were gentle. I didn't know what kinds of things these hands did, but I found no reason for him to hide them from me.

The arm beneath my waist curled, turning me onto my back. Azriel's fingers slipped beneath my shirt and began drawing slow circles on my hip. I turned my head and smiled at him, still cradling one of his hands to my chest. He looked rested and not nearly as haunted as he did the night before. His eyes blinked slowly and sleepily, the tiniest tilt to his lips.

Keeping hold of his hand, I reached one of mine across to his face. His lashes fluttered as my fingertips brushed his jaw. I'd always found Azriel so beautiful, even before I even understood the ugly and the good. I remembered being a young girl, hiding behind my mother's gown and watching as my brother and his friends played. Azriel always caught my eye.

Now, up close and feeling more connected to him, he was divine. There was not simple beauty to his features. He held the stunning, the ugly, the good and the bad. He was an unobtainable creation of everything. His dark curls, his lashes, his brows. They all frame a hard cut face that promised a death so painful, yet they softened him in a way. Even as a matured male, he held a boyish look to him with those long lashes and wild curls. He was terrifying, alluring, heartbreaking and suffocatingly stunning.

His straight nose reminded me of those statues of fallen Gods in the temples, his tight jaw, too. His muscles were carved of the mountains beyond us, though I'd never truly traced them. Azriel reminded me of a stone my mother had told me of once before. A diamond, so ugly upon first creation but the pressure and stress around it somehow creates the most sought after stone. Azriel reminded me of that stone, but he wasn't so perfectly cut like those on my mother's jewelry. Azriel was marred with war and trauma, scars and dark thoughts. He was beautiful in a terrifying way.

I wondered what he thought of me. I wonder what he saw through those tired eyes. Was I simply the kid sister of his best friend? I knew he held a love for Morrigan, and maybe I could never compare, but I enjoyed his attention. I liked that he chose to lay in this bed with me and allow me to graze his skin with my fingers. I knew I was not as beautiful as Mor, but I wanted to be something to him. I was happy to even just be a small distraction while we had this silent time in this cabin.

I enjoyed being in his eyesight, being under the touch of his bare hand. I felt like I'd won the grace of the Mother- a fair moment in an unfair life. He was my small light in the darkness I'd found myself in. Unable to hold myself back, I stretched myself up. I grazed my lips over his, smiling to myself at the warmth of his breath. My feathering touch to his jaw became a grasp, tugging him down to me.