Chapter 15 - Come Back To Me
Chapter 15 – Come Back To Me
-Gwyn-
Soft morning light filtered through the windows as Gwyn blinked her eyes open. She was confused at first as to where she was, until she remembered last night, and she felt a blush rise to her cheeks.
The confusion returned when she realized that she was alone on the couch.
Where is he?
Suddenly, a little wisp of black floated up to right in front of her eyes. It thickened a little becoming more like a shadow.
She smiled. “Well, hello,” she greeted it.
The shadow seemed to do a happy wriggle. She reached her fingers out towards it, prompting it to make pecking motions on her hand, the little kisses cool against her warm skin.
She laughed. “Well, aren’t you ever just the charmer?”
The shadow responded by planting the same little wisp-kisses on her cheek, and a giggle escaped her throat.
“I see I have some competition,” came a familiar baritone from the side.
She turned to find Azriel standing there, clad in his siphon-adorned battle leathers and fingerless gloves that each housed a blue siphon on the back of his hands, arms crossed, his gaze fixed intently on her as she lounged on the couch. He gave a subtle jerk of his head, directing his attention to the shadow beside him. The shadow hesitated, almost contemplative, looking between Gwyn and Azriel before finally relenting. It zipped back to Azriel’s shoulder, sulking as it rejoined the others and faded into the familiar, wisp-like form it usually took.
Azriel's expression was unreadable, his hazel eyes glinting with something she couldn’t quite place. “What is it?” she asked.
“They’ve never done that before,” he said, his tone low and almost distracted.
“Done…what?” she prompted, frowning.
“Gone rogue. Acted on their own. Hesitated when I gave a command.”
She blinked, unsure of what to say. “Oh. Is…is that bad?”
He studied her for a moment, as if weighing his answer. “Not if they’re only doing it to go to you.”
The realization hit her suddenly—she must look utterly disheveled. She smoothed back her hair and quickly wiped the remnants of sleep from her eyes. When she glanced back at him, she found him smiling softly at her.
“You look beautiful when you wake up in the morning, Gwyn,” he murmured, the warmth in his voice making her cheeks flush.
“I wish I could say the same about you, Azriel,” she countered, trying to mask her embarrassment. “But since I didn’t get the privilege of seeing you right after you woke up, I can’t say.”
His grin widened, and he winked playfully. “Perhaps someday you’ll be able to weigh in on that.”
Had anyone else made such a comment, she might have withdrawn, the weight of such words too much to bear. But with Azriel, she felt safe—comforted, even—and the idea of someday seeing him in such a vulnerable state didn’t scare her. It gave her hope.
Her gaze flickered to his leathers, the familiar sight tugging at her curiosity. “Why are you dressed like that?” she asked, meeting his intense eyes.
He sighed heavily, running a siphon-gloved hand through his dark locks before dropping onto the couch beside her. “Roderick,” he said simply.
Her body tensed. “What? What about him?”
“He was found near one of the Illyrian villages,” Azriel explained, his voice taut with underlying tension.
“What was he doing there?” she asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.
“We don’t know,” he admitted, his tone dark.
She pressed on. “Well, what did he have to say?”
Azriel’s sigh was heavy, filled with weariness. “Nothing. Only his body was found. He was mutilated nearly beyond recognition.”
Her face paled. “Are you…are you certain it’s him?”
“We’re fairly certain,” he replied grimly, gesturing to his leathers. “That’s why I’m dressed like this. Rhysand wants me to investigate and confirm it.”
She swallowed hard, her throat tightening. “Gods,” she whispered. “He was…not a good male. But I still hope he didn’t suffer.”
Azriel’s silence hung heavy between them, a palpable thing that spoke volumes. But then his expression shifted, his jaw tightening, his hazel eyes darkening with a cold, unyielding edge. After a beat, his voice broke the quiet, low and measured, but laced with something sharper beneath the surface.
“At the risk of upsetting you, Gwyn,” he began, his gaze locking onto hers with an intensity that sent a chill down her spine, “I have to disagree. I hope that he did.”
The words were calm, deliberate, but they carried the weight of the unrelenting justice that had shaped him.
She stared at him, disbelief etched into every line of her face. “Why?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
“Why?” he repeated, his voice sharp with incredulity, cutting through the air like a whip. “Because of the vile, unforgivable things he said to you, Gwyn.”
Her hands trembled as she rubbed her palms over her thighs, a desperate attempt to ground herself, to stop the shaking that had taken hold of her. “I kn-know what he said was disgusting,” she stammered, her voice breaking, “and I-I understand your anger towards him, but—”
“There’s no ‘but’ about it, Berdara,” Azriel interrupted, his tone cold and unrelenting, slicing through her words like a blade.
Like the blade that had severed Catrin’s head.
Azriel’s voice rose, oblivious to the storm building within her, to the way her breath hitched, her throat tightening, her body trembling. “What do you think he would have done to you if he’d gotten you alone? Do you think males like him take ‘no’ for an answer when they want to fuck?” He wasn’t really talking to her so much as at her, but it didn’t matter; there was no stopping the panic rising within her.
Her lower lip quivered, and the world around her began to collapse. The edges of her vision darkened, narrowing into a suffocating tunnel. Azriel’s voice, once so clear, now sounded distant, muffled, as though she were submerged in deep, murky waters. The weight of his words pressed down on her, dragging her under.
And then it hit her—the memory crashing down with merciless force. The pool of Catrin’s blood spreading on the floor; the cold slab of the table pressing into her front; the soldiers’ icy hands gripping her arms and the back of her neck so hard they left bruises. The commander’s shadow looming over her, dark and monstrous, as she lay face down, powerless to stop him…powerless to stop any of it. She could feel it all—feel the pain of the violation, taste the fear and helplessness.
She was no longer here, no longer safe.
“Trust me, if you’d been alone with him, he would have—” His voice faltered, the sentence left unfinished. Though most of her senses were distorted, she felt his gaze on her, the shift in his energy as realization struck him like a thunderclap.
“Fuck,” he muttered, his voice now softer, tinged with regret. “Gwyn, I—”
But she was already gone, her mind spiraling back to a place she had fought so hard to escape, the present slipping through her fingers like sand.
-Azriel-
Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck.
FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK. His shadows apparently had no words of wisdom for him this time and were just as panicked as he was.
Gwyn trembled violently, her breaths shallow and uneven, her skin drained of color. Her eyes, those once vibrant pools of teal, were distant now, the green-blue irises now dim and reduced to a fragile ring, swallowed by darkness.
Azriel’s chest tightened as he watched her slip further away, her presence fading like a shadow at dusk.
He didn’t think—he couldn’t. Instinct took over as he reached for her, his gloved hands cradling her face with a gentleness that belied the urgency in his movements. His blue siphons glowed faintly as his emotions grew more out of control.
“Gwyn, baby, look at me,” he said, his voice low but firm, a lifeline cast into the void.
But her gaze remained unfocused, her mind lost to a place he couldn’t reach. She was gone, and the weight of that realization hit him like a blow, leaving him grasping for a way to bring her back.
-Gwyn-
“Bring the redheaded bitch over here and hold her down,” the commander sneered, wiping Catrin’s blood off his sword, using the nightdress that still covered Catrin’s headless body.
The two soldiers that had been holding Gwyn in place as they slaughtered the priestesses—as the commander cut off Catrin’s head—dragged her to the table, where they pushed her belly down on the tabletop. Their hands grasped her arms—one had also wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, and they were holding her in place. She heard the distinct sounds of metal tinking against metal, and large boots kicked her feet apart.
Another sound—though this one was garbled and far away, not within the room or even the entire temple. It sounded like…like someone was calling her name.
“And now,” the commander growled into her ear. “I’m going to fuck you until you give me what I want. If you haven’t told me what I want to know by the time I’m done, my soldiers here will gladly try to fuck it out of you too. We’ll all take turns, even if we have to circle back to me and start all over. Until you tell me what I want to know.” He grabbed the hem of her nightdress and hurriedly bunched it up around her waist, before ripping away her undergarments. “And when we get tired of your cunt, we’ll use the rest of you—wherever we can fit our cocks.”
A scream ripped from Gwyn at the sudden, forceful stretch that burned her insides as he pushed into her. She sobbed and squeezed her eyes shut as he thrust into her over and over again. “Ah, sorry lads,” he called out to his soldiers with a laugh. “This one was untouched until I got inside of her, so she’ll be a little loose for you!” The soldiers hooted and hollered excitedly with delight at her degradation, at her suffering. The table she was spread upon creaked and screeched against the wood floor, the commander grunting in time with every painful thrust, until he stilled and groaned his release inside her. She kept her eyes squeezed shut as he pulled out of her, praying to the Mother to just…take her away.
“Go to work on her, lads, until she gives up the children.”
As the soldiers began arguing over who was going to take her next, she couldn’t help the feeble wail that escaped her throat, dreading the pain that was sure to come with the next male that violated her.
But she’d promised Catrin. Promised her that she would do anything to keep the children safe. She could endure this. They could defile her over and over, until there was nothing left of her. She would die before she’d tell them where the children were.
Gwyn heard it then—a voice, distant yet insistent, calling her name like a lifeline through the fog. Strong hands cupped her face, the skin feeling uneven but soothing, the warmth radiating from them grounding her in a way that felt achingly familiar.
“Gwyn! Gwyn! Come back to me, baby. Look at me.”
That voice…it was…familiar somehow.
Cool, feathery sensations danced across her skin—her cheeks, her arms, her hands, her feet. They were soft, almost teasing, brushing against her like ghostly whispers.
A memory flickered to life, faint and fractured, like an echo lost to time. The voice was soft, almost a whisper, but its words curled through her mind with chilling clarity: “They’re gone, little Priestess. We have you now. We will take care of you.” A faint blue light colored the edge of her periphery.
And then, faintly, she felt it—a tender press of warm, soft lips against hers. Another memory, this one more recent, stirred, fragile and elusive, like a shadow just out of reach, its edges blurred and shimmering as if seen through a veil.
Slowly, the chaos around her began to dissolve. The kitchen table, the overturned chairs, the lifeless forms of the priestesses—of Catrin—all of it melted away, fading into a new reality. The voice grew louder, closer, and the warmth of those grooved hands and the delicate, airy caress on her skin became undeniable, pulling her back with quiet determination.
-Azriel-
His heart thundered in his chest as he cupped Gwyn’s face, his hands trembling with the weight of his desperation. He searched her gaze, hoping—praying—for a flicker of the light that had always burned so brightly within them. But all he found was a great chasm—her irises reduced to fragile slivers, the black pupils swallowing the vivid teal he cherished so deeply, leaving nothing but a void where her light once shone.
“Gwyn! Gwyn!” His voice cracked, raw with emotion. “Come back to me, baby. Look at me.” His thumbs brushed over her cheeks, his touch gentle but insistent, as if he could will her back to him through sheer force of his need for her. Even his shadows joined the effort, their tendrils caressing her face, her arms, her hands, the tops of her feet—pleading with her to return.
Her breathing was shallow and uneven, her skin icy and slick with sweat. Her fair complexion was now a ghastly white. He knew, with a gut-wrenching certainty, where his words about Roderick had taken her—back to the horrors of Sangravah, back to a place she should never have to revisit.
Panic clawed at him as he realized nothing was working. His voice, his touch, even his shadows—none of it was enough to pull her from the abyss. Acting on pure instinct, he leaned in and pressed his mouth to hers in a tender kiss. Her lips were cold, bloodless, but he poured every ounce of his strength, his affection, into that kiss, willing it to be the lifeline she needed.
When he pulled back, his breath caught as he saw the faintest change. The ring of her teal iris began to expand, the black receding like a tide. Her breathing, though still uneven, began to steady, and a fragile blush of pink crept into her cheeks. Relief flooded him, but he didn’t dare move, didn’t dare let go, as he watched her slowly, painfully, come back to him.
“That’s it, Gwyn,” he encouraged her softly. “You’re doing so good, baby. That’s it.”
Awareness flickered to life on her face, fragile and hesitant. Her head shifted faintly, and she sucked in a sharp, ragged breath, as though she had been drowning and finally breached the surface. The gasp was followed by a fit of coughing, and Azriel released her face as her body folded forward.
He reached out instinctively, his hand moving in slow, soothing circles on her back, a silent gesture of comfort. After a few moments, her gaze shot upward suddenly, locking onto his with wide, searching eyes. “A-Azriel?” she rasped, her voice barely above a whisper, trembling with uncertainty.
“I’m here, Gwyn,” he said softly, his voice steady despite the turmoil in his chest. “I’m right here.”
Her gaze flitted around the room, wild and unfocused, as if she were trying to anchor herself to the present. “You’re safe, Gwyn,” he began gently, his tone a careful mix of reassurance and urgency. “I promise, I—”
But before he could finish, she bolted upright, her movements fueled by a frantic energy. She dashed out the door, leaving him frozen in place, his hand still hovering midair where she had been just moments before. The room was painfully quiet in her absence, her retreat echoing in his mind like a thunderclap.
-Gwyn-
She had to get out of there.
She had to get back to the Library. To her room.
She had to get it.
Feel the smooth surface, the weight of it in her hand.
It clung to her mind, heavy and unrelenting, as she surged out of the House. The ten thousand steps loomed before her; each one swallowed beneath her relentless descent. The burn in her legs, the pounding of her heart, the ache in her lungs—none of it touched her. The hollow numbness inside drowned out everything else, driving her forward into the deep, shadowed descent.