Azrael stood with his back turned to her, staring at the wine in his glass. The silence between them stretched on. Lyanna was waiting, barely breathing, afraid that any sound might shatter the mont.
"Her na was Revenna. She was my maker." He took a sip. "She was three thousand years old, maybe more. She’d lived so long that she forgot what mortality felt like. She only cared about her amusent and power gas.
She turned because she was bored. She visited battlefields looking for entertainnt, searching for broken soldiers desperate enough to accept her offer without understanding what they were agreeing to."
Lyanna stayed silent, her heart aching for the young man who had been dying alone, lured into a devil’s bargain by soone who saw him as a toy.
"I was useful to her for about fifty years." Azrael continued, bitterness creeping into his voice. "I fought her wars, killed her political enemies because I had nothing left to lose. I was her perfect weapon." He poured himself more wine.
"She taught everything during those fifty years. She taught how to command other vampires through force and cruelty, how to manipulate humans and vampires, playing on their fears and desires, how to hunt, and how to feed without leaving evidence.
I was young, naive and desperate for connection after being turned. I thought she cared about . She spent nights teaching vampire history, and politics. She took to courts and gatherings, showing off as sothing precious. And I believed I was special to her. Then soone younger ca." Azrael’s hand tightened on the glass.
"A beautiful boy barely twenty, dying from so disease. She saw him and decided he was more interesting than . She turned him, and overnight I beca invisible and irrelevant." He laughed.
"She didn’t even bother to explain anything. She just stopped noticing . I’d speak and she wouldn’t respond. I beca a ghost in her court."
Lyanna wanted to comfort him, but she knew that interrupting now would stop him, and he needed to finish.
"I left after six months of that torture." Azrael continued. "I walked out of her court one night and never returned. She didn’t even notice. I built Thornfield from nothing after that. I started with an abandoned castle and a handful of vampires who were also outcasts. I created my own power through strategy, ruthlessness and determination to prove I was more than just a forgotten soldier she grew bored with.
It took hundreds of years to make Thornfield powerful. I made myself strong enough that no one could ignore ."
"Where is she now? Your maker?" Lyanna whispered when he stopped.
Azrael finally turned and looked at her.
"Dead. I killed her about two hundred years ago." He smiled viciously. "I made her rember every detail of those fifty years she spent creating and then erasing . Then I cut her head in front of everyone, and claid her territory and court."
Lyanna processed the depth of his wounds, realizing how he turned his abandonnt into motivation for power, which ultimately led him to destroy the one who’d abandoned him.
"Your anger at my rejection isn’t just about wounded pride or embarrassnt over being publicly rejected. It’s about being forgotten, about not being enough for soone. I made you feel exactly how she made you feel."
"Don’t compare yourself to her. The situations are different. I didn’t care about her. Our relationship was only about power."
"Is it? It seems you cared a lot, enough to spend centuries plotting revenge."
Azrael’s jaw clenched. He looked like he wanted to argue, but the truth was too obvious to deny.
"I didn’t forget you." She said suddenly. "After I ran away from the marriage, I thought about you occasionally. I wondered if you were okay, if you hated ."
He looked at her, searching for lies.
"I’d see n with dark hair and my heart would stop, thinking it might be you coming for revenge. I’d hear about vampire attacks on humans and wonder if you were behind them, if you were taking your anger at out on innocent people. You haunted , Azrael." She took a breath. "I felt guilty for hurting you."
They were standing very close now. The air between them felt charged with anger, pain, longing and fear. Azrael cupped her face gently and brushed his thumb on her cheekbone tenderly.
"You continue to surprise , Lyanna. I want to hate you. The way I hated her before I killed her. But you make it impossible to see you as just an object to destroy or a symbol of my humiliation."
His other hand moved to her waist.
"I don’t know what to do with you." He admitted. "You’re not what I expected. I hate that maybe I don’t want revenge anymore. And yet, I can’t stop wanting to touch you, talk to you, or see how you’ll surprise next."
"Your Majesties!" A servant’s voice from the corridor broke the mont. "Queen Elise is leaving! She insists on speaking with both of you before she departs! She’s in the grand hall making quite a scene!"
Azrael pulled away quickly as if burned.
"Of course she is. Elise can never leave quietly. She has to make everything dramatic."
As they walked through the corridors, Lyanna gathered her courage and asked the question that had been on her mind since he started telling his story.
"Why did you tell about your turning? You’ve never shared anything personal before. So why tell now?"
Azrael was silent for several steps, his face was angled away from her so she couldn’t read his expression.
"Because I want you to know that I understand what it ans to be powerless, to be used by soone more powerful, to have your choices taken away, to be soone’s revenge object, entertainnt or possession. I know what you’re facing in this marriage better than you think."
He stopped walking and turned to face her.
"The difference is that I survived by becoming crueler and stronger. I stopped caring about everything else. You’re trying to survive by staying soft, by refusing to let this marriage destroy your compassion or whatever you think makes you better than us."
He started walking again.
"I told you my story because when you break, I want you to rember that I offered you another option. Let’s see which strategy works better in the long run."
They entered the grand hall, and the scene that awaited them was just as dramatic as Azrael had predicted.
Queen Elise stood in the centre of the hall.
Behind her, her entourage was ready to leave. But Elise was fuming.
"Azrael." She ignored Lyanna completely. "I’m leaving because I can’t stand here and watch you embarrass yourself over this human any longer." She said as she walked towards him.
"You’re becoming soft. You’re letting her influence your decisions, treating her opinions like they matter, and giving her actual authority instead of just using her as the political pawn she’s supposed to be. This isn’t the king I knew. This isn’t the vampire I spent a century with."
Elise was publicly questioning Azrael’s judgnt and strength in front of dozens of nobles from multiple courts. She stopped in front of Azrael, so close that their bodies almost touched, invading his personal space.
"When you grow tired of playing house with your pet human, you know where to find ." Her hand moved to his chest. "I’ll be waiting in Crimson Dawn to remind you what it ans to be truly a vampire, how it feels to be with soone who’s actually your equal instead of a fragile mortal you have to protect and pamper."
She leaned closer, lowering her voice trying to be intimate but still loud enough for everyone to hear.
"We were good together, Azrael. You know that." Then she rose on her toes, her hands moved to cup his face, and she leaned in to kiss him.
It was a public claim, a bold statent that she still had access to him despite his marriage, that she was the one with a real connection while Lyanna was just a temporary political inconvenience.
The entire hall held its breath, waiting to see what would happen. Lyanna felt anger and humiliation burn in her chest. Her hands clenched into fists, she felt the urge to scream, and defend her position but Helena’s training echoed in her head.
Don’t react.
Azrael turned his head. The movent was subtle but intentional. Elise’s lips landed on his cheek instead of his mouth.
The hall fell silent. Everyone saw Azrael choosing his human wife over the beautiful, and powerful Queen Elise. Elise froze for a mont, her eyes widening in shock. She stepped back, her hands dropping from his face like she’d been burned.
"You’ll regret this."
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