1. Seraphic

𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒆. an enemy's shadow

a z r i e l

☽ ☾

She was gone.

After six months, filled with torture and a strange pull he passed off as a visceral response to her body, Azriel and Seraphina were finally gone from each other's lives—just the way she wanted it.

When he'd returned to the estate, he'd locked himself in his chambers with a drink and sat down on his bed, allowing his mind to wander for just the briefest of moments.

In between the meeting and the last six months, something had happened. Something to drastically change her perception of him.

Had she finally succumbed to the beliefs of her family? Realised that, as an Orphic, he was nothing but trouble and darkness and wickedness in their eyes—and now hers? Had she realised that he never would be anything else in their world?

Azriel wasn't disappointed; he hadn't counted on Seraphina being an ally.

That didn't mean he hadn't been surprised, though.

What had happened that had turned her so distant?

"Now you can finally stop thinking about her," he murmured to himself as he swirled the liquor in his glass and took a sip of his drink.

But that didn't mean he could. What he told himself was his body craved for her, enough so that it had consumed his mind and sometimes silenced the raging storm within him.

With a groan, Azriel got off his bed and set his now-empty glass down on his bedside table.

When he couldn't settle his mind or go to sleep, a run usually worked for him, even if it was during the dead of night—like right now.

He unbuttoned his tunic and threw it onto the bed, leaving him in a black t-shirt, and switched out his normal trousers for his sleeping ones so he could move even more comfortably.

Azriel took one glance at the clock on his bedside table and left his chambers and then the large manor that was at the heart of the estate.

It was cold outside, the icy touch nipping at his almost entirely bare arms as he ran, but he didn't mind it; the cold kept him awake and alert, forced him to work faster and harder, and that was the way he preferred things to be.

Despite the darkness, he could see completely fine, as if the dark was his version of light.

In some ways, it was.

He saw whatever the moon did, and the moon saw all during its later hours.

So did he because of it.

Azriel only came to a stop half an hour later in front of the manor for a break, his chest heaving as he slowed and bent over, hands on his knees while he caught his breath.

No matter how hard he tried, it hadn't worked. And when did that ever happen? When did he ever lose a battle to control, especially one within his own mind?

She'd cursed him, he thought. Something in her touch had inflicted him with an illness of lack of self control.

Why else had she never left his mind?

Azriel straightened, his pants reducing to heavy breaths as he looked off into the darkness.

A scream grabbed his attention.

His neck jerked in the direction of the sound, and not just because it was a girl's, but because it belonged to his sister Morana.

"Mor?" he called out, running in the direction of the scream, into the woods at the back. "Mor!"