"Of course he's taking her to the bloody prison."

Azriel raised an eyebrow at Amara as the two of them walked through the streets of Velaris in the direction of the little pond and the clearing. He'd quickly filled her in on everything that she had missed after leaving the dinner and her reaction had not been what he had expected. He had known that Amara and Feyre had once been close and that things were slightly tense between the two of them so he hadn't really expected the slightly protective side of Amara to shine through once she was told that Feyre and Rhys were going to see the Bone Carver in a few days. He had never expected her to stop for a second before punching the closest wall.

She groaned lightly and shook her hand as if that would make the pain go away. "Ow," she mumbled as Azriel took her hand in his and started to pick the pieces of gravel out of it.

"I thought Cassian was teaching you to fight?" He asked her softly as he gently held her hand.

"Yeah, he is, but he does it at like four in the morning. Who the hell gets up at four in the morning?" She asked with a roll of her eyes. She then noticed his raised eyebrow at her question. "You practically don't sleep. You don't count." She then stopped for a second and frowned. "Why do you never sleep?"

Azriel finally looked up from their hands and over at her. He wasn't sure if he could tell her the real reason that he stayed awake all night and day. It wasn't because of his job and it wasn't because he just wasn't tired. Instead of answering the question, Azriel decided to change the subject.

"Come on. If we stay around any longer then the chances of us getting kidnapped for drinks by Mor increases," he said softly as he led her down to the pond and the clearing again.

If she had been planning to just sit in silence with him, Amara probably would have gone off with Mor so that she could have a blissful, alcohol induced sleep for that night. It would mean she wouldn't have to deal with any of her nightmares and she would probably actually get a proper nights sleep. That wasn't the plan though. The plan was to finally get him to talk to her about this bond that was between them and this time she wasn't going to take no for an answer. Amren hadn't smacked her over the head with a book for no reason, after all. She'd threatened a hardback next time.

Amara nodded lightly and followed him down to the clearing, sighing contently when she saw the pond and the water lilies. There was just something about this clearing that made her feel... at peace. Maybe it was the fact that she was the only person that he'd shared it with or the fact that she knew the two of them could come here and just stay in a comfortable silence but the fact remained that she always felt like everything was okay when they were here.

Which was exactly why she thought that this was the perfect spot for them to finally talk about this.

The pair sat down where they normally did, Amara by the pond and dipping her hand in so she could use her powers to revive and soothe any of the plants around them as well as grow a few new ones, and Azriel sat not too far away watching her. He always loved her powers. He spent so much time taking life away or harming it that it was comforting to see how life could be brought back or healed. He just kind of wished that she could see her powers that way as well. Her entire life it had been seen as a hinderance for everything that she wanted, something that she had to hide.

Amara let out a shaky breath as she ran her finger tip along the edge of one of the petals, looking down at the ripples in the pond. "Can we talk about something important?"

"Of course we can," Azriel said softly as he turned his attention back to her and away from the lily. He couldn't help but hope that it was the nightmares that she wanted to talk about. Then he could tell her the real reason that he stayed up at night.

"It's um... it's about something that we probably should have talked about a really long time ago..."

Nope, it was worse. It was so much worse.

"It's about the mating bond."

Azriel felt his whole world collapse. He wasn't ready to talk about this. He couldn't talk about this, not yet...

But then the look on her face... she needed this. He could tell that she really needed to talk about this...

So he sucked it up... and he put on a mask to hide his fear of what it was that she was going to say and he said six simple words:

"What do you want to know?"

Hey guys! Haven't done an Authors Note in a really long time! Just wanted to let you know that I have published a Dorian Havilliard fanfic if anybody is interested. It's called Crumbling Kingdoms and it takes place after the Throne of Glass series.

Thank you so much for 6k reads on this book! That is absolutely insane. I did not think that this book would blow up as much as it did.

Again, thank you so much for reading and don't feel forced to check out my Dorian fanfic. It is there if anybody is interested though.