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Azrael had been holding her tightly to his chest when Sorin had told him to take her to his rooms. She had heard him, heard Azrael’s roar when she had started screaming. The pain of having her magic ripped from her being nearly overpowered the agony at knowing what price she was forcing him to pay alongside her.

She’d figured it out during her many hours behind bars. Finally saw what had been right in front of her all this time. What she’d been too lost in anger and grief and hurt to see.

What Tarek had taken advantage of.

She hadn’t been wrong. Not entirely. She’d felt a twin flame bond. But it hadn’t been Tarek.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.

Azrael still clutched her to him as he began filling a tub with hot water.

He didn’t answer. Didn’t say anything as he peeled her grimy and sweat-drenched clothes from her body before helping her into the tub. With a care she was certain no one else had ever seen, he washed her hair for her, rinsing it thoroughly.

It was when he was wiping dried blood from her skin that he said, “I wanted you to be happy, Talwyn.” His voice was low and soft, just as gentle as he was being while he washed away traces of the last several weeks. “And if he… When you came to me, you were so lost. You were hurting. You felt abandoned and betrayed, and after all of that, all you had endured, I just wanted you to experience happiness. True happiness. And you did. With him. For a little while, at least. I could feel it. I wasn’t about to take that away from you.”

“You chose me,” she whispered.

“I have always chosen you. Even when choosing you meant having to step back and let you choose your own path. Perhaps I should have—”

“I wouldn’t have listened,” she interrupted, sinking further beneath the water. It was the first time she’d been warm in ages.

“I know,” he replied. He was kneeling beside the tub, arms resting atop the edge and water dripping from his hands.

A somber silence fell as all that could have been hung between them.

“When did you know?” Talwyn asked, barely audible.

“Not right away,” he answered. “I began suspecting some months after you had appeared at the Alcazar. We had not spent much time alone together before then. After that day, though, we spent nearly every day together. But if you are asking if I knew before I found you on that veranda with Tarek the first time, the answer is yes.”

She nodded, letting the quiet engulf them again.

When she was finally ready to get out of the bath, Az helped her out and wrapped a towel around her shoulders before using another to wring the water from her hair. He tossed the damp towel aside when he was done. One hand on the nape of her neck, his other came up to cup her cheek, tilting her face up to his.

“I am sorry, Talwyn. I should have protected you from so much.”

“Why is everyone apologizing to me for the consequences of my actions?” she replied, searching his brown eyes. “I am sorry, Az. For making you endure watching me with another. For not…” A tear slipped free. “I am sorry. For all of it.”

He gathered her close, towel and all. His chin rested atop her wet hair as she let more tears fall. “You didn’t have to do this, Talwyn,” he murmured. “You know that, right?”

She pulled back, looking into his eyes once more. “I did, Az. I could have stood there. I could have stayed silent. I could have let everything stay the same and committed the same sins I have been committing for decades. Or we could change one thing that will hopefully contribute to some good. I have to believe that giving this up was worth something. Right?”

Her tone was almost desperate as she spoke. She needed him to tell her this had been the right choice. That she had donesomethingright. She needed him to tell her he understood why.

“The fate of this world is more important than what we could have been. Things could stay the same, or we could be part of changing it all,” she added.

His thumbs swiped across her cheeks, wiping away tears as he brought his brow to hers. “I love you, Talwyn Semiria,” he said, and her heart was both healed and broken all at once with those words. “I do not need any type of bond to choose you.”

Azrael walked her out to his bedchamber, where he pulled one of his tunics from the armoire and slipped it over her head. Then he led her to the bed. She crawled under the blankets, and he slid in beside her, pulling her back against his chest.

“Know that while I understand why, I wish you were not going back to Alaric,” Az murmured into her hair.

She swallowed thickly. “I know, Az.”

“So much could go wrong.”

Vulnerable. He was never vulnerable, but his being so now made this moment all the more intimate.

She twisted in his hold so she was facing him across the pillows. Reaching up, she slid her fingers into his hair. “We will see each other again. We might not survive this war, but I will see you again. And maybe then—” Her voice cracked, her words getting caught in her throat. “Maybe then we can have what should have been.”