Azriel crossed his arms over his chest and stood back to give space to Lords Veron Knoll and Oren Theobald. The two Caersan men took charge of their first prisoners of war, the officers who surrendered after the Valenul army was pushed clear out of Monsumbra. He oversaw the interactions between them, ensuring the officers were not only cooperative but treated well enough that, when they inevitably attempted to create treaties amongst the vampires, they would be more likely to encourage others to agree to their terms.
Having a massive blue dragon glowering at them from behind him certainly didn’t hurt, either.
“You believe they’ll work with us?” Razer asked, a low chitter rising from deep in his chest as one of the officers shouted in Knoll’s face. The sound drew the Caersan’s attention, and Azriel smirked as the color drained from his face.
“I wanted to string them up and let the sun take care of them,” Azriel admitted, “but Oren insisted they could become allies if treated well.”
“Let me eat one.”
“I doubt that would inspire trust.”
“Perhaps.” Razer lifted his head a bit, and Azriel heard the familiar sound of the dragon’s lips peeling back to expose his long teeth. “Or perhaps that will encourage them to…cooperate.”
Shifting his weight, Azriel leaned forward and glared at the shouting officer. The bastard was the only reason he remained in Monsumbra and hadn’t yet returned to camp. As the minutes slipped by, he grew more and more fond of the idea of stepping aside to allow Razer to put an end to all their misery.
Instead, he let H’axinhum and Kholp put together a guard rotation on the Monsumbra Court House where they would be held prisoner. The building was swept for weapons, and pairs of officers were assigned an office to share as their accommodations. The soldiers, both Caersan and Rusan, who lived to retreat were stripped of their effects and taken to the nearest barracks, where they would be held unless they agreed to undergo a blood oath to him.
Azriel didn’t anticipate many to switch allegiances so easily, though he hoped that a handful of Rusan grunts could find it in themselves to fight for a better future.
The end of the battle had been a blur. After demanding Razer burn down the city and the dragon decidedlynotdoing that—something he would never admit to the dragon as being a good thing—Azriel ended up back on the ground and hacking his way through their enemies. None of it registered. Not the blade he took to the leg or the arrow that he ripped out of his shoulder. All he knew in those moments was that his wife was lying on a cot back in the camp, possibly dying.
Yet as much as Azriel disliked the idea of Ariadne having such a young bondheart—an outside force whose death could rip her away from him in an instant—he had to admit that the vinculums now connecting them helped his mind clear once the haze of battle cleared. If only Razer didn’t continuously shut Almandine out.
“She’sancient—definitely older thanyou,and likely far more capable in many ways,” Azriel had argued after Razer explained his reasoning. “What?Just because she’ssmall?”
“You’re an idiot,” Razer had grumbled back. “Do you really want her fighting and being put in danger?”
The conversation had taken a turn after that, devolving into Azriel claiming he needed Ariadne to have some form of protection and Razer bickering back that she’d already missed too much training to be of any use on a battlefield. They argued in circles for what felt like hours, and then Azriel didn’t hear from him again for several days, as some form of punishment devised by the dragon. The joke, however, was on Razer. It’s been the most peaceful few days Azriel had experienced in quite some time.
Now Azriel wanted nothing more than to fly away with his bondheart to check on his wife. The politics of everything unfolding in the middle of Monsumbra had him wishing for none other than the most meddlesome man he knew: Madan. At this, his brother would know what to do, how to direct everyone, and ensure everything progressed as planned.
Fuck, he missed Madan.
“I’m telling him the moment they’re in reach.” Razer chuffed in his ear, his sulfuric breath stinging Azriel’s eyes. “You’ve grown soft,you know that?”
“Fuckoff.” Azriel glared at him from the corner of his eye.
Then the moment he’d been waiting for arrived: H’axinhum turned to him and said in the dhemon language, “We haveeverything under control, my King. Please, go rest. We will find you when they decide to make the blood oath to you.”
A grunt of affirmation and grateful head tilt, then Azriel pivoted and, in one fluid motion, leaped onto Razer’s back. The dragon pushed off the ground as he whipped open his wings. Relief rushed through Azriel, a mixture of his own and his bondheart’s.
“Eager to rest?” Azriel asked.
Razer huffed. “I’m worried about you.”
“I have been fine.” Aside from blacking out the entire battle, Azriel had been surprised by how level-headed he’d been in the end. Apparently, exhaustion was a great way to put a stop to the bond roaring in the back of his mind.
The lightening sky disappeared as Razer, once again, shoved memories into his mind to prove him wrong.
First was of Azriel standing on his back, snarling at the dragon to burn the city, and when Razer pushed back, he threw himself from his bondheart at thrice the height of the tallest building in Monsumbra. Had Razer’s life not been tied to Azriel’s, he would’ve let him hit the cobblestones. Unfortunately for the dragon, he was forced to dive after and scoop Azriel back up to save them both.
Next, he insisted on being placed directly in the center of the fray. When Razer refused yet again, he dug a dagger under a blue scale on his claw. To no one’s surprise, Razer dropped him the last twenty feet without care.
But no matter what he did once on the ground, it paled in comparison to the way he approached the surrendering officers. Having lost all sense of himself, Azriel converged on the Caersans and yelled in the dhemon tongue. It was only when Knoll and Theobald arrived, along with Razer letting loose his hold against the connection to Almandine, that Azriel seemed to find himself again. He latched onto the sensation of his wife’ssubconscious and let it soothe a part of his soul he hadn’t realized ached.
“That was unnecessary.” Azriel blinked hard as they landed.
Again, Razer rumbled. “It was unnecessary to rip a man’s head off with your bare hands, yet here we are.”
