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Azriel’s shadows poured back in, wrapping around him, attempting to soothe him, hide him.

But there was no hiding from Rhys. Az stared at his High Lord. And his High Lord stared back.

“Did I or did I not tell you last winter that you were to back off?” Rhys’s words were terrifyingly calm—flat.

Az said nothing, digging down deep, bracing himself for the storm.

“Did I or did I not tell you,” Rhys repeated, still as a panther ready to strike, “that if you needed to fuck somebody, then go find your pleasure in the city? Not here.” He pointed to the now-empty doorway through which Elain had fled. “Not with her.”

Cold like nothing Az had known surged through him, numbed him as he said to his High Lord, “You can’t tell me who to be with.”

Rhys’s voice remained terrifyingly calm. “Her mate is our ally. You know this. She knows it. And yet you two are here, getting covered in each other’s scents. I had planned to send you down to the human lands tomorrow, but now . . . I’ll go myself. Lucien would take one sniff of you and know immediately what you’ve been doing behind his back. Behind mine as well.”

The very stones of the kitchen shuddered. Az had rarely seen him this angry—certainly not directed at him.

“I know how to take care of the scents,” Az dared say. With a flick of his hand, his shadows swirled around him, the kitchen, the hallway, all the way to Elain—running upstairs to her rooms, his shadows reported. They curled around him, and the scents were gone. Or rather, veiled. Tucked between one shadow and the next. As he had been doing each and every time they’d met like this. As he had learned to do as spymaster so their enemies never caught one whiff that he was in their midst.

Rhys’s jaw tightened. “As much as I admire that little trick of yours, it is beside the point.” Before Az could say more, Rhys angled his head to one side, all predator. “Is it worth it to you? To jeopardize the few allies we have for this?”

Ice cracked through Az’s heart. “We already had this conversation at Solstice.”

“Apparently, it did not stick.” No light whatsoever shone in Rhys’s eyes. “And apparently, you didn’t understand the consequences I promised.”

Azriel bit out a laugh, harsh and lifeless. “Consequences? Like what? You’ll banish me to the House of Wind like you did Nesta last year?”

He was an idiot for taunting his High Lord like this, for challenging a predator already on the edge of spilling blood. But Az was a predator, too—and could match Rhys’s monster with his own any day.

Rhys considered him like he’d never seen him before, that murderous intent melting into something incredulous. Disgusted. Some small part of Azriel curdled in shame. That expression wasn’t from his High Lord, but his brother.

Rhys said softly, “Alliance with Lucien aside, I spent months in agony, you know. After realizing Feyre was my mate. Months of agony, knowing that she was my mate and she was sharing someone else’s bed.”

“It was Feyre’s choice then, just as it is Elain’s choice now,” Azriel snarled.

“That is true on all accounts,” Rhys said with that awful quiet. “But it doesn’t erase the fact that as Feyre’s mate, it destroyed a part of me to know she was with someone else. Feyre didn’t know what we were—she had no idea she was even making that choice. But Elain does. And perhaps she doesn’t understand the agony it will cause Lucien, but I do. You do.”

Azriel scoffed. “Lucien has no right to agonize over her. It is her life, her body. She can do as she pleases, with whomever she pleases.”

“I have no argument with that—and I fully support that autonomy for anyone. But I would not wish the pain that I felt during those months on my greatest enemy, and certainly not on a valued ally like Lucien. And I will not allow myself to be complicit in deceiving him, especially when it is undertaken in my home. So either tell Lucien about it and destroy what we’ve built with him, or fuck Elain somewhere else. But not here. Never here.”

Azriel let drop all pretense of being civilized, of being a decent male. He wasn’t those things. Had never been those things, though the Mother knew he’d tried. “Lucien isn’t entitled to any explanation from Elain. She didn’t choose him—doesn’t want to be mated to him. It’s a fluke of nature.”

It had to be.

“Why are you doing this?” Rhys asked hoarsely, bleakly. “Do you still think you’re entitled to her?”

Azriel had told him on Solstice—three sisters, for three brothers.

But the third sister had been given to another. A worthy male, if he was being honest, but not one who played any part in their lives. It made no sense. If it wasn’t a fluke of nature, then it had to be some sort of divine joke. Perhaps the Mother was condemning Az for all the blood he’d spilled, the pain he’d unleashed.

Well, the Mother could condemn him all she liked. He’d pursue what he wanted, mate or no.

When it became clear that Azriel wouldn’t respond, Rhysand slowly shook his head. “I’m not going to punish you.”

Az loosed a breath. He and Cassian and Rhys had beaten the shit out of each other over the centuries, of course, but never had Rhys actually punished his brothers. Like they were his subjects.

The anger melted fully from Rhys’s face. But that undiluted disgust remained. Az had never seen Rhys look at him like that. He never wanted to experience it again.

And Rhys knew it. But his High Lord said, disappointment and exhaustion dripping from his words, “Do what you want, Azriel. The world’s already burning.” Rhys slid his hands into his pockets before he turned on his heel to walk away. “I have too many other fires to put out to bother dealing with your mess, too.”