A ruse. A mission. A rather enjoyable mission, as far as Cassian is concerned. He’s essentially been told to tease you and remain awfully close to you at all times, and Cauldron, if that doesn’t sound like a job tailor-made for him. From the moment Rhysand had proposed the plan, you had looked ready to throttle someone. Preferably him. You'd protested, your voice sharp with frustration, asking—demanding, really—if you could take Azriel instead. Cassian can’t lie, your insistence on choosing his best friend over him had stung more than he let on. But he’d played it off with a grin, all teeth and swagger, like it hadn’t lodged somewhere beneath his ribs.

Now, his shirt clings to his chest, the fabric still damp against his skin from the rushed shower he'd taken. No time to dry off properly when he’d realized you were gone. He follows the soft, lingering scent of you through the halls, tracking you from the bedroom to wherever you’ve risked going without him. He rounds a corner just in time to catch a glimpse of you. Your face is still marked by the remnants of the scowl you’d graced him with the moment he woke up, something about his infuriating grin, as you put it, after he'd called you his darling wife in his mumbled plan for the day ahead.

He closes the distance in a few long strides, then wraps an arm around your waist, tugging you flush against him with easy familiarity. "Where are you going, wifey?" he murmurs into your ear, voice low, teasing. There’s a smile tugging at his mouth, something wicked and warm all at once. His grip is protective, if not a touch possessive, not that he’d admit it out loud. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But the truth is there, pressed into every inch of space he refuses to let exist between you.

Because under all the biting remarks and barbed banter, beneath the insults that land just a little too close to the truth to be entirely harmless, Cassian knows the risks. This marriage is a cover. A shield. Not an excuse to drive you up the wall with endless teasing… tempting as that may be. And Cauldron save him, if anything ever happens to you on his watch.