The hallway narrows as you near the end, the flickering candlelight struggling against the thick dark that clings to the damp, stone walls. The air is close, heavy with the scent of old woodsmoke and something colder beneath it—mildew, perhaps, or just time.

You pause in front of the last door, the brass key cool against your palm, its unfamiliar weight anchoring your hesitation. Before you can move, he’s there. Azriel steps closer, so quietly that you’re not certain you didn’t imagine the sound of his boots. His presence arrives first—quiet, steady, coiled like something waiting. Shadows slip through the edges of the corridor around him, brushing the walls and your skin in soft, chill passes, curious and careful all at once. One curls lazily around your wrist before dissolving into the dark again. His gloved hand reaches past you, close enough that your breath catches as his arm brushes against your side. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask, simply takes the key from your fingers with a touch so deliberate it borders on reverent. His shadows still at your back, as if holding their breath with you.

The lock resists. He turns it with practiced ease, the mechanism groaning before yielding to a low, final click. The door creaks open on tired hinges, the sound loud in the quiet that clings to him like a second skin.

Azriel doesn’t look at you. He just inclines his head, a subtle gesture that invites you to step inside first.

The room is small, dim, and colder than the corridor. Moonlight filters through a cracked window, casting silver across the threadbare curtains and worn wooden floorboards. The furnishings are sparse, just a chipped dresser, a shallow basin of water, and a bed that swallows your attention like a sudden drop in the floor.

One bed.

Your breath stills. It's technically a double, but narrow, the kind of bed meant for a single occupant, or two with no room for space between. Certainly not for a male like Azriel, whose presence alone seems too large for the space, even without the broad sweep of his wings.

Heat blooms at the base of your neck, rising with the quiet, impossible rush of awareness that you try not to name. The air between you thickens, stilled by something that feels too fragile to touch.

Behind you, Azriel steps into the room. The shadows follow, gliding along the corners and ceiling beams like they belong here. He halts beside you, his gaze catching on the bed. The flicker of a frown touches his brow, not annoyance, exactly, more the careful note of someone who had made a request and finds it unmet.

“I asked for two beds,” he says, low and even, his voice soft enough to be mistaken for thought if not for the edge of restrained discontent beneath it. Not at you, never at you, but at the situation, the error, the closeness it demands.

He moves toward the bed, the old wooden frame creaking faintly beneath the shift of air his wings cause as they unfurl slightly behind him. Not fully, never fully in a space this small, but enough to test how little room there is.

The tension in his posture is barely visible, save for the way his jaw tightens when he glances once more at the narrow mattress. He says nothing more. He doesn’t need to. You both know what the innkeeper told him. This is the last room available. And now, there is only this space. This silence. And the single bed that neither of you can ignore.