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Feyre was strapped to a bed, completely devoid of any clothing but a mask; similar to that of the cursed Spring Court before she had saved Prythian from Amarantha’s grasp. She writhed in confusion calling out to me.
“RHYS! Please! I can’t do this anymore!”
And then a throaty cackle sounded away from anything in my line of vision. As quickly as I thought it, there he was: Tamlin in full armor and casually walking to the side of the bed, stretching to whisper in to her ear…
“This is going to be so much fun, and to think Rhys had thought he would father your children. My, what fantasies he clung to…” He peeled everything off of himself and then climbed atop Feyre. My Feyre. Then, land shattering cries erupted from Feyre as he claimed her again and again. Thrusting his muscled, pale body over and over, pawing at her like a fucking beast. Laughing, delighting in the agony she emitted, and the pain gushing out from every one her pores. After what felt like an eternity, he finished completely, and all I had heard from Feyre’s once full but now cracked, lips was, “Where are you Rhys…?”
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I woke drenched in my darkness, screaming nothing but my mate’s name. I could almost feel her here with me, calming me back into natural existence. I pulled in the dark and shadow until just the sky remained, but when I reached for her only the empty bed answered. In the middle of the gorgeous night, which seemed wasted without her here, another nightmare pierced my slumber; one of the worst I had experienced. While I physically recovered from my torturous visions, slowly breathing in and out, I ached for my mate after witnessing her return to the Spring Court with Tamlin not three weeks ago.
I needed her.
Needing her seemed like an oversimplification. Feyre had become a piece of me. When we joined as mates, and she made High Lady of the Night Court, I knew everything and anything I would ever do would be for her. For years I felt shut out from anything that would bring me happiness, but when the Cauldron brought us together it felt deeper than anything I had ever thought possible. It felt like I had never known what it meant to be a full being. As if I had spent the better part of a millennia existing as only a shard of what I was meant to be, and when I found her, I felt complete and whole.
I swung my feet over the side of my lush and oversized bed. Heaving my naked body up I felt the weight that had been building since our return to Velaris. Days seemed to stretch into one another as my inner court and I prepared, strategized, and planned for war.
Cassian had been the first to pull out the battle ready map of Prythian; focusing mainly on the Night Court, his stratagems singled out the coasts and the south. Hybern’s forces would be camped in the damned Spring Court, no doubt they would advance towards, and not as slowly as one might think, to the Night Court in the north. Perhaps a pinching effect would occur as the forces from Hybern moved from the north and the south, squeezing every drop of Fae blood from every single court. I hated to think about the amount of carnage that would soon be snaking its way into Prythian. After a mere two days of recovery, Cassian had left to the Illyrian camps to ready the armies for battle. He had not returned since and made few communications.
In the same vein, as soon as Azreil had healed up, about five days after the encounter at Hybern, he was off. Consulting with his spies and contacting new assets. When Azriel returned it was with news that while his numbers had thinned slightly, they held, and Azriel’s confidence had boosted.
Mor thought of the city and its residents. She began discussing what precautions were going to be made to the city and where. The mountain would be a safe haven for the young. Many High Fae would most likely object to such an intrusive action on their beloved Court of Nightmares; I relished the thought of some members complaining and the punishment that would follow. Coastal boundaries would be fortified, and warriors from every corner of the Night Court would be placed strategically. While proud of my Night Court’s size, at times it seemed overwhelming to protect.
Amren began sizing up the rest of the courts, deciding which ones would fall first to Hybern. Next, she began theorizing which ones had quietly aligned already. Allegiances most certainly had been attempted if Tamlin slept so calmly with the enemy. Her first thoughts were to monitor those who had cozied to Amarantha when she still ruled, and then perhaps those involved with Tamlin; all while keeping a close eye on the book.
The book had made it back with me and my cohorts from Hybern; the cost of which never too far from my mind. Amren kept it with her always. I couldn’t help but notice a slight look she had given me once we fully explained the encounter at Hybern. I could tell she felt responsible. She had volunteered to stay, to protect Velaris, but knew that perhaps Feyre, while essentially every High Lord rolled into one, may have still been too weak to drown out the book’s demands. She hadn’t let the book out of her sight since.
It was unnerving how good we were at warring. The strategies, the scheming, the fighting… The one thing we were all good at was the one thing I’m sure we had never wanted to feel or do again. The thoughts raced around my head. I began to pace around my room; something I had become accustomed to in Feyre’s absence.
For the first week or so I had only silence from Feyre. The kind of silence that fell once the most beautiful music had ceased; you could still feel it lingering in the air, the timbre and vibration of every instrument clinging to its last breaths, and slowly whispering pieces of something that once perpetuated happiness.
Feyre was the music humming in my ears constantly. Our last night together, and the only night she accompanied me to my bedroom, I made the foolish mistake of hoping and dreaming of what seemed gleaming on the horizon.
The infinite amount of time ahead of us to spend with each other; traveling to every piece and bit of the Night Court to familiarize her with her new lands. Except, instead of hunting items, information or trying not to die, we would be exploring, experiencing, and making love at every stop. I would fly her up and down every coast so she could feel the sea’s salty air. I wanted to trek through the forests of our lands, finding nooks and crannies to be made into hiding places for us to escape to when need be. We would do everything as one…as equals…as mates.
I thought of children; a blessing in any court but especially for us. While my inner court, forged from fighting, blood, death and loyalty, served as my family for centuries, the hopes of Feyre bearing us children danced in and out of my musings the most. But who would be so selfish to think of children and family when the war was so close? So selfish to say that one would love to spend eternity entwined with one’s mate but dream of a day surrounded by children? What foolish thoughts I reveled in.
But mostly, I craved a worry free existence with Feyre. The worry of war, of survival, of protecting my court was all we had known together. The worry of the King of Hybern thrashing the lands to unrecognizable slabs of earth, blood, and bone fueled my rage for fighting. The worry of Tamlin somehow swaying Feyre to remain with him in the Spring Court laced into my mind; an incomprehensible but nagging thought hidden in my insecurities. The thought of that worry free life had been enough to lull me to sleep that night. The next night was not so easy.
Nor the night after. A couple of weeks passed and the few hours I had caught were enough to fuel my need to not only ready my court and family for war, but to make sure I was ready to leap at the opportunity to retrieve Feyre if need be. But that moment hadn’t come and so we waited. I waited.
In my pacing I hadn’t noticed the sun was beginning to rise. The golden glow began kissing the night sky to sleep. I grasped the frame of the glassless window and began to breathe in the dawn air still attempting to calm myself. I knew what was coming and the beauty of the dawn never eased the process.
I felt an ache in my chest. She was waking up, or rather was being woken up. I felt a small stream of disgust and then a wave of longing lap against my mind. In the small moment, I tried to send her a rendering of the morning ahead of me but received no response. Suddenly, worry clutched and twisted her mind…my mind. I saw quick flashes of my inner court: Mor, Cassian, Amren, and Azriel. Then flashes of her sisters dripping wet from the Cauldron’s contents inside Hybern’s castle, Velaris and her people she had protected on the day they had attacked the city… then me.
It paused on me. And then a barrage of the swiftest images rained on my mind: I was dying in her arms from a stab wound inflicted by an ash dagger matching the ones from the horrendous memories we shared from the Court Under the Mountain. Her weeping and powerless to help as she watched my wings get riddled with arrows laced with the Bloodbane poison. Tamlin pulling out his gifted Illyrian blades to cut my throat, and lastly, the memory of the King destroying our bond and the ripping pain it had caused both of us. The pictures wouldn’t end.
I was on the ground heaving in and out, sweat coating my body, trying to steady the all-consuming feeling of dread. I started to send her images that answered her unspoken questions: everyone was fine, Velaris stood strong and guarded, her sisters were adjusting to life but alive and well, and I remained at the end of the realm in the Night Court for my High Lady with my happiness stalled by the situation we had found ourselves in. Praying for her safe return, and or for an inevitable retrieval from that animal, Tamlin. Everything remained as it was if not slightly tainted by the loom of war. I felt her slow but eventual relief and then silence.
It had happened like this every morning for the past few days. I had to place a mental balm on her frantic, dread filled thoughts, and then silence. Although the images began worsening, Feyre continued on. I could feel the pain beneath the strength, and while I had the utmost confidence in my mate, I hated the amount of anxiety she felt. What aided me in these mornings was the fact that while her fear poured over and in me, I knew she was fighting like hell for our people. My heart swelled with pride and longing.
While I waited to feel her again, I tried to send her memories: a view of my inner court laughing at something Cassian said, her sisters cooking a meal for each other in the cabin we had hidden them away in, Mor and Azriel looking over Velaris on a veranda, hands touching as if no one were watching, and then finally the hopeful image of our reunion. Me scooping her up by the waist, destroying Tamlin’s manor, and Winnowing so goddamn far away no one powerful enough in all of Prythian would be able to follow us. I tried to push this image through, but once again, the failure of not reaching her tugged at my heart, and I wept.
Moments pass, and then, unexpectedly, I feel her love. The all-consuming love she held for me and the love we had cultivated for each other from the pieces of ourselves, painstakingly put together to form our mating bond. The love that had been driving me ever since I had seen her. The love that emanated from every fiber of our being. The love I would destroy whole legions for. That love, although briefly felt at less than a second, was enough. Enough to guide me through my day…
…enough to ready me for a battle over Prythian like none had seen for centuries…
But more than that, it was enough to steady myself before the war for my Feyre.