Let’s stay delusional in our fantasy world together.
Welcome to my twisted little corner of the internet!
I’m obsessed with everything dark, sexy, and deliciously sinful. After years of devouring fanfiction and secretly crafting my own, I’ve finally found the confidence to share my work with the world.
Here you’ll find fanfiction that ranges from dark and intense to painfully desperate and smutty!
Requests: CLOSED - Learn about my requests here
Kinktober 2025 Masterlist: Check it out here
My AO3: sweetpeaaquarius
★: My most popular fics for each character
Note: * Indicates explicit or adult content | 18+ Only: Minors, please do not interact.
A Court of Thorns and Roses
Eris Vanserra
Burned into Memory
Eris Vanserra x f!reader | Short Series | Request
Eris loves his best friend, the only one who sees past the sharp edges and cruelty expected of the Autumn Court heir. Fear, duty, and his father’s brutal legacy keep him from claiming what he wants most: her.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Fire & Frost
Eris Vanserra x Winter Court f!reader | Short Series | Request
She’s shy and reserved, preferring to stay in the background; he’s the opposite: bold, charming, and impossible to ignore. Despite their differences, he’s drawn to her in a way he can’t explain, and he’s determined to break through her walls.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
The Healer
Eris Vanserra x Healer f!reader | Series | Incomplete
Eris found his mate on the battlefield, a Night Court healer, everything he was raised to despise. She is soft where he is sharp, loyal to the Court he was bred to hate. She expected a monster of fire and cruelty. Instead, she finds silence and a dangerous softness that makes her question everything.
★ The Night Court’s Princess*
Eris Vanserra x f!reader | Series | Incomplete
Rhysand’s forgotten sister has always been everyone’s second choice. Until Eris, her rival and enemy, finds her. He taunts, hurts, and breaks her, just as he always does.
The Spy & The Fox*
Eris Vanserra x Spy f!reader | One Shot
She is the enemy; she is out of bounds, so why was his mouth on hers?
Azriel
A Heart in Two Courts
Azriel x Mate f!reader | One Shot | Request
From the moment he met her, he knew she was different, brighter than anyone he had ever known. She was more than an emissary, more than life itself. But how could the one he loved leave and marry another?
Boys’ Night Confessions*
Azriel x Mate f!reader | One Shot | Request
After a night out, she picks up Azriel from a boys’ night, and what she overhears makes her heart race with thoughts of what she’ll do to him once they’re alone.
Bribing Shadows and Small Surprises
Azriel x Mate f!reader | One Shot | Request
After years of Solstices shared and gifts exchanged, she’s officially out of ideas.
★ His to Lose*
Azriel x Mate f!reader | Short Series | Request
Azriel has long accepted solitude, letting shadows guide him instead of hope. A routine mission changes everything when he meets the one he’s been waiting for. As the bond deepens, lines blur, and he finds himself stepping into the role of mate.
Part 1*, Part 2*
Safe Word*
Azriel x Mate f!reader | One Shot | Request
When a single word brings everything to a halt, Azriel is left drowning in guilt, convinced he’s too much for the mate he adores. The mating bond burns with unsatisfied need, but shame keeps him at arm’s length, and her in a spiral of self-doubt.
Shadows and Sunlight
Azriel x Mate f!reader | One Shot | Request
She is a Day Court princess, the light in every room, loud, bright, and adored. He is the Night Court’s spymaster, hidden in shadows, haunted by the knowledge that she deserves better.
Warmed by the Fire*
Azriel x f!virgin!reader | One Shot | Request
The mission seemed simple enough, but with Azreil, nothing is ever straightforward. After years of working side by side, the stolen glances grow longer, the touches linger closer, and the feelings between them become impossible to ignore.
What the Shadows Don’t Say
Azriel x Half Human/Peregryn fae f!reader | Short Series | Request
When an unexpected bond pulls her into a world too sharp, too powerful, she struggles to find her place in a court ruled by power and legacy. Azriel must navigate what it means to belong, both to each other and to themselves, choosing to stay when walking away would be easier.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Rhysand
Wicked Wine
Pre High Lord! Rhysand x f!reader | One Shot
The Winter Solstice was always beautiful, an evening steeped in fae wine, laughter, and barely concealed tension. She knew courtly games, but not the lingering gaze and deliberate touch of Rhysand, the High Lord-in-waiting.
★ Only Friends
High Lord! Rhysand x f!reader | Short Series | Request
Rhysand is your friend, your High Lord. When you deliver his reports, and he invites you to dinner, the lines begin to blur between friendship and something more. Just friends… right?
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Cassian
Meeting His Match
Cassian x Plus Size Mate f!reader | Short Series | Request
She’s the teacher Nyx can’t stop talking about, and when Rhysand and Feyre leave for a three-week trip, Cassian is put in charge of drop-offs and pick-ups, but she quickly becomes more than just Nyx’s favourite.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Lucien Vanserra
Fire Wrapped in Flesh
Lucien Vanserra x Archeron Sister f!reader | One Shot | Request
Burdened by guilt and fear, Lucien keeps his mate at a distance, burying the bond that burns between them. What begins as quiet moments and stolen glances slowly unravels his silence, until he can no longer deny the mating bond aching to be claimed.
Poly
Autumn Court Melodies*
Feysand x Plus Size Mate Vanserra f!reader | Short Series | Request
After escaping her father’s cruelty, she finds refuge in Velaris, seeking safety in Lucien’s apartment. After weeks of hiding, she realises that there must be more to life than this. Determined not to let her father break her further, she turns back to the one thing she could always rely on: music.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Deceive Me*
Poly Batboys x f!reader | Short Series | Request
A high-ranking Day Court healer arrives at the Night Court on a diplomatic mission, cloaked in silk, secrets, and sharp smiles. She’s not there to make friends, but the court’s most influential males are watching. What begins as a strategy soon becomes a dangerous game of power, proximity, and obsession.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
Never Enough*
Azriel x Eris Vanserra x Best Friend f!reader | Short Series | Request
She loved him silently for centuries. She left to find herself. Now she’s back, and nothing is the same.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
Original Character
The White Witch
Illyrian OC! Ophelia | Prologue | Supporters OC
Ophelia was born into a world that despised her, rejected by her father and saved by her mother, who was willing to risk everything for her child. Left to die, Ophelia survived only because of her mother’s love and defiance, hidden away from a world that would have destroyed her.
Harry Potter Universe
Draco Malfoy
Last Names & Lost Chances*
Draco Malfoy x f!reader | Short Series | Completed
One betrayal sends Draco spiralling back to the girl he never should’ve loved, the one who still tastes like war and smokes like vengeance. Ex-lovers. Bitter endings. One kiss. A ruined party.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3*
Pairing: Cassian x Rhysand x Azriel x Feyre x f!reader
Summary: You’re posed, exposed, and they can’t stop tracing the lines of your body.
Warnings: nsfw, smut, rough sex, teasing, unprotected sex, foreplay/oral female and male receiving, girl on girl, multiple men, MMMFF group scene
Word Count: 2,212
Day 20 | Kinktober Masterlist | Day 22
“Can you tilt your head back a bit more?” Feyre asked, biting her lower lip, her eyebrows furrowed in concentration.
Heat rushed to my cheeks as I rested my head against Rhys’s bare chest. His skin was warm and firm beneath my cheek.
I still don’t know how they convinced me to do this. I don’t know why I agreed so quickly.
Her gaze flicked from the canvas to us, and my hands started to sweat.
“Cass, move your hand higher,” she murmured, her brush pressing against the canvas in short strokes.
Cassian’s hand slowly slid up my inner thigh. His body pressed more firmly against one side of me, all heat and muscle.
“Az, put your hands on her knees.”
Azriel’s scarred hands moved to my knees as he knelt before me. His grip tightened just enough to make my breath hitch.
I swallowed, eyes closing as I tried to calm my heart pounding in my chest.
Why did I agree to this?
Why did I say yes to sitting here, barely clothed, pressed between them?
Now here I was, pressed between three of the most handsome men in all of Prythian, dressed in nothing but sheer fabric, heart pounding, skin tingling, all because Feyre wanted to paint live models.
Cassian’s thumb grazed the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. Azriel’s hands gently pressed my knees apart. Rhys’s hands tightened on my shoulders.
The room grew brighter as the fireplace cracked. I felt warm, too warm, burning alive with the touch and smell of them.
Feyre’s eyes lingered on the way my nipples peaked beneath the sheer fabric.
I could smell the arousal in the air, the unmistakable scent of desire. I felt Azriel inhale deeply as he scented the same thing I did.
“Rhys,” Feyre said, her voice trembling slightly. “Place your hands on her jaw. Keep her head tilted back.”
My head tilted back against his lower stomach, looking up into Rhys’s eyes as his hands cupped my jaw, my pulse pounding beneath his touch.
The corner of his mouth twitched into a smirk as his thumb brushed along the line of my jaw.
He knew exactly what he was doing to me. I looked up at him, pleading. I couldn’t take this much longer.
I heard Feyre’s breath hitch as I looked up at her mate.
I shouldn’t be doing this.
I shouldn’t be feeling like this.
But her eyes darkened, her brush moved faster across the canvas, and I realised she was enjoying this.
“God,” I whispered beneath my breath as Cassian’s hand slid even higher.
His fingertips traced the spot where my thigh met my hip. I watched Rhys’s smile widen before he nodded once, a silent command passed between the three men without words.
I felt Azriel’s hands pressing my knees further apart, spreading me open before him.Rhys's hands stayed still, forcing me to keep eye contact with him.
My lips parted, maybe to ask for something I shouldn’t, maybe to whimper something desperate and pathetic, instead his thumb brushed across my lower lip.
My tongue darted out without thinking, licking his thumb, and my cheeks blushed a deep red.
His smirk turned into a grin, slow, predatory, satisfied. His thumb pressed past my lips, slipping into my mouth, and I looked up at him as I sucked and swirled my tongue over him.
I could hear Feyre’s brush moving frantically across the canvas.
I felt Azriel shift beneath me. Cassian’s hands helped me to the edge of the lounge chair.
I should have pulled away. I should have said something, done something, been stronger than the desire burning between my thighs.
Azriel pressed wet, hot kisses to the inside of my thigh. A soft whimper left my lips as my eyes fluttered shut, as Azriel’s mouth pressed higher.
Cassian pulled away the sheer fabric, his fingers finding my nipples. Pulling them just as Azriel’s mouth pressed fully against me, his tongue licking a long, slow line from my entrance to my clit.
I groaned as my lips parted, arching against Rhys. Rhys slid two fingers into my mouth, smiling as I squirmed.
Azriel’s tongue was relentless, circling my clit with precise strokes that made my vision blur.
Cassian’s fingers twisted and pinched my nipples before he soothed them with his mouth. His tongue was hot and wet as he grazed my nipples with his teeth.
I heard Feyre let out a gentle sigh, the sound of her brush strokes filling the room between my moans and the sound of Azriel’s soft grunts as his tongue tasted me.
Rhys’s fingers finally left my mouth, covered in my saliva. The palm of his hand tapped against my cheek.
“Good girl,” he whispered, his voice low.
My head fell forward, finally able to see the two men whose mouths were devouring me.
Cassian’s mouth was attached to one breast, his hand massaging the other.
I groaned, my eyes flickering to Feyre as she watched me.
Her brush was still clutched in her hand, though her chest heaved with rapid breaths, and her gaze, fixed on Azriel’s face buried between my thighs.
Rhys moved behind her, his hands sliding slowly up the sides of her body before squeezing her breasts through her shirt.
He whispered something in her ear, her cheeks flushing pink as she leaned back into him.
I opened my mouth to speak, to say something, anything, but Azriel chose that moment to slide a single finger inside me.
The sound that tore from my throat was raw.
He immediately found the spot that made stars explode behind my eyes. His mouth closed around my clit, sucking gently as his finger moved in a slow, devastating rhythm that had me begging.
“Please,” I gasped, my voice cracking on the word. “Please, I need—”
Cassian’s teeth grazed my nipple as Azriel added a second finger, stretching me.
My moan echoed through the room as I clenched around his fingers, desperate for more.
“Look at how pretty she is,” Rhys murmured in Feyre’s ear, his fingers tugging at her clothes.
Cassian left hot kisses from my breasts to my mouth, his mouth claiming mine in a rough kiss.
His fingers continued to pinch my nipples as I whimpered against his mouth, my body trembling between the two men.
“Look at you,” Cassian whispered, his lips trailing from my jaw to my throat. “Making a mess all over Azriel’s face.”
My cheeks flushed red, but I couldn't deny it as the wet sounds of Azriel’s fingers inside me filled the room.
I glanced over at Feyre, Rhys’s hands squeezed her breasts, pinching and twisting her nipples between his fingers. She arched into his touch, her paintbrush discarded on the floor.
Azriel’s fingers curled deeper inside me, Cassian’s teeth marked my throat, as Feyre’s moans began to fill the room.
I looked over at her. Rhys’s hand was between her thighs.
I came before I could stop it, my pussy clenching around Azriel’s fingers as Cassian swallowed my cries, his tongue down my throat.
Azriel slowly withdrew his fingers as he and Cassian guided me onto my hands and knees on the rug.
I felt the head of Azriel’s cock press against my entrance, while Cassian knelt before me, his cock hard, glistening with pre-cum.
“Open,” he commanded, his voice low and rough.
I obeyed, taking him into my mouth. Forcing my throat open around him, I gagged as he pressed deeper. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes as I tried to breathe through my nose.
“That’s a good girl,” Cassian said, his hand tangling in my hair and forcing his cock deeper. “Take all of it.”
He held me there, my nose pressed against the base of his cock.
Azriel filled me in a single thrust.
I moaned around Cassian. The vibration made his grip tighten in my hair.
I turned my head as much as I could with Cassian’s cock in my mouth, watching Rhys lift Feyre onto a table, her legs wrapped around his waist as he stood between her thighs. His cock was already pressing into her.
Cassian thrust into my mouth as I watched Rhys pull all the way out of Feyre, the head of his cock glistening with her arousal, before thrusting deep within her again.
Azriel mirrored his movement, withdrawing until only his tip remained inside me before slamming back in.
I moaned around Cassian in unison with Feyre’s cries. Azriel’s cock hit that spot inside me that had me trembling. Cassian filled my mouth, as my saliva dripped down my chin.
“Such a pretty mouth,” Cassian groaned, his hips thrusting faster. “Made to be fucked.”
Azriel’s hands gripped my hips hard enough to bruise, his thrusts becoming harder and harder.
Each impact drove me forward onto Cassian’s cock, forcing him deeper into my throat.
Feyre’s moans grew louder and more desperate as Rhys maintained a relentless pace.
Azriel’s hand found my clit, rubbing tight circles that made my thighs shake. I whimpered around Cassian, the sound vibrating through his cock.
“That’s it,” Cassian groaned.
Feyre cried out, her body going taut as her orgasm crashed over her.
Azriel’s thrusts become erratic, his fingers pressing harder on my clit. Cassian’s grip in my hair tighten painfull.
I came undone, my entire body shaking as pleasure crashed through me. My pussy tightened on Azriel’s cock, as he groaned behind me.
I felt him pulse inside me, his release filling me.
Before I could take a breath, Azriel flipped me onto my back, and Cassian settled between my thighs.
He buried himself inside me, and the sound that tore from me was a scream and a sob.
Cassian’s cock pushed Azriel’s cum deeper, forcing it further into my body with each brutal thrust of his hips.
“Fuck,” Cassian groaned, as my head rolled from side to side.
Each thrust forced my breasts to bounce, my hands clawing uselessly at the carpet. The pleasure was painful, almost violent, bordering on too much.
I watched as Rhys helped Feyre to her feet, his hands steadying her as she swayed.
“Let me taste him, please,” I whimpered, the words leaving my mouth before I could stop them.
Cassian’s laugh was dark and breathless. He slipped his arm beneath my knee, lifting my leg higher, angling his hips to go deeper.
The new position had tears fall from my eyes, my back arching off the floor as he hit something inside me that made stars burst behind my eyes.
Feyre straddled either side of my head. Her thighs trembled as she lowered herself; her pussy hovered just above my mouth.
My tongue licked a long, slow line from her dripping hole to her clit. I groaned into her, my hands reaching up to wrap around her waist, pulling her down onto my mouth.
She was shaking as my tongue pressed deeper, licking every drop of Rhys’s release.
“God,” Feyre moaned, her hips rolling against my face. “Please. Please don’t stop.”
Cassian’s fingers found my clit, pressing down in tight circles as he fucked me. I whimpered into Feyre’s pussy, the vibrations making her cry out above me.
My tongue traced every fold to her clit, flicking it with the tip of my tongue. Her breath came in short, desperate gasps, and I could feel her body tensing.
“I’m, oh god, I’m going to—”
She pressed herself harder against my mouth, and I felt her release flood my mouth and chin. I followed her, my walls clenching down around Cassian’s cock.
I felt him pulse inside me, his own cum adding to the mess inside me.
We stayed like that for a moment, me beneath him, Feyre still trembling above my face.
Cassian withdrew from me slowly, the sensation making me whimper as I felt their cum leak from my body.
Feyre didn’t climb off me as I expected. Instead, she bent forward, her hands reaching for the back of my thighs, and I felt her warm breath against my sensitive pussy.
My pussy was swollen and aching, still pulsing from my orgasm, and the feeling of her tongue was too much, overstimulating me.
“Feyre, I can’t, it’s too—” I gasped.
She didn’t stop. Her tongue pressed into my entrance, tasting every drop of cum that dripped from my body.
I came fast and hard, my face burying into her soaking pussy as my body arched.
The scream that tore from my throat was muffled by her pussy, my hips grinding against her mouth.
Her tongue continued its torture until I lay beneath her, whimpering and broken, coated in her release and Rhys’s, my body trembling.
Finally, she climbed off me, collapsing beside me. My hand reached for hers, our fingers intertwining as my eyes met the others.
Azriel sat with his back against the lounge chair, his face still glistening with my wetness, his cock hard in his hand.
Cassian sat beside me, his chest rising and falling heavy, his own hand working his cock in lazy pumps.
Rhys leaned against the table, his eyes watching us, hungry and predatory.
My breath hitched as I watched three men stroking themselves, knowing that the night was far from over.
Summary: The truth about the bond is finally revealed. Overwhelmed by anger, hurt, guilt, and grief, she feels like she’s suffocating, desperate for space, for answers, and for the chance to feel safe again.
Warnings: slowburn romance, angst, mild language
Word count: 3,284
Part 3 | Masterlist | Part 5
Lucien stared at me, then looked towards Rhysand and Feyre.
I swore his metal eye could see it. The thread that bound us together, the thread woven into fate itself, the truth I couldn’t say out loud.
His mouth parted, and he whispered, “Oh god…”
Rhysand met his gaze, and something passed between them.
Lucien swallowed hard before taking a shaky breath.
“Can I sit with Elain and Nyx?” he asked, his voice gentle.
Rhys glanced at Feyre, and she nodded.
Lucien looked back at me, and there was something in his eyes, something like understanding, pity even.
Rhys led him out without saying another word. The door to the sitting room closed behind them, leaving Feyre and me alone.
Feyre looked at me, desperation in her eyes.
“Please,” she whispered, stepping toward me.
I stepped back.
“How long?” I asked, my voice cracking, tears forming in my eyes. “Since we met?”
She shook her head quickly, too quickly. I could already see the denial forming on her tongue before she even spoke.
“It wasn’t like that,” Feyre said, her voice trembling. “We didn’t want you to feel pressured or trapped.”
A cruel laugh left me.
“You didn’t allow me to feel anything, you didn’t tell me”, I hissed, flames curling up my forearms, heat burning across my skin.
I heard the door open and then close again.
“I told Feyre not to tell you,” Rhys said carefully.
The sound of his voice made something inside me snap.
“You told her not to tell me,” I repeated, my voice cold with fury.
Rhys nodded once.
“We wanted you to connect with us first,” he said, taking a step closer. “For you to get to know us before telling you that you’re… bound to us. Eternally.”
I took a step back. I needed space between them and me.
“Is that what you did to Feyre?” I spat.
The bond tightened in my chest, and my magic flared. Flames curling around me as if they could burn through the invisible thread tethering me to them.
Feyre glanced at Rhys.
Her face turned pale, and I could see it in her eyes.
He had done the same to her.
Rhys’s jaw tightened, and he closed his eyes for a moment, shame flickering across his face.
“You came here running from a court that controlled you,” Rhys began carefully. “That beat you. Did things to you I can't even imagine—”
“You know what they did,” I hissed. “Don't stand there and lie.”
The flames burned brighter.
“You were in my mind. I’m sure you saw everything my father did. I’m sure you know exactly why I’m here.”
My voice shook with the fury rising in my chest.
“I’m sure you threatened Eris to tell you anyway.”
“No,” Rhys said quickly.
For the first time, his voice cracked with something desperate, but I shook my head.
The bond tightened again, like a noose.
“I don’t want this,” I whispered.
Feyre flinched as if I’d struck her. Rhys looked hurt, wounded.
“Please,” Feyre said again, stepping closer. “Just let us explain.”
“Stay away from me,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
“We’re sorry,” Rhys said.
Tears blurred my vision and my hands began to shake.
Silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating.
My chest heaved as I tried, desperately, not to break. Not to show them how weak I truly was, but the bond burned brighter with every emotion flooding through me.
I broke.
My legs gave out beneath me, and I sank to the carpet. I cried into my hands, my shoulders shaking so hard it hurt.
I could feel them move closer before sitting on the carpet in front of me, their emotions seeping down the bond.
The worry.
The fear.
The rejection.
My mind stopped thinking, and all I could do was feel.
The sobs tore out of me, ugly, broken sounds I hadn’t made since the day I arrived here and learned what my father had done.
“You don’t want me,” I whispered, the words barely audible.
“Yes, we—” Rhys started.
“What could I possibly give you?” I cut in, my voice cracking. “I’m courtless. Titless. I have no money.”
Another sob ripped through my chest.
“I can’t bear children,” I forced out, the words sharp and humiliating. “You don’t want that.”
“You are far more than that,” Rhys said. “Far more than what your father believed you were worth.”
I hated the way the bond softened at his words, as if some broken part of me had been waiting to hear that I am worth more than my last name, more than a vessel for heirs.
Still, I couldn’t stop crying. The grief, fear and shame poured out of me until I could barely breathe.
I wasn’t sure if I reached for them first or if they reached for me, but somehow I ended up in their arms.
My mates wrapped around me as if they were trying to hold me together.
My face pressed into Feyre’s shoulder as Rhys pulled me between his legs, my body tucked against his chest.
Neither of them let go.
Slowly, my sobs began to ease, and my breathing slowed.
“You’re okay,” Rhys murmured into my hair.
“You’re safe here,” Feyre whispered, her fingers tracing patterns down my spine.
And for some reason, I believed them.
Eventually, I pulled away, my vision still blurred with tears as I looked up at them. Feyre’s thumb wiped away the last of the tears.
“We’re sorry,” she said, her voice gentle and angelic.
A small whimper nearly escaped me at the sound of it. My fingers tingled where they rested against Rhys.
“I am sorry,” Rhys murmured, his hand settling on the side of my thigh. “For everything.”
“I ruined dinner,” I murmured. “I ruined everything.”
They both shook their heads immediately, already whispering apologies and reassurance in my ear.
“Eris,” I whispered, my voice desperate. “I just want to know Eris is okay.”
“I don’t think we have to talk about—” Rhys said.
“Please,”
There was a long pause before Feyre nodded to Rhys.
“Tell her,” she said. “Tell them both.”
They helped me back onto the couch. Feyre wiped the tears from my cheeks before Rhys called for Lucien.
Lucien stepped into the room a moment later, his eyes widening slightly when he saw me sitting there, my body instinctively curled towards Feyre.
Then Rhys started explaining everything.
My father’s warpath.
The backlash Eris faced for helping me leave Autumn, and the punishment he suffered because of it. How Beron made him an example. How the scars across Eris’s back now mirrored mine.
Rhys spoke of their plans to help Eris take the throne, the meetings already held between the Night Court and my brother, and the negotiations with other courts.
When Tamlin’s name was mentioned, I noticed Lucien’s expression tighten. His eyes flicked to his hands before lifting again to Rhys.
I listened without interrupting. I just sat there, the warmth of the bond steadying something inside me.
Lucien asked questions, and Rhys answered what he could. He mentioned an upcoming meeting and Eris’s request to see both Lucien and me.
We agreed.
I didn’t know how long we had been sitting there; the food remained untouched and cold.
Then a gentle knock interrupted Lucien mid-sentence.
Elain peered her head through the door. Her eyes lingered on Lucien a moment too long before she spoke.
“Nyx wants to show you something,” she said, her gaze flicked to Feyre and Rhys. “He refuses to go to bed until he’s shown her his piece.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Feyre nodded, and we all followed Elain towards the living room.
Nyx’s face lit up the moment we entered.
A grand piano sat in front of a large window overlooking the water. I thought it would be beautiful to play here; my eyes scanned the room as I wondered about the acoustics.
Nyx bowed dramatically before taking a seat at the piano, then he began to play.
The piece we had been practising for months.
His small fingers moved quickly across the keys, his tongue peeking out from the corner of his mouth in concentration.
He played it perfectly.
When he finished, we all clapped, and for the first time that night, I smiled.
I truly smiled.
Nyx flew straight into my arms, wrapping himself around my shoulders.
“Did you like it?” he asked. “Did it make you feel better?”
I nodded, even though my heart still ached.
“It was perfect,” I told him as he cuddled closer. “It made everything better.”
He laughed and flew towards his parents, talking about dinner and how Aunt Elain wouldn’t let him have ice cream until Lucien said he could.
I watched Lucien’s cheeks flush as Elain laughed softly beside him.
When Nyx finally said goodnight, Feyre and Rhys walked him to his room, both glancing back at me as if they wanted me to follow.
I stayed where I was.
Lucien and Elain stood in silence as the awkwardness stretched between them.
Elain spoke first, her eyes avoiding Lucien’s.
“I know we haven’t eaten,” she said, her hands clasped in front of her. “So I was wondering if you’d like to join me for something in the garden. I could show you the guest room afterwards... once you’re finished speaking with Rhys and Feyre, of course.”
Lucien hesitated.
Shock flickered across his face before Elain quickly said, “I’m sorry, that was silly. It’s very late. I’m sure you have much better things—”
“I would want nothing more,” Lucien said quickly. “I… I would be honoured to join you.”
Elain finally looked up at him, a small smile forming on her lips.
“I’ll tell the twins to set us a table,” she said, turning toward the hall.
Lucien stepped forward quickly.
“There’s no need to bother them,” he said. “I can set it myself if you show me where everything is.”
Her smile grew as she nodded.
Lucien looked back at me, with more hope in his eyes than I had seen in a long time.
He hesitated.
I nodded and mouthed, go.
He smiled, a small and nervous smile, before following Elain down the hall.
I stood there in silence.
My chest still heaved, my palms trembling as everything that had happened began crashing down on me all at once.
This wasn’t what tonight was supposed to be.
I came here for answers about Eris.
Not drama.
Not long-buried truths being dragged into the light in front of strangers.
Not collapsing on the floor while the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court held me together.
Eris brought me here for peace. For healing.
Instead, I felt ripped open all over again, as if my heart had been pulled from my chest and forced to beat to someone else’s rhythm.
I moved closer to the windows, drawn by the pale glow of the moon over the Sidra. The gentle light from the lamps and the fireplace flickered across the paintings hanging on the walls.
I sat slowly on the bench of the piano, my eyes falling to the keys.
All of this because I wanted a job.
Because I wanted to prove to myself I was more than what had been done to me.
Because I needed something, anything, to distract me from the memories.
Now I sat here, knowing my eldest brother had been punished for helping me escape. That the next time I saw him might be the last.
Footsteps entered the room behind me.
The bond softened the moment they crossed the threshold.
“We heard Lucien’s staying,” Rhys said quietly. “He’s having dinner with Elain in the garden.”
I didn’t turn to look at them. I just stayed seated, watching the moonlight shimmer across the river.
I felt them move closer.
“Would you stay?” Feyre asked, hesitation in her voice. “We could have dinner on the balcony. You could stay in the guest suite tonight.”
A long pause followed.
The bond stirred in my chest again, the tight knot of anxiety easing as something warmer replaced it.
Something eager.
Something that told me to stay rather than run.
Every instinct told me to leave.
To hide.
To push every feeling back where it belonged.
That I had already revealed too much.
Lost too much control.
“Please,” Rhys murmured.
I felt him move closer, and his hand settled on my shoulder. My body instantly relaxed into the touch.
The suffocating pressure in my chest eased, my muscles relaxed before I could stop them, and without really thinking, I stood and followed them.
Walking between them felt unnatural.
I was aware of everything: the quiet rhythm of their breathing, the way Feyre’s hand curled into a fist at her side as if she was holding herself back from reaching for me, and the way Rhys glanced at me with a softness in his eyes that made my chest ache.
I didn’t believe any of this was real.
They led me up a staircase and into what looked like the main suite of the house.
The space was enormous, nearly the same size as the apartment Lucien and I shared, with several doors and alcoves branching off into other rooms.
We stepped into a living room where floor to ceiling windows overlooked the river, illuminated by moonlight and faelights.
“Wow,” I whispered.
The room was just as beautiful as the rest of the house, with sand-coloured walls, pale timber floors, and soft rugs.
The balcony doors opened, and warm night air drifted inside.
A small table was set for three. Candles flickered like stars, their flames dancing softly.
We stepped onto the balcony together.
Rhys pulled out my chair before I could reach for it myself, while Feyre slid into the seat beside mine.
I looked down at the table filled with food. Regret and guilt twisted in my stomach.
“I’m sorry I ruined your night,” I murmured as Rhys poured wine into our glasses.
“You didn’t ruin anything,” he said immediately. “Mor was cruel. You had every right to defend your family.”
He handed me the glass.
“I would have done the same.”
Our fingers brushed as I took it.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“We believe you,” Feyre said, her hand reaching across the table, before resting on mine, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Why would you believe me over your cousin?” I asked, looking at her. “You barely know me.”
I felt Rhys’s knee brush lightly against mine beneath the table as silence lingered.
Rhys finally spoke.
“Because someone who risks everything just to be left alone wouldn’t risk it all for a lie like that,” he said, staring into his wine glass. “Especially a lie that’s survived centuries.”
He glanced up at me.
“What would you have gained from saying it? We could have called you a liar, sent you and Lucien straight back to Autumn to face whatever punishment your father decided on.”
He shook his head slightly.
“People don’t risk their lives on lies like that. Not when they’re trying to survive. If Mor lied that day, it was because she needed to protect herself from something… something we still don’t understand.”
I nodded slowly.
I didn’t truly understand.
I had watched my brother be painted as cruel.
As a monster.
As a coward.
All because of a lie.
And tonight I had shattered that lie in a single moment.
“What will you say to her?” I asked.
Feyre started serving the food onto our plates, the gentle clink of dishes filling the quiet air.
“I’ll ask her why,” Rhys said. “Why she felt like she needed that to protect herself from us. From her family.”
There was sadness in his voice now.
I didn’t say anything after that.
I simply thanked Feyre and began eating.
The wine and food helped slowly ease the tension.
They started asking questions about me.
About the piano.
How I had learned to play. What I loved to perform. Which composers I liked the most.
They asked about my life here in Velaris. About the children I taught.
At some point, I found myself laughing, actually laughing, nearly in tears as Feyre told stories about Nyx and his chaos.
Rhys shared his own stories, teasing her and making us both laugh even more.
Slowly, the night softened.
I made jokes. I teased them back. At one point, I touched Feyre’s arm when she laughed, my hand lingering longer than necessary.
Rhys’s knee brushed harder against mine beneath the table.
Eventually, his hand settled on my knee, and I didn’t pull away.
Feyre suddenly giggled again before looking at me, her smile bright and almost shy.
“You’re so beautiful,” she said.
I laughed softly, shaking my head.
“I’m not what you want,” I said, still chuckling. “I’m not like you, Feyre. Or your sisters. Or anyone in this court. I have no value here.”
Feyre’s expression hardened slightly, and Rhys’s hand tightened on my knee.
“You are more than what your father believed you were,” Feyre said firmly. “You are beautiful in ways I’ve never seen before.”
I hummed mockingly, lifting my wine glass.
“You’ve seen plenty of beautiful fae,” I argued. “I’m sure both of you have been with many beautiful fae. Probably shared a few of them. I promise you, I’m not what you want.”
The air shifted.
Rhys’s jaw tightened, and Feyre looked at me with something that looked dangerously close to hurt.
I looked between them, confused, the smile still on my lips.
“What?” I asked, as I set my wine down.
“I do not share my mates,” Rhys said simply.
My cheeks flushed immediately.
“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I just assumed because of the—”
I gestured vaguely between Feyre and myself.
Maybe I meant the bond.
Maybe I meant the attraction that had been building between us since the moment we met.
She took a slow sip of her wine before placing the glass down gently.
She took a shaky breath.
“You make me feel things,” she admitted, her cheeks turning pink. “Things I’ve never felt before.”
Rhys’s fingers started tracing gentle patterns on my knee, his touch warm and steady.
My eyes were fixed on Feyre’s face, and our knees brushed beneath the table.
“I’ve never… been attracted to a woman before,” she said, her tone careful. “But you… You haven’t left my mind since the moment I met you.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“I keep thinking about you,” she said, her voice dropping. “The way your curves might feel in my hands. The warmth of your skin. The way you smell…”
Her eyes flickered to my lips before lifting back to mine.
“The way your lips would feel against mine,” she whispered, her cheeks flushed a deeper red. “God… I can’t stop thinking about you.”
Something inside me snapped.
Maybe it was the bond.
Maybe it was the wine.
Maybe it was the way they looked at me like I was something worth wanting.
“Then kiss me.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them, before I could think of the consequences.
The moment the words left my mouth, I realised there was no taking them back.
Unfortunately, Tumblr has been flagging a lot of my posts as “mature” and adding content warnings. Because of that, my posts haven’t been reaching my usual audience, leaving me feeling pretty unmotivated and disheartened.
I’m going to finish some of the requests currently in my inbox (not all of them) and my Kinktober posts.
However, my current series, The Healer and The Night Court Princess, will be paused indefinitely. As you know, I’ve been struggling to be motivated for a while now.
Once I’ve completed my requests, I will take some time to decide whether I want to continue posting on Tumblr, mainly due to the ongoing content warning issues.
If you’d like to stay updated, please double-check that you’re able to view mature posts in your settings so you don’t miss anything.
Thank you all so much for your support; it truly means the world to me. I appreciate every single one of you.
Summary: She couldn’t sleep, restless and desperate for answers only Rhysand and Feyre could give her. By morning, a letter was waiting, an invitation to dinner, requesting that she and Lucien come to discuss Autumn. She knew it wouldn’t be pleasant. She just didn’t realise how badly it would end.
Warnings: slowburn romance, angst, mild language
Word count: 2,905
Part 2 | Masterlist | Part 4
That night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, Rhys and Feyre’s faces flashed behind them.
I clutched the fire orb tightly in my hand as I tried to sleep, but I swore I could feel him at the edges of my mind, and the tingling still lingered beneath my skin.
I tossed and turned until I groaned in frustration. Turning onto my side, I rolled the orb over and over in my palm, the same way I had as a child when I was scared, alone and waiting for Eris to return.
My chest felt tight, and the longer I stared out the window at the night sky, the tighter it became.
I closed my eyes, trying to calm my thoughts, my heart, and myself.
As I lay there, a soft warmth bloomed in my chest. It spread slowly from the crown of my head to the tips of my fingers and toes. My breathing eased, and finally I fell asleep.
That night, my dreams were different.
There were no flames, pain, or nightmares. Only cool, weightless calm, like drifting through deep water that carried me rather than pulling me under.
I felt peaceful.
The most peaceful I had felt in a very long time.
By morning, I woke feeling more rested than I had in a very long time.
The usual aches and lingering soreness were gone, replaced by a gentle warmth beneath my skin. It didn’t hurt to sit up or stand, or even to comb through my hair; the familiar stiffness and sharp tugs softened into something almost easy.
When I walked into the kitchen, Lucien sat at the table, a letter in his hands. His eyes met mine, then he slid it toward me without a word.
It was a handwritten invitation for Lucien and me to attend dinner at the River House to speak with the Inner Circle.
Nowhere was Eris’s name written; only mentions of Autumn and Night Court politics.
“Tonight,” I whispered, mostly to myself.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Lucien nod.
His hands trembled slightly. His eyes remained fixed on the letter, his metal eye whirring faintly and unfocused. I knew he wasn’t thinking about dinner.
“Will she be there?” I asked.
Lucien blinked slowly before nodding.
He knew exactly who I meant.
He closed his eyes, sighed, and then his face fell into his hands.
Silence settled between us.
After a moment, I stepped closer, resting my hand on his shoulder, my chin lightly against the top of his head.
“It's okay,” I murmured.
I pushed down my own fear, the thought of Rhys’s darkness brushing my mind again and of Feyre’s knowing eyes. None of that mattered as much as Lucien’s pain.
For the rest of the day, I forced myself to act normal. I smiled, spoke when spoken to, and pretended the heaviness in my chest wasn’t real.
Zamir watched me with narrowed eyes. He was far more perceptive than anyone gave him credit for.
When he said goodbye, he lingered by the door, as if sensing something was wrong, as if my fear were written on my face.
Maybe it was.
He turned to leave, paused, and looked back at me with a knowing look before finally walking out.
I stayed longer than necessary, avoiding going home and the dinner I knew would be awkward and suffocating. I wanted answers about Eris, not fake kindness and political smiles.
Eventually, I packed my things for the night and locked the shop door behind me.
I walked home through the streets of Velaris. Night Court fae filled the streets, restaurants and bars. Laughter filled the air as the faelights flickered on, one by one.
Something inside me was curled tight, and my magic burned too hot beneath my skin, heat pricking along my arms.
I pushed the apartment door open and was met with the scent of cologne and the sound of footsteps pacing.
Lucien was pacing back and forth. His head snapped up at the sound of the door, panic flashing in his eyes as they met mine.
I watched him for a moment, his stiff shoulders, the way his hands flexed at his sides as if he didn’t know what to do with himself.
I opened my mouth to speak, but he shook his head slightly.
Not now.
He needed space.
So I said nothing and slipped quietly into my room.
After bathing, I stood at the end of my bed, staring at the navy-blue gown I had spent hours choosing. The gown, was meant to make me appear softer, less threatening.
More Night Court. Less Autumn.
The dress hugged my curves, and the fabric dipped low enough to reveal my scars along my spine.
I wanted them to see the viciousness of my father and the reason for my worry and fear for my family.
Lucien was already waiting by the door. He was tense, his hands curled into fists, jaw tight, eyes distant, as if bracing for disappointment.
“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.
Something like mourning flashed across his face.
“Months ago,” he whispered.
His eyes flicked to my scars, something unreadable passing across his face before he looked away.
“Ready?” I asked, linking my arm through his.
He nodded, and we left the apartment.
The walk to the River House felt longer than the night before, when fury had drowned out every other sense.
By the time we reached the house, Lucien wore a perfectly neutral, carefully composed expression.
I was certain my worry was written plainly across my own face.
The door opened before we could knock.
Nyx stood on his toes, barely reaching the handle.
“You’re here!” he squealed, flying into my arms.
His wings wrapped around me for a moment, then he pulled back, landing beside me with a grin.
“Nyx,” a female voice called, filled with concern.
He giggled and hid behind my dress.
A beautiful fae turned the corner, and I knew who she was from the way Lucien went completely still.
Elain Archeron.
She wore a blush-pink dress, her eyes widened slightly when she saw us.
Silence stretched.
No one spoke.
Lucien stared a heartbeat too long before looking away, a faint blush rising on both their cheeks.
I nearly rolled my eyes.
My brother, who had survived two courts, wars, and horrors most wouldn’t, now stood utterly speechless.
I was about to break the tension when Rhysand appeared around the corner, that knowing smile already in place.
“Welcome,” he said smoothly, gesturing for us to enter.
His smile widened as Nyx grabbed my hand.
“Nyx, why don’t you show our guests to the sitting room?” Rhys added, watching as his son eagerly pulled me forward.
The house was beautiful. Sand coloured walls, pale wood floors, hand woven rugs, and glassblown chandeliers casting soft light over the paintings lining the halls.
It was nothing like the Forest House.
This felt like a home.
I could feel Rhysand’s eyes on me as we walked deeper inside. The tightness in my chest twisted with each step towards the low murmur of voices ahead.
Lucien tensed beside me.
I glanced back briefly. Elain followed quietly, her eyea fixed on the floor. Lucien kept his gaze forward, his expression carefully blank.
Nyx tugged my hand again, smiling up at me.
“He missed you,” Rhys said, his voice low, quiet enough to feel meant only for me.
I stopped myself from smiling as I looked down at Nyx, his eyes bright with excitement.
Lucien glanced at me, something unreadable flickering across his face as we stepped into the sitting room.
My stomach twisted.
The room was full.
Azriel and Cassian sat near the fire, watching us with open scrutiny that made it clear we were unwelcome.
Three beautiful fae sat on the sofas and armchairs. One resembled Feyre and Elain enough for me to realise she must be Nesta. The others were Amren and Morrigan.
Morrigan met my gaze briefly, then lifted her wine glass and looked away.
I froze.
Heat crept up my skin.
Nyx released my hand and flew into Cassian’s laps, his smile bright.
I jumped as Rhysand’s voice cut through the silence. His hand rested lightly on the centre of my back, his thumb rubbing over the scarred skin as if to comfort me.
I nearly pulled away, nearly told him never to touch me again. But warmth bloomed beneath his hand, the tight knot in my chest loosened, and a breath slipped from me as my body relaxed into his touch before I could stop it.
He introduced me.
The Inner Circle’s expressions didn’t change.
Lucien stepped forward first, nodding for me to follow, and I did.
Rhysand’s hand fell away, yet the warmth began to spread slowly through me, as if his magic had seeped beneath my skin.
I sat on the open couch. Lucien took the armchair beside me. Across from us, Rhysand sat with Azriel and Cassian.
The room fell into a suffocating silence.
Nyx bounced on Cassian’s knee, blissfully unaware.
Rhys tried to start a conversation, only for the others to nod in agreement or chuckle on cue.
The silence remained until the sitting room door swung open and Feyre stumbled in, carrying a large tray against her hip and a smaller plate in her other hand.
I stood immediately.
Instinct, maybe, a forced habit. The years of court training carved into my bones.
I stepped forward without thinking, catching the smaller plate as Rhys appeared behind me to take the heavier tray from her arms.
My fingers brushed against Feyre’s, and familiar goosebumps rose along my skin. Our eyes met, and I swore she swallowed before offering me a soft smile.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
I nodded, then placed the plate carefully on a side table while Rhys set the tray down.
The conversation between them all was easier now that Feyre was here.
“I wanted to apologise,” Rhysand said suddenly.
He didn’t look at me at first, only reaching for an expensive bottle of wine and pouring three glasses.
“For what?” I asked, expecting a smart remark about yesterday.
He finally met my gaze, his violet-blue eyes sparkling, and his faint dimples deepened as he gave me a regretful smile that felt almost real.
“For ambushing you at the music store. For waiting for you. For leaving Eris’s gift without explanation.” His voice softened. “For trying to read your mind.”
I rolled my eyes and scoffed before I could stop myself.
He chuckled at my reaction, and my cheeks burned as he looked at me, his eyes alight with amusement.
I looked away, immediately found Feyre’s gaze, and my palms began to sweat.
“I thought we were here to talk about Eris and my family, not to listen to apologies,” I said, ignoring the glass of wine he offered.
“We are,” Rhys replied. “But we would also like to get to know you better.”
“I don’t care about your wine or pleasantries,” I said, harsher than I meant. “I want to know what danger Eris is in.”
The room fell silent.
I could feel every pair of eyes on me.
Rhysand’s expression shifted, the softness gone as he glanced at Feyre. A silent understanding passed between them.
“I’ll take Nyx to the playroom,” Elain whispered, lifting the child from Cassian’s lap. Nyx looked at me, confused, before she disappeared with him.
The door clicked closed.
Then silence filled the room.
“Typical Autumn fae,” Mor muttered under her breath.
Flames curled up my spine.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, my voice carefully calm.
She turned towards me, her eyes sharp.
“You know exactly what I mean. Demanding. Volatile. Just like your court.”
“Just like my court?” I repeated.
“Just like your court,” she said again, lifting her wine glass dismissively.
Silence fell again as heat began to burn uncontrollably beneath my skin, curling around my clenched fists.
“He’s not the villain,” I whispered, my voice cold. “He did what he had to.”
Mor’s gaze snapped to mine.
“He left me there, naked and bleeding to death,” she said, her voice shaking with anger.
“He did what you asked him to,” I said, watching the colour drain from her face. “You begged him to leave you there.”
The silence was heavier, suffocating.
Mor looked at me as if I had just said something never meant to be spoken aloud.
“If he had touched you,” I continued, my voice tightening, “if he had helped you in front of his men, you would have been bound to Autumn, to Beron, to a life you never wanted.”
Her fingers tightened around her glass.
“Eris asked you what you wanted. He asked if you would rather die there or be taken back as his. He walked away because that was the only way to keep you free.”
Azriel went still, as if he had just realised something.
“He sent word,” I said, my eyes flicking to the shadowsinger. “Anonymously. Made sure someone found you. Made sure you made it back here.”
Mor’s breathing turned uneven.
“And you let them call him a monster,” my voice broke on the word. “You let them believe he abandoned you.”
Rhys stepped forward, his eyes on Mor.
“She’s lying,” Mor pleaded, her cheeks flushed red, and the glass in her hand cracked under the pressure.
“I don’t think she is,” Rhys replied, without hesitation.
Mor looked around the room, searching for support.
No one spoke.
Cassian stared at her in shock. Azriel looked at her, his hazel eyes filled with betrayal. Amren looked at her as if seeing a stranger. Nesta’s hand rested on Cassian’s knee, as if to steady him.
Lucien was staring at me, his eyes wide.
“That’s not—” Mor began, but stopped herself.
She stood, looking at me with such fury that I thought she might kill me where I stood.
A hand slipped into mine. The tingling shot up my arm as my fingers instinctively curled around the slender hand.
Feyre.
“We will discuss this later,” Rhys said, shaking his head.
“Rhys,” Mor whispered, tears filling her eyes as she looked at him, broken.
“Leave,” Rhys said, not meeting her gaze. “All of you. We will speak in the morning. Lucien, stay. We will discuss Autumn. The rest of you, please.”
No one argued.
They left one by one.
Mor’s voice followed them down the hall, pleading.
The door closed, and the silence that followed was even worse.
My ears rang, and my hand trembled in Feyre’s.
“You’ve done nothing wrong,” she whispered into my ear as she pulled me into her arms.
I melted into her without thinking.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed into her hair as her fingers slowly traced down my spine.
She held me tighter, whispering that it would be okay and that none of this was my fault.
“I destroyed your family,” I repeated, the words rough and raw.
“It’s okay,” she whispered back, her lips warm against my ear.
It didn’t feel okay.
I curled further into her arm. I felt Rhys step closer. His hand reached out to brush my hair from my face.
Instinctively, I leaned into his touch, as if seeking something I couldn’t name.
He didn’t laugh. Didn’t pull away. His fingers slid through my hair, and his thumb brushed softly along my cheek.
“You’re okay,” he murmured, then stepped back, giving us space as he turned to speak to Lucien.
“You’re safe here,” Feyre whispered into my ear, her fingers trailing further down my spine.
A shiver ran through me as she spoke.
Rhys was watching us.
Watching me.
Something in my chest tightened, sharp and sudden, then snapped.
Heat tore through me, searing down my spine, through my veins, threading through my ribs until I could barely breathe.
The same heat I’d felt when Feyre touched me or when I looked at Rhys. The same warmth that had comforted me last night as I tried to sleep.
Something yanked at my heart, as if a string tied deep inside me were being pulled in two different directions.
A small gasp left my lips as I pulled out of Feyre’s arms.
The thread tightened.
I looked at her, then at him.
Their eyes widened, barely, but enough.
There was no confusion or shock.
They knew.
They had always known.
The High Lord and High Lady of the Night Court were my mates.
He smiled at her in a way I had never seen before, soft and reverent, and it made something ugly twist deep in my chest.
His eyes burned with warmth, and my hands curled into tight fists at my sides before I could stop them.
His soon to be bride stood beside him.
The daughter of a high-ranking adviser, a noble High Fae bred for courts and appearances.
She looked as though she had been created for this very moment, perfectly matched to him in every unbearable way.
A beautiful crown of gold rested on her brow, and her burgundy dress shimmered with tiny beads that caught the chandelier’s light, reminding me of falling stars.
She belonged there beside him.
The music swelled, bright and deafening, as laughter and voices blurred together until I couldn’t hear my own thoughts, and the air felt too thick to breathe.
I lifted my glass, hoping the burn would numb the ache.
It didn’t.
The more I watched them, the sharper everything became, the way his hand lingered at the small of her back and the way she leaned into him, as if she had always known she would stand at his side.
My body burned as jealousy coiled tighter and tighter in my chest.
I knew it was all pretend, whatever Eris and I had.
Nights that ended tangled in his sheets, stolen moments hidden in dark rooms and corridors where no one could see us. One-night stands that happened often enough that I had almost believed they were real.
I knew it wouldn’t last.
I had always known.
So why did my heart keep breaking as I watched them smile at each other, gazing into each other's eyes as if the rest of the world didn’t exist?
Eris’s gaze never swept the room.
Not once.
He didn’t look for me the way he always had, the way we would exchange secret smiles across crowded rooms. The way we used to linger in the dark corners of ballrooms, his hands wandering.
No.
His eyes were fixed on her beautiful face as his hand slid lower down her spine.
I nearly screamed. Tears pricked my eyes, and the wine glass in my hand almost cracked.
I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stand there, watching him, watching them.
Eris leaned down towards his soon to be bride, his lips brushing her ear as he whispered something that made her blush.
His hand slid even lower, squeezing her possessively.
My glass slammed onto the table.
I turned and fled for the nearest exit, my heels echoing against the stone.
My chest rose and fell as I struggled against the corset of my dress.
Tears slid down my cheeks as I stumbled through the hallway. I covered my mouth with my hand as I tried to swallow a sob.
With every step, the pain grew sharper, the memory of walking into the ballroom only hours earlier and learning that the man I had secretly been seeing for years was engaged.
Set to marry in a month.
He hadn’t told me.
Even though I had been in his bed only days ago.
They had been promised to each other long before I had even been in his life, and somehow, foolishly, I had believed I was different.
I wasn’t.
I was the other woman. The secret he would never claim in public.
I was a High Fae, a noble from a powerful family.
But I wasn’t her.
I wasn’t the firstborn.
I wasn’t the perfect match.
I wasn’t enough.
My back hit the wall, and I gasped for air.
I was stupid.
So fucking stupid.
My head pounded, my body shaking as my heart shattered, piece by piece.
I walked deeper into the Forest House, desperate for peace, for silence, for anything that might drown out the image of them.
There was nowhere to go.
The wards prevented winnowing until the celebration ended.
I was trapped here.
Eventually, I found myself on a balcony. I stayed there for hours until the early morning, when the suffocating pressure of the wards finally lifted.
The moment I felt it, relief flooded me.
I needed to reach the winnowing point.
I needed to leave.
Now.
I left the balcony and made my way back towards the ballroom. My feet felt numb in my heels, and I was certain my makeup was ruined and my hair was wild.
The ballroom was filled with drunk nobles, slurred conversations, and booming laughter that was far too loud.
I hid in the shadows of the room.
I didn’t look for Eris.
I couldn’t bear to.
I just needed to leave.
The winnowing point came into view. I could already feel my magic stirring, wrapping around me, ready to pull me away, back home, where I could finally collapse and cry into my pillow.
One more step.
Freedom was seconds away.
My foot crossed the threshold.
A hand clamped around my wrist, pulling me into a dark corridor.
Another hand caught my waist. My back hit the wall, and a knee slid between my legs, trapping me.
“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.”
My entire body went stiff.
Eris’s voice curled around me, low and familiar, his breath warm against my ear.
I struggled weakly, pushing against him, but he didn’t budge, not even an inch.
Reluctantly, I looked up at him.
His eyes burned as they met mine. He looked at me like a starving predator, and I was wounded prey.
He smiled at me, that sharp grin that used to make my knees weak. His gaze slid slowly over my tear-stained face, and I swore I saw excitement in his eyes.
“Are those tears?” he mocked. “Are you angry with me? Is that why you’ve been hiding all night?”
I said nothing, struggling against him again.
“Don’t sulk, sweetheart,” he said, as if speaking to a stubborn child. “You’ve got my attention now.”
His hand tightened around my waist, his knee sliding higher as he leaned in to kiss me. I turned my face away, and his lips brushed my cheek.
He paused, amused.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he murmured, his fingers slipping beneath my jaw and forcing my eyes back to his. “Like I hurt you.”
“You have a wife,” I hissed. He rolled his eyes.
“She’s not my wife yet,” Eris said, as if I hadn’t been in his bed days ago. “You know how these things work.”
“She’s in that ballroom,” I whispered, my voice shaking. “Your hands were all over her. You’re engaged.”
My hands pressed harder against his chest, only for his grip on my jaw to tighten, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind me he wasn’t letting go.
“I know you’re hurt, sweetheart.” His voice softened in that practiced way. “Come to my room. Let me take care of you. I’ll make you feel better. I always do.”
“Go to her bed,” I hissed.
He huffed, annoyance slipping through his mask.
“Stop being difficult,” he murmured. “You knew what this was between us.”
He lowered his head, nuzzling my throat, his breath warm against my skin.
“Eris,” I protested weakly, but my eyes closed anyway, my fingers curling into his jacket and pulling him closer.
“See?” he whispered into my ear. “Your mouth says one thing, and your body says another.”
“She’s your wife,” I whispered again, though it sounded more like a plea.
He hummed softly, his hands sliding down my sides, exploring my body as if he had every right.
“Eris,” I tried again, as he nipped at my collarbone.
His grip tightened, and I could feel his frustration burning through him.
Eris always got what he wanted and rarely heard the word no. It was easier to give in, and I was no exception.
My mouth opened to argue, to tell him we can't, but his lips crashed against mine, silencing every word.
His mouth consumed me. His tongue tangled with mine, tasting, claiming, and stealing my ability to think.
His hands gripped my waist, pressing me harder against the wall. My fingers tangled in his hair, tugging at the roots.
Eris smirked against my mouth as I gave in to him.
His hands slid down to my ass, squeezing my skin through the fabric of my dress as he lifted me. My legs wrapped around his waist. My heels dug into the backs of his thighs, pushing him closer until I could feel the hardness pressing against my inner thighs.
I should have stopped him.
I should have pushed him in the chest and demanded he go back to her.
His mouth pressed against mine, silencing that thought. My hips ground against him, desperate for friction.
I groaned into his mouth, a broken, pathetic sound I barely recognised.
“See what happens when you listen to me, sweetheart,” he murmured against my lips. “Everything feels better when you stop fighting me.”
I hated that he was right.
I hated that my body had already surrendered to his touch.
His hand slid up my spine, tangling in my hair and pulling, giving himself better access.
I should have told him that we couldn’t, that we were in a hallway where anyone might see.
Instead, I tilted my head back further and let him have me, let him leave marks down my throat that I’d have to hide for days.
He kissed his way down my chest. I felt him smile against me, his teeth nipping at the exposed skin before sucking hard enough to bruise.
“You’re such a good girl,” Eris praised as I arched into him, silently begging him to explore me, touch me, and squeeze me.
We stumbled further into the dark corridor, my legs still wrapped tightly around his waist. He pushed me against the wall, the cold stone digging into my back.
His hands hiked my dress up to my waist. I was exposed, vulnerable, and so wet I could feel it on my inner thighs.
His hands moved to his trousers, his jacket wrinkled and half open, his lips stained with my lipstick.
He freed himself; his cock stood thick and swollen, with pre-cum leaking from the tip.
The sight of him made my mouth go dry, and my pussy clench with need.
His hands pressed against the backs of my thighs, forcing my knees to my chest.
I was completely exposed and at his mercy.
“Look at you,” he murrmed. “You’re soaking wet.”
I wanted to argue, but my damp panties and the arousal glistening on my thighs told him all he needed to know.
He moved my lace panties aside and pressed inside me, my walls tight and burning from his intrusion. The stretch of him was something I could never get used to.
I moaned, loud and pathetic, the sound echoing off the stone walls before I could stop it.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he groaned, looking down at me, at the pained look on my face as I stretched around him. “Take all of me.”
I hated him.
I hated myself more.
“Eris,” I whimpered, as he pulled out completely.
I felt every ridge, every vein against my sensitive walls. He paused at my entrance, his cock gleaming with my wetness.
I watched his mouth twitch into a smirk and his eyes watch as he rubbed himself against my clit, then thrust back into me without warning.
Hard.
I cried out, my back arching and my fingers gripping whatever I could reach.
The wet slap of our bodies meeting echoed in my ears.
I prayed the music would drown out the sound.
I prayed no one would walk past.
“How do you stay so tight after everything I do to you?” he asked, his eyes fixed on his cock sliding in and out of me.
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
All I could do was feel the relentless rhythm of his hips, listen to the sounds of us fucking, and feel the growing pressure building deep within me.
His fingers dug into the soft flesh of my hips, hard enough to bruise as his thrusts grew faster, deeper, and harder.
I tried to stay quiet, biting back my moans, but he found that familiar spot inside me, the one that made stars burst behind my eyes and my pussy clench around him.
My body betrayed me again, arching into him, desperate for more pleasure.
“That’s it,” he growled, his voice low. “I can feel you squeezing me. You’re close, aren’t you?”
“Eris,” I moaned, unable to stop myself. "Please don't stop—"
I was begging him.
Like I always did.
Like I always would.
“That’s my girl,” Eris said with a smirk, shifting my leg to hit that spot over and over again.
I was going to cum, hard and fast, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. The pressure was coiling tighter with every thrust.
“I’m—”
The words faded as he shifted angles, hitting a spot I swore I’d never felt.
My body ached, and my nails clawed into his shoulders through the fabric of his jacket. Pleasure turned to pain, too much, too intense, yet I still couldn’t stop chasing it.
He leaned in close, his lips brushing my ear.
“Come on my cock like the good little slut you are.”
My mouth opened in a scream as I came so hard I saw white. My entire body shook with the force of it, my walls clenching around him as the pleasure crashed through me.
I felt him bury himself as deep as he could go, felt the pulse of his cock inside me as he spilled inside me.
For a moment, neither of us moved. Our heavy breathing mingled with the music from the ballroom.
His cock softened inside me, and I felt his cum leak out, trailing down my inner thighs. My body trembled, my chest heaving for air, and shame flooded over me, hot and suffocating.
What had I become?
What had I allowed myself to become?
When he finally pulled out, I felt empty. He helped me to my feet, but my legs were weak, so I leaned against the wall to stay upright.
He tucked himself back into his trousers, adjusted his jacket and hair, and wiped my lipstick off with his handkerchief. Every movement was calm and controlled, as if nothing had happened.
Then he turned, looking at me with that cold, dark expression on his face, and held out his hand.
“Your panties,” he said, and my face burned with embarrassment.
“What?” I whispered, my voice rough.
“Take them off,” he said, his eyes narrowing, gesturing impatiently for me to hand them to him.
I wanted to refuse, to hold on to my last shred of dignity. Instead, I pushed myself up on shaky legs, wincing at the soreness between my thighs. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes as I slid my panties down my legs.
They were ruined, soaked with my arousal and his cum.
I stepped out of them and held them out to him, my hand trembling.
He smiled a cruel, cold smile as he took them, held them up to the light, and chuckled at the sight, then tucked them into his pocket.
He smoothed his jacket, combing his fingers through his hair. He looked every inch the heir of Autum, the perfect fiancé.
“Make yourself presentable,” he said. “Stay where I can see you. I like to keep you available.”
Available.
I cringed at the word.
He shot me a knowing grin, and the worst part was that he was right.
He knew I would stay.
He knew I would let him walk back into the ballroom first and that I would fix myself and follow.
He knew because he had done this before, because I had let him do it before, because I was too weak to walk away.
And I did.
I waited until his footsteps faded before I moved.
I could still feel him between my thighs.
I glamored his bite marks, fixed my hair, and I smoothed my dress before making my way back to the ballroom.
I spotted him immediately.
Eris stood at the centre of the room, smiling that soft, warm smile, his arm wrapped around her waist.
His bride.
His perfect bride.
I watched as his hand slipped into his pocket. Tears pricked my eyes at the thought of what lay hidden inside.
Summary: Just as she starts to find her place in Velaris, her bond with Nyx attracts the attention of the High Lord and Lady of the Night Court. Fearing that her past has finally caught up with her, she believes she is moments away from exile, never expecting their interest in her to be far more personal than political.
Warnings: trauma, PTSD, scarring, infertility, slowburn romance, angst, mild language
Word count: 2,429
Part 1 | Masterlist | Part 3
“You are very talented,” Rhysand’s voice echoed through the small room, and my body went stiff.
The hair on the back of my neck rose, and Autumn heat began to burn beneath my skin.
“Thank you,” I replied, the words far too tight and a second too late to sound natural.
Silence stretched between us.
Rhysand’s violet eyes darkened, narrowing slightly, and I felt it. His darkness brushed against the edges of my mind.
My mental wards flared instinctively, a wall of flame surging forward to force him back. Heat burned between our minds, sharp and bright.
His brows twitched in surprise.
As if that alone told him exactly who I was. And if he did know, he didn’t say it aloud.
He stepped further into the room, his hand resting on the small of Feyre’s back.
The High Lady’s golden hair fell over one shoulder as she studied me, her blue-grey eyes flicking across my face as if she could see everything I tried to hide.
“Nyx has told us so much about you that we had to meet you,” Feyre said, her voice almost angelic.
My hands curled into fists at my sides.
“He’s great,” I answered, forcing a smile onto my lips.
Feyre’s gaze lowered to the neckline of my dress. To the old, faint scars just visible above the collar.
Her fingers curled into tight fists at her side.
“Nyx talks about you constantly,” she continued gently. “His confidence has truly blossomed.”
Rhysand’s eyes never left mine, as if he were waiting for something, as if he were trying to piece me together.
My stomach twisted under his stare. My skin prickled, heat rising beneath it. My mouth went dry, the air in the room too thick.
Something passed silently between them, their gazes flicking to each other before returning to me.
Rhysand opened his mouth as if to speak again, but before he could say anything, small footsteps echoed down the hall.
Nyx’s face appeared around the corner, and he ran straight towards me, his arms wide.
He threw himself against my waist. I flinched instinctively as his hands brushed my scars along my waist and stomach.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said, forcing warmth into my voice as I lifted him gently onto the bench.
He grinned and immediately began excitedly talking about the piece he’d been practising at home.
Feyre smiled at her son while Rhys watched us both.
After our lesson, I walked Nyx to the door. I watched him run to his parents. Feyre lifted him into her arms, and Rhys smiled down at his son.
His eyes then flickered to mine.
Just for a moment.
I waved politely.
He returned a small wave, his violet eyes sparkling in the afternoon sunlight.
I locked the door once they had left, then went to the back of the shop to gather my things before heading out for the night.
By the time I stepped toward the front, the sky had darkened, and the golden light was fading into deep blue.
I reached for the door.
Through the glass window, across the road, leaning against the stone wall opposite, stood the last person I expected to see.
Rhysand.
The High Lord of the Night Court stood half-shadowed, darkness curling around him like a living thing.
He was just standing there.
Waiting.
My heart pounded, but I forced myself to unlock the door and step outside, closing it carefully behind me.
I locked the door, slid the key free, and our eyes met in the glass.
“It’s late for you to be walking home alone,” Rhysand said.
His voice was calm.
Too calm.
“I didn’t realise the High Lord took safety so seriously,” I muttered, slipping the key into my pocket.
His soft laughter echoed down the street, and once again the hair on my neck stood on end.
My fingers curled into fists, my nails digging into my palms.
“Am I not allowed to care for my people?” he asked, pushing off the wall.
He stepped closer, close enough that I felt the hum of his magic brush against my skin.
A short huff escaped me before I could stop it.
“I would think a High Lord has far more important things to worry about than walking a music teacher home.”
His head tilted. His gaze drifted slowly down me before returning to my eyes.
“Music teachers,” he said softly, “with fire in their blood and mental walls of flame are rarely just music teachers.”
My breath caught.
He stepped closer still, close enough that I could smell him, night air and starlight.
“Care to tell me,” Rhysand said quietly, “why the only daughter of Beron is in my court?”
My skin burned with flames, as if ready to strike.
“Or should I ask Lucien?”
He paused for a moment.
“Perhaps Eris would prefer to explain.”
There was no anger in his tone. Instead, he sounded almost concerned.
The memory of that night flashed behind my eyes: my father’s whip carving into my back, the impact of his boot, and the scars it left.
For a heartbeat, I nearly begged him, begged him, not to send me back to Autumn. But I had not begged my own father for mercy, and I refused to beg another High Lord.
My eyes narrowed, and flames curled inside my clenched fists.
“Are you here to exile me?” I asked coldly. “Or to kill me where I stand? To torture me and send me back to Autumn as a warning?”
Surprise flashed across his face before his perfect neutral expression returned.
“No,” he said. “I—”
“Are you here to kill me?” I interrupted.
He looked almost horrified.
“No.”
“Will Lucien or Eris be punished?”
He shook his head again.
“No.”
Silence stretched between us.
He didn’t look like a threat.
I took a step back.
He didn’t move closer.
So I took another, then another.
He looked almost sad at my retreat, as if he thought this conversation should have gone differently.
Then I turned and ran.
I didn’t stop until I reached the apartment, shoving the door open so hard it slammed into the wall.
Lucien rushed from his office, his eyes wide with worry.
“What happened?”
I began pacing, my thoughts racing.
I would have to stop teaching, leave Velaris, and disappear again.
Lucien asked again, telling me to slow down and talk to him, but I ignored him until his hands gripped my shoulders, forcing me still.
“What happened?” he repeated, slower.
Only then did I realise I was shaking.
“Rhysand and Feyre… they know I’m here,” I said unsteadily. “I teach their son. Rhysand was waiting for me when I closed the shop.”
Lucien’s hands fell away as fear flashed across his face.
“What did he say?”
I told him everything.
Every word. Every look. Every moment.
We sat opposite each other in the lounge room, our eyes fixed on the table between us.
Either this would be fine. Maybe Rhysand and Feyre knowing would change nothing. Maybe they understood I wasn’t a threat, only someone trying to build a life.
Or by morning, Lucien and I would be courtless again.
We considered every possibility. Lucien had an estate in the Human Lands; we could go there. His friends would help us. Maybe even Tamlin would offer shelter if he saw what our father had done to me.
We stayed awake all night, waiting for the knock on the door. But by morning, as golden sunlight filled the apartment, the knock still hadn't come.
We spent the entire weekend waiting for it.
Every sound in the hallway made me flinch. Every shadow felt like the beginning of the end.
By the time I returned to work the following week, I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder, half-expecting Rhysand to appear.
But he didn’t.
Later that week, as I stepped into the music shop, Zamir glanced up at me, a small smile on his face.
I considered telling him I’d resigned, that I couldn’t do this anymore. I imagined turning around, going home, packing, and fleeing before the inevitable caught up with me.
Instead, I forced myself to walk towards the room I had begun to think of as my second home.
I finished my class; the young girl with dark curls left, smiling and clutching her sheet music.
As I gathered my things and headed to the front of the shop, Zamir sat behind the workbench, restringing an instrument.
“You must have made quite an impression on the High Lord,” he said, his eyes never leaving his work.
I froze.
“What… what do you mean?” I forced out, my voice cracking despite myself.
“Go see,” he said, nodding towards the front counter.
A small box sat there, wrapped in black paper tied with silver ribbon that shimmered faintly blue, the exact shade of Feyre’s eyes.
My fingers trembled as I picked it up. I pulled the ribbon loose, and I opened the lid.
Inside was a smaller hand-carved box made of deep red wood, with an Autumn forest etched across the top.
My finger brushed it.
The clasp clicked open on its own.
Inside rested a small orb glowing with deep orange flame.
I knew it instantly.
A fire orb.
Eris had given it to me when I was a child, a piece of his magic sealed in metal so that whenever he travelled, I would always have a part of him close.
Tears pricked my eyes before I could stop them as I turned the orb gently in my hand. The sadness and exhaustion eased slightly as the flame inside pulsed, growing brighter and warmer.
Then understanding burned through me.
Rhysand had spoken to Eris.
The fear that had followed me since that night, the memory of Rhysand looking at me with something that felt too much like pity, twisted in my chest until it turned into anger.
He had me believing I was moments away from losing everything, only to reach out to Eris.
To involve him.
To put him at risk.
My flames curled instinctively around the orb, clinging to the familiar warmth of Eris’s magic. A piece of home. A reminder of every sacrifice he had made to keep me safe.
Panic tightened around my ribs, and my anger burned even hotter.
I carefully placed the orb back into its box, my hands trembling.
“I’ll see you later,” I called to Zamir, already walking towards the door before he could answer.
I didn’t know where I was going.
Only that my feet moved, and I followed the fury through the streets.
My footsteps echoed on the pavement as I followed the path along the river. I walked until my thoughts blurred, until fear and anger tangled so tightly I couldn’t tell them apart.
I didn’t know how long I’d been walking.
Only that I somehow found myself standing before the river house, my fist pounding against the door before I could stop myself.
The door opened.
Feyre stood there.
Before she could speak, I shoved the box into her hands.
“Leave my family out of this,” I hissed, my voice shaking.
She glanced down at the box now pressed into her hands
“I am sorry,” she said, looking back up at me.
“You spoke to Eris,” I said, my chest rising and falling too fast. “Putting him in danger. For what? A gift?”
“Rhys reached out to make sure you were safe,” Feyre said carefully. “That you weren’t running from something that could—”
“That could endanger your court,” I spat, my words sharp.
“No,” Feyre said, firm but calm. “That could endanger you.”
I could feel my autumn flames prickle at the surface of my skin.
“We were worried about you,” she continued. “We saw the scars. The way you flinched. The way your flames were always looking for threats. We were afraid whatever made you flee the Autumn Court might follow you here.”
“You don’t know me,” I said, though the words lacked their earlier bite.
“We don’t have to know you to see what’s happened to you,” Feyre said, her eyes pleading.
“You know nothing,” I whispered, pain burning hotter than anger ever had.
“We just wanted to help.”
Before I could answer, Rhysand’s voice came from deeper within the house.
“Feyre?”
He appeared beside her a moment later, that infuriating smile already fixed on his face.
“Afternoon,” he said, leaning against the doorframe, his arm sliding around Feyre’s waist. “We are just about to serve dinner. We can set another plate if you’d like to stay.”
The ease of it, the warmth between them, made something inside my chest snap tight.
I wanted to scream. To slam the door in their faces.
Instead, my throat went dry as I stared at them standing together, while I felt as if I were splintering apart.
“I’m here to return the gift you left,” I said, my voice cold.
Rhysand’s smile only deepened, as if my irritation amused him.
“Eris insisted that I have it to you as soon as possible,” he said.
My anger faltered at once.
“What did he say?” I breathed. “Is he okay?”
Rhys hesitated for a fraction too long, and Feyre shifted slightly beside him.
“He’s okay,” Rhys said finally. “But we shouldn’t discuss this out here. Stay for dinner.”
My gaze fell to the box still in Feyre’s hands. She held it out to me, and I hesitated a moment before taking it. Our fingers brushed, sending tingles up my arm.
“I should go back to Lucien,” I said slowly. “We should hear what Eris said together.”
Something like disappointment crossed their faces, gone so quickly that I wondered if I had imagined it.
I turned to leave.
“We’re sorry if we overstepped,” Feyre said quickly, a hint of panic creeping into her voice.
“We just…” She glanced at Rhys, a silent exchange passing between them. “We wanted to help.”
I paused, looking back at them, something tight and unfamiliar twisting in my chest.
Then I felt it again.
Darkness brushes the edges of my mind, like night pressing against a flame.
My walls flared, and my eyes snapped to Rhysand.
“Stay the hell out of my head,” I said.
His expression remained calm, almost patient, yet the pressure vanished immediately.
I turned on my heel and walked away.
I could feel their eyes on me as I walked away, and it took everything in me not to look back.
Summary: After escaping her father’s cruelty, she finds refuge in Velaris, seeking safety in Lucien’s apartment. After weeks of hiding, she realises that there must be more to life than this. Determined not to let her father break her further, she turns back to the one thing she could always rely on: music.
The air smelt of iron and smoke. My chest burned with every breath.
I wanted to scream, to beg, to sob, but I knew better. Any sound, any defiance, would only fuel my father’s rage.
My body shook violently, trembling so hard my teeth chattered, and the open wounds on my back burned where the whip had torn into my skin again and again.
Blood soaked the stone beneath me, and the room swayed as I tried to grip the tiles to stay upright.
The sound of the whip sliced through the air again, and my body instinctively flinched.
He had been doing this for hours, letting my magic stitch me back together just enough before tearing me open all over again.
I refused to break.
I refused to let him win.
“Have you taken a vow of silence, my precious daughter?” my father asked, his voice laced with amusement.
Pain exploded through me as his boot slammed into my back. The impact forced the air from my lungs, and stars burst behind my eyes as I collapsed onto the stone.
“Don’t worry,” he murmured, kneeling beside me, leaning close enough that I could smell the wine on his breath. “I know how to make you scream.”
Tears blurred my vision, but I refused to give him the sound he wanted.
His fingers twisted into my hair, forcing my head back. Flames burned in his eyes as he dragged me across the stone floors.
That was the moment I knew I would either die by his hands or live long enough to wish I had.
Eris found me later that night.
I was barely conscious, curled in a pool of my own blood, my skin torn open and half-healed in jagged patches where my magic had tried and failed.
The world drifted in and out, flashes of firelight, muffled voices, hands lifting me from the stone.
Autumn Court healers stitched my skin back together while my body struggled weakly to repair itself. I felt needles, the burn of fire, and nothing, all at once, as darkness swallowed me whole.
That night, as I lay unconscious, covered in a thick layer of blood, Eris wrote to the one person he had sworn never to contact again.
The one person he had already failed.
Lucien.
I woke, falling through darkness. Flames wrapped around me, pulling at me, and I knew Eris was winnowing us somewhere.
My head rested against Eris’s shoulder as I drifted in and out of consciousness. Cold night air brushed over my freshly healed skin, sending sharp shivers through my body.
Voices echoed around me, distant and muffled.
I begged myself to stay awake, but the darkness kept dragging me under.
Flashes of Lucien’s face flickered behind my eyes. I tried to force my eyes open, tried to move, tried to speak, but I couldn’t stay awake.
I woke again in a soft bed that wasn’t mine.
Sunlight poured through tall windows, warm and blinding as it spilled across unfamiliar walls.
For a moment, I didn’t know where I was or who I was.
Then the pain returned.
It burned through every inch of me, deep, aching, heavy, as if my bones had been cracked open. Even breathing hurt.
I forced one finger to move, then another.
My arm twitched, and agony shot through me so sharply that a groan of pain escaped my lips.
“You’re awake,” a deep voice said quietly.
A chair scraped against the floor. Footsteps approached. A figure stepped into view.
Lucien.
I hadn’t seen him in years, and the last time I had seen him was under the Mountain during Amarantha’s rule, during the trial.
Before that, it was when he lost his eye. And before that, it was when our father murdered Jasmina, and our family was shattered beyond repair.
I stared at him, stunned by how real he looked standing beside my bed. His metal eye whirred softly, and his flame-coloured hair glowed in the sunlight, falling loose and messy from a half-undone braid.
“I am awake,” I whispered, my voice dry and hoarse.
Relief washed over his face, and he exhaled shakily.
He stepped away, pacing the room as if he didn’t know what to do with himself.
“Eris said you were hurt, but you’ve been out for nearly two days. I thought you were going to die.”
His voice cracked.
“God, what Beron did to you—”
He cut himself off, running a hand through his hair the same way he used to when we were children.
“Are you in pain?” he asked gently.
“Yes,” I said, barely able to move my lips.
“Where?”
I swallowed, muscles trembling.
“Everywhere.”
Lucien nodded, then disappeared for a moment before returning with vials and balms.
He held a small glass vial to my mouth, and I forced myself to drink the bitter liquid, fighting the urge to gag as it burned down my throat.
He changed my bandages, rolling me onto my side so he could examine my back.
He sucked in a tight breath when he saw the damage, and shame and dread curled in my stomach at the sound.
But when he lowered the sheet and gently lifted the thin cotton shirt, bandages wrapped around my torso from my lower stomach to my chest.
Dark bloodstains seeped through the linen.
My breath hitched.
“What… did he do to me?” I asked, my voice shaking.
Lucien’s hands stilled as he met my gaze. The grief written in his amber eyes told me everything before he even spoke.
Silence stretched between us, thick and suffocating, until something inside me finally snapped.
A sob tore from my throat.
Something raw.
Something inhuman.
Something so shattered that Lucien quickly pulled the sheet back over me, as if he could shield me from what was already carved into my body.
He told me then about the damage our father had done.
How Eris had summoned Autumn healers, and how Lucien had me examined by a Night Court healer while I was unconscious.
The words blurred together, but I knew one thing.
My womb had been destroyed beyond healing.
I would never bear a child of my own.
After that, I didn’t move for weeks.
I lay in bed, silent, grieving the one thing our world had always told me made me valuable, the ability to bear powerful fae.
My father hadn’t just broken my body. He had stripped away my future, my place, and my worth, as Autumn had defined it.
Now I was nothing more than a titleless High Fae, with no court and no purpose.
Lucien stayed.
He sat with me for hours, even when I refused to speak. Sometimes he read aloud from books, stories he thought I might like.
He changed my dressings, gave me medicine, and sat outside the bathing room when I finally had the strength to stand, listening quietly as my sobs echoed through the stone walls.
Healing was slow and painful.
Open wounds turned into scars, large, pale-pink marks that covered my body. Sometimes I forced myself to look in the mirror, and each time I cried in silence.
Eventually, after days of barely moving, I was tired of crying. I had no more tears left to shed.
One morning, after hours of staring at the ceiling, I forced myself out of bed.
My legs trembled as I shuffled towards the lounge chair by the window. I wrapped my dressing gown around my shoulders, flinching as the fabric brushed my tender skin.
Slowly, I made my way to the door.
It was the first time I had left the bedroom.
The apartment beyond was modest, bright and airy, with sunlight spilling across pale floors.
I shuffled down the hall, my legs stiff and aching, until I reached a room at the end, where I heard the soft rustle of paper.
I paused in the doorway.
Lucien sat at his desk, focused on neat stacks of paperwork. He didn’t notice me at first.
I looked around the office. A floor-to-ceiling bookshelf lined one wall, and glass doors opened onto a balcony overlooking the river and the city below.
“You look busy,” I said softly.
Lucien jumped, his head snapping up towards me.
A small smile tugged at my lips as I shuffled inside and lowered myself carefully into the chair opposite his desk.
“You’re up,” he said gently, watching me with worried eyes as I hissed in pain when I sat down.
I hummed in acknowledgement and reached for a nearby file. The first thing I saw was the formal title, Emissary of the Night Court, followed by documents detailing relations between the Night Court and the human lands.
I felt Lucien’s gaze on me, and when I looked up, his brows were furrowed and concern was written on his face.
I set the file back on his desk and shifted in my seat, careful not to aggravate the freshly healed wounds along my back. They were closed, but still raw and uncomfortable.
“How are you feeling?” Lucien asked carefully, as if worried I might retreat to my room at any moment.
“Never been better,” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
For the first time since I’d arrived, Lucien smiled, a real one, and shook his head slightly.
“You came at a good time,” he said. “I was about to head into town to do some shopping… if you wanted to join me.”
I saw the hope in his eyes, the way his smile lingered, fragile, as if he were afraid of scaring me back into silence.
Truthfully, I was just as desperate to feel alive again.
I sat quietly for a moment, then slowly pushed myself to my feet, swaying slightly.
“You’ll have to help me with my hair,” I said.
His smile returned instantly, bright and full.
“Of course. Go bathe, and I’ll help you afterwards.”
I nodded once, pretending not to notice that he stood too, his hands hovering, as if ready to catch me if I fell.
I shuffled back down the hall towards my bedroom and into the bathroom.
I carefully undressed and turned on the water. Steam filled the room as I added salts to soothe my aching muscles and a few vials to help with the scarring.
I caught sight of myself in the mirror and barely recognised the person staring back.
The bandages were finally gone, but my skin was littered with scars. My back looked brutal, carved and uneven, and my stomach was marked by a sickening line of damaged flesh.
I knew that in a few weeks they would fade, that the pain would disappear, and that my magic would heal most of the damage.
But right now their cruelty was obvious, raised, uneven, and angry on my skin.
My eyes were sunken, with dark circles beneath them, and my skin was pale and blotchy.
I looked away from the mirror and lowered myself into the warm bath.
Lucien was waiting in my bedroom when I came out.
I settled into the small lounge chair while he stood behind me, slowly and patiently combing through my damp hair.
He left to get ready while I looked towards my closet. For the first time since arriving, I chose something other than cotton pyjamas and dressing gowns.
I chose a simple olive-green dress that fell just above my ankles. The soft fabric covered most of my scars without pulling on my skin. I slipped into a pair of shoes and stepped out to meet Lucien in the living room.
We walked down the stairs together, and the warm river air brushed my skin, sending a shiver down my spine.
Lucien’s apartment sat near the centre of town, with streets busy with fae. We walked slowly, my legs stiff and aching from weeks of barely moving. Lucien never rushed me.
We paused often, lingering in front of shop windows, sitting quietly by the river, and wandering slowly through the unfamiliar streets.
Eventually, we stopped outside a small music shop.
A piano sat in the corner of the window display, its polished wood catching the sunlight. Before I could think too hard about it, I stepped inside.
My fingers hovered over the keys before gently brushing across them.
I pressed one note. Then another. Before I could stop myself, a short melody slipped from my fingers, simple and familiar, played with one hand.
“Was that Piers Buckland, The Rite of North?”
I jumped, my head snapping up to meet a man’s intense eyes, a blue that looked like the sky.
I nodded hesitantly.
He gave a slow, impressed nod.
“That’s a difficult piece,” he said, glancing between Lucien and me. “Where did you learn to play?”
“Autumn,” I replied.
Lucien hissed softly beside me, as if I had said something offensive.
The man hummed, his eyes drifting back down to where my fingers still brushed the keys. “Are you a good pianist?”
I straightened slightly. “I am great.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “Have you taught before?”
I hesitated, then nodded.
He studied me for a long moment before speaking again. “I have seven children taking lessons here, but I don’t have time to teach them all myself. I’ve been looking for someone to help with some of my more advanced students.”
I heard Lucien shift beside me, a polite refusal ready on his tongue, but I spoke first.
“I’ll take the job.”
“Wait—” Lucien started, but my hand was already in the man’s, and we shook on it.
“Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday,” the man said quickly. “One hour, five to six. You’ll need to lock up, but you keep what you earn, and you’ll get a discount in the shop.”
“Deal,” I said, ignoring Lucien’s hand on my shoulder.
The man flashed a wide, toothy grin. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I nodded, and we left the store. Lucien walked beside me, tense and unusually quiet.
“What the hell was that?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“What?” I replied, continuing down the path toward the apartment.
“You haven’t left your bedroom in nearly a month. This is the first time you’ve even left the house, and now you want a job?” he said, his hand wrapping firmly around my wrist.
He stopped me mid-stride. I turned to face him, meeting his eyes.
“I’ve moped long enough,” I said, my voice calm but firm. “I’ve spent a month crying and feeling sorry for myself. I’m good at the piano. I’m good at something, and I need to remember that.”
My voice cracked slightly at the end.
Lucien said nothing for a long moment. His hand slowly slipped from my wrist, and something softer, something close to understanding, flickered across his face.
We walked the rest of the way home in silence.
By the time we reached the apartment, my legs were aching, and I collapsed onto the couch as soon as we stepped inside.
“I’ll start dinner,” Lucien mumbled, retreating into the kitchen.
I stayed on the couch, staring out the large windows at the city. I needed a distraction. I needed something, anything, to ease the ache in my chest.
That night, I couldn’t sleep as my mind buzzed with nerves and a strange, unfamiliar excitement.
The next day, I walked to the store early. The shop owner, Zamir, showed me into a second room at the back of the shop.
It was large and bright, with a grand piano against one wall. A small desk sat nearby, freshly cleaned, with paper and ink pots.
My first student was a girl no older than 8, with dark, curly hair, eyes like pools of midnight, and a grin too big for her small face.
She was talented and more advanced than most children her age. She listened carefully and spoke little, but left our lesson smiling.
I closed the shop that evening with a smile and walked home in the afternoon light, the sky glowing a soft gold.
Lucien was waiting for me, and that night I told him every detail over a glass of wine.
Wednesday was the same.
An older boy named Aster arrived, serious and advanced, already working on his own compositions. He asked more technical questions, asked me how I played, and how he could improve.
I could see how deeply he loved music.
I loved listening to him play as much as teaching him.
That night, lying in bed, I thought back to Autumn and to the way music had always been the only thing I was truly good at.
The only thing that had ever made my father somewhat proud. How it was the only time I saw anything other than hatred in his eyes.
Sometimes, when I played in the forest house grand hall, I would catch him watching from the corner of my eye, always hidden in the shadows, a sneer permanently carved into his face, yet I swore his eyes would soften.
Perhaps it was just a figment of my imagination.
I thought about those fleeting moments, the rare times I had felt like more than a burden, more than a bastard in my own home.
They were small, fragile memories, outnumbered by the pain and suffering he had inflicted on me. Still, my heart ached for them, desperate for a version of him that never existed.
Over the next few weeks, I began a routine.
On Fridays, I had a young boy named Nyx, a child full of laughter, watching me as if I hung the moon.
He improved with every lesson. He began reading sheet music, learning theory, and picking out his favourite composers.
One afternoon, as he waved goodbye with a grin, I forced back tears as I realised the reality of what my father had stolen from me.
A family.
Week after week, I taught. I smiled more, and in my free time I sat behind the piano, practising in a way I hadn’t allowed myself to in decades.
Until one Friday morning.
I arrived early, before Nyx’s lesson, and sat at the piano. My eyes closed, my fingers moving on pure instinct.
It was the first composition I had ever played for my father, the only time I had ever seen the corner of his mouth twitch into anything other than a sneer.
Tears stung at the corners of my eyes as the final note faded into silence.
Soft clapping broke the quiet.
My eyes flew open.
In the doorway stood the High Lord and High Lady of the Night Court.
Instantly, the music died inside me.
I wasn’t a teacher.
I wasn’t healing or mourning.
I wasn’t safe.
I was the High Lord of the Autumn Court's bastard daughter.
Hi lovely! Thank you so much for missing me. I promise I’m alive and well! Life has been pretty intense lately with work and studying, so I’ve been struggling to find time to post my writing.
I do have some really exciting projects in the works, including a poly Feysand x plus size Vanserra reader and an Azriel x Hybern spy, both of which I’m excited about.
My series The Healer and Night Court Princess are still very much close to my heart. I’ve just lost a bit of motivation for them and want to explore more unique concepts and different dynamics.
I am also still working on my Kinktober posts; it’s taking me forever!
Thank you so much for loving my writing and for checking in on me! I miss you all too ✨
I apologize for the history spiel. Illyrian oc is named Ophelia. Basically she was born albino, and taking a page out of the history books on how various cultures reacted to albino people in the past, Ophelia’s father rejected her calling her a demon eyed abomination, and snatched her from her mother’s arms at birth to dump in the woods on a cold winters night.
Ophelia’s mother snuck off the next morning praying to anyone who would listen that her only daughter made it through the night as she scoured the woods. Eventually she found her baby clinging to life and hid her away in an old long abandoned cabin that she found and would seek shelter in when her husband came home drunk or extra violent. She raised Ophelia in secret teaching her all she could until one evening, a teenage Ophelia would stay up for days waiting on her mother who would never return and whom she wouldn’t see again.
Eventually Ophelia would develop a strange form of blood magic that she discovered could be used for healing or death. She would defend her woods without compromise but would heal those lost and down on their luck should she come across them. Eventually some Illyrians from nearby camps would catch wind of the “White Witch” whose wings were a sickly haunting white-grey and whose eyes were the color of freshly spilled blood. Those brave or desperate enough would seek her aid.
Apologies, this took me so long to reply! Uni and my new job have left me in a panic, but reading this was such a nice break from reality.
Ophelia is such an interesting and complex character, someone who I never would have even thought of. If you write a story with them, let me know; I'd love to see it. I'd also be happy to write one for you if you'd like.
I'm amazed by how creative my followers are; the creativity and imagination I see in my messages and inbox are incredible.
Please continue to send in your OC’s; I love reading your ideas and creativity. It truly makes my day!
After months of writing, rewriting and rewriting again, I’ve finally finished Ophelia’s story, her life and her family.
The White Witch.
I truly hope it’s what you imagined and more.
This is something I’ve never done before. I wanted to focus on the information you shared without straying too far from it and I hope I’ve done it justice.
Thank you for trusting me with this. It means more than I can say. Knowing I have supporters who believe I can create something like this for them means the world to me.
Summary: Ophelia was born into a world that despised her, rejected by her father and saved by her mother, who was willing to risk everything for her child. Left to die, Ophelia survived only because of her mother’s love and defiance, hidden away from a world that would have destroyed her.
But as she grows older, the four walls meant to protect her begin to feel like a prison. Her curiosity about what lies beyond the forest reveals a world of fear and cruelty, and Ophelia learns that survival carries a cost.
Soon, whispers spread about the White Witch, a girl with snow-white skin, grey wings, red eyes and bloodstained magic. Some fear her. Some hunt her. And some, brave or desperate enough, seek her aid.
Warnings: Graphic violence, child abuse and abandonment, domestic violence, misogyny, dehumanisation, blood magic, death, trauma, PTSD, witch-hunt imagery, implied sexual threat and emotional distress.
Word Count: 8,584
Author’s Note: This original character belongs to one of my supporters, who has entrusted me with writing her story. Thank you for allowing me to write for Ophelia and for giving me the opportunity to bring her world to life.
Masterlist l Original Character Description
The night Ophelia was born, the moon bled red.
Blood soaked through the towels as her mother’s screams echoed through the village.
The moment the child came and drew her first breath, and the moment her eyes opened, her father's lips twisted into a sneer.
His body filled with disgust as the baby cried.
Ophelia was small, curling instinctively against her mother’s chest.
Her skin was snow-white, her wings fragile and curled against her back, as pale as the rest of her. The child stared up at the woman who had brought her into the world, her eyes the colour of rubies.
Her mother barely had time to breathe, barely had time to look, before her husband tore the child from her arms.
He roared, fury shaking the cottage walls, as the baby screamed in his grasp.
His voice filled with anger as he accused his wife of betrayal, of affairs, of the unthinkable.
He told his wife that her child was a demon and an abomination, swearing that she was not his and that his wife had tried to pass this thing off as their child.
Her mother begged.
She screamed.
She sobbed until her lungs burned and her strength failed, until fresh blood pooled on the cottage floor.
“Please,” she cried, her skin paling as she tried, and failed, to rise from the bed.
Sweat slicked her body, her vision blurring.
“She’s my baby,” she whispered, her voice barely a whisper.
“She’s a demon,” he growled, clutching the child tighter. “And she is not mine.”
Her mother screamed as her husband dragged the child away.
She cried out after them, her voice raw, as he kicked open the front door and disappeared into the cold, snowy night.
The wind howled through the cottage, then the door slammed shut behind him.
Her mother watched in horror.
Her body was limp and shaking as she crawled across the blood-slick floor, dragging herself towards the door long after he had gone.
Her fingers scraped helplessly against the wood.
He found her collapsed on the bedroom floor, curled in on herself, soaked in blood.
She sobbed her daughter’s name over and over again.
“Ophelia… Ophelia…”
“That blood-born demon won’t survive the night,” he growled. “And you will pay for bringing that monster into the world and trying to pass it off as mine. Whatever creature you had to lie with to birth that thing will burn. You will burn.”
Her body had begun to fail her.
Shock set in. Her limbs grew heavy and unresponsive, her lips trembling as sweat poured down her skin.
She could only stare at him, her breathing shallow, her world fading to black as she whispered her daughter’s name.
He did nothing but laugh, stepping over her limp body. At that moment, something inside her snapped.
She had no strength left to feel.
She had always known what he was: mean, cruel, and everything she never wanted.
She had been sold to him when she was barely old enough to wed. She had no one in the world but him. Yet this shattered her completely.
She lay there, staring at the chipped paint on the walls, as her fae healing slowly stitched her flesh back together.
Her husband had fallen asleep in the spare room, drunk on enough hard liquor to pass out after barking orders at her.
He had told her to clean up the mess she had made, the blood of childbirth, before leaving her lying on the floor.
When she finally gained enough strength, she dragged herself to the front door. The moon was already low in the night sky.
She pushed it open.
She stumbled barefoot into the forest surrounding their small cottage on the outskirts of town.
Her linen dress was stiff with dried blood as she searched for her husband’s footprints, already fading under a fresh layer of snow.
Finally, she collapsed in the open fields, where the crops lay long dead, frozen beneath thick layers of ice and snow.
She prayed to the gods and goddesses, to the Mother, for her daughter.
Then, through the howling wind, she heard a cry.
She forced herself forward, crawling through the snow until she found Ophelia, discarded along the embankment of a frozen stream.
“Ophelia,” she sobbed, reaching for her child.
The baby’s tiny body was coated in blood, her skin cold and limp. The cry her mother had followed no longer came from her mouth. Her pale skin had begun to turn blue.
“No,” she whispered, clutching her to her chest. “Please.”
Tears streamed down her face as she pressed Ophelia against her, desperately trying to bring warmth back into her small body.
“No,” she cried again, wild with panic, scanning the forest for anyone or anything that might help.
Her vision blurred as the snow swallowed every familiar shape. The only path she could follow was her own footprints, already vanishing beneath the snowfall.
She was disoriented and desperate, stumbling deeper into the forest, struggling to remember the way back to the village.
Through the white haze, she saw the dark outline of a rock formation. It marked the path to the old, abandoned cottage at the far edge of the woods.
At the beginning of her marriage, her husband had locked her outside during a heavy rainstorm. She had stumbled through the storm and found the cottage.
It had become her refuge, a place to hide from his violence and rage, until she learned that hiding only sharpened his fury and that she was never allowed to stay hidden for long.
By the time she arrived, she was barely conscious, stumbling through the snow.
The cottage was little more than a forgotten shed, half-swallowed by the forest, its roof bowed under the weight of ice and snow.
She slammed her shoulder into the wooden door, her fingers too numb to grasp the handle.
It opened with a bang.
Cold air rushed inside as she collapsed onto the floor.
She curled around Ophelia, shielding her with her own body.
The child was still.
“No, no, no,” she whispered. “Stay with me, please.”
She pressed her hand to Ophelia’s heart and prayed.
“Please,” she begged, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Please.”
Warmth bloomed beneath her fingertips, soft at first, then brighter, golden and alive.
“Please, let her live,” her mother whispered, her eyes squeezed shut.
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Then Ophelia’s chest stirred beneath her palm. Her blue-tinged lips parted, as she took a breath, warmth slowly returned to her skin.
A child’s cry broke the silence.
“Thank you,” her mother sobbed, clutching her child to her chest.
Her mother hid her in the cottage, spending the rest of the morning cleaning the space and making it somewhat livable.
She made a makeshift cot from an old wooden crate, softening it with pillows and strips of fabric she had washed and mended by hand.
For a moment, she considered staying, hiding here, leaving her husband behind, and disappearing into nothing.
But she knew that he would search for her.
He would find them, and when he did, he would kill them both.
So she left.
She left her child crying in the cot, telling herself she would return at nightfall to feed her, hold her, and finish cleaning the cottage.
She closed the door and braced it with fallen logs, praying to the Mother to keep her daughter safe.
By the time she reached her husband’s cottage, she was still weak and hazy, stumbling through the melting snow.
She pushed the door open to find the house unchanged, the floor still stained with dried blood, and her husband’s snores echoing through the small cottage.
She forced herself to clean.
She scrubbed the floor in silence, tears streaming down her cheeks as her muscles strained and pain burned through her.
Fresh blood stained her inner thighs as her body protested every movement. Her healing was slow, and the more she worked, the more it hurt to mend.
The afternoon light spilled through the windows as she finally lowered herself into the bath.
The water turned red as she washed herself clean.
She choked back sobs as she thought of her child, alone in the hidden cottage, barely a day old and barely alive.
She clung to the fragile hope that Ophelia would still be breathing when she returned that night.
She spent her afternoon with her husband, who spat accusations at her, convinced the child belonged to another man.
He spat her name like a curse, called her a liar, a whore, a monster-maker.
She did not argue.
She did not scream or cry.
She apologised.
She agreed with everything he said.
She needed to stay alive.
She needed to live long enough to protect her child.
That night, as she served him dinner, she slipped sleeping drops into his wine.
They were strong enough to keep him unconscious for most of the night.
She knew that well.
She returned to the cottage as soon as darkness fell, arms full of supplies and bundles of torn fabric meant to keep her child warm.
She stumbled through the snow in boots too big and a jacket too small.
When she reached the door, there was no sound.
No crying.
Her heart pounded against her ribs. She shoved the door open and peered into the dark room.
She dropped what she was carrying, heart in her throat, and rushed to the crate.
Inside, her child slept.
Safe. Warm. Breathing.
The wind battered the cottage walls, as she gathered Ophelia into her arms, pressing a kiss to her child’s dirty, blood-streaked face.
She was okay.
Years passed, and they fell into a routine.
She hid her child in the abandoned cottage, returning every night without fail.
She read to her by candlelight and sang lullabies, all meant to give Ophelia some imitation of a childhood.
What had once been a forgotten shed slowly became their home.
She gathered discarded furniture, cracked dishes, and scraps of cloth, and mended whatever she could.
She stole children’s books from the village, made toys from bits of wood and twine, and when her husband was away at work, she knitted and sewed tiny clothes.
During the day, she endured her husband’s resentment and his obsession with conceiving a child who was truly his.
He wanted heirs, a legacy, bloodlines, never knowing his daughter had survived at bloody night.
She learned to survive all for her child.
As Ophelia grew, she changed from a fragile baby into a quiet, watchful child, hidden from the world.
From an early age, she learned that love came with fear.
The fear of abandonment.
The fear of pain.
The fear of losing her mother, just as she knew her mother was terrified of losing her.
And from that fear, Ophelia learned how to be silent.
By the time she was old enough to walk the path between the cottage and the tree line alone, she understood the rules of her world.
She did not cry loudly.
She did not ask questions when her mother’s lips trembled and her eyes shone with tears.
She was to listen to warnings and for footsteps.
She learned how to hide and how to be nothing more than a whisper among the trees.
The cottage was all she knew.
Its stone walls were rough beneath her fingers, and its roof groaned under wind, snow, and summer heat. The single window was covered in thick black fabric.
Her mother had told her it was to keep the light out, that Ophelia’s eyes and skin were too sensitive, but Ophelia knew the truth.
It was to keep eyes from looking in.
At night, her mother told stories, and Ophelia pretended the world beyond the trees did not exist.
That this was all there was.
It was easier than wanting more.
Each morning, as the years passed, she watched her mother disappear towards the village, a place Ophelia was never allowed to see, spoken of only in warnings.
When Ophelia was twelve, her curiosity finally outweighed her fear.
That morning, she followed her mother into the dense forest, careful to keep her distance.
Through the morning fog, her mother’s figure was little more than a dark silhouette. Ophelia watched her climb over rocks and stubble, down embankments.
She watched her mother reach a narrow, well-kept path, one that could only lead to the village.
Fog thickened, and the sun had not yet risen high enough for Ophelia to see where her mother had gone.
That was when Ophelia made her mistake.
Instead of turning back, she followed the path.
Hidden by the tree line, she watched smoke curl from the chimneys. She heard voices, the distant sounds of people starting their day.
She stayed low, her heart pounding, finally seeing the world she had only ever imagined.
The sun climbed higher, and Ophelia retreated into the forest, moving silently, just as she had been taught.
It was spring, and the forest was alive with birdsong and insects. The moss was thick on the stones, and flowers bloomed at the roots of the trees.
Then the birds fell silent; for a moment, it was as if the forest were holding its breath.
Then panicked cries tore through the trees as birds fled in every direction.
Ophelia froze, her heart pounding against her ribs as she felt it.
The presence of another.
A branch snapped.
Her breath caught as a shadow stretched across the ground.
“What kind of creature are you?” a voice murmured, rough, low, and far too close.
Ophelia did not scream.
She did what she had been taught to do.
She went still.
For a moment, no one moved.
No one spoke.
Slowly, she turned her head.
A man stood to her right, half-hidden in the trees.
A bloodied sword hung at his hip, and a slaughtered deer was slung over his back, its head lolling at an unnatural angle.
His eyes widened as they met hers. She watched his hand flex around the hilt of his sword.
Ophelia stepped back. Her feet slipped on the moss-covered stones.
“You’d sell for a pretty penny,” he said, yanking the strap from his shoulder. The deer’s carcass hit the ground with a wet thud.
The stranger grinned, his fingers tightening around his weapon. He stepped closer, and something inside her snapped, sharp and terrifying.
She spun and ran.
Branches tore at her dress, scratching and whipping at her arms as she fled.
“Get back here!” the man shouted behind her.
She didn’t look back.
She ran, climbing over fallen logs and ducking under low-hanging branches. Her lungs burned, her legs screamed, but panic drowned out every thought.
She could hear him gaining ground.
Too close.
Far too close.
Her foot slipped, and she tumbled down an embankment, her ribs cracking against stone as she hit the ground, pain exploding through her limbs.
Above her, the man laughed as he began descending after her, fast.
She forced herself upright and scrambled up the opposite side, her hands slipping in mud and moss.
She could feel him behind her, the heavy thud of his footsteps closing in.
Ophelia didn’t stop.
She ran until her vision blurred, the forest twisted into unfamiliar shapes, and something deep beneath her skin began to burn, hot, pulsing, alive.
Something cut through the air behind her.
She ducked, and the sound of splintering wood cracked through the forest.
Then something struck her legs, sweeping them out from under her.
She hit the ground hard, and her breath tore from her lungs. She twisted, scrambling to her feet, but the man caught her.
She clawed for anything, roots, stone, dirt, but it wasn’t enough.
He dragged her towards him, her thighs scraped raw by sticks and rocks.
“No!” she screamed, the loudest sound she had ever made in her life.
“Stop moving!” he snarled back, wrestling her onto her back.
Now facing him, she saw the hunger in his eyes.
She kicked, twisted, and fought, but it was useless. His hand reached for the sword lodged in a nearby tree.
“No!” she screamed again. “Stop!”
One hand clamped around her ankle. The other closed around the sword’s hilt, wrenching it free.
Panic. Fear. Terror.
Everything she had ever been warned about flooded her all at once, until her skin burned with something hotter, deeper, and more alive than anything she had ever known.
Her hands flew to her face, instinctively shielding her and bracing for the blow.
He stopped. Mid-motion, his body went rigid.
His grip locked in place, one hand still clutching her ankle, the sword frozen mid-air.
Ophelia lay trembling on the forest floor, waiting for the pain.
It never came.
Slowly, she opened her eyes and lowered her hands.
The man stood there, frozen above her, his eyes wide with fear.
As her hands fell away from her face, she felt it, resistance, as if she were wading through water.
The man’s grip loosened around her ankle.
She staggered to her feet, staring at him.
He remained frozen, bent at an unnatural angle, an invisible thread holding him upright.
She was terrified.
Her ribs ached.
She was filthy, bleeding, and shaking, yet as she stared at him, something shifted.
That fear turned into fury.
She could somehow feel his heartbeat thudding loudly and wrong inside her head.
Her hand lifted again, the sensation thickening and hardening. She watched as the sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the forest floor.
His spine straightened without his consent.
Power surged through her.
All the fear she had swallowed.
All the hurt she had buried.
Years of hiding, of whispered warnings from her mother, of stories about men told softly and carefully, of lessons about obedience, silence, and survival.
It burned through her now.
Fury that he had chased her.
That he had wanted to sell her.
That he had wanted to kill her.
Blood suddenly poured from his nose.
She gasped and stepped back, her hands clenching into fists.
The man collapsed, hitting the forest floor with a dull thud.
Ophelia’s hand flew to her mouth.
Blood pooled beneath him, dark against the green leaves.
She stood there, staring at the body.
She took a step back.
Then another.
Her eyes never left him until the weight of what she’d done settled in her chest.
She turned, glancing through the trees, searching for the path home.
She stumbled through the forest, choking back sobs as pain flared through her body.
Every step hurt, and every breath burned.
She pushed open the cottage door.
Pillows, books, unlit candles and clothes strung along a wire.
The small, hidden life she shared with her mother.
She finally broke.
A sob tore from her as she covered her mouth, sinking to the floor.
She wanted her mother, but she knew that wasn’t an option.
Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind, wounds fester if left untreated.
She forced herself to fill the bathing bucket with washcloths, soap, and clean clothing.
She made her way to the river, wincing with every step.
She stripped slowly and sank into the cold water, sucking in a sharp gasp.
Carefully, she washed herself, mud, blood, dirt.
The cuts stung, the bruises throbbed, and she was sure she had broken a rib.
She sobbed silently as she bathed.
She had killed someone.
He was the first person she had ever seen besides her mother, and she had killed him.
For the rest of the day, she remained hidden in the cottage, moving only when hunger or pain forced her.
By the time the sun began to sink below the trees, she laid out her food for the night on the chopping board she had carved the previous summer from a fallen tree.
Her hands shook so badly she nearly dropped the knife.
The front door swung open.
She jumped, her ears ringing with panic. Her mother wasn’t meant to be here until well after nightfall.
“Was it you?” a woman’s voice yelled, desperately.
Ophelia turned.
Her mother stood in the doorway, the setting sun casting an orange glow across the floorboards.
Her hair was loose and tangled, her chest heaving, her eyes wild with terror, as if she had run the entire way.
“What?” Ophelia whispered.
“The dead man,” her mother said, voice breaking. “Was it you?”
Her body began to tremble violently.
Tears burned her eyes as the truth left her between sobs.
She told her everything, how he had looked at her and smiled, and how he had said she would sell for a pretty penny.
How he chased her through the trees like an animal.
She showed her the wounds.
She told her the moment the world thickened around her, as if she were wading through water, the way he froze above her, his sword in his hand, aimed at her head.
She spoke of the fear.
The fury.
The burning heat beneath her skin.
She told her that she could hear his heartbeat in her mind, the moment his body went limp and the sound of the thud.
Her mother did not interrupt her.
She only watched as Ophelia sobbed until her voice broke, her throat burned, and her lungs ached, until there was nothing left but quiet, shaky breaths.
Finally, her mother spoke.
“They are saying it was a witch,” she whispered. “They want to hunt you.”
After that, the world grew smaller.
Ophelia was confined to the four walls of the cottage for months, and her mother’s visits became fewer, the days between them stretching longer each time.
The village was in a fear-filled frenzy.
The man she had killed was no longer a threat or a predator in their stories.
He was a farmer.
A husband.
A good man who had wanted only to provide for his family.
They said an evil witch had slaughtered him.
That she had drained his blood to steal his strength.
That was the story her mother told her, as a warning to stay inside, not to burn too many candles, and not to make noise.
In the early days of the hunt, Ophelia could hear them in the forest.
The distant crunch of boots on leaves and sticks, their voices chanting prayers and curses.
She prayed.
To the Mother.
To every god and goddess, her mother had ever told stories about.
She promised penance.
Promised her soul.
Promised she would make it right and that she would carry the weight of what she had done forever.
Months passed, and so did her thirteenth birthday.
Her mother did not come that night.
Ophelia sat alone in the cottage, the candles burning low, listening to the storm rage outside as if the world itself were angry that she had lived another year.
She understood why her mother couldn’t come. Her mother had warned her and feared being followed, fearing she would lead the hunters straight to her door.
Understanding didn’t make the ache any smaller.
Her mother returned three days later.
Her arms were full of supplies, but Ophelia didn’t care about them.
Her eyes fixed on her mother’s face, her right eye so swollen it was almost shut, the bruise was dark purple and black. A handprint marked her cheek, and her lip was split.
“Mother… what happened?” Ophelia asked.
Her mother shook her head and turned her face away.
She did not cry, but Ophelia could see how close she was to tears.
Fury rose in Ophelia’s chest, sharp and familiar.
Someone had hurt her.
She already knew who.
Her mother had told her the truth years ago, on her tenth birthday, when Ophelia had finally asked about her father.
The story of her birth, the pain, and the risks taken to keep her alive.
The man who had never loved either of them.
The feeling returned, as if she were wading through water.
Without thinking, Ophelia lifted her hands.
She stepped closer, guided by instinct alone, and gently cupped her mother’s jaw.
Her fingertips burned as they traced the swollen skin beneath her eye, and she felt it, the break in the bone. The way the blood moved through it, as if she were touching the current rather than the flesh.
She closed her eyes.
Her other hand rose to steady her mother’s face, her fingers trembling as they pressed against the bruise.
She inhaled deeply, letting the anger, fear, and grief fill her. Her mother’s heartbeat echoed in her ears, loud and steady, as if it were her own.
Her mother gasped in pain as the heat burned through them both.
Then exhaled.
When Ophelia opened her eyes, the bruised flesh beneath her fingers glowed faintly, then smoothed, the broken bone made whole.
Her mother stared at her, then pulled her into a tight hug.
“You are a gift,” her mother whispered into her hair, holding her as if she might disappear.
I am a monster, Ophelia told herself, her arms tightening around her mother as she closed her eyes and let herself be held.
The hunt continued for months.
Ophelia remained hidden, the cottage shrinking around her with each passing day.
Her mother was the only person she ever saw, and even that became rarer. Days stretched longer between visits, the silence pressing in until it felt heavy enough to choke on.
When her mother did come, the injuries were worse.
Bruises.
A split lip.
A swollen cheek.
Broken bones.
Ophelia healed her every time, hands shaking, breath held as warmth bloomed beneath her palms.
Each healing left her mother smiling, whispering reassurances and promising she was being careful.
Cracked ribs.
A broken wrist.
Ophelia healed her again.
And again.
And again.
Each time, her mother looked thinner, more hollow, her eyes dulled by exhaustion and fear.
The village was still hunting, still whispering about witches and monsters, and her mother was caught between protecting her child and surviving the man she lived with.
Ophelia healed in silence, fury coiling tight in her chest as she pressed broken bones back into place, sealed split skin, and healed bruised skin.
The feeling beneath Ophelia’s skin, like wading through water, came more easily now, responding faster and stronger.
Sometimes she felt her mother’s heartbeat stutter beneath her hands, and the memory of the man in the forest flashed through her mind.
The current beneath her fingers felt violent and dangerous, but she continued anyway.
She didn’t ask questions. She didn’t hesitate.
She healed because she thought, hoped, that if she could fix her mother enough and prove she was useful, then maybe her mother would leave her father.
Maybe she would stay in the cottage.
Maybe they could be safe.
She knew better than to hope.
The visits grew farther apart.
Weeks passed, then more.
The last time her mother came, she was worse than Ophelia had ever seen her; black and blue, with broken bones and healed cuts now open.
It was the first time her mother asked her not to heal her.
That was when her mother finally told her the truth.
Her father believed she was seeing the witch and that the injuries were being healed by something unnatural.
He thought she was seeking magic for herself.
Her mother had wanted Ophelia to practice, to learn that she wasn’t just a killer.
That her gift wasn’t only harmful but beautiful. That she was destruction and mercy, capable of healing and protecting not only herself but others.
She told Ophelia that every time she returned home healed, the violence only worsened.
She told her that the sleeping potions no longer worked because long-term use had dulled their effect.
She also told her that he had grown desperate for another child, and that her failure to bear another in thirteen years filled him with nothing but rage.
Her mother broke down, apologising through tears.
She told Ophelia none of it was her fault.
Promised she would come more often.
Promised she was making a plan.
That plan never came.
Ophelia waited.
She paced the small cottage until her feet ached, back and forth, back and forth, listening to the wind and straining to hear the soft footsteps in the snow.
Every night, she told herself she would hear them.
Every morning, she woke to silence.
Weeks turned into months.
It became the longest Ophelia had ever gone without seeing her mother.
She marked the days by scratching notches into the floorboard beside her bed.
After the first month, she told herself her mother would come soon.
After the second, she stopped telling herself anything at all.
The food ran low.
She counted what was left again and again, hoping she had misremembered.
She had not.
She stayed anyway, until there was almost nothing left, because leaving felt worse than hunger.
When she finally left the cottage, it was at night.
It was the first time she had gone farther than the river since the hunt began.
She moved slowly, dressing in the dark green dress her mother had brought her months ago.
She braided her long white hair with shaking hands, pulled on her boots, and stood at the door longer than she meant to.
Then she opened it.
The wind was warm against her skin. The moon was high and too bright, burning her eyes when she looked up.
The forest felt different now, larger, closer, as if it had grown while she was hiding.
She usually didn’t let herself look. She told herself that if she didn’t see how close the world was, it would be easier to stay.
Easier to believe the cottage was enough.
But this time she looked.
The stones were slick with moss. Water ran through the rocks beside the cottage, the same as it always had.
She took a breath and stepped into the forest.
Fear settled in her chest.
She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Food, candles, cloth, things she knew the forest would not give her, but she needed to move.
She needed to know that leaving would not destroy her completely.
The cottage slowly disappeared behind her, and the truth settled deep in her bones.
Her mother was no longer there to protect her, to keep her safe, to keep her hidden.
Now Ophelia had to protect herself, and she had no idea how.
She wandered, feeling the uneven forest floor beneath her boots. She moved slowly and carefully, listening for sounds that weren’t her own.
She told herself she needed to learn the forest.
Where the village was.
How far it was from the cottage.
She couldn’t remember the path her mother took when she returned to the village.
So she left small stones stacked in hidden piles and scratched the bark, so she would never lose her way back to the cottage.
Her hands brushed against bark, damp grass, and night-blooming flowers whose names she didn’t know.
Then she saw something pale in the distance, almost glowing in the moonlight.
She walked closer.
It was a white shape was cloth, nailed to a tree.
As she stepped closer, her stomach twisted, tight and sharp.
Written in black ink across the fabric.
HUNT THE WITCH.
Beneath the words were symbols she somewhat recognised from her mother’s teachings.
They were charms meant to ward off the unwanted.
She was the unwanted.
That night, she mapped as much of the woods as she could.
She found the village, memorising the layout, the larger ones on the outskirts, the smaller ones hugging the centre, and the ones with smoke curling from chimneys.
She fought the urge to search for her mother, to knock on doors and ask.
She stayed watching from behind the trees. People moved inside their homes, candlelight flickering against glass.
Then she saw a young woman standing in a window, a small child held against her chest, rocking gently as she soothed it.
Something inside Ophelia broke.
She slipped back into the forest.
The summer air was warm, the wind tangling her hair as she wandered.
As she neared the cottage, she imagined, just for a moment, seeing her mother there, waiting.
The worried look on her face, the scolding she would receive for leaving. But when the cottage came into view, hidden deep in shadow, there was no one waiting.
Only darkness.
Only silence.
She pushed open the door, her stomach growling with hunger.
She sat on the old chair her mother had once found abandoned, at the small table they had fixed together.
For a long moment, she looked around at the four stone walls.
Her prison.
Her home.
Her everything.
It no longer felt warm. It no longer felt hers. It felt hollow.
That night, she prayed. For forgiveness. For guidance. For her mother to walk through the door.
No one came.
No one ever came again.
That was the last time she cried.
This was all she had, all she had ever known, and she would have to learn how to live with it.
She spent a week doing nothing but praying, living off dwindling rations and fear.
Each night, she went to sleep, listening for footsteps.
Each morning, she woke to the same silence.
When there was almost nothing left, she stopped waiting.
She made a plan.
She sorted what little food remained. She took stock of what she had and what she didn’t.
That night, she waited for darkness.
She pushed the fear down.
The panic.
The anger.
She followed the markers she had left through the forest, moving carefully, quietly.
As she neared the village, she passed flyers nailed to tree trunks and symbols carved deep into the bark.
Protection charms for the village.
Warnings carved in hatred.
That night, she learned how to steal.
After that, over months, she learned how to gather.
How to hunt.
How to forage without leaving a trail.
How to steal without being seen.
How to dry meat for winter.
How to pickle roots.
How to make jam from the wild berries.
How to sew her own clothes.
How to live off what the forest gave her.
And from that, she learned how to use her magic.
How to kill cleanly and humanely, with blood magic.
She learned because she had to, and the more she learned, the more posters appeared and the deeper the symbols were carved.
Two years passed.
She was fifteen then, and hadn’t seen another person since.
It was winter when the village’s fear of the witch stopped being fear and became something far worse.
That was when the hunt began again.
She heard them before she saw them, the sound of chanting drifting through the forest, low and rhythmic.
Fear settled deep in her chest, heavy, cold, familiar.
They thought she was a witch.
Thought she stole not to survive, but to curse.
That she drained blood from animals and men for pleasure.
That she fed on their lives to prolong her own.
She felt it first through the ground, the vibration of marching boots as they approached her section of forest.
She strapped her daggers to her thighs and pulled her black winter coat tight around her shoulders, the one lined with fur.
The night was pitch black. It must have been nearly three in the morning.
When she stepped outside, she saw them.
Torches flickered in the distance, coming from all directions, their fire cutting through the dark.
Birds screamed and scattered. Deer fled deeper into the forest.
The forest felt alive with fear.
Her skin began to burn; that familiar sensation of her magic stirred beneath it, hot, pulsing, awake.
Tonight, the hunt had come to her doorstep.
Snow crunched beneath her boots as she stepped forward, her breath fogging in the cold air. Her hood was up, her face hidden in shadow.
When they finally saw her, their fury faltered.
Fear crept in.
Knives lifted. Swords were drawn. Women shouted threats of fire, of burning the forest to ash.
She lowered her hood and the colour drained from their faces.
White wings flexed behind her, grey leather catching the torchlight. Her white hair lifted in the wind, and her eyes glowed like freshly spilled blood.
“You will pay,” a woman cried, her voice breaking. “You will pay for my husband’s death.”
The wife of the man she had killed.
A sharp laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
“Your husband chased me through these woods,” she hissed. “He wanted to sell my skin for profit.”
She stepped forward, wings spreading slightly.
“I left you in peace. I took only what I needed. Why are you here now?” Her voice was cold.
The crowd murmured.
Then a man stepped forward.
He was massive, his body half-shadowed until he reached the centre of the clearing. Moonlight caught on metal, on the sword at his hip.
When their eyes met, something sharp passed between them.
Recognition.
“Ophelia,” the man said. His voice shook, thick with disgust.
Her blood ran cold.
She knew him. In the shape of his nose and the cut of his jaw, she saw herself reflected back at her.
Her father.
The realisation sank in, heavy and undeniable.
She smiled.
It was not kind.
The fear inside her burned so hot that she swore heat rose from her skin.
He drew his sword and pointed it at her.
“Don’t worry,” he said softly, poison-sweet. “I’ll bury you next to your whore of a mother.”
He charged.
Ophelia lifted one hand, and the world pulled.
Her magic answered, the familiar resistance beneath her skin, as thick as water and twice as heavy.
Her father gasped.
The sword slipped from his fingers and hit the ground.
His body locked, his spine arching as if yanked by invisible hands.
Blood surged beneath his skin, rushing the wrong way and swelling dark and furious in his veins.
He screamed, raw and animalistic.
The crowd staggered back as one, their faces filled with horror.
Ophelia stepped closer.
With each step, his breathing grew more frantic.
Blood spilled from his nose, from the corners of his eyes, and from his mouth.
She could feel his heart, frantic and weak.
She could kill him.
Her fingers curled.
He choked, convulsing, his hands clawing uselessly at his throat.
This was what they thought she was.
A monster.
A witch.
A thing that fed on pain.
She looked at him, really looked.
At the man who had broken her mother.
At the man who had hunted her before she could speak.
Her hand trembled as she lowered it, and the pressure eased.
He collapsed forward into the snow, gasping for air.
“You will leave,” Ophelia said. Her eyes swept over the villagers, pale faces and trembling hands, torches lowered. “You will take him with you. You will not come back. You will not speak my name, hunt in my forest, or carve your lies into my trees again.”
She looked down at her father, who was still coughing blood into the snow.
Her mother had been right.
She was a gift.
Not only destruction.
She could heal.
She could protect.
And she wanted them out of her forest.
Ophelia lifted her gaze to the villagers. They stood frozen at the edge of the clearing, torches shaking in numb hands, fear written across their faces.
She smiled.
“Leave.”
It was only one word.
It was enough.
They broke.
Shouts rang out as they stumbled over one another, scrambling back into the trees.
One man rushed forward, grabbing her father by the collar and dragging him through the snow. His protests dissolved into coughing, then into silence.
The chanting stopped.
The torches vanished.
The forest swallowed them whole.
Ophelia remained where she was, snow falling softly into her hair and along the edges of her wings. She let them spread wide, white and grey against the dark, no longer hiding what she was.
She closed her eyes.
She felt it, her magic reaching outward, threading through roots and stone, through bark and frozen earth.
When she opened her eyes again, the clearing was empty.
The night was quiet.
For the first time, her forest was hers alone.
It was a little over a month after that night, before she returned to the village.
She came after dark.
The posters were gone. She felt something ease in her chest when she saw it.
The protection symbols carved into the trees had not deepened. No new marks. No fresh hatred.
She watched the village from the woods for a long time.
That was when she noticed the baskets.
They sat outside homes, placed on their doorsteps.
The larger houses on the village’s edge left larger baskets. The smaller ones near the centre left small bundles. Homes with smoke curling from their chimneys set out stacks of firewood.
Offerings.
She waited until the village grew quiet, the candles dimmed, and the doors stayed shut.
Then she crept closer.
At the first house, a large one backed up against the forest, she found food and a folded blanket.
The next basket held firewood.
Another had jars of pickles and jam.
Simple things. Necessary things.
She took only what she needed.
As she slipped back into the trees, she understood.
They were not gifts.
They were apologies and pleas.
Leave us be.
And that she did.
For years, she was left alone.
She grew what she needed and turned the cottage into a true home. She let in light and built a fireplace. She finally had a bed.
The villagers kept their distance. They left gifts beneath a large tree that had once been carved with charms for warning and protection.
Now, village children painted those symbols in silver. Once a month, offerings appeared: food, firewood, and small bundles.
She kept her promise to leave them be, as long as they kept theirs.
She protected her woods when she had to.
She never killed.
She promised herself she would not unless there was no other choice. But when hunters took too much, when men came seeking her to hunt instead of deer, her magic answered.
It twisted their blood into unnatural shapes and bent their bodies just enough to send a message.
Enough to be remembered.
Enough to be feared.
Rumours spread.
The surrounding Illyrian camps and villages whispered about the White Witch.
They said she had been sold to demons in exchange for eternal beauty and power. That she could drain a man dry with a single glance and twist his body from the inside out.
By the time autumn came, the stories had turned her into a myth.
It was then, while foraging among fallen leaves and bare branches, that she heard low, pained, and ragged cries.
She followed the sound through the forest until she found him there.
An injured Illyrian.
His wings, arms, and legs were bound. Blood poured from his arm, and a deep gash split his chest, slicing through the leather of his armour.
His face was pale, his eyes wide with terror.
“Witch,” he gasped, trying to rise. He stumbled over the rocks, his feet catching in roots.
“White witch!” he screamed, his voice cracking as blood dripped onto the forest floor.
Ophelia saw the panic in him. Raw and desperate.
“I am not going to hurt you,” she said. Her voice was calm and steady, even as his wings strained against the rope.
He didn’t believe her. He fought until his strength gave out and his breathing grew shallow and uneven.
Again, she spoke slowly. “I am not going to hurt you. I can unbind you.”
He went still. His eyes fixed on hers.
After a long moment, he nodded once.
She set her basket of roots and mushrooms aside and drew a small, hand-carved knife.
As she stepped closer, he trembled, whether from shock, blood loss, fear, or all of it together.
She knelt, her white hair falling forward, and slid the blade carefully between the rope and his wing.
He whispered something under his breath as the rope snapped and his wings unfurled. She cut the bindings at his ankles, then at his wrists.
He pushed himself upright too fast and nearly collapsed into her.
They stood there for a moment. His blood pooled on the forest floor, telling her he had been bleeding for a long time.
He hadn’t stopped shaking; shock was setting in.
“You’ll bleed out soon,” she said.
He looked down at himself, then back at her. “What are you going to do with my body?”
“Nothing,” she said, stepping back. “I can help if you want.”
He didn’t answer.
He barely moved.
Finally, he shook his head.
No.
Ophelia turned away, lifted her basket, and began walking. She had gone no more than twenty steps when she heard him stumble.
By the time he reached her, his voice was barely audible.
“Help me. Please.”
She nodded. “My cottage isn’t far.”
He hesitated, then followed, limping, with one hand pressed to his wounded arm.
The forest opened around her home. The stream beside the cottage was full, wildflowers grew by the door, and a table and chair sat outside, carved from fallen trees.
She gestured for him to sit.
He obeyed without a word.
She said nothing as she set down her basket.
Slowly, her hand moved to his chest. That familiar heaviness followed.
He looked at her, hesitant and afraid.
She pressed gently, then harder.
He hissed in pain as warmth bloomed beneath her fingers, growing hotter as skin stitched itself back together. Her magic spread through him, finding wounds, cracked bone, and torn muscle.
She was mending him.
When she finally pulled away, colour had begun to return to his face.
He stared at her, lips parted.
“How did you end up in my forest,” she asked quietly, “bound and bleeding?”
He looked away. Shame flickered across his face.
“I tried to attack a commander,” he whispered. “Facing you was my punishment. They said you skin men alive, or drain them of their blood.”
Ophelia said nothing.
She studied him, with dark hair, hazel eyes, and golden skin. He looked barely older than she was.
“Why did you attack him?” she asked.
His eyes filled with tears, spilling despite his effort to hold them back.
“He clipped my sister’s wings,” he said, his voice breaking. “Can you fix them?”
Ophelia looked at him, at the dried blood streaking his skin and armour, and at the desperation in his eyes.
“I can’t fix them if they’ve already healed,” she said quietly. “The fresher the wound, the easier it is to fix.”
She thought of the animals she had healed.
The deer caught in a snare, its leg set wrong. It had limped for weeks as she slowly corrected it, bit by bit.
“I promised her I would protect her,” the man begged. “It’s just us. Please.”
Ophelia inhaled slowly.
To give the girl the best chance of flying again, she would have to reopen the wound.
Break what had healed wrong.
Mend muscle, nerve and bone.
It would be painful.
It could take weeks, and she wasn’t sure that she could do it.
What troubled her more was what would come after.
If she healed the girl, the commander might retaliate. He could punish them both. He could slice the girl’s wings off completely.
He may clip his wings as well, stripping him of the very thing that made him Illyrian.
Turn him into nothing more than a grounded soldier with useless wings.
She told him this in the calm, distant voice she had learned to use, despite the unease twisting tight in her chest.
She told him that returning to the camp would put him at risk. That being healed could invite harsher punishment. That saving his sister might be seen as defiance, which could get them both killed.
The man nodded, forcing himself upright. When he looked at her again, something had settled in his eyes, harder now.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Ophelia nodded and looked away.
He spread his wings wide.
With a powerful beat, he launched himself into the sky, disappearing into the dark.
She was alone again.
That night, as she lay in her bed, the fire crackling low, she curled deeper into the blankets.
Somewhere beyond the cottage, she heard the unmistakable sound of beating wings, then hushed voices.
She knew before she reached the door.
Knock.
She stood in her small cottage, wearing her cotton nightdress, and opened it.
The Illyrian from earlier that day stood there, his sister cradled in his arms.
“Please,” he said hoarsely. “Help her.”
The girl couldn’t have been older than sixteen. Her dark eyes widened at the sight of Ophelia, and she curled tighter into her brother’s chest.
“It’s alright,” he whispered to her. “She might be able to help you.”
Ophelia said nothing for a long moment, staring at the two strangers on her doorstep.
Then she stepped aside and let them in.
Inside, she saw the girl’s wings, raw and weeping, already healing wrong.
The brother set her gently on the only chair in the cottage, his broad frame nearly filling the small space.
“I can try,” Ophelia said softly as she approached. “But I can’t guarantee anything.”
The girl stared at her, terrified.
“May I?” Ophelia asked.
The girl nodded, tears gathering in her eyes.
Ophelia closed her eyes, and her magic reached out, feeling the way blood moved through veins and the places where bone and tendons had been cut and damaged.
Time seemed to slow as warmth flared in her hands, the girl’s heartbeat echoing loudly in her ears.
She rested a hand on the girl’s shoulder, and the girl flinched.
Slowly, carefully, Ophelia began knitting muscle and vein back together. She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, suspended in the push and pull of her magic, the fire burning low behind her.
When she finally pulled away, the brother was staring at them both, tears shining in his eyes.
Ophelia looked down.
The wounds had closed, the skin pale and newly healed.
“Stretch out your wings,” she said.
The girl obeyed, slowly and hesitantly. Ophelia stepped back as the wings unfolded, trembling but whole.
“You fixed them,” the girl whispered.
She sobbed as she beat them once, lifting herself briefly off the floor.
“Be careful,” Ophelia said gently. “They’re still healing. You need to rest.”
The girl nodded, then rushed into her brother’s arms. He held her tightly, his gaze never leaving Ophelia.
He mouthed, Thank you.
Ophelia said nothing.
She watched as he led his sister out into the night, the wooden door closing softly behind them.
She lay awake, fearing that by morning she would find them dead, a warning carved into her flesh for having helped them.
But when dawn came, a sack was on her doorstep.
Inside were food, weapons, and fine goods.
A folded note lay on top, written in slanted handwriting.
Thank you for blessing us.
A shiver ran down her spine.
A blessing.
After that night, Illyrians began coming to her.
Whispers of her gift spread from the war camps to the villages.
Those who found her were desperate: mothers with sick children, warriors too injured for their camp healers, and those risking the loss of status, wings, or life itself.
Hi 👋🏻 long time no see. Also friend this is one heck of a hear me out 🤣 so three things happened one I found out that just because the author of Acotar hasn’t named the lover of Lord Thesan of the dawn court doesn’t mean the fandom hasn’t. I’ve seen quite a few referring to him as Vihan. Two I was looking at Acotar fan art at just the right time scrolling while watching parks and Rec when the episode with April and her boyfriend Derek who is straight for her but gay for his boyfriend Derek for the third thing. They-from my knowledge now correct me if I’m wrong because I’m reading through the series for my first time now-they never say Thesan’s lover is strictly gay. For some reason my brain went get an oc in there (or me cause From the artwork they both fine) and That brings me to three Vihan is bi the mate bond for him snaps and he is straight for his female mate but gay for Thesan who he also had a mate bond snap for. Don’t judge me I’m cooking here 🤣
Hi!
It’s good to hear from you again, I have to say, this definitely made me smile.
You’re right, canon is pretty vague about Thesan’s lover, and the fandom has absolutely run with Vihan, which I love. Bi Vihan with complicated mate bonds feels very on brand for Prythian. I love how much thought you’ve put into those messy Dawn Court dynamics!
Thank you for sharing this with me. It genuinely made me laugh and think. 💕
Summary: You swore you’ll be gentle, but that smile tells a different story.
Warnings: nsfw, dom/sub dynamic, sub Casssian, explicit language, strong language
Word Count: 717
Day 18 | Kinktober Masterlist | Day 20
I straddled his hips, pressing his wrists into the mattress beneath us.
His skin was warm beneath my hands, his bare chest rose and fell beneath me, and his hazel eyes sparkled as he stared up at me, as if he already knew he was in trouble.
“You promised,” I whined, leaning closer. His lips twitched as he suppressed a smile. “You said if I pinned you down, I got to touch them.”
His wings.
Cassian chuckled deeply; the sound sent a shiver down my spine.
“You did pin me down, princess,” he teased. “But you’re forgetting the second part of the deal.”
“Oh?” I giggled, tightening my grip on his wrists. “And what’s that?”
His muscles tensed under my touch, and we both knew that he had let me win.
“You have to be gentle,” he replied, feigning seriousness. “My wings are very sensitive, you know.”
“Fine,” I whispered, leaning in until my lips brushed his. “I’ll be gentle. I swear.”
“Good girl,” he murmured, voice dipping into a purr. “Now let’s see if you can keep that promise, princess.”
I released his wrists, my hands sliding up his arms, resting on his chest.
Cassian’s wings shifted behind him, stretching wide across the sheets.
The leathery skin was covered in pale scars, each one telling a story he never spoke aloud.
I didn’t move at first. I just stared at them, my lips parted in awe. He had never let me see them this close, never let me touch them.
This was a privilege.
I took a shaky breath, my heart pounding in my chest.
This was it.
The moment I had been waiting for.
Slowly, I reached out, my fingers trembling as they hovered over the edge of his left wing.
Cassian went still beneath me, his breath hitching slightly.
I paused, my gaze flicking over his face as if searching for any signs of fear or discomfort.
“It’s okay,” he murmured softly, nodding slightly.
That was all the encouragement I needed.
I ran my fingertips along the edge.
They felt warm and smooth as I traced the leathery skin, then ridged and rough as I ran my fingers over the scars.
His wing twitched reflexively as if responding to my touch, and I smiled, tracing a careful path along the veins.
My touch was light and deliberate.
Each small movement earned a groan from him: sharp inhales, stifled moans, and soft, breathy noises that made my skin prickle.
As my fingers trailed down the line of a bone, his wings tensed, spreading wider as if desperate for more of my touch.
He stared up at me, his bottom lip between his teeth.
I could see the desperation in his eyes, and it only fueled my own desire.
“Is that the spot?” I teased, my voice low.
Cassian, my warrior, my love, nodded, his eyes glazed with pleasure.
I traced the bone again, slower this time, then drifted lower.
A sound I had never heard before escaped his lips, a mix of pleasure and desperation, as my fingers pressed against a particularly sensitive spot.
My smile widened as his hands clenched into fists, his hips lifting instinctively, searching for friction.
I could feel his hardness beneath me.
I focused there, my hands pressing against the sensitive membrane, coaxing needy, broken sounds from him.
He begged, pleaded, moaning my name, his voice raw with want. His pleasure depended on my touch, on the places I traced along his wings, on the friction of his sleep pants.
“Please,” he groaned, his voice thick with desire. “Princess.”
“Are you begging, Cassian?” I whispered.
He shivered, his eyes fluttering shut as his head fell back against the pillows.
“Yes,” he breathed. “I’m begging. Please.”
I smiled as my fingers continued to trace the veins and scars that mapped his wings.
“Then beg me properly.”
“Please,” he said, his voice cracking. “Touch me. I’ll do anything, I promise.”
I hummed in satisfaction, as my fingers found another sensitive spot higher up the wing.
His body arched off the bed with a loud moan.
“You like that, don’t you?” I teased, my voice filled with satisfaction. “Being at my mercy.”
“Yes,” he admitted, his voice rough. “I do.”
I could feel his need, his desire, and I wanted to drive him wild, to push him to the edge.
“Princess,” he groaned, frustration and pleasure tangling together. “I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” I whispered back.
He nodded, surrendering, letting my touch take him completely.
I still didn't know whether this was a blessing or a curse, two mates.
Two mates who completely and utterly hate each other.
Two males who fight over every scrap of my attention.
I thought I did well, splitting my time and affection, giving each what I could. Still, they fought endlessly and would rather rip each other to shreds than let the other gain even the smallest advantage.
But tonight was different.
They’d both been away on duty for over a week, and now they stood at the foot of the bed, shirtless and still.
Their eyes were fixed on me with the same predatory hunger, like starving animals who’d finally found prey.
I laid back against the pillows, my heart racing, my lingerie already damping.
They exchanged a long, silent look. It was the first time they’d looked at each other without snarling.
Azriel didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.
He lifted two fingers in a silent command, and my body obeyed before my mind could.
I crawled towards them without a word, my hands pressing into the sheets we shared, every breath slow and unsteady.
My eyes flickered to Eris’s, searching, asking if I was doing this right, if this was what he wanted.
If he wanted me to obey.
But I didn’t find the soft amber gaze I was used to.
No, his eyes burned with fire and hunger, so intense that I had to fight the urge to lower my head in submission.
I knew Eris wouldn’t like that.
He liked to look into my eyes.
Azriel knew that too.
When I stopped before them, kneeling at the edge of our massive bed, I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to steady my racing pulse.
A rough, scarred hand gripped my jaw, forcing my chin up, my eyes pressing together even harder.
“Open your pretty eyes, baby,” Azriel murmured, his voice low. “You know Eris likes to look into them when he fucks you.”
My skin prickled.
A breath slipped from my lips, dangerously close to a moan, as I forced my eyes open and met Eris’s burning gaze.
Azriel’s thumb brushed against my lower lip.
“Good girl.”
For a moment, I questioned whether this was real.
“I didn’t know you cared what Eris wanted,” I whispered.
My gaze flickered back to Azriel’s. His hand left from my jaw, and my shoulders slumped slightly as he smirked, a grin I had come to dread and crave.
“I don’t,” he said.
His eyes flicked to Eris for a split second, as I looked between them.
“We discussed this,” Eris said, his voice cutting through the room for the first time since his return.
A shiver ran down my spine.
“And we have realised that we both want the same thing.”
I already knew what that was.
Me.
I was the prize of their game.
The chains of fate had bound me to them, and now they were deciding how to share me.
“We decided,” Azriel paused, as if forcing himself to remember the promise he’d made with my other mate, “to turn our hatred for each other into something… productive.”
My chest rose and fell as I tried to imagine an arrangement that wouldn’t end in bloodied fists and broken bones.
“Productive,” I echoed.
They both stepped closer.
“Yes, Princess, Productive,” Eris said, his eyes never leaving mine.
Azriel’s shadows curled over his shoulders, restless and alive, and I could have sworn they brushed Eris’s bare skin, curious, hungry, tasting.
“Why not help each other enjoy you?” Azriel said, his muscles tense and defined in the low light.
Dread coiled in my gut, tightening with every second.
This was a terrible idea for two jealous, possessive fae.
“Don’t worry, princess,” Eris murmured, almost tender and kind. “We’ll take care of you.”
I knew better than to believe him.
They were going to break me apart, piece by piece, just to prove a point.
The sound of belts unbuckling filled the room as I stayed kneeling, my body obedient even as my mind screamed for me to run.
Eris’s hand cupped my cheek, his thumb tracing my lower lip, mirroring the way Azriel had done earlier, and I felt a shiver run down my spine.
“Open your mouth for me, princess,” Eris asked, his voice a soft command.
I obeyed, my lips parting as his fingers tangled in my hair, pulling me closer.
My hand wrapped around Eris’s cock.
He grunted softly, his grip on my hair tightening, as Azriel’s mocking laugh filled the air.
“Going to cum already, Eris?” Azriel taunted, his voice dripping with condescension.
I could see the tension in Eris’s jaw, the way his muscles tightened as he fought to suppress his annoyance.
“You’re just upset she’s about to suck my dick while you stand there fisting your own cock,” Eris retorted, his amber eyes never leaving mine.
I heard Azriel scoff.
Then I felt his weight on the mattress behind me. His hands gripped my hips, pulling my damp lace panties down, his fingers squeezing my ass and tracing the curves of my thighs.
His shadows brushed against my skin, cold and silky, as if worshipping me.
I continued to stroke Eris, slow and deliberate, my thumb brushing his swollen tip, gathering his precum, bringing my thumb to my mouth, tasting him, salty, sharp, familiar.
Eris’s breath hitched, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he watched me. His grip on my hair was tight, and his cock throbbed in my hand.
“Go on, baby, suck him,” Azriel said, his voice laced with mockery. “Show him how much you missed him.”
I obeyed, taking Eris into my mouth, my tongue swirling around his tip.
He groaned, his hands tightening in my hair and his hips thrusting forward slightly.
Azriel’s hands slid lower, his fingers slipping between my thighs. He eased one finger, then two, into me, his shadows curling around my clit as I moaned with pleasure.
“Eris, you should feel how wet she is,” Azriel said, his fingers leaving me.
My mouth stopped moving, my hand falling from his cock as Eris leaned forward, his cock sliding deeper into my mouth.
He sucked Azriel’s fingers, groaning at the taste of me.
“You taste so fucking good,” Eris growled, his voice thick with desire.
I groaned around Eris’s cock as Azriel’s fingers slipped back inside me.
Typically, they fought over who would please me, but now they’d decided that teamwork made ruining me easier.
Azriel’s fingers moved faster, his shadows circling my clit, pushing me closer to the edge.
I moaned, my hands gripping the sheets as Eris’s began thrusting into my mouth. I tried to breathe through my nose, trying not to gag around him.
“Fuck, she’s so tight,” Azriel muttered, his fingers curling deep inside me. “You should feel how she clenches around my fingers. She’s begging for it.”
“She’s always ready for us,” Eris said, groaning softly.
Azriel’s shadows slithered up my body, squeezing my breasts. I mosned as Azriel’s fingers hit a spot that blurred my vision.
“Keeping suck him. Show him how much you want him,” Azriel said, his fingers still pressing that spot deep within me, my legs now trembling.
I obeyed, my mouth continuing to work around Eris’s cock, as I took him deep.
Azriel’s fingers kept their relentless rhythm, his shadows dancing across my skin, teasing and tormenting.
“Let go for us, princess,” Eris whispered, his hands gripped my hair tighter, holding me in place as he began to fuck my mouth.
I couldn’t hold back any longer.
My body shook as waves of pleasure crashed over me, my walls clenching around Azriel’s fingers, dripping onto his hand.
My cries were muffled by Eris’s cock as it pressed against the back of my throat, my eyes rolling back as I gagged around him.
Azriel’s fingers slowed before withdrawing, his shadows curling gently around me, forcing the aftershocks.
Eris pulled his cock from my lips, my head falling forward, my body slumping slightly.
I jolted forward as Azriel’s warm mouth found to my pussy, his tongue lapping at my clit, his hands holding me exactly where he wanted.
Eris’s hands cupped my face, his thumbs brushing away my tears, his amber eyes searching mine.
“You’re ours,” he murmured, his voice soft.
Azriel’s tongue was relentless, his shadows tightening around my thighs and holding me in place.
I shuddered, my body still burning from my orgasm, as Eris leaned in, his lips brushing my forehead before he pulled away.
Azrie’s mouth left me, his hand pressing against my back, pushing my chest into the mattress.
My knees were spread wide, and my back arched.
Eris’s amber eyes darkened with lust as he took in the sight of my swollen pussy, on full display.
“Ready for him, princess?” Eris asked, his voice sent shivers down my spine.
“Yes,” I whispered, my voice trembling as Eris’s hands gripped my ass, spreading me wider completely for Azriel.
Azriel didn’t hesitate; he thrust into me, his cock sinking deep into my pussy and filling me completely.
I moaned, my face buried in the sheets as he pressed deep inside me. His shadows slithered up my back, tracing my spine.
“She’s made for us, Eris,” Azriel growled. “Made to be fucked by both of us.”
Eris groaned, his amber eyes fixed on the sight of Azriel, deep inside me.
“She’s swallowing you whole, Az,” he said, his voice thick with desire.
The nickname echoed in my ears.
Eris had never called Azriel Az before; that friendship had always been forbidden between them.
Until now.
I felt Eris’s hands slide between my thighs, his touch firm and deliberate. His fingers pressed against my clit, pinching and circling the sensitive skin, pushing me closer and closer to the edge.
Azriel’s thrusts were relentless, driving me deeper into the mattress, his shadows tightening around me and holding me in place.
I was trapped between them, my pussy clenched around Azriel’s cock, my walls tightening as I tightened around him as he groaned.
“Look at her, Eris. Our perfect fucking whore.”
I felt Eris’s smirk, his fingers pinching my clit harder, twisting and teasing until a moan left my lips.
“She’s always so good to us,” he mocked.
My body squirmed beneath them, responding to their every touch and every filthy word, my orgasm so close.
Only for Azriel, to pull out of me completely, his cock leaving me with a disgusting sound.
Before I could protest, Eris’s thick cock thrust into me, filling the void left by Azriel.
“Fuck, she’s loose,” Eris growled. “So fucked out from your cock.”
Azriel’s shadows slithered up my body, tracing my nipples and throat, curling around my wrists.
“She’s always ready for us,” he said, his voice laced with pride.
Eris pounded into me relentlessly, his hips snapping forward with brutal force, his cock stretching me again and again.
Azriel’s shadows moved lower, teasing my clit, circling, pressing, driving me closer to the edge.
“Look at her, Az,” Eris growled, his voice thick with lust. “Her hole’s dripping, taking my cock like she’s made for it.”
Azriel’s shadows tightened around my breasts, squeezing roughly.
I gasped, my body arching off the bed.
Eris’s cock continued to pound into me, his grunts filling the air.
Azriel’s shadows continued their assault against my clit, rubbing, circling, pushing me over the edge.
“Oh, yes!” I cried out, my body arching, my pussy clenching around Eris’s cock as white stars exploded behind my eyes.
Eris groaned, his hips snapping forward, his cum shooting deep inside me, filling me.
As his cock left me, I was trembling and spent. Azriel’s shadows kept me bound, my legs spread wide, my body open and ready.
Azriel thrust back into me without hesitation, his cock fucking Eris’s cum even deeper inside me.
“We’re not done with you yet, baby,” Azriel murmured, his voice a low growl.
Eris gripped my hair, pulling my head back, forcing me to meet his eyes.
A cruel smile formed on his lips before he shoved my face into the blankets, muffling my moans.
Azriel’s thrusts grew desperate, his cock hitting deep, his shadows keeping me upright.
“She’s dripping onto the bed,” Eris taunted, his voice mocking, a twisted kind of praise.
My body tensed, every muscle tight as my pussy clenched around Azriel’s cock, as I came again.
I screamed into the blankets, my body shaking uncontrollably as Azriel’s cum filled me.
As he pulled out of me, Eris took his place, his thick cock pressing against my hole.
“We’re going to fuck you again,” he whispered, his voice a promise and a threat. “And again, until you’re too fucked to walk.”
I moaned, helpless, my body already aching, my pussy swollen and raw.
Eris thrust into me, his cock stretching me again, Azriel’s shadows held me tighter, holding me down as if they feared I might escape.
They kept their promise, taking me again and again until I was a crying, trembling mess lying between them.
Even then, I still didn’t know whether this was a blessing or a curse.
Summary: She wakes to an empty bed and spiralling doubts, but Cassian eases her fears with warmth, honesty, and quiet certainty. Finally, she begins to learn how to accept both the bond and him.
Warnings: nsfw, smut, teasing, foreplay female receiving, mentions of past emotional trauma, insecurity, mild language, jealousy, slow-burn tension,
Word count: 1,969
Part 4 | Masterlist | Part 5
I didn’t know when the sobs stopped, or when sleep finally took me.
I only knew I had woken in warmth, curled in my sheets, my body heavy and sore in the best and worst ways.
My room was different.
Clean.
The piles of clothes were folded or hung in the too-small closet. My jewellery, which I had left on my vanity for months, was now put away. The books I’d scattered across the room were stacked into piles. My satchel and coat hung on the rack by my bedroom door.
He’d cleaned.
The apartment was quiet except for the birds along the Sidra, their calls drifting through the open window.
I lay there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling.
The silence told me everything: Cassian wasn’t here.
He’d left.
Maybe the cleaning was his way of saying goodbye.
My chest tightened as I reached for the bond and felt the distance, as if it had been stretched too thin.
My heart began to race, thoughts spiralling faster and faster.
Maybe he wanted to reject it.
Maybe he already had.
Maybe last night hadn’t been enough.
Maybe I hadn’t been enough.
The doubts came hard and fast, insecurities boiling over until I curled in on myself, clutching the blanket to my chest as if it could keep me together.
Was this it?
Was he going to walk away, sever the bond, and pretend I’d never existed?
Fresh tears burned behind my eyes as cold seeped into my fingers, my skin tingling and my hands trembling.
Then the front door opened, and a familiar hum filled the apartment, casual and unbothered.
Relief hit me, and a shaky breath left me as warmth flooded my veins, chasing away the cold, the fear, the doubt.
Cassian.
I was out of bed in seconds, naked, furious, and barely able to breathe as I stormed into the living room.
Cassian stood at my kitchen island, setting down bags of groceries, a duffel bag over his shoulder.
His eyes swept over me, his lips parted, ready to say some foul, flirtatious comment I knew would make my knees weak.
I didn’t give him the chance.
“Where were you?” I hissed.
The teasing vanished as his eyes locked onto mine, taking in the confusion and the hurt I knew had to be written all over my face.
“I went to get some things,” he said, adjusting the duffel on his shoulder. “And more groceries. I figured we’d go through everything in your tiny kitchen in a couple of days.”
“Why did you go and get your things?” I asked, my voice harsher than I intended.
“Sweetheart,” he said, that irritating humour slipping into his voice, “I don’t think your clothes would fit me.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, my eyes closing as I forced myself to breathe.
“Cassian,” I groaned, “you know that’s not what I meant.”
I heard his footsteps, slow and deliberate. Then came the dull thud of the duffel hitting the floor.
Then his large hand cupped my jaw, warm and steady, tilting my face and forcing my eyes to meet his.
“It’s so I have things here,” he said softly. “In case you want me to stay for a few days.”
His voice was careful, gentle, as if he knew exactly how fragile this moment was.
“You just found out I’m your mate,” he continued. “We were together. I want to be prepared, if you want me here.”
His hazel eyes searched mine as he held my face in his hands.
They were soft and kind.
Everything my past had taught me I didn’t deserve.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you woke,” he murmured. “You looked so adorable asleep, I didn’t want to wake you.”
God help me, I nodded as if he’d hung the moon just for me.
My skin tingled as his thumb brushed gently over my cheek, my thoughts slowing and softening.
He leaned in slowly, giving me time to pull away.
I didn’t.
Our lips brushed before he pressed a soft, lingering kiss to mine.
“You snore,” he whispered as our lips parted.
“I do not,” I snapped, my heart racing as I tried to pull free from his grip.
Cassian chuckled, low and devastating, the sound vibrating through me, and his grip tightened just enough to steal my breath.
Before I could take another breath, his fingers threaded through my hair as he pulled me against him.
His mouth crashed into mine, hungry and sure, as if he’d been starving for this very moment.
My hands pressed into his chest, feeling the firm muscles beneath his tunic and the warmth of his skin seeping through the fabric.
His grip tightened in my hair as he deepened the kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and we stumbled backward toward the bedroom.
He followed, guiding me until the backs of my knees met the mattress. The sheets were cold against my burning skin.
His breath hot, his hazel eyes dark with need.
Slowly, our kiss grew frantic.
I arched into him, my body responding without thought, my bare chest pressing against him.
Cassian’s hands slid down my waist, firm but careful, as if he were still afraid of breaking me.
His lips trailed down my jaw, his teeth grazing my throat and sending shivers down my spine.
“Let me make it up to you for not being here when you woke,” he murmured, his voice low and rough.
My hands twisted in his shirt as his fingers traced the lines of my body, their touch sending sparks through the bond.
I moaned into his mouth, my head falling back and my body arching into his touch as he kissed his way down my neck.
“Please, Cassian,” I groaned, my voice filled with desperaion.
His mouth found my breast, his tongue teasing my nipple until I squirmed beneath him, my body alive with sensation.
His hands moved lower, his fingers parting my thighs and pressing gently against my sensitive pussy.
I whimpered as he circled my clit, slow and deliberate, his touch slow and gentle.
“Relax, sweetheart,” he whispered, his breath hot against my skin. “I know you’re sore, but I promise to be gentle.”
I obeyed.
My body relaxed beneath his touch.
“Don’t be,” I whispered, my eyes shut tight as his mouth kissed along my skin.
“As you wish,” he whispered, his voice dark and rough.
His teeth grazing my nipple, his grip rougher now, his touch on my clit relentless.
I couldn’t respond, couldn’t form words as his fingers pressed inside me, filling me, claiming me.
My hips pressed against his hand, my breath coming in sharp gasps. His thumb circled my clit in time with his fingers, the sensitivity from our last time together heightening every sensation.
I was a moaning mess.
The bond tightened through my ribs with every curl of his fingers, every moan he drew from me as I trembled beneath him, my hands twisting in the sheets and clawing at his skin.
I was about to fall over the edge, his name on my tongue, when he stopped, his fingers still buried within me.
I whimpered, my eyes open to meet his, my body desperate for release.
“That’s it, baby,” he growled. “Make yourself cum on my fingers.”
My body responded before my mind could, my hips rocking into his hand, my breathing coming in sharp pants, my control slipping away.
My body tightened as the pleasure built, spiralling out of control, until I was crying out as my orgasm crashed over me, a wave of pleasure consuming me, drowning me in him.
My body shook.
Clenching around his fingers, as he forced every last drop of pleasure from me.
As I came down, my breath hitching as he withdrew his fingers, sitting back to look at me.
His eyes were dark with satisfaction, a knowing smile forming on his lips.
“Do you accept my apology?” he murmured, brushing a loose strand of hair from my face.
I hummed, nodding.
He settled beside me, pulling me close and tucking the blankets around my naked, trembling body.
I curled into his warmth as he held me.
I didn’t know how long we stayed like that, or when his shirt disappeared, or when his trousers ended up discarded on my bedroom floor.
The day blurred into warm hands and soft touches until sunset, when Cassian unpacked his duffel bag, his clothes now hanging beside mine.
By nightfall, he stood in my kitchen, shirtless, sleep pants slung low on his hips, cooking for us.
I lay curled on the couch, hair still damp from the bath we’d shared, my pyjamas loose and soft against my skin.
A book in my hands, though I hadn’t turned a page for minutes.
I was too busy watching him.
He hummed to himself, his muscles flexing as he moved, his tattoos shifting with every motion.
“I can feel you staring, sweetheart,” Cassian called, his voice laced with amusement.
My cheeks flushed as he glanced over his shoulder.
“Are you disappointed?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He turned, leaning back against the counter.
His brows furrowed, confusion flickering across his face as his smile faltered.
“Disappointed about what?”
“That I’m your mate,” I said quietly. “That it wasn’t one of Feyre’s sisters, or someone like Mira. Perfect. Everything I’m not.”
The words spilled out before I could stop them.
Cassian didn’t interrupt.
He just listened as my insecurities unravelled, tears burning in my eyes.
He crossed the room slowly and deliberately until he sat on the edge of the couch.
I curled in on myself, pulling my knee to my chest.
I fell silent, watching him watch me, my uneven breathing and my trembling hands.
“The day we hung those pictures in your classroom,” he said softly, “I told you exactly what my type was.”
I looked up at him.
“You. A fae with curves meant to be grabbed and held. A mouth as sharp as her mind, which is also the most kissable thing I’ve ever seen.”
I let out a shaky breath.
“Someone who argues with me. Pushes me. Challenges me. Someone who isn’t afraid to put me in my place,” he continued.
He leaned closer, wiping a tear from my cheek.
“And you, my mate, do all of that,” he murmured. “And you look so fucking good doing it.”
He pressed a kiss to my forehead.
Then my cheek.
Then along my jaw, down my throat, each one light and teasing, until laughter spilled from my lips.
“Cassian,” I gasped, breathless.
He pulled back, that infuriating grin on his face, and for a moment, we just looked at each other.
The pot on the stove was boiling loudly in the quiet. He leaned in again, pressing a soft kiss to my lips.
“I can’t believe I get to call you mine,” he whispered.
“I can’t believe I’m stuck with you,” I whispered back, my fingers tangling in his hair.
“There’s that sharp mouth of yours,” he said, pulling away at last. “And to think I’m cooking for such an ungrateful Dawn Court princess.”
He rolled his eyes, then returned to the stove, stirring the pot.
“Cass,” I called.
He glanced back over his shoulder.
“Can you stay for the week?”
His smile was widened. “I’ll stay forever if you want, sweetheart.”
I nodded, reopening my book as he turned back to cooking, my heart full.
For the first time in a long while, I didn’t wonder when it would all fall apart.
I realised in that moment that no matter the chaos, I would choose him.
Summary: She wakes to find Cassian still there, caring for her the only way he knows how. The lines between them blur completely, and their restraint finally snaps.
Warnings: nsfw, smut, rough sex, teasing, unprotected sex, mentions of past emotional trauma, insecurity, mild language, jealousy, slow-burn tension, crossing boundaries, alcohol use
Word count: 3,477
Part 3 | Masterlist | Part 5
I woke a throbbing headache pulsing behind my eyes.
I groaned, dragging myself out of the twisted sheets, still in the skin-tight dress from the night before.
My body felt heavy, my head foggy.
I stepped over the piles of clothes and pushed open my bedroom door.
I’d expected my apartment to be empty.
I expected him to be gone.
Instead, Cassian stood in my kitchen.
Shirtless.
Bare feet on the tile.
His trousers were low on his hips as he cooked at my small stove, humming as if he belonged there.
My breath caught.
“Morning, sweetheart,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.
I stared.
Shamefully.
His back was to me, a dark tattoo swirling over his broad shoulders, tracing down his spine to where his wings met his skin.
My mouth parted before I could stop myself.
“You’re drooling,” he said, smirking.
“You wish,” I muttered, forcing my eyes away.
I focused on the living room.
It was clean.
The blanket I’d given him was folded neatly on the arm of the couch. My mugs were washed and sitting on the drying rack.
The space was clean, and the smell of eggs and bacon filled the apartment.
I didn’t even remember having food.
“I thought you would’ve left by now,” I said, glancing back at him.
He was now facing me, the black ink spiralling over his shoulders and down his broad chest, creating intricate patterns.
God, help me.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” he said, and I could’ve sworn his wings shifted ever so slightly.
He set a mug down on the small counter between us.
His eyes swept over me, taking in my tangled hair, smudged makeup, and wrinkled dress. Instead of judgment, his smirk softened into something gentler.
“Go take a bath,” he said. “Breakfast will be ready soon.”
My eyes narrowed. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I know,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “But you drank a lot last night and barely ate.”
“You were watching me?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “And if I remember right, you were watching me too.”
My cheeks flushed red as last night rushed back, the date, the looks, the argument, the way he’d carried me home.
The way we almost kissed.
Something must have shown on my face, because his expression softened further
“Go,” he said. “I’ll be here when you’re done.”
I retreated to my room, ignoring how my heart raced and my breath grew shallow.
I shut myself in the bathroom and turned on the tap, the rush of water filling the quiet space.
As the tub filled, I ran my hands through my hair, my thoughts betraying me, filling my mind with the unspeakable things done in this very bath, all to the thoughts of the man now half-naked in my kitchen, cooking me breakfast.
I glanced at my reflection and nearly gasped.
I was a mess, my lipstick smeared, my hair wild, my eyes red with exhaustion.
I couldn’t believe I let him see me like this.
I stripped quickly and sank into the bath, scrubbing as if shame itself clung to my skin.
The longer I lay there, the heavier it settled, that he’d seen Vincent treat me like that. That I’d let it happen.
When I finally emerged, I’d washed away the makeup, smoothed my hair, and pulled on a nightdress.
I wasn’t trying to look good for him.
Once he left, I planned to crawl back into bed and stay there.
Still, I chose my favourite silk slip, the one that hugged my curves and was far too short.
I froze when his voice drifted from the kitchen.
“Breakfast is ready.”
I stepped out, and there he was, lounging across my couch, still shirtless, entirely too comfortable in my space.
When his eyes met mine, his smile faltered. His lips parted, and a quiet breath slipped free.
“What?” I asked, my voice softer than I meant it.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, simply.
My heart pounded so hard it hurt.
“Stop lying,” I huffed, sitting beside him only because there was nowhere else.
“I don’t lie,” he replied, lifting his tea to his lips as his arm stretched along the back of the couch behind me.
Not touching, but close enough to feel his heat.
I scoffed and reached for my own cup. Plates sat on the table: bacon, eggs, fresh sourdough, and fruit.
“Where did you even get all this?”
He chuckled. “Your cupboards were empty, so I fixed it.”
I stared at him, unable to form words.
“I get that you’re busy,” he went on, “but you can’t live on wilted lettuce and forgotten carrots.”
Our knees brushed now and then, each touch sending sent a shiver through me.
From the corner of my eye, I caught him studying the books lining my walls, his gaze lingering longer than necessary.
“You must be very smart,” he said, setting his cup down.
His knee brushed mine again, this time on purpose.
I glanced up as he stood, watched him cross the room, his back muscles flexing as he reached for a book on the top shelf, and then he began to flip through the pages.
“I read one last night,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.
“Did you?” I murmured, crossing one leg over the other, the tea’s warmth grounding me.
“I tried,” he said, his voice low and amused. “They’re incredibly dull. They put me right to sleep.”
I rolled my eyes, unable to suppress the smile forming on my lips.
He turned and leaned back against the shelf.
His gaze dropped.
Tracing the line of my legs.
The way the silk parted high on my thigh.
The way there was nothing beneath it to hide behind.
He snapped the book shut and slid it back into place, slower than necessary.
My eyes betrayed me, drifting from his face, down his chest, to the trail of dark hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his trousers.
When I looked back up, there was no teasing in his expression, only something raw and focused that made my fingers curl tighter around my cup.
“You didn’t have to stay,” I said, my hands trembling.
I stood slowly and moved into the kitchen, placing the empty plates and cups in the sink just to give myself something to do.
Cassian shook his head. “You were drunk. I wasn’t going to leave you alone like that.”
“I’m capable,” I said, turning back to him and leaning against the small bench between us. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know,” he replied, stepping closer until he leaned against the opposite side, hands braced against the wood, those hazel eyes locked on mine.
He paused, jaw tight, as if arguing with himself.
“And what if I want to take care of you?”
My lips parted before I could stop them, a soft breath slipping free.
“You shouldn’t want that,” I said, even as I leaned closer.
Cassian’s jaw flexed.
“And yet,” he said quietly, “here we are.”
“Cassian,” I whispered.
His gaze flicked to my mouth, then back to my eyes.
“Tell me to leave,” he said.
I didn’t.
Instead, I shook my head slightly and stepped back, away from his heat and scent, away from the way my body leaned towards him as if it already knew what I wanted.
“Don’t,” Cassian said. His voice was low, rough in a way I’d never heard before.
Not angry.
Not teasing.
Something I truly didn’t know.
“Don’t what?” I asked, though my voice betrayed me, too soft, too thin.
“Don’t pull away,” he said quietly. “Not like that.”
He moved slowly and deliberately around the kitchen bench until there was nowhere left for me to hide. I felt the counter pressing into my lower back.
“I’m not,” I said, lifting my chin.
Another lie.
“Yes, you are.” His gaze pinned me in place. “Every time I get close, you retreat. As if wanting something makes you weak.”
“It does,” I said before I could stop myself.
Something flickered in his eyes.
Pain.
Recognition.
“That date,” he said softly. “That wasn’t about having fun, was it?”
I said nothing.
Cassian exhaled slowly, as if he already knew the answer.
His eyes dropped to my mouth for just a second, then back to mine. His hand slowly reached for me, brushing a strand of hair from my face.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he said, his voice strained.
“Like what?” I whispered.
“Like you’re already saying goodbye.”
Something in my chest cracked open, something I’d been holding together by sheer will.
My hands rose to his jaw before fear could stop me. I stood on the tips of my toes, close enough to feel his breath against my lips.
His hands hovered at my waist, waiting, as if he were seeking my permission to hold me.
The air between us crackled with tension, every nerve in my body burning.
“Tell me to stop,” he said, his forehead resting against mine.
I didn’t want him to stop.
I shook my head.
That was all it took.
His lips met mine slowly and carefully, as if testing whether this was real, whether I was real.
The kiss was restrained, controlled, too controlled, as if he were afraid he would go too far.
My fingers tighten on his jaw, pulling him closer.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered, his heart pounding against my chest.
“I want—” I started, but the words caught in my throat.
I shouldn’t want this.
This was dangerous, an inevitable heartbreak.
“I want you,” I whispered, the words slipping from my lips before I could stop them.
It was enough.
His eyes darkened, and I saw the moment his control snapped.
His lips crashed against mine, hungry and desperate, as if he’d been starving for this, for me.
His hands slid up my back, pulling me closer until there was no space between us, and I could feel the heat of his body.
I moaned into his mouth, my hands tangling in his hair, holding him close as if I could anchor myself to him, to this moment.
His kiss was desperate, his tongue tangling with mine, his taste intoxicating.
His hands mapped my curves, his touch both urgent and reverent. My dress was thin, offering little protection against the heat of his skin.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he whispered against my lips.
His mouth trailed down my throat, his breath hot against my skin, his hands sliding down to grip my thighs.
Before I could protest, he lifted me, my legs wrapping around his waist, my lips still against his, as he carried me toward my kitchen bench.
His hands slid down my thighs, parting them as he realised I truly wasn't wearing anything beneath the silk slip.
“God, you’re evil,” he murmured, his voice rough.
His fingers brushed my inner thigh, and I shivered as shame flickered for a moment before being drowned by need.
“Cassian,” I breathed, my finger fumbling with his trousers, pushing them down his hips as his lips never left mine.
I whimpered as he removed the fabric from my body, leaving me bare and exposed. I wrapped my legs around his waist, pressing myself against him, my body aching for his touch.
“Our first time can’t be on the kitchen bench,” he said, his voice restrained.
I shook my head, my mouth pressing against his throat, my hands gripping his shoulders.
I didn’t care about the bench; I didn’t care about anything but the way he made me feel.
He hesitated before lifting me into his arms, carrying me to the bedroom.
He laid me down gently on the bed, the sheets cool against my skin.
His body hovered over mine, his eyes searching my face, before his lips began to trail down my chest, his breath warm against my skin.
His fingers slipped between my thighs, his thumb pressing against my clit, making me arch into his touch.
I flushed with embarrassment as I remembered how I’d touched myself in the bath, imagining this exact moment. But this, this was so much more.
“Are you this wet because of me?” he teased, his voice a rough whisper.
My wetness answered for me.
“I’ve been dreaming of this,” he murmured, his tongue swirling around my nipple, his teeth grazing my sensitive skin.
I moaned, my hands tangling in his hair and my body trembling as he explored me.
He kissed his way down my stomach, his breath hot against my core, before looking up at me, a smirk forming on his lips as his fingers parted my folds and his thumb brushed against my clit.
“So wet,” he murmured, his tongue pressing against my core.
I cried out, my hands gripping the sheets as he tasted me, his tongue moving with deliberate slowness.
His thick fingers pressed into me, filling me, stretching me, his thumb circling my clit.
I was lost in pleasure, my body tightening around his fingers.
“Cass,” I gasped, my voice breaking.
He moaned against me, the vibration sending shivers through my body. His mouth moved lower, his tongue brushing my entrance.
I moaned, my body arching off the bed as he devoured me, his fingers curling deep inside me. His mouth was relentless, his tongue moving in a rhythm that had me on the brink of insanity.
“Please,” I begged, my voice desperate.
His fingers sped up, his nose pressed against my clit, and my body shattered instantly, pleasure exploding through me like a wave, my cries echoing in the small apartment.
My body trembled as he lapped up my release, his mouth and fingers relentless, milking every last drop of pleasure from me.
He pulled away slowly, his mouth pressing hot kisses along the inside of my thighs as he lifted his head, his eyes dark filled with satisfaction.
“God,” he murmured, his voice thick with desire. “You’re beautiful.”
My body hummed with aftershocks as he kissed his way up to my mouth.
“That was—”
He cut me off with a kiss, his lips gentle and tender this time.
“We’re not done yet,” he whispered against my mouth, his hands sliding up my thighs.
I laughed, a soft, breathless sound, and pulled him closer, my hands sliding down his chest and my fingers tracing his muscles.
“Cassian,” I said, my heart full of something I didn’t want to name.
He silenced me with another kiss, his lips demanding, his hands gripping my thighs and pulling me closer.
My body was already aching for him, my mind clouded with desire as my hands slid lower, wrapping around his length.
His was larger than I could ever have imagined.
My heart raced at the thought of him inside me.
I had never been with someone so big.
He groaned, his eyes closing as my fingers traced the length of him, the tip of him leaking slightly.
I guided him to my entrance, my legs parting wider for him, welcoming him.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
I nodded, my eyes fixed on his.
“I need to hear you say it,” he breathed, his voice desperate.
“I am sure,” I said. “I want you, Cass.”
He eased into me. The stretch burned as he filled me completely, and I groaned as pain mixed with pleasure.
“God,” he groaned, his head falling forward. “You feel so good.”
I moaned as my body adjusted to his size, my pussy clenching around him. His gaze locked onto mine, his expression desperate and hungry.
But still, I could see the concern.
“I am okay,” I whispered.
Slowly, he began to move, his thrusts deep and controlled. Cassian’s hands gripped my hips, his fingers digging into my skin.
His thrusts grew deeper and faster.
The room was filled with the sounds of our breathing, our moans, and skin meeting skin.
“Faster,” I pleaded, my voice breaking.
He obeyed, his movements growing more urgent, more desperate.
The bed creaked beneath us, and the pleasure built again, faster this time, more intense.
“Cassian,” I gasped, my voice breaking.
“That’s it,” he growled, his thrusts growing harder and faster.
His lips crashed against mine, his tongue tangling with mine as he fucked me with a desperation that matched my own.
His hands moved to my thighs, my legs draped over his shoulders as he thrust into me.
“I’m close,” I moaned, my voice trembling.
His fingers dug into my hips, and my knees pulled against my chest as he groaned.
“Mine,” he growled, his voice rough and possessive. “You’re mine.”
Something broke as those words left his mouth.
The world narrowed to this moment.
And it snapped.
A burning light tore through my chest, and all that restraint shattered with it.
Need and desire flooded me, blurring into heat, pleasure, and something overwhelming.
It was like drowning in him.
Mine.
Cassian was mine.
He was my mate.
And the look in his eyes told me he already knew.
I cried out, my body shaking as I came around him. He followed, his hips flush against mine, my name forming on his lips as he spilled inside me.
For a moment, the world fell silent as we stared into each other’s eyes.
My legs slipped from his shoulders as he eased himself out of me, and the loss of him left me cold and empty.
His chest rose and fell, and I couldn’t tell if it was from what we had just done, or from the realisation.
That he was my mate.
I reached for the sheets, pulling them around me as I stared at him, unable to find the words.
My throat felt tight, my chest too full.
He seemed to understand the fear in my eyes.
“Please,” he said softly. “Let me explain.”
“You knew,” I whispered, my voice cracking.
His lips parted before he nodded.
“I did. But—”
“Get out,” I said, cutting him off.
The words barely sounded like mine.
Fear rushed through me, fear of what it meant that he was my mate.
A man who got beneath my skin.
A man who had lied to me.
A man far too good for me.
A man who hid the most important thing in my life.
“Please,” he begged, even as he stepped away from the bed, not bothering to cover himself.
“How long?” I asked, unable to meet his eyes.
He hesitated.
“From the moment we met,” he said quietly.
I shook my head. “Leave.”
“I don’t want to leave you like this,” he said, gesturing at the sheets, at the wreckage of us. “Not after what just happened.”
A sharp, cruel laugh tore from my throat as I tried to regain some control.
“What now?” I said coldly. “You want to stay and cuddle?”
Cassian flinched.
“That was our first time,” he said, his voice rough. “And yes, I didn’t tell you, but I care about you. I want to make sure you’re okay. I want to take care of you.”
“You’ve done enough,” I said, my voice rough as I fought back tears.
“Please,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
He stood there in my messy room, bare and vulnerable, his wings slumping slightly as he looked at me.
“I have nothing to say to you,” I said, my words trembling as tears burned behind my eyes.
“Then yell at me,” he pleaded. “Scream. Hate me. But don’t send me away.”
I should have told him to leave. I should have said that he was nothing, that he wasn’t my mate, that this was all a mistake.
Instead, a sob tore free, and I dropped my face into my hands.
“Cass,” I cried.
He approached slowly, as if I might break if he moved too fast.
He sat beside me on the tiny bed, barely large enough for us both. When I reached for him, he let me, pulling me into his chest as he leaned back against the headboard.
I cried against him, whispering my fury between sobs.
“How could you keep this from me?” I asked, even as my arms wrapped around his waist, clinging to to him warmth.
The bond sat heavy in my chest, like a stone.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured into my hair, holding me. “I was afraid you wouldn’t choose me, that fate had given you someone you didn’t want.”
Summary: She couldn’t sleep, not with the weight of what her brother had done to Eris haunting her. She made the one choice she thought might help: she went to Beron.
Warnings: angst, enemies to lovers, jealousy, slow burn, forbidden relationship, emotional tension, manipulation, power dynamics, slight language
Word count: 2,251
Part 15 | Masterlist | Part 17
I lay there, my magic thin and fraying, my body cold despite Eris’s heat. I shivered, staring up at the ceiling as his head rested on the pillow beside mine.
I reached again into his mind.
It was an invasion.
I knew that.
I told myself this was different.
That it was necessary.
Eris groaned in his sleep, rolling closer, his body instinctively seeking mine as my consciousness slipped deeper, threading through the healed yet raw mess of memories.
My magic pressed against fractured edges, searching for wounds that hadn’t healed, for damage that might still be spreading.
His memories opened beneath my touch.
Not gently.
They pulled me under.
I moved through fragments of his childhood, fear soaked deep into bone, terror learned too young.
Moments I knew he would never want seen.
I moved fast, shielding myself from faces, voices, and things that still echoed in his mind.
Then the falling slowed.
Before the moment we first met flashed before my eyes, and I was no longer myself.
I was seeing through his eyes.
Rhys stood half in front of me, broad and arrogant even then. I was smaller.
Younger.
My eyes wide with a fear I had long since learned to bury.
My father’s voice carried as he spoke to Beron and Eris, calm and cruel all at once.
My mother’s hand closed around my arm, pulling me away.
Even now, centuries later, my body tensed.
“You received my letter regarding, Y/N,” Beron said, my name spoken with something that almost resembled respect.
“No,” my father replied. “I have plans for her, and they don’t involve your heir.”
The words echoed, and suddenly I understood.
Our first night together, when Eris had told me I was his first choice, not Mor.
You were everything I wanted and everything I couldn’t have.
Your father had other plans for you, while mine… Morrigan was never my choice.
This was that moment.
Rhys scoffed beside my father, his hands clasped behind his back, that familiar, infuriating smirk already carved into his face.
Eris’s discomfort rippled through the memory, tight and sharp, twisting into something like humiliation, as his gaze flicked to Rhys.
“Well,” Beron said, as if trying to calm his fury, “she won’t be the heir of her own court. At least let her be with the heir of another court.”
My father sneered. “I won’t give my daughter, the spare of my court, to anyone. And I certainly won’t give her to your court.”
Anger flared in Eris’s chest, hot and violent, and the memory shattered.
Replaced by another.
Our first night together.
I saw myself as he had, wrapped in the dress I’d worn for Azriel, with wine stolen from my father’s cellar clutched too tightly in my hand.
I felt the hollow ache in his chest as he watched me stare at another man, hurt written across my face, before jealousy burned deep, and he tried to smother it as we argued on the balcony.
Then our first kiss flashed before my eyes.
Hot.
Desperate.
Meant to ruin.
I felt the nervousness beneath his skin, the fear threaded through his want, the way his body and magic burned as we stumbled down the hallway.
I felt him lose control, and the way he fought to regain it, pinning me to the walls as if touch alone could steady him.
His hands shook as he lowered me onto the bed.
His heart raced as we made love for the first time.
Then the fear, quiet and sharp, as I asked him to stay.
Then came the worst of it.
The aftermath.
I felt his heartbreak as I left the bed, leaving him naked and alone, chasing after another man.
The helplessness followed, heavy and crushing, as something inside him cracked while he watched me go.
The memory lurched forward again.
I was still looking through his eyes when the mating bond snapped inside his chest, sudden and violent.
Then fire, fear, retreat, and loss flooded through him as the Night Court vanished behind a wall of flame.
I came back to reality with a breathless gasp, staring at the ceiling again. The fire in the hearth burned low, and shadows stretched long across the room.
A hollow nothingness pressed down on me, heavy and familiar.
My breathing came too fast.
I knew I had helped him.
I knew it had been necessary.
Still, guilt lingered.
Rhys’s magic clung to the edges of Eris’s mind, faint traces of shadow curling where they did not belong.
I could feel it beneath my skin.
Beside me, Eris shifted, a pained sound catching in his throat before his breathing eased.
I watched him, his sharp features softened by sleep, his lips parting as he drew a shaky breath. His hand found my hip, fingers curling as he pulled me closer, as if even half-asleep, the distance between us were unbearable.
I brushed a stray lock of hair from his face, my fingers lingering on his jaw.
Mine.
The mating bond bloomed deep within me as I pressed a kiss to his chest.
The scars across his skin told a story I knew too well: Beron’s cruelty and the cost of survival in a court built on fire and blood.
Gently, I slipped from Eris’s grasp, the cold floor biting into my bare feet as I pulled on a robe and crossed into his office.
The letters lay exactly where I’d left them.
I sat and read until I could hear my brother’s voice in every word.
Shadows coiled around my wrists, tight and restless.
My hands shook as I gathered the letters, betrayal burning fresh and raw as I left his office.
I glanced back once, to where Eris lay at the centre of the bed, vulnerable, but alive.
My mate.
The man who loved me.
The man I loved.
Then I opened the door.
The hallway was dim, lit only by low-burning faelights.
Adair leaned against the wall, one shoulder braced beneath a painting that looked older than the Forest House itself, arms folded. Aspen stood a few paces away, caught mid-stride, as if he’d been pacing before I appeared. His eyes snapped to mine.
“What happened?” Aspen asked. His voice was low, filled with worry.
Adair straightened, his gaze sliding past me toward the bedroom just as the door closed behind me.
“I need to see Beron,” I said, my voice was raw.
“No,” Adair replied immediately. His stance hardened, his arms crossing fully over his chest.
“Yes,” I said, turning to Aspen.
Aspen shook his head. “No.”
“You will not speak to him alone,” Adair said flatly. “Eris would never—”
“Eris is asleep,” I cut in, pulling my robe tighter around me. “And I need to speak to Beron about what we’re going to do about my brother.”
Aspen exhaled slowly, running a hand through his hair.
“You can speak to him tomorrow,” he said. “With Eris.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I need to speak to him without Eris.”
Adair’s eyes sharpened.
“Beron still thinks of you as an extension of your brother,” he said. “And his son, his heir, just had his mind shattered.”
The words settled heavily between us.
“I know,” I said quietly. “That's why I need to speak to him now.”
Aspen studied me, his eyes flicking over my bare feet, the way the robe slipped from my shoulder, and the way my shadows curled tightly around my wrists.
“You’re not asking,” he said.
“No,” I replied. “I’m not.”
Adair’s jaw tightened.
For a long moment, neither of them moved.
“We can’t intervene with Beron,” Adair said finally. “If he hurts you, Eris—”
He stopped himself.
“I know,” I said.
Aspen glanced once toward Eris’s door, then back to me.
“He’ll never forgive us if something happens to you.”
“You don’t even know me,” I said softly.
Adair shook his head, already opening his mouth to argue.
“You’re Eris’s mate,” he said, his voice low. “That makes you ours to protect. And we can’t do that with you locked away in Beron’s office.”
I opened my mouth to respond, but I felt it then.
The air grew hot. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Aspen and Adair straightened at once, falling into place as if silently commanded.
At the far end of the hall, shadows scattered.
Beron emerged from the darkness, his gaze fixed on me.
I stepped forward, my bare feet silent on the cold wood. I could feel Aspen’s and Adair’s eyes on my back as I met Beron halfway down the corridor.
“Is he alive?” Beron asked.
His voice was low, edged with disdain, but beneath it, I heard the strain of something carefully restrained.
“He’ll be okay,” I said.
Beron’s gaze swept over me once, sharp and measuring, lingering on my bare feet and the shadows clinging too close to my skin.
Then he nodded.
“We need to discuss your brother and his court,” he said.
I inclined my head. Without another word, we turned and walked.
The Forest House was nearly silent. Our footsteps echoed softly on stone, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the halls. Somewhere deep within the house, a grandfather clock chimed, slow and steady.
Beron turned down a narrower corridor where the light thinned, and shadows pooled along the floor.
The air felt heavier here, as if the house itself was listening.
“Darkness is drawn to you,” Beron said at last, his eyes fixed ahead.
My gaze flicked to the sconces mounted high along the walls, their flames leaning towards him.
“And fire is drawn to you,” I replied.
A faint scoff escaped him.
We stopped at the end of the hall.
Beron turned to face me, golden fire burning deep in his eyes, endless and consuming. The same fire Eris carried, but hardened, twisted into something crueller.
He opened the door.
It was Beron’s office.
Shelves lined the walls, heavy with books and artifacts older than the court itself. Firelight skimmed over dark wood and polished stone, casting shadows that shaped the walls.
Smoke and old magic clung to the air.
My heart raced as I stepped inside.
The door closed behind him with a click.
Beron did not sit.
Neither did I.
“I am going to announce that the Night Court is an enemy of this court,” Beron said calmly. “Anyone found on my lands from the Night Court will be killed.”
The words settled between us.
“You will remain here,” he continued, “with my son. You will be given protection, resources, and a place in my court. You will be presented publicly as his mate.”
My shadows stirred, restless.
“And in return?” I asked.
Beron’s mouth curved, not quite a smile.
“In return,” he said, “you will denounce the Night Court. You will stand beside my heir when I do so. You will make it clear where your allegiance lies.”
I held his gaze.
“You want a symbol,” I said quietly.
“I want leverage,” Beron corrected. “Your brother shattered my heir’s mind. Blood would be simpler, but this will hurt him far more.”
My stomach twisted.
“And if I refuse?”
Fire flared at his fingertips, violent, barely contained.
“Then we will see what becomes of Eris when his mate dies,” Beron said. “And whether grief finishes what your brother started.”
The room seemed to grow hotter.
“You’ll kill me,” I said.
Beron stepped closer. Heat rolled off him, thick and suffocating.
“I will,” he said softly, as if confessing a secret. “And I’ll make it quick. I’m not cruel without reason.”
My shadows curled tightly around my wrists.
“And if Eris loses his mind?” I asked. “If you lose your heir?”
Beron smiled.
“I have seven sons,” he reminded. “Plenty of heirs.”
Silence fell.
Only the sound of the fireplace cracking filled the air.
He leaned in, fingers lifting the fabric of my robe, tugging it tighter, as if testing how much I would be willing to endure.
My hands began to shake, my breath hitching.
“You grew into a very pretty fae,” he murmured.
My stomach dropped.
“I understand why my son wanted you,” Beron continued, his gaze cataloging every reaction. “Why he risked everything. Why he brought you here.”
He brushed my hair from my face.
My shadows flared between us, agitated and violent.
“If I were him,” Beron said, “I would have done the same.”
I wanted to pull away.
Wanted to tear him apart where he stood.
His fingers slid beneath my chin, lifting my face and forcing my eyes to his.
“You care for him more than you realise,” he whispered. “More than you’ll ever admit to me or to yourself.”
He tilted my head from side to side, inspecting me, while I bit back the venom burning on my tongue.
“That,” he said, releasing me, “is why you’re going to stay. You will publicly denounce the Night Court. You will stand beside my heir. You will make your allegiance unmistakably clear.”
He paused.
“And you will give him heirs.”
My vision blurred.
Eris flashed in my mind, asleep, vulnerable, breathing.
But alive.
Safe.
I swallowed hard, but I nodded.
Beron studied me for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
A predator’s smile.
He leaned in, close enough that I could smell whisky on his breath.
“Good girl,” he murmured. “Your father would be proud.”
