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Feysand | Ao3 | One-Shot (for now)

After the second trial, the mating bond unexpectedly snaps for Rhys in the dungeons.

Happy Leo Season to my bestie @popjunkie42! I'm so glad we decided to be literally insane this spring and ask the question "What if we literally did something Feysand for every day of the first half of August like lunatics?" I love you, and I can't wait for our next trip to stare longingly into each other's eyes while sharing avocado toast again <3

I listened to him, let him keep me tethered to sanity as I was escorted back to my cell by the guards—who still kept their distance. Rhysand’s words echoed through my mind, holding me together. But when my cell door closed, he went silent, and I dropped to the floor and wept.

I’d cried for hours, nothing but the feel of the cold stone settling beneath my body to ground me, and even that did almost nothing anymore. The tears didn’t stop, not when my face was raw, my teeth chattering, my legs numb. They came in steady streams, cutting hot lines down my face and tracking into the hollow of my throat. I didn’t bother to wipe them away.

What did it matter? What did any of this matter?

My life was forfeit anyway. Amarantha had no idea how close she’d come to winning tonight—she had won. Tamlin had watched, eyes wide open and body unmoving, as Lucien and I were almost killed. Whatever part of me had thought that he just needed motivation—that certainly , if he worried enough for my life, he would come around—was dead in my chest.

I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised. Had anyone ever loved me? Put me first? If I’d been the one captured here, would anyone have ever come?

The cries strangled in my throat, a garbled sound coming out unbidden at the thought.

Pathetic.

Still, I sunk my face into my hands, letting the grief consume me. I’d come here for him, and I’d die here for it. He couldn’t even be bothered to speak my name. The reasons I’d had for coming here seemed to evaporate, each straying just out of reach as I tried to grasp and hold them close. I thought I’d loved him. I laughed at myself harshly—it sounded threadbare. I didn’t know what love was. I wouldn’t have recognized love if it had taken my hand in its own.

I felt the moment the air changed, Rhysand’s presence so obvious to me even in the smothering dark. I didn’t want to run from it. I wanted to lean into the void—see how far and deep it went. See if it might swallow me whole and save us all the trouble.

“Go away.” I still muttered the words, but there was nothing behind them. They emerged flat and lifeless, falling onto the floor between us. I didn’t look at him.

“Now, now,” came his smug and chiding response, though I thought I sensed the slightest hesitation in his words. Perhaps it was my loss of common sense. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“You’ve just won your second task, Feyre. There’s no need for tears.”

I scoffed, but the sound felt hollow. Everything felt hollow. I didn’t want to spar with him, didn’t have the energy to send scathing comments his way. What better position was he than I? Sleeping in that monster’s bed each night. For the first time since I saw him in the Spring manor, it wasn’t hate I felt for him, but a splash of appalling pity. Surely, I’d hit rock bottom if I was commiserating with the pampered High Lord of Night.

In another life, I might have been disgusted. But in this one, I was just tired. I simply lay my temple to my knee and closed my eyes, the hot tears spilling down my leg. When he gripped my wrists, I didn’t fight him, didn’t even pull back. And when I felt his breath fan across my face, I let it happen, inhaling slowly. He smelled…warm. It was strange and lovely, jasmine and wine and something that smelled like the days when the winds would rip across the woods of my village.

It took me a moment to realize that he’d licked a tear from my face, a stripe of wet heat across my skin in the frigid cell. I pulled back, not quickly, and looked at him waiting with a smirk playing on his lips. But then, while my gaze settled into his, a piece fitting into a slot, it was as though he’d been punched. Twilight eyes wide and horrified, Rhysand’s hand gripped his chest. It was enough to make me straighten my spine.

“Rhysand…”

But then I felt it, something strange crawling up my chest, up my throat. The emotion choked me, horror and fear and confusion and…adoration? The feelings were strong, so violent that they whirled around inside me and took pieces of me with them. It rushed through my ribs, down my spine, clearing out parts of me and setting them down somewhere else. When my eyes met his, I somehow understood that the feelings weren’t my own. My exhale was sharp, and Rhysand looked stunned enough that the breath might have blown him over. He was still so close to me, the warmth of his body physical against my prickled skin.

He looked wild, feral, his breath heaving as he scanned every inch of my face. Then, my chest caved inward. The air gasped into me, sawing back out as the pressure on my chest intensified to blinding levels. Had he been sent to kill me? Was this how it ended?

“What is—what’s happening?” But I didn’t get a response. “Are you here to kill me?” Even through the panic, I was struck by how tired my voice sounded. His brows furrowed, his movements twitchy and strange against the elegance he normally held. The twinkling darkness exploded around us as though he couldn’t control it anymore, and a strangled sound ripped out of Rhysand in the dark before it embraced us both, pulling and tugging and ripping the very fabric of me until the air changed around us.

My eyes opened, and I was no longer on the ground. Instead, I could feel fabric brushing against my skin, a murmur of lips against my hair as I came back into myself. It took me a moment to adjust, the low light of scattered sconces bathing this new room in a soft glow. A fire in the hearth. The smell of food in the air. The scratch of embroidery against my cold and dirty skin. Rhysand’s warm arms banded around me. Searing. Good.

Instinct told me to scramble away, that I shouldn’t be so close, but something in me felt so brutally settled, so intimately soothed, in his arms. The pain in my chest had dulled to a steady but quiet thrum, the feelings swirling in my mind back to being my own. I felt a curious sense of loss. Had he lost control of his magic? Had the bargain somehow pushed us together when he’d gotten close?

It didn’t matter, none of it did.

It felt good to be held.

“Feyre.” My name was a whisper on his tongue speared directly into my veins. I’d never felt such startling clarity in a moment, such a strangely vivid feeling of being outside myself looking in. “Feyre,” he whispered again—a hymnal, a prayer. It was such a departure from our normal nature, but it didn’t feel wrong at all.

“What happened?”

He didn’t answer, his arms pulling tighter, my body easing into his. What did it mean that I didn’t want him to let me go? I hated him. I—

It was the first time I’d felt good in as long as I could remember. Oddly, the first time I’d felt safe. The notion was ridiculous.

Suddenly, we were moving, his body cradling mine as he stood, long, graceful legs carrying us across the room. A door opened, candles flickered to life, and the sound of water filled my ears. I wanted to ask why he was filling a bath for me—if he planned to drown me. If he wanted me dead, he could do it within my mind, save himself the wetted sleeves.

At the thought, he seemed to hold me tighter to him, arms strangling like vines around me—like he couldn’t pull me tightly enough. If he was going to end my life, at least I would know this comfort at the end. I thought, in all my days of hunting, I’d never seen a predator soothe their prey before consuming it whole.

I could feel his lungs expanding beneath my cheek, chest pressed tight to my face. Could hear the pounding of his heart. I tried to sync my beats to his, focus on the warmth of him, the foreign but strangely settled feeling of being cared for. It was wrong, but I wanted the comfort of it. I craved it on some level that felt beyond consciousness, beyond sense. My muscles were coiled tight, something bordering painful still twisted around the bones of me, but it seemed to vibrate with every synced breath the two of us took.

He set me down gently, and my body screamed in protest at the distance. He reacted like he’d heard it, fingers lingering long past what was appropriate, holding on to touch an elbow, a shoulder, as though he couldn’t bear to let entirely go. What had happened to us? This was not my enemy, and somehow, that was more concerning than anything else.

When I lifted my gaze to look upon the male I’d have sworn just hours ago I hated, my breath caught along my throat in a jagged line, tearing out of me like I’d never seen him before. His hair was wild, an onyx halo around him, tufted up in places. Those eyes of indigo were wild, wide, open and without an inkling of the smugness I’d come to expect. In fact, every bit of him looked so honest and broken open, I almost swore I could see inside .

There was a tug to him, a need to keep him close that I’d never felt before. Not with him, not with Isaac, not with Tamlin. Not with anyone. I felt as though I might scream if he wasn’t close, like if he left my sight for even a moment, the mountain might come crumbling around us.

“The bath. It’s for you.” His words were stunted, stuttered. For the first time since I’d met him, the High Lord seemed unsure. But I couldn’t think over the swell of emotions inside of me. I yearned to feel clean—the hot water and steam and oils so inviting I could nearly cry with the feeling. But the want to be close to him, to stay with him, seemed to override all else. He stepped back, and a whine crawled up my throat. The sound had hardly hit air, but Rhysand had frozen stock still in the doorway, his fae ears probably hearing it like a scream.

“Don’t go.” The words were out before I could stop them. I vacantly thought I might hate myself for it, but I needed him to stay. He had to stay.

He hesitated, eyes squeezed shut, pausing for just the smallest moment before turning back as though some quiet decision had been made. He took a step back towards me, fists clenching and unclenching again, skin white over the knuckles. He spun on his heel to face the door, his fingers tugging wildly through strands of inky black hair then settling in a death grip on the door frame. I could feel him coming undone, and it comforted me, oddly enough.

“Undress, and get in.” It was a plea, spoken softly through gritted teeth. I moved, shuffling out of the rags on my body and letting them fall to the floor. I was embarrassed by the pile of them at my feet, nothing but horrid strands of cloth telling the story of what I’d seen since I arrived. I’m sure I didn’t look much better. There was a mirror back over the sink, but to see it, I’d have to walk past him. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see myself that badly anyway.

Rhys was so still it felt otherworldly, unnatural. My eyes rested on his back while I leaned down to graze my fingers across the surface of the water, so warm that my skin pebbled in reactivity. I could feel the tightness of his chest, the tense hold of his shoulders. I knew without any explanation how hard he was holding back from looking. He wanted to see me, and I knew it with such a clarity that it felt like a thought of my own.

Who was the last to see me so bared? Tamlin? Something about the thought of him felt twisted, wrong. I had given Tamlin everything, and in return, he’d given me silence. Tamlin had no place here in this room, humid with steam and notes of tea like my father once brought back from the continent, heavy and spiced.

When my legs hit the water, I shuddered, the heat enveloping me. I wanted to wash the sweat and fear and crumbling stone from the dungeons off my skin. I wanted to scrub away the failure, the shortcomings, the humanity of me, until I felt nothing but the ache of raw skin. I sunk in until the lapping surface covered my chest, smoothing hands up and down my arms.

Still, Rhysand waited, preternaturally still, his back to me. I felt suddenly, achingly alone.

“You can turn around.” The words were a whispered permission, a quiet acquiesce. I wasn’t sure where this sudden change of heart had come from, perhaps the idea that we were both idiots caught in a trap here. Neither of us wanted to be here. At least he might survive.

I closed my eyes, laying my head back as my body floated beneath the bubbles. He was close to me, though he moved without sound. His presence was all-encompassing, consuming, that strange sparkling night of him comforting rather than frightening as it pulsed beside me, within me.

He didn’t speak. There were no quiet remarks, sharp on his tongue—no prodding or poking to rile me up enough to respond. He simply sat by the tub, our thoughts loud and our bodies closer than ever. There was no fae wine to dull the sensations, to pull a curtain across these memories tomorrow. There was just him beside me, close enough to feel his breath.

When he moved, I felt it, the darkness ebbing and thrumming around us, and I cracked open my eyes. He offered out a muslin cloth to me over the water, no tricks on his face, no challenge offered. His fingers were inches from my skin, jaw tight, and eyes fixed so steadfastly on my face that I wondered if he thought he might turn to stone if his gaze strayed. But I wanted it to stray. Some part of me, some loud part, wanted him to see me. Wanted him to want me. I could feel that he did.

So, instead, I held his gaze in mine, turning my head slowly to the side and exposing my neck. It was quiet, more submission than I’d ever showed to him, perhaps to anyone, and the effect was immediate. His sharp intake of breath exploded in my own chest, the world collapsing in his eyes. Then, almost painfully slowly, he dipped the cloth beneath the water and drew it up softly to press against my neck.

His eyes focused on my skin and my eyes focused on him as he moved it softly, purposefully over me. He worked in silence, and I watched, the movements unhurried and reverential, steady and quiet, only our breathing and some unearthly tension coiled tighter than a spring between us. For once, I wasn’t focused on survival. For once, I remembered what it felt like to just exist.

It was so strange to be cared for, the gentleness and comfort such a contrast not only against the life I’d been living, but from what I’d come to expect from him, too. He washed every exposed part of me, methodically dipping the cloth into the water in between. Only when he finished did his eyes meet mine again.

When I was out in the woods, hunting for food for my family, I would sometimes come home late just to see the night sky. Especially in winter, the sharpness of the stars stole my breath away. I could never explain it, the call that I felt when it was just me and the constellations and the wide open sky. But I felt it now.

Those galaxies in his eyes were blown open as Rhysand reached beneath the water and stayed there, his movements agonizingly slow as he brushed the cloth over my skin. I didn’t flinch, just gave him a nearly imperceptible nod when he hesitated. And then, I closed my eyes.

The feeling that exploded across my ribs was something like humility, something like awe. There was no doubt in my mind that I was feeling him, either through the bargain or through some other means. And when I heard his voice, not in my ears but in my mind, whisper Feyre like a devotion, I thought nothing had ever sounded so beautiful.

There was nothing sexual about his touch, though it moved gently over my breasts, cleaned across my stomach and between my legs. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt so close to anyone. The feelings carried as he washed me in silence, the intimacy of it so overwhelming that I wasn’t sure when I’d begun to cry again. I noticed when he wiped a tear, with the tip of his finger this time, from the peak of my nose. Could he feel me too? Was there any way for him to know that, against all odds, these tears were the result of feeling safe? Of feeling true comfort?

It was over too soon, his throat clearing as my head lolled against the porcelain edge of the tub.

“There are towels. Come out when you’re ready, and I’ll be there.” It was a voice I didn’t recognize on him, soft and low, quiet and lacking the unrelenting snark I’d grown accustomed to. It was both unfamiliar and, at the same time, a voice I felt I’d known all of my life. What had happened between us tonight? What had changed?

The door clicked quietly closed behind him, his footfalls silent as he moved away and a strong ache resounding in my chest as he did. I dipped my hair beneath the water, running my fingers through the knots patiently, though the water was cooling. I stepped out, my body already searching for the presence of his. The towels were soft, lush against my skin as I took my time, the gift of being clean one I’d never take for granted.

I wrapped the towel around me, no replacement clothes as mine still lay in dirty tatters on the floor. Instead, I crept from the bathroom, finding Rhysand sitting with his head in his hands on the side of the bed. It was as though he hadn’t heard me, didn’t notice me there, and for a moment, he looked more human than fae. His shoulders were hunched, curved inwards in a way I’d never seen. For his enormous stature, he looked…almost small. And a part of me ached so desperately to comfort him that I stepped forward.

His spine straightened as the floor creaked, eyes on me like an animal caught in a trap, then flashing to the towel. They were rimmed in red, and if I didn’t know better, I might have thought he’d been crying.

“There’s food. I brought food.” He gestured to the table where a bowl of stew sat. I hadn’t had anything warm in….how long had it even been? I wondered vacantly back to when I’d thought eating the food given to me by a fae would trap me forever. It hadn’t been true, and I was already trapped. Still, a very quiet voice in the back of my consciousness wondered if there was a reason accepting food from Rhysand felt different…right. I moved toward the table, only feet away from him as he ran a hand through wild hair. He grabbed at the pile of clothes folded beside him as though just remembering they existed. This was not the male I knew.

“And new clothes for you. What I had and could find.” He held them out and I took them, new pants and underthings and a linen shirt that smelled like him.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked, and he turned away, scrubbing a hand over his mouth but not answering as I let the towel drop to put on the clothes. They were painfully soft, so gentle against my skin that I nearly cried. The smell of him was so heavy that my eyelids fluttered while I inhaled greedily, sliding into the seat and taking in the bowl and fresh bread in front of me. The first bite was like pure pleasure, the hearty broth warming yet another place inside me that hadn’t seen the sun in months. I relished it as it slid down my throat.

He hadn’t spoken, still stood with his back turned, so I tried a different way.

“Why do I want you so close to me?” Even though my words were quiet, I could tell they’d hit, his back stiffening as he turned. His face worked, jaw tensing and brow furrowed. He looked as though he wanted to say something, words ready and pressed just behind his lips, fighting and failing to break free. Instead, he crossed the space in two strides, pulling the opposite chair to sit in front of me, our knees nearly touching.

“Things will be different now.” As if I hadn’t known that. As if I could ever go back after tonight, after whatever I could feel pulsing between us.

“Tell me why.” It was a demand, but his shoulders dropped.

“I can’t,” he responded. Oddly, I believed him, detecting no lies in his words. I ate another spoonful, then another, my eyes on him. His gaze tracked the movement of my throat as I swallowed.

“You’re different,” I observed aloud after a moment, though the silence between us was not uncomfortable.

There was a whisper of a smirk on his lips, plush and perfect despite the anguish written into the lines of the rest of his face. With a small shrug of a single shoulder, he let those twilight eyes meet mine again.

“Everything’s changed.” There was an apology in his eyes, something broken there, fractured. I felt it, too, rattling in my chest like something had clattered loose and was falling, falling, falling. Unable to be put back in place ever again. But he was right, and I could feel it: Everything was changed.

“Rhysand…” I whispered, a question, but something else, too. Something like an understanding.

“Please call me Rhys,” he responded, that quiet voice fluttering through me lightly like the wings of a moth, soft and gentle and so unlike him. And yet…so undeniably Rhysand.

Rhys.

I finished my soup in silence, then after a few moments, he stood slowly, like he was holding the weight of the entire mountain upon his back.

“I have to bring you back.” I’d never heard a voice filled with such regret, such sorrow. I just nodded, standing and holding my hand out for his. I wanted him to take it, wanted to feel his calloused fingers against mine. The magical air between us felt as flimsy as a cloud, like any sudden movement would break it, and it would be like tonight had never happened at all. But when he took my hand, it was steady, strong. I could feel his heartbeat in his fingers, matching pace with mine. It was an olive branch, a promise, something that neither of us really had the words to explain. But it whispered that tonight had happened, it had been real.

I expected the winnow straight away, but was surprised when he pulled me to his chest again instead. The weight of him was grounding, the warmth and smell and sturdiness of his chest against me and his arms on my back so poignant that it stole the breath from my lungs. The feelings swimming in my chest told me that it wasn’t just me, and when my arms closed behind his back, his body slumped in relief against mine. It felt natural—it felt like home.

“I am so, so sorry, Feyre.” The words landed like blows, one after the other, as his head rested on mine. I didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to. “But I promise you, I will do everything I can to get you out of here alive.” I felt the press of his lips against my temple, and for just a moment, I imagined them pressed to my mouth.

No one had promised me help. No one had dared to hope for it, let alone speak it. It was a support, a hand in the dark. It was something like trust.

Before I could respond, we were tumbling through that familiar and comforting dark, the rush of a roaring river and the salty wind of the sea barreling around us before the stagnant, humid cold of the dungeons surrounded us once more. Tears were already prickling my eyes when I stepped back and turned away. I didn’t want to shatter the magic, didn’t want him to see.

I didn’t have to worry. The second I stepped back, he was gone. The emptiness of my cell was exactly how I remembered, cold and dark and fathomless. Full of nothing but my own suffocating sense of loss. Except, now, there was a spark. Something quiet and softly blooming in my chest that hadn’t been there before. Something like hope.

I stepped back to find my pallet, easing myself down and almost jumping in shock to find a fully stuffed mattress beneath my hands. I looked down and saw only straw. Still, I knew what I felt, my hand passing oddly through the material. I felt blindly around what my eyes told me was coarse hay, only to feel plush down and blankets that I couldn’t see. In looking down, I noticed my clothes too, back to the rags I was so familiar with, riddled with holes and grime and blood and tears. But on my skin, they were still the soft muslin of Rhys’s shirt. I could still smell the spice and the sea.

I laid down on the bed, pulling the invisible blanket, soft as a lamb, over my shoulder and closing my eyes. I nearly jumped when I heard his voice in my mind.

Sleep, Feyre. The guards won’t be bothering you anymore.

My heart thudded with the presence of him, the urge to thank him writhing inside me. I wonder if he could hear me, too.

The pulse of the bargain was bright and strong inside my chest, stirring and swirling with the beats of my heart, echoing strangely as though another pulse joined them, too.

Rhys…

I thought the name, and the light inside me flared.

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