Dark Dreams and Star Light Part 3 - Nessian
So, as promised here it is!
Links : Feysand (Part 1) and Elriel (Part 2)
PLEASE NOTE: This is an NSFW fic with trigger warnings!
I really hope you enjoy it!
The blood under his nails had hardened, turned a deep rust red as it cooled, only for a fresh layer to splash atop it, over his hands, his arms.
He shut down that part of himself that cared and felt and lived and breathed, and let the creature locked inside him take its place on the battlefield. The Illyrian Commander whose name struck fear into hearts up and down Prythian and over the sea to Hybern and the Continent. The male who none would dare call ‘a lesser fae bastard born nobody’, when he stepped into a fight and drew the blade strapped down his spine.
This was what he became when he had to fight. When he needed to protect.
The darkness he kept locked in that swirling void in his chest exploded out of its cage the second his blade had taken the first life. This was the side of himself that no one else ever saw … no one who lived to tell about it, anyway.
He lost sense of self and time alike as he fought, the cuts and scrapes he gained along the way stinging for the span of a single breath before they were lost to the haze of war. His muscles began to ache, and cramp, but he had fought for days without slowing before - this was what he was good at; the one thing that he was best at. So Cassian sucked in deep, plunging breaths, willing strength to his arms, his legs, his core, his wings, letting the air flood his senses.
A beast snarled at him, racing for him. His soldiers dived out of the way, scrambling to avoid the havoc the creature wrought upon their lines. Cassian barely spared a glance towards it, the magic in the blood-red stone on the back of his hand glowing, burning, begging to be released. His lungs heaved in another breath, a whip of red snapping from him as he roared at the creature, the war, the world, and threw himself into the air.
The body of the beast lay in two halves on the battlefield floor as he soared into the skies, its blood watering the meadow it lay upon, the grass long since churned to mud as the battle raged on.
The enemy fae who could fly spotted him in seconds and gave chase, desperate to be the ones to fell the mighty Night Court Commander. Too desperate. Cassian smirked at them, that ceaseless fire within him burning hotter … hotter … hotter as he slowed to allow them closer. Allowed them to encircle him. Allowed their swords to come within a hair's breadth. Allowed himself to take in every detail of the thirty-four faces around him, before he let whatever he had left of the killing power erupt from him in a perfect ring.
Thirty-four heads thudded to the battle floor, followed by thirty-four winged bodies.
His siphons were guttered, dull, utterly empty, but he still had his swords, his smaller blades, his hands … it was enough. Cassian swept down towards the battle once more, aiming for a female decimating those of his soldiers who got too close, readying his sword and a dagger to remove her head and fracture her heart in two. But, a wingspan away, he faltered.
The scream made him falter. Her voice was barely a memory, but the sound of his name on her tongue was something he would never be able to forget.
Cassian’s wings strained as he banked sharply, hovering as he scanned the field spread out before him. A flash of red hair and he was flying before her scream could sound again. Her plea for help. His help.
He soared over the dead, the dying, the living, the barely surviving, until he caught a glimpse of red hair again, of the hazel eyes that matched his own, the slim body covered in small scars from her years of abuse, the sharp, beautiful features of her face twisted into a fear he had only seen once from her before. The day they had been separated.
“Mother!” he bellowed, a hand reaching out to grab her, to pull her up and away from the death and the pain and the terror on the ground.
“Cassian!” she cried, rare tears streaming down her cheeks.
He reached her just as a soldier did. Cassian snarled, the sound ripping from his throat, fury rippling off him in waves as the soldier slid a centimetre too close and lost his arm, and then his head. Cassian wrapped an arm around his mother’s waist, her clipped wings powerless to help her escape. He could barely breathe as he pushed up into the air, wings beating hard to tug the pair of them away from the world of death surrounding them. Usually, carrying two was a barely noticeable burden, but he had been fighting for three days now, without rest, without food, without water, and his body was screaming for him to stop.
They only just made it up to the low, grey clouds scudding across the sky in dirty streaks when a winged beast smashed into his left side. Its talons sunk deep into his skin, shredding down through flesh and muscle, sundering skin from bone as it dragged its claws down his leg from thigh to ankle.
Cassian screamed, his body shuddering, his mother screaming with him, in fury and pain, as she thumbed a dagger free from a sheath around his forearm and buried it between the creature's eyes.
Cassian fought to keep them in the air, aiming for an outcrop of rock in a mountainside, blood from his wounded leg raining down on the battle below. His mother was saying something, her hands cupping his cheeks, tears again falling from those hazel eyes, but he couldn’t hear past the roar of his blood in his ears and the clash of swords below.
A group of five soldiers rose up from the ground, in arrow formation, trained and deadly, ready to take his life … and hers.
It was the thought of losing her that had him tightening his grip on his sword, the leather wrap on its hilt warm and familiar beneath his fingers. The first warrior was dead in a heartbeat, the males blood spraying across Cassian’s face and into his mouth. The second attacked in tandem with a third, his mother fighting as best she could, trying desperately to lash out with those flightless wings, trying to knock them back when he couldn’t reach them in time.
Another died by his hand, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop the male’s dagger from tearing through the delicate membrane of his mother’s wing. She screamed, and something in his chest cracked so violently he forgot how to breathe.
Distracted by stemming the blood streaming from his mothers wing, he didn't sense the attack coming from behind. Her eyes widened in warning, but neither moved fast enough to stop the dagger that went through the shoulder of the arm holding her. He fought to keep his tight grip on her waist … until his attacker twisted the blade, pushing harder.
Turning and turning the blade until bones cracked, until his arm went numb. Until she fell.
She didn’t scream. But he did.
He bellowed her name, tugging hard on whatever strength his body had left to offer. The three remaining soldiers died. Too slowly. She was still falling.
One arm limp at his side, the other reaching out for her as he tucked his wings in tight to gain speed. She was so close to the floor now, useless wings fluttering as her momentum dragged her down … down … down.
Cassian could barely see through the tears, barely breathe past the tight knot in his throat. He couldn’t lose her - not again. He needed her. Grown or not, he needed her. He wouldn’t lose her.
He was still too far away, too far to do anything but watch.
Watch as she smiled at him, as she said a final goodbye he couldn’t hear. Three small words on her lips as she fell.
As her body shattered on impact.
As Cassian stopped breathing altogether.
And then he was gasping for air, a scream still shuddering around the corners of the room, still tangled in the shadows around him. For a second, he couldn’t remember this place, couldn’t remember the shape the walls made as they boxed him in, the colour of the curtains, the sight of his hands without the blood of thousands coating them.
But then he turned, soft cotton sheets twisting around his legs, and there she was, waiting. Not too far, not coming any closer. Watching him with those blue-grey eyes so like his High Lady’s, and yet so unlike her as well. There was no pity, no softness in that gaze for his trembling.
This was a female who wouldn’t yield a single inch unless she chose to do so. A female who had seen and suffered some of the worst life had to offer, and survived through it as best she could, all with that fire still burning in those eyes. The fire that had never dimmed. Not once in the years he had known her, had that rage-filled passion ever shown signs of faltering.
His breathing was hard and uneven, stumbling over each inhale, shivering with each exhale, as he stared back at her. And there must have been something in his expression, in the raw panic of his gaze, in the coiled tension of every muscle, because Nesta shifted an inch or two closer. Not invading his space. Not pushing too hard. She opened her arms to him, and Cassian crumbled.
Never with anyone else would he allow himself this vulnerability. But with her? With the female who had wrecked his soul and then slowly, carefully, pieced it back together again? Yes. With her, he was safe.
She didn’t ask him to talk about it. Didn’t nag at him to let her in on every little detail that had sent him screaming awake, as she let him settle against her, strong, willowy arms wrapping him tight into her embrace, her cheek resting on the crown of his head. She didn’t sway as his considerable weight leaned against her, a pillar of steel amidst his rage and his sorrow, unmoving and unbreakable.
Nesta had seen him wake from nightmares before. He had them often, as did she. Memories they both still tried to live through, moments in time they both still needed to fight back against. But tonight was worse. And he didn’t need to tell her that. She knew. As he did when she couldn’t bring herself to speak aloud what her mind had forced her to face.
When the shuddering finally subsided, when his breathing evened out and some of the strength returned to his body, Cassian reluctantly pulled back slightly. Nesta didn’t let him get far.
She pressed her lips to his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, biting his rounded ears, his neck, as she worked her way down and swallowed him whole. Cassian groaned, tumbling back onto the pillows as she slowly, steadily, wiped away the stain of the nightmare, as she tugged away the tight grip fear still had on his throat, banishing the unshed tears from his eyes. Cassian couldn’t resist twisting his fingers through the strands of gold and brown in her hair, gleaming in the moonlight as she pleasured him, as she took him down her throat, her tongue sweeping over his length.
She wasn’t gentle, but he didn’t want her to be. He wouldn’t have been able to stand softness right then - and she knew it.She worked him harder and faster. Cassian trembled as the pleasure built, his eyes never once leaving hers as she took him down her throat again. Nesta’s gaze burned a brand into him, a mark of her left on his mind and soul that he curled around as she watched the pleasure on his face.
A smirk played at the edges of her eyes as he spilled himself in her mouth with a growling moan, and she sat up, watching as he came down from the high, as he stared at her with such awe in his eyes.
He shoved himself up to sit with his legs on either side of her, her bare skin soft and marred by only a few scars. But every time he saw those scars, an anger welled up inside him that he could hardly control, a fierce need to protect - to destroy those who had inflicted such harm upon her. He ran his fingers over them one by one. He knew the story of each as well as he knew the stories of his own.
He knew the slim curving mark at the top of her arm, near her shoulder, was from a lover she had allowed to tie her down, when she was still learning how to survive, when she was still trying to find a way to cope. That male had pushed it too far, and Cassian had taken him apart for it. He knew the small line between her breasts was from a dagger that had hit when it wasn’t supposed to when she had dueled with Feyre in training. She had gone back to give her sister a matching scar the next day. And then there was the one that made him tremble with rage, the one that made him want to rip apart the world. The one that the human man’s nails had left on her waist when he had gone to tear her dress from her body. When he had done what only the lowest of humanity and fae ever did - when he had tried to force himself into her. Cassian had asked again and again for Nesta to give him permission to kill the mortal who had done that to her, but her answer was always the same ‘he’s mine’.
He understood the feeling. Some battles couldn’t be fought for you. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be there when she finally did decide to face the human, if only so he could enjoy watching her tear the man limb from limb.
Cassian kissed each scar, working his way over her body with teasing, feather-light kisses, brushing over the top of each breast until her nails were digging deep enough into his skin that she almost broke skin. Only then did he take a nipple between his teeth, rolling the other between his fingers as he tugged and sucked, her breathless moans like water in the desert. He wanted more.
His other hand slid down between her thighs and she half screamed a moan as he let two fingers circle the bundle of nerves there, almost, but never quite, touching. Playing, teasing, until she tapped his shoulder twice. At that signal, that snapping of a tether, that quiet request for more, for him to go hard, his fingers slid inside her and he pushed her onto her back. She came within a few minutes as he curled his fingers to brush over that inner pleasure centre, her back arching as it overwhelmed her. He stroked her through it all, waiting until she was settled again before leaning down to put his mouth on her.
She stopped him before he could.
“Stop playing and fuck me,” she growled, a gleam in her eyes that she only ever got when she needed him not to be gentle, when she needed the distraction as much as he did. So Cassian grinned, loving that her first words that night had been a plea for him to be inside her.
He didn’t make her wait any longer, sheathing himself inside her to the hilt, giving her only the space of a breath to adjust before he pounded into her with everything he had, balancing his speed and depth. Loving the breathless, screamed moans she gave him when he went hard and deep, and the whimpering, needy sound she made when he slowed slightly.
Her body begged for more, but her eyes demanded more. As much a queen naked beneath him among the sheets as she was in her gowns among those who had learned to fear and respect her. She had been made his equal, the bond between them undeniable.
The growing bridge between his soul and hers strengthening with every thrust he made into her. She hadn’t accepted it yet, the bond they shared, and he certainly wasn’t going to push her into doing so before she was ready. He had told her, the first time they had shared a bed all those years ago, that anything physical that existed between them would likely make it stronger, and he had been right, but she hadn’t stopped him.
He knew she could feel it now, the gleam in her eyes turning to tears as she tugged his face to hers and kissed him hard. Her lithe body tightened around him as she tipped over that edge again, his name on her lips, and he followed, slamming in deep enough to draw another moan from her.
Cassian finally stilled inside her, a thin sheen of sweat making both of them glisten in the moonlight. Quiet tears were still sliding down her cheeks as she lay beneath him, but she tightened her legs around his waist when he tried to pull away, to give her space.
“Someone I know used to tell me that there are two things everyone should be able to say; ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘thank you’,” she took in a deep, shuddering breath and he cupped her cheek with one hand, holding his weight up with the other.
“I’m sorry, Cassian, I’m sorry I’ve waited this long to admit what you mean to me. And thank you, of all the fae the Cauldron could have paired me with, I’m glad it was you, thank you for being a friend to me these years.”
“Nes, there is no need to apologise, or to thank me. I’ve done nothing worthy of either. I once promised to protect you and … I broke that promise, I don't deserve your thanks," shame snapped through him at the admission, his eyes sliding away from the steel in hers.
“No, Cassian, there is. You have lived a life where no one ever saw you as worthy. And since we met I have done nothing but remind you of that, nothing but encourage you to believe it,” she said, her voice bitter with a self-loathing that ran deep. He knew, he understood.
"You fought for me, you were ready to die for me. You chose to sacrifice yourself to be by my side, even if that meant being ripped from your family."
“Nesta. I didn’t choose my life. But I chose you. I will always choose you.”
Cassian stopped breathing.
Years. He had been waiting for years to hear those words from her. And he would have waited for centuries longer had she needed it.
“I love you, too, Nesta.” Relief shivered over her skin and he grinned, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“Feyre told me some things, about mates, and that I need to make you soup?”
Cassian smirked. “I’m not really a fan of soup, but…” he paused, scanning her face a moment, before he went on, “I can teach you how to cook an old Illyrian dish my mother used to make me…?”
A small smile curled at the edges of Nesta’s lips, changing her whole face, rearranging her expression into one he had never seen before. Her beauty was incomparable every day, but in that moment … in that moment she outshone the sun.
“Then let’s go cook … mate.” He huffed a laugh, the joy in his heart at hearing her call him that threatening to sweep him away.
“As long as there’s dessert,” he teased, rolling his hips and dragging another moan from deep in her throat.
She laughed, a sound as sweet and pure as any he'd heard, and threw her arms around his neck. Cassian carried her to the kitchen, slowly showing her the recipe from his childhood. And when he ate with her, and she smiled at him, he knew that this? This was what his mother had meant all those years ago when he had been taken from her. This was what she had meant about the paths he was walking down. Cassian twinned his fingers through Nesta’s and pressed his forehead to hers, smiling as the echo of his mother's voice wrapped around his mind.
"When you find her, son, you wait. You may choose her, but she has to choose you, too. But, Cass, when she does choose you … together you will set the world on fire. And I want you to know that no matter where your path leads you, Cassian, to whichever mate and family you find, I hope you also find joy, and wonder, and maybe even a little bit of luck along the way. I hope you allow yourself to be guided by courage and compassion and curiosity. I hope you keep your eyes and your heart open to everything life will offer you, the good and the bad alike, and that you always take the road that most are not brave enough to walk. But mostly, I hope you know that no matter which road you choose, no matter how far it carries you, no matter the mistakes you make or the obstacles you face along the way, I am always watching over you, bursting with pride, and I will always love you."
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I think next I’m probably going to write Mor or maybe reverse the rolls and do the girls with their bat boi’s!
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