The male—Rhysand—smiled knowingly, revealing the too-sharp points of his canines.
‘I ask only for the gift of a champion.’
Tamlin went ashen-faced. Amarantha chuckled.
‘Very well.’ She gestured indulgently to Feyre, and her heart plummeted like a stone into her stomach, chills sweeping over her skin as the meaning of his request fully dawned upon her. ‘Your prize, High Lord.’
No.
Summary: This was supposed to be a Rhysand x Reader Calanmai One Shot and boy oh boy did it spiral into a whole, multi chapter AU fic 🤷🏼♀️ It’s now a what if Rhys’s mate was someone other than Feyre and they both end up Under the Mountain together fic
Content Warnings: Eventual Smut, Some Suggestiveness because Rhys is here, I mean look at him everyone wants that male; canon typical violence, UTM. Each chapter will have listed content warnings.
Part Two is here
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“Stay inside, away from the windows. Make sure the doors are locked.” It’s the same speech every year, the same frantic, worried rant about staying away from those types of parties and the trouble they could bring. Never mind that you’re an adult, have been for awhile, and are perfectly capable of making the decision on your own and had decided years ago that Calanmai wasn’t really your scene. A party in a library sure, but an outdoor orgy in what was basically the High Lord of Spring’s backyard was about as opposite of you as you could get.
“I’ll be in the attic, organizing my books,” you swear and your uncle’s graying head bobs with a heavy sigh of relief as he shuts the door. Some of the livestock have gone missing--most likely the result of several visiting fae whose scene definitely is Calanmai--but he couldn’t make complaints to the High Lord until he was sure they hadn’t simply wandered out of the padlock on their own. He’s taking all three of the farmhands with him, leaving you alone in the house.
It would be a blissful couple of days. The house quiet. You plan to make tea and practice the new bread recipe you’d found tucked into one of your carefully preserved books from two centuries before. You’ve accumulated quite a collection of things in the years of your uncle’s ceaseless wandering. He’s never stayed anywhere long.
If you could focus on it, that is.
Calanmai might have never been your scene, but it did something to you every year you couldn’t explain. It had started a couple years ago; a strange whispering on the wind at first, a voice begging you to “Come. Come and see.” The next year, after being ignored the voice had come with phantom drum beats, an echo of the ones that would sometimes crest the hill between your farmhouse and the High Lord’s estate; the voice more urgent, the drum beats like a pulse in your skull. The following year the visions started. You’d go to sleep and find yourself drifting through the air, wings beating above you, shadowy hands holding you as you flew over the bonfires and beating drums, bodies writhing and merging beneath you, before depositing you in the darkness of what you could only describe as some sort of ancient cave. When you’d woken up you found yourself half way up the hill in your sleep clothes, unsure of how you’d even gotten out of the house. You’d never mentioned it to your uncle, he was prone to worry, but it was becoming clearer and clearer every year that there was something out there that wanted you out on Calanmai. True to form, you’d started hearing the drum beats upon waking this morning, their beat a steady pulse in your temples.
Still, whatever beckons, you're not interested in meeting. You’d seen a couple priestesses and gotten a sleeping tonic that would knock you out for the night, all you needed to do was pass the time until nightfall, take the tonic, and in the morning, all would be right again. Never mind the ache in your chest you’d feel in the morning, the blaring loss a living thing in your soul, as if your decision to stay away had torn something apart in you. It was a manageable wound, for your family’s sake. Memories of your parents had been hazy at best, it had always just been you and your mother’s brother. He’d said something had happened in your home court, that he’d had no other choice but to take you and run, never any other details. Your powers were a strange, unmanageable thing that prowled beneath your skin, a restless beast you couldn’t tie to any court to try and figure out where you’d come from. They weren’t seasonal, not ice or flame or wind; you’d imagined as a kid you’d gotten them in the Night Court, the darkness that sometimes sparked from your fingertips unruly enough to make it plausible, but there was nothing definitive. And your parents, for all the good things your uncle said about his sister, had never tried to find you, leaving all questions unanswered. Left you alone with your uncle and your constant moving with his job. He worked hard to make a life for the two of you, you owed it to him to not cause any trouble, to stay inside and cook and read and help him with his trading business as best you could. Whatever it was out there that beckoned, it was not worth seeing the pain on your uncle’s face. He’d escaped something, that much was clear, you would not damn him to something else, even for your own peace of mind.
This year feels different though, and you can’t deny it. The voice more urgent, the drum beats louder. You find yourself rubbing your temples, a headache building, as you try and fail to read the recipe in your hands. The words blur, a swirl of indistinguishable colors and shapes. You pinch you eyes closed, shake your head as if to clear the voice, trying again and again to make the words make sense, but the drums won’t stop beating.
You hurl the book across the room, knocking a picture off the wall, glass shattering on impact.
“Leave me alone!” You hiss at no one, teeth bared. Talons form at your fingertips, dark shadows whispering over your skin.
“Come. Come and see,” begs the voice.
You draw a breath, then another, and another until the shadows disappear and the talons retract. If you blow the roof off the house, like last time, you’ll have to move again. Beyond your uncle’s disappointment there’s the issue of… her. The war bands, the bogge, the Attor, always a threat looming over your travels, pushing you further and further away from busy cities, all enough on their own, but the Blight adds another layer. Your Uncle said the war she helped wage against the humans was devastating, but the one she could bring here? Sometimes you wonder if she’s the reason you move so much, as if your uncle has been trying in vain all these years to escape the war path closing in on Prythian. He’d never dare delve into the Human Lands, but Spring is one of the few places she has yet to ravish. You can’t risk another move.
You focus on controlling your breathing as you sweep up the glass, and leave the picture of you and your uncle on the table. You’ll find a new frame tomorrow, for today, it’s best if you take that sleeping tonic and avoid any further outbursts.
You make quick work of double checking the locks before changing into your sleep clothes and climbing into bed. It’s only just starting to get dark, the last few rays of sunlight fighting to break through your worn curtains. The priestesses didn’t mention how long it would take to work, or how long it would last, but the drums are still so loud, and the voice won’t stop pleading. It’s a nice voice, if your honest, but you can’t go out there. You won’t.
The vial in your hand is cold, the glass pitted like it’s been used before, it’s contents a bright blue color that glitters even in the darkness. You down it in one gulp, the taste like bursting, overripe fruit. The effects are immediate, you’re asleep before your head even hits the pillows.
The house is strange, twisted; the wooden walls thorny, gnarled like old tree trunks, the wind howling through the gaps of what used to be the windows. Fire light flickers through the gaps, casting shadows across the space as you stumble from the bed, bare legs caught in sheets suddenly made of vines.
It’s wrong, all wrong.
You stumble on legs that don’t quite work right down the stairs, slashing yours hands open on the thorns that had sprouted out of the railing alongside dark, night blooming flowers.
“Come. Come and see.”
The flowers bloom at the sound of the voice, the violets petals glowing in the darkness, leading you like wisps out the front door, now covered in vines and leaves. Disoriented, you follow the flowers out into the night, the stars dazzlingly bright overhead.
The world outside is not the one you know, the rolling hills now scorched and burned, the trees gnarled and twisted. Dark shapes with glowing eyes sit on the dying branches, starring only at you, some growling, others hissing.
There’s a single line of flowers, twisting away from the leering eyes and you race after them.
“Come. Come and see.”
You’re running before you know it, scooping up flowers as you go.
Something behind you still growls, it’s footsteps rattling the ground behind you. No matter where you look, you can’t see it, like it’s wholly veiled in the darkness. It has your heart pounding in your chest, the beat steady like drums. You push yourself faster, following the flowers over the ruined hills.
The flowers lead you into another wooded area, the trees still barely clinging to life here, their fallen leaves crunching under your bare feet. Branches tug at your shift, tearing the thin materiel, clawing at your exposed legs. Still, the thing behind you prowls closer, it’s breath hot as flame as it chases you.
The flowers wind around trees, deeper, deeper, into the dark, the only light the stars and the flowers; it’s your only chance at escaping. You push, going as fast as your legs can carry you, the drum beats of your heart still echoing in your ears. Soon enough the flowers direct you in a straight line, directly into the mouth of a cave. It feels wrong, going into a cave with some sort of beast snapping on your heels but what other choice do you have?
You reach the mouth of the cave, hand brushing the rough rock, gasping for breath. The darkness beyond beckons, “Come. Come and see,” but there are no flowers here. No stars to light the way, only the darkness of night and shadows.
The thing beyond you roars in challenge as you set one foot in…
You jerk awake like your soul is coming back into your body.
Maybe it is, because you’re not in your bed. There’s half a dozen cuts across your bare legs, staining the bottom of your torn shift, mud splattered across your legs. It feels like you’re wading through soup as you assess yourself, your mind muddled, unable to process where you got the glowing, violet flower in your hands. When you finally have the presence of mind to look up, you are in fact starring at the cavernous mouth of a cave you’ve never seen before.
Somewhere in the distance, the drums pound. Firelight dances among the treeline behind you. You’d gotten outside. On Calanmai. The tonic not only failed, it had left you so horribly vulnerable and queasy you were shaking. You need to get back home, back inside where it’s safe.
From somewhere in the shadows of the trees not far from you, a voice says, “I’m pretty sure I saw her go this way!”
Ice shoots through your veins, feet freezing in place.
The flower seems to warm in your hands, as if reminding you it was there, of the dream that had brought you here. You glance at the cave, the darkness beckoning. It might be a safe place to hide, if those voices are in fact looking for you. They are clearly male, and a few of them at that, and alone in a shift on Calanmai…
The cave might be a terrible spot, you’re pretty sure you had heard something about High Lords and caves, specifically on Calanmai, but the drowsy effect of the tonic has not entirely worn off, and with the voice drawing closer you don’t have time to try and remember what it was.
You step into the darkness, praying it isn’t the worst mistake of your life, and the darkness envelopes you like a caress. It’s almost as if it… moves, shadows and night itself twining around your legs, your arms, brushing along your spine with feather light touches. As if darkness is acquainting itself with the feel of you. You shiver, nervous, but the touch is not unwelcome.
Voices sound outside, but they are muffled, veiled.
Another step, then another, the flower still clutched in your hand blooms, glowing a little brighter. The scent of jasmine and citrus flows from it, fills all your senses.
The cave descends, the ground sloping a bit, and then you have to duck to follow the worn path. There should be loose rock along the path, but it is smooth, like sand beneath your bare feet, like someone had come along and swept out the debris. There’s nothing there to hinder your progress towards what you can only assume is the heart of the cave.
Perhaps this is all a part of your strange dream, that would certainly explain the flower, but what other choice do you have no but to keep going? From behind you, those voices from the woods sound again, as if they have stepped into the cave too.
“You’re sure she came in here?”
“Where else would she go out here?”
“Do you think Mistress will let us have a little fun before she gets her hands on her?”
Its that that makes you freeze, all thought eddying from your head.
The flower shrinks in your hand, the light dimming, even as the darkness of the cave twines itself around you, the caress like a cat rubbing against your legs, as if it’s trying to soothe you, calm you. You can’t move.
The sudden shift in the air of the cave is palpable. Goosebumps raise on your arms as the temperature drops, as the darkness deepens.
“What the fuck?” One of the men hisses.
And then the screaming starts, the blood curdling cries rattling the walls.
Still you can’t move, can’t see, can only stand there in the company of the shadow still rubbing soothing circles into your back while the earth trembles and dust rains down from the cave roof.
Just as quickly as the screaming starts, it stops, the only sound know the subtle drip of something wet hitting the floor. Your senses are sharp enough for you to scent the cooper tint of blood in the air, but even your keen senses can’t pick up what caused it. You can’t hear anything either, no footsteps, no fighting. It’s over.
You exhale a shaky breath, hands still trembling around the flower. Until it suddenly dies, the petals falling from your cupped hands. You’re strangely attached to it now, hands scrambling to catch the petals in the dark when that same glow appears around the bend in the cave.
Another flower, a way out!
You step towards it, not stopping to ask yourself why this one is smaller, so far away from the ground. Its not until you’re nearly upon it, nearly slamming into it, that you realize it’s not a flower at all. It doesn’t truly click into place until a firm set of hands grabs hold of you, stopping you from slamming right into the owner of that glowing set of violet eyes.
You might have screamed, were it not for the voice that says, “There you are, I’ve been looking for you.”
The world tilts before you as it clicks into place that you know that voice. It’s the one that called you out here.
Fic Summary: Every day, Rhysand wakes up next to Amarantha in her bed Under the Mountain. A prisoner, a weapon, a High Lord on a leash. He's been down there so long, it's starting to feel like time doesn't matter.
Until one day, it doesn't. Feyre's death sends Rhysand back in time, waking up on the same day - over and over. Now, Rhysand must discover how to break the time loop, save his mate, and keep his sanity intact.
AN: Bet you didn’t expect to see me here, but I somehow managed to weasel my way in with the cool kids. So here I am, an official member of the brilliant @feysand-hivemind! I'm so honored to be writing beside the absolute icons on this project.
Thank you @sajirah, @popjunkie42, and @tunaababee for the beta reading!
Chapter XIV: Traitors Never Win (Loop 57)
Chapter Summary: Rhys manipulates this loop to once again try to convince Feyre he's an ally, only for it to fall apart when they are caught conspiring Under the Mountain.
CW: Temporary character death, Implied dubious consent
Rhys sensed Feyre breach his wards the moment she stumbled over the threshold to his rooms, his magic caught between tension and satisfaction that his mate was in his space. Still, it took far too long to disengage from his frankly gruesome obligation to return to his rooms—pretend he needed to investigate the how and why she’d been escorted from her cell to his chambers. He’d been painstakingly cautious navigating this loop to make it this far. Raising suspicions just to speak with Feyre wasn’t a mistake he could afford to make. Not after how they’d been discovered in the loop Feyre was conscious of. Between what that Feyre had shown him and the vision the Suriel had shared, he was done using the loop as a crutch to lean on.
He’d tested each reset carefully. Hoped there was another chance to hold the woman who knew and came to love him through her own series of trial and error, but that blessing was short-lived, and maybe they were better off for it. Maybe he wouldn’t have to see his mate turn a knife on herself again.
Play the game, keep her riled enough she didn’t break, earn her trust while showing the wretched court she was nothing more than a human plaything. And painful as it was to never feel that glorious possessiveness from his huntress, don’t let things slip far enough they risk exposing the bond. There was no timeline where Her Majesty would be willing to share the toy she got her claws into.
Winnowing directly to the bed, Rhys watched his mate—coated in grime by now—sifting through old ash to fish out the lentils planted there for her.
“As wonderful as it is to see you, Feyre, darling,” he purred, reclining on the mattress to repeat their increasingly familiar song and dance, “do I want to know why you’re digging through my fireplace?”
She’d already whipped around to face him, ash shaken loose from her sleeves to dust the stone beneath her feet. Her face was pinched slightly, her chin high. “This wasn’t your idea then?” He raised a brow and she scoffed. “One of your mistress’ household chores, I suppose. Clean the lentils from the ash or have my skin peeled off in strips.”
Whatever missteps Rhys may take, one thing never changed. His mate certainly had a mouth on her. So he was left to complement it. Objective two: keep her riled. “Interesting. A bit messy for my taste, but effective. Tell me, darling, how far did you get?”
Feyre scowled, gripping the poker she held just a hair tighter, chin still jutting out stubbornly, refusing to seem cowed in the presence of a predator. Good girl. “I don’t care for your games, Rhysand. Since you don’t intend to skin me, I’d like to return to my cell.”
Rhys cocked his head. “Don’t feel like playing, darling? Pity.” He sighed, smoothly rising to his feet before taking a few steps closer. “I find your little quips quite entertaining. Very well. If you won’t indulge me, we can get straight to business. We don’t have long before the guards return, after all. You need an ally down here and neither your beloved or his emissary seem keen to step up to the plate.”
“And you think I trust you enough to call you an ally?”
He chuckled. “Oh, I would dare wish it, darling. Lady Luck abandoned me centuries ago and you’re too smart to not suspect my motives. This time, though, I simply ask you respect that everyone Under the Mountain has an independent agenda and mine rarely aligns with the witch.”
Feyre’s eyes narrowed. “You’re plotting to move against her.”
“In a sense.” He dared another step, close enough to pry the poker from her hands and toss it behind him. “One day she’ll fall. But in the end, I won’t be the one to ensure it.”
The Suriel had made that clear enough upon its capture. He needed Feyre on his side, one way or another. He wouldn’t make it through this hell cycle without her.
“What would you expect of me, then? Why would you think I have the means to help you succeed? Killing the worm was a challenge, but hardly on par with—”
He cut her a hard glare before easing into her mind with a tenderness even beyond what he’d granted her in Spring, now so well acquainted with the fragility of her human mind. “Even the walls have ears, Feyre. Enough has been said aloud as is.”
There was a sharp knock on the door, two guards waiting beyond it. “Tomorrow night I will send the wraiths for you. You will not argue. They will be acting under my orders. We’ll see where things go from there.”
If Amarantha doesn’t sniff out his plot once again.
He sighed, moving towards the door. “Wait,” she said. His hand stilled over the knob. “The riddle… Do you know the answer?”
“Yes. And no, I cannot reveal it to you. No soul Under the Mountain can, so don’t be a fool and seek out the fox, either. We’ve all been ordered to keep quiet—not to help you solve it. Even if Lucien could speak of it, he’s far too closely watched after that stunt he pulled, helping you in the wyrm’s lair.”
Watching her face fall, Rhys’ chest tightened with guilt. Still, he made himself maintain his mask and opened the door to let the two guards into the room, each of them closing a single hand over Feyre’s biceps.
Something hot and vicious coiled inside him, flaring when he saw her try to hide her flinch. It took so little effort to claim their minds in a mental talon-tipped fist.
“You’ll remove your hands from the lady, now.” They obeyed. “These meaningless tasks—the chores—are to come to an end. Each morning and evening you will provide her with a hot meal. No more molded bread and water. If you speak of these orders, defy them, or harm her…” His lips tilted up in a cruel grin, “…you’re to slit your own throats. Get out of my sight.”
Free of their hold, Feyre held herself back long enough she would trail behind them, rather than be caught between them. “Until we meet again, Feyre darling.”
It was hardly the first time Rhys had had his mate in his lap, but he didn’t think he’d ever get used to the the tenuous balance of guilt and need it brought, granting her one glass of wine after the next as she writhed in his lap, teasing the hard line of his erection with each pass of her hips.
Still, he mastered himself even as the paint gracing her waist and hips was smudged beyond recognition night after night. As for the path of his mouth, every word of his tongue was a tangle of praise and mockery, honey sweet and sharp as a blade. His mental coos became the tiny pieces to a grand plot, carefully placed to linger when she woke in the morning.
It started with little keys to lead her to the riddle’s solution. Hints to make sure she stayed on course through the second trial. The more risky bits of information he saved for the evenings, trusting she was back in her right mind. The roles he would have to play, the lines he would walk—that he wouldn’t risk sharing. The more Feyre knew, he’d discovered, the more likely one of them was to slip up. And the more likely Amarantha was to discover his disloyalty. Suffering this wretched cycle again and again, he’d seen enough of his mate’s torture to haunt him for a lifetime.
A soft breath at his ear drew him back to the present. “What’s wrong tonight?” Feyre whispered, voice just barely audible under the music, conversation, and entertainment of the solstice revelry. It was a rare show of empathy and he clung to it the moment it was presented, even if that softness was nothing more than a drunken falter in her disgust with him.
He sighed, thumb curving along her thigh as he slipped into her mind. “Other than the fact I just killed a male acting on his High Lord’s orders to secure their freedom? To put it simply, darling, it’s been an excruciating forty-nine years. I’m also considering the risk of your second trial. Whatever it is,” he suggested, playing dumb, “your success with the wyrm will not be forgotten. The second challenge will be an entirely different test.”
He’d been more careful about her wine intake this time around, considering the trial she’d face tomorrow, even if he’d have to help her through the grasshopper riddle. But her eyes were still glazed and Rhys doubted she heard the warning in his voice. She dipped her chin all the same, shivering when the next sweep of his thumb dragged across the smooth skin closer to her center before he spread his legs enough she straddled one thigh. She ground down almost immediately and it was an effort not to clench his jaw. “Enough talking, pet.”
She tipped forward, her forehead falling to his collarbone. “I need…” He glanced down, watching her loose a ragged breath. “I don’t know what I need anymore. A distraction. Not another drink or dance or… Just a distraction.”
Rhys leaned down, mouth grazing her ear. “Well then, allow me the pleasure of distracting you, darling.”
It had been a risk to the loop, of course, taking Feyre to his bed again. But he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. Not when she was still wrapped around him in the early hours of the morning, one leg thrown over his hip as if it was the most natural thing to fall asleep and wake together.
Cauldron, he needed to be free of this hellscape.
He reached to stroke her hair out of her face, intending to savor the few moments before dawn, when he would have to wake her to return to her cell before her trial. When she would gather her senses and realize what they had done. What she had done after spending the past months navigating her dangerous bargain with Amarantha for her lover.
He wasn’t sure he was prepared to face the regret and anger that waited for him. He could only hope it wouldn’t affect her when it came to the riddle. If her resentment played any sort of aide, she might manage to raise a mental shield to block him out before he could help her.
Realizing his mate was beginning to wake, he carefully eased her leg down from his hip. “Good morning, Feyre darling.”
“What—” Her eyes darted around the room, first raking in the scattered clothing, then her own bare figure, paint smears and all. She clutched the sheet to her chest, face twisting with her horror. “Oh, gods. Tamlin. I didn’t—”
Feyre scrambled from the bed, her disgust with the whole situation laid bare. “You were hardly an unwilling participant last night,” he told her, his smugness not entirely for show. They’d been so damn lucky the bond hadn’t snapped. The way she’d felt around him—clung to him with each slow thrust… Lucky didn’t begin to cover it.
“I was drunk,” she hissed back. “I didn’t ask for that.”
“You asked for a distraction, sitting so pretty on my lap. So, I gave you the one distraction I could manage. I don’t see your beloved offering such an escape.”
She jerked back as if he’d physically struck her, a fresh fire in her eyes. Good. She couldn’t afford to show weakness today.
Rhys stood from the bed, donned his usual pants and jacket before cleaning her of any evidence with a bit of lesser magic and dressing her too. “If you’re ready to face your cell again, darling.”
His summoning was an aberration. One that sent his pulse thrumming double time. “My queen, how may I serve you?” he asked, paranoid now that Feyre’s scent had lingered on his skin. Or his had been found when she was taken from her cell for the second trial.
“You were so careful to tell your little pet to mind her mouth. What is it that you keep telling her at my little parties?” Amarantha mused, brushing her cheeks with rouge, a saccharine smile curling her lips. ‘The walls have eyes and ears, darling’?"
He stilled, almost letting his mask slip. “My queen, what would the warning matter, when her mind is so open to me? If she were plotting against you—”
“And if you were plotting against me, Rhysand?” Dread settled heavy in his stomach. He’d get another chance, yes, but it didn’t make the defeat any easier to swallow. “Don’t get any ideas about helping her with the riddle I trusted you with. It’s long since changed. You’d best hope the little human can think quickly.”
Less than an hour later, Rhys found himself forced to his knees with a blindfold tied behind his head. A roaring crowd was their only preparation before the scalding heat began to make its descent. “I’m sorry, darling. I tried.”
His mate’s panicked pleas were still ringing in his ears when he woke beside the wicked queen once again.
Summary: Returning to the Mountain brings up a lot of feelings and Reader tries and fails to keep them all bottled up.
Content Warnings: SMUT (I told you it would come eventually ;) ), a lot of dirty talk, suggestiveness, a little light bondage if you squint, as well as alcohol consumption and drug use.
Author's Note: I apparently have a lot of feelings about sitting in Rhys's lap, 'cause I wrote this Vamp!Rhys fic and this in the same week. I was gonna end it on an angsty note, but the miscommunication trope makes me want to rip my hair out, so I made it fluffy instead (they're adults they can TALK TO EACH OTHER like adults). Anyway, hope ya'll enjoy! As always, let me know if you want to be added to the Tag List, and thank you to everyone who likes, comments and reblogs, ya'll make me want to keep writing <3
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The music is a heavy pulse in your skull, drowning out all thought as the lights flash and flare overhead like dozens of fireworks in time to the beat. Your hips sway, flimsy excuse of a dress clinging to your thighs as you twirl and spin in time to the beat. Dozens of hands pass you a long, keep you spinning and spinning until the lights glitter like stars overhead. You throw your head back and laugh at the way they glitter and stretch along your quickly blurring vision.
Someone passes you another cup and you tip the contents back in one gulp, savoring the burn, relishing in the way it fills your empty stomach. You’ve lost count of how many glasses you’ve had, lost count of where the empty ones go as you move along with the crowd, let the press of bodies move you like an ebbing tide.
A cigarette gets passed your way, the violet smoke filtering in hazy rings around people’s heads like halos. Do you smoke? You can’t remember. Can’t think about why you should care at all as you bring it to your lips and inhale deeply, letting the mirthroot take hold.
This is the most fun you’ve had in weeks, it’s the first time you allow yourself complete unbridled freedom. There is nothing to worry about here but following the music and the flow of drink as the mirthroot makes your body loose and limber.
Strong hands settle on your hips as you take another drag, eyes closed, savoring the burn. You sway your hips under the grip, pushing your body back into the firm planes of the male behind you. You don’t have the presence of mind to be mortified, to think about the way you’re grinding on a stranger in the middle of this crowd of people.
Warm breath frames your neck, skittering over the golden collar still encircling your throat. “I think you’ve had enough, Darling.”
Mate. Mate. Mate. The words dance around the bargain mark on your ribs, heat flaring in your chest that has nothing to do with the fae wine or the mirthroot and everything to do with the fact that when you’d been dragged back into your cell, it had been empty. Empty and had smelled like her. And you’d thrown yourself against the battered door, claws slashing across the worn iron until they shattered from your fingertips, until you splattered blood across the unyielding iron, dark mist filling the cell until it nearly sucked the air from the room. You don’t know how or why the door held, why your nails couldn’t cut through the strange marks etched into the door; the only thing that was clear is that in retaliation for leaving, your fault or not, she’d taken Rhys and had left you alone in the dark. Days passed without word, without food, until the guards had come and thrown you into a room with the order to bathe and change and be ready in an hour and you complied only with the intent to go right into the Throne Room to rip her throat out with your teeth. But Rhys hadn’t been at her side when you arrived either, hadn’t been a face in the crowd as Amarantha declared to the court that you had slain the twins sent from Hybern for attacking their Queen. The crowd that days ago had been laughing at your plight as you’d been made to kneel on the floor like an animal was now cheering you on like a hero. Fickle and spineless; Amarantha said jump and they asked how high without question or reason. She’d left you to their whims after that and the wine had started flowing and you’d needed to calm the panic and rage swelling like a storm beneath your skin and had reached for one. One had somehow turned into two and then three and you’d lost count after that, lost yourself in the blissful emptiness and tried to forget how powerless you really were in all of this.
You turn in his arms and though he remains standing where he is, there’s suddenly six of him spinning in dizzying circles and you have to grip onto his shoulders to keep yourself on your feet.
“Easy,” he says, his grip on your hips firm.
You’ve forgotten just how big he is compared to you, how much of you he can fit in his hands. You're too far gone to stop yourself from wondering how those hands would feel beneath your dress, on your thighs, spreading you open…
“Easy,” he says again, nostrils flaring like he scents the effect he has on you like this.
Your hands feel like they're drifting through soup as you reach out to brush your hand through his hair. He’s clean too, skin healed, the clothes new and finely pressed. There is no lingering scent of incense, though you’re pretty sure the mirthroot you smell is on your skin and not his, he remains wholly jasmine and citrus. Nothing of her on him.
“You’re ok?” The words slur out of you, sound muffled and distant even as they come out your mouth. You need him to tell you he’s ok, that she didn’t hurt him, that he got called away for something, anything. He does other things for her, he brought in Tamlin all those weeks ago, he has other roles, but you don’t know how to make the words come out against the fog that rolls through your head. “You’re ok?”
“I’m ok,” he says with a nod. “Let’s get you some water.”
You shake your head. Water is somewhere near the tables and lounge chairs in the corner, somewhere she might be lurking, waiting for you to slip up, waiting for her chance to steal him again and you can’t have that. “Want to dance.” Want to dance and drink and forget; want to smoke and move and let the music erase everything that is happening around you so that the only thing that matters is the two of you. It’s an added bonus that if he dances with you then that means he keeps his hands on you, has an excuse to keep touching you. Gods you want more of that!
“Water first,” he says, giving you a little nudge backwards.
The move makes the world spin again and you giggle as you let yourself fall into it.
“Wow, you’re really drunk,” he says as he hauls you against his chest and half carries half drags you through the crowd.
“You’re strong,” you giggle. You can feel the muscles in his arms and chest tighten as he moves you around, his fingertips digging deliciously in your hips.
It’s by sheer force of Rhys’s will that you end up in a chair with a glass of water, that you take a single sip of and make a face. “Gross. Want more wine.”
A servant automatically appears with a glass beside you, but before you can grab it, or spill it given the way your limbs flop around, he snatches it off the tray. “Water first.”
You stick out your lower lip. “Why are you being so mean to me?”
He takes a drink out of the cup and suddenly the most exciting thing in the world is watching how his throat works when he swallows and the way the wine stains his lips. “‘Cause it’s fun,” he retorts.
You manage to get another sip of water down before you accidentally catch the glass on the edge of the table and spill it everywhere. “Fuck me,” you say dejectedly. In your state your first thought is to use your skirts to try and dry up the mess, but there’s not enough of them, the sheer fabric barely covering the tops of your thighs.
“You have impeccable manners,” he says as he reaches for your hands to stop you from flashing the whole room as you try and wiggle the dress up enough to use it as a napkin. With a snap of his fingers the mess cleans itself.
“Ooooohhh neat,” you run a finger over the dry table. “Can you teach me to do that?”
You’re too drunk to notice your mistake, but he says, “If you had any powers left, sure,” a little louder than necessary to cover you.
“Right,” you slur as you try to stand on shaky legs. “Well water was good, we dance now.”
He remains a firm wall between you and the dance floor. “Unless you can absorb water through your skin, you didn’t actually drink anything.”
“Had a sip.”
“Doesn’t count.”
“Meanie,” you hiss.
“You’re very cute when you’re drunk,” he teases and the grin he gives you makes you want to stretch up on your toes and kiss him right there.
“You’re very kissable when you smile,” you return.
Rhys huffs a laugh and you think you might do just about anything to get him to laugh again.
“I’m always very kissable,” he retorts. “It’s part of my charm.”
“So make part of your charm dancing with me,” you press.
He grabs your hand like he might do just that, but instead, spins around you to claim an empty couch and pulls you down to sit in his lap so fast the world flips and twirls in a blur of pulsing colors that makes you squeeze your eyes shut. The wine rises up in your throat, threatening to come back out in a rush and you curl into his chest trying to find a way to make it stop.
“I think this is better.”
You squeeze your temples with your palms. “Make my brain stop spinning,” you whine. Maybe he’s right, maybe dancing is a bad idea.
Besides, he’s still touching you like this. More than touching actually. You’re situated in his lap, knees bracketing his hips, chest to chest, no collar around his throat to stop you if you wanted to put your lips to his neck. There’s not even a scar or bruise to indicate that it had been there, nothing but smooth, bronze skin and the teasing peak of his tattoos beneath his collar.
You brace yourself against his shoulders as the world stops spinning, suddenly very aware of how high your skirt is riding up and how strong the muscles in his thighs are between your legs.
He brings his hands to hold your hips again and you thank the Mother that you’re not so drunk that you’ve lost your inhibitions completely because the only thought in your head right now is how it would feel to grind yourself down on him.
“You’re very drunk,” he says lowly, his own gaze locked on the space between your bodies like he’s drinking in the way your thighs look around him.
“So?”
“So it would be wrong,” he retorts.
“What?” You move your hands to the back of the couch behind him, chest brushing his. There’s barely any straps to your top, the neckline a deep v that leaves your cleavage on display and you don’t miss the way his gaze tracks it as you lean in. “What would be wrong?”
He runs his tongue over his lower lip, staring and something stirs deep inside you. Claim. Claim. Claim. He is your mate and you want him to touch you, kiss you, claim you.
It’s the thought that makes you pause for a brief moment. Does he know your mates? Does he feel this growing need? This incessant longing beating from your rib cage that needs to be touched and held and claimed so deeply you forget what it felt like to be anything else? Is that the bond? Or the wine?
“Doing all the things I’ve been thinking about since the moment I had my lips on yours,” he says, voice barely a whisper, gaze still transfixed on your body.
You preen under the heat in his gaze, press your chest a little more firmly into his so that you can be nose to nose with him. The wine has certainly made you more brazen. “What kinds of things, Rhys?”
The hands holding your hips tighten, fingertips kneading the soft flesh hard enough to bruise and yet your whole body turns molten at that touch. It’s the delicious line between pain and pleasure, and after days and days of cold emptiness, the heat it sparks through your body is more addictive than any wine or drug you can consume here.
“Want this dress off you for starters,” he murmurs, full lips drifting down to dust over the straps clinging to your shoulders.
His words conjure an image in your mind of him leaning forward, pulling the straps down with his teeth, baring the full expanse of your body to him. You shiver under the mental image, hips rocking down against him.
“Want to mark every bit of you I can reach, so that no one dares touch you,” he continues, teeth scraping over your shoulder. “So that everyone knows your mine.”
His. The possession in his tone really does you in, heat building in your lower belly as you grind yourself down against the growing bulge in his pants. The scrape against your core makes your mouth drop open, groan falling from your parted lips. It would be so easy to come undone from this alone.
“Only mine,” he emphasizes, sucking a mark where your neck meets your shoulder, visible beneath that damned collar you can’t take off.
“Rhys,” you whimper, releasing your grip on the back of the couch to drag your hands through his dark hair. “Please.”
His lips move along your throat, teeth scraping your skin before sucking another mark into your sensitive flesh. He’s taking his time, just as he promised all those weeks ago on Calanmai. “Want to know what little noises you’d make for me, how you’d fall apart in my hands…”
You drag your hand from his hair, reaching for the straps of your dress to pull them down for him, hoping to spur him further into action, but he finally releases his grip on your hips to stop you.
“None of that, Darling,” he tuts. “It comes off when I say it does.”
To that point, when you try to rock your hips against him again, it's his glittering, obsidian power that pins you in place, a slither of darkness twining around your hips to hold you there, utterly at his mercy.
He chuckles when you whimper and pout, lower lip sticking out, tears welling up in your eyes, because it’s not fair that he’s this close, that he’s just a hair breadth away from where you need him most and he knows it. He can smell it on you, see it on every line in your face, and yet he won’t move to help you.
“Please, Rhys, please,” you beg. The need for him is unbearable, your whole body burning like it’s on fire, the only relief is the contact with his body. Your mate so close to where you need him most.
“Hogging the woman of the hour, are we?”
You hadn’t heard any approaching footsteps over the pounding of the base against the rock, the sudden appearance making you flinch as Rhys throws a warning snarl over your shoulder. It only makes the red headed male approaching chuckle as he comes to stand directly behind you. The cedar and cinnamon smell of him reminds you of curling up under a warm wool blanket next to a fireplace with your favorite book about vampires, something you like to do in nice Autumn weather.
Slender fingers drag up your spine, and in your delirious state, it makes you arch your back as you shiver under it.
“Eris,” Rhys purrs, but there’s an edge in his tone as he watches you move under another male’s ministrations. The sliver of his power around your waist tightens, the shadows slipping under your skirts to writhe against your flushed skin. He allows you to jerk forward, hips rocking right into the obvious sign of his own arousal, and your eyes roll back into your head at the contact.
“I can name a dozen males who would kill for a chance to be where you are right now, Rhysand,” Eris returns.
“I don’t share,” Rhys says and cauldron that’s all it takes for you to place your lips against his throat. He hums his approval as you scrape your teeth against his skin, hands threading into your hair as you nip and bite and use your tongue to cool any pain you cause him.
Eris plops himself down in the seat next to Rhys, long arms thrown over the back of the couch as he makes himself comfortable.
You can’t bring yourself to care about the audience as you nip at the underside of his jaw. He tilts his head back for you so you can reach more of him unhindered and you sink a little lower down on his lap chasing any friction you can find before the shadows tighten and still your movements again.
“Bastard,” you growl into his throat, but he merely turns his attention to the male next to him.
“You didn’t respond to my message,” Eris hisses. A glass of wine appears in his hand and he takes a slow drink. To any onlookers he’s merely enjoying the party with the High Lord and his nightly entertainment.
“What message?”
“Shit.” This conversation is becoming sobering, despite your best efforts to tune out the other male and focus solely on the pleasure just out of reach. All night long you’d been able to forget.
Eris gives you a sidelong glance that might have made you squirm under the intensity if Rhys hadn’t shifted beneath you to get a better look at the other male, hips brushing up against your center in a move that is definitely intentional.
“The one I gave her,” Eris snarls.
“This is the first I’ve seen her in days,” Rhys retorts, a hand stroking through your hair. “You know how to get in contact with me.”
Eris glances around at the dancers that move past for refreshments as he takes another drink. Only when they’re gone does he say, “So you didn’t tell her to kill the twins?”
You stop moving; stop thinking about Rhys’s body as the image of Dagdan and Brannagh’s mangled bodies flash across your mind. You’re suddenly a lot more sober than you had been moment ago.
Rhys brushes a mental hand against your mind and you flinch, head still tender from the beating it had taken trying to keep your cousins out. “Darling?”
The concern in his tone makes shame burn its way through your lungs. At the littlest thing he’s dropping everything to make sure you’re ok, and yet here you are, with no idea where he’s been or what he’s been through and you’re grinding in his lap like a horny teenager. What kind of mate are you?
“No I didn’t,” Rhys says to Eris, even as he makes another tender stroke against your mind, asking to be let in. “But I’m sure she had her reasons.”
“Do you think we can use it to our advantage?” Eris asks.
You don’t deserve how gentle he is with you, but you can’t stop yourself from lowering your shields just enough to let him in. He should know just how much of a monster you’re capable of being before he gets too close.
“Will you show me?” He asks and you open the doorway into the memory, keeping the conversation you’d had with Tamlin about him, the realization of what he is to you, out of reach. He deserves better than that.
Rhys strokes his hands in your hair as he watches the memory unfold, your body shaking in his grip as all that blood and gore comes into view. When it’s over, he closes the door in your mind and clicks the lock into place for you. “It’s over. You’re safe. You did what you had to do to survive, there is no shame in that.”
You press your face into his shoulder to hide the tears brimming in your eyes. You’re an ugly crier when you’re tipsy and you know if you start, you won’t stop.
“I think it’ll bring Hybern here quicker,” Rhys says to Eris, as he drags the fingers in your hair down to trace your spine. To an onlooker, he’s still playing with you, only the two of you know how often he’s traced these shapes into your skin when you wake up screaming in the dungeons. “Which can be played to our advantage if we’re careful.”
Eris takes another sip of wine, mulling it over.
“If Hybern can be convinced that our queen is acting out of her own agenda instead of his, he may just do our work for us.”
“A dangerous game,” Eris frowns.
“It always is,” Rhys returns.
It’s astounding how calm and level headed he can remain, always centered, even while everyone else rages and panics around him. How are you supposed to be his equal? To his calm there is only your spinning thoughts and unchecked temper. Everything makes you want to claw and rage and smash things; aren’t mates supposed to balance each other out? What do you bring him other than another mess to sort through?
“Well if you’re not going to share her, I’ll leave you to it,” Eris says as he downs his cup and stands, making a show of stretching, tight shirt rising up to expose the toned line of his abs to a passing cluster of male and female dancers.
Rhys chuckles at that, sliding a little lower into the couch, as he says, “She’s all mine.”
Is this all the conversation they can have? A few passing whispers? A few half-veiled hopes at a plan? Fifty years of juggling court masks and gathering allies and pushing pieces into place in the shadows while everyone else parties around them? It’s such a contrast to the world you’re used to that you can’t help but feel small inside it.
It’s only when he’s gone that Rhys asks, “Are you ok?”
“I thought being drunk was supposed to make me feel less depressed,” you grumble into his shirt because he’s pleasantly warm and you can’t bring your body to move from where you’re pressed into his chest.
“I think you passed over the threshold for that a couple drinks ago,” he replies.
“Take me back to the blissful void,” you whine.
“Well enough people have seen you here with me, I think we can slip away and get you into bed without causing a scene now.”
He’d pulled you over here on purpose, removing the shield of the crowd so people would see you with him, see you cutting loose, and when you disappeared they’d think he’d taken you to bed and not wonder if there was anything more to it, because his reputation was enough. That mask was so encompassing it could shield you too.
Rhys winnows you away and you can’t tell what end is up anymore, not until he sets you square in the center of a bed with black silk sheets. His room, as dust covered and bare as it had been the last time.
You groan as you fall back into the pillows, all the wine threatening to come up again as you try to keep yourself upright. This position allows you to feel just how wet you are between your legs, making you stop squeezing your eyes shut to look at the damp spot you’d left on Rhys’s pants. Not that he seems to notice as he peels off his jacket and starts unbuttoning his shirt, getting comfortable for the night, even as shame makes your cheeks turn bright red. What is wrong with you?
“You need a bucket over there?” He asks.
You need to drink until you can forget what you’ve been doing all night. How are you supposed to look at him now?
You hear the clink of his belt coming off before he climbs into the bed next to you and you force yourself not to open your eyes and look at what he’s wearing to bed, because you’ve made a fool of yourself enough for one night.
“That last drink was a mistake,” you lie, because what else are you supposed to say?
His body is warm as he lays down beside you. “You played your part well,” Rhys encourages. “No one will think twice about where you’ve gone.”
You’re an idiot, but you’re not quite sober enough to think better of it as you ask, “Is that all this is? A game?”
Rhys uses a bit of his power to snuff the candles out, bathing the room in utter darkness. “It’s necessary-”
You roll onto your side, finally daring to look at him, as best you can in the dark anyway. “But is that all you want it to be?” You press.
He’d been laying with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, but at your words he rolls over too, so you’re once again nose to nose, practically sharing a breath.
“Wanting anything is dangerous, Y/N.”
“So all that you said earlier, about wanting me, that was just for show? This is just a mask?”
“It keeps you safe,” he says so low it's almost a growl.
“But it’s not what you want?”
“I can’t…” he shakes his head. “I can’t. The things I love have a tendency to be taken from me, I cannot want anything other than to get out of here.”
Your eyes sting and you’re glad for the dark, glad that it hides the tears welling up in your eyes. “I can play this part, if that’s what we need to fulfill this bargain,” it’s a concentrated effort to keep your voice steady, but you mean it. If this is all it will be, then you will have to find a way to live with it, because at least your mate will be alive. And maybe, if Amarantha sees anything like what you two had been doing tonight, then maybe she’d direct that anger at you instead of him. You could find a way to use it to protect him, the same way he’d used it for you.
He’s your mate, whatever you have to do to make sure he survives, you’ll do it. Even if it tears you apart inside.
“But please, just tell me that it’s not real, that you don’t really want me, so that I can prepare, so that I don’t overstep. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.”
His pause feels like it spans an hour, the silence ticking away like a clock in the darkness. “I…”
You stamp down the hope flaring in your chest, it’ll be easier to deal with if he is up front that he doesn’t see you as anything but a means to an end. “What do you want, Rhys?”
He growls, the sound skittering across your bones as he throws an arm around your waist and crashes his lips against yours. “You,” he says into your mind. “I want you in any way you’ll have me.”
The ink on your chest warms, feels strangely like it’s glowing beneath your skin as the solid weight of him settles on top of you, pushing you into the mattress. You're a tangle of limbs and teeth, as he kisses you like it might be his only chance to.
You drag your hands down the sharp contours of his spine, memorizing the feel of him beneath your fingertips as his tongue slides behind your teeth to taste you. This is far better than any drug, no amount of mirthroot could ever make you feel this high.
“You’re ok with this?” He pants into your lips, finally coming up for air.
“More than ok,” you confirm and that’s all it takes for him to start sliding the straps off your dress, pulling the tight fitting bodice slowly from your body. The chill in the air is only a momentary discomfort before his hands and lips chase it away as he follows the fabric down your body.
Thank the Mother for the privacy of the room, that you hadn’t managed to get your top off like you’d tried to do in the throne room, because the noise you let out when he gets his mouth around your nipple is embarrassingly loud, whole body flushed crimson. You clamp your hand over your mouth when he does the same move on your other breast, or at least you try to, that slithering ether of power snags your wrist and pins it above your head before you can cut off the noise.
“None of that,” he hums into your skin, teeth scraping your skin. “Want to hear you.”
Cauldron he’ll be the death of you!
It’s his power that whisks the glamor away from the bargain mark so he can run his lips over the ink, tracing the flower petals and vines. “We should make more bargains, you look so pretty with all this ink.”
You huff a laugh as you scrape your nails through his hair, making a mess of it. “What kinds of bargains?”
He kisses lower, pulling the dress down towards your hips, following it again. “That you’ll let me taste you like this once a day for the rest of eternity,” he suggests as he lifts your hips to get the dress lower.
“I’m not wasting a bargain on that,” you huff, though you’re embarrassed to admit the way the suggestion makes heat pool in your core.
“You’re right, twice a day is more practical,” he says as he slips both the dress and your underthings off in one fell swoop. Strong arms wrap around your hips as he settles himself between your legs and you barely have time to draw a shaky breath before he’s running his tongue up your center.
“I-” all thought and argument eddies from your mind as your body arches under his ministrations.
“More than that, perhaps?” He teases, adding a finger to the mix, even as his tongue swirls through your quickly budding arousal.
Your hand in his hair tightens, pulling his hair as you try and guide him deeper. “Rhys,” you whimper. He feels so good; so perfect. Nothing else would ever compare; he’s barely touched you and you’re fully ready to come apart already.
He adds a second finger, stretching you out as his tongue flicks over your clit, the combination making your head spin. You screw your eyes shut as your body tightens, muscles taut as a bow string as your pleasure builds too fast to prepare for. He might still be talking nonsense about bargains but you genuinely can’t hear a word he says against the white noise tearing through your head.
Mate. Mate. Mate. It’s right where the flower-what did he say it was called? Datura?-sits over your heart that you feel the bond between your souls, like a tether of glittering starlight. It’s been there, faint before, just enough of a tether to let you feel a bit of him at the other end, but now it thrums with his power, like it’s searching for your own. A call like the one he’d sent out on Calanmai, and you can’t tell if he’s testing to see if you know it’s there, or if it’s you pulling on it, begging to be closer to him as your high crashes over you.
Rhys kisses his way back up your body, lips damp with your arousal. “You know?”
The disbelief in his tone brings you back to reality. Your shields had been down and you’d just…
You push yourself up on your elbows. “You knew?” You counter.
He brushes his lips over the bargain mark again, distracting himself from looking into your eyes as he says, “I suspected, before Calanmai, but afterwards, when I saw you for real, not just as a dream, it clicked.”
“You’d been dreaming about me?”
Another kiss on your heated skin, body relaxing under his touch. “For decades,” he whispers. “And I told myself that it was enough, that I’d leave it there, where you were safe and far away from all of this, but then there were whispers in the court about at a weapon Hybern was looking for. The more she had me look into it, the more my dreams started making sense, the better I could see you.”
You brush your fingers through the hair falling over his eyes, prompting him to finally look at you. “When she narrowed down that you were in Spring, she started sending me out on Calanmia to look for you, thinking it might mask all her hunters with those coming to the party. It was my only chance to reach you and I had every intention to get you to leave Spring.”
He catches your hand and presses a kiss to your fingertips. “I never meant to let you see me, but you were so scared and she decided to come out herself for the first time in years and I panicked. I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if she got her hands on you first.”
Your eyes sting at the confession. Your selfless mate, who through all these years of trauma, had still been willing to let you go without ever getting to see you if it meant you didn’t end up here.
“I swore that I’d do everything in my power to get you out, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t stay away, no matter how much I tried to. You needed me and I… I need you.”
You’re not entirely sure how useful you’ve been to him in all of this, but you let him speak anyway.
“Not just this,” he says, gesturing to your bodies. “But for all of it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t want you to think you’re stuck with me,” he says. “It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”
You sit up as best you can around the weight of him over you so you can grip his face. “I’m not stuck with you. I’m choosing you. I want you, Rhys.”
The disbelief in his eyes makes your heart ache and you lean forward to gently kiss the tip of his nose. “Not just for this,” you repeat, gesturing to your bodies as he had done. “Though it is amazing.”
He grins at that.
“And not just this,” you drag his hand over the ink on your chest. “But for whatever is beyond this. When it’s all over, when we’ve won and we’ve got her stupid head on a pike, I want to explore whatever comes next with you.”
He kisses you then, eagerly, a little less frantic than before, but with no less desire, the taste of your arousal still faint on his swollen lips. You lean back into the mattress, pulling him down with you.
“I know this whole thing is twisted and terrifying, but I want to walk with you through it. Together.”
“Together,” he confirms as you wrap your legs around his waist.
A new bargain mark zaps across your skin, over your palm, where your hands are intertwined, a twin to the one on his own hand.
“I still think I made an excellent bargain offer,” he says as you tug at the waistband of his boxers.
“You’re insufferable, Rhysand,” you laugh.
“I think the word you’re thinking of is insatiable,” he counters as he lines himself up with your entrance.
“That too,” you reply as you arch your back, the tip of his cock gliding through your arousal. It’s a little more of stretch than you're used to, but the line between pain and pleasure blurs as he slowly rocks his hips into yours, taking his time to let you adjust. He really will ruin anyone else for you, not that you’ll ever want anything other than this from here on out.
“Darling,” he purrs, or tries to, the groan he lets out as he fully seats himself inside you makes shivers run up your spine. “You have no idea how insatiable I can be.”
You rock your hips, prompting him to move, to match your rhythm, to fill and take and claim you as your body has been begging him to all night long. “I think you should show me.”
The laugh he lets out sounds more like a growl as he picks up his pace, one hand braced against the headboard to give him more leverage as he slides nearly out of you and slams back in. You cling to his shoulders, nails gliding over his sweat-dampened skin for leverage, his name a whimper on your lips.
The bond between you glitters, swells with all the affection and desire he feels for you as he shoots in down to you. For all the pain and trouble it had caused, you think you still you might have come out earlier on Calanmai, just to feel this sooner.
You whimper his name again and again as your high once again draws closer, your body white hot.
“I’ve got you,” he says in your ear and judging by the frantic rutting of his hips you know he’ll be right there with you. Together in this, as you will be in the rest of it. You let yourself fall, unrestrained, as pleasure washes over you, your mate giving a shout as he follows close behind. The two of you topple into the sheets, clinging to each other as you catch your breath.
“You ok?” He asks as you cling tightly to him, even as your body relaxes.
You nuzzle your face into his chest. “I’m with my mate, how could I not be?” Whatever tomorrow holds, whatever dangers lie ahead, you can rest knowing that you’ll be together for it.
Author's Note: As a little treat for the last chapter being so short, this one is loooooonnnngg. A couple familiar faces make an appearance here, as I decided I wanted to start combining the Hybern storyline with the UTM storyline.
Part 8 is here, rest of the series can be found here
Breath rasps out of you, hands doubled over on your knees, sweat dripping off your forehead. The pounding in your skull intensifies with each labored breath, spots dancing across your vision as you shake your head. “I can’t!”
“You can.”
You raise your head enough to shoot the High Lord of the Night Court a glare. Easy for him to say, he’s not the one shifting forms over and over again. Do High Lord’s even have other forms, aside from Spring? You can’t recall anymore, your head hurts too much. Rhys had decided days ago--at least, you think it’s days, time has become irrelevant in this dark dungeon cell Amarantha has left you both in--that the best way for you to gain control of your powers to better hide them, is to learn how to control the shift. Yours is not quite a beast form, you’re not fully transforming into some sort of beast, but you can grow fangs and claws and shift your eyes into something other. There’s something deeper there you haven’t quite touched, the image of it reveals itself in your dreams, sometimes as this shapeless empty void, others with scales, but you’ll have to dig deeper for whatever that thing is. For now, it’s dampening your power and glamoring your bargain mark, and keeping a harness on the fangs and claws. It’s excruciating, letting them out and shoving them back in, you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve done it already. And Rhys just sits there in the corner, watching intently, giving instructions and being a general pain in the ass with each of them.
“Did you think it was going to be easy?” Rhys returns.
You massage your jaw, the throbbing from retracting your fangs making your whole face hurt. “Of course not asshole! I’m just saying a little compassion would be nice.”
Rhys smirks, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted to be babied and treated like a doll.”
You snarl at him like an animal, eyes blazing and your fangs slide into place effortlessly, pricking your bottom lip.
Rhys stands with a grunt, body still recovering from the beating he’d received and the strain on his powers. “You’re so easy to rile up,” he croons, stalking closer. “You wear every emotion so plainly, it’s almost too easy to get you right into this position. And what happens when someone other than me sees, hm?”
He’s right and you hate it.
He stills when he’s only a hair breath away. “I know it’s hard,” he says more gently. “But consider the alternative.”
You don’t want to even think about the alternative. This bargain has to work, you have to make it work, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how long it takes. You can’t let her win.
Your eyes go to the marks still gouged into Rhys’s neck from the collar; his healing abilities have started to return slowly, but he still can’t get the chain off, the wounds still rubbed raw from any and every movement. You can’t let her keep doing this to him either.
“Fine,” you huff.
“Good girl.”
The remark gets him a nice flash of your middle finger before you go back through the steps he’d taught you. It is nice to have the banter between you as a distraction to the reality of your situation, to the cold and darkness that have become a constant companion here far beneath the Mountain. The lack of food and sleep from the elements and the sounds of things prowling around outside is hard enough to bear without the looming threat of Amarantha’s return. This easy thing between you takes the edge off.
You last maybe an hour more, before you slump against the wall, exhausted.
“You’re doing good,” Rhys affirms from his side of the cell. There’s barely enough room for the two of you to stretch your legs, knees brushing as you stretch your weary muscles.
You want to believe him, but you know the confinement is taking a toll on your body. Perhaps part of Amarantha’s plan is to let you go half mad in the dark of the dungeons for your insubordination. At least you had been let out of your room from time to time. Locked away like this, you’re tired more easily. With powers like yours you should be able to do this for longer, but it feels like you’re trying to move the Mountain one rock at a time.
You rub a hand over your face, smearing the filth on your hands from touching the floor across your face. “Don’t patronize me.”
“You can be doing good and still need a lot of work,” he replies. “I thought you wanted me to be sympathetic?”
“Yeah well it means less if I had to force you to say it,” you retort.
He moves so he can come sit next to you. If he had any plans to say anything, it’s halted as the lock on the door slides out of place and it creaks open.
You instinctively reach for his hand, breath caught in your throat, waiting to hear that ominous click of heels on the stone floor. But it’s merely one of her red skinned guards, pushing a single tray across the floor before slamming the door shut again.
Rhys gives your hand a reassuring squeeze before leaning around you to grab the tray, a single, burnt loaf of bread and a cup of water between the two of you.
“I want to go home,” you whisper, more to yourself than to him.
He rips the bread in half. “Don’t get all mushy on me now.”
You take the half he offers, stomach rumbling, but you can’t bring yourself to eat it. What’s the point?
“Tell me about it,” he says after a beat. “What’s so special about your little farmhouse in Spring.”
You bring your knees to your chest. “It had a lot of sunlight, for starters.” You miss being able to curl up by the windows with your books and a cup of tea, miss going out into the fields to check the mares and their calves, miss finding an excuse to go into town to listen to the minstrels play in the square.
“I miss my bed and that old quilt I bought off a seamstress on the side of the road,” you continue, tears welling in your eyes. “And my books.”
“What do you like to read?”
“Anything,” you reply. “Everything. Never really mattered to me. Unless it was about math. I hate math.”
Rhys huffs a laugh. “What did math do to you?”
“It’s evil and stupid and who fucking puts letters in with numbers?” It’s such a stupid statement you can’t help but laugh as the words come out. “But I’d read nothing but books about numbers for the rest of my life if it meant we got out of here.”
“Well, I guess I’ll have to pull some from my library for you,” he teases.
You turn to look at him. “How have you survived this long, Rhys?”
He washes down the rest of his food with a bit of the water in your shared cup, violet eyes looking anywhere in the cell but your face. “One day at a time,” he says like it’s something he’s said every day. “And… and when it gets bad I think about my friends, my family. I make a list of their names and I recite it in my head until I don’t feel so lonely.”
You take his hand again, because what else are you supposed to do? You cannot magically make this all end right here and now. It will take time. Maybe that’s what hurts most, because this is the first time in weeks you’ve felt like you understand how your powers work, how you can use them, and yet there’s nowhere to direct them. It’s all a waiting game, moving pieces into the right places until you can finally put all this to use. And cauldron is the waiting game grating on your last nerve, but it’s only been a few days. Rhys has been here for fifty. Your heart aches for him.
“But I think,” he finally turns to look at you, and his violet eyes are damp. “I think I’ve forgotten what they look like.”
You give his hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Some days I want to just lay down and quit,” he whispers. “But I can’t. I won’t. Then she wins and everything I’ve set out to do, to protect, was for nothing. I can’t let it be for nothing.”
You lean your head against his shoulder. “It won’t be for nothing.” You won’t let it either, you just need to rest for a bit, then you can get back to it.
He leans his head against yours. “We’ll get you back to your books and your quilt.”
“We’ll get out,” you whisper. Maybe if you tell yourself it enough it’ll be true.
“We’ll get out,” he echos.
After sitting like that for a few moments, collecting yourself, you choke down the stale and mostly ruined bread and little bit of ice cold water you’ll get for the day. It gives you enough energy to get back on your feet at least. Your head still throbs from the strain, but you brace yourself against the wall and will it to pass.
“Let’s try those glamors again.”
“That’s my girl,” Rhys praises.
You focus your attention on the thing that lives in your chest, hoping his position on the floor keeps him from seeing the blush that creeps its way up your neck under the possessiveness in his tone. The banter between you is one thing, but anything else is dangerous territory, and you can’t risk any more danger in your life than you already have.
---
Time passes mostly the same after that, with a little more banter as the tension of being locked up builds between the two of you and a little less vulnerability, granted, but the training regime is the same, until your headaches become less frequent and his jabs at you make you feel less and less like a reason to bring out your claws. The shift becomes a little more bearable over time, and glamoring the bargain ink across your chest becomes the next focus. It takes all your attention for what feels like days, but it’s anyone’s guess.
The progress should make you feel more comfortable, and it does in some ways, but makes you jumpier in others. Every noise outside the door has you checking to make sure a glamor is in place, has you running your tongue over your teeth to ensure your fangs are hidden. Its been steadily getting colder in the cell, the only true indicator that time is passing, and if you can manage to sleep around the shaking of your body, your dreams have started to become less of a call of your powers and more of nightmare of clicking heels and bright red hair and rooms with black vials full of terrible potions. Rhys isn’t any better. Sometimes he wakes screaming, a bit of night chilled darkness seeping from his flushed skin. Some nights you find him staring dutifully at the door, unable to sleep at all.
You’re not sure how much more of this either of you can take before one of you starts bashing against the door again. Between the two of you, perhaps the damage he’d already done would be enough to get it open for real, but what would you do from there? It wasn’t like you could escape. Even if you managed to get out of this cell, she’d just throw you in another.
So you do your best to endure a little longer, even if that means coming up with new ways to cope with it. Cuddling with the High Lord of the Night Court hadn’t really been an option you’d considered until one night it had become so unbearably cold that you could see the clouds of your breath in the air and there wasn’t a full set of clothes between the two of you. Trying to conserve body heat, you’d rolled right into his bare chest and he’d greedily buried his freezing nose into the crook of your neck, teeth chattering against your skin. He’d mumbled something about conserving body heat and that had been all that you were willing to talk about it. From that point on, if you were tired, you’d just lay down next to his large body and let him wrap his arms around you for however long your body could manage to rest in these conditions.
It wasn’t that it felt wrong, it was that it felt right. You could see yourself tangled up like this, in a nice bed, with some warm blankets and fluffy pillows, sunlight streaming through a window above your heads, finally free and out of this terrible place. You try not to let your imagination go too far with that thought, but sometimes it’s the only reason you keep getting up and training; even if it isn’t going to happen for real, at least there’s something to imagine waiting for you at the end of this. You just make sure your shields are up when the thought runs away with you, lest he see them as his powers start to return.
“Your nose is cold,” Rhys says by way of greeting. You can only assume it’s morning, assume that your internal clock still works and that you are, in fact, still on some sort of sleep schedule, but it’s anyone’s guess really.
You crack an eye open to see what he’s talking about, grumbling about it being too early. At some point, you’d nestled quite snuggly into his chest, face buried in the crook of his neck, despite the collar.
“So are your hands,” you retort, closing your eyes again.
He drags one up your back, where the tattered remains of your dress bare your newly scarred skin, in retaliation.
“Bastard,” you snarl but you don’t pull away. Pulling away means waking up; means counting the cracks in the ceiling again, pacing until you feel some warmth in your body again. Pulling away means you have to face another day in this cell and you’re not sure you can do it without bashing your fists into the door Rhys had nearly ruined already.
“You like having my hands on you,” he returns.
“Do I?”
“You were practically begging me to touch you on Calanmai,” he says huskily, warm breath ghosting over your ear.
Your stomach does a little flip at the memory of his hands on you on Calanmai, at the hunger and want that had been so plain on his face you could almost taste it. Things had been so simple then, you didn’t need to worry about letting your own want show. Not like now. “Oh yes, because a night of magic induced horniness is the indicator for what I want.”
But you do want it. Cauldron boil you do you want it. Every drag of his calloused palms across your bare skin makes you want to arch further into his touch, let him explore and taste and claim every bit of you. It’s becoming unbearable. Calanmai was nothing compared to this.
“So what do you want then?” Rhys asks as his hands draw shapes in your skin, near the base of your neck. You swear you hear a hint of vulnerability there, like there might actually be more than banter in this question.
“To sleep,” you reply, because you can’t allow anything more to happen. Amarantha already knows you care enough about him to surrender your powers, if she knew it was anything more, she’d kill him just to spite you.
Rhys hums like he’s thinking about it, but eventually says, “We should train more. Your glamours need more work.”
“Bite me,” you grumble. Training has become even more exhausting. It’s useful stuff for sure, but holding onto your power for too long, then stuffing it back down is starting to feel suffocating. Your powers beg to be unleashed, free and unrestrained from the boundaries you are drawing out for them. No, you can’t allow yourself to think about what you want to happen with the High Lord, but you can’t bring yourself to get up, so here you remain, in limbo between the two. Maybe if he lets you drift back to sleep you’ll never have to make a decision between the two.
He brushes his lips over the shell of your ear, “Ask nicely.”
Your treacherous heart skips a beat at the huskiness of his tone, heat flaring in the pit of your stomach. “Make me, High Lord.”
A laugh rumbles in his chest. “Darling,” he purrs, “don’t start games you can’t finish.”
You have two options here: You can leave it be and get up, leave the line you have made between the two of you right where it is and not have to worry about it; or you can hold your ground and risk stepping right over that boundary line. You know you’re teetering on the knife’s edge here.
“Why wouldn’t I finish?” You turn your head enough to look him in the eyes, batting your eyelashes in feign innocence, even though you know damn well what you’re doing.
He moves so quickly you don't have time to realize it’s happening before he’s rolling you over onto your back, the solid, heavy weight of him pressing you into the floor. All rational thought eddies from your mind as his hips shift against your own.
“You have a lot of attitude for someone so set on going back to bed,” he says and you can’t help but note how dilated his eyes are, the violet almost wholly consumed by his pupils.
This somehow feels more intimate than what you had been doing on Calanmai, despite the fact that his hands were firmly planted next to your head instead of roving over your skin. Gods you hope the filth of the cell covers the scent of your budding arousal because this--him--you want, need, more of it.
“I can be more than one thing at a time,” you reply. It’s taking all your restraint to not reach your hands out and touch the muscles that ripple across his tattooed chest from holding himself up above you. Even after a few days locked away, you can’t stop thinking about how it would taste to run your tongue over those dark swirls of ink.
His eyes narrow as if he can hear your thoughts, and shit, you realize too late that your shields have been down this whole time because you’d thought, since he was still recovering, those daemati powers would be the last to come back. There’s not time to throw your shields up before his lips are crashing into yours.
You’d thought Calanmai was as desperate for something as you’d ever feel, but it’s nothing in comparison to the hunger that consumes you as those full lips settle against your own. There’s no stopping the groan that tears itself from you as he slides a hand under your head, fingers tangling in your matted hair as he slips his tongue behind your teeth.
You see stars, taste citrus and jasmine. He invades all your senses so thoroughly that the very cell feels like it falls away until nothing exists in the world but the two of you.
Calanmai had been feverish, an itch that needed to be scratched, but this is like finding air after being underwater too long. You can’t help but feel dizzy and greedy for more as you drag a hand up the sharp contours of his back.
He hisses softly into your mouth when your fingers accidentally brush the collar and you pull back, finally coming up for air. “Shit, shit I’m sorry-”
But he chases back after you like a man starved anyway. “It’s ok,” in between more kisses, each hungrier than the last, “it’s ok.” You’ve never heard a male’s voice get so low, the sound of it making your whole body turn molten.
Still, you’re conscious of where you put your hands, and sensing your hesitation, he drags them over to his chest, inviting you to touch, to trace his tattoos just as you were thinking about doing the first time you’d seen them. Gods there isn’t a part of him you don’t want to explore; to map out and learn every scare and curve across his bronze skin.
You would have too, if the lock on the door didn’t suddenly click out of place. The resounding echo is like ice water being dumped on your head.
Rhys slides the hand under your head down your back and around your waist, yanking you up off the floor with him while he stands. You’re still trying to get your bearings when he places one last, gentle kiss on your lips. “Remember what we practiced.”
Your head is spinning, legs shaky. Nothing makes any sense. Why is he stopping?
The door opens and more of Amarantha’s guards step in, but there’s no tray of food this time, just a single, metal collar. The sight of it is like having water dumped on your head, all thoughts of Rhys’s body on yours drifting away as reality crashes back into you.
“Her Highness requests your presence,” says one of the two.
Only two. If they were here for Rhys there would be, at least, four, after the stunts he’d been pulling. He has to know that too, but he steps forward anyway, shrugging like it doesn’t bother him, like the smell of you isn’t all over him for anyone to scent.
One of the guards gets a hand on his chest and pushes him back into the wall. “Not you.”
Your mouth feels like it’s made of sandpaper; hands trembling at your sides. You can’t do this, you can’t do this, you can’t.
There’s a tug beneath your ribs, where the bargain ink lies, some sort of invisible thread going taught as Rhys says, “Breathe. Just like we practiced,” into your mind.
You want to duck behind him and hide, but you do as you’re told, drawing one breath, then another as the second guard steps forward and clamps the collar around your throat. It’s not the same, strange metal that used to dampen your power before, but why would it be when Amarantha thinks she has all your powers? As much as you hated the feeling of it, you kind of wished they’d used it instead, just as an extra barrier to keep your powers at bay.
What little bit of Rhys’s power has returned fills the cell, night chilled mist making the already dark room even harder to see in, save for a slight tint of stardust in his irises. “She’s done everything she was asked,” he snarls. “That collar isn’t necessary.”
“Her Highness says it is.”
You risk a glance at him, needing to steady yourself, dreading the fact that he’s somehow become so important to you that the thought of being taken out of this cell makes you want to start shredding things apart. How had you so quickly dug this hole for yourself.
“I’ll be right here. You can do this.”
They don’t waste any more time, dragging you out by the chain attached to the collar, like you’re some sort of wild animal. It’s degrading; makes you feel less and less like a person and more like a pet the longer time drags on. The guards are quick on their feet too, not giving you time to adjust to your surroundings or the blaring torchlights that make you squeeze your eyes shut as you pass. Cauldron, how long have you been in that cell?
You have just enough presence of mind to ensure your glamor is in place around your chest, before they’re dragging you through the open throne room doors. Another one of Amarantha’s nightly parties is in full swing, dancers in skimpy clothes spinning across the room; servants with pitchers of fae wine weave through the crowd, stopping at tables to refill the cups of several High Fae and someone you think might be the High Lord of Winter. It must be nice to have curied enough favor with the Queen that he was allowed to wander freely, instead of a cell, or, like the High Lord of Spring, chained to her throne. Tamlin’s golden hair is messy, undone around his face. The Mountain has stolen some of the color from his skin, though you suppose you look equally as pale now too. He wears his own, glittering collar, the golden chain draped over the bare expanse of his chest. Amarantha has inked her sigil over his heart, staking her claim over her mate. The High Lord’s eyes are so glassy from what you can only assume is the combination of mirthroot and fae wine that you doubt he’s even aware of where he is. It might be a small mercy, in the end.
The guards drag you through the crowd, where you earn more than a few snickers and stares. You’ve never been more aware of how much dirt clings to your skin until this moment. Gods you were making out with a High Lord looking like this? Could he taste the dirt on you?
You’re led right to the dias, where Amarantha wears a glittering, ruby red crown, her hair unbound and falling in soft waves around her pale face. She might have been pretty once, but the cruelty in her dark gaze was enough to sour it if you looked too long. She watches with amusement as her guards drag you over, eyes glinting with barely restrained glee. Her new little pet here to entertain.
They finally quit dragging you once you’re at the foot of the dias and the crowd goes quiet behind you.
“Have you had enough time to think about what you’ve done?” She croons like you’re a misbehaving child in need of a time out.
Your cheeks flush, but you focus your attention on keeping the damper on your power. You can’t let her rile you up so easily, that’s exactly what she wants. “Yes,” you grind out through your teeth.
She taps a pointed nail against her chin, as if thinking. “And yet you do not bow in my presence, or acknowledge me as your queen?”
A tingling feeling in your upper jaw is the indication that your fangs want to come out and play and you force yourself to take a breath, then another. Still, you have to grit your teeth and stare at the floor to give her a little curtsey, as best you can in your ruined dress anyway. “My apologies.”
“Again,” she says with a grin. “Like you mean it, pet.”
There’s a couple snickers from the crowd behind you.
You’re gritting your teeth so hard you’re sure they might just crack on you, but you take your skirts in hand and curtsey a little deeper this time. The only way you get through it is to picture all the ways you’ll make her pay for this when the time is right.
“No, that’s not right,” she frowns. “You should be lower. In fact, you should be on your knees, thanking me for the mercy I have shown you after you so violently attacked me. Most people don’t live to see the next morning after such things.” The eye on her ring swivels in a motion that makes you think it’s nodding in agreement.
You risk a glance around, searching for any sympathy, and support, but there is none to be found in the leering faces of the crowd.
“Go on,” she orders. “Beg for my forgiveness.”
Mother knows what she’ll do to you, or Rhys if you don’t, and you need to be in one piece to fulfill your bargain. Still, the move is so demeaning, your very nature thrashing against it that it’s an effort not to cry as you lower yourself onto your knees at the foot of her throne.
When you open your mouth to spew whatever bullshit you think will appease her, she cuts you off, “Lower.”
Your whole face is red with shame as you lean forward until your forehead touches the floor.
“Better,” she croons. “Now beg, pet.”
“Please,” the word sticks in your throat like it’s a rock. “Please forgive my violent outburst. It won’t happen again.”
She clears her throat, waiting for you to say it.
“It won’t happen again, Your Highness.”
“Try again.”
The crowd is laughing in earnest now and the tears are flowing down your cheeks. You hate this, you hate her, you want to rip her fucking throat out and make that dreadful, grating voice vanish from the face of the world.
“It won’t happen again, My Queen.”
“Much better,” she says, taking another sip of wine. “I told you I’d get her in line.”
You raise your head off the floor enough to see who she was talking to with that last bit, and your heart lurches into your stomach at the sight of the two figures standing to the side of the dias, staring intently at you. Twins, bearing the same dark hair, swept back out of their faces, their eyes the same slate gray. They both wear armor, finely polished over matching black tunics and pants, a bit of silver lining in the stitches of their well pressed clothes. But it’s the sigil, over the heart on their armor, that marks them as Hybern’s.
The female stalks over to where you’re still kneeling and yanks you up by the hair to have a better look at you. Gloved fingers poke at your lips, trying to get a look at your teeth and you wonder if maybe you really have been turned into some sort of animal.
“No fangs,” she muses, her voice like gravel, nothing pretty or feminine about it. “No claws either,” her hands move from your face to your nail beds, poking like you would at a cat’s paws to get their claws to come out.
You bite the inside of your cheek until you taste blood.
“You’ve tested to make sure you took all of her powers?” The male asks Amarantha and your blood turns to ice in your veins. If she tries to use your powers now then you’re doomed before you even get started.
“I’d be happy to demonstrate,” Amarantha says flippantly, but there’s an edge under it that makes you think even she is trying not to squirm. “But my formula has never failed me.”
“Yours?” The female sneers. “You’d be wise to remember who taught you how to make those potions, General.”
Hybern made Amarantha, Rhys had said, it only made sense that all these little tricks had been part of her training.
Amarantha takes another swig of wine and waves the disrespect off like a fly. “I’ll happily throw her into the Pit again if you are both so desperate to waste your own time with a demonstration.”
They stare at each other, having some sort of silent conversation. The female finally releases your hair and the ground rises up to meet you as you nearly fall back onto your face.
“No,” the male brushes a gloved hand over a speck of dirt clinging to his otherwise spotless armor. “I suppose that would be a waste of our time. We have other things to attend to while we’re here.”
It’s honestly a relief. Going back down into the Pit to fight more monsters without being able to summon any of your powers sounds like a complete nightmare, you’re honestly not sure you’re strong enough not to slip up and make a mistake.
“But we can still check,” the female purrs and that’s when you feel a mental claw raking across your mind. It is not like Rhys’s, not gentle or even teasing, it’s a slash, like someone is trying to cleave through your shields with a knife, and you instantly reach your hands for your head as if it’ll be any sort of protection at all.
You don’t dare call out to Rhys, or even think about what mental hoops you need to do to hide the bargain mark, the glamor should hold for a bit on its own while you put all your energy into tightening your shields against their onslaught. Rhys had been right about your cousins’ daemati powers, they were nothing like his own.
They keep clawing and poking, taking turns trying to tear your mind to shreds. It’s not gentle either, their presence making you whimper and writhe on the throne room floor, regardless of the embarrassment from the still watching crowd.
“Well there’s been some training here,” the female says.
“Be careful, Brannagh,” Amarantha hisses. “If you turn her mind to soup she’ll be of no use to us.”
You lock every door and throw up every barrier you can muster, even as they throw themselves against each one, testing for weaknesses. They’re an excellent tag team, every time you think Brannagh might give up, her brother steps into her place and tries again. You’re seeing spots by the time they release you.
The male’s boots come into view as he stops in front of your face. “If you’re so beaten, why won’t you show us how powerless you are, hm?”
It feels like someone’s taking a hammer to your skull, you pinch your eyes shut against the wave of nausea that makes the room spin. “Maybe I just don’t like you,” you hiss.
He too grabs you by the hair, twisting you so your neck moves at an awkward angle to be able to see exactly how badly the remark had hit him.
“Dagdan,” his sister warns. “Play nice. Our King wants her alive, remember?”
“They said your mother was this untamed too,” he hisses. “Before they broke her.”
You swallow the rage that rises up in your throat, clamp down on everything threatening to bubble to the surface and overflow, ruining all your plans. You have made it this far, you cannot let their presence get the best of you. There will be time to process all this later, when you’re back in your cell. Strangely, the thought of going back to Rhys soothes you, helps you settle.
“Are you done messing with my things?” Amarantha asks.
“She’s only yours until Hybern arrives to lay claim to Prythian, as is his right,” Brannagh says loud enough for the whole room to hear her. If there was any partying still happening in the corners of the room, it has ceased now, all eyes on the twins.
Amarantha is standing, wine glass clattering to the floor, splattering Tamlin, who doesn’t even look at it. “That’s enough! You will mind your mouths in my Court!”
Dagdan chuckles at that. “Did your Queen not tell you the truth?” Having found a new victim to play with, he finally releases your hair.
“I said enough!” Amarantha booms, both fire and ice flying from her fingertips. The Mountain trembles beneath her as the powers she’s stolen skitter uncontrollably from her. One eye blazes like a forest fire, the other has gone black and empty, a bit of Rhys’s stolen power flaring. “In my Throne Room you answer to me, regardless of who you serve.”
With the way she jerks back you think the twins might have reached for her mind to silence her, but you can’t be sure.
“You answer to Hybern, same as everyone else!” Brannagh challenges. “You were nothing more than an experiment, to test and see if Prythian was once again fertile ground for our empire. Did you really think Hybern would just let you walk in here and steal what is rightfully his?”
The crowd begins to whisper amongst themselves, apparently having not heard the news until now. You risk a glance around looking for the other High Lords, hoping some of them, perhaps the ones who had sides against Hybern in the War would be more inclined to fight. If you could gain allies, perhaps this would be over quicker.
There are many unrecognizable faces in the crowd, some High Fae, some lower, some concealed by the masks of Tamlin’s former court, some fully clothed in their servants’ garb. It is hard to discern between the glittering chandeliers and flickering torches who belongs to what court, and you have only vaguely glimpsed the High Lords themselves. Out of most of the faces, none even look your way, save for one red headed male, off to the side of a group of fire dancers. Golden eyes lock on yours for the briefest of moments before they dart away. If only you had your own daemati powers, perhaps this would be easier. You’ll have to talk to Rhys later about who your potential allies can be here.
“I was promised my part of the land and I will fucking have it,” Amarantha growls, turning your attention away from the crowd.
“You will take what you are given,” Dagdan returns. “And if you cooperate, maybe you will be allowed to keep this dingy little cave of yours.”
Amarantha bristles and sparks fly off her shoulders.
“You will do your part for the new empire,” Brannagh continues. “Lend us the Lord of Spring to lead us to the Wall. We’ll consider it proof of your undying allegiance and let your outburst slide.”
Amarantha glances down at where Tamlin remains staring at the wall, hands tightening into fists. “Absolutely not!”
“We can take him by force,” Dagdan says with a shrug.
She grabs the chain around her mate’s neck and yanks, dragging him to his feet. “I want him back by morning.”
Brannagh steps over you to get to him, gloved hands running appreciatively over the High Lord’s bare chest. “Maybe I’ll keep him.”
The wrong thing to say. Amarantha erupts in a wave of fire that has everyone throwing themselves out of the way. You roll backwards, away from it, slipping into the crowd. You think they might start fighting--they’re definitely screaming you can tell that much--when a set of hands settles on your shoulders, in what would look like to onlookers was a stranger helping you up, but those hands don’t lift, they hold you in place.
“Whatever Rhys is planning with you,” warm breath frames your face as the stranger puts his lips to your ear. “Tell him to move quickly. My father will side with Hybern and surrender up whatever army we have left at the earliest chance. He’ll want to get ahead of this. Summer and Winter do not have the strength to fight. Tell him Hellion is with us.”
Us. You risk a glance at him, at the auburn hair falling into your eyes. Not the High Lord of Autumn, but one of his sons.
“I’ll tell him,” you say softly, praying no one hears.
The male helps you to your feet. “Be careful. We might only get one chance.” And then he’s gone, disappearing into the crowd as the two females on the dias finally start to calm.
Amarantha is bleeding from a gash across her forehead, but Brannagh is laughing as she lets the blood from her nose drip freely down her face. “Mating bond chafing?”
Dagdan has managed to shield Tamlin, sparing him, of no kindness of his own, he is as inclined to look at the High Lord like he’d be his next meal as his sister.
“Get out,” Amarantha snarls.
Dagdan twirls Tamlin’s chain around his fingers. “We want proof the girl will be loyal when the time comes.”
“If a hair is harmed on my mate’s head,” Amarantha snarls in return. “I’ll pin you to my fucking wall.”
“Scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours. Otherwise, I’ll bring you back his head and I’ll take the girl and her powers back to Hybern, where we train in breaking goddesses.”
A few people in the crowd glance your way.
Shit, that’s what Rhys had been trying to tell you with that book he’d sent in your first couple of days here. Hybern had found a way to breed death gods. Your name would be on that list he’d made in the margins.
A guard finally comes to collect you as the twins drag Tamlin out of the throne room. Amarantha is apparently not done with her tantrum, as she begins throwing anything in reach, stolen powers swirling around her like a whirlwind. The crowd begins to slip away, fearing her wrath if they stay. For now, you’ve managed to keep your bargain and your powers secret, but your cousin’s words hang over you like a ticking clock. It’s only a matter of time before she realizes she has to test you.
Author’s Note: Ya girl finally got a new laptop and can get this fic back up and running! It’s a little short, but more updates to come! 😁 For a quick reminder of what happened here’s Pt 7 and the rest of the series can be found here.
Summary: Trapped Under the Mountain, you make a bargain with a certain High Lord to try and gain your freedom.
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“I want you to help me kill Amarantha.”
.
.
.
“Bargains don’t come for free, Darling,” Rhys rasps, voice so ragged it has you leaning in to try and get the ruined collar off him. There are open blisters, bleeding across his throat, skin an angry shade of red from how hard he’d been pulling on it. “And you don’t have anything left to bargain with.”
You huff a laugh as you inspect the rusted metal.
He winces as it comes in contact with his skin, bleeding hands coming up to grab yours. “Don’t bother with it.” It looks like it takes all his effort to move off his knees into a more comfortable sitting position, battered body held up only because he’s now leaning against the wall. Amarantha and her guards had taken the light with her, it is hard to see just how injured he is in the dark, but that doesn’t stop you from leaning in, hands resting on his sides like you might be able to find them with your hands. His skin is flushed, dirt and sweat and what you can only assume is blood mingling into a fine film across his exposed body. He’s got to be freezing, wearing nothing but last night’s dress pants.
“I have everything I need to make a bargain,” you say carefully.
Rhys braces his head against the wall, shutting his eyes, breath rasping out of him.
There are sure to be things listening and reporting to the evil queen this deep in the dungeons, you have to be careful with your choice of words; if Rhys wasn’t looking like he would pass out at any given moment you would have asked for him to slip into your mind, but you know, somehow, as if you can feel it, that it would be the last of his power. That close to the edge a simple slip into your head could kill him.
“She didn’t take everything,” you start.
“Not yet,” he warns.
You shake your head even though he can’t see it with his eyes closed; you’ll have to find another way to explain it. A quick glance at the door confirms the two of you are still alone--though the shifting of things with claws outside the door is slightly concerning--and you focus your mental energy into dipping into the power well in your chest. This is not the place for a free fall, you focus your breathing, steadying yourself, willing the drop to come slower, less rushed. Darkness rises up to meet you and you reach out for it. For so long, it had been you against the thing that slept in your chest, but these last few weeks, learning to embrace it, to get to know it, perhaps it is not as intimidating as you had always made it out to be. Perhaps it was meant to help you; it deserved a chance, right? If you could give the High Lord of the Night Court a chance after all the stories you’d heard about him, you could give the thing in your chest one too.
“Just a little,” you whisper to it.
It threatens to overtake you like before, but you grab a mental hold of it, still focusing on breathing evenly, on learning to hold on instead of submit. It is yours to wield, not just to overtake you.
It manifests in your eyes, you feel them shift and change until you can see into the dark corners of the cell. There’s old hay scattered across the scarred stone floor, covering centuries of stains and filth.
Rhys cracks an eye open like it takes all his strength, but just can’t help but look. When he sees the shift, he pushes himself up off the wall to grab your face. “But you took the vial?”
“And I gave what I had taken from her first,” you whisper as his thumbs stroke over your cheeks. Your fangs threaten to poke out, jaw aching under the strain of holding it all at bay. It’s a skill you haven’t yet mastered, you’ll need him for that too you suppose.
“You can siphon?”
Was that what it was called? “I think. It was an accident, I couldn’t really control it. One minute she was on top of me-”
Rhys stills, the kind of stillness you’d often seen on fae males before they became very, very aggressive, whole body tense like a predator ready to pounce.
“She’d summoned some fire and got a hand around my throat and it was so hot..” There hadn’t been time to stop and think about it before, but recalling it now makes you shutter as the reality of what could have happened if your powers had not intervened settles in. “I thought it would kill me, and I don’t know what happened. I blinked and suddenly I had her fire in my hands and I’d thrown her into a wall.”
It’s only as you finish the sentence does Rhys release a shaky breath, hands once again stroking against your cheeks, as if he’s assuring himself that you’re ok. You find yourself leaning into his touch; it’s grounding, makes you feel more centered than you have in days.
“I thought it would disappear when I smothered the flames, but I still felt it until I took that vial.”
One of his hands slides lower, stroking over your throat to check for damage. The way he insists the wounds at his own throat are nothing while simultaneously checking on yours is not lost on you.
“Blisters healed right up as soon as I held the flame, like they couldn’t hurt me anymore.”
“If you took enough of them it wouldn’t,” he confirms.
A useful skill you think you might need later, but figuring out how to do it again, how to wield it to your advantage is a problem for later. First, you need to get back to the matter at hand while you still have the time to do so.
“So, with what I do have, I want to bargain. I’ll give you half of my powers-”
“No.”
“You didn’t even let me finish!”
“I won’t take them from you.”
“Are they so terrible that you’d refuse to be responsible for them? Or is it me that’s the problem?” The words are out before you can bite them back, because despite all he’s done for you, that last conversation in his room still rings in your head.
He growls, actually growls, the sound low in his ruined throat as he grips your face a little more firmly. “No, because I would be just like her if I took them from you,” he snarls.
The anger that had been bubbling up in your throat sours in the pit of your stomach as you put yourself in his place. Amarantha has chained and abused him for fifty years, shackled to her by the very powers that were supposed to protect him from her and even though you knew he wouldn’t use yours on you like that, the wounds she’d made would be too deep. Would only remind him every day of her and how sick it had made him feel.
“Then what do you want, Rhys?”
His hands shake as he grips your face a little tighter. With your eyes shifted like this, you can see the way his own rove over you, the way he bites his lower lip in thought. It is the same longing you had seen in the cave on Calanmai, when he’d kissed you all those weeks ago.
“I want…” You can practically hear the thundering of his heartbeat. Was he… nervous?
“I don’t care what it is,” you say softly, and you mean it.
“Come back to the Night Court with me,” he says. “When this is over, when we’re free, come home with me.”
Back to the Court that had inspired Amarantha’s Mountain palace and the lovely court within. The stories of the Night Court had not been pretty, but could they really be worse than this place, if Rhys was their High Lord? Certainly the male sitting here on the floor with you couldn’t run such a horrific place as the stories said. Besides, when it was all said and done, could you bear to go back to the farmhouse and face your uncle? After all his lies could you bear to live with him? Could he bear to live with you either?
“You’ll help me train my powers then?”
“As best I can.”
“I want to see her head roll off her shoulders,” you saw lowly.
“I’d give it to you on a platter if I could, Darling.”
You huff a laugh, “Deal.”
A tingling sensation shoots its way through your body, clustering square in the center of your chest. The sensation swirls across your skin as it settles, angling its way over your heart. You peel what’s left of your dress back to assess your stinging skin, and half hidden by the dried blood crusted to your own skin are now whorls of what look like ink across chest and ribs. Above your heart sits a swirl of ink, of vines surrounding the blooming petals of a flower you know you’ve seen before, a cluster of three stars in its center.
“Bargains are made in ink in the Night Court,” Rhys says a little too smugly for your liking.
“Always on the chest, Rhysand?”
He shrugs. “I thought you’d appreciate the discretion.”
“I don’t think that’s the word I was looking for.”
“I liked the irony.”
“Of what exactly?”
He traces a finger over the edges of the flower and you can’t help but shiver. “It’s datura, a night flower, it grows best in the dark.”
A flower that would grow in his court; a flower that would bloom against all odds, in secret, while the rest of the world slept. A secret, lovely thing. You did, unfortunately, like the irony. You were not going to tell him that. “This isn’t the only flower you’ve been leaving me.”
He went still again. “No. No it’s not.”
“Why?”
“Thought maybe, I could get you out.”
“Careful, you sound like you care about me, Rhysand.”
He swallows, throat bobbing with the effort. “Would it be so bad?”
Your own words. Not quite the apology you should have gotten, but you supposed, here in this place, some cruel words were the last of your worries. With the bargain in place, you were not enemies. You could put it behind you.
“No, I don’t think it would be.”
“I’m sorry,” he says. “For all of it.”
You pull away to sit down against the wall, exhausted. “Tell me again when we’re free.”
He grunts as he sits down next to you. When he leans his head down against your shoulder, you don’t stop him. In fact, it’s you that slowly, dragging your hand inch by inch in the dark, takes his hand. This is a deal you can live with, a deal that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve sold your soul, but there is still an uneasiness here. You hope you both survive long enough to see it through.
As always, if you wanted to be added to the list leave a comment below or shoot me a message :) Thank you everybody who commented and stuck around for the lengthy process of getting this next chapter up and running, ya’ll are awesome ❤️
Summary: The final confrontation with Hybern comes to a head.
Content Warnings: Canon Typical Violence, Character Death (or two, sorry Beron), Suggestiveness ;)
Author's Note: I'm going to be totally honest, I have a terrible time writing endings, they have never been my strong suit, I like to keep things open ended so that they can just go one forever and ever. So, I intend to write a couple more chapters as part of the epilogue, I'm thinking a mating ceremony? Some fluffy goodness to make up for all the angst? Let me know what you guys want to see :) (I've posted a poll here for ideas as well )
Previous Chapter/ Master List
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Rhys is screaming, roaring, your name.
You should be dead.
You’re certainly cold, as cold as you had been the first time the Cauldron’s powers had filled you, but this time, this time there is an end to it. This time you can claw your way to the surface and grab some air. This time you do not fight it, do not surrender to it, you grab hold of that icy power and draw it in like a breath. And when your lungs are full, you release that breath with a scream that blows the roof off the Temple.
You’re not dead at all.
Helion lays with his hands over his head at your feet, completely unharmed.
You rub at the spot on your chest where you took the brunt of the blast, the only real discomfort you still feel from the whole ordeal.
Rhys grabs you by the shoulder, shouting your name, terror shooting down the bond.
“I’m ok,” you assure. “Although, I do kinda have heartburn now.”
Helion raises himself back up as both Azriel and Cassian slam into the ground beside you.
“Mother’s Tits!” Cassian bellows.
You burp from the pressure in your chest.
“How the fuck?” Azriel says to Rhys.
Your mate is staring at you like he can’t believe any of this is real, and you’re honestly inclined to believe the same. Just a couple months ago you had fully believed you were just some farm girl, and now, here you stand, a full fledged Death Goddess.
“What was that?” Rhys demands none of them in particular, his face awash with worry.
You roll your shoulders, strangely more confident than before. You can take that, you can take whatever else it’s got. “The Cauldron and I have unfinished business.”
The words are barely out of your mouth before an arrow comes whizzing past your ear. That was why it had been so empty; why cast spells and lay boobytraps when Hybern could simply pull his men back and wait for you all to enter so he could blast you away with the Cauldron?
Both Cassian and Azriel turn to face the Temple, large wings outstretched like shields as they raise their gloved hands. Ruby and cobalt siphons gleam on their hands and a moment later, they channel a blast of energy at them, turning the first wave of Hybern’s archers to ash.
“I’m going to take a wild guess and say they’re only out to let the Cauldron recharge,” Helion warns.
You rub at your chest again. “I need to get inside.”
“No-” Rhys starts, his hand still gripping your shoulder as he reconsiders the path ahead. His brothers push forward, their fine-tuned energy blasts clearing a path. For the moment, the Cauldron is quiet. It will not stay that way.
“It has to be me,” you say, turning away from the destruction ahead of you to look at him. It’s not fair that either of your lives have turned out like this, that the time you’ve had together has been so full of hardships. If things were different, maybe you would have wandered into the Night Court on your own, bumped into him in the city somewhere and the bond would have clicked. You could have had something simple, gentle, not these dangers and battles and pain between you.
“Let us be done with this,” there’s really not time for this conversation, but if anything goes wrong, you couldn’t bear any more regret. “So we can go home, together, like we bargained.”
You flex your hand, where the ink no longer resides, before brushing your hand over his cheek. “I love you, Rhys.”
“No good-byes,” he whispers, violet eyes heavy.
“We’ll have more time,” you promise. “And I am grateful for what we’ve already had.”
“Even if I did make a mess of it?” He teases, though his voice breaks.
You stretch up on your toes and kiss him gently on the lips. “I suppose I can find it in me to forgive you.”
A shiver runs down your spine as you feel the Cauldron powering up again, its voice a siren call in your mind as it beckons you. You pull away from your mate. “Pull them back.”
“Cassian! Azriel!” He barks and the two Illyrians turn ever so slightly to look at him in confusion, their glittering energy shields parting just enough to let a body through.
You don’t wait for Rhys to give them anymore orders, you sprint through that gap as fast as your legs can carry you.
“Come. Sweet Death. Come play, Little Goddess.”
It’s Cassian that yells for you to wait. Cassian who would have taken that next hit, those beautiful wings shredded to pieces had you not been standing directly between him and the next blast. The cold consumes you, makes every breath feel like swallowing glass, but still, you keep putting one foot in front of the other.
The next wave of soldiers comes barrelling forward, and you take all that borrowed energy clustered in your chest and hurl it at them. There’s no way to track how many bodies you turn to mist, a splatter of blood across your face their only remains. The blast takes another part of the Temple off, giving you a path right to where the Cauldron still remains mounted atop the altar. Its three legs have been fused to the ancient stone, Hybern shielded behind it, his men in a semi-circle around the sides.
“Playing hero now, daughter?” He snarls.
“Come to me.”
You open your arms wide as you stalk towards him, a green mist from the Cauldron pouring out over the edges. Even as he swirls a hand through the fog, when It speaks, he offers no reaction, even under his control, the words are meant for you alone. In the end, fate has drawn the two of you together.
“Give me your best shot!” You challenge.
“Closer. Come closer. Let me hold you.”
The next blast is stronger, pushing you backwards as debris from the now crumbling Temple rains down on your head. Outside, the clash of swords and cries of fighting men ring out. So Hybern is not foolish enough to keep all his men in one place, though that is a battle for the High Lords. You turn your attention away from the noise, swallowing the icy fire that bubbles in your chest from the influx of power, and hurl it back at the altar so hard the ancient stones crack.
For the first time, Hybern falters, stepping back from the Cauldron with a hand over his face to shield himself from the blast. His men had not been so fortunate.
“You cannot withstand this forever,” Hybern warns.
“And these blasts are not without cost, I’d imagine,” you return. “How long can you hide behind your Cauldron?”
He swirls a hand over the fog, offering a soft chant that makes the Cauldron bubble and groan. The floor trembles as the Cauldron shakes and spits out another attack, this time going wide and brushing the side of your face as it blows the roof off the place.
Your face is not as sturdy as your chest and the assault makes your ears ring, your right eye blurry. Overhead, Cassian’s Illyrian legion swoops and circles, the strange gems atop their hands pulsing like a dozen flashing lights.
You shake your head to clear your vision as you turn back to your father. “Afraid to face me without your precious weapon?”
He growls, teeth flashing as he grips the lip of the Cauldron with both hands.
“Come play. Come free me.”
His hands twitch from holding the ancient metal, yet he won’t let it go. “You forget how powerless against me you were before, Daughter.”
You get a step closer, the stones shaking beneath your boots. The more blasts you take, the more stiff your body feels, there is only so much abuse you can take. “Before you released me of whatever limits my powers had, you mean?” You sneer. “I’d say we’re evenly matched now.”
“You’re out of your element!” He shouts.
The Cauldron pulses like a heartbeat, the metal screaming now and you have enough time to reach out a hand and catch it in your palm, even as your arms scream in protest. It is a concentrated effort to push that power back out of your palm, even more so to aim it back at his head.
There isn’t time for him to shield, forcing him to take a step back away from the Cauldron, finally removing his hands from the lip. You waste no time in rushing forward and getting your own hand around the ancient metal. Instantly, it freezes you in place, the icy depths of whatever magic swirls within latches on like a thousand tiny hooks, fusing itself to you. It takes of you as you take of it, the exchange even and ceaseless.
You poke at the bridge between your mind and Rhys. “NOW!”
A blast of your father’s power slams into the back of your hand as he screams, trying to tear you away, but even though your skin breaks, blood spraying, you couldn’t let go if you wanted to. This is exactly where the Cauldron wants you and it’s exactly where you will stay until it’s done.
“Yes! Finally! Play with me,” it purrs as Rhys and Helion burst into the room. Light and dark swirl around them like whirlwinds, blowing the walls away until the only thing left standing in the entirety of the Temple is the altar.
“Show me what you want,” you tell it as you try drawing it’s icy power into yourself. There is no end to it; no beginning either. It is you and you are it and the more you take into yourself, the more of you it steals. The mist it emanates slithers around your wrists and up your arms as your own darkness dips within it’s center and disappears.
“We are made to destroy,” it sings.
A scream tears out of you as it pushes more of itself into you, the wave of energy that escapes out your mouth shooting up into the sky, nearly taking out some of the Illyrians still swooping overhead.
A shadow of Rhys’s power slithers into your mind, wrapping around you in a warm embrace. “You can do this. Fight it!”
“Show me what you want,” you insist as Hybern turns his attention away from you to face the High Lords running towards him. They are both powerful swordsmen, but the movements are stiff from years of disuse, their steps faltering as he pushes them back away from you with his own sword.
“He seeks to destroy,” the Cauldron purrs as if the thought makes it happy.
“Not him,” you say through your now chattering teeth. “You. What do you want?”
Rhys roars in pain behind you as Hybern clips his shoulder and Helion rushes to his aid, large broadsword angling for your father’s throat. Hybern catches Helion at the wrist and twists, snapping the Lord’s shoulder in one swift motion.
The Cauldron hums as if thinking. “Destruction is our way…”
“No,” you snarl. “You were once the instrument of life in Prythian! Destruction is not your only way, it is not my only way. If I can do more than kill, if I am more than a monster…” A monster would not have beaten Amarantha, would not have saved your mate, would not have fallen in love. Monsters do not feel, do not love. You brush a mental hand over the bond and draw another steadying breath, even as the cold seeps into your bones; makes your whole body shake. “We do not have to be weapons.”
From the treeline surrounding the ruins of the Temple, more and more of Hybern’s soldiers make it past the aerial units filtering above, clashing with the combined powers of the High Lords. Beron keeps them temporarily at bay with a wall of fire, but you can see the flames wavering, his weathered face pale and slick with sweat. Kallias and Tarquin remain back to back, using their powers to hurl projectiles over the wall of flame, holding steady, even as the sound of the labored breathing floats your way on the wind. They are holding, but it will not last forever. You need to even the playing field.
“Please. Help me stop him,” you beg. “I will give you whatever you want.”
“I like this new game,” the Cauldron purrs.
The flow of power between you and it has not faltered, you keep pulling more and more of it in as it continues to take it back. Your knees give out beneath you, hands still fused to the lip as a cold sweat beads off your forehead.
“Please,” you rasp. “Tell me what you want!”
Beron goes down with an arrow in the chest, his limp body collapsing into the earth so hard you feel the tremble of the impact. The Cauldron chuckles beneath your palms, still delighting in the destruction.
“Helion!” Rhys roars as Hybern drives his sword across the Lord of Day’s stomach, his own blade swinging at Hybern’s neck.
You give the Cauldron a shake, “Come on! This can’t be what you want!”
Rhys takes an elbow to the nose, blood spattering as Hybern outmaneuvers him, and barely manages to throw himself out of the way of the following strike, the blade leaving a gash in his fighting leathers. From overhead, Cassian spies the fight and angles himself away from his troops to come help, but it feels as if he’s moving in slow motion. Somehow, whether it’s the Cauldron’s power or the bond, you know something is about to be very, very wrong.
You grit your teeth, claws digging into the metal of the Cauldron and pull, skin peeling away as you get a hand off the lip to blast as much power as you can in Hybern’s direction. If the Cauldron will not help you, you will do this yourself. Nothing is going to take your mate from you ever again.
Cassian banks hard to avoid the blast, his cursing just audible over Hybern’s screaming. You’d known, just by the feel of it within your chest that this kind of power would be lethal, but watching as it burns through flesh and muscle, leaving nothing but exposed, stark white bone is enough to make your stomach rise into your throat.
Hybern’s sword turns to ash in his skeletal hand, still raised above Rhys’s head in what would have been a killing blow. It’s nothing but bone all the way down to his shoulder, chunks of his armor blasted away, bits of blistered skin visible from where the blast had gone a little wide. A little to the left and you would have taken him and Rhys out.
Your father gapes at you, more nightmare now than male.
“This is more fun than a bargain,” the Cauldron purrs. Perhaps it has been corrupted beyond repair, perhaps it can only be good when wielded by the right creature. Perhaps only the Mother had managed to tame the magic within and had left it an empty shell of what could have been.
You stop trying to take anything from it, and when you do, it lets your other hand free without injury. You slump against the altar as Rhys drives his sword through Hybern’s throat. Blood gurgles from his lips, eyes vacant and staring at the Cauldron as if in one final plea for help, before he falls face down in the grass.
The chaos that ensues in the next couple minutes feels like a fever dream as the Night Court’s forces drive the rest of Hybern’s away. Tarquin rushes to Helion, hands glowing in a strange light as the Spell-Cleaver instructs him on how to use his water magic to heal the gaping wound in his stomach. There is no saving Beron, Thesan confirms from where the dead man lies.
Rhys rushes to your side, where you remain slumped against the Cauldron, eyes blurry as the world spins around you. He cups your face, gently tapping at your cheeks. “Hey, hey, stay with me! You’re ok. You did it!”
You lean your face into his touch, “Don’t suppose you know how to get rid of this thing, huh?”
The Cauldron hisses in response.
He laughs, half-delirious with relief as he kisses your nose, your cheeks, your forehead. “We won! It’s over.”
It’s over.
You touch your forehead to his, body heavy, but laughing now yourself. “We did it!”
Azriel and Cassian come running as soon as it’s clear to do so, wings tucked tight behind them. “Everybody ok?”
Rhys kisses you, his lips still bloody, but you don’t have it in you to care as you return it. It is finally over; you are more than ok.
------
You watch the sunset across a glittering horizon, the warm rays bouncing off the rolling waves lapping at your ankles. The sand is warm beneath your feet, a supernatural ward keeping the water cool instead of frozen like it should be this time of year.
Footsteps sound behind you, the only warning you get before strong arms wrap around your waist. Your mate’s breath warm against your skin as he kisses your neck. “Enjoying the view?”
Any sight with sunlight is a luxury, you savor every wisp of wind, every ray of sunshine against your still pale skin. It will be awhile before either of you get any color back.
“More so now that you’re here,” you say with a grin as he places another kiss on your cheek.
He’d wanted to go straight back to the Night Court, but the matter of the Cauldron still remained. Eventually the High Lords, and the newly crowned Eris, had decided it needed to be returned to its resting place with the nephilim Miriam and her husband Drakon, who had suffered heavy losses when Hybern had marched through and stolen it. Under Helion’s instructions, the Cauldron’s legs had once again been cleaved and separated, and in doing so, the ancient artifact had finally, blissfully, gone silent. Rhys, long standing friends with Miriam and Drakon, had offered to take this piece back before returning home. It seemed only fitting that you followed to ensure no one else attempted to wield it.
“This doesn’t feel real,” you say after a moment of silence, only the crashing of the waves between the two of you.
Rhys settles against your back, body sturdy and warm. His pulse against you should be enough to convince you that this isn’t a dream, but you’re still waiting for something else to jump out from behind the rocks dotting the landscape and surprise you. Any minute now the dream will crumble and once again, stone walls will cover every inch of your surroundings.
“We’re out,” Rhys promises.
You wait, expecting to hear heels clicking against stone or a buzzing of a collar against your throat. It’s a miracle you can stand in the water at all without feeling your throat close up.
You lace your fingers with his, holding them tight where he rests them against your stomach. “We’re out,” you whisper.
Cassian and Azriel had come along, their boots heavy against the fine sand as they approach.
“We leaving or what?” Cassian asks.
Azriel punches him hard in the shoulder. “I thought I told you to give them a minute!”
“They’ve had plenty of minutes, any longer they’re gonna start making out, and I, for one, would like to be somewhere far away before that happens.” Cassian returns.
“It’s like dealing with toddlers,” Rhys whispers in your ear.
You release his hand so you can turn in his arms, palms flat against his chest. Most of the damage inflicted during the fight is healed, though there is still some bruising around his eyes from his broken nose. It’s unfair that he’s still the most beautiful male you’ve ever seen, even with the bruising.
“You know you’ve missed their antics.”
He grins, violet eyes glittering like a thousand stars and you promise yourself you’ll do anything to keep that look on his face. There has been enough pain and grief to last the rest of your lives.
“That I have,” he admits.
“Then we should probably get the little Illyrian baby back before he gets hungry,” you retort.
“Hey!” Cassian scoffs.
Rhys hums his approval as he places a gentle kiss on your lips. “I do have some bargains to fulfill, after all.”
You glance down at your bandage covered hands as if you can see the lack of ink there, the destroyed bond still tender, even now.
He draws his hand up to give yours a squeeze, before bringing it to his lips. “Broken or not, I intend to keep it.”
“We could make some new ones I’m sure,” you muse.
“Can we please leave?” Cassian whines.
Rhys ignores him, eyes glinting in challenge. “Like what?”
“I don’t know, I seem to recall a few suggestions you had…”
His lips are on yours again, hungry and wanting and the tether between you burns hot. “I’ll make as many bargains as you’d like, Darling.”
“Home first,” you force yourself to pull away and say, because if you keep letting him kiss you like that, neither of you will be leaving the beach.
He grins, shoulders rolling back, and from behind him a set of massive, bat-like wings appear. You gape, even as your head spins with the recollection that you had once thought there was something missing between the gaps of the tattoos on his back. The leathery membrane stretches out behind him like one would stretch their arms, fluttering slightly in the evening breeze.
You reach out a hand to give them a inquisitory touch and he swings them out of reach. “Not here,” he purrs in your ear.
Before you can ask why, he sweeps you up into his arms and launches into the sky. You toss your arms around his neck and squeeze your eyes shut as your stomach lurches into your throat.
“It’s more enjoyable if your eyes are open, Darling,” he laughs, wings beating hard to catch the right draft that will take you to the Night Court.
“I like to keep my stomach where it belongs, but thanks,” you mutter, burying your face in his neck to hide from the wind.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights?” He teases.
“Heights? No. Falling? Yes,” you return.
“You know I’d never drop you,” he says in all seriousness.
You let out a huff of annoyance, because damn him, his right and you know it. After everything, there is still no safer place to be than in your mate’s arms. You open one eye, then the other, and take a shaky breath before finally turning your head to the side to see the vast expanse of open sky around you.
The sun has slowly set, the sky awash in purples and blues as the first bit of stars appear in the sky. Rhys tilts and dips around the fluffiest clouds you’ve ever seen in your life, but you can’t help yourself from removing your arm from around his shoulders to try and touch one. They’re a lot more wet than you anticipated them being.
“I never thought I’d see this again,” Rhys whispers.
You kiss his cheek, flooding the bond with as much warmth as you can. It’ll be easier, once you’ve fully accepted it, and you plan to, once things are a little more settled. It would be a lot for him to return home to, you want to give him some time to just be home before tackling a new heightened sense of emotions and all that comes with being mated, but you already have a few ideas on how you want to go about it. For now, you’ll keep this thing between you simple and not overwhelming.
“Thank you, for getting us out,” he says.
“I didn’t do that much,” you reply. “We did it together.”
“It was all you,” he returns. “I think that collar messed up your memories a little.”
“My memories are fine,” you retort with an eye roll, even though he can’t see it. “We did it together, as we planned to. As we’ll do with whatever comes next.”
He grins as he follows a draft downwards, three mountain peaks coming into view. Somehow, you can feel in your chest when you cross the border, as if you very bones know that this is where you’re meant to be. He glides lower, letting you view the snow flecked landscape beneath you, grinning as he takes in the way you devour his court with your eyes. “Welcome to the Night Court.”
Author's Note: Darrrrrlllllliiiiinnnngggg guess who's back from jail the debilitating cycle of mental illness?
Seriously tho, thank ya'll for sticking with me I have not been able to write more than a couple paragraphs a day lately. Please enjoy meeting a couple familiar faces, as a treat.
Content Warnings: Canon Typical Violence
Previous Chapter/Masterlist
-----------------
Giving the High Lords’ their powers back is, surprisingly, the easiest part of the next hour. Reaching into your power well, untangling the threads of each of them, swirling together within you is easy compared to getting them to agree on anything. They all stand there, in what’s left of the Throne Room, yelling at each other about what’s to be done about your father. Rhys and Helion want him dead now, the Cauldron returned to its resting place. Beron and Tarquin want to go home and be done with the whole mess. Kallias and Thesan want to try and muster their armies, in case of all out war.
By this point its all a jumble of nonsense in your ears. You’re so tired. Rhys, with his powers returned, is healing nicely from the wounds you’ve inflicted, and despite all he’s endured, he’s the one holding you upright as you lean into his side. It’s taking all your energy to just keep your eyes open, to not give into the warmth that radiates from his skin, and sink into it.
“We are wasting time!” Helion agrues.
“What he does in the Human Lands is no business of ours!” Shouts Beron.
You’d snarl at him if you had the energy; every time he opens his mouth you wish you’d had the presence of mind to give his powers to Eris instead, but the headache from holding all that had gotten so bad you’d thought your head might actually burst if you didn’t expel as much of it as you could. As is, Tamlin’s powers still prowl beneath your skin; finding him will be a challenge you’ll have to face later, once this threat is finally over.
Rhys’s hand strokes your side soothingly as he comes to Helion’s defense, his snarl making the room shake. He is a sight to behold at full power, everything about him seems to dim the impressive powers around him. Wisps of shadows twirl around his body, twining around your own in exploration. A welcome darkness. You’d like very much to fall into it and not think about any of this for weeks and weeks.
“We are getting nowhere with this,” Kallias insists. “Let us return home and send out spies. We are of no help to anyone if we end up dead because we went in blind.”
“We cannot wait that long,” Helion presses.
“We won’t need to,” Rhys says, flicking a bit of lint off his shoulder. “My spy should be here with news any minute now.”
Even you crane your head up to look at him, surprised. He hasn’t moved from the Throne Room, is only now dressed because he summoned something from a pocket realm, when would he have had the time?
He merely winks at you as he says to the others, “Once he arrives, we will make our decision.”
“And we should trust a word from your spies?” Beron snarls. “As we should trust a story about the Cauldron from her.” He’s been rather pissed that a female had wielded his powers, and has taken every opportunity to take a shot at you since getting them back. As if diminishing your ability cleansed them of whatever womanly germs you may have gotten on them.
“I gave you those powers of my own free will, I can take them back any time I desire,” you warn.
He has the good sense to step away from you, at least, even if his disdain is palpable.
“The next time you look at my mate like that,” Rhys snarls so low the lights in the room start to wink out. The stars that usually glitter in his violet eyes shrink, pupil expanding until it’s nearly black. “I’ll separate your head from your shoulders.” His shadows deepen, swirling around him.
Mate. The word clangs through them like a warning bell and there are various reactions of disgust and surprise. Helion claps him on the back in congratulations despite the others’ response.
You brush a mental hand over the thin thread that connects you to Rhys, testing to tell yourself that it is real. The loss of the bargains is visceral, it feels as if there’s a gaping wound in your soul, poking around in there feels like touching an exposed nerve, but beneath it, glittering like a million stars, is that tether. The one you suspect might have been the only reason you’re still alive at all.
Rhys opens his end of it to you, the door of adamant thrown open far wider than it had ever been before. “Are you all right, Darling?”
You could cry from a thousand different things right now, but the fact that you can hear him, feel him like this makes you close your eyes for a brief moment and relish the fact that Hybern hadn’t robbed you of this too. “I thought…” the memory of that dark power holding you down, tearing the bargain apart, flashes across your shared mental space before you can shut it out. “I wasn’t sure this would still be here.”
Rhys’s anger flares down the bond as the memory plays out before him, the arm around your waist tightening. “It will always be here. Nothing, no exiled king, no Mountain, no damned Cauldron, will ever change that.”
“Even if I did punch you in the face?” You quip, eyes blurring with tears.
His deep rumble of a laugh flows down the bond, fills it with glittering starlight. It is such a contrast to the dark lord mask he still outwardly shows the other lords. Looking at him, they can only see Darkness Incarnate, a creature of shadows and malevolence that keeps baring his teeth when someone gets out of line. Yet here, between your two souls, he is gentle and kind and bright.
“Maybe if you’d broken my nose it would be different, I am known for my good looks after all,” he returns. “So I suppose it can be overlooked.”
You’ve almost forgotten the other lords are still bickering until Rhys’s remark makes you snort and Beron turns to glare at you. It’s only because your mate flashes his teeth at him with a growl that he keeps from pointing it out.
You could have stayed like this, warm in both his physical and mental embrace, had a male with wings not entered the room. Fae came in all shapes, sizes and colors, your travels had shown many of them to you over the years, but you’ve met very few with wings like these. The leathery membrane is reminiscent of a bat’s, with a large apex talon at the tip; when folded behind him, the talons make it look like horns are growing out of his shoulders. He weara]s black fighting leathers, fit tight to his muscled form; a sword sheathed between his great wings, a single, ornate dagger strapped to his thigh. You know him to be with Rhys solely from the shadows that mist over his frame, drifting through his dark hair to shroud his face as he enters, his powers not entirely unlike your mate’s.
The male’s hazel eyes flick immediately to Rhys, his features mostly schooled into cold indifference, but you note the briefest flick of relief as he takes in his High Lord.
“Don’t tell me you only brought the Shadowsinger?” Helion asks with a pout.
The rest of the room finally falls silent as the male steps up to the table you’ve all been arguing around. Rhys claps him on the shoulder in greeting, your mate’s posture relaxing at his presence.
The male returns the gesture, the hand he reaches out scarred beyond any repair. “M’lord.” There’s a bit of teasing underneath the tone, as if he says it in joke, perhaps that is why Rhys flashes him a grin in return.
“Well?” Thesan questions.
“My spies and I have tracked Hybern back to a temple in Spring,” the male says, turning away from Rhys to face them. “Troops are prepared to move, but no one has yet. I couldn’t get any closer.”
You run your fingers over your damaged throat in thought. He has the Cauldron still, why not use it?
Helion asks as much before you can say it aloud.
“I couldn’t get inside, his shields are extensive. If we are to engage him, we’ll have to draw him outside.”
“With what army?” Kallias returns.
“We have an Illyrian legion and a squadron of Darkbringers standing by,” he says with a nod to Rhys.
“Ah, so you did bring Cassian,” Helion says with a grin. “I was hoping I’d see a pretty face after being in this cage for so long.”
Beron snarls softly under his breath in disgust.
“I can break the shield,” you say.
“Tore through Amarantha’s like butter,” Helion agrees.
Rhys’s attention is now glued to you, as is the Shadowsinger, hazel eyes assessing the way his lord holds you.
“I can go in first, take the shield down, and you all can come in behind me.”
“And let you lead us right into a trap?” Beron snarls.
“Would you prefer to go in first?” Tarquin returns.
“Helion and I will be right behind you,” Rhys says slowly, as if he’s still thinking through the details.
“I can cleave any surprise spells beyond the shield,” Helion confirms.
“My troops can provide cover, if Hybern’s men move,” Rhys continues. “The rest of you can follow along behind. We’ll distract Hybern while…”
A shiver runs inadvertently down my spine at thought, but I force the words out anyway, “While I drain the Cauldron so he can’t use it.”
Rhys nods, a string of affection trickling down the bond. “Once Hybern and his troops are dead, or captured, we send the Cauldron back to its resting place, and we all go home.”
Kallias rubs a hand wearily over his face.
“I don’t see why all of us have to risk our necks,” Beron snarls.
“Because we don’t know what else he has up his sleeve,” Thesan returns. “We’ve all been in the dark to the outside world for the last fifty years. He could have anything.”
“He doesn’t have his whole army moved in yet,” the Shadowsinger confirms. “We have to move now.”
Tarquin sighs as he leans his weight against the table. “Let us be done with it then.”
You sigh with relief. It’s almost over. This nightmare is, mercifully, moments away from over. All you have to do is tear down a shield and drain the actual, life giving, Cauldron.
The terrifying, cold, bottomless Cauldron that had swallowed you and spit you out. The very thing that had tied you to Hybern’s will and nearly cost you your mate. And you wanted to, somehow, take that power from it so it couldn’t be wielded?
You are in over your head.
You never should have suggested it.
But how can you not? Even with all their powers restored, none of the High Lords can take power from anyone, or anything else. That is a gift that belongs to you and you alone. It has to be you.
By the time you pull yourself out of your thoughts over the ancient artifact, the other lords have filtered out, leaving you alone with Rhys and his spy. It’s only when they’re gone that Rhys releases you, so he can throw his arms around the other male. It is far more affectionate than you have ever seen him be with someone aside from yourself.
“Az,” he half sobs into the other male’s shoulder.
“You idiot!” The other snarls, even as those scarred hands grip so tight to the back of Rhys’s shirt it looks like he might tear it. “What were you thinking!?”
Rhys’s response is still more sob than laugh, but there is some humor in it nonetheless. “It worked didn’t it?”
“I’d thought I’d never see you again, you stupid prick!”
When they finally pull away, Rhys is grinning. “Az, you should meet my mate.”
You’re still standing there awkwardly, and probably looking like you’d been tossed under a wagon, if you’re being totally honest with yourself, and the only thing you can think to do is give a little wave. “Hi.”
He looks back and forth between you two, shadows drifting off his shoulders, slithering around his dark boots like snakes as they come to appraise you, much as Rhys’s own powers had that night on Calanmai. Though these are colder and more methodic in their search than your mate’s had been.
“Y/N, this is my brother, Azriel.”
“Who’s blood is all over your hands?” Azriel asks by way of greeting.
It’s an effort not to tuck them behind your back under his scrutiny. “A little bit of everyone’s really,” you mumble.
Azriel shoots Rhys a look that has your mate grinning, “She killed Amarantha.”
“Well, then, it’s nice to meet you,” Azriel replies, the corners of his mouth quirking up in a grin.
“You two will get along well, I think,” Rhys says, and judging by the warmth he’s flooding down the bond you know he really means it. This is important to him.
“You make it a habit of killing dictators, Y/N?” Azriel teases.
“Well we are on our way to kill my father, so I might be,” you return.
The shock on his face is enough to make you grin, even as Rhys slaps Azriel on the back and says, “We should go find Cass.”
Cass turns out to be one of the tallest males you’ve ever seen, bearing the same dark wings as Azriel, long brown hair tied back out of his sun kissed face. While Azriel had remarks on Rhys’s absence to make, this one merely barreled into him as soon as he caught sight of him, nearly taking them both to the ground in his attempt to bear hug him.
Azriel takes up the space beside you, watching them with the same cold indifference he looked at everything. “Careful, he’s a hugger.” Was the only warning you got before the giant of a male released Rhys to sweep you up into a hug of your own.
You awkwardly pat his large back once your feet manage to get back on the ground. “Uh hi.”
“You’re much prettier than he is,” he says when he pulls away, a shit eating grin plastered to his handsome face. “You sure you want this loser?” He jerks his thumb in Rhys’s direction for good measure.
Rhys grabs you by the shoulders and pulls you back against his chest. “Don’t mind Cassian, he was dropped as a baby.”
“I was not!” Cassian returns. “Thrown out into the snow sure, but no one ever dropped me.”
“His head’s so big you wouldn’t have noticed if he had anyway,” Azriel returns.
Rhys chuckles as they turn to square off each other, shouting obscenities. “I know they’re a little much-”
You run your fingers over his arm where it’s braced against your collarbone, the weight of him at your back solid and reassuring. “This is pretty much what I’d expect of anyone related to you, honestly.”
He gives your shoulder a teasing pinch, “Brat.”
“You endured all this for them,” you say in a more serious tone. “You gave all of yourself to make sure they were safe. They’re important to you, so they’re important to me.”
He kisses the top of your head in thanks. “I can’t wait for this to be over, so we can go home and you can meet the rest of them.”
For that, for them, you can do this, you can go up against the Cauldron. You give his hand a squeeze. “Let’s get this done then.”
----
The crunch of every dead piece of grass under your feet sounds like an alarm bell. The rustle of the trees, the quiet of the nearby birds, it all feels as if it’s screaming your location right to your father.
You draw a deep breath as you creep forward, then another as the Temple finally comes into view. Hybern’s shield around the building is a lot less visible than Amarantha’s had been, yet you can feel it. There’s a buzzing beneath your skin that grows the closer you get to it, the air tinged with a hint of overripe fruit.
“Hello, Daughter of the Void, have you come to play another game?”
You freeze, a shiver running down your spine.
Behind you, Rhys and Helion pause too, watching the area ahead of you warily. Cassian had produced armor and weapons for both of them, their swords still sheathed at their backs. Rhys reaches a hand up to grab his at your movements, but neither mention hearing the Cauldron.
“Darling?” Rhys asks mind to mind to avoid being heard. “Are you all right?”
Your stomach is in your throat, it’s an effort to swallow. “Yeah,” you lie as the phantom touch of that icy water brushes over your skin. Cassian hadn’t found armor for you, just a pair of more practical clothes and boots. Helion had offered to cast a shield for you, but his efforts had been for nothing, your body had swallowed up the shield like it was starving for any bit of new power it could reach. Still, you wish you’d found something, anything to make you feel a little less powerless against what you were up against.
“Just thought I heard something.” In a few more tentative steps, you’re at the edge of the shield.
“Come, come and play, Sweet Nothing.”
You reach out a hand, even though it’s shaking, and let your claws slide into place. They’re still a little distorted from Spring’s powers, you skin a war of fur and scales as the warring powers fight for dominance.
You can do this. Your mate is right behind you. His brothers and their winged armies just above the treeline. You are not alone to fight Hybern this time.
“Once we’re through, let Helion go ahead and check for protection spells,” Rhys cautions.
“I didn’t see any before,” you muse.
“He wasn’t trying to keep you out then,” he reminds. “But he knows that you’re against him now. We have to be ready for anything.”
You square your shoulders. You can do this.
The shield splits under your claws as if you’re shredding paper, your hand tingling with the sensation of a thousand needles as you draw all that power into you. After holding the powers of all the High Lords, this is nothing in comparison, even if it is stronger than Amarantha’s. You don’t stop pulling it into you until you no longer feel the buzzing of it against your skin.
“We’re in,” you say to Helion, who strides past you far more confidently than you felt he should be.
Especially when it’s so… quiet.
You tilt your head, listening. There are still no birds here, but there is no waiting army either. Hybern had plenty of soldiers when you’d seen him last, too many to cram all inside the Temple, even with the ones you’d misted under his orders. It shouldn’t be this quiet.
Helion’s head tilts to the side as he too considers the stillness.
You can’t smell any spells at work, or see any other types of shields.
“Come, come and play,” the Cauldron beckons. “We have so much more to learn from each other, Little Death.”
Why have no army in sight with something this valuable out in the open?
Why leave something you could hear within reach?
You glance back at Rhys, by the look on his face its clear he too knows something is wrong, but he still can’t hear that it’s wrong.
“Come.” It starts like a second pulse within your chest.
“Come.” Then the hair on your arms raises.
“Come.” The ground trembles, but still no one but you notices.
Because you were remade. It knows you and you know it. And that’s the only way you have time to run and push Helion out of the way before Hybern uses the Cauldron to send out a blast of pure energy that hits you right in the chest.
