eclipsed nova (UTM Feysand)

13

    "The evidence is pretty damn clear," he said, narrowing his eyes.

    "And where have you been?" I shouted, not even caring if we were heard anymore. My rage blinded my need to protect him. He didn't protect me, so why should I?

    "I beg your pardon?"

    "Yeah, as you fucking should," I threw my hands up in the air, fighting back angry tears. I'd always been an angry crier and I despised it. I didn't want him to think I was crying over him. "You left me down there in that cell to die. I came to save you. I sacrificed myself and lost my family to protect you. And the love I get in return is abandonment and the refusal to acknowledge my existence." Tears spilled out, but I chose to ignore them and pretend they weren't real.

    "So, you go and whore yourself?" He grimaced. "I don't give you enough attention and you give yourself to that lowlife, even after I told you not to trust him. You ignored my wishes and did as you pleased with no regard for me." Oh, I was going to kill him. My hands itched with the urge to wrap my hands around his neck and strangle him. It wasn't fair to place all blame and anger on him, but he was in front of me, and it was practically foaming out of my mouth.

    "Regard?! Have you gone mad? What regard do I owe you, after everything?" His claws dug into the linens on Rhysand's bed like he was just barely holding himself back from using them to hurt me. Some sick part of me wanted to provoke him. I wanted to see just how far he'd take it.

    "I got you out of that disgusting hovel and funded your family's survival, despite you slaughtering one of my men. I clothe you in luxuries you only could have dreamed of without me, gave you space to paint, romanced you by pools of starlight. I gave you a home and something to live for. I fed you, fucked you, and kept you safe," he listed, as though it were a score he'd been keeping for quite some time. I was a charity case that'd snagged his attentions, and now I'd lost my novelty.

    "You did not give me something to live for," I snarled, pointing my finger in his face. "You took what I lived for away. I had a purpose before you, a life. Perhaps it wasn't as 'luxurious,' but I woke up every day knowing that everything I went through was to keep my family healthy and alive. You stuffed me in that great big mansion and made me an ornament only to be played with on special occasions, and even then, being held with such fragility that I knew it was all inauthentic," I accused, voice breaking slightly. But I wasn't done. Not even close. "You saw in me what you wanted to. The vision you created of me in your head stole my voice, my power, my fight. I was a hunter, and you wanted a damn debutante. You didn't even know how unhappy I was, because you didn't even care. You didn't learn about me enough to even see changes in me, as I started to lose myself. Before I came here, my sister begged me not to go. She said she'd felt something wrong about you, that she sensed something bad was coming. But I was so blinded by you and your false kindness that I never even saw it, and I damned myself in the process." My chest rose and fell with fervor as my nostrils flared.

    "You ungrateful little brat-"

    "Ungrateful?!" I shouted, laughing humorlessly at the obscene ridiculousness of it all. He was tucked so deeply into his own delusion that he couldn't even see me. Not even now as I shouted at him and pleaded with him to understand how I was hurting. "You didn't even try to help me."

    "I couldn't," he snapped, like I was too idiotic to comprehend what he'd been through.

    "No?" I ask, raising both eyebrows in challenge.

    "Amarantha would have had my head if she'd known I'd helped you," he said through gritted teeth, rolling his neck like I was making him tense.

    "And yet Rhysand could help me?" I threw at him, before I'd even comprehended what was about to fly out of my mouth. My eyes widened, jaw slack as I saw the words register for him. Fuck, fuck, fuck.