eclipsed nova (UTM Feysand)

14: Rhysand's POV

I was disgusted with myself. Utterly and fully repulsed. Feyre had perched on my lap in one of those skimpy ass dresses, her thighs draped around one of my legs. She hadn't wanted to. She didn't want my hands on her body. I'd forced her to do it. And I felt fucking disgusted with myself for it.

    I was sure my brothers would barely recognize me now. Had Azriel seen what I'd forced Feyre to do, he likely would have separated my head from my shoulders the moment he saw me again. Cassian would most certainly have helped. They would be so disappointed with who I'd become without them. Morrigan would... Mor would never forgive me for all that I'd done since I'd been gone. She would be embarrassed by me and how all I'd been whittled down to was Amarantha's whore.

    But the part I hated the most was that I liked it. I hated that I liked having Feyre sitting in my lap, her warm vanilla scent settling over me like an intoxicant. I loathed how having her skin pressed against mine was the first physical touch I had actually wanted in fifty years. I'd become some selfish, vile creature underneath these rocks.

    To imagine the way my skin crawled like it was covered in piles of spiders- all spindly legs crawling over one another- when Amarantha touched me and know that I was making Feyre feel that exact feeling made me want to vomit on my own shoes. To know that I had become the bad guy in her story was worse than a dagger to the heart. Would she ever understand? Could I really expect her to?

    When I'd heard her screaming out for me- even though I'm not entirely quite sure she knew it was me she was reaching for- I'd nearly thrown up right onto where Amarantha held my head between her legs. She'd sounded so afraid and helpless, begging for something to make it stop. If I hadn't memorized her voice at this point, it easily could have been mistaken for my own inner dialogue.

    I felt fear like I've never felt in my life knowing that I couldn't even run to her, or I'd likely get us both killed. Forcing myself to get Amarantha off as quickly as was physically possible while hearing her fall apart in my head was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I hated myself.

    Disgust was a feeling I was incredibly intimately acquainted with, but fear? Fear was new. Fear was something I hadn't felt much after my first year of servicing Amarantha had passed. But when I heard Feyre's panic, I was afraid.

    When I'd seen that slimy rat bastard using his weight to hold her down as she begged him to stop- I almost blew my entire cover and ruined it all. I'd nearly gotten us both killed. A white-hot rage simmered under my skin, and it took everything I had left of my sanity to keep from torturing him in the most physically painful ways I could think of. And then I'd heal him and start all over again.

    But lying beside her now, I found that my fear hadn't faded. I was still terrified for her. I was still afraid of what could have happened if I hadn't heard her. I was afraid because she was still vulnerable. I couldn't be here all the time. On the nights I wasn't forced to perform for Amarantha, I'd been sitting outside of my door with a bottle of whiskey in my hand, sleeping slumped against the wall to make sure no one messed with her. Tonight, I'd been gone, and Tamlin had known and taken advantage of the one opportunity I'd unintentionally given him.

    I knew Tamlin was a wimpy traitor, but I never imagined he was a rapist, either. In the short time we'd been friends, he was known to have bedded an alarming number of females, but it never crossed my mind that he could have forced himself on them. It made me so nauseous that I couldn't sleep.

    I brought the whiskey bottle to my lips and embraced the familiar warmth and burn of an old friend sliding down my throat. There weren't many days I spent sober anymore. I was disintegrating underneath the weight of my responsibility. I looked down at where my legs laid over the blankets on my bed.