Acotar and Tog [Discontinued, Will be deleted]

Take Me With You

Eight days. She’d been left there for eight days and I had let her - let her drown. What the hell would have happened if it’d gone, if I’d left her there the full three weeks with that -

The distinct sound of her swallowing met my ears and my head snapped to her attention. She blinked her eyes open wearily, looking like she needed an eternity more of sleep.

But she was okay . Alive, if nothing else. And she was safe - free, Mor had said.

I felt the threads inside me that had been spun around the bobbin, coiled far too tight, unravel across the floor all at once.

She was alive.

“What happened?” They sounded like her first spoken words ever, they came out so cracked and dry. She vaguely thought of screaming, her shields lowered and for once, I didn’t care one bit.

“You were screaming,” I said. “You also managed to scare the shit out of every servant and sentry in Tamlin’s manor when you wrapped yourself in darkness and they couldn’t see you.”

I remembered that darkness. Feyre did too. It rivaled my own and to think, she hadn’t even trained.

The thought presided over us as Feyre choked out in tense anxiety, “Did I hurt any-”

“No,” I said immediately. “Whatever you did, it was contained to you.”

“You weren’t-”

“By law and protocol, things would have become very complicated and very messy if I had been the one to walk into that house and take you.” I stretched my legs out in front of the chair, trying to sink into some of the relief I was now allowed to feel, and watched Feyre study me curiously. “Smashing that shield was fine, but Mor had to go in on her own two feet, render the sentries unconscious through her own power, and carry you over the border to another court before I could bring you here. Or else Tamlin would have free rein to march his forces into my lands to reclaim you. And as I have no interest in an internal war, we had to do everything by the book.”

Her face scrunched, a pause, but then - “When I go back...”

I rubbed at my temples. I wasn’t ready for this part. Hours waiting and pleading silently with the Cauldron to let her wake up, let her be fine , and now I would have to stand the chance she’d still rather be with Tamlin after everything than here with me.

“As your presence here isn’t part of our monthly requirement, you are under no obligation to go back... unless you wish to.”

Not a statement, but a question.

Feyre did not offer a yes or a no , but her reply spoke volumes. “He locked me in that house,” she said with pained breath.

So weak. So broken. So damned exhausted was my mate all because of that vile and wicked beast .

Shadows danced around me seeking vengeance. “I know,” I said, each word costing me a new price I had not known I could physically and emotionally pay. “I felt you. Even with your shields up - for once.”

Feyre stared hard at me. “I have nowhere else to go.”

That she could say that - could even think it after our time together, despite it all. Feyre -

But it was just as much a question and a begging as my own had been. She... wanted to stay. I could feel it. My darkness settled.

“Stay here for however long you want. Stay here forever, if you feel like it.”