I awoke the next morning to Alis in my room, telling me it was nearly time for lunch. I'd slept all morning. Despite barely remembering the party, I didn't have a drop of a headache. I groaned at the woman and sat up in bed, only to realize I wasn't dressed. In anything.
Alis stifled a laugh. "You left quite the grass stains in your dress," she said before slipping out of the room.
I sat frozen, remembering. Trying to remember. I was naked. I'd been brought home naked. I remembered dancing in complete freedom and then... I was in and out of blackness. I scooted across to the edge of the bed and felt an ache in between my legs I hadn't felt since the boy I'd meet occassionally at the stables back in the mortal world.
Oh, no.
No no no no no.
But there was no denying it.
I felt the sting of tears in my eyes. Panic filled my lungs.
Tamlin. Oh, Tamlin, no. What did you do?
My breaths came faster and faster, the room getting smaller and smaller. I fell back into bed, pulled the blanket over my naked body, and squeezed my knees to my chest.
Please, no.
My chest heaved. I felt the bond build into a deep burn but it paled in comparison to the savage breaths spiraling out of me. I tried to calm myself. I tried to think of the plan. I tried to think of the good I was trying to do. I tried, but I couldn't. I couldn't think of anything but the touches on my body I didn't know about.
What good was the plan after this? I couldn't fight for Tamlin, not anymore.
It hurt to think about him.
Everything hurt.
I'm coming, I heard between my sobs. I'm coming now, Feyre. Hold on.
Rhysand.
For Rhysand, I dragged myself up from the shelter of my bed, bathed, and put on the heaviest tunic I could find with a pair of long pants. I stood at the doorway too long, a few helpless tears falling from my eyes, before I finally found the courage to step out into the hallway.
It was a long trek to the dining room.
I didn't make eye contact when I entered the room and I sat at my old seat across the table from Tamlin. Lucien was joining us today. He rubbed his temples as he ate, unusually quiet.
We ate for minutes in silence. No one greeted me. I said nothing. I couldn't bring myself to lift my head at all, lest I lay eyes on Tamlin - I wasn't sure I could stomach it.
Lucien shifted in his seat. "My contact at the Winter Court managed to get a letter to me." Lucien took a steadying breath, and I tried to muster the strength to pay attention. This would be the first time they'd ever really spoken business around me. I moved in my seat and felt the sting of pain - unwanted pain. I didn't bother to look at Tamlin's reaction. "The blight," Lucien said softly. "It took out two dozen of their younglings. Two dozen, all gone." He swallowed. "It just... burned through their magic, then broke apart their minds. No one in the Winter Court could do anything - no one could stop it once it turned its attention toward them. Their grief is... unfathomable. My contact says other courts are being hit hard - though the Night Court, of course, manages to remain unscathed. But the blight seems to be sending its wickedness this way - farther south with every attack."
I was tired - so tired. "Why don't you guys just call the blight by her name and stop with this childish hide and seek with me? I'm honestly sick of it," I breathed in a heavy sigh, the bite in my words obviously startling them.
I wouldn't look at Tamlin.
He shot to his feet so quickly his chair flipped over, and honestly I'd thought he was attacking me. I wouldn't be surprised at this point. He could do his worst. He unsheathed his claws and snarled at the open doorway, canines long and gleaming.
The house, usually full of the whispering skirts and chatter of servants, had gone silent.
Not the pregnant silence of Fire Night, but rather a trembling quiet that made me want to scramble under the table. Or just start running. Lucien swore and drew his sword.
"Get Feyre to the window - by the curtains," Tamlin growled to Lucien, not taking his eyes off the open doors. Lucien's hand gripped my elbow, dragging me out of my chair.
I let Lucien lead me to the window, my body immobile as it had been last night - as I felt it would now forever be. He leaned my body into the velvet drapes and then pressed his back into me, pinning me between him and the wall. The closeness - the pressure - was drowning me as seconds passed by. I tried to breathe.
The tang of magic shoved itself up my nostrils. Though his sword was pointed at the floor, Lucien's grip tightened on it until his knuckles turned white. Magic - a glamour. To conceal me, to make me a part of Lucien - invisible, hidden by the faerie's magic and scent.
I didn't bother looking at Tamlin, but I heard him sheath his claws and take a deep breath. His seat groaned as he readjusted himself.
Someone was coming, someone awful enough to frighten them - someone who would want to hurt me if they knew I was here.
I had a guess.
Footsteps sounded from the hall. Even, strolling, casual.
I heard Tamlin fidgeting from his seat, and in front of me, Lucien assumed a position of appearing to be looking out the window. The footsteps grew louder - the scuff of boots on marble tiles.
And then he appeared.
It was like I could breathe again. I almost ran to him, to the arms of my mate, desperate to close any space between us, relieving the pressure that had built on the bond in his absence. I missed him - his presence. And at this point, I would go anywhere to be away from here.
With graceful, feline steps he approached the dining table and stopped a few yards from the High Lord. I wondered if he could feel my presence through the bond or if he could see through Lucien's glamour. Rhysand was exactly as I remembered him, with his fine, rich clothing cloaked in tendrils of night: an ebony tunic brocaded with gold and silver, dark pants, and black books that went to his knees. After all this time, I'd never dared to paint him. Now I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to paint again.
"High Lord," Rhysand crooned, inclining his head slightly. Not a bow.
Tamlin remained seated. With his back to me, I couldn't see his face - didn't want to - but Tamlin's voice was laced with the promise of violence as he said, "What do you want, Rhysand?"
My mate smiled - heartbreaking in its beauty - and put a hand on his chest. "Rhysand? Come now, Tamlin. I don't see you for forty-nine years, and you start calling me Rhysand?" So he had taken away Tamlin's memory of Fire Night then. "Only my prisoners and my enemies call me that." His grin widened as he finished, and something in his countenance turned feral and deadly, more so than I'd ever seen Tamlin look. Rhysand turned, and I held my breath as he ran an eye over Lucien. "A fox mask. Appropriate for you, Lucien."
"Go to hell, Rhys," Lucien snapped.
"Always a pleasure dealing with rabble," Rhysand said, and faced Tamlin again. Did he not see me? Could he not feel my presence like I felt his - surrounding me, calling me to come closer? "I hope I wasn't interrupting."
"We were in the middle of lunch," Tamlin said - his voice void of any warmth to which I'd been accustomed. The voice of the High Lord. It turned my insides cold.
"Stimulating," Rhysand purred.
"What are you doing here, Rhys?" Tamlin demanded, still in his seat.
"I wanted to check up on you. I wanted to see how you were faring. If you got my little present."
"Your present was unnecessary."
"But a nice reminder of the fun days, wasn't it?" Rhysand clicked his tongue and surveyed the room. "Almost half a century holed up in a country estate. I almost don't know how you managed it. But," he said, facing Tamlin again, "you're such a stubborn bastard that this must have seemed like paradise compared to Under the Mountain. I suppose it is. I'm surprised, though: forty-nine years, and no attempts to save yourself or your lands. Even now that things are getting interesting again."
"There's nothing to be done," conceded Tamlin, his voice low.
Rhysand approached Tamlin, each movement smooth as silk. His voice dropped into a whisper - and erotic caress of sound that brought heat to my cheeks. "What a pity that you must endure the brunt of it, Tamlin - and an even greater pity that you're so resigned to your fate. You might be stubborn, but this is pathetic. How different the High Lord is from the brutal war-band leader of centuries ago."
Lucien interrupted, "What do you know about anything? You're just Amarantha's whore."
Despite myself I actually struggled against Lucien, pushing towards Rhysand. Lucien didn't budge, but Rhysand looked right at me, holding my gaze long enough that I knew he saw me. He felt me. He was just putting on a show. I nearly collapsed, desperate to end this tension. Desperate to rid myself of the tang of the glamour on my skin. Desperate to run from this room where I shared breath with Tamlin.
Before his eyes reconnected with Lucien's, Rhysand pulled on the bond and I clung to it unabashedly. "Her whore I might be, but not without my reasons." I flinched at the idea of what reasons would lead him to selling himself in that way. "At least I haven't bided my time among the hedges and flowers while the world has gone to Hell."
Lucien's sword rose slightly. "If you think that's all I've been doing, you'll soon learn otherwise."
"Little Lucien. You certainly gave them something to talk about when you switched to Spring. Such a sad thing, to see your lovely mother in perpetual mourning over losing you."
Lucien pointed his sword at Rhysand. "Watch your filthy mouth."
Rhysand laughed - a lover's laugh, low and soft and intimate. I held the bond as if my life depended on it, ready for his show to be over in the hopes of finding a way to some alone time with him. "Is than any way to speak to a High Lord of Prythian? Come now, Tamlin," Rhysand said. "Shouldn't you reprimand your lackey for speaking to me like that?"
"I don't enforce rank in my court," Tamlin said.
"Still?" Rhysand crossed his arms. "But it's so entertaining when they grovel. I suppose your father never bothered to show you."
"This isn't the Night Court," Lucien hissed. "And you have no power here - so clear out. Amarantha's bed is growing cold."
Rhysand snickered, but then he was upon Lucien, too fast for me to follow with human eyes, growling in his face. Lucien pressed me into the wall with his back and my lungs felt encased - trapped. My breaths was short then gone and back again.
Rhysand opened his mouth to spout out another blow to Lucien, but stopped - his body stiff. His face fell slowly and his eyes slid into a rage I'd never seen before. I had to hold my hands to stop them from shaking. His nostrils flared, scenting me in his nearness and his lips twitched. His features warped until his fury sent a chill down my spine. He knew. He knew I'd been distressed this morning. He knew the panic and the fear and the violation I'd woken up to and now he was here - smelling Tamlin's scent still probably intertwined with mine.
I was going to be sick. My chest heaved but Lucien was stick-straight in front of me.
"What. Did. You. Do," Rhysand ground out the words like gravel, his violet eyes swimming in a frenzy. He was looking at me. I felt a trail of wetness fall down one of my cheeks, and then the other.
The room was silent. Tamlin and Lucien had no idea what Rhysand was talking about.
Claws began to slide out, not from Tamlin's hands, but from Rhysand's, as he turned with deadly focus to Tamlin. "What did you do to her?" he spat at the High Lord.
Tamlin's chair groaned as it was shoved back. He rose, claws at the ready, deadlier than any of the knives strapped to him.
"What are you talking about?" Lucien managed. No one moved, but the tears kept falling down my face.
Rhysand stared down Tamlin, power emanating from him.
What did he do to you, Rhysand pleaded to me though the bond. The bond I was still squeezing with every ounce of strength I had. The bond that was holding me together.
I didn't want to think of what he did to me between the blackness of my memories of last night. I should have listened to Lucien. I shouldn't have had any of that faerie wine.
Feyre, he caressed into the bond.
Sobs racked through my body. My silence didn't matter anymore, and I felt myself relax between the warm body in front of me and the wall. Lucien moved and I slid to the ground. I didn't care. I reached for my knees, begging to curl into myself and let the world around me face away.
"Don't touch her!" Tamlin snapped as I felt warm hands on my face.
Rhysand roared. "Get her out of this house. Get her out of your court or I will slaughter you and destroy your lands inch by inch."
My chest shook my body and my head felt heavy with moisture. There was a pounding in my ears as the world was slowly shut out around me. I felt Lucien move away from me and Rhysand was shouting, over and over, barking at Tamlin. There was a blur of motion around me until finally there was silence.
"Feyre," Rhysand whispered.
I dared to open my swollen eyes and saw his terrifyingly beautiful face broken into pieces before me - his brows crushed together and his lips tightly shut.
"We're alone, Feyre," he said, moving strings of wet hair from my face. "They're getting you a horse and carriage to take you home. To your sisters. Your father. Is that ok?"
I nodded, but said nothing, my chest still heaving it's overflowing chorus that rippled through me.
"Forget the plan, Feyre, please. You'll be safe at home. I can finish the plan, I promise," he said quickly. "Please, Feyre," he begged.
I pulled a stiff arm from my cocoon to reach for him, managing to grab his hand before he rose to his feet.
"They're coming back, Feyre. They can't know we're mates. I will see you again, Feyre. I promise," he said, repeating my name like a prayer. "Feyre..."
Sleep. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to forget.
Rhysand wouldn't let Tamlin touch me. Lucien carried me into my ride, led by a fine white mare. Rhysand watched over from the doors, attempting to look indifferent - as if his wild rage hadn't exclaimed the opposite just minutes ago.
Tamlin approached me just before I left.
He reached for me, but I made no motion to reciprocate.
"Feyre," he whispered.
I finally looked at him - at his face. It shattered me - seeing his sweet eyes, brilliant as the timeless spring of his lands and then seeing his long golden hair and the stark memory of that hair hanging down on my sweat-covered face as it moved with him against me. I nearly wretched right there.
Then he said what I'd been waiting for. What I'd been trying to hear since I decided I would try to win him, to face Amarantha, to declare the words back to him and watch his mask fall and his powers return. But when the moment came, I said nothing. I felt nothing. I couldn't save this man, this lonely delusional man.
"I love you."
I wept until I fell into a magical slumber as I was carried back home.