Chapter Text
One would never think it upon looking at you, but you certainly enjoy playing with fire, Miss Elain.
Those words were only spoken to Elain once, long ago, by a governess whose face had long since faded in memory. They'd had so many, back then. A rotation of staff prepared to shoulder the burden of teaching three young girls proper etiquette, and resigning after they'd been dealt the wrath of Nesta and their mother both.
Elain wished she knew why the words came back to her as frequently as they did. She could remember why it was said. She'd been caught—for perhaps the first and only time—switching her sisters' hair ribbons when they weren't looking. Nesta was particular and Feyre couldn't care less, but their youngest sister never backed down from a challenge. When they'd erupted into bickering, as they so often did, Elain had been startled when the governess's attention pinned to her rather than the two girls screaming at each other.
An explanation had been demanded, but Elain had none to give. It wasn't that she sought mischief, exactly. She didn't relish the fighting. She just wanted to see if anyone would notice, if her sisters would stop focusing on each other long enough to realize that Elain was there, too.
Sometimes it felt as though she were just there by extension. The way one might regard the passing clouds in the sky, hardly worth noting unless it rained or stormed. Her sisters were like the sun and the moon by comparison, bright and enduring and almost perpetually at odds, while Elain was always drifting between them. Aimless.
Maybe that's why Elain was thinking of it now. Everything had changed, but really, so had nothing.
And in many senses, Elain was playing with fire.
She knew that as she held her breath, knuckles rapping against the wooden door. Timid, but still the loudest sound in the dim, empty hallway. It was late. Far past the sensible hour to be standing outside someone's door.
It could be that she was intentionally placing obstacles in her way. If he was asleep, she would have an excuse to go back to her room. He wouldn't return for months after that, and she'd be left with no choice but to put this absurd idea out of her head.
As fate, her lone adversary, would have it, the door swung open.
And there he was.
The sight of him was a blow she'd never quite mastered how to withstand. It was always shocking, a sear of heat on frozen skin. Her breath rushed out of her like she'd been stung, and Elain could think of no better way to describe the blistering sense of awareness that crackled through her.
"Elain," he breathed, surprised.
He wasn't expecting a visit from her at all, let alone after everyone else had stumbled to bed. She hadn't stuck around long enough to know if he'd joined in on the drinking, but he seemed coherent, if a little bleary around the eyes.
His eyes were all she permitted herself to focus on. Would he have dressed properly if he'd known she was at the door? There was a wide expanse of muscular, golden-brown skin in her periphery, and she could sense him shifting uncomfortably, aware of his error but unable to amend it without calling attention to his lack of dress.
"Is there something wrong?" He asked, after the silence stretched long enough to agitate them both.
She'd rehearsed this. It was just that the reality was so much more daunting than she'd conjured in her head. He was supposed to be dressed, as a start. Alert, cunning, maybe a little bit frustrated to find her knocking on his door after all this time.
The male before her was clearly jaded, tired, and distinctly uncomfortable. Would he just laugh in her face and turn her away?
"I have a proposition," she said, finally.
He lifted a scarlet brow. "Usually when a female propositions me in the middle of the night, she isn't dressed like she's going to a funeral."
"Not like that!" she snapped, covering her arms over her dress like that might hide the black gown she'd thrown on, suddenly self-conscious. It was a long-sleeved modest gown, the same she'd worn to the Solstice ball at the Hewn City a few months prior. Despite living in the Night Court, she didn't own many black items of clothing, and this was the best she could find in her closet without alerting anyone to her plan. "I mean I have a—" She winced to say it. It went against everything she'd ever been told about the fae. "A bargain."
Lucien cocked his head. In the years she'd existed parallel to him, she'd learned he wasn't an impulsive male. He'd wait to hear what she had to say, and then decide accordingly. She equally admired and loathed that about him.
"I want you to take me somewhere," she said. "Tonight."
"Tonight."
Not a question, so much as a statement of disbelief.
"Yes. I can't winnow, so I need someone else to take me. And to tell no one where I went."
He eyed her dress suspiciously. She tried not to shift when his focus fixed on the strap that carried her supplies. "You won't tell me where?" When she shook her head, his eyes narrowed. "You won't tell me why?"
Elain bit her lip.
"Forget it," Lucien said, retreating a step to reach for his door. She could see her window closing. "If it's something you can't ask your sisters, that tells me it's dangerous. If you want to get yourself killed, I've no interest in being an accomplice."
"I'll accept the mating bond!" She blurted.
Lucien stilled.
It wasn't exactly the bargaining chip she'd planned to use. She'd assumed it was what he might ask for in exchange, but she'd never planned to suggest it.
"You what?" He whispered. She'd heard that Autumn males have fire in their veins. Paired with all of his warm colorings—the red hair, the golden eye, the brown skin—Elain had always associated Lucien with heat.
She'd never known him to sound so cold.
Ice ran down her spine. Elain ignored it. "Take me where I want to go, and when I return, I will accept the mating bond."
Lucien stared at her. Hard. His mechanical eye clicked like the spyglass her father used to keep in his study. She imagined he was trying to pull her into focus, trying to find just the right degree to see straight through her.
And then, to her bewilderment, the corner of his mouth twitched. "Accept it now."
"What?"
Smug satisfaction spread across his face, its brush the lazy smirk on his full lips. She felt like one of the rabbits Feyre used to catch in the woods, dangling by the foot. I've got you now, those lips said, even as their words shaped, "Accept the mating bond now, and I'll agree to take you where you want to go."
Elain shook her head. "Take me there first. I'll accept it when I return."
Lucien braced an arm above the door frame, allowing him to lean closer. Taunting, "And how do I trust you'll return?"
Was he trying to show off the way his bicep flexed when he leaned like that? Or was she the one with the degenerate mind? Elain averted her stare, deciding she was blameless. It would be difficult not to notice such a thing on someone who wasn't wearing a shirt.
"Because my sisters are here," Elain said, though her defense was weakened by her inability to meet his eyes.
"Yes, let's talk about your sisters. For example, what's stopping me from rousing Feyre at this very moment to tell her about this plan of yours?"
This wasn't how the conversation was meant to happen. He was supposed to jump at the chance to win her favor, to do whatever she asked without question because of the promise of who she was to him. That was the impression that everyone—including Lucien—had given her. Had she imagined all those longing looks? The smothering tension that snapped into place the moment they were in the same room?
She met his challenging stare, confused more than anything else. "You'd truly do that?"
The snort Lucien let out was nothing short of ridicule. It left her face burning. "Feyre's my friend," he said. "You're asking me to betray her so that you can abandon us both. Is it that you think I'm a fool or just disloyal? Perhaps both."
"I'm your mate," Elain said quietly. "Doesn't that mean something?"
She could see it then, the hint of sadness that drew down his smile.
"You tell me, Elain. Does it mean something?"
If she'd thought the men in the mortal land were evasive with questions, they had nothing on the slippery tongues of the fae. She wanted to scream at how badly this had gone, how artfully he'd managed to turn everything back on her.
What really frightened her was how close she was to agreeing. It was reversible, wasn't it? Nothing could truly be permanent. Even the fae weren't immortal—long-lived, yes, but they still died often enough for time to be sacred.
Once she got where she needed to go, it wouldn't matter anyway.
"Tell me what you're planning," Lucien offered. "And I'll—"
"Fine."
He blinked. "Fine?"
Elain tipped her chin with haughty pride. It felt good to get him on the back step, for a change.
"Take me where I want to go, and I'll accept the bond right now."
Lucien had expected her to back down. That much was clear. Did he forget she was an Archeron, cut and molded from the same cloth as her sisters? It was something Feyre would do, which made it a questionable decision, but look at where her sister's impulses had gotten her.
Maybe Elain could benefit from embracing a little more wild.
"You're bluffing," Lucien said, sounding less like he believed it and more like he was praying to the Cauldron that she was.
Elain couldn't help but smile. "I'm not."
She dropped her shoulder, allowing her pack to slide down her arm so she could pilfer through it for some of the rations she had packed.
When she produced a piece of bread, she brandished it toward him like a threat.
"Go on," she goaded. "Eat it."
Gone was the wicked smirk. His eye was clicking again, and she knew he was trying to puzzle out what had changed, why she would so readily accept a bond she'd been avoiding for years. He could think whatever he wanted, as long as he agreed.
"Tell me where you're going, at least."
She waved the bread in his face. "I'm not telling you anything until you agree. We'll accept the mating bond, you'll take me where I want to go, and then you'll never speak a word about this to anyone. Deal?"
Lucien seized her wrist, his eyes blazing with an emotion she couldn't place.
"If you'd been willing to tell me the truth, I would have helped," he snapped. "We didn't have to do it this way."
A sense of deep panic welled inside her. Elain tried to pull her arm back, but Lucien's finger clamped down harder. She gasped as he yanked her closer, until the bread was poised at his lips. She was close enough to notice the freckles on his cheek—just the slightest shade darker than his skin that they were easy to miss.
"Last chance to change your mind," he said, one eye of russet and another of gold pinning her where she was.
His grip was bruising, but those eyes were so much worse. She was paralyzed by them, her lips parted but unable to say anything. It felt, strangely, like being trapped in the Cauldron again. She could do nothing but watch, some distant part of her screaming, as his teeth sank into the bread.
There was that same sensation of being swallowed in golden light. Nesta said that the Cauldron's waters had been dark, but for Elain, it had been bright. Blinding. She'd felt her mortal body shatter like brittle glass while light poured through the gaps, melding her into something new. Something trembling and fragile and broken.
As Lucien chewed and swallowed, she felt those cracks reopening. Thought that if she glanced down, she would see the light spilling through. It was wrong and it was right and it was too many pieces of herself locked in conflict.
Stop! She wanted to say, but it was too late.
Lucien dropped her arm. "It's done," he said, his tone that of a mournful executioner. "Now will you finally tell me where you're going so I can make sure you don't get yourself killed?"
Elain's entire body was humming. She was still drowning in golden light, still fighting to get her head above the water.
"The Dawn Court," she managed. "Please, take me to the Dawn Court."