Chapter Text
“Hello, Feyre, darling.”
I startled as the world came back into focus. Not all at once, but in fragments, like a painting revealed beneath water.
Moonlight spilled across the floor in silver sheets, pouring in through a floor-to-ceiling window that opened onto a sky so vast it stole my breath. Stars burned there, a living galaxy pressed close enough to touch. I was lying in an alcove that had been built into the wall beneath the glass, a padded bench tucked neatly into the curve of stone, as if the room itself had been designed for quiet observation of the heavens.
I pushed myself upright, heart pounding, and took in the rest.
The room was lavish without being ostentatious. Two deep, midnight-blue chairs flanked a low coffee table near the fireplace, where a gentle fire radiated heat that soaked into my bare feet. A tea service sat waiting on the table, steam curling lazily from the kettle.
Bookshelves lined one wall, filled to bursting with ancient spines, newer bindings, and odd little trinkets tucked into the gaps between volumes. Tokens and trophies. Proof of a long, busy mind.
A large desk stood nearby, half buried beneath stacks of papers and scrolls, organized chaos that spoke of power exercised casually and constantly. At the center of the room, a small round table had a simple glass vase that held night-blooming lilies, their pale petals luminous in the moonlight, their scent soft yet intoxicating.
Beyond that stood an open doorway. White linens draped over the tall posts of a bed just visible in the shadows beyond.
Despite the bite of early winter I remembered falling asleep to, the room was warm. Almost inviting.
What was not inviting, however, was its owner.
Rhysand, High Lord of the Night Court, stood a few steps away, waiting for me to notice him. A black silk shirt clung to his broad shoulders and muscled chest, the first few buttons undone. His skin was darker than I remembered from Under the Mountain, as if he had been touched by real sunlight again, and the whorled tattoos at his collarbone seemed sharper for it. His hands rested casually in the pockets of his tailored black pants, posture loose and unthreatening.
His smile was anything but.
Heat flooded my face, made worse by the slow, unhurried way his violet gaze swept over me in return. I was wearing nothing but the thin chemise I slept in, the lace and straps offering more suggestion than coverage. I preferred sleeping in an old tunic, something soft and practical, but Tamlin had always reacted better to this. So I had learned to trade comfort for peace.
I lifted my chin, refusing to let Rhys see even a flicker of the embarrassment that crawled under my skin.
“Take me back.”
The smile curved wider. Amused and indulgent.
“I’m afraid that’s not how our bargain works,” he said smoothly. “You agreed to give me one week a month of your time. I’m merely calling it in.”
Shit.
I should have known. I had counted the days. It had been more than a month, nearly two. Some foolish part of me had hoped he’d forgotten. That I had slipped through whatever cracks even a High Lord might have.
I could never forget about you, Feyre darling.
The words slid directly into my skull.
I bristled. “Stay out of my head.”
He shrugged lightly, as if I’d accused him of something trivial rather than the violation it was, and said nothing.
“How did you even get me out of the Spring Court?” I demanded, pushing to my feet despite the faint dizziness tugging at me. “Tamlin has wards. And he’s a light sleeper. He would have noticed you plucking me from our rooms.”
Rhys turned away as if the question barely warranted his attention, crossing to the coffee table. He sat on its edge with casual grace and began pouring the tea, the clink of porcelain unnervingly domestic.
“A High Lord can’t simply stroll into another’s territory,” he said mildly. “That would be… provocative. And as interested as I am in you—” his gaze flicked up to me, lingering just long enough to make my skin prickle “—and believe me, Feyre darling, I find you very interesting… you are not worth a war.”
I told myself I should be relieved. That his refusal to wage war over me meant I wasn’t truly trapped. That I had a chance of escape from this bargain once he got bored. But for some reason, it also made me feel worthless. Which is ridiculous, because why should I give a fuck what this psychopath thinks about me?
Rhys smiled again, slow and knowing. He had been listening the entire time?
Prick.
There was a glint of excitement in his eyes, not of cruelty or anger, but anticipation. Like a man presented with a puzzle he fully intended to solve. Like a predator savoring the moment just before the chase begins.
The thought sent a chill through me, one the fire could not chase away.
I was not prey.
I would never be prey.
Not ever again.
“You kidnapped me in the middle of the night,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “You stole me from my home. From my High Lord’s bed. From my fiancée.”
Rhysand flinched.
It was small, barely more than a tightening around his eyes, but it was there. It was the first real crack in his immaculate composure. It surprised me. He didn’t like that word, what it represented. I could use that against him somehow. I tucked that knowledge away quickly, burying it deep where he couldn’t reach it.
Rhys only chuckled, unbothered, and turned his attention back to the tea as if we were discussing the weather. He finished pouring with unhurried precision, one cup with lemon and honey, the other with a careful scoop of sugar and a splash of milk.
My stomach twisted. I knew instantly which one was meant for me.
Another small violation. Another quiet proof that he knew things he shouldn’t. Lucien taught me the basics of mental shielding as soon as we returned to the Spring Court in case something exactly like this were to happen. But I hadn’t gotten much practice. Still, I pressed my mental shields tighter, thin and imperfect as they were. There had to be a way to block him out completely. There had to be.
“I’ve done nothing at all, Lady Spring,” he said quietly.
The title wasn’t spat, but it wasn’t gentle either. There was tension threaded through it, a faint edge that told me exactly how he felt about where I belonged.
“You came to me of your own free will.”
Anger surged through me, hot and immediate. I marched toward him before I could stop myself. “I would never—”
He lifted his hand, the one bearing a tattoo identical to mine (save for the eye in a palm) and it stopped me dead in my tracks.
My bargain mark pulsed beneath my skin, a low, insistent thrum that echoed through my bones. Understanding crept in slowly, unwelcome and cold. He hadn’t dragged me here. He had called me. Used the bond itself to pull me across courts like a tether snapping taut.
If that was true, does that mean I could winnow? The thought sparked hope and I shoved it away immediately, locking it down where he couldn’t hear it. If I’d come here using my own power, perhaps I could leave the same way.
The bargain mark pressed harder, almost painfully, against my skin, as if protesting the very idea.
Shit. Lucien had warned me once that fae bargains weren’t easily broken. That pushing against them could have consequences.
I swallowed down the bile that began to rise in my throat. I was stuck here. For a week.
“That doesn’t count as my own free will,” I said, but the words came out thin, resignation bleeding through the edges.
Rhys shrugged lightly, gesturing toward the chair opposite him. “Your own power, at least.”
“I am not some pet you can summon at will!”
“And yet,” he said mildly, “you’re here.”
The room seemed to tilt. Rage and indignation crashed through me, tangled with something worse. Helplessness. For a heartbeat, I was back Under the Mountain, being summoned at her whim, dragged before a court for entertainment and cruelty dressed up as indulgence.
My stomach rolled. I felt sick.
“Sit, Feyre.”
The command was gentle. Calm. Perfectly controlled.
I was exhausted and terrified, but if I sat, it would mean he’d won something. A small thing, perhaps, but I’d learned the cost of giving ground. So I squared my shoulders and met his gaze.
“Is that an order, daemati?”
For the first time, he looked genuinely surprised.
I seized the moment.
“That’s right,” I spat, the word sharp on my tongue. “Lucien told me what you are. What you’re capable of. And he’s been teaching me how to shield my mind. You’ll find I’m not so easily—”
My body locked.
Not frozen by fear, but by him.
Rhys hadn’t moved from his perch on the table, yet his presence slammed into me all at once. His mind unfurled inside mine, sharp and vast, talons closing around my thoughts with terrifying precision. Not crushing, just… holding.
True fear took root then, deep and undeniable at realizing just how powerless I was.
His head tilted slightly, studying me. “Don’t be afraid.”
And I wasn’t.
The realization came like a betrayal. Because even as his power wrapped around me, even as I stood helpless beneath it, I knew with a certainty that made no sense that he wouldn’t hurt me.
That knowledge settled into my bones, heavy and warm.
"I'm not afraid."
His smile returned as my muscles loosened, as my breath evened out without my permission. I felt the pressure ease, his mental talons withdrawing as smoothly as they’d arrived.
“Please,” he said softly. “Sit.”
I felt nothing touching my mind now. No pressure. No grip. Which meant it wasn’t a command. I sat anyway.
I told myself it was because I was tired. Because I’d been dragged from sleep and adrenaline could only carry me so far. But really, it was because choosing to sit was better than being forced to.
Rhys remained on the edge of the coffee table, close enough that our knees nearly brushed. He handed me the tea with lemon and honey. I accepted it without comment, wrapping my fingers around the warm porcelain. The scent of chamomile and lavender curled upward, grounding me despite myself.
I hated how much it helped.
“You didn’t even let me say goodbye.”
The words slipped out before I could stop them, thin with something dangerously close to ache. My chest tightened at the thought of Tamlin waking to an empty bed, panic tearing through him when he realized I was gone. Would he know that Rhysand had taken me? Or would he tear his court apart first, convinced some other creature had dared to steal what was his?
Gods. I didn’t even want to imagine who might suffer for his temper.
“Rest easy, my darling,” Rhys said smoothly. “You’ll be back in a few hours. Your precious beast with anger issues won’t even know you were gone.”
Relief washed through me, immediate and humiliating.
I relaxed before I could stop myself, shoulders loosening, breath evening out. It struck me, dimly, that it said something—probably something damning—that Tamlin’s temper frightened me enough for those words to soothe instead of offend. But I didn’t linger on the thought. I clung to the important part.
A few hours.
That was all he wanted.
Panic fluttered beneath my ribs, the walls closing in when I realized why he really called on me in the middle of the night.
Rhys’s gaze sharpened, darkening as if he could see the thoughts careening inside my head. “Despite what your friends have insinuated,” he said quietly, “I am not a monster. I will never make you do anything that you do not want. And I will not touch you without your express permission.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He smirked faintly. “No? I could have had my way with you any time Under—”
He stopped as if the words had been choked out of him. The silence that followed was thick, heavy with things neither of us wanted to say aloud. What happened Under the Mountain lingered between us like a bruise pressed too hard. I’d been trapped there for three months and still woke gasping, still made myself sick on the memories.
Rhysand had endured fifty years.
I didn’t know how much of his loyalty to her had been real and how much had been a survival tactic, but one truth settled in me with startling clarity. He had never wanted to be in her bed. He knew exactly what it felt like, and he would never force that on anyone else. Especially not me.
His mouth curved as if he’d heard every word of it. He lifted his cup and took a slow sip, eyes never leaving my face. “The point is,” he said evenly, “I never touched you. And that truth will remain until you want it otherwise.”
I bristled, anger snapping back into place like armor. “I won’t.”
He shrugged, unbothered, as if my refusal were merely temporary. As if it were already accounted for.
Arrogant prick.
“What do you want from me, Rhysand?” I demanded.
His eyes lit with something like genuine interest as he peered at me over the rim of his cup. “For starters, I would like you to call me Rhys. Only my enemies use my full name.”
I glared. “Rhysand it is, then.”
He laughed softly, the sound light and unforced, and against my will, it eased something tight in my chest. “Fair enough,” he said. “What I actually want is to talk.”
My fingers tightened around my mug. “I won’t give you information. You’ll have to torture it out of me.”
“Feyre.”
The way he said my name—low and deliberate—sent a shiver down my spine that I dutifully ignored.
“If there’s one thing you choose to believe about me,” he continued, “let it be this: I will never hurt you.”
He paused, meeting my gaze fully now. Gods. His eyes were unreal. A violet so deep it felt like falling into them, a galaxy burning quietly behind the calm.
“Do you believe me?”
“I—” I hesitated.
I did. Even as a voice in the back of my mind screamed that I shouldn’t, a different belief came easily, settled too comfortably in my chest. He won’t hurt me. He won’t touch me without my permission. I don’t have to be afraid of him.
“Yes,” I said finally. “I believe you. You will never hurt me.”
Satisfaction flickered across his face, subtle but unmistakable. I ignored the small, traitorous thrill that came with pleasing him.
“Good,” he said. “Then I want to warn you, I’m about to command you to do something. You won’t have a choice but to obey.”
My spine went rigid. I shoved my mental shields as high as they would go, crude and straining, but all I had. "But you just said—"
Rhys lifted a hand in placation. “I’m only going to command you to be honest with me. And I swear I won’t ask anything that endangers the Spring Court or your friends.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I shot back. “You’re still taking away my free will. My choice. You just said you’d never do anything I don’t want, and I don’t want to be controlled.”
The cup rattled in my hands, tea sloshing dangerously close to the rim. I couldn’t stop it. I wasn’t afraid of Rhysand, but I was afraid of losing what little freedom I had left.
Back home, guards watched my every step. Tamlin hovered and monitored and decided my every action. The walls of Spring were beautiful, but they pressed in all the same. All I had was my mind, as twisted and bruised as it was. And now, even that was going to be taken away from me.
“Please.” I whispered, dignity all but forgotten. “Please don’t do this to me.”
Rhys sighed and set his cup aside. He reached out, gently removing mine from my shaking grip. His fingers lingered against my skin a heartbeat too long before he pulled away and placed the cup on the table with deliberate care.
“You are not a prisoner here, Feyre,” he said calmly. “You made a bargain. I’m simply calling it in. But I have a court to protect too. If you’re to be my guest, I need to know I can trust you.”
That… made sense. There was nothing Rhysand wouldn’t do to protect his people. I knew that instinct intimately. And even if I couldn’t lie to him, it didn’t mean I had to answer everything. Honesty could still be selective. I nodded before I could overthink it.
“You’re just trying to keep your people safe.”
Rhysand’s smile, when it came, was radiant. Disarming. “Exactly,” he said softly. “Now this may feel… strange. But I’m asking you not to fight it. The mind is a fragile thing, and the more resistance I meet, the greater the risk of hurting you.”
His gaze locked onto mine, steady and sincere. “And Feyre, darling, I promised I would never hurt you. So please, help me keep my promise.”
I was still shaking. My hands trembled in my lap, pulse racing just beneath my skin. But the logic slid into place with terrifying ease. If resisting could hurt me, if I could be the cause of my own damage, then compliance wasn’t weakness. It was caution. It was sensible.
It was a small thing to ask. A smaller thing to give. I let my mental wall lower, not all at once, but carefully, deliberately, like setting down a weapon I no longer planned to use. I didn’t notice how easily I’d begun to frame his needs as reasonable.
Or how naturally I’d aligned myself with them.
Rhys exhaled, almost in relief. His eyes went distant, violet clouding as his focus turned inward.
I felt him then.
Those familiar talons curled around my mind once more, firm and encompassing, and instinct screamed at me to panic. My breath hitched.
“Don’t be afraid,” he murmured, his voice low and soothing, like a lullaby remembered from a darker place.
I drew in a slow breath. “I’m not afraid.”
And I wasn’t. The realization came with a strange, unsettling comfort. He could hurt me—I knew that now with perfect clarity—but he wouldn’t. The talons, though invasive, no longer felt like a threat. They felt steady. Protective.
“Feyre,” Rhys said, my name threaded with that same soft cadence of the melody that found me in my cell. The song that had once held me together when everything else had been falling apart.
“Rhys,” I answered.
He shuddered. His eyes closed briefly, like the sound of his name on my lips had struck something deep and unguarded. Then he was still again, violet gaze sharpening as it refocused on me.
“Never lie to me.” The words were gentle but absolute.
I nodded. “I will never lie to you.”
Satisfaction bloomed across his features, and the pressure eased. His talons withdrew, leaving behind a rush of relief so potent it nearly made me dizzy. Control settled back into my body, or something close enough that I accepted it without question. I couldn’t tell if the command lingered, but I suspected I would soon find out.
“What do you want to know?”
Rhys handed me back my tea, and I took it gratefully, cradling the warm cup between my palms. I leaned back in the chair, forcing myself to relax, to appear composed. Only when he seemed satisfied I was at ease did he lean forward, elbows resting on his thighs.
“Are you sick?”
The question caught me completely off guard.
“What?”
“You’ve lost weight,” he said quietly. “Your eyes are hollow. And last week, I felt a surge of panic through our bond. I hope you believe me when I say I haven’t been spying on you. I always give you the privacy you deserve and I have never once used that eye to see things I have no right to.”
He paused, some emotion I couldn’t quite read flickering across his face. “But that night, your fear screamed at me through the bond. It was overwhelming. I had to look. Just long enough to be sure you were safe.”
My throat tightened. I knew the night he meant. One of the worst nightmares I’d had since returning from Under the Mountain. It took me hours to stop shaking.
“I looked in,” he continued, voice gentle, “and I saw you hunched over the toilet.”
Heat flooded my face. Tears pricked at my eyes, sharp with humiliation. Gods, of all the moments to be seen—
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Feyre.”
Rage flared hot and sudden, mostly because it felt better than the vulnerability that threatened to consume me. “Stay out of my head!”
He smirked faintly. “Put your shield back up. I am not in your mind intentionally. But when you don’t have a barrier in place, you might as well be speaking your thoughts aloud.”
I faltered.
“Oh.”
The anger drained away as I realized that I couldn’t actually feel his presence inside my mind. No talons. No pressure. He was right. He wasn’t in my head, I was just...loud.
I drew in a shaky breath and closed my eyes, focusing on building a wall to my mind as Lucien had taught me. Brick by brick, careful and intentional. When the shield felt solid, I opened my eyes again.
Rhys was watching me with open contemplation. Then, without warning, I felt his power brush against the wall. A careful probe. Testing. Not pressing hard enough to break through, but to assess. I held firm under his touch. A moment passed. Then he withdrew, nodding once in approval.
“Good.”
Relief flooded me. I could keep him out. Maybe not if he truly tried, but he wouldn’t. He promised me he wouldn’t hurt me, and I’m pretty sure breaking through my shields would hurt.
I was safe with him.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I have an excellent healer here. Whatever ails you, I’m certain she can—”
“I’m not sick,” I cut in.
The words spilled out too fast. I stiffened, suddenly aware that I’d interrupted a High Lord. But Rhys didn’t look offended. Only curious. Concerned, even.
“Then what is it?”
“It’s—”
The word died in my throat. Not paused. Frozen.
I’d meant to say it’s nothing, but the lie simply wouldn’t come. The compulsion to never lie to him was working even with my shields up.
Panic surged, sharp and humiliating and then anger flared in its wake. “It’s none of your business!” I snapped.
Rhys frowned. “As long as you’re my guest, your wellbeing is my responsibility. I promised I’d never hurt you. But I can see that you are hurting.” He leaned closer, voice lowering. “So you see, Feyre, it is my business.”
I supposed that was fair.
I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to even think about it. But I was so tired of swallowing it down, of pretending I was fine while everything inside me splintered. And here he was, offering to listen. To shoulder a bit of the burden I carried.
And it was so heavy...
I lifted my cup and took a long sip, letting the warmth seep into me, chasing away the icy dread curling in my chest.
I breathed in. And for the first time since returning home, I let myself consider the idea of opening up instead of holding everything in.
“I have these dreams.”
The words came out small. Fragile. As if naming them might make them real in a way I could no longer contain.
But then, once I started, I couldn’t stop.
I told him about the nightmares that tore me from sleep, heart racing, stomach heaving as I barely made it to the bathroom in time. I told him how the images clung to me long after I woke. How my hands shook. How food felt like punishment when guilt sat so heavily in my gut. I told him about how killing two innocent fae—three, when I counted Andras—hollowed me out from the inside. I told him I couldn’t paint anymore because these days colors felt muted and distorted. That the color red especially dragged my nightmares into the waking world until I couldn’t breathe. I told him how unworthy I felt of the people’s devotion, of the reverence in their eyes, of marrying Tamlin because I felt so fundamentally broken when all he preached about was us needing to be strong.
I told him about the cages that didn’t look like cages. The dresses I hated. The way the walls of Spring seemed to close in tighter each day. How desperately I wanted to go outside, to do something that mattered, and how being denied that made me feel trapped.
I told him about the resentment that was slowly building inside of me, the kind that made my chest ache with shame even as it burned. How Tamlin never held me when the nightmares left me shaking and sick. How he never asked why I pushed food around my plate, or why my dresses hung looser each week. He never once mentioned the hollow look in my eyes, never acknowledged that something in me was quietly unraveling.
Rhys had known within minutes. Five minutes in my presence, and he’d seen it, had seen me. Why couldn’t Tamlin? Why did he keep looking past me, through me, as if silence could fix what was breaking?
I told him about the anger I tried to swallow. About how every ignored glance, every untouched plea, felt like another door quietly closing. Like I was screaming underwater, my cries for help dissolving before they could reach anyone who mattered.
I told him all of it.
Not because I was compelled to. I could have stopped. Could have kept my answers clipped and shallow. But the words poured out anyway because it felt so good to finally speak them aloud.
At some point, the tea cup I’d been clinging to began to crack under the pressure of my grip. Rhys quietly took it from my hands and replaced it with his own.
I let him.
I was tired of breaking things. And the warmth and steadiness of his hands grounded me, anchoring me to the moment. His thumbs traced slow, soothing lines over my knuckles, and I focused on that simple, repetitive motion as I continued to unravel.
When my voice finally broke, when the sobs came hard and fast, Rhys didn’t hesitate. He folded me into his arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I let him do that too. I clutched at him the way I’d clung to the tea cup, burying my face against his chest as the grief tore free. I was terrified. Exhausted. But it felt good to be held, to be heard, to give my fear words and feel them lose just a fraction of their power.
Rhys rubbed slow, patient circles over my back, waiting me out. When my tears finally began to subside, his voice came low and steady beside my ear.
“I’m so sorry you’re going through this, Feyre.” His hand stilled, then tightened slightly. “I know the guilt of killing an innocent. And I wish I could tell you it fades completely, but it doesn’t.”
A sob tore from me, sharp with something close to hopelessness. I clung tighter. “Then how am I supposed to live with it?” I pulled back just enough to look at him, my hands still gripping his shoulders like an anchor. “How do you live with it?”
He smiled, but it was faint and hollow. “By remembering why I did it,” he said quietly. “To protect the people I love. Everything you did—everything Amarantha forced you to do—led to the freedom of all Prythian. Don’t forget that.”
Her name hit like ice water. Tamlin couldn’t even say it. As if speaking her name might summon her back from the grave. But it didn't. It couldn't. So why should I be so afraid of it?
“You saved all of us,” Rhys continued gently. “I know you wish there had been another way. But I also know you would do it again, if you had to.”
He was right. I’d killed them to save Tamlin. To save Lucien. My family. I would do it again.
“Does that make me—”
“It does not make you a bad person,” Rhys said immediately, his voice firm but not unkind. “The fact that you feel guilt at all is proof of the opposite. War makes monsters of many, but truly bad people don’t care who they hurt.”
The words settled into me slowly, sinking past defenses I hadn’t realized were still standing. I was good. I’d done something terrible, but for a reason. For the greater good. It didn’t absolve me. But it made it survivable.
“What about the rest of it?” I asked shyly. “The nightmares. The panic. How do I ever stop reacting when I see red, or hear a laugh that sounds like hers?”
Rhys sighed and cupped my cheek, his hand warm against my skin. I leaned into the touch before I could stop myself, starved for the comfort he offered.
“You take it one day at a time,” he said. “You remind yourself that you survived. That you are stronger than she ever was.”
His eyes hardened, something dark and resolute flashing through them. I realized he was speaking to himself as much as to me. "And you remember that she is dead. That bitch holds no power over you anymore.”
I nodded, clinging to the words, willing them to take root.
“One day at a time,” I repeated.