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The days spent waiting for a response from the Mortal Queens had been a blessing just as much as they’d been a curse.
Rhys should still be reeling from the disaster in the Summer Court. In the past it’d taken significantly less to spiral him into a foul mood for weeks, and yet he knew his willingness to shoulder the failure had nothing to do with personal growth. Feyre had flirted with him—had been flirting with him. Less and less was he believing that her draw to him was merely the result of the bond. She’d begun to care for him. He could still feel the lingering kiss she’d placed on his cheek like it were a brand, offered for no other reason than for his own comfort.
He had to tell her. Cauldron forsake him, he had to do it before things went too far. But she was only just moving on from Tamlin, was only just starting to walk with more life in her stride. He’d nearly seen her smile the other day and he could have sworn the whole world had paused in anticipation at the tilt of her lips. They were playing an extremely delicate balancing act, and he was terrified of doing anything that might sabotage her progress.
Feyre needed more time to heal and navigate the world before she learned that she was saddled indefinitely with him. And he might be a selfish bastard for it, but Rhys wanted her to have more time to warm to him, to realize that it might not be such a bad thing to be his mate. Otherwise it might be too much too fast, and he worried she would run away and never look back.
That didn’t stop him from relishing every scrap of attention she paid him. Azriel shot him a disapproving look as Rhys scrawled a note to Feyre against a pillar of the Cesere temple. Rhysand knew his brother stood in firm agreement with Mor, as he did in most things, about keeping the mating bond a secret. But they hadn’t watched Feyre destroy herself for another male, or seen the hatred in her eyes when she’d stared at him in her cell Under the Mountain. It’d been deserved, and he’d been grateful she was feeling anything for him at all.
Tell me about the painting.
The note and pen vanished, sent to Velaris where he could imagine those bright eyes sweeping over the parchment. How fitting, that he’d taught her to read so he could flirt with her this way.
Rhys and Azriel had barely made it a few steps in to meet the priestesses before the note returned. There’s not much to say.
Az sent him a long suffering look when Rhys paused to scrawl his response. He could admit, the bond was driving him insane enough that he had trouble focusing when he was away from Feyre. And his politics might have suffered for it, were it not for the endless patience of his family. The grace period was sure to expire soon, but he knew for the time being they were grateful enough to have him back that they were willing to shoulder more than their share of the weight.
Azriel went ahead as Rhys wrote back, tell me about it anyway.
The response took long enough that he was able to rejoin Az and spearhead the discussion with the priestesses about rebuilding. The conversation was enough to snap Rhys back to reality, and though it was maddening to imagine what Feyre was doing in the pause between responses, he diligently blocked off the bond. He saw enough of a mirror in the surviving priestesses that he didn’t want any of those drudged up memories to seep through to Feyre.
He still hadn’t gotten a response when they’d readied to leave, and he didn’t dare open the bond until he had a chance to taste the skies. The reminder of what the priestesses had gone through—what he’d gone through—had clung to him the same way splatters of blood would dry to his skin and leathers in battle. It was the kind of stain that needed to be washed away, and he wouldn’t seek Feyre out until he’d had a chance to shower and brood.
Except when he and Azriel landed on the roof of the House of Wind, Rhys sensed immediately that something was wrong. Az stiffened as Mor came running up the stairs, brown eyes wild and urgent.
She didn’t need to say a word. Rhys was moving instantly, rushing blindly into the house. Pure instinct had him tugging on the bond to find Feyre, and relief struck through his panic that at least there was something to tug on.
What happened? He demanded in an open channel to all of them, strung far too tightly to narrow his focus on one person.
They didn’t have a chance to answer before he’d thrown open Feyre’s door, finding her feverish and thrashing atop her bed. Madja was hovering over her, lips pressed into a straight line and brows furrowed. Cassian stood on the other side of the bed, one knee pressing into the mattress as he struggled to restrain Feyre.
“Rhys,” she gasped, and he was there immediately, pressing a shaky hand into the side of her head.
“I’m here, darling,” he said, urgently searching her face for any indication of what ailed her. Her face was flushed, gleaning with sweat, and she was panting as though her lungs were struggling to contain any air. Feyre whimpered as his hand made contact with her clammy skin, and she leaned into his touch with an openness that worried him.
No one had answered his question, so Rhys fixed his eyes desperately to Madja.
“Is she okay?”
He didn’t miss the glance that Cassian and Mor shared, and Rhysand’s heart sank into his stomach. There was something terribly, terribly wrong if his family was too frightened to tell him.
“A moment outside, High Lord?” Madja asked, and Rhys followed wordlessly. The healer shut the door behind them, leaving Cassian and Mor in the room.
Only Azriel stood beside his High Lord as Madja explained as calmly as possible, “Feyre has been exposed to a very powerful magical aphrodisiac.”
Rhys could have collapsed in relief. That was all? He’d thought she was dying.
“She’s in a great deal of pain,” Madja continued. “And I’m afraid there’s not much I can do to ease her symptoms, she will have to wait until the magic has run its course.”
An anguished shriek from the bedroom was effective in draining Rhys of all his color. His muscles sang with the reflex to go to his mate and ease her discomfort. He had a feeling that if he opened the bond, there was no force in existence that could have prevented him from going to her.
Fortunately he’d kept it shut, so that he could at least pretend to be a rational male as he asked, “There’s nothing we can do to help her?”
“There’s nothing I can do to help,” Madja said carefully. “Her mate, however…”
His blood turned to ice.
“The only way to ease the symptoms of a magic like this is through—”
“No.”
Madja flinched. Azriel did, too.
To the healer’s credit, she was brave enough to add, “she has been begging for you.”
Rhys wished Madja had decided to slide a knife into his gut instead. Of course Feyre had been calling for him. She was delirious and he was her mate, instinctively her body knew what she needed even if Feyre did not.
He swallowed in an effort to put moisture back into his bone-dry throat. “Would it still help if it was with… someone else?”
It had been one thing to feel her having sex with Tamlin—before she’d learned to create mental shields—knowing that she loved him, and hated Rhysand. Now the thought of letting someone else take her, in his own home… Rhys would sooner prefer to swallow shattered glass.
But Feyre was howling in pain, and he would do it, for her. It was better to let her take someone else than to blur those lines that were already so precarious.
“It would help,” was Madja’s answer. “But it would not be nearly so effective.”
“Rhysand,” Feyre screamed, the latter half of his name dissolving into a sob. The beast beneath his skin raged at the sound, and a growl escaped his throat before he could stop it.
Azriel’s placed a hand on his shoulder, jerking Rhysand’s attention away from the bedroom door. The Shadowsinger’s eyes were softened in a way Rhys was unused to seeing, but it was his brother’s stern expression that steadied him.
“You should ask her what she wants,” Az said.
Rhys couldn’t. He knew what her answer would be, and he knew it wouldn’t be Feyre speaking, but the magic that was twisting her instinct and desire. The symptoms would pass, and then Feyre would regret what happened.
Worse, she would feel taken advantage of. There was so much Rhys endured in his mate’s regard for him. He could handle her hatred, her rage, her spite. But for Feyre to look upon him and feel the very same he did for Amarantha… Rhys was going to be sick. He dropped to his knees and ducked his head into a nearby flower pot, gagging over the soil until the bout of nausea passed.
The sound of a door clicking drew his head back up. He met his cousin’s tight face, the pain and sorrow in her eyes an echo to his own.
“Rhys,” she said softly. “Feyre is asking for—”
“I know,” he snapped, more of a roar than he intended. That beast was breaking through, triggered by the sounds of his mate’s distress. “You think I can’t hear her screaming my name?”
Mor’s face went pale. It was unfair to yell at her, though he was tempted to demand how Feyre had been exposed to the aphrodisiac in the first place.
“She’s been trying to… grind on Cassian,” Mor added awkwardly, only fueling that fury that crawled in his bones. “If you’re not going to—we should find a better way to restrain her.”
He’d be damned if he let his mate be tied up and tortured for hours by her own desire. Slowly, he clambered to his feet. “Go to the pleasure house and find someone that will suit her tastes,” he said, the order bitter and foul on his tongue. Mor left without a second word.
“Any amount of contact with you will help, High Lord,” Madja implored, eyes sympathetic. “It need not be sexual. Even being held by her mate could reduce her pain significantly.”
Rhys nodded his thanks to the healer, jaw clenched so tight he half worried his teeth would shatter.
He walked back into the bedroom. Before he’d been too panicked to notice, but the scent of her arousal clung so heavily in the air that he nearly choked on it.
Cassian was on the bed, struggling to restrain Feyre while avoiding her attempts to kiss and nip at his skin. It was absurd, but Rhysand couldn’t help the snarl that escaped him at the sight. Both of them went still at the sound. Cassian snapped his head towards Rhys, expression a clear mixture between relief and concern.
Beneath him, Feyre was panting. “Rhys,” she pleaded.
Just like that, his defenses crumbled. Rhysand came to her side, and Cassian fled the second the opportunity presented itself. A primal part of him relaxed once the two of them were left alone.
He reached out to her, like Madja suggested, intending only to comfort. But Feyre was no longer restrained, allowing her to seize his body and crush their lips together like she were drowning and thought to borrow the air from his lungs.
A groan escaped him, entirely against his volition. Her lips were just as sweet as he remembered, but a part of him wanted to scream at knowing that now both their first and second kiss had been taken without Feyre’s willingness.
Though she certainly seemed willing, with the way she was clawing at the strings of his tunic, mouth darting from his lips to taste the skin along his neck. He shuddered as her tongue darted over his pulse, nipping him there as though she knew that his lifeblood called to her. Gods, she was going to be his undoing.
“Feyre,” Rhys murmured, grasping her shoulders to firmly push her away. “Do you understand what’s happened?”
“I don’t care,” she answered, eyes wild and unfocused. She pushed his hands away in an attempt to get closer to him. “Just let me touch you—please.”
Was The Mother trying to test him in some way? Or did she just have a sick sense of humor, deciding to give him the everything he’s longed for since the moment he left the Mountain, yet twisting it in such a way that it would destroy him in the process?
“I know that’s what you want. Because you think it will make you feel better, yeah? But it doesn’t have to be with me. It could be…” she managed to yank the neckline of his tunic with enough strength that the fabric ripped, and for a moment the feeling of her warm skin against his bare chest made him forget what he was saying. She crawled into his lap, and Rhys hissed as her hips deliberately slid against his. “Fuck—it could be with anyone. Mor is going to go find you a nice male from the pleasure house, or… or I could even go get—”
He was cut off by Feyre grabbing his face, nothing gentle in the way she yanked him forward until their lips crashed together again. Rhys wouldn’t have minded the ferocity, would have reveled in it, if not for the fact that those beautiful blue eyes lacked any sort of clarity. There was none of the sharp cunning he was used to seeing in Feyre’s expression—this was not his Feyre. Not that his body seemed to care, with the way his erection strained against his trousers and his desire thrummed red-hot in his veins.
“I want it to be you,” Feyre whined in between feverish kisses, her tongue stroking against his mouth with a wildness that could have consumed him. “I want you so badly,” she gasped, breaking apart from him with reluctance that yielded only to the necessity of breath. “I ache for you.”
“I know, Feyre,” he whispered, the admission small and filled with his own sorrow. He knew too well, how badly someone could ache for their mate. He also knew that the way she ached was not the same—because tomorrow, she would wake up with it sated, whereas his ache would likely wear on him until he was nothing but dust.
If Feyre didn’t consume him whole, first. She shredded the rest of his tunic until it was nothing but strips of fabric draped across his body. Rhys let her lick a strip across his abdomen, groaning, before his control snapped in.
He grabbed her wrist, attempting to restrain her the same way Cassian had.
“You’re not in your right mind,” he reasoned. ”You wouldn’t want this if it wasn’t for the magic.”
“Who wouldn’t want you!?” she snapped, and he could have laughed at the compliment if he wasn’t so focused on keeping her restrained. Unlike Cassian, he didn’t have an aversion to letting his body touch her. His hips straddled her own, and it was an immense effort to ignore the way she moaned at the contact. He’d be lying if he didn’t admit to the air that rushed through his own clenched teeth.
It was supposed to be like this, he reminded himself. Touching your mate was supposed to be addictive. Feyre began undulating her hips under him, and it was a test of resolve to stay still as she began tracing sweet kisses along his collarbone.
“Plenty of people,” he grunted, pretending this was a perfectly normal conversation. “Yourself included. I distinctly remember you calling me disgusting.”
“I wanted you,” she whispered in a voice that was seductive enough to rival the lightsingers. “Even then.”
Every muscle in his body seemed to lock up, choosing a side in his internal battle of instinct versus reason. “Don’t say that,” he choked, mostly a plea. He pressed his hips into her, promising himself it was an attempt to still her movements.
Feyre whined, equal parts in protest and encouragement. “Why not?”
Rhysand was trembling as he ducked his head into her shoulder, trying to take a moment to breathe and reign himself back in. “Because—you’re trying to say anything you can to get me into bed.”
She wiggled her hips, causing him to gasp. “Is it working?”
Yes. “No.”
He raised his face so he could meet her eyes. She was still flushed, still panting, and tears were brimming beneath her lashes—with the way her eyes glimmered, he felt like he was staring at the Sidra on a cloudless day. She truly was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Do you not want me?” Feyre sniffed, shattering his heart. “Is that why you won’t help me?”
“I…” Rhys swallowed thickly, wishing for the wisdom to navigate this situation. Would Feyre even remember this conversation? “I want you so badly that I can’t concentrate half the time,” he admitted, the truth burning in his throat. “But you have been through enough, Feyre. The last thing I want to do is take advantage of you.”
Those tears were flowing freely now. “I want it to be you,” she whimpered, with enough conviction that he might have believed her.
Except when he released one of her wrists to wipe the tears away, Feyre seized the opportunity to roll him onto his back and pin him down with the strength of seven High Lords. Feeling desperate, Rhys opened the bond and reached his mental talons across the bridge between their minds.
There were no adamantite walls on Feyre’s side of the bond, no shields at all. Rhys was met instead with a dense fog. When he speared his talons through it, hoping to search for Feyre somewhere in the thick manifestation of desire, that fog chased him down the bond and flooded his own mind. His shields shot up quickly, but the damage had been done. Not only was he fighting against the mating bond, now he was fighting against the haze in his own mind. White hot static poured into his veins, circulating that scalding desire with every dreaded pump of his heart.
All this, while Feyre had him pinned to the mattress, grinding herself against his erection until he felt to the point of begging. Feyre seemed to sense something in him had tapered, because she let go of his wrists in favor of trailing her mouth down his body. He fisted his hands into the sheets as her lips traced the shape of his abdomen, uncertain if he was restraining himself from pushing her away or pulling her closer.
Rhys went rigid when she nuzzled his navel, her tongue following the thin wisps of hair until she came to the band of his trousers. His control was razor thin, and she knew it. Rhys could tell from the devilish smile she sent him, moments before her hands cupped the outline of his cock through the fabric.
His restraint snapped the same moment his hips did, bucking closer to her touch as a string of vulgarities fled his lips. Rhys used his last moment of clarity to muse how like Feyre it was, to satisfy his longing this way—she would never let things be easy for him, and he couldn’t begrudge her for it. Perhaps he deserved it.
Even those thoughts were lost the moment she untied his laces and he felt her soft hands touching him—skin to skin. It was like he was a fledgling Illyrian once more, shuddering at just the thought of a female’s touch. Rhys was convinced that Feyre could have continued holding him, motionless, and he still would have found completion.
Feyre had other ideas. This wasn’t for his benefit, he remembered helplessly, she was satisfying her own hunger. He clenched his teeth to stop himself from becoming a ridiculous, snarling mess once she began sliding her hand up and down his length. Yet nothing could have held back the roar that escaped him when Feyre leaned down to wrap her plush lips around the head of his cock.
The hands that found her hair were unintentional, and he couldn’t even remember putting them there. Feyre paid him no mind at all as she licked at the glaze of precum, shutting her eyes contentedly at the taste. Primal, male satisfaction shocked his bones, and he could have died a happy male right then. He almost wanted to die right there, just so that he’d never live to see the end of this daydream come to life.
Rhys wanted to feel Feyre’s mouth around him—and he knew that’s very obviously what she was after—but he also selfishly wanted this to last. Feyre had a few hours to his months of craving her.
Ignoring her sound of protest, Rhys sat up and flipped them over. If he were feeling self-serving, he would have taken the time to remove her shirt and worship those breasts that had been torturing him for weeks in the training ring. But an aphrodisiac was lessened with orgasm—he knew that much. So Rhys yanked off her trousers, resolved to spend as long as it took between her legs. He’d render her a trembling mess beneath him until she had enough clarity to push him away.
The sight of her naked sex, spread for him and glistening with arousal, was enough to bring him to his knees. His mouth watered, even as his entire body clenched at the enormity of what was about to happen. Condemned as he may be by the end of it, at least Rhys would spend these next hours in utter bliss.
Feyre shifted impatiently, fingers fisting into his hair to drag him forward. She was met with no amount of resistance. The mating bond shuddered the moment his tongue found her center, and the sound that came out of him was half feral as he lost himself to primal instinct entirely. This was his mate and she tasted like she’d been made for his tongue. Now it was Rhysand’s turn to shut his eyes and relish the flavor of her—musky and sweet, he could have drowned happily in it.
Paired with the soft moans above him, the way her nails scraped against his scalp in a silent begging of more, more, more, Rhys was certain he found his purpose in life. Not to rule, not to fight, just simply to bury his head between his mate’s thighs and bring her to an endless, shivering rapture.
“Rhys,” she panted sweetly. It was almost cruel, knowing he would never be able to forget the sound of Feyre moaning his name. And he was grateful that his mouth was occupied, lest he blurt out something he could never take back. That didn’t stop his mind from thinking it, with every lap of his tongue: I love you, I love you, I love you…
Rhys moved his attention to her clit, sucking it into his mouth in a way that earned him a delicious little mewl that he wanted to hear over and over again. He devoured her until those fingers in his hair clenched so tightly it was painful, and he groaned as he dipped his tongue into her and felt those muscles clench and release around him. His name was a chanted prayer on Feyre’s lips as he continued stroking his tongue until her breathing evened.
The grip of her fingers loosened, but Rhys didn’t stop.
“Rhys,” she complained, pushing lightly at his head. He spared a glance towards her face, measuring the glaze in her eyes.
“Again,” he rasped, unyielding. Her eyes were still ravaged with desire, and when his lips closed around that sensitive bundle of nerves she fell back onto the bed with a generous moan. It was music to his ears.
Feyre was less passive this time, undulating her hips indelicately against his mouth. Rhys was so enthralled that he nearly regretted how quickly her second orgasm came, though it was worth it for the scream that tore past her lips.
The entire house would know what he was doing. An absent, very distant, part of his mind wondered if Mor ever found a male at the pleasure house, or if they’d known all along that Rhysand would cave to his mate’s need.
Perhaps they knew him better than himself. There was not a single thing he could ever deny Feyre, even if it was at the expense of his own health and sanity.
By her third orgasm, Rhys could sense some of her desperation had lost its edge. She was shaking beneath him, pawing at his hair with less severity but still grinding her hips to meet his tongue stroke for stroke.
He lost track of time, measuring it only by the number of times he could bring her to release. It was the sixth orgasm that finally broke the spell. He could hear it in the way Feyre gasped instead of moaning his name. Rhysand broke away from her before she had a chance to do it herself, scrambling to sit up so that he could peer at her wide eyes, finally clean and clear.
“Rhys?” she asked, eyes roving over his very naked body and the erection that stood proudly between his legs.
He wondered what Feyre remembered—if she even understood how she’d come to be spread half naked before him on the bed. The evidence of it was certainly all over his face, likely gleaming in the dim faelight.
“Are you okay?” he asked softly, after she’d spent a long moment without saying anything, merely staring at the space between his legs. “Do you… want me to go?”
Eventually those beautiful eyes flicked to his face, and stayed. He stared back, admiring the pink tinge of her cheeks that spread all the way to the collar of her shirt, the way her hair had loosened in her braid so that it looked as wild as he felt.
Mate, he thought, her taste still lingering on his tongue and he knew that even if she decided to kick him out, it would continue to linger for days, months. The sweetest, most exquisite torture.
The seconds that ticked by were painful, but eventually Feyre shook her head. “Stay,” she said, so quietly that he had to strain to hear it. Then, “did you mean what you said? About… how much you want me?”
He supposed she remembered perfectly well, then. Slowly, Rhys nodded, looking pointedly down so that she could see the evidence of just how much. He stood frozen where he kneeled before her, not daring to move until she gave him the go-ahead. His throat was dry, but he forced words through it anyway. “A thought for a thought, darling?”
Tears began brimming in her eyes, and this time Rhys knew sexual frustration was not the cause of them. His stomach twisted and he willed his nausea to stay down. Surely it wouldn’t do him any favors to hurl his guts onto the sheets.
“I’m thinking,” Feyre began, her voice cracking, “that you endured 50 years of being touched against your will, and because of my own stupidity, I’ve just done the very same by forcing myself on you.”
Rhys blew out a long breath. “I’m thinking that I was afraid you would think the same of me. I’m thinking that this was my every desire twisted, because I want you so badly I can’t breathe when I look at you and yet you only wanted me because of a spell.”
“That’s not true,” she whispered, tears spilling onto her flushed cheeks. “It wasn’t just the spell… I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, Rhysand. Not for a long while. Even before…”
She trailed off with a wince, but Rhys knew what she was going to say. Even before she left the Spring Court. How much of her guilt could he relieve, by assuring her it was natural to feel that draw towards a mate? Could it counteract the dread that would surely follow? Today had been overwhelming enough, but maybe he would tell her tomorrow.
“Can I—is it okay if I touch you?”
Feyre thought for a long moment, once more taking stock of his fully exposed body, before she nodded. Rhys approached her slowly, with none of the consideration he’d ever been afforded Under the Mountain, and when he came to his mate he simply folded her into his arms.
“This wasn’t exactly what I envisioned.” Rhys arranged them so that they were both lying down, with Feyre tucked tightly against him. “When I thought about bedding you for the first time, it included a wall, or a table. Though I can’t say I didn’t enjoy myself.”
Perhaps it was too honest a thing to admit, but Feyre shuddered in a way that he deemed encouraging.
“How were you exposed to the magic, anyway?” he asked, the anger of the situation having now faded into gentle curiosity.
Feyre hid her face in his chest, in what he presumed to be shame. “Mor and I went into Velaris today, and there was a little potion shop.”
“Go on…”
“I thought I could get you back,” she admitted, “for the illusion the other day.” His lips twitched at the memory of Feyre so distracted by the vision of Rhys kissing her stomach that she walked straight into a pole. “The lady at the shop only said it would give a male an erection. She said to only use a few drops, so it wasn’t supposed to be so… potent. But then I spilled it all over myself opening the bottle, and here we are.”
To think this was all a prank gone awry. Rhys shook his head, thinking that Feyre truly would be the death of him.
“Here we are,” he repeated with a mild laugh. “Considering I just spent hours going down on you, I would wager you’ve been adequately compensated.”
“I think I’m the only one who should be the judge of that,” she whispered in a throaty voice that caused all of his blood to pool downward.
Rhys shifted so that he could see her face, gauging her sincerity as he asked, “are you saying you aren’t satisfied with my level of compensation?”
Her answering grin was exquisite. “Why don’t you go back down, and I’ll tell you when to stop?”
“Beautiful, wicked creature,” he responded, sinking back down her body with an obedience that felt liberating.
This time, when he dived back between her thighs, there was no doubt in his mind that Feyre was a willing recipient. And Rhys would have died right then an extraordinarily happy male.