A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2)

by Sarah J. Maas

A protector—that’s who he was, and would always be. What I had wanted when I was cold and hard and joyless; what I had needed to melt the ice of bitter years on the cusp of starvation. I didn’t have the nerve to wonder what I wanted or needed now. Who I had become.

I was glad for the silence—even as it became a weight on me, even as it filled my head until there was nothing inside of it beyond … emptiness. Eternity. Was this to be my eternity? I was burning through books every day—stories about people and places I’d never heard of. They were perhaps the only thing that kept me from teetering into utter despair.

And some strange, new part of me wondered if my never returning might be a fitting punishment for him. For what he had done to me. Sleep claimed me, swift and brutal and deep.

Rhysand was close enough now that he slid a hand around my waist, both of his wings encircling me. My spine locked up. A cage— The wings swept back.

“I don’t really know where I fit in anymore,” I admitted, perhaps only because the wind was screeching around us and Rhys had already winnowed ahead to where Cassian’s dark form flew—beyond the wall. “I’ve been alive almost five and a half centuries, and I’m not sure of that, either,” Azriel said.

“Fine. Practice all you want in privacy.” He jerked his chin at my tattoo. “Give a shout down the bond if you get anything accomplished before breakfast.” I frowned at the eye in my palm. “What—literally shout at the tattoo?” “You could try rubbing it on certain body parts and I might come faster.” He vanished into nothing before I could hurl the candle at him. Alone in the frost-gilded forest, I replayed his words and a quiet chuckle rasped out of me.

The High Lord did not smile. I kept my face neutral, vaguely bored. His gaze drifted to my chest, the bare skin revealed by the sweeping vee of my gown, as if he could see where that spark of life, his power, had gone. Rhys followed that gaze. “Her breasts are rather spectacular, aren’t they? Delicious as ripe apples.” I fought the urge to scowl, and instead slid my attention to him, as indolently as he’d looked at me, at the others. “Here I was, thinking you had a fascination with my mouth.” Delighted surprise lit Rhys’s eyes, there and gone in a heartbeat.

He could still be my friend. Companion—whatever this thing was between us. His taking someone to his bed didn’t change those things. It’d just been a relief to think that for a moment, he might have been as lonely as me.

Thank you—for last night, was all it had said. No pen to write a response. But I’d hunted down one anyway, and had written back, What do the tattooed stars and mountain on your knees mean? The paper had vanished a heartbeat later. When it hadn’t returned, I’d dressed and gone to breakfast. I was halfway through my eggs and toast when the paper appeared beside my plate, neatly folded. That I will bow before no one and nothing but my crown. This time, a pen had appeared. I’d merely written back, So dramatic. And through our bond, on the other side of my mental shields, I could have sworn I heard his laugh.

“Did you and Varian …?” “Tempting, but no. The prick can’t decide if he hates or wants me.” “Why can’t it be both?” A low chuckle. “Indeed.”

Rhys clicked his tongue. “Pity.” He again surveyed me, then leaned to tug my earlobe with his teeth. And damn me to hell, but I leaned farther back as his teeth pressed down at the same moment his thumb drifted high on the side of my thigh, sweeping across sensitive skin in a long, luxurious touch. My body went loose and tight, and my breathing … Cauldron damn me again, the scent of him, the citrus and the sea, the power roiling off him … my breathing hitched a bit. I knew he noticed; knew he felt that shift in me. His fingers stilled on my leg.

I reached down the bond between us, caressing that wall of ebony adamant. A small sliver cracked—just for me. And I said into it, You are good, Rhys. You are kind. This mask does not scare me. I see you beneath it. His hands tightened on me, and his eyes held mine as he leaned forward to brush his mouth against my cheek. It was answer enough—and … an unleashing.

Traitor. Even if I’d left Tamlin, I was a traitor. I’d been gone for two months—just two. In faerie terms, it was probably considered less than a day. Tamlin had given me so much, done so many kind things for me and my family. And here I was, wanting another male, even as I hated Tamlin for what he’d done, how he’d failed me. Traitor.

I said to Lucien, low and quiet and as vicious as the talons that formed at the tips of my fingers, as vicious as the wondrous weight between my shoulder blades, “When you spend so long trapped in darkness, Lucien, you find that the darkness begins to stare back.” A pulse of surprise, of wicked delight against my mental shields, at the dark, membranous wings I knew were now poking over my shoulders. Every icy kiss of rain sent jolts of cold through me. Sensitive—so sensitive, these Illyrian wings.

“You cruel, wicked thing,” he purred, his nose grazing the exposed bit of neck I’d arched beneath him. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?” “I never knew Illyrians were such sensitive babies,” I said, sliding another finger down the inside of his wing.