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

by Sarah J. Maas

“You are no one’s subject.”

“So I’m your huntress and thief?” His hands slid down to cup the backs of my knees as he said with a roguish grin, “You are my salvation, Feyre.”

I made to jump off the stone, but he gripped my chin, the movement too fast to detect. His words were a lethal caress as he said, “Did you enjoy the sight of me kneeling before you?”

“You could try rubbing it on certain body parts and I might come faster.”

I stood as he entered, scanning him for any sign of injury. Something tight in my chest eased when I found nothing amiss.

I’d much rather you licked my wounds for me.

Wherever you want to lick me, Feyre. I’d like to start with “Everywhere,” but I can choose, if necessary.

Try not to moan too loudly when you dream about me. I need my beauty rest.

“To the people who look at the stars and wish, Rhys.” He picked up his glass, his gaze so piercing that I wondered why I had bothered blushing at all for Tarquin. Rhys clinked his glass against mine. “To the stars who listen—and the dreams that are answered.”

Rhys still knelt, wings drooping across the white sheets, head bowed, his tattoos stark against his golden skin. A dark, fallen prince.

“When we return home, let’s get out the measuring stick, shall we?”

Fascinating. I blindly reached again … and dared to run a fingertip along some inner edge. Rhysand shuddered, a soft groan slipping past my ear. “That,” he said tightly, “is very sensitive.”

instinct, my chin tipping up at the caress of that breath. “Oh,” I managed to say. I felt him smile against my ear and pull away. “If you want an Illyrian male’s attention, you’d be better off grabbing him by the balls. We’re trained to protect our wings at all costs. Some males attack first, ask questions later, if their wings are touched without invitation.” “And during sex?” The question blurted out. Rhys’s face was nothing but feline amusement as he monitored the mountains. “During sex, an Illyrian male can find completion just by having someone touch his wings in the right spot.”

You are good, Rhys. You are kind. This mask does not scare me. I see you beneath

“I will kill anyone who harms you,” Rhys snarled. “I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing it.” He panted. “Go ahead. Hate me—despise me for it.”

am not him,” Rhys breathed. “I will never be him, act like him. He locked you up and let you wither, and die.” “He tried—” “Stop comparing. Stop comparing me to him.”

He leaned in, brushing his mouth against my heated cheek. I closed my eyes at the whisper of a kiss, at the hunger that ravaged me in its wake, that might ravage Prythian. And all around us, as if the world itself were indeed falling apart, stars rained down. Bits of stardust glowed on his lips as he pulled away, as I stared up at him, breathless, while he smiled. The smile the world would likely never see, the smile he’d given up for the sake of his people, his lands. He said softly, “I am … very glad I met you, Feyre.”

didn’t wait for him to stretch out his hand before I went to him. And looking up into his face I said, “I want to paint you.” He gently lifted me into his arms. “Nude would be best,” he said in my ear.

“When you spend so long trapped in darkness, Lucien, you find that the darkness begins to stare back.”

“Tell Tamlin,” I said, choking on his name, on the thought of what he’d done to Rhys, to his family, “if he sends anyone else into these lands, I will hunt each and every one of you down. And I will demonstrate exactly what the darkness taught me.”

“And if he had grabbed me?” There was nothing but uncompromising will in his eyes. “Then I would have torn apart the world to get you back.”

“I’m thinking,” he said, following the flick of my tongue over my bottom lip, “that I look at you and feel like I’m dying. Like I can’t breathe. I’m thinking that I want you so badly I can’t concentrate half the time I’m around you, and this room is too small for me to properly bed you.

“When you lick me,” he said roughly, “I want to be alone—far away from everyone. Because when you lick me, Feyre,” he said, pressing nipping kisses to my jaw, my neck, “I’m going to let myself roar loud enough to bring down a mountain.”

“I have no intention of doing it all in one night. Or in a room where I can’t even fuck you against the wall.”

There you are. I’ve been looking for you.

Thank you for finding her for me.

If you were going to die, I was going to die with you.

And I said, “You love me?” Rhys nodded.

And I wondered if love was too weak a word for what he felt, what he’d done for me. For what I felt for him. I set the bowl down before him. “Then eat.”

“And now I want you to know, Rhysand, that I love you. I want you to know … ” His lips trembled, and I brushed away the tear that escaped down his cheek. “I want you to know,” I whispered, “that I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belongs to you. And I am honored—honored to be your mate.”

When my lips were wet and salty with them, I pulled back far enough to see his eyes. “You’re mine,” I breathed. His body shuddered with what might have been a sob, but his lips found my own.

Knelt on those stars and mountains inked on his knees. He would bow for no one and nothing— But his mate. His equal.