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

by Sarah J. Maas

I lifted a hand toward that darkness, and met with a soft, silky material—his wing, cocooning and warming me. I traced my finger along it, and he shuddered, his arms tightening around me. “Your finger … is very cold,” he gritted out, the words hot on my neck.

I dragged my finger along his wing, the nail scraping gently against the smooth surface. Rhys tensed, his hand splaying across my stomach. “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.

Something hard pushed against my behind. Heat flooded me, and I went taut and loose all at once. I stroked his wing again, two fingers now, and he twitched against my backside in time with the caress.

“Greedy,” he murmured, his lips hovering over my neck. “First you terrorize me with your cold hands, now you want … what is it you want, Feyre?”

Rhysand’s teeth scraped against my neck in a lazy caress. “What is it you want, Feyre?” He nipped at my earlobe. I cried out just a little,

So I said, “I want a distraction.” It was breathless. “I want—fun.” His body again tensed behind mine.

“Then allow me the pleasure of distracting you.” He slipped a hand beneath the top of my sweater, diving clean under my shirt.

“I love these,” he breathed onto my neck, his hand sliding to my other breast. “You have no idea how much I love these.”

“I want to touch you first,” he said, his voice so guttural I barely recognized it. “Just—let me touch you.” He palmed my breast for emphasis.

I can’t breathe when I look at you. Let me touch you. Because I was jealous, and pissed off … She’s mine. I shut out the thoughts, the bits and

Bastard. “Please,” I said again, and ground my ass against him for emphasis. He hissed at the contact and slid a finger inside me. He swore. “Feyre—”

“That’s it,” he murmured, his lips tracing my ear.

He was still staring at me when I captured his mouth with my own, biting on his lower lip. Rhys groaned, plunging his fingers in deeper. Harder. I didn’t care—I didn’t care one bit about what I was and who I was and where I’d been

opening my mouth. His tongue swept in, moving in a way that I knew exactly what he’d do if he got between my legs.

He said, “I wanted to do that when I felt how drenched you were at the Court of Nightmares. I wanted to have you right there in the middle of everyone. But mostly I just wanted to do this.” His eyes held mine as he brought those fingers to his mouth and sucked on them. On the taste of me.

“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.”

“And when I lick you,” he said, sliding his arms around me and tucking me in tight to him, “I want you splayed out on a table like my own personal feast.” I whimpered. “I’ve had a long, long time to think about how and where I want you,” Rhys said

“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.”

And maybe it was the wine, or the aftermath of the pleasure he’d wrung from me, but I didn’t have a single nightmare.

Rhysand’s arms were banded around me, his breathing deep and even. And I knew it was just as rare for him to sleep that soundly, peacefully.

I ventured, “What is it?” His attention remained on the dark pines sweeping past. “There is one more story I need to tell you.”

I put my hand against his cheek, the first intimate touch we’d had all day. His skin was chilled, his eyes bleak as they slid to me. “I don’t walk away—not from you,” I swore quietly. His gaze softened. “Feyre—”

Rhys roared in pain, arching against me. I felt the impact—felt blinding pain through the bond that ripped through my own mental shields, felt the shudder of the dozen places the arrows struck him as they shot from bows hidden beneath the forest canopy.

Failed, because those were ash arrows through him. Through his wings.

I decided that if Rhys was not alive, if he was harmed beyond repair … I didn’t care who they were and why they had done it. They were all dead.

So I winnowed toward him, toward me. And when the narrow cave appeared at the foot of a mountain, the faintest glimmer of light escaping from its mouth … I halted. A whip cracked. And every word, every thought and feeling, went out of me.

I wonder if, even in my despair and hopelessness, I was never truly alone. I wonder if I was looking for this place—looking for you all.”

“I was looking for you, too,” Rhys murmured. And passed out.

And when I put a hand on his brow, I swore at the heat.

What I was to hunt would be worse.

And when a crack sounded through the forest, followed by a screech that hollowed out my ears, I nocked an arrow into my bow and set off to see the Suriel.

“Your blood. Give him your blood, Cursebreaker. It is rich with the healing gift of the High Lord of the Dawn. It shall spare him from the bloodbane’s wrath.” “That’s it?” I pushed. “How much blood?” “A few mouthfuls will do.”

“If you wish to speed your mate’s healing, in addition to your blood, a pink-flowered weed sprouts by the river. Make him chew it.” I fired my arrow at the snare before I finished hearing its words. The trap sprang free. And the word clicked through me. Mate. “What did you say?”

“The High Lord of the Night Court is your mate.” I wasn’t entirely sure I was breathing. “Interesting,” the Suriel said. Mate. Mate. Mate. Rhysand was my mate.

The words slipped out of me, low and twisted, “Does he know?” The Suriel clenched the robes of its new cloak in its bone-fingers. “Yes.” “For a long while?” “Yes. Since—” “No. He can tell me—I want to hear it from his lips.”

“How can I possibly be his mate?” Mates were equals—matched, at least in some ways. “He is the most powerful High Lord to ever walk this earth. You are … new. You are made of all seven High Lords. Unlike anything. Are you two not similar in that? Are you not matched?” Mate. And he knew—he’d known.

He’d—he’d promised not to lie, not to keep things from me. And this—this most important thing in my immortal existence …

“You don’t get to ask questions,” I said, and he looked up at me, exhaustion and pain lining his face, my blood shining on his lips. Part of me hated the words, for acting like this while he was wounded, but I didn’t care. “You only get to answer them. And nothing more.”

“How long have you known that I’m your mate?” Rhys stilled. The entire world stilled. He swallowed. “Feyre.” “How long have you known that I’m your mate?”

“I suspected for a while,” Rhys said, swallowing once more. “I knew for certain when Amarantha was killing you. And when we stood on the balcony Under the Mountain—right after we were freed, I felt it snap into place between us. I think when you were Made, it … it heightened the smell of the bond. I looked at you then and the strength of it hit me like a blow.” He’d gone wide-eyed, had stumbled back as if shocked—terrified. And had vanished. That had been over half a year ago. My blood pounded in my ears. “When were you going to tell me?” “Feyre.” “When were you going to tell me?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” “You were in love with him; you were going to marry him. And then you … you were enduring everything and it didn’t feel right to tell you.” “I deserved to know.”

“The other night you told me you wanted a distraction, you wanted fun. Not a mating bond. And not to someone like me—a mess.” So the words I’d spat after the Court of Nightmares had haunted him. “You promised—you promised no secrets, no games. You promised.”

“I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear you explain how you assumed that you knew best, that I couldn’t handle it—” “I didn’t do that—” “I don’t want to hear you tell me that you decided I was to be kept in the dark while your friends knew, while you all decided what was right for me—” “Feyre—” “Take me back to the Illyrian camp. Now.”

“Feyre,” Rhys groaned, bare arms buckling as he tried to rise. I left him lying in the mud and stormed toward the house.

Mor saw my face. I went up to her, cold and hollow. “I want you to take me somewhere far away,” I said.

Behind me, Rhys moaned my name again. Mor scanned my face once more, and gripped my hand. We vanished into wind and night.

“It’s not my business—” “Then don’t say anything.” She did, anyway. “He wanted to tell you. And it killed him not to. But … I’ve never seen him so happy as he is when he’s with you. And I don’t think that has anything to do with you being his mate.”

Because he’d been injured, and I’d gone out of my mind— absolutely insane—when he’d been taken from me, shot out of the sky like a bird.

My relationship with Tamlin had been doomed from the start. I had left—only to find my mate. To go to my mate.

as I flung open the door to the blast of cool air. But Mor wasn’t leaning against the threshold.