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

by Sarah J. Maas

“The Court of Dreams is founded on three things: to defend, to honor, and to cherish.

Rhys looked anything but out of shape. Cauldron boil me, what the hell did they eat to look like that?

Then darkness swept in, soothing, gentle darkness—no, shade—and a sweat-slick male body halted before me. Gentle fingers lifted my chin until I looked up … at Rhysand’s face. His wings had wrapped around us, cocooned us, the sunlight casting the membrane in gold and red. Beyond us, outside, in another world, maybe, the sounds of steel on steel—Cassian and Azriel sparring—began. “You will feel that way every day for the rest of your life,” Rhysand said. This close, I could smell the sweat on him, the sea-and-citrus scent beneath it. His eyes were soft. I tried to look away, but he held my chin firm. “And I know this because I have felt that way every day since my mother and sister were slaughtered and I had to bury them myself, and even retribution didn’t fix it.” He wiped away the tears on one cheek, then another. “You can either let it wreck you, let it get you killed like it nearly did with the Weaver, or you can learn to live with it.” For a long moment, I just stared at the open, calm face—maybe his true face, the one beneath all the masks he wore to keep his people safe. “I’m sorry—about your family,” I rasped. “I’m sorry I didn’t find a way to spare you from what happened Under the Mountain,” Rhys said with equal quiet. “From dying. From wanting to die.” I began to shake my head, but he said, “I have two kinds of nightmares: the ones where I’m again Amarantha’s whore or my friends are … And the ones where I hear your neck snap and see the light leave your eyes.” I ha...

“Try thinking of me—how good-looking I am. How talented—” “How arrogant.” “That, too.” He crossed his arms over his bare chest, the movement making the muscles in his stomach flicker. “Put a shirt on while you’re at it,” I quipped. A feline smile. “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Why shouldn’t I? You seem to have difficulty not staring at me day and night.” There it was—a kernel of truth and a question. “Am I supposed to deny,” he drawled, but something sparked in those eyes, “that I find you attractive?” “You’ve never said it.” “I’ve told you many times, and quite frequently, how attractive I find you.” I shrugged, even as I thought of all those times—when I’d dismissed them as teasing compliments, nothing more. “Well, maybe you should do a better job of it.”

At least you make up for your shameless flirting by being one hell of a High Lord. He’d returned that evening, smirking like a cat, and had merely said “One hell of a High Lord?” by way of greeting.

“Amren and Mor told me that the span of an Illyrian male’s wings says a lot about the size of … other parts.” His eyes shot to mine, then to pine-tree-coated slopes below. “Did they now.”

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.”

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.”

“Have you found that to be true?” His eyes stripped me bare. “I’ve never allowed anyone to see or touch my wings during sex. It makes you vulnerable in a way that I’m not … comfortable with.” “Too bad,” I said, staring out too casually toward the mighty mountain that now appeared on the horizon, towering over the others. And capped, I noted, with that glimmering palace of moonstone. “Why?” he asked warily. I shrugged, fighting the upward tugging of my lips. “Because I bet you could get into some interesting positions with those wings.” Rhys loosed a barking laugh, and his nose grazed my ear.

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.

This time, his nose brushed the spot between my neck and shoulder, followed by a passing graze of his mouth. My breasts tightened, becoming full and heavy, aching—aching like what was now pooling in my core. Heat filled my face, my blood.

“But I forgot to tell him,” I said quietly, opening the door, “that the villain is usually the person who locks up the maiden and throws away the key.” “Oh?” I shrugged. “He was the one who let me out.”

“Of course I’ll dance with you,” Rhys said, his voice still raw. “All night, if you wish.” “Even if I step on your toes?” “Even then.”

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.”

“She’s mine,”

He squeezed me gently, and I blinked at him through the rain. For once, his eyes were on me, not the landscape below. “You look good with wings,” he said, and kissed my brow. Even the rain stopped feeling so cold.

He said softly, “I love it when you look at me like that.” The purr in his voice heated my blood. “Like what?” “Like my power isn’t something to run from. Like you see me.”

“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. Especially with the wings.”

“I’m thinking that I can’t stop thinking about you. And that it’s been that way for a long while. Even before I left the Spring Court. And maybe that makes me a traitorous, lying piece of trash, but—” “It doesn’t,” he said, his face solemn.

“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.”

His eyes were open when I nestled my head against his arm. Within the shelter of his wing, we watched each other. And I realized I might very well be content to do exactly that forever.

“I don’t walk away—not from you,” I swore quietly.

“What did you paint for yourself?” I drew out the fifth, moving to the sixth before saying, “I painted the night sky.” He stilled. I went on, “I painted stars and the moon and clouds and just endless, dark sky.” I finished the sixth, and was well on my way sawing through the seventh before I said, “I never knew why. I rarely went outside at night—usually, I was so tired from hunting that I just wanted to sleep. But I wonder … ” I pulled out the seventh and final arrow. “I wonder if some part of me knew what was waiting for me. That I would never be a gentle grower of things, or someone who burned like fire—but that I would be quiet and enduring and as faceted as the night. That I would have beauty, for those who knew where to look, and if people didn’t bother to look, but to only fear it … Then I didn’t particularly care for them, anyway. 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 that last night, when I found you two in the hall … I was jealous. I was jealous of him, and pissed off that he’d used that one shot of being unnoticed not to get you out, but to be with you,

knew … I knew I was in love with you that moment I picked up the knife to kill Amarantha.

stopped before him, staring down. 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.”

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.”

I felt it then, the bond between us, like an unbreakable chain, like an undimmable ray of light. With each pounding stroke, the bond glowed clearer and brighter and stronger.

My friend through many dangers. My lover who had healed my broken and weary soul.

My mate who had waited for me against all hope, despite all odds.

Every inch of me burned and tightened, and my control slipped entirely as he whispered, “I love you.”

Release tore through my body, and he pounded into me, hard and fast, drawing out my pleasure until I felt and saw and smelled that bond between us, until our scents merged, and I was his and he was mine, and we were the beginning and middle and end. We were a song that had been sung from the very first ember of light in the world.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I thought that from the first moment I saw you on Calanmai.” And it was stupid, stupid for beauty to mean anything at all, but … My eyes burned. “Which is good,” he added, “because you thought I was the most beautiful male you’d ever seen. So it makes us even.”

My mate. Death incarnate. Night triumphant.

“We can use your room if you like, but … ” He was leaning against his open bedroom door. “Either your room or mine—but we’re sharing one from now on. Just tell me whether I should move my clothes or yours.

“If you bring me from here, if you take me from my mate, I will destroy you. I will destroy your court, and everything you hold dear.”

“And now my mate is in our enemy’s hands.”