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

by Sarah J. Maas

It was easier to not have to explain, anyway. To not have to tell him that though I’d freed him, saved his people and all of Prythian from Amarantha … I’d broken myself apart. And I didn’t think even eternity would be long enough to fix me.

“I don’t want to hear another male’s name on your lips right now,” he growled, and lowered his mouth to me.

So unaware of the true extent of how broken and dark I was inside. How unfit I was to be clothed in white when my hands were so filthy.

“Hello, Feyre darling,” he purred.

“But I know you—more than you realize, I think—and I don’t believe for one damn minute that you’re remotely fine with being a pretty trophy for someone who sat on his ass for nearly fifty years, then sat on his ass while you were shredded apart—”

“Then marry someone who can put up with this.”

But it had filled my time—given me quiet, steadfast company with those characters, who did not exist and never would, but somehow made me feel less … alone.

“I’m thinking that I must have been a fool in love to allow myself to be shown so little of the Spring Court. I’m thinking there’s a great deal of that territory I was never allowed to see or hear about and maybe I would have lived in ignorance forever like some pet. I’m thinking … ” The words became choked. I shook my head as if I could clear the remaining ones away. But I still spoke them. “I’m thinking that I was a lonely, hopeless person, and I might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed me a hint of kindness and safety. And I’m thinking maybe he knew that—maybe not actively, but maybe he wanted to be that person for someone. And maybe that worked for who I was before. Maybe it doesn’t work for who—what I am now.”

“Males

I would not be weak again. I would not be dependent on anyone else. I would never have to endure the touch of the Attor as it dragged me because I was too helpless to know where and how to hit. Never again.

“I needed not to be dead when I agreed.” “You needed not to be alone.”

The voice was at once the night and the dawn and the stars and the earth, and every inch of my body calmed at the primal dominance in it.

I dared a glance at Rhys, and there was something like devastation on his beautiful face. It was gone in a blink.

“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 want them to hear your story. And know that there is a special strength … ” As I spoke I realized I needed to hear it, know it, too. “A special strength in enduring such dark trials and hardships … And still remaining warm, and kind. Still willing to trust—and reach out.”

“There are good days and hard days for me—even now. Don’t let the hard days win.”

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

Rhysand’s voice was hoarse. “Because you were breaking. And I couldn’t find another way to save you.”

“It should have been me.”

I wasn’t some simpering fool. I knew the risks. And that tone, that look he always gave me … “Anything?” His brows rose. I breathed, “If I fucked him for it, what would you do?” His pupils flared, and his gaze dropped to my mouth.

No one was my master—but I might be master of everything, if I wished. If I dared.

“The issue isn’t whether he loved you, it’s how much. Too much. Love can be a poison.” And then he was gone.

Maybe wrapping his wings around me, writing me notes, had been Rhys’s way of ensuring his weapon didn’t break beyond repair. That was fine—fair enough. We owed each other nothing beyond our promises to work and fight together. 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.

And he will never know what it is to look up at the night sky and wish.”

“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.”

“Whatever luck you live by, girl … thank the Cauldron for it.”

To the huntresses who remember to reach back for those less fortunate—and water-wraiths who swim very, very fast.

“Amren and Mor told me that the span of an Illyrian male’s wings says a lot about the size of … other parts.”

“I’ll leave you to rot the next time you have a nightmare,” I hissed, my eyes still shut and body locked as he snapped out his wings to ease us into a steady glide. “No, you won’t,” he crooned. “You liked seeing me naked too much.”

“It feels like this,” he said, and leaned in so close that his lips brushed the shell of my ear as he sent a gentle breath into it. My back arched on instinct, my chin tipping up at the caress of that breath.

Precisely as his hand slid a bit too high on my inner thigh. I felt the predatory focus go right to the slickness he’d felt there. Proof of my traitorous body. His arms tightened around me, and my face burned—perhaps a bit from shame, but—

What about letting your friends see your real face? But maybe it’s easier not to. Because what if you did let someone in? And what if they saw everything, and still walked away? Who could blame them—who would want to bother with that sort of mess?”

I was healed—or healing—enough to want to try. If he was willing to try, too. If he didn’t walk away when I voiced what I wanted: him. Not the High Lord, not the most powerful male in Prythian’s history. Just … him. The person who had sent music into that cell; who had picked up that knife in Amarantha’s throne room to fight for me when no one else dared, and who had kept fighting for me every day since, refusing to let me crumble and disappear into nothing. So I waited for him in the chilled, moonlit garden. But he didn’t come.

“When Rhys came back, after Amarantha, he was a ghost. He pretended he wasn’t, but he was. You made him come alive again.”

“I have known many High Lords,” Amren continued, studying her paper. “Cruel ones, cunning ones, weak ones, powerful ones. But never one that dreamed. Not as he does.” “Dreams of what?” I breathed. “Of peace. Of freedom. Of a world united, a world thriving. Of something better—for all of us.” “He thinks he’ll be remembered as the villain in the story.” She snorted. “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.”

His fingers tightened on mine, and I looked up. He was smiling at me. And looked so un-High-Lord-like with the glowing dust on the side of his face that I grinned back. I hadn’t even realized what I’d done until his own smile faded, and his mouth parted slightly. “Smile again,” he whispered. I hadn’t smiled for him. Ever. Or laughed. Under the Mountain, I had never grinned, never chuckled. And afterward … And this male before me … my friend … For all that he had done, I had never given him either. Even when I had just … I had just painted something. On him. For him. I’d—painted again. So I smiled at him, broad and without restraint. “You’re exquisite,” he breathed.

The power did not belong to the High Lords. Not any longer. It belonged to me—as I belonged only to me, as my future was mine to decide, to forge.

And looking up into his face I said, “I want to paint you.”

I was not the High Lord’s pet any longer. And maybe the world should learn that I did indeed have fangs.

“You gave up,” I breathed. I felt even Rhys go still. “You gave up on me,” I said a bit more loudly. “You were my friend. And you picked him—picked obeying him, even when you saw what his orders and his rules did to me. Even when you saw me wasting away day by day.”

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

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

I couldn’t breathe hard enough, fast enough, as Rhys withdrew his fingers, pulling back so I could meet his stare. 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. I was going to eat him alive. I slid a hand up to his chest to pin him down, but he gripped my wrist. “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 was instantly liquid again, and he laughed under his breath. “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 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.

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

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