*A/N - Hello boys, girls and everyone in between. This is my first Nessian fanfic. Sorry to anyone who has read my other stuff. The way I'm switching between fandoms is enough to give anyone whiplash, lol. I personally adore both these characters and feel like their relationship doesn't get enough time in the ACO - series. I have decided to rate this series M because of content in later chapters. I plan on continuing with my typical update scheduling. A new chapter will be posted every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. However, I will be posting the first 2 chapters together and the last 2 together. A little note that Chapters 1 and 2 are technically headcanons that take place during the series. (1 takes place the day they met in ACOMAF, while 2 takes place during the beginning of ACOWAR.) Chapters 3-10 will take place after the end of the series. I hope you enjoy. Please R&R. Thanks. - Nikki
Ch. 1: Bonding Passion & Poison
If anything about the feeling sprinting through his veins had been even slightly funny, Cassian would've surely laughed; if only to sit in awe at the sublime tragedy of facing this untamable, perfect link that threatened to complete him, who stared back. Painfully human.
He wanted to leave and never face this woman again. Then Nesta spoke.
Her poisonous cadence forced its way into his head and he felt the fight in his gut awaken.
Later that night after everyone had been shown to their rooms and most had been asleep for hours, Nesta finally slipped back into the library. She started a small fire and sat in her favorite chair by the chimney. Her feet instinctively curled beneath her as she allowed the singular sound of the crackling fire to fill her thankfully now quiet world. She was barely 10 pages in before she had heard something; a second later the door to the library swung open.
Cassian poked his head through. "Nope." He said to himself, before meeting her eyes. "Ah, perfect. Hello, Feyre's older sister." He said low with none of the satisfaction his words should have implied. His smile was liquid condescension as he took in her position. His brows lifted humoredly.
She kicked her feet out with as much grace as she could manage. "My name is Nesta." She closed her book. "Though you may call me Miss Archeron."
"Thank you for the reminder, Nesta." He said, completely ignoring her before mumbling to himself. "That's what her name is." He was of course faking and had no doubt that she suspected as much, but he still couldn't help trying to rile her up.
She glared back at him. "What are you doing up?"
"I'm looking for the kitchen. Would you point me in the right direction? I'm still a little hungry."
She scoffed. "That desperate to insult our hospitality yet again?"
"I didn't insult anything. As far as I'm concerned food is food. Whatever fills your gut and curbs the pain is enough for me." She watched him for a second and though it seemed a considering silence, he couldn't help but continue, building upon his own indignation with her attitude. "And I have yet to see you be even the slightest bit hospitable."
"Maybe not according to your overly entitled standards, seeing as I have offered you both food and a warm bed to sleep in, yet you still think it is okay to snoop around my house, completely uninvited." She spoke with a lifted brow; her tone both even and annoyed.
He smirked, antagonizing. "Ah, there it is; that hospitality you spoke of. I can't fathom how I missed it the first time." He let his sarcasm fade. "I was honestly just hungry."
"You've already eaten." She insisted with an even and irritable tone.
"My, what a gracious host you are."
"I am not your host." She stood and walked in his direction. "Not willingly, at least. All of you have come to my house unannounced and imposed yourselves upon me."
Cassian couldn't help but briefly think just how much he might enjoy to really impose himself upon her…or below her, he wasn't picky. He allowed himself a short, crooked smirk. "Technically, this is still Feyre's home too-"
She interrupted him. "I doubt our father would see it that way, considering how long she's been away without any word."
He continued on, undisturbed. "And she happens to trust us."
"Well," she shrugged. "She's always had poor taste in character."
"If that were true, she would be fonder of you."
She stepped closer, the air around her eerily quiet as she spoke commanding and low. "You clearly forget where you stand. These are my lands and my home, not yours. You have no authority or validity under my roof and it's best you learn that now."
He also took another step, closing the space. "A feeling you will become all too familiar with yourself, should we fail in our mission and this wall comes tumbling down. So best turn your ire and hatred on the ones who would see it happen and not those who fight to prevent it."
She looked at his formidable stature and forced a false scoff from her throat as if to imply she didn't believe him capable of such a feat. They both knew it was an empty gesture, but she carried on as if it wasn't so wholly transparent. "Then finish your business and be gone."
His voice was getting louder in the short distance between them, provoked in his irritation. "I'm trying to, but-"
"But, what?" Her voice rose as well.
"Where is the damn kitchen?" He yelled.
She leaned back, squinting at him. She pointed and spoke. "It's down that hallway. When it splits, go to the right and follow it until the end."
He bobbed his head, maintaining eye contact with her as pieces of his ebony hair fell in front of his warm hazel eyes. "Much obliged, Nesta."
She noticed the way his voice purposefully heated and stretched to softly utter her name. He turned to leave. "Though," she spoke without realizing she was going to. He stopped. "I should warn you; there isn't much food and anything that's left is unprepared."
He turned to face her. "Why?"
"Because we are a two-person household that had to piece together any left-over food to make a six-person meal; not to mention that we had to send away our cook."
"Why would you do that?"
"Why ever do you think?" She stepped even closer. "Feyre and the High Lord, I might be able to hide, but you-" she laughed, soft and bitter. "With your hulking size and …" she cut herself off, her attention turned to his wings. As she spoke, she was compelled by an instinctual, yet unfamiliar desire that pulled at her like a tether drawn to that man, no that Fae. "Could these be any more garish and obnoxious?" Before she could stop herself, she reached out to touch his wings. Her fingertips barely had a chance to taste their texture before the skin beneath twitched and he quickly smacked her fingers away. Her eyes widened as she felt the spell disperse from within.
"Careful, Ice Princess," he condescended in an antagonistic and intentional depravation of a more deserved ranking. "You poke and prod a beast."
Her eyes narrowed and she challenged with a smirk. "I poke and prod a fool and a bastard in a beast's disguise."
Nesta lifted her chin, wholly indignant. Her hostile gaze baited a playful grin from him. That was what they were, venom and honey. He knew undoubtedly that she was the only woman who could stand before and Illyrian War General, 500 years her senior, who towered over her and still act as if she had the advantage over him.
For a brief second, he could see the cruel wings of midnight ghosting behind her. Hers would've been magnificent. Although the image was astounding, he quickly willed it away. Cassian was thankful she was mortal and not Illyrian. He'd rather she have no wings at all, than be born with the most beautiful wings and feel the night's caress on them only to have her beauty and power clipped in an attempt to make way for obedience and domestic slavery. An attempt that would ultimately fail, he knew, as this Nesta Archeron could be held down, tortured and still possess the hellfire to antagonize her captors spewing spit on their brow. No, this creature before him could not, would not be broken. Yes, it was good she was human.
"You know, it might behoove you, Nesta," she glared at the complete lack of formality in his address. "To retract your claws and cease baring your fangs in the company of allies."
Though he was easily twice her size, the mesmerizing harpy condescended to speak to him as if it diminished her status to do so. "You flatter yourself, both in thinking I consider you worth the effort to bare them in the first place and that I might ever perceive you to be an ally."
"Are you always this charming?"
"Only when provoked."
"Why do I imagine that to be quite often?" She completely snubbed him. Surprisingly enough, it was her silence that made him feel defeated as if she wouldn't stoop to be his verbal sparring opponent. It provoked Cassian with a ridiculous desperation to make her acknowledge him. "Is this an example? If such basic provocation is adequate to render you silent, then I rescind my earlier comment; it seems you don't possess any claws or fangs at all."
She turned to face him again. "I wonder," she began and he leaned in, accidentally drawn to her voice. "Why you bother to surround yourself with so many people when you are more than thoroughly entertained by the sound of your own voice?"
He stilled for a second, needing to ignore the urge to smile. "Jealous?"
The dangerous tilt of his brow begged an outraged reaction from her, instead all she noticed was the rising temperature of her blood, comparable to the fleeting seconds before a teapot screamed; internally, she wanted to do the same. She tried to disregard the way the heat trickled and meandered below its usual home in her gut, especially the way it called in its foreign and aching new residence, all warning that it was no longer ire that charged her, but desire. She scoffed. "I can hardly bear your company the single minute it takes to relay a message; any more would seem like agony." 'Sweet agony,' she impulsively thought.
He smirked, almost knowingly. "I meant to accuse you of being jealous of the company I bear, not that bears me; though it's nice to know where your thoughts first went."
'This man!' She quietly seethed before taking a calming breath. "Either way would be a punishment. I would rather the entirety of my company diminished than for it to be filled with volumes of you immortal things." The building condemnation of him began to scald her throat, though she refused to comprehend why. "All of you Fae and Illrulian are the same, unable to value real, mortal life."
"Illyrian." He corrected.
"I couldn't be bothered to care." She said, almost bored.
"And yet you seem to."
"The only thing I care about is your absence so I can return to my normal life."
"So I affect you that much?"
She swallowed a growl of irritation, unable to decide if she wanted to throttle his throat or bite it; unsure which action would be fueled by ire and which by desire. "Your presence merely impedes on my sanity." She spoke with a burning calm.
"So I drive you crazy?"
Nesta surprised herself as any prior knowledge of propriety and decorum fled from her brain, when she thrust the heel of her foot into the top of his own. She was rewarded with the only sounds she ever wanted to hear him utter, obscene curses of pain. She strut away, less than proud of her tactics, though unnervingly content with their results. A gash chiseled its way into her chest, finding its home in a heart that had felt whole before that night.
Though she couldn't see it, upon her exit, Cassian watched her with fond irritation. That toxic fire she possessed had him entirely spellbound in the most alarming and arousing way.
The next morning when he left, he knew the night before and any other second he spent near her was sure to plague him until the end of his days. It seemed both unjust and completely expected that he would meet her now, amidst war and impending doom, a woman who eyes set his gut aflame and that she would sit in front of him, so oblivious and mortal.
The cycle of her life was as temporary to him as the passing of seasons. All that seemed permanent anymore was war, death and the passage of time.