Prompt: "One last time", she whispered to herself, watching her ruby red blood dripping into the porcelain sink. One shot? For what ever ship you want
In union there is strength
The Hunt
The night Feyre went out hunting, Nesta did as well.
Except she had a different type of hunt in mind, one in which she'd have the high chance of easily becoming the prey too fast and too soon. A dangerous game, one a merchant's daughter had no business in reckoning with.
But she did it anyway.
Because while food sustained the basic needs, money was everything.
To buy more arrows and paints for Feyre, seeds and gloves for Elain. To buy penance for herself.
Nesta drew the shawl tighter around herself, the wind nipping at her ears. Elain had never asked her where the eldest Archeron sister ventured out into the night, tucked safely within her ragged and thin blankets, the most all could afford. Feyre never knew of her endeavors, her night visits matching her hunting trips.
The wind howled in the night, eyes turning away as she disappeared through wired fences and under curved in structures.
More steps into darkness.
She pushed opened the crimson doors, eyes skimming over the half-skulls embellishing each slat on the iron entrance. The smell of sickened mewls and moans of the half-drugged and weeping souls crawled into her ears, and bile rose in her throat.
Nesta walked up the crooked stairs, each step creaking and building the crescendo of her heartbeat, faster and faster. She no longer spared second glances to the limbs scattered across the scarlet carets and bitten flesh strewn hastily across the crimson walls. She no longer puked at the stench of the rotten knobs of snapped bones and putrid smell of the decomposing and decayed.
It was only a matter of time before she joined the lump of bones, her body a forgotten reminder of humanity and its flaws.
Shadows danced over her vision, scattering and dispersing as she neared. It always seemed like an eternity's walk down the single hallway, until she reached the very end. Slowing to a halt, she placed a shaking palm against the only door in the upper level. A finger trembled against the knob—a polished knuckle wrapped around a stuffed heart, her eyes scanning the golden tapestries draped across the iron and steel infused door.
She tightened her grip, and twisted the knob open.
An empty, drab and gray stall awaited her.
Nesta stalked in, and stared at the scratches of lines and markings fading across the wall. She could see phantom wisps of ghosts with gaping jaws screaming with listless eyes, claws digging into their own untouchable figures. She could taste the palpable fear of whoever last used the room that stung her tongue and misted her eyes.
But more importantly, she could feel the bulk of bills that would be slipped into her hands once she finished and booked the hell out of this cursed, wretched dump that belonged on the other side of the Wall.
Nesta walked to the sink on the left side of the tiny room, and washed her arms, scrubbing fiercely away the dead skin, leaving searing, harsh blemishes.
Nesta walked to the table on the right side of the tiny room, and picked up the knife, staring at the sharp blade, screeching greediness.
Nesta walked to the goblet at the front of the tiny room, and held her wrist over the golden goblet, rimmed with dark-crusted stones.
"One last time," she whispered to herself, watching her ruby red blood drip into cup.
The scent of her mortality flowing through open space had her nose wrinkle.
A slat in the front opened, wide enough for a bony and pale hand to snatch the goblet.
Another hand flashed out and grabbed her wrist.
A tongue licked her wound shut, and yanked her hand away.
A wad of bills replaced the goblet, and the slat shut and locked with a click.
Nesta tucked the money into the insides of her shawl and strode out.
The sliver of fear and whisper of dark.
The Mortal Queens.
To sustain their immortality, they had to drink from the blood of humans.
Those who offered were paid well. And paid more for their silence.
But words were easily broken, the shredded flesh and cracked bones a testament.
Nesta swallowed and picked up her pace as she strode down the hallway, watching the shadows deform and twist into angles and passing faces around her.
A shadow stood at the crest of the stairway.
Dark and dangerous, tall and lethal. Ropes of corded muscle and a roughened face.
Her pulse sped up, and the sealed wound at her wrist throbbed.
The figure walked forward, and she stilled.
She could not turn around and run, not when sacrificing more blood and allowing the darkness to consume here awaited in the back.
So she walked forward, bracing herself.
She could not be ensnared now, not when her younger sisters did not have the money tucked with her. If he thought he'd found an easy kill, that she'd be one of the easy bones scattered on the floor, then he'd sorely made a mistake.
Nesta tensed.
The male stood directly in front of her, swallowing her form whole. The shadows seemed to bend away from him, some sliver of warmth radiating from his large form. The large, red rings decorating his forehead slashed against the gray and black linings of the building collapsing over them. An explicable sense of longing poured through her, a calling far deeper than her intrinsic senses of fear.
Hazel eyes burned into her, and he arched a brow slowly at her. Slowly, too slowly, he sniffed the air and walked in a tiny circle around her. Obviously he hadn't been taught personal space, as Nesta waited for the knife or dagger to lash out and gut her apart.
The male instead leaned down to her side, brushing away a strand of hair. A second later, he blew a breath of air towards her, goosebumps wrecking over her skin. Nesta didn't recognize this intimidation tactic.
Before he could nick off her ear or slice off her hair for one of the Mortal Queen's cursed ritual, Nesta stormed forward.
She didn't get very far, other shapes flooding up the staircase. The male behind her easily looped a muscular arm around her torso, locking her into position. Her skin flamed at the contact, every inch of coldness reduced to ashes.
The emerging tall males and one smaller female walked up the hellhole as if they owned it, wearing matching grins of ferocity. One wore thick, blue rings, the other wearing simple, yet complex clothing. The female's tight smile, full of unspoken dangers, caused the insides of Nesta's stomach to tighten.
But it was the dark-haired male at her side that had her heart thrumming to a different song, one full of raging passion and lethal comfort, a dance of violence and a cacophony's melody.
A name whispered through her mind, two syllables that shredded the dark curtains looming in her horizons.
"My hunt has ended," Cassian said, leaning into her as she to him, a thread of connection snapping between them, two intertwined, full of sparks and akin to darkness. "My mate—Nesta Archeron."