Hello! Very quick chapter update this time! I am very tired and did this at night when I normally wouldn't so sorry if the writing is a bit worse than usual. Thanks xx
Rhys and Feyre sprang apart. Rhys shrugged his shirt back on while Feyre stared at the ground, red faced. By the time Feyre had the nerve to look up, Amren had already left the room.
"I should probably text Tamlin." Feyre said, hurriedly leaving.
Rhys bawled up his fists, cursing how stupid he had been as he watched the back of Feyre disappear down the hallway. He left Mor's, knowing Amren would look after Feyre and decided to give Feyre some space to sort out her feelings with Tamlin.
Back in Feyre's room, Feyre had just finished sending Tamlin a message when Amren came in, sprawling onto Feyre's bed face down.
"Tough day at work?" Feyre asked politely.
"Was alright. I'm more depressed over watching two people, who can't admit their feelings for each other, make goo goo eyes all day behind the other's back."
Feyre nodded like she understood. "Mor and Az."
Amren raised a surprised head. "Those two?" She asked incredulously.
"Of course. It's obvious they're pining after each other, who else could it be?"
"Talk about in denial. Azriel and Mor are definitely who I was referring to in this situation." She smirked at Feyre. "Seeing as you seem to understand so much about this mutual pining after someone, what advice would you give Mor?"
Feyre's face grew dark. "I'm not sure I'm the person to be giving advice on love at the moment."
"Oh put aside that tool for one moment Feyre. If you were in a similar situation, how would you save yourself some time and move forward?"
"I guess if I was sure that they felt the same, I would be honest and tell them how I felt."
"Exactly." Amren said with a smile. She quickly changed the subject. "So have you texted The Tool yet?"
"Just then. I had to make sure he didn't come looking for me again."
"So, Rhys told you?"
"After he tried to hide it, but yes." Feyre paused. "I never thought he would hurt anyone else."
Amren reached out to touch Feyre's arm. "He can't hurt you again either, if you don't let him."
"Amren I have to go back."
"No you absolutely do not." She said matter of factly.
Feyre got up off the bed and began pacing. "He'll only get worse the longer I'm away. He still loves me Amren, plus he's helping my family. They'd be starving without his help."
"Feyre, just because someone loves you, doesn't give them the right to control you, to do whatever they damned well please with you. That's not love. Besides you work now. You can support not only yourself, but your family too."
Feyre didn't respond, just increased her pacing.
"You have a lot of people around here who care about and love you Feyre. Don't give that up for someone who wants to keep you locked away."
Amren got up silently and left the room.
The next day Feyre woke up late again and made her way down to the living room. She found Rhys once again waiting for her.
"My god, don't you have a home?" She said with a yawn.
"I'd have more of a home if your beloved hadn't tried to burn it down." Rhys muttered.
"He did what?"
"Oh, nothing a little bit of water and new paint won't fix."
"Rhys." Feyre said sternly.
"It's in the past Feyre, I'd much rather focus on today and the beautiful woman I am presented with." Rhys said back to his cocky self. "Get dressed, we're going out."
"Where?"
"Does it matter? We're getting you out of the house and getting some good food into you." He grinned.
"I don't know. What if we run into Tamlin?"
"I highly doubt Tamlin would stoop to coming to my part of town." Rhys said with a curl to his lip.
Feyre took in Rhys's fine clothing and the way elegance and richness seemed to drip off of him. She raised an eyebrow in disbelief as to how anyone could think that Rhys came from anywhere but a nice neighbourhood.
"You don't look like someone who exactly lives in the slums."
"Oh I don't. I just live in a highly cultural place, which to some may seem less than ideal if you're the snobby and elitist type."
"And here I was, pegging you for being both snobby and elitist."
Rhys let out a surprised laugh. Before making a motion that suggested to Feyre that she should start getting ready.
When Feyre found a warm enough outfit borrowed from Mor that would do, she met Rhys outside. She had left her face free of makeup because she simply couldn't find within herself the energy to apply it, and under no circumstances did she want Rhys to think this outing was some sort of date.
When she made it outside, she realised that she had never seen Rhys's car before. Perhaps because he did not have one, as Feyre took in the sleek black motorbike now parked in the driveway of the house.
"Absolutely not. Nope. No way. Come back with a proper car." Feyre began to back up towards the house.
Rhys flashed her a grin so wide he reminded of her of Cassian when he was about to play an especially bad prank. "Oh Feyre Darling don't be like that. Haven't you ever wondered what it was like to fly?"
Rhys seemed visibly excited and happy to find that persuading Feyre to get on the motorbike hadn't been as hard as he thought it would. She had climbed on the back behind him gingerly, before placing cautious hands around his middle to hold on. When Rhys took off, she let out a startled yelp and wrapped her arms fully around him for grip.
"Prick!" She yelled in his ear which he heard, even through his helmet and the sound of the rushing wind which drowned out his roaring laughter.
He drove them downtown to a place Feyre had never been before. It seemed separate from the rest of town. Like its own separate community. A sign informed her that they had passed into a neighbourhood called 'Velaris'.
They stopped at a cluster of stores which led into more of a main street further down. Feyre tried patting down her helmet hair self consciously as people turned to stare at them.
To her surprise, Rhys barely ran a hand through his slightly mussy hair before striding over to a nearby man, who he shook hands with and greeted warmly. Soon, everyone around them began greeting Rhys.
It wasn't long before Rhys caught the curious, but not rude, glances being thrown at Feyre. He waved her over and began making introductions. Feyre expected the people he was talking to, to be businessmen, people he worked with, but they turned out to be every day people from all sorts of professions. She met a baker, a plumber, a single mother, and a chef, before Feyre couldn't keep track anymore so just resorted to smiling and nodding. Despite herself, Feyre found she enjoyed talking to these friendly strangers.
Rhys took her down the street through stores, exploring the area. They even had an artist's studio where people could go to learn to paint. Rhys politely asked if she would like to go in but Feyre, maybe a little too quickly, refused. Shrugging, he had walked them on to a more residential area. The people around there, Feyre noticed, had darker hair and more tanned, olive skin. So similar to Rhys it was almost like a family resemblance.
"This is the Illyrian community. Where I grew up." Rhys said almost shyly, and Feyre understood what Rhys was offering up to her.
They carried on in silence until they came across a group of older men angrily discussing something.
"Wait here." Rhys told her quietly, before slipping on a mask of calmness and heading over to the men.
Feyre tried to wait patiently. She really did. But something about Rhys made her more reckless, not wanting to obey orders given to her this time. She heard the excited yelling of children nearby and went to investigate.
Six children played a game of hockey in the middle of an empty street. Feyre watched them quietly until one of the boys scored a goal and cheered so obnoxiously she laughed aloud. Six heads swivelled to appraise her in the unabashedly way children stare at strangers. The one who had just scored held out a spare stick to her.
"Would you like to play?" He asked.
"I don't know how to."
"That's okay. Jesper doesn't really know how to play either, but we let him anyway." A different boy responded, as another, presumably Jesper, hit the other's shin with his stick.
Feyre laughed. "Okay but I'm warning you now, I'm more of a liability than an asset."
Feyre mostly played defence, allowing the children who could only be around ten years old, to score without making it look like she was going too easy on them.
Feyre was grinning ear to ear, enjoying playing a simple game so much she nearly didn't notice the group of raven haired girls huddled nearby, watching the game with interest. She stopped to walk over to them.
"Do you play?" She asked them, holding out her stick.
One of the girls reached out for the stick shyly, fingers just about to grasp it, before it was ripped out of both her, and Feyre's hand. One of the boys had snatched it away sulkily.
"Little girls don't aren't allowed to play hockey." He said crossly.
"And what are they supposed to do instead?" Feyre asked.
"Girly chores. Boring stuff."
"You let me play." Feyre said crossing her arms over the injustice.
"That's different!" The boy insisted.
Feyre leaned down to loudly whisper to the girls conspiratorially, "It's only because they know you'll beat them."
"They won't beat us!" Another boy chimed in.
"Prove it then. You have enough sticks." Feyre said challengingly.
Not wanting to admit defeat, the boys rushed to arm the girls with sticks and set up the game for more people. Feyre watched happily as the girls were allowed to join in and cheered loudly when they scored a goal.
The loud clearing of a voice sounded from behind Feyre had her whipping around so fast she nearly fell over. Rhys was standing a few paces away with a mischievous glint to his eye and a knowing smile. Sheepishly, Feyre made her way over to him.
"I've been trying to get the girls more involved in sport for weeks, and you stroll in here like it's nothing." He laughed.
"Yeah, well I'm assuming you haven't had to deal with as many bull headed boys as I have, or it never occurred to you to use how sensitive your male egos are."
"Sensitive are we?"
"Yep. Sensitive Illyrian babies. The lot of you."
"You've been spending too much time around my cousin for my liking." He winked at her.
By the time they met up with the others in a nearby restaurant for dinner, Feyre was buzzing with an unexpected lightness. She laughed and ate so much at dinner she felt sick, surprising Mor and Amren who had not seen her eat since arriving at their home.
"Don't worry Feyre, Mor's cooking does taste better than it smells." Amren joked.
But then the dinner turned more serious as Azriel asked about why the neighbourhood seemed more tense than usual. That was when Feyre realised she had never asked Rhys about what the group of men had been arguing over.
All laughter drained from Rhys's face as he spoke. "Notices were dropped in everyone's letter boxes. The building of the factory is going ahead, they managed to find enough investors."
"Factory?" Feyre asked, aware that this was maybe well above her head and none of her business, so was pleasantly surprised when Rhys answered her honestly.
"A big company bought land nearby to start building a monstrosity of a factory."
"I don't understand, won't it provide jobs?" Feyre asked confused.
"Once it's built, it will pollute all the land and water around it. The company denies it of course but our own sources tell us it could be catastrophic." Azriel added.
"Not to mention, houses immediately in the vicinity will need to be demolished to make room." Said Cassian.
"Anyone left will become sick due to pollutants." Mor said sadly.
Feyre was shocked. The whole community was about to be ruined. She thought of the children playing in the street, suddenly overcome with disease. "How could this happen?"
"We had hoped to scare off all investors trying to give the company the resources it needed to build. Clearly it didn't work." Said Rhys.
Feyre was beginning to develop a horrible feeling in her stomach. Suspicion gnawed at her insides. "What if they didn't need a lot of different benefactors, just one single, but wealthy, investor?"
Rhys rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "I suppose that could work. There are few folk around here that could afford that though."
Steeling herself for the answer, Feyre asked, "What's the company?" An old memory resurfaced of Feyre sitting with Lucien after Tamlin had stalked off, stressed over work, where Feyre had asked this very same question.
Feyre felt her stomach drop as Rhys growled a single word, "Hybern".