[Chapter 34, A Court of Mist and Fury]

Rhysand

Cresseida was subdued as I entered the dining room. I had a twinge of guilt for leading her on last night, but as I sat down, her eyes flicked up, and it was only annoyance I saw there as she turned and began chatting animatedly with Tarquin. She'd recover from the disappointment.

I sat down next to Amren, who had leveled the full weight of her unnerving stare across the table at Varian. I almost felt sorry for the bastard, though he returned her gaze coolly. My eyes automatically scanned the remainder of the room. Feyre had not yet arrived, but then, she was often last to enter a space, and I had to admit I certainly enjoyed watching her do so.

We ate quietly, Cresseida's empty chatter the only sound filling the silence. I caught Tarquin glancing toward the door more than once and idly catalogued the information to relay to Feyre at the next opportunity. She'd baited me yesterday with a threat to bed him, but given the way he looked at her, I really didn't think it would be necessary to go that far to get what we needed.

A clock chimed delicately, a dainty mother-of-pearl thing perched atop the sideboard, and I frowned slightly, glancing up to verify what my other senses already keenly felt. Chairs scraped as the others began drifting toward the hall, and I quickly summoned some inconsequential report, pretending to be absorbed in it as I waved Amren ahead. I sat still, straining for any sound of footsteps, of a door opening farther down the hall, but there was nothing.

My brow puckered, manifesting my unease. It was unlike Feyre to linger this late into the morning, at least, not since those early days at the town house…

I glanced toward the door the others had left through. I was due in one of our many "theoretical strategy councils" within minutes, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something was amiss. I winnowed swiftly into my suite, beside the door connecting our rooms… and heard the unmistakable sound of running water. The crease between my eyes deepened. I could hear her moving inside the bathing room, even faintly smell the scent of her wet hair… She clearly was in no danger, and I was very nearly about to be late. Still frowning slightly, I winnowed into the hall outside the lesser council room Tarquin had designated for our use and strode inside.

[***]

Feyre did not make an appearance until afternoon, a fact that nagged at me throughout the morning. I couldn't say why it disquieted me so thoroughly, and I attempted to shrug it off. She was probably taking advantage of her unrequired presence to search for the Book, which was, after all, our priority here, and hadn't wanted to draw attention to herself this morning.

I almost stopped short at the sight of her in the hall as we emerged from our latest meeting, Tarquin having excused himself for what he referred to as simply "another engagement." She was dressed head to toe in the exact shade of green that trimmed Tarquin's tunic, her hair and makeup done up in a way that was simple yet feminine… dressed for him, I realized. Something twisted in my gut, but I ignored it, smoothing my face into the bored, distant mask of the Night Court.

"You're looking well today," Tarquin murmured, bowing slightly.

Feyre blushed prettily, then turned abruptly to Amren on my other side, her eyes sliding past where I stood without so much as a snag. "I hope I'm not interrupting?" she asked, a little too loudly, given the distance between them.

My eyes narrowed in confusion. Was she… avoiding me? I did not register Amren's response as I now scrutinized Feyre's expression, her movements. Her eyes twitched as if she would glance my way but thought better of it.

"You didn't mention you were a sailor," she said, too brightly, her gaze returning to Tarquin.

I was about to open my mouth when he responded, "I had planned to tell you during our tour," reminding me of our objective, which Feyre was obviously intent on. I relaxed a fraction, attempting a subtle nod that was lost on her stubbornly direct focus.

Tarquin extended his arm, which Feyre accepted graciously. "Shall we?"

Without warning, something primal, feral, exploded up from inside me, aiming for Tarquin's throat. I locked every muscle in my body, and only centuries of court practice and discipline kept the snarl from escaping my throat, even as my lips parted to reveal bared teeth.

I carefully assessed the situation as Feyre responded blandly and they strolled toward the near staircase, my instincts screaming at me to draw blood. Cresseida was still studiously ignoring me, and Amren, sensing the shift in my demeanor, deftly captured Varian's attention, drawing Cresseida into their conversation as she led them both off down the hallway in the opposite direction of Tarquin and… Feyre.

I clamped down on the mating instinct, finally recognizing what had caused the violent and irrational reaction, and she smiled breezily up at her escort, her arm still laced through his in an intimate gesture that became utterly vulgar in my frayed, heat-glazed senses.

I stood frozen in that spot until they turned a corner out of sight, unable to move without succumbing to that terrible bloodlust roiling inside me. I gasped as I loosed my control slightly, quickly stifling any notice in the nearest guards' minds. I needed to get—out, get airborne. I could feel my wings practically bursting out of me, straining to give force to the scorching flame roiling in my veins.

Make my excuses, I sent stiffly to Amren, whose answering mental snort carried more disdain than an outright I told you so.

I stifled a growl, winnowing swiftly to the Steppes and launching into the air, letting the sharp winter breeze pierce the heat still coursing through me.

I drove hard, trying to outrun the fire in my blood, Amren's smug words from the morning before replaying with sharp clarity in my frenzied mind.

"Are you certain you're prepared for this?"

I raised an eyebrow, leaning against the doorframe of the town house. "For what?"

"Presenting your unclaimed mate to another High Lord carries some… risk," she said archly.

I snorted. "You think he'd try to lay claim to an already disputed female?"

Amren eyed me shrewdly. "I think you walk a dangerous line, parading your mate around without any acknowledgment of the bond between you."

My eyes narrowed. "I don't 'parade' Feyre anywhere. She makes her own choices."

"And if she chose another bed?"

"That's her business," I said, my voice carefully neutral.

"You've been dancing around it ever since she came, as if anything less than her heart and soul would ever satisfy you—"

"That's my business," I snapped.

"Your business, perhaps, but you might find one of these days that all those pretty things you've bought—without making your intentions known—will serve to catch the eye of some other male who does not hold such cautious regard. You might find you are not prepared for the consequences, Rhysand."

Consequences, indeed. The mating instinct… I'd heard of it, of course, seen it, even—the uncontrollable urge of a mated male to attack any perceived rival. But… Feyre had been with Tamlin, been engaged to another male for months, and in all that time, I'd never felt so much as a glimmer of what I'd just experienced.

I banked at the outskirts of the nearest Illyrian camp, thinking back on those times when I'd been forced to confront Feyre's relationship with him. When she was human… unpleasant, certainly, but I had barely begun to suspect anything then, and the bond was decidedly muted before she was Made fae. Then after… I'd hardly seen them together, frankly. Those first moments Under the Mountain, when the sheer relief of having her alive had dimmed some of the pain of watching her seek comfort in his arms. The wedding, where she'd practically begged me for escape. And the appointed time of our bargain thereafter, the days I came to collect. I thought of the bruises under her eyes, her too-thin frame, even as she stood wrapped in nothing but a sheet, come directly from his bed.

I laughed broadly into the wind as it hit me. I knew Feyre had had deep and at one time abiding feelings for Tamlin, but by the time Amarantha was finally defeated, all evidence of that had passed, their relationship at its end even as neither of them realized it. Here I'd thought the centuries of denial and self-mastery had given me some kind of immunity to that primal instinct, and it turned out, Tamlin had simply never been a true rival. I smiled savagely, the urge to somehow find him and rub it in his face wickedly tantalizing.

But Tarquin… The laughter died in my throat. I returned to that Summer hall, watching her take his arm, examining the memory for whatever spark had ignited my fury. She'd accepted his escort with such ease, with… a smile, I realized. A genuine, warm smile, with a spark of joy that had never been present in the way she looked at Tamlin. I had seen flashes of that spark in the weeks since bringing her to Velaris, and cherished each one, but the way she'd offered it up to Tarquin, seemingly without thinking, without noticing how rare and precious, in the wake of everything…

Anguish flared as I thought of the words she'd said to him last night. It would be very easy to love you. Yes, easy was the hallmark of Summer, with its eternal sunshine and carefree lifestyle, as languid as the breezes that blew in from Adriata's bay. Not like the harsh currents I cut through here, with the unforgiving mountains below, the sharp sting of frost I'd long since stopped noticing when I flew.

And Tarquin himself, he was young—less than a century, if memory served—vital and full of ideals and optimism. I felt suddenly ancient beyond reckoning, the weight of time immemorial bearing down on my overburdened soul. Was that what Feyre saw when she looked at me? Centuries upon centuries of unimaginable age to her once-mortal view? And in Tarquin, perhaps something kindred, in their shared youth, his guileless nature. For he was guileless, a trait I both admired and envied even as the cold, calculating part of me analyzed how best to use it for our purposes.

If she truly wanted him… I choked off the anguished snarl that rose up in me. Her choice, it had always been her choice. Mating instinct or no, this changed nothing, I told myself. Trying to claim her that way… it would make me no better than him.

I forced myself to picture them together, spreading my wings out into a glide, willing the mating instinct into submission. Tonight at dinner, perhaps, she would sit by him, laughing, casually touching his arm, the way Cresseida had flirted so transparently with me last night, and I…

My mind snagged on the memory of that evening reception aboard Tarquin's pleasure barge, recalled the pang of… something I'd felt through the bond. Some negative emotion, which I had assumed was simply guilt at misleading Tarquin, but I examined it anew, thinking through the whole scene. She'd been looking at me, and I… had been with another female. She'd indeed seemed dissatisfied with the arrangement, as if she could see right through my perhaps unchivalrous flattery of an all-too-eager mark.

But if she'd bothered to notice, I thought pensively, there must be some possibility that I was not too late, some chance… There was more than one way to fight, I realized as I soared aimlessly along the coast. Not this misdirected, carnal fury, as if she were my possession, had somehow been stolen… but I could fight for her, my mate—for love.

For I knew, had known since Under the Mountain, that she was the love of my immortal existence. And as much as it galled me to admit it, Amren was right. I had been cautious, hadn't wanted to push, unsure whether Feyre was ready after all that had happened, but… perhaps it was time to find out.

I banked again, heading inland toward the edge of my territory, ready to begin pursuing my mate in earnest.

[***]

I picked her bedroom because I knew it was the one place she could not avoid me.

I wandered awkwardly at first, feeling a lingering sense of intrusion, breathing in her scent permeating the space. I stood near the dresser I'd so nearly mutilated the day before but couldn't decide what to do with my arms, so I moved to a divan near the window, crossing a foot over the opposite knee. The angle of the late afternoon sun felt garish, so I paced upward again. Finally, my gaze lit on the one space I truly desired, the place I would claim unhesitatingly if I were sure of her—her bed. I licked suddenly dry lips. Well, it was one way to gauge her reaction, I decided, and settled in to wait.

Her mood when she returned was not a generous one. She scowled upon seeing me. "What do you want?"

I smiled lazily. "Flirting and giggling with Tarquin did you no good, I take it?"

"You tell me," she snapped, tossing a square, flat box at me.

I raised my eyebrows in pleased surprise, thumbing open the clasp. I had hardly dared hope it would be so easy… I blinked in confusion at the sight of night-dark gems nestled in a bed of satin. "This isn't the Book."

"No," she huffed. "But it's a beautiful gift."

I let the fire that kindled in my chest heat my words, for once letting go of the careful grasp I always kept with her. "You want me to buy you jewelry, Feyre? Then say the word. Though given your wardrobe"—I eyed her Summer-teal gown disdainfully—"I thought you were aware that it was all bought for you."

She glared. "Tarquin is a good male—a good High Lord," she corrected as my eyes flashed dangerously. "You should just ask him for the damned Book."

I tossed the necklace aside, scorn lacing my voice. "So he plies you with jewels and pours honey in your ear, and now you feel bad?"

"He wants your alliance," she pleaded. "Desperately. He wants to trust you, rely on you."

I didn't have it in me to think well of Tarquin at the moment. "Well, Cresseida is under the impression that her cousin is rather ambitious, so I'd be careful to read between his words," I snapped.

Her nostrils flared. "Oh? Did she tell you that before, during, or after you took her to bed?"

And there it was. I rose slowly, predatorily, my voice low and smooth as silk. "Is that why you wouldn't look at me? Because you think I fucked her for information?"

Her sneer faltered ever so slightly, quick enough to miss, before she spat, "Information or your own pleasure, I don't care." Oh, but she did, some feral part of me crooned, some latent beast I had never quite dared face exulting savagely.

I took my time rounding the bed, reveling in her quickening heartbeat, the slight hitch in her breathing as I towered over her, stopping just far enough away for her to close the space between us with less than a step. "Jealous, Feyre?" I purred, her name like a caress on my tongue.

She narrowed her eyes defiantly. "If I'm jealous, then you're jealous about Tarquin and his honey-pouring."

My voice came out rougher than I'd anticipated, her nearness affecting me as much as her still-stuttering heart told me it did her. "Do you think I particularly like having to flirt with a lonely female to get information about her court, her High Lord? Do you think I feel good about myself, doing that? Do you think I enjoy doing it just so you have the space to ply Tarquin with your smiles and pretty eyes, so we can get the Book and go home?"

She sniffed. "You seemed to enjoy yourself plenty last night."

Enough. I'd had enough of this dance, this ruse of detachment, of disinterest. "I didn't take her to bed," I enunciated carefully. "She wanted to, but I didn't so much as kiss her." As if I ever could, with Feyre's very existence weighing on my every heartbeat. "I took her out for a drink in the city, let her talk about her life, her pressures, and brought her back to her room"—Feyre's eyes burned into mine—"and went no farther than the door. I waited for you at breakfast, but you slept in. Or avoided me, apparently." My voice rose in exasperation. "And I tried to catch your eye this afternoon, but you were so good at shutting me out completely."

Her voice was thick. "Is that what got under your skin? That I shut you out, or that it was so easy for Tarquin to get in?"

The sight of her smiling up at him came, unbidden, to my mind, and with it all the emotion of the afternoon. I hardly registered the words as they punched through my clenched teeth. "What got under my skin is that you smiled at him."

Her mouth formed a small O, and it took all my self-control to keep from closing the space and capturing it with my own. "You are jealous," she breathed, falling back a step.

Reason was beginning to intrude on my harried thoughts. The Summer Palace was not the place to be acting on the intense need I felt, and we still had a job to do, one that would quickly become dangerous if either of us became… distracted.

I need a drink.

I'd spied a decanter on a table in another corner of the room, near an open window. I tore myself away and lurched toward it, quickly downing several rounds' worth of the hard liquor, then bracing myself as I reined in the raging intensity coursing through me. I felt the night breeze wash over the space where wings should be, the alcohol dulling my senses just enough to bring me back from that cavernous edge.

Still, her statement, more of a question, hung in the air, as if she were somehow unaware just how piercingly accurate her words were. I decided on a part of the truth, vowing to return to this conversation once we had time, and space…

"I heard what you told him," I confessed, not trusting myself to look at her. "That you thought it would be easy to fall in love with him. You meant it, too."

"So?" Her soft rejoinder nearly buckled my resolve.

"I was jealous—of that," I added quickly. "That I'm not… that sort of person. For anyone." The half-truths started to flow more easily as I shifted away from the personal. "The Summer Court has always been neutral; they only showed backbone during those years Under the Mountain. I spared Tarquin's life because I'd heard how he wanted to even out the playing field between High Fae and lesser faeries. I've been trying to do that for years. Unsuccessfully, but… I spared him for that alone. And Tarquin, with his neutral court—" My voice tightened as I veered closer to the truth that would set me aflame if I gave voice to it wholly. "He will never have to worry about someone walking away because the threat against their life, their children's lives, will always be there. So, yes, I was jealous of him"—I steeled myself against the biggest lie of all—"because it will always be easy for him."

My voice turned wistful, trailing off to nearly a whisper as I thought of the scant truth in those words. "And he will never know what it is to look up at the night sky and wish."

A heartbeat passed, and then a shudder ran through me, hearing the soft steps of her approach. The heat of her forearm brushed past mine, reaching for the liquor bottle as she poured a round for herself, then me. I straightened, my gaze ragged as I looked into her fathomless blue-gray eyes.

Those eyes were soft as she raised her glass solemnly. "To the people who look at the stars and wish, Rhys."

Hearing her breathe my name, the sound of it like an embrace, stirred something in me, something deeper than the flame, and for the first time, I thought I saw something in her that gave me hope.

I murmured softly, giving voice to that hope, "To the stars who listen—and the dreams that are answered."