The Game Begins, an a court of thorns and roses fanfic

She was fading.

Her heartbeat had become erratic, faster each time I chanced a glimpse into her consciousness. The visions in her mind had been growing steadily more confusing, the delusions lengthening, overtaking rational thought more and more. There were flickers of memories…flashes of fantasies and desires that were fast replacing reality as fever took hold. Her pain was acute…cold and immense beyond measure. It washed over me in waves as I swam in the churning tide of her thoughts.

Every spare moment I had, every piece of my own power that I could justify, was spent inside her mind monitoring her slow and agonizing regression. Every glance was darker, more muddled, every second she was closer to death, and yet I did not go to her. I did not heal her. I dined, and I drank, and I fucked her tormentor…and I did not go to her.

I could not…not directly after the trial. Not after I had bet so much on her success. To rush to her aid immediately could have only one implication: that I was compelled by my own sentiment to help her, just as Lucien had done before me. There would be no way to convince Amarantha that the game I was about to set into motion was played purely for my own morbid entertainment. Even biding my time, the next steps would require careful strategy…would need to include the introduction of something that played to my own self-interests…something abhorrent and entirely against Feyre's will.

And so I waited. I wound the thread of Feyre's fate into that of my own people. I crafted my reasons and my false narratives, sowing the seeds of trust between myself and the evil whore that held us both in her thrall, knowing that every second brought Feyre closer to death…and knowing that every delicately constructed piece of this plot hung on the look of disgust in her eyes…the revulsion in her movement as she played my wicked game. Her life…perhaps every life in Prythian, now depended on her hatred of me…on how far that hatred could carry her.

But I could wait no longer. The pain of sitting idly by as her body slowly shut down…as her mind battled with her own mortal limitations, was too great. She was dying.

Nuala's daily briefings on Amarantha's prior engagements had saved my life on more than one occasion in this hell of a court. On this night, her intimation of the dark queen's dinner plans with the High Lord of the Autumn would save Feyre's. There would be no other time that Amarantha would be thus distracted…not while Feyre still lived. It was tonight. It had to be tonight.

With the threads and edges of strategies and possibilities tangling in my mind, I made my way down toward her cell, gathering the darkness to me as I passed the guards, only half awake near the turn toward the dungeons. They did not look up as I passed. I would give them nothing unusual to report to their master tonight until the stage was set for their testimony.

I entered Feyre's cell silently and allowed the shadows to mask my presence as I lingered, listening—not entirely corporeal—taking in the pathetic scene before me. Feyre was sitting propped against the far side of the cell, her arm hanging uselessly in shadow. She was no longer favoring it. No longer shivering in the chill air. The heat radiated off her as she repeated her mantra again and again.

Not a fever, not a fever, not a fever.

Her eyes were on the door…on me, but they were not focused. Perhaps could not focus. Still, she forced them to remain open. Her gaze was so determined…so out of place in the cold darkness that I nearly chuckled at her sheer stubbornness. Then I caught the scent in the room and my chuckle died in my throat.

Vomit from the corner, which was to be expected with the food they had provided, but worse was the scent that lingered all around her. Death. The smell of rotting corpses lay caked on her skin in thick dry patches of mud, the remnants of the Wyrm and its final few meals. But it was the scent of blood that made my heart pause in my chest. It was her blood…mortal blood, and too much still spilling from whatever wound she was no longer even able to look at.

I had waited too long.

I clenched shadow fists and realized that I was still only half corporeal…and that she was now staring directly at me again, her eyes drawn into as much focus as she could muster.

My mask slipped into place…that deplorable, placid amusement shrouding any pain she could see on my face, and I stepped from the shadows. She cringed as she realized who I was, and I allowed my smile to grow deeper, more devious, as I slipped into my role with too much ease.

"What a sorry state for Tamlin's champion," I began.

"Go to hell!" she replied, and relief surged through me. She was still able to speak. Her words were hoarse and barely loud enough to carry, but she was speaking, and the anger in her expression told me that she was still lucid enough to hate.

Encouraged by that, I approached and crouched beside her, eager to inspect the wound, to see if it was too far gone to repair…if the infection that mortals were so prone to had already taken her too far down the path towards death. But her arm slipped behind her as she scrambled to push away from me. The effort made her pulse increase dangerously, and I smelled fresh blood. I stilled, sniffing instead, turning my head away from the smell of sickness in the corner and searching for the telltale sweetness of a rotting wound. There was nothing.

But the fever was there. I could feel it from where I was. See it in the sweat beading her brow. It was only a matter of time. I reached out to brush my fingers over that brow, nearly rejoicing when she flinched away from my touch.

"What would Tamlin say if he knew his beloved was rotting away down here, burning up with fever?"

I knew exactly what Tamlin would say…nothing. Absolutely nothing. Feyre's champion had not spoken a word nor allowed anything more than the most basic thoughts to escape from the shield he had built inside his mind since the Attor had dragged Claire Beddor into the throne room. That silence had not changed when Feyre had replaced Claire at the foot of the dais. Nothing she had done to this point…nothing she had suffered…had changed Tamlin's stasis in any form. Not until Lucien.

But I could not let Feyre know that now, not when the knowing of it could break her. Not when her entire existence depended on the unspoken bond that she imagined between them. And so I swallowed the tang in my throat that rang too much of jealousy, and I gave her the assurances that she needed. "Not that he can even come here. Not when his every move is watched."

"Get away." Placated, but still so weak. Her arm moved further into the shadows. I heard more droplets hit the floor.

Dying…dying…I had to do something now.

"I come here to offer you help, and you have the nerve to tell me to leave?"

"Get away," she repeated, and her eyes lost focus, her mind slipping away from me again.

"You made me a lot of money, you know," I prompted, pulling her from her daze. "I figured I would repay the favor."

Money. The very thought that I had bet on her life…that we had all bet on her…used her like a coin to gamble on…it should have infuriated her. Instead, her head lolled, and her strength gave way. She fell back fully against the wall, her mind spinning… spinning with flashes…pieces of memory again—a trail of blood in a frozen forest; the blurred recollection of a night spent drunk on fairy wine; the pain of sharp, cold claws holding her mind. The whisper of a beautiful monster in her ear.

Those were my claws. I was that monster for her. Cold. Cruel. Evil.

"Let me see your arm." I said, only barely masking the shame.

She did not move her arm. I wasn't sure that she could move it at this point, but the faint patter of blood sounded from those shadows. More images came, as if she were screaming them across the void between us. Blood pooling slowly around pale bare feet. A silver pool of starlight in the darkness. Tamlin's hands on her naked thighs…

"Let me see it," I snarled, pulling her arm from the shadows, pulled with too much force it seemed, and I cursed myself as she stifled a cry, biting down on her lips hard enough to draw more blood. Staring down at the Wyrm's handywork for the first time, my own blood froze.

I had imagined a frail human arm, sliced to the quick in the wyrm's final throes. That in itself was bad enough, but what I hadn't imagined was the sharp shard of bone protruding from her wound…the puckered, inflamed edges that were not healing…the dark, malevolent lines of infection that crept slowly up toward her shoulder and down toward her hand.

A human hand…holding a brush…

This was way beyond Lucien's power to heal. I prayed to the Cauldron that it was not beyond my own. It took every piece of self-control that I had left to force the grimace on my face into a grin.

"Oh, that's wonderfully gruesome." Cold, cruel, evil.

Feyre swore at me, and I chuckled as warm relief trickled down my spine. She was still herself…still fighting. It was only a small reprieve though as the wound gaped raw and scathing between us.

"Such words from a lady."

"Get out!" she insisted, her voice no more than a whisper.

"Don't you want me to heal your arm?" I persisted, tightening my grip around her forearm and feeling the blood trickle down my fingers. Agony marred her features, and I fought with my own desire to take her pain then and there.

"At what cost?" she asked.

"Ah that," I replied. "Living among faeries has taught you some of our ways."

This was the most important moment. The moment where failure was most plausible. I fought against my own will, wanting to heal her with everything I had in me. I wanted that mind back, the one that had walked into here fully conscious of the fact that she would never walk out again. The one that had bested a Wyrm that had devoured even fully trained Fae warriors. I needed that girl, but if I did that too quickly…asked too little of her, I would lose my way in. I would lose the opportunity to create what I needed to help her. What both of us needed to end this nightmare one way or the other. I needed her to be somehow bonded to me and repelled by me at the same time. It was a nearly impossible scenario, and still so much hung in the balance. I made the leap.

"I'll make a trade with you," I began with as much feigned indifference as urgency would allow. "I'll heal your arm in exchange for you. For two weeks every month, two weeks of my choosing, you'll live with me at the Night Court. Starting after this messy three-trials business."

"No."

No consideration. No hesitation. Even the haze in her mind seemed to clear as she held herself firm in the darkness. I grimaced at the surprising sting of such a quick, unconditional rejection.

But I had expected as much. Had planned every thread of this delicate conversation, knew every turn that it could take. I had spent entirely too much time pondering what she could be convinced to bargain away. How much time with which to open our bargain. How much I could yield and still maintain the illusion of slave and master. Now, I slipped further into my guise…further into the monster that she expected.

"No?" I said, not even having to feign the incredulity in my voice as I leaned closer to her. "Really?"

"Get out." Breath weak. Head spinning. Heart overcompensating for blood loss. She was dying right in front of me.

I gritted my teeth and held the mask in place. Cold. Cruel. Evil.

"You'd turn down my offer—and for what?" She did not reply. Did not need to. The answer was there in her mind—the smug, scarred face as prominent as my own at the moment. "You must be holding out for one of your friends—for Lucien, correct? After all, he healed you before, didn't he?"

Of course he had…and not on Tamlin's behest, but on mine…or rather, on an urgent impulse that I had laced into Lucien's thought process.

"Oh, don't look so innocent. The Attor and his cronies broke your nose. So unless you have some kind of magic you're not telling us about, I don't think human bones heal that quickly."

My own mind rolled and churned, battling to fight off the memory of the Attor's assault. I heard once again the empty thud of fists on flesh, smelled her blood spilled for the first time, felt the moment when consciousness left her. Rage surged in me, and I seized hold of it, bending it to my will and using it to do what I had to do next.

"The way I see it, Feyre, you have two options. The first and the smarted would be to accept my offer."

She spat at me. Blood from her lip that stained the ground as I paced.

"The second option—and the one only a fool would take—would be for you to refuse my offer and place your life, and thus Tamlin's, in the hands of chance."

And there it was. The one thing that would convince her. The one thing that would set her mind into motion in spite of her proximity to death. Tamlin. Fear for his life, for his freedom. A courtesy he had not bothered to show for her. That fear that did not shut her down, but wake her up. It was beautiful to watch as her mind lit up for only a few seconds, focused completely on something visceral. Something primal. For Tamlin. For a male whose only decipherable thought toward her in the past month had been to deny any connection to her.

"Let's say I walk out of here. Perhaps Lucien will come to your aid within five minutes of my leaving. Perhaps he'll come in five days. Perhaps he won't come at all. Between you and me, he's been keeping a low profile after his rather embarrassing outburst at your trial. Amarantha's not exactly pleased with him. Tamlin even broke his delightful brooding to beg for him to be spared."

Lucien. He'd begged for Lucien, but had not moved a finger as Feyre faced the Wyrm. I stifled my disgust. Painting my next words in it.

"Such a noble warrior, your High Lord. She listened, of course—but only after she made Tamlin bestow Lucien's punishment. Twenty lashes."

Twenty lashes was nothing for an immortal trained in war I'd received more in Amarantha's bed than had reigned down on Lucien. It was child's play compared to bleeding to death covered in mud and wyrm excrement on a dungeon floor. Twenty lashes had broken the skin on the young Fox's back and had rendered him immobile for a day or two…but Feyre was mortal. Twenty lashes had much greater consequences in her imagination.

Feyre was shaking. Thinking not of her own injuries…not even of Lucien's, but of Tamlin. Of the injury to his pride. I didn't even have to force the frustration that rose in me as I continued.

"So, it's really a question of how much you're willing to trust Lucien—and how much you're willing to risk for it. Already you're wondering if that fever of yours is the first sign of infection. Perhaps they're unconnected, perhaps not. Maybe it's fine. Maybe that worm's mud isn't full of festering filth. And maybe Amarantha will send a healer. And by that time, you'll either be dead, or they'll find your arm so infected that you'll be lucky to keep anything above the elbow."

I was playing on her fear now. Stirring the embers in her mind. They had to kindle. She had to be lucid and burning. She had to hate me as much as she loved Tamlin. This would have to hurt her…disgust her…humiliate her beyond words for Amarantha to believe it, and I loathed myself for the amount of evil that came all too quickly to the surface.

"I don't need to invade your thoughts to know these things. I already know what you've slowly been realizing…You're dying."

And the pain that came with my own admission of that fact nearly nullified the shocking awareness that, no…Feyre had not acknowledged her own impending death. Her denial had been complete and all encompassing, and only now did I watch it take hold inside her mind…bloom like nightshade. Tears welled in her eyes, and she bit her lip. I heard the patter of more blood droplets hitting the floor behind her as I pushed on.

"How much are you willing to risk on the hope that another form of help will come?"

Feyre gazed up at me, revulsion dancing in her eyes. Her mind was writhing. Pain. Blame. Burning, blind hatred. Images appeared…memories of Tamlin with his face on the floor, Claire's body, the Attor's face just before its fist broke her nose. They appeared in her gaze, flung toward me like weapons…like kindling for an inferno that was nowhere near to being contained.

"Well?" I pushed, knowing her reaction even before the furious grimace appeared on her face. Knowing what came next.

"Go. To. Hell." Resolute and laced with spite.

I sighed in despair. Pain then. It had to be pain.

Without giving myself time to think of what I was doing, I flung out my hand, pulling her injured arm from the shadows and grasping the bone where it emerged from her flesh. I twisted as hard as I dared. A scream tore from her, shrill and desperate, piercing the cell walls and alerting the guards just beyond. I used the distraction to slip further into her mind…to slip into her pain, not to dull it, but to share it. It was dark and cold and excruciating, experienced in electrifying jolts of color and light, and I nearly screamed with her as I held her with one arm and twisted the bone once again with the other. The agony surged through her and through me. She writhed and thrashed, and I held firm, embracing it, knowing that I deserved every bit of it for what it was doing to her, and when I released her…when those beautiful blue grey eyes opened again, laced with tears as she sobbed breathlessly, they found nothing more on my face than the cold mask of the High Lord of Night.

I'm not sure what I'd expected. A moment of silence to collect herself perhaps. A sobbing plea for me not to continue. Any of a hundred normal reactions to pain and fear. Any of a thousand that I'd seen from the mortals that had died at the hands of Amarantha in my half a century of captivity here. I had plotted her acceptance…and her rejection, and had a plan for either way this game took us.

What I did not expect, of course, was for her to spit in my face.

I laughed as the scent of her blood hit me again, and I stood, wiping my cheek absentmindedly. Rejection. She had balls, I had to give her that. She was tough as nails even so near to death…and stubborn as a fucking Illyrian. An image of Cassian's face flashed in my mind…the second time in a week that I'd remembered his teasing grin, and for that alone, I owed Feyre everything. Instead…I played the game.

"This is the last time I'll extend my assistance," I said, making my way to the door. "Once I leave this cell, my offer is dead."

She spat at me again, and for the first time, I began to worry that perhaps I had underestimated her tenacity. I paused, knowing that the guards were just outside now, listening to every word that was spoken…a safety measure I'd put into place…witnesses to Feyre's humiliation designed to pacify Amarantha. I knew that if Feyre allowed me to leave this room, I could not return…not without Amarantha realizing that my interest in her extended beyond pissing off her Spring Court toy. My words rang with the frustration behind that uncertainty.

"I bet you'll be spitting on Death's face when she comes to claim you, too."

Because no matter what Feyre told herself in the darkness, that was fever that burned in her brow and ate away at her mind, and that was infection searing its way slowly up her injured arm. But it was neither the fever nor the infection that would kill her. No. The fatal blow had been dealt long before Feyre had begun to burn. Her death had been assured the moment that the Wyrm's teeth had broken her mortal flesh.

The Middengard Wyrm was not venomous, but its bite was lethal just the same. Once blood flowed from its victim, it would not stop. What time and infection had done to her arm was secondary now. It was that blood…such dangerous quantities of it for a mortal…that would be her end. Her wound would not heal, not without magic…and Amarantha knew it. She knew it just as she'd known that Lucien had been the one to heal Feyre after the beating. This time, she'd ensured that her healing would take far more than what Lucien had left to him.

It was to Lucien that Feyre's thoughts had fallen as I pulled the darkness around me…to the tenuous trust that they had built. To the fragility of mortals and the obliviousness of immortals. Her mind was a battlefield with both sides bloodied and bruised, and death hanging on the horizon in all directions.

My own thoughts were filled with a silent plea for her acceptance. She had no other choice. Her hatred was written on every inch of air around her. The witnesses were listening just outside the door, and I could delay my departure no longer. This was it. The pin that everything was perched on. If she allowed me to disappear, I would have to watch her die.

I began to fade completely, my heart lead in my chest, suddenly certain that I would not be able to walk away. Not after feeling her pain. Not after hearing that stubborn heart fighting for every last moment. I would have to find a way to…

"Wait." Breathless and muffled.

Relief washed over me so completely that it was an effort to keep my face impassive. An effort not to rush back to her and heal her right then out of pure gratitude. Only her thoughts in that moment prevented me from doing so. They were stalwart, determined…and focused entirely on Tamlin.

"Wait," she repeated with more certainty.

For Tamlin.

For Tamlin she would sacrifice herself…sell her soul to her mortal enemy…to me. She would die starved and bleeding on a cold floor for him. Spend the rest of her mortal life as a toy in my Court of Nightmares for him…for a male that had given up on her the moment that she'd appeared under this gods damned mountain.

"Yes?" I masked my disgust behind my smile once again, feeling it distort my features into something frightening.

"Just two weeks?"

The smile widened. I had her.

"Just two weeks," I confirmed, bending toward her once again. Blood dripped into her lap, where she cradled her arm. "Two teensy, tiny weeks with me every month is all I ask."

"Why? And what are to…to be the terms?"

A series of images flashed through her mind…things that she believed I would do to her in my court should she survive the next two trials. They were repulsive, made even more so by the fact that I had done every one of them…or had had them done to me…in this sham of a court that Amarantha had created.

"Ah," I said, accepting her vision of me. Conforming wholly to it even as it burned away at my sanity to do so. Her fear of me served a greater purpose. It was a testimony…a very visible testimony…to our perceived mutual enmity. "If I told you those things, there'd be no fun in it, would there?"

Feyre glared down at her arm, contemplated the piece of fractured bone, the blood dripping into her lap. Her mind was muddled now, grasping desperately for another option…any other option besides death, and I found myself holding off frustration as she slowly arrived at the inevitable. Finally, she met my gaze.

"Five days," she replied with almost comical determination.

Frustration mingled with amusement. "You're going to bargain?"

We did not have time for this. Already she was back to fending off the nausea, the dizziness. Already her thoughts had begun to surrender to fever dreams, and still she glared up at me, arguing semantics. For the second time in minutes, the similarities between this beautiful stubborn mortal and the members of my family in Velaris hit me. I chuckled and humored her.

"Ten days."

"A week."

She looked so determined. So young and brash. I could not see if she did not understand the death that was already yawning in her direction, or if she knew it and simply refused to surrender to it. All the same, it was the same spark that I had seen as she'd laid the trap for the Wyrm, the one that had driven her to fling the bone spear at her captor without the slightest hope of causing injury. Brash yes, but driven by a mortal heart capable of quantities of love and hate that were nearly inconceivable to my long-lived Fae brethren. She would play her part in this game with every last breath she had, and if she succeeded…if the Cauldron saw fit to save her from the horrifying fate that she'd chosen and allowed us all to leave this hellish darkness. Then I would have one week…

One week every month…

But I would not allow myself that vision. I had lost the faces of my loved ones, the sights and sounds of the city that I protected even now. I'd lost the feel of flight. I would not allow my own foolish fantasies to lose this endgame.

"A week it is," I agreed.

"Then it's a deal," Feyre replied.

I acted without further thought, my grin growing savage, relief and triumph on full display as I gripped her injured arm and felt the true damage for the first time. The bone was splintered impossibly, her flesh torn far beyond mortal repair. There were no words of warning that would prepare her, so I offered none as my power stirred, mixing with a magic that was much older, much more formidable…the old gods recognizing a bargain struck.

Feyre gasped as my magic slammed into her…washed over her. As that magic tore bone from flesh, pulling the poison from her blood as it came. Her heartbeat increased dangerously, her breath becoming shallow, ragged. A scream ripped from her and died in her throat as consciousness left her. I dared not pull back, not as her flesh began to knit together, staunching the blood loss immediately. Her heart skipped…

Stopped.

And started again. Slower this time, steadier, beating with a calm, sure rhythm. Her breath became deeper, almost peaceful. I set her gently back against the stone wall of the cell, taking advantage of her unconsciousness to wash the fetid mud from her skin and hair. As I did so, I felt the purr of old magic again, the prick of the bargain tattooing itself up both of my shoulders, mingling with the Illyrian designs already there. I glanced down at Feyre just in time to watch it claim her in the same way—the elegant black lines, nearly identical to my own Illyrian marks for luck and glory—winding their way slowly down her newly healed left arm, and I was suddenly struck by a moment of ingenuity.

Quickly, not giving myself time to ponder whether it was cunning or simply reckless, I gripped Feyre's left hand and marked it with my own magic. It appeared in the center of her palm…a cat's eye, cold and staring. A piece of me. A thread to tie her consciousness to mine while the trials were still underway, appearing as a poorly sketched travesty compared to the beautiful swirls that fell around it a moment later. Still, it was there, allowed by the old magic, and looking close enough to the tattoos around it so as not to be suspicious. I sent a surge of my power down that thread to test it, smiling possessively as she stirred in response.

Her eyes fluttered open, unmistakably clear, and they slipped over me, assessing…noting the strength that had returned to her arm, noting the absence of mud and filth on her pale skin. She brought her left arm up to examine my healing skills, and…

"What have you done to me?" Her voice was stronger. Outraged as I moved back to give her space.

"It's custom in my court for bargains to be permanently marked upon flesh." This was oversimplifying, of course, but I did not think it prudent to waste time explaining the complicated workings of old gods and old magic, not while there were still witnesses listening outside her cell. Not while the deception still needed to be maintained.

She scrubbed at her arm, as if the ink were as easy to erase as the mud had been, pausing to stare furiously at the eye on her palm.

"Make it go away," she demanded.

I let out an exasperated breath. "You humans are truly grateful creatures, aren't you?"

Dual chuckles resonated from outside of the cell door, barely audible to Fae ears. The illusion was complete. I glanced down at Feyre with as much disdain as I could muster. She was staring in disbelief at the dark design, eyes darting from flower to flower. The Illyrian ruins were beautiful…their message a stinging nostalgia that I'd thought gone from my memory forever.

She looked up at me, eyes burning. "You didn't tell me this would happen!"

And I couldn't keep the smile from my face. Those eyes, so cold with accusation, were clear again. Quick and angry and…human. Completely oblivious to the incantations that swirled up her wrist…the protection it now provided, at least what little protection I could offer without the threat of detection.

You didn't ask," I responded, "So how am I to blame?"

The silent hatred radiating from her was my cue to leave and I made my way to the door with a subdued sense of accomplishment. The bargain was struck. Feyre was alive and irrevocably linked to me for the duration of it. There was no reason to remain with her in her dark, foul smelling hell. Not when I would all too soon be called back to my own. And yet…I lingered, strangely unable to find the will to slip entirely into night.

It may have been jealousy or desperation. Perhaps a complete lack of caution on the winds of my newly gained moment of triumph, or the bitter knowledge that I would be fucking Amarantha in less than two hours' time with only the memory of Feyre's blue grey eyes to keep me from losing myself entirely once again. Whatever compelled me in that moment, I found myself turning…felt the resentment burning in the pit of my stomach as I addressed her…addressed the real reason that she continued to stare at the tattoo in horror.

"Unless this lack of gratitude and appreciation is because you fear a certain High Lord's reaction?"

Her eyes went wide, all the anger suddenly replaced with fear and speculation. I saw Tamlin's anger rise in her mind. Felt her human heart lurch at the thought of causing him pain, and I had to stifle a snarl.

The gleam in my eye was shamefully real as I imagined the first time he saw the tattoo winding its way up Feyre's arm…the first time he recognized the magic in its most ancient form and understood that, of all of the forms it could have used to mark her, it had taken the appearance of Illyrian markings. Night Court markings. I pictured the fury radiating from him as he struggled to maintain his pathetic stony countenance…wondered if his mental shields would fall enough to reveal chaos behind them. If I would see the claws that Feyre was now imagining as she contemplated the cat's eye…my creation…etched into her palm.

"I think I'll wait to tell him until the moment's right though."

And I would. For my mother and my sister, lying in unmarked graves at the foot of Ramiel, I would revel in Tamlin's jealousy and fear, savor every moment of rage that seeing me with Feyre would cause him.

Shame, real and scathing sank low into the pit of my stomach as she stared up at me, a profound defeat blossoming in her expression.

The game was in play now. It did not end with a bargain, but began that way. Feyre was as much a player as I was now, and Tamlin? Tamlin who had begged against the stripes on Lucien's back, but had done nothing as the Attor had broken Feyre's bones…as the Wyrm had hunted her and left her for dead? Tamlin, who had refused to play the game from the very beginning?

Now if we played it right, Tamlin would finish it.

"Rest up Feyre," I purred, calling the night to me just as the guilt of what I'd done threatened to swallow me whole. Without another word…without even a glance back, I followed the shadows through crack in the door.