Hi everybody! So, I'm so sorry I didn't update for so long. If you follow me on Tumblr, you might have seen the fluff challenge I gave myself in December. It was really hard but really fun! I'm sorry I didn't post it here, it was way too much work to post it on three platforms... But you can check it out on my Tumblr :)

Anywayyyyy now we're back on business! I'm planning on updating once every two weeks, more or less.

This chapter is the hardest from the fic, it pictures direct domestic violence, so be warned. I hope you like it anyway, and please let me know if you did!

The next few weeks gave her all the more reasons to trust her judgement. Tamlin was charming, he was kind and caring and always attentive to what she needed. He stopped pestering her about leaving her job, and even came to see her at the bakery every time she was working to give her a kiss or grab a muffin. He bought her a new set of watercolors and didn't bring up the subject of his failed proposal. He had stopped complaining about her spending her nights in the living room, and didn't make any more remarks about her lack of libido the last few months. She felt liberated, as if all that had happened had been just momentary, a bad dream that had felt too real.

She was still helping Rhysand, and in fact they had met three other times to organize a second visit into Tamlin's office. He'd been reluctant at first, and had again tried to talk her into leaving Tamlin during the first meeting, but she had shut him down and went on with the plan anyway, delivering the scans to him during his next visit to their house. She was still willing to help him, eager even, but she had stopped texting him at night. She knew she was right to stay with Tamlin, and she felt some level of shame every time she talked with Rhysand, so she had stopped texting him altogether.

She started painting again. To the delight of her boyfriend, she now spent most of her free time in her painting studio, coming out late at night with her clothes covered in fresh stains. She was only working on one project, but it absorbed her more than she cared to admit.

About three weeks after the party, she was coming from the garden and heading upstairs to her studio when she spotted Rhysand at the front door of their house. Checking the corridor and finding Tamlin's office door closed, she went to see him.

"Hey," she said somehow shyly, and he turned to her to give her a small smile.

"Hey. How are you?"

He was always asking her how she was these days. Always concerned about her, it seemed, and she had mixed feelings about it, oscillating between wanting him to stop, and feeling flattered to have someone selflessly concerned about her well-being. So she smiled back at him and answered.

"I'm good. How are you?"

"Fine. Actually, I wanted to talk to you, I -"

"Feyre, Doll," he was interrupted by Tamlin coming out of his office, "what are you doing down here? I thought you wanted to get some painting done?" He was smiling at her and joined them in the doorway as two other men came out of his office.

"I was, but I saw Rhysand and thought I'd say hello. I'm going to leave you guys to your business," she finished, and gave Rhysand a smile before heading upstairs to her studio and starting to work on her painting with new enthusiasm, the colors and shades she needed clearer than they had been before.

Another few days went by, and Feyre was coming back from work after an afternoon at the bakery. She came inside the house, dropped her keys and phone on the small table near the door and was about to go into the kitchen and get some water when she heard Tamlin call her from upstairs. His voice sounded strained, but she was still far away, and she climbed the stairs looking for him. Only when she realized where he was did she stop walking towards him. But he came out of her painting studio and talked again.

"Feyre, get in here."

"I… Tamlin, it's not -"

"Get. In. Here." And he went back in without waiting for her.

She took a breath to give herself the courage to face him, and entered the studio to find what she was dreading. Tamlin was standing beside her latest work in progress, and he was not happy. She stared at it for a while, taking in the very telling colors and abstract shapes of the watercolor, and waited for him to say something, anything. She couldn't look at him.

"What am I supposed to think of this?"

She kept staring at the painting. It was the opposite of a concrete drawing, really, but then again, Tamlin had always been really good at understanding her paintings, and this one was no exception. The colorful patches of rainbow across a river, the luminous stars in the sky reflecting themselves in the water, a human shape with dark hair and… violet eyes. Well, blue eyes, really, but they had seemed violet that night, and they hadn't left her thoughts since then. She stared at them, unable to look up at her boyfriend and face his wrath.

"I asked you a question, Feyre."

"It's just a painting," she whispered.
"A painting of another man! A painting that you've been working on for weeks, that you've been obsessed with for weeks!"

She finally looked away from the violet eyes and turned to Tamlin. "I'm just… I was just inspired, Tam. There's nothing more to it."

"How am I supposed to believe that when you hid it from me for this long?!" He was yelling now, and she felt her heart starting to race in her chest. "How am I supposed to think that there's nothing between you two when just the other day you went out of your way to talk to him at the front door?"

"Out of my way? I was passing by and I said hello! There is nothing between us, he's just nice to me."

"Like he was nice to you the night of the accident with Sandy?"

"You mean the night Hart murdered someone in our living room? You mean the night you were so angry you weren't able to help me? Yes, Rhysand was nice to me that night, he helped me when you couldn't. He was the better man that night." She knew she was angering him more than he already was, but she didn't care. Not anymore.

"That's why you're painting him, then? Because he was 'the better man', as you say?"

"I'm painting him because his eyes have an interesting color that I have never seen before, okay? Stop imagining things! Stop acting like I'm in the wrong just because I dared to express myself for once!"

"Oh, I'm imagining things? Just like I'm imagining the fact that you have been refusing to have sex with me for weeks now? Am I imagining that, too?!"

She felt tears fill her eyes as she answered: "That has nothing to do with my painting! Nothing! I love you, I just -"

"You expect me to believe that you love me when you go around whoring yourself out to other men?"

"Wh - what?" She couldn't control her sobs anymore, and she had more and more difficulty understanding what he was saying. Tamlin uncrossed his arms and started pacing in front of the painting.

"You heard me! You're always talking to other men and smiling at them, making them believe you're available!"

"When have I ever -"
"At that bakery of yours, you're just there, insisting on keeping this meaningless job even though we don't need it, all so you can meet people and -"

"Yes!" She was the one interrupting him this time. "Yes I keep my job there because I need to see other people than just you, Tam! It's always you, I am always with you, I barely see my family anymore, I haven't seen my friends in nearly a year and -"

"What friends? You have no friends, Feyre, make no mistake! Now you're going to come here and throw this painting away."

She stared at him in disbelief, and then at the painting. "No."

He was quiet for a second. "No?"

"No. I won't throw away a painting I've worked so hard on and am really proud of."

"You are going to throw it away and I don't care how proud you are of it."

"No!"

He breathed deeply. "Just to be clear, are you disobeying me?"

"I don't have to obey you!" She knew her answer was a mistake the second it left her lips.

Tamlin quickly moved to reach her and he grabbed both her wrists in his hands, forcing her against the wall behind her. "You are going to throw it away, Feyre! This is not a request, and you do not have a choice!"

"Tam, Tam you're hurting me," She let out in a breath, trying in vain to tear her wrists away from his grasp. He unceremoniously dragged her towards the painting without letting go, and yelled.

"Look at it now if you want to, because it is going to burn before the sun is down tonight, I don't care if I have to do it myself!"

"Tam, please, you're hurting me…"

"And you're not hurting me? Don't you think I'm hurt at seeing how you're abandoning me without looking back even once?!"

"I'm not… I don't want to abandon you, Tam, I love you… Please…" She couldn't get out of his hands, and she couldn't see anything clearly with the amount of tears in her eyes. She only knew that her wrists had never been in such pain before, and she felt her legs yield under her, but she remained somewhat upright in Tamlin's grasp.

"You don't want to look at it, then? Fine, I'll get rid of it myself!" He pushed her away from him and she fell to the floor, clutching her wrists against her chest as she saw him leaving the room with her painting under an arm.

She didn't stop the tears from falling, she didn't feel the need to get up from the floor as she heard Tamlin go downstairs, as she heard the noise of cracking wood and guessed he was reducing the canvas to pieces. He stayed downstairs for a long while, and she didn't move an inch all the time he was there.

Then finally, she heard him climb back upstairs, and he entered the painting room to find her still curled up on the floor, her tears dried up but not moving. She felt him crouching beside her.

"Feyre?" His voice was low and calm, and she felt like he was himself again. He was going to be kind again, and she started to feel relief. But there was a voice in her head, a voice that prevented her from letting his kindness reach her. "And someday, destroying objects isn't enough for him anymore, and instead of hitting the walls, he starts hitting you." She couldn't think of anything else as she held her wrists against her chest and felt Tamlin's hands on her shoulder. "instead of hitting the walls, he starts hitting you." She could feel the truth in those words, she could feel it in a way she had never been able to before. She could feel them as well as she could feel the pain in her wrists, as well as she could see Tamlin not letting go of her despite her pleas.

She could see the next months of her life, the next years, play out in front of her eyes in a series of worsening evenings like this one, and she wasn't ready to accept it. So she made a decision as she heard Tamlin repeat her name beside her. She turned to him, and gave him a small smile.

"It's okay, Tam. I understand why you were angry. I shouldn't have painted that, and I shouldn't have refused to throw it out. It's okay."

Surprise flashed on his face, quickly replaced by a pleased expression as he too smiled at her.

"Oh Feyre, Doll, I'm so glad you understand. I know I overreacted a little, but… you have to understand that I love you, and I don't want you to be mad at me."

"I'm not Tam, I promise, I'm not."

"Good, that's good. Because… You know I need to go to that dinner for work tonight, the one with Lucien and my father. I can't take you but I really need to go and I would hate for things to be left unsaid between us."

She had forgotten about that dinner. Perfect. "It's okay, Tam, you can go. I'm okay. We're okay." She kissed him softly to emphasize her point, and he seemed to finally relax. She slowly got up, grabbed his hand to make him follow her and led him to their bedroom. They spent the next half hour choosing his suit for the night, she led him to the entrance, gave him a kiss at the door and a smile as he got into the car where Lucien was waiting for him, and waved to them as the car drove away.

Then she got back inside, grabbed her phone and wallet, and left.