Feyre arrived home at the river house tired and more than a little paint splattered but feeling very satisfied. It seemed that every week more people were turning up for lessons at her studio and even in the heartbreaking moments there was something rewarding about seeing her students work through their pain and grief and trauma through the paint, pencils, and pieces of charcoal. She was in such a pleasant mood that the unnaturally quiet house didn't even register at first.

"I'm home," she called as she deposited her satchel on a hook by the front door and kicked off her boots.

She paused, waiting for Rhys's answering call, for the sound of pattering feet or flapping wings that would signal Nyx's approach, but there was nothing, absolutely nothing. Feyre took a few cautious steps further into the entrance hall of the house, cocking her head and listening carefully for any sound of life within. As she did she brushed a loving hand against that mental bond between herself and Rhys, but there was no answer, not even a glimmer of awareness on the other end.

Feyre's stomach sank a little even as she tried to tell herself not to worry yet, that there was a perfectly reasonable explanation. But even as she thought that, she quickened her pace, ducking her head into the sitting room and the kitchen and finding them both empty.

"Rhysand!" Feyre yelled, all at once abandoning any pretence of calm. She was going to kill him when she found him, kiss him and then kill him for making her worry. "Nyx!"

She made her way back to the entrance hall and hurried up the stairs, taking them two at a time. At the top she paused once again listening, but once again there was nothing. No shuffle of papers from the study, no steady, sleepy breathing from the bedrooms. Feyre stalked along the hallway, pushing open doors and glancing inside, but stopped when the scent of something invaded her nose. She froze, scenting the air outside her son's room carefully, and then she recognised it, the scent of terror, complete and utter terror. And it belonged to her mate and child. A guttural snarl wrenched itself from her throat.

They weren't here, they weren't here, they weren't here!

Feyre strode back along the hallway, practically flying down the stairs, already preparing to call the inner circle to her when she spied something she'd missed on her first sweep of the lower level. Feyre stilled before passing through the open doors of the formal dining room with lethal grace, plucking the letter bearing her name from the gleaming table's surface.

And as she read that letter, and read just who had taken her mate and son from her, and read just what they were threatening to do to them, a roar of pure fury erupted from her and Feyre could have sworn that it cleaved the world completely in two.

Cassian and Nesta were dining up in the house of wind when Feyre's roar tore through the air around them.

"Was that…" Nesta began, slowly setting down her knife and fork.

"Not good," Cassian finished grimly, already on his feet and approaching the balcony. The city sprawled out beneath them looked calm but something sinister simmered below the surface.

"Let's go," Nesta said, tossing back her hair and already reaching for him. Cassian swept her into his arms and shot into the air.

In the dark townhouse, Elain sat in an armchair before the fire, eyes closed but alert as the noise shattered the night air. She brought a trembling hand to her throat and opened her eyes, unsurprised to find Azriel already emerging from the shadows.

"We need to go," is all he said and she stood with a nod, taking his offered hand.

Amren cocked her head in her loft apartment and spared half a glance at the male lounging in her bed. She'd been on the precipice of joining him when she felt the call to join the others elsewhere.

"Should I-" Varian started but Amren shook her head swiftly, already striding for the door.

At Rita's Mor almost missed the sound over the thudding beat of the music but even she couldn't ignore the sense of wrongness that speared through her. The female she'd been dancing with twisted in her arms, gazing up at her, a question on her face.

"Sorry," Mor offered, brushing a fleeting kiss to the female's cheek and then she was gone, nothing more than a shadow in red slicing through the crowd.

They all converged on the river house at the same time pushing open the unlocked front door and filtering into the entrance hall where Feyre still stood, letter clenched in her hand.

"They're gone" was all she said, but the words were enough to tremble mountains. There was anguish there, yes, but more than that there was fury, that someone had dared come into her house and take her mate and child.

"What?" Cassian barked and Feyre's answering snarl was enough that he slipped into a slight defensive stance, his wings flaring in instinctive protection of Nesta.

She rolled her eyes and shoved her way past him, taking a hold of her sister by the shoulders, firm but not unkind. "What happened?" she demanded.

"I came home and they were gone."

Mor and Cassian set off without another word, two golden sides of the same coin as the former prowled through the sitting and dining rooms while the latter searched the upper levels. Feyre ignored them, stepping away from Nesta to hand the letter to Azriel, who took it wordlessly.

While he scanned it, Mor and Cassian returned.

"It's true," Cassian said, as if he'd had to see for himself, as if he had to say the words aloud to make them true. His eyes zeroed in on the letter in Azriel's hands. "What's that?" he asked sharply.

Azriel murmured the name of a distant territory on the continent. They knew of it as one who'd held a loose alliance with Hybern, who'd been angered by it's defeat. They'd expected retaliation from them but as the years passed and none came, Feyre had allowed herself to be lulled into a false sense of security. She'd allowed herself to forget that waiting a few years for revenge was like a blink of time for some fae.

"They're the ones claiming responsibility. Not the royal family itself, they wouldn't be so careless to put their name to it…" …And invite war into their lands, went unsaid. Not when the courts of Prythian had already shown a willingness to align with one another and demonstrated just how mighty they could be when they did. "But it's likely whoever came was acting on their behalf." He gestured with the letter, "This is little more than a taunt, a dare for us to try and save Rhys and Nyx."

A trap, he didn't need to say.

"Why bother?" Nesta asked harshly.

"Because," Amren said coolly. "They want to lure Feyre, and the rest of us likely, there as well."

"Why not just attack the Night court directly?" Elain questioned in a soft voice.

Azriel lifted his eyes heavenward, as if he could see through stone, and wood, and time, as if he could see exactly how it had played out. "Because they aren't as strong as they want us to think they are. There's a reason they struck when Feyre wasn't here. And I'd bet they avoided direct conflict with Rhys as well."

"Then how-"

"Move fast and move quietly and go straight for Nyx," Cassian answered bleakly, catching on now. "It's what I would do. Once they had Nyx…" he didn't finish but he didn't need to; if they had their hands on Nyx, Rhys wouldn't have retaliated for fear of harming his son.

Mor turned to Azriel. "Do you know where they would have taken them?"

Azriel nodded slowly. "I know of a keep they use. But we'll have to move fast, before they have time to move them somewhere more secure, where we might not be able to follow."

"That's fine," Feyre said, voice hard. "Because we're going tonight."

It took less than an hour for them to get ready and decide that only Amren and Elain would remain behind to guard Velaris and the rest of the Night Court. Just in case that this was indeed a trick to draw them away so they could attack, someone needed to stay behind who would be able to hold the line. Even though Amren had snarled that it wasn't necessary, Feyre had sent word to Lucien who was hurrying to them and Cassian had told the Illyrian legions to be on their guard. And then, when the preparations had all been made, Mor, Feyre, and Azriel took the hands of the others and vanished into darkness and shadows.

"Where-," Rhys began slowly, dangerously, blood dripping from his lips to join the pool already on the ground. "-is my son?" A fist slammed into his ribs, the bones barking with pain, and he grunted, the only sound he allowed. With his arms spread wide, held by cuffs of faebane they'd no doubt secured from their old ally, Rhys had no way of defending himself from the blows.

The leaders of his captors, a male and female who bore enough similarities to be siblings, grinned at him, something terrible and dark about those smiles. It was the male who had been inflicting the blows thus far, but Rhys had a feeling it was the female he had to be worried about.

"Where is my son?" he asked again, already imagining how he would strip the flesh from their bones if he were free.

"Oh, don't worry," his female captor crooned. "We haven't hurt him. Yet. We're thinking we might keep him actually. The offspring of the most powerful High Lord Prythian has ever seen and his mate?" Her words were cruel and mocking. "We would be able to hone him into quite the weapon." Rhys snarled quietly but the female ignored him. "And he's still young, I'm sure he'll forget all about his mother and father with time."

The words caused Rhys to chuckle darkly, and the pair shifted, looking at one another. "I'm going to enjoy watching you die," is all Rhys said.

"Awfully confident for someone completely at our mercy," the male sneered, clenching his fist.

"Oh, it's not me you should be worried about," Rhys said, delighting in the words. "But my mate," he continued, savouring both the words and the unnerved expressions it brought to the pair's faces. "She's going to flay the skin from your bones."

"Shut up," the male hissed, lunging forward and slamming his fist into Rhys's jaw. But he just chuckled again and allowed his throbbing head to hang low.

Rhys's words had been heavy with promise, but even he hadn't known how true they'd be, as somewhere, in a distant corner of the keep, the screaming began. Rhys lifted his head and allowed himself a grin at his captors, teeth gleaming a vibrant red.

The fae who had taken her mate and child might have been good, but they were no match for the High Lady of the Night Court and her inner circle as they descended on the keep. The first few minutes where a haze of blood and screaming and killing and Feyre found something of a dark pleasure in their terror. Good, her bloodlust whispered as her blades sliced through flesh, it was right that they should feel a fraction of the terror she'd felt when she'd realised her family had been taken from her.

She allowed herself to slow only when the floor was thick with bodies and ran red with blood. A single fae guard remained and turned to run as he beheld the devastation but he wasn't quite quick enough. Feyre slammed him into the wall, stone crumbling at his back. She could feel the prowling presence of her family behind her and levelled an Illyrian blade over the fae's heart.

"Where are they?" Feyre growled.

The fae's eyes hardened with hate, but fear shuttered through them as Feyre snarled and shoved the blade forward, piercing his chest.

"Wait, wait, wait," he gasped, and Feyre paused, cocking her head.

"Tell me where they're keeping my family and I might show you mercy," she said, voice low and tight.

The fae chewed on his words for a moment, considering between loyalty and selfishness. "Downstairs, they're holding your mate downstairs."

Feyre's answering smile was lethal as she slid the dagger in to the hilt. "Thanks," she said casually and jerked her blade free, stepping back to allow the fae's body to drop to the ground.

"Mor, Nesta, clear this floor." The two females nodded and peeled off while Feyre headed for the stairs leading down, knowing without even having to look that her General and Shadowsinger were falling into step on either side of her.

There were even more fae guards at the bottom of the stairs but they fell to the wrath screaming through Feyre's veins, the combination of blades and power that the trio wielded too much for them. They stalked further into the keep, passing empty cells and leaving yet more bodies in their wake, until finally they reached one final door where Feyre caught the familiar scent of citrus and sea air through the cloying smell of blood.

The door shattered beneath her magic and when she beheld her mate, bloodied and bruised, chained to the wall between the two captors another of those earth-shattering roars erupted from her.

She swept into the cell feeling like a storm of wrath and shadows, Azriel a heartbeat behind her. And while the male fell with a scream under the honed blade of Truth-Teller, Feyre threw the female against the wall with a blast of hard air. She struck it with a crack and fell to the ground but Feyre wasn't done. She summoned a rope of water and shoved it down the female's throat, watching with satisfaction as she choked and jerked for a long minute before yanking it back out again, allowing the female to gulp down lungfuls of air.

"What did you do to them?"

"I-" the female stuttered, scrambling backwards. That was true fear on her face and it made Feyre feel grim satisfaction even as she shoved that water back down the female's throat.

"What did you do to my son?!"

"Nothing!" the female cried, when Feyre allowed her to breathe again, cringing back against the wall even as the blood of her brother pooled around her. "We didn't touch him, I swear!"

And once again Feyre found herself smiling as she said quietly, "That's all I needed to hear." The female relaxed fractionally before realising too late what Feyre meant, already reaching over her shoulder for the longer Illyrian blade stashed there. There was a heavy thrum in the air as the sword sliced through it and then nothing as the female's head toppled to the ground.

Feyre loosed a breath. Later she might regret her bloodshed, but for now, that was satisfaction in her veins, as the female's blood warmed her face.

She turned to her mate, and some of that wrath finally, finally, eased as she saw him, hurt yes, but alive. Cassian was working on the shackles pinning him to the wall, but Feyre stepped closer, touching his face before leaning her forehead against his, mindless of the blood on both of them.

Neither of them spoke, their eyes sliding shut at being together again, but as if they were one mind, one soul, they flashed back open again simultaneously, the same word reflecting in both: Nyx.

"Go," Rhys said hoarsely, and Feyre kissed him briefly, desperately, and then she was gone.

"Mor!" she bellowed, as she dashed back up the stairs. "Nesta!"

Please, she begged. The cauldron. The mother. Whoever and whatever was listening. Please let my son be alright.

"Here!"

Feyre followed the voice down one of the side hallways, past closed doors, aiming for the one that stood open at the end. Whatever guards had stood there were no longer, the combination of Mor and Nesta's magic having splattered them against the stone. Feyre quickened her pace, boots slipping in the gore but hesitated just out of sight, taking the time to wet her face, washing away the worst of the blood.

Then she stepped into the room.

She thought she might cry at the sight of her son, safe and unharmed in Nesta's arms. Felt like dropping to the ground and thanking whatever higher powers had allowed this. But Nyx was crying out for her, his little arms reaching for her, and she was across the room in a flash, taking him in her own and holding him to her.

"I'm here, my love," she breathed into his dark hair. "I'm here and never letting you go again."

She kept a hand to the back of Nyx's head, keeping his face pressed to her throat, as she left the room, Mor and Nesta at her back, and made her way back along the bloody hallway.

"Don't look, darling," she murmured.

Back in the main chamber the three Illyrians were waiting, Cassian and Azriel supporting Rhys between them. But when he caught sight of Feyre and Nyx a cry of relief emerged from him and a moment later his weight slammed into them, wrapping his arms around them tightly, a family reunited and unwilling to let go.

Ummmmm so this turned out to be my longest Febuwhump prompt and also the easiest to write. Apparently I just super vibe with feral Feyre. I feel like we hear about feral protectiveness in fae (especially the males) so I figured it was time we really got to see it. I don't write darker shit like this a lot so I hope it was good lmao. I enjoyed writing it anyway. And uh yeah, let me know what you thought :D