******IMPORTANT******
If you got this because you opened it from a notification email that there was a new chapter, go reread chapter 2!
I reworked this story and adjusted the previous chapter, slowing the plot down a little.
When the wards were breached, Tamlin forced me to hide. It felt horrible when I could feel how close my mate was and knew that he could be in danger. Luckily, thanks to my spying, Rhys knew the weaknesses of the Spring court and of Tamlin's defenses.
I could hear the battle raging, with Tamlin's roaring telling me how badly it was going for them.
Through Rhys's eyes, I saw the battle, I saw how the Spring Court Sentinels quailed before the Illyrians, before Rhysand. My heart swelled in my chest. Then, Through Rhys's eyes, I saw him finally see Tamlin, and begin to battle his way toward the other male.
Feyre, I'm coming.
Finally, Rhys found me. He ran into the stupid study I'd been locked in, Tamlin on his heels.
"YOU WILL NEVER HAVE HER," roared Tamlin, more than half beast by this point.
"Surrender, Tamlin," Rhys insisted, "There's no way out." Tamlin's eyes went flat. In a move which shocked all of us, including me, he whirled, grabbed me by the throat and held me against the wall.
"Come closer," Tamlin snarled, "I dare you. I'll kill her rather than let you have her." For the first time, Rhys looked horrified. For the first time during the battle, I let out an inhuman snarl right at Tamlin. He simply pressed my neck closer to the wall. There was nothing of him left.
I could feel my High Lord's anger. I felt the creature in his soul begin to dominate, his wings and claws beginning to appear. His normal, bored expression had been replaced with one of fierce animal rage.
RHYS! I screamed to him down our bond. If he lets go, Tamlin will likely kill me before I can even the odds.
I shoved down the memories of Amarantha snapping my neck that were threatening to overwhelm me coming down the bond. And then I winnowed out of his grip, right into Rhys's arms.
If the situation had been funnier, I would have laughed at the dumbfounded look on Tamlin's face. As it was, I dropped the glamour on my tattooed hand and transformed my clothing into Night Court attire. And used the drop of magic he himself gave me to shapeshift enough to give me Illyrian wings and claws, as I had done in the forest for Lucien.
"You!" he shouted at Rhys, "What did you do to her!"
"You IDIOT," I exploded before Rhys could answer, "you truly thought that the King of Hybern could break a mating bond? I've been his spy for months. I haven't loved you since the moment you locked me in this house. I tried to tell you, over and over again but you dismissed me as nothing but a silly female acting like a child. I. Will. Never. Be. Your Pet." For a moment, I thought I saw a flash of hurt, but it turned into nothing but an unending rage.
"You two deserve each other," Tamlin spat, "if you would so easily leave your mate for another male. But I shouldn't have expected much more of Amarantha's whore. If you'll sell your own body to that snake it speaks to reason that you would sell your mate's for information."
A white hot rage filled my entire body at his words. I could feel what Tamlin had done to Rhys: utterly destroyed him. Rhys had not changed expressions, but for the first time, I could understand how he had felt before he taught me how to shield. It was like he was standing at one end of our bond shouting to me how hurt and broken he felt. His pain was such that it almost overwhelmed my fury in his despair, despair that I'd not felt since I had been locked in this accursed house.
It was only with great self control that I did not literally explode into flames. NO ONE spoke to my mate that way. NO ONE was permitted to hurt him like that.
"I made that choice," I hissed, "He allowed me to make it because that is my right. He has never prevented me from making the choices that I felt were right and necessary. And don't you ever call him that again." I could feel myself losing control over the darkness and small tendrils of it caressed my ankles. I could also feel the flame inside my clenched fists.
Tamlin grinned insolently.
"So what if I do call him that again? What are you going to do about it?"
"You dare?" the darkness within me began to fill the room at his condescending tone, "You DARE to offer such insult to the High Lady of the Night Court?"
"There's no such thing as a High Lady," he replied dismissively, "I told you that."
"And you're wrong," Rhys broke in, the haunted look in his eyes temporarily vanishing, replaced by determination, "She has equal power in my Court. My mate will stand beside me, not behind me. And I'd advise you not to piss her off," he added, sounding amused.
I stalked towards Tamlin, suddenly tired of his games. He seemed nothing more than amused as I did so. The reason for that appeared between me and him all of a sudden when I was about to pounce.
Ianthe.
A red film obscured my vision. My poor sisters were Fae now thanks to her, a fate they never wanted. She had betrayed everyone and everything for power. And she had encouraged my imprisonment. The thing that sent me over the edge, however, was the spark of fury I got from Rhys from simply seeing her face.
I had no interest in going around her. I was going through her to destroy him, and had plans to destroy her in the process.
The moment I leapt on her, Rhys leaped on Tamlin with a snarl. We stood back to back, battling our opponents. I discovered that I could very likely have killed Ianthe immediately.
I didn't.
She needed to be humiliated. I couldn't allow her to die with any pride whatsoever. I would strip her of her very self, just as she did to me.
So the first thing I did, was drench and freeze her hair.
Rhys was startled into a short laugh when he saw what I was doing to that creature. I heated up the bottom of her feet until she bounced from foot to foot in pain. I blew objects in the room around and into her.
Unfortunately, it wasn't long before she showed her hand.
Her fighting skills were almost on par with the Illyrian techniques that I'd been taught. If I'd been instructed by anyone other than an Illyrian, I would have been dead instantly. As it was, she managed to scratch me a couple of times, as well as bruise me.
I promised myself that if I got out of this, I was going to buy Cas a drink in thanks. Without him I'd have been dead.
I began to work through the shields in her mind. It was harder than I expected: I had no power from the priestesses that I could use to convince the shield I was native to her mind. I had to let my guard down too many times, allowing her to injure me. She grinned malevolently every time she got a hit in on me, enjoying the fact that my pain was distracting Rhys from fighting Tamlin properly.
Stay focused! I told him, I'm fine. I simply felt approval through the bond, and he focused on Tamlin once again.
Suddenly I remembered a power that Rhys had mentioned once: Misting. I narrowed my eyes and stopped for a moment. She was so taken aback that she paused too. I used the distraction to worm my way past the last of her shields and grabbed her mind roughly in the claws I still remembered from when Rhys managed to scare Tamlin and Lucian into sending me back to my family, so long ago.
I could feel her fear, but I also knew everything she'd worked for. Everything she'd been trying to do. Everyone she manipulated. And, worst of all, what she'd wanted to do to Rhys.
To my horror, she'd asked the King to spare him specifically. For her pleasure.
When I found that little tidbit, my fury overwhelmed me for a moment, and I burst into flames. I heard Tamlin yell, but all of my focus was on the creature in my mental claws. She smiled evilly as she realized what I'd found, but cried out when my claws tightened on her mind.
"You. Failed." I told her.
Then I turned her into mist.
At her death, Tamlin screamed and leaped toward what was left of her. With the coldness that had settled on my soul, I broke my way past his shields using a scrap of his own power and held his mind roughly, finishing what my mate had started. I stared into Tamlin's eyes.
"You will leave this land," I told him, "You will leave this land and never return. You will pass your powers on to an heir and allow the Spring Court a chance to grow and thrive, to become what it was meant to be."
"No," he ground out.
"You will," I told him, "You will because you will have no other choice." With that, I implanted a compulsion to follow my orders deep within his mind. He knew it didn't originate with him, but he couldn't stop it any more than he could stop breathing. He would follow my orders until the day he died.
A young Fae I had never met appeared in the room.
"What-" Mechanically, Tamlin placed his hand on the Fae's forehead.
"All hail the High Lord of the Spring Court," he ground out, then he winnowed away, never to be seen again.