Author's Note: Okie dokie, I have decided to break down and do a question/answer thing - so long as it doesn't give away vital plot information. I get asked often how frequently I update and honestly it's totally random. I was silent for about three months because I started a new full time job with weird hours and the amount of planning I do before writing something called for more time than I had, but I finally made some time and I have risen from the dead! (Just like Feyre, lol)

Another question I've gotten a lot is about if Feyre is fae now... Well, hopefully that will be answered in this chapter ;)

So I am officially open to a Q&A over this story or, I guess, anything else? But only to PMs or reviews of this chapter and I will reply to each of them either in a PM or an author's note on the next chapter.

Feyre and Rhysand still have quite a ways to go in this story ;)

I hope you enjoy this extra chapter - I felt I owed it to all the faithful readers who always wondered when I would finally update again to post more than one chapter this weekend. I'll do my best to keep up the speed! But writing freely in this ACOMAF territory instead of following the already made timeline of ACOTAR will take some extra planning time.

Xoxoxoxo

Jordan

"You do know you're not wearing a shirt, right?"

I pulled my head back from where it'd been resting against his collarbone, looking him up and down. "You do know you're not wearing pants, right?" I mimicked. I felt the grin slide onto my lips as we held each other in the foyer of the townhouse I'd woken up in. I felt his breath of a laugh rolling through his chest.

I waited for his comeback, but instead he said, "I woke up and you weren't there."

And the impact of that really hit me for the first time. He'd put me to sleep then stayed by me for weeks, waiting for me to wake up and the moment I do, I leave him behind. I felt a crack somewhere deep in my chest, the place I would have once called my heart.

"I'm sorry," I said, running my fingers along the nape of his neck. "I wasn't thinking at all, I was just so restless. I had to stretch my legs."

He gave me a small nod and that's when I noticed.

"Where are your wings?"

He pulled back from me, surprised. Had he not known he slept with them out? Hadn't he woken up to them and known I'd have seen them when I got out of bed?

It took two heartbeats for him to fully unleash the massive black wings, woven with the red tint of their blood supply. They stretched out from his back and it felt like they filled the entire room. Slowly, I reached to touch one, to pet it.

And he yanked the wings back, folding them neatly behind him.

I tried not to let the hurt show on my face. Maybe my secret thoughts, my fears, were right. The mating bond was too much, too fast.

We've still got a lot of recovering to do, he spoke to me, caressing the bond. Both of us.

And for one fleeting moment I let myself think of Amarantha, of what she did to Rhysand for decades…

The stirring in my chest startled me so much pushed away from Rhys and backpedaled until the dull roaring waters were soothed, the stone drifting back to sleep within me. My breaths were heavy and I was starting to feel the emptiness of losing so many weeks to sleep. My head was featherlight, my hands shaking.

"Feyre," Rhys said, tentatively reaching a hand out to me until he saw me wavering on my feet. He caught me by the arm and pulled me to him, moving his hand to my lower back. He lifted my face with his other hand to meet my eyes with his. Everything felt foggy. Concern dripped from his features as his eyes searched mine.

"I'm hungry," I mumbled.

He gave me a humorless laugh. "Well you've got a funny way of showing it. So dramatic." But even as he said it, he was walking us back through the house, hopefully to a kitchen. I told myself I was walking by his side and ignored how heavily I leaned my weight against him.

He scrounged up some food for the both of us and we sat on a couple of bar stools near the kitchen island of black marble while I asked him why they all had wings. He explained what an Illyrian was to me while I nibbled on my sandwich and sipped my soup. He didn't go into too much detail, but the idea that the most powerful High Fae in Prythian to be a half breed gave me some sort of satisfaction. The idea that you didn't have to be noble - perfect - to be great.

"How are you feeling?" he asked after a long pause.

"Great, actually." And I meant it. I'd expected to wake up to at the least, extreme discomfort, but I'd felt perfectly normal. Better than normal, even. That is, until the amulet came alive in my chest.

Rhys either heard me through the bond or saw the nerves written on my face because he pressed his eyebrows together, raising them in question.

"Earlier I… I was thinking about her," I couldn't say her name out loud, but he knew, "and the stone…" I took a deep breath just as comfort coated the bond. "The stone came to life. It stirred in me the same way it had nearly the entire time we were Under the Mountain."

"I'm sorry," he said, giving me a pinched look I hadn't yet seen come from him. Just another reminder of how new we were to each other. I thought he was going to make me ask why before he finally continued. "I should have been more supportive of Amren's heirloom, but," he paused again, considering his words carefully. "Amren approached me with the stone once long, long ago. She'd told me it was ancient and had led her to me. She'd thought the amulet had chosen me. But," he took a heavy breath, struggling through his thoughts, "the moment she gave it to me, it… let's just say it rejected me. I gave it back to her immediately and have abhorred that memory ever since. I'd hoped I would never see it again, to be honest." He ran a hand through his hair, mussing the midnight tresses that had started growing over his ears. "When I saw that you had it… That you had it and it didn't affect you the way it had me. Well, I was scared. The idea that the ancient, dark magic that had affected me as it had… had then turned around and chosen my mate… I wasn't sure how that was going to work and it wasn't something I wanted to hastily bring up."

I let him finish, but I couldn't help how badly I wanted to run back up those stairs and lock myself in that room. Maybe spend another month or two inside, alone. I felt the way my eyes were glazing, losing focus. I tried to fix them, to mask myself, but then, I realized, he was my mate. I would never be able to wear a mask again. And suddenly I wasn't so hungry anymore.

"I'm tired," I said, inching my chair back to get up.

"Don't do that." He leaned toward me, his eyes stern, angry. "Don't run. Don't lie. Not to me."

I placed both my palms on the table, trying to control my breathing lest I reawaken the amulet. "What do you expect me to do when you tell me you hate a part of who I am now? I didn't choose this, and I can't change it!"

"I know, that's not what I'm saying."

"Then what are you saying?" I rose to my feet, my voice near a yell.

"I'm scared, okay?" he countered, raising his voice along with mine. "That thing scares me. It's uncontrollable, unpredictable, and way too powerful-"

"Too powerful for what?" I interrupted, pushing my chair away, making room for my escape. "Too powerful for me? Do you think I won't be able to handle it? That I'm still some frail human?"

"You're definitely not a frail human."

And the calm in his voice, the quiet, it made me stop.

"What do you mean?"

You've become something else.

I nearly knocked my chair to the ground as I flew into a sprint up the stairs, fast, I noticed. Faster than I should be. I ran to the room I'd awoken in, flinging the door open and not bothering to shut it again. I searched blindly for a mirror until I noticed another door in the room and found myself in a private bathing room. There, above the marble countertop that matched the ones downstairs was a wall of a mirror. I felt Rhysand behind me before I saw him, and though I was still a little pissed, his presence calmed my fear before I stepped in front of my own reflection.

And did not recognize myself.

I'd always felt fair, pretty, even. But I was never beautiful, not in the way Elain was, not like Mor. I'd always had some part of me too sharp in places and too soft in others. Something always seemed just off enough to keep me from that place.

But now.

I was beautiful.

Alarmingly so.

Whatever had been missing before had found its place. I was taller, my hair longer, slightly deeper, now a warm, inviting brown that poured in soft waves down to my navel. My cheekbones had softened, my nose found its center, and my skin looked mythical in its perfection. I looked made to enchant, to entice. Curves that had once been average, were now striking. I had become a weapon of a different kind and it was too much. I wasn't me anymore. All of this - it was too much. It was like I'd lost everything I was Under the Mountain. There was nothing of me left.

I was not human, but a quick look at my ears and I was not Fae either.

I was nothing. I had become nothing.

I turned away from my reflection, done seeing what this wretched stone had done to me.

You will always be whatever you want to be, Rhys spoke through the bond, the method becoming a soothing elixir to my ever-changing panic lately. You are your own master, in charge of your own destiny. He moved closer until his chest was against my back. With one hand he reached for my chin and raised my face to look back into the mirror. This does not change that.

And despite myself, despite my terror - sheer horror at the thought - I knew I loved him then. I knew I loved him and that he loved me. We both knew, but the pressure… It was too much, too soon.

But it was there, waiting for us to catch up.

We would get there someday, together.