All my life, one page at a time

I'll show you my, my true colors

And no-n-no, I won't apologize for the fire in my eyes

Let me show you my, my true colors, it ain't no rainbow

"True Colors" - Zedd featuring Ke$ha

Cassian is an idiot. An absolute idiot and he knows it. Mere seconds after Nesta storms away and he's on his feet ready to go after her.

To demand she tell him who, because whoever it is that's hurt her—hurt her enough that she panics like she just did. Where Cassian can almost smell the fear pouring off of her.— deserves a special place in hell. A place Cassian will be more than happy to send him. He's livid and the overwhelming urge to hunt them down and shatter every bone in their body; the rage that's swirling through his veins makes his feel like he's ready to burst out of his skin.

To apologize, to grovel and hopes that at the end of his apology she won't have taken it out on his balls. Because he should have known better and if Mor or Rhys or gods forbid Feyre find out that he's made this blunder he can kiss any prospects of reproducing in this lifetime

So Cassian makes for the bar, because everything in him, some primal urge that he can't silence, is screaming at him to go to her, but a hand stops him.

Shit. Shit.

Feyre.

She's alone, and from the look on his sister in law's face, she's seen enough to piece together a general idea of what happened.

"Sit," she tells him and her tone tells him it's not a choice.

Shit. Cassian will be lucky if he escapes this night unscathed. He sits. Sits and his stomach is in his throat as he braces himself, waiting for Feyre to rake him over the coals. Darkness pours off of her in almost a tangible mist and the family resemblance is uncanny. Cassian kicks himself for not seeing it at first. He makes to apologize, to insist that he needs to go find her, to make things right, but Feyre stops him before he can open his mouth.

"Nesta is different from most people," Feyre explains, "She comes across as rigid and vicious, but I think it's a wall. A shield."

"Against what?"

"Feeling. I think Nesta feels everything—sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly. She will never be like Mor," Feyre says, gesturing to the blonde who waves at the table from the dance floor. "She will never love freely and gift it to everyone who crosses her path. But the few she does care for… I think Nesta would shred the world apart for them. Shred herself apart for them. It's why she's studying to be a lawyer. She saw what the system, how much it screwed over our family, how it screws over kids, and decided to do something about it."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"I just—" she pauses, "thought you should know… Things didn't end well with her last boyfriend. Her only boyfriend for that matter. I don't know exactly what happened. Just that she showed up at the townhouse in the middle of the night, upset and near hysterics. She wouldn't tell me what happened; made me promise not to tell Elain what happened, just that he made Tamlin look like a saint in comparison."

Feyre shudders at the memory, and Cassian whistles. He remembers Feyre's ex-boyfriend and the rocky start of her relationship with his brother. Tamlin hadn't been all bad, but the emotional scars he'd left on Feyre were enough that Feyre had come to him for self-defense training.

There's an expectant look on his sister-in-law's face and he realizes that she's waiting for him to say something, to make a move. Cassian reaches across the table to grab her hand.

"Thanks," he says and there's so much sincerity in that one word that Feyre nods at him.

He pats her hand one last time and then makes for the bar again. Set on making things right, because now that he's examined everything she's told him tonight; what he knows of Feyre's and subsequently the rest of the Archeron sisters' past and now this. Now everything makes sense and he's determined to make it up to her.