Afraid of me.
And then Rhysand appeared.
He had released the damper on his power, on who he was. His power filled the throne room, the castle, the mountain. The world. It had no end and no beginning.
No wings. No weapons. No sign of the warrior. Nothing but the elegant, cruel High Lord the world believed him to be. His hands were in his pockets, his black tunic seeming to gobble up the light. And on his head sat a crown of stars.
No sign of the male who had been drinking on the roof; no sign of the fallen prince kneeling on his bed. The full impact of him threatened to sweep me away.
Here—here was the most powerful High Lord ever born.
The face of dreams and nightmares.
Rhys’s eyes met mine briefly from across the room as he strolled between the pillars. To the throne that was his by blood and sacrifice and might. My own blood sang at the power that thrummed from him, at the sheer beauty of him.
Mor stepped off the dais, dropping to one knee in a smooth bow. Cassian and Azriel followed suit.
So did everyone in that room.
Including me.
The ebony floor was so polished I could see my red-painted lips in it; see my own expressionless face. The room was so silent I could hear each of Rhys’s footsteps toward us.
“Well, well,” he said to no one in particular. “Looks like you’re all on time for once.”
Raising his head as he continued kneeling, Cassian gave Rhys a half grin—the High Lord’s commander incarnate, eager to do his bloodletting.
Rhys’s boots stopped in my line of sight.
His fingers were icy on my chin as he lifted my face.
The entire room, still on the floor, watched. But this was the role he needed me to play. To be a distraction and novelty. Rhys’s lips curved upward. “Welcome to my home, Feyre Cursebreaker.”
I lowered my eyes, my kohl-thick lashes tickling my cheek. He clicked his tongue, his grip on my chin tightening. Everyone noticed the push of his fingers, the predatory angle of his head as he said, “Come with me.”
A tug on my chin, and I rose to my feet. Rhys dragged his eyes over me and I wondered if it wasn’t entirely for show as they glazed a bit.
He led me the few steps onto the dais—to the throne. He sat, smiling faintly at his monstrous court. He owned every inch of the throne. These people.
And with a tug on my waist, he perched me on his lap.
The High Lord’s whore. Who I’d become Under the Mountain—who the world expected me to be. The dangerous new pet that Mor’s father would now seek to feel out.
Rhys’s hand slid along my bare waist, the other running down my exposed thigh. Cold—his hands were so cold I almost yelped.
He must have felt the silent flinch. A heartbeat later, his hands had warmed. His thumb, curving around the inside of my thigh, gave a slow, long stroke as if to say Sorry.
Rhys indeed leaned in to bring his mouth near my ear, well aware his subjects had not yet risen from the floor. As if they had once done so before they were bidden, long ago, and had learned the consequences. Rhysand whispered to me, his other hand now stroking the bare skin of my ribs in lazy, indolent circles, “Try not to let it go to your head.”
I knew they could all hear it. So did he.
I stared at their bowed heads, my heart hammering, but said with midnight smoothness, “What?”
Rhys’s breath caressed my ear, the twin to the breath he’d brushed against it merely an hour ago in the skies. “That every male in here is contemplating what they’d be willing to give up in order to get that pretty, red mouth of yours on them.”
I waited for the blush, the shyness, to creep in.
But I was beautiful. I was strong.
I had survived—triumphed. As Mor had survived in this horrible, poisoned house …
So I smiled a bit, the first smile of my new mask. Let them see that pretty, red mouth, and my white, straight teeth.
His hand slid higher up my thigh, the proprietary touch of a male who knew he owned someone body and soul. He’d apologized in advance for it—for this game, these roles we’d have to play.
But I leaned into that touch, leaned back into his hard, warm body. I was pressed so closely against him that I could feel the deep rumble of his voice as he at last said to his court, “Rise.”
As one, they did. I smirked at some of them, gloriously bored and infinitely amused.
Rhys brushed a knuckle along the inside of my knee, and every nerve in my body narrowed to that touch.
“Go play,” he said to them all.
They obeyed, the crowd dispersing, music striking up from a distant corner.
“Keir,” Rhys said, his voice cutting through the room like lightning on a stormy night.
It was all he needed to summon Mor’s father to the foot of the dais. Keir bowed again, his face lined with icy resentment as he took in Rhys, then me—glancing once at Mor and the Illyrians. Cassian gave Keir a slow nod that told him he remembered—and would never forget—what the Steward of the Hewn City had done to his own daughter.
But it was from Azriel that Keir cringed. From the sight of Truth-Teller.
One day, I realized, Azriel would use that blade on Mor’s father. And take a long, long while to carve him up.
“Report,” Rhys said, stroking a knuckle down my ribs. He gave a dismissive nod to Cassian, Mor, and Azriel, and the trio faded away into the crowd. Within a heartbeat, Azriel had vanished into shadows and was gone. Keir didn’t even turn.
Before Rhys, Keir was nothing more than a sullen child. Yet I knew Mor’s father was older. Far older. The Steward clung to power, it seemed.
Rhys was power.
“Greetings, milord,” Keir said, his deep voice polished smooth. “And greetings to your … guest.”
Rhys’s hand flattened on my thigh as he angled his head to look at me. “She is lovely, isn’t she?”
“Indeed,” Keir said, lowering his eyes. “There is little to report, milord. All has been quiet since your last visit.”
“No one for me to punish?” A cat playing with his food.
“Unless you’d like for me to select someone here, no, milord.”
Rhys clicked his tongue. “Pity.” He again surveyed me, then leaned to tug my earlobe with his teeth.
And damn me to hell, but I leaned farther back as his teeth pressed down at the same moment his thumb drifted high on the side of my thigh, sweeping across sensitive skin in a long, luxurious touch. My body went loose and tight, and my breathing … Cauldron damn me again, the scent of him, the citrus and the sea, the power roiling off him … my breathing hitched a bit.
I knew he noticed; knew he felt that shift in me.
His fingers stilled on my leg.
Keir began mentioning people I didn’t know in the court, bland reports on marriages and alliances, blood-feuds, and Rhys let him talk.
His thumb stroked again—this time joined with his pointer finger.
A dull roaring was filling my ears, drowning out everything but that touch on the inside of my leg. The music was throbbing, ancient, wild, and people ground against each other to it.
His eyes on the Steward, Rhys made vague nods every now and then. While his fingers continued their slow, steady stroking on my thighs, rising higher with every pass.
People were watching. Even as they drank and ate, even as some danced in small circles, people were watching. I was sitting in his lap, his own personal plaything, his every touch visible to them … and yet it might as well have been only the two of us.
Keir listed the expenses and costs of running the court, and Rhys gave another vague nod. This time, his nose brushed the spot between my neck and shoulder, followed by a passing graze of his mouth.
My breasts tightened, becoming full and heavy, aching—aching like what was now pooling in my core. Heat filled my face, my blood.
But Keir said at last, as if his own self-control slipped the leash, “I had heard the rumo
rs, and I didn’t quite believe them.” His gaze settled on me, on my breasts, peaked through the folds of my dress, of my legs, spread wider than they’d been minutes before, and Rhys’s hand in dangerous territory. “But it seems true: Tamlin’s pet is now owned by another master.”
“You should see how I make her beg,” Rhys murmured, nudging my neck with his nose.
Keir clasped his hands behind his back. “I assume you brought her to make a statement.”
“You know everything I do is a statement.”
“Of course. This one, it seems, you enjoy putting in cobwebs and crowns.”
Rhys’s hand paused, and I sat straighter at the tone, the disgust. And I said to Keir in a voice that belonged to another woman, “Perhaps I’ll put a leash on you.”
Rhys’s approval tapped against my mental shield, the hand at my ribs now making lazy circles. “She does enjoy playing,” he mused onto my shoulder. He jerked his chin toward the Steward. “Get her some wine.”
Pure command. No politeness.
Keir stiffened, but strode off.
Rhys didn’t dare break from his mask, but the light kiss he pressed beneath my ear told me enough. Apology and gratitude—and more apologies. He didn’t like this any more than I did. And yet to get what we needed, to buy Azriel time … He’d do it. And so would I.
I wondered, then, with his hands beneath my breasts and between my legs, what Rhys wouldn’t give of himself. Wondered if … if perhaps the arrogance and swagger … if they masked a male who perhaps thought he wasn’t worth very much at all.
A new song began, like dripping honey—and edged into a swift-moving wind, punctuated with driving, relentless drums.
I twisted, studying his face. There was nothing warm in his eyes, nothing of the friend I’d made. I opened my shield enough to let him in. What? His voice floated into my mind.
I reached down the bond between us, caressing that wall of ebony adamant. A small sliver cracked—just for me. And I said into it, You are good, Rhys. You are kind. This mask does not scare me. I see you beneath it.
His hands tightened on me, and his eyes held mine as he leaned forward to brush his mouth against my cheek. It was answer enough—and … an unleashing.
I leaned a bit more against him, my legs widening ever so slightly. Why’d you stop? I said into his mind, into him.
A near-silent growl reverberated against me. He stroked my ribs again, in time to the beat of the music, his thumb rising nearly high enough to graze the underside of my breasts.
I let my head drop back against his shoulder.
I let go of the part of me that heard their words—whore, whore, whore—
Let go of the part that said those words alongside them—traitor, liar, whore—
And I just became.
I became the music, and the drums, and the wild, dark thing in the High Lord’s arms.
His eyes were wholly glazed—and not with power or rage. Something red-hot and edged with glittering darkness exploded in my mind.
I dragged a hand down his thigh, feeling the hidden warrior’s strength there. Dragged it back up again in a long, idle stroke, needing to touch him, feel him.
I was going to catch fire and burn. I was going to start burning right here—
Easy, he said with wicked amusement through the open sliver in my shield. If you become a living candle, poor Keir will throw a hissy fit. And then you’d ruin the party for everyone.
Because the fire would let them all know I wasn’t normal—and no doubt Keir would inform his almost-allies in the Autumn Court. Or one of these other monsters would.
Rhys shifted his hips, rubbing against me with enough pressure that for a second, I didn’t care about Keir, or the Autumn Court, or what Azriel might be doing right now to steal the orb.
I had been so cold, so lonely, for so long, and my body cried out at the contact, at the joy of being touched and held and alive.
The hand that had been on my waist slid across my abdomen, hooking into the low-slung belt there. I rested my head between his shoulder and neck, staring at the crowd as they stared at me, savoring every place where Rhys and I connected and wanting more more more.
At last, when my blood had begun to boil, when Rhys skimmed the underside of my breast with his knuckle, I looked to where I knew Keir was standing, watching us, my wine forgotten in his hand.
We both did.
The Steward was staring unabashedly as he leaned against the wall. Unsure whether to interrupt. Half terrified to. We were his distraction. We were the sleight of hand while Az stole the orb.
I knew Rhys was still holding Keir’s gaze as the tip of his tongue slid up my neck.
I arched my back, eyes heavy-lidded, breathing uneven. I’d burn and burn and burn—
I think he’s so disgusted that he might have given me the orb just to get out of here, Rhys said in my mind, that other hand drifting dangerously south. But there was such a growing ache there, and I wore nothing beneath that would conceal the damning evidence if he slid his hand a fraction higher.
You and I put on a good show, I said back. The person who said that, husky and sultry—I’d never heard that voice come out of me before. Even in my mind.
His hand slid to my upper thigh, fingers curving in.
I ground against him, trying to shift those hands away from what he’d learn—
To find him hard against my backside.
Every thought eddied from my head. Only a thrill of power remained as I writhed along that impressive length. Rhys let out a low, rough laugh.
Keir just watched and watched and watched. Rigid. Horrified. Stuck here, until Rhys released him—and not thinking twice about why. Or where the spymaster had gone.
So I turned around again, meeting Rhysand’s now-blazing eyes, and then licked up the column of his throat. Wind and sea and citrus and sweat. It almost undid me.
I faced forward, and Rhys dragged his mouth along the back of my neck, right over my spine, just as I shifted against the hardness pushing into me, insistent and dominating. Precisely as his hand slid a bit too high on my inner thigh.
I felt the predatory focus go right to the slickness he’d felt there. Proof of my traitorous body. His arms tightened around me, and my face burned—perhaps a bit from shame, but—
Rhys sensed my focus, my fire slip. It’s fine, he said, but that mental voice sounded breathless. It means nothing. It’s just your body reacting—
Because you’re so irresistible? My attempt to deflect sounded strained, even in my mind.
But he laughed, probably for my benefit.
We’d danced around and teased and taunted each other for months. And maybe it was my body’s reaction, maybe it was his body’s reaction, but the taste of him threatened to destroy me, consume me, and—
Another male. I’d had another male’s hands all over me, when Tamlin and I were barely—
Fighting my nausea, I pasted a sleepy, lust-fogged smile on my face. Right as Azriel returned and gave Rhys a subtle nod. He’d gotten the orb.
Mor slid up to the spymaster, running a proprietary hand over his shoulders, his chest, as she circled to look into his face. Az’s scar-mottled hand wrapped around her bare waist—squeezing once. The confirmation she also needed.
She offered him a little grin that would no doubt spread rumors, and sauntered into the crowd again. Dazzling, distracting, leaving them thinking Az had been here the whole time, leaving them pondering if she’d extend Azriel an invitation to her bed.
Azriel just stared after Mor, distant and bored. I wondered if he was as much of a mess inside as I was.
Rhys crooked a finger to Keir, who, scowling a bit in his daughter’s direction, stumbled forward with my wine. He’d barely reached the dais before Rhys’s power took it from him, floating the goblet to us.
Rhys set it on the ground beside the throne, a stupid task he’d thought up for the Steward to remind him of his powerlessness, that this throne was not his.
“Should I test it for poison?” Rhys drawled even as he said into my mind, Cassian’s waiting. Go.
Rhys had the same, sex-addled expression on his perfect face—but his eyes … I couldn’t read the shadows in his eyes.
Maybe—maybe for all our teasing, after Amarantha, he didn’t want to be touched by a woman like that. Didn’t even enjoy being wanted like that.
I had been tortured and tormented, but his horrors had gone to another level.
“No, milord,” Keir groveled. “I would never dare harm you.” Another distraction, this conversation. I took that as my cue to stride to Cassian, who was snarling by a pillar at anyone who came too close.
I felt the eyes of the court slide to me, felt them all sniff delicately at what was so clearly written over my body. But as I passed Keir, even with the High Lord at my back, he hissed almost too quietly to hear, “You’ll get what’s coming to you, whore.”
Night exploded into the room.
People cried out. And when the darkness cleared, Keir was on his knees.
Rhys still lounged on the throne. His face a mask of frozen rage.
The music stopped. Mor appeared at the edge of the crowd—her own features set in smug satisfaction. Even as Azriel approached her side, standing too close to be casual.
“Apologize,” Rhys said. My heart thundered at the pure command, the utter wrath.
Keir’s neck muscles strained, and sweat broke out on his lip.
“I said,” Rhys intoned with such horrible calm, “apologize.”
The Steward groaned. And when another heartbeat passed—
Bone cracked. Keir screamed.
And I watched—I watched as his arm fractured into not two, not three, but four different pieces, the skin going taut and loose in all the wrong spots—
Another crack. His elbow disintegrated. My stomach churned.
Keir began sobbing, the tears half from rage, judging by the hatred in his eyes as he looked at me, then Rhys. But his lips formed the words, I’m sorry.
The bones of his other arm splintered, and it was an effort not to cringe.
Rhys smiled as Keir screamed again and said to the room, “Should I kill him for it?”
No one answered.