I woke up in precisely the same position I’d fallen asleep with my arms wrapped firmly around her. We hadn’t moved once the entire night, two puzzle pieces that once snapped together were locked in place. And Feyre - Feyre was everything. I could still taste her on my lips, feel her in my skin. I could even still smell the scent of her in the remaining moisture lingering between her thighs where her muscles had come over me.

And deep peace abided within me because of it.

Mate…

Mate…

Mate…

The word pulsed a subtle rhythm in time with my breaths as I enjoyed the simple pleasure of holding her. She kept me safe the entire way through the night. The darkness never visited once. Feyre held eternal.

Where once I might have quivered at the thought, the idea of being so wholly connected to her lest I lose it, now it calmed me more than ever. It was finally time that I would have to tell her. I’d kept the secret for too long and I loved her too much to keep it again.

A quiet rustling alerted me to her waking. I opened my eyes right as Feyre shuffled around to face me and was filled so completely with the sense of her and - oh Feyre - darling, I love you.

I could have rested in that quiet pocket between heaven and hell content never to see the light of day again if the Cauldron would have let me. Tell her. I had to tell her.

We watched each other for a long while beneath the shelter of my wing before Feyre finally dared to break our perfect peace first. “Why did you make that bargain with me? Why demand a week from me every month?”

The reminder of the betrayal between us laid into me heavily and my eyes shuttered. The bargain. Still she thought it was the bargain and I began to wonder if I bedded her then and there if she would still fail to recognize the bond on her own. I said an awful half truth before I could rethink it.

“Because I wanted to make a statement to Amarantha; because I wanted to piss off Tamlin, and I needed to keep you alive in a way that wouldn’t be seen as merciful.”

“Oh.”

The truth - the mate bond - hung on my lips unsung at Feyre’s disappointed answer and I wondered if vaguely some part of her knew why.

“You know - you know there is nothing I wouldn’t do for my people, for my family,” I said. Nothing I wouldn’t do for you .

She didn’t say anything.

A distraction - fun. That was what last night had meant to her.

I unfurled my wings from around us beginning the debate of how I would tell her we were mates or if I would let our bodies continue to speak for me in my cowardice. Before I could let the guilt take hold and ruin our morning, I asked, “Bath or no bath?”

Feyre squinted in disdain. “I’d rather bathe in a stream.” I felt the discomfort of the downstairs bathroom wash over her and chuckled. Feyre bathing in a river bed was a sight I would not deny either of us the pleasure of enjoying.

“Then let’s get out of here.”

Feyre didn’t mention what had transpired between us as we flew the majority of the day over the forests of the steppes leading up to the majesty of the Illyrian Mountains, and I didn’t press her on it. I was too nervous.

There were moments throughout the day I felt the words rise to my lips and promptly die to plummet back down my throat at one look from her as she paused her magic while we practiced. She showed me everything - fire, water, wings, wind, and ice. Magic flowed from her in droves to match my own. It was an effort just to stand and not collapse from how utterly stunning she was unleashing all of her capabilities for the earth around her to see.

I knew it was the bond pressing in on me to spill ourselves to each other. I’d ignored it for too long and now it was too strong - we were too connected to keep on with this game.

But the words, the words, the damn blasted fucking words wouldn’t come out. Watching her train was a horrifying reminder of why we were here in the first place, of what she would become if she was with me. They would never stop hunting her. But I didn’t know if I could live with scraps anymore. She was becoming too tantamount to my existence to leave us unfinished like unraveled fabric.

The day grew colder and darker and I nearly let the sun set entirely before I finally took Feyre into the skies between my arms.

It wasn’t long before the curious glances she had given me while I watched her watch me in training turned into the question that would undo us both. “What is it?” she asked.

Vision focused on the trees ahead and below us, I strained to tell her, “There is one more story I need to tell you.”

The story of us. And immediately as the depth of Amarantha and the seeds of our narrative filled my mind, it felt like too much. Too heavy to get out.

Feyre’s fingers brushed my cheek dragging my eyes to her like a magnet. She was so hard to resist and that touch - it was everything to me now. Tender and merciful as the night in my heart.

“I don’t walk away,” she said, sensing my fear. She knew me better than she realized. And it was murdering me slowly that the bond was right there hiding in plain sight for her and she still didn’t see it, but - “…not from you.”

My being melted. If anything could issue the story from me, of course it would be that, those words. Be her, be - “Feyre-”

Pain overwhelmed me as I felt shots flare through me, little needles of pain that pricked the membranes of my wings in a dozen places before expanding into an all consuming burden over me. And all I could think of, the only vision in my head as that pain took over was Feyre.

Her screams rang in my ear as we fell, a shrill cry coursing down the bond for the mate she didn’t know she had. I clutched her fiercely to me as I felt my power fade out. I cast about for it anyway to winnow back to camp, but nothing happened. No magic. No darkness. No night. Nothing came to my aid except my mate’s hands holding on to me to keep us both steady.

A fresh wave of arrows hit. I could feel my wings beginning to shred along the bones and muscles where the venom sank its fangs in and disabled me, everything that I was. My body took hits too and we fell ever lower. My essence cried out for any of my magic - something to get us through safely, but even Feyre, who’s mental shield broke for me, knew that nothing was there.

Feyre .

The mate bond thrummed to life with the urgency to protect her. I hadn’t felt it this strongly since I watched Amarantha stride towards my mate, her arms outstretched and I had known what she was going to do to her. Those hands had wrapped around her neck and I…

I broke, the last of my magic reaching out into the void and surrounding Feyre. The wind that ripped her from my arms tore my heart in two and I roared for the whole of my court to hear at losing her. But if she was safe… if separating us kept them from her even while I died, then…

Feyre. Feyre. My mate. Find me…

They were my last thoughts as I hit the earth and the shackles that would permanently bind my magic away from me so long as I wore them were thrust upon my hands, and I lost all consciousness, lost my mate all over again.

I was vaguely aware of being dragged into the cave, of the men who held me with anger they relished and made sure I was awake enough to see the torturous gleam in their eyes while they strung me up along the wall.

My arms were lofted high from my sides and my wings - fuck , my wings. I’d forgotten what this kind of pain could feel like, it had been so long since I’d been taken captive like this.

They’d left the arrows in them and already I could feel myself losing my hold on reality, on the will to live at the thought that my wings might shred.

And then the whip cracked.

A horrible snap against the air that dealt a blow of blood across my back, shattering the skin and eventually the muscle beneath. It was unbearable. Excruciating at the best, murderous at the worst.

I couldn’t command enough strength to watch my blood drop to the floor around me as one by one, the hits fell in an endless torrent. The whip struck my wings and not even my voice cried out as I emptied of everything.

Everything except her.

Feyre , I wept. My Feyre. My mate. Please…

The whip snapped and I distantly heard one of my captors scream. The whip sent fresh waves of pain rippling down my spine and again, a male fae burst. And then the whips stopped all at once, but the shouts - they continued until I was left with nothing but silence and the scent of her filling me, pulling me back to a dull aching consciousness.

I felt a rush of wind flow across my skin as she appeared in front of me out of the air. She grabbed my face and forced me to look at her. I barely got my eyes open before I groaned, but she was there and she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. My salvation come to rescue me.

Her hands worked deftly even as they shook to undo me and my knees cracked as they hit the ground with a hard grind.

“Rhys,” Feyre said breathless. I felt her then at the call of my name - finally. Felt all of the pain and fear she felt and the love too. I felt it roar from her veins trying to reach me.

Quietly, with the only senses I had left, I stirred behind our bond. Feyre nearly fell alongside me at the flicker of my consciousness.

“Rhys,” and again the sound of my name coming from her voice rattled through me. “We need to winnow home.”

“Can’t,” I gasped. Never had it been so hard to say a single damn word.

But Feyre - I felt her magic answer her instantaneously. It simmered into a hot boil of anger and passion that ruptured and took control of her, pulling me into her body as she turned and winnowed us out of the cave.

To safety.

To her.

Home.

I had no idea where she’d taken us. Only that she was carrying me against her with whatever new strength had gripped her. When we landed in a new cave, the stale scent of rock and dirt that was entirely void of any other life told me it was over for the night. I collapsed with her on the ground with a groan as pain racked my body from the impact. I was cold. So cold.

“Rhys,” Feyre said, her voice wavering in the darkness. I just wanted to see her again. Just one look to save me. “I have to get these arrows out.”

Fuck.

I gripped the ground, whatever I could take hold of without completely wasting myself, and prepared. I felt Feyre’s disappointment wash over the bond at how weak I was. That she had to see me like this, that she was capable of taking care of me so fiercely and wonderfully - it was a curse and a blessing in equal measure.

“This is going to hurt,” she said as her fingers traced the area around where the first arrow had slaughtered my wings. But Feyre paused and the arrow didn’t come out.

“Do it,” I said in a quick pant, my adrenaline crashing within me. I was terrified. Terrified of the pain. All those years spent Under the Mountain and never had I been tortured like this. I was always the one who did the torturing. I didn’t know which end of it was worse to be on anymore.

The slight pull on the arrow shot a hiss out of me and again, Feyre paused. Through the ash arrow, I could feel her knife poised around the wood ready to slice.

“Do it,” I said one more time.

The pain returned in full measure as Feyre sawed. It was slow. So. Fucking. Slow.

I read her thoughts. She didn’t bother shielding them from me and I understood that going faster might kill me anyway. But it burned .

My wings, my wings, my wings.

My mate, my mate, my mate.

My mate was there. And tenderly, she was holding me in her voice while she worked, carrying me away and as far from the pain of my body as she could.

“Did you know,” Feyre said, “that one summer, when I was seventeen, Elain bought me some paint? We’d had just enough to spend on extra things, and she bought me and Nesta presents. She didn’t have enough for a full set, but bought me red and blue and yellow. I used them to the last drop, stretching them as much as I could, and painted little decorations in our cottage.”

I let out a sigh of relief because I did know. I’d seen her painting. Little bits of anything here and there. The first image I’d seen of her painter’s hands that had come to me in a dream floated to the surface of my mind right as Feyre yanked on the arrow, pulling it swiftly out of me with no warning.

“FUCK,” I roared into the echoing recesses of the cave. My body locked up, but the pain in the hole of my wing was already subsiding, dulling to an ache I could manage.

And then Feyre found the second arrow and the process started again.

So did her stories.

“I painted the table, the cabinets, the doorway… And we had this old, black dresser in our room - one drawer for each of us. We didn’t have much clothing to put in there, anyway.” She paused and waited for me to brace myself before pulling the second arrow out and starting on a third. “I painted flowers for Elain on her drawer. Little roses and begonias and irises. And for Nesta…”

She stopped her speech as the third arrow came loose and one wing was free. The tremendous burden of the pain lifting, my wing fell in sweet relief, but my chest shook uncontrollably regardless. It was involuntary at this point. Feyre moved to the other wing.

“Nesta. I painted flames for her. She was always angry, always burning. I think she and Amren would be fast friends. I think she would like Velaris, despite herself.”

All the better for Cassian, I thought to myself.

“And I think Elain - Elain would like it, too. Though she’d probably cling to Azriel, just to have some peace and quiet.”

I saw the image of her sister with my brother form in her mind, but quickly Feyre had replaced Elain with Morrigan as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do. She was right.

Another arrow had fallen and if my count was correct, I could feel only three more left. The rest of my body felt clean as I started taking inventory of my muscles. The guards for whatever reason must have seen fit to remove the arrows directly on my person while I was briefly out - the fucking idiots.

Raw from the pain and lack of use, I moaned to Feyre, desperate for further distractions about her life as I’d first known her, before she’d ever come to Prythian.

“What did you paint for yourself?”

“I painted the night sky.”

Everything - all the pain, all the agony, the shaking, the fractures, all of it stilled at those five little words. Feyre removed the sixth arrow.

“I painted stars and the moon and clouds and just endless, dark sky.”

Me. She painted me. I saw her and she saw me. My mate. My mate. My mate. I wanted to cry.

“I never knew why. I rarely went outside at night - usually, I was so tired from hunting that I just wanted to sleep. But I wonder…”

The final arrow came undone and both my wings fell equally to the ground. Feyre’s voice was thick as she gathered herself together and explained the mate bond to me that I had been trying so ardently to show her all these weeks and months.

“I wonder if some part of me knew what was waiting for me. That I would never be a gentle grower of things, or someone who burned like fire - but that I would be quiet and enduring and as faceted as the night. That I would have beauty, for those who knew where to look, and if people didn’t bother to look, but to only fear it… Then I didn’t particularly care for them, anyway. I wonder if, even in my despair and hopelessness, I was never truly alone. I wonder if I was looking for this place - looking for you all.”

The cave went silent and the world stilled as it narrowed in on Feyre coming to kneel before me.

My mate. Night everlasting. Life supernal.

“You saved me,” I said, voice rasping in an entirely new kind of pain I had only felt once before - the night she died.

“You can explain who they were later,” she said, thinking I meant the sentries.

“Ambush,” and finally I felt enough strength to piece more than a few words together. “Hybern soldiers with ancient chains from the king himself, to nullify my power. They must have traced the magic I used yesterday…” And the horrible realization of what I’d done to her - to my mate - hit me in full force. The price of our great secret if ever Feyre knew and decided to claim me. I did this to her.

“I’m sorry.”

And it would never be enough.

“Rest,” she said simply. No anger. No resentment. Just care - love.

Feyre moved towards her pack and I didn’t care what she wanted from it. I grabbed her wrist and told her the closest kernel of our truth that I could muster before I collapsed.

“I was looking for you too.”

And then I was gone.

---

When I woke, I was met with a thick heat wrapping around me. Feyre - Feyre was gone and it was hard not to panic that something had happened to her, but if she was hurt or worse, I would have been too.

The bond was cool between us. Quiet. She was alive and she was fine.

I scattered the blankets she had nestled me in and enjoyed some of the cool breeze flowing into the cave from outside - from where she was.

My body was still on fire. Waking was an effort. But sleeping without her was worse.

But eventually she came and my body was suddenly not the only fire in the cave as she threw a handful of something coarse onto my chest.

“Chew on that,” Feyre said and there was bite behind her words.

I picked up the pink weed of a plant she’d thrown at me and blinked wearily at her while she stared me down. Confused, I took a few bites of the plant as she had asked - no, ordered . It tasted bitter.

And then in the blink of an eye, Feyre was in front of me with a knife to her arm. She sliced and the blood ran free and every nerve inside me wanted to fight against the harm to her body excepting for the fact that Feyre herself had done it.

And I had no idea why.

“Drink this. Now.”

She gripped me and forced me to drink. But I’d barely managed two, maybe three mouthfuls before she’d decided it was enough and had pulled away from me angrily leaving the tangy taste of her blood on my lips. Even that much separation, just the few inches she had recoiled, was unbearable.

“You don’t get to ask questions,” she said, a dangerous storm brewing. I could feel it down the bond. “You only get to answer them. And nothing more.”

My mind lagged as I caught up with her words and registered the pain leaving my body as holes closed and wounds healed. Her blood working the healing magic of the Dawn Court inside me to save me again.

Caught between the dull throb of my blood and the desire to chase Feyre down the rabbit hole of her newfound anger, I chewed slowly on a fresh piece of the weed and nodded my consent to submit to whatever interrogation was waiting for me.

Feyre stared at me hard and then, she skinned me alive with her question and it was worse than a thousand ash arrows in my wings.

“How long have you known that I’m your mate?” she asked. I watched her watch me, watch the fear course through my eyes. Watched her as I acknowledged that I would never have the privilege of telling her myself now - and she knew it.

“Feyre,” I said, that very fear freezing my bones.

“How long have you known that I’m your mate?” she said again.

My mind jumped in a quick blaze of thoughts from the lingering scent on her to the knowledge of her time in the Spring Court to the bitter weed I swallowed in my mouth.

“You… You ensnared the Suriel?” I asked.

“I said you don’t get to ask questions.” Her voice was a dangerous arrow in the night ready to take me at the smallest miscalculation. I took one more bite of the weed to prepare myself and gave her what she’d been waiting so long for. My heart broke on every word. My heart that had mended all this time with her.

“I suspected for a while. I knew for certain when Amarantha was killing you. And when we stood on the balcony Under the Mountain - right after we were freed, I felt it snap into place between us. I think when you were Made, it… it heightened the smell of the bond. I looked at you and then the strength of it hit me like a blow.”

Slowly, I studied Feyre as the memory of that day slid into place and she watched me stumble back on that balcony while I felt the bond click between us, leaving me forever linked to her. And she was scared. Terrified.

Worse - betrayed .

“When were you going to tell me?” she asked, the full weight of that deceit lacing her words. I felt the ash arrow go through me again - this time through my heart.

“Feyre.”

“When were you going to tell me?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, just wanting this to be over with. I wanted her. Wanted to mate with her and find our eternal connection together, but I’d ruined it. I’d ruined everything as usual and it felt like too much this time. “I wanted to yesterday. Or whenever you’d noticed that it wasn’t just a bargain between us. I hoped you might realize when I took you to bed, and-”

“Do the others know?”

“Amren and Mor do. Azriel and Cassian suspect.”

Heat flooded Feyre. Embarrassment. Rage. I couldn’t tell. Maybe it was both. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

And there was the hurt. The wounds that opened just as sore and raw as my own as I watched us break apart in front of each other.

“You were in love with him,” I said, the unimaginable horror that was my mate belonging to another forever spilling out of me. “You were going to marry him. And then you… you were enduring everything and it didn’t feel right to tell you.”

Lies. Such horrible wicked excuses.

“I deserved to know.”

“The other night you told me you wanted a distraction, you wanted fun . Not a mating bond. And not to someone like me - a mess.”

It was still a horrible excuse for lying to her, using the Court of Nightmares that we had supposedly healed at Starfall together. But I was desperate at this point. I could see the fire growing in her eyes and I wanted to cling to any blind hope I might find that could keep the possibility of us knit together before she turned her back on me for good.

But she had promised me - she wouldn’t walk out. She wouldn’t walk out. Not on me.

Please don’t. Fuck, don’t leave me in the dark.

“You promised-” and I felt her crack inside. “You promised no secrets, no games. You promised.”

“I know I did,” I said, fighting so hard for her despite how miserably my body and mind were failing me just then. “You think I didn’t want to tell you? You think I liked hearing you wanted me only for amusement and release? You think it didn’t drive me out of my mind so completely that those bastards shot me out of the sky because I was too busy wondering if I should just tell you, or wait - or maybe take whatever pieces that you offered me and be happy with it? Or that maybe I should let you go so you don’t have a lifetime of assassins and High Lords hunting you down for being with me?”

“I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear you explain how you assumed that you knew best, that I couldn’t handle it-”

“I didn’t do that-”

“I don’t want to hear you tell me that you decided I was to be kept in the dark while your friends knew, while you all decided what was right for me-”

“Feyre-”

“Take me back to the Illyrian camp. Now.”

I don’t know at which point my lungs started gasping - choking for air, but they were. Stay. Stay stay stay - please. “Please.”

In a flash of furry, Feyre flew at me and grabbed my hand with a force that could have leveled the mountains within which we stayed. “Take me back now.”

There weren’t any words for the emptiness that hollowed me out, for the unbearable grief that consumed me in its place as I looked at Feyre and felt myself lose her one more time.

I squeezed her hand and with no strength whatsoever - only by the desire to please her, do whatever my mate wanted, did I manage to winnow us back to camp.

Mud flew into my face as we landed. Too far from the house like I’d hoped. Now every fucking Illyrian in these damned mountains would see. See their High Lord bruised and bloodied and rejected by the woman who could have destroyed them all if she wanted - an Illyrian in her own right.

I pushed off the ground to scramble for her. All I wanted was her. Just Feyre. Just my mate. My mate. My mate. My fucking mate - Cauldron just give me my mate.

I collapsed as my arms gave out. Collapsed from that utter exhaustion of just wanting her all the time.

“Feyre,” I groaned, but she was moving towards the house where Cass and Mor were running from towards us. Cassian got to me first while Mor stopped short and I barely heard Feyre over the chaos asking Mor to be taken away - away from me .

Mor looked pitifully at me and back to Feyre before she took her hand. “Feyre,” I pleaded one last time and then - and then.

She winnowed. Walked away exactly as she had promised she wouldn’t. Into the wind and day, my mate left me.

And I didn’t blame her one bit.