There was really only one place she could be. My instincts hurtled me toward that spot with alarming speed, but it still took me the greater part of a day to get there.

The wind was absolutely brutal at my back. The first few hours were nothing more than an effort in keeping concentration on the repeated boom of my wings to stay airborne. The muscles trembled and struggled through the initial currents, but then I was up, up in the sky, a light rain cooling my brow and guiding me north.

To Feyre.

And even as I landed in the lakeside clearing and saw the smoke billowing out of the chimney from the little cabin where candles twinkled inside the windows, I felt nervous, undeserving of the woman inside who I’d lied to for so long.

But I was done hiding. I was done with the lying. So long as she let me stay, I would give her everything.

I walked through the snow, still so pure and fresh this far north in the mountains, and paused on the doorway. It was quiet inside, but I could smell her. My fist instantly pummeled the door with a loud groaning that rattled throughout the house - begging her for an answer.

A light shuffle of footsteps, a pause, and then... there she was. Feyre.

Her scent hit me in full force as the door opened, the pine and grass, the warm sun and even some lingering hints of jasmine and sea from when we’d been together. When she’d saved me. It was potent enough to distract me from the appearance of paint that covered her hands and clothes. Inside, the scent lingered further.

It was a long, tense moment as we stared at each other. I had no idea how long it lasted, only that I was beside myself with relief when Feyre’s eyes softened and she stood aside to let me pass. In her cream colored sweater, hair mussed up and paint staining her fingertips, Cauldron - she was a dream.

And so was the inside of the cabin.

My family had kept this property for centuries, our own private retreat. Morrigan and I had come here so many summers as kids, even if just for the week. And when we got older, I brought my brothers to hunt in the fall. There wasn’t a single square inch of it I didn’t know, didn’t have a memory of some sort connected to it. And now, Feyre had added several dozen more.

The walls were covered in paint. Fresh coats slathered here and there with drawings and sketches of... everything. Flowers on the tables, icicles and springtime blooming on the walls. The cold wood paneling was now suddenly full of color and warmth. I might have sworn or gasped surveying it all, until my gaze landed above the hallway threshold and saw what was perhaps the most interesting detail of all.

“You painted us,” I said, my first words. And indeed, Feyre had. Four sets of eyes belonging to the four most important people in my life, save for her, sat above the threshold watching. Mor kept Azriel close, followed by Amren, and Cassian rounded out the right.

Feyre watched me carefully. “I hope you don’t mind.”

Mind... How could I possibly mind? What she’d done was... stunning.

“Azriel, Mor, Amren, and Cassian,” I said, naming the eyes one by one. “You do know that one of them is going to paint a mustache under the eyes of whoever pisses them off that day.”

I tore myself away to look at her, feeling my breath catch in my chest all over again. She was smiling, or at least, trying very hard not to. “Oh, Mor already promised to do that,” she said.

Morrigan.

What?

You’ll see.

She’d known. She’d known about all of this and had refused to tell me. I was glad she hadn’t. The surprise was worth it. There was just one thing missing.

“And what about my eyes?” I asked.

Feyre took a step, and I could hear her heart racing. It sounded strong and wild and... ready. “I was afraid to paint them.”

“Why?”

“At first, because I was so mad at you for not telling me. Then because I was worried I’d like them too much and find you... didn’t feel the same.” My stomach cursed violently at that. “Then because I was scared that if I painted them, I’d start wishing you were here so much that I’d just stare at them all day. And it seemed like a pathetic way to spend my time.”

The shiver from the cold outside went out of me, enough to force one of Feyre’s almost smiles on me. “Indeed.”

She looked at the door. “You flew here.”

“Mor wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone, and there are only so many places that are as secure as this one. Since I didn’t want our Hybern friends tracking me to you, I had to do it the old-fashioned way. It took... a while.”

She swallowed and looked at me suddenly so... starved. Like she couldn’t quite believe I was finally here and in one piece. The last time she’d seen me, I’d nearly died. “You’re - better?” she asked.

“Healed completely. Quickly, considering the bloodbane. Thanks to you.”

And there it was. The bond throbbed between us, and then reached for her as Feyre stepped into the kitchen not quite meeting my stare. Her heart continued to twitch away. I followed the beat closer.

“You must be hungry. I’ll heat something up.”

As fast as I had started, I stopped and Feyre noticed, spotting me over her shoulder as she looked through the kitchen cabinet and lit the burner. The bond urged me on, pressing, pressing, pressing.

“You’d - make me food?”

“Heat,” she said, mock offense at the suggestion. “I can’t cook.”

And suddenly... my mate was cooking - heating - for me. Was invoking her right as a woman and a mate and she didn’t even know it. She poured a can of soup into a pan and stirred it over the burner. It could have been water. It could have been mud. And I wanted every last drop of it, my stomach curling inward just for a taste.

“I don’t know the rules,” Feyre said. Her eyes chanced a glance at me from where she stood in the middle of the kitchen. I hadn’t moved from open center of the cabin. “So you need to explain them to me.”

Those fingers of hers turned the soup over carefully.

Mine.

Mine - all mine.

My very bones rattled the claim out inside me. How much did she feel? How much did she know now that she knew the truth?

I cleared my throat, but my voice still came out in a rasp. “It’s an... important moment when a female offers her mate food. It goes back to whatever beasts we were a long, long time ago. But it still matters. The first time matters. Some mated pairs will make an occasion of it - throwing a party just so the female can formally offer her mate food... That’s usually done amongst the wealthy. But it means that the female... accepts the bond.”

Feyre didn’t look up from the pot. Her stirring slowed. And then she whispered, “Tell me the story - tell me everything.”

Tell her and she would tell me - if I deserved her, if I was good enough, if she’d have me.

My mate.

And whether I felt worthy or not, I knew what I wanted. So I pulled out a chair from the dining table and told my mate everything.

---

The story of us was a long one, going all the way back to Amarantha - the first time she’d met me. During the War.

Feyre wouldn’t look at me at first, but as the story dragged on and she heard... my history, her eyes slowly left the burner and the soup began to simmer like the bond between us.

I told her everything. Amarantha’s capture of me during the war and how my father had rescued me. The fallout that ensued afterward followed by her return to Prythian, where it had left Tamlin and I amid the deaths of our families. Being taken by the red-headed bitch a second time, whored out to keep my family safe. And finally, when tears streaked both our faces and I could feel my eyes burning as red as Feyre’s, I told my mate of how she’d first come to me. In visions and in dreams that had kept me up late at night, kept me sane. How I had found her on Calanmai, cowered when the Attor dragged her Under the Mountain to make her deal, and fought tooth and nail to see her survive the trials only to die anyway with the bond the only thing left to keep the light in her eyes.

Feyre had gone deathly still as I described what had transpired Under the Mountain, as the Cauldron shoved the bond in my face and not hers, and all of the events thereafter. Even with her tears, she looked beautiful.

“When you finally came here... I decided I wouldn’t tell you. Any of it,” I admitted, my mind feeling close to depletion. “I wouldn’t let you out of the bargain, because your hatred was better than facing the two alternatives: that you felt nothing for me, or that you... you might feel something similar, and if I let myself love you, you would be taken from me. The way my family was - the way my friends were. So I didn’t tell you. I watched as you faded away. Until that day... that day he locked you up.

“I would have killed him if he’d been there. But I broke some very, very fundamental rules in taking you away. Amren said if I got you to admit that we were mates, it would keep any trouble from our door, but... I couldn’t force the bond on you. I couldn’t try to seduce you into accepting the bond, either. Even if it gave Tamlin license to wage war on me. You had been through so much already. I didn’t want you to think that everything I did was to win you, just to keep my lands safe. But I couldn’t...” I shuddered, the words stumbling off my tongue at the emotion written across Feyre’s face. “I couldn’t stop being around you, and loving you, and wanting you. I still can’t stay away.”

I collapsed backwards in my chair, my muscles failing me even though it was my heart that felt drained. The cold from flying still hung in my wings, my hands, as a shaking breath rattled out of me and I waited. Waited for Feyre to make up her mind.

Eyes shining, she pivoted toward the burner where the soup was boiling. She flicked the burner off and where I had always denied the possibility of this moment before, I didn’t doubt then. Not in the way her hands shook when she removed a bowl from the shelf, nor how she bit her lip ladling the soup into that very same dish. And when she carried it over to the table, and asked me so softly as though no one had ever dared tell her the words before, “You love me?” - I knew what my mate had decided.

I nodded and Feyre set the bowl in front of me along with a spoon. Her voice was raw when she spoke.

“Then eat.”

And so I did.

---

I would never look at soup in the same boring, bland way again.

Feyre was accepting the bond. She was choosing me. My mate - I had a mate .

But she hadn’t said anything and it took every ounce of power I possessed within my 500 year career to steady my hand as I lifted each spoonful to my mouth and watched her from across the table.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” I asked when I was done eating.

“I was going to tell you what I’d decided the moment I saw you on the threshold,” Feyre said. Our hearts seemed to beat rapidly together now.

“And now?” I said, starting to squirm.

Feyre came to me. I counted every step. I heard every breath, watched every soft movement of her long, slender arms as she found me and came to straddle me in my chair. I held on to her hips trying so desperately not to shake for fear she was going to reject me despite it all, that Tamlin was going to win in the end again and this was just one final way to dig at me.

But Feyre’s eyes trapped mine with her own and gave me such a deep, knowing look I half hoped she wouldn’t… she couldn’t… not after everything I’d told her, everything I had fought through to keep her alive and happy. I would make her so happy if she’d only let me.

“And now I want you to know, Rhysand, that I love you,” she said. And I broke. “I want you to know…” She paused to wipe away the tears that were falling down my face, tears that came harder and faster than previously. “I want you to know,” she continued with a low, gentle voice to soothe my aches and pains, “that I am broken and healing, but every piece of my heart belongs to you. And I am honored - honored to be your mate.”

I never knew my heart could break and that I’d actually be glad to feel it happen until it actually did in that moment.

She chose me. My mate chose me. I found her and fought for her and revealed my entire being to her and she didn’t run away in fear like the rest of the world had at the merest glimpse of me.

My mate.

My friend who hadn’t let me cower, hadn’t let me fall apart. Who had been there when the world was quiet and my hope had fallen.

My mate.

My protector who had saved me - body, mind, and soul. Who had welcomed death with open arms to keep me from facing it alone.

My mate.

And she was all mine now. All mine.

And now that it was real, I was unnervingly overwhelmed. It didn’t matter that I’d known since Calanmai. Nothing could have prepared me for the weightless feeling that took over, knocking me down just so my mate could hold me up one more time. It was everything. I fell against her, my body completely falling to pieces as she held me, ran her delicate fingers through my hair like a promise to never let go again.

“I love you,” Feyre repeated. “And I’d endure every second of it over again so I could find you. And if war comes, we’ll face it. Together. I won’t let them take me from you. And I won’t let them take you from me, either.”

I lifted my head from her shoulder. I had to see her beautiful face, to understand how absolutely and irrevocably she meant each word. But I had cried so hard, it was difficult to even concentrate on what I was holding before me.

Feyre leaned forward with such careful ease that my body stilled. She kissed away the tears one at a time, each one like a whispered promise calling to me. I’d kissed her tears away. Once.

My mate. My mate. My mate.

When she was through - when every last salt kissed drop was gone - she looked at me one final time and spoke with such certainty. “You’re mine,” she breathed - into me, through me - and my body responded with a great heaving shudder before I kissed her.

I poured my entire being into that kiss moving my lips with gentle clarity that explained to her how treasured she was, how grateful that she would accept me, that I could be so privileged to even have a chance with her, my equal in every way. It was the kiss we should have had, the one I’d stolen from us Under the Mountain. The one that said good morning and I’ll miss you to my friend and welcome back I’ll have you to my lover. The kiss to begin and end everything.

Feyre’s arms slid around me securing me to her. Her mouth parted in reply to my own just enough for me to deepen the kiss. Our tongues met and the spark of heat that shot through me shifted the moment. I went hard beneath her. I went hard for my mate. Feyre felt it too and groaned into my mouth and that did it.

I scooped her up and laid her against the table as she hooked both legs around my waist. I was vaguely aware of paints and brushes scattered about the table, but I didn’t care enough to be bothered with moving them out of the way. No more waiting. I needed her to come for me now. The bond plucked away at the impulse every single second to claim, to take, to give - all of it. Now .

I moved my mouth aggressively down her neck while my hands made quick work of her shirt, tossing it over her head and away from the table. I took my time surveying the half-naked site of her while she stared at me, already covered in bits of paint, before my mouth came down on one of her breasts.

Her fingers plunging into my hair told me she liked it well enough, so I flicked my tongue violently against her peaking nipple right as my hand shot out onto the table… and straight into a glob of paint.

And I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The sound rumbles out of me and it felt good . This was going to be messy and it felt so right that I dragged my fingers through the paint and drew a lazy circle around the breast I’d been enjoying myself on before drawing the line out down my Feyre’s stomach where it ended in an arrow pointed towards the warm spot between her thighs. Feyre watched my fingers the entire way down with unabated hunger.

“Lest you forget where this is going to end,” I said devilishly.

Feyre snarled and I barked out another laugh, some deep feral beast in me pleased at her reaction. This was already so much, so incredible. I was going to put her through the ringer, I decided, as I sucked her other breast and teased her with my hips. She squirmed against me, grabbing at me all the while. Months and months and what really felt like a lifetime of waiting for this exact moment, I wouldn’t waste it. I’d prove to her exactly how much she meant to me.

We were a tangle of paint and limbs as I allowed Feyre up enough to help me get my leathers off until only my pants remained. And then we were skin to skin, heaving against one another as our lips sunk into each other once more. Her bare skin against my chest felt like heaven against my chest.

I couldn’t wait any longer.

I tore at her pants until she was utterly naked before me and even though I could tell she wanted me to take her fully then and there, told me so right down the bond - something I had half a mind to do, I was throbbing beneath my clothes - I wasn’t going to let her have it. Not yet.

I pulled my mate to the end of the table and heard the gasp of shock escape her mouth as she realized what I was doing. I threw her legs over my shoulders and knelt before her at the edge of the table, knelt on my stars and my throne for her alone and no other. Knelt for my Feyre.

The first lick of my feast was slow and agonizing and it tasted divine, made even better by the sound that came out of my mate’s mouth as she felt me taste her. That was all the encouragement I needed. I gorged myself on her, licking between her folds and nipping in all the right places to make her body tremble and gasp to the point that I had to hold her hips in place. She tried to buck up into me as my teeth grazed circles around her clit, and I splayed out my hand flat on her stomach, now full and thick and curved from her time in my court - our court.

And just when I felt her start to near her climax, pulsing at me down the bond, I inched my mouth higher and slipped my fingers inside, rocking her harder and harder until she shattered with my name barely rasping off her lips.

“Rhys…” she moaned. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.

The bond had me gripping her back harder, pumping her faster, until she came for me again. More, more, more it cried through my blood.

I had never felt so smug in my life as I did when I finished, looking her paint smeared body over that felt like jello in my arms, the result of my handiwork. A feral, instinctual smirk glossed over my face proud at what I could make her feel for me, because of me.

“ You’re mine, ” I declared with my own snarl before taking her limp body into my arms and carrying her into the bedroom that would be our nest for the night. I laid her down on the bed and removed my pants so that I could join her fully. Feyre stared and I saw her pupils blow wide as I removed my cock from my pants where it was hard and waiting for her. My wings came free of themselves then. She had asked me about it once while we were flying and I’d told her never would I allow myself to be so vulnerable with a partner.

But Feyre was different. She was my mate and my equal and therefore, deserved every inch of me I had to give, including my wings.

They appeared on my back, tucked in tightly, as I lowered myself over her. I could read the delight in her eyes as she reached out one of her slender fingers and caressed the curve of one side. My body shuddered again, including my more sensitive areas.

“Play later,” I said through gritted teeth as she smirked at me. I cut her off with a kiss and enjoyed the sensation of her legs locking around my waist as our kiss deepened into another frenzied passion. Cauldron, she was a perfect fit. And I wanted her so badly. I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted a woman or quite possibly anything in my entire life. I was so close to taking her, but I couldn’t resist one last tease as I pressed my cock near her entrance and stopped short.

The snarl that ripped from her mouth gave me the satisfaction I craved. There was a warrior and a lover and lioness crawling under her skin, soaking up the power of what we were and ripping at the bond with it until we were everything the universe had ever seen.

“ Play later, ” she said, throwing my own words back at me and causing me to laugh. But then I slid into her, watched her eyes close as I filled her up, deeper and… Feyre, Feyre, Feyre - Fuck , she felt good. Perfect. We were perfect.

Her eyes opened as she adjusted and I knew she felt as content as I did. But I needed to hear it from her. I wanted her to say the words over and over again before we moved.

“Say it again,” I breathed, desperate to hear her claim me again. And she did.

“You’re mine,” she sighed. I moved on her then. One slow, long thrust out and back in until she repeated herself. “You’re mine.” I quickened my pace inside her with every thrust. Her hands gripped me for purchase, face scrunching together as that feeling between our hips mounted.

And Mother above - the bond.

I could see it between us. I could feel it, smell it even. I scented Feyre becoming me and me becoming her and it plunged me further inside her, kissing her recklessly with every piece I could offer. She continued to claim me with her words even as her hands found other ways to take me, gliding over my chest, through my paint stained hair, and across my wings.

Mercy, my wings. The stories her fingers told on them - where once had been scars and death now stood legends and dreams and promise with the tremors my mate unleashed along the membranes.

“I love you,” I gasped and she came, breaking over me on the spot. I felt her tighten around my cock as pleasure overtook her and we fully became one, mated forever until the day the rest of the world died away and even then, we would not separate, I was sure of it. I had never felt anything so brilliant, nor understood anything so perfectly as I did my Feyre in that moment when I watched her come for me. A roar ripped out of me as I came inside her so deep and shattering around us, that I could feel the earth around the cabin quake.

We were still for a few moments panting in our love making until her hands found my face. And then, Feyre smiled at me. And my life was perfect.

---

We were still together in the quiet of the cabin for a long time. My hands roamed her body freely now and then, my fingertips just happy to find reassurance of her skin underneath them. My mind wandered back over all the memories of how we’d reached this point and I found the words toppling out of me effortlessly as they never had before, as if I would never find enough ways to tell her how much I utterly adored her.

“I think I fell in love with you,” I said, “the moment I realized you were cleaving those bones to make a trap for the Middengard Wyrm. Or maybe the moment you flipped me off for mocking you. It reminded me so much of Cassian. For the first time in decades, I wanted to laugh .”

I wanted to laugh then remembering that rare moment of joy within the bowels of so much pain that entire ordeal had been. But Feyre didn’t take it that way.

“You fell in love with me,” she said, “because I reminded you of your friend?”

I flicked her nose, enjoy the way she squirmed underneath the touch. “I fell in love with you, smartass, because you were one of us - because you weren’t afraid of me, and you decided to end your spectacular victory by throwing that piece of bone at Amarantha like a javelin. I felt Cassian’s spirit beside me in that moment, and could have sworn I heard him say, ‘ If you don’t marry her, you stupid prick, I will.’ ”

Her body quivered at that, a small chuckle coming out of her before she stilled again and I wondered if I’d still done something wrong. But I followed her eyes and found them roving over the paint that covered us. It was everywhere. My hair was caked with it, my tattoos covered, a distant thing of the past. And my wings - Cauldron, my wings were absolutely littered.

And I... kind of liked it, like she had marked her territory over me so intimately. In a way no one ever had before. And those stains were mirrored back at me over her breasts, her thighs, her stomach.

“How convenient that the bathtub is large enough for two,” I said, looking down at her with a wickedly satisfied grin. Feyre smirked, and then tried to make for the tub in a great leap all on her own, but I was having positively none of that as I grabbed her and carried her naked self against me into an already steaming bathtub. I grabbed the soap and rags from the basket that had appeared as Feyre momentarily submerged herself under the hissing water, and then handed them to her when she came back up. “Someone, it seems, got my wings dirty.”

Feyre delighted in ordering me to turn around and I eagerly obeyed, my body tensing as I splayed my wings fully for my mate and waited for her to begin her work. The heat of the water felt good against the veins, but nothing prepared me for Feyre’s touches. My hands shot out and gripped the sides of the tub as she began her careful, cleaning strokes over my wings. It felt luxurious and... undoing at the same time. My cock gave a few twitches and was hard before the first paint stains had cleared. Feyre seemed to notice and snickered at my ear.

“At least the rumors about wingspan correlating with the size of other parts were right,” she said. I snorted. But my relaxation was short lived when she spoke again. It was amazing how every word, every action from this beautiful creature that had blessed my life could control my emotions so fully. I existed on her every thought, the bond happy to pull me along as it saw fit.

“I think I was falling in love with you for a while,” Feyre said. Her voice was so quiet, it scared me to death. “But I knew on Starfall. Or came close to knowing and was so scared of it that I didn’t want to look closer. I was a coward.”

My heart sank a stab of guilt pained me.

“You had perfectly good reasons to avoid it,” I told her.

“No, I didn’t. Maybe - thanks to Tamlin, yes. But it had nothing to do with you, Rhys. Nothing to do with you. I was never afraid of the consequences of being with you. Even if every assassin in the world hunts us… It’s worth it. You are worth it.”

My head fell, burning itching at my eyes. I could barely talk, much less breathe, but I managed to choke out a strangled, “Thank you.” Feyre kissed my neck, her fingers stopping from cleaning to indulge a stroke at my cheek so lovingly, I knew without a shadow of a doubt how deeply she loved me.

When she’d finished cleaning my wings, I took the soap and rag from her and turned her so that I could wash the paint from her back. “What now?” she asked. It felt wonderful to touch her again.

“It’s up to you,” I said, my mind running through all of the options. “We can go back to Velaris and have the bond verified by a priestess - no one like Ianthe, I promise - and be declared officially Mated. We could have a small party to celebrate - dinner with our… cohorts. Unless you’d rather have a large party, though I think you and I are in agreement about our aversion for them.” Feyre groaned her assent. “We could also go before a priestess and be declared husband and wife as well as mates, if you want a more human thing to call me.”

“What will you call me?”

“Mate,” I said, never more confident of my answer than when I said the word to her in that tub, and then another tempting thought struck me as my hands massaged the length of her spine. “Though also calling you my wife sounds mighty appealing, too. Or if you want to wait, we can do none of those things. We’re mated, whether it’s shouted across the world or not. There’s no rush to decide.”

She turned around to face me. And was so striking, so self-assured, that I remembered that day I’d shown her the war room, shown her and puzzled over what she could be if and when mate or wife were not enough. No, there was one more title I would give to Feyre, just as soon as we could get back to Velaris.

“I was asking about Jurian, the king, the queens, and the Cauldron,” Feyre said, “but I’m glad to know I have so many options where our relationship stands. And that you’ll do whatever I want. I must have you wrapped completely around my finger.”

Fuck, she was divine. I could feel the burning ache for her starting again, she had me ready fast. “Cruel, beautiful thing,” I said. Feyre snorted and the thoughts she shouted down the bond at me - intentionally or not - had me reeling right away. Thoughts of doubt that I could find her so attractive, which I most certainly did. “You are,” I said, affirming her beauty. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I thought that from the first moment I saw you on Calanmai.” The tears threatened, tears that broke and built me at the same time, and I had to make it better.

“Which is good,” I said, stroking at that beautiful, beautiful face I loved so much. “Because you thought I was the most beautiful male you’d ever seen. So it makes us even.”

Feyre scowled through every one of her freckles and relief tore through me so much so that I laughed and grabbed her, pulling her to me until she was straddling me like she had when she first told me she would have me for her mate back in that chair, before all the paint and ravishing had occurred.

“Tomorrow,” I said and the mood in me shifted as we approached a subject I wanted nothing to do with even though I knew it would have to interrupt my heaven with Feyre at some point. “We’re leaving tomorrow for your family’s estate. The queens sent word. They return in three days.”

Feyre’s eyes widened. “You’re telling me this now?”

I couldn’t hide the joy from my voice as I marveled at the sight of her, all mine to behold and consume and love. My eyes fished low on her body and I felt heat crawl over her skin. “I got sidetracked.” Heat - and something else.

And then it happened. The heat on her skin became real, and it transformed the unimaginable peace on Feyre’s face into a sparkling radiance of brilliant white light. A glow emitting from every pore and bone and beat of her heart. My soul knelt before her, I’d never - never...

“Well, at least now I can gloat that I literally make my mate glow with happiness,” I purred.

When Feyre laughed, the glowing seemed to intensify and my body reacted on instinct, grabbing for her and kissing her until we were both breathless. I was hard against her hips and could feel her body readying for me to take her again on the spot as she nudged forward, but I wanted the bed. I lifted her and walked wet, dripping steps back to the freshly cleaned bed and laid her down where she was able to take herself in properly. She didn’t seem to know what to make of it, only that she was as taken by the light as I was.

“Day Court?” Feyre asked.

She was so heartbreakingly beautiful and she was all mine.

“I don’t care,” I said gruffly, and lost it. I let the damper on my powers come off, matching my mate power for power. Darkness flooded the room. The dreams. The nightmares. The stars. The moon. The chaos. All of it flooded around us merging with the light from Feyre’s body, the light that guided me home.

Feyre swam through it, marveling, and pulled herself up to kiss me when she found it worthy. Gently, she guided me down onto the bed where her mouth became a fire against my lips, her tongue roaming everywhere. She had me pinned on my back, my wings locked beneath me, and I felt a lapse of a panic hit me.

“Illyrian baby,” Feyre cooed, and I didn’t still until that hand of hers slid down my chest and kept right on going. Her eyes filled with wicked intent and I knew what was coming - revenge. Feyre suddenly had my cock in her hand. Her fingertips started a dangerous game along my head that broke goosebumps on my skin.

My mate. My mate. My mate.

That hand belonged on me, my cock inside her. But she stopped me with a deadly seductive, “My turn,” and a knowing look that I would let her do anything she wanted to me, have every power over me. I tried to play it cool, flashing that self-satisfied smirk at her that I knew drove her wild, but the second her mouth went down on me, I lost all sense of the calm, collected High Lord.

“ Shit ,” I yelled, my hips bucking. Feyre’s only reply was to take me deeper and hold back a laugh around my cock as her teeth dragged lightly over the skin. My hands fisted the sheets as I groaned, pleasure pulsing out of my core with every drag. I wanted to let her finish me, but the second I dared open my eyes and spotted her dark golden head sucking between my legs, control escaped me.

In one fast motion too quick for Feyre to realize what had happened, I had her flipped. I laid her out on her stomach and brought her hips up, wasting no time to thrust inside her entrance. The feeling was every bit as good and overwhelming as the first time. She moaned instantly into the pillows at her face, the pressure filling her up as more and more light flooded the darkness.

That glow was enough to kill me. If it weren’t for the ache to make love, to fuck, and exist in her for as long as possible, I could have died just taking her all in. No one and nothing had ever existed like Feyre. Even the Cauldron had been wrong there, for in that sense, I could never match my mate. It made me kiss along her back, slowly working in and out of her. “Look at you…” I gasped.

Feyre turned just enough to see us joined, not just physically, but in equal parts light and darkness. We were two sides of the same coin, the same energy ticking in two separate bodies I was going to spend the rest of my life trying to stitch together. And just like that, with one look at us and our mating, she came for me.

But it wasn’t enough. Would it ever be enough? I wanted her over and over again. I hoisted her up, still inside of her with her back against my chest, and fondled every inch the apex between her thighs to the full breasts that moved  slightly as I worked in her. I lost count of the number of times she shattered and had no idea how I kept myself from breaking.

But I knew as she came for me, my name on her lips, how exactly I wanted to come. I slid out of her and returned to my position on my back with her atop me. A flash of another time darted across my mind, one I wanted to never think of again after this night, one that I could replace with my mate and the bond growing between us.

Feyre saw it and stilled. Her eyes softened taking me in and I knew she knew. And she glowed for me. More and more. She was life. She was love. She was rebirth.

My mate. My mate. My mate.

It was all I could do to keep from losing it all over again and collapsing against her. With more tenderness than I’d ever been shown, Feyre leaned down to kiss me, sliding herself gently on to me in the same breathe. I was so deep inside her this way, filling her up, up, up.

“Feyre,” I moaned into her mouth, half a cry.

She took her time, making love to me passionately. The amount of care in her eyes and in her touch as she looked at me and willed herself to glow even brighter, devastated me. I was yelling her name as I thrust in time with her body and she came. I felt myself spill inside her as release took me soon after and she worked the final throws against my hips.

Breathless, I clutched the damp hair around her neck and took her in. Nothing - nothing - compared to my mate making love to me like that.

“We’ll have to find a way to put a damper on that light,” I managed to say.

“I can keep the shadows hidden easily enough,” Feyre said in her defense.

“Ah, but you only lose control of those when you’re pissed. And since I have every intention of making you as happy as a person can be… I have a feeling we’ll need to learn to control that wondrous glow.”

“Always thinking; always calculating.” Feyre’s fingers trailed the tattoos of my chest, digging in here and there with the faintest of pressures. It sent shivers up my spine.

“You have no idea how many things I’ve thought up when it comes to you.”

The corners of her mouth twitched - her mouth, fuck. “I remember mention of a wall,” she said wickedly.

Already, barely removed from inside her, I was starting to feel the need for Feyre claw itself back through me. This was going to be a long night. I laughed as I promised my mate, “Next time, Feyre, I’ll fuck you against the wall.”

“Hard enough to make the pictures fall off.”

That sent me reeling. I stared at her lips and she licked them. My cock twitched. “Show me again what you can do with that wicked mouth,” I begged and felt myself go taut with pleasure as she showed me.

---

I wasn’t sure how much sleep I got. A few minutes if that. Feyre found sleep against me for little less than an hour, we devoured each other for so long through the night, and as much as I relished the idea of sleeping along side my mate, I knew what waited for us in the morning and I didn’t want to waste a single second with her. So I watched her as she slept, savoring every little intake of breath, every twitch of her fingers resting against my chest, the relief an abundant consolation when she never once started from a nightmare. I had a feeling my own nightmares would be few and far between from now on.

When she did wake, I tried to convince her breakfast was the best course of action and she’d agreed, but not two seconds after I stood from the bed and ruffled my wings for a stretch, I felt her body smack into my back, tearing me down to the floor and flipping me over. Our laughter quickly turned to a symphony of moans and panted breaths as Feyre grabbed my cock and positioned herself. She rode me hard - greedily. Her body tearing into mine. I lost what little control I seemed to still possess and felt a sharpness at my hands as my talons slipped out.

The floor rug didn’t live to see another day.

“It’s normal,” I said, when we finally made it to the kitchen. We had to eat if we were going to make it through all the traveling ahead of us.

“What’s normal?” Feyre asked. She was avoiding my gaze. We both were. One look and I might turn the tables over, fuck her in the chair. Carefully, I chose my words.

“The… frenzy,” I said. “When a couple accepts the mating bond, it’s… overwhelming. Again, harkening back to the beasts we once were. Probably something about ensuring the female was impregnated. Some couples don’t leave the house for a week. Males get so volatile that it can be dangerous for them to be in public, anyway. I’ve seen males of reason and education shatter a room because another male looked too long in their mate’s direction, too soon after they’d been mated.”

Feyre’s body stilled, visions passing unwittingly along the bond and I saw that… that monster flash through her mind, along with a destroyed study.

“I’d like to believe I have more restraint than the average male,” I said softly, trying to soothe her worries, but I also had to be honest. We were leaving soon and I was incredibly agitated about doing so, more than I wanted her to know. More than I wanted Cassian to know. “But… be patient with me, Feyre, if I’m a little on edge.”

Feyre’s eyes finally found mine and albeit a bit hesitantly, she nodded.

“You don’t want to leave this house,” she said quietly.

Without a second thought, I instantly snapped out, aggression and adrenaline controlling my voice, “I want to stay in that bedroom and fuck you until we’re both hoarse.” And it was so desperately true, I’d do anything to stay in this cabin with her all week to fuck her senseless if I could. Cassian was right - he was going to wipe the floor with my ass now that Feyre had bedded me.

And Feyre - Feyre felt the same. I could tell. Our gazes lingered on each other for a moment too long. Her brow creased, her lips parted, and I could hear her heart pounding away in her chest demanding my attention.

“About - pregnancy,” she said and I froze, the mood entirely jilted. “We didn’t - I’m not taking a tonic. I haven’t been, I mean.”

I considered what she said, read the anxiety so clearly implied by the way she stumbled - rather adorably - over her words. So I kept it simple.

“Do you want to start taking it again?”

“If I am a High Lord’s mate, I’m expected to bear you offspring, aren’t I? So perhaps I shouldn’t.”

Her response ripped anger through me, not because she would think something so horrible, but because the world had become so twisted to make her believe she had to.

“You are not expected to bear me anything ,” I declared firmly. Feyre eased back into her chair almost at once. “Children are rare, yes. So rare, and so precious. But I don’t want you to have them unless you want to - unless we both want to. And right now, with this war coming, with Hybern… “ I shuddered at the idea. “I’ll admit that I’m terrified at the thought of my mate being pregnant with so many enemies around us. I’m terrified of what I might do if you’re pregnant and threatened. Or harmed.”

Feyre’s shoulders sagged in what was clearly relief. Her voice sounded a million times more assured when she spoke. “Then I’ll start taking it today, once we get back.” She rose with a small smile and made for the bedroom. Despite everything I’d just told her - and I meant every word - I couldn’t help the sudden vision from swimming to the forefront of my mind, one I had dared so little to indulge over the centuries.

Children were never something I thought I would be blessed enough to receive and after... what had happened to my own family, I never deigned to hope I would have that family back one day lest I be disappointed all over again. But then, I never thought I’d be blessed enough to find Feyre, much less keep her, and yet here she was, my mate. Suddenly, I saw the potential, couldn’t keep my imagination at bay as I thought… I could have all of that with her. Could have a real life.

“I would be happy beyond reason, though,” I blurted and she stopped at the door, eyes bright, “if you one day did honor me with children. To share that with you.”

She turned back to look at me, the kindest loving smile overtaking her face. A smile just for me. “I want to live first,” Feyre said. “With you. I want to see things and have adventures. I want to learn what it is to be immortal, to be your mate, to be part of your family. I want to be… ready for them. And I selfishly want to have you all to myself for a while.”

“You take all the time you need,” I said, beaming at her. My hear was... very, very full just then. “And if I get you all to myself for the rest of eternity, then I won’t mind that at all.”

Feyre was pure radiance... before she tried to slip ever so shyly away to clean herself up. But I caught up to her at the mouth of the tub, pulling her down into the waters with me where I made love to her one last time, visions of the future that could be dancing between us.