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I should have gone straight home. After Amarantha's death, I had no allies to confer with, and I'd sent Nuala and Cerridwen back to the Night Court at the first opportunity. There was nothing left for me here.
Nothing left other than Feyre.
I'd slipped into the shadows once she'd been Made, unable to bear the sight of her in Tamlin's arms. She deserved to rest—I could feel the heavy weight of her exhaustion as if it were my own—but at my core, I was a selfish bastard. She'd fucked Tamlin, so I'd woken her up and called her to me. If she asked, I'd lie and tell her it was just to say goodbye, not the truth that I'd done it just because I could.
Even squinting in the sunlight and moving unsteadily in her new body, Feyre was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. I leaned against the balcony railing, marveling at the way the light made her hair look golden while I gave her a moment to adjust. It had taken me some time, too.
"What's that smell?" she said eventually.
I cocked my head. "What smell?" There wasn't anything out here other than me.
Feyre lowered her hand from her face and stepped closer. I stilled. Her nostrils flared as she scented me, and then the realization hit me with all the force of a punch to the gut.
I'd serviced Amarantha just before the start of the final trial. There hadn't been time to bathe after.
I opened my mouth to strike before Feyre could—to tell her that was a bold question when she'd come up here still reeking of Tamlin's arousal. But I closed it as Feyre lifted her wrist and skimmed it across my cheek and down my neck.
Alpha. My Alpha.
Feyre couldn't have known what she was doing, but that didn't matter in the face of magic and deep-seated instinct. A wave of knee-wobbling relief crashed through me anyway. Fifty years of horror were over—my Alpha was here to protect me, already chasing away that bitch's scent and replacing it with her own. My eyes fluttered shut.
"You reek," Feyre muttered darkly, moving her wrist up to rub her scent glands against my hair. "This is worse than the Wyrm shit. Did— Did something happen while I was asleep?"
Her thoughts were spiraling as she tried to understand what was happening—I could feel her fear that it hadn't all ended when Amarantha died, that there was some new threat making itself known. An Alpha's urge to protect thrummed under all of it, even if Feyre didn't realize what it was.
Before I could stop myself, I was grabbing her hand, holding her wrist in place so I could keep brushing it against the sensitive skin on the side of my neck. Partially my instinct to reassure her that I was alright, but also…because I felt dirty and used when I smelled like Amarantha. Soiled, all the way down to my soul.
Feyre couldn't know. At least not yet. If Feyre learned it was another female she was smelling on me—and not just any female, but my rapist—that might be enough to send her into a rut. And she didn't need that happening before someone calmly explained all the new sensations and instincts she was feeling in her new fae body.
I turned my head, rubbing my nose along the inside of her wrist and breathing in lilac and pear and Alpha. "Nothing's wrong," I said into her skin. "All is well."
Feyre didn't yank back her arm the way I expected she would. No, she stepped closer, lifting her other wrist to spread her scent even further, her skin hot against my other cheek. Though it was utterly foolish when she'd just walked into hell and died for another male, I found myself imagining what it would be like for her to knot me in a nest drenched in that scent.
Mostly to herself, she whispered, "I could've sworn… It felt like you needed me."
It took every ounce of self-control not to tell her that I did. A few more seconds of her marking me with her scent, and I probably would have been a slick-coated mess babbling about needing to be protected and bred full. I forced myself to drop her wrist and stepped to the side, putting some distance between us.
"I just wanted to say goodbye," I said, forcing myself to smirk, to make the disdain in my voice evident, "before your beloved whisks you away forever."
Feyre's hand still hung in the air, and she curled her tattooed fingers into a fist. For a moment, I thought she might strike me—I probably deserved it. But she just balled her hands at her sides, as if it were a struggle not to reach out and touch me again.
I rustled my wings, a vain attempt at airing the balcony out faster. A mistake. It drew Feyre's attention to them, and I resisted the urge to spread them wide and preen for her. To coax my Alpha into staying.
"Not forever. Don't you get a week every month?" Her voice was ice-cold, but it didn't matter. She was thinking so loudly she might as well have shouted don't go yet at me, the words laced with need. I stayed in place.
"How could I forget?"
For a moment, she just stared at me, nostrils flaring again. I let her. "Why?" she said eventually.
I understood what she was asking. And for once, I could give her the truth.
"Because when the legends get written, I didn’t want to be remembered for standing on the sidelines. I want my future offspring to know that I was there, and that I fought against her at the end, even if I couldn’t do anything useful. Because I didn’t want you to fight alone. Or die alone."
"Thank you," she said tightly. I prayed she wouldn't cry—I wouldn't be able to keep my composure if she did.
Feyre closed her eyes, taking a slow, deep breath as if to steady herself. That should have been my cue to leave. I'd made myself understood; we wouldn't be parting as enemies. With any luck, someone would take her aside and explain what was happening, and I'd get back on suppressants before we saw each other again.
"I don't understand," Feyre whispered, speaking mostly to herself again. "Your scent, when nothing's covering it up…There's nothing like it. Is this something you're doing to me? Tamlin didn't— It's not like that with him."
There was nothing I could say to that. I started to winnow, but just as I began to fade into the shadows, Feyre's hand shot out and gripped my wrist, vice-like.
Mother above, she was strong—she'd nearly shattered my bones.
"No," she growled. "Not without me."
I couldn't hold back a shudder, and it was no small miracle that I hadn't whimpered, too. I was utterly powerless when she commanded me like that.
"Alpha, please. Let me take you home," I said, already thinking about the nest I'd make for her, how I could best show her that she could do whatever she wanted with me, that I'd take whatever she decided to give me and thank her for it, that I'd be the perfect little Omega for her…
"Anywhere, as long as you stay with me. Call in the bargain if you have to."
I barely had the presence of mind to bring us to the moonstone palace instead of straight to Velaris. We landed on another balcony, but I hardly had the chance to take in the sight of the home I'd spent decades thinking I'd never see again.
Feyre yanked my arm and pulled me against her. I melted into the heat of her body as she rubbed her cheek against my neck, marking me even more thoroughly. She let out another growl, this one of satisfaction.
"Mine," she said. "You're supposed to smell like mine. What the hell are you doing to me, Rhys? I don't feel talons in my mind."
Cauldron boil and fry me—so much for avoiding a rut.
Feyre deserved for this to happen more gently, but I was afraid there wouldn't be time for that. I pressed my way into her mind, then deposited the basic information on faerie mating bonds and our kind's secondary genders—all of it, at once. I felt her go stiff against me.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
"You're my—"
"I'm sorry."
She pulled me even closer, burying her face in the crook of my neck, just inches from the gland she could sink her teeth into and claim me as hers. I felt her breath hitch. There was no telltale wetness from tears, but she was spent and overwhelmed all the same.
There was a deliberate shuffling of feet in the distance, footsteps from someone who was doing their best to make themselves known. As one, Feyre and I whipped our heads in the direction of the sound.
Mor.
I nearly sobbed with relief at the sight of my cousin; she looked just as she had the day I'd left for Amarantha's damned party. But before I could say anything, a tendril of darkness leaked from Feyre—Feyre—and slammed into Mor with brutal force, shoving her to the other side of the room.
Well, then. I supposed it was clear what power Feyre had gotten from me.
"She's my mate," I said by way of explanation.
Mor blanched. "Welcome home" was all she managed to say before winnowing away.
Feyre was trembling against me—from anger or fear or need, I wasn't sure. At some point, her hands had fisted in my jacket. I felt an urge to twine an arm around her waist or stroke her hair, but I wasn't sure that would be welcome.
"That was my cousin. You have nothing to fear from her," I said, not quite able to bring myself to say directly that Mor wasn't going to fuck me.
Feyre sighed, so I must have gotten the message across. Her fingers dipped under the hem of my shirt, and the heat of her hands on my bare skin might as well have been a brand.
"This had better not be another mind-trick," she said. The note of command in her voice made my knees go weak. If I hadn't been leaning against her, I might have fallen to the floor.
I felt like I might vomit. After everything I'd done to her Under the Mountain, of course Feyre didn't trust me, which was bad enough on its own, but there was nothing quite as earth-shattering as knowing my Alpha was displeased with me. I wanted to die.
"It's not, Alpha. I swear it."
Feyre shifted, pressing herself flush against me. She'd gotten hard; her cock was straining against my thigh. "How the hell does anyone survive a…a rut? It's like I'll explode if I don't fuck you."
"Give me your knot, and it'll pass more quickly. Let me help you. Please," I said, voice tight as I felt slick begin to run down my thigh.
Feyre let out a noise that was half-growl, half-whine. She writhed against me, desperate for contact or pressure or anything, and her thoughts were rapidly becoming incoherent. I placed a hand on her arm and winnowed us to a bedroom, locking the door shut.
Half a thought, and magic had our clothes off, folded neatly in the far corner of the room. I pulled away from Feyre, and she snarled at the lack of contact, even as I knelt on the bed and pressed my face into the mattress.
"All yours," I said.
All at once, parts of me were cracking open while others were stitching themselves back together. Fifty years of bending over just like this and saying those words…it changed everything to finally mean them.
I heard a footstep behind me, and for a horrible moment, I was sure Feyre hated me so strongly that she'd walk away during a rut. But then the mattress dipped.
"You're so wet," she breathed, her tone almost…awestruck.
I'd made sure she knew the basics, but there was still so much I'd have to guide her through. Thank the Mother I wasn't in heat. I spread my legs a bit wider, tipping my ass up in invitation and stretching my wings wide so she could settle right between them.
"More than enough for your knot. Take me. As fast and deep as you need to, Alpha."
Feyre slid right into me, burying herself to the hilt on the very first stroke. The stretch alone was bliss, but she sighed the word Omega as relief and rightness and homecoming and sated hunger all flooded the bond. I didn't know which feelings were mine and which were hers.
That's when I knew—not just knew, but believed—that I was finally free from Under the Mountain.
The pace she set was nothing short of punishing. I didn't mind. All I wanted was to give everything to my Alpha, so I drove my hips back and took her deeper. Feyre was murmuring a steady litany of words I couldn't follow beyond mine and mate, which was all I needed as the first wave of pleasure started to build.
Her knot began to swell, and I keened. She wasn't even locked inside me yet, and I was already more deliciously full than I'd ever been in my life. Slick coated my thighs. The wave crested and crashed and I lost myself in the feeling of complete surrender to my Alpha. No beginning, no ending, just climax and the scent of lilac and pear and her.
I barely had time to catch my breath before Feyre growled, and her teeth sunk into my shoulder as she filled me with her seed. The stretch around her knot, the bite of her teeth—shockwaves of pleasure-pain made my vision go white.
When I came back to myself, her knot was firmly inside me, holding us together. Unused to the sensation, she wiggled her hips, and I felt even the slightest movements against my ass.
"That's it, Alpha," I managed to say, my voice so ragged it was nearly unrecognizable. "It's perfect. Your knot feels perfect inside of me."
Still beyond words, Feyre purred. It was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard, and even if she went back to hating me for the rest of eternity, just knowing I'd pleased her this one time would be all I needed to survive it.
For once, I was enough.
I hid my wings and shifted us both over to our sides, hoping it was more comfortable for her as she adjusted. Feyre ran her nose along my neck and banded an arm around my chest. I closed my eyes and did my best to commit the feeling of utter safety and peace to memory. She'd be gone in a week, and I doubted she'd ever knot me again.
But Feyre didn't move, even as her knot faded. Other than a halfhearted movement of my hand to magic away the mess we'd made and cover us with the duvet, I stayed perfectly still. I wasn't stupid enough to break the moment.
"I can't go back," Feyre said. Her voice was small, all the power and command of an Alpha in a rut just…gone.
"We made it out. She's dead, and it's over."
"I can't go back home. Not after this, not now that I know…everything."
Tamlin was an Alpha—perhaps as a human, Feyre had been someone he could protect like an Omega, but now, she was a force to be reckoned with. Whatever they shared had been doomed once she'd been Made.
The least I could do was give her the space she needed to grieve it.
"Take a week to gather your thoughts, then. If you'd rather not be accused of disloyalty, I'll take the blame and play the dark lord who stole you away at the very first opportunity."
Feyre sat up, pulling the sheets with to cover her chest as she stared at me through eyes narrowed in suspicion. "I would have thought you'd be eager to rub it all in Tamlin's face."
"I have no desire to cause you more distress than I already have."
"Because we're…"
Her inability to say it aloud made my gut twist, another reminder that she didn't want me. I sat up, waving a hand towards the dresser in the corner of the room; several more blankets floated in my direction, and I set to work arranging them into a nest.
"Because I'm many things, but a sadist isn't one of them."
Feyre just sat there and blinked as if that were some sort of shocking revelation. She was still clutching the blanket, so I summoned a robe for her to slip on.
But when she stood, it was my discarded shirt that she donned instead.
The nest was hardly my best work; I wouldn't blame Feyre if she wanted nothing to do with it—at the very least, she was probably more interested in a bath or finding something to eat. I bundled myself up at the center of it and left room for her anyway.
I fully intended to be there a while. My family could wait; I wanted to see them, but not until I'd gotten a chance to get my head on straight after the whirlwind that had been the past day.
And in truth, I didn't want to leave the nest until Feyre's scent had faded from the sheets completely.
She was still watching me, wary as always. It was easy to forget that Feyre didn't already know her way around, and I started to tell her she was here as an honored guest, not a prisoner. But then her eyes slid to the empty space at my side.
"It's yours, too," I said.
Feyre squeezed in next to me, drawing her knees up to her chest. We were silent for a long moment, and she stared at the wall with a too-blank expression I'd seen on warriors just after devastating battles. There was nothing to say, not with our wounds still so raw.
Then Feyre tipped her head to the side and rested it on my shoulder.
I let myself hope.