luxsky

[luxsky]

Datura Pt 14

Author's Note: If your read ACOSF and got to that part where Cassian is mind controlled and thought, hmm how could this hurt me more, look no further. Had to make it angsty before we get fluffy, right?

Warnings: Allusions to Assault, Character Death, Canon Typical Violence/Blood and Gore. A lot of angst; like a lot.

Masterlist/ Previous Chapter

There's a callback to Chapter 1 in here, but since it's been so long since I wrote it, here's the chapter again, just for a refresher ;)

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Revenge had kept you warm all those nights in the dungeon, had kept your chin up during every humiliating thing that red headed bitch had put you through. You’d spent hours and hours dreaming up all the ways you would make her pay for turning your life upside down, for tearing the Courts apart, for laying a hand on your mate. In your dreams it was a swift, clean death that wiped away any chance of survival. But standing in the dark tunnels of the Mountain’s lowest levels, the blood of her men dripping from your claws, this is the last thing you want.

This is not swift justice, this is not satisfying revenge, it’s a bloodbath. Males reach for their swords and you tear them apart with your hands, claws cleaving through armor and flesh with little resistance, the splatter of it chilling against your changed skin. Every sense is heightened, every smell and sight changed and distorted, the splatter of blood stings like pin pricks, and yet the beast that has lived caged within your chest all these years delights in it. Your head screams at you to stop, yet your body moves as if it enjoys the hunt.

Hybern said all of them, and your collared body responds accordingly, leaving nothing left of the sentries that patrol the lower levels of the Mountain. There are beasts and monsters here too, hiding in the dark corners, huddling around fires to stay warm as autumn creeps in, all dispatched with a ruthless efficiency that makes your stomach churn, and yet you still can’t force yourself to stop.

The darkness of this place that had once felt so soul crushing and disorienting now makes the muscles in your shoulders relax. The beast within you chuckles as it slips into the dark shadows as if they’re a caress of a lover.

A sentry walks your direction, unawares. He’s dead before his next breath.

With no physical control of your body, you try desperately to call for your mate, to find whatever shred of a bond is left, if there even is one, but you feel it go nowhere. Before, it was like dropping a bit of water into a pond, the echo of your call disturbing the ether of the physic plane until something out there felt the ripple. But there is no ripple here. It is as if your calls bounce off a wall of steel. If there is a bond left, it is as much a prisoner to Hybern’s will as you are, no matter how much you mentally bash yourself against it.

Your body moves without your consent, deeper and deeper into the Mountain. Your hands move on their own volition, yanking previously locked doors off the hinges to allow you to tear apart whatever prisoner, guard, or beast lays within. Some of them are still sleeping when you come, completely unaware they’re being hunted until it’s too late. Some try to fight. None get far. These newly awakened powers leave little room for fighting, all you have to do is direct some of that ether between your fingers in their direction and they turn to a bloody mist. You are a far greater monster than anything in this Mountain has ever been, and there’s no chance that anyone will be warned you’re there until it’s too late.

Time is a concept that exists outside of you, however long it takes to clear the lower levels, the winding, endless tunnels filled with bodies, feels like both a blink and an eternity. It had been sunrise when you’d entered, it very well could have been evening already and you’d have no idea. All this body knows is the hunt, and it moves tirelessly through floors you’ve never seen, with soldiers and war bands and monsters you’d never known existed, until the halls start to look familiar. The prison first, your old cell still damaged. The training room, with its dust stained weapons and crumbling pillars. Every floor up is a new terror, a possibility to come across a face you know. 

“Please,” you beg whatever entity will dare listen to you. “Please, let him be out. Let him be anywhere but here.” Everything you touch dies, if anything happens to Rhys…

Blood drips off your aching skin. Moving like this makes your muscles feel like they could pull away from your bones, this form too much for your mortal body to keep contained. It should be tiring, yet, your legs still move you forward as if you haven’t been tearing through an army for hours, unhindered by your discomfort.

“Please stop,” you whisper when you find sleeping quarters for Amarantha’s servants, fangs bared and claws swinging. “Please!”

A blue skinned fae with crooked wings drops to their knees before you, tears streaming down their cheeks. “Have mercy! Please!”

Stop this. Stop this. Stop this!

The collar hums at your hesitation, metal burning, it’s dark power pulsing through your veins like living flames. A growl of pain slips out of you as you extend your hand and mist the begging fae.

Others sprint from the room, screaming. None of them make it farther than the outside hallway.

You can feel blood and gore beneath your feet as you walk past, looking for anyone else on this floor. There’s a couple hiding in a closet, hands pressed over their mouths to keep quiet. A soldier drunk and stumbling with his pants around his ankles. A courtier slipping from a secret lover’s room. All gone.

You’d cry if you could, but nothing slows you, your body moving ever forward until it comes to a hall you recognize, your own claw marks dragged across the walls.

The more you try and fight it, the more the collar burns.

Most of the rooms around your old cell are empty, your own included. In all your revenge plans you’d always pictured yourself destroying it before leaving, but the collar doesn’t care what you want. It shuts the door and leaves the bed and the book written about you for the dust to once again claim as it begins its ascent to the Throne Room.

There are plenty of obstacles getting there, their faces all a blur of sudden terror and agony. No amount of bathing will ever cleanse the feeling of all this gore from your skin, from your soul.

The Throne Room doors finally come into view, the noise you’ve been making in the lower levels attracting the attention of the guards, who stand at the closed doors with their spears drawn. They’d been so imposing, that day the Attor had dragged you into Amarantha’s chambers, but now, they’re as dangerous as flies. You turn them to mist with the same blast of power that shatters the doors, the ancient rock around you screaming in protest. This draws some attention from the dancing crowd, but it’s not until you’ve misted a large chunk of them that the music finally stops playing.

No. No. No.

The crowd parts with a scream, pressing against the walls, scrambling for the exits as you step into that all too familiar room, dripping blood behind you.

“What is the meaning of-” Amarantha’s shrill voice echoes off the chamber walls, rattling the decaying bodies still pinned to the ruined stones of this once sacred hall. There had always been a strange energy to the Mountain, the magic that kept it alive, old and strange, always hidden beneath the surface, but with your new found powers, you feel the echo of it beneath your feet. This place is twisted, the once holy magic from the Cauldron itself rotten and decaying, you crinkle your nose at the smell of it.

The Queen still sits on her throne, the sheer fabric of her blood red dress clinging to her meager curves, as she takes you in. It takes her a minute to understand what she’s seeing, to process the magnitude of what you were and what you now are. Her gaze flicks to her side… where she keeps your mate chained to her throne.

The screaming of the crowd, the pounding of your heart, it’s all a dull, distant echo in your ears. Rhys is wearing a collar, his dark hair messy, knotted atop his head, violet eyes glassy, red streaked; he’s not wearing a shirt, or pants, stripped down to his boxers, his tattooed chest bruised and littered with claw marks. 

Oh gods.

What had she done to him?

Mentally, you bash against the wall between the two of you, screaming for him, begging anybody who will listen to let you out, to let you save him.

If he can hear you, he gives no acknowledgment. Even if he could break through that wall between you, there’s no way he could do it in this state. It takes him a long time to process what he sees when his gaze finally drags to you, as if it’s an effort to move his head. His glassy eyes blinking too many times like he’s trying to clear the haze from them to ensure that what he’s seeing is real. He’s as much himself as you are, both of you locked behind a wall of someone else’s making. You’re sure your heart is breaking, if it works at all it’s a ragged, bleeding thing that sits uselessly in your chest.

Amarantha stands and Rhys sways on his knees, trying to get out of her way. You can’t tear your eyes away from the way he flinches away from her hand, the way he dips his chin to his chest. 

“What is this?” She snarls. “Guards!”

If there are soldiers coming for you, or just the crowd scattering to let them pass, it doesn’t matter. You raise a hand and mist all of them, the rock above your head shuddering as your power obliterates everything from flesh to rock. 

Amarantha’s red painted lips part in shock, a small gasp of surprise slipping out of her.

There are a dozen different things you want to say to her, a thousand different things you mean to make her pay for, but you can’t open your mouth to say anything. There are no words able to pass beyond the burning thrum of the collar fused to your throat.

“This is a new look for you, Little Mouse,” she croons as a ring of fire emerges to wreathe her hands. “Who’d you have to fuck to make that happen? Certainly not Rhysand.”

She’ll pay for every cut, every bruise, every damn hair out of place on his head. The carnage behind you, around you, the blood that drips from your body, it’ll stain your very soul for the rest of your life if you manage to escape this, you know that for certain, but her death? You and the monster that lives inside, will relish every last one of her agonizing breaths. You’ll make her beg for mercy, as you had begged on your knees before her in this room, and you’ll take your time doing it.

Amarantha assesses you with the surety of a seasoned warlord, every step closer intentional, getting in range to take a shot at you. You wait, letting her get close enough, and just when she’s sure of her place on this new battlefield, you lunge for her with a speed that shouldn’t be possible, even for a fae. She barely has time to blink before you slash your claws across her face. You go right for her eye, aiming to maim, to make it hurt. She screams as your claws tear through flesh and bone, body spinning to get away from you and your free hand comes up to grab her by the hair and hurl her back towards the dias. She stumbles, barely managing to catch herself on the steps leading to her throne.

Rhys scatters as far back as the chain will allow him to avoid her, but his gaze remains fully fixed on you. A familiar brush of night chilled power brushes over your mind, asking for entry and you try your best to throw a door open, to let him in, but that wall remains between the two of you. You can feel him there, on the other side, trying to reach you, but the wall won’t come down.

There’s no time to try another way to reach him either, not when Amarantha starts throwing fire balls at your head. “You stupid, little bitch!” She screams. “I take you in, I offer to train you, to befriend you and you thank me like this?”

The eye on her ring swivels to look at the damage you’ve made in its master’s face in a move that looks strangely… impressed.

You dodge the first couple of throws she makes, letting them hit old cushions and tables. The next throw, you reach out a hand and catch the ball of flame. The fire would have blistered your skin, should make you scream in agony, but in this form, like this? You draw that power inside you as easy as you draw a breath, the crackle of flames like a drug in your veins. It’s intoxicating. When she throws more, her anger becoming more and more tangible and her shots more wild then the last, you take those in too, savoring it until it bubbles up in the pit of your stomach and you have no other choice but to hurl it back at her in a blast she just barely manages to shield herself from.

Distracted with keeping the shield up, you rush her again, drawing in the power she expels from her shield with ease so that there is nothing stopping you from getting a hand around her throat, lifting her up into the air and slamming her down against the marble floors so hard they crack beneath her. Amarantha screams around the hand clamped down around her windpipe as you pick her up and slam her down two more times.

She is still a formidable opponent, she manages to summon an ice pick and jam it into your wrist to free herself as you reel away with a howl of pain. 

Rhys is still trying to reach you, throwing all his mental energy into breaking through, even as you watch his body slump a little more and more next to Amarantha’s throne. You want to scream for him, tell him to stop before he hurts himself anymore, but the words get lost as the collar’s power burns through you in retaliation for not immediately killing Amarantha. The pain of her ice pick in your wrist is nothing to the heat that emanates from the collar, the pain the only thing in all this time to make your legs shake. The pain doesn’t dissipate until you land a punch in Amarantha’s face, her nose breaking under your knuckles. The collar demands blood and it will have it.

No one in the crowd moves to help her, those that remain stay pressed against the walls, watching in horror as the two of you fight it out. There’s a strange sort of glee in the air, as the oppressed relish in their oppressor’s certain demise. If there are any guards left, they don’t come to save her. 

You swing for her head again, but she dodges at the last second, your fist cracking the marble beneath you a second time. 

Spitting blood, she manages to get off the floor, fists raised to protect her ruined face. 

You snarl at her, one of the few sounds the collar will allow, and she throws as much ice and snow at you as she can, mingling it with bits of fire. She lets her claws sharpen at her fingertips, trying to make herself into a beast as formidable as you, but it won’t save her. Her blows do little and you can take satisfaction in the fact that she can no longer hurt you in this form, at least. You absorb what you can and let the rest bounce off you as you stalk closer, pushing her further back until she stumbles on the steps leading to her throne. Fitting, that she die here at the base.

She throws a blast of darkness at you, a blast of your mate’s power, twisted and wrong in her hands and it’s the only thing she’s thrown thus far that makes your body tremble. The collar rattles at your throat, shaken but not loosened. You growl out a shuddering breath as you push through the waves of energy and push your hand right into her chest. Bones break and split beneath your hands, her blood warm as your hand sinks into her chest cavity. 

Amarantha gasps in surprise, in pain, as your fingers wrap around her still beating heart. Her dark eyes widen with fear, mouth hanging open as blood pools in the corners of her lips. 

“Please,” she gurgles. She knows she’s going to die either way, but now, for the first time, she’s powerless. As powerless as all the people she has harmed over the years.

Your fingers tighten, her body as resistant as her shields beneath your hands. All those powers she’s stolen lash against you: A bit of light and darkness, ice and fire and water in a last ditch effort to save herself. Yet, your body pulls it in greedily as you get a solid grip on her beating heart. 

None of this feels real, possible. This is something out of your books back home.

“Please,” she rasps. As if she had ever shown any of you mercy, as if she had not demanded that you beg at her feet and then laughed in your face. “Please.”

And there, at the foot of her oh so precious throne, in front of her dark court, you rip the Queen’s heart right out of her chest, silencing that grating voice for eternity.

You don’t even get to relish in the victory, to appreciate for even a second that you are all finally free of her, not when all that power she’d stolen swirls around you. The void that makes up your skin draws it in, waves of ice and water and flame swirling like a tornado around your body. The collar hums gleefully in your ears, as if this was its plan all along. It’s too much at once, bringing you to your knees as the influx of power in your veins has your head pounding mercilessly in your skull. Spots dance around your vision, the world spinning and flipping. There is not enough air in Prythian to help you breath against the influx of power. This was why she was always smoking the mirthroot. No one person could hold this much power at once. It will tear up your insides, ruin your mind, your soul.

“Y/N?” Rhys reaches for you, despite his shackles, his voice slurred. Just like in the Pit, you think it will be horror you see on his face, but it is only concern for you, not of you.

Your mate, wearing a collar just as you are. Your mate who was punished for not keeping you beneath the Mountain. Your mate who’s powers now swirl around beneath your skin like the dark whisper of a shadow. Your mate now splattered with Amarantha’s blood as he reaches a hand out to you, as if he could somehow save you from this wild thing tearing up your insides. The Cauldron had been merciless, cold, and empty, but this is like being roasted alive, the fire too hot, making the water churning around you boil and steam. Ice pricks against your sensitive skin like a thousand tiny needles. It’s too much. It has to be released somewhere.

Rhys calls for you again, crawling towards you, body so much slower than it should be. Distantly, in that small part of you still aware of yourself, you know you need to give his powers back to him. His powers will speed his healing; his powers might just save him from you, but that wall is still there between you and your body.  When you try to reach for him the collar pulses so intensely with heat you jerk back away from him, sliding down the steps with a whimper.

Rhys manages to get on his feet, swaying under all that mirthroot. “Y/N!” 

His voice is so loud in your ears. Everything is too much. The brush of the throne’s steps against your feet, the swirl of water around your body, even the air in the room feels like it’s pressing against your skin. You throw out a hand, trying to make it stop, sending spikes of ice in all directions.

It must have hit the chain around Rhys’s neck because a moment later he’s stumbling down the steps to take your face in hand, the powers swirling around you be damned. “Focus on me,” he orders.

Your head is going to explode.

His strong hands grip your face, “Right here. Breathe. You’re ok. Just breathe.”

Why is he screaming? Your hands move despite yourself to shove him off you, to try and make the world quiet for five seconds. This is too much. You can’t bear it. You know you’re screaming because the collar retaliates against it, using the powers you’ve stolen to wound you further for the rebellion, but you can’t stop. The Mountain begins to shake and rumble, loose rock and debris falling in waves overhead. 

Light and darkness pour out of you in blinding waves, the swaying movement in sync to your heartbeat. It’s a pulse that slams into the Mountain’s own magic, beating relentlessly until more chunks of the rock get hurled away, letting more light in. More people scatter, their screams mingling with your own. 

“You can do this,” Rhys encourages, and when you finally manage to get your gaze to where he still kneels beside you. “Just breathe.”

“This is a new side of you Rhysand.” The world tilts. The pounding in your head makes the echo of approaching boots feel like every step has been made atop your skull. “I never would have thought you’d be offering up your services as a teacher, I thought you’d prefer to be on your back.”

Hybern walks into view, armor glinting, sword in hand. 

No! 

“Stop this,” Rhys begs and the sight of him like that, on his knees, makes you want to rip your father to shreds. “Let go of her! That collar will kill her.”

“Only if she fights it,” Hybern says with a shrug. 

Blood trickles out your nose in inky black droplets, splattering the floor. When you lean forward and heave, more black goo comes out your mouth. 

“I will give you anything,” Rhys pleads.

“Is this love?” Hybern sneers. 

He does not wait for an answer as he turns to you and says, “Kill him, Y/N, I’ve waited long enough.”

No amount of mentally bashing yourself against the walls that cage you stop you from reaching out a hand and using a bit of Rhys’s own power to throw him across the room, his body bouncing off the marble.

It feels as if you’re lifting the Mountain just to get back on your feet, body swaying. Blood still drips from your nose. There might never be enough release of all this power to make the pain in your temples fade. 

Rhys struggles to get to his feet, arms shaking beneath him. You’ve split open his cheek and temple. He’s barely managed to get up before you hurl more shadows at him, the dark mist lashing like a whip, cutting open his shoulder, his side. 

Stop! Stop! Stop! By the Cauldron, he’s your mate! You can’t do this to him!

“Y/N,” Rhys slurs, voice breaking and you’re sure it’s the cracking of your own heart in your chest.

“Stop playing around,” Hybern orders.

Your body moves despite your efforts, lunging forward, fists flying. Rhys does his best to dodge, but he puts up no real effort, letting blow after blow land when he gets too tired to keep up.

Fight back. Please, by the Cauldron, fight back!

You manage to get a hand around his throat and you slam him so hard into the wall it cracks, his body nearly limp in your grip.

Stop. Stop. Stop!

“It’s ok,” he rasps. He’s not even trying to pry you off. “It’s not your fault.”

You’re going to die. If he dies, at your hand, you will not recover from this. Hybern might as well have killed you back at the Temple, there will be no saving you.

Violet eyes meet yours. There is no fear there, only understanding, only compassion. 

You mentally throw yourself at the wall stopping you from regaining control over your body, bashing against it with everything you have. The collar’s power burns through you like boiling water in your veins. For your mate, your selfless, self-sacrificing mate, you’ll take whatever agony it can throw at you. It can’t end like this!

“I love you,” Rhys says, hands brushing over your claws. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

No. No. No!

Your claws tighten around his throat, drawing blood, as he gasps for air.

The collar rattles against your skin from how hard you’re fighting it, the metal hissing and screaming in your ears. You’re not going to let this happen. After everything you’ve been through, you can’t let Hybern win. He’s just a man. You’re a goddess, you will not be shackled to some mortal’s will. He will not take your mate from you, even if you have to fight Death yourself for him.

Darkness leaks from you. Your other fist slams into the wall next the Rhys’s head as your body spasms under the collar’s control.

“It’s ok,” Rhys whispers.

Spots swim across your vision, so damn fast they start to look like shadows. The world spins. The fire in your veins is unbearable. So much so that your body’s self-preservation finally kicks in and the hand around Rhys’s throat finally unlatches to let you grasp at the collar.

Rhys collapses, coughing at your feet as you tug at the metal fused to your skin, trying to pull it off. It’s not full control, but if you can keep pushing…

The room keeps spinning, end over end, the blood red marble at your feet now at the ceiling. Your stomach’s in your throat as your knees give out beneath you. You think you might be screaming again but the collar hums so loud you can’t hear anything over it. Still, you claw and yank at it with everything you’ve got.

“Stop fighting, Y/N,” Hybern orders. 

Every breath feels like a battle. “Fuck…” the metal peels away from your skin like you’re ripping off a bandaid, skin coming with it. “You!” You snarl, voice ragged and gone. 

He’s not going to beat you. 

You get a claw beneath the metal, tearing through your own skin, it’s the only thing sharp enough to reach through the void. 

“That’s enough!” Hybern screams.

The High Lord’s powers are yours, not Hybern’s, not the collar’s, not a product of the Cauldron. Yours. You push as much of Rhys’s darkness into your palms as you can, let that dark, glittering power slither its way beneath the collar. 

Rhys manages to get up again, face bruised and bloodied. “Y/N!”

After everything, you’re not going to let him die, no matter what it costs you.

You get both hands around the collar, push whatever power you have into your palms until the heat of Autumn’s flames make the metal soft in your grip. Hybern is still yelling orders, but the don’t matter. If this kills you in the end, at least you’ll go knowing he didn’t get his precious Death Goddess. If you go, he looses. 

With one last, rattling scream, you rip the collar off and the darkness pulsing from your body swallows you whole.

---

It’s all darkness. Not the Cauldron’s darkness. Not the Void that makes up your being. Not the darkness of your mate. It’s empty. Cold. Quiet. It has no beginning or ending, no borders or boundaries. It flows and ebbs like a tide, carrying your broken body along.

Broken. It’s a strange feeling, teetering along the edge of death itself, the pain a reminder that you’ve not fully topped over into nothingness yet, but it is there, pulling you closer and closer with no tether to the living on the other side of this dark veil. 

And yet…

There, above your aching head, spins a single, glowing flower.

In this haze, it’s hard to remember where you’ve seen it before, yet you know, somehow that it’s meant for you.

“Come. Come and see.” It’s that phantom voice from your dreams again, always beckoning, tugging that tiny, little thread you feel blooming in your chest.

You reach for the flower, every muscle feeling like it might tear apart the more you move. It spins just out of reach, drawing you along, against the ebbing tide. Perhaps your eyes are playing tricks on you, but the darkness feels as if it’s getting lighter somehow.

The flower continues to beckon, further and further into the light until you have to shield your eyes against it…

---

Gaining consciousness feels suspiciously like being dropped from nothingness against the icy bite of the marble floors. Even being remade inside the Cauldron didn’t feel entirely as jarring as whatever that was.

Strong hands stroke your cheeks, moving your hair aside from your aching forehead. “Please, please, come back.” Rhys whispers, voice cracking.

His tears drip along your cheeks and it takes all your effort to drag an eye open to look at him. “I’m not…” it feels like you’re talking around a throatful of gravel. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Your mate lets out a sob as he drags your aching body into his arms, chest heaving as he cries into your hair. Over his shoulder, you can see the destruction behind him, the Mountain in shambles, what’s left of Amarantha near her throne. But Hybern is nowhere to be found.

Rhys pulls away just enough to kiss your forehead, your cheeks, “I thought you were dead.”

“I am a goddess after all,” you grumble. You certainly don’t feel divine by any means. “Kinda hard to kill me.”

He laughs through his tears, as he holds you tighter.

You let yourself lean into his touch, eyes closing. The worst of it is over, and yet, it all hits you at once. “I’m sorry,” you rasp into his skin. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re safe,” he says, kissing the top of your head. “That’s all that matters.”

“Hybern-”

His arms tighten around you, “Don’t worry, Darling. We’re going to make sure he pays for everything he’s done.”

------------

*Thank you all for sticking with this story, I know my posting times have been sporadic lately, rest assured I will see this through. =)*

Tag List:

@mariahoedt, @lovelydove, @twsssmlmaa, @sleepylunarwolf, @judig92, @willowpains, @daughterofthemoons-stuff, @annnnnaaaaa88, @myheartfollower, @uniquecolorwizard, @eternallyelvish, @waytoomanyteenagefeels, @lovemesomeevesy, @localfangirl09, @isa1b2h3, @starswholistenanddreamsanswered, @slytherintaco, @iluvewmanblog, @thebeautifulmysteriesoflife, @kitsunetori, @lilah-asteria, @dianxiaxie, @msoldier, @amara-moonlight, @darling006, @92404-blog1, @genniecokkie

[luxsky]

★ 𓈒 ݁ STAR—CROSSED (rhysand x reader) ⊹

chapter two: (smau) ✧

𓈒 ݁ ✫ masterlist previous next

— NOTES

you and morrigan always go out and take pics for her socials and it’s super fun <3

rhysand is known for being hard to work with (we’ll see if that’s true or not 👀)

mor setting up reader with this photography opportunity with rhysand?? 🤭🤭

— TAGLIST

@thelov3lybookworm @summerandsalt @lilah-asteria @therealmoonstone @just-a-social-casualty-1 @ashjade19 @girlontheblock @cherry-cin @daughterofthemoons-stuff @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @sweet-chai-amore @kierramofficial @noelli-smv @c-dizzle99 @littlestw01f

[luxsky]

★ 𓈒 ݁ STAR—CROSSED (rhysand x reader) ⊹

chapter one: (smau/written) ✧

𓈒 ݁ ✫ masterlist previous next

“how long does it take for stars to form?”

the question echoed through the half-empty lecture hall. most students didn’t bother showing up to lessons that were so early in the morning, while the few who did attend were about to fall asleep on their desks. you realized that you were probably the only other person engaged in your professor’s lesson. the one other student being rhysand.

your gaze met rhysand’s as he raised his arm up before you could, and you fought the urge to grit your teeth at him. it was an easy question that you already knew the answer to, he should just let you have this. you hadn’t reached this unit in your astrophysics course yet, only you had taken it upon yourself to read ahead. rhysand probably wouldn’t go as far as you, he’s far too busy being prythian’s poster student, and so he clearly just wanted the attention from participating.

“they can form within a human lifespan,” rhysand grinned at you. there was a hint of flirtation in his violet eyes, the way they shined underneath the morning light escaping your lecture hall’s windows. the stare he’s probably given lots of other people on campus, you remind yourself that this isn’t special. everytime you walk past an advertisement with his face or you see a post from his fans online, it’s that same look that makes you want to avoid it at all costs. for once, you smile back at him. not to be polite, but because you want to hold back your laugh from how wrong he is.

you even notice how your lecturer was about to cringe. you take this opportunity and raise your hand too, glancing at rhysand as you were called on.

“they can take about ten million years,” you say loudly. your smile has grown into a smirk as rhysand suddenly blanks out, realizing he was completely off. your professor nods in acceptance, approving your answer. “unless you’re saying that humans can live that long, then you’re mistaken,” you turn back to rhysand.

you expect your professor to make a comment about being respectful and how that last part of your answer was unnecessary. but she doesn’t, so you continue with your head held high for the rest of the lecture. rhysand keeps trying to answer the following questions, leading to a back-and-forth between the two of you. you held back showing off your satisfaction whenever you got something right instead of rhysand, which was more often than not.

astrophysics was a topic that had always interested you, which is why you had decided to major in this subject. you loved learning about the stars and constellations and the sky. you had always went above and beyond to study and learn the subject material for your classes, you weren’t prythian’s top student for nothing.

“does anyone but rhysand and y/n want to answer?” your professor said finally.

it was met with silence. you raised an eyebrow and turned to rhysand, who simply shrugged at you and picked the lint off his shoulder. you couldn’t help but notice the way he parted his hair and how well it suited his facial features. of course, you wouldn’t go so far as to call him attractive. but simply as a photographer yourself, you understood how well this angle could make someone look. it’s just that anyone would look this pretty under natural lighting and this decent viewpoint, even rhysand.

your professor looks displeased as none of your other classmates answer. for a moment, you’d almost gotten carried away with rhysand. you quickly notice the time, how class is almost over, meaning you would get back your latest exam papers that were promised last week.

a bell rings and everyone begins to pack their things, you stand up to grab your test paper from your professor as you walk out. you close your eyes for a few moments in anticipation before you’re staring at the mark saying “96” on the page.

you smile to yourself, this mark had been what you predicted in order to maintain your current grade. you’re eager to leave and go back home to celebrate with mor until rhysand follows you out.

he slides in front of you, blocking your path and you roll your eyes at him. “what did you get, y/n?” rhysand’s voice is calm but has a chilling undertone that almost intimidates you.

your heart sinks when he shows you his mark saying “98” in comparison to yours. you bite your cheek before revealing that you scored two marks lower than him.

“well, it seems answering all those questions in class won’t help you on the exams,” rhysand smirks, staring at his paper that he held in front of you before folding it away.

you look up at him, your gaze completely cold and calculating. “it’ll help me when i graduate as prythian’s top student. and you can be my second.”

rhysand stares you down, tilting his head as he leans down to be closer to you. he lowers his voice as he says to you, “i don’t think so, y/n. because at the end of the day, i’ll always do whatever i set my mind to.”

you want to slap off that wicked grin on his face as he walks away. rhysand had always got on your nerves, pissing you off everyday in class, but after today you knew that you had no other option than to outdo him completely.

somehow you’d allowed for him to do better than you on an exam. rhysand, who was born with everything he could ever ask for and then some. you needed to prove to him, to everyone, that you were just as capable. although you didn’t have that kind of support and you did everything yourself, that you were still better than him. if not for the sake of your future, then because it would inflate his ego.

“if you don’t stop brooding, i think you’ll be stuck like this forever,” elain says before taking a seat next to you. there’s a comforting smile on her face as she asks, “is everything okay, y/n?”

you’re about to open your mouth in response, but your throat feels dry from two hours of doing nothing but school work at the library. elain could tell that you were upset today from the way your eyes were laser focused on the textbook in front of you and your tired expressions.

“y/n is upset that rhysand got a better mark,” nesta chimes in, placing a stack of books down on your table. she wipes the dust off her hands and joins the both of you, her work at the library could wait. nesta always got away with ignoring her tasks, her friend gwyn turned a blind eye and the head librarian was too busy to really care.

“oh,” elain muttered. “i’m sure you’ll do better than him again,” she tried to reassure you. nesta laughed, “rhysand’s an asshole.”

“some people can’t handle i got a higher mark than them,” rhysand’s voice echoed in your mind. you needed him to stop plaguing your thoughts, if only rhysand would let you have some peace of mind for once.

you can’t do anything but nod at nesta’s comment. if there was one person who despised him as much as you did, it was probably her.

without a doubt, your roommate morrigan was your closest friend at prythian and probably of all time. although it was an unlikely friendship, your roommate always balanced you out by encouraging your photography career and telling you to be more outspoken. while you weren’t as close with nesta and elain, the sisters were good company. you would even consider them to be genuine friends, nesta would always open the library for you and was someone you could study with while elain always offered to be there for you. perhaps your social life at prythian wasn’t so bad after all, although you would admit that you had compromised it at the expense of your grades.

having three friends was plenty. it was more than enough, and you certainly didn’t need to get any closer to a certain group of boys on campus that showed up every turn you walked, or at every test you take.

— NOTES

y/n and rhysand are both majoring in astrophysics! it’s the study of stars and astronomy (because yk… night court)

y/n is nice to a grand total of three people 😀 it’s okay babe

rhysand and y/n have been competing for top student since freshman year at prythian

— TAGLIST

@thelov3lybookworm @summerandsalt @lilah-asteria @therealmoonstone @just-a-social-casualty-1 @ashjade19 @girlontheblock-blog @cherry-cin @daughterofthemoons-stuff @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @sweet-chai-amore @kierramofficial @noelli-smv

[luxsky]

STAR—CROSSED (rhysand x reader)

chapter 000: prologue

masterlist next

prythian university had always been your dream.

it was a top school, boasting the most famous alumni and their academic achievements. you knew since you were young that this was where you wanted to end up and had worked your whole life for it. even if being accepted was more than enough, you knew it couldn’t end there. you spent your time dedicating everything to the school so you could still claim being valedictorian at your university graduation too.

while it was stressful, prythian was definitely worth it. you loved the campus life, being able to admire all the historic buildings and how big their library was everyday. even your professors, who were rumored to be some of the harshest, were friendly towards you. a part of you wanted to stay in this part of the city forever, it almost seemed better than your life at home.

what you hadn’t expected from going to prythian were the three famous names on campus. they were your most infuriating classmates, blocking your way everyday from the crowds gathering around them and giving you a headache all the whispers about them in class.

azriel was the only one you could tolerate. he kept his head down and sat at the back of the class, and was always quiet and respectful. that’s what you appreciated about him. the only thing that turned you away from him was that one time you were ever late to class and the look he’d given you as you walked in.

he was cold, you thought. you could feel his glare on you whenever you were nearby. he refused to talk to anyone, even turning his head at others who were just asking if the seat next to him was available. sometimes you wondered how someone so reserved could get along with cassian and rhysand.

at least he wasn’t a menace; that was cassian’s job. you probably found him the most annoying out of the three. he was always the one asking the most impractical questions in class, clearly just to get a reaction out of everyone and to annoy the professor. you recoiled everytime he gave that big grin afterwards, thinking he’d done something.

you hated how loud and immature him and his jokes were. you never understood what the appeal of him as a jock was. high-fiving every other person in the halls and causing a group to form around him.

while cassian got on your nerves the most, rhysand was your least favorite. he was the combination of azriel’s coldness and cassian’s boldness. he had always pissed you off ever since he flaunted the fact he got a higher mark on a first year exam. would someone like him even realize how hard you’d worked?

it never failed to confuse you how someone like rhysand, who partied every weekend with his friends and caused a pandemonium everywhere he went, could be compared to you. you, who had stayed up every night in your dorm room alone studying. and he was your competition?

it never made sense to you. you never understood why people were so drawn to them, why they were considered the best of prythian university, and what was so enticing about them when all they’ve done is act like fools to you. even seeing how your professor would smile at them as the boys walked out of class enduringly, despite the boys giving them a headache for the day. you tried to ignore whenever your classmates and even friends asked about them, how much it annoyed you that they were praised for nothing.

perhaps you could understand why some would find them attractive. it’s hard not to have your eyes on them — the way their tall figures walked down the hallway. you ignored the way your eyes lingered at rhysand sometimes, how sometimes you avoided him because you couldn’t hold his gaze and not purely because you hated him.

but as of now, as far as you knew, you wanted nothing to do with prythian’s golden trio and made it your goal to absolutely become better than rhysand.

[luxsky]

STAR—CROSSED (rhysand x reader)

profiles: y/n’s group

masterlist the bat boys

— NOTES

y/n and morrigan are roommates and she’s been your closest friend at prythian uni (opposites attract!!)

nesta and elain are good friends you have, nesta works at the library that you often study at

y/n is basically prythian’s top student and has a full scholarship (🤭🤭)

[luxsky]

STAR—CROSSED (rhysand x reader)

profiles: the bat boys

masterlist y/n’s group

— NOTES

rhysand is a model while studying at prythian university! cassian and azriel go to school there too

velaris studios is the name of the modeling agency that rhysand and mor work for ;)

amren is mor and rhysand’s (extremely tired) manager 😞

[luxsky]

me when aaron hotchner

[luxsky]

Datura Pt 11

Summary: Returning to the Mountain brings up a lot of feelings and Reader tries and fails to keep them all bottled up.

Content Warnings: SMUT (I told you it would come eventually ;) ), a lot of dirty talk, suggestiveness, a little light bondage if you squint, as well as alcohol consumption and drug use.

Author's Note: I apparently have a lot of feelings about sitting in Rhys's lap, 'cause I wrote this Vamp!Rhys fic and this in the same week. I was gonna end it on an angsty note, but the miscommunication trope makes me want to rip my hair out, so I made it fluffy instead (they're adults they can TALK TO EACH OTHER like adults). Anyway, hope ya'll enjoy! As always, let me know if you want to be added to the Tag List, and thank you to everyone who likes, comments and reblogs, ya'll make me want to keep writing <3

Previous chapter/ Master list

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The music is a heavy pulse in your skull, drowning out all thought as the lights flash and flare overhead like dozens of fireworks in time to the beat. Your hips sway, flimsy excuse of a dress clinging to your thighs as you twirl and spin in time to the beat. Dozens of hands pass you a long, keep you spinning and spinning until the lights glitter like stars overhead. You throw your head back and laugh at the way they glitter and stretch along your quickly blurring vision.

Someone passes you another cup and you tip the contents back in one gulp, savoring the burn, relishing in the way it fills your empty stomach. You’ve lost count of how many glasses you’ve had, lost count of where the empty ones go as you move along with the crowd, let the press of bodies move you like an ebbing tide.

A cigarette gets passed your way, the violet smoke filtering in hazy rings around people’s heads like halos. Do you smoke? You can’t remember. Can’t think about why you should care at all as you bring it to your lips and inhale deeply, letting the mirthroot take hold.

This is the most fun you’ve had in weeks, it’s the first time you allow yourself complete unbridled freedom. There is nothing to worry about here but following the music and the flow of drink as the mirthroot makes your body loose and limber.

Strong hands settle on your hips as you take another drag, eyes closed, savoring the burn. You sway your hips under the grip, pushing your body back into the firm planes of the male behind you. You don’t have the presence of mind to be mortified, to think about the way you’re grinding on a stranger in the middle of this crowd of people. 

Warm breath frames your neck, skittering over the golden collar still encircling your throat. “I think you’ve had enough, Darling.”

Mate. Mate. Mate. The words dance around the bargain mark on your ribs, heat flaring in your chest that has nothing to do with the fae wine or the mirthroot and everything to do with the fact that when you’d been dragged back into your cell, it had been empty. Empty and had smelled like her. And you’d thrown yourself against the battered door, claws slashing across the worn iron until they shattered from your fingertips, until you splattered blood across the unyielding iron, dark mist filling the cell until it nearly sucked the air from the room. You don’t know how or why the door held, why your nails couldn’t cut through the strange marks etched into the door; the only thing that was clear is that in retaliation for leaving, your fault or not, she’d taken Rhys and had left you alone in the dark. Days passed without word, without food, until the guards had come and thrown you into a room with the order to bathe and change and be ready in an hour and you complied only with the intent to go right into the Throne Room to rip her throat out with your teeth. But Rhys hadn’t been at her side when you arrived either, hadn’t been a face in the crowd as Amarantha declared to the court that you had slain the twins sent from Hybern for attacking their Queen. The crowd that days ago had been laughing at your plight as you’d been made to kneel on the floor like an animal was now cheering you on like a hero. Fickle and spineless; Amarantha said jump and they asked how high without question or reason. She’d left you to their whims after that and the wine had started flowing and you’d needed to calm the panic and rage swelling like a storm beneath your skin and had reached for one. One had somehow turned into two and then three and you’d lost count after that, lost yourself in the blissful emptiness and tried to forget how powerless you really were in all of this.

You turn in his arms and though he remains standing where he is, there’s suddenly six of him spinning in dizzying circles and you have to grip onto his shoulders to keep yourself on your feet.

“Easy,” he says, his grip on your hips firm.

You’ve forgotten just how big he is compared to you, how much of you he can fit in his hands. You're too far gone to stop yourself from wondering how those hands would feel beneath your dress, on your thighs, spreading you open…

“Easy,” he says again, nostrils flaring like he scents the effect he has on you like this.

Your hands feel like they're drifting through soup as you reach out to brush your hand through his hair. He’s clean too, skin healed, the clothes new and finely pressed. There is no lingering scent of incense, though you’re pretty sure the mirthroot you smell is on your skin and not his, he remains wholly jasmine and citrus. Nothing of her on him.

“You’re ok?” The words slur out of you, sound muffled and distant even as they come out your mouth. You need him to tell you he’s ok, that she didn’t hurt him, that he got called away for something, anything. He does other things for her, he brought in Tamlin all those weeks ago, he has other roles, but you don’t know how to make the words come out against the fog that rolls through your head. “You’re ok?”

“I’m ok,” he says with a nod. “Let’s get you some water.”

You shake your head. Water is somewhere near the tables and lounge chairs in the corner, somewhere she might be lurking, waiting for you to slip up, waiting for her chance to steal him again and you can’t have that. “Want to dance.” Want to dance and drink and forget; want to smoke and move and let the music erase everything that is happening around you so that the only thing that matters is the two of you. It’s an added bonus that if he dances with you then that means he keeps his hands on you, has an excuse to keep touching you. Gods you want more of that!

“Water first,” he says, giving you a little nudge backwards.

The move makes the world spin again and you giggle as you let yourself fall into it. 

“Wow, you’re really drunk,” he says as he hauls you against his chest and half carries half drags you through the crowd.

“You’re strong,” you giggle. You can feel the muscles in his arms and chest tighten as he moves you around, his fingertips digging deliciously in your hips. 

It’s by sheer force of Rhys’s will that you end up in a chair with a glass of water, that you take a single sip of and make a face. “Gross. Want more wine.”

A servant automatically appears with a glass beside you, but before you can grab it, or spill it given the way your limbs flop around, he snatches it off the tray. “Water first.”

You stick out your lower lip. “Why are you being so mean to me?”

He takes a drink out of the cup and suddenly the most exciting thing in the world is watching how his throat works when he swallows and the way the wine stains his lips. “‘Cause it’s fun,” he retorts.

You manage to get another sip of water down before you accidentally catch the glass on the edge of the table and spill it everywhere. “Fuck me,” you say dejectedly. In your state your first thought is to use your skirts to try and dry up the mess, but there’s not enough of them, the sheer fabric barely covering the tops of your thighs. 

“You have impeccable manners,” he says as he reaches for your hands to stop you from flashing the whole room as you try and wiggle the dress up enough to use it as a napkin. With a snap of his fingers the mess cleans itself. 

“Ooooohhh neat,” you run a finger over the dry table. “Can you teach me to do that?”

You’re too drunk to notice your mistake, but he says, “If you had any powers left, sure,” a little louder than necessary to cover you.

“Right,” you slur as you try to stand on shaky legs. “Well water was good, we dance now.”

He remains a firm wall between you and the dance floor. “Unless you can absorb water through your skin, you didn’t actually drink anything.”

“Had a sip.”

“Doesn’t count.”

“Meanie,” you hiss.

“You’re very cute when you’re drunk,” he teases and the grin he gives you makes you want to stretch up on your toes and kiss him right there. 

“You’re very kissable when you smile,” you return.

Rhys huffs a laugh and you think you might do just about anything to get him to laugh again. 

“I’m always very kissable,” he retorts. “It’s part of my charm.”

“So make part of your charm dancing with me,” you press.

He grabs your hand like he might do just that, but instead, spins around you to claim an empty couch and pulls you down to sit in his lap so fast the world flips and twirls in a blur of pulsing colors that makes you squeeze your eyes shut. The wine rises up in your throat, threatening to come back out in a rush and you curl into his chest trying to find a way to make it stop.

“I think this is better.”

You squeeze your temples with your palms. “Make my brain stop spinning,” you whine. Maybe he’s right, maybe dancing is a bad idea. 

Besides, he’s still touching you like this. More than touching actually. You’re situated in his lap, knees bracketing his hips, chest to chest, no collar around his throat to stop you if you wanted to put your lips to his neck. There’s not even a scar or bruise to indicate that it had been there, nothing but smooth, bronze skin and the teasing peak of his tattoos beneath his collar.

You brace yourself against his shoulders as the world stops spinning, suddenly very aware of how high your skirt is riding up and how strong the muscles in his thighs are between your legs.

He brings his hands to hold your hips again and you thank the Mother that you’re not so drunk that you’ve lost your inhibitions completely because the only thought in your head right now is how it would feel to grind yourself down on him.

“You’re very drunk,” he says lowly, his own gaze locked on the space between your bodies like he’s drinking in the way your thighs look around him.

“So?”

“So it would be wrong,” he retorts.

“What?” You move your hands to the back of the couch behind him, chest brushing his. There’s barely any straps to your top, the neckline a deep v that leaves your cleavage on display and you don’t miss the way his gaze tracks it as you lean in. “What would be wrong?”

He runs his tongue over his lower lip, staring and something stirs deep inside you. Claim. Claim. Claim. He is your mate and you want him to touch you, kiss you, claim you. 

It’s the thought that makes you pause for a brief moment. Does he know your mates? Does he feel this growing need? This incessant longing beating from your rib cage that needs to be touched and held and claimed so deeply you forget what it felt like to be anything else? Is that the bond? Or the wine? 

“Doing all the things I’ve been thinking about since the moment I had my lips on yours,” he says, voice barely a whisper, gaze still transfixed on your body.

You preen under the heat in his gaze, press your chest a little more firmly into his so that you can be nose to nose with him. The wine has certainly made you more brazen. “What kinds of things, Rhys?”

The hands holding your hips tighten, fingertips kneading the soft flesh hard enough to bruise and yet your whole body turns molten at that touch. It’s the delicious line between pain and pleasure, and after days and days of cold emptiness, the heat it sparks through your body is more addictive than any wine or drug you can consume here.

“Want this dress off you for starters,” he murmurs, full lips drifting down to dust over the straps clinging to your shoulders. 

His words conjure an image in your mind of him leaning forward, pulling the straps down with his teeth, baring the full expanse of your body to him. You shiver under the mental image, hips rocking down against him.

“Want to mark every bit of you I can reach, so that no one dares touch you,” he continues, teeth scraping over your shoulder. “So that everyone knows your mine.”

His.  The possession in his tone really does you in, heat building in your lower belly as you grind yourself down against the growing bulge in his pants. The scrape against your core makes your mouth drop open, groan falling from your parted lips. It would be so easy to come undone from this alone.

“Only mine,” he emphasizes, sucking a mark where your neck meets your shoulder, visible beneath that damned collar you can’t take off.

“Rhys,” you whimper, releasing your grip on the back of the couch to drag your hands through his dark hair. “Please.”

His lips move along your throat, teeth scraping your skin before sucking another mark into your sensitive flesh. He’s taking his time, just as he promised all those weeks ago on Calanmai. “Want to know what little noises you’d make for me, how you’d fall apart in my hands…”

You drag your hand from his hair, reaching for the straps of your dress to pull them down for him, hoping to spur him further into action, but he finally releases his grip on your hips to stop you. 

“None of that, Darling,” he tuts. “It comes off when I say it does.”

To that point, when you try to rock your hips against him again, it's his glittering, obsidian power that pins you in place, a slither of darkness twining around your hips to hold you there, utterly at his mercy.

He chuckles when you whimper and pout, lower lip sticking out, tears welling up in your eyes, because it’s not fair that he’s this close, that he’s just a hair breadth away from where you need him most and he knows it. He can smell it on you, see it on every line in your face, and yet he won’t move to help you.

“Please, Rhys, please,” you beg. The need for him is unbearable, your whole body burning like it’s on fire, the only relief is the contact with his body. Your mate so close to where you need him most.

“Hogging the woman of the hour, are we?” 

You hadn’t heard any approaching footsteps over the pounding of the base against the rock, the sudden appearance making you flinch as Rhys throws a warning snarl over your shoulder. It only makes the red headed male approaching chuckle as he comes to stand directly behind you. The cedar and cinnamon smell of him reminds you of curling up under a warm wool blanket next to a fireplace with your favorite book about vampires, something you like to do in nice Autumn weather.

Slender fingers drag up your spine, and in your delirious state, it makes you arch your back as you shiver under it.

“Eris,” Rhys purrs, but there’s an edge in his tone as he watches you move under another male’s ministrations. The sliver of his power around your waist tightens, the shadows slipping under your skirts to writhe against your flushed skin. He allows you to jerk forward, hips rocking right into the obvious sign of his own arousal, and your eyes roll back into your head at the contact.

“I can name a dozen males who would kill for a chance to be where you are right now, Rhysand,” Eris returns.

“I don’t share,” Rhys says and cauldron that’s all it takes for you to place your lips against his throat. He hums his approval as you scrape your teeth against his skin, hands threading into your hair as you nip and bite and use your tongue to cool any pain you cause him. 

Eris plops himself down in the seat next to Rhys, long arms thrown over the back of the couch as he makes himself comfortable. 

You can’t bring yourself to care about the audience as you nip at the underside of his jaw. He tilts his head back for you so you can reach more of him unhindered and you sink a little lower down on his lap chasing any friction you can find before the shadows tighten and still your movements again.

“Bastard,” you growl into his throat, but he merely turns his attention to the male next to him. 

“You didn’t respond to my message,” Eris hisses. A glass of wine appears in his hand and he takes a slow drink. To any onlookers he’s merely enjoying the party with the High Lord and his nightly entertainment. 

“What message?” 

“Shit.” This conversation is becoming sobering, despite your best efforts to tune out the other male and focus solely on the pleasure just out of reach. All night long you’d been able to forget.

Eris gives you a sidelong glance that might have made you squirm under the intensity if Rhys hadn’t shifted beneath you to get a better look at the other male, hips brushing up against your center in a move that is definitely intentional. 

“The one I gave her,” Eris snarls.

“This is the first I’ve seen her in days,” Rhys retorts, a hand stroking through your hair. “You know how to get in contact with me.”

Eris glances around at the dancers that move past for refreshments as he takes another drink. Only when they’re gone does he say, “So you didn’t tell her to kill the twins?”

You stop moving; stop thinking about Rhys’s body as the image of Dagdan and Brannagh’s mangled bodies flash across your mind. You’re suddenly a lot more sober than you had been moment ago.

Rhys brushes a mental hand against your mind and you flinch, head still tender from the beating it had taken trying to keep your cousins out. “Darling?”

The concern in his tone makes shame burn its way through your lungs. At the littlest thing he’s dropping everything to make sure you’re ok, and yet here you are, with no idea where he’s been or what he’s been through and you’re grinding in his lap like a horny teenager. What kind of mate are you?

“No I didn’t,” Rhys says to Eris, even as he makes another tender stroke against your mind, asking to be let in. “But I’m sure she had her reasons.”

“Do you think we can use it to our advantage?” Eris asks.

You don’t deserve how gentle he is with you, but you can’t stop yourself from lowering your shields just enough to let him in. He should know just how much of a monster you’re capable of being before he gets too close. 

“Will you show me?” He asks and you open the doorway into the memory, keeping the conversation you’d had with Tamlin about him, the realization of what he is to you, out of reach. He deserves better than that.

Rhys strokes his hands in your hair as he watches the memory unfold, your body shaking in his grip as all that blood and gore comes into view. When it’s over, he closes the door in your mind and clicks the lock into place for you. “It’s over. You’re safe. You did what you had to do to survive, there is no shame in that.”

You press your face into his shoulder to hide the tears brimming in your eyes. You’re an ugly crier when you’re tipsy and you know if you start, you won’t stop.

“I think it’ll bring Hybern here quicker,” Rhys says to Eris, as he drags the fingers in your hair down to trace your spine. To an onlooker, he’s still playing with you, only the two of you know how often he’s traced these shapes into your skin when you wake up screaming in the dungeons. “Which can be played to our advantage if we’re careful.”

Eris takes another sip of wine, mulling it over.

“If Hybern can be convinced that our queen is acting out of her own agenda instead of his, he may just do our work for us.”

“A dangerous game,” Eris frowns.

“It always is,” Rhys returns.

It’s astounding how calm and level headed he can remain, always centered, even while everyone else rages and panics around him. How are you supposed to be his equal? To his calm there is only your spinning thoughts and unchecked temper. Everything makes you want to claw and rage and smash things; aren’t mates supposed to balance each other out? What do you bring him other than another mess to sort through?

“Well if you’re not going to share her, I’ll leave you to it,” Eris says as he downs his cup and stands, making a show of stretching, tight shirt rising up to expose the toned line of his abs to a passing cluster of male and female dancers.

Rhys chuckles at that, sliding a little lower into the couch, as he says, “She’s all mine.”

Is this all the conversation they can have? A few passing whispers? A few half-veiled hopes at a plan? Fifty years of juggling court masks and gathering allies and pushing pieces into place in the shadows while everyone else parties around them? It’s such a contrast to the world you’re used to that you can’t help but feel small inside it. 

It’s only when he’s gone that Rhys asks, “Are you ok?”

“I thought being drunk was supposed to make me feel less depressed,” you grumble into his shirt because he’s pleasantly warm and you can’t bring your body to move from where you’re pressed into his chest.

“I think you passed over the threshold for that a couple drinks ago,” he replies.

“Take me back to the blissful void,” you whine.

“Well enough people have seen you here with me, I think we can slip away and get you into bed without causing a scene now.”

He’d pulled you over here on purpose, removing the shield of the crowd so people would see you with him, see you cutting loose, and when you disappeared they’d think he’d taken you to bed and not wonder if there was anything more to it, because his reputation was enough. That mask was so encompassing it could shield you too.

Rhys winnows you away and you can’t tell what end is up anymore, not until he sets you square in the center of a bed with black silk sheets. His room, as dust covered and bare as it had been the last time.

You groan as you fall back into the pillows, all the wine threatening to come up again as you try to keep yourself upright. This position allows you to feel just how wet you are between your legs, making you stop squeezing your eyes shut to look at the damp spot you’d left on Rhys’s pants. Not that he seems to notice as he peels off his jacket and starts unbuttoning his shirt, getting comfortable for the night, even as shame makes your cheeks turn bright red. What is wrong with you?

“You need a bucket over there?” He asks.

You need to drink until you can forget what you’ve been doing all night. How are you supposed to look at him now?

You hear the clink of his belt coming off before he climbs into the bed next to you and you force yourself not to open your eyes and look at what he’s wearing to bed, because you’ve made a fool of yourself enough for one night.

“That last drink was a mistake,” you lie, because what else are you supposed to say?

His body is warm as he lays down beside you. “You played your part well,” Rhys encourages. “No one will think twice about where you’ve gone.”

You’re an idiot, but you’re not quite sober enough to think better of it as you ask, “Is that all this is? A game?”

Rhys uses a bit of his power to snuff the candles out, bathing the room in utter darkness. “It’s necessary-”

You roll onto your side, finally daring to look at him, as best you can in the dark anyway. “But is that all you want it to be?” You press. 

He’d been laying with his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, but at your words he rolls over too, so you’re once again nose to nose, practically sharing a breath.

“Wanting anything is dangerous, Y/N.”

“So all that you said earlier, about wanting me, that was just for show? This is just a mask?”

“It keeps you safe,” he says so low it's almost a growl.

“But it’s not what you want?”

“I can’t…” he shakes his head. “I can’t. The things I love have a tendency to be taken from me, I cannot want anything other than to get out of here.”

Your eyes sting and you’re glad for the dark, glad that it hides the tears welling up in your eyes. “I can play this part, if that’s what we need to fulfill this bargain,” it’s a concentrated effort to keep your voice steady, but you mean it. If this is all it will be, then you will have to find a way to live with it, because at least your mate will be alive. And maybe, if Amarantha sees anything like what you two had been doing tonight, then maybe she’d direct that anger at you instead of him. You could find a way to use it to protect him, the same way he’d used it for you.

He’s your mate, whatever you have to do to make sure he survives, you’ll do it. Even if it tears you apart inside.

“But please, just tell me that it’s not real, that you don’t really want me, so that I can prepare, so that I don’t overstep. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.”

His pause feels like it spans an hour, the silence ticking away like a clock in the darkness. “I…”

You stamp down the hope flaring in your chest, it’ll be easier to deal with if he is up front that he doesn’t see you as anything but a means to an end. “What do you want, Rhys?”

He growls, the sound skittering across your bones as he throws an arm around your waist and crashes his lips against yours. “You,” he says into your mind. “I want you in any way you’ll have me.”

The ink on your chest warms, feels strangely like it’s glowing beneath your skin as the solid weight of him settles on top of you, pushing you into the mattress. You're a tangle of limbs and teeth, as he kisses you like it might be his only chance to.

You drag your hands down the sharp contours of his spine, memorizing the feel of him beneath your fingertips as his tongue slides behind your teeth to taste you. This is far better than any drug, no amount of mirthroot could ever make you feel this high.

“You’re ok with this?” He pants into your lips, finally coming up for air.

“More than ok,” you confirm and that’s all it takes for him to start sliding the straps off your dress, pulling the tight fitting bodice slowly from your body. The chill in the air is only a momentary discomfort before his hands and lips chase it away as he follows the fabric down your body.

Thank the Mother for the privacy of the room, that you hadn’t managed to get your top off like you’d tried to do in the throne room, because the noise you let out when he gets his mouth around your nipple is embarrassingly loud, whole body flushed crimson. You clamp your hand over your mouth when he does the same move on your other breast, or at least you try to, that slithering ether of power snags your wrist and pins it above your head before you can cut off the noise.

“None of that,” he hums into your skin, teeth scraping your skin. “Want to hear you.”

Cauldron he’ll be the death of you! 

It’s his power that whisks the glamor away from the bargain mark so he can run his lips over the ink, tracing the flower petals and vines. “We should make more bargains, you look so pretty with all this ink.”

You huff a laugh as you scrape your nails through his hair, making a mess of it. “What kinds of bargains?”

He kisses lower, pulling the dress down towards your hips, following it again. “That you’ll let me taste you like this once a day for the rest of eternity,” he suggests as he lifts your hips to get the dress lower.

“I’m not wasting a bargain on that,” you huff, though you’re embarrassed to admit the way the suggestion makes heat pool in your core.

“You’re right, twice a day is more practical,” he says as he slips both the dress and your underthings off in one fell swoop. Strong arms wrap around your hips as he settles himself between your legs and you barely have time to draw a shaky breath before he’s running his tongue up your center.

“I-” all thought and argument eddies from your mind as your body arches under his ministrations. 

“More than that, perhaps?” He teases, adding a finger to the mix, even as his tongue swirls through your quickly budding arousal.

Your hand in his hair tightens, pulling his hair as you try and guide him deeper. “Rhys,” you whimper. He feels so good; so perfect. Nothing else would ever compare; he’s barely touched you and you’re fully ready to come apart already.

He adds a second finger, stretching you out as his tongue flicks over your clit, the combination making your head spin. You screw your eyes shut as your body tightens, muscles taut as a bow string as your pleasure builds too fast to prepare for. He might still be talking nonsense about bargains but you genuinely can’t hear a word he says against the white noise tearing through your head.

Mate. Mate. Mate. It’s right where the flower-what did he say it was called? Datura?-sits over your heart that you feel the bond between your souls, like a tether of glittering starlight. It’s been there, faint before, just enough of a tether to let you feel a bit of him at the other end, but now it thrums with his power, like it’s searching for your own. A call like the one he’d sent out on Calanmai, and you can’t tell if he’s testing to see if you know it’s there, or if it’s you pulling on it, begging to be closer to him as your high crashes over you.

Rhys kisses his way back up your body, lips damp with your arousal. “You know?” 

The disbelief in his tone brings you back to reality. Your shields had been down and you’d just…

You push yourself up on your elbows. “You knew?” You counter.

He brushes his lips over the bargain mark again, distracting himself from looking into your eyes as he says, “I suspected, before Calanmai, but afterwards, when I saw you for real, not just as a dream, it clicked.”

“You’d been dreaming about me?”

Another kiss on your heated skin, body relaxing under his touch. “For decades,” he whispers. “And I told myself that it was enough, that I’d leave it there, where you were safe and far away from all of this, but then there were whispers in the court about at a weapon Hybern was looking for. The more she had me look into it, the more my dreams started making sense, the better I could see you.”

You brush your fingers through the hair falling over his eyes, prompting him to finally look at you. “When she narrowed down that you were in Spring, she started sending me out on Calanmia to look for you, thinking it might mask all her hunters with those coming to the party. It was my only chance to reach you and I had every intention to get you to leave Spring.”

He catches your hand and presses a kiss to your fingertips. “I never meant to let you see me, but you were so scared and she decided to come out herself for the first time in years and I panicked. I couldn’t stop thinking about what would happen if she got her hands on you first.”

Your eyes sting at the confession. Your selfless mate, who through all these years of trauma, had still been willing to let you go without ever getting to see you if it meant you didn’t end up here.

“I swore that I’d do everything in my power to get you out, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t stay away, no matter how much I tried to. You needed me and I… I need you.”

You’re not entirely sure how useful you’ve been to him in all of this, but you let him speak anyway. 

“Not just this,” he says, gesturing to your bodies. “But for all of it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I don’t want you to think you’re stuck with me,” he says. “It doesn’t have to mean anything if you don’t want it to.”

You sit up as best you can around the weight of him over you so you can grip his face. “I’m not stuck with you. I’m choosing you. I want you, Rhys.”

The disbelief in his eyes makes your heart ache and you lean forward to gently kiss the tip of his nose. “Not just for this,” you repeat, gesturing to your bodies as he had done. “Though it is amazing.”

He grins at that.

“And not just this,” you drag his hand over the ink on your chest. “But for whatever is beyond this. When it’s all over, when we’ve won and we’ve got her stupid head on a pike, I want to explore whatever comes next with you.”

He kisses you then, eagerly, a little less frantic than before, but with no less desire, the taste of your arousal still faint on his swollen lips. You lean back into the mattress, pulling him down with you. 

“I know this whole thing is twisted and terrifying, but I want to walk with you through it. Together.”

“Together,” he confirms as you wrap your legs around his waist.

A new bargain mark zaps across your skin, over your palm, where your hands are intertwined, a twin to the one on his own hand. 

“I still think I made an excellent bargain offer,” he says as you tug at the waistband of his boxers.

“You’re insufferable, Rhysand,” you laugh.

“I think the word you’re thinking of is insatiable,” he counters as he lines himself up with your entrance.

“That too,” you reply as you arch your back, the tip of his cock gliding through your arousal. It’s a little more of stretch than you're used to, but the line between pain and pleasure blurs as he slowly rocks his hips into yours, taking his time to let you adjust. He really will ruin anyone else for you, not that you’ll ever want anything other than this from here on out.

“Darling,” he purrs, or tries to, the groan he lets out as he fully seats himself inside you makes shivers run up your spine. “You have no idea how insatiable I can be.”

You rock your hips, prompting him to move, to match your rhythm, to fill and take and claim you as your body has been begging him to all night long. “I think you should show me.”

The laugh he lets out sounds more like a growl as he picks up his pace, one hand braced against the headboard to give him more leverage as he slides nearly out of you and slams back in. You cling to his shoulders, nails gliding over his sweat-dampened skin for leverage, his name a whimper on your lips.

The bond between you glitters, swells with all the affection and desire he feels for you as he shoots in down to you. For all the pain and trouble it had caused, you think you still you might have come out earlier on Calanmai, just to feel this sooner. 

You whimper his name again and again as your high once again draws closer, your body white hot. 

“I’ve got you,” he says in your ear and judging by the frantic rutting of his hips you know he’ll be right there with you. Together in this, as you will be in the rest of it. You let yourself fall, unrestrained, as pleasure washes over you, your mate giving a shout as he follows close behind. The two of you topple into the sheets, clinging to each other as you catch your breath.

“You ok?” He asks as you cling tightly to him, even as your body relaxes.

You nuzzle your face into his chest. “I’m with my mate, how could I not be?” Whatever tomorrow holds, whatever dangers lie ahead, you can rest knowing that you’ll be together for it.

------------------------------------------

Tag List: @mariahoedt, @lovelydove, @twsssmlmaa, @sleepylunarwolf, @judig92, @willowpains, @daughterofthemoons-stuff, @annnaaaaaa88, @myheartfollower, @uniquecolorwizard, @eternallyelvish, @waytoomanyteenagefeels, @lovemesomevesey, @localfangirl09, @isa1b2h3, @starswholistenanddreamsanswered, @slytherintaco, @iluvewman-blog, @thebeautifulmysteriesoflife, @kitsunetori, @lilah-asteria, @dianxiaxie, @msoldier

[luxsky]

Rhysand Fic Rec Library 🦇💜

"Rhysand is the most handsome High Lord. Rhysand is the most delightful High Lord. Rhysand is the most cunning High Lord."

here's a list of one hundred Rhysand x Reader and Rhysand x OC fics to celebrate the most handsome High Lord ✨

🌼 personal favorite 🥀 angst 💞 fluff 🔥 smut

by @sarawritestories

The Most Beautiful High Lady 🥀💞

You Looked Like You Could Use a Partner 💞

by @lalacliffthorne

starshine (series) 🥀💞

by @marvelsmylife

Not As It Seems 🥀💞

Protecting his high lady 🥀💞

I think I wanna marry you 💞

by @swansworth

The Handsome Stranger 🥀💞

My High Lady 🔥

by @writingsbychlo

how we survive 🥀 platonic Rhysand x Reader but it's AMAZING

Home To Us 💞🌼

How to Save a Life 💞

by @azrielsdove

The High Lords 🥀🔥

Til Death Do Us Part 🥀🔥

Money, Power, Glory 🥀

Beautiful Girl 🥀💞

by @historiaxvanserra

What Our Souls Are Made Of 🥀💞

by @honeybeefae

Pretty Little Tears 🔥

by @wishfulwithwine

The Great War 🥀

by @leafsandstarlight

Against Your Brother's Wishes 🥀💞

Easy Like Sunday Morning 💞🔥

Welcome Distraction 🔥

Little Reminders 💞

by @cherhys

Anything, Always 🥀💞

Colliding Visions 💞

by @k-daydreams

Touch in the Dark 🥀

by @azsazz

Dioxazine 💞

Lavender Haze

Hung Up 🔥

by @jeannineee

Pining 🥀

Daddy Kink 🔥

by @ughthatimagineblog

love and loathing 💞🔥

forever and a day 💞

by @fieldofdaisiies

I Never Mean to Hurt You 🥀

by @daydreaming-nerd

The Bonds That Break Us 💞🥀🔥

by @hellcat8908

Returning Home 🥀💞

by @thehighladywrites

This Isn't Goodbye, This Is Simply See You Later 💞🥀🔥

Just One More, I Know You Can Do It 💞🔥

by @lure-of-writing

Where my soul can rest 🥀

by @saphirered

The Ice Queen and the High Lord 🔥

May We Meet Again

by @bookish-whore

'Til Death 💞

Never Made A Difference 🥀

by @tadpolesonalgae

mine 🔥

Knocked up 🔥

by @itsphoenix0724

Promises 🥀

by @fanttasttica

I hate you more.. 🥀

Shy priestess 💞

Finding you 🔥

Your love healed me 🥀💞

Just love me 🥀

One plus one makes three 💞

by @illyrian-dreamer

Dance with the devil

Make a bargain with me 💞🥀

by @azrielbrainrot

My Body Keeps Saying it's Yours 🔥

by @b00kdiary

Dreamer

by @solbaby7

Lose Control 💞

Put On A Show 🔥

Testing the Waters 💞🔥🌼

by @luxsky

Kicking out 💞

by @themusingsofacurlyhairednerd

Warm Me Up 💞🔥

Datura

by @starstruckunknown-princess

Black Rose 🥀

by @acourtofwhatthefuck

Needs Must 🔥

With Me, Always 🥀💞

Shrinking Violet 🔥

Forget Me Not 💞

by @lanitalay

At sea 💞🥀

by @redheadspark

Truth 💞🥀

Carry 💞🥀

My Pleasure 💞

Title 💞

by @azrielslightintheshadows

Game night disaster 🥀

Between you and danger 🥀

by @danikamariewrites

Take Them All Down 🥀🌼

Only For You 💞

Pointless Meetings 💞

Pranks 💞

by @bloodycassian

winter court runaway

by @thevanserrras

The Stolen Night 🥀💞

by @thelov3lybookworm

Winter Without You 🥀

Love Needs No Voice

by @prythianpages

Wanna Be Yours 💞

by @milswrites

Out of the Mountain 🥀

by @readychilledwine

Requiem for a Dream (series) 🥀💞

Broken 🥀

Flight Patterns 🥀💞🌼

Subtle 💞

Scream 🔥

Plot Measure 🥀

Drumming Song 🔥

Family Matters 🔥

Pieces of You 🥀🌼

by @clairebear08

Questioning Motives 🔥

by @serpentandlily

Falling Apart for You 🥀

by @shadowdaddies

Heavy is the Head 🥀💞🔥

Crawl to Me 🥀🔥

by @throneofsapphics

if you insist 💞

surprise reunions 🔥

by @azriels-shadowsinger

Reunited 💞🥀

by batboylover

secretly mated 🥀💞

[luxsky]

send this to the twelve nicest people you know or who seem to have a good heart and if you get five back you must be pretty awesome 💕💕💕💕

Ok this made my day! THANK YOU

*KISSES KISSES*

[luxsky]

Datura Pt 9

Summary: With the bargain in place, you'll have to learn to hide your powers while navigating a possibility of allies within Amarantha's court.

Content Warnings: Slight NSFW, suggestiveness, canon typical violence, allusions to assault.

Author's Note: As a little treat for the last chapter being so short, this one is loooooonnnngg. A couple familiar faces make an appearance here, as I decided I wanted to start combining the Hybern storyline with the UTM storyline.

Part 8 is here, rest of the series can be found here

----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Again.”

Breath rasps out of you, hands doubled over on your knees, sweat dripping off your forehead. The pounding in your skull intensifies with each labored breath, spots dancing across your vision as you shake your head. “I can’t!”

“You can.”

You raise your head enough to shoot the High Lord of the Night Court a glare. Easy for him to say, he’s not the one shifting forms over and over again. Do High Lord’s even have other forms, aside from Spring? You can’t recall anymore, your head hurts too much. Rhys had decided days ago--at least, you think it’s days, time has become irrelevant in this dark dungeon cell Amarantha has left you both in--that the best way for you to gain control of your powers to better hide them, is to learn how to control the shift. Yours is not quite a beast form, you’re not fully transforming into some sort of beast, but you can grow fangs and claws and shift your eyes into something other. There’s something deeper there you haven’t quite touched, the image of it reveals itself in your dreams, sometimes as this shapeless empty void, others with scales, but you’ll have to dig deeper for whatever that thing is. For now, it’s dampening your power and glamoring your bargain mark, and keeping a harness on the fangs and claws. It’s excruciating, letting them out and shoving them back in, you’ve lost count of how many times you’ve done it already. And Rhys just sits there in the corner, watching intently, giving instructions and being a general pain in the ass with each of them. 

“Did you think it was going to be easy?” Rhys returns.

You massage your jaw, the throbbing from retracting your fangs making your whole face hurt. “Of course not asshole! I’m just saying a little compassion would be nice.”

Rhys smirks, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you wanted to be babied and treated like a doll.”

You snarl at him like an animal, eyes blazing and your fangs slide into place effortlessly, pricking your bottom lip. 

Rhys stands with a grunt, body still recovering from the beating he’d received and the strain on his powers. “You’re so easy to rile up,” he croons, stalking closer. “You wear every emotion so plainly, it’s almost too easy to get you right into this position. And what happens when someone other than me sees, hm?”

He’s right and you hate it. 

He stills when he’s only a hair breath away. “I know it’s hard,” he says more gently. “But consider the alternative.”

You don’t want to even think about the alternative. This bargain has to work, you have to make it work, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how long it takes. You can’t let her win.

Your eyes go to the marks still gouged into Rhys’s neck from the collar; his healing abilities have started to return slowly, but he still can’t get the chain off, the wounds still rubbed raw from any and every movement. You can’t let her keep doing this to him either.

“Fine,” you huff.

“Good girl.”

The remark gets him a nice flash of your middle finger before you go back through the steps he’d taught you. It is nice to have the banter between you as a distraction to the reality of your situation, to the cold and darkness that have become a constant companion here far beneath the Mountain. The lack of food and sleep from the elements and the sounds of things prowling around outside is hard enough to bear without the looming threat of Amarantha’s return. This easy thing between you takes the edge off.

You last maybe an hour more, before you slump against the wall, exhausted. 

“You’re doing good,” Rhys affirms from his side of the cell. There’s barely enough room for the two of you to stretch your legs, knees brushing as you stretch your weary muscles. 

You want to believe him, but you know the confinement is taking a toll on your body. Perhaps part of Amarantha’s plan is to let you go half mad in the dark of the dungeons for your insubordination. At least you had been let out of your room from time to time. Locked away like this, you’re tired more easily. With powers like yours you should be able to do this for longer, but it feels like you’re trying to move the Mountain one rock at a time.

You rub a hand over your face, smearing the filth on your hands from touching the floor across your face. “Don’t patronize me.”

“You can be doing good and still need a lot of work,” he replies. “I thought you wanted me to be sympathetic?”

“Yeah well it means less if I had to force you to say it,” you retort.

He moves so he can come sit next to you. If he had any plans to say anything, it’s halted as the lock on the door slides out of place and it creaks open.

You instinctively reach for his hand, breath caught in your throat, waiting to hear that ominous click of heels on the stone floor. But it’s merely one of her red skinned guards, pushing a single tray across the floor before slamming the door shut again.

Rhys gives your hand a reassuring squeeze before leaning around you to grab the tray, a single, burnt loaf of bread and a cup of water between the two of you.

“I want to go home,” you whisper, more to yourself than to him.

He rips the bread in half. “Don’t get all mushy on me now.”

You take the half he offers, stomach rumbling, but you can’t bring yourself to eat it. What’s the point? 

“Tell me about it,” he says after a beat. “What’s so special about your little farmhouse in Spring.”

You bring your knees to your chest. “It had a lot of sunlight, for starters.” You miss being able to curl up by the windows with your books and a cup of tea, miss going out into the fields to check the mares and their calves, miss finding an excuse to go into town to listen to the minstrels play in the square. 

“I miss my bed and that old quilt I bought off a seamstress on the side of the road,” you continue, tears welling in your eyes. “And my books.”

“What do you like to read?”

“Anything,” you reply. “Everything. Never really mattered to me. Unless it was about math. I hate math.”

Rhys huffs a laugh. “What did math do to you?”

“It’s evil and stupid and who fucking puts letters in with numbers?”  It’s such a stupid statement you can’t help but laugh as the words come out. “But I’d read nothing but books about numbers for the rest of my life if it meant we got out of here.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to pull some from my library for you,” he teases.

You turn to look at him. “How have you survived this long, Rhys?”

He washes down the rest of his food with a bit of the water in your shared cup, violet eyes looking anywhere in the cell but your face. “One day at a time,” he says like it’s something he’s said every day. “And… and when it gets bad I think about my friends, my family. I make a list of their names and I recite it in my head until I don’t feel so lonely.”

You take his hand again, because what else are you supposed to do? You cannot magically make this all end right here and now. It will take time. Maybe that’s what hurts most, because this is the first time in weeks you’ve felt like you understand how your powers work, how you can use them, and yet there’s nowhere to direct them. It’s all a waiting game, moving pieces into the right places until you can finally put all this to use. And cauldron is the waiting game grating on your last nerve, but it’s only been a few days. Rhys has been here for fifty. Your heart aches for him.

“But I think,” he finally turns to look at you, and his violet eyes are damp. “I think I’ve forgotten what they look like.”

You give his hand a reassuring squeeze. 

“Some days I want to just lay down and quit,” he whispers. “But I can’t. I won’t. Then she wins and everything I’ve set out to do, to protect, was for nothing. I can’t let it be for nothing.”

You lean your head against his shoulder. “It won’t be for nothing.” You won’t let it either, you just need to rest for a bit, then you can get back to it.

He leans his head against yours. “We’ll get you back to your books and your quilt.”

“We’ll get out,” you whisper. Maybe if you tell yourself it enough it’ll be true.

“We’ll get out,” he echos.

After sitting like that for a few moments, collecting yourself, you choke down the stale and mostly ruined bread and little bit of ice cold water you’ll get for the day. It gives you enough energy to get back on your feet at least. Your head still throbs from the strain, but you brace yourself against the wall and will it to pass.

“Let’s try those glamors again.”

“That’s my girl,” Rhys praises.

You focus your attention on the thing that lives in your chest, hoping his position on the floor keeps him from seeing the blush that creeps its way up your neck under the possessiveness in his tone. The banter between you is one thing, but anything else is dangerous territory, and you can’t risk any more danger in your life than you already have.  

---

Time passes mostly the same after that, with a little more banter as the tension of being locked up builds between the two of you and a little less vulnerability, granted, but the training regime is the same, until your headaches become less frequent and his jabs at you make you feel less and less like a reason to bring out your claws. The shift becomes a little more bearable over time, and glamoring the bargain ink across your chest becomes the next focus. It takes all your attention for what feels like days, but it’s anyone’s guess.

The progress should make you feel more comfortable, and it does in some ways, but makes you jumpier in others. Every noise outside the door has you checking to make sure a glamor is in place, has you running your tongue over your teeth to ensure your fangs are hidden. Its been steadily getting colder in the cell, the only true indicator that time is passing, and if you can manage to sleep around the shaking of your body, your dreams have started to become less of a call of your powers and more of nightmare of clicking heels and bright red hair and rooms with black vials full of terrible potions. Rhys isn’t any better. Sometimes he wakes screaming, a bit of night chilled darkness seeping from his flushed skin. Some nights you find him staring dutifully at the door, unable to sleep at all.

You’re not sure how much more of this either of you can take before one of you starts bashing against the door again. Between the two of you, perhaps the damage he’d already done would be enough to get it open for real, but what would you do from there? It wasn’t like you could escape. Even if you managed to get out of this cell, she’d just throw you in another.

So you do your best to endure a little longer, even if that means coming up with new ways to cope with it. Cuddling with the High Lord of the Night Court hadn’t really been an option you’d considered until one night it had become so unbearably cold that you could see the clouds of your breath in the air and there wasn’t a full set of clothes between the two of you. Trying to conserve body heat, you’d rolled right into his bare chest and he’d greedily buried his freezing nose into the crook of your neck, teeth chattering against your skin. He’d mumbled something about conserving body heat and that had been all that you were willing to talk about it. From that point on, if you were tired, you’d just lay down next to his large body and let him wrap his arms around you for however long your body could manage to rest in these conditions.

It wasn’t that it felt wrong, it was that it felt right. You could see yourself tangled up like this, in a nice bed, with some warm blankets and fluffy pillows, sunlight streaming through a window above your heads, finally free and out of this terrible place. You try not to let your imagination go too far with that thought, but sometimes it’s the only reason you keep getting up and training; even if it isn’t going to happen for real, at least there’s something to imagine waiting for you at the end of this. You just make sure your shields are up when the thought runs away with you, lest he see them as his powers start to return.

“Your nose is cold,” Rhys says by way of greeting. You can only assume it’s morning, assume that your internal clock still works and that you are, in fact, still on some sort of sleep schedule, but it’s anyone’s guess really.

You crack an eye open to see what he’s talking about, grumbling about it being too early. At some point, you’d nestled quite snuggly into his chest, face buried in the crook of his neck, despite the collar.

“So are your hands,” you retort, closing your eyes again.

He drags one up your back, where the tattered remains of your dress bare your newly scarred skin, in retaliation. 

“Bastard,” you snarl but you don’t pull away. Pulling away means waking up; means counting the cracks in the ceiling again, pacing until you feel some warmth in your body again. Pulling away means you have to face another day in this cell and you’re not sure you can do it without bashing your fists into the door Rhys had nearly ruined already.

“You like having my hands on you,” he returns.

“Do I?”

“You were practically begging me to touch you on Calanmai,” he says huskily, warm breath ghosting over your ear. 

Your stomach does a little flip at the memory of his hands on you on Calanmai, at the hunger and want that had been so plain on his face you could almost taste it. Things had been so simple then, you didn’t need to worry about letting your own want show. Not like now. “Oh yes, because a night of magic induced horniness is the indicator for what I want.” 

But you do want it. Cauldron boil you do you want it. Every drag of his calloused palms across your bare skin makes you want to arch further into his touch, let him explore and taste and claim every bit of you. It’s becoming unbearable. Calanmai was nothing compared to this.

“So what do you want then?” Rhys asks as his hands draw shapes in your skin, near the base of your neck. You swear you hear a hint of vulnerability there, like there might actually be more than banter in this question.

“To sleep,” you reply, because you can’t allow anything more to happen. Amarantha already knows you care enough about him to surrender your powers, if she knew it was anything more, she’d kill him just to spite you. 

Rhys hums like he’s thinking about it, but eventually says, “We should train more. Your glamours need more work.” 

“Bite me,” you grumble. Training has become even more exhausting. It’s useful stuff for sure, but holding onto your power for too long, then stuffing it back down is starting to feel suffocating. Your powers beg to be unleashed, free and unrestrained from the boundaries you are drawing out for them. No, you can’t allow yourself to think about what you want to happen with the High Lord, but you can’t bring yourself to get up, so here you remain, in limbo between the two. Maybe if he lets you drift back to sleep you’ll never have to make a decision between the two.

He brushes his lips over the shell of your ear, “Ask nicely.”

Your treacherous heart skips a beat at the huskiness of his tone, heat flaring in the pit of your stomach. “Make me, High Lord.” 

A laugh rumbles in his chest. “Darling,” he purrs, “don’t start games you can’t finish.”

You have two options here: You can leave it be and get up, leave the line you have made between the two of you right where it is and not have to worry about it; or you can hold your ground and risk stepping right over that boundary line. You know you’re teetering on the knife’s edge here.

“Why wouldn’t I finish?” You turn your head enough to look him in the eyes, batting your eyelashes in feign innocence, even though you know damn well what you’re doing. 

He moves so quickly you don't have time to realize it’s happening before he’s rolling you over onto your back, the solid, heavy weight of him pressing you into the floor. All rational thought eddies from your mind as his hips shift against your own. 

“You have a lot of attitude for someone so set on going back to bed,” he says and you can’t help but note how dilated his eyes are, the violet almost wholly consumed by his pupils. 

This somehow feels more intimate than what you had been doing on Calanmai, despite the fact that his hands were firmly planted next to your head instead of roving over your skin. Gods you hope the filth of the cell covers the scent of your budding arousal because this--him--you want, need, more of it.

“I  can be more than one thing at a time,” you reply. It’s taking all your restraint to not reach your hands out and touch the muscles that ripple across his tattooed chest from holding himself up above you. Even after a few days locked away, you can’t stop thinking about how it would taste to run your tongue over those dark swirls of ink.

His eyes narrow as if he can hear your thoughts, and shit, you realize too late that your shields have been down this whole time because you’d thought, since he was still recovering, those daemati powers would be the last to come back. There’s not time to throw your shields up before his lips are crashing into yours.

You’d thought Calanmai was as desperate for something as you’d ever feel, but it’s nothing in comparison to the hunger that consumes you as those full lips settle against your own. There’s no stopping the groan that tears itself from you as he slides a hand under your head, fingers tangling in your matted hair as he slips his tongue behind your teeth.

You see stars, taste citrus and jasmine. He invades all your senses so thoroughly that the very cell feels like it falls away until nothing exists in the world but the two of you. 

Calanmai had been feverish, an itch that needed to be scratched, but this is like finding air after being underwater too long. You can’t help but feel dizzy and greedy for more as you drag a hand up the sharp contours of his back.

He hisses softly into your mouth when your fingers accidentally brush the collar and you pull back, finally coming up for air. “Shit, shit I’m sorry-”

But he chases back after you like a man starved anyway. “It’s ok,” in between more kisses, each hungrier than the last, “it’s ok.” You’ve never heard a male’s voice get so low, the sound of it making your whole body turn molten.

Still, you’re conscious of where you put your hands, and sensing your hesitation, he drags them over to his chest, inviting you to touch, to trace his tattoos just as you were thinking about doing the first time you’d seen them. Gods there isn’t a part of him you don’t want to explore; to map out and learn every scare and curve across his bronze skin.

You would have too, if the lock on the door didn’t suddenly click out of place. The resounding echo is like ice water being dumped on your head.

Rhys slides the hand under your head down your back and around your waist, yanking you up off the floor with him while he stands. You’re still trying to get your bearings when he places one last, gentle kiss on your lips. “Remember what we practiced.”

Your head is spinning, legs shaky. Nothing makes any sense. Why is he stopping?

The door opens and more of Amarantha’s guards step in, but there’s no tray of food this time, just a single, metal collar. The sight of it is like having water dumped on your head, all thoughts of Rhys’s body on yours drifting away as reality crashes back into you. 

“Her Highness requests your presence,” says one of the two.

Only two. If they were here for Rhys there would be, at least, four, after the stunts he’d been pulling. He has to know that too, but he steps forward anyway, shrugging like it doesn’t bother him, like the smell of you isn’t all over him for anyone to scent.

One of the guards gets a hand on his chest and pushes him back into the wall. “Not you.”

Your mouth feels like it’s made of sandpaper; hands trembling at your sides. You can’t do this, you can’t do this, you can’t.

There’s a tug beneath your ribs, where the bargain ink lies, some sort of invisible thread going taught as Rhys says, “Breathe. Just like we practiced,” into your mind.

You want to duck behind him and hide, but you do as you’re told, drawing one breath, then another as the second guard steps forward and clamps the collar around your throat. It’s not the same, strange metal that used to dampen your power before, but why would it be when Amarantha thinks she has all your powers? As much as you hated the feeling of it, you kind of wished they’d used it instead, just as an extra barrier to keep your powers at bay.

What little bit of Rhys’s power has returned fills the cell, night chilled mist making the already dark room even harder to see in, save for a slight tint of stardust in his irises. “She’s done everything she was asked,” he snarls. “That collar isn’t necessary.”

“Her Highness says it is.”

You risk a glance at him, needing to steady yourself, dreading the fact that he’s somehow become so important to you that the thought of being taken out of this cell makes you want to start shredding things apart. How had you so quickly dug this hole for yourself.

“I’ll be right here. You can do this.”

They don’t waste any more time, dragging you out by the chain attached to the collar, like you’re some sort of wild animal. It’s degrading; makes you feel less and less like a person and more like a pet the longer time drags on. The guards are quick on their feet too, not giving you time to adjust to your surroundings or the blaring torchlights that make you squeeze your eyes shut as you pass. Cauldron, how long have you been in that cell?

You have just enough presence of mind to ensure your glamor is in place around your chest, before they’re dragging you through the open throne room doors. Another one of Amarantha’s nightly parties is in full swing, dancers in skimpy clothes spinning across the room; servants with pitchers of fae wine weave through the crowd, stopping at tables to refill the cups of several High Fae and someone you think might be the High Lord of Winter. It must be nice to have curied enough favor with the Queen that he was allowed to wander freely, instead of a cell, or, like the High Lord of Spring, chained to her throne. Tamlin’s golden hair is messy, undone around his face. The Mountain has stolen some of the color from his skin, though you suppose you look equally as pale now too. He wears his own, glittering collar, the golden chain draped over the bare expanse of his chest. Amarantha has inked her sigil over his heart, staking her claim over her mate. The High Lord’s eyes are so glassy from what you can only assume is the combination of mirthroot and fae wine that you doubt he’s even aware of where he is. It might be a small mercy, in the end.

The guards drag you through the crowd, where you earn more than a few snickers and stares. You’ve never been more aware of how much dirt clings to your skin until this moment. Gods you were making out with a High Lord looking like this? Could he taste the dirt on you? 

You’re led right to the dias, where Amarantha wears a glittering, ruby red crown, her hair unbound and falling in soft waves around her pale face. She might have been pretty once, but the cruelty in her dark gaze was enough to sour it if you looked too long. She watches with amusement as her guards drag you over, eyes glinting with barely restrained glee. Her new little pet here to entertain.

They finally quit dragging you once you’re at the foot of the dias and the crowd goes quiet behind you.

“Have you had enough time to think about what you’ve done?” She croons like you’re a misbehaving child in need of a time out.

Your cheeks flush, but you focus your attention on keeping the damper on your power. You can’t let her rile you up so easily, that’s exactly what she wants. “Yes,” you grind out through your teeth.

She taps a pointed nail against her chin, as if thinking. “And yet you do not bow in my presence, or acknowledge me as your queen?”

A tingling feeling in your upper jaw is the indication that your fangs want to come out and play and you force yourself to take a breath, then another. Still, you have to grit your teeth and stare at the floor to give her a little curtsey, as best you can in your ruined dress anyway. “My apologies.”

“Again,” she says with a grin. “Like you mean it, pet.”

There’s a couple snickers from the crowd behind you.

You’re gritting your teeth so hard you’re sure they might just crack on you, but you take your skirts in hand and curtsey a little deeper this time. The only way you get through it is to picture all the ways you’ll make her pay for this when the time is right.

“No, that’s not right,” she frowns. “You should be lower. In fact, you should be on your knees, thanking me for the mercy I have shown you after you so violently attacked me. Most people don’t live to see the next morning after such things.” The eye on her ring swivels in a motion that makes you think it’s nodding in agreement.

You risk a glance around, searching for any sympathy, and support, but there is none to be found in the leering faces of the crowd. 

“Go on,” she orders. “Beg for my forgiveness.”

Mother knows what she’ll do to you, or Rhys if you don’t, and you need to be in one piece to fulfill your bargain. Still, the move is so demeaning, your very nature thrashing against it that it’s an effort not to cry as you lower yourself onto your knees at the foot of her throne.

When you open your mouth to spew whatever bullshit you think will appease her, she cuts you off, “Lower.”

Your whole face is red with shame as you lean forward until your forehead touches the floor. 

“Better,” she croons. “Now beg, pet.”

“Please,” the word sticks in your throat like it’s a rock. “Please forgive my violent outburst. It won’t happen again.”

She clears her throat, waiting for you to say it.

“It won’t happen again, Your Highness.”

“Try again.”

The crowd is laughing in earnest now and the tears are flowing down your cheeks. You hate this, you hate her, you want to rip her fucking throat out and make that dreadful, grating voice vanish from the face of the world. 

“It won’t happen again, My Queen.”

“Much better,” she says, taking another sip of wine. “I told you I’d get her in line.” 

You raise your head off the floor enough to see who she was talking to with that last bit, and your heart lurches into your stomach at the sight of the two figures standing to the side of the dias, staring intently at you. Twins, bearing the same dark hair, swept back out of their faces, their eyes the same slate gray. They both wear armor, finely polished over matching black tunics and pants, a bit of silver lining in the stitches of their well pressed clothes. But it’s the sigil, over the heart on their armor, that marks them as Hybern’s.

The female stalks over to where you’re still kneeling and yanks you up by the hair to have a better look at you. Gloved fingers poke at your lips, trying to get a look at your teeth and you wonder if maybe you really have been turned into some sort of animal. 

“No fangs,” she muses, her voice like gravel, nothing pretty or feminine about it. “No claws either,” her hands move from your face to your nail beds, poking like you would at a cat’s paws to get their claws to come out. 

You bite the inside of your cheek until you taste blood. 

“You’ve tested to make sure you took all of her powers?” The male asks Amarantha and your blood turns to ice in your veins. If she tries to use your powers now then you’re doomed before you even get started. 

“I’d be happy to demonstrate,” Amarantha says flippantly, but there’s an edge under it that makes you think even she is trying not to squirm. “But my formula has never failed me.”

“Yours?” The female sneers. “You’d be wise to remember who taught you how to make those potions, General.”

Hybern made Amarantha, Rhys had said, it only made sense that all these little tricks had been part of her training. 

Amarantha takes another swig of wine and waves the disrespect off like a fly. “I’ll happily throw her into the Pit again if you are both so desperate to waste your own time with a demonstration.”

They stare at each other, having some sort of silent conversation. The female finally releases your hair and the ground rises up to meet you as you nearly fall back onto your face. 

“No,” the male brushes a gloved hand over a speck of dirt clinging to his otherwise spotless armor. “I suppose that would be a waste of our time. We have other things to attend to while we’re here.”

It’s honestly a relief. Going back down into the Pit to fight more monsters without being able to summon any of your powers sounds like a complete nightmare, you’re honestly not sure you’re strong enough not to slip up and make a mistake. 

“But we can still check,” the female purrs and that’s when you feel a mental claw raking across your mind. It is not like Rhys’s, not gentle or even teasing, it’s a slash, like someone is trying to cleave through your shields with a knife, and you instantly reach your hands for your head as if it’ll be any sort of protection at all.

You don’t dare call out to Rhys, or even think about what mental hoops you need to do to hide the bargain mark, the glamor should hold for a bit on its own while you put all your energy into tightening your shields against their onslaught. Rhys had been right about your cousins’ daemati powers, they were nothing like his own.

They keep clawing and poking, taking turns trying to tear your mind to shreds. It’s not gentle either, their presence making you whimper and writhe on the throne room floor, regardless of the embarrassment from the still watching crowd. 

“Well there’s been some training here,” the female says. 

“Be careful, Brannagh,” Amarantha hisses. “If you turn her mind to soup she’ll be of no use to us.”

You lock every door and throw up every barrier you can muster, even as they throw themselves against each one, testing for weaknesses. They’re an excellent tag team, every time you think Brannagh might give up, her brother steps into her place and tries again. You’re seeing spots by the time they release you.

The male’s boots come into view as he stops in front of your face. “If you’re so beaten, why won’t you show us how powerless you are, hm?”

It feels like someone’s taking a hammer to your skull, you pinch your eyes shut against the wave of nausea that makes the room spin. “Maybe I just don’t like you,” you hiss.

He too grabs you by the hair, twisting you so your neck moves at an awkward angle to be able to see exactly how badly the remark had hit him. 

“Dagdan,” his sister warns. “Play nice. Our King wants her alive, remember?”

“They said your mother was this untamed too,” he hisses. “Before they broke her.”

You swallow the rage that rises up in your throat, clamp down on everything threatening to bubble to the surface and overflow, ruining all your plans. You have made it this far, you cannot let their presence get the best of you. There will be time to process all this later, when you’re back in your cell. Strangely, the thought of going back to Rhys soothes you, helps you settle. 

“Are you done messing with my things?” Amarantha asks.

“She’s only yours until Hybern arrives to lay claim to Prythian, as is his right,” Brannagh says loud enough for the whole room to hear her. If there was any partying still happening in the corners of the room, it has ceased now, all eyes on the twins.

Amarantha is standing, wine glass clattering to the floor, splattering Tamlin, who doesn’t even look at it. “That’s enough! You will mind your mouths in my Court!”

Dagdan chuckles at that. “Did your Queen not tell you the truth?” Having found a new victim to play with, he finally releases your hair. 

“I said enough!” Amarantha booms, both fire and ice flying from her fingertips. The Mountain trembles beneath her as the powers she’s stolen skitter uncontrollably from her. One eye blazes like a forest fire, the other has gone black and empty, a bit of Rhys’s stolen power flaring. “In my Throne Room you answer to me, regardless of who you serve.”

With the way she jerks back you think the twins might have reached for her mind to silence her, but you can’t be sure. 

“You answer to Hybern, same as everyone else!” Brannagh challenges. “You were nothing more than an experiment, to test and see if Prythian was once again fertile ground for our empire. Did you really think Hybern would just let you walk in here and steal what is rightfully his?”

The crowd begins to whisper amongst themselves, apparently having not heard the news until now. You risk a glance around looking for the other High Lords, hoping some of them, perhaps the ones who had sides against Hybern in the War would be more inclined to fight. If you could gain allies, perhaps this would be over quicker. 

There are many unrecognizable faces in the crowd, some High Fae, some lower, some concealed by the masks of Tamlin’s former court, some fully clothed in their servants’ garb. It is hard to discern between the glittering chandeliers and flickering torches who belongs to what court, and you have only vaguely glimpsed the High Lords themselves. Out of most of the faces, none even look your way, save for one red headed male, off to the side of a group of fire dancers. Golden eyes lock on yours for the briefest of moments before they dart away. If only you had your own daemati powers, perhaps this would be easier. You’ll have to talk to Rhys later about who your potential allies can be here.

“I was promised my part of the land and I will fucking have it,” Amarantha growls, turning your attention away from the crowd.

“You will take what you are given,” Dagdan returns. “And if you cooperate, maybe you will be allowed to keep this dingy little cave of yours.”

Amarantha bristles and sparks fly off her shoulders. 

“You will do your part for the new empire,” Brannagh continues. “Lend us the Lord of Spring to lead us to the Wall. We’ll consider it proof of your undying allegiance and let your outburst slide.”

Amarantha glances down at where Tamlin remains staring at the wall, hands tightening into fists. “Absolutely not!”

“We can take him by force,” Dagdan says with a shrug.

She grabs the chain around her mate’s neck and yanks, dragging him to his feet. “I want him back by morning.”

Brannagh steps over you to get to him, gloved hands running appreciatively over the High Lord’s bare chest. “Maybe I’ll keep him.”

The wrong thing to say. Amarantha erupts in a wave of fire that has everyone throwing themselves out of the way. You roll backwards, away from it, slipping into the crowd. You think they might start fighting--they’re definitely screaming you can tell that much--when a set of hands settles on your shoulders, in what would look like to onlookers was a stranger helping you up, but those hands don’t lift, they hold you in place. 

“Whatever Rhys is planning with you,” warm breath frames your face as the stranger puts his lips to your ear. “Tell him to move quickly. My father will side with Hybern and surrender up whatever army we have left at the earliest chance. He’ll want to get ahead of this. Summer and Winter do not have the strength to fight. Tell him Hellion is with us.”

Us. You risk a glance at him, at the auburn hair falling into your eyes. Not the High Lord of Autumn, but one of his sons. 

“I’ll tell him,” you say softly, praying no one hears.

The male helps you to your feet. “Be careful. We might only get one chance.” And then he’s gone, disappearing into the crowd as the two females on the dias finally start to calm.

Amarantha is bleeding from a gash across her forehead, but Brannagh is laughing as she lets the blood from her nose drip freely down her face. “Mating bond chafing?”

Dagdan has managed to shield Tamlin, sparing him, of no kindness of his own, he is as inclined to look at the High Lord like he’d be his next meal as his sister.

“Get out,” Amarantha snarls.

Dagdan twirls Tamlin’s chain around his fingers. “We want proof the girl will be loyal when the time comes.”

“If a hair is harmed on my mate’s head,” Amarantha snarls in return. “I’ll pin you to my fucking wall.”

“Scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours. Otherwise, I’ll bring you back his head and I’ll take the girl and her powers back to Hybern, where we train in breaking goddesses.”

A few people in the crowd glance your way. 

Shit, that’s what Rhys had been trying to tell you with that book he’d sent in your first couple of days here. Hybern had found a way to breed death gods. Your name would be on that list he’d made in the margins.

A guard finally comes to collect you as the twins drag Tamlin out of the throne room. Amarantha is apparently not done with her tantrum, as she begins throwing anything in reach, stolen powers swirling around her like a whirlwind. The crowd begins to slip away, fearing her wrath if they stay. For now, you’ve managed to keep your bargain and your powers secret, but your cousin’s words hang over you like a ticking clock. It’s only a matter of time before she realizes she has to test you. 

-------------------------------------------------------

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[luxsky]

ACOTAR men x reader with glasses

A/n: I’m getting new glasses tomorrow and I got and idea for what each of the Acotar men would be like with a partner who wears glasses so enjoy

Rhysand who leans in whispering “hello darling” as he gently pushes your glasses back up, caressing your cheek as he does

Cassian who pulls away from a heated kiss muttering about them getting in his way and quickly pulling off your glasses, folding them and placing them on the nearest surface before pulling you back into another kiss

Azriel who comes back late from a mission and finds you asleep on the couch and takes off your glasses and kisses your forehead before laying down next to you and pulling you on top of him

Lucien who wakes you up with soft kisses and caresses, whispering sweet nothings to you as he grabs your glasses and puts them on you pressing kisses to each cheek as he lays himself down on top of you

Eris who watches you rub your forehead and mutter about having lost your glasses again as he crosses the room towards you, extending a hand with your glasses in towards you as he chuckles, making jokes about how often you lose them

Helion who rests his hand on your thigh, thumb rubbing the soft skin as he presses kisses to your neck mumbling into the crook of your neck about how sexy these glasses look on you and how beautiful you are

[luxsky]

span it into March, Liz. Make us cry instead

You asked for it.

Pieces of You Pt 1

Summary - After losing Feyre to childbirth, Rhysand finds himself leaning on one of her friends much more than he'd ever expected

Warnings - depression, self destructive behavior, babies, grieving, loss of motivation in life, Rhys feels his spark is gone, we haven't seen into readers headspace yet

Prologue

Rhys had not left his bed in 7 days. He had not changed. He had not bathed. Dark circles were beginning to form under his eyes as a permanent reminder of the lack of sleep he allowed himself.

It took one week. One week for him to feel the light Feyre lit in his soul to go out. One week for him to feel the last of his spark die. One week of tugging nothing but an aching empty void. Rhys saw no joy in life anymore, just burden and heartache.

Cassian entered the room, sitting on the edge of the bed. It had been like this the whole time. Each day, a different member of the Inner Circle would come to his newly claimed room. They'd try to tell him about his son, try to force him to eat, to drink something other than another bottle of whiskey or wine. They all would leave when they realized he wouldn't budge, and that's how Rhys wanted it to be right now. He wanted to be alone. To drown himself in self hatred, in guilt, in anger, in the depths of sadness he had never felt before. “She's asking when you're going to come see him. She's concerned you aren't bonding with him and-”

“Tell her I just lost my fucking mate and I will see him when I'm ready to.” Rhys growled out every letter, glaring at Cassian. “She's fully fucking capable of caring for both of them.”

Cassian's shoulders fell. “Rhys, she just lost her mate, too, remember? The so-called accident in the port? The one we are fairly sure Beron and Koschei planned? He was one of the males killed.”

A moment of sympathy crossed through Rhysand's face before his own grieve ate through the emotion completely. “She was one of Feyre's friends, Rhys. Trust me. She's mourning as hard as we all are as well as mourning her mate, and trying to process it all while caring for two newborns in her home unexpectedly.”

Rhys rolled away from him, indicated he was done, and Cassian sighed, looking down towards his feet. “She's keeping Nyx alive, selflessly, Rhys. Our last physical piece of Feyre. At least consider going and seeing him.”

-

Members of the Inner Circle had all but moved into your cottage.

You had gone from just you and Wen to you, Wen, Nyx, and which ever member or members arrived to take care of you that day.

Today, Lady Death stood at your door with Cassian. They were holding baby supplies, food for lunch, and clothes for both of the babies. Nesta was a shell, moving into the home in silence and setting things down as if time was moving at a slower pace for her.

Cassian tucked your messy hair behind your ear. “I asked him to come see Nyx.”

Your eyes lit up, hope for the little heir shining in them. “And?” Cassian just shook his head, eyes beginning to water as he did.

“Is he asleep?” You nodded at the question. “And Little Mor?” You nodded again.

“I fed them both about 20 minutes ago.”

“Go do something for you,” Nesta's voice was lifeless. “We will make lunch. Azriel will be here soon.”

Azriel had become a constant companion. As soon as he realized Rhys had no interest in seeing Nyx, he had been here, standing in where a father should be. Doing whatever you needed, whatever the babies needed. Even though he was there for Nyx, he still treated “Little Mor," as the Inner Circle had all named your daughter, like he was here for her too.

You moved into your bathroom, looking at the now lukewarm bath you had drawn for yourself. It would be fine. You'd be quick. Then you would be ready to go be super mom and nanny again.

-

Azriel froze when he saw Rhys dressed in casual clothing, waiting for him at the door. He had lunch for the High Lord, hoping he'd be able to make him eat before leaving to be with you and his favorite babies. A shadow curled his ear, whispering how Rhys wanted to go see his son. How he needed to meet you officially. How he was struggling to set aside his own needs. How he was a scared lamb where a lion once stood, ready to run the second things became too difficult.

Azriel held a hand out, reaching for Rhys like the brothers had reached for each other so many times before. He waited, smiling softly at Rhys as a shaking hand placed itself in his and he walked them through the shadows before Rhys could change his mind.

-

Struggling flowers in pots sat outside of the cottage, wilting slightly from the lack of time and care put into them. A blue door sat on silver hinges, greeting them brightly. Mocking Rhysand's sadness with its cheerful presence.

You were an artist, Rhys knew that much. Where Feyre loved to paint, you used charcoal to express yourself. He also knew the two of you were fast friends, constantly having lunch together, shopping together, giggling.

You had been all Feyre spoke of when she met you 4 months ago. Her first true friend with no ties to a lover, to the inner circle, to obligations. You chose her, and she relished in every moment of your love, and from what Rhys understood, you relished in hers.

Rhys had a piece of your artwork. You had sketched out Feyre, mind and hands deep in paint, glowing towards the tail end of her pregnancy as she worked on painting Nesta rising from the Lake as Lady Death.

You had an impeccable eye for details and for making emotions readable through lines. You were a true gem to the Rainbow. A valued member of Velaris. He knew your name long before Feyre had mentioned you, but now, you were irreplaceable.

To him, to Nyx, to the Inner Circle.

They owed you. Rhys owned you. The very least he could do was drag himself out of a bed, throw on clothing, and come see his son. Rhys shook as his hand reached to knock, before scarred ones gently lowered His and twisted the knob.

“We don't knock. We just enter. No loud noises, okay?" Azriel opened the door, nodding to where Nesta sat with her hands on her hand, and Cassian was making lunch. “They must be sleeping?”

Cass nodded not turning his back to face them yet. “Little Mor and Nyx just fell asleep 25 minutes go. Y/n is Bathing in cold water because Mother forbid that female takes a moment for herself-”

As if on cue, as if sensing Rhysand's presence, a piercing cry broke through the house, and they heard a door open and then another. Azriel pulled Rhys with him to the nursery where Nyx and Morwenna slept during the day. "That cry was Nyx," Azriel said softly. "He struggles during naptime. Little Mor has a more rattle cry."

Long hair dripped water onto the wooden floorboards as a small winged figure rested his head on a bare shoulder. “I know, sweetheart,” you bounced him so softly, soothing him back to sleep. “I know you're lonely. It's okay. We can cuddle, I don't mind.” A deep huff left his mouth as he settled in, basking in the contact you were offering him.

Rhys moved like a ghost to the second bassinet where a sweet girl slept, happy and content for what he hoped was a few more moments.

The two of them could have been twins. Same dark hair, similar noses, similar lips set in a forever baby pout.

Aside from gender, there were only two glaring details sitting on Nyx's back that were the tell-tale sign of their different parents. Two glaring details that killed his mate, his wife. “And your son's mother,” a soft feminine voice whispered. “She was his mother, too, High Lord. He is missing her just as much as you are.”

Azriel looked to Rhys, calling for him in his mind. Daemati. Check your shields.

"His shields are fine. He's just screaming his thoughts like they're going to manifest into life if he does."

A deep voice finally answered, void of all emotion. “I don't think he misses her half as much as I do, my lady,” Rhys continued to look at Morwenna. A picture-perfect babe who caused you no harm.

“Little Mor,” Azriel said as he stroked her tuff of dark hair. "This is Morwenna, but we call her Little Mor.” Azriel then moved to Nyx, a ghost of a smile as his lips quickly trembled before he masked it. “You should hold him, Rhys. He might remember your voice.”

“It would be good for both of you,” you whispered. “He needs you. Look into his little mind and then Wen’s,” a pointed look to Azriel allowed Rhys to finally see you.

Tired eyes, features pale from exhaustion, a small smile that didn't reach your eyes. Your beautiful eyes. You were stunning, even by high fae standards, Rhys knew that, but he could hardly appreciate it the way he once had. There was no more beauty in his world. No more light. Feyre had taken it all with her.

“High Lord, please, holding him. Even just for a second.” You moved to Rhys, standing before him, offering so much more than just his son. “He needs you, and you need him. Just open your eyes and see that.”

Rhys held out shaking hands, taking his son in his arms for the first time, holding him for the first time. Bright blue eyes looked up at him, laced with sleep and confusion, before snuggling so closely into his chest that Rhysand felt something stir again. You moved him to the chair, forcing him to sit and handing him tissues as the tears began to fall.

He looked up to where you had grabbed your daughter before she could start crying, soothing her as well. He listened to the soft whispers of your voice, he watched you care for her no differently than you had Nyx, treating them like they were both your own.

It explained the little heir's health, the rolls beginning to form on his little body, the rosy cheeks. You loved him like he was yours, and he loved you.

Rhys looked back down, and as he stared at Nyx, watching each little movement of his chest, feeling his warmth, his happy thoughts and dreams of his and Feyre's voices, of you singing to him and rocking him to sleep. Looking at his son, Rhys realized that maybe, just maybe, there was still some light left in this world. He felt for the first time in a week that maybe, just maybe, there was still something left to live for.

General Taglist:

@hnyclover @glitterypirateduck @slytherinindisguise @mischiefmanager @bloodicka @starsinyourseyes @the-sweet-psycho @mariahoedt @rinalouu @sarawritestories @starryhiraeth @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @cumuluscranium @loneliestluvr @eternallyelvish @daughterofthemoons-stuff @tayswhp

Rhys taglist:

@tothestarsandwhateverend @cheshire-salvatore-mikaelson @avajustreads

Pieces of You Taglist:

@dr4g0ngirl @bigcreatorwombatdreamer @blueeclipsepaperstudent @thisblogisaboutabook @mybestfriendmademe @novalovi @rachelnicolee @sleepylunarwolf @sidthedollface2 @acourtofbatboydreams @bunnyredgirl @fandomrejects

If your username is in bold, tumblr is not allowing me to tag you. Hopefully it will fix here soon, though!

[luxsky]

Pieces of You - Prologue

Summary - After losing Feyre to childbirth, Rhysand finds himself leaning on one of her friends much more than he'd ever expected

Warnings - death, loss of a mate, babies, drug induced sleep

A/N - this one is going to hurt before it feels good, friends. It's gonna hurt a lot. Based on these little pictures I found in a tiktok

Silence had fallen over the house.

There wasn't a single voice whispering, no bells to ring in the celebration of Nyx's birth, no loud pops from corks of champagne echoing in the air. 

Just silence. 

Madja stood in the doorway, a small bundle of what should have been joy wrapped in her arms. Rhys was sat on the steps, shoulders shaking with anger and sadness. 

The Cauldron had refused Nesta's offer. It had instead mocked them, changing Nesta's womb, forcing her to keep the powers that plagued her, and breaking the death bargain. 

It forced him to live while his mate died, promising there were no second chances this time. No magic being to bring her back again. This time was for good. It was forever. Rhysand knew life could be a bitter thing, but he did not expect death to be as cruel. 

“High lord,” Madja approached slowly. “We need to decide how we are feeding Nyx. The babe needs to eat.”

Azriel appeared besides Rhys, kneeling down next to him as he stared off the balcony. “I.. I don't know,” he finally answered. “We hadn't talked about it. She figured she would just be here to do it.” Azriel squeezed Rhysand's shoulder, handing him a vial with blue liquid in it. “We will have to find a wet nurse. Though, I am unsure how you will find one this last minute.”

“Y/n,” Azriel said softly. “She just had a babe, didn't she?” Madja nodded. “Can she just feed them both?”

“it is possible. Y/n does over produce already and has been storing milk. Newborns need to be fed almost hourly, though, shadowsinger. She'd have to have them both here, or Nyx will have to stay with her."

Rhys just shrugged, uncorking the vial and shooting back the contents. “I really don't care about that aspect, Madja. The house is huge, and I'm alone now anyway. What's the point in caring? She can decide." Azriel helped him stand as the sleeping drought started to work and supported his brother into a bedroom. 

He reappeared moments later. “I'll ask her. I know you don't want to burden her.” He reached for Nyx, admiring his perfect face again. “She's a sweet girl, quiet, good listener. She might be good for both of them while he heals.”

Madja just nodded. “Just remember that two grieving widowers will need a village to care for two newborns.”

The small cottage you lived in was quiet. You were leaned against the couch, sitting in the floor with your head laid back. Caring for your daughter alone was a chore, and you knew you should have been sleeping, but something was keeping you awake. 

A gentle knock in the door had you cringing, praying Morwenna wouldn't wake up. You moved to the door quickly, not noticing the shadow whisping around your feet and opening it to a desperate shadowsinger. “Az?” You moved for him to come in, stomach dropping at the sight of the babe in his arms. “Please tell me you being here with that sweet little thing doesn't mean what I think it does.”

Azriel just looked up, tears finally falling. “He hasn't ate yet,” your heart shattered at the unneeded confirmation. “Please, help us.”

You took the Illyrian babe instantly, taking your shirt off without question to offer him food. Azriel's shoulders fell in relief as his little cheeks began to move, a small hand and fingers reaching to your pinky. 

The two of you sat in heavy silence again. Azriel processing what had all happened that day, and you, aching for a male you hardly knew, and mourning the female that had become a close friend. 

You almost laughed at how cruel life could be. To lose your mate before childbirth, and then to lose your friend, the female who held your hand during labor, only a week later.

General Taglist:

@hnyclover @glitterypirateduck @slytherinindisguise @mischiefmanager @bloodicka @starsinyourseyes @the-sweet-psycho

@mariahoedt @rinalouu @sarawritestories @starryhiraeth @starswholistenanddreamsanswered @cumuluscranium @loneliestluvr @eternallyelvish @daughterofthemoons-stuff

Rhys taglist:

@tothestarsandwhateverend @cheshire-salvatore-mikaelson @avajustreads

Pieces of You Taglist:

@dr4g0ngirl

[luxsky]

Thanks for the tag! That was so hard to do oomggg 😭😭

(I really wanted to put tog, but I couldn't decide between lysandra, aelin and manon)

1- Rhaenyra Targaryen

2- Violet Sorrengail

3- Lucy Chen

4- Aloy

5- Kaliis Gilwraeth

6- Rhysand

7- Natasha Romanoff

7 fandoms, 7 characters!

Tagged by: @dr-lizortecho Ty boo!

1. Sirius Black (Harry Potter)

2. Tyler Lockwood (The Vampire Diaries)

3. Jude Duarte (The Cruel Prince)

4. Tamlin (ACOTAR)

5. Kat Edison (The Bold Type)

6. Tessa Gray (The Shadowhunters Chronicles)

7. Lancelot (Merlin)

Tagging: @springandstarlight @sonics-atelier @lorcanisdabest @jeyfeather1234 @alizangc and anyone who wishes to join in, please feel free to tag me 💓

[luxsky]

Datura Pt 7

Summary: The fallout of your confrontation with Amarantha comes to a head, and just might push you that much closer to a certain High Lord.

Content Warnings: Torture, blood, mentions of SA

Author’s Note: Cauldron Boil me this chapter took forever to write on mobile 🫠 My laptop is down for the foreseeable future, but I’m doing my best to keep up on the updates, even if they will be a little slower for a bit. Thank you all for your patience! ❤️ As always, if you want to be added to the tag list, let me know! 😁

Master list

————————————————————————

It feels like a dream; a dream would explain the shimmering auroras of blue, violet and pink overhead; explain the music that floats around your as if it’s on the wind; explain the creature of darkness and starlight that drags gentle fingers through your hair. It would be a lovely dream, the kind you cling to desperately as waking beckons at the edge of your consciousness.

A dream would explain why a voice made for the gentle darkness of a bedroom speaks from everywhere at once: “I’ve got you. Don’t worry. You’re safe with me.” It might come from the creature who holds your head in its lap but you can’t be sure. Not when the clicking of heels on stone drags you further away from the music and the starlight. Not when the dream shifts and spins and feels a little too like your training exercises for you to be convinced this isn’t actually happening inside the confines of your own head.

It’s hard to be certain of anything through the fog that clings to you. The only thing that’s real and true is the pain shooting through your right arm. It’s so intense you try to curl in on yourself but that only makes it worse. Any movement makes nausea roll in your gut and your head spin. The loud booming of heels on stone doesn’t help.

“Oh poor little thing,” a voice croons.

And then pain flares in your spine, the air crushed from your lungs as something sharp and heavy presses down into the center of your back. You’re blind with pain, barely conscious enough to see what’s happening, let alone fight. The half wheeze half scream that tears out of you sounds like it belongs to a trampled animal.

“Where’s all that fight you showed last night?”

The pressure increases and the blurring in your already terrible vision is now more from tears than your own mental fog.

Something brushes against your mind, like phantom fingers brushing against your mental shields. “Get up! Fight her!”

More pressure on your spine. It’s an effort just to get a breath in. You’re going to be crushed like this.

“I can’t! Please. Please help me!”

There is no one else to help you, no one there to make any of it make sense. You can’t figure out where you are, why this is happening, everything feels so foggy.

The pressure on your spine finally lets up, let’s you breathe, just for something to hit you in the back of the head. Not hit. Kicked. The tip of one of those ridiculously pointed heels has kicked you in the back of the head. They’re starting to come into view, even as your temple clacks against the rough stone floor, the same awful shade of red as the hair flowing from her pale head.

“You’re going to be ok. I’ve got you. Breathe.”

The tip of her heel slides under your chin as Amarantha comes around to face you and the world finally comes into focus as she uses her shoe to lift your chin.

You’ve never felt so small and helpless in your life; you’re a bug and she’s a giant.

“Don’t let her see you cry.” Urges the voice. Now that you’re head is clearing, the fog rolling out slowly, you realize it’s Rhys, has been this entire time. “Stand up.”

You try, you really, really try, but getting your palms against the floor, moving the mottled mess of flesh that’s your right arm at all makes the world spin. If you’d eaten anything at all you would have thrown up all over the Queen’s expensive shoes.

Would have been worth it.

“Nothing to say to me now?” She coos.

“Rhys I can’t get up,” you whimper in your head. She’s going to crush you like this. Put your head under her heel and stomp down until your skull cracks like a watermelon.

You feel him tugging at things in your head, not throwing open doors to your memories, but rooting through the bookshelves, looking for something, anything he can reach to move you himself.

“You know, I’m feeling a lot better this morning. Turns out mated sex does wonders for the psyche.”

Your stomach rolls.

“Mother’s tits! Tamlin!” Rhys swears and as if his horror is your own, a shiver trembles down your spine. You get a flash of something like nails running across your skin, drawing blood, a scent of mirthroot and incense, and then it’s thrown out of your head in a rush.

“Rhys-” horror and the dawning realization rolls through you at once and that chasm in your chest that had snapped shut last night, the yawning, bottomless darkness rises up to meet you, calling your name. There’s a roaring in your ears, as if a strong wind had burst through the mountain. You can only see red.

“So I’ll offer you a bargain,” Amarantha is still speaking, her voice droning and lifeless in your ears.

You grit your teeth and put your palms flat on the floor, trying to get up again, fighting every slash of pain, the horrible tearing feeling in your gaping flesh. You get an inch, maybe two, your whole body shaking. The roaring in your ears won’t stop, it’s getting worse. Pain explodes in your jaw, fangs ripping through your lip. Your eyes are changing again, things suddenly sharper and clearer in your vision.

“You drink this,” she’s pulled a vial from some pocket realm, holding the black glass between the tips of her pointed nails. Nails you can now see still tipped in blood. There’s more of it splattered across her pale arms, a hint of it around her lips. You don’t know if it’s Tamlin’s or Rhys’s.

You manage to get a knee up under your body, then a second. Blood drips from the lacerations across your shoulder and back, cascading into the horrifyingly large puddle beneath where you’d been laying.

“Tie your powers to me and I’ll heal you right up.”

“NO!!! Don’t do it!!!” Rhys screams; it’s a strange sensation to have his voice so clear in your head, even as the mountain shakes beneath you, rattled by a dark power you somehow know in bones is him. It’s not a darkness like yours, nothing that lives in the deep recesses of his being, it is something natural and good that has been honed and sharped and when he unleashes it, you feel it skitter across your skin. You can almost taste jasmine and citrus.

Amarantha pauses her little victory speech to stare at the roof as it rattles and cracks, raining dust and debris down on your heads. She frowns, then cocks her head like she’s listening to something. Her eyes glaze over a bit, like she’s no longer here in the room with you.

If Rhys can reach you from wherever he’s being held, can he reach her too?

It’s that thought that gets you off your knees. Not standing, not really because you’re so dizzy that would be impossible, but you have enough in you to throw yourself forward and tackle her. It’s her head that slams into the stone floor this time. Her that’s helpless beneath you as your claws rip through your nail beds and you slash a hand across her face. The pain in your arm is blinding, makes your stomach roll and the room spin, your next swipe at her face sheer instinct, but you know it hits something soft, by the splatter or warm blood across your fingers.

She still has the advantage, her years as General of Hybern’s armies and the sheer amount of time she has trained to fight means you got this far because she was surprised, and she won’t stay that way. A claw tipped hand wreathed in flame latches onto your wrist, halting your next blow, the flames licking and crackling up your arm so hot you feel it in your teeth. It would be a surprise if smoke didn’t come out your mouth as you scream, feeling like you’re being cooked from the inside out.

Sheer desperation has you swinging with your other arm, but she’s already shifting her weight and your hand hits stone, talons breaking against the rock. It’s all too easy for her to get another flame wreathed hand around your throat and shift her weight so she’s now atop you.

The mountain still shakes around you. Her eyes are still glassy like Rhys is still trying to reason with her, even as she closes off your air way, nails tearing through your skin.

“You know,” she says as she leans down, lips next to your ear. “I like the struggle. It makes the surrender all the sweater.”

You’re on fire, skin blistering beneath her grip. Spots dance across your vision. But that cavern in your chest cracks, the darkness that lives inside swirling like a tornado as it flares to life, flares in response to your plight. It’s not like last time where you can take hold of it, it takes hold of you, filling you until there is only empty darkness and the sound of Amarantha screaming.

Her weight is off you, her hand no longer crushing your windpipe. You scramble onto your knees, coughing, gasping for breath. When the spots clear from your eyes you can finally see your hands, skin no longer but made entirely of an empty darkness, as if you’re made up by some sort of void. Stranger still, the fire that she had summoned now dances around your wrists and hands, twirling like it belonges to you.

Amarantha’s on the floor, groaning, a huge dent in the wall from where you’d, apparently, thrown her body.

Her dark eyes narrow to the fire wreathing your shifted form. It no longer answers to her, but you, as if you’d stolen in from her.

“GUARDS!” She screams and the door comes flying open, six of her personal guard running in with their weapons drawn. The Attor flanks them, a grin spread across its leathery face.

“Take her to the dungeons! She attacked me!!” Amarantha wails. Blood trickles down her face, your talons having ripped open her cheek, just missing her eye. Good. You’ll splatter more of it before this is over.

Your body feels different. The pain so dull now you start to wonder if it was even real in the first place. None of this feels entirely real as you manage to get on your feet, flames still dancing across your changed body.

They aim spears at your head as one of them approaches with chains. Not normal iron chains, either, the shackles a strange bluish color. You can smell something on them, something decaying and rotten that makes your nose crinkle. All your senses are sharpened when you’re like this, every smell sharp and clear.

“You attacked me!” You say, even though you know it’s useless; your voice raw from how hard she’d held you by the throat. Strangely, the burns that should be blistering across your skin don’t feel like burns anymore. The flames you stole lick over the affected areas, winding back and forth like they’re capable of healing the damage.

The guards move closer, each step calculated. Their grey eyes are narrowed to your hands, eyeing them like snakes poised to strike. You can fight them, the power thrumming in your veins tells you it’ll be easy, as if it’s an entity entirely separate from your own consciousness, but the disastrous effects of yesterday are still heavy on your mind, as muddled as the end of it still is. You were in this predicament because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut; Rhys was in this predicament because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut.

You raise your hands, palms up in a move that you hoped would be compliant, but the way they raise their spears, the way the Attor spreads it’s wings and hisses, makes you think better about it. You lower your hands to your sides and look at Amarantha. The grin on her face makes you want to lunge for her throat and claw out her eyes. Your power roars in your ears again, she’s hurt your—

The power balks, retreats as if it had just realized something it didn’t want to touch. The fire vanishes from your hands along with the inky darkness, the power seeping back under your skin until there is no longer a glimpse of it. Your teeth ache as your fangs retract; fingers feel like they’re breaking as your battered talons disappear. Even if you had planned to fight, it would have been useless, you don’t attempt to fight to hold it.

“Good, little mouse,” she purrs.

You grit your aching teeth as the guard hurriedly snaps the cuffs on your wrist. Any lingering hint of power leeches from your body, leaving only the cold press of iron.

Amarantha stalks over once she’s sure they’re secure, sure you’re as helpless as she wishes you to be.

The mountain still shakes around you, but you can’t hear Rhys anymore. Can’t reach into your own shields to search for him, any hint of magic is far beyond your reach.

“Looks like my offer is of no use to you now,” she drags a finger over what should be your ruined shoulder, but the mottled flesh is now pink, your gaping wounds stitched back together. It’ll scar, but that’ll be the end of it.

“So maybe I can change your mind another way, hmm?”

It’s an effort not to tremble.

“Take her to Rhys,” she orders as she snatches a handkerchief from one of them and dabs her bleeding face with it. Her wounds are already healing. “Since he seems alive enough to try and bargain with me.”

Cold dread seeps through you as they drag you down the halls. Heads peak out of doors to watch as your led past, some of the faces you have a vague memory of seeing watch you in the pit. No one comes to your aid; no one will even give you a pitying glance. A couple of them smile. Better you than them, their faces seem to say.

Your whole body feels cold and empty, strained beyond belief. Still, you try and keep your head up best you can as you go deeper and deeper into the mountain.

You can see your breath around your head by the time they finally stop in front of a worn, time scarred door. There’s a heap of rubble in front of it, the walkways half caved in with heaps of rock and debris. The iron is oddly shaped, lumpy almost, like something had been bashed into it over and over from inside.

It’s not until the door is dragged open, with the help of four guards because of all the damage, that your realize that something had been Rhys’s fists. Someone had clamped a collar around his neck and chained him to the wall, or at least, they had initially. The chain had been ripped out of the wall, the rusted medal dangling uselessly behind the male. Even though he was on his knees now, bare chest heaving to catch his breath, knuckles dripping blood into the floor, it was clear he had been doing his damndest to break through the iron door by any means necessary.

The first two guards raise their spears again, as Amarantha says, “Well isn’t this quite the temper tantrum.”

Your chest aches when you see him, the bruising over his face and chest, the blood splattered across the floor.

It looks like it’s an effort for him to raise his chin and look at her. The bruises around his eyes are dark as shadows. “Thought it would get your attention,” he rasps, voice practically gone.

The urge to press your lips to his throat is suddenly overwhelming, your whole body itches to hold him, soothe the aches you mark across his toned body. A thought you try to shove away, a realization you don’t want to think about in a place like this. It would be a tremendous weakness for you to want anything other than friendship.

Amarantha reaches around one of the guards to grab you by the hair, your chains rattling as she drags you over to her.

Rhys is on his feet, snarling, teeth bared at the sight. It takes four of the guards to restrain him.

He’d done that last night too, when they’d shoved you, though you’re not sure why. Doesn’t he hate you? He called you a monster, yet a monster he risked his life for.

“You seem to care a lot about this little thing, Rhysand.”

His eyes darken, narrowing in on the hand gripping your hair like he was debating the best way to rip it off her body. It’s the same murderous rage he’d had when he’d found the Attor had taken you from your room without him.

“So let’s give a little test if the feeling is mutual, hm?”

Your stomach does flips as she waves to the guards and they kick Rhys back down onto his knees on the filthy cell of the floor.

To you, Amarantha says, “You drink the vial,” that black glass is back in her hand again, dangling in front of your face. “And I won’t kill him.”

“You won’t kill me,” Rhys snarls. “Who’d keep your bed warm? Your mate that hates you? Your drugged up slaves?”

It might be the only leverage he has, but it’s like someone dumped ice water on your head. All thought leaves you, save for one singular thing that repeats like a mantra over and over: Save him. Save him. Save him.

You cannot undo what she has already done to him, but you can find a way to stop it, find a way to ensure she never hurts anyone ever again. You’ll kill her, you’ll tear her apart one piece at a time—even if you have to use your powerless hands to do it. What are you unruly powers anyway? They only seem to save you when it suits them. You will find a way without them.

Because, with a sinking feeling in your gut, you know you won’t find a way without Rhys. If he dies here, in this godsdamned cell, on his knees in the muck you will not recover. You’re not entirely sure why, but you know it to be true.

“I’ll take it,” you say.

Rhys flinches, “Don’t you fucking dare!” He snarls.

But you look away from him, to those soulless eyes instead. “I’ll take the vial and you’ll leave him alone.”

She waves the glass back and forth, lips pursed, thinking. “You take the vial and you both get to live as my pretty little pets. I think I’ll make a show out of you in my fighting pits again. You’re amusing to my court.”

You’ll both be alive. And maybe you won’t recognize yourself at the end of it, maybe you’ll hate everything that happens from here on out, but Rhys will be alive.

He’d said you’d need to be an opportunist, to find any way you could to get out, but getting out would mean nothing if you lost your ability to care about anybody in here. If you let him die, the heart your uncle had tried so hard to protect from Hybern would die, and you can’t live with that.

“I’ll do it.”

She drops the vial into your hands.

Rhys starts thrashing again, trying to stand, cursing at everyone.

It takes a second with the shackles in the way, but you manage to get the cork off the top. The scent that hits you is awful, like sulfur and smoke. You don’t give yourself time to think about it as you bring it to your lips and tip it back.

It burns worse than any alcohol you’ve ever tried, tastes like you licked a tar pit, the contents sticky in the back of your throat. It fills you, slithering through your insides like some kind of beast beneath your skin.

Amarantha breathes in deep, savoring whatever transfer she gets from this. Savoring your terrible powers as they get transferred to her.

Rhys has gone still as death on the floor.

“Guess these won’t do you any good,” she sneers. Flickering her wrists, the chains drop from your wrists.

The sensation you feel now that magic can touch you again makes you clutch at your chest, makes your body ache. It feels as if there had been a fire in your belly and the flames had been dragged out your mouth, your nose, your ears.

The guards release Rhys on her order, and then she puts her hand on your back and shoves you directly into his chest. And despite all reason, he wraps his arms around you, keeping you from sprawling face first into the floor.

“I think a few nights down here will teach you a good lesson.”

You bury your face in his neck, the scent of jasmine and citrus and sweat overwhelming. His heart beat is rapid against your cheek, but beating, he’s alive and so are you.

The door slams shut behind you, the old iron groaning and shrieking as it goes. It’s a surprise that they trust it to still hold, but, you suppose they don’t think you’ll try anything now either.

“I’m sorry,” you whimper into his skin once they’re gone. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

He grips you a little tighter, his body shaking. He has so little access to his powers and yet he’d still gone to you where he could, had still tried to bring down the mountain, he has to be exhausted, yet that grip on you is firm.

“Idiot,” he hisses, but there’s not much venom behind it. “What were you thinking?”

You shouldn’t, gods know you shouldn’t, but you let yourself lean into him, let him hold you. He’s safe and alive and it doesn’t matter what you have to do to ensure it, because this, him… It’s right. Just as it had been on Calanmai, as it was in your headspace when it was just the two of you, it’s right.

“You’re an ass,” you say into his skin, “but I’m not going to let you die for me.”

“Y/N,” he begins to reprimand, even as his hand strokes down your back, fingers catching in the tattered remains of the dress he had sent you yesterday. Gods the Pit and the chimeras had felt like a lifetime ago already.

“Yell all you want,” you whisper. “Push me away all you want. It’s not going to stop me from caring about you.”

He lowers his chin onto your shoulder, body sagging in surrender. It’s hard to tell if he’s holding you up or you’re holding him up. Doesn’t really matter in the end, you’re both too exhausted for it to matter.

“The closer you are,” he whispers and his voice is so damaged from either the collar or from screaming that it cracks. “The more danger you are in.”

“I killed three chimeras yesterday, I think I’ll live.”

“Yesterday you had full access to your powers.”

You reach for the chasm, expecting it to feel cold and empty, to confirm that it was gone and you had truly signed all of it away to that horrible bitch, and though a part of you hoped, like Rhys you’d maintain a fraction of it still sleeping there, you were not prepared to feel it so fully.

You pull away from Rhys at last, hands poking at your chest like you could somehow feel that well beneath your skin.

The darkness laughs from within you, from wherever the bottom of that ceaseless chasm may be, as if it’s wholly untouched. It doesn’t feel any smaller, it is still something wild and untamed, but it has not shrunk in the slightest.

“Y/N are you ok?”

You’d felt the burn, felt something tear out of you, how was this possible?

You dip into it, let your consciousness free fall, willing it to show you everything, whatever limit and chain Amarantha has slapped on you. But there isn’t one, the bottom still will not rise to meet you, it remains an empty, ceaseless void out of reach.

Rhys takes your face in his blood stained hands. “Y/N?!”

You finally drag your gaze up to his, the violet a striking contrast to the damage over his handsome face. “I want to make a bargain with you.”

He raises a brow, confused. You know you’re not making any sense right now, but the walls were sure to have ears this deep in the dungeons, and you have to be smarter from here on out. If Amarantha learns that you merely gave her back the fire you stole from her and not your own gifts, there will be hell to pay. And until you’re ready to pay it, you have to be careful, you need allies and confidants.

You reach up and tap a finger against your temple and he opens the door in your mind with a groan. You feel his headache in your own head.

“I want you to help me kill Amarantha.”

———————————————————————-

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[luxsky]

Just an idea but azriel could be a singer (uk? Shadowsinger) and reader could run his social media or do PR? Just a thought, v excited regardless who wins the poll!!

OMG that's so good! And it makes so much more sense that he's a singer, the pun with shadowsinger *chief kiss*

Azriel won so I'll definitely be using that idea!!! Thank you so much anon 🫶🏼

ps: ok, i might have gotten carried away and *maybe* write this modern!au idea for all three separately, but it might take some time, so since azriel won, i'll focus on him first and follow up with the others in the future

#fanfic #acotar #rhysand x reader #cassian x reader #azriel x reader