Once again I am unable to finish a WIP but it’s cuffing season so I feel legally obligated to share this Cassian sketch
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‼️HOFAS Ember&Randall bonus chapter spoilers ‼️
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Once again, Cassian proves himself fucking useless AND picks Rhysand's side. Feyre took Nesta, so that's a small victory, bUT STILL !!! not even *after* the mating bond can that man stand by Nesta's side? Istg the cauldron should make gay mates because Cassian and Rhysand? Immaculate. After all, Cassian's head is so far up Rhys' ass he found his G post
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the tension between feyre and rhys, nesta and cassian, and elain and azriel before they get together makes me go insane
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Cassian sucks in a breath at the very look of her, but he holds his arms tighter to his chest.
He won't run to her and hold her like he wants. He won't let his arms be her blanket and he won't gather her to his chest so his heart might be her pillow. She won't rest comfortably where he thinks is safest.
When has she ever been safest with him?
All he has is empty words, empty promises, and maybe his heart is empty too and that's why she won't go to him. If Nesta Archeron is good at one thing, it's spotting a coward when she sees one, and Cassian sleeps with the dogs... any place but where she needs him.
And now, her face is as pale as death, all white and moonlit and once again he's failed her. Her cheeks are flushed red and his fingers itch to run along the bridge of her nose and see if he can't feel how warm she is even as she shivers beneath her throws. But what good would that do when she's so small and fragile, when she's always been too much for this world?
"She's been passed out cold since late last evening, but we didn't know where she lived so we've kept her up here."
"We gave her more blankets, but she kept kicking them off..."
"And we tried to give her soup, but she couldn't keep anything down... she didn't seem to like us feeding her."
That doesn't surprise Cassian in the least. It seems fitting for this female who's brows scrunch up at the mere sound of his voice. As if she finds him distasteful even in sleep.
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wanna post my theory before Elain's book is here
I know people say Feysand is Hades x Persephone, but NO. Wrong. They're Beauty and the Beast as well. Rhys is literally described as having a beast mode/version/side. People are scared of him. He's misunderstood, etc. And because these are retellings, some things are changed. Like for instance, Rhys teaches HER to read, the way Belle taught the Beast to read in the Disney version (I can't recall if they do that in the original fairytale).
I think Tamlin x Feyre were the BatB fairytale retelling, and Feysand were more the Disney BatB retelling.
Hades kidnaps Persephone in the original story. Rhys tells her he wants her to come to the Night Court as part of her deal. You know who else makes a deal to stay with them? Belle and the Beast.
And yes, Rhys takes her away from Tamlin, but that's literally the only similarity to Hades x Persephone they have. Feyre was never spring-like to be Persephone, but who is?
ELAIN.
Elain is actually going to be the Persephone retelling. She is SPRING and where is she? In the Night Court, aka The Underworld, and ope, who is the male she likes? Azriel. Hades kidnaps Persephone and makes a deal to keep her in the Underworld. I don't think Az is obviously going to "kidnap" Elain, he doesn't need to, but I do think some sort of deal will be made, finally ending any sort of tie of her to Lucien and breaking the mating bond (because let's be honest, everyone and their mate getting together is boring af and is honestly why I'm kinda eh about all the mate reveals in her books now but I digress). Also Az's personality fits Hades much more than Rhys did. Hades has been written as a quiet, reserved introvert who likes to stay in the "shadowy darkness of his realm". Does that sound like Rhys or Az? I mean. It's right there, really.
Now the other retelling was Snow White and The Seven Dwarves, and other than a total crack explanation that Nesta went through several men before finding her prince, aka Cassian, (they did say her mother wanted a prince for her and Cassian was referred to as the Prince of Bastards so....?) it's hard for me to really place them as Snow White, but there wasn't another retelling in the first three.
People say oh three brothers, three sisters, so boring. And everyone and their mate getting together is what? Not boring? Not easy? I would LOVE for someone to finally break the mating bond and say yeah no, I don't want you.
Possibly hot take: Nessian would have been 100000000x better if they didn't turn out to be mates. The reveal at first was like WHAT. And then like five seconds later, I was like, "ope, wait. I hate this."
*spoilers up to cc2, all acotar, and tog 7 in the tags
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I’m still throughly upset that Cassian has one of the most romantic lines in all the books and then in the following two books treats Nesta like shit.
Home girl needed to know she was worth it and be held for once in her life, but you listened to an old ass eldritch bitch who should have died in book 3 and waited until Nesta broke as a person and rebuilt herself in the image of the night court before you decided to love her.
Note: This is my onion and I will not be taking criticisms. I don’t hate nessian I’m just triggered and I know that’s a me problem 😂
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Does anyone else remember that scene where Nesta is about to scry but hesitates a little bit because she’s about to go in search for the very thing that ripped her apart when Cassian, half bled out, abdomen recently torn open, makes the effort to cross the room and be her steady presence, her reassurance ‘nothing can hurt you here’ in front of everyone and Nesta allows it, allows his touch. Because I do 😭 acowar was nessians golden era 😭
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Musc Ravageur
After obtaining an alluring perfume from a local vendor, Cassian and Nesta find themselves under a strange spell and unable to control their lust for each other.
(A sex pollen fic inspired by and for an SJM Kink Meme prompt and for Nessian Week 2023)
Happy Nessian Week! This smutty one shot is for @nessianweek Day 7 (Free day). Thank you so much to the organizers for running an amazing event!
This fic was inspired by an @sjmkinkmeme prompt on their spreadsheet for a Nessian sex pollen prompt. I've been wanting to do a sex pollen fic for a while and this prompt was the perfect inspiration!
Rating: Very Explicit. Please see the AO3 link for tags/warnings.
Word Count: 7K
Read on A03
Cassian adjusts his clothing and looks himself over in the mirror, feeling oddly nervous. He has no reason to be, the sensible voice in his head tells him. Nesta is his mate, and loves every gift, big and small, he’s gotten her in the past few months since they were mated.
But he still doesn’t have the best record with Winter Solstice gifts for Nesta, so he thinks the nerves are justified.
He glances over at the intricate perfume bottle on his nightstand. Nesta had never really shown a liking or affinity to fragrances. Cassian thinks her own scent—iron, smoke, and sheer willpower—is already perfect and there’s no reason to try to cover it up with anything else.
The old fae female hawking her wares in the Palace of Thread and Jewels was persuasive, though. Like a familiar friend was coaxing him along, Cassian walked up to the fae’s stall. Grinning slyly, like she had been expecting him, the half-concealed female took one look at him and thrust an ornate glass bottle with a mesmerizing, swirling liquid inside into his hands.
“For your true love,” she said in a whisper, eyes bright. “Guaranteed to make them wild with love.”
Nesta didn’t need that—they had spent the past month showing each other how wild with love they both were with each other after they had accepted the mating bond. Cassian took a slight whiff of the bottle. The perfume had an indescribable scent, like nothing he’d ever smelled before, and just that small sniff lay heavy in his nostrils. It was cloying and thick and heady and Cassian needed more, and before he knew it, he laid a finger on the top to spray an even more generous spritz—
“None of that, now.” The old fae’s worn hands darted out and grabbed the enchanting scent from his hands. Cassian shook his head, unsure of what had just come over him. “Save it for when you’re alone with your true love. It’ll be much more…appreciated then.”
Cassian didn’t remember tossing the money for the perfume to the woman, nor did he remember taking the perfume in its elegant box home and storing it away for a special occasion. And what could be more special than the annual Winter Solstice celebration with his family at Rhys’s house.
He grins and adjusts his vest. It’s little Nyx’s first Solstice, and Feyre’s birthday as well. His friend and High Lord seems to understand the importance of this year’s festivities, based on the extra energy and smiles he had been throwing around all week.
Satisfied with his appearance, Cassian takes the perfume from the desk and steals one last smell. Like before, the intoxicating aroma lingers in his nose and travels throughout his body, despite the fact that he hasn’t even sprayed any on himself. He had almost forgotten the perfume entirely before a niggling thought in the back of his mind reminded him of his purchase. He’ll spray some on Nesta soon, though, and the thought has his cock twitching in his trousers.
Cassian hustles out of their room. If Nesta isn’t in their room getting ready, there’s only one place she could be. Throwing open the doors of the library, Cassian stares at the vision that is his mate.
Nesta reclines on a reading couch, looking as elegant and proud as a queen surrounded by her adoring people. Fitting, Cassian thinks wryly: her beloved books are her subjects, and he is her loyal supplicant and advisor. Nesta’s hair is up in a simple braided bun, a few wisps of hair framing her long face. Her dress is a floor length smoky blue silk dress, with a deep ‘V’ that shows off her breasts and an equally deep leg slit that displays nearly the entire length of her strong, shapely legs. Just a glimpse of her smooth skin and muscles makes Cassian wish, just for a moment, that they didn’t have to go anywhere tonight, that he could spend the evening peeling Nesta’s dress off, trailing his lips along her petal soft skin higher and higher and higher—
“If you keep looking at me like that, we’ll never make it to Feyre’s.”
Cassian grins at his imperious mate, at her cocked eyebrow and knowing smirk. “You’re definitely making me double-think our family tradition, dressed like that.”
Nesta stands up—Cassian has to stifle a moan at the glimpse of flesh that’s revealed along Nesta’s leg and hip when she stands—and walks over to him, her heels thudding against the carpeted floor of the library. “Shouldn’t the sight of me dressed like this make you lose all thoughts and ideas from that gorgeous head of yours?”
He grins down at Nesta and places a soft kiss against her lips. “Of course, mate. How right you are.”
“And don’t forget it.”
Cassian chuckles. “You really do look amazing, Nes.”
His mate smiles fondly up at him and lays a hand on his shoulder, and not for the first time when it concerns his mate, Cassian forgets how to breath. “And you don’t look half bad yourself.”
“Do I look better than you?”
Nesta snorts and runs her hands down his jacket, straightening it out. “You know the answer to that. What’s this?”
“Oh!” Somehow, in the span of two minutes, Cassian had already forgotten the perfume. Digging in his suit jacket, he pulls out the delicate glass bottle. “I was in the market earlier and found this perfume. I know you don’t typically wear anything but it reminded me of you.”
Nesta smiles up at him. “That’s so sweet.”
“And the woman selling it said it would make my true love wild with passion, or something.”
“Yes, because we don’t regularly show each other how passionate we are for each other, hm?” Nesta asks sarcastically with a roll of her eyes.
“Exactly. I know I’m already perfect—“
“Who told you that?”
“—but I figured another gift for my beautiful mate couldn't go amiss. Want me to spray you?”
Nesta takes the swirling perfume from his hand and takes a few steps back. “You can sometimes be a little heavy-handed with your cologne. I’ll spray it myself.”
“I do not spray that much cologne.”
Nesta inspects the bottle and the contents within. “Oh, yes you do. I shouldn’t be able to smell the Illryian mountains after you’ve been back for half a day and have bathed.” She opens the cap and takes a small sniff from the bottle. Immediately, Nesta’s gray eyes dilate and Cassian swears he hears her heart rate increase. “Oh!”
“Right? That was my reaction too.”
“It smells… I can’t describe it. Like pure sex.”
Cassian chokes on his breath because fuck, if that isn’t the perfect description. “I didn’t think—“
Without another word, Nesta douses herself with the perfume, along her arms, torso and the hollow of her throat. A beat passes, then Cassian watches, entranced, as his mate seems to transform before his eyes: her eyes close and she body shudders then relaxes, her heart beats even faster, Cassian swears he hears Nesta whimper, and the all too familiar scent of Nesta’s arousal slams into him like a fist to his face.
“Nes—“
“Oh Cassian,” Nesta coos in a sultry voice he has never heard before. Her eyes are half lidded as she prowls towards him with an easy, confident stride. “Let's leave the thinking to me from now on.”
“Fuck Nesta.” Cassian isn’t sure if it’s the perfume or Nesta’s arousal he’s smelling, but his cock is hard in his pants and twitching against his leg.
“Yes, exactly, fuck me,” Nesta growls. Suddenly Nesta is in front of him and grabbing his jacket to bring him down to her and she’s kissing him, all fierce tongue and teeth and lips. Her hands roam over his torso and the back of head cementing him to her as she continues kissing him like her life depends on it.
Cassian grips his mate’s heaving shoulders and pushes her away from him, the scents of her arousal and the perfume making him dizzy. “Nesta, what’s gotten into you?”
“Hopefully your giant cock soon.”
“Nes,” Cassian growls, in equal parts frustration and arousal.
“I need you,” Nesta pants, squirming in his grip. “I don’t know what—what’s happening but I need you right now, or, or…”
“Or what?” Cassian breathes through his mouth, trying to keep a level head through Nesta’s sudden madness.
“I feel like I’m burning everywhere, and I need you! In me, fucking me! Please!”
Cassian takes a moment to observe his mate. Her cheeks are flush and her breath is leaving her open mouth in great gasps. Nesta’s gray eyes look blurry—whether that’s from whatever madness has suddenly overcome her or the sudden tears gathering in the corners of her wide eyes, he isn’t sure. “This makes no sense,” he grits out. “You’re not well. You need a healer.”
“No!” With a speed that leave even him blindsided, Nesta sprays the perfume in his face and along his body, encasing him in a shroud of the tantalizing vapor.
Cassian coughs and bats his hands through the mist. “Fuck, Nesta…” The perfume burns his throat and mouth as it travels down into his stomach then branches out into his body and permeates his skin and organs and bones, hotter and hotter. It’s as if something within him is changing, the shock of the perfume altering his very essence, turning him into a beast with only one thought, mine, mine, claim her—
And then, everything is quiet and calm. He blinks. Why is Cassian so concerned about Nesta? She’s fine, just as he is, and currently rubbing her body against his like a cat in heat. Nesta needs to be fucked, and Cassian needs to fuck her, right now—why was he fighting her earlier?
“You feel it too,” Nesta croons, softly cradling his jaw. Her eyes are huge and glazed, and Cassian can see his own dilated eyes in her reflection. “The burning, the need… you feel it too. I can see it.”
The inferno that raged through his body earlier has faded, and the heat is now simmering just below his skin. His ears are ringing, the sound getting louder and louder, and his skin feels itchy, but then Nesta grips his jaw to force him to look at her, and nothing else matters but the delectable female in front of him, a fire sparking within her eyes that he hasn’t seen since she gave up her powers.
“I need you. Now.”
Cassian doesn’t wait. Grabbing her dress, he tears it off her lithe body and is rewarded with a moan and a fresh gush of desire from his mate. He growls as Nesta claws off his clothes and he’s bare and stiff and proud before his wife.
Nesta looks him up and down, a corner of her mouth tilted up. Her hand leisurely strokes his aching length. “Lay down on the ground so I can fuck you.”
Cassian growls. The urge, the hunger, within him demands to be sated, now, and the quickest way to do that is if Cassian gives them what they both need and bends her over the nearest piece of furniture to give his female the pounding of a lifetime. He opens his mouth to say as such when Nesta beats him to it.
“Get down on the damned floor right now before I go find some other way to get off,” Nesta snarls up at him, shoving his chest.
“You were just begging for my cock a moment ago, sweetheart,” Cassian crows back, a cruel grin on his mouth. The hunger he feels for Nesta is intense, but arguing with her temporarily sates that overwhelming desire. “You’re in no state to make demands of me.”
Nesta bares her teeth then ducks down. Before Cassian can track her, she kicks her leg out and sweeps his legs out from under him. He hits the floor hard and he feels a shot of pride for Nesta—his fierce Valkyrie has come so far—before every thought flees his mind as Nesta faces away from him and lowers herself over his lap. Cassian groans. From here, he has an amazing view of Nesta’s pert ass and strong legs as she she squats over him, as she grips his cock and angles it up, as she notches the thick head of his length at her tight entrance. She’s so wet, he can feel her juices already rolling down his straining shaft.
He shifts below her. The aching desire has come back in full force and he needs relief, needs Nesta, now. Cassian’s hands dig into the plush rug beneath them. “Gods, Nesta, move.”
Nesta glances behind her to look at Cassian, an eyebrow cocked. Her body is already shining with sweat and she’s breathing hard, but he’s never seen a more beautiful and divine being in his life.
“You’re in no state to make demands of me,” she parrots back at him. But Nesta is a generous god; she slams onto his cock, taking him to the hilt in one and bringing them both instant relief. They groan in unison. Normally, Cassian has to take his time easing into her tight cunt, to make sure he doesn’t hurt her.
Nesta doesn’t need any niceties tonight. She bounces on his cock, her strong legs moving her up and down, up and down, his cock. Cassian hears her panting softly above him as she braces a hand on his leg for leverage. Her other hand disappears between her legs—he feels her fingers occasionally grazing his shaft—and after only a few seconds, Nesta comes. Her walls squeeze his length and she softly moans as she comes down from her high.
Cassian looks on through bleary eyes. Nesta never comes that quickly or easily, preferring to gradually build towards a release with him. But that doesn’t matter, he decides. He’s warm and buzzing and jealous that Nesta has come already and he hasn’t. The burning beast within him rears its head again, and this time, it won’t stop until it’s satisfied.
“Are you only interested in getting yourself off?”
Without wasting a beat, Nesta shifts herself so she’s on her knees above him, still facing his legs, and leisurely rocks back and forth over his cock. Cassian bites his lip. From this angle, he has a perfect view of his thick cock splitting her glistening pink lips open, her folds spread obscenely around him.
“You’ll come when I decide you can come,” she replies loftily, not deigning to look back at him and still taking her time and rocking above him.
Cassian is done playing. Gripping her hips, he thrusts up into Nesta’s tight heat as she lowers herself onto him. She gasps and her cunt tightens around his length.
From there, it’s a hot, sweaty battle for dominance between the two of them. They’re each racing for the same goal, he realizes, but Cassian refuses to lay back and let Nesta fully dictate when they finish. His hands are a brand on her hips and ass as he moves her up and down his throbbing length, and Nesta keeps riding him, going faster and faster and harder, her legs shaking with the effort. His cock is soaked with her juices, the sound of their flesh meeting wet.
They’re both breathing hard. Nesta whines, a soft, keening noise from the back of her throat, and Cassian knows she’s close, that they’re both in the final leg of the race towards release. He’s burning from within and he needs to come, more than he’s ever needed anything in his life, and he needs Nesta to come with him. Blindly reaching between her legs, Cassian swipes a few fumbling fingers through the top of her folds.
Nesta’s orgasm triggers his. As she moans his name, Cassian thrusts into her one final time and come inside her with a roar that shakes the windows. He’s coming, and coming, and coming, thick, endless ropes within Nesta’s welcoming cunt, more than he’s ever come before. Cassian’s continuing release fuels Nesta’s, and it’s a delicious feedback of their ongoing orgasms triggering the other.
When it finally ends sometime later—Cassian isn’t sure when—they’re both sweating and quiet. His cum leaks out of Nesta’s cunt around his somewhat softened cock. The burning beast within him is sated for the moment.
Nesta twists over her shoulder to look at him, still seated atop him. “I hope you’re not too tired after that,” she purrs, and Cassian lets his head hit the floor.
XXX
Time has lost all meaning to Nesta.
Perhaps it has been an hour, two hours, a day, or even a week. All she knows is the feel of her mate’s thick and heavy cock in her mouth.
Nesta takes Cassian’s length fully down her throat, the short hairs at the juncture of his thighs tickling her nose. She breathes through her nose and relaxes her tongue and jaw. Above her, he makes the most decadent noises.
“So good Nesta, taking my fat cock in that perfect mouth of yours,” he praises her quietly, and Nesta practically comes right then and there, just from the feel of his smooth shaft along her tongue and his honeyed words.
She desperately wants to reach a hand between her thighs and rub a finger over her clit or, even better, thrust her fingers inside herself and pump. Nesta doesn’t. There’s a sort of delicious agony in denying herself what she wants now, knowing what’s coming later will be worth the wait, like saving a piece of rich cake for after dinner at the end of a long day, knowing the reward would be appreciated all the better for waiting.
And wait she has. Nesta doesn’t know how much time has passed since a dreamlike fog, thick and heavy on her limbs like the morning mist, suddenly settled over her mind and body. It didn’t start out that way—she vaguely remembers a scorching sensation tearing through her body as a wild, feral need emerged from somewhere within her and demanded her mate.
It isn’t completely unlike those wretched years after she was Made and turned to drinking and sex to attempt to feel anything in her life. Except now, though, she has Cassian next to her. She’ll never be wanting for anything again, as long as she has him, her mate, her equal, by her side.
Nesta feels one of Cassian’s hands slowly thread itself through her ruined hair. With a sudden tightening of his grip, his hand wrenches her hair and pulls her down further onto his cock. Nesta gags, tears collecting at the corners of her eyes. “Something distracting you, sweetheart?” he taunts with a mocking sweetness, a corner of his mouth twitching up.
Her equal, indeed. Any other time, Nesta would have whipped herself off of Cassian’s dick and asked the House to deliver whatever type of punishment she thought he’d deserve. Now, though, with a cloud of lust making her dizzy, all Nesta could do is whimper around his length at the dominance in his tone and words.
That dominance wasn’t exactly his idea, however. After Nesta had ridden him on the floor of the library like a warrior charging into battle, Cassian had dragged them to the couch and brought her close to his chest, a touching act of sweetness and normalcy at complete odds to what they had just done to each other.
She couldn’t stand it, though. The buzzing beneath her skin branched out into her blood and veins and lungs and heart the longer she sat still without her mate’s cock in her in some way. Nesta had clambered out of his lap and kneeled between Cassian’s thick thighs, pumped his still half-hard shaft twice, then took him in her mouth.
The first time she made him come with her mouth and hands was quick, just a few minutes of her tongue working his sensitive tip and her hand squeezing and stroking what she didn’t have in her mouth. He had come with a hoarse cry, his hands digging into the couch cushions, thighs spread wide. His salty come coated Nesta’s tongue and rushed down her throat, her gaze content and proud at making her mate feel such pleasure. Cassian was still hard—somehow—beneath her, and a final splash of come landed on her lips as she detached herself from his shaft with a soft pop.
His eyes were still bleary, like hers, like he too wasn’t quite sure what was happening. But also like Nesta, the continuous ache and need to continue fucking and coming was too great. It was tinged with a sense that something was wrong, but neither could concentrate long enough to voice and actually think on their concerns.
Without missing a beat, Nesta had licked Cassian’s come off her lips, then took his cock back inside her mouth and started it all again.
Now, Cassian’s hand on the back of her head forcibly guiding her up and down his cock feels like a fixture, like Nesta is only complete with his hand in her hair and his cock down her throat. He moans when she drags her nails down the sensitive skin of his inner thighs.
“Trying to mark me up, mate? Leave bruises on my legs, like I’m going to leave bruises on that pretty neck of yours later?”
Nesta whimpers around his cock, wetness rolling down her cheeks when he thrusts his cock into her raw throat, and wetness rolling down her legs at everything happening to her right now. The sound of Nesta’s gagging and whimpers fill the room. She braces her hands on Cassian’s knees as she lets him fuck her throat, his hands tangled in her hair as he grunts and moans above her, all while Nesta stares adoringly at her mate. She’s close, and the haze within her thickens, and everything is jumbled—
Her world shifts and suddenly Nesta is on her back on the rug, and Cassian’s thick cock is entering her slick cunt in one brutal thrust. Lightning races up her spine as she comes suddenly, almost violently, her body shaking and her release coating her mate’s cock and thighs. Her inner muscles squeeze so hard she forces Cassian’s length from her body and she writhes on the ground. She has experienced mind numbing pleasure at the hands of her mate many times before tonight, but the release she experiences now is unlike anything she’s ever felt. Nesta vaguely hears Cassian cursing quietly to himself but Nesta is too far gone to recognize what he’s saying.
She receives no reprise. Still on her back with Cassian kneeling between her spread, trembling thighs, he thrusts into her still quivering pussy and resumes his brutal pace. “So good, Nesta,” Cassian purrs, his eyes hazy and delirious with pleasure. “So good of you to soak me like that. Did sucking my cock make you that needy?”
Nesta whimpers, too stricken with lust and already needing more even after the most intense orgasm of her life had been ripped through her body. This couldn’t be natural, what was happening to them…
But then Cassian slowly wraps a large hand around her throat, and all thoughts leave Nesta’s brain. She’s with her mate whom she loves more than anyone else in the world—what could be unnatural or wrong with what was happening to them?
“I asked you a question: did sucking my cock make you so needy that you squirted the second I started fucking you?”
His hand wasn’t too tight around her throat that she couldn’t answer. “Yes,” Nesta gasps, the feeling of his hand around her and cock within her already working her towards another orgasm. She grips the back of her thighs to widen herself even better for her mate, and Cassian moans appreciatively, looking down between her legs to watch himself pound into her red, swollen folds.
Cassian’s hand tightens around her throat as his breathing quickens and his thrusts get harder and sloppier. She feels herself leaking onto the rug, and knows her scent will be entwined in this room, just like it’s already entwined with the male above her. All Nesta can do is grip the back of her thighs to keep herself spread for him as she whimpers and urges him on, dark spots forming at the edges of her hazy vision. Her heartbeat thrums just under her skin. “Please, please, please…”
“Be a good mate and come,” Cassian snarls, releasing her throat to slap between her legs. He hits her clit and Nesta launches to the stars, like one of the many flying celestial bodies on Starfall.
Eventually, she falls back to the planet, and Cassian is with her. She feels his spend trickle between her legs, and glances down to see him aim the last of the come on her lower stomach. Their breathing gradually slows. Nesta lightly touches her neck and knows from the slight ache already forming that she’ll have a bruised necklace in the exact shape of Cassian’s hand adorning her throat in the morning.
But all thoughts of later are far away in her mind. All Nesta focuses on is the feel of Cassian’s sweaty, hard body above her, quieting the ache between her legs and hunger in her blood.
XXX
“Put your back into it and fuck me!”
Nesta snarls like a crazed beast at him, and she looks it too: there are red scratches already forming along her back, her hair is in complete disarray around her sweaty face, her teeth are bared and the fingers of her elegant hands are curved into claws that could tear a male’s throat out.
And she’s all his.
Deciding the best way to shut his mate up is to make her speechless, Cassian grips her hips even harder than before and steps up with one leg on the now-creaking couch in the library. This way, he has better leverage to fuck into her as Nesta hangs onto the back of the furniture for dear life.
Cassian is pretty sure they’ve been at it for hours. He hasn’t seen the sun come up, and a rescue party hasn’t come looking for them, so he dimly assumes in the back of his mind that no one is missing them and it hasn’t been that long. It’s hard to keep track of time, however, when his entire world is now centered on fucking the female in front of him.
“Have I not been fucking you well up till now? Are you not covered in my sweat and come? You were just screaming my name a few minutes ago.”
“If you were actually up to the task of satisfying me, I wouldn’t have ever stopped,” Nesta snaps without looking back at him, her hips gently swaying in front of him to try to entice him, and dammit it, it works. Through the ever-present fog that settled over his eyes and body, Cassian sees a bit of red creep into the corner of his eyes at the suggestion that he can’t keep up with Nesta. Stroking his cock, he watches in a haze as he sees two of Nesta’s long fingers skim her soaking folds before they plunge within her soft cunt.
Cassian watches, entranced, as Nesta pumps her fingers in and out of her pussy. It’s an awkward angle for her, and she isn’t able to fuck herself as deep as he knows she wants to. She hangs her head down and moans, her hips moving in time with her thrusts, before Cassian remembers her earlier dare: put your back into it and fuck me.
He grabs the hand fingering herself and wrenches it out of her cunt before landing two hard, quick slaps to each of her rosy ass cheeks. Her ass bounces with the motion and Nesta moans in delight, and her ass keeps jiggling as Cassian thrusts inside her to the hilt with one savage push and he starts fucking her.
Just like every other time they’d fucked this night—day? Week?—Nesta takes it, takes him, so perfectly, not needing time to adjust to his length and girth. Cassian isn’t sure he’s ever been with a female that’s been as wet as Nesta is tonight, since he can’t remember anything from more than a few hours ago, but he doesn’t think submerging a partner in the Sidra would get them as wet as Nesta is now.
Cassian grips her hips, putting all of his strength and muscles into fucking Nesta harder than he’s ever fucked her before. She moans into the fabric of the couch, and he’s pretty sure she’s biting the couch to stifle her noises.
He grabs her hair and pulls, making her back arch. “Come on, Nes. Let me hear it. Tell everyone who’s fucking you so well.”
“Cas—Cassian,” she whimpers. The wet slapping of their flesh meeting nearly drowns out her words. Cassian smacks her ass again. “Louder.”
“Cassian!” Nesta shrieks, and he can’t keep the grin off his face.
“I think… that’s enough of my back… don’t you agree?” Cassian can barely speak over how hard he’s moving into Nesta. The hand gripping her hip for dear life and the other hand in her hair keeps Nesta connected to him, and he’s thrusting so hard the couch is moving across the floor. He glances down and sees her ass bouncing against his hips and his cock, glistening with her wetness, shining in the low lamplight.
The beast that’s been lurking under his skin all night is rising to the forefront of his mind, demanding to be unleashed onto the female under him. Nothing else matters to Cassian but release—his and hers. His heart beats erratically in his chest. He needs to come now or he’ll die, he’s sure of it, and by the desperate whining leaving Nesta’s mouth, she feels the same aching need as well.
His hand gripping Nesta’s sweaty hair plunges between her legs and strokes her bundle of nerves punishingly, without any thought of kindness or care. Neither of them wants or needs that now, and when Nesta breaks and wails her release, his name on her lips, Cassian shatters with her.
The beast within him purrs, content to rest until it needs to feed again.
XXX
Nesta isn’t sure how much more of this she can take.
Logically, she realizes there’s no way she should still be conscious at this point. Between all the sweat and come that’s left her body, she should be a dehydrated husk that’s been left out in the sun too long. Even after she managed to hoarsely ask the House for some water—it had dumped a huge carafe of ice cold water with two glasses on the only unbroken table remaining, along with meat, cheese, crackers, and an entire chocolate cake—she still feels thirsty and empty and needy. Things are becoming clearer to her—she remembers there was something odd about that perfume Cassian got her—but her skin is still too tight on her body and she’s just uncomfortable.
Underneath her, Cassian is trying his best to bring her some relief. His tongue stiffens and grazes the side of her clit, and pleasure-pain lances through her body.
“Why can’t you always be so sweet with your tongue like this, instead of giving me attitude all the time?” she asks fondly, staring down at him.
Between her thighs, Cassian chuckles and hooks his arms over her legs, keeping her cunt on his face. He hadn’t wasted a moment after coming inside her to throw himself on the ground and tug her over his face. “To clean you up,” he’d said, which was perhaps one of the most thoughtful things he’d ever said to her.
Cassian doesn’t seem to mind that he’s licking his own release along with hers. He also doesn’t seem to be in any rush to make her come, or to seek any pleasure for himself. His cock is half-hard against his thigh and twitches with every moan and shaky breath that leaves her lips, but he doesn’t make any effort to change their positions.
His tongue swirls around her entrance before it plunges inside her. “Fuck,” Nesta sighs, carding a hand through his thick hair and gently moving her hips over his lips. “You feel so good.” Cassian stills, letting her ride his face as she chases her orgasm and quivers above him.
Nesta falls forward, bracing her hands on the floor as she comes down from her high. She tries to swing off Cassian’s head but he only tightens his strong arms around her legs.
“Again,” he commands from below, his voice muffled. He doesn’t give her any other option; his tongue strokes her clit in broad laps as Nesta grits her teeth.
Now it’s a bit too much pain and not enough pleasure. “I can’t,” Nesta says, fighting to upend herself from his grip, tears burning the corners of her eyes. “It’s too much.”
"You will come again on my tongue,” he shoots back forcefully, like he’s willing his statement into reality. “Touch yourself.”
Nesta groans, in frustration and because of what his lips are doing between her thighs, before she gives in and pinches her nipples. She leans back, seating herself fully on her mate’s face, and Cassian hums in approval.
His tongue dances over her folds as he slips a single thick finger inside her. Nesta hisses, squeezing her breasts. Despite her body being more accommodating than ever before when it comes to Cassian’s cock, her channel finally feels a twinge of tenderness at the intrusion. He’s gentle, though, barely thrusting inside her and letting her own rocking hips dictate how much of himself she takes within her.
Whatever strange fervor that had taken hold inside her isn’t ready to be done yet, though. She finds release again on Cassian’s face and feels empty. “One… one more time,” she gasps weakly, crawling off him and laying down on the floor on her side.
She hears Cassian shuffling behind her, then feels the floor reverberate as he thumps down on his side behind her. Dragging her top leg over his hip and positioning an arm underneath her head, Cassian turns her head towards him.
His face is shining with her come, and it’s one of the most erotic things she’s ever seen in her life. It’s a sign that he’s happy to pleasure her, and also proud to have her mark him, to bear her scent proudly. Nesta tugs her mate to her lips by the back of his neck at the same time his hard cock enters her.
They groan into each other’s mouths. Finally, it seems neither of them have the desperate, insatiable need to reach their release as soon as possible. Nesta’s eyes and body feels heavy and tired but she feels more like herself than before. Based on the bleary look Cassian gives her as he rocks in between her legs, she thinks whatever strange delusion that overcame her earlier is leaving his body as well.
Nesta relaxes in Cassian’s arms. He’s warm behind her, a reassuring presence. Cassian buries his face in the back of her neck as his hips speed up, pushing himself into her fully on each thrust. The sound of their bodies meeting is dirty and wet and filthy, yet she feels more connected with her mate now after what they just experienced.
Cassian breaks Nesta from her loving haze by pumping all of his cock inside her and grinding against her, hitting a sensitive spot he rarely manages to find. Stars erupt in Nesta’s eyes as equal parts pleasure and pain lights up her body.
“Fuck, Nes, you’re perfect,” Cassian mutters into her neck. He’s thrusting and grinding against her pussy as his fingers brush her folds. “So lucky—love you so much—mine, mine—“
“Yours,” she gasps, twisting to pull his face back to hers, her lips hurriedly brushing against his. “And you’re mine.”
“Yes, always,” he groans, screwing his eyes shut. He’s pounding into her with abandon, his fingers circling her clit. “Fuck, come with me.”
With a sob, Nesta comes. Cassian finishes soon after, shooting his release deep within her body. For several minutes they’re silent, each shaking with exhaustion.
The sun is peeking out from the bottom of the library’s windows when Nesta raises her head. When she finally comes again sometime later, the fog that had been hanging over and inside her finally dissipates, leaving her sluggish. The all-consuming need from that damned perfume is finally gone from her weak body, its scent no longer blanketing her skin. She crawls on shaking legs and arms to the water jug and hauls it over to Cassian, still laying on the floor.
“I know we just got done having sex—“
“Please don’t say you’re still feeling… whatever we just experienced,” Nesta interrupts tiredly, wiping her mouth after drinking from the carafe.
“No, no, I think I’m fine,” Cassian says, accepting the water from Nesta. “I was going to say, I know we just finished fucking like animals, but the sight of you crawling with my come running down your leg would normally be enough for me to go again.”
“And now?” Nesta asks, laying down on the floor, her head on Cassian’s shoulder.
Cassian takes a long drink. “Now, I think we went at it so much I’m afraid to even look at you. My cock needs a break.”
“Just your cock? That seemed to be an entire body workout.”
“And you weren’t complaining.”
Nesta hums and closes her eyes, feeling Cassian’s steady heart beat under her head. They’re silent for some time until Cassian speaks.
“What happened to us?”
“It was that perfume you got me,” Nesta spats. “I felt fine until I smelled it. It must have been drugged to act as an aphrodisiac.”
“The female I bought it from did say it would make my true love wild. I didn’t think it would be like that,” Cassian winces.
Nesta narrows her eyes and looks at Cassian. “Who did you buy it from again? When I can manage to stand and take a bath, I’m going to pay a visit to the Palace of Thread and Jewels with that cursed perfume and put my Valkyrie training to good use. I’m going to smash the bottle at her feet—“
“No need to be so hasty,” Cassian says, squeezing her. “I wouldn’t mind keeping it around, for special occasions.”
Nesta stares at him incredulously. “You’re mad.”
“Mad with how much I love you.”
“Just shut up and kiss me and be quiet,” Nesta sighs, and Cassian laughs and obliges his mate.
XXX
Rhys glances out of the River House’s window into the dark night above. It had snowed earlier, and he can still make out the three spread outlines pressed into the fluffy snow, one much smaller than the other two. It had been a perfect Winter Solstice with Feyre and Nyx, and now Rhys gets to enjoy the evening with his small family as well.
Was it wrong of him to ask a local vendor to sell some enchanted perfume to all his friends, guaranteed to drive them uncontrollably mad with lust? Perhaps. Did Rhys also have to sneak inside his friends’s minds to ensure they actually used the perfume, to make sure his small family was alone tonight? Maybe.
But it was Feyre’s birthday, and Nyx’s first Solstice. After everything he and Feyre had been through this year, all Rhys wanted was to spend their first Solstice as a family together, alone, just the three of them.
He loves his family, truly. But sometimes Mor and Cassian can get a little loud, and Elain and Lucien get a little too affectionate in public, and Amren mutters offhand remarks under her breath, and Azriel broods in the corner, despite Gwyn being all smiles around the room. It all just seemed too much this year, after the fucking horrendous year they’d had. A quiet day with his mate and their son was the only way Rhys wanted to spend the day.
“I wonder what happened to everyone,” Feyre says quietly, coming up to stand next to him at the window, Nyx in her arms. Their son had had a very busy day, between a delicious homemade breakfast, playing in the snow, unwrapping his new presents, and trying a bit of Feyre’s birthday cake, and he’s fighting to stay awake. “I hope they’re ok. Should we look in on—?”
“No!” Rhys interrupts, and Feyre and Nyx give him matching looks of surprise. “Uh, I’m sure they all had a long day and decided to spend time with their mates.”
Feyre gives him a long, searching look but doesn’t say anything. “Will you still have your annual snowball fight at the cabin in the morning?”
Rhys thinks of the perfume that Cassian and Az have, and how confident the fae was in her enchantment. “Actually, we all decided to postpone it this year, to spend more time with our mates and families.”
Feyre’s face lights up brighter than every star on Starfall combined, and Rhys would make the same decision to douse his friends and family in an aphrodisiac in a heartbeat, just to see his mate experience even a fraction of the happiness she’s feeling now. “That’s wonderful! Maybe the three of us can paint something together with those wonderful finger paints you got me.”
Nyx makes a happy, contented sigh from Feyre’s arms and Rhys smiles. The bond between him and Feyre glows strong and bright as the best Solstice Eve he’s ever had draws to a close. “I can’t wait.”
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Everytime one of the rat boys approach a Archeron sister
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I just feel strongly that Cassian and Nesta get Nyx a pair of light up Heely’s at one point. Mostly because it deeply pisses Rhys off, since Nyx refuses to take them off for a month.
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Straight To My Head
I want to be where you are
Summary: All Nesta wants is to live outside of London in peace. She would like nothing more than days filled with books and quiet- a dream made impossible by the Scotsman determined to relive past battle glories on her front lawn
Big thanks to @dustjacketmusings who gave me the idea of LARP-ing Cassian, and @the-lonelybarricade for being my UK consultant once again.
Part 1/2: I Want To Be Where You Are | Read AO3
Six months before:
“Your Uncle Rupert has died.”
Nesta didn’t bother looking up from her book, despite how terribly rude it was to read at the dinner table. Beside her, Feyre was scrolling through her phone, a frown pinching her face. It left only Elain to set her spoon neatly against a folded napkin and ask, “Uncle Rupert?”
“He was your mothers uncle,” their father replied, drawing both Nesta and Feyre’s attention toward him. He looked absurd in his polo get up, an aging man trying desperately hard to fit in. He reminded her of the girls from school and their lack of personality outside of whatever the latest trend was. It was all terribly boring.
And so was he.
“Oh. How terribly tragic,” Elain, ever dutiful, waited to see if there was anything else expected of her. Nesta knew Elain well, and though she was far too polite to ever show it, she cared just as little as Feyre and Nesta did.
“He’s left you girls an inheritance,” their father continued, drawing a soft sigh of annoyance from Feyre.
“Oh?” Elain questioned, examining her immaculate nails that held the garishly ugly diamond Graysen had given her. Nesta was biding her time, certain her younger sister would realize was a dull, preening asshole he was and call it off…but just in case, Nesta also intended to throw Elain an intervention under the guise of a bachelorette party.
She had time. At least a year.
Maybe more, depending on what this inheritance was.
“Castles. Three castles—one for each of you.”
“Why would he do that?” Feyre asked bluntly, echoing both Nesta and Elain’s thoughts. Their father only shrugged.
“Perhaps he was hoping to elevate the three of you.”
Nesta scoffed. Of course their father would think so. All he cared about was more. More money, more power—more than they could ever need, could ever use. Nesta wanted no part of it.
“Where are these castles, exactly?” Nesta asked, finally setting her book down to look him dead in the face.
“I think I’ll turn mine into a bed and breakfast,” Elain murmured, eyes shining as she mentally began planning.
“You don’t even know where it is,” Feyre interrupted. “What if it's crumbling? What if it’s in the middle of nowhere or what if it’s filled with ghosts. What if—”
“Feyre,” Elain interrupted, eyes wide. “It’ll be fine. I’m sure we weren’t given the crumbling wreckage of some haunted estate.”
Now:
Famous last words.
Nesta often thought of Elain’s certainty. While Feyre and Elain began remodeling, Nesta hadn’t needed to. Of the three, hers was in the best condition, though it needed a heating source outside of fireplaces, and she’d used the money their uncle had also left for renovations to revamp the electric.
After that, Nesta had wasted all of the rest of that obscene allowance on furniture and art, furnishings for the bedrooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen—and the library. Nesta had poured so much time and attention into her library that some nights she fell asleep in the oversized white chair just beside the window.
She’d never imagined herself anywhere but London.
Now she was certain she’d never go back. She’d fallen in love with the solitude, with the Scottish Highlands and the town that existed at the base of the hillside her castle had been built upon. It was as old as the stones themselves, and the people were far nicer than anyone in London on their best day.
Nesta would often walk down the steep pathway where she’d have lunch in the little tavern and buy a book at the shop, which was well-stocked with romance, before making her way to the loch where she’d fall asleep on a blanket, reading the new book she’d purchased.
It was exactly like one of her stories.
Save for him, of course.
All books needed a romantic hero. A man who was both handsome and interesting. Cassian MacDougall was certainly the first—at least six foot five and built like a warrior of old, with dark brown hair that hung against broad shoulders, and hazel eyes that were more brown than green.
Not that Nesta was paying that much attention. Not of the closely trimmed beard against the sharp cut of his jaw. Certainly not of his tattooed arms and chest, which were often bare, his golden brown skin gleaming with sweat given he so often forewent a shirt. He did wear a kilt—a red and blue plaid that offered a rather nice view of his muscled knees.
The problem with Cassian was his personality. Before she’d moved in, Cassian had taken to staging loud battles on her front lawn—it was, apparently, the sight of a very famous Scottish victory in some long forgotten battle against the English.
Nesta had merely asked him to stop doing it so close to her window. She wasn’t even unreasonable the first time.
Could you move further down the hill? She’d asked him, intimidated by his largeness, by how obscenely handsome he was.
He’d shot her a grin, and then turned to his friends. “Did ye hear that, lads?! The Englishwoman wants us to clear out!”Everyone had laughed, and Nesta had been humiliated.
Now it was a battle of the wills between them. The nearby town of Killin was swarmed with tourists during the Spring and Summer months, and Cassian made some of his money by taking tourists on a trip through Scottish history—or so Emerie, the woman who owned the local grocery store, had told Nesta. Spring had officially arrived just that morning, and Nesta was wholly unprepared for the sounds of violence wafting through the open windows.
She was going to kill him. It wasn’t even eight in the morning. Rising from her chair in the empty dining room table, Nesta marched through the quiet halls of her castle. Had her uncle known about this when he’d given her this cursed place? Had she angered him once when she’d been a child?
Nesta didn’t know how to reconcile her love of her home with her hatred of Cassian. He was just as willful, just as stubborn, and perhaps worst of all, determined to push her out.
She’d embarrass him right back. She swore she would. If he’d taken money from people and led them up here, she’d ruin his reputation on Yelp, too. She’d read them—just to know how best to ruin him—and everyone liked Cassian.
Everyone but her.
He was there, in his kilt and a sword and, mercifully, a breezy white shirt. He’d brought all his friends with him, some dressed in the stuffy red and white uniforms that had once belonged to the English. They had bayonets attached to guns, none of it sharp enough to wound, and somehow, someone had managed to roll a replica cannon onto the immaculate grass.
She froze, heart hammering at the sheer scale of what was happening—it was fake, and yet her brain and body reacted as though it were real. Not far from her, an Englishman fell to the ground with a groan, clutching at this chest before going utterly silent.
Nesta couldn’t take her eyes off him. Memories of her mothers death flooded through her, as vivid as the battle raging around her. No one else had been in the room when her mother took those last, rattling breaths but Nesta, who had been only eleven. Nesta had spent those six months caring for their mother while she fell victim to aggressive, incurable cancer. Back then, she hadn’t understood that it would take far more than her love and devotion to save her mother.
Elain and Feyre had been too young to take on that burden, and their father too buried and work and grief. It left only Nesta to witness death, to be there in the final last moments.
She’d refused to speak about it, and rarely allowed herself to even think about death. Something had solidified that day, had become hard and Nesta’s will was unbreakable.
And right then, in the early morning sun, she felt it fracture. Just a little, just enough to empty out her mind. Nesta forgot why she’d gone out in the first place, or what she was doing until warm, strong hands lifted her up in the air and began moving her.
A breath of fear wooshed out of her, palms slapping against a muscular back. Cassian—his shirt plastered to his sweat soaked skin—was carrying her across the grounds as he announced, “And we’d take any English lass for our own!”
Revulsion flooded through her.
“Put me down!” she ordered, afraid he was going to accidentally flash a crowd of tourists with her underwear.
Cassian did as he was told, grinning ear to ear. “Everyone applaud for Lady Nesta. She’s a good sport, playing the part of stuffy English broad.”
Tourists in fanny packs, Hawaiian shirts, and thick socks to their knees, offered her a round of polite clapping. She’d come here to humiliate him, and as he so often did, it was Cassian who’d gained the upper hand. Nesta tried to turn, to leave him there, but his hand shot around her waist, holding her firmly against him.
He rattled off battle facts for a solid ten minutes, fingers digging against the fabric of her blue maxi dress. It was only when he finished, and one of his friends began herding people toward the path that Cassian turned to face her.
Nesta’s heart raced. “What do ye think ye’re doing?” he demanded, dropping his hand as though she disgusted him.
“Me?” she replied, adopting an imperiously cold tone in order to mask her own fear. “This is my home, Cassian.”
He scoffed. “For how long, Nes?”
She hated when he called her that. Hated the familiar, intimate nickname of the fact he’d given her one at all. No one had ever dared.
“Excuse me?” she demanded.
He flinched as if she’d slapped him. “How long,” he repeated, enunciating his words with that faux British accent she hated. He was forever mocking her. “How long before you pack up and move out? Another couple months?”
“I’ll be here forever,” Nesta hissed, hoping he believed her. “I’ll be chasing your children off this lawn one day.”
Cassian’s laugh was humorless. “Oh, I believe ye will. I hope ye’re ready for that. I intend tae be prolific.”
“You’d have to find a willing woman, first,” she replied, holding his stare. “And from what I’ve seen, they don’t find you charming. I wonder why that is?”
“So concerned about my bedroom habits, are ye?”
She’d kill him. “What’s to be concerned about? A man in love with his hand is terribly common.”
Cassian took a step toward her, staring down his nose. He was terribly handsome, a brutal prince with that scar slashed over his thick eyebrow and those eyes that she swore saw right through her.
“If ye want to know what I’m like in bed, ye only have to ask.”
“I don’t fuck animals,” Nesta snapped, praying he couldn’t tell how quickly her heart was beating. She turned, not daring to continue this conversation. It was far too dangerous.
Nesta made it all of two steps before his fingers curled around her wrist, turning her so roughly she stumbled into his chest. Nesta inhaled without thinking, drinking the scent of snow capped wind and cedar and the way the sun smelled against the salt of his skin.
She reached with her free hand and slapped him as hard as she could, right against his jaw.
“Don’t ever touch me again,” she ordered. Cassian’s eyes widened, dropping her as he reached for the blooming mark of red against his skin.
Nesta marched off, though it hardly felt like victory. She was certain she’d lost far more than just her side of that argument. Cassian’s booming laughter chased her back in doors, where Nesta remained even after he returned that afternoon.
She couldn’t face him.
And she certainly couldn’t face herself—or her memories.
-*-
“I heard a rumor about ye,” Emerie called as Nesta browsed the shelves of her shop.
“Oh?” Nesta replied, putting a bag of pasta in her little shopping basket.
“I heard Cassian made ye part of his reenactment last week.”
A groan slipped from Nesta before she could stifle it. “Bragging, is he?”
Emerie’s laugh was a pretty sound. “Of course. He’s tae stupid to realize the reason ye bother him so much is because he has a crush on ye. Like a schoolboy tugging on yer braids.”
“Gross,” Nesta responded. Though, Emerie had grown up with Cassian. Surely she could shed light on why he was so…so…Cassian? “Why is he single?”
Emerie’s brown eyes danced with delight. “Thinking about him, tae?”
“Nope. Just curious, that’s all.”
“Of course. Who wouldn’t be curious? Maybe ye should ask him. I’m sure he’d tell ye all about it…maybe over candlelight and—”
“Okay, that’s quite enough,” Nesta grumbled to more laughter. She collected the rest of her groceries while Emerie filled her in on gossip that didn’t center around Cassian, before bidding her a good day. Nesta had never had true friends, and wasn’t sure if Emerie could even be counted as one. She might have, if Nesta could muster the courage to ask her to do something—anything.
But she couldn’t. So Nesta left knowing a little more about the people of Killin and the sense that some of her loneliness was self-imposed. She couldn’t even pretend it was her mothers death that had made her cold. Even as a child, no one had wanted to play with her. None of the other children liked her.
“Ah, mo chridhe,” Cassian called, jogging up the path that led from the edge of the village toward the castle. “I’ve been looking for ye.”
“I can’t see why,” Nesta sniffed, even as Cassian pulled her heavy canvas bag filled with her groceries and slung it over his broad shoulder. “Do you intend to hold my groceries hostage, too?”
“I’ve come to talk with ye,” he replied, one hand thrown up in defense. “About business.”
“I have no business with you.”
“C’mon, Nes,” he pleaded, drawing her attention toward him. “I’ve been staging battles at Killin Castle for five years now.”
“There is land all around you, Cassian. Surely you can move it.”
“Aye, I could, but the castle adds a certain majesty. And it allows me tae charge more—hold on, don’t look at me like that. I’ll give ye a percentage for your trouble.”
“Fifty percent.”
“Take my fucking balls too,” he grumbled. “Thirty.”
“Thirty percent of your total profits just so you can pretend to kill the English on my lawn?” Nesta asked, arching a brow.
“Forty if ye let me haul you off again.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fine. Thirty it is, then. In exchange, ye’ll leave me be while I’m working—”
“And you’ll stay further away from the windows,” Nesta replied, pausing to both catch her breath and stare him down. Cassian didn’t seem winded at all, lovely beneath a waning sun.
“Fine.”
“And I want a schedule,” she said, hands on her hips.
“Anything else? My fucking cock and balls on a silver tray, tae?”
“You can keep those,” she sniffed, not wanting to think of either. Cassian didn’t protest, didn’t offer her a filthy remark. He was grinning, as if he’d gotten everything he wanted. Nesta hated to see him so happy.
“This is time limited, Cassian. Just until the summer is over. And then I want you gone. Out of my life.”
“It’s a small town, Nes,” he replied with mock solemnity. “I cannae leave.”
“You can avoid me.”
“What makes ye think I’d want that?”
Having reached the top of the hill, and the end of her patience, Nesta reached for her bag. Cassian pulled just out of reach, eyes searching her own. She didn’t like the look of contemplation on his face, or how serious he’d suddenly become.
“What about what I want, Cassian? Which is peace, and a moment free of the chaos you drag with you.”
“Ye might like it, mo chridhe.”
Nesta glared. “We could have had an amicable relationship months ago. This is all we have now, Cassian. Give me my things.”
He handed her the bag with a rueful smile. “It’s a pleasure working with ye.”
“If only I could say the same, Cassian.”
He merely grinned, which annoyed her more. She took off, daring only once to glance over her shoulder. Cassian remained at the top of the hill, his dark hair blowing around his face while he watched her. He raised a hand in a wave, one Nesta did not return. She didn’t trust this new, helpful Cassian.
Whatever angle he was working would only hurt her if she chose to believe it.
Nesta had learned that lesson with Tomas not a year before.
Nesta wasn’t going to learn it again.
-*-
The thing about Cassian, Nesta learned, was that he woke early. He scheduled his mock battles every day at nine am like clockwork. Nesta was rarely up that early and no matter how she tried, could not fall back asleep. He’d taped his schedule to her front door rather than knock and wake her up, which detailed a seven day schedule in which he reenacted two battles monday through friday, and four on saturday and sunday. It seemed brutal, and yet when he came by, sweaty and grinning that Sunday night with a check, Nesta stopped complaining.
If that was thirty percent, no wonder Cassian had been adamant about continuing. Nesta tucked it away, strangely uncomfortable with taking his money. All through spring, Cassian faithfully left money in the little mailbox, and from April to June, Nesta did her very best to avoid him entirely.
She was avoiding everyone. Even herself. Most days, Nesta left her phone uncharged so she didn’t have to see the incoming messages from Elain. Elain, planning her wedding and somehow managing to deal with what seemed like an incredibly irritable tenant of the castle she’d been left, still checked in. Still asked after her—still wanted to know what had happened to chase Nesta out of London so abruptly.
The joke about becoming a bog witch had never meant to shape her reality. Sometimes she wondered if Elain hadn’t heard. If she didn’t know about Tomas, what he’d said.
What he’d tried to do.
As the weather warmed, and more people flooded into the town, Nesta retreated further into the castle where no one could see her. The mere idea of going out filled Nesta with trembling fear. There was too much left to chance, too much chaos and in response, Nesta found herself practically eating in the library. It was the only place that felt safe anymore.
That. And somehow, Cassian, who’d begun knocking on the front door to offer her up money.
She made her way through the open grand hall, eyeing cobwebs clinging to the overhead chandelier. She needed to find someone who could do some cleaning for her.
Nesta pulled open the old, iron handle to find Cassian, his hair half pulled off his head in a messy bun. He was in his kilt, a stable given how often he played the battle warrior, though it was paired with a plain black t-shirt that showed off both his bulging biceps and his collarbone, teased by the little vee just in the front.
“For ye,” he said, holding out an envelope. As she reached for it, Cassian ducked around her, stepping onto the stone floor. He whistled with appreciation.
“I’ve always wondered what this place looked like.”
“It looks like a castle,” Nesta replied, the door still open. “Get out.”
Cassian looked her over. “Are ye eating up here?”
“How is that any of your concern?” she asked, hating how her cheeks warmed under his appraisal.
“Emerie said ye aren’t coming down as often. She’s worried about ye, asked me tae check in. I’m checking, Nes. You look tired.”
“You wake me up early,” she replied, though they both knew that wasn’t it.
Cassian’s eyes narrowed. “Did something happen?”
“Nope. I’m perfectly fine. I’ll see Emerie—”
“Why not let me buy ye something tae eat?” he suggested. “At tae Ensnaring Snake. A pint and something else? Whatever ye want.”
“I don’t need your charity, Cassian. I can have a drink without your leering presence.”
“Ah, but what fun would it be without me?” he asked, a roguish grin on his face. “Come down. Even if ye ignore me the entire time.”
There was no way.
“Unless,” he added casually, unaware of how her heart thudded in her throat. “Ye’re scared.”
“I’m not scared!” Nesta snapped. “Now get out, Cassian!”
“Anything, mo chridhe,” he replied, all but sauntering out. She might have believed his swaggering, male bravado, had he not turned to look at her with those worried eyes. It prompted her, once the door was slammed shut in his face, to go up to the bathroom. She supposed she had gotten a little thinner…and the circles beneath her eyes had become far more pronounced. She was paler, too, though she could blame that on avoiding the sun. Nesta couldn’t remember the last time she’d drank any water.
Or eaten a vegetable.
She showered, braiding her hair in a crown around her head like she so often did. Her hands shook as she buttoned up a pale purple dress and laced up her shoes. She couldn’t bring herself to put on make-up, or do anything else that might draw attention to herself.
You’re so fuckint hot, Nesta. You know it, don’t you, with those eyes—those tits—
Nesta wanted to scream. Hand frozen on the handle, she almost turned around. Tomas’s voice, the feel of him pressed against her, how he’d—no. She took a breath, cleared her throat, and marched out into the waning sunlight. There was no way Nesta would let Cassian think she was afraid of going outside.
Even if he was right.
It wasn’t the outdoors that made her nervous. It was all the people, it was the things she couldn’t control.
By the time she made it down the hill and into the center of the village, Emerie had closed up for the day. A little handwritten note told Nesta exactly where she was.
The Ensnaring Snake.
It had Cassian written all over it. Still, despite how it made her palms sweat, Nesta very carefully made her way toward the tavern she’d once enjoyed eating in. Back when there was no one but familiar faces and the streets were mostly empty.
Now it was packed. Nesta pushed the door open just enough to see Cassian at the far end of he room, head thrown back with laughter at something someone at the table had said. His hair was loose, and he’d foregone the kilt for a pair of regular jeans. He looked so normal—and of course he had friends. She didn’t know why that surprised her. She didn’t know why the sight of a rather pretty blonde running her finger over his bare arm made Nesta back out of the doorway.
Why she suddenly felt so stupid. She hadn’t come for him.
She didn’t care about him.
“Hey!”
Nesta ignored the male voices behind her—and the jarring, American accents that seemed so wildly out of place. Arms wrapped around her body, she meant to trudge back home and pretend none of this had happened.
“Hey,” that voice called, dragging the sound of heavy steps over cobblestone with it. A moment later, a hand was on Nesta’s shoulder. She jumped nearly out of her skin, twisting to look at three unfamiliar faces. Each of them reeked of whiskey, and were likely looking for more fun than the village had to offer. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t touch me,” she ordered, earning snickering laughs.
“Or what?” the first, a bleach blonde with a pair of sunglasses clipped to his t-shirt, asked. “We’re just being nice.”
“Oh? Is this considered polite, where you’re from?”
More laughter. Nesta’s heart raced even as she told herself nothing was going to happen. They were having a laugh at her expense but they’d slink off when they realized they were getting nowhere.
“We could be much more polite,” that first step, lunging forward. Nesta stumbled back, falling to the ground and bashing her elbow against the rough cobblestone. Pain ricocheted through her while her eyes smarted. More humiliation, brought low by men she hated.
Nesta scrambled back to her feet, turning without looking at any of them.
“Aw, sweetheart, come back,” they called, laughing loudly. Nesta started to turn for the castle, thinking she’d race up the hill and lock herself up until morning came.
But they were still behind her, trailing after her while whistling and making other little sounds with their tongues and teeth. Cassian could crest that hill without breaking a sweat, but Nesta was slow—they’d catch her.
She sped up, trying to think of where she could go. Panic was making her clumsy, was making her stupid. She should have turned around and gone back into the tavern where anyone could see. Emerie was in there, she would have helped.
Instead, Nesta picked up her steps, hoping they’d get tired of following her when they realized she was heading out of the village. And when they didn’t—when they tried to get closer—Nesta took off running.
They followed, their shadows jumping ahead even as the sun vanished over the hillside. Nesta could only hear her pounding feet and her nervous heart. She was heading for the loch, the absolute worst place to be given there was unlikely to be anywhere out there. Just her, a body of water, and three very drunk tourists looking to have fun at her expense.
Nesta slowed, trying to figure out her next move.
“Tired, babe?” One of them called.
“I can think of something else that’ll tire her out,” another replied. Nesta was inching closer and closer to the dock, wondering if she could swim far enough out that they’d finally leave. Or if that was stupid, and they’d just jump in after her where she’d be well and truly fucked.
She couldn’t go past them. Glancing over her shoulder saw the three of them walking in a solid line. They’d catch her.
“Please stop,” one of them called, jogging after her. Nesta surged forward, her feet touching the dock before she felt those fingers on her arm again. “Why are you running?”
She wanted to die. “You’re chasing me.”
“You don’t have to run. We don’t want to hurt you,” he lied, his eyes absolutely betraying him. She’d seen that look before, had watched another man’s gaze dip below her chin, taking in her body, wondering what it would feel like to just have her, regardless of her own feelings on the matter.
“Take your hands off me.”
The other two laughed and laughed. “Or what?”
“Or—”
“Or I’ll kill ye,” came another, familiar voice. Nesta could have sobbed at the sound, had never been happier than she was just then to see Cassian strolling up, deceptively casual. He cocked his head, dark hair spilling around him as he waited.
That first man looked from Cassian to Nesta and then, with a smile that clearly said he thought Cassian was outmatched, replied, “Oh? She’s yours?”
Cassian didn’t smile. “Find out.”
Nesta was so busy watching Cassian that she’d stopped watching the others. She didn’t see that hand shove toward her, didn’t realize he’d decided to call Cassian’s bluff until she stumbled backwards.
She hit the water with a choked scream. She flailed for a moment, twisting around before pushing upward. The water was dark, was colder than she’d expected, though not so cold she couldn’t still think straight.
She broke the surface a moment before she heard a splash, and then felt him, arms around her.
“Don’t hit me,” Cassian warned breathlessly.
“Where did they go?” Nesta demanded, letting Cassian drag her back to the dock. He hoisted her up effortlessly before joining her. Water sluiced off him, though he hardly seemed to notice. His eyes burned, and when he reached for her, she saw his knuckles were bloody and had begun to swell and bruise.
“They’re gone,” he said tightly. He swallowed some unnamed emotion, looking her over.
“Unharmed,” she said, resisting the urge to draw her knees up to her chest. Instead, Nesta gingerly rose to her feet, weighed down by the heavy fabric of her dress and her wounded pride.
“I saw ye,” he said, following her up. “In the tavern. I saw ye come in and I—”
He’d followed her. Nesta might have asked him why another night. Might have berated him for thinking she’d want his attention. Instead, Nesta forced herself to take a breath.
“Will you walk me home?”
Cassian swallowed again. “Yeah. I—is this my fault, Nes?”
“No, Cassian,” she said, suddenly exhausted.
“I was trying to rile ye up. Get ye out of that castle. I feel like…”
“It’s not your fault,” she repeated.
It’s mine, she nearly added, though she kept it behind her teeth.
“Why didnae ye run home, mo chridhe? Why’d ye come out here?”
“The hill,” she whispered, trying so hard not to let him see how rattled she was. Cassian looked down, eyebrows raised with surprise.
“Can I show ye something?”
And right then, Nesta would have let Cassian do anything he liked so long as he didn’t leave her.
“Sure.”
“Cassian,” Nesta began when he opened the door to the Ensnaring Snake.
“Trust me,” he replied, placing a careful hand on her bruised elbow. Inside, music and laughter flooded Nesta’s senses, and for a moment she expected him to lead her back to his table. She almost wanted him to, though she was in no mood to make conversation. It might have been nice to hear him introduce her to his friends, to sit her down and buy her that pint like he’d promised.
He wove in and out of the tables, nodding when people called his name. His touch was light—careful. Like he knew better than to do any more.
Like he knew what she didn’t like about it.
There was no way to explain to him that his touch had never bothered her. She’d have to tell him that she noticed his eyes, how they stayed on her face. How even when he’d been surveying her that morning, he’d been looking with concern—not desire. Not lewd appreciation. And how even when Cassian was manhandling her, his hands never went anywhere inappropriate, though it would have been all too easy for him to cop a feel and play it off like an accident.
She wondered if he even realized it.
Cassian took her around the back of the bar, pulling open an old, wooden door that clearly led to a cellar.
“Cassian,” Nesta tried again.
“Trust me,” he repeated. Nesta opened her mouth to tell him she didn’t trust him at all. But she could see his swollen knuckles from the corner of her eye, and thought of how quick he must have been to hit them hard enough to hurt himself and jump into the water after her. He hadn’t had to do either. He could have left her. Could have walked away.
So Nesta followed him down into the musty dark, wishing she could grab his arm.
“I used tae come here when I was wee,” Cassian explained, leading her around packing boxes and crates toward another, sturdier door. “You’ll still have to go uphill, but it takes ye right to the castle.”
Nesta was still sopping wet, exhausted and wrung out. She looked up at him, wanting him to go with her. She couldn’t ask.
“Thank you,” she said instead, turning toward that dark.
“I’ll see ye up,” Cassian said gruffly.
And together, they plunged into that darkness.
-*-
“What do you mean, married?” Nesta demanded, phone to her ear as she stomped out of the bookshop. “How can she marry a fictional man?”
“He’s not fictional,” came Elain’s patient voice. “I looked him up. Rhysand Campbell is a Duke. I guess that’s why she kept such a tight lid on him back home.”“A Duke? For Feyre?!” Nesta spluttered, trying to imagine wild, carefree Feyre marrying into ancient, outdated royalty. She’d always expected that of Elain, if anyone.
“I’m going to meet him next week, so I’ll let you know. But he seems very accomplished, and he’s quite handsome.”
“Is she sure?” Nesta asked, not thinking about her path until she was already on it. “Marriage is just so…”
She trailed off, remembering that Elain was engaged. Hell. She hadn’t meant to insult her, though the tense, following silence made Nesta think she had. “How er…how is that going?”
“I called it off,” Elain finally said, her voice strange and small. “Just yesterday.”
“Did he do something?” Nesta demanded, readjusting the blanket she was caring beneath her arm. “Because I’ll kill him—”
“It’s all handled,” Elain assured her quickly. “I don’t expect him to give me any trouble.”
“What does that mean? Handled how?” Nesta demanded. Elain was so nice it practically made her a doormat. Nesta didn’t believe for a single second that Elain had truly handled anything, and wondered if the engagement had been called off for infidelity. Graysen wouldn’t give her trouble because he’d already moved on.
“Drop it, Nesta,” Elain replied firmly.
“Fine. But if you need help—”
“I don’t. Everything here is fine. How are you doing? Did you ever get rid of that guy role playing on your lawn?”
Nesta started to say that she and Cassian had reached a truce of sorts, which wasn’t quite the truth and not exactly a lie, either. Instead, Nesta said, “Erm…let me call you back.”
Because there, in the middle of the glittering water, stood a very shirtless, possibly naked Cassian. Gleaming in the sunlight, his head tipped back so the rays might warm his face. He didn’t look real and Nesta didn’t know what to do.
He wasn’t alone. Along the shore, children splashed and kicked up water while others floated around him, oblivious to what Nesta was seeing. She wondered what the whorling, inked tattoos on his shoulders and chest meant.
And as she wondered, her eyes drifted down the packed muscles against his ribs, toward the carved vee of his hips. Nesta could scarcely breathe, had forgotten what she was supposed to be doing until her eyes came back to his face.
He was looking at her, too. Shit eating grin etched over his handsome face, one hand raised upward to beckon her to join him.
Hell.
Nesta turned, embarrassed she’d been caught ogling him. She would not submit to any of his humiliating taunts or those burning eyes that promised far more than Nesta thought she wanted. Of course, Cassian couldn’t bask in his victory, of knowing some diseased part of her was attracted to him, despite their strange push-pull between animosity and friendship. He was behind her in a pair of bright red swim trunks and nothing else, jogging up the path while Nesta tried desperately to escape him.
“Why are ye leaving?” he asked, running a hand through his still wet hair. “Come swim.”
“No, thank you,” she replied. “I just remembered—”
“Oh, bullshit, mo chridhe,” he replied. “There is nothing to do but sit up at that miserable stack of rocks. Swim with me.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Okay, then do something else with me,” he replied.
“Why would I do that?” she asked, rounding on him. That was a mistake. Cassian was far closer than she thought, and when she stopped, he kept going. He kept her from tumbling backward, wrapping a slick around her and pressing her into his chest.
She hated how good it felt to touch him. To feel him hold her, to keep her close for a moment before he let her go.
“Why not?” he asked, strangely breathless. “Ye’ve been here half a year—don’t ye want friends?”
“Is that what we are?” she asked, distracted by how close he was, by how nearly naked he was. It took no effort to try and picture what the rest of him might be like…and it would have been a lie to say she wasn’t curious if all of him was large.
“Yes?” he asked, clearly frustrated. “I thought so.”
“I don’t want to swim,” she repeated, though in truth, Nesta didn’t want to do anything with him right now. It was too risky to be alone with him. She’d touch him, she’d get on her knees and do any number of terrible, filthy things to him. Nesta couldn’t breathe. She needed to escape him.
“Something else?” he asked, not moving an inch. His eyes were glazed over, staring right through her. Nesta blinked.
“I er…another day, Cass.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, his chest rising and falling rapidly. “I should—” he turned abruptly. Had she upset him? Nesta watched him for a moment before she turned, too, unwilling to get caught staring at him again. Nesta didn’t allow herself to think of him at all. For the rest of the day, every time the image of him standing in the water, Nesta banished it quickly and busied herself in some other task.
Right up until night fell, and she could crawl into bed.
Only then did Nesta allow herself to think about Cassian.
-*-
“Rhysand is missing,” Elain whispered to Nesta. Nesta, still guarding the door where Feyre was speaking with a Duke, turned to look at her sister, eyes wide.
“I’ll kill him,” Nesta hissed, biting her bottom lip.
“His friends are here,” Elain said, running through a mental list of guests. “I’ll see if they know where he is. Don’t move,” Elain added, finger in the air.
“This whole thing is a disaster,” Nesta grumbled, hating the pitying look Elain threw her. Nesta knew, realistically, that Elain had done her best with the guest list and she was terrible at telling their father no. And Elain had called ahead of time to warn Nesta that the Mandray’s had secured an invitation.
Everyone wanted to see Feyre Archeron marry a Duke. Social parasites and other hanger-oners had flooded into the lovely castle all day, marveling over the architecture and hoping to rub elbows with real royalty.
Nesta didn’t think Elain had managed to get anyone but Duke Campbell, just as she didn’t think Feyre was aware her wedding had turned into the event of the year. Nesta was desperate to avoid the majority of London, and planned to catch a ride back with Elain in the morning. Just to the train station—she’d make the rest of the way back on her own, even if she had to walk.
There was no way she was spending a weekend with Tomas Mandray.
Elain returned, accompanied by a familiar, grinning face. “Well, well, well,” Cassian said, running his hand down a buttoned down, black shirt. He wore that red and blue kilt and black socks that came up over his knees, a sporran around his hips.
“Do you two know each other?” Elain asked.
“This is the gentleman roleplaying on my lawn,” Nesta said. The man beside him, dressed identically, though his kilt was primarily blue plaid.
“Role-playing, Cass?” he asked.
“This is Cassian?” Elain replied, eyebrows raised to the sky.
“Have ye been talking about me?” Cassian asked Nesta with a lopsided smile. “What else does she say?”
“That you’re exceptionally obnoxious,” Elain replied, earning a laugh from the other man.
“All true,” he murmured, before adding, “Azriel.”
They were given no more time for pleasantries before Feyre emerged, flushed and practically glowing. She didn’t seem concerned that her fiancé was missing—only annoyed. Elain ordered them to split up, which Azriel did without complaint—but Cassian did not.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said just as soon as Elain and Azriel were out of earshot. “I didnae know Feyre was yer sister. I should have guessed, I supposed, given what a hard time she’s given my brother.”
“Good for her,” Nesta replied before adding, “Brother?”
“Not in tae biblical sense. Rhys and I met when he was at a posh boarding school and trying to buy whiskey on the weekend.”
“Let me guess—you sold him the whiskey.”
“Ye know me so well, mo chridhe,” he said with a grin. “Been inseparable ever since.”
“Then why is he missing?” she demanded. Cassian pulled open a closet door, revealing a mop that fell to the floor with a loud clatter.
There was no humor on Cassian’s face as he knelt to pick it up. “He doesn’t think he’s worthy.”
Nesta didn’t know how to take that, how to possibly respond. She didn’t know any man that had ever put a woman above himself. The idea that Rhysand would have left because he thought her sister could do? better was an anomaly. Unheard of.
“I’ll bet they’re outside,” Nesta said after a moment. Cassian caught her by the arm, holding her still.
“Maybe they don’t want tae be found just yet,” he murmured, that burning back in his eyes.
“Cass—”
“Nesta?”
She wanted to die at the sound of that voice. Those brown eyes, that sharp, sneering face and that lean body pressed into an elegant suit. Cassian turned, looking Tomas up and down with such keen awareness on his face. She could read his every expression, the oh, I understand now.
But he didn’t.
Nesta started to inch closer to Cassian, who, of course, immediately noticed. He took her hand in his, raising it to his lips, and ghosted a kiss against her knuckles. It was so obviously a claiming and a threat, all at once.
“Hi, Tomas.”
“I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“For my sister's wedding?” she asked archly. “I’m surprised you’re here.”
Cassian raised his brows.
“Of course I am,” he replied, staring her down with those dead, soulless eyes. “Your father said I was the son he never had.”
Cassian started to take a step forward, stopped only by Nesta’s vicious squeeze of his hand.
“He’s still so terribly disappointed by how things happened. What, exactly, did you tell him?”
Nesta wanted to die. “Nothing,” she managed, her heart pounding in her throat. Cassian watched this power struggle—did he understand what was happening?
“We should get together the next time you’re in London,” Tomas said, eyes flicking to Cassian with distaste. As if Cassian couldn’t have broken him clean in two. As if Cassian was someone beneath him. “Carter.”
Cassian offered an edged smile. “Hackit.”
Nesta snorted, pressing her hand against her lips. Tomas narrowed his eyes, but kept moving without insulting her. Nesta imagined he, too, realized the danger Cassian presented. Even without those swollen, bloodied knuckles, Cassian looked like a man who could fight.
“Want tae tell me what that was about?” Cassian asked the second Tomas slipped down the hall.
“Of course not,” she snapped, wrenching her hand from his. “Don’t kiss me again.”
“No? Are ye sure about that? Because I saw ye at the loch—”
“You didn’t see anything,” Nesta insisted, heart hammering. Her two worlds were colliding unforgivably. Cassian and Tomas were not supposed to exist together, and seeing Cassian, in his kilt, call Tomas ugly in his suit, had managed to tie Nesta up in knots.
“Don’t go out there,” Cassian complained when Nesta stepped onto the lawn, still rain soaked from a recent storm. “Yer gonna ruin yer dress!”
“FEYRE!” she yelled, mostly to convince Cassian to stop talking.
“Ye cannae end every conversation ye don’t like by running off. I’m not going anywhere, mo chridhe come back—”
Cassian hauled Nesta up over his shoulder before she could take another step.
“Cassian! Put me down!”
“No,” he replied easily, walking her back to the house. “They’ll return when they’re ready.”
“Cassian,” she pleaded. He set her back to her feet, catching that note of desperation in her voice before she had to beg, though his body blocked her path further into the castle.
“What did he do to ye, Nes?” he asked, his fingers curling to fists at his side.
“Why do you care?” she demanded, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Of course I care!” Cassian hissed, stepping closer, until Nesta was pressed against the stone wall.
“I don’t understand you,” Nesta breathed, swallowing hard as he drew nearer.
“Trust me, I don’t either,” he whispered. “Will ye tell me what he did to ye?”
“Why? So you can hit him, too?”
“Oh, mo chridhe, I will do far, far worse,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to her mouth. Nesta had lost control of the situation, of this man who she didn’t even like. Who would go back to reenacting battles on her lawn, who was beloved by the town and the son of a Duke and—
“If ye won’t tell me that, tell me something else.”
Nesta’s eyes went back to his. More brown than green. “What?”
“Tell me the truth, Nesta Archeron. Tell me ye want me just as much as I want ye.”
“I—” he caught her lips before the lie could tumble out of them, kissing her softly. One hand cupped her cheek while the other braced the wall she was pressed against. His eyes fluttered shut but Nesta kept hers open, drinking him in. He looked so wrecked, like he’d been thinking about this for a long, long time and was finally realizing it was nothing like he imagined.
And so she kissed him back, hands at her sides while she waited for the inevitable disappointment. The realization that whatever he’d imagined didn’t live up to reality. One kiss became two, became a third and yet Cassian didn’t pull back like they so often did. He didn’t sharpen. If anything, he became softer, more desperate with each passing kiss between them. The softness of his closely trimmed beard brushed over her jaw while his thumb rubbed a soft circle over her cheek.
Give in, she swore she heard him say. Nesta wanted to—oh, she wanted to take everything he was offering so badly it made her legs shake. If he didn’t know now, he’d figure it out soon enough. Nesta was not the kind of woman men fell in love with. She’d never been that woman, and never would be. No matter how badly she wanted to be, no matter how much she wanted to believe Cassian could push through walls made of iron and find the trembling softness beneath, he was still a man.
And at some point, she’d become a game for him. Something to conquer, regardless of the tactics it took. It was that thought that convinced Nesta to finally pull back, hands planted on his chest as she shoved.
“That’s enough,” she said, another lie he immediately caught.
Cassian pressed a kiss to her cheek. “It’s not,” he rumbled, reaching for the back of her neck. “Ye want me to think yer made of ice, but I know better.”
“Oh? And what am I made of, Cassian?” she demanded in that hard, imperious tone. The sort that pissed men off, that sent them running.
His eyes flashes.
“Fire.”
When he kissed her again, Nesta’s eyes slammed shut before she even realized what she was doing. This time, Nesta’s fingers raked through his neat hair, pulling him closer. She wasn’t gentle, thinking it would push him off her. She misjudged him—Nesta pulled at the strands and Cassian groaned, pressing his body hard against her. He liked this.
Which was a fucking tragedy, because she did, too. Cassian moaned again, loud enough anyone with ears in the vicinity knew what was happening in the back hall, and Nesta, for just this once, did not care.
Her tongue swept into his mouth, tasting him like she’d wanted to the day at the loch. He tasted like whiskey and warmth and like she needed to get him out of his clothes as fast as she could, before she changed her mind.
“Slow down, slow down,” he breathed, catching her wrist when she trailed down his chest. “Have ye done this before?”
“Does it matter?” she replied, certain it didn’t.
He huffed out a soft breath. “Of course it fucking matters.”
“I—” He was going to ruin her. He was already making a mess of things. Nesta needed the upper hand, needed a way to get what she wanted without getting hurt. If that was even possible.
There was no way to have him and remain unscathed. The smart thing to do was walk away. “This can’t mean anything, Cassian.”
His brows furrowed. “Ye don’t mean that.”
“You don’t know me–”
“Because ye make it impossible!” he replied, raking his fingers through his hair. “People care about ye, and it’s like…”
“Like what?” she asked, her throat rough and dry. She never should have stopped kissing him. She shouldn’t have said anything at all. Cassian looked down the hall, sighing a breath.
“Like ye expect us all tae leave ye, so ye leave first.”
“You don’t like me,” she said. It was a question.
No one likes me. Why should you?
“At first,” he admitted. “I thought ye’d be like yer uncle. Stuffy…arrogant…and ye were, ye know ye were. I thought ye’d leave—hoped, I suppose. Until I started liking the sight of ye, storming out with yer braid and yer book. Fuming mad and all of it directed at me. I wanted to get tae know ye and I’ve been trying. And not just me. Emerie, tae. She thinks the world of ye. Yer sisters, tae, and probably everyone else if ye let them.”
Nesta shook her head, swallowing the wave of emotion rising. “This is all wrong. You hate me–”
“Hate,” he said, pressing both palms against the wall, caging her between his body, “is the last thing I feel for ye.”
“I wish you did,” she said.
“If all ye want is something unserious,” he began, eyes searching her own. She swore he could read her every word for the truth, that he didn’t need to hear her speak to know all the things wrong. All the secrets she held. “Then I’ll take what yer offering. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to fuck ye in the hall.”
“Cassian—”
“Ye said, ‘I don’t fuck animals,’” he began mimicking an absurd British accent. “And I believe ye. At least, for now.”
“This is a bad idea,” she whispered, certain she was going to be picking her shattered heart up off the floor by the time they were done. Cassian brushed his lips over her own.
“When it comes tae ye, mo chridhe, I have no defenses.”
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PDA thoughts:
rhysand = hand on feyre’s lower back
cassian = hand on nesta’s ass
azriel = holding gwyn’s hand
lucien = elain’s hand in the crook of his arm
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cassian stopppppp 😩👅🫦
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Begged & Borrowed Time (ixx, ao3)
(Chapter nineteen: Buckle up kids, we’ve got a lot to get through. Cassian arrives in Windhaven, where after setting the record straight with Mor, secrets are revealed. Feyre learns of the mating bond, and back below the wall, plans are in full swing for Elain’s wedding, but there’s something starting to concern the middle Archeron.) (Prologue // previous chapter // next chapter)
Cassian was certain she’d felt it.
As the wind raked sharp across his skin and an unsettled, disjointed kind of unease ticked through him, it was the only thing he could think of. He was so godsdamned sure of it, and it was the only fucking thing on his mind as resentment curled low in his stomach, a bitter taste coating his tongue as he clenched his fists, feeling the sword strapped to his back. Looking out at the ragged mountain he’d once called home, he was absolutely convinced that Nesta had felt the bond between them, and yet here he was, standing beneath a granite sky in Windhaven, looking not into Nesta’s mercury-blue eyes, but at Devon’s familiar face drawn together in a deep scowl, arms folded tight over his armoured chest.
Rhys stood beside him, ordering the camp lord to clear out his mother’s old house, and at his back stood Feyre and Mor, huddled in the thickest cloaks they’d been able to find. Velaris might have been cradled by spring, but Windhaven clung still to winter, and the bare rock of the mountain loomed above, casting a long, cold shadow. As the wind screamed through the valley below, Cassian’s siphons pulsed, unsteady.
The single siphon on Devlon’s chest flared in kind, a brief spark in the emerald stone. Cassian was barely listening as Devlon protested, and though he noted the soldiers grouped as Devlon’s back, counted their weapons and clocked their positions, there was no pretending he was anything but hopelessly distracted. Foolish, to be so preoccupied in Illyria but—
This was the last place in the world he wanted to be right now.
With less than three hours of sleep behind him, he was feeling the absence of Nesta like a bruise. His patience was stretched thin, fraying like a piece of age-worn thread, and all he could think about was how much of himself felt missing, how much he was missing her, and not even Devlon and his men were enough to pull Cassian’s mind away from Nesta fucking Archeron. They’d been apart for a grand total of eight hours, and already he missed her like he’d been robbed of something vital.
He almost wanted to scream now, to roar, and was it any wonder, when his temper was balanced on a knife edge— and had been, ever since Azriel had showed up that morning to take his mate back below the wall, back to the bed she shared with another man?
As Devlon sent one of his men darting through the snow towards the house that had been Cassian’s first real home, Rhys turned towards Feyre and held out a hand, but Cassian could think only of how Az had arrived at the river just before sunrise. As Feyre’s hand slipped into Rhys’ palm, he watched and thought of how Nesta’s fingers had tightened around him when the first shadow had skirted the edge of the dock. Cassian had sent Az back up to the House to fetch Emerie’s book before taking Nesta home, and it was a desperate, pitiful attempt at stealing another few moments but it had worked. Cassian had held Nesta tighter in those borrowed seconds, afraid of letting go. He’d kissed her— softly at first, but then Nesta had practically moaned against him, and any sense of control he’d had snapped as the kiss turned feral, all hands and nails and teeth as they grasped at one another, sharing breath in the dark as their lips met like they were both of them trying to make up for lost time with that single aching kiss—
But it was like trying to contain an ocean inside of a puddle, and soon it had drowned them both, leaving them gasping, shaking, eclipsing anything Cassian had ever felt in his life and—
“We’re heading out,” Rhys said to Feyre, turning his back on Devlon without bothering to dismiss him, and pulling Cassian, blinking, from his reverie. He cleared his throat, forcing himself to focus.
The western wind rattled through the camp, vicious and biting and as cold as the ice underfoot, and Rhys’ wings spread behind him, shielding Feyre from the worst of it. Cassian wondered if she noticed. If she’d seen the way Rhys had been drawn to her side, exposing the most sensitive parts of his wings to the cold as he sought to protect her from the weather.
“We’re going to train,” Rhys continued. “Azriel is going to check if Elain has had word from the queens today. Until she does, we’re using the time here to practice.”
Feyre nodded, stepping closer into Rhys’ side as the wind rustled his sable hair. Her hand curled around his, and Cassian turned away, feeling the sharp tug of envy in his chest. It just didn’t seem fair, didn’t seem right, that his mate should be so far away, when only hours ago he’d had her in his arms, falling stars reflected in her eyes as she felt the bond twining his heart and hers.
“Check on the forces,” Rhys instructed, meeting Cassian’s eye above Feyre’s head. “See that the girls are training, and do whatever needs to be done to ensure our forces are in peak condition. We’ll be back by nightfall.”
Grimly, Cassian nodded.
“Stay out of trouble,” Rhys added as he looked to the line of the trees in the distance, their branches tipped with ice. He offered Mor a weary smile as he raised an eyebrow, and as he pulled Feyre into his arms and lifted her off her feet, Mor scoffed.
Then they were gone, leaving only silence in their wake as Mor watched her cousin leave, flying fast towards the dense thicket of trees at the mountain’s base. The smile on her face fell away, replaced by a terse kind of quiet as Cassian looked for something to say and came up empty.
They hadn’t spoken since that night at the Hewn City, and there wasn’t a single word to be found between them now— not one, not as they waited for the soldiers to file out of Rhys’ mother’s house, not when they marched through the snow and made it to the front door Cassian knew so well, not when they crossed the threshold, and not when the door closed behind them.
Just— nothing.
It was a silence that was awkward, heavy and complete as Mor took off her cloak and draped it over the back of the sofa. She didn’t sit— instead she lingered, standing in the centre of the sitting room that Cassian had spent so much of his youth in, and as she cast her eyes over all four walls, Cassian knew without her needing to speak that she was thinking the same thing he was when he, too, looked around.
Nothing had changed.
The same watercolour paintings hung over the same mantelpiece, the same few books lined the shelves in one corner. The floorboards beneath his feet still bore the scuffs of a fight he and Rhys had once gotten into, and for all the world it felt like Rhys’ mother might just step out of the kitchen and offer them both some stew. But like a fine layer of dust, there was a patina of old grief draped across it all, and Cassian’s heart tugged as the silence deepened, echoing in the house that had never felt empty before, not when he was a boy.
He hadn’t been back since Rhys became High Lord, and as Cassian cut through the sitting room and made for the doorway leading to the kitchen - Mor drifting behind him and rubbing her hands together for warmth - suddenly he felt the past raise its head, old ghosts stirring as the anguish he felt over Nesta was compounded, redoubled. Suddenly, he remembered the very first time he and Mor had met, standing in that same kitchen.
Rhys’ mother had been there too, and his sister, with that laugh of hers that had always seemed to echo. There had been five places set at the table then, the scent of cinnamon and hot chocolate hanging in the air. Gone, now. All of it gone, and how did Cassian even begin to measure all the things that had changed since that day, when Mor had first stepped beneath that door? Where did he even start?
She’s a damned viper, Cassian.
He recalled Mor’s words from the Hewn City, and as he filled the kettle and slammed it on the stove, he felt his resolve harden. Mor was complicated— he knew that. His past was woven tight with hers, and he knew, too, that her dislike of Nesta wasn’t something entirely personal, rather a desperate attempt at keeping the status quo. But Nesta was Cassian’s mate, and he wasn’t about to let anything slide when it came to her.
Never when it came to her.
So— he refused to be the one to break the silence, and as Mor looked flatly at the single cup Cassian set out on the counter, she let out a bitter huff and turned away. Only when Cassian heard a door close loudly upstairs did he let his head drop towards his chest.
Ruefully, he sighed and prepared himself for a long, agonising stint in Illyria.
***
The next morning, Rhys and Feyre left early.
In the room he’d once shared with both of his brothers, Cassian woke with the dawn to inspect the camps, and looking over to the bed by the window, he found Rhys slowly waking. The High Lord dragged a hand through his hair, shaking off the sleep that still clung to him, and when Cassian clapped him on the shoulder and told him he’d gone soft if he couldn’t handle a dawn wake up call anymore, Rhys had snarled and told him to fuck off— just the way he had when they were boys. Rhys hadn’t been a morning person back then, either.
But that was hours ago, and now Cassian stood at the side of the training ring at the cliff’s edge, looking out over the mountains as before him boys - not men - sparred with wooden practice blades. The snow was drifting, dusting the ground as the morning wore on, refusing to melt.
This place was always fucking cold.
Casting an eye over the ring, Cassian picked out the bastards in the bunch easily. Four of them, who looked like the cold hadn’t just touched them, it had crawled inside their bones and made itself at home. Their cheeks were tinged with pink, noses red, and there were more than a few fingers far too close to frostbite. He knew what that was like, and being in Windhaven, staying in Rhys’ old house… it had all kinds of old feelings stirring in his gut, twisting inside as he looked at the worn leathers and ill-fitting boots, watching the four bastard boys hit harder than the rest - fight harder than the rest - for no recognition or reward.
He knew what that was like, too.
His stomach soured, and yet he didn’t move on. Though he was supposed to be inspecting the rest of the camp, Cassian stayed until their training was done, and as the other boys began to leave the ring, Cassian lingered. Something kept him there, stationary in the snow, and as the first of the bastards hurried past, Cassian brought him to a halt with a palm on an entirely too-thin shoulder. The boy’s hands looked so painfully cold that Cassian almost winced.
“Find Emerie,” he said lowly. “Tell her to give you a pair of her thickest gloves and take extra for your friends.” He nodded to the three other boys slowly putting away their practice swords. “I’ll call on her later to settle the bill.”
The boy whispered a stunned thank you, General before racing towards Emerie’s shop, and Cassian’s heart tugged. Rhys wanted the armies in peak condition, but good soldiers were being left to starve and freeze as a consequence of their birth, and though getting the girls to train had been a start, Windhaven was just as cruel as ever and coastlines changed faster than the camp lords.
Cassian had had enough.
As the sun began to dip towards the horizon, he sighed heavily, pushing away from the wooden posts that surrounded the training ring. He’d see Emerie tomorrow, he decided. Place an order for gloves and leathers and have them distributed to the poorest of the soldiers— the bastards and the orphans. While he was there, he decided too, he’d pick up another book for Nesta, for when he saw her next— whenever that might be.
Resigned, he let loose another grumbling sigh before glowering at the sky and heading back towards the house. The mountain cast a long shadow, plunging Windhaven into deeper darkness as the sun dropped behind the summit, and when Cassian pushed open the front door and found Mor wrapped in a blanket on the sofa, fluffy socks on her feet and a book in her lap, he stilled. With the snow melting on his boots he paused in the hallway, wanting nothing more than to avoid her. But it was difficult, he’d learned, to avoid someone when you were sharing a house roughly the size of a postage stamp.
Looking through the living room and into the kitchen, searching for his brother even though he could tell by the silence that the house was empty, Cassian frowned.
“Rhys and Feyre back yet?” he asked tersely, his voice clipped and tight. When Mor shook her head, he looked to the window.
It was the first exchange since the Hewn City, and when Cassian nodded curtly and made for the stairs, Mor closed her book and set it down beside her. They had argued before, but in all the centuries they had known one another, the fallout had never lasted longer than an hour. Never had it been like this, never so strained.
“Cass,” Mor said, sliding her fluffy-socked feet to the floor. “Can we just… stop whatever this is?”
“I didn’t start whatever this is,” Cassian answered flatly. He turned and leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms. “So I’m sure as hell not going to be the one to stop it.”
Mor rolled her eyes. “Why are you being so damned defensive? Why does what I said at the Hewn City even matter—”
“Why does it matter?” Cassian repeated, indignant. His voice was thick with scorn, practically incredulous as Mor shook her golden head, waving a hand in frustration.
“Look, from what Feyre has told us about her sister—”
“You don’t know her,” Cassian cut in. “You don’t know a damn thing.”
“And you do? After a handful of weeks, you think you know her better than her own sister?”
Cassian raised an eyebrow. Boldly, he shrugged. “Yes.”
Mor’s eyes shuttered, grew dark. “I just want you to be happy,” she said lowly. “And I don’t see how—”
She cut herself off with an irate sigh, tipping her head back to the ceiling. Her golden earrings danced, her hair cascading in waves down her back.
“Take it from me, Cass. From someone else who once got too involved with a human.”
She dropped her gaze, finding his as the hardness in her expression was slowly replaced by something older, something more sombre. Ancient grief shone in her eyes as an old wound was torn open— and it was one Cassian hadn’t even known she’d been dealt. Her face was limned with old agony, her bottom lip beginning to tremble as she drew it between her teeth. Confusion drew his eyebrows together, his lips parting as he opened his mouth to speak - to ask - but Mor shook her head in a single sharp movement.
“Trust me. The only way this ends is in heartbreak,” she finished, and something about the pain lining her face had Cassian’s anger drawing back, receding a little as he let his folded arms drop.
“It’s my heart to break,” he said quietly— but not softly. His voice was as firm as ever, resolute, because he’d made his decision, hadn’t he? Weeks ago, the day after the bond had snapped. He’d decided then that the centuries of sorrow he’d endure without her would be worth it for even one day by her side. “So stay out of it.”
“She’s human, Cass—”
“It doesn’t matter,” he countered roughly, feeling the bond strain in his chest, constricting his lungs and squeezing his heart until it felt like it would burst. With a hand, he gestured to the window. To the camp outside. “Not when I could be dead in a week. Or had you forgotten why we were here?”
“How could I forget?” she answered, incredulous. “It’s all the more reason you can’t afford a distraction—”
“A distraction?” Cassian hissed, but Mor only lifted her chin, steadfast.
“Is that not what she is? Tell me honestly, Cass. Out there yesterday morning— were you thinking of all that needs to be done to win this war, or were you thinking of her?”
Cassian snarled, but he couldn’t answer. No, he hadn’t been worried about Devlon out there yesterday. He’d been too busy thinking of the way Nesta had felt in his arms. He hadn’t been thinking of soldiers to train, supplies to organise, camps to inspect. He’d been thinking of silver-blue eyes and a bracelet he’d tied around a slender wrist, so much more meaningful than the wedding ring on her finger. He thought of her in every waking moment… but she wasn’t a distraction.
She was the opposite.
“I’ll win this war because of her,” he said darkly. “Because if losing means harm coming to her, than losing isn’t an option. So don’t doubt me when I say, Mor, that I don’t want your advice. I’m as focused as I need to be.”
Mor sniffed, and as his words hung in the air between them, the silence stretched, morphed. The tension shifted as anger devolved into something like anguish, red hot fury melting into something just a little less fraught than before— still jagged, but a little less sharp, and for the first time in days, the silence didn’t feel awkward. Still though, Cassian didn’t move from his spot by the door, and Mor didn’t rise from the sofa. They remained, frozen, until Mor shifted, tucking an errant curl behind her ear.
“I just hope you know what you’re doing,” she said at last, drawing one knee up to her chest. Her eyes closed, and Cassian wondered what she’d kept hidden all these years, what human had stolen her heart. Still, he lifted his chin, not a shred of uncertainty in his veins.
“I do,” he answered, taking his first step into the sitting room. Mor looked up at him, resting her chin on her knee as he let out a heavy sigh and lowered himself down at the other end of the sofa. Tentatively, he tilted his head.
“Tell me,” he said quietly, “about the human you loved.”
Mor smiled sadly, her eyes distant as, mute, she shook her head. He noted the sorrow on her face, all that heartache she’d endured alone and in secret, and as a single, solitary tear tracked down her cheek…
Cassian couldn’t help but wonder if he was looking at a version of his own future, a preview of his own pain.
A glimpse of the grief that awaited him.
***
His heart was still heavy when he awoke the next day, and as dawn broke and Cassian found the bed on the other side of the room still empty, Cassian knew with absolute, unwavering certainty that something was wrong. The siphon on his hand pulsed uneasily, ice spreading along his limbs as he slid from beneath the covers and pulled on his leathers, his hands stumbling over the ties as he swore softly and looked out at the window, at the untouched snow leading to the front door.
Rhys and Feyre hadn’t come home.
Cassian refused to think of the last time Rhys hadn’t returned. Refused to entertain the idea, or to remember all those decades he’d spent waiting in vain for his brother to come back, but nevertheless apprehension was thick in his stomach as, barefoot, he went in search of Mor across the hall. But she hadn’t heard anything from Rhys either, and just as Cassian had pulled on his boots to go out there and search the mountainside himself—
Through the window, he saw his High Lord materialise in the snow.
Rhys sank to his knees, as if all his strength had departed, and with Mor quick on his heels, Cassian rushed for the door, heart hammering as he wrenched it open just in time to see Feyre tear her arm from Rhys’ grip. The High Lord let out a small sound, something between agony and grief as Feyre walked away.
Cassian’s concern spiked as he lurched out into the snow.
“What happened?” he demanded, but Rhys was too busy trying to steady his breathing to speak, a hand pressed to his side as if he were wounded, and Feyre had already stormed past him and headed right for Mor instead. Cassian frowned, about to ask his brother what the fuck was happening, and then— he noticed Rhys’ torn leathers. The mud on his knees, the shadows beneath his eyes, the hair messier than Cassian had ever seen it.
The blood on his fingers.
Fucking hell— Rhys looked like he was at death’s door, his skin drawn and ashen as he fought to keep his eyes open. Cassian reached for him, bringing him to his feet and helping him to stand, his entire frame weak and unsteady. Cassian turned and looked to Mor, but she was standing torn, her gaze flitting between Rhys - hardly strong enough to carry his own weight - and Feyre, standing with indignation on her face, her hands outstretched as she grabbed Mor’s forearm.
“Take me somewhere far away,” she said. Her voice was leaden, anger etched onto her features as she stood firm, not sparing the weakened lord at her back a second glance. “Right now.”
Mor hesitated, drawing a lip between her teeth as she looked from the Cursebreaker to her cousin.
“Please,” Feyre said, her voice breaking as that single word had Rhys trying to lurch forward, slipping from Cassian’s grip even as his legs gave out once more. Rhys kneeled in the snow, panting as he struggled to rise, the hair hanging limply over his face as he tried to lift his neck. All over again, Cassian wondered what in the ever-loving fuck had happened, but Feyre’s anguish was palpable, and Mor’s eyes were fraught with indecision.
Rhys moaned Feyre’s name, a broken plea as Mor swallowed and extended a hand. She nodded, and Feyre’s tattooed fingers closed around her own in the heartbeat before Mor winnowed them away, leaving nothing behind but footprints in the snow and the High Lord of the Night Court, broken on the floor.
Cassian hauled him to his feet, Rhys’ arm slung around his shoulders as he gripped his brother around the middle, feeling the tears in his leather with his fingertips, tears that seemed to have been made by arrowheads.
“What happened?” Cassian asked again.
Rhys shook his head, but it was an effort as Cassian guided him towards the house.
“I fucked up Cass,” he answered, his voice hoarse, words slipping from between cracked lips as every breath seemed to tax him. He lifted his head just enough to meet Cassian’s eye, and there was something akin to horror in the widened violet. Mournfully, Rhys let his head drop once more.
“Feyre knows about the bond,” he rasped. “And I… I think I might have just lost her for good.”
***
The air was thick with the scent of flowers.
Hyacinths, peonies, roses.
All of them laid out on the table as Elain picked out her wedding bouquet, humming lightly as she dragged a finger over the different stems, plucking up each bloom and holding it against the other to find the most perfect arrangement. Beside her, Greysen held a sheaf of papers in his hands, his light brown hair falling easily over his forehead as he rifled through guest lists and seating arrangements and plans of his father’s estate— all the small, excruciating details that would come together to form the society event of the season. When he handed Elain a list of vineyards supplying the wine for the wedding, an iron band gleamed dark on his wrist.
Nesta watched as it slipped back beneath his sleeve, silent in her spot by the window.
Elain’s voice rang through the airy space of the Archeron morning room, and as the conversation drifted away from flowers to focus on where exactly the ceremony would be held on Lord Nolan’s estate, Nesta let her eyes fall back to the book in her lap. Turning the pages of Emerie’s latest, she settled into the role of chaperone more than anything else, only barely listening as her sister and future brother-in-law combed through the plans for their wedding.
“Beneath the ironwood trees perhaps,” Greysen suggested, pointing at a spot on the map. “The foliage is quite lovely this time of year, especially in the grove—”
“No,” Elain shook her head. “No I think I’d rather somewhere…”
Somewhere other than beneath the trees used to make weapons that can kill my sister, Nesta thought wryly, not lifting her gaze from the pages before her. Elain sighed.
“Somewhere brighter,” she finished, and if Greysen thought it strange, he said nothing. He only shrugged, turning his blue eyes back to the map.
Nesta had been listening to them for an hour.
She’d arrived at her father’s estate early that morning after a letter was delivered at the Mandray house, just as she’d sat down to breakfast. She’d cracked the seal immediately, finding a letter from Elain that had her pushing away her plate and preparing to leave before the messenger that had delivered the note had even left the courtyard.
Nesta, Elain had written. I know it’s short notice, but please— come for tea this morning? I could use the company, what with father gone, and I had such terrible dreams last night that I’d rather not be alone. Greysen is coming later to talk about the wedding, but I’d like to see you before then. Perhaps you can help me look over the designs for my dress? All my love, Elain.
Tomas hadn’t liked it.
He’d sneered and scowled and said that unless Nesta was going to bring back a purse full of gold, she was wasting her time. He’d caught her by the door, hand closing about her wrist, lip curling as his eyes fell on the bracelet tied there. Like Cassian had suggested, she’d told him it was a gift from Elain, but Tomas hadn’t seemed to buy it. His grip had tightened, almost painful, and Nesta had hissed before wrenching herself away, so hard her wrist barked beneath the pressure. Without a word, she’d slammed the door behind her and now she was here— listening to her sister plan her wedding like she had no cares in the world, when Elain had been so troubled that morning that she’d sent for her older sister, so shaken that her hands had trembled on her teacup.
She’d been dreaming of Clare Beddor lately.
It’s silly, Elain had said over their first pot of tea, looking down at the cup balanced in her hand. I just keep thinking about her. About her whole family. Gone—killed. And poor Clare, taken in the dead of night.
Her voice had grown quiet, her eyes haunted, as Elain looked up. In my dreams they come for us, too, she’d whispered.
Nesta had felt a chill run through her entire body. It was just a dream, and yet a shudder had racked her, thundering through her as Elain had taken a quivering breath.
They come for us too, she’d repeated, and a slick, foreboding kind of dread had coated the inside of Nesta’s veins, her heartbeat rising, uneven, as she searched in vain for the words to comfort her sister.
Greysen had interrupted them then, and Elain had shaken it off, plastering a wide smile on her face that betrayed little. It was dulled only at the edges by the concern in her eyes, but Greysen hadn’t seemed to notice as he kissed Elain on the cheek and Nesta rose, moving to the armchair by the window to let him sit on the sofa with his betrothed. She had pulled Emerie’s book out of the canvas bag she’d brought with her when she left the Mandray house, grateful for the distraction.
She didn’t trust Tomas not to find it, so she kept the book with her, along with the dagger Cassian had given her. Both were a comfort now— the latter, especially. It was tucked in the pockets of her skirts, a steady weight at her thigh, and even though some sensible part of her knew that Elain’s dreams were nothing to fear…
She shook her head, dropping her gaze to her wrist, to the bracelet there that somehow soothed the sharpest edges of her worry. She thought of Starfall, the way they had danced and kissed and clung to one another, and suddenly she had to blink to focus on the words on the page, her mind scattered and only one word cutting through the tangled mess of her thoughts.
Cassian.
Gods— he had ruined her.
He’d destroyed her entirely, taken her heart and marked it— claimed it. How could she ever again pretend that her marriage to Tomas was what she wanted? How could she look at the ring on her finger and pretend it had been worth it, when she didn’t have the energy to deny it anymore? It was Cassian she wanted, he she craved, and there was no turning from it now.
She was too far gone.
Nesta spent another hour in that chair, her eyes moving idly over the page as she only pretended to read. She took none of it in, too preoccupied with the memory of the warrior above the wall, and the way he’d called her his. She was distracted— so distracted that it was only when the clock chimed noon and Greysen rose to his feet that she realised she’d not been listening at all.
After giving Elain a sweet farewell that Nesta couldn’t help but think rang hollow, he left, leaving her alone with her sister as Elain plucked up the thick pile of papers from the table and pulled out one from the very, very bottom
“Here,” she said as Nesta rose from the chair and took back the seat on the sofa she’d given up when Greysen arrived. Elain held out the paper. A sketch for a dress. “Its from the dressmaker in the village,” she explained, smoothing her skirts as the servants brought in a fresh pot of tea. “What do you think?”
Nesta held it in hand, casting her eyes over her sister’s wedding dress.
It was beautiful.
All flowing skirts and elegant sleeves, there were flowers embroidered at the hem and around the wrists. Delicate material gathered at the waist before sweeping down in a cascade of blush, pale pink skirts. It was staggeringly pretty, exactly the kind of dress that Nesta envisioned Elain in, and with the hyacinths set out on the table… It was lovely. But— a tiara had been added at the top of the faceless figure drawn on the paper, sketched in charcoal. It was a thin band of grey shaped to look somewhat like a wreath, fashioned with leaves that might have looked pretty— but it was iron, and it’s sharpness was a horrible contrast to the soft, pale pink of the gown and the pearls that Elain would wear at her neck and ears.
Nesta fought back a frown. “It’s… beautiful.”
Elain noted the hesitation. “It’s the tiara, isn’t it? You hate it.”
Nesta didn’t bother to deny it, and Elain let out a sigh that soon turned into a groan.
“So do I,” she admitted. “But it was Greysen’s mother’s. His father gave it to her on their wedding day, and it would mean a lot to both of them if I wear it.”
Greysen’s mother had died years ago, and Nesta could understand the sentiment but… did everything have to be made from iron?
“It is pretty,” Elain said, her lilting voice turning somewhat conciliatory. “Aside from the iron, it is pretty.” She sighed again. “I suppose it’s a sacrifice that I’m willing to make.”
Nesta stiffened.
Elain hadn’t called it a compromise. She’d called it a sacrifice, and as Nesta looked at the flowers laid out on the table, the hyacinths in various shades of pink, she frowned in earnest. She didn’t think the word sacrifice was usually associated with weddings, and it was all too reminiscent of her own marriage.
Greysen was fine enough, she supposed. Wealthy and landed, titled— a decent match. Elain could do worse. But perhaps, Nesta thought darkly, she could do better, too. Elain deserved somebody that would give her diamonds, not iron, and silently she wondered whether Elain would wilt like the flowers on the table the moment she was sequestered behind those high stone walls.
Elain waved a hand, shaking her head.
“Anyway,” she said, changing the subject. “I don’t think the iron tiara is the worst of our problems. Greysen thinks its strange that Feyre won’t be at the wedding.”
Nesta shrugged. “Well, you could always tell him that your sister was turned into one of the fae and see how strange he thinks that is in comparison.”
Elain rolled her eyes, batting Nesta on the arm.
“I wish she could come. I want her there, but…” She trailed off. “Perhaps if she came with Rhysand? He hid behind a glamour once before, that day they first came here. Perhaps he could make them both look… human?”
“And if he can’t?” Nesta asked. “If somebody should see through it?”
Elain huffed, defeated. She pushed the papers away, letting the sketch for her dress lie discarded at the top of the pile.
“Do you think there’s something between them?” she asked curiously, turning away from talk of the wedding altogether. “Feyre and Rhysand.”
Nesta sipped her tea. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Never mind that Feyre and Rhysand were… bonded. Cassian had told her about the mating bond, but it was still so foreign, so inexplicable, that Nesta couldn’t quite wrap her head about it. She wasn’t about to tell Elain— not when she wasn’t sure if Feyre even knew about it herself yet. She could think of nothing worse, if everyone else knew whilst Feyre was left in the dark. It didn’t exactly endear her to Rhysand, but still she kept her mouth shut. In silence, she dropped her gaze and dragged a fingertip lightly around the edge of her saucer.
Elain hummed. “He seems nice enough. I told you, didn’t I? That first day they stayed here. I said he seems nice.”
Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Nesta said nothing. Rhysand was all smiles with Elain, but he tended to look at Nesta like she’d committed some great wrong just by stepping into the same room as him. The arrogance rolled off him in waves, and it didn’t matter if he was devoted to Feyre. Nesta didn’t like him.
But Elain tilted her head innocently, almost idly as a small, curious smile crossed her face that she quickly hid. She tapped a finger against her teacup, making the porcelain sing.
“They’re all nice I suppose, “ she continued lightly, humming as she reached out to straighten the flowers on the table. “And I like Azriel, even though he’s quiet. He’s the charming type, don’t you think?”
Nesta wondered where Elain was going with this— what angle she was striving for. But her sister did nothing but lift the teacup to her pale pink lips, delicate fingers curling around the saucer’s gilded edge. She didn’t look to her elder sister, only kept her eyes forward in a perfectly crafted display of nonchalance. Outside, the trees lining the borders of the estate swayed in a gentle breeze, and Elain looked absently out to the green-tipped branches as she let out a soft little hum.
Nesta had known her sister for twenty-two years. She knew when she was up to something, and as Elain sat there, sipping elegantly from her teacup and avoiding Nesta’s eyes, there was no doubt in Nesta’s mind.
Elain was up to something.
“And, well,” she said casually, almost idly. “Cassian certainly knows how to get under your skin.”
Nesta’s eyes narrowed. “He’s incessant, that’s what he is,” she countered. “He knows exactly how to stir my temper, so perhaps I wouldn’t describe him as nice.”
Elain smirked. “Well, when I said he knows how to get under your skin, I didn’t mean it in quite that sense.”
She looked up suggestively, raising an eyebrow and glancing at her sister from the corner of her eye. A moment passed, a single beat, and in the silence Nesta felt her shock give way to something else, something… lighter. Elain’s eyes glittered, and Nesta was so surprised that she barked a laugh, setting her teacup down on her saucer with a clatter. Her mother would have had her head for it, but…
Well, her mother wasn’t here.
Elain’s lips pressed together as a look of satisfaction bloomed in her eyes, as if she’d gotten all the information she’d wanted, just from the look on Nesta’s face, from the surprised laugh that had burst from her chest. Nesta blinked, and then they were both laughing, the way they hadn’t in years, not since before they lost their money. Elain’s hand fluttered to her chest as her cheeks turned pink with mirth, and as Nesta shook her head, she forced her smile away.
“I don’t know what you’re implying,” she said at last, her tone laden with a kind of faux innocence, a steadiness she didn’t feel.
“Of course you don’t,” Elain countered with a roll of her eyes. Still, her lips curved into a gentle smile, and for a moment there was silence, comfortable and complete. And then Elain let out a huff. “Oh, I wish you’d told me you were so unhappy with Tomas, Nesta.”
She turned to face Nesta on the sofa, the fabric of her dress rustling as she shifted closer, angling herself so she faced her sister fully. She put her own porcelain saucer down on the table, folding her hands in her lap as her expression turned pleading, turned sorrowful.
“What difference would it have made?” Nesta shrugged. “It was already done.”
“It’s not too late, surely—“
Softly, Nesta shook her head. “But it is, Elain.”
Elain’s lips pursed, and a brow formed between her brows. “We could forge a family tree that says Tomas is your cousin,” she suggested brightly. “That would make the marriage void and none could dispute it.”
“And then Tomas and his father would want to claim their share of father’s money if they think we’re related,” Nesta pointed out. Elain cursed under her breath.
“We could fake your death,” she suggested. “Or poison him. I know exactly which plants to use that won’t leave a trace, and—“
Nesta leaned over to pat Elain’s arm, grateful even as her sister started to plot a murder. A smile pulled at her lips, a warmth blooming in her chest. There was no need for any of it, she thought, because as soon as Elain was married, she’d take Cassian up on his offer. The world above the wall might still terrify her, and she might have panicked at Starfall, but she could get used to it slowly— acclimatise. Elain’s voice trailed off, and Nesta’s smile remained.
“I love you, Elain,” she said. “For trying to kill my husband for me.”
Elain gave her a small smile in return. “What are sisters for?”
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His hazel eyes were bright with pleading in the morning sun, the wind dancing in his dark hair. Like he was made from these mountains, crafted from wind and stone. He was so beautiful. Not in the way that Azriel and Rhys were beautiful, but in an uncut way. Savage and unrelenting. [...]
Everything about him had radiated that confident, arrogant masculinity. It had been heady and overwhelming, and all she’d wanted, all she’d wanted for so many months, was to touch him, smell him, taste him. Get close to that strength and throw everything she was against it because she knew he’d never break, never falter, never balk.
- A Court of Silver Flames, Chapter 10
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I think we’re ready for Hades!Nesta
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