2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

“Quite the opposite, Feyre.” He prowled to where I stood on the stone. I was almost eye
level with him. The forest went even quieter—the trees seeming to lean closer, as if to
catch every word. “I’ll let Cassian know you’re … open to his advances.”
“Good,” I said. A bit of hollowed-out air pushed against me, like a flicker of night. That
power along my bones and blood stirred in answer.
I made to jump off the stone, but he gripped my chin, the movement too fast to detect.
His words were a lethal caress as he said, “Did you enjoy the sight of me kneeling before
you?”
I knew he could hear my heart as it ratcheted into a thunderous beat. I gave him a
hateful little smirk, anyway, yanking my chin out of his touch and leaping off the stone. I
might have aimed for his feet. And he might have shifted out of the way just enough to
avoid it. “Isn’t that all you males are good for, anyway?” But the words were tight, nearbreathless.
His answering smile evoked silken sheets and jasmine-scented breezes at midnight.
A dangerous line—one Rhys was forcing me to walk to keep me from thinking about
what I was about to face, about what a wreck I was inside.
Anger, this … flirtation, annoyance … He knew those were my crutches.
What I was about to encounter, then, must be truly harrowing if he wanted me going in
there mad—thinking about sex, about anything but the Weaver of the Wood.
“Nice try,” I said hoarsely. Rhysand just shrugged and swaggered off into the trees
ahead.
Bastard. Yes, it had been to distract me, but—
I stormed after him as silently as I could, intent on tackling him and slamming my fist
into his spine, but he held up a hand as he stopped before a clearing.
A small, whitewashed cottage with a thatched roof and half-crumbling chimney sat in
the center. Ordinary—almost mortal. There was even a well, its bucket perched on the
stone lip, and a wood pile beneath one of the round windows of the cottage. No sound or
light within—not even smoke puffed from the chimney.
The few birds in the forest fell quiet. Not entirely, but to keep their chatter to a
minimum. And—there.
Faint, coming from inside the cottage, was a pretty, steady humming.
It might have been the sort of place I would have stopped if I were thirsty, or hungry, or
in need of shelter for the night.
Maybe that was the trap.
The trees around the clearing, so close that their branches nearly clawed at the thatched
roof, might very well have been the bars of a cage.
Rhys inclined his head toward the cottage, bowing with dramatic grace.