2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

I found Nesta watching me. “Is there something wrong with our food?” she said flatly.
I made myself take another bite, each movement of my jaw an effort. “No.” I swallowed
and gulped down a healthy drink of water.
“So you can’t eat normal food anymore—or are you too good for it?” A question and a
challenge.
Rhys’s fork clanked on his plate. Elain made a small, distressed noise.
And though Nesta had let me use this house, though she’d tried to cross the wall for me
and we’d worked out a tentative truce, the tone, the disgust and disapproval …
I laid my hand flat on the table. “I can eat, drink, fuck, and fight just as well as I did
before. Better, even.”
Cassian choked on his water. Azriel shifted on his seat, angling to spring between us if
need be.
Nesta let out a low laugh.
But I could taste fire in my mouth, hear it roaring in my veins, and—
A blind, solid tug on the bond, cooling darkness sweeping into me, my temper, my
senses, calming that fire—
I scrambled to throw my mental shields up. But they were intact.
Rhys didn’t so much as blink at me before he said evenly to Nesta, “If you ever come to
Prythian, you will discover why your food tastes so different.”
Nesta looked down her nose at him. “I have little interest in ever setting foot in your
land, so I’ll have to take your word on it.”
“Nesta, please,” Elain murmured.
Cassian was sizing up Nesta, a gleam in his eyes that I could only interpret as a warrior
finding himself faced with a new, interesting opponent.
Then, Mother above, Nesta shifted her attention to Cassian, noticing that gleam—what
it meant. She snarled softly, “What are you looking at?”
Cassian’s brows rose—little amusement to be found now. “Someone who let her
youngest sister risk her life every day in the woods while she did nothing. Someone who
let a fourteen-year-old child go out into that forest, so close to the wall.” My face began
heating, and I opened my mouth. To say what, I didn’t know. “Your sister died—died to
save my people. She is willing to do so again to protect you from war. So don’t expect me
to sit here with my mouth shut while you sneer at her for a choice she did not get to make
—and insult my people in the process.”
Nesta didn’t bat an eyelash as she studied the handsome features, the muscled torso.
Then turned to me. Dismissing him entirely.
Cassian’s face went almost feral. A wolf who had been circling a doe … only to find a
mountain cat wearing its hide instead.