2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

within his mind, roaring at it.
A crack in the dark.
And then his hands were on me, flipping me, pinning me with expert skill to the
mattress, a taloned hand at my throat.
I went still. “Rhysand.” I breathed. Rhys, I said through the bond, putting a hand against
that inner shield.
The dark shuddered.
I threw my own power out—black to black, soothing his darkness, the rough edges,
willing it to calm, to soften. My darkness sang his own a lullaby, a song my wet nurse had
hummed when my mother had shoved me into her arms to go back to attending parties.
“It was a dream,” I said. His hand was so cold. “It was a dream.”
Again, the dark paused. I sent my own veils of night brushing up against it, running
star-flecked hands down it.
And for a heartbeat, the inky blackness cleared enough that I saw his face above me:
drawn, lips pale, violet eyes wide—scanning.
“Feyre,” I said. “I’m Feyre.” His breathing was jagged, uneven. I gripped the wrist that
held my throat—held, but didn’t hurt. “You were dreaming.”
I willed that darkness inside myself to echo it, to sing those raging fears to sleep, to
brush up against that ebony wall within his mind, gentle and soft …
Then, like snow shaken from a tree, his darkness fell away, taking mine with it.
Moonlight poured in—and the sounds of the city.
His room was similar to mine, the bed so big it must have been built to accommodate
wings, but all tastefully, comfortably appointed. And he was naked above me—utterly
naked. I didn’t dare look lower than the tattooed panes of his chest.
“Feyre,” he said, his voice hoarse. As if he’d been screaming.
“Yes,” I said. He studied my face—the taloned hand at my throat. And released me
immediately.
I lay there, staring up at where he now knelt on the bed, rubbing his hands over his face.
My traitorous eyes indeed dared to look lower than his chest—but my attention snagged
on the twin tattoos on each of his knees: a towering mountain crowned by three stars.
Beautiful—but brutal, somehow.
“You were having a nightmare,” I said, easing into a sitting position. Like some dam
had been cracked open inside me, I glanced at my hand—and willed it to vanish into
shadow. It did.
Half a thought scattered the darkness again.
His hands, however, still ended in long, black talons—and his feet … they ended in