2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

us.
“Well, well,” he said to no one in particular. “Looks like you’re all on time for once.”
Raising his head as he continued kneeling, Cassian gave Rhys a half grin—the High
Lord’s commander incarnate, eager to do his bloodletting.
Rhys’s boots stopped in my line of sight.
His fingers were icy on my chin as he lifted my face.
The entire room, still on the floor, watched. But this was the role he needed me to play.
To be a distraction and novelty. Rhys’s lips curved upward. “Welcome to my home, Feyre
Cursebreaker.”
I lowered my eyes, my kohl-thick lashes tickling my cheek. He clicked his tongue, his
grip on my chin tightening. Everyone noticed the push of his fingers, the predatory angle
of his head as he said, “Come with me.”
A tug on my chin, and I rose to my feet. Rhys dragged his eyes over me and I wondered
if it wasn’t entirely for show as they glazed a bit.
He led me the few steps onto the dais—to the throne. He sat, smiling faintly at his
monstrous court. He owned every inch of the throne. These people.
And with a tug on my waist, he perched me on his lap.
The High Lord’s whore. Who I’d become Under the Mountain—who the world
expected me to be. The dangerous new pet that Mor’s father would now seek to feel out.
Rhys’s hand slid along my bare waist, the other running down my exposed thigh. Cold
—his hands were so cold I almost yelped.
He must have felt the silent flinch. A heartbeat later, his hands had warmed. His thumb,
curving around the inside of my thigh, gave a slow, long stroke as if to say Sorry.
Rhys indeed leaned in to bring his mouth near my ear, well aware his subjects had not
yet risen from the floor. As if they had once done so before they were bidden, long ago,
and had learned the consequences. Rhysand whispered to me, his other hand now stroking
the bare skin of my ribs in lazy, indolent circles, “Try not to let it go to your head.”
I knew they could all hear it. So did he.
I stared at their bowed heads, my heart hammering, but said with midnight smoothness,
“What?”
Rhys’s breath caressed my ear, the twin to the breath he’d brushed against it merely an
hour ago in the skies. “That every male in here is contemplating what they’d be willing to
give up in order to get that pretty, red mouth of yours on them.”
I waited for the blush, the shyness, to creep in.
But I was beautiful. I was strong.
I had survived—triumphed. As Mor had survived in this horrible, poisoned house …