2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

away.
The wind was hollow as it roared around us, the darkness cold and foreign.
Cassian, Azriel, and Mor were indeed waiting at the town house. I bid them good night
while they ambushed Rhysand for answers about what Keir had said to provoke him.
I was still in my dress—which felt vulgar in the light of Velaris—but found myself
heading into the garden, as if the moonlight and chill might cleanse my mind.
Though, if I was being honest … I was waiting for him. What I’d said …
I had been awful. He’d told me those secrets, those vulnerabilities in confidence. And
I’d thrown them in his face.
Because I knew it’d hurt him. And I knew I hadn’t been talking about him, not really.
Minutes passed, the night still cool enough to remind me that spring had not fully
dawned, and I shivered, rubbing my arms as the moon drifted. I listened to the fountain,
and the city music … he didn’t come. I wasn’t sure what I’d even tell him.
I knew he and Tamlin were different. Knew that Rhysand’s protective anger tonight had
been justified, that I would have had a similar reaction. I’d been bloodthirsty at the barest
details of Mor’s suffering, had wanted to punish them for it.
I had known the risks. I had known I’d be sitting in his lap, touching him, using him. I’d
been using him for a while now. And maybe I should tell him I didn’t … I didn’t want or
expect anything from him.
Maybe Rhysand needed to flirt with me, taunt me, as much for a distraction and sense
of normalcy as I did.
And maybe I’d said what I had to him because … because I’d realized that I might very
well be the person who wouldn’t let anyone in. And tonight, when he’d recoiled after he’d
seen how he affected me … It had crumpled something in my chest.
I had been jealous—of Cresseida. I had been so profoundly unhappy on that barge
because I’d wanted to be the one he smiled at like that.
And I knew it was wrong, but … I did not think Rhys would call me a whore if I wanted
it—wanted … him. No matter how soon it was after Tamlin.
Neither would his friends. Not when they had been called the same and worse.
And learned to live—and love—beyond it. Despite it.
So maybe it was time to tell Rhys that. To explain that I didn’t want to pretend. I didn’t
want to write it off as a joke, or a plan, or a distraction.
And it’d be hard, and I was scared and might be difficult to deal with, but … I was
willing to try—with him. To try to … be something. Together. Whether it was purely sex,
or more, or something between or beyond them, I didn’t know. We’d find out.
I was healed—or healing—enough to want to try.