2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

existed, but it hit me then—hit me so strong that I panicked. I knew if I stayed a second
longer, I’d damn the consequences and take you with me. And you’d hate me forever.
“I landed at the Night Court, right as Mor was waiting for me, and I was so frantic, so
… unhinged, that I told her everything. I hadn’t seen her in fifty years, and my first words
to her were, ‘She’s my mate.’ And for three months … for three months I tried to convince
myself that you were better off without me. I tried to convince myself that everything I’d
done had made you hate me. But I felt you through the bond, through your open mental
shields. I felt your pain, and sadness, and loneliness. I felt you struggling to escape the
darkness of Amarantha the same way I was. I heard you were going to marry him, and I
told myself you were happy. I should let you be happy, even if it killed me. Even if you
were my mate, you’d earned that happiness.
“The day of your wedding, I’d planned to get rip-roaring drunk with Cassian, who had
no idea why, but … But then I felt you again. I felt your panic, and despair, and heard you
beg someone—anyone—to save you. I lost it. I winnowed to the wedding, and barely
remembered who I was supposed to be, the part I was supposed to play. All I could see
was you, in your stupid wedding dress—so thin. So, so thin, and pale. And I wanted to kill
him for it, but I had to get you out. Had to call in that bargain, just once, to get you away,
to see if you were all right.”
Rhys looked up at me, eyes desolate. “It killed me, Feyre, to send you back. To see you
waste away, month by month. It killed me to know he was sharing your bed. Not just
because you were my mate, but because I … ” He glanced down, then up at me again. “I
knew … I knew I was in love with you that moment I picked up the knife to kill
Amarantha.
“When you finally came here … I decided I wouldn’t tell you. Any of it. I wouldn’t let
you out of the bargain, because your hatred was better than facing the two alternatives:
that you felt nothing for me, or that you … you might feel something similar, and if I let
myself love you, you would be taken from me. The way my family was—the way my
friends were. So I didn’t tell you. I watched as you faded away. Until that day … that day
he locked you up.
“I would have killed him if he’d been there. But I broke some very, very fundamental
rules in taking you away. Amren said if I got you to admit that we were mates, it would
keep any trouble from our door, but … I couldn’t force the bond on you. I couldn’t try to
seduce you into accepting the bond, either. Even if it gave Tamlin license to wage war on
me. You had been through so much already. I didn’t want you to think that everything I
did was to win you, just to keep my lands safe. But I couldn’t … I couldn’t stop being
around you, and loving you, and wanting you. I still can’t stay away.”
He leaned back, loosing a long breath.
Slowly, I turned around, to where the soup was now boiling, and ladled it into a bowl.
He watched every step I took to the table, the steaming bowl in my hands.
I stopped before him, staring down.