2_-_court_of_mist_and_fury_a_-_sarah_j._maas

right back at him, and I cringed as Rhys’s head knocked to the side. I’d seen Rhys fight
before, controlled and elegant, and I’d seen him mad, but never so … feral.
“They’ll be at it for a while,” Mor said, leaning against the threshold of the house. She
held open the door. “Welcome to the family, Feyre.”
And I thought those might have been the most beautiful words I’d ever heard.
Rhys and Cassian spent an hour pummeling each other into exhaustion, and when they
trudged back into the house, bloody and filthy, one look at my mate was all it took for me
to crave the smell and feel of him.
Cassian and Mor instantly found somewhere else to be, and Rhys didn’t bother taking
my clothes all the way off before he bent me over the kitchen table and made me moan his
name loud enough for the Illyrians still circling high above to hear.
But when we finished, the tightness in his shoulders and the tension coiled in his eyes
had vanished … And a knock on the door from Cassian had Rhys handing me a damp
washcloth to clean myself. A moment later, the four of us had winnowed to the music and
light of Velaris.
To home.
The sun had barely set as Rhys and I walked hand in hand into the dining room of the
House of Wind, and found Mor, Azriel, Amren, and Cassian already seated. Waiting for
us.
As one, they stood.
As one, they looked at me.
And as one, they bowed.
It was Amren who said, “We will serve and protect.”
They each placed a hand over their heart.
Waiting—for my reply.
Rhys hadn’t warned me, and I wondered if the words were supposed to come from my
heart, spoken without agenda or guile. So I voiced them.
“Thank you,” I said, willing my voice to be steady. “But I’d rather you were my friends
before the serving and protecting.”
Mor said with a wink, “We are. But we will serve and protect.”
My face warmed, and I smiled at them. My—family.
“Now that we’ve settled that,” Rhys drawled from behind me, “can we please eat? I’m
famished.” Amren opened her mouth with a wry smile, but he added, “Do not say what
you were going to say, Amren.” Rhys gave Cassian a sharp look. Both of them were still