Chapter 18 — Nesta / Feyre - A Court of Splintered Harmony

“I’m shocked you’re even staying here tonight,” Cassian said casually to Nesta in the excruciating silence of their river house bedroom. “I thought for sure you’d run back to the House after dinner, Bryaxis or no.”

At the attempt at teasing—so unusual these days—Nesta looked at him from where she sat in her nightgown at the dressing table, unpinning the coils of hair atop her head.

Well, then.

He’d already sprawled himself across the bed, shirtless, wings splayed beneath him. He knew precisely what picture he painted, with all those muscles gleaming in the golden faelights, that arrogant half smile on his lips. A veritable feast of Illyrian maleness.

She made herself return to her reflection, pulling free a ruby-topped hairpin. “Lucien’s staying over.”

“So?” Movement caught her eye, and she glanced over to see Cassian tossing and catching a knife as if it were a ball.

She clicked her tongue. “So I want to be here in case Elain needs me.”

The motion stilled, and she found him holding the knife by its tip—like he’d caught it that way. “Elain needs you to protect her from Lucien?” His face was deadly grave. It didn’t matter what the current state of their mating bond was—if her sister needed help, he’d offer it instantly. No questions asked.

He was that sort of male. Good. Brave. True. Something deep in her chest wrenched.

She’d had all the words prepared last night, had her heart open wide and ready to burst, especially after the House had made it so clear with that pile of splinters that she had done this and only she could fix it, but he hadn’t come back. And then he’d swaggered in this morning, and she’d been so mad at him, so furious, she’d wanted to just start screaming. Or crying. Or both.

“No,” Nesta said thickly, placing her hairpin alongside the others in the drawer of the table. “But Elain’s always on edge when he’s around.”

She could have ended it at that, could have fallen back into that tense silence, but she found herself trying. “I think it comforts Elain to know I’m close by. Especially after the day we had.”

“Hmm.” The knife flipping resumed.

Nesta shut the drawer and met her own stare in the mirror. Gaunt and hollow and—sad. She hated it. Hated everything about this warped, barbed bond between them.

He hadn’t even been there this afternoon when Madja had healed her—the shattered arm, the broken nose. Not a trace of the injuries now remained. As if the horrors of Bryaxis had never happened.

But Cassian seemed to be at least attempting to talk normally. And he seemed to intend to stay here tonight. In their bed. Next to her.

“What did you see today?” she asked as she shook out her hair, scalp giving a quiver of pleasure at her freed tresses.

His knife stilled again. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he rasped.

“Was it the same thing you saw all those years ago in the library?”

“No. It was worse.”

She met his eyes in the mirror. “In what way?”

His handsome face had paled, his eyes distant as he murmured, “The more you have in life, the more people you love, the worse your fears become.”

She couldn’t stand to see in his eyes the answer to the question she wanted to ask: Am I still on that list of people? So she refocused on the mirror and began to brush out her hair.

She didn’t know what to make of today. Nyx, at least, seemed unharmed and unbothered, and Nesta could only pray it would remain that way. Dinner had been . . . fine. Not one of their most cheerful meals, but certainly not the somber misery she’d expected.

Amren hadn’t been there, though. She’d gone to Varian to piece herself back together. Something Nesta had wished she could do with Cassian, but she hadn’t been able to even find him until dinner. Or talk to him until now.

Cassian cleared his throat. She felt him searching for something to say. When he spoke at last, his voice was low. “What were you about to gift Nyx earlier?”

She met her own stare again. Noted every angle of her miserable face and empty eyes before she said, “Ataraxia.”

Sheets rustled as he started. “Your sword?”

“No.” She grazed a finger over the fine bristles of her brush. “I was going to wish for him to find ataraxia—inner peace.”

Cassian fell silent as Nesta resumed brushing. Then he asked, “Are you . . . are you doing all right? After what happened today?”

She set down her brush. “Nothing happened.” Her throat ached with the effort of keeping her words emotionless. “I tried to kill Bryaxis, I failed, the end.”

He sat up in bed, swinging his legs around to the floor. But he stayed seated as he said, “No one expected you to kill her—”

“I expected myself to kill her.”

Cassian ran his hands through his hair, almost to his shoulders now. “It’s not a burden you need to bear.”

She faced him fully. “So this failure is fine with you, but the success of saving Bryce Quinlan’s world isn’t?”

She couldn’t help it. There it was.

His wings snapped shut, but he remained silent.

Nesta shoved out of her chair. Stalked to the bed. Came to a stop a foot away from him.

He tracked her every movement, eyes glittering with hot anger. “Let’s have it out, then, Nes. Don’t hold back now.”

Her fingers curled at her sides, an involuntary twitch. He marked that, too.

“Go ahead,” he goaded. “Put them around my throat and squeeze.” He bared his neck.

Nesta lunged for him. Not to throttle, but to grab his face in her hands and haul his mouth to hers.

Cassian stiffened. She pulled back, fingers clutching his jaw as she demanded, “You really thought I’d strangle you?”

His eyes were so wide—stunned. Fury burned through her like a wildfire, and she made to leap off his lap.

His hands clamped onto her hips, holding her firm. “You want to have it out like this?” His voice was guttural in a way that had her core going molten. Her chest heaved, like it was struggling to contain all the words, everything she felt, and his eyes dipped to watch.

“How do you want it, Nes?” His thumbs traced idle circles on her hips, her waist.

Her throat closed up. She hadn’t thought that far. Just seeing him there, the way he looked at her . . . she couldn’t stand it anymore.

Cassian brushed his mouth against her neck. Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head at the gentle caress. “Do you want us to make love and cry about how much we’ve missed each other and how we’ll never fight again?”

His teeth grazed the same spot he’d kissed, biting down slightly. “Or,” he said against her skin, “do you want to fuck until we’re both screaming, and whichever one of us comes first has to be the one to get on their knees and grovel about these past weeks?”

Her hands again rose to his face. Her nails dug into his cheeks, mirror to the bite he’d given her neck. She made him meet her stare. Saw all the desire and anger and longing in it. Knew the same lay within her own.

A year ago, she might have told him that she wanted neither and left—denying them both. Assuring herself that she was punishing him and had the high ground and that she’d won this particular fight.

But she didn’t want to win fights against him. Didn’t want to have fights with him—not like this. Teasing and minor ones, fine, but this . . . He hadn’t been there today. When the pain in her arm and nose had sunk in. When she’d been reeling from Bryaxis. Even during Bryaxis’s attack, he hadn’t been there, and she hadn’t been there for him.

To her mortification, her eyes burned with tears.

“Hey,” he said, instantly gentling. “Nes—Nes.”

She shut her eyes, as if that could somehow stop her from crying.

“Nesta,” he said, and his hands were instantly on her face, tender and sweet. “Nesta—”

Her throat ached to the point where she couldn’t keep the sound in, and on her next exhale, a strangled sob came out.

Arms and wings wrapped around her, Cassian’s body curving about her own, pressing her into the muscle and the warmth and the scent that was pure home, things she’d missed so badly that every day had felt like dying.

“I love you,” she said into his neck, her entire body shaking. “That’s why I was mad at you this morning—because I needed you to come home last night so I could say it to your face. I love you, and I’m sorry about the Mask. There’s so much I still don’t know about the Trove, so much about it that terrifies me more than I can say, but it felt right to give it to her. Like I could sense that the Mask needed to go, even if it is the most powerful item in the Trove. Even if it unnerves me to be near it. So I’m sorry I didn’t warn you before; I didn’t have time, and I was trying to do the right—”

“Stop.”

He pulled her head back a bit, making her look at him. And fuck, she didn’t want to, certainly not as this crying, whimpering mess, but she did. She met his eyes.

“I was upset,” he said, wiping away her tears. “I was upset because you did something big, and it scared me—scared me because we were a team, and you just . . . decided not to be anymore. Not just Rhys and Feyre and everyone else, but you and me. And yes, giving the Mask to Bryce Quinlan was impulsive and reckless, and I’m not entirely sure I would have done the same thing, but mostly I was hurt. It made me feel like you’d shut me out again.”

“I didn’t—”

“I know you didn’t. But I still felt that way. And maybe that’s all on me, and maybe I need to accept that there might always be a piece of you that you keep to yourself and that will never answer to anyone, but . . . everything was going so well after the Blood Rite. It all felt fucking perfect, and then it wasn’t anymore.” He shook his head. “I’m shit at explaining myself. But it threw me, and then all that turned into anger, and . . . I’m sorry for these last few weeks. And I trust you—fuck, after today, I trust you perhaps more than anyone else—to handle the Trove. You faced Bryaxis, got to your feet when no one else could. That’s the kind of person I want responsible for the Trove. I’m sorry for not understanding that sooner.”

Her mouth curled up slightly. She pressed a kiss to his lips, then another to his cheek before she whispered in his ear, “Well, look at that. I didn’t even make you come first and you’re already groveling.”

He pulled back, eyes wide—dancing.

Nesta grinned, and kissed him, light, teasing. “I think I stupidly believed that being mates meant everything was going to be perfect and happy forever.”

“Too many romance books.” Cassian’s mouth twisted to one side in a crooked smile. “I’m going to write a strongly worded letter to Sellyn Drake about grossly misleading her readers.”

She traced a finger over his smile—a smile for her. “You must be exhausted from all that flying back and forth to Windhaven just to avoid me.”

He grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to her fingertips. “There’s a reason I’m in bed, you know.” She lifted a brow and he clarified, “I’m so sore I can’t move.”

“Poor Illyrian baby,” she crooned, and reached a hand to where the apex of one of his wings hovered above them. “Where do you want me to kiss first to make it feel better?” She stroked a finger down the center of his wing, and sure enough, his cock hardened beneath her.

“I’m pretty sure you can guess where,” he said, voice guttural once more.

She dragged her nail along his wing this time, and a hiss burst from his lips. “I don’t want to make love and cry, and I don’t want to fuck until we’re screaming.”

His eyes had gone wholly black. “What do you want, Nes?”

“To touch you.” She traced an idle circle on his wing. His throat worked audibly. “To relearn every inch of you.” She peered down coyly. “I think there’s a few inches already eager to be reacquainted.”

“More than a few inches,” he crooned.

She snorted and ran a hand down the hard length straining against his leather pants. Her core positively ached in response, and it required every ounce of concentration to keep her hands from shaking, her voice low as she said, “Let me see if it tastes as good as I remember.”

She slid onto the carpet and spread his legs wide enough for her to kneel between them. Every magnificent inch of this male was hers. And she planned to savor all of it.

“Here I was,” he said, breath turning ragged as she unbuckled his sword-belt and started on his pants, “thinking you had no appetite for Illyrian cock these days.”

“I don’t remember saying those words,” she said primly, even as her fingers shook while working the buttons on his pants.

His cock came free, and every word went out of her head. Cassian’s chest was heaving, as he growled, “I want to be inside you.”

“Too bad,” she taunted, and let herself have the pleasure of watching his every minute expression as she lowered her mouth to him. She meant to note the tightening of his mouth, the way his eyes flared in pure pleasure, but gods, the taste of him, the size and hardness and warmth—

She’d intended to tease, to play, to lick him bit by bit. But the feel of him on her tongue had her taking him all, as much as she could, her hand wrapping around his base and squeezing hard.

His hips bucked off the bed, but she gently pinned him with her free hand, sliding her mouth up his length again.

“Fuck,” he said, more of an exhale than anything, as she swirled her tongue along the broad head of his cock, lapping once, twice, at the slit in its tip. “Nesta—”

She took all of him in her mouth again, and this time, her core seemed to throb in answer, so desperate for any friction, any touch at all, that even the seam of her nightgown on her thighs was starting to drive her wild. She needed him in her now, needed him around and above her, filling her—

Strong, broad hands grabbed her under the shoulders. Pulled her mouth off his cock.

His face was taut with unbridled lust as he set her on her feet in front of him. Leaned forward with a groan, and with shaking hands, ran his fingers beneath her nightgown, up her thighs. Higher. “Still no underwear, Nes?” His desire-heavy words were barely discernable.

She didn’t have a retort on hand, not as she stepped toward him—only to be stopped.

“Everything off,” he ordered, and started on the buttons of her nightgown. He held her gaze the entire time. Like he knew exactly where each button was. Like he’d studied for this his whole life and could do it in the dark.

Her nightgown dropped away. Naked, looking down at Cassian still perched on the bed, cock jutting up in delectable invitation, Nesta’s throat closed again.

She said hoarsely, “I don’t know what to do.”

He nodded toward his cock.

But she huffed a laugh, shaking her head, and found the words to explain what she’d realized yesterday on that cliff. “I don’t know what to do here. In this court. With myself. My life.”

He angled his head, giving her the gift of listening—of truly hearing her.

“I thought it would all click into place, and yet . . .” She rubbed at her chest. “It hasn’t. I have all of this,” she said, motioning to herself, the power of her magic, her body, her heart, “but for what purpose?”

His eyes softened. “You’ll find that purpose. I promise.”

She sniffed. “I know, but . . . I’m just so unsure of everything. Of what I’m meant to do.” She tried to find the right words. “The only thing I’m sure about is that I love you. That I love Feyre and Nyx, and Emerie and Gwyn. And the others, too, when they’re not pissing me off.”

“So let that be the thing that guides you. Maybe that love is what will lead you to whatever you’re meant to do.”

“I missed you,” she managed to say. “I could barely stand it. I just—I didn’t know how to talk to you about it, or master myself enough to do it calmly.”

“I suppose I can thank Bryaxis for that, at least.”

“You can thank Gwyn, actually.”

“Oh?” But Cassian registered the sorrow on her face. “What happened with Gwyn?” He’d known she’d stopped coming to training after the Blood Rite, but not anything else, granting her time and space to work it out with her friend. Or not work it out, as it were.

Nesta shook her head, her throat unbearably tight again. “I don’t know. She pulled away, and I pulled away, and I said some things yesterday I maybe shouldn’t have, even when I was trying to make everything all right with her again, but she didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t bear it, not having her or you to talk to. Laugh with. I couldn’t bear it,” she whispered. “Not for another moment.”

“Come here,” he said, taking her by the hand. His fingers were so warm, so strong around hers. “You never have to doubt this, worry about this.” He motioned between them. “We will have fights, and I guarantee this won’t be our last, but we’ll always find our way back to each other. To this, Nes. Because I love you, and you love me, and even if we weren’t mates, that would be true. Always—forever.”

She nodded, beyond words, and he pulled her onto his lap. He held her stare as he guided himself to her entrance. As he tenderly bracketed her hips and lightly pushed her onto him.

The first nudge of his cock inside her body had her eyes stinging with tears again. Home, home, home—

He kissed her so lovingly that she was shocked her whole body didn’t break from the intensity of it. She opened her mouth to him, letting him in, and as their tongues tangled, she sank onto him fully.

Cassian groaned, stilling. “Fuck.” He leaned his head against her shoulder. “Fuck.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m trying to do,” she teased, the edges of her mouth quirking upward.

He inhaled two more great, heaving breaths, wings twitching. Then he lifted his head. A wicked grin lit his face. He bucked his hips, driving deeper, and her gasp rang through the room. He covered her mouth with his own, as if he’d swallow the sound.

And at the next sweep of his tongue into her mouth, she began to move.

It had only been a few weeks, and yet she’d somehow forgotten how huge he was, how perfectly he filled her. Forgotten how it felt to have those arms holding her, so strong but always gentle with her, letting her set the pace as she wished.

Cassian groaned again, deep in his throat, and the sound reverberated through her body, her soul. His hands tightened on her hips, his only warning before flipping them.

The world tilted, and when it righted itself again, she was on her back, and he was above her, wings blotting out the faelights, his face inches from her own. “I love you,” he said, withdrawing almost entirely. He plunged back in hard enough that she slid a few inches along the bed.

He gripped her knees, widening her for him as he thrust harder, deeper.

Oh gods, she was going to explode. She needed more, needed him inside her forever because nothing would ever feel this good—

Cassian hooked her leg around his middle, and did something with his hips as he stroked into her again. At the cry that burst out of her throat, he purred, “Good, Nesta. Good.”

And the male satisfaction in his voice, knowing that she was his and he was hers, and that he and he alone could wring this kind of pleasure from her—

Release smashed through her, and she was distantly aware of her nails digging into his shoulders, of everything in her universe reorienting toward him. He pumped into her again, deep, steady strokes, and she knew he was close, knew he was dying to spill in her, but he’d keep going if she wanted another climax, he’d keep going forever if it’d please her.

That thought alone had her reaching between them, cupping the silken sac brushing against her sex with every thrust. She squeezed, looking up at him as she did. And had the pleasure of watching his throat work before a cry of pure release broke from him and he spilled everything he had in her.

The sight of it had her clenching around him, had her frantically meeting him thrust for thrust as he spent himself, and then she was crying out again, too, holding him against her so that their hearts beat together, a push-pull of a rhythm that would exist even when this world ended.

And when they had both stilled, when only their breathing filled the room, Nesta still held him there inside her. Cassian lifted himself on his elbows high enough to scan her face.

She smiled at him, in a way she rarely smiled at anyone. Kissed him once, twice, on the mouth. And whispered, “If I’d known giving away the Mask would get me sex like that, I’d have offered Bryce the Harp and the Crown as well.”

He smirked and rose from the bed, lifting her easily in his arms. “Oh, I’m just getting started, Nes,” he murmured in her ear as he carried her toward the couch.

“He’s still asleep,” Rhys said softly, walking on cat-soft feet toward where I sat in the armchair before the fireplace in our bedroom. “From what I could sense, Madja was right earlier: His mind already reorganized itself to consider today to be some sort of nightmare. He won’t remember it. The fear won’t even leave a mark.”

I watched the flames lapping at the fragrant logs. “I should go to the House of Wind and drag Bryaxis out of that library. Bring her right to the Prison and throw away the key.”

I’d pieced myself together this afternoon, and during dinner, yet that simmering, clarifying rage lingered. Only now, alone with my mate, could it come out.

Rhys sank into the armchair across from mine. Watched the fire as well. “I’d help.”

“It’s like Bryaxis knew the library was the one place she could hunker down where we couldn’t get to her.”

“She spent enough time with the priestesses, Clotho especially, to understand them. Perhaps she counted on their compassion.”

I slid my eyes toward my mate at last. Didn’t bother to look anything close to civilized as I said, “I will find a way to kill Bryaxis. I don’t even care how or why she came today. I’ll kill her.”

“Of course—but consider what happened. She targeted us today. Did someone send her? She seemed . . . different than when she escaped after the war. Darker.” His violet eyes were starless. “I’m willing to bet Koschei’s growing influence in the world had something to do with that.”

Another mark in favor of re-creating the wall. Making multiple walls. Our enemies were growing, adapting—worsening. And speaking of those enemies . . .

I asked, “But what about Hybern? They could have played some role in sending her today.”

“They could have,” he admitted. “They ask for a meeting about an alliance, we get nowhere with Tarquin and the Summer Court—so our own list of allies drops by one—then suddenly Bryaxis appears to terrorize us . . . Why? To drive home the urgent need for allies and lead us closer to agreeing to meet with Hybern?”

“If they’re responsible for it, I’ll turn that island into rubble,” I promised darkly.

“Again, I’ll join you. But let’s wait until we know for certain. Maybe send Az or his spies to see what’s going on in Hybern. The timing is too neat to ignore.”

“I don’t know if I can even stomach sitting at the same table with whoever’s ruling Hybern these days.”

“I don’t think I can, either,” Rhys confessed. “Certainly not after what I . . .” He trailed off, and my heart strained for him. But he pivoted. “Bryaxis wields her gift with alarming dexterity.”

I could make a few guesses about what Rhys might have been presented with, but I asked, “What did you see today?”

His throat bobbed. “I need . . . a few days before I can talk about it.”

I nodded, though horror curdled in my gut. Given what I had seen, I could only imagine my mate’s nightmares.

Silence fell, and neither of us felt inclined to break it. What more was there to say?

A new entity dwelled in my body in the wake of the day’s events, something that had carved out a vast chunk of my soul and now roosted within it. Every now and then, it would open its maw and roar—and the sounds that came out were Nyx’s screams of pain. Over and over, they echoed, and the thing inside me dug itself deeper.

And as the fire slowly devoured the logs, as I let the wood collapse down to embers and didn’t bother to add more, I wondered if Clotho had been right, and not all was as it seemed.

Hybern’s involvement or no, Bryaxis’s attack today was perhaps a gift to me. A gift I had not known how badly I needed.

Because I knew now what I had to do. And I did not fear it at all.