A Court of Silver Flames

by Sarah J. Maas

  Cassian cleared his throat. “Sounds fine to me.” Nesta, to his surprise, didn’t object.

  “I want to confirm that Briallyn has the Crown,” Azriel said. “I’ll travel to the human lands tomorrow.”

  “No,” Feyre and Rhys said at the same time, in the same breath.

  Azriel’s eyes shuttered. “I wasn’t asking for permission.”

  Rhys smirked. “Doesn’t matter.”

  Az opened his mouth to object, but Feyre said, “You’re not going, Azriel. If Briallyn has the Crown and catches you, even if she just suspects you’re nearby, who knows what she could do to you?”

  “Give me some credit, Feyre,” Az said. “I can keep hidden well enough.”

  “We take no risks,” Feyre said, voice flat with command. “Pull all your spies out.”

  “Like hell I will.”

  Cassian braced himself, but Feyre didn’t back down. “Information from your spies—any spies—can’t be trusted with the Crown in play. Amren said it needs close contact to sink its claws into someone’s mind. We stay far away from Briallyn.”

  Azriel bristled and turned to Rhys. “And you agree with her?”

  “She’s your High Lady,” Rhys said coldly. “What she says is law.”

  Az eyed him, eyed Feyre. Determined that they were an immovable unit, an impenetrable wall against which his fury would only break again and again.

  In the taut silence, Helion nodded to the bright hall beyond the room. “I would like to remove myself from the Mask’s odious presence, and perhaps enjoy your palace, Rhysand. It’s been a long while since I was in a place of such quiet. If you’ll allow it, I’ll stay here for an hour or two.”

  “Something bothering you at home?” Rhys inquired, falling into step beside the High Lord.

  Cassian caught Nesta’s stare as he left the room, and she grabbed her book before following them out. Feyre exited with Azriel, murmuring with a tattooed hand on his shoulder.

  Cassian asked Nesta, “What are you reading today?”

  “A Brief History of the Great Sieges by Osian.”

  He almost stumbled a step. “Not a romance?”

  “I realized after you left me The Dance of Battle that there’s a great deal left for me to learn. Last night I asked the House to give me something you might read.”

  “Why?”

  Nesta tucked the book under an arm. “What’s the point in learning fighting techniques if I don’t know their true purpose and uses? You’d train me into a weapon, and I’d be just that: someone else’s weapon. I want to know how to wield it—myself, I mean. And others.”

  Cassian was stunned into silence as they ascended the steps, following Helion and Rhys, who chatted away at the head of their group. “You plan on leading an army, Nes?”

  “Not an army.” She glanced sidelong at him. “But perhaps a small unit of females.”

  She was dead serious. “The priestesses?”

  “I don’t know if they’d join, but … There are others out there, I’m sure, who might. I’m immortal now, or as close to it as possible. I have nothing but time to plan far into the future.”

  His chest tightened. Planning for the future. It was a hell of a good sign.

  Cassian knocked on Nesta’s bedroom door at the House after dinner. She hadn’t joined him and Azriel, though perhaps it had been for the best.

  The High Lord and High Lady of the Night Court had faced off against the shadowsinger this afternoon, and emerged triumphant.

  Perhaps triumphant wasn’t the right word, but the argument had ended with Azriel grudgingly agreeing not to spy on Briallyn for the time being—and brooding all through dinner.

  Nesta’s voice echoed through the wood. “Enter.”

  He found her in bed, a book propped up against her knees. It appeared she’d gone back to romance. “No more war books?” He held up the three he had brought with him—his reason for being here. His excuse.

  “Only during the day.” She sat up, gathering the blankets around her waist. “What are those?”

  “More texts I thought you might be interested in.” He set them on the desk.

  Nesta dipped her chin in a shallow nod, her long braid bobbing over her chest with the movement. She wore a long-sleeved nightgown, and, though there was no fire in the hearth, the room stayed warm. As if the House had noted her dislike for fires and heated it another way.

  He forced himself to move from the desk, to aim for her door again.

  She said before he’d reached the archway, “Was it not good for you?”

  Cassian turned slowly. “What?”

  A flush stained her cheeks as she lifted her chin. “Was the sex not good for you?”

  He swallowed. “Why would you ask that?”

  Nesta’s throat bobbed. She was … Fuck, was she really that unsure of him? “You left quickly. And didn’t seek me out again.”

  I left quickly because I needed to keep some pieces of myself intact. “You’ve been focused on training.”

  Her eyes flickered with something like hurt. “All right. Well, good night.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. Fuck, Nesta.” He stalked toward the bed, and she straightened again, peering at him as he towered over her. “How could I be so selfish—to demand more sex from you when you’re so invested in training?”

  “It’s not a demand if both sides want it,” she said. “And I just worried you … didn’t enjoy it as much as I did.”

  “You think I haven’t sought you out because I didn’t enjoy myself?” When she said nothing, he braced his hands on either side of her and leaned in to whisper in her ear, breathing in her scent, “I enjoyed myself too much. I’ve thought about it for days and days.” She shivered, and he smiled against the soft shell of her ear. He loved this—seeing that icy exterior crumble, seeing how he affected her. “Have you been touching yourself at night, thinking about it like I do?”

  Nesta’s chin dipped in the barest of nods, and from the corner of his eye, he spied a flash of her teeth as she bit her bottom lip. “Have those sweet little fingers felt as good as mine?”

  Her breathing hitched, but she wouldn’t answer. He knew she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. He nipped at her earlobe, drawing a gasp from her. “Well?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I’d have to see again.”

  “Hmm.” Cassian lowered his mouth, pressing a kiss beneath her ear. His cock hardened, already aching against his pants. “Shall we do a little side-by-side comparison?”

  She whimpered, and he crawled onto the bed, straddling her legs. His blood pounded through every inch of him, in time to the pulse in his cock, and he pulled away from her neck to find her eyes bright with desire.

  The world quieted, and she stared and stared at him as he slowly pulled the blankets down to her waist. Her nightgown was rucked up her thighs, and he ran a hand over one of them, thumb stroking the sleek muscles building there. “Why don’t you show me how you touch yourself, Nesta? And then I’ll remind you how I touch you.” He bared his teeth in a wicked grin. “You can tell me what feels better.”

  Her chest heaved, her pebbled breasts peeking through the nightgown. His mouth watered, body trembling with the restraint needed to keep from putting his mouth over them.

  She seemed to read every line of his body, his desire. Her eyes glinted with molten fire. “While I … touch myself, you are forbidden to touch me.” A feral smile. “And forbidden to touch yourself.”

  His skin heated, stretching too tight over his bones. “All right.”

  Cassian waited for her to nestle into the pillows, but she grabbed the hem of her nightgown to pull it over herself, bunching it into a ball before chucking it to the floor.

  Every thought eddied from his mind as she half-reclined there, utterly naked, those beautiful breasts peaked and waiting for him, her silken flesh near-glowing. And between her legs … She drew her knees up slightly, spreading them. Baring herself.

  Cassian mad
e a low, pained sound. Her pink sex gleamed—its heady, seductive scent beckoning. He needed to taste it, to feel her on his tongue, on his cock—

  “No touching,” Nesta purred, because his hand had been drifting toward his cock, desperate for any sort of relief from the sight of her open and bare, the faelights gilding her.

  His breath rasped in his throat—and then vanished entirely as Nesta slid two delicate fingers down her body. They stopped atop that bundle of nerves, circling slowly.

  Her breathing turned uneven, but she watched him observe her as she made another circle, and then moved lower. A slow, torturous slide down her center before her wrist curved, and she dipped her fingers into herself.

  Cassian groaned, hips bucking a bit where he knelt, and she cut him a reprimanding look. He stilled, unable to think about anything other than her two fingers as she slid them into herself again, and moaned. They emerged shining with her wetness, and he might have been panting as she plunged them into herself a third time, deep and slow.

  “This,” she breathed, her fingers beginning a slow, steady pump, “is what I do when I think of you every night.”

  If she so much as touched him, he’d come. But he growled, “Do it harder.”

  She shivered as if his words were a physical touch, and obeyed. They both groaned this time, and he found himself saying, “Please.”

  He didn’t know what it meant—only that he needed to touch her.

  Nesta smiled at him with feline amusement. “Not yet.”

  She drove her hand between her legs again. “I imagine you taking me, over and over again. Rough, like we did before.” He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but stare at her hand, her pleasure-hazed face. “I imagine you less patient than you were the first time, just thrusting into me, all the way.” She echoed her words with a swift plunge of her fingers.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he got out, praying to the Mother and the Cauldron to maintain his sanity.

  “You won’t hurt me.” Her other hand teased that bundle of nerves. “I want you unleashed.”

  Cassian made a low noise of need.

  She huffed a wicked laugh. “Do you want to watch me come? Or do you want to taste it?”

  “Taste.” He’d beg on hot coals for one lick of her.

  She spread her legs wider. “Then have at me, Cassian.”

  His name on her lips was his undoing. He gripped her thighs and spread them wide, and then his mouth was on her, licking her from base to apex in a long, luxurious slide.

  She moaned, louder than the first time, and he only grabbed her legs again, hooking them over his shoulders as he buried his face against her.

  There was nothing gentle in it, nothing teasing. He feasted with tongue and lips and teeth, and every taste of her made the roaring in his blood rise like a mighty wave within him. Nesta ground against him, toes tickling his wings so much he had to pause for a moment to keep from coming at that mere touch. He’d teach her wingplay later. Because he wanted her to touch his wings, to learn where to stroke while he fucked her so that he’d come hard enough to see stars, to learn what places to stroke even while he wasn’t fucking her so he’d come in her hand, her mouth.

  He slid his tongue into her core, release already building under his skin, in his spine. Too soon—he didn’t want to go too soon.

  He made himself take a breath. Made himself pull back, pull away. The sight of her on the pillows, naked and open for him, nearly made him come.

  But he removed his shirt. His pants.

  Only when he was naked, kneeling between her legs, his cock jutting forward, did he say, “Do you want my fingers, my tongue, or my cock, Nesta?” He fisted the last item for her, pumping himself in a slow, nearly painful squeeze. She watched, eyes widening, as if remembering the size of him inside her.

  “What of a side-by-side comparison?” she managed to say, but the haughtiness wasn’t in her eyes, not as he pumped himself again, savoring how it made her breath catch.

  “Whatever you want. Whatever you need from me.” He knew those were a fool’s words, knew he offered up too much.

  But she only looked at his cock. “I want that. Now.”

  He muttered a prayer of thanks to the Mother and lay over her, bracing himself on his arms. “Put me inside you.”

  When Nesta’s hand wrapped around him, he arched, gritting his teeth. She smiled at that, and pumped him as hard as he’d pumped himself, just this side of pain. Then she fitted him to her drenched entrance.

  He didn’t wait this time. Didn’t go tenderly, not when she’d told him she wanted it otherwise.

  Cassian plunged into her, driving right to the hilt.

  Nesta let out a sound somewhere between a moan and a scream, and he found himself echoing it as all her silken, blazing heat gripped him. She was so perfectly, mind-meltingly tight. As if she’d been made for him, and he’d been made for her.

  Cassian drew out in a long slide, and thrust back, seating himself fully. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, the pain of it secondary, the pain of it a pleasure as she marked him.

  He withdrew again, lowering his head to watch his cock slide out of her, gleaming with her wetness—and then enter her anew. Every inch into that tight, blazing core of her was paradise and torment, and he needed more, needed to be deeper, needed to crawl so far inside her that there would be no disentangling them.

  Her nails sliced through his skin, and the tang of his blood filled the air. He just leaned down to kiss her. She parted for him instantly, and he let her taste herself on his tongue, moving his own in time to his thrusts.

  Nesta wrapped her lips around his tongue and sucked on it as she had his cock, and any sane thought faded away. Gathering her to him, Cassian knelt, her legs locking around his waist as he thrust up and up and up into her. She tipped her head back, baring her throat, and he bit down on the center of it, hard enough to leave a mark.

  Nesta moved on his cock, and he drove deeper into her. Scraped his teeth over her neck.

  She let go of his shoulder to cup her breast, and he nearly climaxed as he found her lifting it up toward him in silent command.

  Cassian licked her nipple, and she ground onto him, those delicate inner muscles clenching tight. “Fuck,” he said around her breast. She laughed breathily and did it again.

  Then there was only his tongue and teeth at her breast, the near-savage pounding of his cock into her tight warmth, the rhythm of her hips as she met him for each stroke, as if trying to work him even deeper. He dragged his mouth from her breast to bite her neck, her shoulder, sealing their bodies together, fusing them into one being as he thrust deeper still, harder still.

  And then her fingers found his wings. The touch wasn’t slicing, but gentle—such a gentle, tentative, wondrous stroke that he roared.

  Release barreled into him, and he rammed up into her in such a mighty thrust that she screamed, climaxing with him. She clamped around him, pulsing and milking, and he bucked, frenzied, reduced to this need to be in her, to spill into her, to spill as much of himself as he could.

  Nesta rode him until he’d stopped spurting, until her pleasure had her draped over his chest, an arm still outstretched toward his wing.

  They clung to each other, and he tried to piece himself back together, to remember what the fuck his name was and where they were.

  But there was only her. Only this female in his arms.

  And the only name he could remember was hers.

  Nesta couldn’t move.

  Wrapped around Cassian where he knelt in the center of the bed, his hands still digging into her ass to hold her in place, his cock buried deeply inside her, she didn’t want to move.

  She’d never been this way with anyone, where one look from her lover brought her a heartbeat away from release; one look from him and she was taking off her clothes and pleasuring herself in front of him.

  She didn’t have it in herself to be embarrassed. Not when it had felt so good, so right.


  He was trembling, his wings twitching as his cock at last finished spending itself.

  She told herself she shouldn’t enjoy it so much—seeing him undone, feeling his seed inside her, leaking out of her. And the fact that she did had her climbing away at last, moaning softly as she slid off his cock.

  She knelt before him, nearly knee to knee. “I still need more.”

  Cassian’s head lifted, eyes flashing. “I know.”

  She couldn’t breathe under that stare, that beautiful face. “How can I need you again so soon?” It wasn’t a coy, courtier’s question—it was voiced out of sheer desperation. Because she did need more. She needed him back inside her, needed his weight, his mouth and teeth on her. She had no explanation for it, that rising, unquenchable thirst.

  His eyes flickered. “I’ve needed you from the moment I first met you. And now that I get to have you, I don’t want to stop.”

  “Yes,” she breathed, about as much of the truth as she’d admit. “Yes.”

  They stared at each other for a long minute, for eternity. And then, to her shock and delight, Cassian hardened before her eyes. “Do you see what you do to me?” he asked. “Do you see what happens every time I look at you, all fucking day?”

  She smirked. “I vaguely recall you boasting weeks ago that I would be the one to crawl into your bed. It seems like you did the crawling.”

  His lips twitched upward. “It would seem so.” Her heart thundered as he held her stare. “Get on your hands and knees,” he ordered, his voice so low she could barely understand him. But her blood heated, and an ache that had nothing to do with how hard he’d just taken her began to build between her legs once more.

  So Nesta did as he bade, baring herself, still wet and gleaming with both of their releases.

  He snarled in satisfaction. “Beautiful.” She whimpered a bit—because beneath the praise, pure lust simmered. He growled, “Put your hands on the headboard.”

  Her breath began sawing out of her again, but she obeyed, already thrumming with need.