A Court of Thorns and Roses

by Sarah J. Maas

  He ran a hand over his face. His fingers contracted when they met with his mask. “I know.”

  “So let me—”

  “There’s no debate,” he snarled, and I glared at him. “Don’t you understand?” He shot to his feet. “Rhys was the start of it. Do you want to be here when the Attor returns? Do you want to know what kind of creatures the Attor answers to? Things like the Bogge—and worse.”

  “Let me help you—”

  “No.” He paced before the bed. “Didn’t you read between the lines today?”

  I hadn’t, but I lifted my chin and crossed my arms. “So you’re sending me away because I’m useless in a fight?”

  “I’m sending you away because it makes me sick thinking about you in their hands!”

  Silence fell, filled only by the sounds of his heavy breathing. He sank onto the bed and pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.

  His words echoed through me, melting my anger, turning everything inside me watery and frail. “How … how long do I have to go away for?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “A week?” No answer. “A month?” He shook his head slowly. My upper lip curled, but I forced myself into neutrality. “A year?” That much time away from him …

  “I don’t know.”

  “But not forever, right?” Even if the blight spread to the Spring Court again, even if it could shred me apart … I would come back. He brushed the hair from my face. I shook him off. “I suppose it’ll be easier if I’m gone,” I said, looking away from him. “Who wants someone around who’s so covered in thorns?”

  “Thorns?”

  “Thorny. Prickly. Sour. Contrary.”

  He leaned forward and kissed me lightly. “Not forever,” he said onto my mouth.

  And though I knew it was a lie, I put my arms around his neck and kissed him.

  He pulled me onto his lap, holding me tightly against him as his lips parted mine. I became aware of every pore in my body when his tongue entered my mouth.

  Though the horror of Rhysand’s magic still tore at me, I pushed Tamlin onto the bed, straddling him, pinning him as if it would somehow keep me from leaving, as if it would make time stop entirely.

  His hands rested on my hips, and their heat singed me through the thin silk of my nightgown. My hair fell around our faces like a curtain. I couldn’t kiss him fast enough, hard enough to express the rushing need within me. He growled softly and deftly flipped us over, spreading me beneath him as he wrenched his lips from my mouth and made a trail of kisses down my neck.

  My entire world constricted to the touch of his lips on my skin. Everything beyond them, beyond him, was a void of darkness and moonlight. My back arched as he reached the spot he’d once bitten, and I dragged my hands through his hair, savoring the silken smoothness.

  He traced the arc of my hipbones, lingering at the edge of my undergarments. My nightgown had become hitched around my waist, but I didn’t care. I hooked my bare legs around his, running my feet down the hard muscles of his calves.

  He breathed my name onto my chest, one of his hands exploring the plane of my torso, rising up to the slope of my breast. I trembled, anticipating the feel of his hand there, and his mouth found mine again as his fingers stopped just below.

  His kissing was slower this time—gentler. The fingertips of his other hand slipped beneath the waist of my undergarment, and I sucked in a breath.

  He hesitated at the sound, pulling back slightly. But I bit his lip in a silent command that had him growling into my mouth. With one long claw, he shredded through silk and lace, and my undergarment fell away in pieces. The claw retracted, and his kiss deepened as his fingers slid between my legs, coaxing and teasing. I ground against his hand, yielding completely to the writhing wildness that had roared alive inside me, and breathed his name onto his skin.

  He paused again—his fingers retracting—but I grabbed him, pulling him farther on top of me. I wanted him now—I wanted the barriers of our clothing to vanish, I wanted to taste his sweat, wanted to become full of him. “Don’t stop,” I gasped out.

  “I—” he said thickly, resting his brow between my breasts as he shuddered. “If we keep going, I won’t be able to stop at all.”

  I sat up and he watched me, hardly breathing. But I kept my eyes on his, my own breathing becoming steady as I raised my nightgown over my head and tossed it to the floor. Utterly naked before him, I watched his gaze travel to my bare breasts, peaked against the chill night, to my abdomen, to between my thighs. A ravenous, unyielding sort of hunger passed over his face. I bent a leg and slid it to the side, a silent invitation. He let out a low growl—and slowly, with predatory intent, raised his gaze to mine again.

  The full force of that wild, unrelenting High Lord’s power focused solely on me—and I felt the storm contained beneath his skin, so capable of sweeping away everything I was, even in its lessened state. But I could trust him, trust myself to weather that mighty power. I could throw all that I was at him and he wouldn’t balk. “Give me everything,” I breathed.

  He lunged, a beast freed of its tether.

  We were a tangle of limbs and teeth, and I tore at his clothes until they were on the floor, then tore at his skin until I marked him down his back, his arms. His claws were out, but devastatingly gentle on my hips as he slid down between my thighs and feasted on me, stopping only after I shuddered and fractured. I was moaning his name when he sheathed himself inside me in a powerful, slow thrust that had me splintering around him.

  We moved together, unending and wild and burning, and when I went over the edge the next time, he roared and went with me.

  I fell asleep in his arms, and when I awoke a few hours later, we made love again, lazily and intently, a slow-burning smolder to the wildfire of earlier. Once we were both spent, panting and sweat-slicked, we lay in silence for a time, and I breathed in the smell of him, earthy and crisp. I would never be able to capture that—never be able to paint the feel and taste of him, no matter how many times I tried, no matter how many colors I used.

  Tamlin traced idle circles on the plane of my stomach and murmured, “We should sleep. You have a long journey tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” I sat upright, not at all minding my nakedness, not after he’d seen everything, tasted everything.

  His mouth was a hard line. “At dawn.”

  “But it’s—”

  He sat up in a smooth motion. “Please, Feyre.”

  Please. Tamlin had bowed before Rhysand. For my sake. He shifted toward the edge of the bed. “Where are you going?”

  He looked over his shoulder at me. “If I stay, you won’t get any sleep.”

  “Stay,” I said. “I promise to keep my hands to myself.” Lie—such an outright lie.

  He gave me a half smile that told me he knew it, too, but nestled down, tugging me into his arms. I wrapped an arm around his waist and rested my head in the hollow of his shoulder.

  He idly stroked my hair. I didn’t want to sleep—didn’t want to lose a minute with him—but an immense exhaustion was pulling me away from consciousness, until all I knew was the touch of his fingers in my hair and the sounds of his breathing.

  I was leaving. Just when this place had become more than a sanctuary, when the command of the Suriel had become a blessing and Tamlin far, far more than a savior or friend, I was leaving. It could be years until I saw this house again, years until I smelled his rose garden, until I saw those gold-flecked eyes. Home—this was home.

  As consciousness left me at last, I thought I heard him speak, his mouth close to my ear.

  “I love you,” he whispered, and kissed my brow. “Thorns and all.”

  He was gone when I awoke, and I was certain I had dreamed it.

  Chapter 28

  There wasn’t much to my packing and farewells. I was somewhat surprised when Alis clothed me in an outfit very unlike my usual garb—frilly and confining and binding in all the wrong places. Some mortal fashion among the wealthy, n
o doubt. The dress was made up of layers of pale pink silk, accented with white and blue lace. Alis placed a short, lightweight jacket of white linen on me, and atop my head she angled an absurd little ivory hat, clearly for decoration. I half expected a parasol to go with it.

  I said as much to Alis, who clicked her tongue. “Shouldn’t you be giving me a weepy farewell?”

  I tugged at the lace gloves—useless and flimsy. “I don’t like good-byes. If I could, I’d just walk out and not say anything.”

  Alis gave me a long look. “I don’t like them, either.”

  I went to the door, but despite myself, I said, “I hope you get to be with your nephews again soon.”

  “Make the most of your freedom” was all she said.

  Downstairs, Lucien snorted at the sight of me. “Those clothes are enough to convince me I never want to enter the human realm.”

  “I’m not sure the human realm would know what to do with you,” I said.

  Lucien’s smile was edged, his shoulders tight as he gave a sharp look behind me to where Tam was waiting in front of a gilded carriage. When he turned back, that metal eye narrowed. “I thought you were smarter than this.”

  “Good-bye to you, too,” I said. Friend indeed. It wasn’t my choice, or my fault that they’d kept the bulk of their conflict from me. Even if I could do nothing against the blight, or against the creatures, or against Amarantha—whoever she was.

  Lucien shook his head, his scar stark in the bright sun, and stalked toward Tamlin, despite the High Lord’s warning growl. “You’re not even going to give her a few more days? Just a few—before you send her back to that human cesspit?” Lucien demanded.

  “This isn’t up for debate,” Tamlin snapped, pointing at the house. “I’ll see you at lunch.”

  Lucien stared him down for a moment, spat on the ground, and stormed up the stairs. Tamlin didn’t reprimand him.

  I might have thought more on Lucien’s words, might have shouted a retort after him, but … My chest hollowed out as I faced Tamlin in front of the gilded carriage, my hands sweaty within the gloves.

  “Remember what I told you,” he said. I nodded, too busy memorizing the lines of his face to reply. Had he meant what I thought he’d said last night—that he loved me? I shifted, already aching in the little white pumps into which Alis had stuffed my poor feet. “The mortal realm remains safe—for you, for your family.” I nodded, wondering whether he might have tried to persuade me to leave our territory, to sail south, but understood that I would have refused to be so far from the wall, from him. That going back to my family was as far as I would allow to be sent from his side.

  “My paintings—they’re yours,” I said, unable to come up with anything better to express how I felt, what it did to me to be sent away, and how terrified I was of the carriage looming behind me.

  He lifted my chin with a finger. “I will see you again.”

  He kissed me, and pulled away too quickly. I swallowed hard, fighting the burning in my eyes. I love you, Feyre.

  I turned before my vision blurred, but he was immediately there to help me into the opulent carriage. He watched me take my seat through the open door, his face a mask of calm. “Ready?”

  No, no, I wasn’t ready, not after last night, not after all these months. But I nodded. If Rhysand came back, if this Amarantha person was indeed such a threat that I would only be another body for Tamlin to defend … I needed to go.

  He shut the door, sealing me inside with a click that sounded through me. He leaned through the open window to caress my cheek—and I could have sworn that I felt my heart crack. The footman snapped the whip.

  Tamlin’s fingers brushed my mouth. The carriage jolted as the six white horses started into a walk. I bit my lip to keep it from wobbling.

  Tamlin smiled at me one last time. “I love you,” he said, and stepped away.

  I should say it—I should say those words, but they got stuck in my throat, because … because of what he had to face, because he might not find me again despite his promise, because … because beneath it all, he was an immortal, and I would grow old and die. And maybe he meant it now, and perhaps last night had been as altering for him as it had been for me, but … I would not become a burden to him. I would not become another weight pressing upon his shoulders.

  So I said nothing as the carriage moved. And I did not look back as we passed through the manor gates and into the forest beyond.

  Almost as soon as the carriage entered the woods, the sparkle of magic stuffed itself up my nose and I was dragged into a deep sleep. I was furious when I jerked awake, wondering why it had been at all necessary, but the air was full of the thunderous clopping of hooves against a flagstone path. Rubbing my eyes, I peered out the window to see a sloping drive lined with conical hedges and irises. I had never been here before.

  I took in as many details as I could as the carriage came to a stop before a chateau of white marble and emerald roofs—nearly as large as Tamlin’s manor.

  The faces of the approaching servants were unfamiliar, and I kept my face blank as I gripped the footman’s hand and stepped out of the carriage.

  Human. He was utterly human, with his rounded ears, his ruddy face, his clothes.

  The other servants were human, too—all of them restless, not at all like the utter stillness with which the High Fae held themselves. Unfinished, graceless creatures of earth and blood.

  The servants were eyeing me but keeping back—shrinking away. Did I look so grand, then? I straightened at the flurry of motion and color that burst from the front doors.

  I recognized my sisters before they saw me. They approached, smoothing their fine dresses, their brows rising at the gilded carriage.

  That cracking, caved-in feeling in my chest worsened. Tamlin had said he’d taken care of my family, but this …

  Nesta spoke first, curtsying low. Elain followed suit. “Welcome to our home,” Nesta said a bit flatly, her eyes on the ground. “Lady …”

  I let out a stark laugh. “Nesta,” I said, and she went rigid. I laughed again. “Nesta, don’t you recognize your own sister?”

  Elain gasped. “Feyre?” She reached for me, but paused. “What of Aunt Ripleigh, then? Is she … dead?”

  That was the story, I remembered—that I’d gone to care for a long-lost, wealthy aunt. I nodded slowly. Nesta took in my clothes and carriage, the pearls that were woven into her gold-brown hair gleaming in the sunlight. “She left you her fortune,” Nesta stated flatly. It wasn’t a question.

  “Feyre, you should have told us!” Elain said, still gaping. “Oh, how awful—and you had to endure losing her all on your own, you poor thing. Father will be devastated that he didn’t get to pay his respects.”

  Such … such simple things: relatives dying and fortunes being left and paying respect to the dead. And yet—yet … a weight I hadn’t realized I’d still been carrying eased. These were the only things that worried them now.

  “Why are you being so quiet?” Nesta said, keeping her distance.

  I’d forgotten how cunning her eyes were, how cold. She’d been made differently, from something harder and stronger than bone and blood. She was as different from the humans around us as I had become.

  “I’m … glad to see how well your own fortunes have improved,” I managed. “What happened?” The driver—glamoured to look human, no mask in sight—began unloading trunks for the footmen. I hadn’t known Tamlin had sent me off with belongings.

  Elain beamed. “Didn’t you get our letters?” She didn’t remember—or maybe she’d never actually known, then, that I wouldn’t have been able to read them, anyway. When I shook my head, she complained about the uselessness of the post and then said, “Oh, you’ll never believe it! Almost a week after you went to care for Aunt Ripleigh, some stranger appeared at our door and asked Father to invest his money for him! Father was hesitant because the offer was so good, but the stranger insisted, so Father did it. He gave us a trunk of gold just for ag
reeing! Within a month, he’d doubled the man’s investment, and then money started pouring in. And you know what? All those ships we lost were found in Bharat, complete with Father’s profits!”

  Tamlin—Tamlin had done that for them. I ignored the growing hollowness in my chest.

  “Feyre, you look as dumbfounded as we were,” Elain said, hooking elbows with me. “Come inside. We’ll show you the house! We don’t have a room decorated for you, because we thought you’d be with poor old Aunt Ripleigh for months yet, but we have so many bedrooms that you can sleep in a different one each night if you wish!”

  I glanced over my shoulder at Nesta, who watched me with a carefully blank face. So she hadn’t married Tomas Mandray after all.

  “Father will likely faint when he sees you,” Elain babbled on, patting my hand as she escorted me toward the main door. “Oh, maybe he’ll throw a ball in your honor, too!”

  Nesta fell into step behind us, a quiet, stalking presence. I didn’t want to know what she was thinking. I wasn’t certain whether I should be furious or relieved that they’d gotten on so well without me—and whether Nesta was wondering the same.

  Horseshoes clopped, and the carriage began ambling down the driveway—away from me, back to my true home, back to Tamlin. It took all my will to keep from running after it.

  He had said he loved me, and I’d felt the truth of it with our lovemaking, and he’d sent me away to keep me safe; he’d freed me from the Treaty to keep me safe. Because whatever storm was about to break in Prythian was brutal enough that even a High Lord couldn’t stand against it.

  I had to stay; it was wise to stay here. But I couldn’t fight the sensation, like a darkening shadow within me, that I’d made a very, very big mistake in leaving, no matter Tamlin’s orders. Stay with the High Lord, the Suriel had said. Its only command.

  I shoved the thought from my mind as my father wept at the sight of me and did indeed order a ball in my honor. And though I knew that the promise I had once made to my mother was fulfilled—though I knew that I truly was free of it, and that my family was forever cared for … that growing, lengthening shadow blanketed my heart.