Icy breath hit my palm. And, bracing myself, I rose up on my knees, aiming blindly, and slapped him.
My palm stung—but he didn’t move. I hit him again, pulling on that bond between us, shouting his name down it like it was a tunnel, banging on that wall of ebony adamant within his mind, roaring at it.
A crack in the dark.
And then his hands were on me, flipping me, pinning me with expert skill to the mattress, a taloned hand at my throat.
I went still. “Rhysand.” I breathed. Rhys, I said through the bond, putting a hand against that inner shield.
The dark shuddered.
I threw my own power out—black to black, soothing his darkness, the rough edges, willing it to calm, to soften. My darkness sang his own a lullaby, a song my wet nurse had hummed when my mother had shoved me into her arms to go back to attending parties.
“It was a dream,” I said. His hand was so cold. “It was a dream.”
Again, the dark paused. I sent my own veils of night brushing up against it, running star-flecked hands down it.
And for a heartbeat, the inky blackness cleared enough that I saw his face above me: drawn, lips pale, violet eyes wide—scanning.
“Feyre,” I said. “I’m Feyre.” His breathing was jagged, uneven. I gripped the wrist that held my throat—held, but didn’t hurt. “You were dreaming.”
I willed that darkness inside myself to echo it, to sing those raging fears to sleep, to brush up against that ebony wall within his mind, gentle and soft …
Then, like snow shaken from a tree, his darkness fell away, taking mine with it.
Moonlight poured in—and the sounds of the city.
His room was similar to mine, the bed so big it must have been built to accommodate wings, but all tastefully, comfortably appointed. And he was naked above me—utterly naked. I didn’t dare look lower than the tattooed panes of his chest.
“Feyre,” he said, his voice hoarse. As if he’d been screaming.
“Yes,” I said. He studied my face—the taloned hand at my throat. And released me immediately.
I lay there, staring up at where he now knelt on the bed, rubbing his hands over his face. My traitorous eyes indeed dared to look lower than his chest—but my attention snagged on the twin tattoos on each of his knees: a towering mountain crowned by three stars. Beautiful—but brutal, somehow.
“You were having a nightmare,” I said, easing into a sitting position. Like some dam had been cracked open inside me, I glanced at my hand—and willed it to vanish into shadow. It did.
Half a thought scattered the darkness again.
His hands, however, still ended in long, black talons—and his feet … they ended in claws, too. The wings were out, slumped down behind him. And I wondered how close he’d been to fully shifting into that beast he’d once told me he hated.
He lowered his hands, talons fading into fingers. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s why you’re staying here, not at the House. You don’t want the others seeing this.”
“I normally keep it contained to my room. I’m sorry it woke you.”
I fisted my hands in my lap to keep from touching him. “How often does it happen?”
Rhys’s violet eyes met mine, and I knew the answer before he said, “As often as you.”
I swallowed hard. “What did you dream of tonight?”
He shook his head, looking toward the window—to where snow had dusted the nearby rooftops. “There are memories from Under the Mountain, Feyre, that are best left unshared. Even with you.”
He’d shared enough horrific things with me that they had to be … beyond nightmares, then. But I put a hand on his elbow, naked body and all. “When you want to talk, let me know. I won’t tell the others.”
I made to slither off the bed, but he grabbed my hand, keeping it against his arm. “Thank you.”
I studied the hand, the ravaged face. Such pain lingered there—and exhaustion. The face he never let anyone see.
I pushed up onto my knees and kissed his cheek, his skin warm and soft beneath my mouth. It was over before it started, but—but how many nights had I wanted someone to do the same for me?
His eyes were a bit wide as I pulled away, and he didn’t stop me as I eased off the bed. I was almost out the door when I turned back to him.
Rhys still knelt, wings drooping across the white sheets, head bowed, his tattoos stark against his golden skin. A dark, fallen prince.
The painting flashed into my mind.
Flashed—and stayed there, glimmering, before it faded.
But it remained, shining faintly, in that hole inside my chest.
The hole that was slowly starting to heal over.
CHAPTER
39
“Do you think you can decode it once we get the other half?” I said to Amren, lingering by the front door of her apartment the next afternoon.