Worried for me, I realized.
And just because of that worry, just to get that tightness off his face, even for these few minutes before we faced his unholy realm beneath that mountain, I said over the wind, “Amren and Mor told me that the span of an Illyrian male’s wings says a lot about the size of … other parts.”
His eyes shot to mine, then to pine-tree-coated slopes below. “Did they now.”
I shrugged in his arms, trying not to think about the naked body that night all those weeks ago—though I hadn’t glimpsed much. “They also said Azriel’s wings are the biggest.”
Mischief danced in those violet eyes, washing away the cold distance, the strain. The spymaster was a black blur against the pale blue sky. “When we return home, let’s get out the measuring stick, shall we?”
I pinched the rock-hard muscle of his forearm. Rhys flashed me a wicked grin before he tilted down—
Mountains and snow and trees and sun and utter free fall through wisps of cloud—
A breathless scream came out of me as we plummeted. Throwing my arms around his neck was instinct. His low laugh tickled my nape. “You’re willing to brave my brand of darkness and put up one of your own, willing to go to a watery grave and take on the Weaver, but a little free fall makes you scream?”
“I’ll leave you to rot the next time you have a nightmare,” I hissed, my eyes still shut and body locked as he snapped out his wings to ease us into a steady glide.
“No, you won’t,” he crooned. “You liked seeing me naked too much.”
“Prick.”
His laugh rumbled against me. Eyes closed, the wind roaring like a wild animal, I adjusted my position, gripping him tighter. My knuckles brushed one of his wings—smooth and cool like silk, but hard as stone with it stretched taut.
Fascinating. I blindly reached again … and dared to run a fingertip along some inner edge.
Rhysand shuddered, a soft groan slipping past my ear. “That,” he said tightly, “is very sensitive.”
I snatched my finger back, pulling away far enough to see his face. With the wind, I had to squint, and my braided hair ripped this way and that, but—he was entirely focused on the mountains around us. “Does it tickle?”
He flicked his gaze to me, then to the snow and pine that went on forever. “It feels like this,” he said, and leaned in so close that his lips brushed the shell of my ear as he sent a gentle breath into it. My back arched on instinct, my chin tipping up at the caress of that breath.
“Oh,” I managed to say. I felt him smile against my ear and pull away.
“If you want an Illyrian male’s attention, you’d be better off grabbing him by the balls. We’re trained to protect our wings at all costs. Some males attack first, ask questions later, if their wings are touched without invitation.”
“And during sex?” The question blurted out.
Rhys’s face was nothing but feline amusement as he monitored the mountains. “During sex, an Illyrian male can find completion just by having someone touch his wings in the right spot.”
My blood thrummed. Dangerous territory; more lethal than the drop below. “Have you found that to be true?”
His eyes stripped me bare. “I’ve never allowed anyone to see or touch my wings during sex. It makes you vulnerable in a way that I’m not … comfortable with.”
“Too bad,” I said, staring out too casually toward the mighty mountain that now appeared on the horizon, towering over the others. And capped, I noted, with that glimmering palace of moonstone.
“Why?” he asked warily.
I shrugged, fighting the upward tugging of my lips. “Because I bet you could get into some interesting positions with those wings.”
Rhys loosed a barking laugh, and his nose grazed my ear. I felt him open his mouth to whisper something, but—
Something dark and fast and sleek shot for us, and he plunged down and away, swearing.
But another one, and another, kept coming.
Not just ordinary arrows, I realized as Rhys veered, snatching one out of the air. Others bounced harmlessly off a shield he blasted up.
He studied the wood in his palm and dropped it with a hiss. Ash arrows. To kill faeries.
And now that I was one …
Faster than the wind, faster than death, Rhys shot for the ground. Flew, not winnowed, because he wanted to know where our enemies were, didn’t want to lose them. The wind bit my face, screeched in my ears, ripped at my hair with brutal claws.
Azriel and Cassian were already hurtling for us. Shields of translucent blue and red encircled them—sending those arrows bouncing off. Their Siphons at work.
The arrows shot from the pine forest coating the mountains, then vanished.