And when she’d tied it neatly, his wrist wrapped in white, when Nesta made to pull back, Cassian gripped her fingers in his good hand. She lifted her gaze to his. “Thank you,” he said hoarsely.
Nesta did not yank her hand away.
Did not open her mouth for some barbed retort.
She only stared and stared at him, at the breadth of his shoulders, even more powerful in that beautiful black armor, at the strong column of his tan neck above it, his wings. And then at his hazel eyes, still riveted to her face.
Cassian brushed a thumb down the back of her hand.
Nesta opened her mouth at last, and I braced myself—
“You’re hurt?”
At the sound of Mor’s voice, Cassian snatched his hand back and pivoted toward Mor with a lazy smile. “Nothing for you to cry over, don’t worry.”
Nesta dragged her stare from his face—down to her now-empty hand, her fingers still curled as if his palm lay there. Cassian didn’t look at Nesta as she rose, snatching up the pitcher, and muttered something about getting more water from inside the tent.
Cassian and Mor fell into their banter, laughing and taunting each other about the battle and the ones ahead.
Nesta didn’t come back out again for some time.
I helped with the wounded long into the night, Mor and Nesta working alongside me.
A long day for all of us, yes, but the others … They had fought for hours. From the tight angle of Mor’s jaw as she tended to injured Darkbringers and Illyrians alike, I knew the various recountings of the battle wore on her—not for the tales of glory and gore, but for the sole fact that she had not been there to fight beside them.
But between the Darkbringer forces and the Illyrians … I wondered where she’d fight. Whom she’d command or answer to. Definitely not Keir, but … I was still chewing it over when I at last slipped between the warm sheets of my bed and curled my body into Rhys’s.
His arm instantly slid over my waist, tugging me in closer. “You smell like blood,” he murmured into the dimness.
“Sorry,” I said. I’d washed my hands and forearms before sliding into bed, but a full bath … I had barely managed the walk through the camp moments ago.
He stroked a hand over my waist, down to my hip. “You must be exhausted.”
“And you should be sleeping,” I chided, shifting closer, letting his warmth and scent wrap around me.
“Can’t,” he admitted, his lips brushing over my temple.
“Why?”
His hand drifted to my back, and I arched into the long, trailing strokes along my spine. “It takes a while—to settle myself after battle.” It had been hours and hours since the fighting had ceased. Rhys’s lips began a journey from my temple down my jaw.
And even with the weight of exhaustion pressing on me, as his mouth grazed over my chin, as he nipped at my bottom lip … I knew what he was asking.
Rhys sucked in a breath as I traced the contours of his muscled stomach, as I marveled at the softness of his skin, the strength of the body beneath it.
He pressed a featherlight kiss to my lips. “If you’re too tired,” he began, even as he went wholly still while my fingers continued their journey, past the sculpted muscles of his abdomen.
I answered him with a kiss of my own. Another. Until his tongue slid over the seam of my lips and I opened for him.
Our joining was fast, and hard, and I was clawing at his back before the end shattered through both of us, dragging my hands over his wings.
For long minutes afterward, we remained there, my legs thrown over his shoulders, the rise and fall of his chest pushing into mine in a lingering echo of our bodies’ movements.
Then he withdrew, gently lowering my legs from his shoulders. He kissed the inside of each of my knees as he did so, setting them on either side of him as he rose up to kneel before me.
The tattoos on his knees were nearly obscured by the rumpled sheets, the design stretched with the position. But I traced my fingers over the tops of those mountains, the three stars inked atop them, as he remained kneeling between my legs, gazing down at me.
“I thought about you every moment I was on that battlefield,” he said softly. “It focused me, centered me—let me get through it.”
I stroked those tattoos on his knees again. “I’m glad. I think … I think some part of me was down there on that battlefield with you, too.” I glanced to his suit of armor, cleaned and displayed on a dummy near the small dressing area. His winged helmet shone like a dark star in the dimness. “Seeing that battle today … It felt different from the one in Adriata.” Rhys only listened, those star-flecked eyes patient. “In Adriata, I didn’t …” I struggled for the words. “The chaos of the battle in Adriata was easier, somehow. Not easy, I mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
I sighed, sitting up so that we were knee-to-knee and face-to-face. “What I’m trying and failing miserably to explain is that attacks like the one in Adriata, in Velaris … I can fight in those. There are people to defend, and the disorder of it … I can—I’ll gladly fight in those battles. But what I saw today, that sort of warfare …” I swallowed. “Will you be ashamed of me if I admit that I’m not sure if I’m ready for that sort of battling?” Line against line, swinging and stabbing until I didn’t know up from down, until mud and gore blurred the line between enemy and foe, relying as much upon the warriors beside me as my own skill set. And the closeness of it, the sounds and sheer scale of the bloodbath …
He took my face in his hands, kissing me once. “Never. I can never be ashamed of you. Certainly not over this.” He kept his mouth close to mine, sharing breath. “Today’s battle was different from Adriata, and Velaris. If we had more time to train you with a unit, you could easily fight amongst the lines and hold your own. But only if you wanted to. And for now, these initial battles … Being down in that slaughterhouse is not something I’d wish upon you.” He kissed me again. “We are a pair,” he said against my lips. “If you ever wish to fight by my side, it will be my honor.”
I pulled my head back, frowning at him. “I feel like a coward now.”
He stroked a thumb over my cheek. “No one would ever think that of you—not with all you have done, Feyre.” A pause. “War is ugly, and messy, and unforgiving. The soldiers doing the fighting are only a fraction of it. Don’t underestimate how far it goes for them to see you here—to see you tending to the wounded and participating in these meetings and councils.”
I considered, letting my fingers drift across the Illyrian tattoos over his chest and shoulders.
And perhaps it was the afterglow of our joining, perhaps it was the battle today, but … I believed him.
Tarquin’s army didn’t blend into ours as Keir’s did, but rather camped beside it. Azriel led team after team of scouts to find the rest of Hybern’s host, discover their next movement … But nothing.