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There was blood on the hem of my dress.
There was blood everywhere, in fact—a puddle of it on the stone floor, a splatter on the skin of my chest, splatters on the wall. The King of Hybern’s mangled body lay three feet away, still leaking blood. His blood completely covered the tattoo that bound me to Rhys for eternity, from when I had reached into his chest and ripped out his heart.
Rhys. I tore my gaze up, away from the body, and looked to my mate to find him already looking at me. His fighting leathers gleamed with blood and the Illyrian sword he held in an iron grip was stained with it. So much bloodshed, and the only thing I cared about was those violet eyes on mine.
“Feyre,” he rasped, sheathing his blade in the scabbard attached to his back. He took a halting step forward, nearly stumbling over his own feet. Rhys continued forward, stepping over the King’s bloody body and into the pool. His booted feet squelched in the thick, red liquid until he stood before me, his hands nearly raised to my waist before they faltered.
It had been a year since I had seen my mate, my love, my High Lord. My everything. I had been at the Spring Court, acting as his spy and enemy, acting as if I had hated him. The mating bond had kept us together and sane as we were separated, until…
Until the king had captured my Rhys in the last three months of our separation and kept him in his obsidian dungeon, a firm fist wrapped around Rhys’ mind, powers, and our bond. For three months we had been completely severed from one another, nearly driving me mad. And Rhysand, my poor Illyrian warrior, had had to anguish and endure through the worst kind of torment and torture: the King sent him images of Tamlin bedding me, against my will and of it. Of me being sliced open and killed by my mate’s on hands.
“Rhysand,” I said, taking either side of his face into my hands. I ran my thumbs across the soft skin of his cheek bones, and his eyes shuddered closed.
In one swift motion, he wrapped his arms tightly around my waist and slammed to his knees, so hard I could feel the pain radiating off of him. My hands sunk into his hair, longer and shaggier than I was used to, as he buried his face into my stomach. I curved myself over him, as if my body could heal him.
I couldn’t stand the feeling of eyes on me—Tamlin, Lucien, and Ianthe staring at the mated pair before them in wonder. My whole body started to heat with rage at the three of them before Rhys began shaking in my arms. My Illyrian warrior, reduced to hiding his tears and sobs into my stomach… The pain racked through my heart, body, and soul.
Shadows wrapped around us and tore the dead king’s castle away before I realized it was me creating them, winnowing us into the town house of Velaris. The town house I now could bring us to, as the High Lady of the Night Court.
We were in Rhysand’s bedroom. Our bedroom. I sat at the cushioned bench at the foot of his bed and my mate still knelt before me, albeit now his tattooed knees sank into the lush rug before the bed.
The rug that was now stained in blood.
“Rhysand, Rhysand…” I murmured, running my hands through his dark hair. “My Rhys.”
A soft sob emitted from him, his muscled arms tightening around my waist. The warmth and wetness of his tears went through my dress as if it was nothing but cobwebs.
“Shh, shh,” I whispered to him, closing my eyes and running my fingers down the skin of his neck. “I’m here.”
The Illyrian fighting leathers disappeared from Rhys’ body, as did the bloody dress from mine. The blood one my hands and body was gone, too. My fingers lingered around his shoulders, his neck, and trailed down his tattooed spine, between his great, beautiful wings. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know they were stretched out, wrapping around us—I could feel them brushing gently against my bare arms.
“You’re real,” he finally croaked, face still pressed against me, through he had risen so he was buried in where my shoulders met my neck. “I thought… I thought you were dead. And that this was just another of his ways to torture me.”
My heart broke. I could feel his pain in every fiber of my being, through the bond that connected us. I strummed it, sending a pulse of my love and devotion and my everything through it. Fresh tears dampened my collar bone.
“You’re real,” he said again, more firmly this time.
“I’m real,” I said to him, placing a kiss to his cheek.
We stayed that way, wrapped around one another with Rhys on his knees before me, until the stars rose up above the mountains.