It snapped the tether he’d kept on himself.

His clothes vanished—all of them—and his mouth angled over my own.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. Wasn’t soft or searching.

It was a claiming, wild and unchecked—it was an unleashing. And the taste of him … the heat of him, the demanding stroke of his tongue against my own … Home. I was home.

My hands shot into his hair, pulling him closer as I answered each of his searing kisses with my own, unable to get enough, unable to touch and feel enough of him.

Skin to skin, Rhys nudged me toward the bed, his hands kneading my rear as I ran my own over the velvet softness of him, over every hard plane and ripple. His beautiful, mighty wings tore from his back, splaying wide before neatly tucking in.

My thighs hit the bed behind us, and Rhys paused, trembling. Giving me time to reconsider, even now. My heart strained, but I pulled my mouth from his. Held his gaze as I lowered myself onto the white sheets and inched back.

Further and further onto the bed, until I was bare before him. Until I took in the considerable, proud length of him and my core tightened in answer. “Rhys,” I breathed, his name a plea on my tongue.

His wings flared, chest heaving as stars sparked in his eyes. And it was the longing there—beneath the desire, beneath the need—it was the longing in those beautiful eyes that made me glance to the mountains tattooed on his knees.

The insignia of this court—our court. The promise that he would kneel for no one and nothing but his crown.

And me.

Mine—he was mine. I sent the thought down the bond.

No playing, no delaying—I wanted him on me, in me. I needed to feel him, hold him, share breath with him. He heard the edge of desperation, felt it through the mating bond flowing between us.

His eyes did not leave mine as he prowled over me, every movement graceful as a stalking plains-cat. Interlacing our fingers, his breathing uneven, Rhys used a knee to nudge my legs apart and settle between them.

Carefully, lovingly, he laid our joined hands beside my head as he guided himself into me and whispered in my ear, “You’re mine, too.”

At the first nudge of him, I surged forward to claim his mouth.

I dragged my tongue over his teeth, swallowing his groan of pleasure as his hips rolled in gentle thrusts and he pushed in, and in, and in.

Home. This was home.

And when Rhys was seated to the hilt, when he paused to let me adjust to the fullness of him, I thought I might explode into moonlight and flame, thought I might die from the sheer force of what swept through me.

My pants were edged with sobs as I dug my fingers into his back, and Rhys withdrew slightly to study my face. To read what was there. “Never again,” he promised as he pulled out, then thrust back in with excruciating slowness. He kissed my brow, my temple. “My darling Feyre.”

Beyond words, I moved my hips, urging him deeper, harder. Rhys obliged me.

With every movement, every shared breath, every whispered endearment and moan, that mating bond I’d hidden so far inside myself grew brighter. Clearer.

And when it again shone as brilliantly as adamant, my release cascaded through me, leaving my skin glowing like a newborn star in its wake.

At the sight of it, right as I dragged a finger down the sensitive inside of his wing, Rhys shouted my name and found his pleasure.

I held him through every heaving breath, held him as he at last stilled, lingering inside me, and relished the feel of his skin on mine.

For long minutes, we remained there, tangled together, listening to our breathing even out, the sound of it finer than any music.

After a while, Rhys lifted his chest enough to take my right hand. To examine the tattoos inked there. He kissed one of the whorls of near-black blue ink.

His throat bobbed. “I missed you. Every second, every breath. Not just this,” he said, shifting his hips for emphasis and dragging a groan from deep in my throat, “but … talking to you. Laughing with you. I missed having you in my bed, but missed having you as my friend even more.”

My eyes burned. “I know,” I managed to say, stroking a hand down his wings, his back. “I know.” I kissed his bare shoulder, right over a whorl of Illyrian tattoo. “Never again,” I promised him, and whispered it over and over as the sunlight drifted across the floor.

CHAPTER

15

My sisters had been living in the House of Wind since they’d arrived in Velaris.

They did not leave the palace built into the upper parts of a flat-topped mountain overlooking the city. They did not ask for anything, or anyone.

So I would go to them.

Lucien was waiting in the sitting room when Rhys and I came downstairs at last, my mate having given the silent order for them to return.

Unsurprisingly, Cassian and Azriel were casually seated in the dining room across the hall, eating lunch and marking every single breath Lucien emitted. Cassian smirked at me, brows flicking up.

I shot him a warning glare that dared him to comment. Azriel, thankfully, just kicked Cassian under the table.

Cassian gawked at Azriel as if to declare I wasn’t going to say anything while I approached the open archway into the sitting room, Lucien rising to his feet.

I fought my cringe as I halted in the threshold. Lucien was still in his travel-worn, filthy clothes. His face and hands, at least, were clean, but … I should have gotten him something else. Remembered to offer him—

The thought rippled away into nothing as Rhys appeared at my side.

Lucien did not bother to hide the slight curling of his lip.

As if he could see the mating bond glowing between Rhys and me.

His eyes—both russet and golden—slid down my body. To my hand.

To the ring now on my finger, at the star sapphire sky-bright against the silver. A simple silver band sat on Rhysand’s matching finger.

We’d slid them onto each other’s hands before coming downstairs—more intimate and searing than any publicly made vows.

I’d told Rhys before we did so that I had half a mind to deposit his ring at the Weaver’s cottage and make him retrieve it.

He’d laughed and said that if I truly felt it was necessary to settle the score between us, perhaps I could find some other creature for him to battle—one that wouldn’t delight in removing my favorite part from his body. I’d only kissed him, murmuring about someone thinking rather highly of themselves, and had placed the ring he’d selected for himself, bought here in Velaris while I’d been away, onto his finger.

Any joy, any lingering laughter from that moment, those silent vows … It curled up like leaves in a fire as Lucien sneered at our rings. How close we stood. I swallowed.

Rhys noted it, too. It was impossible to miss.

My mate leaned against the carved archway and drawled to Lucien, “I assume Cassian or Azriel has explained that if you threaten anyone in this house, this territory, we’ll show you ways to die you’ve never even imagined.”

Indeed, the Illyrians smirked from where they lingered in the dining room threshold. Azriel was by far the more terrifying of the pair.

Something twisted in my gut at the threat—the smooth, sleek aggression.

Lucien was—had been—my friend. He wasn’t my enemy, not entirely—

“But,” Rhys continued, sliding his hands into his pockets, “I can understand how difficult this past month has been for you. I know Feyre explained we aren’t exactly as rumor suggests …” I’d let him into my mind before we’d come down—shown him all that had occurred at the Spring Court. “But hearing it and seeing it are two different things.” He shrugged with one shoulder. “Elain has been cared for. Her participation in life here has been entirely her choice. No one but us and a few trusted servants have entered the House of Wind.”