High Lady. I—outranked them, my friends. It was my call to make whether Lucien was allowed to keep his freedom.
But their watchful silence was indication enough: let him decide his own fate.
At last, Lucien looked at me. At us.
He said, “There are children laughing in the streets.”
I blinked. He said it with such … quiet surprise. As if he hadn’t heard the sound in a long, long time.
I opened my mouth to reply, but someone else spoke for me.
“That they do so at all after Hybern’s attack is testament to how hard the people of Velaris have worked to rebuild.”
I whirled, finding Amren emerging from wherever she’d been sitting in the other room, the plush furniture hiding her small body.
She appeared exactly as she had the last time I’d seen her: standing in this very foyer, warning us to be careful in Hybern. Her chin-length, jet-black hair gleamed in the sunlight, her silver, unearthly eyes unusually bright as they met mine.
The delicate female bowed her head. As much of a gesture of obedience as a fifteen-thousand-year-old creature would make to a newly minted High Lady. And friend. “I see you brought home a new pet,” she said, nose crinkling with distaste.
Something like fear had entered Lucien’s eye, as if he, too, beheld the monster that lurked beneath that beautiful face.
Indeed, it seemed he had heard of her already. Before I could introduce him, Lucien bowed at the waist. Deeply. Cassian let out an amused grunt, and I shot him a warning glare.
Amren smiled slightly. “Already trained, I see.”
Lucien slowly straightened, as if he were standing before the open maw of some great plains-cat he did not wish to startle with sudden movements.
“Amren, this is Lucien … Vanserra.”
Lucien stiffened. “I don’t use my family’s name.” He clarified to Amren with another incline of his head, “Lucien will do.”
I suspected he’d ceased using that name the moment his lover’s heart had stopped beating.
Amren was studying that metal eye. “Clever work,” she said, then surveyed me. “Looks like someone clawed you up, girl.”
The wound in my arm, at least, had healed, though a nasty red mark remained. I assumed my face wasn’t much better. Before I could answer her, Lucien asked, “What is this place?”
We all looked at him. “Home,” I said. “This is—my home.”
I could see the details now sinking in. The lack of darkness. The lack of screaming. The scent of the sea and citrus, not blood and decay. The laughter of children that indeed continued.
The greatest secret in Prythian’s history.
“This is Velaris,” I explained. “The City of Starlight.”
His throat bobbed. “And you are High Lady of the Night Court.”
“Indeed she is.”
My blood stopped at the voice that drawled from behind me.
At the scent that hit me, awoke me. My friends began smiling.
I turned.
Rhysand leaned against the archway into the sitting room, arms crossed, wings nowhere to be seen, dressed in his usual immaculate black jacket and pants.
And as those violet eyes met mine, as that familiar half smile faded …
My face crumpled. A small, broken noise cracked from me.
Rhys was instantly moving, but my legs had already given out. The foyer carpet cushioned the impact as I sank to my knees.
I covered my face with my hands while the past month crashed into me.
Rhys knelt before me, knee to knee.
Gently, he pulled my hands away from my face. Gently, he took my cheeks in his hands and brushed away my tears.
I didn’t care that we had an audience as I lifted my head and beheld the joy and concern and love shining in those remarkable eyes.
Neither did Rhys as he murmured, “My love,” and kissed me.
I’d no sooner slid my hands into his hair than he scooped me into his arms and stood in one smooth movement. I pulled my mouth from his, glancing toward a pallid Lucien, but Rhysand said to our companions without so much as looking at them, “Go find somewhere else to be for a while.”
He didn’t wait to see if they obeyed.
Rhys winnowed us up the stairs and launched into a steady, swift walk down the hallway. I peered down at the foyer in time to spy Mor grabbing Lucien’s arm and nodding to the others before they all vanished.
“Do you want to go over what happened at the Spring Court?” I asked, voice raw, as I studied my mate’s face.
No amusement, nothing but that predatory intensity, focused on my every breath. “There are other things I’d rather do first.”
He carried me into our bedroom—once his room, now full of our belongings. It was exactly as I’d last seen it: the enormous bed that he now strode for, the two armoires, the desk by the window that overlooked the courtyard garden now bursting with purple and pink and blue amid the lush greens.
I braced myself to be sprawled on the bed, but Rhys paused halfway across the room, the door snicking shut on a star-kissed wind.
Slowly, he set me on the plush carpet, blatantly sliding me down his body as he did so. As if he was as powerless to resist touching me, as reluctant to let go as I was with him.
And every place where our bodies met, all of him so warm and solid and real … I savored it, my throat tight as I placed a hand on his sculpted chest, the thunderous heartbeat beneath his black jacket echoing into my palm. The only sign of whatever torrent coursed through him as he skimmed his hands up my arms in a lingering caress and gripped my shoulders.
His thumbs stroked a gentle rhythm over my filthy clothes as he scanned my face.
Beautiful. He was even more beautiful than I had remembered, dreamed of during those weeks at the Spring Court.
For a long moment, we only breathed in each other’s air. For a long moment, all I could do was take the scent of him deep into my lungs, letting it settle inside me. My fingers tightened on his jacket.
Mate. My mate.
As if he’d heard it down the bond, Rhys finally murmured, “When the bond went dark, I thought …” Fear—genuine terror shadowed his eyes, even as his thumbs continued stroking my shoulders, gentle and steady. “By the time I got to the Spring Court, you’d vanished. Tamlin was raging through that forest, hunting for you. But you hid your scent. And even I couldn’t—couldn’t find you—”
The snag in his words was a knife to my gut. “We went to the Autumn Court through one of the doors,” I said, setting my other hand on his arm. The corded muscles beneath shifted at my touch. “You couldn’t find me because two Hybern commanders drugged my food and drink with faebane—enough to extinguish my powers. I—I still don’t have full use.”
Cold rage now flickered across that beautiful face as his thumbs halted on my shoulders. “You killed them.”
Not entirely a question, but I nodded.
“Good.”
I swallowed. “Has Hybern sacked the Spring Court?”
“Not yet. Whatever you did … it worked. Tamlin’s sentries abandoned him. Over half his people refused to appear for the Tithe two days ago. Some are leaving for other courts. Some are murmuring of rebellion. It seems you made yourself quite beloved. Holy, even.” Amusement at last warmed his features. “They were rather upset when they believed he’d allowed Hybern to terrorize you into fleeing.”
I traced the faint silver whorl of embroidery on the breast of his jacket, and I could have sworn he shuddered beneath the touch. “I suppose they’ll learn soon enough I’m well cared for.” Rhys’s hands tightened on
my shoulders in agreement, as if he were about to show me just how well cared for I was, but I angled my head. “What about Ianthe—and Jurian?”
Rhysand’s powerful chest heaved beneath my hand as he blew out a breath. “Reports are murky on both. Jurian, it seems, has returned to the hand that feeds him. Ianthe …” Rhys lifted his brows. “I assume her hand is courtesy of you, and not the commanders.”
“She fell,” I said sweetly.
“Must have been some fall,” he mused, a dark smile dancing on those lips as he drifted even closer, the heat of his body seeping into me while his hands migrated from my shoulders to brush lazy lines down my back. I bit my lip, focusing on his words and not the urge to arch into the touch, to bury my face in his chest and do some exploring of my own. “She’s currently convalescing after her ordeal, apparently. Won’t leave her temple.”
It was my turn to murmur, “Good.” Perhaps one of those pretty acolytes of hers would get sick of her sanctimonious bullshit and smother Ianthe in her sleep.
I braced my hands on his hips, fully ready to slide beneath his jacket, needing to touch bare skin, but Rhys straightened, pulling back. Still close enough that one of his hands remained on my waist, but the other—
He reached for my arm, gently examining the angry welt where my skin had been torn by an arrow. Darkness rumbled in the corner of the room. “Cassian let me into his mind just now—to show me what happened on the ice.” He stroked a thumb over the hurt, the touch featherlight. “Eris was always a male of limited days. Now Lucien might find himself closer to inheriting his father’s throne than he ever expected to be.”
My spine locked. “Eris is precisely as horrible as you painted him to be.”
Rhys’s thumb glided over my forearm again, leaving gooseflesh in its wake. A promise—not of the retribution he was contemplating, but of what awaited us in this room. The bed a few feet away. Until he murmured, “You declared yourself High Lady.”
“Was I not supposed to?”
He released my arm to brush his knuckles across my cheek. “I’ve wanted to roar it from the rooftops of Velaris from the moment the priestess anointed you. How typical of you to upend my grand plans.”