ACOMAF (Rhys's POV)

Take Me With You (Chapters 12-13)

The screaming - the screaming was horrific.

Barely a week passed by and on a day that should have been otherwise bright and shining with sun in the days of Spring, I felt Feyre descend into the bowels of hell itself.

Her mental shields were still perfectly in tact. I slammed against them in a rough collision as they kept me out of her mind.

But the screaming. It was agonizing and it never stopped. Over and over her cries came cracking the sun in two so the moon might take over and even then, there would be no light.

A brief flash of darkness and flame and ice combined into a netherworld filled with chains and ragged breath in her ears that sent shivers down her spine until she bled and her cries greeted me across the bond.

He'd trapped her - locked her up.

I grabbed my cousin's hand, allowed the vision to fill her up for herself until I heard her breath cut off with a choke, and then winnowed.

And I thanked the fucking Cauldron as I went that I had Morrigan with me on the spot.

We landed directly on the doorstep of the manor. I was hit at once with an absurdly thin shield veiling the mansion like mist over a meadow - there, but damn near easy to move through.

I sliced with barely an inkling of thought and Mor moved with swiftness and surety. "Get her out," I snarled and sent one final thought - a location she was already well aware of - before I winnowed, leaving before I could make the situation much, much worse.

The Summer Court was welcoming to me as I landed among its rolling, grassy plains far, far from the cities its High Lord would find me. I only hoped the Court would be half this welcoming to me when I visited with invitation - and I would. Otherwise, Tarquin was in for a far nastier shock than he realized and I hated to do it to him.

Mor took less than ten minutes.

She appeared with the warm Summer heat baring down on her like a halo - an angel of mercy and deliverance carrying Feyre in her arms. Feyre clung to her, her fingers digging in to her skin and clothes unwilling to let go.

A snarl beat out of me before I could help myself. Seeing Feyre like that, so utterly wounded and exhausted from what that mongrel had done to her - there was no escaping that kind of simultaneous wrath and relief.

"I did everything by the book," Mor said. She held Feyre towards me and I took her into my arms. Cauldron, she felt so small, so fragile, but so, so vital. Like she was meant to be next to me all along.

But she was struggling, barely even able to breath when I wanted to see her stand and never, never fall again.

"Then we're done here," I said.

Wind raged and I allowed my darkness to descend upon Feyre in full force as we winnowed. But not that same terrifying darkness that she had lived and suffered in for so long. Rather, I applied it like a balm, the soothing quiet of night that finds a stillness and a shelter for the soul when all around crumbles into dust and ash.

Feyre fell into sleep before we even landed at the palace.

I watched her sleep. For hours and hours she slept, never stirring once.

Feyre kept preternaturally still. If it hadn't been for the steady sound of her heart beating that my fae senses allowed me the mercy of hearing, I would have thought she was dead. It was enough to force my gaze out the open windows and on to the snowy mountains colored with morning light, lest I find myself slipping back onto that marble floor where I had screamed her name over, and over, and over as Amarantha thundered above us both.