A Court of Surprises and Twists

Chapter 10

The next morning, I put my dress back on and slid back into Arabic, not English.

We walked to the meeting room, only to find everyone else already there.

As we walked past Tamlin he grabbed my wrist.

"The offer still stands," he hissed to me.

I punched him in the face, enjoying the sound of bones cracking.

"You bitch, I could have you killed for that," Tamlin growled at me.

Az pulled me against him, reminding me not to respond.

"Don't touch a female without permission and you won't get punched," he growled, leading me to my seat.

"Keep your lackeys in line Rhysand," Tamlin growled.

"Lackeys, they are my family, and you would do well to remember that." Rhys snarled back.

I sat and looked at my lap until a tremor shook the ground. Azriel landed on top of me as the palace we were in sounded like it was going to crumble.

"Az, I love you dearly, but you are crushing me," I gasped, forgetting to stick to Arabic.

He got off me and pulled me to my feet along with the others.

"Hybern just took down the wall," Rhys breathed.

Az almost instantly winnowed me back to Velaris, where Amren was looking beyond pissed.

I didn't talk to any of them as I went up to my room. I punched a High Lord in the face, Tamlin was right, he could kill me for that, and no one could stop him.

"Flower?" Amren said, walking in a second later.

I turned to look at her, tears in my eyes.

"Oh Flower," she sighed, sitting next to me on the bed.

"I'm so stupid," I sobbed.

"No Ava, you are far from it," she told me, taking one of my hands.

"I need to tell you what I told them," I breathed.

"You don't, not if you don't want to, although I would like to know why you have Tamlin's blood on your hand," she told me, brushing a finger over the now dried blood.

"I'm telling you, but please don't go and murder anyone after," I told her, she agreed, and I began.

By the end of my story Amren was shaking with anger.

"If your father wasn't in another world, he would be dead," she snarled.

"I know Amren, I know," I murmured before standing to wash Tamlin's blood of my hand.

I forced myself to eat that evening even though I didn't want to before going to bed.

"Dad, I'm," I stopped short, seeing the debtor sat in my father's office with him.

"You're a pretty little thing," he purred at me.

"Thank you, Dad, I'm heading out for an hour," I told him, ignoring the unease in my gut.

"Why have you been hiding her?" The debtor asked my father, making me pause.

"She's been hiding herself, or has been at school," my father replied.

"I have a deal for you," the man continued, eyeing me.

"We both know I'm too broke to have another deal," My father said.

I was frozen to the spot under the debtor's gaze. I knew what he was going to say next, and I wanted to run.

"Instead of you paying me back the ten thousand you owe me, you let me take your daughter's virginity." He said, not looking away from me.

I wanted to run, scream, cry.

"Done," my father said, not even pausing to think about it.

My eyes went wide as I began to back away, but the man was faster, grabbing my wrists in his hands.

"No," I breathed.

"Oh, come on love, it won't hurt, that much," he told me, giving me a sly smile and he dragged me up the stairs.

My father opened the spare bedroom door and the man dragged me in, throwing my down on the bed.

My father made to leave but the man stopped him.

"You need to watch," he commanded, causing my dad to sit on a stool in the corner.

I fought him as he pulled my clothes off me. His hands roamed over my body, trailing down my stomach, breasts, thighs.

His hands landed on my shoulders, holding me down.

He began shaking me, no, not him, there was a woman above me, I was screaming, they were gripping my shoulders.

I gasped for air as I jolted up, running for the toilet as I yielded my dinner.

"You're ok," Feyre's soft voice said from next to me.

She knelt down and pulled my hair out of my way gently before rubbing soothing circles on my back as I heaved again.

"I'm sorry," I breathed, resting me head against the cool lip of the toilet bowl.

"Don't be sorry, we all get nightmares," she said, still rubbing my back.

"It hurt so much," I sobbed, my emotions crashing back down.

"I know it did, you shouldn't have gone though that," she said, pulling me against her.

I sobbed into her chest for a while before running out of tears to cry.

"I didn't mean to wake you," I said quietly, feeling guilty.

"You didn't, me and Rhys were still up talking when we heard your screams." She told me, it made me feel a little better.

"And everyone else is black out drunk," Rhys's voice said from the doorway.

"Hey Rhys," I muttered.

"You should get some more sleep," Feyre told me.

"I can't, he'll just keep going," I said, panic rising in me.

Feyre wordlessly lay me down so my head was in her lap before she gently ran one finger from the top of my forehead to the tip of my nose. The more she did it the more tired I got until I fell asleep in her lap.

-Feyre's POV-

Ava finally fell asleep after I used a trick Elain used to get me to sleep when I was younger, I'm glad it worked on her as well.

Rhys slowly walked over and lifted her up, walking back into the bedroom and laying her on the bed.

When he turned back to me a single feather was in his hand.

"Where did this come from?" He asked once we were back in our room.

"I think Ava is a shifter, when I ran in her body was almost contorted before it seemingly shifted back to normal. I think she shifted in her panic." I said, taking the feather from him.

"Do we tell her?" Rhys asked.

"Yes, we tell her, she needs to know so she doesn't accidentally do something, I can help her with it, hopefully her learning how to shift will help her with the war, she can't fight, she's too young and not trained. But if she busies her mind on learning something or translating the rest of that book it will stop her from worrying about us." I said, he nodded.