ACOMAF (Rhys's POV)

I Want to Paint You (Chapter 45)

No longer if, but when.

When I would tell Feyre, I decided. It's what had kept me up long after I'd flown Feyre back to our townhouse, kissed her brow at her door, and bid her goodnight. Sleep-addled, star flecked expressions had flanked both our faces until finally I had torn myself from her side, and spent the next hour wondering if I dared go back to discover what peeling her out of that gown would feel like or sleeping skin to skin.

We had danced all evening, until the streets were empty and the sun was cresting over the horizon, playing along the gentle ripples of the Sidra. Feyre barely moved to the last beats of music as we slowed in our dance. I scooped her up in my arms, enjoying her warmth as she cradled into me, her head resting in that open collar of my shirt against my skin, and shot into the sky. Below us, Azriel peeled a sleeping Mor from the settee off the dining room to tuck her away inside for the morning. Cassian had already disappeared.

And now we were airborne once more, shooting through the brightest day of spring I'd seen yet in Velaris, toward the House of Wind for a quick lunch before making for the Illyrian camps. Azriel and Amren would stay behind, while Mor went with the rest of us before taking off for the Hewn City herself to check on Keir. I had tried to convince her, in those days she chided me for pushing off Feyre, that he wasn't worth her notice, but she'd nagged back that I was being a tart for ignoring Feyre, so she'd ignore me too until I'd wizened up.

But Mor wasn't at the lunch table for me to attempt to persuade anew when Feyre and I breezed inside. Amren too was missing, though I could see the dark red stains in a tea glass at the end of the table that told me she was hissing about somewhere.

"Where's Mor?" Feyre yawned, stretching out of my arms like a cat. She wore her flying leathers, which made her appear much more awake than any of us currently felt.

Cassian opened his mouth to answer, but it was Azriel, his eyes softly closed over the tea perched at his lips, who said dreamily, "She's still asleep." Cassian's head twitch, a movement he would never have made had his brother been awake to bear it witness despite the shadows - shadows that seemed nonexistent this morning.

I wondered just how long my brother had stayed with Mor after carrying her from that settee only a few hours ago.

Feyre's eyes slid to mine, the first real look she'd given me since we'd awkwardly stumbled into each other to fly here. It seemed neither of us were going to address the evening, that air of what if , quite just yet. She lifted a single brow and I scowled. It only made her chuckle silently.

"I'll go get her," she said.

Cassian snorted, but sitting there in his worn out leathers, it sounded flat - even for him. "Good luck," he said and Feyre traipsed toward the hall. "If you want deal with the princess on less than appropriate sleep, be my guest."

Feyre came to a grinding halt at the hallway threshold and wagged a finger at the commander of the Illyrian armies. "Ah-ah, Mor is not a princess." Cassian lifted a single brow. "She is a queen ," Feyre finished and disappeared, though not before returning Cassian's scowl with a gesture that would have made the queen herself proud.

"Cauldron," Cassian groaned, his head lolling back on the chair and turning toward me. "Now there's two of them. This is all your fault." Azriel bit back a smile as he finally opened his eyes to peer at the pair of us, and cut it short when he saw Cassian wasn't quite laughing.

I sat down next, Azriel across from me and Cass at my side, and focused on buttering my toast with honeyed jams and berries rather than contemplate the leathers we all wore, the places we were all about to go - separately.