If She Had Known

The Cell

I woke slowly, my senses coming back to me one by one. The sound of dripping water first, then the fading of heavy footsteps. The taste of blood in my mouth. I explored the beginnings of a split lip, the movement setting my face on fire. I opened my eyes as much as the swelling would allow.

I was in a cell. My cell. It was all of my nightmares come to life. This cell had haunted my dreams years after sleeping under an open night sky, and it seemed to me that that fact was not soon to change. I would never escape these four walls.

I gathered my knees to my chest, fighting back a scream as pain flared in my muscles. I wasn't so afraid of Amarantha, her cronies, and the torture they would bring. I had endured it all before. It was the memories that came flooding back that stole the breath from my lungs. I would never escape this place. I was damned to live here forever in eternal torment.

A whip cracked in some distant cell, and the ever-present screaming became louder. I flinched with the sound.

It wasn't until strong hands materialized and landed on my shoulders that I realized I hadn't been breathing. I was so lost in my panic that I could feel my heart stuttering to a stop. It all began again with a rush when Rhys gathered me in his arms.

"Breathe," he whispered into my hair. He ran a soothing hand up and down my back, encouraging steady breaths. I melted into his embrace. "You will walk out of here again. I promise." I must have been so far gone that I hadn't realized his talons within my mind.

I said nothing. I matched my breaths to his, pressing my ear to his chest to hear the beat of his heart.

"Are you alright?" He asked when my tears finally subsided and my breathing steadied.

"I'll be fine," I answered, still not daring to move.

"At least let me heal you." He started to move me, gentle hands bracing my arms as he sat forward.

"Lucien will be here soon." I interrupted him before he could. "He'll be down here any minute to heal my nose." I winced as Rhys inspected the damage there with a gentle finger.

"It would hurt less if I did it," he attempted.

"I'd have to explain who healed me when he comes. I don't want to reveal anything that would backfire on you."

A faint smile rose on his lips and a small flutter of happiness rose in me at the sight of it. That after all this, he wasn't broken by it.

He raked his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp with a touch so tender I could have whimpered. I leaned into it and closed my eyes. "As touched as I am by your worry for me, this is more important. I can't bear to see you so broken." The ache in his voice meant I was broken in more ways than one. I stared into his violet eyes, taking in the sight — the stars that still flickered there — as I said,

"Nor I, you."

It was another moment of sitting there, casually touching, reminding each other of what it felt like to be touched — to be loved. To wipe away the pain and violence that had inflicted us both so horribly these past months.

"Lucien doesn't know the full extent of your injuries. He won't question anything," Rhys tried one last time to convince me. "Please let me do this for you."

I smiled in lieu of a laugh I might have given at his pleading to heal me. As if my wounds hurt less than the pain he endured of seeing me wounded. I nodded my head slowly to keep my headache from worsening. A sigh from Rhysand before I heard him snap, a split second blinding pain, and then —

Nothing.

When I came to, Rhys was still holding me in his lap, but with significantly less tension in his frame. He held my face when he felt me wake and ran a thumb over my cheek. I was shocked I didn't feel any pain or soreness there.