𝔸 ℂ𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕥 𝕠𝕗 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕎𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕙 (Book 2)

Eighty-One

A/N: YALL I'M SO FREAKING EXCITED TO WRITE THIS CHAPTER. YOU HAVE NO IDEA, I'M EVEN SO EXCITED THAT I'M PUTTING THIS UP HERE BECAUSE YOU ALL HAVE TO SEE WHAT THIS CHAPTER WILL HOLD. AND LEMME TELL YOU, IT'S A TROPE THAT WE ALL LOVE AND HOLD DEAR. ENJOY.

    It was well past two in the morning when I heard it. When I felt it.

    When the wood of the house had groaned. Waning  and waxing as some phantom magic pulled it. It was as though the wood itself had been stretched thin, the house calling out for help. The colored glass lights in my room flickered as though the light were leached from them for a moment.

    I jolted upright in my bed. Running to the window and throwing it open as I searched the skies. Searched for whatever it was that was causing this. An attack, a threat, anything.

There was nothing. Nothing but a starry night with no terror.

    Nothing but the darkness leaking into my room from the hall. Whisps gathering and taunting as they flowed.

I knew that darkness. Knew that darkness more than most.

           Rhys.

    It rushed in through the cracks of the door like a flood. As though a dam had broken, and in came the rush of water before it swept away the world. The house shuddered again. As if in pain.

    I yanked open the door and in swept the dam. Rushing and flowing into my room until all that was left was a void. Full of stars and flapping wings—and pain.

    So much pain and despair, and guilt, and fear.

    I hurtled into the hall without reason, utterly blind in the impenetrable dark. But there was a thread between us. A rope that I tugged on, following it to where I knew his room to be.

    Swiftly, I fumbled for the door handle, my hand simply reaching into that void of darkness and hoping to find something that didn't seem to be there.

    The door swung open, and more stars and darkness and wind poured out in rivers. Rushing and searching for more to grasp and take.

My hair whipped all around me, and I lifted an arm to shield my face from the harsh power as I entered the room. "Rhys?" I called out.

    No response. But I could feel him there—that lifeline between us.

    I followed it until my shins banged into what felt like a bed. "Rhysand." I said over the wind. The house shook. The floorboards chattered under my feet, flapping up and down like piano keys. I patted the bed, feeling the sheets and blankets, and then—

    Then a hard, tense male body. I didn't care as I climbed onto the mattress. The bed was too big for me to find him from the ground. "Rhys!" I called, finding his toned arm and coming to what felt like his back.

    I grabbed him, hefting him up, so I was holding him up from behind as I tried to get him to wake. His back pressed against my chest as I held his arms in front of him. "Rhysand!" Nothing.

    I pulled on that bond between us, shouting his name down it as though it were a long, echoing tunnel, banging on his shields of black adamant within his mind, roaring at it.

    A crack in the dark.

And then his hands were on me, flipping me, pinning me with expert skill to the mattress—a taloned hand at my throat.

    I allowed it.

I had an inkling about whatever he was dreaming about, and pinning him under me felt like spitting in his face.