A Court of Heart and Fealty | Rhysand

Chapter 82: Bad Dreams

Chapter 82: Bad Dreams

She didn't want to knock. She felt the need to but shoved it down. The wait would scare her and she'd just turn around. So, under the cover of darkness and the weak glamour she could manage to throw over herself, Galadriel turned the knob to Rhysand's bedroom.

Her eyes had already adjusted to the dark, but the darkness inside was so thick that she could barely make out the silhouettes of his furniture. His form was an almost indistinguishable lump beneath the sheets, completely still.

Galadriel edged towards him, her bare feet silent.

Gods, his scent was so powerful that her knees nearly wavered.

Reaching out, her fingers graced what she assumed was his shoulder. 

He disappeared.

Galadriel yelped out as night enveloped her, cold and striking like the very steel of a blade pressed against her entire being. The force of magic bore down on her, forcing her to her hands and knees and then a real blade rested against her neck.

Rhysand's breath passed her ear as he yanked her head back, exposing her throat more to the plain dagger that had been on his bedside moments ago. The fear pumping through her lodged anything she could have said deep in her throat, the only thing coming out was a choked moan.

"Galadriel?"

The dagger clattered to the ground. Galadriel let out a dry sob but forced herself to heave in air and clenched her teeth together before she could break down entirely. "I'm sorry." She should have known better than to sneak into his bedroom. They slept amongst beasts, after all. "I'm sorry."

The hand in her hand softened as he sunk to his knees. A palm on her cheek turned her face towards his. He looked pale, his face sharper than it was last time she'd been this close to examine it. "I was dreaming about you," he said. "I think I still might be."

"I am very much awake," she uttered, glancing down at the dagger which had felt extremely real. The old wives' tale that nothing could hurt you in your dreams could not have been more wrong. She didn't tell him that she had been dreaming of him too. That it had woken her in a sweat racing for the toilet basin and breaking into his room. "I know I shouldn't be here." How long had it been since they'd spoken? Months. It could have been a year—time moved strangely when there was no sun to rise and fall with.

"No," he breathed. He sat on the ground and began guiding her between his legs, cradling her head. She clung to him, burying her nose in his neck, fingers raking through his hair. "If you hadn't tonight, I would have found you soon enough."

~

Rhysand thought he knew suffering. He thought he knew it as a child when his mother put him in Windhaven and left him to fend for himself. He thought he knew it during the war when Amarantha had tortured him in that cave. When he spent hours turning over dead bodies, praying none of them were his brother. He thought he knew suffering when his mother and sister were slain, then his father along with them.

He had suffered through those trials, but nothing had ever prepared him for the past ten years. For this moment. Ten years. He'd been refused his mate longer than he'd known her.

He took in her scent, the weight of her arms around his shoulders. The dream had been a half-truth. The part he hadn't told her was that it was a nightmare. Images that Amarantha had laced his head with, threats that caressed his ears in the privacy of her bedroom.

He let his traces of power wrap the room in darkness, hoping the familiarity of it would soothe the trembles he could feel beneath his hands. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "For scaring you. I don't sleep easy." He could faintly smell the lingering scent of vomit. He didn't want to ask.