A Court of Gold and Shadows

I breathe flames each time I talk - Chapter 5

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Chapter 5: Every love I've known in comparison is a failure

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"Stop moping."

"Excuse me," Rhys garbled out, looking up from where he had been staring at the same roll of parchment for at least an hour.

He had not been moping. He had been...regretting his life choices that had brought him to that moment.

Feyre looked less than amused, though her face had softened. She didn't look utterly furious with him, which was a step up from Morrigan, who had nearly taken a bite out of him.

Granted, he probably deserved that. He also deserved the cold indifference that Amren had shown or the fact that Feyre had been ignoring him...that Cassian was fucking furious with him and that Azriel hated him.

"Stop moping around," Feyre repeated herself. "You big Illyrian Baby," she added with a small quirk on her lips. That was something at least."

"My brother hates me," Rhys gave back, his voice quiet.

Azriel hated him. He had only tried to do the right thing and still, he had...only messed it up even further. It shouldn't even surprise him anymore.

"He loves you," Feyre disagreed. "But Rhys, you really didn't make that easy on either of them," his mate said pointedly, coming to sit on his lap. It was a piece of peace that he didn't really deserve right now. Not really. Not like that.

"Feyre Darling..." he started but Feyre silenced him with one look.

"You hurt Azriel really badly by saying things to him that were not at all thought out," she told him pointedly. "You didn't take his feelings seriously and you also took a choice away from him and away from Elain. And worst of all...you never even apologised for it, because you didn't even think you were in the wrong, Rhys."

He didn't think he was.

"You never even tried to fix it," Feyre said the worst thing of it all.

He didn't. Not really.

"I tried to get him angry. I figured that would help," he admitted. "It used to."

"When you were children?" Feyre asked. He nodded.

"Sometimes he got so angry and didn't talk, the only way to get him to talk was to badger him long enough that he threw the first punch," Rhys admitted quietly. "And then keep at it until he was absolutely exhausted...sometimes then, he started talking."

"Well, that worked for a child. You haven't been that in 500 years," Feyre said drily. "It's an abscess. And you have let that wound fester under the surface for nearly three years, Rhys."

"So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to fix it, when Cassian told me to keep away from him and from Azriel...and when Azriel's mate is out for blood."

"Well, for an abscess you would typically need to lance it," Feyre said drily. "You know, poke a needle in it...let all the pus drain out."

This just sounded horrible."

"Give it a little time," Feyre said finally. "And about that mate of his...Oriana Fireborn," she said with some amusement. "So what happened to your favourite jacket?" Feyre teased him and he sighed.

"You don't want to know," he told her and Feyre just grinned at him.

"Don't I?" she teased him. "How bad could it be, Rhys?"