Chapter 14 - Rhysand

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Rhysand

"Get the fuck out of my Court." I said to the woman sitting in a chair in the dining room as if she had never left. Her silver eyes turned towards me, no emotions there as usual, but there was something in the way she acted that was off, almost less predatory. I stormed to where she sat and stood there, staring down at her, Cassian, Az and Mor trailing behind me. 
"You're not welcome here." Az snarled at her, and Amren did nothing but sit there silently, watching us all. We all stood in silence, the four of us glaring at the woman in front of us who had betrayed us only days ago to join our enemy. 
"They promised me freedom, they promised me I could go home." Amren spoke at long last, her voice unwavering and just as sharp as it had been the last time I had spoken to her. "I don't want to stay, I just came to warn you." We all fell silent, waiting expectantly for her warning and her timely departure soon after that. I wanted so desperately to rip her apart where she stood for nearly exposing my mate and getting her killed, wanted so desperately to unleash the beast that Amren was within and tear it apart piece by piece until it was nothing more than dust floating down the Rainbow into the endless ocean. 
"Feyre isn't planning on coming home." Amren said at long last, and all of those vicious thoughts floated from my mind. I just stared unseeingly at Amren, praying that she still lied to us, for once, hoping for another betrayal. "You mate plans to end this war before it even begins, taking herself with it." The world feel out from underneath me and the room started spinning, but all the while I just stood there staring, pushing now on that wall of shadowy flame, burning and burning, until I couldn't any longer. So I rested a hand on that wall and whispered against it, Don't leave me, not yet, not now, not ever. If you leave, I'm coming with you. 

I felt her shudder behind the walls, but I didn't stay around long enough to hear her answer, or to hear her refusal. Once I tunnelled out of my own mind I heard Cassian snarl at Amren,
"Get the fuck out." Amren only smirked slightly, shrugged, stood, and then walked out of the doorway before disappearing into nothing. As soon as she left, every one of us slumped into our chairs. No one spoke, and we all sat in stunned silence. I couldn't leave her alone now, I couldn't let her go through this, I was her mate for Cauldron's sake, I was meant to help her, not throw her into a hole. I stood quickly from my seat, and everyone looked at me and jumped a little at my sudden movement.
"I'm going after her." I said, already storming towards the open doorway to go to my mate, damn the consequences. That was, until Azriel appeared a meter in front of me, blocking the doorway completely. I snarled at him, animalistic and savage, no one would stand in the way of my mate, not even my brother. "Move Az." I said lowly, my voice rough. 
"No." I snarled at that word, and then Cassian was standing beside his brother, looking at me with something like pity as well as unending grief and sadness. 
"No." He said too, a unified front against a monster who couldn't even protect his mate from herself. But I could fix things, I could make it right again, if only I could get to her and drag her out of that dark hole she had created for herself. 
"Move." I said again, stronger this time. Not as their brother, not as their friend, but as their High Lord, I commanded them to move out of my way. They did not move, so much as flinch at the tone of my voice, and then there was a hand on my shoulder.
"No, Rhysand, not now." Mor's smooth and calming voice said from behind me. I shrugged off her hand, ignoring the touch. 
"Let me go to my mate." I snarled again, anger making every word I said tense and strained. Azriel just shook his head slightly.
"Leave her Rhys, let her make her own decisions." I snarled again at him, anger swelling more and more in my veins. 
"Should we have done the same when you were in the same position." I instantly regretted the words as soon as I said them, and now it was Cassian's turn to snarl at me.
"Don't you fucking dare turn this on him." He said lowly. Az was just looking at the floor now, something like hurt and sadness plastered to his features. "Don't you even fucking think about it." There was none of that grief on my brother's face anymore, none of that sadness, just anger and confusion. 
"I'm sorry. That was too far." I mumbled, still not completely giving up on the idea of going to her, of saving her. 
"You're right" Azriel said, but not lowly and defeated, not even quietly, he said it with strength and assurance, he said with enough conviction that none of us spoke until he continued. "You should have left me alone, and you should leave Feyre alone. Maybe then the shadows won't stick to her like they do to me. Maybe then if she works through it on her own she will truly be free once and for all. She won't hear the whispers every second of every day calling her closer and closer, have to learn how to block it out, how to shut it off, how to control it so that somehow death yields to the poor soul it once fed on." Not once of us interjected, not one of us could form the words to say to him now. I didn't know what would hurt, what would make it worse. Az looked at each of us in turn, long and hard, but he looked at me for the longest. When he spoke again, it was as if he hadn't just said the things he did, as if none of this had happened. "We are going to have a war tomorrow, whether Feyre thinks so or not, so I'm going to check on the troops. We can't fall apart at the last minute." And then he disappeared into smoke and shadows, a trace of the darkness he had told us about, and I thought for a long time what those last words meant until I realised they weren't meant for us. They were meant for him, to remind himself to hold together that wound that had started to tear open once again. 

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