Daylight

Chapter 4

After lunch, Feyre went to the House of Wind to train with Cassian. Elain said she needed to tend her garden—something she normally did in the mornings but had put off in order to go into town with Feyre and Lucien. Lucien considered asking her if he could join her, but he didn't want her to feel as if he was smothering her with his presence. There would be time, he reminded himself. Still, as he watched her and her sister turn and head back to the townhouse, he couldn't deny the pull that made him want to follow after her.

Lucien spent the afternoon browsing shops and picking up various items he needed. He tried to pay for things himself, but after the third shop refused his coin and insisted that "The High Lord took care of it," Lucien stopped trying. Still, he hated feeling like he needed handouts.

Later, he would look for a place of his own. He noted potential apartments as he wandered the city streets. Not for the first time lately, he thought about Jesminda. He wasn't sure what, if anything in particular, made him think about her. Perhaps it was the innocence and purity of Velaris. High Fae and 'lesser' faeries alike lived in peaceful coexistence here. He'd been so young and naïve to believe they had a real chance at a future. But, oh how he'd loved her. He would have gone to the ends of the world for her. He had been shocked when he felt the mating bond snap with Elain—for so long, he had been certain that Jesminda had been his mate and she had merely died before it could manifest.

Thinking about Jesminda automatically triggered the guilt he felt about pursuing Elain. Lucien had sworn to love Jesminda forever. And he supposed, in a way, he always would. But she had known just as well as he did how rare mating bonds were. Couples married all the time despite not being mates, but once a bond was identified, that complicated things. He wondered what she would say to him if she were here, now.

I'd tell you you're a fool, Lucien Vanserra, for even thinking about all of this.

He heard her voice in his head as clearly as if she was speaking to him. As if it hadn't been over two hundred years since he'd heard it. He walked without really paying attention to where he was going, still unable to shake the guilt for wanting another female. When he'd promised Jesminda forever, he had meant it. He imagined what she would respond with.

Things change, Lucien. Yes, we loved each other fiercely and without reservation... but—

But she died. She died as a result of his love. If he had left her alone, as his father had demanded, she would be alive. He barely had to imagine what Jesminda's reply would be—he'd imagined this debate more often that he could even recall.

Alive, yes. But unhappy. An eternity of misery is not a life I would have wanted.

Lucien shook his head. He thought of something happening to Elain. Of his father coming after her once he learned that she was his least loved son's mate. Fire danced behind his russet eye and burned beneath his very soul. He wouldn't just kill anyone who harmed her, he would eliminate their very existence from this world.

You love her already, Lucien. Give yourself the chance to be happy with her.

And even if the memory-preserved shadow of Jesminda was right, it didn't change the fact that loving another female felt like a betrayal. Even if she was—

Your mate. By the Cauldron and the Mother and everything else, you are supposed to be with her.

Lucien raked a hand through his hair. A flash of something caught his eye. Something on the far bank was reflecting off the smooth surface of the Sidra... He was back on the bridge that he and Elain had stood at earlier while waiting for Feyre.

Lucien knew he belonged with Elain. That was clear from the moment the bond snapped into place for him. What worried him was that she would feel differently.