Daylight

Chapter 24

As he'd expected, Lucien woke up with a headache, but thankfully it wasn't as severe as he thought it would be. It took him a moment to understand why he was sitting half up with a throw pillow from the chair wedged behind his head. As he rubbed the sleep from the corner of his eye, the night's events came rushing back to him.

Elain had been in his room... in his bed...

The air seemed to rush out of his lungs as he recalled her confessing that she'd been waking up in his bed every night since he'd returned to Velaris. He wondered how he hadn't noticed her scent on his sheets when now, it was all he could smell.

He picked up the pillow she'd been sleeping on and breathed as deeply as he could. Apples and honey. It was more intoxicating than all the whiskey he had last night. Gods, how he'd dreamed of having her in his bed. And there she'd been, night after night, without him ever being aware of it.

Except for the night they'd spent at the House of Wind. He imagined her in his bed so often, dreamed of it almost every night, that he'd assumed she was another dream or a figment of his own overactive imagination. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't imagined what it would be like to bed her. He was sure every male in the history of the world had imagined that about his own mate. But it wasn't just that. He'd had just as many dreams of simply holding her securely in his arms, falling asleep with her in his embrace.

And not even three hours ago she'd been in his bed... The pounding in his head was getting worse. He turned to glare at the blazing sunshine streaming through his window and noticed the pitcher of water on his bedside table.

That female is a godssend.

Elain had left a glass on the table as well, but he grabbed the pitcher by the handle and drank straight from it. Lucien recalled there being a basket of scented soaps in the bathing room and, thinking the lavender would ease his pounding head, he rose from the bed to draw up a bath.

And realized he'd slept stark naked.

And Elain had been in his bed.

"Mother save me and Cauldron boil me."

He was mortified. How he was going to look her in the eyes today, he didn't know as he submerged himself beneath the water of the tub.

🍂

Half an hour later when he went downstairs for breakfast, Feyre was already smearing jam on toast for Cassian, who looked better than Lucien had expected. In fact, he seemed completely fine, which made Lucien wonder just how much he'd drank up at the House of Wind to have had such a searing hangover the following morning.

"You," Cassian said, pointing a finger at him, "are a hilarious sonofabitch. Your presence is now required at all guys nights."

"Seems like you boys had fun," Feyre commented.

"He's hilarious," Cassian said again, his attention back on Feyre and his toast. "And savage. I'm going to have to step up my game before we play 'I've never' again."

Lucien eyed the toast that Feyre set on Cassian's plate.

"Do I need to make some for you too?" She offered.

"I'm not a child," he barked. "I can make my own toast."

"Of course you can," Feyre patronized. "Two slices or four?"

Lucien let out a sigh of defeat. "Four."

"She's become our mother hen since she and Rhys were mated," Cassian explained with a mouthful of food. "I just tell her we're good practice for when they decide to have kids."