A Dark Heart - Rhysand's Sister Fanfic AU

S E V E N T E E N

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"The sorrow we feel when we lose a loved one

is the price we pay to have had them in our lives."

--- Rob Liano

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+eralyn

Even if my punch was stopped, the intense look I gave Cassian wasn't. My anger was just now rearing its ugly head. How presumptuous of him, of Azriel, to make assumptions when they have no idea what I've been through in the past five hundred years. Respect is something earned, not frivolously given. Cassian may have had Princess Eralyn's respect, but Warrior Eralyn was a completely different female. Battle-hardened, rage-driven, she plowed through it all, never looking back.

Who the hell was Cassian to step on her so easily?

Rhysand was still holding my fist back with his power, preparing for the instant I might try to finish the blow, but I had already passed that fact. I released the tension in my arm to let Rhys know I was laying off, and when he did release me, I rose from on top of Cassian who was still looking at me wide-eyed and breathless. Rolling my wrists, I gave him a side glance, a bit too cowardly to look and see the faces of the others just yet, "I'm a bit disappointed you fell for that."

"W-what?" Cassian wheezed. He had barely propped himself up using his elbows, but with the way he was looking at me, I knew his disheveled state was the least of his worries.

I looked down at him and sighed. "I baited you," I said with my brow raised, "and you fell for it." I opened my palm and reached out to him, but as he eyed it, I knew he knew it wasn't just an offer to help him up. "I've spent the past five hundred years training with you in mind, pretending you were my attacker and how I would overcome you as motivation. If I knew it was going to be this easy, I wouldn't have trained as hard."

"You hurt me," he said.

"You did it first," I whispered.

He shot up then. "When," he demanded, "when did I hurt you? All I know is that all of sudden, I find out you're alive and you're denying me! I am your brother, do you how hard it was for me to cope with how brutally you were supposedly murdered? How much I wanted to see you again? And now you're here, and you won't even look at me!"

I really couldn't take it anymore. "Oh, shut up, Cassian! You don't think I've gone through my own shit in the past five hundred years? What, in your gods-damned right mind, gave you the idea that my life has been all daisies and roses?! Do you know how it felt to cope with the fact that not only did I witness my own mother's murder, but I also had been stripped of my wings and thrown into another fucking dimension?!" I pressed forward, pushing a finger right into the middle of his chest. "And yes, General, you did hurt me first. What the hell did you think I would feel if you offered me money in exchange for my help? My own brother, as you so love to name yourself!"

That caused him to stumble. "Y-you were denying me, denying us! I was trying to find whatever you were after to get you to come back, even though it was mostly out of anger." He mumbled that last part. "Besides, you agreed because of the money, dammit!"

"You fucking jackass," I sneered, "I know we haven't seen each other in five hundred years, but you think I would just say no without thinking anything through, you think I would just say no to spite you? Am I really that shallow and aloof to you?"

"Do I really know you, Eralyn? Do I really?" He grabbed me by my arm, but I didn't pull away from him. I knew where this was going. "The Eralyn I knew didn't have muscles like these, the Eralyn I knew didn't fight like this."