He swallowed. “Feyre.”
“How long have you known that I’m your mate?”
“You … You ensnared the Suriel?” How he’d pieced it together, I didn’t give a shit.
“I said you don’t get to ask questions.”
I thought something like panic might have flashed over his features. He chewed again on the plant—as if it instantly helped, as if he knew that he wanted to be at his full strength to face this, face me. Color was already blooming on his cheeks, perhaps from whatever healing was in my blood.
“I suspected for a while,” Rhys said, swallowing once more. “I knew for certain when Amarantha was killing you. And when we stood on the balcony Under the Mountain—right after we were freed, I felt it snap into place between us. I think when you were Made, it … it heightened the smell of the bond. I looked at you then and the strength of it hit me like a blow.”
He’d gone wide-eyed, had stumbled back as if shocked—terrified. And had vanished.
That had been over half a year ago.
My blood pounded in my ears. “When were you going to tell me?”
“Feyre.”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to yesterday. Or whenever you’d noticed that it wasn’t just a bargain between us. I hoped you might realize when I took you to bed, and—”
“Do the others know?”
“Amren and Mor do. Azriel and Cassian suspect.”
My face burned. They knew—they— “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were in love with him; you were going to marry him. And then you … you were enduring everything and it didn’t feel right to tell you.”
“I deserved to know.”
“The other night you told me you wanted a distraction, you wanted fun. Not a mating bond. And not to someone like me—a mess.” So the words I’d spat after the Court of Nightmares had haunted him.
“You promised—you promised no secrets, no games. You promised.”
Something in my chest was caving in on itself. Some part of me I’d thought long gone.
“I know I did,” Rhys said, the glow returning to his face. “You think I didn’t want to tell you? You think I liked hearing you wanted me only for amusement and release? You think it didn’t drive me out of my mind so completely that those bastards shot me out of the sky because I was too busy wondering if I should just tell you, or wait—or maybe take whatever pieces that you offered me and be happy with it? Or that maybe I should let you go so you don’t have a lifetime of assassins and High Lords hunting you down for being with me?”
“I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to hear you explain how you assumed that you knew best, that I couldn’t handle it—”
“I didn’t do that—”
“I don’t want to hear you tell me that you decided I was to be kept in the dark while your friends knew, while you all decided what was right for me—”
“Feyre—”
“Take me back to the Illyrian camp. Now.”
He was panting in great, rattling gulps. “Please.”
But I stormed to him and grabbed his hand. “Take me back now.”
And I saw the pain and sorrow in his eyes. Saw it and didn’t care, not as that thing in my chest was twisting and breaking. Not as my heart—my heart—ached, so viciously that I realized it’d somehow been repaired in these past few months. Repaired by him.
And now it hurt.
Rhys saw all that and more on my face, and I saw nothing but agony in his as he rallied his strength and, grunting in pain, winnowed us into the Illyrian camp.
CHAPTER
51
We slammed into freezing mud right outside the little stone house.
I think he’d meant to winnow us into it, but his powers had given out. Across the yard, I spied Cassian—and Mor—at the window of the house, eating breakfast. Their eyes went wide, and then they were rushing for the door.
“Feyre,” Rhys groaned, bare arms buckling as he tried to rise.
I left him lying in the mud and stormed toward the house.
The door flung open, and Cassian and Mor were sprinting for us, scanning every inch of our bodies. Cassian realized I was in one piece and hurtled for Rhys, who was struggling to rise, mud covering his bare skin, but Mor—Mor saw my face.
I went up to her, cold and hollow. “I want you to take me somewhere far away,” I said. “Right now.” I needed to get away—needed to think, to have space and quiet and calm.
Mor looked between us, biting her lip.
