He lifted a finger, and my breath came hard and fast as he idly circled one of my breasts, then the other. In ever-tightening rings. “I could start here,” he murmured.

I clenched my thighs together. He noted the movement, that dark smile growing. And just before his finger reached the tip of my breast, just before he gave me what I was about to beg for, his finger slid upward—to my chest, my neck, my chin. Right to my mouth.

He traced the shape of my lips, a whisper of touch. “Or I could start here,” he breathed, slipping the tip of his finger into my mouth.

I couldn’t help myself from closing my lips around him, from flicking my tongue against the pad of his finger.

But Rhys withdrew his finger with a soft groan, making a downward path. Along my neck. Chest. Straight over a nipple. He paused there, flicking it once, then smoothed his thumb over the small hurt.

I was shaking now, barely able to keep standing as his finger continued past my breast.

He drew patterns on my stomach, scanning my face as he purred, “Or …”

I couldn’t think beyond that single finger, that one point of contact as it drifted lower and lower, to where I wanted him. “Or?” I managed to breathe.

His head dipped, hair sliding over his brow as he watched—we both watched—his broad finger venture down. “Or I could start here,” he said, the words guttural and raw.

I didn’t care—not as he dragged that finger down the center of me. Not as he circled that spot, light and taunting. “Here would be nice,” he observed, his breathing uneven. “Or maybe even here,” he finished, and plunged that finger inside me.

I groaned, gripping his arm, nails digging into the muscles beneath—muscles that shifted as he pumped his finger once, twice. Then slid it out and drawled, brows rising. “Well? Where shall I begin, Feyre darling?”

I could barely form words, thoughts. But—I’d had enough of playing.

So I took that infernal hand of his, guiding it to my heart, and placed it there, half over the curve of my breast. I met his hooded gaze as I spoke the words that I knew would be his undoing in this little game, the words that were rising up in me with every breath. “You’re mine.”

It snapped the tether he’d kept on himself.

His clothes vanished—all of them—and his mouth angled over my own.

It wasn’t a gentle kiss. Wasn’t soft or searching.

It was a claiming, wild and unchecked—it was an unleashing. And the taste of him … the heat of him, the demanding stroke of his tongue against my own … Home. I was home.

My hands shot into his hair, pulling him closer as I answered each of his searing kisses with my own, unable to get enough, unable to touch and feel enough of him.

Skin to skin, Rhys nudged me toward the bed, his hands kneading my rear as I ran my own over the velvet softness of him, over every hard plane and ripple. His beautiful, mighty wings tore from his back, splaying wide before neatly tucking in.

My thighs hit the bed behind us, and Rhys paused, trembling. Giving me time to reconsider, even now. My heart strained, but I pulled my mouth from his. Held his gaze as I lowered myself onto the white sheets and inched back.

Further and further onto the bed, until I was bare before him. Until I took in the considerable, proud length of him and my core tightened in answer. “Rhys,” I breathed, his name a plea on my tongue.

His wings flared, chest heaving as stars sparked in his eyes. And it was the longing there—beneath the desire, beneath the need—it was the longing in those beautiful eyes that made me glance to the mountains tattooed on his knees.

The insignia of this court—our court. The promise that he would kneel for no one and nothing but his crown.

And me.

Mine—he was mine. I sent the thought down the bond.

No playing, no delaying—I wanted him on me, in me. I needed to feel him, hold him, share breath with him. He heard the edge of desperation, felt it through the mating bond flowing between us.

His eyes did not leave mine as he prowled over me, every movement graceful as a stalking plains-cat. Interlacing our fingers, his breathing uneven, Rhys used a knee to nudge my legs apart and settle between them.

Carefully, lovingly, he laid our joined hands beside my head as he guided himself into me and whispered in my ear, “You’re mine, too.”

At the first nudge of him, I surged forward to claim his mouth.

I dragged my tongue over his teeth, swallowing his groan of pleasure as his hips rolled in gentle thrusts and he pushed in, and in, and in.

Home. This was home.

And when Rhys was seated to the hilt, when he paused to let me adjust to the fullness of him, I thought I might explode into moonlight and flame, thought I might die from the sheer force of what swept through me.

My pants were edged with sobs as I dug my fingers into his back, and Rhys withdrew slightly to study my face. To read what was there. “Never again,” he promised as he pulled out, then thrust back in with excruciating slowness. He kissed my brow, my temple. “My darling Feyre.”

Beyond words, I moved my hips, urging him deeper, harder. Rhys obliged me.

With every movement, every shared breath, every whispered endearment and moan, that mating bond I’d hidden so far inside myself grew brighter. Clearer.

And when it again shone as brilliantly as adamant, my release cascaded through me, leaving my skin glowing like a newborn star in its wake.

At the sight of it, right as I dragged a finger down the sensitive inside of his wing, Rhys shouted my name and found his pleasure.

I held him through every heaving breath, held him as he at last stilled, lingering inside me, and relished the feel of his skin on mine.

For long minutes, we remained there, tangled together, listening to our breathing even out, the sound of it finer than any music.

After a while, Rhys lifted his chest enough to take my right hand. To examine the tattoos inked there. He kissed one of the whorls of near-black blue ink.

His throat bobbed. “I missed you. Every second, every breath. Not just this,” he said, shifting his hips for emphasis and dragging a groan from deep in my throat, “but … talking to you. Laughing with you. I missed having you in my bed, but missed having you as my friend even more.”

My eyes burned. “I know,” I managed to say, stroking a hand down his wings, his back. “I know.” I kissed his bare shoulder, right over a whorl of Illyrian tattoo. “Never again,” I promised him, and whispered it over and over as the sunlight drifted across the floor.

CHAPTER

15

My sisters had been living in the House of Wind since they’d arrived in Velaris.

They did not leave the palace built into the upper parts of a flat-topped mountain overlooking the city. They did not ask for anything, or anyone.

So I would go to them.

Lucien was waiting in the sitting room when Rhys and I came downstairs at last, my mate having given the silent order for them to return.

Unsurprisingly, Cassian and Azriel were casually seated in the dining room across the hall, eating lunch and marking every single breath Lucien emitted. Cassian smirked at me, brows flicking up.

I shot him a warning glare that dared him to comment. Azriel, thankfully, just kicked Cassian under the table.

Cassian gawked at Azriel as if to declare I wasn’t going to say anything while I approached the open archway into the sitting room, Lucien rising to his feet.

I fought my cringe as I halted in the threshold. Lucien was still in his travel-worn, filthy clothes. His face and hands, at least, were clean, but … I should have gotten him something else. Remembered to offer him—