A Storm of Flames and Deceit

XXVI. There Are Lights

Nephele
Yesterday, I woke up angry at him, a burning, wet sort of rage. This morning...
This morning I woke up in his arms, hot with something else. I feel too warm. Too comfortable. I should be embarrassed or fearful of the emotional intimacy that comes with waking in someone else's arms, but I can't bring myself to shrink from it. I can't bring myself to do anything more than burrow deeper into his chest.
He's asleep. That much I can tell, my body draped over his, my thigh hiked over his waist, his arms wrapped around me. But as I burry my nose deeper into the warmth of his neck, his pulse is completely even, his breathing gentle and sweet.
I think of his chest beneath my fingers, so smooth and sculpted and warm. I want to run my nails along his hot skin. I want to send shivers down his spine. I want to see him turn sweaty and ragged and wanting. In my head, I'm ready for it all, the sex, the physical intimacy, the adventure that comes with it. But in my head, I don't know where his head is at. His heart.
With a startle, I realize I don't know how to handle this if he wakes up. I'm not an awkward person. I know how to fill a silence, how to break tension with an easy joke. But it's so easy to form words when your brain isn't thinking in flashes of the night before. All I know is heat and warmth and flame when I think of how our bodies moved last night as we danced, hardly any clothes in between us. All I feel is electricity and pulse and shock to be laying with him now, woven together like an frayed knot.
Swallowing the keen desire to stay in his arms until I am only bones and dust in this court of nightmares, I slowly start to weasel from beneath him, but his arms tighten around my skin, refusing to let go. I'm all but convinced we have fused on a molecular level. Nevertheless, I continue, peeling and slipping from him slowly, his face scrunching in dissatisfaction as he squirms restlessly.
The second my feet touch the ground, I flew to the bathroom before he could wake up and connect the dots. I can't bare the possibility of seeing a look of disappointment cross his face if he learned that he had unwillingly held me all night. I never gave much of a shit about approval before. I've lived my whole life as a thorough disappointment. But Eris' gaze always mattered to me. I know it shouldn't. In my heart, I knew it shouldn't.
And still, I have to catch my breath in the bathroom, pressing my brow against the mirror as the bath water began to run because, by the cauldron, it did.
...
Our bed is empty by the time I am fully dressed and headed back into the room. I venture to the adjoining living room to find Eris and Lucien, speaking in hushed tones. "Well, if it isn't my favorite brother in law," I muse as Lucien meets me halfway for a hug. He gives really good hugs.
"Sorry I couldn't properly greet you yesterday," he gives me a parting squeeze, smiling down at me. "I need to look as wary is possible about the pair of you as a couple."
I wave him off, still refusing to look at Eris as I plop onto the couch, tucking my legs under me. "I get it," I reply. "I'm sure that's what the pair of you were conspiring about when you walked in."
It's quiet for a second, a smug look on Lucien's face. I'm so curious that I glance at Eris, who has given Lucien a warning glare. His eyes meet mine, but he doesn't smile. "Of course," he replies. Lucien clears his throat.
"Let's fill her in," he adds, and I grin.
...
After breakfast, I changed back into my nightgown as per the new plan. Eris and Lucien would be attending a meeting, and I would be staying back because I felt ill. Of course, that's when Lucien would single Feyre out and voice his worry over how his brother treats me. And around lunchtime, a storm would spark in the sky, something wicked and terrible.
They would be forced to check on me.
Only Eris would be insistent that they didn't need too, nervous off his ass, like he had done something horrible. Like he needed to hide something. "It's probably just one of her nightmares," he would tell Rhys and Feyre. "She gets them sometimes. The storm will pass."
This would only entice Rhysand and Feyre. And the storm would only grow more viscous. The High Pair won't be able to help themselves. They'll storm our room themselves, finding me battered and bruised and lashing out in my sleep.
Oh, they won't be able to resist. Not when I'm unable to wake up when they try to rouse me. They'll walk straight into my head and see that I'm faking my rest. That we've been faking it all.
That there are grander problems afoot.
Lucien had went ahead, and only Eris remained with me, even quieter than usual as he glamours the bruising on my face.
"When you make the storm," he says quietly, finally breaking the silence. "You can't forget where it came from, okay? You need to be able to draw it back. It needs to be big and attention drawing, but it also needs to be manageable."
I nod, smiling weakly where I sit on the edge of the bed, him resting on his knees in front of me, his hand on my cheek as he glamours swelling and purple shadows across my bones. "I won't lose it," I tell him, hoping I'm right. Hoping I'm not just saying things because I'm too focused on how pretty his eyes look when he's focusing, how he chews on his bottom lip thoughtfully. "Will this glamour be enough to fool Rhysand and Feyre? I know they're both powerful. I know glamours don't typically fool people like them."
He shrugs, keenly focused on my face as his finger slides down my nose, glamouring it crooked and bloodied. "It's easy to fool someone into believing something they think they already know," he says quietly. I can see through it a mile away.
"They're wrong about you," I whisper, though I should probably keep it to myself. "They'll see that soon enough."
He shrugs, letting my eyes flutter shut before he slides his fingers over my eyelid, letting it turn gray and swollen shut. "There's a bit of truth in everything," he replies. "I may not beat you, but I am grey."
"Who isn't?" I ask, eyes fluttering open. "The only difference is that you don't pretend to be a saint like the others."
He shrugs again. "There are lights in this world," he says, running his thumb along my bottom lip. The action is too slow to be entirely tactical, even as he glamours a split in the skin. His eyes flick back to mine. "I've just accepted that I'm not one of them."
I want to tell him he is. At least to me. I understand my life was all darkness, that I have no merit to say what is light and what is not. But hell, he feels like my light at the end of the tunnel sometimes. I don't want to feel so connected to anyone, so committed, but what can I even do for it? He is a blaze in the dark. He is a streak of lightning in the storm.
He is all that and more to me, and I don't even get to tell him because he leaves before I gain half the mind to do so, the touch of his thumb lingering on my lip as I fall back into bed.