ACOMAF (Rhys's POV)

What Is It That You Want? (Chapter 43)

Leaving the Court of Nightmares felt like a curse.

Feyre had left me breathless on my throne, her touch and scent lingering all over me as I listened to the endless prattle of the courtiers. But when the moment came to actually leave, I choked.

One look at Feyre as we were within arm's length of each other again and any happy illusion of her and I dreamt up on that throne was shattered, replaced by one solitary word: Whore.

"See you back-" Mor started to say, but I pushed her aside, grabbed Feyre, and winnowed without a word.

Whore.

It rang and rang and rang with a bleeding in my ears. Kier's mouth the cave through which it echoed.

The word corrupted me. I practically tossed Feyre aside as I released her arm and marched several feet away from her in the mountain clearing we'd reached, running a hand through my hair. I had thought... we were... she looked... Fuck, I didn't know what she looked like anymore, how she felt about me. One minute her body was pressed up against mine tighter than a violin string and she's looking at me like she wanted it too, and the next...

Whore .

I felt sick.

"I'm sorry," I rasped suddenly. I didn't know what else to say. How she could ever forgive me, was still standing here even -

"What do you possibly have to be sorry for?" Feyre asked.

Her question was so innocent, as if she didn't know, and I wondered. She had seemed... accepting as she watched me that last hour, but a selfish, savage beast inside of me denied the possibility as Keir filled my mind to the tipping point with truth.

Truth. That bastard's family gift, right? He couldn't lie. No one who'd seen us could have. Mor would have pummeled me into the dirt if she could have heard my thoughts right now. I was glad I'd taken Feyre away alone first before facing them all.

Fuck, what would my friends say, I hadn't even thought...

"I shouldn't have let you go. Let you see that part of us. Of me."

My hands shook. I wanted to fall over, to collapse as the full weight of the day struck me, my perfect facade was so eroded.

But still Feyre said, "I'm fine," a little insistence behind her words that I wanted to believe. But then, "We knew what tonight would require of us. Please - please don't start... protecting me. Not like that."

I could hear the fear in her voice. See it play out in her head as we recalled the same memory. The reality of how she felt smacked me in the head. It was all an act. An outright lie. I was no better to her than Tamlin, a monster dressed up in beautiful clothes with a will to control her. The idea cracked my skull in half, and a river of sin came tumbling out.

Unhinged. Unglued. Just like in Adriata when I'd seen that necklace thrown at my feet on Feyre's bed.

"I will never - never lock you up, force you to stay behind. But when he threatened you tonight, when he called you..." I tightened my fists to release the pressure. Mercy, she didn't even feel free around me yet. "It's hard to shut down my instincts."

The heat on Feyre's body jumped about a million degrees. Her stance shifted, barring herself against me. "Then you should have prepared yourself better," she seethed. "You seemed to be going along just fine with it, until Keir said-"

"I will kill anyone who harms you!" I shot back, cutting her off. "I will kill them, and take a damn long time doing it. Go ahead. Hate me - despise me for it."